haze of minute particles of dust thrown up by the pounding.
They certainly weren’t going to hear him with all that noise close by.
He began moving forward once more. The ground here was still broken and offered decent cover. Drawing on his old Marine sniper’s training, he picked each new piece of cover before moving, then made his way toward it with slow, steady progress, stopping every few yards to check around him. He could see the drilling rig now off to his right. Two of the men he’d watched earlier were with them now — he thought they were Feng and al-Wawi, though he couldn’t be sure with all of the dust in the air.
“Charlie?” Marie said over his implant. Even with her voice bone-conducted into his ear, it was hard to hear her over the pounding of the drill. “Charlie, do you copy?”
“I’m here, Marie.”
“The boss just called! Mountain Storm is on! Firestorm is en route, ETA ten minutes!”
He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. He pressed his fingers into his ears, and said, “Art Room, say again, please!”
“I said, Mountain Storm is on. Firestorm is en route, ETA ten minutes!”
Dean almost laughed aloud. “Now
Lia sat barefoot in front of al-Dahabi, rubbing life back into her sore wrists.
“Very good, Cathy,” he told her. “
Awkwardly, she did so. Terror still gibbered at the back of her mind, and she was trembling. She
The fact that she
“Good,” al-Dahabi said. He was still standing well back from her, too far for her to kick, even if she’d had the strength. One of the guards, ten feet away, continued to aim his assault rifle at her legs. “Next, you will remove all of your clothing, fold it neatly, and place it on the chair.”
Al-Dahabi sighed. “If you were a man, I would simply have my friends here rip the clothing from your body, a somewhat brutal demonstration that you are helpless. But working with a woman is different. You
At that moment, Lia couldn’t tell which emotion was stronger as it churned in stomach and chest and throat — fear or fury. Women, in this bastard’s world, were
Several possible replies flashed through her thoughts, ranging from profanity to laughing in the little creep’s face. His prejudice was a weakness, she told himself. There had to be a way to use it to her advantage.
Her eyes locked with his, she began peeling off her T-shirt.
The noise of the drill stopped, the silence startlingly sudden. Dean froze in place, lifting his head above the edge of the gully just enough to see what was happening. All the pumps and generators, a line of blue metal boxes to one side of the drill site, appeared to have been switched off at once.
A moment later, a single diesel engine fired up again, and a heavy winch began grinding away as the workers started removing the drill stack section by section. Metal clashed on metal with clanks and shrill chirps, and he could hear the men shouting at one another in Arabic.
Dean saw movement beyond and to the left of the drilling rig and pulled out his binoculars for a better look. Two of the paramilitary types were coming down the path from the upper crater. One carried an AK; the other lugged something very much like a large, heavy suitcase.
“Green Amber, this is Amber Three,” Dean said, switching on his tactical radio.
“Three, One,” Rodriguez’s voice said in his earpiece. “Go.”
“You see the two gonzos with the suitcase, coming down the hill to the drill site?”
“Negative. Not from this position.”
Shit and
Maybe the damned timing wasn’t so hot after all. Ahead was the cave where they had Lia. To his right, the bad guys were bringing down one of the nukes.
Lia or the nuke?
“Amber One, did you get the word on Mountain Storm?”
“Three, that is affirmative. We are preparing to light up the target.”
Okay … so Rodriguez and Dulaney were going to be busy for the next ten minutes. The options sucked. If he took out the two with the suitcase nuke, he would start a firefight, the bad guys would sound the alarm, and any nuclear weapons already armed and in place elsewhere on the island might be set off — and a firefight would pin him down here, unable to reach Lia.
If he went after Lia, the bad guys would arm that weapon and put it down the hole, ready to fire. It was not exactly a comfortable prospect.
“Art Room,” he said.
“Go ahead, Charlie.”
“I have one of the suitcase nukes in sight. Looks like they’re getting ready to put it down the borehole. If I engage, they may disappear with it, and they sure as hell will pass the word to every other Tango on La Palma. I’m going to go in after Lia.”
“We concur, Charlie. Good luck.”
“Ilya?”
“I’m here, Charlie.”
“Target is the two Tango sentries outside of the cave entrance. I’ve got the one on the right. You take the one on my left. Do you copy?”
“I copy.”
“Do you see another sentry at about two seven zero up on the crater rim?”
“The goldbrick with the cigarette. I see him.”
“He’s your number two target.”
“Roger that.”
Slowly, Dean eased his M4 out from under the tech-Ghillie and braced it in the prone firing position, left elbow supporting the muzzle, right hand closing about the grip. He checked to make sure the selector switch was on single-shot, then peered through the sight, adjusting the picture until the red dot was over the sentry’s chest. The range was less than a hundred yards now, but he wasn’t going to try for a fancy head shot and risk a miss. He would go for center of mass.
“First target.”
“Sighted in.”
Both of the guards had turned now and were watching the activity at the drill head. With luck,
“Okay, Ilya,” Dean said. He held the target picture steady, took in a breath, released it partway. “On my mark … and
