Authors: Shawn Kupfer
Mary and Ryan had gone back to the BMP with the Rangers to start their hack on the Chinese and North Korean networks. Nick loaded a program on Mary’s netbook to help her translate the Chinese enough to complete her work, as he knew he’d be needed elsewhere.
Nick sat at the comm station, watching Martin pull a military-issue duffel bag from his gear and drag it to the center of the Razor.
“That looks heavy,” Michael said.
“About a hundred and sixty pounds. So not exactly light,” Martin said with a grunt.
“Ah, shit,” Peter said, shaking his head. “That’s what I think it is, isn’t it?”
“Back in the day, they would’ve called this an SADM—Special Atomic Demolition Munition. I hacked one together at the boss’ request,” Martin said, nodding to Nick.
“So what does that mean in English?” Peter asked.
“It means, yes. We have a nuclear bomb. A little bit more powerful than the one that blew up in L.A., am I right?” Nick asked Martin.
“Yeah. One in L.A. was estimated at 1.1 Kilotons. This one has a yield of 1.58. It’ll turn the lab into a crater, turn the virus into ions, and do some damage at least three kilometers out.”
“How the hell did you ‘hack together’ a nuclear bomb?” Michael asked.
“It’s not that hard. Shaped charges, uranium, timer. Simple,” Martin said, shrugging.
“Can the guys inside defuse it before it blows?” Christopher asked.
“Well, they are scientists, so I’m sure they probably could. If they could get to it, which they won’t be able to do,” Nick said.
“How do you figure that?” Daniel said.
“We’re going to do to them what they tried to do back at Camp Justice. We’re going to lock it inside the Razor and run like hell.”
“And us? How do we get out?” Christopher asked.
“We’re going to split into two and a half teams.”
“Two and a half?”
“Yeah. Two, and then the first team will split off again. Here’s how I see it working: the first team will be on distraction. Throwing a lot of gunfire at the lab. Then one part of the first team—me, specifically—will split off and grab the EM-pulse prototype. First team’s going to be directly in the line of fire, and I have to warn you, the survivability matrix on that one’s not great.” Nick let that sink in for a moment before he continued. “The second team will be securing our escape vehicle. Major Evans will be leading that team. I’ve already spoken to him.”
“And who’ll be on that team?” Martin asked.
“Whoever, apart from you and Bryce, doesn’t volunteer for my team. Sorry I have to order the two of you specifically, but I need your special skills for my part of the operation.”
Martin nodded.
“No big, boss. I was facing life plus back home.” Bryce shrugged.
“Thanks, Bryce. I’m going to need two more volunteers.”
“I’m going,” Daniel said.
“Thought you might. Glad to have you aboard. Who else?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, what the hell.” Christopher sighed, raising his hand.
“Thanks, brother. All right. The rest of you will grab your weapons and report to Major Evans as soon as it gets dark. In the meantime, you’ve got,” Nick checked his watch, “five hours. Time’s yours, though I’m afraid we can’t leave the Razor. Air-filtration’s on though, so smoke if you got ‘em.”
Nick turned back to the comm station and downloaded a few files from the Razor’s central computer onto his e-reader. As his crew shuffled around him, he began studying the lab’s floor plans, committing his route to memory. He ran through the schematics on the EM-pulse prototype—seventy-eight pounds, just light enough for him to carry on his own and still run for the escape vehicle.
After he walked through his plan several times, Nick gathered the gear he’d need. He loaded four of the Glock sidearms and attached their holsters to his belt—he didn’t want to have to waste time reloading. Nick also grabbed fifty feet of high-tensile nylon rope, a Marine-issue KA-BAR and a pair of TotalVis goggles. He took off his BDU jacket and hung it over the back of the comm station’s chair. He wasn’t going to need it, and it would only slow him down.
All his preparations took just over an hour, and Nick found himself at a loss for anything to do.
Worst part is the downtime,
he remembered his father telling him when he was thirteen. Alex had just been called up to go to Iraq, and Nick had asked about what it was like to go to war. It was the last time he saw his dad.
You wanna do something, anything to help ensure the outcome of the mission. But you can’t. You overprepare, you’ve got too much going on in your brain when you get in there. Thinking too much is just gonna get you killed. You wish you could just catch some sleep, but you’re too keyed up. So what do you do?
“You sit, and you wait. It’ll come soon enough,” Nick whispered to himself, sitting down in the comm station chair, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. He concentrated on slowing his breathing and his heartbeat until those were the only thoughts in his head.
“Major Evans on the comm, sir,” Anthony told him some time later.
Nick cracked open one eye and checked his watch. Thirty minutes to go time.
“All right. Let’s get this party started,” Nick said, taking the handheld comm from Anthony. “Major Evans,” Nick said into the radio.
“Yeah, I think we’ve been through enough in the last couple of days. You can call me Johnny,” he said with a chuckle over the line.
“Fair enough.”
“We’re all set over here. The worms and Trojans are loaded, ready to rip the hell out of both networks on the word ‘go.’“
“Looks like we’re less than a half an hour from deployment. I’ll be sending over my guys in fifteen. Keep an eye on them, yeah?” Nick tried to smile when he said it, to keep his voice light, but his words came out flat and serious.
“Like they were my own.”
“You got the location on our ride?”
“Yep. And Ryan coded this BMP into the duty logs of the vehicles guarding it. We should be able to get right up on it, but when the shit goes down…well, let’s just say we’ll have a fun time keeping it.”
“My guys are bringing up all the weapons and ammo from the Razor. Burn it all. Either we make it out, or it’s no good to us anyway.”
“Roger that. Your guys briefed on our part of the scheme?”
“Broad strokes. They’re all yours to assign as you please.”
“How’s Freddie?” Johnny asked. “He conscious still?”
“Getting stronger, but he still can’t walk. Gabriel’s going to be able to carry him no problem, though.”
“That the big guy? Tattoos?”
“Yep.”
“All right. Nothing left but to get to it, I suppose.”
The channel was silent for a moment. Nick had no idea what to say, but when he realized Johnny wasn’t saying anything either, he broke the silence.
“Suppose you’re right. We’ll wait for you to roll out then follow after ten minutes. Hit any snags before then, and flag us on this channel. After that…well, we’re probably not going to have much time for chatter.”
“Probably not. It’s been good working with you, Marine.”
“You too, Ranger.”
Nick cut off the connection and turned to his men. “Team two, load up. You’re transferring to the BMP in ten minutes. It’s cramped as hell in there, but it’ll be much more pleasant than it’s going to get in here.” Nick smirked.
“Don’t feel right leaving you here, boss.” Anthony shook his head as he slung an M4 over his back.
“You’ll see me again in a half an hour if all goes to plan. Until then, follow Major Evans’ orders just like you’d follow mine, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep an eye on the rest of our guys and make sure they do the same. Can I count on you for that?”
“You got it.”
Nick had to try hard to keep his voice even. He knew his mission wasn’t exactly the safest, knew Major Evans was an experienced commander…but still, he was worried about his men. His
friends
.
“All right. Be safe out there.”
“You too, boss.”
A few moments later, Nick watched on the Razor’s night-vision cameras as his men scurried across the field to the hidden BMP. They loaded up in less than a minute, and Nick’s handheld clicked on.
“Team two is ready to go,” Major Evans reported.
“Okay. Rangers, lead the way.”
“I see what you did there,” Johnny said with a laugh. “See you in about twenty.”
The BMP started up and rolled toward the lab ten kilometers away. Nick watched it recede on the horizon, then rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles.
“All right, guys. Let’s get in our places. Bryce, you’re obviously on the wheel. Martin, you’re prepping the bomb, of course. I’ll take the weapons station, which leaves you two in the turrets.” Nick nodded at Daniel and Christopher.
“Just one thing before we plunge into that pit of hell,” Christopher said, his face a mask of stone.
“Yeah, Chris?”
“We survive this, I expect beer. Lots and lots of beer.”
Nick laughed. “You’re on.”
The Razor was running on stealth and halfway to the lab when Nick’s radio went off again.
“BMP-1 in position.”
“Razor 4-7 Echo inbound. Time to get ugly,” Nick radioed back, then put the radio in his cargo pocket. He put a wireless earpiece in his left ear, paired it to the radio and switched it on, but no further transmissions came in from the BMP.
“Weapons live, gentlemen. We’re about to arrive at the lab.”
“Where do you want me to park this big bitch, Nick?” Bryce asked.
Nick brought up a floor plan of the lab on the flatscreen between them. He flicked through some images until he settled on one of the first floor. “Hmm. How about there?” he replied, pointing at the center of the image.
“What is that?” Bryce asked, glancing over.
“Looks like the lobby.”
Bryce’s face broke into a wide smile. “I like the way you think, boss. We’re doing about forty—want to open the doors for me?”
Nick nodded, aiming one of the Razor’s rocket pods at the lab, now rapidly growing on their front monitors.
“Guys! Get ready to start shooting!” Nick yelled as he fired two rockets into the lab’s wall. The Razor, now only two hundred yards from the wall, rocked slightly with the force of the explosion as Bryce hammered the Razor through the newly-created hole in the wall.
“CDMs inbound!” Christopher yelled from his turret.
“Close the door behind us, will ya?” Nick yelled back. He heard the massive .50 caliber guns firing, tearing huge chunks out of the second floor. Nick saw the debris falling on the rear camera feed, blocking off the hole with a mountain of rubble.
“They’ll punch through that before long,” Bryce told him.
“Let ‘em. They can’t shoot what they can’t see. ETA on the lobby?”
“Just through that block of offices up there.”
Bryce stepped on the accelerator and crashed through a cluster of desks and cubicles. Nick could see what looked like scientists in white coats scattering left and right in front of the Razor. Not all of them made it. Even over the booming of the big .50 caliber guns, Nick was sure he could hear bones crunching under the vehicle’s huge tires. He tried to shut out the sound, imaginary or not, as the Razor smashed through one more wall and ended up in a large, open area surrounded by balconies looking up to the other five floors. Bryce slammed on the brakes, and Nick hopped out of his chair, shrugging into his Kevlar vest and grabbing his weapons and rope.
“Okay, gents! Light up anything that moves! Give me five minutes, then get the hell out of here, lock the Razor, and put the weapons on automatic. Leave it in stealth mode. That should keep ‘em nice and confused for a minute or two.”
“I’m setting the detonator for five minutes. I’ll trip it right before we roll out,” Martin told him.
“Good man.”
“Good luck, boss.” Bryce nodded to Nick, slipping into the seat in front of the weapons station.
“You too, guys.”
Nick slipped on his TotalVis goggles and jumped out of the Razor’s passenger door, slamming it behind him and breaking into a run as soon as his boots hit the carpet.
Nick broke left from the nearly invisible Razor, the floorplans he’d downloaded appearing in a ghost image over his left eye. The plans indicated a stairwell forty feet down the hallway in front of him. As he ran, Nick pulled one of the Glock 50s from his belt and held it up in front of him. Even with extended twenty-round clips, Nick knew he only had eighty bullets to get him through the next ten minutes.
According to the information Mary had stolen on the lab, Nick knew that there were at least three hundred Chinese soldiers and twice that many North Korean ones, in addition to four hundred staff. Eighty rounds versus almost a thousand and a half men with guns wasn’t going to get him very far, at least not if he rushed in with guns blazing.
“We’ve got you on locators, boss. We’ll try to clear your path as much as possible,” he heard Bryce say in his earpiece.
Nick threw open the door to the stairwell, and even before he stepped through it, he could hear shouting in Korean and a whole lot of footsteps. He was about to radio the Razor but realized he didn’t need to as he heard .50 caliber rounds tearing through the walls above him. He heard shouting and saw blood splatter onto the landing just in front of him accompanied by clouds of plaster dust.
“You’re clear to the fourth floor,” Christopher told him.
Nick rushed up the stairs, his boots splashing in the blood and plaster on the landing as he turned right. The steps in front of him were littered with bodies—at least twenty, by Nick’s quick count. As he stepped over the dead North Korean soldiers, Nick reached out with his left hand and snagged one of the dropped Chinese assault rifles. He ran by the huge hole in the wall Christopher had opened with the Razor’s guns, taking the stairs three at a time until he’d reached the door to the fourth floor. A test of the handle found it locked.
According to the plans floating in front of his left eye, the door was made of bullet-resistant steel, and the locking mechanism was set to seal off the door if it was damaged or tampered with. Unfortunately, the engineers that designed the building hadn’t thought to reinforce the area
around
the door—Nick quickly placed four C-4 charges Martin had put together for him at each of the four corners of the door, ran up the flight of stairs to the next landing, and detonated the explosives.
Bang!
The hallway filled with smoke. As the smoke cleared, he saw the door had fallen completely out of the wall and was lying flat on the landing below.
Nick flew down the flight of stairs, landing with both feet on the metal door. He brought up his assault rifle in front of him and ran out into the hall. Room Thirteen was at the opposite side of the floor, almost five hundred feet away. He ran down the hall, following the map displayed in his goggles. It indicated he would turn right at the end of the hall, but Nick could already hear soldiers coming from that direction.
Nick stopped for a moment and punched a few commands into the assault rifle’s small computer, then slid it out in front of him into the hall. It began firing almost immediately, throwing bullets at just above ground level until it exhausted its hundred-round clip. Nick heard screams and shouts in Chinese. He took off his goggles and inched the right lens around the corner quickly, taking a snapshot.
Nick slipped the goggles back on and brought up over his right eye the image it had captured—six Chinese soldiers, all on the ground, their feet shredded by the assault rifle’s attack. Nick brought up one of his Glocks and rounded the corner, firing as soon as he saw the downed Chinese soldiers. He managed to take them all out before any of them could raise a weapon. As he passed by the now-dead Chinese, he grabbed another assault rifle from the floor and broke into a run yet again.
“One minute until we light the fuse on this bitch,” Martin radioed.
Nick grunted a reply and turned to the left when the map told him to. He ended up facing several Chinese soldiers, who opened fire as soon as they saw him. Nick rolled to the side, ending up in an open office to his right. He stuck the assault rifle out the door and opened fire, emptying the clip. The gunfire slowed, but didn’t stop. He listened for a second and counted. He was pretty sure he heard only three guns now. He grabbed a Glock in each hand and dashed out into the hallway, firing as he ran.
Nick ran straight across the mouth of the hallway, but he’d emptied both Glocks by the time he’d made it across. He dropped them and grabbed another, but only one gun was firing now. If he could manage to wait until that soldier reloaded, he’d have him.
“Weapon is hot. We’re bailing. See you on the bus, Nick,” Bryce radioed. “Watch the CDMs on your way out.”
Five minutes to nuclear detonation. Better get moving.
Nick sprang out into the hallway and opened fire.
Bullets slammed into his Kevlar vest, knocking him back but not down. The last remaining soldier was crouched behind the bodies of his fallen comrades, firing his assault rifle as soon as Nick stepped into the hall. The three shots Nick got off went wild, and he retreated back into the open office door.
Shit. That busted up a couple of ribs,
Nick swore at himself. He inched his Glock around the corner and fired five times, then popped his head out. The last surviving Chinese soldier was just popping back up from behind his corpse shield, and Nick fired five more rounds. Two of them caught the Chinese soldier in the face.
Nick chucked the third now-empty Glock aside as he hurdled the pile of bodies. He knew he didn’t have time to stop and pick up another assault rifle. Room Thirteen was only another two hundred feet down the hall, and Nick covered the distance in less than fifteen seconds. As he rounded the corner and came face-to-face with the room’s door, he saw a young North Korean scientist just leaving the room.
Nick reached out a hand to grab the man. “Open that door!” he yelled.
Before his hand could grab the young scientist’s coat, the scientist wrapped his hand around Nick’s wrist and twisted hard. Nick spun around, breaking the scientist’s hold on his wrist, and threw a quick right-handed punch at the man’s head. The scientist dodged quickly and easily, and his left foot shot out and caught Nick in his bruised ribs. Before Nick could react, the scientist landed a powerful punch to the side of his head, knocking the TotalVis goggles to the floor.
“You’re pretty good,” Nick spat, his right foot shooting out toward the scientist’s midsection.
“Better than you,” the scientist said, his English perfect as he dodged the kick and spun low, his leg shooting out under Nick.
Nick jumped, landing with both feet on the ground, and fired his left hand at the scientist’s face. The scientist caught his hand and snapped the wrist to the side—Nick felt bones twist the wrong way and, after a moment’s resistance, snap. There was a momentary white-hot flash of pain, and Nick heard crunching as the scientist let go of his wrist. He knew it was broken, probably in more than one place.
A pair of arms wrapped around the scientist’s neck from behind in a flawless MCMAP-style choke and, after a quick struggle, the scientist dropped to the floor. Christopher stood behind the scientist, two M4’s slung over his back.
“Frankly, man, I’m hurt. You were gonna commit an armed robbery without me. That’s what I do, man.” Christopher smiled.
“Good to see you. Let’s get the unit and get the fuck out of here,” Nick panted. He studied the small screen next to the door, which had instructions in Korean on the left and Chinese on the right.
“What’s it say?”
“We need a palmprint and a retinal scan to get in.”
Christopher hauled the unconscious scientist to his feet, and Nick pressed the man’s right hand to the screen, which flashed green after a second. Nick next held the man’s right eye open and pressed his face to the screen, which again flashed green. Room Thirteen’s door popped open, and Nick and Christopher dashed inside.
The EM-pulse prototype sat on a simple table in the center of the small room, hooked to a netbook running calculations. Nick pulled a length of rope from around his chest, cutting it off at about three feet with his Ka-bar. He quickly tied the ends of the rope to mounting rings on either end of the EM-pulse unit, then unhooked the netbook and tossed it to Christopher. Nick slung the device over his back, then took one of the M4s from Christopher.
“We’re spun up. Three minutes, forty-five seconds,” Nick heard Johnny in his ear.
“On the way to you,” Nick radioed back.
“We’re not gonna have time to run back down those stairs and out of the building,” Christopher said quietly.
Nick took the rest of the rope from his belt and held it up. “We’re taking the express elevator.”
There was a window just outside the room. Nick tossed one end of the rope to Christopher, who started tying it to a support column just down the hall. Nick raised the M4 and sent several rounds through the window, shattering the glass. He used the butt of the rifle to clear the windowframe then tossed the other end of the rope out through the open hole.
Nick nodded for Christopher to go first. The taller man grabbed hold of the rope and jumped out the window, rappelling down the side of the lab. Nick followed suit, and the two Echoes were on the ground seconds later.
The helipad was a hundred yards away, and Nick could see gunfire spewing from the huge MI-26TC chopper that was already spinning up on the pad.
“Got a lot of resistance between us and them,” Nick told Christopher.
“Run and gun?”
“Like a motherfucker.”
The two men set off, rifles up and ready to fire. They were coming at the North Korean unit’s back, and the personnel in the chopper were doing a pretty good job of cutting them down. Nick and Christopher easily mopped up the rest, hopped over the corpses and ran up the steps to the helipad. Gabriel and Anthony were crouched outside the doors, rifles up.
“Gabe. You’re shot, brother,” Nick commented, noticing the blood streaming down Gabriel’s left arm.
“No worse than anyone else.” Gabriel grunted, helping Nick into the chopper.
“Wheels up in twenty seconds, or we’re all dead!” Johnny yelled from the chopper’s co-pilot seat.
Nick tossed his M4 into the chopper, hopped in and reached out to help Christopher in. As the chopper’s wheels left the pad, another bullet slammed into Nick’s armor, knocking him back before Christopher could grab his arm.
“Fuck! Chris!”
“I got him!” Gabriel yelled, sliding forward, his body halfway out of the helicopter. Christopher grabbed his arms, and Anthony and Nick grabbed Gabriel’s legs as the chopper lifted away from the ground, Christopher dangling underneath.