'I hope they know,' Haley said, 'just how bad Frick is. He's right above us now, and believe me, you don't want to find out. He'll torture us and then kill us to get what he wants.'
'And presumably he wants,' said a slim, white-haired gentleman, 'the Arc regimen.
Correct?'
Ben and Haley both nodded.
'If we gave it to him, would he let us go?' the man asked.
'Of course not,' Nelson said. 'They need to steal it without witnesses.'
'That's right,' Sam said. 'Doesn't matter if Frick's still working for Sanker or himself.
No witnesses.'
Ben closed his eyes. Haley unconsciously moved closer to Sam.
'We're not only dealing with a greedy criminal,' Sam said. 'Frick's also a desperate man. His old plan, framing Haley and me, won't work now. He's gone too far. He'll keep coming until we stop him.'
All at once, everyone involuntarily ducked as a massive reverberation coursed through the rock, followed by an ear-splitting boom.
'It sounds like they might be making progress,' Ben said.
'That was heavy military stuff,' Sam said. 'Now who's going to let me out of these?'
He indicated his hands cuffed behind him.
'I think we should unlock them,' the guard Len said. 'We may need them.'
Nelson unlocked Sam's handcuffs first, then Haley's and Ben's.
'I'd like to make use of one of those Uzis,' Sam said.
Len obliged him without hesitation.
'Everybody needs to get out of here,' Sam said.
'There are other tunnels,' Ben said, 'but the three of us and a couple of others will take a boat. It's standing by. We'll go the underwater route.'
As Ben spoke, the other scientists hurried out of the chamber, using a small, steel portal hidden near the back.
'That's great. You and Haley go. I'll stay with Len and we'll give everybody a head start.
I'll catch you if I can. But don't wait. I'd suggest the other big fellow here go with you.'
'I'm Stu,' he said.
'Get going, and keep her safe, Stu.'
'Count on it,' he said.
'I can shoot,' Haley said. 'I'm staying.'
Sam knew that she meant every word of it, and he stared at the ceiling for a moment, as if seeking inspiration. 'I could argue the greater good, and that would be true,' he said, turning and looking into her eyes. 'Or that Ben needs you, and that would also be true.
But what if I simply don't want to deal with it if you die? How about I've had enough people die? You've taken enough chances.' He could tell his words were rolling off her like water. 'Let me talk to you.'
He glanced at the others, who moved away as if distracted by their upcoming exit.
'Right now,' Sam said, 'in a way, I'm like your mother. This is a critical moment for me, for us. Letting you go- making you go-is the only smart decision, no matter how I feel, no matter how you feel. Think about your mom. You were the only really precious thing she had. You were her caretaker, her dream, her reason for living. And still she gave you up so you could live, thrive. Survive. And right now I need to do the right thing, just like your mom. And so do you.'
Haley bit her lower lip. She was looking in his eyes, engaging him in a mutual soul search that neither fully understood.
'Okay,' she said at last. 'Okay.' She kissed him on the cheek.
Thank the Great Spirit, he thought.
'Take the left-hand fork,' Ben said as they moved to the back of the cavern.
Sam kissed Haley back; then she followed Ben to the same small, steel portal with Nelson and Stu.
'Pleased to meet you, Len,' he said. Since they might die together, Sam figured a proper introduction was in order.
'Likewise,' Len said, arming himself with another Uzi.
They had just taken cover behind folds in the rock wall when another massive explosion came from above the staircase. An avalanche of dust poured out of the ceiling.
The last of the older men had disappeared down a side tunnel. It was all happening too fast.
Because of the narrow entry they could hold off a small army, unless Frick had enough military firepower to kill everyone in the vault.
Sam was counting the seconds, estimating that he needed to give the others a five-minute head start.
'Cover your ears,' Sam told Len.
There was then a huge explosion that blew the wooden stairs in every direction.
Sam held the Uzis between his legs, plugging his ears. Then he saw something else falling and pulled back as tight as he could against the rock. The explosion was incredible and he felt the shock wave in his body.
In his mind he saw another explosion of white. He was in the room, Anna was screaming.
Another explosion rocked the cavern. The shock wave slammed him against the rock.
This time he could see Anna screaming, begging to die.
In front of him, his female captor taunted him. She had loosened one of his hands.
Another explosion slammed into him. Her lips were forming obscene words. Faster than she could see, Sam drove his fingers into her eyes and felt the membranes give as he pushed deep into the sockets, enough to put out the light forever. He hit the man with his elbow before he could react, the distance between them perfect for achieving maximum force. The blow went to the point of his nose, shattering bone and cartilage, driving it into the brain, dropping him to the floor like a sack of cement.
The woman was clutching her face, screaming. Sam grabbed her gun from the holster at her waist. The other two men had heard the ruckus and ran back into the room with guns drawn. A glance to the side showed a dim, final light in Anna's eyes; she was begging Sam to shoot her, the words and tone pure and without a hint of doubt. Then her head rocked to the side, shattered by another man's bullet. Something broke inside Sam, blurring the actions that followed.
But here, near the end of his life, huddling in a rock cavern under assault, Sam felt a great release inside him that he could not explain with words.
Once again his eyes saw what lay before him. The small building was full of bullet puncture and other, jagged holes. In the space of a few seconds, the laboratory had been ruined.
For a moment nothing happened. It was dead quiet. Sam looked around at what little was left of the wooden stairs, also blown apart. It didn't appear that the remaining fragments of the stairway would hold a man; Frick may have outsmarted himself.
Sam looked over at Len. He groaned at what he saw and tried not to second-guess himself. Len lay on the floor bleeding from the head. If he weren't dead already, he soon would succumb. Sam looked again just in time to see the green blur of the next falling weapon. Once again he covered and again came a terrific explosion.
He looked at his watch. Three minutes had passed. A man on a rope descended quickly with a rappelling device alongside the stairs. Scooping up Len's Uzi, Sam fired a burst.
The man on the rope appeared dead when he hit the ground. Within sixty seconds a rocket came down the hole and there was another fiery explosion near the base of the stairs.
The next time a rocket launcher appeared out of the ceiling, it was pointed nearly parallel to the ceiling. When it was released, a blinding explosion appeared across the cave, some fifty feet in front of Sam. Even though he was behind solid rock, the shock wave traveled around the vault and hit Sam like a fist. But for his hands over his ears, he knew he would be deaf. Another man rappelled against the destroyed stairs, only this time the rocket launcher appeared simultaneously. Sam didn't want to lose his ears, so he covered. His eyes were closed just long enough to avoid being blinded by the flash. The man hit the ground, shooting an automatic weapon at him. It was probably a P90, a superior weapon to the Uzi.
Sam fired back, hitting the man, but to no immediate effect. Flak jacket. He glanced around the cavern. Instead of watching the man on the ground, he looked to the ceiling.
