There was no reply. Turning, he looked up at the west rim of the crater. Shihadeh al-Ali should be up there.
“What’s the matter?” Feng asked.
“We may be under attack.”
Feng smirked. “By who?”
“The enemy, obviously. The Americans. Three of my sentries are missing.”
Feng’s face went blank, and he drew his pistol from his holster. “What … are your intentions?”
Azhar knew exactly what Feng was asking. The final bomb was not yet assembled completely, but the other nine were, and they were planted, awaiting only the radio signal from a remote location. If those nine weapons were detonated now, everyone along the Cumbre Vieja would die — including Feng.
The Aramco employees had no idea what the boreholes were for, were completely unaware that their lives now hung in the balance. Azhar’s fedayeen had sworn to die at his orders. Feng, however, wanted to live. Azhar suspected that if he said he was going to set off the bombs, Feng might well shoot him on the spot.
“We will fight, of course,” Azhar replied. “The remote detonator is not yet in place.”
He thought for a moment. He didn’t trust Feng or Feng’s associates. Operation Wrath of God would not have been possible without Chinese money and influence, but the man was in it for reasons of his own, reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with uniting the Islamic world in jihad. He’d been using the Jaish-e-Mohammad for his own agenda from the start.
Which was fine, since JeM had been using him as well — and now, Azhar could use Feng to draw out the enemy. If American forces were already up there on the crater rim, they would never let the helicopter escape.
Azhar added, “You can, if you choose, escape in the helicopter.”
Feng was looking about the crater rim wildly. “Yes. Yes. I could set off the weapons, if you wish.”
Azhar reached into the nearly empty suitcase. Inside was a remote control with a single button.
“Very well. You will need a clear line of sight to all of the craters in the Cumbre Vieja, and you will need to be at least five miles away … no, make that ten, if
Nodding, Feng accepted the controller, turned, and began jogging up the trail toward the upper crater.
Azhar’s men were running in from several directions now. Kneeling by the bomb, he pointed at the cave. “There! See if the enemy is there!”
His men charged toward the entrance to the lava tube.
Dean raised his hand, stopping Lia at the entrance to the cave. “Wait a sec!” Carefully, he peered around the boulders framing the left side of the opening. A dozen armed men were charging toward them, running flat out. Raising his rifle to his shoulder, he flipped the selector switch to three-round burst, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.
One of the running fedayeen crumbled and fell. The others dropped to the ground, firing wildly. Full-auto rounds chirped and howled off rock above Dean’s head.
“Ilya!” he called. He hoped the surrounding rock walls weren’t blocking Akulinin’s signal. “Ilya, do you copy?”
“Right here, buddy. Keep your head down. One forty mike-mike surprise package on its way.”
A moment later, an explosion erupted fifty yards away, behind the attacking fedayeen and near the drilling rig. A few seconds after that, a second round detonated, this one squarely among the Tangos. Dean heard a shrill scream, saw a body flying with the gout of cinder, smoke, and fragmented rock.
He loosed another burst toward the attacking troops. “Ilya! We’re inside the tunnel mouth! They have us trapped! Can you lay down some smoke, let us get out of here?”
“On the way.”
Another 40 mm grenade burst on the crater floor, between the tunnel entrance and the drilling rig. White smoke erupted from the canister, boiling into the sky, creating a smoke screen between Dean and Lia and the attacking JeM soldiers.
“Let’s go!” Dean told Lia, and the two darted into the open, hunched over, running hard.
Ilya Akulinin broke open the M203 grenade launcher attached to his M4 carbine, ejected the empty cartridge, and slipped a fresh bluntnosed grenade into the receiver. The enemy was just about at the maximum effective range for the weapon—160 yards — but the shot was tricky because he was shooting
He didn’t want to correct too far, however, or he would risk hitting Charlie and Lia. He snapped the receiver shut on the second smoke grenade, took aim, and fired. The weapon gave a solid thunk as it fired, and the round burst close beside the first. The bottom of the crater’s bowl was beginning to fill with thick white smoke.
“Amber Four! Amber Four! Negative on the smoke! Repeat, negative on the smoke!”
Calmly, Akulinin reloaded with a third smoke grenade, took aim, and fired. As the round burst in the crater below, he said, “Amber One, this is Amber Four. Did not copy. Please repeat.”
“Amber Four, cease smoke! Cease smoke! You’re screwing the laser lock!”
Ambers One and Two, some two hundred yards south of Akulinin’s position, were using a tripod-mounted GLTD II, a small and lightweight ground laser target designator, to illuminate the base of the drilling rig for the incoming Firestorm strike. Smoke, however, blocked the laser light.
Akulinin glanced at his watch. Firestorm was still seven minutes out. The smoke ought to clear within a couple of minutes.
Plenty of time …
Dean knelt at the bottom of the gully, his rifle against his shoulder. A thick clump of pine trees and a tangle of large rocks provided a good firing position.
“Climb straight to the top,” he told her. “Ilya’s up there, among those rocks.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Right behind you.
White smoke drifted heavy and opaque at the bottom of the crater, like thick fog. A shadow, upright and moving, began to materialize ahead, and Dean put a three-round burst into it. At least, he thought as the shadow twisted and fell, he had the comfort of knowing that anything moving in that cloud would be a hostile. He didn’t need to worry about inflicting friendly-fire casualties.
He heard the Tangos calling to one another — whether in Arabic or a Pakistani language, he wasn’t sure. He stayed in position, listening to the sounds of Lia’s clamber up the rugged slope fade. “Ilya?” he called. “Lia’s on her way up the gully. Don’t shoot her by mistake.”
“Copy that, Charlie. I’m not shooting. I can’t see shit in the crater. And Amber Four told me to stop making smoke.”
“Just sit tight and take care of Lia.”
“She okay?”
“Seems to be. Don’t piss her off, though. I just saw her kill a guy with her bare hands.”
“So much for rescuing damsels in distress.”
“Roger that.”
Another shadow appeared, and Dean shot it down.
Lia was well on her way up the 160-foot-high slope. Somewhere out there in the smoke, someone had a small nuclear weapon, but there was no way Dean could find him, or do anything about the nuke. That job was best left to Firestorm, now … six minutes out.
