construction, with tools, wiring, and lumber strewn about.
An unexpected, high-pitched whine was barely audible in the silence. “We’ve got contact,” Beth said while Swanson was opening still another storage room. They both ducked into the darkness and closed the door, keeping their weapons ready. The whining came closer and passed them by, then stopped. A door opened down the hall; there were slow footsteps, and a grunt and a scrape as something was moved. Ledford flicked on her flashlight and shone the beam around. Boxes were everywhere, and she knelt to read the black printing. She took a quick, sharp breath, then snapped off the light when the whine resumed, suddenly closer and louder.
It passed by again, heading the other way, and Swanson eased the door open and spotted the disappearing rear end of a blue golf cart with a couple of boxes stacked in the rear. The driver wore brown coveralls, but there was no weapon visible. Some civilian worker who had not been looking for anything unusual in this netherworld and had paid no heed to the mixture of grime and blood at the entrance. That sort of luck would not last.
“We’re clear here. Ready?”
“Wait, Kyle. Take a look at this first. Boxes of ammo.” She flashed her light toward the door, found the light switch, and clicked it on, flooding the room with fluorescent brightness. Swanson immediately saw a box with stenciled markings that identified it as a case of 7.62 ? 39 mm ammunition. The room was filled almost to the ceiling with ordnance of various kinds, not just the 7.62 bullets common to the AK-47 but canisters of machine-gun belts, rockets for grenade launchers, and heavy weapons shells.
He took off his pack and placed it on the floor. “This is more like it, Coastie. Your brother and his friends at least discovered storage rooms crammed with ammo and weapons. That alone would prove that this bridge is not just some benign structure built to hurry traffic along the road. If word got back to the U.S., then Washington would start asking uncomfortable questions that Pakistan would not want to answer.”
“Would that really be worth killing them for? Maybe just shoo them away with some cover story, like being a storage area for ammo needed to fight the warlords.”
“Whatever. It’s too good for us to pass up,” he said. “You keep watch while I bury some C-4 in this pile. We can command detonate it later on if we need a diversion.”
While he planted a brick of explosive and readied the detonator, Ledford stood facing the door, and her eyes came to rest on a square metal frame around a piece of paper encased in plastic. She stepped closer. It was a computer-created image that looked like the layout for a subway. “Here’s some kind of map,” she said.
“Grab it,” Kyle said, and Beth used her fingernails to pry the map from its frame, then dropped it beside Kyle to keep her hands free on her weapon.
“I’m done with this,” he said, then shouldered into his pack again and spent an extra minute studying the paper. “It’s a map, all right, like the kind a hotel puts in guest rooms to show escape routes in case of fire. It diagrams the entire floor that we’re on, and it looks like there’s nothing down here but supply and storage areas and that outside exit. An elevator is at the far end of the corridor to ferry things up, and there’s a stairwell just down the hall from here. OK. We’ll head up one level.”
AYMAN AL-MASRI DID NOT go to bed. He would not consider doing so until he heard from Hafiz that all was well. As a veteran security specialist, and responsible for the safety of the Commander, he was uncomfortable with the performance of the Taliban, and Hafiz had seemed uncharacteristically unsure of himself. The odds against two patrols being simultaneously stymied and one destroyed were enormous. Nothing had been heard from them, and now Hafiz himself had not reported in. Thirty minutes had passed. A vague sense of unrest was bothering al-Masri, a feeling that had served him well over the years as an early warning that something was happening; something much worse than a storm.
He left the living quarters to awaken his small group of inspectors and guards and told them to arm themselves. “Troubling things are happening,” he said. “We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into carelessness by the sheer size and apparent strength of this huge fortress, or its electronic wizardry, or the promises made by others that it is safe.”
He paired up bodyguards with each specialist. The structural engineer was ordered to secure an overall detailed map of the maze of tunnels, and the tactical officer was instructed to inspect some gun positions. Al-Masri took the information technician under his own wing. “We are going to find that defense system control room and try to get it back online. If we can get those computers running, they may help us solve the mystery. Hafiz was supposed to do that, but I think he went outside the bridge first and has not returned.”
The team’s physician was instructed to go to the infirmary and make an independent examination of the chief engineer to see if the lunatic might be of any use at all.
Al-Masri’s mood grew more sour with every passing minute that there was no word from beyond the facility. Hafiz might have stammered a bit in their meetings, but there was no doubt of the man’s capabilities; he was one of the best operatives in the ISI, a trained and ruthless fighter with years of experience. So why had he not put this right? The only conclusion was that things must have somehow slipped beyond his control. Some external force was pushing events.
He steered the battery-powered cart, questioning the IT specialist sitting stiffly at his side as they rode along. “I don’t know if I can bring the facility fully online immediately,” the man admitted. “I suspect there are difficult security passwords and firewalls. That biometric scanner means there will even be a problem just getting into the room. It would help if I had access to the chief engineer’s journals and logbooks, for then we could hope that he has written them down. If everything is in his head, as I suspect, we will have serious problems.”
They scooted onto a freight elevator and went down one level to the third floor. The wide doors slid apart, and al-Masri thought he recognized the color codes. “Do you remember how to get to the control room? Isn’t it off to the right from here?”
“Yes, sir. Down at the end of the blue hall.”
The cart accelerated again, but it was still slow. “So instead of getting the entire complicated machine running, I want you to concentrate on the controls needed to shut this place down, just as if it were under attack. I want some way to lock this place up tight.”
The IT man rode silently for a moment. “That also will take some time. Why not just signal that there is a fire, sir? That would not seal off the facility, but it would empty it of all civilian workers.”
Al-Masri smiled. A brilliant idea. He yanked his foot from the accelerator and slammed the brake so hard that the IT man was almost thrown overboard. The cart stopped beside a red box on the wall, clearly marked as a fire alarm. He jumped out and yanked the handle.
SWANSON AND LEDFORD WERE barely at the top of the stairwell when the fire alarm screeched, and the shrieking startled them both. Kyle ran to the first door he saw and burst through it, quickly quartering the area with his weapon although he could see nothing but darkness. Beth came in fast behind and shut the door, breathing hard. The smell of gun oil hung thick in the small space.
In the corridor outside, people ran past their hideout, shouting in various languages. Boots thumped in the stairwell as workers bolted for the exits.
“Did you smell any smoke before the alarm?” Kyle asked.
“No.” She leaned against the wall in the darkness, catching her breath.
“Exactly. Neither did I, so there’s no telling where the fire may be, or even if there is one. Maybe on the far side of the bridge.” He made the decision. “We stay on track.”
He unhooked his flashlight, flicked it on, and pointed it at the wall by door. “Hit the switch, Coastie. Nobody will be looking in here for a while.”
Beth flipped the switch, and bright light immediately bathed the room. “Holy cow,” she stammered, looking past Swanson’s shoulder. “What is
Swanson spun, almost tripping over an Mk-19 grenade launcher mounted on an adjustable platform that was locked in place on a short set of rails. Affixed to the weapon was a forty-eight-round can of 40 mm high-explosive grenades, and the weapon appeared ready to fire. He gave a low whistle of surprise and ran his hand over the familiar shape. Kyle had run thousands of rounds through similar Mk-19s, the reliable American-made grenade launcher that was a staple of the U.S. arsenal because of its heavy firepower and adaptability to various platforms. “This baby can do some damage,” he said. “One of those grenades can punch through two inches of armor, and it’s an infantry platoon’s worst nightmare.”
Beth had to raise her voice to be heard over the alarm. “Yeah. I read the manual, too. But what is it doing in
