“What about Spence and Mac?” she asked. “Any idea what they’re up to?”
“Don’t know,” Prig replied. “Can’t get hold of them.”
“And Chloe? Miriam?” Elna said.
Prig grumbled under his breath. “Best thing they can do now is hide somewhere up there. Elna, we’re doing what we have to do, what’s most important. Got that? Spence and Mac were sent up top to take care of the enemy, and I trust them to do the job. We’re not opening that door.”
She gripped the doorframe and tried to regulate her breathing. She was all nerves and tension, and it was driving her crazy. Taking deep breaths didn’t seem to help. Nothing helped, and her back was killing her.
“That should do it,” Golf said, slamming the panel door shut. “You should be able to reach them now.”
“Good work,” Prig said. He grabbed what appeared to be a small handheld transceiver hard-wired into the console and raised it to his mouth. “Alpha Base, this is Alpha Dog Seven. Bunker is secure but hostiles are present, and we are under attack. I say again, bunker is secure but hostiles are present, and we are under attack. Over.”
He set the transceiver down and waited. After a second, there came a short burst of static and a voice began to speak. It was garbled, buried under mountains of static, but Elna made out the first words: Alpha Base.
Whatever else the person on the other end might have said was lost as the whole bunker suddenly lurched, the floor heaved upward, and a violent gust of dust-choked wind swirled through the bunker. Elna was flung backward, stumbled into the hard, metal wall on the far side of the hallway, and slid down onto the floor. It sounded like every wall and roof panel shrieked at once. Elna heard the islanders shouting, crying out, cursing loudly.
Despite the sudden stab of pain that went from her shoulders down to the small of her back, she rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled toward the main room. Prig had been tossed from his chair, and she saw him out of her corner of her eye as he drew his sidearm and rose.
“What the hell was that?” he growled. The transceiver hung down from the console by its wire, swaying from side to side like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.
“I told you, he’s firing rockets into the cave,” Elna shouted. “What did you think would happen?”
Thick smoke hovered around the bunker door, but even through the smoke Elna saw that the door had buckled. It was bent inward, the massive bolt ripped through the frame. Only the bottom hinge remained intact. Cat had grabbed one of the tables and flipped it on its side, dropping down behind it and pulling Malin down with her.
On the far side of the room, Dr. Ruzka lunged to the clinic door and slammed it shut, hiding most of the islanders and the injured. Elna didn’t know if there was a lock on the door. If not, she could only hope they would jam it somehow. The smoke around the front door was getting thicker, as if smoke from the outer ramp were seeping in.
Elna stumbled back toward the surveillance room, catching herself against the back of a chair and scanning the screens for the clearest view. She spotted the commander standing in the mouth of the cave, his face turned as smoke poured past him. Two other mercenaries had joined him, both of them carrying AK-47s. After a moment, the commander signaled them, and the three men strode into the smoky cave, disappearing from the screen as they headed toward the bunker door.
31
Elna was still staring at the screen when she noticed that a few of the other screens had gone dark. Had the explosion damaged the equipment somehow, breaking the wires that connected them to their respective cameras? She thought so, but one of the mercenaries, a broad beast of a man, turned at the cave entrance and aimed his rifle up high. Just before the screen went dark, Elna realized where he was pointing it.
They’re taking out the cameras, she thought.
They no longer had a view of the back of the guesthouse either, or the back road, or the western shore. She didn’t dare spend time pondering this. The mercenaries headed into the cave. The bunker was breached! It wouldn’t take long for the enemy to make it down the ramp to the inner door.
Elna headed back down the hall. As she did, she saw Prig and Golf bent over the console.
“That last boom knocked out the system,” Prig snarled, grabbing the transceiver and setting it next to the keyboard. “Can you get it back up and running?”
“No idea unless I get into the guts,” Golf replied. He turned to the panel on the wall.
“They’re coming through,” Elna said.
Prig gave her a wild-eyed look and pulled the two-way radio from his pocket. He pressed the talk button and shouted, “Spence, Mac, come in! Where the hell are you guys? You’re supposed to keep these people away.” When he got no response, he tried again. “Spence, Mac? Come in!” Still nothing, so he jammed the radio into his pocket and pushed past Elna. “So much for the traps they set. Those didn’t do any good.” He shouted over his shoulder, “Golf, get the system back up and running! Whatever it takes!”
Elna followed him down the hall to the main room, where Cat and Malin were crouched behind a table in the smoke. Prig beckoned them both.
“Get to the control room,” he said. “We have to hold that room at all costs. I want everyone inside that room, ready to defend it. Go!” Then he turned to Elna. “Get the others. We’re packing them all into that control room and sealing the door as best we can. I won’t let the mercs take anyone hostage. Hurry!”
He was barking orders at her like she was a Marine. Elna wasn’t
