Headlights splashed the walls, the noise deafening as the vehicle came into view.
Mac didn’t hear the M4. The LandCruiser tore past, Sawtell and the boys running out of their hiding and sprinting after it. Suddenly the LandCruiser piled into the concrete wall. It ground and twisted, the engine whined, someone’s foot heavy on the gas. Fitzy was fi rst there. He leapt to the footplate, Beretta in hand, leaned in the window, killed the engine. The rest got to the LandCruiser and Sawtell wrenched the driver’s door. A Filipino man in jeans and T-shirt fell out onto the concrete, a single bullet between the eyes.
The lads picked him up and put him on the LandCruiser’s fl atbed.
Spikey got in the driver’s seat, started it up and reversed out. Fitzy opened the passenger door and fi reman- lifted the other body to the fl atbed. Mac couldn’t see a mark on him, then realised the M4’s round had gone through his right eyeball.
Mac and Paul went through pockets, looked at labels, checked out footwear and dental work. Though soldiers found it distasteful, for a spook it was their trained reaction.
Paul found some money and Mac retrieved a wedding ring on a neck chain. The dead men were both heavy- set, early thirties. Southern Filipino was Paul’s verdict.
Mac asked Paul how he knew.
‘Teeth like a Maori or Samoan,’ said Paul, smiling and tapping on his own front teeth. ‘Like all the best-looking blokes.’
Spikey drove and Jansen rode shotgun, the suppressor still on his M4.
They backed up to the crossroad and reversed into the right arm.
Dumped the bodies in the dark.
Sawtell keyed Gordie again. Gordie’s guys had nailed a couple of the thugs, and had three of them bound and gagged in the quarters they’d found them in. Mac hadn’t heard a thing.
Sawtell asked Gordie to secure the tunnel all the way up to the entrance and see if there was a way to open the front gates of the thing. Then he stood on the back of the LandCruiser and said to Mac,
‘Might have to split up if this place divides into different sections.
You’ll take Paul and Fitzy, okay?’
Mac nodded. ‘What’s the VX look like?’
‘Know it when you see it. Olive drab, hundred-pound bomb.
Three fi ns. Oh, and McQueen, no shoot-outs round the nerve agent, huh?’
Mac nodded. He’d prefer no shoot-outs at all.
Sawtell hit the driver’s roof and Spikey gunned the diesel, turning right and accelerating further into the tunnel system. After two minutes they drove up to another large door on the right side of the tunnel and Spikey killed the engine, rolling it to a stop short of the door.
Sawtell hit the concrete, fi nger to his lips. The men followed.
Fitzy circled round behind Sawtell to his left and took point, walking through the door with the M4 shouldered. Advancing like that had the practical advantage of being able to pick off tangos as you walked.
But it was also psychological; any adversary with even basic training would know this was a guy who knew what he was doing.
Fitzy’s gun spat. A three-shot burst at one angle. Then he changed angle like a robot and let blast another three-shot. He leapt back behind the doorframe as a barrage of assault rifl e fi re burst through the door, taking chunks of concrete out of the opposite wall. Sawtell was on his wrong side, left-hand fi ring. He called up Manz, a leftie.
More gunfi re came through the open door, taking out the light hanging from the ceiling. There was still a light on in the gold room.
Manz was now on Mac’s side of the door, Fitzy on the other.
They shouldered weapons then Fitzy counted them in: three, two, one…
They stepped half a pace into the fi ring line, executed what to Mac’s ears was a perfect symphony of three- shot take-outs, their heads rock-steady, their eyes lined up with their sights. Only their M4s moved up and down, with the shoulders and head following as one whole set-piece. It took huge skill to keep perfect form and composure while you did what Manz and Fitzy had just done.
Cordite hung. Silence.
Sawtell and Spikey moved in between the shooters, weapons shouldered, Mac and Paul in behind them. They fanned out. Five Filipinos lay on the concrete, blood on gold, only one still alive. An older bloke, in orange ovies. He dragged himself up, leaned against a pallet of bullion, blood pouring out of his chest, changing the ovies to purple. He didn’t seem to notice.
Magazines were pulled out and pushed in. Breeches cleared, hands checked for load.
Paul walked up. Rattled off something in Tagalog.
‘He’s ex-army,’ Paul said to Sawtell. ‘Heard about this gig through his cousin. Pay’s okay, food’s okay. Could have done without the lead poisoning.’
‘He know where our bomb is?’
Paul asked but the guy shrugged, then spoke.
‘He says the command is down the end. There’s something in a big green tote bag. Takes two men to carry it,’ said Paul. ‘He says the command complex is another quarter of a mile into the mountain.’
A raised voice came from the door. ‘Sir, got company,’ said Fitzy.
Mac was glad for the distraction. From the Vietnam War era, the Green Berets had a reputation for an aggressive interviewing style.
Mac didn’t want Spikey to dip into that kit of his for a whole new set of reasons. Mac had been watching how these guys worked. They were intense and instinctive like a pack of wolves, coalescing round their alpha dog. If Sawtell decided the injured bloke was bullshitting, all it would have taken was a nod from the captain and they’d have torn him up like a two of spades.
They paused at the door, Mac’s fi nger slippery on the safety. Paul’s face had a new glow. Through the nose tape and the black eye Mac could see he liked this stuff. Most blokes with a gunshot wound would have been lying in MMC, goosing the nurses. Mac just liked to achieve his end but real soldiers liked the means too.
Sawtell signalled quiet as they listened to another vehicle approach from inside the mountain. Sawtell keyed the mic and checked on Gordie, who was almost at the mine entry.
Sawtell pointed at the LandCruiser and the men leapt to it. Fitzy pulled the wheel round and the other guys pushed forward, then pushed it backwards into the gold room.
Sawtell pulled most of the men behind the LandCruiser then sent Jansen and Manz – a leftie and an orthodox – to the doorway.
The noise got louder. It was slower than the fi rst vehicle.
Jansen’s M4 spat. Manz’s made more noise. They laid down fi re.
Return fi re came in, louder than God – thwacker, thwacker – tearing off chunks of concrete as big as loaves of bread. The noise was deafening and dust and mortar fi lled the air.
Sawtell moved out to support Jansen as someone yelled, ‘Fuck!
Fifty cal!’
Whoever was out there had brought along a heavy machine gun.
Sawtell tried to get beside Jansen but a whole chunk of the sixty-year-old wall just fell away in a cloud of dust. They ducked, covered in grey dust, pebbles and chunks bouncing off their helmets.
The whole troop moved forward and returned fi re. Mac decided to switch to his left. He could fi re off both hands, even though he didn’t like to do it. Kneeling as the concrete burst around him, a chunk fl ew in his eye. He leaned against Manz’s left leg to get the best angle as a beige Ford F100 pick-up appeared about thirty metres away. It had a belt-fed machine gun mounted on a rail over the cab.
A Filipino in dark red ovies held the thing with two hands, his forearms bunched up with intensity. Every tenth round glowed white through the air.
Three other men with assault rifl es sheltered around the side of the truck. Mac aimed under the truck, at the closest one’s legs. He hit a knee on the fi rst three-shot. The guy dropped, but could still shoot.
Mac hit him again, in the ribs, and he fell to the concrete.
The air was now fi lled with gunfi re. The F100 looked like someone was trying to paint it alloy colour, patch by patch. The machine gun on the truck swung away from Manz for a split second and Manz put a bead in the
