Even the odds. Wait for a better chance.
From around the corner came a thud, the creaking of heavy truck springs.
Fisher checked the flexicam. The tank was fully inside the truck now, the tailgate up. The hoist was pushed off to the side and one of the soldiers--a major, Fisher guessed--barked an order. The soldiers began climbing into the truck until all eight were inside, four to each bench seat alongside the tank. The officer closed the tailgate and the canvas flaps, then he and Carmen walked through the barn doors.
The truck's engine started, and a plume of blue gray exhaust burst from the muffler pipe.
Fisher sprinted forward, ducked down, wriggled beneath the truck's bumper, looked around. He wrapped his left arm over the bed's crossbeam support, his right over the winch drum's vertical post, then pulled himself off the ground and wedged his feet against the interior wheel fender.
With a growl, the engine revved, and the truck started moving.
After a brief stop at the gate, the truck turned left down the dirt road and descended toward the lakeshore, where it turned right, or west. Through the truck's step bumper Fisher watched the fort fade into the darkness.
THEYdrove for fifteen minutes on the relatively flat shore road, then suddenly the truck ground to a stop, the brakes squealing softly. Under the wheel well fender, Fisher could just make out the gray granite wall of the escarpment, two hundred yards away.
Faintly, over the rumble of the engine, Fisher heard Carmen's higher-pitched voice, followed by that of what Fisher assumed was the major's. An argument. The exchange lasted thirty seconds or so, then the gears engaged, and the truck started moving again.
The truck rolled forward about a hundred yards, then turned right toward the escarpment. Beneath him, Fisher watched the dirt road turn into rutted parallel tracks in the meadow grass. After another hundred feet, he heard the gears change and the engine drop in pitch as the truck started up an incline. A few moments later, Fisher saw the granite wall roll past the side of the truck. Entering a canyon.
For the next twenty minutes the truck continued winding higher and deeper into the mountains, bumping and tipping over an increasingly undulating and rocky road. Finally they slowed and then ground to a stop, then started backing down an incline. Everything went dark, and Fisher caught a whiff of dank water, mold, wet soil.
A cave.
The truck rolled for what Fisher guessed was another hundred feet, then stopped.
Now Fisher heard something else: the gurgling rush of water.
A river. An underground river.
He loosened his grip slightly and let himself drop toward the ground until he could see under the bumper. The truck's headlights were still on, casting a white glare along the cave walls, but still it was too dim to see much. He flipped his goggles to NV.
The cavern was small, barely bigger than the average home's two-car garage. The ceiling dripped with stalactites and pale yellow mineral deposits that had formed into narrow hourglass-shaped columns. Down the gravel slope behind the bumper Fisher could see rushing water, black and roiling in the NV's washed-out color field. The river, moving from left to right, was about ten feet wide.
This was it, Fisher knew: endgame. Carmen Hayes would have done her job well. Wherever this subterranean river went, he had to assume it would eventually intersect with the Caspian Basin oil fields--and perhaps beyond even those. No more time. No time for stealth, no time to plan. If Manas got out . . .
He felt his mind go blank for a half second, felt it switch over to that primitive part that was fight-or-flight, do-or-die. Don't think. Move. Whatever it costs, stop them here.
From the driver and passenger sides of the truck he heard the cab doors open, then slam shut. Footsteps crunched on gravel.
Fisher lowered himself to the ground and rolled out.
49
HEcame up in a crouch, plucked a pair of flashbang grenades from his web harness, pulled the pins, and tossed them through the truck's canvas flaps. Also known as M84s, flashbangs contained no shrapnel, but upon explosion gave off a million-candela flash of white light and overlapping 180-decibel crashes.
Even as the grenades thunkedoff the steel bed inside, Fisher drew the SC-20 from its back holster, crab-stepped left, and brought the barrel up.
The major, evidently having heard the thump of the grenades and recognizing the sound for what it was, had already turned and was sprinting back to the cab. The flashbangs detonated. A wave of blinding light and sound blasted out the back of the canvas flaps.
Fisher fired. The bullet caught the major high on the right shoulder blade, shoving him forward. Fisher adjusted his aim, curled his finger on the trigger--
"Bastard!"
To his right, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something rushing toward him: slight figure, pale oval face, short black hair. Fisher started to turn, but too late. Carmen Hayes, her face drawn back into a rictus, arms windmilling, and hands clutched into talons, dove onto his back, screaming and scratching and biting.
Fisher stumbled sideways. He dropped his right shoulder, cocked his elbow, and slammed it into the center of Carmen's face. Her nose shattered with a wet crunch. Blood gushed over her mouth and chin, but still she held on, fingernails clawing at his face. Fisher straightened up and ran backward, slamming her into the cave wall. Carmen grunted, held on.
The truck's engine roared to life.
Now shouting in Kyrgyz came from inside the truck.
Fisher thought absently, Flashbangs wearing off.
Again he slammed Carmen against the wall, then again, then once more. She went limp and slid off his back. He spun, thumbed the SC-20's selector to COTTONBALL. Afraid that with Carmen's shattered nose a full dose would jeopardize her, he punched the ball into the ground beside her waist, then thumbed the selector back to the 2-SHOT, and turned to the truck. The white backup lights were on.
The truck started moving, accelerating down the hill toward the river.
The truck's tailgate banged open, the canvas flaps flew back, followed by two, then three, then four soldiers leaping to the ground. Fisher took them as they came out and before they could get their guns up, double-tapping each one with a pair of bullets: torso . . . head . . . torso . . . head . . . torso . . . head. One by one they went down and rolled down the hill and into the water.
In his peripheral vision Fisher saw a hand appear out of the canvas flap and toss something toward him--baseball-size, oval-shaped. Fragmentation grenade. It landed with a thud in the gravel a few feet to his front and right. Shifting the SC-20 to his left hand and plucking a CS gas grenade from his harness with his right, he charged toward the grenade--a Russian RDG-5, he now saw--kicked it into the water, and side-armed the CS through the flaps.
Fwoomp!
The RDG-5 exploded. A geyser erupted from the river. A second later the CS grenade went off, and white gas gushed from the truck's canvas folds. Inside, the soldiers began coughing and shouting.