“First charge set and marked,” Boxers’ voice said in his ear. A few seconds later, a new layer of darkness fell as Big Guy shot out the lights on the second floor.
Above him and seemingly from everywhere, Yelena called out for Nicholas and Josef.
“Is that Babushka?” Josef’s voice cracked with excitement. He looked up at Nicholas. “That sounds like Babushka.”
And damned if it didn’t. Was that possible? How could Tony Darmond’s wife — the First Lady of the United States — possibly break free to come and rescue them? How could she even know that they had been taken?
When she called a second time there was no denying the identity of the voice.
Josef ran to the door and pounded on it. “Babushka! We’re here! Babushka!”
The boy seemed oblivious to the additional gunfire.
Jonathan unslung his ruck while he ran. He glanced quickly to his left to see that the door from Building Charlie was still intact, then cut the turn to the stairway. The stairs themselves were surrounded by a sheath of metal mesh. Ten steps led to a landing, at which point the stairs turned one hundred eighty degrees to the right and then spiraled up to the next floor.
Jonathan climbed to the first landing, took a knee, and placed his ruck on the floor next to him. Without looking, his hand moved to the right-hand exterior pocket to find the thick rectangular curve that he knew to be a claymore mine. As he lifted it from its pocket, his other hand found the detonators that he carried in the left-hand pocket. Working from muscle memory, he inserted a detonator into its designated spot on the back of the mine.
He didn’t have time to run a trip wire, and a timer fuse was inappropriate. He chose instead to use what he called a motion fuse. It was an unforgiving initiator that was tied to a motion sensor. He set the arming timer to thirty seconds to give himself time to get out of the way before the sensor went active. Once it did, there’d be no turning back, and no disarming the device. If a person or an animal moved within the range of the sensor, one and one-third pounds of C4 would detonate, launching seven hundred steel balls in a sixty-degree arc straight at the enemy.
Just to be on the safe side, Jonathan inserted a second detonator, this one tied to a radio receiver so that he could shoot it manually if he wanted to. The last step before setting the arming timer was to pull an infrared chem light from its elastic mount on his vest. When he snapped the tube and shook it, the chem light emitted a green glow that was visible only to those wearing night vision. He laid it next to the claymore so that he’d know where it was. Then he punched in the thirty-second delay and he got the hell out of there.
Hefting his ruck with his left hand, he was halfway up the next flight of stairs when the radio popped to life in his right ear. “I found them!” Yelena shouted. He could have heard her without the radio. “They’re on the fourth floor. I’m standing outside their cell.”
“Roger that,” Jonathan said. “Don’t move. We’re on our way. Just need to place one more claymore.”
An instant later, the command net popped to life in his left ear. “Scorpion, Mother Hen. The Ottawa police and fire services are dispatching the world to your location.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The sound of sirens grew in the night as David pressed himself against the snow. The last surviving attacker was apparently as freaked out as David was. The guy fired his machine gun randomly into the woods, close enough to David’s general direction to keep his head down, but nowhere near close enough to pose a real hazard.
David didn’t know what to do. What had started as a random encounter had settled into a one-on-one hunt to the death. And the sound of sirens was growing in the distance. David would welcome any reinforcements he could get. But even as that thought formed, it amended itself. Who said that the reinforcements would be on his side?
Out of nowhere, he remembered that he hadn’t turned his radio back on. He made sure that the bud was seated securely in his ear and he pressed the transmit button. “Mother Hen?”
“Good God, Rooster, where have you been?” Mother Hen sounded both angry and relieved.
He whispered, “Those trucks. They saw me. They sent five guys to come for me, but I’ve killed four. The fifth one is nearby, but I can’t stick my head up to find him without the risk of getting it shot off. Can you help? Can you tell me where the other guy is?”
“Negative. Our satellite refresh rate is every four minutes, and the last update was two minutes ago. From that last photo, I can see six images, but I don’t know which one is you.”
His heart hammering, David tried to think it through. There had to be a way. “Mother Hen, I haven’t moved in the last two minutes, and I won’t move in the next two. That will mean that the image that does move will be the one who’s trying to shoot me.”
A pause. During the silence, David listened for signs of movement. Hearing none, he wondered if the other guy was even more frightened than he. In the distance, the sound of sirens continued to crescendo, as did the sound of an approaching helicopter. Not surprisingly, the sound from the air increased more quickly than that from the ground.
“Rooster, do you have a flashlight on you?” Mother Hen asked.
“Yes,” David answered. What the hell kind of question is that?
“Get it ready,” she said. “When I tell you, I want you to flash it three times toward the sky, and repeat it three times for a total of nine flashes. Acknowledge.”
“Why?”
“Three times three. Do you understand? And switch your radio to channel one.”
“I understand, but why am I doing that?”
“Because Striker is going to land his helicopter and save you.”
Becky was terrified. They flew at an altitude of four feet at four thousand miles an hour. In the green wash of the instrument panel, she could see that Striker wore binocular thingies over his face — she presumed them to be night vision goggles — but to her, the world outside was a blur of rushing cityscape.
A minute ago, Striker had told her over the radio headset, “Our first save is going to be your friend, Rooster. I need you in the door on the port side of the aircraft to look for three flashes from a flashlight. That will be Rooster. He’s going to do it three times. I’ll look for it, too, but I’m gonna be a little busy flying the aircraft. If neither of us sees it, we need to circle around. Do not guess. If you see it, say so. If you don’t, don’t bullshit me to save your boyfriend.”
Something in the way he delivered that last sentence offended her, but she didn’t mention it. “Which side is the port side?”
“Left,” he said. “Sorry.”
Becky rose from her kneeling squat on the floor and moved to the open door on the left side. The temperature inside had dropped to something south of frigid. It felt good to stand just to get blood moving in her legs again. Maybe by sometime next week, she’d be able to feel her toes again.
“I’ll tell you when to start looking for the light,” Striker said. “Meanwhile, what’s the status of your weapon’s safety switch?”
“It’s on.”
“When you’re in the doorway, take it off. Don’t point the weapon at me, and don’t point it at the aircraft. Other than that, if you see anybody who didn’t flash a light at you, I want you to shoot at him. I don’t care if you hit him — though it would be nice if you did. I just need you to keep their heads down long enough for us to pull Rooster aboard. After that, we’ll draw for another mission.”