The sound of the truck behind him going into gear rose above the drone of the machine guns, and he rolled out of the way as it started forward, taking heavy fire.
“Blow the bridge, you bloody idiots!” Howell said to himself as he fell in behind the vehicle.
As if they’d heard him, a sudden, searing blast knocked him to the still-intact concrete.
Dazed, he did his best to focus on the east tower, watching it sway for a moment before tipping toward the one on the other side of the bridge.
“Hakim, you beautiful bastard,” Howell said when the structures collided and the machine guns went silent.
During their reconnaissance, they’d moved the charges meant to take out the bridge to the base of the tower. Hakim had spent most of his career attached to an elite demolition unit and personally guaranteed that the tower would fall exactly like it had. Of course, Howell hadn’t believed it. How often did things actually go to plan once the shooting started?
The second truck was inside the perimeter now, picking up speed as it closed on an enormous steel door set into a rock outcropping. Howell ran to the east edge of the bridge and fell into a prone position above Smith, who was dug in at the lip of the protective moat.
The vehicle was up to at least forty when it hit, the impact setting off charges hidden beneath the floorboards. It was impossible to tell if the door had been breached, but Howell silently saluted the dead driver’s courage as he flipped the lens cover off his scope.
“What am I looking for?” he shouted.
“Towers at nine o’clock and three o’clock are active,” Smith yelled back. “There are men coming in from the north trying to get an angle on our guys in the overturned truck.”
Howell peered through the scope, finally catching a glimpse of movement along the west fence line. He squeezed off a round and winged the first of six men running for the cover of a boulder about 150 yards away.
“Oh, and Peter?” he heard Smith say as he searched for another viable target. “It’s good to see you still breathing.”
79
Sarie van Keuren struck uselessly at the man dragging her down the corridor, losing her footing and nearly falling as the deafening alarm finally went silent.
She had no idea what was going on, but there was no way to miss the change in her captors’ demeanor when the sound of a muffled explosion had drifted down to them a few minutes before. Omidi’s casual superiority and smug smile immediately disintegrated, and he’d run ahead, barking orders at the frightened people occupying the offices and labs lining the hallway.
She swung another pointless fist into the side of the man holding her as they passed through a set of blast doors she’d never seen open. Inside, the scientists who had slowly been going missing — Omidi’s believers — were scurrying around with arms full of files, samples, and computer drives.
The guard released her, jabbing a finger in her direction and saying something that clearly meant that she wasn’t to move.
He ran off to help the others pile everything that wasn’t bolted down into a chute that led to the incinerator, while she turned her attention to the glass wall to her left. There were three infected men imprisoned behind it, pounding their broken and bleeding hands against the barrier as the chaos in the lab continued to intensify. They didn’t display any animosity toward each other — or even seem aware of the others’ presence. Were they not infected with her latest version of the parasite? Were her modifications not effective in humans? Perhaps the alterations weren’t yet powerful enough. It was possible that they still had a strong preference for uninfected victims and wouldn’t turn on each other unless they were isolated from that temptation.
Mehrak Omidi was desperately punching commands into a computer terminal as he looked at two monitors near the ceiling. She took a few hesitant steps toward them, squinting at the tiny images of the exterior of the facility.
Sarie felt a wave of elation at the sight of men with guns engaging the guards but then felt some of it fade when she saw that it wasn’t the Americans. They appeared to be Iranians, and even she could pick out their lack of cohesiveness. Some didn’t even seem to be looking in the direction they were shooting.
Omidi was on the move again, running to a refrigerated safe and entering a lengthy code into the keypad on the front. It opened with a puff of frosty air, and he retrieved a rack of glass vials, carefully transferring them to a foam-lined briefcase.
Less and less attention was being paid to her, and she edged over to a desk a few meters away. She felt around behind her for the scissors lying on it and was in the process of slipping them down the back of her pants when Omidi closed the briefcase and ran at her with three guards in tow.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the hall, pausing in the doorway to shout a few last orders at the two remaining security men in the room. They slid the guns from their shoulders and she watched in horror as they opened up on the scientists still working to destroy the evidence of their work.
It was over in a few brief seconds. Smoke hung in the room and the stench of gunpowder filled her nostrils as she looked down at the dead researchers, at the men who had murdered them, and at the three parasite victims still trying to get through the glass.
When Omidi began pulling again, she no longer had any strength to resist.
They came to the end of the corridor amid the echo of continuing gunfire behind them. One of Omidi’s men punched a code into a pad mounted to the wall, and a steel door slid open to reveal an enormous cave hung with lights and reinforced with concrete pillars. She was shoved into the cab of a military truck, followed by Omidi, who was cradling his briefcase as though it contained the cure for cancer.
He noticed her staring at it and smiled humorlessly. “My people have kept the parasite alive outside the body for almost forty-eight hours. Plenty of time to get it to Mexico and smuggle it over the U.S. border.”
One of the guards slipped into the driver’s seat carrying a laptop that she recognized as belonging to Yousef Zarin. Omidi started the computer as another of his men jumped into the back of the vehicle to take control of a machine gun mounted to the bed.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Omidi said. “That the program you created to destroy us will be the thing that saves us?”
The engine started and a moment later they were reversing out of the parking space. There was no more time. She had to do something.
The scissors were still in her waistband and she grabbed them, swinging the blade into the driver’s ribs with one hand while using the other to take hold of the wheel. He shouted in surprise and pain, but the scissors penetrated only a few millimeters and left him with the strength to slam on the brakes.
They were thrown forward, and she instinctively reached for the handle of Omidi’s door. It flew open and she pushed off, sending them both through it. They hit the ground hard, but she’d been ready for it and managed to tuck into a roll, while Omidi landed square on his back.
The impact knocked the briefcase from his grip and sent it skittering across the dirt. She made a grab for it, catching the handle and letting her momentum carry her back to her feet.
There was no point in looking back, and instead she sprinted toward the door they’d come through. Shouts rose behind her, followed by the static of the gun mounted on the bed of the truck, but the rounds went wide.
It didn’t take as long as she had hoped for the guard to swing the gun into position, and she was forced to dive behind a support pillar as he zeroed in. The powerful rounds hammered it for a few moments, tearing away enough concrete to expose the rebar inside. Then suddenly everything went quiet.