Weapons at the ready, the two CIDs moved down the tunnel — separating at the first intersection to prowl through the labyrinth of lighted corridors in search of Gryzlov’s cyberwar “information troops” and their equipment. As they moved deeper into the Perun’s Aerie complex, Macomber and Charlie dropped small radio repeaters at every turning to relay their signals so they could stay in touch.
Whack pushed deeper, moving faster through a maze of offices, briefing rooms, and living quarters as it became clear that Perun’s Aerie was completely deserted. In fact, he thought worriedly, there was no evidence that this place had ever been occupied for any real length of time. There were no stores of foodstuffs. There were no pieces of clothing or personal belongings in any of the quarters. And there were no documents or operations manuals in any of the offices or briefing rooms. Charlie reported the same thing from her side of the complex.
They met outside another large steel door. This one had a biometric lock set into the rock wall beside it. Thick power conduits fed into the chamber behind the door. Their CIDs registered measurable amounts of electromagnetic-field radiation leaking out into the passage.
Looking down at the faintly glowing palm lock, Charlie wriggled the large metal fingers of her robot’s right hand. “Methinks I’m not going to get a match here.” She glanced at Macomber. “Want to apply a little rail-gun tough love to the situation?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “The Russians have a nuclear reactor buried somewhere in this place. I’d really hate to find out the hard way that it was sitting right behind this door.”
“Good point,” Charlie agreed gravely, obviously imagining the havoc a superdense slug moving at Mach 5 could wreak on a reactor core and its cooling systems. Instead, she rummaged around in one of her packs and came up with a rectangular block of plastic explosive. “So I guess we do this the old-fashioned way. A little C-4 should do the trick.”
Working swiftly, she layered chunks of the malleable plastic explosive over places where the hinges should be. Nonelectric blasting caps and short lengths of detonator cord tied into a section of flexible shock tube connected to an igniter finished the job. Satisfied, they moved away down the corridor and into cover at the nearest intersection.
“Fire in the hole!” Charlie said. Smoothly, she yanked the igniter ring. A puff of smoke eddied away. Seconds later, her charges exploded, blowing the door off its hinges.
Using the enormous strength of his CID, Macomber levered the twisted remains of the heavy door to one side. He entered the large chamber on the other side and stopped a few meters in.
Dozens of racks of computer components filled most of the center of the room. They were connected by fiber-optic cables and power conduits. Tens of thousands of lights blinked in regular patterns across thousands of nodes. A steady hum pervaded the chamber, seeming to indicate that the giant machine was running. His CID scanned the array and flashed a message: Confirm TL-Platforms Supercomputer match. The computer is live, but configured for remote operation.
Charlie Turlock moved up beside him just as Macomber came to a grim and very unwelcome realization. “Know what you’re looking at?” he said bitterly.
For once, she didn’t have a snappy answer.
“The world’s biggest fucking piece of cheese,” Macomber continued. He was mad at himself and it showed in his voice. “This whole place is a mousetrap. And we are the goddamned mice.”
Charlie sighed. “Well, that sucks. I thought this seemed a little too easy.” She glanced at the other Iron Wolf robot. “So do we just back away nice and slow?”
“No way,” Macomber grunted. “A hundred to one, those Russian cocksuckers already know right where we are. So we might as well screw with their fricking bait.” With that, he unlimbered his 25mm autocannon and opened fire.
Rack after rack of expensive electronic hardware shattered under a stream of armor-piercing rounds. Showers of sparks erupted on all sides, streaming from floor to ceiling. Small fires sputtered in the gutted remains of computer cores and processors.
Slightly mollified, Macomber put the autocannon away and rearmed with his rail gun. He spun toward the doorway. “C’mon, Charlie! Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
Deep inside a separate tunnel complex dug into one of Mount Manaraga’s other spurs, Colonel Balakin and his staff stood staring in horror at their displays. Frantic work by some of Koshkin’s experts had finally managed to flush the netrusion-implanted viruses out of their sensor network. Most of their remote cameras were still down, either damaged or destroyed in the Iron Wolf mercenary attack. But the few that were working revealed a scene of utter destruction. Every defensive position they had so laboriously constructed to protect the main entrance to Perun’s Aerie had been obliterated in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of Russian soldiers were dead or dying. In this weather, the wounded would freeze to death long before any medical teams could possibly reach them.
And then a young Russian captain swung away from his own console in excitement. “Colonel!” he said excitedly. “The TL computer just went off-line!”
Balakin shook himself out of his funk. They still had time to retrieve something from this disaster — thanks, he was forced to admit, to President Gryzlov’s foresight and cunning. Although his conventional defenses had been designed to stop any Iron Wolf attack outside the base, the president had insisted they have a contingency plan in the event the Poles and their American mercenaries reached the costly supercomputer itself. “Activate Plan Zapadnya. My authorization code is AZ-4985,” he said crisply. “And signal Lieutenant Colonel Zykov to have his force stand ready.”
The younger officer typed in the authorization code he’d been given. The lights above a small key inserted into his console flashed green. He turned the key. “Plan Deadfall activated, sir!”
THIRTY-FIVE
Piloting her CID, Charlie Turlock followed Macomber out of the burning supercomputer room. They turned into the main tunnel, heading for the exit. Toxic smoke from burning plastics and rare metals drifted out behind them.
And then the whole Perun’s Aerie complex suddenly shuddered, rocked by shock waves rippling inward at several miles per second. Bits of loose rock and concrete pattered down around the two Iron Wolf combat robots.
“Down!” Macomber roared. His CID crouched, covering its six-sided head and sensor arrays. Reacting just as fast, Charlie did the same.
WHUMMP. WHUMMP. WHUMMP.
The drumbeat roar of a series of powerful explosions followed, echoing and reechoing through the labyrinth of corridors and passages. Dust and debris hurled away from the blasts boiled through tunnels with astounding force.
Charlie felt her CID sway, rocked by the blast wave and hammered by small fragments of shattered rock. Minor damage and failure warnings flooded through her mind. Hydraulic system function down six percent. Secondary thermal sensor acuity degraded. Left-hand actuator function slightly impaired.
The fast-moving debris cloud shattered light fixtures in tunnels and corridors. Whole sections of the underground cyberwar facility were abruptly plunged into near-absolute darkness.
Slowly, Charlie’s CID climbed back to its feet. Her thermal sensors showed the bright green image of Macomber’s robot as it stood up at the same time. Everything else in the swirling, dust-choked air was a blur. Her low-light sensors were down, so she was forced to activate a spotlight. The dazzling beam speared through the darkness.