at him.
“Then there are hatchways in the floor and ceiling of the closet over there. The top one leads directly into a gun bunker, and the lower one is a service tunnel for wiring and maintenance. From either one, you can get into the tunnels and go anywhere, even beneath the river to reach the east tower, or out into the valley.”
Pounding was heard at the door to the infirmary as the NMO security men shook the handle and tried the locks. Kyle knew they would not stay there long, and the other door would soon be under attack. He had no idea how many enemy troops would be involved.
“Beth, listen to me. The Ospreys are inbound and will land on the helicopter LZ up top, beside the road, in exactly twenty minutes. You know the place?”
Ledford nodded. She had studied the bridge minutely during the recon, and Kyle had pointed out the large flat area. They were going to run into opposition on the way out, but she was confident that she and Kyle would be more than a match for whoever it was. “I’m ready.”
“We split up now. You take this guy and the maps and go through the lower hatch; get to the east tower and go up and out that way. I’m going to stick around and cause some diversions to draw them off.”
“Shouldn’t we stay together, Kyle, to increase our firepower?” She didn’t relish the idea of being on her own.
“Trust me, Coastie. In a few minutes, they will be coming after me with everything they’ve got. The main mission now is to get this guy and his information back to base. Now move. You have twenty minutes, and that’s all. Remember Quantico; don’t miss the pickup, and you go with or without me.”
“Kyle—” she started again, but he cut her off.
“Shut up and do what I just fucking told you. Get him and the intel out of here. If an attack on America is imminent, we’ve got to get him back safely. I’ll run interference. I trust you.”
She looked at him with steady blue eyes, wanting to stay in his zone, while knowing it was inevitable that she had to go out on her own. She wasn’t afraid but had to push down the troublesome question of what she was doing here in the first place.
Al-Attas bristled and turned to Kyle. “I do not take orders from women,” he said.
“In that case, I will just shoot you right now and make our egress a lot easier. We will settle for the information that we already have, that hard drive, and the maps. Don’t think for a moment that you are indispensible. If you give my friend any macho shit on the way out, she has my permission to blow your head off. She never misses.”
“Very well, but I intend to report this rudeness to your superiors.”
“You do that. If any of us live that long.”
AYMAN AL-MASRI LEFT HIS doctor at the infirmary door and sent the bodyguard around to the second entrance, returning to the elevator alone and rising back to the surface. His eyes glowered like burning stones as he looked out at the vastness of the construction area. It was all such a sham, such a waste. The Pakistanis and the Taliban had both promised that it was a fortress for the new age, a place in which Commander Kahn would be totally safe, because no enemy force could possibly breach the bridge and its mighty array of techno-weapons. Those promises were worthless. They had planned on methods to turn away massive assaults, yet a small special operations team had breached all of the security devices and snatched the man who had put it all together. That chief engineer should have been disposed of immediately, for disaster seemed to follow in his footsteps. Now he and his secrets were in the hands of the infidels.
All of the workers were called together again, a mob of shuffling construction men who were physically fit, although most of them were militarily untrained. To motivate them, he announced that the enemy had penetrated deep into the bridge, intending to destroy it and then kill everyone on the site. The suddenly excited men were divided into teams and provided with weapons and radios. There were upwards of forty of them, which should be enough, so he culled out a few European technicians, who were bound and left under guard because they could not be trusted. The rest surged into the tunnels, starting the search at the top of the bridge, then flooding down through the stone passageways. They were already familiar with the maze, not least because they had helped build it. They did not need maps, only leadership.
Al-Masri organized his command post topside, then drank an entire bottle of water while considering his next move.
Once his teams were on the move, and with the likely landing zones pinpointed, al-Masri finally went to his secure radio link to report back to the New Muslim Order headquarters. The conversation was short, and he was firm. Commander Kahn was not to be brought to this bridge, no matter what promises were made. The bridge, he declared, was not a safe digital fortress but little more than a sand castle.
24
KYLE SWANSON WAS FINALLY alone, and his chances of living beyond the next nineteen minutes rested solely on his own shoulders. All he had to do was master a varying formula of time, space, the number of tangos, distance, and direction. The time could be pinpointed, and the opposition force would be adjusted as he went along. Space and distance were unknown factors, because of the labyrinth of confusing corridors and pathways, but he did not need any special talent, not even a compass, to keep going in the right direction; up was always up.
He had total freedom of action and would consider anyone he encountered to be a hostile. Although he knew little about his enemy, they knew less about him, and they would be in his free-fire zone.
There was noise and movement on the far side of the infirmary door, indicating an assault was being prepared. They would probably blow the door and rush into the room. Kyle intended to be long gone by then, although he would leave a clear trail to be followed. He dragged a chair into the closet, pushed open the ceiling hatch, grabbed the edge, did a chin-up, and chicken-winged his elbow into the opening to gain more leverage. He climbed up and out, leaving the chair standing in place over the lower hatch through which Ledford and the engineer had gone. The natural choice for the chasers would be to follow him.
Swanson came up in the dim light of a bunker, beside another fully loaded heavy machine gun affixed to the usual mechanical arms and anchors. He closed the hatch, unsnapped the box of ammunition from the big weapon, and rested it carefully on a fragmentation grenade the size of a baseball. With the box holding down the safety spoon, he pulled out the pin to arm the grenade. Moving the hatch would jar the box, which would detonate the booby trap.
He touched his throat microphone. “Coastie. Can you read me?”
“Barely,” came her huffing reply. “We’re on hands and knees, but the opening to a corridor is just ahead. Mohammad says it will take us under the river. No opposition so far.”
“Eighteen minutes.”
“We’ll be there,” she said and then lowered her voice. “Kyle? He is starting to growl.”
Swanson walked to the exit hatch of the gun bunker, suppressing his natural sniper instincts and training. On any ordinary mission, stealth and hiding were the keys to success, so he would have remained invisible. This time, he not only had to expose his own position but also initiate a running gunfight. That meant sending an invitation that could not be ignored.
The usual laminated map on the door revealed the layout for this section. Elevators were at one end of the
