He poked his head up over the dash until he could see through the windshield. The tunnel was more massive than he’d originally imagined. Like the skeleton of a submarine, the walls and ceiling were braced by massive hoop girders. Halogen lights affixed to the ceiling stretched into the distance.
Over the hood, Jack saw the top of a man’s head move from right to left and disappear from view. Twenty feet down the tunnel, he saw another man crouching beside a yellow Cushman. Careful to keep his head out of sight, Jack wriggled into the driver’s seat. From the sleeper compartment, he heard a single tap. One… Another tap. Two…
On three, Jack pressed his palm against the horn.
Gunfire erupted on either side of the cab. The man beside the Cushman stood up and fired a burst from his AK. There was a single pop, then another. The man stumbled backward, bounced off the Cushman, and slid to the ground.
“Come on out, Jack,” Clark called.
In pairs, they wriggled beneath the truck and into the tunnel. The first man Jack had seen lay still a few feet away. Dominic trotted down to the Cushman and checked the other man. He turned back, drew his thumb across his throat.
They collected the two AKs and then, with Chavez at the wheel, climbed into the Cushman and started down the tunnel. “How stable is this thing they’ve got?” Jack asked Clark.
“Pretty stable. The slug has to be rammed into the pit with a lot of force. Takes a good-sized charge, and it has to be set. Why?”
“Working on an idea.”
Fifty feet ahead, the string of halogen ceiling lights converged into a circle. “First ramp,” Jack said.
“Easy, Dom,” Clark ordered.
They pulled to within twenty feet, then stopped, got up, and walked up to the ramp’s entrance. Lit from above by yet more halogen lights, the ramp angled down at twenty-five degrees.
“Should be able to hear their Cushman,” Jack whispered.
They went silent and listened. Nothing.
They climbed back into the Cushman and kept going. The tunnel curved to the right. Dominic stopped short, and Jack got out and peeked around the bend. He came back. “Clear.”
They kept going. They reached the second ramp and stopped to listen but heard nothing. Same with the third and fourth. As they approached the fifth, they heard a voice echo up the ramp. They got up and walked forward and looked down.
In the distance they could see the yellow speck of a Cushman appear under a halogen light, then move into shadow, then into light again.
“Three-quarters of the way down,” Jack said.
“If you’ve got an idea, now’s the time,” Clark said.
“Depends on how sure you are about that thing’s stability.”
“Ninety percent.”
Jack nodded. “Ding, need your help.”
They climbed into the Cushman, did a Y-turn, and headed back down the tunnel. They returned thirty seconds later. From the rear of the Cushman, Jack and Ding each lifted out an acetylene cylinder. “Torpedo,” Jack said.
“Are they full?”
“Mostly empty.”
“Timing’s going to be a bitch.”
“I’ll leave that up to you. You’re the boss.”
“Go ahead.”
Jack and Chavez carried the cylinders to the ramp’s entrance, laid them flat, then gave them a shove. At once they began to spin, gonging off the walls on their way down. Jack and Chavez ran back to the Cushman and got in. Dominic pulled up to the ramp and stopped.
Clark waited for a ten-count, then said, “Go.”
Almost immediately it became apparent that the Cushman’s breaks were inadequate. After fifty yards, the speedometer needle quivered past thirty mph. The overhead lights zipped by. Dominic braked, slowing them slightly, but smoke began gushing from the drums. Two hundred yards below them, the cylinders were spinning and tumbling like a pair of footballs. The Emir’s Cushman was almost at the bottom.
“Gonna be close,” Chavez said.
Clark said, “Slow us down, Dom.”
Dominic tapped the brakes with no result. He stomped on the pedal. Nothing happened. “Keep your hands inside,” he yelled, then veered right. The Cushman’s front quarter panel scraped the tunnel wall, sending up a shower of sparks. They slowed slightly. He eased away from the wall, then back again.
A hundred yards down the ramp, the cylinders caught up with the Emir’s Cushman. One cylinder took a bad bounce and tumbled past, but the second one crashed into the rear bumper. The Cushman skidded, turning broadside, then tipped onto its side and skidded onto the landing.
“Get us stopped,” Clark ordered.
Dominic spun the wheel hard over, putting the whole left side into the wall. The Cushman slowly ground to a stop. They got out and started down the ramp. On the landing, the Emir’s Cushman lay upside down. A few feet away, a body lay sprawled on the concrete. They paused at the entrance to the landing. To their left, the tunnel continued on another fifty feet before turning sharply left. There was no one in the tunnel. Chavez walked over to the body and knelt down. “Not him,” he said.
They jogged down the tunnel. Around the corner, they found themselves in a thirty-foot-wide alley. Overhead, vaulted girders spanned the ceiling. They could see the circular entrances to the storage drifts, spaced at twenty-foot intervals along each side of the alley.
“I count twelve per side,” Dominic said.
“Split up,” Clark ordered. “Me and Jack will take the right, you two the left.”
Clark and Jack sprinted across the alley to the opposite wall. Jack mouthed, I’ll take the last six. Clark nodded. Jack took off in a sprint, glancing into each drift as he went. On the other side of the alley, Dominic was doing the same.
Jack dashed past the fifth drift, saw nothing, then continued past the seventh and eighth. He skidded to a stop, backed up, and looked again. He saw a flicker of light two hundred yards down the drift. He could just make out two figures crouched beside what looked like an industrial bait box. Jack looked around. Clark was working his way forward but too far away. Same with Dominic and Chavez.
“Hell with it.”
He sprinted into the drift.
He’d covered half the distance to the figures when one of their heads snapped up. A muzzle flashed orange. Jack kept running. Raised his gun, snapped off two shots. From the alley, Clark yelled, “Over here!”
The man stepped forward, firing from the hip. Jack hunched over and pressed against the wall, trying to make himself small. He adjusted his aim, laid the sites on the man’s center mass, squeezed off two rounds. The man spun and went down. The other figure ignored his fallen comrade and kept working, his hands moving in the box. He looked up, saw Jack, kept working. Thirty feet away. Jack raised his gun and kept firing until the slide locked open, the magazine now empty. Twenty feet. A head peeked around the box, disappeared again. Jack covered the last ten feet in two strides, then dropped his shoulder and slammed into the box. He heard something pop in his shoulder, felt the pain rush up his neck. The box skidded backward. Jack’s feet went out from under him, and he slammed face-first into the concrete. Blood gushing from his shattered nose, he pushed himself to his knees. His eyesight sparkled. He looked around. The first man’s body lay sprawled against the curved wall, his AK a few feet away. Jack crawled over to it, snagged the sling with his right hand, and dragged it toward him. He got to his feet and stumbled around the box.
Already on his feet, the Emir was stepping toward the box. He saw Jack and stopped. His eyes flicked to the box, then back to Jack’s face.
“Don’t!” Jack barked. “You’re done. It’s over.”
Down the tunnel behind Jack came the pounding of footsteps.