Gant's team had followed his instructions to the letter, jogging
for about 200 metres down a bending rock-walled tunnel that housed an elevated conveyor belt.
Methanometer: 5.6% . . . 5.4% . . .
The methane levels were getting lower as they ventured further into the mine.
5.2% . . . 4.8% . . . 4.4% . . .
Better, Gant thought.
'You know,' Mother said as they jogged, 'I think he's gonna pop
the question in Italy.' 'Mother . . .' Gant said.
After this mission, Mother and Gant—together with Schofield and Mother's nuggetty little husband, Ralph—were going on a group holiday to Italy. They were going to rent a villa in Tuscany for two weeks before taking in the famous 'Aerostadia Italia' air-show in Milan—the centrepiece of which were two very rare X-15s, the famous NASA-built rocket planes, the fastest aircraft ever built. Mother was really looking forward to it.
'Think about it,' she said. 'Tuscan hills. An old villa. A classy guy like the Scarecrow wouldn't miss an opportunity like that.'
'He told you he was going to ask, didn't he?' Gant said, eyes forward.
'Yep.'
'He's such a chicken,' Gant said as they rounded a bend and all of a sudden, heard gunfire. 'To be continued,' she said, giving
Mother a look.
Up ahead in the darkness, they saw the beams of helmet-mounted flashlights and the shadows of running Allied soldiers, all moving behind a makeshift barricade constructed of old mining equipment—barrels, crates, empty steel mini-skips.
And beyond the barricade, Gant saw the all-important air
vents.
In this tight, low-ceilinged, square-edged world, the air vent cavern was a welcome stretch of open space. Six storeys high and lit by brilliant white phosphorus flares, it shone like a glowing underground cathedral.
The two 10-metre-wide air vents disappeared up into the roof via a pair of identical cone-shaped recesses in the ceiling.
And underneath the air vents, one of the fiercest battles in history was underway.
The members of Al-Qaeda had prepared well.
They had built a blockade of their own in this high-ceilinged cavern—a barricade that was infinitely superior to the ad hoc creation of the Allied soldiers.
It was made of the larger mining equipment that had been left in the mine: big vehicles featuring gigantic hemispherical drill bits, front-end loaders, some old white Humvee-like trucks called 'Driftrunners', and tip-trays filled with bullet-absorbing coal.
As Gant reached the Allied barricade, she saw the terrorists on the other side of the cavern: over a hundred of them, all dressed in brown leather waistcoats, white shirts, and coiled black turbans.
They were also armed to the teeth. AK-47s, M-16s, RPGs. Bathed in the fresh air of the vents, gunfire was clearly safe inside this subterranean hall.
Gant linked up with the Allied soldiers on the scene.
There were about twenty of them, a mix of United States Marines and British SAS troops.
She arrived at the side of the Allied commander, an SAS major named Ashcroft, call-sign: Sphinx.
'It's a bloody nightmare!' the English commando shouted. 'They're dug in around those vents for the long term! And then every few minutes, one of them—shit! Here comes another one! Shoot him! Shoot him!'
Gant snapped round to look over the Allied barricade.
With shocking suddenness, a bearded Arab terrorist had burst forth from a gap in the Al-Qaeda barricade on a motorcycle, firing an AK-47 one-handed and yelling to Allah.
Strapped to his chest were four wads of C4.
Three SAS soldiers nailed him with their automatic rifles, blasting
the suicide bomber from his saddle, sending him crashing to the ground behind his speeding motorbike.
The Arab hit the ground in a clumsy puff of dust— —and then he exploded.
One second he was there. The next he was simply gone. Gant's eyes widened. Madness . . .
The SAS leader, Ashcroft, turned to her. 'It's absolute bedlam, darlin'! Every now and then, the bastards launch a suicide run and we have to cut them down before they reach our barricade! The problem is they must have a supply cave somewhere back there! Generators, gasoline and enough ammo, food and water to see them through to the year 3000! It's a stand-off!'
'What if we went around?' Gant said, indicating the series of tunnels off to their right.
'No. It's booby-trapped! Trip-wires. Landmines. I've already lost two good men going that way! These ragheads have been waiting for a fight in this place for a long time! This is going to take a frontal assault. What I need is more men!'
At that moment, as if on cue, a collection of about twenty more barrel-mounted flashlights appeared in the tunnel that led back to the mine's entrance.
'Ah, reinforcements,' Ashcroft said, heading down the tunnel to
meet them. '
Gant watched him go, saw him meet the leader of this new squad
and shake the man's hand.
Funny, she thought. Colonel Walker had said that the next team wouldn't be coming in for at least another twenty minutes. How did these guys get in so quickly—
She watched Ashcroft wave his hand toward the barricade, explaining the situation, turning his back on his new acquaintance for a split second, during which moment the leader of this new group of soldiers smoothly and fluidly drew something from his belt and swiped it hard across Ashcroft's neck region.
At first Gant didn't know what had happened.
Ashcroft didn't move.
Then, to her absolute horror, Gant saw Ashcroft's head tilt at an impossible angle and just drop off his body.
Her eyes went wide with disbelief.
What— ?
But she didn't have time for shock, for no sooner was Ashcroft down than the submachine-guns of this new force of men burst to life, raining fire on the Allied troops gathered behind their barricade.
Quick as a flash, Gant dived over and into one of the steel mini-skips that formed her barricade, just as bullets impacted all around her. She was joined a second later by Mother and her other two Marines.
The rest of the Allied troops weren't so lucky.
Most of them were caught out in the open . . . and they were pummelled mercilessly by this unexpected storm of bullets from behind. Their bodies exploded with bloody holes, convulsed horribly.
'Goddamnit! What the hell is this!' Gant pressed herself close to a mini-skip's rusty steel walls.
Now they were caught between two sets of enemies: one in front of their barricade, one behind.
A lethal sandwich.
'What do we do, Chickadee?' Mother yelled.
Gant's face set into a determined expression. 'We stay alive. Come on, this way!'
And with that, Gant led her team in the only direction they could go—she leapt over the forward side of the mini-skip and landed, cat-like, on the dusty section of open ground in between the two facing barricades.
At that very same moment, Schofield and Book's Light Strike Vehicle skidded to a halt in the upper entrance cave of the mine.
Schofield saw the roller-coaster-like tracks of the drift diving down into the mine, took a step toward them, just as two figures burst out from a nearby side-tunnel.
Schofield and Book whipped around together, MP-7s up. The two dark figures did the same and—
'Pokey?' Schofield said, squinting. 'Pokey de Villiers?'
'Scarecrow?' one of the figures lowered his gun. 'Man, I almost shot you dead.'
It was Corporal Paul 'Pokey' de Villiers, just returned from cleaning out the Al-Qaeda sniper holes on the mountainside with his partner, a lance-corporal nicknamed Freddy.