by Glenn Cooper
A second after Kenney told them to proceed, he noticed a five-gallon metal can on the floor near the opened door.
As Lopez pushed open the door, Kenney shouted, “Wait!”
At the threshold of the dormitory Harper and Lopez were momentarily blinded by the ceiling lights and had to switch off their night goggles. The first thing they saw when vision was reestablished was Andrew crouching on the ground with a butane lighter in his hand.
Lopez let off a burst from his rifle and caught the young man center mass, shredding his vital organs.
But the detcord was already lit. It hissed and smoked as the gunpowder slurry burned and streaked, but two meters short of the door, it fizzled out.
Will dived behind one of the bed frames, heard the shout of a woman’s voice, and saw Nancy hurdling cots until she was beside him, Cacia’s old pistol in her hand.
Another burst of fire splattered the limestone wall above their heads.
“The can!” Will shouted. “Shoot the can!”
Harper moved up beside Lopez. He identified the threat, had Nancy in his sight, and moved his finger to the trigger.
Nancy didn’t have a perfect line on the jerry can, so she squeezed her trigger five times, bracketing its approximate position.
One bullet hit home.
The fertilizer bomb flashed, then exploded, unleashing an inferno of white-hot energy within the confined space of the storage room.
What felled Harper and Lopez was almost medieval. The storage room door slammed shut, then disintegrated in the blink of an eye. Wooden splinters ranging in size from an eyelash to a forearm impaled them, head to toe, and dropped the both of them in the percussive wave.
Will draped himself over Nancy as best he could, but both of them were showered by debris and singed by a hot, fast cloud of vapors.
Kenney had been on the other side of the bomb from his men. He’d heard Nancy’s shots rattling the metal shelving in the storeroom, and the moment before one of her slugs hit the jerry can, he’d managed to mutter, “Goddamn it to hell,” and been blown back through the storage room into the stairwell by a column of fiery gases.
Colonel Woolford had just received the order from the Ministry of Defense to launch an assault on the farmhouse when he saw a fireball spouting from a small stone building at the northern edge of the farm.
He had no idea who had set off the explosion but he considered it timely. His hastily assembled attack plan had him utilizing snipers to remove identified threats in and around the farmhouse. There were no lines of sight into the house itself since curtains effectively obscured the targets. The barn was another matter. Two hostiles with weapons had been spotted through the windows by a forward sniper/spotter team.
Woolford radioed an order for the snipers to engage.
The Politburo Standing Committee was meeting in emergency session deep in a subbasement level of the August 1 Building of the Central Military Commission. Ordinarily, there were nine members, but General Secretary Wen was conspicuous in his absence.
“Wen Yun is ill,” Vice Chairman Yi, told the men, with the slightest hint of a smile. “I can assure you he fully supports my recommendations, but the combination of stress and advancing age have proven to be too much for him. His doctors have placed him under sedation.”
There was a murmur around the table, until one by one, the seven other supreme leaders of China told Yi they also supported him.
Yi nodded gravely, and said, “This is an historic moment, Comrades. Once we have this Library, we will solidify our position as the only true power in the world. We will not have to make excuses for our inaction. We will not have to hide our intentions behind slogans and platitudes. This is our moment. All we must do now is seize it. With your agreement, I will issue the order to the PLA.”
They held their right hands up in unison and Yi was not embarrassed to let them see his tears.
Atop High Seat, the commander of the Seal task unit also saw the explosion blowing off the roof of the small stone building the watchers had entered.
“Something’s gone wrong,” he told his targeting officer. “What’s the ETA of the Rangers?”
“About six minutes. Want me to raise base and ask if they’ve gotten a go sign from the Groom Lake entry team?”
“Negative,” the commander said. “We’ve got to assume that team’s been compromised. It’s time to improvise. We’re going in ourselves.”
As the Seal unit began their rapid descent of High Seat, the commander wheeled around to look at the night sky from the east. The thumping he heard was choppers, all right, but they weren’t friendlies. With a jolt, he recognized the insignia on the lead copter as it began raking his position with machine-gun fire: the red star of the People’s Liberation Army.
Daniel threw caution to the wind and parted his curtain a good way to try to see what was happening. In rapid sequence, he heard the fertilizer bomb, then the crack of rifle fire, then the staccato of machine guns on High Seat. Explosions and tracer fire up on the hill cast enough illumination for him to recognize that the sky was thick with helicopters.
He failed to see Kheelan being felled by a sniper round to his forehead, but with horror he did see his son Douglas running like a frightened animal from the barn to the house. And he let out an anguished cry when the young man crumpled into a heap a few paces from the back door when a 1 Lancs sniper ended his life too.
Once Will saw that Nancy wasn’t seriously hurt, he shouted for her to go back to Phillip. He sprang from their hiding place, ran to Harper and Lopez, and picked up one of their rifles. Then he pushed their breathing but bloody bodies with his shoe, ready to put rounds into them. But it wasn’t necessary.
Who were they?
He found a wallet, thin with minimal contents. But the cash told the story: dollars.
Then he saw the driver’s license. Nevada.
The watchers are here.
He ran toward the storage room, prepared to engage survivors, but there was only an empty, blackened chamber reeking of diesel fuel. Then he turned tail, picked up the second rifle, and found Nancy huddled with Cacia and the kids in the isolation room, all of them sobbing in shock and horror.
They heard Daniel’s shouting coming from the direction of the Library. When he came barreling in with Gail and the two young girls, they were all crying.
“It’s hell out there,” he cried. “They killed Douglas, for Christ’s sake. I haven’t seen Kheelan.” He looked around frantically, and asked, “Where’s Andrew?”
Cacia could only point toward the dormitory and wail.
Daniel collapsed to his knees. “Oh, Jesus . . .”
Will dropped beside him and looked at him squarely. “Who’s coming? From what direction?”
Daniel delivered a monotone response, his emotion replaced with dull shock. “The British for sure on the ground. All sides. Up on the fell, there’s helicopters, firing at someone, not us. They’ve got red stars on ’em.”
Will stood. “The Brits, the Chinese, the Americans. They’re all fighting each other for the pot of gold.”
The dormitory door opened. Will took a longing look at his family and stepped out of the isolation room, rifle at his shoulder, finger curled on the trigger.
He immediately lowered the barrel.
The writers were entering in single file.
With their blank expressions, they filed past, paying him the scantest attention. Will called back into the isolation room, “It’s just the writers!”
Cacia came out, touching each one on the shoulder as they shuffled by heading for their cots. “It’s their bedtime,” she said through heavy tears. “This is what they do.”
The dormitory was full of acrid smoke. Puddles of blood surrounded the bodies of the two moaning watchers, but the writers hardly seemed to notice. Two of them, the older ones, coughed a few times to clear their throats, but none were deterred from kicking off their sandals and slipping under their bedding. Soon, seven ginger-haired head
s protruded from beneath blankets.
All of the survivors stood behind Will, watching the writers’ bedtime routine.
Outside, dulled by the thick limestone, the deadly sounds of a furious battle raged on.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” Will said.
Nancy seemed to know what he was going to say and nodded at him.
He spoke his mind, laid out his intentions. The Library was a precious thing, but men were going to take it from them and use it for their own ends.
“I don’t know what its purpose is,” he said. “Maybe it exists as a testament to something we can’t understand, but I don’t think it should be exploited by governments. You’ve been good Librarians. You’ve protected it your whole lives. I know it’ll be hard, but let me do this.”
Cacia and Daniel reached for each other’s hands and Cacia pulled Haven to her side. The girl had been hunched over in grief, hardly able to stand.
Daniel finally said, “Aye. There’s no other way.”
“Stay here,” Will said. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
He slung the rifle over his shoulder, moved to Andrew’s body, and when he found his pocketknife, he headed toward the Library.
As he ran through the stacks he was aware he was running through the centuries. A single thought pounded through his mind.
The world’s going on, goddamn it. We’re going to survive. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but it’s going to survive.
A jerry can was sitting at the far end of the chamber in the stairwell leading to the house. Will picked it up, careful not to dislodge the detcord. He carried it back inside the Library, planting it on the floor among the nearest decades, the books he knew would be of greatest interest to the approaching troops.
He quickly inspected the detcord. He didn’t want it to fail like the last one, so he used Andrew’s knife to cut it shorter. He lit it with the young man’s lighter and ran like hell back through the central corridor.
He counted it out. He thought he’d have twenty maybe twenty-five seconds, but he was off.
At the count of eighteen, with the exit door just ahead of him, the bomb ignited.
The shock wave lifted him off his feet and carried him through the door, which he’d mercifully left open.
When he regained consciousness, Nancy was kneeling over him on the anteroom floor, and the Library was a roaring inferno.
“Can you move?” she shouted.
“I think so.” He hurt all over and his ears were whining like sirens.
“Come on!” she said, dragging him to his feet. “We’ve got to get out.”
He stumbled along but had the presence of mind to duck into the isolation room to retrieve Ben Franklin’s journal from beneath his mattress. It didn’t fit in his pants pocket, so he undid his top button and shoved it down his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Nancy yelled. “Come on!”
In the dormitory, everyone was limply standing among the writers’ beds and the casualties on the floor. Haven was doing her best to comfort and shield her little cousins. Cacia and Gail placed a blanket over Andrew’s body, and holding hands with Daniel, they said a parting prayer.
“Make a white flag out of a sheet,” Will yelled.
“Is it gone?” Cacia cried, gesturing toward the Library.
“It’s gone,” Will said. “Hurry. And get the writers mobilized to get out of here.”
At the sound of the explosion, the writers had awoken. All of them had sat bolt upright, thrown off their bedclothes, and had begun fishing with their toes for their sandals. Now they were on their feet, their faces showing the first flickers of real emotion Will had seen from them. It seemed like an agitated confusion, a psychic pain.
Gail ripped a white sheet, and Cacia grabbed the writer Angus by the shoulder, pointing him toward the storage-room exit.
But the other writers started walking in the other direction, toward the Library.
“No, this way!” Cacia shouted after them, but they kept on going. Even Angus, as old and frail as he was, managed to whip himself away from her grasp and follow his brethren.
Cacia ran to the dormitory threshold, already hot from the advancing fire, and tried to block their advance. But Matthew, who was young and strong, pushed past her, his face twitching in discomfort.
“Matthew, no! Daniel, Haven, help me!” Cacia screamed, but it was already too late. Three writers were in the anteroom, heading straight for the inferno.
Will felt the heat rising, and shouted at Daniel, “Tell her we’ve got to leave!”
Daniel held Haven back and yelled at Cacia, “It’s what they want! We’ve got t’ let them have their way!”
Three more of them shoved past Cacia and finally, there was only old Angus left behind. As he approached Cacia, his face seemed to soften at the sight of her abject grief. He stopped for a moment and met her gaze, then slowly followed the others into the conflagration.
“Good-bye, Father,” she sobbed, falling to her knees.
Will shouted at Daniel to take up the rear and make sure everyone was leaving. He took Gail’s white flag and gave it to Nancy, then led the way forward, his rifle in offensive position. Phillip took Haven’s hand, and she, in turn, took the hand of one of her cousins. Daniel picked up Cacia and half carried her. The ragged conga line moved toward the storage room.
Will made sure the room was clear before signaling Nancy to bring the rest of them forward. The stairwell was charred, but the stairs seemed solid enough. There was a flashlight on his assault rifle’s rail and Will twisted it on to light the stairs. They were clear too.
At the top of the stairs, the hatch door was in the open position. Will pushed himself through like a Jack-in-the-box in case there were shooters. The small room was sooty but empty. He waited until all of them were aboveground and crammed into the small space before shouting out the bay, “We’re coming out! We’re unarmed. Do not shoot!”
A few seconds later, there was a reply, a British voice. “Who are you?”
“Will Piper. I’m coming out with my family and the Lightburns. We are not armed!”
“Proceed with your hands raised. One at a time!”
Will put his rifle down and took the flag from Nancy. “I hope these guys play fair,” he said, touching her face.
“I’m right behind you,” she said.
He showed the flag first, then showed himself, his free hand touching the sky. A squad of 1 Lancs was closing on the hangar. The farmhouse lit the sky, fire spurting from every window. On the fells, a battle was in full engagement. He caught a glimpse of a US fighter jet swooping low, blasting a helicopter with a missile.
A captain ran to him, rifle trained at his chest.
“There are seven more behind me,” Will shouted. “Mostly women and children. All unarmed.”
“Keep your hands up!” he was ordered.
“Captain, you get Colonel Woolford on the radio. Tell him the Library’s been destroyed. Tell him to let the Americans and the Chinese know that. Tell him there’s no point to any of this fighting anymore.”
The squad encircled the civilians while the captain urgently relayed the message to his colonel.
Breathing hard, Will saw people trying to comfort each other. Phillip held on to a shivering Haven. Gail clutched her daughters to her side. Daniel supported Cacia’s rubbery legs. He shouted at everyone to stay low. There was still a battle raging. He turned to Nancy, dropped his flag, and enveloped her in a bear hug, the kind she liked to get from him, the kind that made her feel safe.
Then an ugly shout pierced the night.
“This is for Malcolm Frazier you son of a bitch!”
Will let go of Nancy, pivoted toward the voice, and took a step to shield her from whatever was coming.
Out of the darkness, Kenney staggered forward, his face blast-ravaged and blackened. He had a combat knife in his hand and was on top of Will before he could react.
Will saw the glin
t of the knife, felt a pressure in his gut, and heard the crack of a rifle.
Kenney dropped hard, grunting and swearing.
The soldier who fired moved forward, about to squeeze off another round, but Will called him off, surprised that he was still standing and still able to talk.
Nancy was frantically ripping Will’s buttons apart to get at the wound, but there was none. Franklin’s journal fell out of his shirt, gouged from cover to cover.
A medic was called in and Will knelt beside Kenney.
“I can’t feel my goddamned legs,” Kenney moaned.
“Hang on,” Will told him, “you’re going to be okay.”
Kenney seethed at him. “I know I am, you cocksucking son of a bitch. I’m BTH.”
Will stood up, and replied, “Well, mister, it looks like you’re going to be BTH in a wheelchair. Enjoy the rest of your life. I hope it’s a long one.”
Chapter 31
Their London hotel was comfortable and quiet, a good way station to sort through their obligations before they could fly home. It was a small, secluded place off the paparazzi circuit, and they had checked in under assumed names: Mr. and Mrs. Franklin and son. Franklin was, unsurprisingly, the first name that had popped into Will’s head.
Interviews with the Cumbrian police, MI5, and the Ministry of Defense were behind them. The awful conversation with Laura and Nick about Greg was behind them. In the morning, they were going to attend a debrief at the US embassy with FBI officials and Justice Department lawyers. That meeting had been delayed until Britain and the US had restored some of their frayed diplomatic relations.
Phillip had his own room, Nancy and Will a nice suite. MI5 had arranged the accommodations, and Will hadn’t paid attention to who was covering the tab. He figured he’d find out at checkout time. For the moment, he was luxuriating in a hot bath to soothe his bruised body, and when he was done soaking, he joined Nancy under the cool sheets and yielding mattress.
“How’re you doing?” she asked.
“Sore. But trending toward happy.”