Sheesh. Sabotage the thing. How am I going to do that? The only weapons I’ve got with me are the frag grenades and my SC-20K. That’ll be like flicking paper clips at an armored tank.
Maybe the best thing is to set the grenades to go off in a bit, perhaps cause a diversion, and give me time to get the hell out of here. I can only hope Lambert will come through with the big guns. I reach into the Osprey and pull out a grenade, set it to go off in forty-five minutes, and place it out of sight but very near the double doors.
I begin to move slowly around the perimeter of the upper balcony. Whenever I find a good spot, I place another frag grenade and set it to go off simultaneously with the first one. I continue to do this all the way around the balcony, which thankfully is devoid of workers. They’re all down below, hurrying like mad to finish whatever they’re doing.
When I’m on the opposite side of the balcony from the double doors, I see the bright windows of the control room. It’s a bunker built into the floor that’s probably made to withstand the supergun’s huge recoil. Several men are inside the control room, and I recognize one of them — Namik Basaran, aka Nasir Tarighian, looking out a window at his baby.
I make my way around, placing three more frag grenades, and now I’m ready to disappear. Sarah Burns, darling, here I come. I head for the double doors and prepare to use the keycard to open them — but I hear my OPSAT beep quietly. A message is coming through from Lambert. It reads—
U.N. FORCES ON THEIR WAY. GET OUT NOW!
You don’t have to tell me twice, Colonel. I raise the keycard, ready to slip it through the slot, when suddenly the doors open. Four armed guards are standing there, and I’m caught with my thumb up my ass.
One of them sees me — and my strange alien uniform — and shouts. Before they can react, I bolt through them, shoving the two inner guys apart. They fall into the outer guys, knocking them to the floor. I run like a madman as I hear more shouting behind me. A gun fires and a bullet whistles past my head. I begin countermaneuvers of zigzagging and bouncing off the walls like a pinball to make myself less of a target.
Then the alarm sounds. As they say, all hell breaks loose.
I run into one of the wings containing nonexistent stores and head for the exit, the one I came in. When I’m about forty feet from the doors I see two guards on the other side of the glass. I pause long enough to swing the SC-20K off my shoulder, unlock the safety, and blast away, shattering the glass and killing the men. I barge forward like a bull, ready to smash through the remaining shards of glass, but a volley of gunfire behind me forces me to hit the floor. I roll to the wall and try my best to squeeze as close as I can to it, but the bullets are frighteningly near. The rifle’s still in my hands, so I let loose a barrage of rounds at my pursuers while lying on my back. I hit two of them, but the others jump for cover. This gives me the seconds I need to jump up and run through the broken glass doors. A shard cuts into my uniform at the shoulder, ripping the outer layer and opening a water tube. I fall to the ground outside the complex, roll, and leap to my feet without breaking the momentum of my progress.
The parking lot is clear. I’m almost free.
I run to the electrical van, pull open the door, and find that my buddy is no longer on the floorboard. What the hell, forget him. I put the key in the ignition and start it up, ready to throw it into reverse and tear out of the parking lot.
The cold metal of a gun barrel presses against the back of my neck.
I look in the rearview mirror and see my old friend the electrician behind me. He says something in Turkish and he doesn’t look too happy. I guess I must have hurt his head earlier and it’s payback time. I slowly raise my hands and he relieves me of my SC-20K. He then opens the panel door and tosses my gun to the ground just as a dozen of Tarighian’s armed guards surround the van.
35
“Mr. Fisher,” Tarighian says as they march me into the control room. “Is spying on my facility a part of your Interpol report?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” I reply. I know it sounds lame, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
I scan the room to see what my opposition consists of. Besides Tarighian and the three guards holding me, I see Farid the bodyguard and Albert Mertens busy at a desk with another man. The odds would be pretty fair if I didn’t have my hands tied behind my back. They’ve also taken my Osprey, my headset and goggles, my weapons, and emptied all my pockets.
If looks could kill, Farid’s expression says it all. He’s obviously put two and two together and figured out I’m the one who broke his arm. I give him a smile and a wink.
Tarighian looks at me with those cold, brown eyes. “You should have stayed in Lake Van, Mr. Fisher. That’s where I thought you ended up.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You know, when I turn you over to my men, they will murder you and videotape it at the same time. They’ll up-load the tape on an Islamic Web site and the whole world — and all of America — will see you beheaded. You
I don’t answer.
“I assure you that if I had the time I could make you talk. But I’m in a bit of a hurry. I fear I’ll have to expedite your sentence and make sure you’re no longer a threat to me before I begin this morning’s operation.”
“And what might that be?” I ask. I hope to appeal to his ego. “That’s an impressive-looking machine out there. What’s it do?”
Tarighian’s eyes flickered and he moved to the window. “It is lovely, isn’t it? I call it the Babylon Phoenix. The Babylon because it’s a reimagining of Gerard Bull’s supergun that was designed for Iraq in the 1980s, and the Phoenix because it has been reborn from the ashes of its ancestor.”
Hearing the mention of his creation, Mertens looks up and smiles at me.
“This is your doing, I gather?” I ask him.
The Belgian ignores me, but Tarighian answers for him. “Yes, Professor Mertens did an excellent job. To my specifications, of course.”
“What’s your game, Tarighian? What are you going to do?”
Upon hearing his real name, the man smiles at me. “You know who I am. I was afraid of that. Who do you work for, Fisher? The CIA? The FBI?”
“The NSA, not that it matters.”
He shrugs. “No, it doesn’t matter. You will be dead within the hour.” He gestures toward the supergun and says, “The Babylon Phoenix utilizes nine tons of special supergun propellant that can fire a 600 kilogram projectile over a range of approximately 1,000 kilometers.”
“That’s what Bull’s supergun was supposed to be able to do.”
“Yes. Alternatively, I could launch a 200-kilogram object into orbit with the assistance of a 2,000-kilogram rocket. The barrel, when fully extended, is 156 meters long with a one-meter bore. The launch tube is 30 centimeters thick at the breech, tapering to 6.5 centimeters at the exit. Like the V-3, the gun is built in segments. Twenty-six six-meter-long sections make up the barrel, totaling 1,510 tons. Added to this are four 220-ton recoil cylinders and the 165-ton breech. The reinforcement around the breech is fifty feet of solid concrete, steel, and rock. From our base here in Cyprus, we can hit any target in the Middle East we wish.”
“But it’s crazy,” I say. “You shoot the thing once and you’ll have the entire world on top of you in no time.”
“You’re right,” he answers.
“You only want to fire it once?”
“Yes. Once is all I need.”
