by Doug Solter
And those poor soldiers would be killed. Emma bit her lip and pushed herself forward, ignoring the pain.
After twenty minutes, the girls reached a blind curve in the trail that snaked around the mountain. Miyuki peeked over the edge. The buildings of the facility were below them. She turned off her flashlight.
Nadia hit the transmit button on her phone again. “We’re in position. What’s the situation now?”
Emma could see their drone, a small dark mass hovering below them. It slowly rotated around the ground near the building.
“The guards haven’t returned yet,” Olivia said over the radio. “Let’s do this, ladies.”
Miyuki took out a rock hammer and pounded three holding pins into the rocks just below the trail as Nadia tied rope lines to each pin. Emma wished she could do something to help them, but she barely knew how to tie her shoes let alone tie a rope knot that was strong enough to hold her own weight. Curious, Emma peeked over the exposed edge. There was at least a five-hundred-foot drop to the solid concrete roof of the building.
Now Emma wished she hadn’t looked.
The girls finished securing the lines. Miyuki pulled her rope tight and rappelled down first. She hopped from rock to rock, confident in every move she made. Her boots dislodged rocks and lose dirt that tumbled down on the roof. Soon Miyuki made a final hop and her boots landed on the roof.
Miyuki made it look easy.
Emma became more confident. She could do this too.
“Go ahead. I’ll follow you down,” Nadia said.
Emma gripped the middle rope. Cold air swept into her lungs as she prepared herself. Emma slowly leaned out over the drop. This felt wrong to her body, like it was wondering what the hell her brain was thinking. But Emma felt the security of the rope holding her tight and this made her nervous stomach relax. She could do this.
Emma did a hop and descended a few feet. Not too bad. She did another hop and lowered herself down a little farther, landing on another outcropping.
Miyuki’s voice came over her earbuds. “Good job, Emma! You’re halfway there.”
The encouragement helped Emma’s confidence soar. She jumped and swung over to the left, aiming her boots at another outcropping. When Emma put her full weight on it, the outcropping broke into pieces. Her body dropped like a lead block. The shock made Emma lose her grip on the rope and it flung around like an angry water hose at full blast. She couldn’t grab the damn thing as the side of the mountain rushed past her.
A scream escaped her lips.
Emma knew this was it. She was going to die.
Chapter 30
The mountain was mostly in shadow as a young girl’s terrified scream echoed through the cold Norwegian air.
Emma flailed like a baby. Free-falling. Plummeting. Hurtling towards the solid concrete roof of the building. Once she hit it, her body would break apart like a bag of ice.
Emma shut her eyes.
This was going to hurt.
Then something yanked Emma’s body to a dead stop.
She opened her eyes in just enough time to see her body’s momentum swinging Emma towards the rocky side of the mountain.
She hit it and yelped as a sharp pain went through her cheek. But at least she wasn’t falling anymore. Emma noticed the rings on her climbing equipment were straining against the rope that still hung tight to her body. They must have snapped into action the moment she lost her balance.
“Emma? Are you all right?” Miyuki asked from below, searching the cliff with her flashlight. Soon Miyuki’s beam discovered Emma hanging in midair. “Don’t move. We’ll come get you.”
Fear drowned Emma’s senses as all her prior confidence was flushed away. Tears streamed down Emma’s cheek, which now stung from the rocks. It didn’t matter. She was convinced this was still the end. The cold weather soaked right through her heavy coat, causing Emma to shiver. Or did fear strip away the warmth from her body? Emma wasn’t sure.
A glove rested on her shoulder. Emma turned and saw Miyuki hanging on to her first line. The girl had climbed up that rope so fast. Like she was part monkey.
“Are you hurt?” Miyuki asked. “You have a nasty bruise on your cheek.”
“Think I hit a rock,” Emma said, her words flooded in sobs. She couldn’t help herself.
Miyuki maneuvered herself closer to Emma and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t worry. Your rope line still strong.”
Nadia dropped down on Emma’s right side. “How is she?”
“She’ll be all right. Let’s help her down,” Miyuki said.
The two girls each laid a hand on Emma’s opposite shoulder while balancing their other hands on their ropes. This made Emma feel better.
“Ready to go down?” Miyuki asked Emma in the sweetest voice ever.
Emma nodded.
All three girls rappelled down in smaller increments, always staying close to Emma in case they needed to help her. When her boots made a solid thump on the roof, Emma was relieved. Miyuki and Nadia freed themselves from the rope lines and helped Emma out of hers. They checked in with Olivia.
“Guards are still not back. Pressing our luck though,” Olivia said over the radio. “You three better be in the hallway to intercept them. How’s Emma?”
Thanks to the drone’s camera, Olivia must have seen her tumble.
“We’re good,” Miyuki transmitted. “Stand by and we’ll contact you when prisoners are released.”
“Roger.”
One by one, the girls slipped off the roof and landed on the ground near the large window. Miyuki took a peek while Nadia and Emma stayed out of sight.
“I don’t see the guards. But the door to the room is open now.”
Emma was about five feet back from the other two girls. She peeked through the window that was above her, and it looked straight into the storage room. The two guards were inside. The youngest one took a large gulp from a glass bottle of liquid. They must have found some alcohol.
“They’re already inside the room,” Emma said.
The older guard braced himself and aimed his rifle at the prisoners.
Emma cursed. She had to do something. Quick.
Hanging on the back of Nadia’s pack was her rock hammer.
Emma pulled it off and swung the hammer hard against the glass. The window shattered.
“What are you doing?” Nadia asked.
More glass broke as Miyuki hammered the window near her and jumped inside the building.
Emma gawked at the shattered window, amazed at how easily she’d broken it.
The two guards were staring right at her.
Emma cursed again.
“Halt!” The guards stumbled forward and leveled their rifles at Emma.
She froze with the hammer still in her hand.
The older guard stepped to the windowsill and gestured with the butt of his AK-47. “Drop the hammer and climb through the window,” he ordered, slurring his words.
Emma let go and the hammer thumped to the ground. She lifted her boot to climb into the window when the younger guard called out in alarm.
Coming hard through the door, Miyuki was on the young man in a second, sweeping her legs under his and knocking his butt to the floor.
The older guard swung his rifle in Miyuki’s direction. She took two steps forward, swung her body around and launched her boot at the man’s head with a strike that knocked the man to the floor. Nadia came through the door to assist. But the older guard was already out cold.
The young guard was still on the floor, terrified. Miyuki picked up his AK-47 while Nadia closed the door to the storage room. Emma carefully climbed through the broken window.
Miyuki kicked the young man’s boot. “Stay quiet. Try to lift one butt cheek and I give it new hole.”
Nadia was already wrapping the young guard up with rope. She looked at Emma. “Could you please untie the soldiers?”
Emma went over to the first soldier she saw, an older gentleman who wore stars and
fancy things on his uniform. Emma guessed he was an officer. She removed the tape over his mouth and started on his other bindings.
The Norwegian officer coughed and looked dumbfounded, as if the girls just blew his mind. “Who are you?”
A thought popped into Emma’s head and she went with it.
“The Girl Scouts. We’re just passing through selling cookies, and noticed you guys needed some help.” She finished removing the man’s bindings and hopped over to the next soldier.
Miyuki stood guard by the closed door while Nadia tied up both guards and helped Emma with freeing the rest of the soldiers. Nadia then relayed their situation to Olivia.
“That’s fantastic! There’s no sign of an alert either,” Olivia’s voice crackled over the radio. “Have the soldiers evacuate using the ropes and the trail. Good job, ladies!”
The Norwegian officer rubbed his wrists where the bindings were. “We will not evacuate. Terrorists have control of our facility and it’s our duty to take it back.”
Nadia looked at Emma, then Miyuki.
“You have no weapons,” Miyuki said.
“Incorrect. Thanks to the Girls Scouts, we now have two machine guns,” the officer said. “It’s enough to storm the armory and rearm my men for an assault on the vaults.”
“They’ll destroy the vaults if you do,” Emma said.
“We’ll risk that.” The officer picked up the older guard’s AK-47 and checked the chamber to see if it was loaded. He reached his hand out to Miyuki, wanting her to hand over the weapon. “It’s time for the professionals to do their job.”
Miyuki frowned, but gave the officer her weapon.
The officer gave it to a sergeant, who took Miyuki’s place guarding the door. “You girls go back the way you came. Have the authorities been contacted about the situation?”
“NATO is sending special forces, and your army has units on the way,” Miyuki said.
“Reaction Plan R must be in effect. Good. We know what to do. Thanks.”
The officer faced his men. He gave some kind of heroic speech in Norwegian and the men cheered. The officer and his sergeant led the soldiers down the hall, leaving the three girls alone.
“Why do I have this feeling like we’ve been dumped by our boyfriends?” Emma asked.
“Now what do we do?” Nadia asked before telling Olivia the news.
“Why’d they flipping do that?” Olivia asked over the phone. “Stupid blokes and their stupid balls. They’ll mess everything up.”
“We’ll help them,” Miyuki said. “What else can we do?”
“Don’t forget we have no orders,” Nadia said. “We freed the prisoners and they didn’t want to escape. That isn’t our fault. We should leave.”
Emma didn’t know much about guns. She wasn’t a soldier. When facing actual death on the side of a mountain, she’d cried like a child. Emma didn’t think she was brave at all. Sure, she knew some karate and a few moves that could take out a rapist. But this was combat, wasn’t it? Why shouldn’t they leave this to the soldiers who were trained to risk their lives in situations like this? What could three teen girls do that a squad of men couldn’t?
Olivia’s voice came over the speakerphone, “You’re right. Come on back, girls. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“I’m not going back,” Miyuki said. “Those soldiers need help whether they realize it or not.”
Nadia put down the phone. “Didn’t you hear Olivia? She said to—”
“Olivia’s not here. We are. And we can help.” Miyuki glanced at Emma. “Right?” Her eyes were steel, her petite body ready for a fight. If Miyuki unleashed those fighting skills Emma had witnessed at the training center in California, Venomous wouldn’t know what hit them.
Emma knew these were the people who’d killed her father and his employees. The people who had tried to destroy her family’s company. Now they wanted to risk starving people to death for money. This crisis was bigger than her. There was more at stake than Emma’s future as a vet. Besides, if she abandoned Miyuki now and she died trying to help the soldiers, then Emma would hate herself forever.
“We could create a diversion. Something to help distract Venomous while the soldiers make their attack on the armory.”
Miyuki brightened. “Good idea, Emma.”
“I swear, Miyuki—how you aggravate me so. I don’t like this idea,” Nadia said.
“Hey, I’m not talking about going crazy,” Emma said. “I’m talking about doing something small that occupies their attention.”
Nadia paced the room. Her face scrunched in frustration as she thought it over.
Her phone beeped and Olivia’s voice became audible. “Is everything okay, love? You three haven’t left the building yet.”
“We need you,” Emma said. “Three kick-ass girls are better than two. Well, maybe it’s two point five girls if you count me, but still.”
Nadia flashed a look at Emma, then back at her phone. “Olivia will murder me.” She pressed the transmit button and informed Olivia about what the three of them were about to do.
Chapter 31
The three girls found themselves deep inside the Norwegian Global Seed Vault complex. Emma sensed this portion of the facility was inside the mountain itself. First there were no windows to look out of and second, the regular building-like walls were gone and replaced by solid rock that had been chiseled back to make these passageways. They halted at a junction point which formed a T with another passageway. Miyuki gripped the long-bladed knife she took from one of the guards and peeked around the corner.
Nadia checked their position on the vault complex diagram she had on her tablet. “This branch of passageways leads to the main seed vaults,” she said. “If they send men to deal with the attack on the armory, they must pass through this junction.”
“We put explosives here. Set them off to seal them in,” Miyuki said.
“Yes, but that won’t stop them from issuing commands through the online network to burn all the food facilities and seed vaults if they sense an attack,” Nadia said.
“We need another way to distract them. Something they wouldn’t see as a threat.” Emma took her own peek around the corner, studying the floor of the passageway. “Do we have more climbing rope?”
“Yes. I believe so,” Nadia said.
“Think you could disable some of those lights in the passageway so someone couldn’t see the floor well?”
“I can do that,” Miyuki said. “What are your plans?”
***
Carved out of solid rock, the four giant seed vaults were at least three stores high. Their massive square doors were the same ones used at NORAD headquarters to seal up their Wyoming mountain fortress during a full scale nuclear attack by the Soviet Union back in the day. All four doors were cracked open. Cables ran out of each vault and were wired into a roll-away equipment rack. A laptop sat on top of the rack with a long Ethernet cable running from the laptop to the facility’s master control center computers which were built into permanent desks.
Men dressed in black military fatigues filled the control center. Some were technicians manning the computers and laptop. Other techs were slipping in and out of the vaults, checking the cables and charges. More men stood guard with AK-47 machine guns.
Jacqueline paced the floor. Her own black fatigues had a belt snuggly fitted to her waist. The belt had a radio, gun holster, military knife, and even throwing stars attached to it. Jacqueline spoke into the radio. “Asset sixty-nine to Asset eight-three.”
“Go ahead,” another voice replied.
“Status of the prisoners in custody?”
“Gave orders for termination. Should have been carried out by now.”
“Your guards haven’t contacted us yet,” Jacqueline said. “See what those idiots are doing and report back. Asset sixty-nine out.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about those soldiers anymore,” Emma said in a loud voice, her acting skills masking the fear pressing
against her chest. Maybe Emma couldn’t stop herself from being scared, but she sure as hell could act like she was brave.
Jacqueline came to a dead stop. The radio slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.
Every man in the room stopped what they were doing and stared in amazement at the blond, teenage girl looking gorgeous in her manufactured fur coat, leaning against one side of the control room with her arms crossed.
“Me and the girls freed the soldiers just so we could piss you off,” Emma said. “Did it work?”
Jacqueline came to her senses. Her eyes burned. “Why you little—get her!”
Emma ran out of the control room and hauled her butt down the passageway. Boots thumped behind her. She looked back and could make out four armed men. Emma swung her attention forward. It was harder to see down the passageway since Miyuki unscrewed a few of the light bulbs. The men yelled for her to stop or they would fire.
Emma hoped they were bluffing.
She ran as hard as she could towards the T-junction point. Instead of veering left towards the base of the T, Emma ran straight past it and did a bunny hop over the rope strung out over the floor.
The first two men tripped on the rope and did hard face plants to the ground as their weapons clattered against the floor.
The second pair of men jumped over the rope.
And that’s when Miyuki and Nadia launched themselves from behind the junction. Miyuki brought her man down with one kick. Nadia threw a karate strike at the fourth man to disarm him. She then swept his legs out from under him. Emma ran back for the assist with a round-house kick that knocked man number four out cold. Emma was still amazed she could actually do that.
Miyuki held up her hand for a high-five. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
The two girls slapped it. Now they each had a rifle.
Emma searched one of the unconscious men and snatched his radio.
“What will you do with that?” Nadia asked.
Emma showed her a devious grin. “Start a catfight.”
Miyuki grinned and let out a meow.
Nadia rolled her eyes.
