to where El Mujahid lay in a pool of blood. “Somebody’s going to make a lot of money.”
“Maybe, but they won’t be able to spend much of it. We’ll catch them.”
He snorted. “The DMS might, Captain, but you won’t. And even if they do, what’s it to me? I’m a contract player here. I got no personal stake in this no matter how it turns out, and when the shit really hits the fan I’ll be far, far away in Happily Ever After Land. I’ll bet it won’t even make the papers where I’ll be.”
“I get out of this, kid,” said Top softly, “you’d better keep looking over your shoulder ’cause one of these days I’ll be right there.”
“Wow. I’m really scared.” He jabbed Top again with the gun. “You take a run at me, old man, and I’ll cut off your balls and make you eat them.”
There was a renewed rattle of gunfire from down the hall. Out in the Bell Chamber.
Grace.
Skip smiled. “I’ll bet we can all guess what’s happening out there. Zombie madness, and on national TV. That’s gonna be some real shit. But that’s also my cue to get the hell out of Dodge. A little hysteria is very useful, don’t you think, Captain?”
“For someone who’s supposed to be a cold-blooded killer you’re doing a lot of talking. What’s the problem, Skip? You getting cold feet about capping your teammates?”
He laughed. “Man, that’s precious. You’re right out of Psychology 101. Try to manipulate the emotions of the hostage taker by establishing a bond between him and his captives. Please. No, Captain, I wanted to make sure that I got the chance to get a little payback for you kicking my ass the other day. I’m not huge on the whole forgive-and-forget thing.”
“You want to go another round? Sure. You want to do it hand to hand or are you looking for a knife fight? According to your file you’re quite a hotshot with a blade ”
“Get real. You think I’m an idiot? I know you can take me in a fair fight. Why do you think I’m not fighting fair, asshole?”
“Okay then you have me confused here, kid. What do you have in mind?”
“I want to see you get your ass kicked by someone you can’t take.”
“Oh? And who would that be?”
“Me ” hissed a guttural voice behind me.
I whirled.
El Mujahid stood hulking in the doorway. And, yes, he was dead. Not that it much mattered at the moment. He smiled at me and bared his teeth.
From behind me, in a mocking voice, Skip said, “Now ain’t that a bitch.”
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One
Gault and Amirah / The Bunker
GAULT HAD TO crawl through two access tunnels and climb down four cold metal ladders to reach the very heart of the facility, far below the Bunker. He was making for a set of controls that he’d had built into the Bunker from the beginning, just in case all other options failed. He was careful not to make a sound in case Amirah or some of her creatures-alive or dead-had followed him. It was nearly black down here, with security lights spaced out only every hundred feet, so he had to pick his way. It was also terribly hot down here.
Below the Bunker was a deep drill hole that had punched into a lava stream buried far beneath the desert. The geothermal energy that powered the Bunker was virtually limitless, and a series of six vents-each a half-mile- long segment of reinforced piping-kept the heat converters from building up too much of a charge. If even half of them collapsed the venting would still keep the station safe from a critical overload. But there was a single point where they all joined: a huge vertical shaft that was bored straight down into the cathedral roof of the lava chamber. Superheated gasses rose up into the shaft and then dispersed through the six upward-slanting vents. Heat always rises, and that kept the engines turning and at the same time created a vulnerability because heat could only vent if nothing prevented it. Block the vents-all of them-and the heat would be trapped below the generators. With lava funneling that much heat it would be a matter of minutes before the generators either melted to slag or blew up. In either case it would trip all of the Bunker’s fail-safe devices-protocols that were hardwired into the station’s structure with so many redundancies that even a deliberate attempt to disable them would trigger them. Once triggered the fail-safe would send electrical signals to explosive bolts that would slam every door shut and then burst-weld them into place. The fail-safe system would then start a series of asbestos-coated alloy fans that would take the superheated gasses and blow them into every room and chamber in the Bunker. Gault had designed the Bunker that way to keep his pathogens from escaping. He really did not want to destroy the world. All he wanted was to become the richest man in it.
He crawled along the tunnel, pouring sweat, inching toward a spot that could only be found by touch: markings like Braille that Gault himself had etched into the plate steel. Behind that plate were six hydraulic levers. Each one would cause about a ton of rock to crash down onto a separate vent pipe. Easy as pie.
Forty feet to go.
Thirty. Twenty. Then he heard it. A voice whispering in the darkness somewhere behind him.
“Sebastian,” she called. Low and sweet and dreadful.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two
The Liberty Bell Center / Saturday July 4; 12:19 P.M.
I STAGGERED BACK from El Mujahid as he lumbered forward out of the darkened office.
“Mother of God,” I heard Top whisper.
The makeup on El Mujahid’s face had run, giving him a weirdly melted look. It revealed a wicked cut, like a knife slash, that bisected his face. It was the first time I’d been this close to him. He had to be six five and two-fifty if he was an ounce. He pulled off the jacket he’d worn as part of his Secret Service disguise, then jerked the tie loose and tore that off, dropping it on the floor. His white shirt was soaked with blood, and he touched the bullet holes. They were in the right place, they had to have clipped his heart. He smiled.
“It worked,” he said in wonder. “My princess has found the way ”
Skip said, “Here’s an incentive for you, boss. My employers may not have been trying to bring about the end of the world but this asshole? Shit, he’s one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. He gets out of this place and it really will be game over.”
El Mujahid snarled at Skip, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Skip staring at the big terrorist with a mixture of admiration and disgust. Then I noticed that Top was looking straight at me, his dark eyes intense and unblinking. My hands were at my side and as I turned my face toward El Mujahid I curled the thumb and pinky of my left hand so that I showed three fingers. Then I curled the ring finger up, then the forefinger. Then the index, hoping that Top had read me the right way.
Abruptly I lunged at El Mujahid and chopped him across the throat with as hard a knife-hand blow as I’d ever used on a human being. At the same instant Top pivoted, his speed powered by adrenaline and fear and a hell of a lot of indignation. He grabbed Skip’s wrist with one hand and drove his opposite elbow back into the young man’s stomach. Skip’s finger clutched in a spasm of pain and the bullet burned across the side of Top’s temple. Top bellowed in pain but he came up off the floor and tackled Skip, driving him halfway across the room so that they both crashed onto a desk. The pistol flew into a corner.
Skip shoved Top back with a curse and with a shake of his wrist a knife dropped from a sleeve holster into the palm of his hand. He opened his mouth to taunt Top, but First Sergeant Sims moved forward in a blur and slammed into Skip. They hit the desk and then rolled off on the far side and out of sight.
I couldn’t go help. I had my own problems.
The blow that I’d used on El Mujahid should have killed him. At very least it should have crippled him. It would have done that to any man.
But El Mujahid was no longer a man. He coughed but then he expanded his chest and I could actually hear the fragments of his shattered hyoid bone click together. It was the creepiest sound I’d ever heard.
