thing was classified and compartmentalized, and no one talked much about it. For all he knew, it was another training exercise, one with live weapons.
He
He just hoped the people on the ground knew what the hell they were doing. This was a great way of scoring an own goal. …
Ibrahim Hussain Azhar heard the explosion and saw the green Marrakech Air Transport helicopter suddenly begin to rotate and fall. An instant later, another explosion rocked the crater as the aircraft crashed and burned.
He’d expected as much; the American forces on the crater rim wouldn’t allow a helicopter to escape the trap, not when it might be carrying a nuclear weapon off the island. He had to assume that they knew about the suitcase bombs by now.
That either bombs or U.S. Marines were now on the way was a certainty. Gunfire continued to bark and crackle across the crater floor as high-exposive rounds dropped among his men one after another. As oily black smoke rose from the helicopter crash on the higher part of the crater floor, he knew he might now have only minutes left. There was no time to evacuate the crater, no time to attach the bomb to a cable and lower it into the laboriously excavated borehole.
He’d deliberately given Feng a remote control without batteries, knowing that he would have fired the bombs as soon as he came under enemy fire. Maybe that would have been the best possible alternative, but Azhar still hoped the plan would work as originally designed. Shah and Chatel were up at Taburiente now, and as soon as they realized that the volcanos were under attack, they would trigger the bombs from there.
This one wasn’t connected to a receiver yet, though, and couldn’t be triggered down here, where the rock walls of the crater blocked incoming radio signals. But there was another way.
Scooping up the nearly completed weapon, he rose and dashed toward the lava tube entrance.
As Castelano talked with the policeman, CJ took a couple of steps forward, staring at the group of men on the tourist viewing platform. They seemed intent on something on the ridge to the south.
A moment ago, there’d been a wisp of white cloud above one of the craters visible in the blue haze in the distance. Now a black pillar of smoke hung like a storm cloud above one of the peaks. The men were arguing, one gesturing with what looked like a television remote.
Reaching behind her back, CJ pulled out the P226, raised it braced in both hands, and began squeezing the trigger. The guard in front of the police tape twisted and fell.
Advancing step by step, she continued firing. Behind her, the policeman reached for his holstered sidearm, pushing past Castelano, yelling at her in Spanish to stop. Castelano reached out and grabbed the officer, using his foot to lash out and trip the man into a headlong sprawl.
CJ kept firing.
Ten bombs whistled softly through the afternoon sky, spreading out slightly as each vectored in on its assigned, illuminated target. They guided on beams of reflected laser energy, each beam set at a different frequency to avoid targeting confusion, their tail control surfaces adjusting moment to moment to keep the falling weapon centered on its target.
The first strikes were at the cluster of three northernmost peaks, at Volcan de San Juan and Birigoyo almost simultaneously, with a bomb striking the third crater seconds later. Gouts of smoke and cinders were hurled into the sky, as drilling derricks toppled and collapsed, as fuel stores erupted, as JeM personnel tried to take cover … and died.
The next two in line were Hoyo Negro and Duraznero. The explosions seemed to walk south along the crest of the Cumbre Viaja, explosion following explosion in thundering promenade as drilling rigs were torn apart, boreholes sealed, and radio receivers and electrical cables flung about and shredded by the blasts.
One bomb, the second released by Firestorm Five, lost its lock on its illuminated target when clouds of smoke blocked the laser light from the Marine position nearby. Operating now on GPS data as backup, it howled in low above the northeastern rim of the crater, missed the drilling rig by scant yards, and slammed into the upper portion of the crater floor.
The blast was akin to the crack of Armageddon.
Akulinin saw the detonations of the other bombs off to the north. “Get down!” he screamed. Lunging forward, he knocked Lia to the ground, throwing himself over her.
An instant later, they heard the bomb shriek over the crater and strike among the tents close by the burning wreckage of the helicopter.
The explosion felt like a volcano going off, a heavy, massive
It began to rain rock fragments and cinders, and all the two could do was cover their heads and necks with their arms and ride it out.
The ridge top was suddenly, inexplicably, and oddly silent. Akulinin could see Lia shouting something … but he couldn’t hear her words.
Dean had just made it to the top of the crater rim when the blast caught him from behind, lifting him up, flinging him forward, slamming him down. Lying flat, he covered his head with his arms as rock pelted him. As the cascade subsided, he rolled over and looked back at the crater.
The drilling derrick still stood. He couldn’t see any signs of life, but the crater floor was filled with smoke and swirling dust from the explosion. The tent farm, the wrecked helicopter, the landing pad — all had vanished, replaced by a steaming crater fifteen yards across.
CJ’s SIG SAUER clicked empty, the slide snapping back on an open chamber. She’d reached the yellow tape, now, stepping past the body of the Tango in the
On the observation platform, Shah lay on his back, dead, the remote control device just beyond his outstretched hand. The other two were wounded, one clutching his belly in grimacing anguish, the other, Chatel, clutching his leg. With one hand, the Frenchman reached for the remote. CJ stepped up to him, the P226 still gripped two-handed, and aimed it at his face, point blank. “Don’t,” she said.
Chatel rolled back, his hands held up, palms out. His expression was one of glassy-eyed shock, and he didn’t seem to notice that CJ’s pistol was empty.
Castelano reached her a moment later, followed closely by an angry and confused Spanish police officer.
“These are the ones,” Castelano told the officer in Spanish. “You’ll need to take them into custody, keep them under heavy guard.”
To the south, pillars of black smoke were rising above the line of volcanic craters.
