The Sector

by Kari Nichols

  “Warp!”

  “About time you got here,” Warp smiled.

  Tank unlatched the straps tying his arms and legs to the bed. Looking to the tray beside the bed, he saw the needle lying there. It was still full.

  “How many are left?” Tank asked.

  “Twelve. We lost four men before we left Godin’s island in the south.”

  Tank walked through the rest of the infirmary, checking for the man who had run. He saw the drops of blood on the floor and followed them to a spot between the last two beds.

  Warp walked up behind him. “Did the little fucker get away?”

  “It looks like he had a bolt hole. We’ll find him,” Tank promised. He led the way back out of the infirmary and turned to the left, to the door at the end of the hallway. Running his keycard through the reader, the lock popped. Entering the short hallway, Tank unlocked the next door and opened it.

  Jail cells lined both sides of the narrow hallway. In the nearest cells on the left, the remaining men from TA-4 stood chained to the walls. Their clothes in tatters and denied the use of decent bathroom facilities, the stench rising up from the interior of the cell was enough to knock over a buffalo.

  Tank pulled out the keys he’d lifted from Wilmer before they’d left the lab. He tried three before he found the key that unlocked the cells. Unlocking the prisoners one by one, they each left the cell before stopping to flex their wrists and ankles, to regain proper blood flow.

  Tank led the way through the lab. “Tate,” he whispered over the common channel.

  “Here,” she replied.

  “I’ve got the prisoners.”

  “Meet us in the main hallway,” she ordered him as she pulled the door to Pleski’s lair open. Bullets pinged off the metal. Tate dove to the side, the stitches in her arm and belly pulling at the sharp movement. She spared a quick glance down the hall and groaned. Their presence was no longer a secret and it looked as though Godin had called in a full squadron of reinforcements. They were crowding the south hallway that led down to the desalination plant, moving toward the main hallway.

  “Unfriendlies at twelve o’clock!” Tate yelled. She readied her grenade launcher and rolled back to the entrance, fired and continued to roll by. Gibson didn’t wait for her grenade to explode before he added his own. Jimmy ducked out of the room and headed to the left, toward Godin’s office. Gibson ducked out and headed to the right.

  “Emily, stay here with Natalia until we clear the way,” Tate ordered before she ducked out of the room and joined Gibson. Emily managed to get the door closed without getting shot. She moved Natalia into the back room.

  Tank thundered down the hallway with Hancock and TA-4 right on his heels. As he neared the entrance to the main hallway, the door to the laundry room whipped open and soldiers poured out. Jimmy, alone on the east side of the mass of Russian soldiers, was outnumbered. He ducked down behind a small stack of crates. Bullets tore through the wood and packing material, shattering the containers within. Formaldehyde leaked onto the floor.

  “Coming up behind you, Jimmy,” Tank called out as he exited the side hallway and started shooting. The barrage of bullets aimed at Jimmy stopped. He stepped out from the crates and added his firepower to Tank’s, forcing the remaining soldiers back through the laundry room door. Grabbing an incendiary grenade from his pack, Tank pulled the pin and tossed it into the laundry. “Fire in the hole!” he announced over the radio.

  The explosion reverberated off the walls of the complex, deafening in the close confines of the hallway. Tank motioned for Hancock to follow him as he ducked into the laundry room. The main room housed the washers and dryers. Tank used a charred set of stacked washers for cover. His rifle spewed bullets at the few remaining soldiers. Hancock stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

  A grenade came whizzing through the air at them. Tank leapt away from the wall. He slid across the folding table and ducked down on the far side. Hancock slipped on some spilled soap. The grenade bounced into the corner, a few feet away from him. Scrabbling away, his hands slipping in the soap, Hancock knew he wasn’t going to get to safety. Rolling into a tight ball, Hancock covered his head with his hands.

  The grenade exploded and the fireball whooshed out in every direction. It wasn’t a frag grenade. Hancock felt the searing heat against the back of his hands. Lying flat, he rolled across the floor. The soap helped douse the flames that licked at his legs and back. He cleared the end of the table and stopped next to Tank.

  Tank checked Hancock over for any major wounds. Aside from the burns to his hands, he was unharmed. If the Russians had tossed a frag grenade, Hancock would have been perforated. There was silence from the far end of the room. Standing up, Tank saw that the door leading to the smaller linen area was closed.

  Expecting another grenade, Tank approached the door with caution. Stepping to the side of the door, he motioned for Hancock to open it. Hancock gripped the handle and pulled the door open, keeping his body behind it. Tank had an unobstructed view into the smaller room.

  It was empty. The Russians had retreated from the laundry room to join their comrades in the main hallway. Tank stepped through the doorway and crossed the room to the last door. Repeating the same process, Hancock opened the door and remained behind it. Tank stepped out into the hallway near the desalination plant.

  A small group of soldiers exited the barracks. Tank opened fire. Hancock slipped from the room and tossed a grenade into the middle of the group. His was a frag grenade. Unable to get away in time, the detonation ripped the Russian soldiers to shreds.

  Warp exited the hallway with no body armor and no weapons. With Tank and Hancock in the laundry room holding part of the Russian force at bay, Jimmy focused his weapon on the soldiers coming up the south hallway. Warp remained behind Jimmy until he was close enough to reach the enemy with his hands. The Russian soldier didn’t see Warp until it was too late. Warp whipped his arm around the man’s neck and yanked him off his feet. Snapping the man’s neck, Warp pulled his gun from his shoulder and stepped up next to Jimmy.

  He didn’t have any body armor, but he would worry about that later. Tate had exited Pleski’s office before the Russians could get the bulk of their men out of the south hallway. Forced to engage the enemy is such close confines, the Russians were at a distinct disadvantage and they knew it. As the Russian soldiers fell, the remaining members of TA-4 stripped them of their weapons. Soon, Tate’s army of three became an army of fifteen.

  Simon entered the main hallway to the complex and had to duck as stray gunfire peppered the walls around him. Standing to one side, he assessed the situation. He recognized Gibson and then saw Tate nearby. To Simon, it appeared as though it was two against a horde. Tate had tucked herself into a small alcove. She used the thick rock for cover. Gibson stood ten feet further down the hallway. He had moved some boxes away from the wall to act as a shield.

  His M4 fully loaded and set to 3-round bursts, Simon stepped into the ring. Standing across the hallway, near the mess hall door, he opened fire. Gibson gave a quick shoulder check at the new attack. He recognized Simon straight away. Pointing to his radio, he held up four fingers. Simon changed his radio to match.

  “We’ve got men on the far side of that horde,” Gibson explained.

  “Understood,” Simon replied.

  The door to the mess hall crashed open. A stream of Russian soldiers exited the room. The suppressive force of their gunfire pushed Tate back into her alcove. The men coming up from the south hallway advanced toward her. Aiming at their legs, to avoid the body armor, Tate dropped three soldiers before her gun ran dry.

  “I’m out!” she called over her radio. Tucking into her alcove, she dropped the empty magazine and slammed in a full one. Expecting a large contingent of soldiers to have moved in even closer, Tate was surprised to see their numbers were thinning.

  Gibson stepped out from his cover to attack the force exiting the mess hall. The Russians focused their attention on Gibson
and Tate. They didn’t see Simon standing close enough to touch. When Simon fired on them, he was near enough to make it point blank range. Gibson fired a grenade into the mess hall. The soldiers at the tail end of the attack took the brunt of the explosion. They had had nowhere to go.

  “We’re breaking through,” Tate called out over the radio. She killed the last man in front of her and then stepped up next to Jimmy. The enemy guard’s numbers were dwindling. She’d taken a glancing blow from one of them and she knew that Gibson had a flesh wound on his left thigh, but otherwise they were unscathed.

  Gunfire from the back of the enemy guard’s pack meant that Tank had worked his way through the laundry and into the south hallway at the far end. With a two-pronged attack, the enemy had no other recourse. They continued to fire, unwilling or unable to surrender, not that Tate was taking any prisoners.

  With her team rounded up, she turned to the newcomer. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “He’s Simon Elliott,” Gibson responded before Simon could answer.

  Tate could see the tense look on Warp’s face. Here was the man he’d been chasing when his team had been captured. Warp had lost a few men in the battle against Godin. Before his apparent animosity could bubble over, she asked Simon what had gone wrong with his initial mission.

  “Blackburn had no reason to splinter me,” Simon said. “I hadn’t even gotten to my first checkpoint, never mind missed it, when they activated my locator.”

  For Sector Agents, a checkpoint was established at each major section of the mission. Failing to meet a checkpoint put an Agent on watch. Failure to meet two consecutive checkpoints resulted in the activation of their locator. If the Agent failed to meet the next checkpoint they were marked as splintered and a Task Force team was sent to eliminate them. Given the nature of the business and an Agent’s need to work as autonomously as possible, the first checkpoint was placed at an area that was outside the target of the mission. There should be no need for an Agent to miss their first checkpoint.

  Emily, who’d left Pleski’s office with Natalia once the shooting had stopped, asked how he could have known that his locator had been activated so early into the mission.

  “A friend pulled the ID from it and set up a GPS transponder to signal me when it was activated,” Simon admitted.

  “That’s illegal,” she replied. “If they had found out, they would have executed you.”

  “They already had that in motion, didn’t they?” Simon responded.

  Emily nodded, conceding the point.

  “We can’t stay and chat, we’ve got work to do,” Tate interrupted. She split the newly outfitted TA-4 into two groups. One group went with Tank down to the garrison to clear it out. She partnered the remainder of the team with Hancock. “Hancock, head for the shipping cavern and give Braddock a hand with that shitstorm he’s created. If you can kill that sub, do it. Druid’s team gets another twenty minutes, tops, to set those charges. The rest of us will deal with Godin.”

  ***

  Fargo ran down the narrow ledge along the north wall of the submarine tunnel. At six feet tall and two hundred and fifty pounds, he was stocky and well-muscled. The narrow ledge forced him to turn sideways as he worked his way along. He stopped at the far end, where the cavern opened up to the Kara Sea. With the ship in berth #2 now off to his right side, he had a clear shot at the propane tanks. The ledge wasn’t wide enough to allow for sitting. Detaching the bipod and stowing it in his pack, he tucked the rifle under his arm. Scraping the stock against the wall behind him, he leaned forward to avoid the interference with his aim. Sighting down the long length of the barrel, he lined up his shot.

  “Watch your backs, boys, things are going to get a little toasty,” he whispered over the radio before squeezing the trigger.

  His bullet traveled the entire expanse of the cavern in less than a few heartbeats, pierced the wall of the propane tank and ignited the fuel inside. The tank exploded like a popcorn kernel bursting from its casing. Fire ballooned outward, engulfing the cab of an oncoming flatbed truck. A reflexive action caused the driver to step on the gas, ramming his truck into the remains of the propane tank. The truck’s gas tank ignited in a smaller fireball, pushing the flames into the cargo area.

  One group of soldiers nearest the wharf broke ranks and rushed down the dock to the nearest speedboat. Throwing the lines and pushing off, they fired up the boat and headed for the cavern entrance. Fargo followed the boat through his sights for a few seconds before pulling the trigger. His auto-loader fed a second bullet into the chamber and he fired that, too. His first bullet, aimed low, pierced the hull near the front and carried on through the boat. It met further resistance when it struck one of the soldiers in the leg. Half of its force already spent, the bullet still managed to rip the leg apart just below the knee. Blood spurted up in a high arc as the man fell over the seat into the far back of the boat. Dead weight, and likely to be dead soon, the soldier next to him rolled him over the edge of the boat and into the water.

  The second bullet cut through the side of the hull and glanced off the steering column, forcing the boat into a tight right turn. The driver attempted to force the steering to respond, but only managed to lessen the angle of the turn a little. Looking up from the wheel, he saw the gleaming hull of the ship in berth #2 directly in his path. The driver panicked and dove overboard, the rest of the soldiers quickly followed.

  The boat slammed, nose first, into the hull of the freighter. The sharp point of the bow created a hole in the hull that widened as the speedboat’s inertia pushed it inside the forward bulkhead of the container ship. Water poured in, dousing the fire from the speedboat. The bulkhead sealed shut, containing the water in the forward section of the ship.

  “I don’t think that ship will be going anywhere for a while,” Fargo whispered over the wire.

  ***

  Finn was getting frustrated and a little worried. He’d been watching the progress that Tate’s team had made and wondered when Godin would make a move on them. Even though she’d been outnumbered in the main hallway, she’d outclassed Godin’s soldiers. Finn could tell they hadn’t had a good enough plan. There were three possible exits from the south hallway and most of the soldiers had been corralled in the middle. Anyone up for a game of ducks in a barrel, he thought?

  Godin had over fifty soldiers in the shipping port but they were fighting their own battle. Finn couldn’t tell how many people Tate had out there, but they’d created a fucking mess. The east wall had blown up and a fire engulfed half the port. The ship in berth two listed a little to one side. The containers still on board, unstrapped in preparation for offloading, were now sliding across the deck and over the side.

  The cavern warehouse appeared to be business as usual, but with Tate on site, Finn didn’t think that would last very long. Yet he’d heard nothing from Godin’s office. If Godin had a plan to salvage the island, he needed to get on it, now.

  Finn wasn’t worried about his own safety. No one could get inside his lair. He’d seen to that himself. Aside from the electronic measures that Finn had taken, Morrison had ensured that the inside was constructed of six-inch steel plates. Concrete had been injected in between the plates and the rock wall, before the roof had been added.

  Finn didn’t trust Godin not to enforce another evacuation. This time he didn’t think the man would wait until all of his people were out before abandoning ship. In addition to the reinforcements he and Morrison had added to the room, Finn had also commissioned the services of one of the blasting technicians to create a back exit from his office. A rough passage had been bombed out of the rock, leading from his office to the large tunnel that led to the shipping port. Straight across the tunnel on its opposite side was another doorway. It led to a passage that continued through the rock until it exited into the submarine tunnel. A rock path had been created to allow single-file travel through the submarine tunnel to the entrance of the shipping port.

  The technician who had crea
ted his escape hatch had timed his bombs to explode while the blasting of the main complex was underway. The reverberations of the smaller blasts were too muffled for the other techs to discern over the much larger blasting for the cavern warehouse. Once the passages had been completed, Finn had sent Morrison after the technician and his three workers. He’d killed them all, stuffed them into weighted body bags and then tossed them over the side of the rock path, into the submarine tunnel.

  Finn’s escape plan only worked to get him as far as the shipping port. If the submarine had already left when he got there, he would be screwed. If he didn’t hear from Godin soon, he would vacate the premises and linger closer to the submarine.

  Chapter 20

  Hancock and TA-4 headed for the entrance to the shipping port. Weapons raised, Hancock pulled the door open and walked into the fray. Tucking in beside the office, he surveyed the area, searching for Braddock. Spotting the submarine lurking in the water at the north end, Hancock assigned a two-man detail to approach her. “Sink her if you have to,” he ordered them.

  Returning his attention to the mess on the main dock, he couldn’t see Braddock. “We’re here,” Hancock whispered over the radio, “but where are you?”

  “I’m in the rows along the south wall.” The containers were stacked four high on steel risers that were bolted into the wall. A pass-through had been placed halfway down and at the far end of each row. Braddock had ducked inside to lose a tail and had worked his way through by using the passages and by climbing the risers. “I feel like I’m trapped inside an IKEA looking for a fucking couch,” Braddock whispered back.

  Hancock stepped around the office and headed for the risers.

  ***

  “No,” Nicolai said, stepping up beside Vlad and pushing the gun away from Godin’s head. “Don’t finish him. Give him something to think about for a while.”