The duty officer pressed the button. The resulting subterranean roar reverberated through the tunnels, the concussion wave almost knocking Freeman’s team off their feet, and, in the middle tunnel, forcing Aussie and Sal to grab one of the MANPAD lathes to steady themselves.
It was testimony to Abramov’s expertise that he had calculated the amount of RDX so precisely that while the two halves of the massive door were bent and rendered useless by the blast, the door had not collapsed, acting, as Abramov had wanted it to, as a barrier between him and the enemy.
Safe above in the H-block, Abramov, Beria, and Cherkashin were cold as steel. They had no intention of waiting for what was being reported by the entrance guard detail as poison gas to leak up into the H-block. Thoroughly professional now, with no time to spare in a blame game — at least not yet — about the colossal error Abramov had made, enabling Dedushka—Grandpa — Freeman to heap humiliation upon them via the Pete Rose feint, Abramov declared, “Dead men can’t make sales,” adding, “Poison gas won’t hurt the production line. We can always get more men. I suggest, gentlemen, we take our bonuses and vacate.”
Without waiting for the other two’s acquiescence, Abramov quickly took his cell phone out of its holster and punched in three digits, briskly instructing his quartermaster, “Transport helo for three, plus luggage. Fully armed Sharks to escort us — and yourself — on the pad behind ABC. Fuel for Vladivostok. Now!”
“Yes, General. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Five!” Abramov shouted into the phone. “Five and you get double your bonus. In gold!”
“Yes, General.”
Beria and Cherkashin now moved quickly to the safe and withdrew their keys to their respective gold bullion boxes and attaché cases, as well as the access codes to their Swiss bank accounts.
“Got your keys?” Beria asked Abramov.
Abramov, checking the slide on his Makarov 9 mm pistol, retorted, “Are you serious? We’ll be back in production next week. C’mon, let’s get to the pad.” They could already hear the heavily armed Black Shark escort helos hovering overhead and the rotors of a big, bugeyed Hind transport chopper descending to the H-block’s emergency pad, located only yards from the edge of the enormous T-90 camouflage net.
Beyond the mass of red-hot twisted and steaming metal that had been the inner door between the entrance vestibule and the tunnels, there was a phalanx of upraised Russian hands dimly visible in the emergency lanterns’ light; were they surrendering? Many of the terrorists were crumpling to the floor in the eerie yellow-green fog, the choking impact of the tear gas in the confined space taking a rapid toll, Chester’s marines above keeping up a steady rain of tear gas canisters and smoke grenades. From inside their gas masks, Freeman, Aussie, Sal, Choir, and Johnny Lee found that despite the state-of-the-art charcoal-and chemical-pad filters, the air was becoming throat-raspingly hot and thin. None of Freeman’s team saw the flash but all heard the bursts of AK-47 fire. In the choking gas, the shooters’ aim was way off, but they could have hit any one of the team.
“Fire!” yelled Freeman, and the team opened up, taking what shelter they could behind the assembly line machinery nearest them. In addition to firing their weapons, Freeman’s team tossed twelve HE and eight flash-bang grenades, the wild terrorist AK-47 fire, presumably coming from the guard detail, absorbed by the boxes of guidance vanes for Igla and Vanguard MANPADs that lined the walls of the tunnels, the flash-bangs taking out most of the remaining emergency lanterns, what little light remained casting huge, macabre shadows on the tunnel walls. Amid the acrid-smelling smoke and tear gas, some of the terrorists managed to stand, screaming for mercy. Freeman’s stentorian nasal voice boomed through his mask: “The Cole, the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, Flight 93!” his AK-74 chopping them down, the barrel of his Kalashnikov so hot he wondered whether it would tolerate another mag just yet. Giving it time to cool, he whipped out his H K sidearm and, with Aussie, Sal, Lee, and Choir doing likewise, continued putting the wounded out of their misery.
Aussie, his hand wet with flesh and bone, continued his gruesome, but as he saw it, necessary task if America and her allies were to be safer from these heartless murderers who sold their wares to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. He could make out a clutch of swarthy Middle Eastern faces screaming at him, not begging for mercy but hurling their hatred at him, the Arab face nearest him so contorted for a moment he looked as frightening as Aussie must in his gas mask, Aussie yelling at him, “You look like one of those bastards in Bali!” as the next burst punched the Arab back, his body crumpling beneath the waning light, Aussie seeing the name “RAMON” stenciled on the man’s blood-soaked battle tunic. Immediately Aussie remembered the attack on DARPA ALPHA, one of the victims having written “RAM” and “SCARUND” on a piece of paper before he died. Now, looking down at the dead terrorist, he saw the raised, angry red scar under the man’s chin.
“All right,” Freeman yelled out, his voice muffled by the gas mask’s filters but sounding just as resolute as it had at the beginning of the subterranean raid. “Hurry up with the C-4, guys, and let’s get back topside!”
The five men, the general in the first tunnel, Aussie and Sal in the second, and Johnny and Choir in the third quickly placed the fist-sized lumps of C-4, connecting them with det cord, at strategic points along the production line of each tunnel. The det cords from the three tunnels were wrapped into one, then run topside by the team and connected to the remote initiator that, once the team was safe topside, would be activated, beginning the firing sequence that would move through the det cord to the globs of C-4, the cord’s explosive detonation wave traveling at more than seven thousand yards a second, thus in effect exploding all the globs of C-4 simultaneously.
Freeman told each of the other four men to take a MANPAD and portable power pack with him from the assembly line. There was a chance, he knew, that if the weather cleared, the Russians might just risk some of their hitherto revetment-hidden attack helos to harass the marines’ evacuation, if for no other reason than sheer spite. Against this, however, there was the equally good chance that without “product” to sell after the tunnels blew up, what pilot would bother to risk his life for revenge sans bonus?
“Son of a bitch!” said young Kegg, as Freeman and the other four gas-masked MANPAD-carrying warriors emerged from the exit. “What the fuck went on down there? Sounded like a — a war!”
“It was,” said Aussie. “For the fucking terrorists.” He whipped off his gas mask with his left hand and took in a deep draft of cold, rainy air. “Those pricks won’t be making any more of these.” He raised the Igla with his right hand. “These five are the only ones left.”
“You know how to fire one, Aussie?” joshed Kegg.
“Surely you jest, boy.” Aussie lifted the forty-pound missile in its launcher-sheath to his right shoulder, the rocket’s aerodynamic spike in front of the heat-seeking infrared and its flare decoy analyzer piercing the air. Aussie looked about. “Where’d the opposition go?”
“The navy infantry,” replied a sodden but smiling Lieutenant Chester. “Soon as the word got out that the tunnels were under attack, that Freeman suckered Abramov, I guess they thought, ‘What’s the point?’ Anyway, they’ve pulled back for now.”