“I don’t suppose you have a blasting cap to go along with it?” he asked.
Kowalski turned his back dismissively, focusing back on the hallway. “C’mon, boss. I can’t think of everything.”
Painter glanced around at the lab, trying to determine how he could improvise some type of detonator. C4 was notoriously stable. It could be burned, electrocuted, shot with a bullet, and it still would not explode. It took an intense shock wave, like the one caused by an exploding blasting cap, to set it off.
Denton stepped forward and offered a possibility. “The applied physics lab might have what you need. They work in conjunction with the region’s mining operations. They keep percussion and blasting caps over there.”
“And where’s that?”
“Off by the stairwell.”
Painter sighed inwardly. Not the direction he wanted to go. It would be dangerous, and risked exposure, but he had little choice. He studied Denton. He hated to involve a civilian, but the underground facility was a maze, and he didn’t know where to begin looking for blasting caps in that other lab.
“Professor Denton, would you be willing to come with me? To show me?”
The professor nodded, but he was clearly reluctant.
Next, Painter crossed to Kowalski and handed back the balled-up chunk of explosive. “Find a place to plant this. A roof joist or someplace where we have the best chance to blast a hole to the surface. And get as deep as you can into this facility, as far from the science center as possible.”
Painter imagined all the exits were being watched. If his plan worked, he wanted to pop out beyond whatever snare had been set around the building.
Denton pointed. “The rearmost lab is the particle accelerator chamber.”
“I know where that’s at,” Kanosh added. “Straight down at the other end of the hall. Can’t miss it. I can take him.”
“Good. Bring Kai and your dog, too. All of you hole up down there until we return.”
Painter sensed the press of time and quickly calculated in his head what he needed to pull this off. Denton helped him gather the necessary tools. He then crossed back to Kowalski and freed his SIG Sauer pistol from its shoulder holster. He traded his sidearm for the man’s Taser-modified shotgun.
“Keep the others protected. Shoot to kill.”
Kowalski scowled. “Like I shoot any other way.”
Kai shifted to the shadow of the big man, but her eyes were huge on Painter. “Uncle Crowe, be careful…”
“That’s definitely my plan.” Still, he could not escape a feeling of misgiving as he pointed to the door. “Everybody move out.”
Seated in a leather desk chair in the mansion’s library, Rafe watched his laptop’s monitor. It carried live feed from the operation in the field, offering multiple viewpoints via cameras mounted on the black helmets of his mercenaries. It was a jumbling viewpoint that threatened to turn his stomach, but he couldn’t look away.
He had watched the initial assault as power and telephone feeds were cut, all exits under close watch. Four shell-shocked students stumbled out of various doors, escaping the dark building. They were quickly dispatched, their bodies whisked into hiding. The assault team continued inside, searching floor by floor for their targets.
He was not surprised that the power loss had failed to flush out his targets as it had the few students. After the events in the mountains, his prey had grown more wary, but his men had been handpicked by Bern for both their thoroughness and ruthlessness. Their targets would be found.
On one corner of the laptop screen, Bern turned his camera toward his own face, indicating he wanted to report in from the field. His voice was a bit choppy from the digital feed. “Sir, all the upper levels are clear. That leaves only the basement. The team’s heading down.”
“Very good.” Rafe drew his face closer to the screen, eager to watch.
So they fled into the cellars, like so many frightened rats. No matter. I’ve got the best rat catchers money can buy.
A whimper drew his attention to a wingback chair by the fire. Flames danced, casting shadows — but none darker than his black queen, Ashanda, who sat in the chair, holding a small boy, no older than four. The child’s face was a ruin of tears and mucus. His eyes were wide with shock and fear. They probably should have moved the body of his mother from the room, but there’d been no time for such niceties. The woman lay on the Persian rug, her blood and brain matter ruining the subtlety of the wool pattern.
Ashanda stared into the flames and gently stroked the boy’s hair. One of Bern’s men had offered to alleviate the boy’s suffering with the swift skill of his blades, but Ashanda had backhanded the muscular mercenary away as if he were a rag doll, in order to protect the child.
Ever the caretaker.
Rafe sighed. The boy would still have to be dealt with, but not when Ashanda was watching.
Until then…
He faced the screen, giving it his full concentration.
Back to the show.
Painter worked quickly atop a small bench inside the applied physics lab as Denton held a penlight. The professor had guided him safely here, not far from the stairwell that led up to the main building.
Despite his qualms about involving a civilian, he was glad that Denton had accompanied him. The lab was tucked off the main hall, easy to miss. The long narrow room held a jumble of gear and equipment, dominated by a large cubic press with stainless-steel anvils used for high-pressure studies, as in the creation of synthetic diamonds.
But Painter’s goal here was more priceless than any diamond.
Denton had guided him to a locked cabinet. After a breathless fumble of keys, he got it open and passed Painter a box of solid-pack electric blasting caps. “Will this do?” he had whispered, breathless with hope.
It would have to… but it still required some improvisation.
Painter concentrated on his work, using tweezers and needle-nose pliers, performing delicate surgery. These types of caps required a jolt of electricity to ignite, like from a cell-phone battery or some other source. And you didn’t want to be close by when that cap exploded the C4. He needed a remote way of shocking the blasting cap from a distance — and with no cell-phone reception down here, that left only one other possibility.
With great care, he crimped the cap’s fuse wires to the battery leads on the gutted XREP Taser shell. The shotgun shell was the same size as any twelve-gauge round, but its casing was transparent and packed with electronics rather than standard buckshot. Even with his background in electrical engineering and microdesign, Painter held his breath. Any misstep could blow off his fingers.
As he secured the last wire — checking to make sure he didn’t disturb the device’s transformer and microprocessor — a furtive noise drew his attention toward the lab’s door. The telltale tramp of boots on stairs echoed over to them, followed by muffled voices, clipped and terse, definitely military. The search team was headed down here, confident, moving with minimal caution, thinking their targets were nothing more than frightened, unarmed civilians.
Painter quickly reassembled his jury-rigged shell, pocketed it, and grabbed the Mossberg shotgun from where it leaned against the bench. Turning, he whispered and motioned to Denton. “On my signal, you take off for the others. I’ll buy us some time.”
The professor nodded, but the penlight in his hand shook as he flicked it off.
Painter led the way back to the lab’s door and crossed the few steps to the main hall. With Denton hovering behind him, he peeked around the corner. In the wan illumination of emergency signs, he spotted a clutch of men in black commando uniforms gathering at the foot of the stairs. With hand gestures, the team prepared to split: half to search the basement beneath the science building, the others preparing to enter the underground facility that extended north of the center.