Authors: Jeremy Robinson
Ragnarok (40 page)
A mechanical whine.
When Knight looked to the hangar doors, he understood that he didn’t need to hit the creature’s right eye. King was back, and he was going to hit the eye—and everything else.
Outside the Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
4 November, 0445 Hrs
THE
CRESCENT
, CHESS Team’s personal stealth, troop transport ship, looked like a giant croissant that had gone gray and black from mold. Radar-reflective material covered the ship from one tip of its half-moon shape across 80 feet of breadth to its other tip. The giant, flat plane could carry 25,000 pounds of load and travel at above Mach 2. Its newly designed VTOL engines could run in a silent stealth mode, which sounded like little more than a strong wind with an undercurrent of high-pitched metallic squeal. When the engines were running without the stealth technology, the massive engines roared like the sound of twelve 747 jumbo jets. It cost 500 million dollars, not counting the billions in research and development for the prototype.
Today, Jack Sigler, the man known as King, intended to crash it.
He was flying the huge plane alone. The pilots wanted to come with him on his suicide mission, but he hadn’t allowed it. He had been taking flying lessons, and had been at the helm of the
Crescent
in the air and on takeoff. He had yet to land the plane, but for today’s exercise, that wouldn’t matter.
Sitting on the co-pilot’s seat and strapped in with a seatbelt was the suitcase nuke King had lost in Manhattan. The goal was to get the bomb through a portal and close the portal before the timer detonated. If for some reason the portal couldn’t be closed—or the device didn’t make it into a portal, there was the remote control he held in his hand.
King looked at the device.
He pictured Sara. Her sarcastic smile. Her sharp eyes. He could hear her voice, whispering in his ear, but he didn’t like the words.
Do it Jack, you have no choice
.
I have a daughter
, he thought.
I can’t
.
Fiona came into his thoughts like a specter, her voice, high and raspy, sounded like a breeze.
It’s you or the world, daddy.
King knew the words were his own thoughts, imagining what he thought they might say, after weeping, shouting and threatening to kill him themselves. It had to be done. They would understand that.
The remote clattered to the floor where King threw it.
“Love you guys,” he whispered, then focused on aiming the world’s largest boomerang.
King had swept the sickle-shaped transport out over the Norwegian Sea, before bringing it back toward his target—the open hangar doors on the side of the lab. He could see how cleverly the facility had been built into the landscape, using the night vision features built into the cockpit of the vehicle. The doors were hidden from pretty much everything except a direct approach from the sea—and this far north along the Norwegian coast was well off the standard shipping lanes. The timing for this stunt would be crucial. He sped up on approach and then slowed just as he was reaching the open doors, carefully adjusting his aim.
He tightened the seatbelt strap crisscrossing over his chest and prayed the high tech crash gear did its job.
The plane slipped through the massive open hanger.
Then everything happened at once.
Fenrir turned to the hangar doors and saw the fast-approaching black plane. The monster opened its gaping mouth wide to howl.
King hit the gas.
The
Crescent
rammed into the creature’s open mouth, snapping off its mighty lower jaw and plowing into the beast’s flaccid-skinned chest. The thrust from the plane knocked the giant back as it flailed in pain. The
Crescent
’s engines roared, pushing the giant back and together, they slipped through the portal.
KING OPENED HIS eyes to a world of white.
He was still alive, but where? He reached out a hand and found the world around him was pliable, like a cushion...or an air bag. King was surrounded on all sides by nylon airbags designed to protect pilots from controlled crashes. While his crash wasn’t exactly controlled, he wasn’t moving at Mach 2, either.
King drew a pocket knife, flipped it open and stabbed at the airbags. One by one, the bags popped and deflated. King’s head spun as he fumbled with the seatbelt. His chest ached. Broken ribs, he thought. Could have been worse.
He looked at the seat next to him. The suitcase nuke was still in place, held tight by the belts.
Still might work
.
King flinched when a pair of hands reached around him.
“Slow down, killer,” Rook said and quickly unbuckled his teammate.
“Rook, what are you doing here?”
“Same thing as you,” Rook said. “Playing the big hero so maybe I can get laid tonight.”
King laughed, but groaned as his chest filled with pain. “Seri-ously.”
“Seriously?” Rook said. “I lost a lot of men in Siberia. I ain’t losing you, too.”
King looked in Rook’s cool blue eyes and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Rook helped King through the back of the plane, which seemed to be largely in one piece. They stumbled when the
Crescent
shifted underfoot.
“FYI, that Fenrir bitch is beneath us.”
A shadow shifted at the back of the plane, where the loading ramp was bent open.
“Shit,” Rook said, then led King to a chair. “Stay,” he ordered like a dog trainer. He ran into the plane’s armory and returned a moment later carrying two chrome Desert Eagle magnum handguns. He kissed them one at a time. “I’ve missed you, girls.”
He handed one to King and walking as one with Rook helping to support King’s weight, they made for the back of the plane. The Magnums only held seven rounds each, but the .50 caliber bullets would take a dire wolf’s head clean off. Just about any hit would be a kill shot. And Rook had four spare magazines in his pocket.
As they exited the plane, King raised his gun and fired. The bullet struck a waiting dire wolf’s shoulder removing the arm and dropping the beast. It wasn’t dead, but it would be soon.
They moved as one, leaving the plane, scrambling over Fenrir’s squishy body, which was slick with slime from its burst wombs. They ran, and fired, and scrambled and fired some more until their bullets ran out. Both reloaded fast, fired twice more each and then ducked into the brilliant portal, leaving the other world, which Rook had seen in shades of green and King in white, behind.
They emerged on the other side, but King didn’t feel safe.
The nuke he’d left behind would detonate in four minutes.
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
4 November, 0450 Hrs
QUEEN SIGHED WITH relief when Rook and King hobbled out of the portal. She was covered in cuts and scrapes, her ankle was twisted, maybe broken. Her hand was swollen like a red balloon, she was coated in dried dire wolf blood and secretions and she could only move by hopping on her unaffected foot, but she still laid down fire on the dire wolf army that turned toward Rook and King as they separated.
Beck had seen the situation and moved over to help support her and share the last of her ammunition—two normal-sized curved 32 round magazines. Together, they covered their teammates as the men scrambled toward them.
Bishop moved to the high ground of the metal stairs in the corner of the giant room and fired down on dire wolves. A pile of ten of the creatures lay dead below the landing where he stood; an effective barricade.
Rook and King split up. King held his chest, but seemed to be recovering from whatever wound had slowed him down. Rook caught Queen’s eyes and pointed to Bishop. “To the stairs,” he called.
When he saw Queen take a limping step, he shot the leg off a dire wolf and ran to her aid. But instead of helping her run, as he had King, he scooped her over his shoulder and carried her.
“Rook!” she shouted angrily.
“I’ll run, you shoot!” he replied. “We’re running out of time!”
Queen’s body shook with every step, but she managed to trace a line of bullets across the chest of a dire wolf pounding toward them.
“Time for what?” she asked.
ACROSS THE ROOM, Deep Blue ran to meet King. The Russian came over to them from behind her barricade of dire wolf corpses, now coated in thick white blood.
“Seriously, Jack? My 500-million-dollar stealth plane? You couldn’t come up with a better plan than that?” Deep Blue fired his MP5 twice, hitting dire wolves that ran at them. His face showed only concentration as he focused on hitting his targets.
King couldn’t tell whether the former President of the United States was joking with him or really upset, but decided he didn’t care.
“It worked. We need to find a way to shut down the portal. Knight found the suitcase nuke on the other side and brought it back. I remembered to arm it this time. Probably would be good if we could shut down that portal before it goes off in…” King checked his digital watch, “three minutes.”
“We need to completely destroy the containment apparatus. The metal arms that Rook blew up before—” Deep Blue began. He fired another volley of bullets at the oncoming dire wolves and his weapon was empty.
“That didn’t work out so well last time,” King said, pulling out a new magazine of 9 mm bullets from one of the Velcro attachments on his suit and handing it to the man.
“Ale says Rook was on the right track. We need to get them all—not just the two. And then cut the power.”
“Wait,” the Russian woman spoke up. “I have seen it. A power relay.”
Both Deep Blue and King turned to her and at the same time said, “Where?”
“Follow me. I saw it on a video camera. There was a map.”
“Go with her,” Deep Blue ordered. “We’ll take care of the cage.”
The woman circled around the side of the energy ball, moving along the wall, back behind the side of the sphere where the dire wolves were still coming through. King followed her, while Deep Blue provided cover fire.
ONCE KING AND the woman were out of his sight around the portal, Deep Blue crossed in front of the open hangar door to the other side of the room and made for the stairwell. Bishop, Rook, Queen and Beck were on the third flight of steps, firing on any dire wolves that came near. Knight offered cover fire from his perch in the sky.
Are they all that’s left?
Deep Blue needed the cover fire. He ran out of bullets halfway to the stairs. Each of the four soldiers on the stairs turned their attention to protecting their leader. Deep Blue didn’t bother looking behind him to see if any dire wolves were about to make him a snack. He knew his team would kill each and every one of them before they laid a claw-tipped hand on him.
When he reached the underside of the second flight of stairs, he leapt up and grabbed the railing, climbing up and over the side. “Up! Make for the catwalk,” he shouted.
Bishop stopped firing, slung Queen over his shoulder before she could protest and sprinted up the steps. Rook was fast on his heels. Beck kept up her cover fire until Deep Blue passed her on the steps. Only then, did she turn and take to the stairs. Knight began firing from the catwalk to the base of the stairs, where dire wolves were crawling up the exterior of the metal railings—easy shots—or were racing up the steps.
As they ran up the metal steps, Deep Blue shouted to the others between breaths. He was in great shape, but even an Olympic athlete would be panting after the day he’d had. “We need to destroy the metal support arms around the portal.”
“
That
was not a good idea the first time,” Rook shouted back.
“Ale says it would have helped if all the struts were down—not just two!”
“There’s six of the things left,” Rook said. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve only got one grenade left.” Rook held up a found FN-SCAR with an attached grenade launcher.
“I’ve got two,” Bishop yelled from the lead, as he reached the catwalk with Queen and set her down gently. She grabbed the railing for support and then began hopping toward where Knight lay.
“You look like shit little man,” she told him as he fired on dire wolves getting too high up the stairs.
“You have no idea. We’ll talk,” he said calmly, picking his next target and firing.
“I have two M67s,” Beck added, once she reached the catwalk.
“You kids and your toys,” Deep Blue said. “Let the old man show you how to blow something up.” He opened a buttoned pocket on his left thigh and removed a gray brick of C4. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a handful of detonators. “We’ve got about a minute left. Whose got a good arm?”
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
4 November, 0500 Hrs
KING FOLLOWED THE woman around the energy portal, away from the side of the globe where dire wolves continued to run and climb out. On the far wall from the hangar door was a normal set of double doors with a symbol of a black jagged lightning bolt on a yellow triangle, universal for “electrical hazard.” The door was locked and it opened outward, so King couldn’t easily kick the door in.
He stepped back from the door and fired a burst of 9 mm bullets at the upper and lower hinges on the right side. The door simply fell outward and onto the floor. The woman rushed in first, followed by King, who skidded to a halt.
There wasn’t a turbine, or a generator, but there were banks and banks of electrical switches and fuses, circuit breakers, switchboards, electricity meters, transformers and fire alarm control panels. This was a power distribution room—not the power generating station.
“I’m not an electrician,” King said, “but I think this will do.”