Oscar glanced at his watch. Squinted uphill against the rain. He made a quick calculation and knew they had to be getting close. Couldn’t be more than a ridge or two away now. They had drifted off course during the jump, but they’d made up ground in a hurry.
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Uphill. Somewhere high up on the nearest ridge. Just a flash of something that didn’t belong. Kilo crunched through a thicket of brush, coming up alongside him.
Oscar braced his rifle against the tree trunk. Put his eye to the scope.
Kilo was breathing hard. “What’s up, mate?” he said.
Oscar held up a fist, flagging him to shut up.
Oscar studied the steep terrain set in contrast to the blustery conditions. Spotted a second barely perceptible flash of movement, and settled the scope onto the distant tiny patch of hillside the movement had come from. The thing that had caught his attention was light glinting off a shiny surface. Polished metal or glass. Someone was up there. A possible sniper. Waiting for them.
Oscar gauged the likely distance and angle of approach. Decided they would have to move slow and low. He didn’t believe they’d been spotted. He intended to keep it that way.
CHAPTER 96
The walkie had skittered to a stop in a corner under the table amid a thick layer of dust and webs. Lindsay swept a hand past it, paused, and backtracked a few inches. She sensed its presence, clutched at it with her fingers, scraped it out from the corner and pressed it to her face. She sat cross-legged beneath the table.
“Archer,” she said, holding the button down with her thumb.
“I was beginning to wonder about you,” he answered.
“There was an explosion,” she said.
“I know.”
“It knocked out the power. I’m sitting in the dark.”
“Are the kids with you?”
“No.”
“Lindsay, listen to me. The bunker is under attack by professional killers. One of them has blasted his way into the main tunnel. They are coming in after you, Lindsay. I’m heading back for you as fast as I can, but it’s going to take some time. Go to the secure room. Hit the button under the orange light to close the door. Nothing can get you there.”
“Archer, you don’t understand. I can’t see anything! There’s no power! There’s no light! I can’t find my way in the dark!”
“You’ve got to try.”
“Please hurry,” she said.
“Find your kids and shut the blast door.”
“OK, I’m going.”
“Take the radio.”
“OK.”
“Go!”
“Archer, I’m scared.”
“I know. Just stay focused on taking care of yourself and your kids, Lindsay. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Hurry,” she said.
* * *
The Hummer was parked beside a silver International Scout. Both SUV’s were caked with red dust. Tango came upon them from the rear. He kept the gun leveled ahead of him as he maneuvered between the vehicles. Rotated right to left, left to right. He could still smell the smoke and burnt chemicals from the grenades. The tunnel had opened into a wide, cavernous room where he found the two SUV’s. He turned the tactical light toward the ceiling. In the hazy darkness he couldn’t get any real sense of the size of the room.
He found the painted steel door set into the wall and nudged it open with the muzzle of the gun. He stepped through. There were no lights, no electric hum of any kind, as if the power had been cut.
Tango continued through a series of low-ceilinged corridors. He followed the cone of white light from the gun and proceeded silently. He held his finger steady on the trigger. When he heard the nearby voices of young people calling out for their mother, he knew he’d come to the right place.
CHAPTER 97
Lindsay fumbled toward the door, stepping through the spaces between the shelves of the metal rack that had blocked the path. The radio was in one hand, the gun in the other. She staggered forward tentatively, choosing her steps judiciously. The gun clattered against a wall as she made her way by touch.
She shuffle-stepped sideways and put a hand out and realized she was standing beneath the doorframe. She could feel the liberation of the open corridors branching out around her. She remembered the corridor to the right would lead her back to the secure room. Just walk, she coached herself. Take it one step at a time.
She skimmed along one wall after another with robotic stiffness. She caught her thigh on something unseen. She stumbled, spun around and collided with a wall, then righted herself but realized the stumble had left her disoriented. She no longer had any idea which direction she was facing.
She panicked.
“Ramey!” she called out.
“Mom?” came the reply floating toward her through the blackness that swallowed her.
“Please, baby, keep talking! I have to follow the sound of your voice!”
Ramey and Wyatt had crowded shoulder to shoulder into the open doorway of the secure room, silhouetted from behind by the ominous orange glow. The secure room had remained unaffected by the outage given its redundant independent power supply.
“Mom, over here!” Ramey shouted.
Lindsay pressed her back to a wall as she flicked her eyes about in the black void. She scraped along the wall, feeling her way with the side of her foot, kicking it out eight or ten inches at a time. She didn’t want to stumble again.
She came to a corner and slithered around it into an adjacent corridor as she continued on in darkness.
“Ramey? Wyatt?” she called.
“This way, Mom!”
Their voices were growing louder, clearer.
Lindsay sighed a small breath of relief. She was almost there. She came to another corner. Another corridor. She could feel the low ceiling pressing down a few inches above her head. She probed the darkness with the side of her foot and paused a moment to catch her breath. She squinted into the darkness and could at last see the faintest hint of orange light pulsing warmly, bending around the next corner at the end of the corridor.
Her spirit soared.
Then she heard a door bang open. A beam of white light swung like a saber through the inky blackness. She heard heavy footsteps pounding through the corridor, moving toward her.
“Mom?”
Lindsay felt the ice catch in her chest again.
“Ramey!”
“Mom?” Ramey’s voice thick with panic.
“Ramey, I’m coming!”
But the beam of light was too close. It moved into the gap standing between Lindsay and the secure room. Lindsay took a step forward, then halted.
The white light pitched a large distorted pale oval across the gray wall. It bounced and wobbled and expanded as the footsteps hurried down the corridor.
There was a sudden burst of gunfire.
The bullets threw sparks off the walls and metal vent louvers.
The kids screamed.
Lindsay backpedaled, her eyes wide in horror. She fumbled the radio to the floor. It clattered off out of sight.
The muzzle flash from the automatic rifle lit the intersecting corridors with a quick yellowish blur.
“Wyatt! Ramey!”
“Mom!”
“The button!” Lindsay screamed. “Hit the button!”
The next burst from the submachine gun stitched laterally across the painted metal handrail leading down to the secure room. Silver sparks blazed. The bullets pocked the metal, punching through the tubing and chipped away at the wall.
Wyatt flung himself away from the open door. He fell to his backside and scrambled like a crab on his hands.
“Mom, hurry!” Ramey screamed at the top of her lungs. Her words were partially drowned out by another burst of automatic gunfire.
“Close the door!” Lindsay screamed. Then realized what she was saying. She would be locked out. Separated from them. Trapped outside in the corridor with the heavily arme
d mad man.
“Mom, please!”
“Ramey! Now!”
Ramey hesitated for only a fraction of a second. She realized she had no choice. There was nothing they could do to help their mother. If she didn’t do what her mother was telling her to do, they would all three die. Her heart was in her throat. Tears streamed down her face. She waited till the last possible second, praying for a miracle, praying that Archer would suddenly appear from out of nowhere and save the day. But time had run out.
Ramey grit her teeth. She made a tight fist of her right hand, stepped clear of the open doorway, and then punched the button beneath the pulsing orange light as hard as she could.
* * *
The flesh down the back of Archer’s neck prickled. His gut was telling him something. His most primal instincts screaming to be heard. He stopped moving. Crouched low over the water streaming around his legs and listened to the whisper of the rain, the voice of distant thunder. The prickling spread to his shoulders and down his spine.
The walls of the slot canyon were silent save for the rain and the music of the water coursing downhill. Archer quieted himself, inside and out. Focused. Hushed his thoughts.
Miles above him in the sky electricity pulsed and flashed behind cloud clusters. Distant, muted pops of lightening.
The opening at the top of the slot canyon was a gap in the walls perhaps thirty inches wide. The canyon floor spanned all of seven feet at its widest point, the walls tapering together at a steady angle as they rose skyward. Centuries of flash floods had systematically eroded the limestone groove.
When the lightening pulsed, the surrounding landscape was cast in brief silhouette. Archer could see little more than shadow, but as he glanced up now, one of the shadows was moving, advancing along the rim of the canyon. A tall form, advancing slowly.
Archer stared just long enough to make sure he wasn’t imagining things, that his frantic mind wasn’t conjuring imagery that didn’t really exist. But the figure was really up there, and a distant flash-pop of lightening briefly silhouetted him enough for Archer to see the size of the man and the size of the automatic weapon he carried with both hands.
Archer shuffled silently one step to his right, ducking beneath the slant of the twenty-foot wall. The sloshing water echoed as if he were at the bottom of a deep well. Archer pressed his back to the limestone. Pressed the Beretta flat against his Kevlar vest. Kept his eyes turned skyward.
The mercenary above had a tactical light mounted beneath the barrel of his rifle. He swung the beam into the gap at the top of the canyon. Sparks of light refracted off the rippling water. The light moved down the left-side wall of the canyon, played across the water for several yards, then bounced back up the wall at a sharp angle.
Because of the inward slant of the wall, Archer could not stand fully erect. His back was bowed at an awkward angle and he had to bend his knees. He was forced to hold the posture without flinching for several long minutes.
Archer assessed the situation. No way he could get a good shot off. And if he missed, he’d be putting himself at a major tactical disadvantage. The guy could simply drop a couple of grenades through the slot and take cover. Archer wouldn’t stand a chance.
So Archer decided maybe he could wait the guy out. Let him move along. Sit tight and simply let him pass on by, then he could head on out toward the mouth of the canyon where he’d entered.
But a few seconds later that option was brought to a screeching halt.
Archer heard the splash of footsteps echoing up through the canyon toward him. Heavy and determined footsteps advancing toward him at a steady click. The road was followed an instant later by a faint bubble of white light sliding across the smooth limestone wall.
The rain fell harder and the current flowing down through the floor of the slot canyon deepened. The water level rose dramatically. The current was cold and strong. Within a few seconds the water had risen nearly to Archer’s knees. He braced a hand against the limestone. The cold water took his breath away.
The white light was sliding around the next bend in the canyon path. Whoever it was would be less than fifty feet from him in the next ten to fifteen seconds.
Archer didn’t have time to think. There was only time to react. He was pinched between the topside mercenary and the one pushing toward him up the barrel of the canyon. There was maybe seventy to eighty feet between the two, with Archer caught in the middle.
He could wait for #2 to round the bend and go for a headshot with the Beretta, hope for a quick kill and then try his luck with #1. But if he missed, or couldn’t manage a fatal shot, he’d really be boxed in. Besides, he’d already given consideration to dealing with #1, and hadn’t liked the odds.
No, he needed to take out #2 as silently as possible. Needed to strike quickly and efficiently and exit the canyon. Let #1 just keep on walking.
The splashing footfalls grew louder, closer, more pronounced, more purposeful.
Archer made his decision.
His legs were numb from the water.
He pushed the rifle under the water and pinned it to the canyon floor with his foot. Then he shoved the Beretta down the waistband at the back of his pants. He took a breath and lowered himself into the water, settling onto his knees. The water rose to his chest.
The light swung out from around the bend and into the leg of the canyon where Archer had taken cover. The muzzle and barrel of an automatic weapon swiveled into view, followed by the burly arms of the man holding it.
Archer eased himself further underwater, pressing himself deeper into the recess of the canyon wall. His chin dipped beneath the water flow. He reached into his pocket under the water, drew out the knife and snapped open the blade. He pushed himself as far into the remaining shadows as possible.
The mercenary was surging toward him against the current. Thirty feet away now.
Archer sucked in a deep breath and submerged his head under the water. He could feel his entire body turning blue from the chill. He flattened himself against the canyon floor, clinging to a slippery handhold. He turned his head with the current and stared through the dark water at the growing glow moving in his direction. The cold water was pushing the breath out of him.
Archer waited. His lungs ached.
The mercenary paused, barely two feet away, an interminable moment that seemed to Archer to stretch on into eternity. Then the light bounced up the face of the opposite wall and the mercenary moved on.
Archer thought his chest would explode at any moment. He simply couldn’t hold his breath any longer. He allowed his head to drift up. He glanced upstream. The mercenary was barely four feet beyond him. The moment had come. It was now or never.
* * *
Archer struck hard. He rose silently out of the water like a creature rising from the dark depths. Every square inch of his clothing clung to him like glue. He closed the distance to Alpha in a single, calculated stride and pounced.
He hooked the elbow of his left arm under Alpha’s chin. Pulled up hard, forcing the head back, crunching against the windpipe. He clamped down against the top of the throat with everything in him. A fraction of a second later he brought the knife around, going straight for the jugular. But the action was a fraction of a second too late.
Alpha got his forearm up between his throat and Archer’s arm. It was enough resistance to slow the motion of the knife. The tip of the blade still got him and drew blood.
Archer leaned back hard and pulled the knife against the mercenary’s defensive arm.
Alpha clawed at the arm clamped around his throat. He tried to call out, to get Foxtrot’s attention, but couldn’t get any air. He pushed against the hand with the knife with all his strength. His lips peeled open in a silent howl of rage. His rifle fell limp and loose on its sling. Alpha was the larger of the two men by several inches and at least thirty pounds, but Archer was strong and had had the advantage of surprise.
Alpha clawed at Archer’s eyes. Archer dodged his head side t
o side. Alpha tried to shrug him off, but the distribution of weight was all wrong. Archer had him on his heels. Alpha saw the blade of the knife flashing in the crazed beam of the rifle’s tactical light.
Alpha heaved himself against Archer’s upper body, twisting savagely in his grasp. The shift in weight threw them off balance. They spun and fell, splashing like a four-armed beast in the rushing current. Both men disappeared beneath the surface of the black water.
Alpha managed to extend the hand with the knife slightly away from his head. Archer struggled against the man’s incredible strength and realized he couldn’t hold him forever. He didn’t believe he could hold the clamp around his throat long enough to choke him to death, so he made a split-second decision.
Archer jerked the knife out and away. The mercenary wasn’t prepared for the move. His arm went forward hard. Archer swung the blade wide, then brought it up with a quick pull. Alpha couldn’t recover. In the next half second it was too late. Archer thrust the blade with all the power left in his right arm, shoving it deep into Alpha’s ear. The entire length of the blade sank into the soft tissue of his brain. And suddenly the struggle was over.
The mercenary’s body relaxed, arms falling slack in the strong current, blood pluming out from his ear, his nostrils, his mouth, the crimson ribbons trailing out into the shadowy water.
Archer held firm to the corpse. He didn’t hear the burst of automatic gunfire but saw the blur of muzzle flash light up the chasm between the limestone walls. A quintet of bullets pocked across the water alongside him in a perfectly straight row, like buttons down the front of a shirt.
Archer instinctively rolled onto his back, shielding himself with the corpse of the dead mercenary. He sucked in a quick breath and went back under. A second burst stitched across the water, slicing diagonally across the torso of the corpse.
Archer unwrapped his arm from around the man’s throat and grasped the body instead by the back of the shirt collar. Then he swung an arm behind his back and drew out the Beretta. He brought the gun up between the dead man’s slack right arm and his lifeless body, firing once, then twice, the first shot ringing off the limestone.
72 Hours (A Thriller) Page 19