by Dalton Fury
Now, just five feet inside the double doors, face-to-face with a massive three-story-high concrete wall, Kolt caught the first sign of movement. It was just beyond the bright yellow guardrail at the very top. Easing his rifle up, he tucked the stock against his right cheek, naturally centering the Trijicon’s red dot. Thumbing the selector switch to fire, he squeezed his finger to take up the slack in the trigger.
Too late.
Damn!
Kolt lowered his rifle and quickly turned to the right and sprinted to the elevator door. His lungs were heaving by the time he reached it, and spots flashed before his eyes. He kicked off his black leather Doc Martens as he pulled out his creds and pushed the open button. The silver doors slid open as the elevator bell rang. Kolt set his boots inside the elevator, dress right, dress, and toes facing out. He then laid his creds down in front of the boots and pushed the button for the pool deck before stepping back out.
Kolt raced for the stairwell door. He knew he was running out of time. They all were.
He ignored all his training. The time for sound, close-quarter battle fundamentals was long gone. This was charge-of-the-fucking-light-brigade time. Throwing caution to wind, he took the stairs three at a time, a sudden thirst and numbing of his left arm growing more noticeable with each step. Blood loss was going to bring him down if he didn’t hurry.
Kolt reached the stairwell door, huffing for breath. He gulped down some air and pushed the crash bar, opening the door enough to step through. The first thing that hit him was the odd smell, like a mix of chlorine and engine oil. It was coming from the massive pool of water used to cool the spent fusion rods. He didn’t gag, but he came close. He looked to his left and saw a five-foot-tall piece of corner ballistic steel with a sliding gun port half-opened. On his right was the yellow guardrail he had seen from below.
Across the pool deck, an armed security officer stood with his back to Kolt in front of the open elevator door. He wore the same tan boots and black-over-tan dress as Officer Polamalu and was also armed with a rifle. This created a problem for Kolt. If the guy was in normal civilian clothing, he’d have lit him up, figuring he had to be one of the terrorists who’d taken Kolt’s bait. But the Yellow Creek security officer uniform gave Kolt pause. He knew he wasn’t going to kill another American. No, the burden was on Kolt to prove to the armed officers that he wasn’t a terrorist, not the other way around. He had to discriminate.
“Hey, federal agent. Don’t shoot!” Kolt yelled. That’s when he noticed a pile of shoes, some odd gear, and a brown zippered bag just on the edge of the pool. A large puddle of water had settled on the surface nearby, at the pool’s edge.
Shit! Am I too late? They’re in the pool already.
The guard turned, raising what looked like an AK-47.
Terrorist!
“Allah u Akbar!”
There was no mistaking that running password! With no time to aim, Kolt sprayed a couple of rounds toward the terrorist, preventing him from getting a shot off, while lunging for the safety of the corner steel. The ballistic position was slightly rusted at the connections and bolted areas, most likely a legacy position from an old protective strategy but never removed.
Kolt reached up to close the sliding port another inch or so as 7.62 mm rounds impacted all around it. The metal reverberated with each hit, adding to the ringing in his ears from the earlier explosion. Several bullets tore through the opening and punctured the thin-metal-skin stairwell door to his rear. Kolt ducked, then slid the opening closed. A ricochet from an AK-47 round could be lethal.
He leaned over to his right and extended his rifle muzzle slightly around the corner of the barrier. Kolt didn’t have a lot of ammo to burn. He was down to less than a full mag now.
Kolt peeked and fired three rapid rounds. He exposed himself just long enough to see the terrorist behind his own piece of ballistic cover. They exchanged fire several more times, two and three rounds at a time, neither getting the better of the other.
Gotta do something, Kolt. Plan A ain’t working.
Kolt continued the cat and mouse until his magazine ran dry. He dropped it, pulled the partial spare from his back pocket, press-checked it for the number of rounds remaining, which he figured to be no more than twelve, and then inserted it. He slapped the bolt release to load the top round and then paused to consider just what the hell to do next. He was wounded, terrorists were in the water pool, and time was running out. He took a breath, taking in the bitter smell of sawdust, nitroglycerin, and graphite that hung heavy in the air.
The terrorist snapped off two rounds and then a five-round burst, convincing Kolt that the terrorist was packing a lot more ammo than he was. This was it, then. The terrorist in the pool must be close to planting his explosives. He’s probably already said his good-byes and is planning on a one-way trip. Safely back home for these terrorists meant moving on to the next plane of existence.
Fucking martyrdom in swim trunks.
Kolt blinked and shook his head. He was sitting, not acting. He shifted his legs underneath him and focused. A light above the stairwell door had been shot out. Without the light, the area he was in darkened significantly and shadows extended farther across the deck.
Kolt looked left and spied three more lights along the wall past the yellow guardrails. He quickly turned back to the right, looking around the corner to see another three lights on the far wall beyond the pool.
Six lights, twelve rounds. Kolt had his plan B, assuming he could determine his hold-off with a round or two using Officer Palomalu’s rifle. Kolt turned back left, raised the rifle, and placed the red dot center mass of the first light, raised it roughly eight inches, and broke the trigger.
THIRTY
Spent-Fuel Deck, Yellow Creek
Hit!
He moved to the next light, farther down and center of the wall.
Hit.
The terrorist screamed something Kolt couldn’t understand and snapped off another three-round burst. Kolt ducked, then lined up on the farthest light, just to the right of the elevator doors. Six, maybe seven inches hold-off and broke the shot.
Miss! Shot high.
Shit! Breathe, Kolt. Breathe!
Five inches hold off. Blading his body to prevent the terrorist from changing his plans again, Kolt steadied the rifle against the side of the corner steel. He broke the shot.
Hit! The left side was now in darkness.
Kolt turned quickly to service the lights on the far wall of the pool.
He remembered the holds, taking all three lights out. It was now much darker, with the only two lights remaining just behind the terrorist’s steel position. Kolt pressed the mag release and yanked the mag out of his rifle. Too dark to see down in the mag, he tried to stick his forefinger inside the mag to get a good round count. No luck. Kolt quickly stripped the brass from the mag, careful not to drop any on the floor. One, two. Only two rounds remaining in the mag, with one in the pipe still. Three rounds. Three rounds to either take the two lights or try to take the terrorist.
Safely concealed by the dark side of the pool deck, Kolt noticed the terrorist was entirely backlit by the lights. If Kolt was patient, the terrorist would likely reveal himself, allowing Kolt to cut him down with a single shot to the cranium vault. However, killing him wouldn’t stop the diver. Killing him wouldn’t stop the spent-fuel wall from being breached, creating a massive hole that would cause the inventory, just over 270,000 gallons of cooling water, to drain faster than the spray lines could replace it. Once the water drained enough to expose the top of the nuclear fuel assemblies, the loss of water coolant would cause the fuel to overheat and melt, resulting in a major local zircalloy fire, and would cause a massive release of radiation to the atmosphere. The fire, after melting down the aluminum fuel assemblies containing fuel rods with millions of uranium dioxide fuel pellets, would not be able to be contained. It would snake quickly through the non-airtight doors, contaminate the hallways, and take the path of least resistance
until it reached the open air, killing in short order tens of thousands of citizens in and around the area. Anyone—man, woman, or child—anywhere in the downwind-plum hazard path, would eventually die from a lethal dose of invisible radiation.
No time to wait. Gotta stop the crow in the pool.
Kolt abandoned the idea of trying to tag the terrorist. There just wasn’t time to wait him out. He opted to take his vision instead. Kolt knew if he could only take all the lightbulbs, it would be as dark as three feet up a bull’s ass, giving him the cloak he needed to take a swim. The terrorist wouldn’t see him. Sure, he might hear him jump in the pool, but he risked killing his own man if he fired blindly into the water.
Kolt indexed on the light above and to the right of the terrorist’s steel-protected position. He took a deep breath, exhaled halfway, and pressed the trigger.
Shit! Misfire! Not now.
Muscle memory took over as Kolt slapped up on the bottom of the magazine, two-fingered the charging handle. He sensed rather than saw the ejector grab the misfired round and eject it from the port. A glint showed the round tumbling through the air to skitter across the pool-deck floor.
The terrorist yelled more unintelligible threats and sprayed at least ten rounds in Kolt’s direction.
“Easy, Sunshine, I’m coming,” Kolt said, releasing the charging handle and tapping the forward assist on the right side of the rifle. Satisfied, he reacquired his bright four-inch target.
Two rounds, two lights to go.
Kolt aimed, debating his hold off for several seconds, before breaking the shot.
Hit!
With a single 5.56 mm bullet standing between him and the possibility of saving upward of two hundred thousand people, Kolt transitioned to the last light, just above and to the right of the terrorist.
Before Kolt could take the only remaining light, AK-47 rounds slammed into the corner steel and wall behind him. Kolt took cover. A short lull in the fire and then another burst. Kolt knew the terrorist was on to plan B.
Kolt steadied himself and slowly took aim around the steel, several times stopping to blink his eyes and manage his breathing. This was to be the shot of Kolt’s lifetime, and no shooter alive, given the same circumstances, would be cool as ice. Maybe the SEAL Team Six snipers on the USS Bainbridge 240 miles off the coast of Somalia, but not even they would be cool in the innermost bowels of a Mississippi-based nuke plant.
Kolt felt his heart pounding. He didn’t even bother himself with trying to think ahead to plan C. No, if it went there, with no ammunition, he was definitely going to come up short.
Kolt snapped the rifle up as he had done a million times before, indexed from muscle memory, held the dot with confidence, and broke the trigger.
Hit!
Kolt immediately unslung the rifle and placed it gently on the floor. He slipped around the corner steel on all fours. As he scrambled toward the edge of the pool, he suddenly wondered, what if the terrorist had night-vision goggles?
Little fucking late to think of that, he told himself. He took two deep breaths and slid headfirst into the water.
At 110 degrees Fahrenheit, the heat shocked Kolt’s face and exposed hands immediately. In a second, once fully submerged, his entire body felt it, automatically making it difficult to hold his breath. No more noise, no more distinct smell of gunpowder, but, surprisingly, a lighted pathway. Subsurface lighting illuminated the top of the zircalloy-clad fuel assemblies that rested on the bottom of the pool, the very top of the assemblies roughly twenty-three feet under water.
After the bubbles from the initial plunge cleared the unoxygenated water around Kolt, he began breaststroking and frog kicking rapidly to descend, anticipating the terrorist still above on the fuel deck would be blindly pumping rounds into the pool. It was surprisingly clear underwater, not unlike the deep end of any Olympic swimming pool. Three rounds pierced the water at a steep angle, creating scattered minibubbles that quickly dissolved. Just off the left side of his head, the rounds prompted him to adjust his body to angle his dive closer to the painted concrete. Kolt knew the shooter was taking a big risk, since he might inadvertently strike his al Qaeda brother.
Three more hard pulls of breaststroke, and Kolt spotted a dark human-size figure below. As Kolt closed the distance, it was obvious that the gunfight on the fuel deck couldn’t be heard from thirty feet below the water’s surface. That, or the terrorist below simply ignored it, electing to remain focused on the primary task Allah expected of him.
As Kolt descended, his concern with the hot water lessened as he became increasingly spooked by the high radiation dose he was certainly receiving. The crimson blood filling the water from his winged shoulder was no defense against the deadly beta and gamma radiation emitting from both sides of the cladding. Water, or blood, offers exceptional shielding, but the longer he stayed underwater, the greater the dose he would absorb. The closer he moved to the stainless-clad spent-fuel assemblies, the chances of taking an accumulative lethal dose multiplied. Every two feet Kolt moved closer to the spent fuel assemblies he increased the radiation dose by a factor of 10. Worse, touching the assemblies would be certain death.
Is this worth it? I’m a dead man whether I stop this asshole or not.
Kolt took three more full strokes and frog kicks and spotted the submerged terrorist, a yellow scuba tank attached to his back, a belt of hard lead blocks surrounding his waist, the black hose regulator routed from the tank over his right shoulder. This terrorist was not worried about the radiation, knowing his soul was soon to be in paradise, knowing he had enough oxygen to ensure he got there.
Kolt couldn’t be certain, but he saw what looked like some type of transmitter in both hands of the terrorist, still unaware of Kolt’s presence. As Kolt did a free dive closer, he was able to make out the terrorist’s right hand pushing buttons. A red light blinked three times on a dark square box attached to a circular pipe only a few feet from the terrorist. A strong swimmer on any other day, the heat, coupled with the adrenaline, forced Kolt’s body to exhume what oxygen he had stored in his lungs. Kolt understood shallow-water blackout, where cerebral hypoxia could trigger loss of consciousness with little warning.
I hate the fucking water!
A second light, this one green, flashed and remained steady on the same dark object.
Decide, Kolt!
After one more full but powerless stroke, Kolt recognized the object wrapped in clear Bubble Wrap. Just to the right, four or five feet away, Kolt picked up on a second green light. A second package, wrapped the same but slightly smaller than the one closest to the terrorist, was attached to some type of basketball-size transfer valve.
Kolt understood the bastard’s plan. One explosive charge on the stainless steel fuel assemblies, a second smaller one, most assuredly designed to destroy the crossover valve. The terrorists had done their homework; the damage would be irreversible.
Compromise this asshole’s air source, or condemn myself to a watery grave.
Kolt swam in behind the terrorist, grabbing the top of both shoulders and wrapping his legs tightly around the terrorist’s waist. The terrorist’s reaction was instant panic. He dropped the transmitter from his hands and began flailing madly. Locked together, they began rolling over and over, Kolt’s natural buoyancy not enough to counter the belt of weight around the terrorist.
Upside down and with bubbles moving up toward the surface, past the terrorist’s bare feet, Kolt reached around and yanked the regulator from the bomber’s mouth. As Kolt did so, he noticed the thin and black curly hair as it floated underwater. The terrorist turned his head, and Kolt recognized the high forehead.
Fucking Nadal!
On the extreme edge of passing out, Kolt shoved the regulator in his own mouth and took a deep hit of oxygen. He’d never enjoyed breathing as much as he did then. Invigorated, he squeezed his leg-lock tight around Nadal’s torso as they rolled again, this time to the opposite direction, much like Tarzan would cling to a massive al
ligator.
The terrorist reached back with his right hand, grabbing ahold of the hose regulator and pulling it out of Kolt’s mouth. Kolt could see the deformed hand, the one missing two fingers, confirming beyond any doubt that he had found Nadal the Romanian. Kolt reached up with both hands and put a tight kink in the hose before tying a double overhand noose in the hose. A sudden thought flashed in his mind—now I know why SEALs do this kind of training. Kolt grabbed the black knob and turned it hard clockwise, killing the air feed into the primary mouthpiece, just as a SEAL buddy of his had done to him one day while diving off the coast of Newport News. Kolt didn’t think it was funny then, and he knew Nadal certainly wasn’t finding it funny now.
Nadal whipped his head around to the right again. His eyes were wide with fear. Kolt knew that Nadal needed to escape his clutch, or he would die a failure. Kolt kept the pressure on, refusing to relent. He squeezed the scuba tank hard, keeping it to his front, not letting Nadal turn around inside the leg lock. With his right hand, Kolt wrapped the knotted black air hose twice around Nadal’s skinny neck. Arching his back, Kolt pulled the hose as tight as he could.
Kolt tightened his grip as Nadal thrashed to get free. He was fighting longer and harder than Kolt anticipated for someone without oxygen. Kolt knew he needed air, too, but he was more focused on keeping Nadal between himself and the fuel assemblies to manage the radiation dose he was certainly receiving. Water and a human body were excellent shields from deadly radiation. Whether Kolt was receiving a lethal dose or not, they could continue to struggle for another ten seconds, fifteen max, before shallow-water blackout set in.
Kolt sensed the water pressure as a large splash shook the water above him and to his right rear. Something large had fallen into the pool. A body, the body of a security officer, or maybe the terrorist Kolt had exchanged a few mags with on the fuel deck earlier had joined the party. Just past the sinking man, small white spotlights criss-crossed above the water’s surface. As the body sunk deeper and deeper, Kolt recognized the lifeless body of the other terrorist, blood contaminating the water near his back and left leg.