D’Agosta and his group hadn’t reported in for over half an hour. God, if something happened to the Mayor, no one would care whose fault it really was. Coffey would be the one that caught the blame. That’s the way things worked in this town. It had taken him so long to get where he was, and he’d been so careful, and now the bastards were just going to take it away from him. It was all Pendergast’s fault. If he hadn’t started messing around on other people’s turf ...
“Charges set.”
“Blow when ready,” Coffey said again. Pendergast had fucked up, not him. He himself had only taken over yesterday. Maybe they wouldn’t blame him, after all. Especially if Pendergast wasn’t around. That son of a bitch could talk the hind legs off a mule.
There was a long silence. No sound of explosion reached Coffey’s ears as he waited outside beneath the sodden tarp.
“Red One to Dugout, we’re clean,” the Commander said.
“Proceed. Get inside and kill the son of a bitch,” said Coffey.
“As discussed, sir, our first priority is to evac the wounded,” said the Commander in a flat voice.
“I know! But hurry it up, for God’s sake!”
He punched savagely at his transmit button.
The Commander stepped out of the stairwell, looking carefully around before motioning the teams to follow him. One by one, the dark figures emerged, gas masks [398] pushed high on their foreheads, fatigue uniforms blending into the shadows, their M-16s and Bullpups equipped with full-tang bayonets. In the rear, a short, stubby officer was carrying a 40mm six-shot grenade launcher, a big-bellied weapon that looked like a pregnant tommy gun. “We’ve gained the fourth floor,” the Commander radioed the spotter. “Laying down an infrared beacon. Hall of Lesser Apes directly ahead.”
The spotter spoke into his radio. “Proceed south seventy feet into the Hall, then west twenty feet to a door.”
The Commander took a small black box from his belt and pressed a button. A ruby laser shot out, pencil-thin. He moved the beam around until he had the distance reading he needed. Then he moved forward and repeated the procedure, shining the laser toward the west wall.
“Red One to Dugout. Door in sight.”
“Good. Proceed.”
The Commander moved ahead to the door, motioning his men to follow.
“The door’s locked. Setting charges.”
The team quickly moulded two small bars of plastique around the doorknob, then stepped back, unrolling more wire.
“Charges set.”
There was a low
“The trapdoor should be directly in front of you, in the center of the storage room,” the spotter directed.
By moving aside several flats of scenery, the Commander and his men exposed the trapdoor. Undoing the latches, the Commander grasped the iron ring and heaved upward. Stale air rushed up to greet them. The Commander leaned forward. In the Hall of the Heavens below, everything was still.
“We’ve got an opening,” he said into the radio. “Looks good.”
“Okay,” came Coffey’s voice. “Secure the Hall. Send down the medics and evac the injured, fast.”
“Red One, roger that, Dugout.”
[399] The spotter took over. “Tear out the drywall in the center of the north wall. Behind it you’ll find an eight- inch I-beam to anchor your ropes to.”
“Will do.”
“Careful. It’s a sixty-foot drop.”
The Commander and his team worked swiftly, punching through the drywall, looping two chains around the I- beam, attaching locking carabiners, a block and tackle. A team member hooked a rope ladder to one of the chains and dropped it through the hole.
The Commander leaned over once again, shining his powerful light down into the gloom of the hall.
“This is Red One. We’ve got some bodies down here,” he said.
“Any sign of the creature?” Coffey asked.
“Negative. Looks like ten, twelve bodies, maybe more. Ladder’s in place now.”
“What are you waiting for?”
The Commander turned to the medic team. “We’ll signal when ready. Start lowering the collapsible stretchers. We’ll take ‘em out one by one.”
He grabbed the rope ladder and started down, swinging over the vast empty space. The men followed, one by one. Two fanned out to provide suppressing fire as necessary, while two others set up tripods with clusters of halogen lamps, hooking them to the portable generators being lowered by ropes. Soon the center of the hall was flooded with light.
“Secure all ingress and egress!” shouted the Commander. “Medic team, descend!”
“Report!” Coffey cried over the radio.
