mouthed.
Brock shrugged. 'Go for it!' he shouted.
Fitzduane handed grenades to Lonsdale and Cochrane. They looked at him.
'All together,' said Fitzduane. 'FOUR, THREE, TWO…'
The three grenades arced through the air. Two landed inside the gun emplacement.
Four terrorists erupted from their position, guns blazing. Concentrated fire from Scout Platoon cut them to pieces. Smoke from the three signaling grenades filled the air.
Choking, Fitzduane dashed forward.
The steel door had represented a possible escape for its guardians. It was unlocked. He pulled the heavy lever and the door swung open.
He hugged the left side of the door frame. Green, purple, and yellow smoke was making the place untenable. If anyone was on the other side, they would fire into the smoke. Probably.
Or maybe if they were smart and professional, they would wait and try to pick out some kind of a human shape. But it would not really be savvy to wait. Any attacker clever enough to get this far would throw in stun grenades.
If anyone was inside, they should be firing by now.
'On your right,' said Lonsdale from the right side of the door frame.
'Ready,' said Cochrane's voice from behind Lonsdale.
'GO!' snapped Fitzduane.
Rows of cylinders behind a double steel grid faced them. A door on the right wall led down to the command bunker. It was closed and of the same size and mass as the kind of construction used in bank vaults.
The room itself was empty.
They examined the door. It was not just locked. It was secured as if part of the structure. There was not a hint of how it might be opened. The entire locking mechanism must be located on the other side.
'You say the magic word and this substantial chunk of real estate swings open,' said Lonsdale. 'You go down two flights of metal stairs. You are faced with another blast door and you knock politely. It, too, swings open and there is Oshima, a smile on her face and her arms open in welcome.' He paused. 'Or then again, maybe not. Either way, I don't think a foot in the right place is going to achieve much. This fucking thing is built.'
Close examination showed that the problem did not end with the door. The whole wall seemed to be of similar strength, and the joins were so finely machined there was no place to pack explosive.
'We can huff and puff,' said Cochrane, or we can go and get a cup of coffee while the combat engineers make with the plastic. This is safe blowing. This isn't a job for clean-living amateurs.'
Fitzduane rubbed his chin. Oshima had learned much of her trade from the Hangman. The Hangman always had an escape route, and a few surprises for unwelcome visitors.
He switched his gaze to the cylinders of nerve agent. How many should there be?
'We hold here,' he said.
Twenty feet below Fitzduane, Oshima's hand was poised above the firing button. The two keys were already in position and had been turned. The firing release code had been entered. The supergun was fully charged with hydrogen and helium and was ready to fire.
She hesitated. If only she had more time. One missile would accomplish so little compared to what could be done. Now when she fired, the attacking paratroops would certainly assault the supergun valley and there would be no time to reload.
This would be one single gesture of hate, not the orchestrated campaign she would have liked.
Could Carranza's force make the difference? Possibly, but unlikely.
Never wait until the last minute, the Hangman had said. Society is corrupt. People are venal. You will always be presented with other opportunities. They will hand you the very weapons you need to destroy them. In their avariciousness and ignorance they arm their very enemies.
Strike without pity and disappear. Prepare your escape route in advance, and when they think they have you, hurt them.
The confusion will aid your escape. When they are close and think they have you they get careless. They always do. You bait the trap and they will enter it and be destroyed. But don't be greedy. Don't stay and watch. Never wait until the last minute.
Jin Endo would be coming with her and five others. Enough to fight a rear-guard action if needed. Enough to distract and confuse, yet a small enough group to evade detection.
Six others in the command bunker would not be leaving. They had served their purpose. If left unharmed they might have attempted to interfere with the nerve-gas mechanism. Their throats had been cut as they sat in front of their consoles, and the air was thick with the smell of their blood.
The two cylinders sat linked to the dispersion unit. A timer was attached, ready to be activated. When their attackers broke in, the entire command bunker would be flooded with nerve agent, and with luck it would spread throughout the complex and to the attacking troops beyond.
But she would have to be well away by then. So really there was no good reason to wait.
Oshima mentally counted down, preparing herself for the shaft of flame as the huge weapon hurled its projectile toward Washington, D.C. In her mind she could see the path of the missile as it shot out of the supergun barrel, climbed up into the stratosphere, and then curved gracefully down toward its target below. How long would it take? A few minutes, no more.
As the missile neared its destination, a pressure-controlled mechanism would activate the two cylinders of gas. They would blend and become a liquid horror. The dispersion unit would cut in and the air over the capital of the most powerful nation in the world would fill with a vast cloud of nerve gas.
Invisibly the deadly miasma would float toward the ground.
It would be hours before the Americans would realize they had been hit, and by then it would be too late. Everywhere people would start dying. They would die at work, they would die at home. Senators and congressmen would collapse as they spoke. Lobbyists would spit blood as they advanced their causes. Policemen would die as they patrolled the streets. Prisoners would puke their guts out as they lay behind bars.
Across the Potomac, the military in the Pentagon would be hit and would be powerless to respond.
In Arlington and Rosslyn and a score of suburbs, citizens would drink the contaminated water and be affected. Ice cubes would kill. The touch of a hand or the gentlest of kisses would kill. The air itself, the very grass you walked on, the ventilator in your automobile. All would kill.
The cameras concealed throughout the supergun valley had audio pickups as well as visual. Oshima wanted to savor every detail. She heard the klaxon sound and saw the gun crew put on ear protectors and scurry for cover in the firing bunker.
The supergun was a truly massive weapon, and as Oshima looked at the monitors, she was entranced by the sheer destructive potential of such power. And you could make one of these things out of microfiber-reinforced concrete. The implications were exhilarating.
The countdown in Spanish commenced. 'Five – Four – Three – Two – One – FIRE!'
The last word issued in a triumphant shout and then repeated by Oshima. 'FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!'
There was the expected thunderclap of explosions, but the sight Oshima actually witnessed strained her credibility.
The entire supergun, all 656 feet and 21,000 tons of it, blew apart in a rippling roaring thundering inferno of flame and destruction that was the most powerful explosion that Oshima had ever seen.
The structures in the valley were swept away as if by some Devil's breath.
The glass-fronted bunker containing the terrorist firing team – set across the divide of the valley – was hit by the blast wave and shattered as vast lumps of flying matter smashed into it.
For the next few seconds, the sky rained pieces of the supergun and a thick cloud of dust and debris stained the sky.
And then there was a dreadful silence.
'Fitzduane- san!' hissed Oshima, the hate thick in her voice.
