"Good, then you will not mind giving your life either."
She gestured at the black man, and he drew a similar sword from a scabbard on his back.
"Take it," the woman said as the man came forward and laid it on the table.
Ruiz shook his head.
"No. This is not – "
"Take it or they will shoot you," she said.
"An honorable death is to be preferred over being shot down like a dog."
"But we made a deal," Ruiz whined.
"And I told you all I know."
"And we completed the deal. And you told me all you know, so you are of no more use to me. Now you must go through me to get out of here."
"But why?" Ruiz was frozen.
"Pick it up."
She tapped the table with the tip of her sword.
"There really is no choice."
Ruiz's shoulders slumped. There was now a third armed man in the warehouse. With a trembling hand, Ruiz picked up the sword. He awkwardly held it in front of him, blade vertical, trying to protect his upper body.
The Japanese woman smiled coldly. She stepped around the table, her sword gripped in both hands, blade held low. Ruiz did the unexpected, charging forward, the blade swinging in a wide arc at the woman's head. Unexpected to the members of the team gathered around, but apparently not to the woman. She ducked under the swing and jabbed her sword into Ruiz's stomach, piercing right through and coming out his back. Just as quickly, she withdrew the blade and, as the first gasp of pain left his lips, gracefully spun, blade level and extended, and severed his head from his body.
Ruiz's lips were still open in the gasp as the head bounced off the concrete floor.
The woman pulled out a lace kerchief and wiped the blade clean, then slid it back in its scabbard.
The corridor was six feet wide by eight high. The walls were roughly hewn rock, and Vaughn assumed that an existing tunnel had been expanded to make this passageway. He doubted that the technology existed during World War II to completely carve this out of solid rock. His assumption was confirmed as he noted occasional natural openings on either side as they moved farther into the mountain.
Their progress was stopped after about a hundred meters by an iron door that appeared to be bolted on the other side, since it did not budge when both he and Tai put their weight on it.
"What now?" Tai asked as she considered the door.
They had a limited amount of explosives, but using them was the last thing Vaughn wanted to do.
"The room we just left," he said.
"What about it?"
"It's moving air out of the complex, right?" He didn't wait for an answer.
"So there have to be air shafts coming into it from below. Beneath that big fan."
Tai nodded and turned back the way they had come. They retraced their steps and entered the room. Vaughn looked at the large air handler. There was a service panel on one side, so he pulled out his multipurpose tool and unscrewed it.
"Shit," Tai said as the opening revealed the large, six-foot-diameter fan, spinning, the blades thumping through the air, pushing it up. There was an open shaft below it.
"How do we – "
Vaughn answered by pointing at a bundle of wires.
"We cut those, we stop it."
"Won't someone notice?"
"Probably."
"Then we need a better plan."
Vaughn waved his hand, indicating she could do whatever she wished. He stepped back as Tai stuck her head in the opening, looking about.
"The tips of the fan don't make it to the sides," she noted.
"There's about eighteen inches of room."
Vaughn was already shaking his head.
"We hit those fans and it'll cut us in two."
"There's room," Tai insisted.
Vaughn looked. She was right. But it would be damn close. He shined his flashlight down and saw. The shaft below the fan curved, so he couldn't see how far it dropped.
"I don't like it," he finally said.
"We don't have much choice," she replied.
She was right about that. But he didn't see how they were going to get out of there once they went in. He took a deep breath. This was representative of what he'd been feeling ever since becoming part of Section 8. They were on a one-way trip.
"Ladies first," Vaughn said, and the tone of his voice indicated it wasn't a choice.
Tai responded by edging over into the opening. She gripped the side with her hands and slowly lowered herself. Vaughn anxiously watched as her legs reached the level of the fan. The metal whipped by, less than six inches from her flesh. She continued to lower herself until her arms were fully extended. The fan was at chest level, barely missing her. She looked up at Vaughn, gave him a wan smile, then let go. She slid down the tube and out of sight.
Cursing to himself, Vaughn climbed into the machine and duplicated her actions. As he lowered himself, he could feel the power of the fan so close. As he extended his arms, the edge of one of the blades hit the back of his combat vest, cutting through it and the shirt underneath but barely missing his skin. Abandoning caution for speed, Vaughn let go and slid down, safe from the fan now but uncertain where and when his fall would be arrested.
The tube curved, but only slightly, and he gained speed as he went down. He tried slowing his progress with his hands but there was nothing to grip. The tube was steel, too new to be from the original World War II structure. Vaughn gasped as he suddenly went airborne into a black void. He braced himself for impact, hoping the fall would be brief.
It was. He slammed onto a steel platform with a solid thud.
"That you?" Tai asked.
"No," Vaughn grunted as he inwardly reviewed his body for injuries.
A red light came on, and he could see Tai now, about four feet away. He slowly got to his feet. They were in an open space, and as Tai slowly shifted her light, he saw that it was about ten meters square with a steel floor. He looked up and saw the opening he had fallen out of about eight feet above his head. Not good, he thought, as he considered how the hell they were going to get out of there.
Tai directed her light toward a couple of openings in the floor. She walked over to the closest one, and Vaughn joined her. There was a two-foot depression, then a metal grate in the three-foot-wide hole. Air was being drawn up through the opening. They both knelt next to the opening and she shined her flashlight down. The red light penetrated the darkness for a few feet but they couldn't see anything.
"I assume no one's in there since it's dark," Tai said.
"Unless it's a barracks room," Vaughn said, "and there's a bunch of guys with guns sleeping."
"Always the optimist."
Tai turned off her flashlight, leaving them in darkness. Vaughn could hear her unscrewing the cover. She turned the light back on, flooding the room with white light. She pointed it down at the grate.
Both of them gasped as a golden glow was reflected back at them. Directly below the grate was a five-foot-high stack of gold bullion.
CHAPTER 16
"Space Command did track the plane," Foster said.
It didn't surprise Royce, because Space Command had tracked everything flying since 9/11. He waited out Foster. There was little activity in the operations center. Everyone was still waiting for the report from the surviving recon team member on the ground – if he lived long enough to make a report.
Foster slid a piece of paper across his desk, and Royce recognized the location it displayed: the middle of the Pacific Ocean, west of Midway Island. A thin red line went from Oahu to a point about four hundred miles away from Midway, where it ended.
"That's where it disappeared," Foster said. He cleared his throat nervously.
"There was no report of a plane missing in that area or anywhere close to it. But there was also no flight plan for a plane flying in that area at the time. No one has reported a plane missing either."
"Of course not," Royce said as he stared at the end of the red line. A watery grave. At least David's brother had gotten the honor of being buried in the Punchbowl here on the island. There would be no markers to commemorate David's service. It was as if he'd never existed.