by Rick Jones
As the wind buffeted his face, he could feel the biting chill of the high altitude. But he crawled forward with his hand reaching for a clip that danced just beyond the edge of his fingertips. The line it was attached too snaked through the air as the choppers moved from left to right, then right to left, the vehicles struggling to maintain balance.
Then all the clips raised and lowered, and then they bounced and scratched themselves along the surface, the fasteners waiting for someone to attach themselves. But Kimball had other plans—other motives. All he needed to do was grab a single clip, just one, so that he could attach it to one of the rails along the roofline to moor a chopper.
He drew closer to a clip as it danced before him. The fastener rose and fell with the motion of the chopper it was connected to. He extended his arm, his hand now reaching with the very points, his fingertips touching and grazing the fastener, the steel of the clip cold as he finally closed his fingers around the metal.
And then he slipped, the wind carrying him to the edge. But when the chopper was forced by the wind and nudged to the opposite side, the line also pulled Kimball back to sure footing.
…whump-whump-whump…
Kimball now had the clip and the line it was attached to. But the motion of the chopper swaying away from the rooftop bar pulled the line taut and carried Kimball away from the rail. When the craft finally steadied itself, the line loosened. Now that he had been given the opportunity of a relaxed line, Kimball crawled his way to the car’s edge, took the fastener, and attached it to the sturdy roofline rail, fixing the chopper to the train.
But the opportunity would not present itself for the second chopper.
As the train began to take a slight bend between chasm walls, he saw that it was about to enter a tunnel that had been carved into the mountain’s wall.
That was when the first chopper redirected and went skyward. The attached chopper, however, tried to follow suit, but failed, the line going taut but holding, the filament made of high-end steel built to last.
The chopper seesawed violently from side to side trying to free itself, the tips of its rotor blades coming close to mountain walls, the ends coming to within a few feet of grazing and scraping, a mere touch that would send it into a fiery blaze. But the pilot was skilled, the man poised. The tunnel, however, was edging closer, its maw a dark hollow that was blacker than black, the mouth both hungry and inviting at the same time.
Then the line began to protest as the craft pulled and tugged at the mooring, the line at certain points along its stretch beginning to unravel as the intertwined filaments began to yield to the chopper’s pulling force.
Kimball scrambled back to the ladder and swung himself over the side, then he poked his head topside.
The mountain wall, an immoveable force, coming closer at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour.
The line began to break, the line snapping in places, the hold weakening.
The maw of the tunnel’s opening.
The wall ahead.
And then the line broke, freeing the helicopter.
But it was too late. The line had tugged the chopper along at such speed that it couldn’t slow its course. So when the chopper tried to peel back and pull away, its forward momentum was too great, the vehicle erupting into a ball of fire as it drove itself into the mountainside above the opening, the smoldering debris cooking on the tracks where the chopper had dropped like a stone after impact.
Kimball watched the pieces burn as the train continued its route through the mountain’s opening, the distant flames now a beacon at the end of the tunnel. One chopper down, one to go. He needed to create one-on-one situations to better his odds. But how he was going to juggle all this was beyond him.
Right now he simply had to wing it.
Chapter Thirty-Six
After the explosion, everyone inside the car felt the concussive blast. Bosshart, who’d been forced to his feet and then ushered toward the platform in order to take him topside for extraction, barked his shin against a railing which caused him to cry out in pain.
Everyone immediately surmised that a chopper had gravitated too close to the mountain’s wall, perhaps clipping the tips of the rotor blades that did more than just cripple it, but consumed it entirely in flames.
Then the train became completely immersed in darkness as it rode through the tunnel, the lights automatically kicking on. That was when Che noticed that the commando at the opposite end of the car was missing.
“Where’s Sobong?” he asked.
No one seemed to have a clue, since nobody was allowed to leave their post for any reason.
Che then gestured to Myung Pae to check it out. “He might be examining the effects of the explosion. See if he’s topside.”
Pae nodded and raced down the corridor with the point of his weapon directed in front of him.
Che looked at his watch. They had missed their window of opportunity to get Bosshart topside, a miscalculation of the train’s speed which brought them to the tunnel too soon. Instead of a ten-minute time frame which Operation Scepter’s Rule was based upon, they really had seven. It would be another ten to fifteen minutes before the train finally exited the mountain’s corridor. After that—their descent into Italy, which would bring them closer to the vicinity of radio towers. The major setback in all this, he considered, was the valuable loss of time traveling through the mountain passageway.
“Changes in plan,” Che finally said. Then he pointed to a commando by the name of Jae Tang. “Head forward to the engine compartment and take out all means of radio contact. The train will be exiting the Dead Zone soon, so I want to make sure that any attempts to contact outside sources will be an impossibility. That will buy us additional time. When you’re done, head back for extraction.”
“Copy that.” Tang immediately headed to the train’s forward compartment.
That left three commandos inside G-Car to aid Bosshart to the rooftop—Yeong Che, Kwan Ma and Chul Kae.
Ma continued to hold the canister. Kae waited for orders, since the plan was in transition. And Che waited on Pae to find out why Sobong had left his post.
Inside the tunnel, time suddenly seemed to run eternal.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Freezing cold air.
Darkness.
When Myung Pae closed the door of G-Car behind him and stepped onto the platform that connected G-Car to H-Car, Sobong was nowhere in sight. Looking through the glass pane into G-Car, he saw inquisitive-looking people sticking their heads cautiously around the corners of their roomettes. But Pae ended that when he set off a short, muted burst of gunfire that shattered the window, the heads suddenly ducking back inside.
Pae slowly looked up the ladder rungs as if he was watching the slow trajectory of a rocket. Then: “Sobong?”
Nothing but the sound of the wheels traveling over the rails.
Then again, but louder: “Sobong?”
Silence.
Pae started to take the rungs.
* * *
“Sobong?” And then a moment later but much louder: “Sobong?”
The light that was coming from inside the cars reflected off the nearby walls to provide some measure of lighting to Kimball’s surroundings, though feeble. As the Vatican Knight lay flat against the rooftop, he could feel his hands going numb, so he flexed his fingers to motivate blood flow. In a few seconds, these hands were about to become very important to him since he was about to have company.
Looking to his right, Kimball could see the reflected shadow of a man against the tunnel wall climbing the ladder.
“Sobong?” The man was almost to the top rung.
Kimball recoiled his arm, readying himself to strike.
Just as Myung Pae raised his head above the roofline, Kimball lashed out with a lightning jab that caught Pae off guard. He struck the man on the bridge of his nose, the blow snapping the commando’s head back. Then Kimball immediately grabbed Pae by the edges of his Kevlar vest and hoist
ed him topside.
Pae was dumbstruck for the moment, the man obviously seeing eternal stars that were beginning to dissipate.
Since the roof of the cavern was high enough to stand comfortably, Kimball remained on a bended knee as he grabbed Pae and lifted him close enough to see that the man was Asian through the holes of his mask. “I’ve got questions for you,” Kimball stated through clenched teeth. “And you’re going to answer them.”
Then the train hit a rise on one of the rails, causing Kimball to lose and then correct his balance.
“You understand English?” Kimball asked the man. “Because if you don’t, this is going to be a lot harder on you.”
Pae’s eyes suddenly flared with full recognition, the cobwebs gone. With quick and fluid speed that caught Kimball off guard, he clapped his hands against Kimball’s ears, which caused Kimball to fall back in pain. Pae, seizing the momentum, cried out angrily as he brought both legs up into acute angles and kicked out, the power behind his thrusts knocking Kimball to his back.
Kimball slid along the rooftop, his world suddenly going dizzy. When he raised his head he saw the shadowy figure of Pae carefully working his way toward him while trying to unsling his assault weapon from around his torso.
But Kimball had a weapon of his own, could feel it pressing into his backside as he lay on top of it. But the time to apply its use was not on his side, since Pae was too quick at unslinging his weapon. Just as Pae was about to direct the mouth of the barrel at Kimball, the Vatican Knight swung his leg and undercut Pae’s legs out from under him, the Korean going airborne and slamming hard against the rooftop, the man then sliding to the side of the train until he used his magnetic gloves to stop the skid.
When Kimball tried to get to his feet, the movement of the train in motion knocked him back to his knees. Pae, however, was quick and agile, the commando regaining his footing while swinging the point of his weapon around. Kimball backhanded the barrel aside and threw a straight punch to Pae’s groin area, the man buckling quickly to the roof, his power lost.
Kimball grabbed the man and dragged him close, their faces inches apart. “Who are you people?” he asked.
Pae just looked at him, though his eyes cried out in pain.
“What was inside that canister?” Kimball asked him. Then he thought: Do you even understand me?
Pae continued to clench his teeth, the pain great.
“Talk to me,” Kimball told him.
But Pae had other thoughts, other plans. While Kimball was concentrating on the Asian, Pae reached down with his free hand, undid the strap of his sheath, and closed his gloved hand around the hilt of his combat knife. Then he said something to Kimball in Korean, something Kimball obviously didn’t understand by the way he looked at Pae, and then he brought the knife up.
Its blade had a mirror polish to it, its point wicked and keen. As Pae brought the knife around, Kimball grabbed the man’s wrist, wrenched it hard to snap the bones, and in fluid motion brought his other hand up to catch the knife in midflight by the handle the moment Pae released it. Then he brought the edge of the blade to the Korean’s throat.
“Is this a military extraction?” he asked the man. “Who’s the man you’re trying to remove?”
Pae grit his teeth against the pain of a broken wrist.
“Talk to me.”
Pae did, but in Korean.
“In English.”
Pae’s response was to buck Kimball off him, the commando maneuvering to one side that caused Kimball’s slide to one side, the Vatican Knight not having the aid of magnetic gloves or knee pads to stabilize him. Then as Pae got his knees and tried to exercise the proper movement of his weapon with his good arm, and just as the barrel’s mouth was about to be directed to Kimball’s center mass, Kimball tossed the knife, the weapon slicing its way through the air with its sharpened tip striking true. The weapon entered Pae’s neck and carried on through until the point punched out the backside of his throat. Pae dropped his weapon, the MP7, which Kimball scrabbled to grab before it slid off the rooftop. Bringing a hand to his throat, Pae’s eyes flared as if surprised by his own mortality, and then he began to choke and gag on his own wetness, the sound of him choking on his blood becoming a final rattle in his lungs, a death knell. Slowly, as Pae’s muscles began to loosen, as his life began to escape him, his body went completely limp as he slid off the roof.
That left two dispatched by Kimball’s hand, and four more to go by Kimball’s count.
Still, he had no answers as to who these people were or why they came.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jae Tang was moving quickly through the cars with people either running to their roomettes or submissively taking to the cars with public seating. When he reached the engine compartment, two engineers appeared astonished to see a man in military attire and an assault weapon breach their section. When the master engineer raised a hand to disapprove, that’s when Tang sent off a short burst, the top half of the man’s hand quickly exploding into pieces of gore and bone. A moment later, additional rounds shaved off a portion of the engineer’s head, killing him. When Tang redirected his MP7 on the second man, that engineer pleaded for his life by raising his hands imploringly.
“The radio,” Tang asked him, keeping his weapon trained.
The engineer pointed to a console. There was a mic attached to a cord.
Tang didn’t waste any time. He raised his weapon and pulled the trigger. The compartment lit up with muzzle flashes as bullets smashed into the console and destroyed the radio. It also ruined the train’s mainframe which controlled speed and braking.
The engineer, who was lying against the wall, watched the sparks erupt from the boards. Then he turned at Tang. “You just destroyed the control circuitry to the train. We can’t slow down or stop.”
“Not my problem,” said Tang. Then he pointed his weapon at the engineer, and with a look of indifference, he pulled the trigger. Bullets stitched across the man’s chest and abdomen, the holes blossoming outward from his clothing like the blooming petals of a red rose. And then he exhaled his last breath as his arms went limp by his side.
A moment later, with the train having no way to stop or slow down, Jae Tang made his way back to his team.
Mission completed.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Leviticus and Isaiah headed up the team as they boarded a chopper in Austria, and made their way to the listed coordinates with the support and full backing of Andolf Bauer. They first had to confirm the intent of the command center and determine if the faction was hostile or benign. Secondly, if Emily Bosshart was on the premise, then the team needed to locate, protect, and evacuate with precision.
During the flight to the Austrian border, photos had been pored over and plans of engagement discussed. Suppressed weapons would be used along with edged weaponry, if necessary, to ensure a quiet intrusion.
From that point on the optimum issue was to locate Emily Bosshart, then head for the point of extraction where Andolf Bosshart would be waiting with the chopper pilot.
Since time was minimal, planning the fundamentals of the raid was rudimentary, meaning they had minimal time and lack of information to work with. So the odds of success were lower due to going headfirst into a situation poorly informed, such as to the numbers of the opposition or the level of their skill sets. To sum up a point, going into battle with low vision often spelled failure. And though the Vatican Knights were an elite caste of warriors, they were not infallible.
As the team neared the camp, they flew just above the tree line to avoid any detection, radar or otherwise, and dropped approximately three clicks from the makeshift base.
Leviticus was the first out of the chopper but stayed close. When the rest of the team vacated, he addressed Bauer. “Fifteen minutes to the camp,” he informed him. Then he pointed to his lip mic. “I’ll keep you posted.”
Bauer nodded from the interior of the bay. Though he was a police officer, this type of contac
t with a hostile force was beyond his limits since he was not trained as a Special Forces responder. His job would be to relay data provided by the Vatican Knights through his laptop and an Ismarsat BGAN satellite terminal, which was a mobile workstation that was operational as long as it had a line-of-sight to one of the three geostationary satellites to receive a feed from, then he would have global coverage on a secured line. And once Emily Bosshart had been extracted, he hoped to mine her for enough information to relay to his constituents at the Federal Criminal of Police, and to Interpol.
Bauer looked at his watch and thought: Fifteen minutes in, fifteen minutes back, and who knows how long in between. Then he pointed to his own lip mic. “I know that nothing is ever routine with these types of missions. But if your team is overwhelmed by this search and rescue operation, confirm to me the situation.” What Bauer was telling Leviticus was if the mission became compromised and there was no chance of removing Emily Bosshart from the field of operation, the chopper would vacate the area. Right now they had no confirmation that this was a terrorist faction at all, which had severely limited their resources regarding the use of Special Forces. The camp might be nothing more than a den of thieves or a band of gypsies hiding out. And the guess that Emily Bosshart was among them was just that, a guess.
Leviticus tapped his lip mic once again. “We’ll be close,” he told him. “So there should be no obstruction. If Emily’s there, we’ll find her.”
Bauer nodded. “Get me the confirmation I need to mobilize Special Forces,” he told him. “Once I have the necessary evidence in hand, the SIV will maintain satellite imagery and direct additional teams to converge and neutralize. But get me that child, Leviticus. She might be able to tell us what we need to know about Bosshart, and his intent regarding the vials within that canister.”