He didn’t understand. He hadn’t been at Deep Iron. That job had been done by two of his men. He hadn’t killed those people. He opened his mouth to tell her, to plead with her. Then there was a lava-hot line across his throat and he had no voice at all. Tonton heard a weak and distant gurgle that sounded like it came from underwater. He felt hot wetness in his mouth, and then he was falling forward into a darkness more complete and eternal than the temporary shadows of the Chamber of Myth.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One
The Dragon Factory
Tuesday, August 31, 2:44 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 16 minutes E.S.T.
If there were more of the scorpion-dogs down in the lower level we didn’t encounter them. We did find a half- dozen guys in greasy overalls lying dead inside a shattered office. It looked like they’d tried to make a stand against the monsters by pushing a desk against the door and arming themselves with wrenches. They’d killed one of the transgenic creatures by smashing in its skull, but from the looks of the place the other monsters had swarmed in. The workers looked to have been stung dozens of times each.
“Poor bastards,” Bunny said.
“Poor bastards who work for the bad guys,” I said. My sympathy level was bottoming out.
We ran on, chasing our flashlight beams. The EMP had wiped out our night vision, but we each had a flashlight and extra batteries wrapped in lead foil for this purpose.
“Stairs!” Bunny said, pointing, and we cut right and went through the doorway as fast as safety would allow. The stairwell was empty, so we climbed, taking turns covering each other on the corners, never stopping. If Alpha Team still held the far end of the hall, then I was hoping to catch the Russians by surprise. A few flash bangs and then some frags would make the odds more even. They would literally be in the dark, so we’d use that against them.
We got to the main floor and opened the door cautiously. No sounds of gunfire from inside the building. No way to tell if that was good news or bad. I could hear sounds of a pretty heated exchange outside, though.
This next part would be tricky because we couldn’t risk using our flashlight, but we had to get down that hallway.
I leaned close to Bunny and told him what I wanted to do.
“Roger that,” he whispered.
I slung my rifle and drew my Beretta. Moving carefully, I found the far wall with my left hand; Bunny kept one hand on my shoulder. Like a couple of blind beggars negotiating an alley we walked forward. I let my fingers glide along the wall and never moved faster than my ability to recognize the terrain. Each time I found an opening-a hallway or a doorway-I stopped, tapped Bunny’s hand twice, and then moved in a shuffle until my fingers made contact once more with the long, curving wall. Being in total darkness makes you realize how much of every action relies on sight. Sudden darkness for a sighted person opens up a feeling of great vulnerability. Movement is clumsy and slow. To overcome this you have to create a system of movement and constant analysis. Speed is an enemy to sightless orientation.
So, it took us a while to navigate that hallway, but the way we did it brought us all the way to the main doorway. The big glass doors were closed, so I followed them to the other side and found the wall again. Now I knew where we were and how far from the hatch.
We went another forty yards and then stopped. I found Bunny’s hand, tapped it three times-a cue that I was about to give instructions-and then followed his hand up his arm to his chest and then to the grenades hung on his battle rig. Then I found his big hand and drew a series of letters in his palm. He tapped my wrist every time he needed me to repeat one.
When I was done he gave my wrist two sets of two taps. Message received and understood.
We reoriented ourselves and moved farther along the hall until we could hear voices. Whispers from several men. Low, quiet, and in Russian. I could make out what they were saying, but there wasn’t time to translate for Bunny. Besides, none of it was tactically important. One man asked another when the lights were coming back on, and a gruff voice-probably a sergeant or team leader-told him to shut the hell up.
I holstered my pistol and took two grenades from my harness. A flash bang in my left and a fragmentation grenade in my right. From the faint rustle I knew Bunny was doing the same.
“Light ’em up!” I hissed, and we pulled the pins on the flash bangs.
If the Russians heard me, it didn’t matter. We sailed the grenades into the emptiness in front of us, squeezed our eyes shut, and covered our ears the best we could. Even so, the blast and starburst was like a hot knife through the brain.
It was far worse for the Russians.
The grenades burst in the air right above them and I opened my eyes a second after the detonation. I saw them-maybe twenty in all-reeling back from the intense light, screaming at the pain in their ears, too shocked and confused to do anything. The last sparks of the flash gave Bunny and me perfect distance and angle.
“Frag out!”
We threw.
They died.
Not all of them. We had to shoot three of them.
But the rest took the shrapnel full in the face. The fools had been spooked by the dark and had grouped together for safety. It had been a stupid mistake, but they probably thought they owned this hallway.
Now it was their tomb.
The echo of the blast rolled up and down the hallway, and my head rang from the thunder. Even pressing your hands to your ears can only block out a portion of that noise.
I turned on my flashlight and swept the beam over the charnel house.
“God Almighty,” said Bunny.
I cupped a hand around my mouth.
“Hopscotch!” I yelled.
A moment later the reply echoed back to us.
“Jump rope!”
It was Redman. Alpha Team had survived.
We converged on the hatch. We pulled chemical light sticks and threw them down so that we all met in a mingled blue and green glow. One of the Alphas came last, supporting Top, who looked ashy and ill.
“How you holding up?” asked Bunny, hurrying over to help.
“Just fucking peachy, Farmboy. Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, we stopped at a titty bar for a few beers.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
Redman closed on me while I was examining the hatch. “First Sergeant Sims won’t accept any painkillers. He threatened to kneecap the first son of a bitch who tried to give him morphine.”
“He seems to be in that kind of mood. Leave him alone. We have other fish to fry. We need to get through this hatch.”
Before he’d been promoted to Grace’s number two, Redman had been the demolitions expert for Alpha. He ran his hand over the hatch and then crabbed sideways and knocked on the wall.
“Okay, Cap,” he said, “we couldn’t blow that hatch with an RPG, but the wall is just block. If we can knock a big hole in it, I can rig a compressed charge and maybe make us a doorway. We have just about enough C4 for that; it’s the hole that’s going to be the problem.”
“I need solutions, not problems.”
Redman looked at the dead Russians, then turned to one of the Alphas. “Beth-check the bodies. I need grenades and explosives. If they have any, it’ll be Semtex. Detonators, too. Whoever has the most Semtex will have the detonators. Do it now.”
Alpha Team moved with a purpose, and in under two minutes Redman had twenty grenades and four tubes of
