by Kari Nichols
Vlad glowered at his father, but he could see the wisdom in Nicolai’s plan. He wanted to end his father’s life, but that didn’t mean it had to be a swift death. Vlad shot Godin in the gut.
Morrison grunted and stepped back from the wall mounted monitors. He motioned Vlad over and pointed to the TV showing the battles in the shipping port and out in the main hallway. Godin’s office was soundproofed, but the sounds of a battle had still leaked through. Morrison had been very surprised to see that the shipping port was on fire, but not half as surprised as he was to see the firefight right outside their door.
“Shit,” Vlad said. They wouldn’t have time to get the prisoners out. “We need to evacuate this island, now.” Turning to Nicolai, he gestured to the door at the far end of the office. “Get the other exit open, we’ll have to use it. There’s a war in the shipping port, so get your guys up to assist our arrival on the sub.”
Nicolai pulled out his radio and hailed his sub as he walked over to the secondary exit. Vlad picked up the phone on the wall next to the monitors and punched in an extension. Finn picked up the phone and started muttering about a damn decision being made, but Vlad cut him off.
“We’re pulling out. Get to the sub, now.” He hung up and turned back to his father. The senior Godin still leaned against the side of his desk. Vlad pulled the gun from his waistband, flipping the safety off. Aiming for Godin’s good knee, Vlad pulled the trigger twice and destroyed the kneecap. Pocketing the gun, he walked out of the office.
***
Cisco stood back and examined the pile of explosives. Something about it was bothering him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Everything appeared to be in order. Godin was using TNT to blast the larger holes. He had enough TNT piled into the room to blast through the rest of the island. That wasn’t what bothered him.
Everything was stacked for easy access and for safety. The TNT had already been cast into solid blocks and stacked eight high, covering half the surface of the room. TNT was a very stable explosive. It was resistant to shock and friction, to a point. Kept separate from any other blasting materials, the TNT storage wasn’t what bothered Cisco.
His radio switched to Braddock’s channel, he could hear the battle in the shipping port as clear as day. He stared at the TNT thinking about how much distance and how much rock was between him and the shipping port. Yet he was getting better reception in here than he had from the tunnel outside the cavern warehouse. Realistically, his reception should have gotten worse.
And that was what bothered him. Why was the reception so much better inside this storage facility than it was in a main part of the complex? Cisco scanned the walls of the room. Lights were spaced ten feet apart and the rest of the walls were bare.
He turned to the pile of TNT and circled around it. Picking up a brick, he thought to pull it away and examine the inner layers, but he didn’t get that far. The brick of TNT had a fuse in it. He picked up the brick behind the one he’d moved and found that it, too, had a fuse in it. He placed the bricks back and turned to Druid. He and Druid had intended to set this room up as a giant bomb. Someone had beaten them to it.
“Druid, you need to see this.”
***
Neely and Pratt, the two members of TA-4 that Hancock had assigned to submarine detail, had used the battle raging around them to make their way along the wharf. Fargo had warned them of the two dead soldiers at the submarine hatch. No one had come looking for them, yet. Neely and Pratt traversed the full length of the wharf and stood at the edge of the water. The sub was forty feet away and she was no longer silent. Her engines were running and as they watched, the hatch flipped open and men came pouring out.
Both men dove into the water and kicked down close to ten feet before straightening out and moving toward the sub. They’d thought to put a charge on the propeller, but with the sub powering up, that would be a suicide run. Their only other option was to blow a hole in her hull and damage her structural integrity.
The water was freezing. They’d collected extra gear from the fallen Russian soldiers in the main complex, but that gear didn’t include a dry suit. They had no Scuba gear, no tanks or rebreathers. Their swim was limited to the amount of time they could hold their breath. The cold water robbed them of their warmth quicker than the swim could generate it.
Nearing the nose of the sub, they resurfaced and scanned the area around them. The soldiers that had exited the submarine were not visible from their current position. Neely replaced his mike and contacted Fargo.
“They’re lined up on the top of the sub, standing on either side of the conning tower. I think they’re waiting for someone. They aren’t moving and they don’t have weapons that can make the distance.”
“Roger that. We’re moving into position to place the explosives on the hull,” Neely replied. Pulling his mike from his ear, he gave Pratt the go-ahead signal.
Each man had a single charge, culled from Hancock’s supply. Combined, the explosives would rupture the hull and make the submarine incapable of submerging. Enough damage and the water rushing in would overpower the bulkheads and the submarine would begin to sink. For maximum damage, they would place one charge near the bow, where the torpedoes were stowed and one charge midway down her length, near the fuel and ballast tanks.
Neely armed both charges and synched them to the remote detonator. Pratt remained on the surface while Neely submerged to place the device on the hull. Each bomb had been constructed with a resin that could adhere to metal surfaces underneath the water. Neely’s hands shook from the cold. The bomb slipped from his stiff fingers and started to sink. Kicking off the bottom of the submarine, Neely raced downward, chasing his bomb. The bright LED display guiding him, Neely clamped both palms around the bomb. Returning to the submarine, he attached it underneath the bow of the sub. His oxygen levels running dangerously low, Neely resurfaced and took a great gulp of air.
They swam around to the starboard side of the submarine and made their way down her length. At the halfway point, Neely kept watch while Pratt placed his device. The curve of the hull forced Pratt to remain submerged longer. Neely counted off the seconds in his head; as his count neared the three-minute mark, Pratt slipped up beside him. His lips were blue and his teeth were beginning to chatter, but he gave the thumbs up.
With the props spinning, they turned toward the bow to make their way back around the submarine. As they neared the bow, bullets churned up the water around them. The hot sting of metal burned through Neely’s body. His left arm went numb. He felt at least two strikes hit his leg and two more in his back. His right hand, clenched to the remote detonator, began to weaken. His body temperature rapidly began to drop. Submerged up to his chin, Neely turned to help Pratt. Pratt floated face down in the water. Bullets had chewed up his back. The side of his face had been blown off.
Neely awkwardly swam toward the shadows beyond the submarine. His left arm refused to move. His body weight was dragging him beneath the surface. Feebly kicking his right leg in an effort to remain above the surface, Neely attached his mike. “Bombs are in place,” he reported. Choking, he spit up a mouthful of blood.
“Destroy it,” Hancock ordered.
“Yes sir,” Neely replied. His thumb twitched on the detonator’s button. He felt the concussive force of the dual underwater explosions. On the surface, the submarine listed to the starboard side as she began to take on water. The men standing atop her scrambled for purchase as the sub leaned further over. Her nose dropped heavily into the water. At the rear, the water was churning. The props were nearly exposed to the air. Incapable of submerging, she was an 8000 ton sitting duck.
His objective complete, Neely slipped below the surface.
***
The pain in his destroyed limbs threatened to engulf him in blackness. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he couldn’t feel them. Gritting his teeth, Godin placed his palms flat on the ground and pushed up. Leaning back, he dragged his useless lower body along the floor a fe
w short inches. The pain radiated up his limbs.
Dots swam before his eyes. Godin forced the blackness away. He didn’t have much time and he knew it. His palms on the ground again, he pushed a little further. Though it seemed much longer, he’d rounded his desk in a few minutes and sat before his safe. Dialing the combination, adding his thumb print and his voice print, he popped the safe open and reached inside.
Bundles of cash were stacked at the very front. A small caliber pistol and bullets were tucked in behind the money. Next to the gun sat a small black remote. Godin keyed in a security sequence to unlock the remote. Next, he keyed in a time and pressed the ‘arm’ button. A timer on the device started counting backwards from fifteen minutes.
14:59
14:58
14:57
When the door of his office exploded inward, Godin barely blinked. The sweat on his forehead slipped down his temples and stung his eyes. He heard the sounds of people entering his office, but knew that it wouldn’t be his soldiers. He thought about the gun in his safe, but couldn’t muster the interest in reaching for it. He’d be dead in less than fifteen minutes anyway.
Tate rounded the desk and saw Godin leaning against it, his face white and covered in sweat from the strain of his movements. She kicked the device away from his side and ignored it. With Gibson’s gun on him, she leaned forward and searched him for weapons. She checked the safe and pulled out the pistol. Standing again, she tucked the gun into her waistband and stared down at Godin.
“Where is Vlad?” she asked, in Russian.
“He has already left.” Though Godin was dying at the hands of his own sons, he wouldn’t betray them to an outside party.
Tate looked around the room and noticed the door recessed into the back wall. She radioed Braddock’s team and informed him that Vlad was making a move toward the sub. She had just finished her orders when Druid hailed her.
“Sir, we’ve got a very big problem here,” he said then explained what Cisco had discovered. “The TNT is rigged, likely to a remote detonator. We can’t determine what type of device, for sure, because it’s buried somewhere in the stacks of explosives and we can’t find it. We don’t know if it’s armed, but there’s enough TNT here to blow the complex to dust.”
Tate turned and looked at the device that had been sitting on the floor next to Godin. Stepping over to it, she picked it up and looked at the screen.
13:30
13:29
13:28
Looking at Godin, she saw the satisfied smile on his face. Tate hit her emergency broadcast button to address her entire team, no matter which of their designated channels they’d switched their radios to.
“Listen up folks, this island is rigged with enough explosives to royally fuck up the rest of our day. We are abandoning this rock effective immediately. We have thirteen minutes before it disintegrates, on my mark.” Tate waited until the timer hit 13:03 and then counted down with it. “3, 2, 1, mark. I’m calling in the choppers now. Acknowledge,” she demanded. Each of her team leads called in. Once she had confirmation from each of them she called in the choppers and gave them her coordinates.
“Sir, those coordinates put you inside the island. Will you be coming to the surface?” her lead pilot enquired.
“Negative. You will be coming inside the island,” she replied, explaining what she needed them to do. Disengaging from her pilots, Tate looked down at Godin. She knew the bomb on the island would probably do her job for her. He sat there with his eyes closed, ignoring her team.
Tate pulled his gun from her waistband. She checked the magazine and cocked the gun. The sound drew Godin’s attention. Aiming straight at his head, she pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the front of his brain. It exited out the back and lodged in his desk. His head lolled to the side, his sightless eyes staring straight ahead.
Looking at Gibson, Tate shrugged. “I didn’t want the fucker miraculously surviving this confrontation.”
Gibson smirked at her. “You’ve been watching too many horror movies.” Checking the level on his magazine, he headed for the recessed doorway.
Tate kept the gun with her and followed him out the door, the rest of her team right on her heels.
***
Tank led his team down the main hallway to the barracks. Warp and the rest of TA-4 were armed, but they hadn’t found any useful body armor. Tank scoped out the barracks and found them to be deserted. He motioned his team inside and they spread out across the room and walked toward the rear.
Piggy, standing at the opposite end of the line to Tank, spotted the movement first. “Grenade!” he yelled. He dove to the ground and used a bed for cover.
His team disbursed behind him as the grenade landed and exploded, sending a wave of razor-sharp shrapnel bulleting through the air. Piggy took a couple of pieces in his right leg. Flexing, he determined that the damage was minimal.
The soldier beside him wasn’t as lucky. He’d moved a split second too late and took a full load of shrapnel in the chest. Divested of his body armor when he’d been captured, the shrapnel encountered the flimsy barrier of his t-shirt before it hit skin. His chest a bloody pulp, he stood for a few seconds before his body caught up to the fact that he was dead and he toppled over.
Piggy popped up and opened fire, lobbing three grenades into the room. He couldn’t see the enemy, but they would feel the force of the grenades he’d just shoved down their throats. He motioned for Bulls-eye to take his place while he crept inside the room. The devastation around him aided his movements. A makeshift barricade was built close to the east side of the room. Piggy moved toward the west. He’d liberated one of the dead soldiers from the hallway of his weapons, including four frag grenades and a flash bang. He tossed the flash bang, whispering “Eyes and ears, people!” and covered his own ears as the grenade detonated. When the sound had died down, he tossed a frag grenade and ducked behind an overturned bunk.
Piggy stepped out from his cover and slipped in a small pool of blood. A shot cracked through the air, whizzing past where his head had been. Ducking back down, the rest of his team hitting the deck, he tried to get a bead on the shooter.
A lone Russian soldier was holed up in the very back of the barracks. He didn’t know what the hell had happened. Nikanov had ordered the garrison to clear the intruders in the main hallway. The highest ranking officer in the barracks at the time had been a hothead who didn’t understand the concept of strategy. He had hyped everyone up and led them straight up the main hallway. A few more seasoned soldiers had remained behind. Now there was only one left.
Piggy cursed the size of the room and his lack of a proper rifle. He’d have to move in closer to get the remaining soldier, but that would put him in a better position to get hit. Whispering over the radio, he asked for a diversion so he could work his way further around.
Bulls-eye stood up and opened fire on the back wall, his bullets not coming close enough, but still arresting the shooter’s attention. Piggy elbowed his way along the floor. He’d gone no more than ten feet when the bunk he was crawling behind got chewed to ribbons by a barrage of bullets. Piggy rolled away, trying to put more cover between him and the shooter.
“Fuck!” he bellowed, as a bullet pierced the meaty flesh of his leg. His thigh went numb.
“Bulls-eye,” Warp whispered from his position on one of the top bunks in the main room.
“Sir,” Bulls-eye responded.
“Move,” Warp ordered and as Bulls-eye stepped to the right, out of his way, he pulled the trigger.
The Russian saw the soldier’s movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look. The bullet caught him in the centre of his face and shattered through his skull, exiting out the back of his head.
“Thanks,” Piggy whispered, once he saw the last Russian soldier die. As Bulls-eye led the way into the room, searching for any possible survivors, Piggy rolled into a seated position and examined his leg. Blood was seeping from three separate holes in his right t
high. He pulled his knife and slit his pant leg down to the knee. It wasn’t spurting and for that he was thankful, but it was still bleeding.
“Eugene, you got your bag handy?” he called out.
TA-4’s only surviving medic, since Hillman disappeared, Eugene felt naked without his medical kit. When he had entered the room, he’d noticed an area off to the far side that was sectioned off from the bunks. It was a makeshift infirmary for the soldiers.
There was no medic’s bag, but a small backpack full of supplies lay on its side on the floor. Eugene picked it up and dumped a few more supplies into it. Running into the back room, he leaped over the debris and slid in next to Piggy. Piggy gritted his teeth against the pain radiating up his body. His forehead was beaded with sweat and his nostrils were flared. Eugene examined the wounds. The bullets made a clean entrance; three small, neat holes. The exit wound was one ragged, ugly mess. Eugene knew he didn’t have time to sew it up. He gave great consideration to taking the time anyway.
“I don’t care if it leaves a scar, Doc,” Piggy said. “My swimsuit modeling career was starting to bore me anyway.”
Eugene snorted in amusement. He packed the wound with surgical foam and wrapped gauze around it, to hold it in place. He hauled Piggy to his feet and passed him off to Bulls-eye who assisted him out of the room.
11:19
11:18
11:17
Chapter 21
Cisco edged around the corner of the door, looking into the cavern warehouse. They had left the bomb room behind and returned to the HVAC room. Their goal was the entrance to the main complex, across the cavern and a hundred feet south of their current position. From there they could pass through the main hallway and into the shipping cavern. Trucks were still ferrying in crates; forklifts buzzed around between the various stacks of offloaded inventory. The bulk of people working in the cavern were amongst the crates that were waiting to be stored in the smaller warehouse.
