Running the Maze s-5

by Jack Coughlin

  All of the workers were called together again, a mob of shuffling construction men who were physically fit, although most of them were militarily untrained. To motivate them, he announced that the enemy had penetrated deep into the bridge, intending to destroy it and then kill everyone on the site. The suddenly excited men were divided into teams and provided with weapons and radios. There were upwards of forty of them, which should be enough, so he culled out a few European technicians, who were bound and left under guard because they could not be trusted. The rest surged into the tunnels, starting the search at the top of the bridge, then flooding down through the stone passageways. They were already familiar with the maze, not least because they had helped build it. They did not need maps, only leadership.

  Al-Masri organized his command post topside, then drank an entire bottle of water while considering his next move. Play this backward, he thought; start at the end, not the beginning. The ultimate goal of the raiders, now that they had been uncovered, would be to escape, and that probably would involve a helicopter. By studying a topographical map and walking the area to peer down the valley, he was able to identify several likely landing sites within a two-kilometer radius of the bridge. He gave a quiet curse. With the morning light growing brighter, it would be an easy thing to shoot them down with the proper weapons. However, the antiaircraft cannons he needed were located deep down within the bridge, anchored on mounts in the gun rooms, useless, unless his tech specialist could get things running again. Men would be required to cover each potential landing zone, and he would send one to scrounge for some rocket-propelled grenades in the storerooms.

  Once his teams were on the move, and with the likely landing zones pinpointed, al-Masri finally went to his secure radio link to report back to the New Muslim Order headquarters. The conversation was short, and he was firm. Commander Kahn was not to be brought to this bridge, no matter what promises were made. The bridge, he declared, was not a safe digital fortress but little more than a sand castle.

  24

  KYLE SWANSON WAS FINALLY alone, and his chances of living beyond the next nineteen minutes rested solely on his own shoulders. All he had to do was master a varying formula of time, space, the number of tangos, distance, and direction. The time could be pinpointed, and the opposition force would be adjusted as he went along. Space and distance were unknown factors, because of the labyrinth of confusing corridors and pathways, but he did not need any special talent, not even a compass, to keep going in the right direction; up was always up.

  He had total freedom of action and would consider anyone he encountered to be a hostile. Although he knew little about his enemy, they knew less about him, and they would be in his free-fire zone.

  There was noise and movement on the far side of the infirmary door, indicating an assault was being prepared. They would probably blow the door and rush into the room. Kyle intended to be long gone by then, although he would leave a clear trail to be followed. He dragged a chair into the closet, pushed open the ceiling hatch, grabbed the edge, did a chin-up, and chicken-winged his elbow into the opening to gain more leverage. He climbed up and out, leaving the chair standing in place over the lower hatch through which Ledford and the engineer had gone. The natural choice for the chasers would be to follow him.

  Swanson came up in the dim light of a bunker, beside another fully loaded heavy machine gun affixed to the usual mechanical arms and anchors. He closed the hatch, unsnapped the box of ammunition from the big weapon, and rested it carefully on a fragmentation grenade the size of a baseball. With the box holding down the safety spoon, he pulled out the pin to arm the grenade. Moving the hatch would jar the box, which would detonate the booby trap.

  He touched his throat microphone. “Coastie. Can you read me?”

  “Barely,” came her huffing reply. “We’re on hands and knees, but the opening to a corridor is just ahead. Mohammad says it will take us under the river. No opposition so far.”

  “Eighteen minutes.”

  “We’ll be there,” she said and then lowered her voice. “Kyle? He is starting to growl.”

  Swanson walked to the exit hatch of the gun bunker, suppressing his natural sniper instincts and training. On any ordinary mission, stealth and hiding were the keys to success, so he would have remained invisible. This time, he not only had to expose his own position but also initiate a running gunfight. That meant sending an invitation that could not be ignored.

  The usual laminated map on the door revealed the layout for this section. Elevators were at one end of the main corridor, and the broad main staircase at the other, about a hundred meters away. Five hallways branched off at irregular distances, and each terminated at a set of steel spiral stairs. At first he had worried that he might be cornered like a rat in a trap, but in reality, his situation was much better. The ten spirals, two elevators, and main stairway connecting each level were all designed to ensure easy movement of men and materiel within the bridge, to resupply and help shift forces during a battle against a force attacking from outside. The whole thing was built to keep people out, not to keep someone inside. From Kyle’s perspective, that system presented the defending force with a significant problem, for they could not possibly cover all of the choke points. Time to go hunting.

  He slowly opened the gun pit exit and peered into the hallway. It was empty, so he stepped outside and kicked down the doorstop to hold it open when he left. Swanson moved like a shadow to the far corridor beside the main stairs and into the intersecting hall, where he backed into a doorway. The frame was only about seven inches deep, but it also was the only available cover, so he wedged in tight, happy that he was only five foot nine and slim instead of six foot plus and bulky. Anyone rushing down the main hall from either the elevator or the staircase would run right past his hiding place.

  His muscles were rigid, so he commanded his body to relax, and the heart rate immediately obeyed; he breathed steadily, his eyes cleared to razor sharpness, and both the world and time began to slow down, as they always did before he let all hell break loose.

  He removed the remote control detonator from his pack, clicked off the safety, and pressed the button. In an instant, the brick of C-4 he had placed in the ammunition storage room at the lower entrance to the tunnels exploded with a booming, furious crash that challenged the thick rock. The walls channeled the concussion along like a flood of water surging through giant pipes, and only two floors above, Swanson pulled his head down into his shoulders and braced in the door frame as his entire world twisted and groaned. That should get their attention, he thought. Secondary explosions cooked off and added to the bedlam.

  The heavy stone was part of an entire mountain range and soon ate the blast effects. The lights that had blinked off sparkled back to life, and only a mist of dirt seeped from the ceiling. Swanson stepped into the empty main hallway and laid down a long and loud burst of automatic fire that rippled and ricocheted, and the bullets tore at doors and walls, pocked the elevator, and smashed the lights. The doorway to the gun pit remained yawning open, and he put a few rounds in there for good measure before ducking back into his narrow hide and reloading. He looked at his watch: seventeen minutes before pickup.

  * * *

  BETH LEDFORD AND MOHAMMAD al-Attas were thrown off their feet when the explosion shook the mountain. They were halfway through the big tunnel beneath the river, and she momentarily wondered if the blast might crack a seam that would drown them beneath tons of churning water.

  “Get up! Get up!” she screamed at the engineer, who was still on his knees, dazed and shaking his head. A small cut had been torn in his scalp, and blood flowed on his cheek. Beth grabbed his sleeve and hauled him up from the floor.

  There wasn’t much to this guy, she thought. No muscle tone, uncoordinated, and weird eyes that spelled geek. She yelled, “Now run. Run like your life depends on it.”

  Al-Attas shambled forward, smelling the dank surroundings as his mind processed some formulas about pressure lim
its. He was pleased that the structure had held so well against the force of the unexpected explosion, just as he designed it to do. There had been no serious damage. The chief engineer smiled at the woman. He got another hard push and moved a bit faster.

  “I didn’t say jog. I said run.” This dude was slowing things down. “We’ve got to reach the other end of the tunnel and then get topside. If we miss the extraction bird, we’re dead, because it won’t wait. Come on. Just follow me. You can do it.” Her boots beat a steady tempo on the cold stone floor.

  The engineer was breathing harder, panting. Running felt good. It made him remember being outside and free, trotting lazily around in the darkness, and feeling cool wind on his body. The tunnel took on the appearance of a big hole to him, which it was, and he imagined a wolf chasing a rabbit, closing steadily.

  Beth slowed at the end of the tunnel and stopped at the bottom of the metal staircase. When she turned to check on the engineer, his fist came flying at her face, so unexpected and fast that she did not have time to block it. The impact was followed by a terrible yowl, and then the engineer leaped and knocked her flat. She rolled her head away from the blow, moving with the punch to dissipate its force, although the knuckles smashed her left cheek hard enough to make her see stars. While she spun downward, a second blow smacked the top of her head; then the tackle put her down totally. Her rifle was still firmly attached to her harness, but she felt the attacker’s hands grasping for the knife on her belt, and the man’s hot breath on her face.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she shouted. With his hands going for the knife, he had no way to block her palm strike at his nose, and she punched in hard. The nose broke, and al-Attas’s head flew back, leaving the neck unprotected for her to drive three stiff fingers into the trachea.

  The wild-eyed man deflated like a balloon. He grabbed his throat with both hands, gagging to try to get air, and rolled away. Beth turned around on the floor, kneed him in the groin, then clocked him on the temple with the butt of her rifle. Mohammad Al-Attas was down and out, blood pouring from his nose.

  Ledford got to her feet and lifted her fingers to check her face. She tasted blood and felt the pulsing ache by her eye. Nothing serious. She kicked him in the ribs, and he emitted a long groan that indicated he wasn’t totally unconscious. “I really want to shoot your sorry ass, but you apparently are a valuable target,” she said and secured his wrists with plastic flex-cuffs. Unbuckling his belt, she tightened it into a noose around his neck so she could pull him along on a leash, then cut away the top button on his jeans and slit the waistband. “You can use your hands to hold up your pants. Come on.” She yanked the leash and hauled him upstairs.

  * * *

  THE EXPLOSION FAR BELOWGROUND had spent its force by the time the concussion wave reached the main roadway topside, where it had hardly made the rocks grumble. Ayman al-Masri figured it was just the opening of the battle against the Zionist raiders and continued to study the maps of the complex that he had spread on a table. A tinny voice on his radio broke into his thoughts, and one of his bodyguards who had broken into the infirmary stronghold reported, “Gunshots on the third level, directly above us.” Gunfire was different than the explosion; someone had to be present to pull a trigger. He decided to tighten the hunt by surging everyone into the one area where he knew the enemy was located.

  “What is your status?” he asked.

  “We are inside the infirmary,” said the bodyguard. “No one is here, but we found a hatch that leads to the floor above, where the shooting is.”

  “Pursue them. I am sending help immediately.”

  “Yes, sir. We’re going up.”

  Al-Masri’s palms felt wet with perspiration, and he wiped them on his robe. This might be over quickly if they could lock the commando team into that one space. Al-Masri could make up for their lack of training by using the advantage of sheer numbers. He gave a quick order to everyone. “All teams converge to the third level of the east tower. There are probably not more than three or four Zionists to fight. We will have them trapped there. Use your combined firepower to keep their heads down, then wipe them out.”

  Men who had just entered the west tower responded and came back out in a rush to cross the broad bridge and descend into the east-side tunnel. More would advance through the access corridors just below the roadway.

  The bodyguard who lifted the hatch cover above the infirmary had to push hard against the unexpected weight, and the grenade booby trap detonated in the gun room bunker with a harsh craaack that covered his agonizing scream as he caught the full force of the explosion in his head and chest. A coil of thick smoke oozed through the open door into the third-level hallway, and single rounds of machine-gun ammunition ignited with a clatter in the intense heat.

  Swanson heard men running down the main stairwell and entering the hall, and he shoved himself back deeper into his door frame. Four went past his corridor without glancing at it, firing blindly into the smoke ahead. When they were beyond his position, he came out and lit them up from behind with short bursts, using more bullets than actually needed for the job, but wanting to use the surprise effect of a noisy firefight on the oncoming force.

  The next batch paused and slowed their advance; then Kyle triggered a burst that chipped the lower steps, and drew a barrage of automatic fire in return. He bellowed as if he had been hit and ran back into the churning smoke, dropping flat at the corner of two corridors to watch them come down. They shot wildly around the first intersection until they discovered no one was there, and the easy capture of that little bit of territory gave them a false feeling of victory, emboldening them while at the same time making them more careless.

  Kyle held his fire, using the time to rig another grenade booby trap and string a tripwire low across the hallway. The group moved closer down the main hallway, laying waste to the next intersection of corridors, gaining even more confidence when no fire was returned. They had captured two intersections without incident and stepped up the advance, talking loudly and with confidence. He leaned out and buzzed them, then ducked back after the single long burst and took off for the nearest spiral stairwell.

  He paused halfway up to fire again as the more aggressive pursuers came charging around the corner. He wanted them to have their eyes locked on him, rather than where they were going. The lead man cleared the tripline without even seeing it, but the toe of the fighter behind him hit the taut wire, which yanked out the pin, and the grenade exploded, filling the hallway with flying shrapnel, confusion, blood, and terror. Swanson dashed the rest of the way up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  25

  THE OPENING STEPS OF his violent choreography to reach the top of the bridge had gone as smoothly as a waltz on Dancing with the Stars, a series of well-drilled maneuvers so common and practiced that they even had names. He had opened with Excessive Force, to lure the curious enemy into a kill zone, and followed that with a Flash Attack to stun them. Now he was falling back in a controlled Australian Peel.

  The Peel was a sniper’s protective game of leapfrog on defense. After an attack against a larger force, the sniper would stay put and lay down suppressive fire while his spotter fell back twenty meters, hit the ground, and took up the firing to allow the sniper to bound back another twenty meters, then repeat the process. The difference today at the bridge was that Swanson had to perform both roles: fire, then give up some ground to his pursuers to make them think they were making progress, with no idea that it was being given to them. Kyle did not want to break contact, and so far, it had worked. He was picking apart the opposing force.

  He found no one waiting when he emerged up on the second level, so he ran to another doorway and squeezed in tight again, thinking of what to do next. He was uninjured and still had plenty of ammo if he was careful, some C-4, several hand grenades, and a bandolier of five grenades for the launcher that hung beneath the barrel of his CAR-15. There were plenty of moves left, although he was feeling the press
of time. Eleven minutes.

  He could hear the pursuers milling around below, an indication of a lack of discipline, training, experience, and leadership. He fired a single shot back down the stairs to focus their attention again, and the bullet struck metal stairs and zinged away like the clanging of a bell. The enemy fighters realized their quarry was waiting for them up on the next level, still ready to fight.

  Kyle intended to make the most of his clear advantage in this small underground city of channels and burrows. Rooting out a skilled defender required patience, determination, luck, and skill, and the butcher’s bill was usually high. An untrained force such as he was facing today had little choice other than to pour in a lot of bodies.

  * * *

  “AHLO?” A STRANGE VOICE from the radio was tinged with despair, even as the caller said a universal form of “Hello.”

  Ayman al-Masri of the New Muslim Order responded without introduction. “Who is this? Where are you?”

  “We are on the third level, mister,” said the nervous voice. “There has been a horrible battle down here. The casualties have been heavy.”

  “How many of the Zionist raiders have been killed?”

  “None that I have seen, sir.”

  “Well, how many are there?”

  A pause. “About six?”

  “Can you actually see the enemy from your position?”

  A long pause. “No, mister.”

  “Then how do you know there are six?”

  “Ummh. That is just my estimate, mister. So much damage. So many men are down and badly hurt. Please send medical help.”

  Al-Masri knew the pleading coward on the radio was hiding, not advancing.