Talal nodded and ran away to the south in a low crouch as Lopez turned to Ethan.
‘Okay, what’s the plan?’
Ethan looked at the two advance vehicles as they closed in on their position, and judged the distance between them and the following trucks as he readied his own weapon, an AR–16 identical to Lopez’s.
‘You keep the front escort pinned down once we’ve got smoke cover, I’ll head for the trucks.’
‘And the vanguard?’
‘They’re the unlucky ones,’ Ethan said. ‘They get the frag’ grenades.’
Ethan pulled two smoke grenades out and watched as the cars closed in, and when they were almost upon them he hurled the grenades out over the wide road. Both of them arced across the asphalt and tumbled along as the cars passed by, spewing thick clouds of dense gray smoke.
‘Go, now!’
Ethan leaped out from his hiding place as he heard the advance vehicle’s tyres screech as the driver saw the smoke and emergency braked, thick veils of smoke spilling on the hot wind as Ethan glimpsed armed men hurl themselves out of the vehicle.
***
XXXI
‘What the hell?!’
Mitchell lined up his rifle on the driver of the lead vehicle and was about to take his shot when he glimpsed clouds of smoke suddenly burst from the opposite side of the road. He dropped the rifle’s sights from his eye to see two figures burst from concealment beneath the bank on the far side of the road, concealed from the drivers by the billowing clouds of smoke.
‘We’ve got incoming!’
Mitchell heard the warning even as he saw one of the figures open fire on the armed soldiers pouring from the advance vehicles as they screeched to a halt, the guards leaping for cover behind the cars. Another figure dashed out of view behind the smoke screen toward the convoy that was now also screeching to a halt.
Mitchell barely got a glimpse of the fast moving figure, but he saw enough of the rangy man sprinting across the road to recognize him.
‘Warner.’
The clattering of gunfire intensified from the advance guard vehicles as Mitchell spotted a tiny speck of jet–black hair amid the dense bushes fifty meters down the road on the opposite bank. A withering hail of fire from the Russian guards smashed down the bank toward Lopez as they recovered from the surprise attack and began mounting a spirited retaliation.
‘Direct your fire on the lead vehicles!’ Mitchell ordered.
The team behind him leaped into positon and moments later their M–16 assault rifles opened up with a savage barrage of fire. Mitchell watched as the Russian troops, completely focused on the attack from the front, were hammered with gunfire from directly behind.
The Russian’s defense collapsed into disarray as the lethally accurate fire from Mitchell’s team, most of whom were former US Special Forces, cut them down in a frenzy of bullets.
‘Finish them and then head for the main convoy!’ he snapped.
*
Ethan hit the asphalt hard and sprinted toward the two trucks as they skidded to a halt on the hot road. He could see the drivers already opening their doors, rifles in their hands as they made to return fire on their attackers.
Ethan dropped to one knee and aimed carefully before he fired. The first shot hit the nearest driver square in the chest as his boots landed on the asphalt. The driver spun sideways as he dropped his weapon and collapsed onto the asphalt, slumping awkwardly against the vehicle’s tire. Ethan switched aim to the second driver, fired once and hit the man low in the belly even as he saw more troops spilling from the vehicles.
Ethan grabbed the two fragmentation grenades and hurled them both at the rear guard vehicles as they screeched to a halt behind the main convoy and armed soldiers leaped out. Ethan dashed for cover behind the first truck as he saw the troops emerging from the vehicles hit by a double blast as both grenades detonated in a bright flash. A swathe of tiny metal projectiles hammered the two cars and sliced into the soldiers’ bodies as they were cut down, one of the vehicle’s engine suddenly spewing a cloud of black smoke and collapsing on one side as a tire was blown out by the shrapnel.
Ethan crouched down at the front of the truck and as the troops rushed out from the rear he fired, controlled double–taps at each man, cutting two down before the rest scrambled out of sight. Ethan backed up a little, denying them the chance to creep up on him from either side, and got down prone on the hot asphalt as he aimed beneath the truck.
Four pairs of boots huddled on either side of the vehicle, and Ethan took a single breath before he squeezed the trigger. Bullets smashed into the ankles of the troops hiding behind the truck and two of them collapsed in agony, their screams competing with the gunfire clattering across the road as Ethan leaped to his feet and stormed down one side of the truck.
The Russian’s were panicked and Ethan saw it in their eyes as he burst into view and fired twice at close range, his rifle set now to semi–automatic and firing three rounds in quick succession with each squeeze of the trigger. The first Russian dropped as Ethan’s rounds found their mark and shredded his throat and then the side of his skull in a vivid spray of bright red blood that splattered the side of the truck. The second screamed in terror and tried to aim but all three rounds pummelled his belly and chest and he shuddered as he collapsed onto the ground, his face ashen with the fear of imminent death as the AK–47 he held in one hand clattered down uselessly alongside of him.
‘Ubey yego! Kill him!’
Ethan saw the troops from the second truck emerge into view, four weapons trained upon him and more coming up from behind. There was no time to turn his rifle, no time to react. He was about to try dropping to his knees and turning all at once in the hope that he could get some rounds off and escape when suddenly a hail of bullets smashed into the second truck.
The Russian soldiers cried out as they tried to fall back into the cover of their truck, two of them collapsing instantly as double–tapped rounds smashed into them. Ethan leaped out of sight of the fresh attack and clambered up into the rear of the truck to see four young, dark and very afraid faces peering out at him from the gloomy interior. Girls, all aged perhaps twelve or thirteen, shaking with fear.
Ethan reached out his hand.
‘American,’ he said, hoping that would not be a word that would send the girls sprinting for the hills. ‘United Nations!’
One of the girls reached out for his hand, and as one moved so they all moved. Ethan jumped down off the rear of the truck as he saw the rest of the Russian convoy being hammered by bullets. Relieved that support had come early, Ethan hauled the girls down from the convoy and led them across the road as he saw Lopez sprint through the smoke alongside him.
‘Good shooting!’ he said as he saw the neutralized advance guard vehicles nearby, riddled with bullet holes and eight bodies surrounding the stricken cars.
‘Wasn’t me!’ Lopez shouted. ‘We’ve got competition!’
Ethan hit the bank with the girls and looked back as they scrambled down the slope toward the truck now motoring toward them, Talal at the wheel.
Ethan turned and looked at the girls and saw that every one of them was blind, each holding the hand of another in absolute trust. Suddenly Ethan realized that the oldest among them was hanging on to his hand as though it were the only thing keeping her alive, and he realized just how terribly vulnerable children were when trapped in a state of civil war.
The Russians were returning heavy fire now toward a copse of trees on the north side of the highway. Ethan sprinted to the truck as Talal pulled up alongside them and yanked open the doors as Lopez dashed around the hood to get in the other side.
‘Get us out of here!’ Ethan snapped as he helped the girls into the rear of the cab.
Talal crunched the truck into gear and as soon as Ethan was aboard he slammed the accelerator down and the battered old truck lurched forward in a cloud of diesel fumes and clattered along in a wide circle before turning south.
�
�Follow the bank until you reach the Al Kabir river!’ Ethan yelled to Talal as the truck rattled along. ‘Cross the river wherever you can and we’ll be in Lebanon! The Apaches will be here any minute!’
Talal nodded, sweating profusely as he gripped the large steering wheel. ‘Where are the Russians?’
‘They’re occupied back there!’ Ethan said as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and then looked at Lopez. ‘Did you see the shooters? Were they ours?’
‘I couldn’t see anybody,’ Lopez shouted in reply. ‘They just started tearing up the advance guard and I pulled out and headed toward you.’
Ethan frowned uncertainly and then Talal looked in the truck’s grubby mirrors and shouted jubilantly.
‘The American helicopter is here!’
Ethan jerked his head around and saw the heavy, bulky shape of an attack helicopter looming toward them from the north. It took him only a moment to recognize the shape of the helicopter, and he saw Lopez’s expression turn dark as she too identified it.
‘That’s not an Apache,’ she uttered as she gripped her rifle more tightly.
The huge helicopter swept over the main road, churning great clouds of dust in swirling vortexes around its enormous rotor blades as it hugged the ground. The Russian Mil–Mi–28 Hind gunship descended to just a few feet above the earth, its massive cannons and rocket pods pointing directly at Ethan.
‘Jink, now!’
Talal looked confused. ‘I too am thirsty but I don’t think that we can…’
‘Jink!’
Ethan grabbed the wheel and hauled it to one side, and the truck lurched to the left even as a roar of gunfire blasted past the windows and bullets churned the earth around them. Talal cried out in fear as the bullets shattered an old brick wall just ahead of them, the 20mm shells smashing their way through everything before them.
The truck pitched steeply onto two wheels and the huge gunship overshot and thundered overhead. Ethan heard the girls in the back crying out in fear as it roared by in a crescendo of rotors hammering the hot air.
‘The border is over a mile away!’ Talal cried. ‘We’ll never make it!’
Ethan grabbed the satellite phone and dialed in, knowing that without immediate air support the Hind gunship would annihilate them. The line rang as Talal drove the truck at a frenzied pace alongside the narrow stream to their right. Suddenly the line was answered as Ethan held on grimly to the truck door.
‘Warner, operations, three–five–zero–nine–four: request immediate close air support! We are severely compromised!’
***
XXXII
Defense Intelligence Agency,
Washington DC
Hellerman hurried across the watch room as he waited to hear from Warner and Lopez. He was about to call them when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He saw the number as coming from General Nellis and answered it immediately.
‘Sir, Warner and Lopez have checked in and…’
‘Hellerman,’ General Nellis cut him off, ‘listen to me. ARIES is being shut down.’
Hellerman froze. ‘It’s what?’
‘It’s being shut down. Get out, now! Grab whatever you can and leave. Homeland are already on their way and you’ll be questioned by them.’
Hellerman stared at the watch room for a moment as his brain tried to comprehend what he was being told.
‘But we can’t empty the archive just like that! And how can I get anything out of the building? It’s the most secure…’
‘I don’t know,’ Nellis cut him off. ‘I’ve been reassigned, effective immediately. I no longer have access to the agency. Just get everything you can out of there, and when the questioning is over find Jarvis. It’s the only way to keep this all going.’
Hellerman felt suddenly helpless and afraid, his recent meeting with Jarvis at the forefront of his thoughts. ‘Why are they doing this now? We’re starting to figure out the greatest mystery in human history!’
Nellis’s voice appeared almost sad as he replied.
‘Somebody, somewhere doesn’t want us to figure it out. You’ve got literally a few minutes, Joseph. Do what you can, and good luck.’
The line went dead in Hellerman’s hand and he slid the cell into his pocket as he turned to look at his office, filled as it was with endless gadgets and gizmos, inventions and computers, all of which belonged not to him but to the DIA. Despite the melancholia he felt at leaving it all behind, he knew that there was only one true artefact that he needed to take with him.
Hellerman dashed for the storage facility, taking an elevator down and passing through the old, dusty steel door in the back of the basement that led to the secret laboratory where he had done so much of his work. Inside, suspended in a small magnetic chamber, was a metallic sphere hovering in mid–air. Taken from inside the Black Knight satellite, its surface was like oil suspended in a puddle, a swirling miasma of color and motion that had captivated him for months.
Hellerman’s cell rang again and he answered it, the DIA’s internal system allowing a signal down into the basement. The anxious voice of an operator called Helen from the watch room assaulted his ear.
‘Hellerman, we just got a call saying that Homeland are here and that we’re to cease operations. What the hell’s going on?’
He took a deep breath and replied as calmly as he could.
‘Just do as they say. Your jobs are safe and you’ll be reassigned. Contact Social Services and find Aisha as fast as you can, and hold Homeland up for me a bit though, if you can.’
‘Will do,’ Helen replied nervously, and the line cut off.
Hellerman grabbed the chamber, which was the size of a shoe box, and wrapped it inside his jacket as he hurried out of the laboratory. He travelled back up to the ARIES watch room and hurried across to his office as he saw operators and technicians leaving their posts and making for the stairwell.
Hellerman looked desperately through his equipment for some way to get the sphere out of the building. The batteries inside the chamber would maintain the magnetic field that suspended the sphere for only a few hours, and as such it was imperative that he got the chamber plugged back in as soon as possible. Hellerman’s eyes fell upon the one thing that he knew could save the day and he hurried out of the office to the elevators and opened the nearest door.
‘Hellerman!’
He whirled as Helen rushed to his side, her green eyes wide with concern.
‘Warner and Lopez are under fire! Do we have authority to assist them? They’re inside Syrian airspace.’
Hellerman hesitated and then realized that he no longer had anything to lose.
‘Get them out,’ he ordered. ‘General Nellis authorized all and any means necessary to extract them both. Send in all three of the Apaches, weapons hot!’
Helen hurried away as Hellerman dashed back to his office. He attached the magnetic chamber to a small device on his desk and then sat down at a computer and plugged in a computer game–pad controller he grabbed from his desk.
Hellerman checked everything, and then he hit a switch on the device. A high–pitched humming sound was emitted from it and the drone lifted off. Hellerman kept his eyes on the monitor before him, which projected an image from a camera on the front of the drone as it flew past him and out his office door.
Hellerman guided it to the elevator doors and inside as with his free hand he rattled keys on a second computer monitor and directed the elevator down, giving it absolute priority over all other calls. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the elevator doors close as he directed the controller’s signal through the same DIA internal network that his cell phone had connected to.
The elevator began travelling downward as Hellerman looked at a monitor and saw the view from the drone’s camera inside the elevator. Quickly, he landed the craft to save power as he transferred the view from the monitor to a HoloLens device on his desk.
Essentially an advanced version of the publicly available device by Microsoft, Hellerman�
�s lens was contained within what looked like a set of ordinary glasses. Hellerman grabbed them and put them on, instantly able to see in his right eye a small window showing the drone’s camera view, then with the controller in his hand he stood up as he heard voices outside the office.
Another elevator’s doors opened and ten men in suits with DIA visitor tags strode into the ARIES Watch Room and began shouting.
‘All personnel out of the building, now!’
‘Shut down all stations, cease and desist all activity!
‘This operation is being terminated with immediate effect. Surrender all security clearances immediately!’
Hellerman willed the elevator to hurry as he listened to the shouts and the resistance from the ARIES staff in the watch room. In his eyepiece he saw the elevator reach the lower floors of the DIA building, and then the doors opened onto the basement. Hellerman flew the drone off the floor and out into a corridor.
As per the agency’s policies, the DIA’s South Wing building had been specifically constructed to ensure that there were no windows that could be opened by staff. All of the building’s extensive cooling was internal and computer controlled. Vents throughout the building carried air that was circulated and vented through a bank of three huge fans atop the building’s roof. The entire system was connected through the basement, where cooler air was drawn in to the system through a massive network of vents and conduits.
Hellerman knew enough of the construction to be able to guide the small drone and its cargo through the building’s basement and to the simple aluminium ducting that carried the airflow. Attached to the basement ceiling, most of the ducting was impenetrable except for the thin foil tubes that drew external air through tamper–proof internal filtering systems and then joined it to the building’s internal ducting.
Hellerman hovered the drone alongside the thermal lining of the foil tubes and then let the craft’s rotors brush against the surface. The drone quivered, but the fast moving blades sliced easily through the thermal material and opened up the tube. Hellerman guided the drone in and began flying it forward through the aluminium ducts. He settled the drone down to save power once it was safely inside the duct.
The Genesis Cypher (Warner & Lopez Book 6) Page 21
