Thorpe looked up at the security monitors. He could see Dublowski and the rest of the team landing. So could the Canadians. One of them threw a switch and activated the automatic machine guns on the roof of the surface entrance.
Dublowski shrugged off his parachute harness. "Let's go," he yelled. Then he just as quickly dove into the dirt as the ground ripped up around him and the roar of machine guns filled the air.
One of the team members was hit in the first burst and his body was tossed backward into the grass, blood pouring from half a dozen holes in his chest.
"Don't move!" Dublowski screamed.
Thorpe fired a short burst, then glanced up at the video screens. He saw Dublowski and the other men lying in the grass, frozen.
"Fuck," Thorpe hissed. Thorpe handed her the MP-5. "When I count to three, just stick the muzzle over the edge and fire in that direction." He pulled two grenades off his vest.
"What are you going to do?" Parker asked in a worried voice.
Thorpe pulled the pins off both grenades. He dropped the pins on the floor and held the grenades, counting silently to himself.
"Thorpe!" Parker exclaimed.
"One. Two." Thorpe tossed both grenades into the room. "Three."
Parker stuck the muzzle over the edge and pulled the trigger. Thorpe rose and sprinted for the console hiding the panel as the grenades went off. He felt pieces of shrapnel hit his side but he dove for the ground and rolled. He fired with his pistol, emptying all fourteen rounds into the panel as quickly as he could pull the trigger.
Dublowski had been counting to himself. After thirty seconds of not moving, he took his backpack and tossed it several feet away from him. His body tensed, waiting for the expected bullets, but there was only silence.
"The guns are down! Let's go!" Dublowski shouted, scrambling to his feet. He led the men into the surface entrance, through the door McKenzie had destroyed. They ran up to the vault door and came to an abrupt halt. Dublowski stared down at the keypad and ordered his men to prepare their charges. He turned to Everson. "You have the code?"
Everson took the bloodstained piece of paper and punched in the code.
The vault door slowly swung open. Dublowski signaled and two men ran into the elevator.
The Canadians popped up from their covered positions and fired, spraying the room. Thorpe had scurried into the well of a desk and reloaded his pistol.
He blindly fired, trying to keep them from rushing his tenuous location.
Half of the Canadians turned at the sound of the elevator coming down, covering the doors with their weapons. As the doors slid open they fired in, tearing up the interior. They slowly stopped firing when they realized no one was inside, just a small green object on the floor.
Just as they recognized the device, the Claymore mine exploded, sending thousands of ball bearings throughout the room like a large shotgun. The Canadians were blown down, their bodies shredded by the mine. Thorpe heard the balls ping into the metal of the desk and whistle by.
"You OK, Parker?" he yelled.
"Yeah."
In the foyer above, Dublowski tied a rope off to a bolt in the top of the elevator shaft. He hooked it into a snap link in the front of his harness and rappelled into the shaft. Thirty feet above the shattered elevator, he dropped a satchel charge. It exploded, tearing a hole in the roof of the elevator. Dublowski finished the rappel through the hole, followed by the rest of the team.
"Whoa! Good guy here!" Thorpe yelled out, slowly unfolding himself from his hiding place and revealing himself.
Dublowski smiled upon seeing his team leader.
Thorpe pointed. "And there's a good guy over there." Parker gingerly edged herself around the corner of the cabinet. She stared in shock at the torn up bodies of the Canadians.
"What the fuck is going on, sir?" Dublowski demanded.
"I don't exactly know, but I'm sure we'll find out soon," Thorpe said.
Thorpe and Parker quickly searched among the bodies.
"I don't see McKenzie," Thorpe finally said.
"That's Kilten," Parker said, pointing at a body lying near the console. She looked at Lewis's body.
Thorpe checked both corpses. "McKenzie is running things now. I knew he'd have something up his sleeve." He turned to the console. "Can you abort Omega Missile?"
Parker walked over and looked at the battered machinery. "This was the abort controls here," she said. "Looks like they thought of that and made sure we couldn't."
"What about through the computer?" Thorpe asked.
Parker sat down and quickly worked on the computer. "I'm blocked out of REACT. Without the destruct or access to REACT, I can't do anything."
"What about the missile that was launched?" Thorpe asked. "Can you find out what its target is?"
"Yeah, I should be able to. Wait a second. Let's see it's — oh shit! It's targeted for here!"
"Can you stop it?"
"I can't do a damn thing without control of REACT."
"How long do we have?"
Parker pointed up at a large digital clock with red numerals that were winding down. "That's it there. Twenty-two minutes."
"Is there anything we can do?" Thorpe asked.
"Find McKenzie. He has control of this through the satellites, through Kilten's computer. He also has to have some way to control the missile that is inbound here since he launched it remotely."
Thorpe turned to Dublowski. "You guys get out of here."
The team turned and ran for the elevator shaft. They began climbing their way out.
Thorpe sat down next to Parker and swung the mike for the radio close to his lips.
"This is Captain Thorpe calling the War Room. Do you read me?"
Lowcraft's voice rumbled over the speaker. "Thorpe, what the hell are you doing?"
"Sir, we've got control of the control center but Parker tells me we can't abort Omega Missile."
"There's a bomb headed right for you!" Lowcraft exclaimed. "Get out of there."
"We're working on that, sir. We also can't abort that missile from this location." He paused in thought. "Sir, can you get us a chopper? Right away? I don't think we have to worry about it getting picked up on radar anymore."
"I'll get you out of there, Captain." There was a moment of silence, then Lowcraft came back. "There's a medevac chopper nearby, picking up Captain Maysun and your son. We sent it in once we realized the missile was coming down there. I'll send it to your location as soon as it makes the pickup."
"Sir, you said that Kilten asked for money?" Thorpe inquired.
"Right."
"How was he to get that money?"
"There's a cruise missile with the money in a resupply pod flying right now. McKenzie has control of when the pod is released."
"How close to this location does that missile come?"
"Hell, it's flying straight down the Anaconda River right now." There was a pause, then Lowcraft's voice came back. "The chopper's landed at the crash site, but all they've found is Chief Maysun. He was knocked out with some sort of nerve agent. Your son isn't there."
Thorpe stood. "McKenzie!" he screamed in anguish.
Chapter Twenty-two
Drake had the laptop resting on the rubber pontoon that made up the side of the Zodiac. His fingers were poised over the keyboard. All three men were watching downriver. They heard the Tomahawk a few seconds before they saw it.
It roared in low and fast, catching them by surprise even though they were expecting it. Drake hit a key. The nose cone of the missile exploded and the pod popped out. A parachute deployed out the end of the pod and then it was down in the river, a quarter mile from their location.