The Cobra deftly swung into a direct line of sight with the lava tube entrance, hovering above Saune and his men as dust and debris from the rotor wash swirled about them. As the aircraft hovered above them, Saune managed to gaze upward at the deadly aircraft emblazoned with the U.S. Marine Corps insignia on the side of the fuselage.
The Yakuza soldiers in the lava tube were equally surprised to see their new antagonist, but were not deterred in their mission to repel all intruders. They subsequently poured out weapons’ fire at the Cobra as it hovered just three hundred feet distant, while two other mercenaries leveled their ground-to-air rocket launchers at Sears’ aircraft. That was the last thing they ever did.
Lieutenant Ward unleashed the devastating fire power of the 40mm Gatling guns, disintegrating the occupants of the outer part of the lava tube with blood and gore spraying everywhere. Ward unleashed two 70mm side-mount rockets that slammed into the recess of the lava tube and caused a fearsome explosion. The cave belched a fiery blast outward, leaving a trail of thick black smoke as the flames subsided.
The carnage was absolute. The long and weary firefight, which had almost cost the lives of Captain Saune and all of his men, ended abruptly in a matter of seconds. Saune slowly rose from the protection of the metal loading platform and looked up at the cave entrance that was still expelling thick, black smoke.
“Captain Saune, you are clear for incursion.” Colonel Sears’ voice reported over the VHF, “We’ll provide air cover from here. Over....”
“Nicely done, Colonel. I owe you a drink,” Saune responded as he and his men approached the bullet-ridden conveyor belt.
“Once this is over, Captain, I’ll take you up on that drink,” Sears replied. “Be advised, Captain, that a contingency of Marines are en route, and will disembark on the compound within the half hour. Over....”
“I'll be glad to have the company, Colonel,” Saune stated as he and his men sprinted up the side of the conveyor belt toward the cave entrance. Saune shot Ortega a smile as he followed him up the rise with his wounded arm.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to be left out after all we’ve been through,” Ortega said defiantly, as the remaining Guardsmen ascended to the summit of the cave entrance within minutes.
With Saune in the lead, they slowly entered the tunnel as the thick acrid smoke from the Cobra’s rocket blasts began to subside. The scene of slaughter in the tunnel made even a tough, seasoned soldier like Saune shudder. Of the roughly twenty-five Yakuza soldiers defending the complex, only a few body parts grotesquely strewn about the lava tube floor remained. Large sections of the cave’s basalt sides had collapsed, but the tunnel was still negotiable.
They hastened their pace as fast as the slippery, blood-soaked tunnel floor would allow until they reached the metal ladder. Looking upward, they saw that the mechanized hatchway to the complex was still open. However, the upper torso of one of the Yakuza soldiers who attempted to retreat back into the facility was blocking their way. The ghastly remains of his upper body still held the ladder rungs in a death grip.
Fighting the urge to retch from the grisly sight, Saune quickly ascended the ladder. He pried the dead hands free and allowed the torso to fall to the cave floor with a sickening thud. Saune looked down at his remaining men from the ladder. He paused for a moment and then continued into the facility, not knowing what awaited them inside.
31
Samuel heard the arrival of Colonel Sears' Cobra over his VHF as he tried to revive Turner, who now lay on the laboratory floor shaking violently.
“Josh, can you hear me?” Samuel said to his friend, as the trembling subsided and his eyes slowly opened.
“Sss…Samuel,” his weary voice said. “Wh…what happened?”
“It’s okay, pal. You're alright now.” Samuel replied as Turner forced himself up on one elbow, rubbing his forehead in an attempt to relieve his pounding headache. “Hey, the cavalry has arrived, Josh. There’s a Marine chopper outside that should be able to take care of Osama’s henchmen.”
Turner noticed that the VHF earpiece had fallen out of his ear. Putting it back in, he told his friend, “I hope to God I never go through anything like that again.”
“You big baby,” Samuel quipped, causing Turner to burst out in laughter and his head to hurt even more. “By the way,” Samuel added, “Yashiro has managed to reverse the process of the whatchamacallit.”
“That’s good news, Samuel.” Turner said slowly rising to his feet, almost passing out from the dizziness that ensued as the room spun around him.
“Easy, Josh…go slow. You’ve taken a pretty good beating in the last few hours. You need to sit out the rest of this,” he said.
“We're not finished yet, Samuel, not by a long shot. Pencor is dead,” he said, pointing to the body lying across the room, “but Osama is still on the loose. Unless he’s managed to make a run in one of the vehicles, he’s still gotta’ be here somewhere. I’m going after him because I have a little score to settle,” Turner stated, taking a deep breath and trying to shake off the intense weariness that now crept into the very essence of his being.
“Fine,” Samuel started to say, “I’ll go with you, and we can—”
“No, Samuel,” he interrupted, “I need you to stay with Yashiro until Saune and his men can get access. I have to do this alone. Here…” he said, reaching into his pant’s cargo pocket. He pulled out the Global Star phone and turned it on. “Go back to the control room with Yashiro and get a hold of Robertson in Washington. He’ll be expecting our report. If he doesn’t hear from us, he’ll signal one of the ships to take out the facility with a Tomahawk missile. He needs to know that the plan to reverse the Scalar weapon is working and to hold off on the launch. I'll meet up with you later.” He tossed the phone to his Quechuan friend, and then bounded out the door.
Samuel knew better than to argue with him, knowing his resolve and stubborn determination. He had seen this look many times in the past so he simply smiled and shook his head.
“Go get ‘em, amigo!” he offered, shaking his head as he tossed his 45-automatic to Turner who then disappeared out the doorway.
Turner filed up the staircase hunting for his tormentor. His head still throbbing, he no longer held any sense of compassion for this monster. To him, it was beyond all reason that a man could subject so much suffering on a person and derive a twisted pleasure from it. How he could relish the thought of killing millions of innocent people with his wave of death? It was insanity. He felt no pity or sense of civility at this point. Osama had to be stopped.
Turner reached the atrium where they had entered earlier. He heard the momentous rumbling of explosions coming from deep below the facility, not knowing that Colonel Sears had just laid waste to all living things in the lava tube beneath the complex. Moments later, he heard through his earpiece the Marine pilot giving Captain Saune the all-clear to advance and that U.S. Marines were a half hour away. Needing to concentrate, he yanked out the earpiece and started ascending the stairs leading from the atrium to Osama’s offices. An eerie silence took hold of the complex as the incessant gunfire and explosions from below ceased. He reached the top step to find the corridor not as lengthy as the one below and with only two sets of doors on either side of the hall.
Brandishing his 45 in the dim light, he stealthily made his way down the hall. He looked into one room and found it devoid of guards. Just as he approached the next door, it opened without warning. Two armed Yakuza guards ran out into the hallway, almost crashing headlong into Turner. He didn’t hesitate as he unleashed his weapon on the pair. He kept firing, feeling no empathy for them, and they both swiftly fell dead at his feet.
If Osama is hiding on this level, he knows I’m here now, he thought, continuing down the hallway. I must move quickly.
He heard a small noise in the last room on the left and made his way to the door. Taking a deep breath, he kicked the door open to find Osama standing in the middle of the room. He had a cell phone i
n one hand, a briefcase in the other, and looked shocked to see Turner standing before him.
“Going somewhere?” Turner hissed as he walked into the room with his gun leveled at Osama, who just smiled back at him.
***
As Turner was facing his nemesis on the upper level of the complex, Samuel rejoined Yashiro in the control room. He was let in by the tiny scientist, who had been peering nervously out from behind the Plexiglas window pane on the door.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Yashiro said in relief as the two walked back over to the computer console. “With all of the gunfire and explosions stopping, I was getting quite nervous as to what had happened.”
“You mentioned that your idea was working. Does that mean we’re out of the woods?” Samuel asked as the Japanese scientist continued typing, unimpeded by the conversation.
“Well, yes and no,” he stated, indecisively, fingers flailing away on the keyboard. “I was able to successfully convert the Scalar weapon from exothermic mode to endothermic and—”
“Hold on,” Samuel interrupted, waving his hands in frustration. “Give it to me in dumb person lingo, alright?”
“I was able to halt the Scalar weapon’s heating process in the magma chamber beneath La Palma and begin the endothermic cool down by reversing the EM flow. This is what is termed as a cold explosion in the Scalar weapon mode. When applied at full power, it literally draws all heat out of the target zone. Since this facility was designed for exothermic mode, it doesn’t have the required EM drain field to draw off the massive energy channeled from the magma chamber.” He paused, making sure he had not lost Samuel yet. “The chamber is cooling slowly, but I must increase the drain slowly, or it will cause the feedback explosion I warned you of. I must do this process in increments to dissipate the energy to a safe level. It’s going to take a little time to complete this; probably an hour or more,” he said as he ceased his typing and looked expectantly at Samuel.
“Looks like you’ll have all the time you need, amigo-san. I guess you didn’t hear, huh?” Samuel said, noticing the earpiece of Yashiro’s VHF was unplugged from his ear. “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled out the Global Star to call Under Secretary of State Robertson. Before he could dial, though, it began to ring.
Samuel answered and was surprised to hear Maria’s voice on the other end. He listened in stunned silence as Maria recounted the flight to La Palma, the discovery of the relics, and their conflict with Burr, who now was dead. Samuel shut his eyes as he heard Maria report that the Western Flank of La Palma had started to shift seaward, and that Eli had been shot and needed medical attention.
“Stay where you are, Maria,” Samuel said emphatically, “we’ll get to you somehow, I promise. Things are almost under control here, so we can send out a rescue chopper to your location.”
“We have no place to go, Samuel,” she replied. “We’re stuck on a ledge, and the ash fall from the eruption is getting worse by the minute. It’s getting hard to breathe, so please hurry,” she pleaded as suddenly the connection went dead. Samuel got on the VHF and tried to call Turner. He wasn’t answering.
“Damn,” he yelled, startling the scientist. “Stay with it, Yashiro, and keep that damned earpiece in.” He ran for the door, and then headed down the corridor to the atrium. Regrettably, his heightened sense of urgency caused him to forget to call Robertson in Washington D. C.
32
The gigantic, cold-blast shock wave that emanated kilometers beneath the island of La Palma wreaked havoc on the tiny island. Fortunately, injuries in the immediate vicinity of the shock zone had been few, thanks to the evacuation process by the local authorities of the small towns and villages adjacent to the Cumbre Vieja.
United States Geological Survey field scientist Rosalie Harris had been knocked to the ground as a result of the momentous shock wave on a small rocky peninsula just below the Sol La Palma Hotel.
Now deserted, the once beautiful lodging took on the appearance of a battle zone since all of its windows were blasted out by the percussion wave. Tables and chairs were toppled over, with debris strewn everywhere. The elegant terra cotta roof atop the grand structure was now covered in ash from the erupting volcano. The once five-star rated hotel now had a grayish, ghostly appearance.
Rosalie had been on the rocky point when the shock wave hit, which afforded her a good view of the Cumbre Vieja. She watched in horror as the entire western flank of the ridge line suddenly began to slide downward, after a riotous crack that sounded similar to a sonic boom. The huge island-sized slab of earth, only moments later, completely stopped its movement. She stood transfixed for the next five minutes, awed by the enormity of the vision she’d just witnessed.
Rosalie’s hands trembled violently as she placed the call to Peter Markson at the Geological Survey office in Washington D.C. to report the calamity.
“Pete, the whole damned flank of the Cumbre Vieja shifted at least sixty to eighty meters,” she yelled excitedly over the still trembling cell phone in her hand. “Our worst fears could be happening here. If that flank lets go, we may be looking at the mega-tsunami scenario.”
“Rosalie, calm down,” Markson replied as he shuffled his data reports on his desk. “Are you absolutely sure about this? I need to know the facts.”
“Are you shitting me? I just witnessed the facts, Pete. I’ve never experienced anything like that in all my years climbing craters. The shock wave I just felt was like nothing I’ve read in the textbooks. It just doesn’t happen, and I have no clue as to what’s going on in the magma core. All bets are off as to the normality of this eruption, but the fault fracture and slippage from the loss of friction beneath the land mass are real enough,” she said, watching the billowing ash plume belch from the crater high above the island.
“Okay, Rosalie, I’ve got to report this to the President. He talked about ordering an evacuation alert for the east coast earlier. This will probably set things in motion, so you have to be sure.”
“Pete, the damned thing slid and then stopped. That’s all I can report at this point,” she said in finality.
“Got it, Rosalie. I’m going to advise the White House on your report,” he said as he rummaged through his papers to obtain the direct line. “Rosalie, I want your ass out of harm’s way now, you understand?”
“Don’t worry, Pete. I’m leaving now,” she replied as she started up the gradual incline toward the now empty hotel. “I’m headed to the southern end of La Palma and I will contact you if there is any change.”
Hanging up, she sprinted to her vehicle as more ash, like black snow, began to drift down onto the asphalt lot of the Sol La Palma. Taking one last look at the newly formed gigantic fissure high above the Cumbre Vieja’s western flank, Rosalie thought for a moment of the people she had run into earlier at the fault line. After a moment’s reflection, she concluded that there was no way they could have survived. She sped off, heading south on the Calle Del Remo highway, toward the relative safety of the island’s southern tip. As she drove through a small village and noticed its abandoned shops and homes, she had no idea that two of the people on the fault line were in a desperate struggle to survive.
“God help us if that flank lets go,” she said to herself. “God help us all.”
33
Turner pushed the door shut behind him as he slowly approached Yagato Osama, while keeping his eyes fixed on his adversary. Contempt and an intense rage welled up within him as he confronted the author of this hellish nightmare.
“It’s over, you bastard! Your little contraption downstairs is a piece of scrap, as is your sick scheme. You’re beaten,” he declared, aiming the gun directly at Osama.
“Far from it, Mr. Turner. You and your friends have been a nuisance, but nothing more. Even if my plans don’t play out as I had hoped, my organization will continue to thrive and I will never be implicated,” he said with a smug grin. “Money is power, Mr. Turner. With it, comes the ability to influence opinion a
nd action. I’ve made sure that Pencor will be held totally responsible for his plans, with no evidence to connect me. I will return to my country a free and rich man,” he said smiling, seeing a flicker of doubt on Turner’s face.
“We’ll provide the collaboration necessary to put you away for a long time,” Turner shot back, becoming weary of the exchange.
“We shall see, Mr. Turner,” Osama said laughing aloud. “We shall see.”
“Slime like you shouldn’t be allowed to prey on the lives of innocent people,” Turner said, raising the gun and pointing it at Osama’s head. The Yakuza leader continued to laugh.
“You can’t kill me, Turner. You don’t have that predator instinct,” Osama said calmly.
Turner considered his words, which were in part true. He wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer, but his mind screamed at him the reality that this man would somehow beat the system and live to threaten the world, again and again.
“You are weak, as are your countrymen, Mr. Turner,” he continued, knowing now he had gained an advantage. “You and your—” Click.
To Osama’s shock, Turner pulled the trigger, but the gun had been emptied on the guards in the corridor. The Yakuza leader quickly hurled the briefcase containing the ZPG patents at Turner’s head, barely missing him. He then ran to the room adjacent to his office, threw the door shut, and locked it from within. Turner dashed after him and slammed into the locked metal door. It took three attempts of Turner smashing his full weight against the door in order to break the lock. The splintered locking mechanism finally failed under the assault and the door flew open to reveal an empty room. He looked around, desperately hoping to see where Osama had gone.
There must be a false panel somewhere in here, he thought, and started banging on the walls of the room to find it. At that moment, Samuel burst through the front door brandishing an AK-47 taken from one of the dead guards in the corridor.
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