Akil screamed in his ear, “Boss! Boss, we heard gunfire! You read me?”
He had no time to answer. The officer limped thirty feet ahead, the remains of his right hand dangling from his wrist. He was holding a walkie-talkie in his left and frantically speaking into it.
Seeing Crocker, he dove into the stairway. As Crocker took aim, something metal rolled toward him from behind and a volley of bullets ricocheted off the walls and floor. He turned and went prone onto the cold tile only to confront an olive-green RGD-5 grenade, the pin pulled. All he could do was kick it back with his left foot as he squeezed off a buzz of AK fire.
He covered his head and face with his arms as the explosion rocked the hallways and deafened him. Shards of the RGD-5 fragmentation cups ripped his vest and tore into his shoulders and arms.
Someone ahead was screaming like a dog on fire. He needed to finish the fucker off and get Dawkins, but wanted the officer in the stairway first. So he turned and followed the trail of blood to the steps he’d descended earlier. Heard a man grunting and cursing above. Then a round of bullets careened off the concrete walls. He pushed himself upward until he saw the uniformed legs past the metal posts to his right, and squeezed the trigger of his AK. More glancing bullets and sparks, then the officer collapsed onto his knees, and grimacing, twisted onto his back. Crocker stood over him as he reached for a Czech CZ 82 pistol at his left side.
He kicked it away.
“General Chou Jang Hee? You the Dragon?”
The general hissed through a mouthful of blood, “Fuck United…States.”
“Not this time, asshole.”
Crocker put two rounds between his eyes.
Blood dripping from his neck and shoulders down the inside of his smart suit, he went back down and retrieved Dawkins. The injured man at the end of hallway was still shouting, and the alarm was reverberating loudly. Halfway up the stairway, his heart pounding, Crocker remembered something and stopped.
Turning to Dawkins, he asked, “Any other hostages here?”
Dawkins looked confused.
“Scientists? Engineers? Americans?”
“No, no. There was an Indian gentleman, but he left. No one else that I know of.”
They hurried up the remaining stairs past the first guard’s body, into the atrium, and outside. Both of them were very happy to be out of there. A strong breeze greeted them, like some weather was blowing in.
“Boss, behind the APC to your right,” he heard through comms.
Adrenaline blotting out the pain, he joined the others-Sam, Akil, and Suarez-all coiled and ready to spring.
“Good. Charges set, left side and right?” Crocker asked, trying to catch his breath.
“All set,” Suarez answered. “You okay?” he asked, pointing to Crocker’s bloody neck.
“Nicked a little. Fuck that.”
“This the hostage?” asked Akil.
“Name’s Dawkins.”
“Hey, Dawkins.”
“Let’s get back to the boat!”
They cut through the woods in the same formation as before, with Dawkins in the middle, half in a crouch, stumbling and falling.
Crocker said into his mike as he helped him up, “Tiger One. Coming your way. Three minutes! Fire it the fuck up!”
Akil shouted, “Boss! Vehicle right!”
“Everybody down. Down!”
Through the trees he saw headlights coming around a bend two hundred meters away. He made lightning-quick calculations. The vehicle was likely on its way to the complex, probably responding to the alarm. If they let it pass, the soldiers inside it would find the bodies. It would take them a few minutes at least to discover the explosives.
They could either engage them now or let them pass.
“Stay down,” he instructed. “Let the vehicle pass. Soon as it does, we cross the road and continue as quickly as possible. Suarez, the moment it goes by, I want you to start counting. When you reach three minutes, fire the detonators and let it blow.”
“Copy.”
Chapter Nineteen
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
– William Shakespeare
When Suarez raised his right hand and held up three fingers, they stopped and went down in the grass. Dawkins wheezed beside Crocker, trying to catch his breath. Even though he wore no coat or sweater and the temperature hovered around fifty, sweat poured off his forehead. “Why…why…we stopping?”
Crocker cupped a hand over Dawkins’s mouth and pointed at Suarez, who flipped off the safety on the handheld radio detonator and got ready to push the button. Crocker shoved Dawkins to the ground and covered him with his body.
“Cover your ears!”
In his head he started to recite the Lord’s Prayer. When he got to the word “art,” white light flashed around them, and a second later a huge explosion tore through the air, shaking the ground and rupturing Dawkins’s eardrum. They waited as secondary explosions went off and a sharp blast of warm air blew past. Then debris started to rain down nearby.
“Fucking epic!” Akil muttered into the comms.
“Couldn’t have said it better.”
Sam muttered, “If you build it, they will come.”
Crocker was amused by that. It was a line from one of his favorite movies, Field of Dreams.
“And fucking destroy it!”
“Let’s get off the X before we all turn green.” He was referring to the possible nuclear material in the area. As he ran, holding Dawkins by the arm, he thought they had completed the hard part. Now all they had to do was get home.
Naylor crouched behind a tree near the shore and checked his watch. Hearing a rustling sound, he looked up and saw Crocker with the collar of his smart suit covered with blood.
“What happened?” Naylor asked.
“Get in the water.”
“But…”
“Turn around. Let’s go!”
Naylor and his copilot, Hutchins, had already loaded the rebreathers, so they swam out to the sub. They ended up tossing the Draegers to make room, and also quickly sank their extra equipment, backup comms, med bag, spare AKs and mags.
Vice Admiral Greene, commander of the Carl Vinson, had promised to send an air rescue team in an emergency, but this location wouldn’t work. They had to make it to one of the outlying islands at least.
Crocker helped Dawkins into a spare wet suit, and then they squeezed in even tighter than before and took off.
Unprompted, Akil started to sing “The House of the Rising Sun.” Maybe he was thinking of the female turpitude waiting for him back in Virginia, or friendly Japan, which was close. Whichever it was, Sam and Suarez joined in in a kind of celebration.
Crocker refused to let his mind wander. The mission wasn’t over. He concentrated on breathing the oxygen mix and passing the mouthpiece to Dawkins, squeezed onto his lap. The edge of his pelvis tore into Crocker’s thigh.
An hour or so and we’ll be in position to be recovered by helos from Carl Vinson, if we don’t stop at one of the outlying islands first.
“Tiger One, what’s the opsec?” he asked through comms, “opsec” meaning operational security.
“Territorial waters extend another twelve nautical miles. That’s thirteen-point-eight on land. We can’t call for air rescue until we’re outside the continuous zone, which extends another twelve nautical miles past that. So sit back and enjoy the ride.”
As cold and uncomfortable as he was, he’d been through worse. The bleeding from the pellet wounds to his neck had stopped. The Dragon Skin body armor that now felt like a straitjacket had saved his life.
He felt the adrenaline start to drain from his system and tried to get comfortable, which was hard with Dawkins leaning into his chest. He imagined holding Cyndi, with the sun setting in front of them, and then making love. Her skin felt like magic.