“There are over three hundred pounds of high explosives in the bomb,” Dewey said. “It’s going to explode. You just have to make sure the pit isn’t at the center. Imagine the explosives are like a giant soccer ball. If the pit isn’t exactly at the center, the shock wave won’t compress it fast enough to start the chain reaction.”
John turned to Deion. “Why don’t you just shoot me now?”
Deion stared at the phone with a peculiar expression John had never seen on his face.
He’s afraid.
The thought terrified John. He had seen Deion worried, and even concerned. And Deion was constantly angry, but never… terrified.
“Deion?”
Deion jerked like he had been shocked. “We’re going to stop it.”
John started to ask how, but he was afraid that if he did, Deion might freeze. “Yeah, we’re going to stop it.”
“You guys have a one-in-a-million shot of doing this,” Dewey said over the phone.
“Dewey,” Eric’s said.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Is there anything else we need to know?” Deion asked.
“The pit normally resides in a long, cantilevered shaft,” Dewey said. “When the code is entered, a lever releases the pit and it slowly rolls into the center of the bomb. When it reaches the center, a hinged plate closes.”
“A hinged plate?” John asked.
“The pit has to be completely enclosed by explosives,” Dewey said. “It’s gravity fed. The tolerances are loose enough to allow the bomb to function no matter the temperature and without any internal circuitry to worry about failing. Raise the bomb on one side, and the weight of the pit will push the plate open, and it should slide back out.”
“Raise the bomb,” Deion said. “It’s that simple?”
“At least twenty-five degrees, yeah.”
“And what if we only get it to twenty degrees?” Deion asked.
Dewey’s voice was hesitant. “I’m just guessing here, guys.”
“Just guessing?” John sputtered. “Just guessing?”
“Hey!” Dewey said. “I’ve never even seen this thing. I’m going off of secondhand information.”
“They’ll manage,” Eric said over the speakerphone. “Won’t you?”
We will? God, I hope so.
Deion checked his watch. “We’ve got to go.” He turned off the speakerphone, put the phone back in his pocket, and pointed at the front door. “We’re going in on three.”
John turned to wave at Kara. If they failed, he would never see her again.
There probably won’t even be time to think. Just a flash and then… nothing.
He found the thought oddly comforting. “Do you think there’s anybody in there?” he asked.
Deion gave him a baleful glance. “Do you think Huang Lei did all this without a way to keep us out?”
“I wish I had the Battlesuit.”
“We have something almost as good. Steeljaw, activate the Implant.”
There was a moment of silence, then John’s heart hammered in his chest, and all his aches and pains fell away.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, and a wave of nausea rolled through his stomach. He dropped to his knees and vomited coffee onto the sidewalk. After a few seconds, the nausea subsided, and he saw Deion watching him with concern.
He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and then stood, pausing with his hand on the big brass door handle. “It’s just that I’m…”
“Yeah,” Deion said. “Me, too.”
“On three?”
Deion nodded.
“One,” John said, then yanked the door open and ran inside like the Devil himself was chasing after him.
Two men in heavy body armor waited at the end of the hallway. He watched in slow motion as fire spat from their weapons.
As the fire blossomed from their barrels, he dropped to his knees and slid along the worn marble floor, his M11 firing as if by magic.
The first man had a thick beard and a sneer that changed to surprise as John’s hail of 9mm bullets pounded into his body armor. The man fell down in shock, not dead, but clearly dazed.
The second man had a thick goatee and blinked as John turned his M11 on him, punching a hole through the man’s nose. Goatee Man’s head jerked and then he fell to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
Deion shouted behind him. He turned and saw Deion slumped to the floor, holding his stomach. John blinked. If he stopped to help, the man with the beard would surely get up and continue firing. He ignored Deion and ran the twenty feet to the end of the hall and stuck the gun under the man’s chin.
The bearded man’s eyes were foggy with pain, but he looked down and his eyes widened as John pulled the trigger, sending a pink spray from the back of the man’s head.
He turned and ran back to Deion. Deion was sprawled on his back, and he held his coat to the side. A neatly formed hole oozed blood right below his navel.
Deion looked up at him with shiny eyes. “I’m — I’m hit.”
His voice was hoarse, and John stared at the hole. A gut shot was serious. Without prompt medical attention, Deion would soon go into shock, followed quickly by death. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”
Deion grabbed John’s jacket, but he could barely maintain a grip. “Stop the bomb, damn it, or it won’t matter. Stop the bomb!”
He pushed the fear down and grabbed Deion’s jacket, dragging him across the marble floor and out the door. “Kara! Help him!”
Kara looked up from the police officers she was speaking with and took off in a dead run. She stopped short and stared at the blood pooling on Deion’s shirt. “What happened?”
“He’s been gut-shot,” John said. He waved at the police officers and shouted, “Get an ambulance here as soon as possible!”
He grabbed Deion’s cell phone and slid it into his pocket, then removed Deion’s earpiece and put it in his ear.
“Eric, can you hear me?”
“What’s happening?” Eric demanded. “I need a sitrep.”
“Deion’s been shot. I got him out—”
“You’ve got three minutes,” Eric shouted. “Three minutes! Get to the bomb!”
Kara dropped to her knees and started wrapping Deion’s shirt around her fingers and stuffing it against the hole to staunch the bleeding. “I don’t know—”
“Keep him safe until the ambulance gets here,” John said. “I’m going back in.”
“Take police officers with you,” Kara pleaded.
He shook his head. “They’ll be slaughtered. I’ve been trained for this. They haven’t. I can’t keep stopping to save them. I have to save everyone!” He turned and ran back to the door.
Kara’s yelled, “John! Wait!”
John kept running, because if he stopped, he was afraid he might not continue.
He opened the door, stepped through, grabbing Deion’s M11 from the floor, and headed deeper into the building, past the two dead mercenaries.
They were mercenaries. They had the same look as the men he had fought in the forest of Feofilivka the previous summer.
If they are anything like those men, there will be more of them.
“I’m going in,” he said.
“You’re running out of time,” Eric shouted through the earpiece.
“You’re not helping. Where is the bomb?”
“The basement, west side, inside a concrete bunker.”
“Where’s the basement stairs?”
“If you came through the east entrance, it’s straight back, sixty feet, take a right, then the first unmarked door on the left.”