bother opening any of the others. The entire locker area appeared as though it hadn’t been touched for years.
She came back out into the corridor, and for a moment, she thought she saw someone at the far end of the hall. She dropped to her knees, and did, in fact, see a shadow shift slightly to the right.
But then it was gone. She blinked. Had she really seen it?
A call came in from Fisher. He wanted everyone down in ballistics.
Hansen gasped at the twenty-eight Anvil cases ranging from the size of small footlockers to that of bedroom furniture. They looked exactly like the case he’d seen back in Korfovka and were secured by the same type of padlock they’d found on the hut above.
Gillespie remarked that this couldn’t be the entire arsenal. Fisher estimated it to be about a third, so the rest was elsewhere inside the facility or, perhaps, not in Russia at all. Valentina was concerned about Fisher’s Ajax nanobots being able to get inside the cases to tag the weapons. He assured her that they needed a gap that was only a fraction of a hair’s width and was certain they’d penetrate.
Fisher ordered them back, then drew one of Noboru’s modified paintball guns and fired at the ceiling. The dart bounced off the rock, hit one of the Anvil cases, then rolled to a stop.
Hansen wanted to say,
Noboru had already initiated an uplink to the bots and glanced up at Fisher. “Nothing yet.”
“What if there’s no power for them to gravitate to?” asked Hansen.
Fisher explained that just about every weapon or system on the inventory list was equipped with some form of EPROM, or erasable programmable read-only memory, a low-power battery for housekeeping functions like date, time, and user settings. If the item didn’t have an EPROM, then it wasn’t one of the higher-end items and losing it was no disaster.
Within five minutes, Noboru was reading multiple pings from inside the cases. He grinned. “I’d say our first live-fire exercise is a success.”
Before they left the area, in search of more of the arsenal, Gillespie pointed out a section of extra venting between the blast funnels and the wall. To Hansen, the gap at his feet resembled a bottomless pit, and his light faded before it could pick out any floor below. The vent probably extended all the way down to level 4.
Valentina took no pleasure in killing the guard, and she sensed that Noboru felt the same. She did, however, take great pleasure in working with Nathan, and she knew once the mission was over she would succumb to her feelings and ask to see him again… on a personal level.
She thought about this, even as she held her blade in a reverse grip and approached the guard.
Her hand rose to the man’s mouth at exactly the same time Noboru’s did for his guard.
Holding her breath, she drove her blade down into the guard’s neck to make a perfect kill shot to the spinal cord. The slash to the throat or knife thrust to the heart that instantly kills someone is the stuff of Hollywood inaccuracy. Most knife fighters would tell you, if you don’t get a kill shot to the spinal cord, your victim is going to stay alive for a while, and things will get very, very sloppy. Slashing the jugular was one of the last things you wanted to do. Sever that spinal cord and he’s dead, Jim. Instantly dead.
Valentina and Noboru dragged the bodies up to the top of the ramp, where Hansen and Gillespie would take over and stash them in the medical area.
Noboru took point, leading the way down into level 3. He headed off into the ballistics zone once more and found yet another stack of Anvil cases set up on tables within an electronics repair room adjacent to another, though smaller, rotor motor testing facility.
Now, this was more like it. This resembled an auction site. While the items weren’t fully prepared, they were being arranged for display. Noboru was glad he’d packed the second paintball gun. He fired a round, waited, and smiled once he got back the pings he needed. He rallied with the rest back at Fisher’s location near the main ramp and reported his find.
“Two down, one to go,” said Fisher.
Level 3 of the medical section sent a shudder through Hansen. He was crouched near the main doorway, staring past the half-open door, into an operating area that had been converted into a barracks. He counted about twenty beds… all occupied. They were all men, mostly nondescript, a few European looking and a few markedly Middle Eastern.
He returned to Fisher, his cheeks warm, heart pounding, and reported what he’d seen.
Fisher agreed that those were probably some of, if not all, the attendees, at least those who’d been able to work around the weather conditions. More could be coming. Many more.
But they all agreed that the big fish was most certainly not among them. Who was the man behind the auction? That was the burning question Hansen hoped they could answer before leaving the facility.
“We’ve got one more level to check,” said Fisher. With any luck, he added, they’d be back in Severobaikalsk for breakfast.
Suddenly a familiar voice rose behind them. “Not gonna happen.”
Hansen cursed, turned, and realized that the man in the shadows to their rear — the rat bastard known as Mr. Allen Ames — was privy to everything.
“He’s got a grenade,” Valentina muttered.
41
Ames stood about sixty feet behind Fisher and Hansen, and he knew they’d have no time to react before he tossed the grenade. It was glorious. Just glorious.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said in a slight rasp. “Don’t even turn around. I go down, so does the grenade.”
With that, Ames darted forward for the ramp railing, moving to within forty feet.
And then he emerged from the shadows and watched as the entire group turned to face him.
He’d told them not to move, but what did he expect? Compliance from a group of misfits? “Not another step,” he warned.
Ames hung his arm over the railing, prepared to drop the grenade down to level 4, where it would explode and set off alarms throughout the facility. He was sure they wanted to know what he was doing there, how he’d arrived, and what he wanted, but it was quite nice just letting them hang for a few moments — after what they’d done to him.
“What do you want?” asked Fisher.
Ames snorted, told Fisher that, yes, he was a survivor, and that was all he really wanted — just to say that. Fisher probed him about how he’d escaped, and Ames gave him the condensed version, said he’d flagged down the helicopter that had been pursuing them and had convinced the boss man that he was working for a mutual friend.
That left Hansen puzzled. If Ames had spilled his guts, why wasn’t the facility on high alert?
Fisher must’ve been thinking the same thing and asked, “Do they know we’re here?”
Ames shook his head. “I told him you were still in Irkutsk.”
“Him?” Fisher asked. “Who?”
This was the part where Ames laughed. “You’ve met him. In fact, he told me you had him in your hands and let him go.”
Fisher’s expression soured, and his mouth moved, almost forming the name.
“Yep, that’s him,” Ames confirmed.
“Who?” asked Hansen.
“Zahm,” Fisher replied.
