The Ajax Protocol (The Project)

by Lukeman, Alex

  Korov shifted the lenses. He smiled. "A numbered keypad," he said.

  "Doesn't that seem a little unusual for an old barn in the country?"

  Nick's phone signaled a call from Harker.

  "Yes."

  "Nick, you were right. The satellite overpass shows infrared activity at that site, consistent with something buried underground. How far under, I can't say."

  "Outstanding," Nick said. "Now all we have to do is get in. We're about to go hot, Director."

  "Copy that. Good luck, Nick. Keep your head down."

  Nick put the phone away and told the others what Harker had said.

  "We don't know what's down there," Korov said, "but it will be defended. What are the rules of engagement?"

  "If someone is armed, don't hesitate. Shoot to kill. There will be control stations for a satellite or satellites somewhere in that complex. Our mission is to destroy them."

  "What if there are civilians?" Selena asked.

  "These people want to destroy America," Nick said. "There are no civilians down there."

  No one else had any questions.

  "Lock and load," Nick said. "The house is probably a guard point. We'd better clear it first."

  They crawled on all fours toward the house. The moon hadn't come up yet and the only light came from the stars, high over the Rocky Mountains. In the distance, Denver was a fairytale glow against the dark outline of the Front Range. The night smelled of grass and the dry dust of the plains. Earlier, there had been thousands of crickets chirping. Now the only sound was the quiet movement of their bodies across the ground.

  They worked their way up to the rusted machinery. The front of the house was about 30 feet away. The light was still on in the window and on the porch. The curtains were drawn. It was impossible to see who or what was inside.

  Nick signaled and ran forward, cradling the M-16 across his chest. The others came close behind. The old feeling came over him, the adrenaline surge rushing in his ears, a mix of fear and excitement. They reached the porch and Nick stepped onto it. A moth circled the light. He reached for the knob on the front door. Then he saw the camera.

  He threw himself to the side. The roar of a shotgun came from inside the house. The front door blew off the hinges in a shower of splinters.

  Big. Must be a 10 gauge, Nick thought.

  Selena and Korov and Ronnie opened up at the window and door. Another blast of the shotgun sent more splinters flying. Nick reached blind around the smashed doorframe and fired a fast burst. The shotgun boomed again. Nick fired a three round burst and rolled into the house. The man with the shotgun was at the end of a long hall that stretched past a flight of stairs. Nick shot him. Someone appeared at the top of the stairs and began shooting. The rounds chopped holes in the floor behind him as Nick dove out of the line of fire. Ronnie came through the doorway and cut the shooter down. The body tumbled down the steps.

  Selena and Korov came into the house and moved down the hall, fast, looking into rooms and calling out as they went.

  "Clear."

  "Clear."

  Ronnie and Nick went up the steps. There was no one left on the top floor. They came back down.

  The man Ronnie had killed wore a TSA uniform. No one would give someone in that outfit a second glance in an airport terminal.

  "Only two of them here," Ronnie said.

  "Spotters," Nick said. "Here to sound the alarm if someone shows up that's not supposed to."

  "Like us," Selena said.

  "If these two got off a signal, it means the opposition knows we're here."

  "Maybe they didn't have a chance to do it," Selena said.

  "We'll find out quick enough," Nick said, "once we get into that barn."

  CHAPTER 52

  General Westlake and Senator Martinez watched the big screen that dominated the control room of the command bunker. It showed a computerized map of the US and North America. Changing numbers on the right-hand side of the display indicated that the Ajax satellite was approaching the Eastern seaboard.

  "What Caesar and the Romans could have done if they'd had this kind of technology," Westlake said.

  "They did pretty well without it," Martinez said.

  "But in the end, they failed. We will not. What we do here today will birth a new Empire. The glory of Rome will be nothing in comparison."

  "A Pax Americana," Martinez said, "backed up by the most powerful military the world has ever seen."

  "We don't need the entire world," Westlake said, "at least not at first."

  "There will be some who try to take advantage of the transition," Martinez said. "Russia comes to mind. China."

  "Let them try. They will find new strength in our foreign policy."

  "You are sure that we have enough support in the Pentagon?"

  Westlake gave him a hard look. "Second thoughts? It's a little late for that. "

  "I've always thought Anderson could make trouble."

  General Franklin Anderson was Commandant of the Marine Corps.

  "I've assigned units to isolate Anderson, Admiral Kaplan and the other senior officers who won't support us. There are only a half dozen officers who could create a problem. They will be unable to affect events."

  "Homeland Security?"

  "Will be out in force, as soon as Edmonds announces that there has been a terrorist attack."

  "Speaking of Edmonds, there's something else," Martinez said. "What about Rice? He hasn't resumed his office, but he's awake."

  "I've already arranged for his, ah, relapse," Westlake said. "In any event, it's too late for anything he does to make a difference." Westlake gestured at the screen. "Ajax will be in range soon."

  A red light began blinking on the wall beside the screen.

  "What's that?" Martinez asked.

  Westlake's lips set in a tight line. "Intruder alert. Someone has breached the security perimeter up top."

  "How can that be? No one knows about this place."

  "I don't know."

  Westlake picked up a phone on the console and listened to it ring. He set the phone down and turned to Martinez.

  "The perimeter post isn't answering. I'll send a team into the tunnels. It could be a malfunction, but if someone has breached security they won't make it past the elevator."

  CHAPTER 53

  Ronnie pulled the cover off the numbered keypad by the barn door and studied the wiring inside the unit. A half dozen wires of different colors ran in all directions. He pulled a red and yellow wire out of the mix and touched them together. The unit sparked. The doors stayed closed. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the keypad.

  "Now what," Selena said.

  "It should have been red and yellow," Ronnie said. "Let me try something else."

  He raised his M-16 and put a three round burst into the keypad. There was a loud click and one of the doors slid partway open.

  "When in doubt, use a bigger hammer," Ronnie said. Korov smiled.

  They squeezed through the opening. The interior of the barn was in darkness. They fanned out by the doors and listened, weapons held ready. There was no one there.

  Korov took a small flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. The barn was cluttered with old furniture, machinery, tools. Shadows cast by the moving light shifted as if they were alive.

  "This place gives me the creeps," Selena said.

  The light revealed the squat shape of a freight elevator shaft. It looked new. A metal lattice gate closed off the open shaft. A control box with two buttons was mounted on one side.

  "Looks like we found the way in," Ronnie said. "I don't think they use this for moving bales of hay."

  Nick's ear tingled. He scratched it.

  "You're doing that thing," Ronnie said.

  "What thing?"

  "The ear thing."

  "Yeah. Could be someone waiting for us at the bottom of this shaft."

  "Is there another way down?" Selena asked.

  Korov circled the barn with his l
ight. "I don't see anything," he said.

  "Here goes nothing," Nick said. He pushed the top button on the control panel. Machinery whined as the elevator rose from somewhere below. They stood to the side, rifles pointed at the opening. It seemed like a long time before the top of the cage appeared above the floor. The elevator came to a stop. There was no one on it.

  Nick pulled open the gate. It moved smoothly on oiled tracks. Another two-button switch was mounted on the inside of the cage.

  "We don't have much choice," Nick said. "We have to use this."

  "We're sitting ducks if someone starts shooting," Ronnie said.

  "Like I said, we don't have much choice. Stand close to the sides. If they're waiting for us, we'll see them through the gap when the floor of the elevator reaches the lower level. If anyone's there, shoot through the gap before the elevator stops."

  "The gate's in the way," Korov said.

  Nick looked at the grillwork. "There's a safety interlock where the gate shuts. If we jam it, the elevator will work with the gate open. We need something to block it."

  Three empty wooden crates were stacked next to the shaft. Ronnie went to one and broke off a sliver of wood.

  "How about this?"

  Nick jammed the piece into the interlock.

  "That'll work." He swept his hand toward the elevator. "Going down," he said.

  They got on. Nick pushed the bottom button. The elevator began to descend. Nick and Selena went to one side, Ronnie and Korov to the other. They pressed up against the walls of the cage.

  They descended at a snail's pace. Nick kept his M-16 pointed at the front edge of the elevator floor. A crack of light appeared, becoming wider. Nick wondered if someone was waiting.

  Someone was. They fired at the elevator as it came into view.

  Korov fired first through the widening gap, then the others. Bullets slammed into the bottom of the elevator floor and into the top of the cage. Whoever was below had to fire up through the gap, a disadvantage. There were three of them. By the time the elevator stopped, they were dead. They all wore the TSA uniform .

  From where they stood inside the elevator, there wasn't much to see. To the left and in front were walls of gray concrete, the opposite wall a dozen feet away. They had stopped at the end of a broad corridor. The passage continued to the right, out of Nick's vision.

  He held up his hand. Wait. There had to be more of them.

  Clink!

  A dark green cylinder rolled to a stop in front of the elevator.

  "Grenade!" Nick shouted.

  Korov moved in a blur, scooping up the grenade and hurling it back down the hallway. He landed flat on the floor and covered his head with his arms. The grenade detonated. In the enclosed space, the sound was a thunderclap. Screams came from down the hall.

  Nick, Ronnie and Selena moved out of the elevator and began firing down the passage over Korov's head. At the other end, someone was still alive and shooting at them. Bullets ricocheted from the concrete walls. Selena felt the wind as they flew by. One grazed her arm, a sharp, burning pain. The passage filled with a haze of smoke and concrete dust from the explosion.

  Then it was silent. Korov got to his feet.

  Dust and smoke drifted through the hall. The air smelled of burnt gunpowder and spent brass and hot blood. Down the passage, six men in TSA uniforms lay dead on the floor. There was a lot of blood, pools of it. What a grenade did to the human body wasn't pretty.

  The corridor ended in a T. The bodies lay in the junction.

  Nick turned to Korov. "Nice move with the grenade. You ought to try out for the Yankees."

  "Yankees?"

  Ronnie stifled a laugh.

  Nick said, "Never mind, Arkady."

  "It's clear up to that T," Ronnie said.

  They ran to the junction. The crackle of static froze them in place.

  "Echo team, report."

  Ronnie bent down and took a radio from the belt of one of the dead men. It was a standard military issue.

  "Echo team, report," someone said again.

  Nick nodded. Ronnie pressed send.

  "Echo," he said. He muffled his voice.

  "That you, Jack? What the hell's happening?"

  "Four intruders. All dead."

  "You sound funny," the voice said.

  Ronnie coughed into the radio. "Lot of dust. Hadda use a grenade."

  "All right. Come in. Out."

  "Copy," Ronnie said. He turned the radio off.

  "You should have been an actor," Nick said. He glanced around the corner. The passage was empty in both directions.

  "Which way?" Korov said.

  "Damned if I know," Nick said.

  "Left," Selena said. She pointed at a layer of dust covering the floor in the right hand passage. "No footprints." She looked at the bodies lying by her feet. "These men didn't come that way."

  "You're bleeding," Korov said.

  Selena's sleeve was red with blood.

  "Only a scratch."

  Korov took out his knife and cut the fabric away from her arm. She winced as he pulled the cloth away.

  "It's not serious. A flesh wound," he said. He cut a strip from his shirt and used it to wrap the injury. His touch was gentle as he did it.

  Selena gave him an odd look. "Thanks," she said.

  Nick inserted a fresh 30 round magazine into his M-16. "Let's go," he said.

  They moved into the left-hand corridor. Light bulbs lined the walls at regular intervals, each one protected by a metal grill. The tunnel was big, at least two dozen feet across and almost as high.

  "You could drive a truck through here," Ronnie said. "What were they thinking of?"

  "It was supposed to be part of the train system," Selena said. "At least that's the story."

  They walked along the deserted tunnel. Nick felt fatigue setting in as the adrenaline wore off. He forced himself to stay alert.

  "Someone spent a lot of money to build this," Korov said.

  "If it was meant to be an emergency hideout for the big shots, they wouldn't have cared about how much it cost."

  "But they never used it," Selena said. "Why build it and then walk away?"

  "Who knows?" Nick said. "I gave up trying to understand how Washington spends our money a long time ago."

  Ahead, the corridor turned left around a blind corner. They moved single file along the wall until Nick signaled a halt. He glanced around the corner.

  The corridor ended in a wall and a steel door painted gray.

  They moved to the door. Nick tugged on his ear. It itched.

  "Maybe they think we're dead. Maybe they don't. My guess is were going to find out when we go through that door," Nick said. "The door opens toward us. Ronnie, you and Korov take the left side and Selena and I will take the right."

  They took up positions on either side of the door. Nick pulled it open. Nothing happened.

  The door led to a large storeroom filled with old office furniture and odds and ends from the airport. Everything was stacked in haphazard piles. The place looked like a junk shop organized by a schizophrenic. On the far side of the room was another door.

  "I don't see anyone," Ronnie said. His voice was quiet.

  They started into the room.

  "Look out!"

  Korov jumped in front of Selena and pushed her aside. A burst of automatic fire came from behind a stack of boxes. The bullets hurled the Russian backward. Nick had time to see a dark object hurtling through the air before the world vanished in a wave of light and sound.

  CHAPTER 54

  Nick came to his senses and retched. He was lying on the floor. A man in a TSA uniform stood over him. The muzzle of a rifle was pressed into his neck.

  "Don't move, asshole."

  The voice was muffled. Something was wrong with Nick's hearing. Flashbang, he thought.

  Another man grabbed Nick and bound his hands behind his back with zip ties. Nick clenched his teeth against a jolt of pain from his broken fingers. The m
an pulled him to his feet. For Nick, it felt like his arms were going to come out of their sockets. He was dizzy. He stumbled and retched again. The other man kept a harsh grip on his arm. Then he saw Korov.

  The Russian lay on his side, his eyes open, unblinking. His face had a look of childlike surprise. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. Blood spread in a slow, red stain around him.

  Aw, hell, Nick thought. Then, Selena!

  He looked to his right. Selena was being hauled to her feet. A little ways past her, Ronnie lay on the floor as someone tied his hands.

  Selena looked over at him and he felt relief that she was still alive. She looked at Korov's body and her face set. Nick knew the look. You didn't want to be on the wrong side of that look.

  "You all right?" he said.

  "Yes."

  "Shut up. No talking." Nick's guard poked him hard in the back with his rifle.

  One of their captors was on his radio. He had three gold stripes on his shoulders. He listened for a moment, acknowledged and put the radio away.

  "We're going to the control room," he said to the man standing next to Nick. "The General wants to see them."

  "Wants to ask them a few questions, I'll bet. They won't like that."

  "I wouldn't mind asking her a few questions," one of the men said. He walked over and stood about six feet away from Selena.

  "What do you say, honey bunch? Be nice, and I can make things a lot easier for you."

  "I can't be nice to you if you're way over there," Selena said.

  The man grinned and stepped close. Selena kneed him in the groin. He doubled over in pain, grabbing his crotch.

  After a moment he straightened up. "Bitch," he said, and punched her in the stomach. She went down on her knees, gasping for breath.

  "That's enough," the man with the stripes said. "The General's waiting." Selena struggled to her feet. Stripes went over to her. He stood well out of her reach.

  "You try anything else, I'll put a bullet in your head. Understand?"

  She said nothing.

  "I'll take that as a yes," Stripes said.

  As the men prodded them forward, Nick thought about Korov. They had been under fire together in Texas and Russia, gotten drunk together, sung songs together. Nick didn't let many people into his life, but Korov had been one of them. Nick felt rage stirring, the kind of rage that had erupted on the day he almost killed his father, all those years ago. He took a deep breath to get himself under control. Blind rage wasn't going to get them out of this. He looked over at Ronnie, then at Selena. Something passed between them. It wasn't over yet.