Deep Fire Rising - v4 (41 page)

As his view resolved, Mercer could feel the MMU make adjustments to his flight path by controlling the ram-air parachute. In a moment he saw a flat plain immediately below his feet. It drifted out of view as a crosswind caught the pod, then came back as the computer made automatic corrections.

Sykes had trained him not to watch the landing to prevent himself from tensing. He closed his eyes at what he thought was the last second and had to wait almost fifteen more before shock absorbers at the bottom of the MMU touched down. As designed, the pod fell onto its back and the chute rigging was sheered away so the yards of black nylon couldn’t act as a sail and drag him across the landscape.

Mercer flipped a protective cover off the button that opened the pod and mashed it with his fist. The seal maintaining pressure in the pod hissed and the door opened slightly. A cold wind exploited the tiny opening and whipped the hatch all the way open. The first breath of the icy mountain air seared his lungs. Mercer coughed.

He unsnapped his harnesses and rose unsteadily. Around him he saw a monochromatic world of grays and the outline of steep mountain cliffs. If not for the tough grasses growing along the rocky valley floor, the scene could have doubled for a crater on the moon. The air temperature was in the low thirties, yet he would occasionally feel the warm caress of steam from a geothermal vent.

A figure loomed out of the darkness. “You okay, Snow?” It was Grumpy. He had already donned his equipment and cradled his M-4, the stripped-down assault version of the M-16. Night-vision goggles covered half his face.

“Yes, just a little shaken.”

“Don’t sweat it. That was one hell of a ride. Get into your gear, we’re moving out.” He turned away quickly.

Mercer grabbed his arm. “Hold it, did everyone make it down safely?”

Grumpy didn’t look at Mercer when he said, “Sneezy’s chute tangled. He’s dead.” The noncom shook off Mercer’s hand. “This op better be worth his life, man.”

“It’s worth all of ours,” Mercer said to Grumpy’s back as he vanished into the darkness.

S
ykes took the news of Sneezy’s death by ordering Sleepy to cover Dopey as he worked on each MMU to activate their self-destruct mechanisms. Now that they were on the ground, the mission took precedence. Grieving for the fallen man would come later. He led the team northward toward the monastery’s back wall, about a quarter mile from where the MMUs had dropped in a cluster.

Mercer expected to have trouble breathing at twelve thousand feet and knew his lack of altitude sickness symptoms like headaches, dizziness and pulmonary distress was due to the drug cocktail he’d consumed on the flight. The black fatigues he’d been given also protected him from the near-freezing temperatures and the wind that was beginning to shriek down the valley, corralled by the mountains and vectored like a jet into his face. Because of the constant streamers of steam that blew from the geothermal vents ringing the valley, his night-vision goggles could not gather enough ambient light. He left them dangling around his neck as he ran, exposing the area around his eyes to the biting cold. Soon his skin was numb.

The wall at the rear of the monastery was made of smooth river rocks mortared together with primitive cement. Through the streaming haze of steam high above them, they could see a portion of the building’s pagoda-style roof. With curt hand gestures, Sykes fanned out his men to cover the climbers as they unlimbered their rope and equipment. Mercer took a position on the far left flank, tight against where the stone wall met the cliff. He donned his night-vision goggles and scanned the top of the wall and the surrounding rocks, which had hundreds of crags that could easily hide observers. The barrel of his M-4 followed the smooth motion of his eyes.

In the center of the towering wall Bashful and Happy, whose real names were Bobby Johnson and Bruce Morrelli, were ready to start their ascent. They’d studied it for ten minutes, mapping their route with the practiced eye of professional climbers. They would scale the wall independently, carrying coils of rope and the necessary gear to secure the lines once they reached the top. Each also carried a silenced Beretta in case a sentry wandered by. Every member of the team was competitive to a fault, driven to surpass their comrades at all costs. But when it came to a mission, they knew this wasn’t a game and the two men began the climb with caution and little thought to the progress of the other.

As if gravity didn’t apply, Bashful and Happy seemed to float up the wall, their arms and legs in constant motion as they exploited the tiniest flaws in the mortar for finger- and toeholds. Mercer, who had done some climbing out of necessity rather than recreation, had never seen anything like it. In minutes they had traversed half the distance to the top and he had to force himself not to be distracted by the display. He turned away and checked his surroundings again. His weapon’s safety was off, though he kept his finger clear of the trigger guard.

“Doc, this is Dopey.” Mercer heard the voice over the hearing-aid-sized speaker in his ear. “MMUs are rigged. Three hours and fifty minutes to bingo. Sleep and I are on our way in.”

“Roger, Dope,” Sykes replied.

Bashful reached the top of the foundation wall a moment ahead of Happy. There was a squawking flurry as he rolled over the cornice. The men on the ground tensed as several owls exploded into the night. Bashful remained out of view and Happy froze a foot below the ledge. The seconds dragged.

“All clear,” Bashful finally called over the tactical radio.

Happy finished his climb. They scouted the area immediately around them for five minutes to satisfy themselves that the birds hadn’t alerted anyone before using a muffled nail gun to drive spikes into the stone. They secured pairs of carabiners for the ropes and a moment later the thick lines tumbled to where Sykes waited.

“Grumpy on line one, Snow on two,” Sykes ordered. “Dope, what’s your ETA?”

“I’m fifty yards behind you, Doc.”

“You’re on rope one when Grumpy hits the top. Sleep, you take two when Snow’s secure.” As he spoke, Sykes clipped Bashful’s and Happy’s combat equipment to the ropes so they could be hauled up.

Mercer had been issued special clamps that would allow him to climb the rope as easily as ascending a ladder. He clipped them to the line, took a moment to stare up the rock face and marvel at the skill of the two commandos. To him the wall was as smooth as glass and angled near ninety degrees.

“Move it, Snow,” Grumpy prodded.

Mercer looped the clamp’s strap under his foot, lifted his leg and applied slight downward pressure for the clamp to bite. He stepped up, repeated with his other foot and was instantly two feet off the ground. He slid the clamps strapped to his wrists upward, took another step with his right foot and quickly found his rhythm. The thirty pounds on his back would have become an issue had the climb been higher, but he could take the added strain for a hundred-foot climb.

To his left, Sergeant Lopez, a.k.a. Grumpy, was twenty feet higher on the rope and climbing like a machine, his legs pistoning in perfect synchronization. Mercer didn’t even try to keep up.

At the top of the rope Bashful took a handful of Mercer’s uniform to haul him over the cornice. They were in a wide unsheltered terrace covered in square flagstones. Twenty yards away the monastery loomed above them, supported by a colonnade stretching the length of the building. The structure itself rose in tiers that vanished into the clouds. A soft glow filtered from the single arched doorway. Several upper rooms were also illuminated. To the left and right were small round structures he guessed were chapels. Other than the prayer flags ripping and snapping from atop dozens of poles, nothing moved on the courtyard.

In the minutes it took for the rest of the team to make the climb and haul up the equipment, Mercer kept his back pressed to the low wall surrounding the terrace and watched for movement. Once assembled, the team moved to the lee of one of the small chapel buildings for Sykes’s final orders.

“All right, my little dwarfs, from here on we run out of plan. We’ll go through that door over there and search floor by floor in teams of two. Snow, you’re with me. Grump’s the lone gun on the ground floor. The longer we avoid detection the more we can cover, but by the looks of this place there are probably two hundred rooms in there and Snow thinks there’s a lot of underground stuff too. At some point we’re gonna be spotted. Be ready.”

“Hoo-yah,” the men whispered in unison.

Sweeping around the chapel, the men jogged to the rear of the monastery, rifles at their shoulders, eyes peering into the shadows around the ranks of columns. The double doors stood fifteen feet tall, made of some exotic wood bound with ornate iron straps. There were no locks. With six guns covering him, Grumpy pulled on one of the five-foot-long handles. No matter how well balanced, the door was massive and he had to change his grip to ease it open. The tongue of light that seeped under the door grew. Mercer saw he wasn’t the only soldier sweating despite the chill.

When the door was open wide enough, Sykes tapped Dopey on the head. The commando dropped to his belly and ducked his head for a second-long peek into the building. He looked again, more slowly this time, his head swiveling as he searched the interior.

“Clear,” he said as he crawled forward.

The men followed him in, with Grumpy taking the drag slot. The room was twenty feet square, lit by oil lamps, and had no discernible purpose. The walls were paneled in dark wood while the floor was dressed stone. Other than the lamps, the space was empty. A door on the far side was the only way out.

This time Sykes made the first visual reconnaissance. “This is it,” he whispered. “The next area is open, lots of doors and hallways and a big staircase.”

He shouldered his assault rifle and pulled a silenced pistol. “Mercer, keep on the M-4. You’re my cover. Let’s go.”

Pouring out of the antechamber, the men rushed into the monastery’s central mezzanine, the sound of their advance deadened by the rich carpets on the floor. Grumpy peeled off to the right to begin searching independently while the rest moved to the stairs, climbing hard because of their exposure. Sykes motioned Bashful and Happy to check the second floor as he raced past the landing and continued upward. They skipped the third floor and Dopey and Sleepy were ordered to investigate the fourth. Mercer and Sykes reached the top landing. Halls ran off in three directions. Sykes arbitrarily went left with Mercer at his heels. The hallway was lined with small empty rooms and twisted crazily. Narrow staircases ran down to the floor below, creating a dark three-dimensional maze.

“This is going to take forever,” Sykes said after five minutes of opening doors on empty rooms. He opened yet another. The room was bare but inexplicably had its own set of steps leading down to the fourth floor. “And with all these staircases, someone can easily outflank us once we make contact.”

“Let’s hope there aren’t that many of them.”

Sykes looked at him hard. “Do you believe that?”

“Not for a second.”

Backing out of the room, Mercer bumped into someone. He whirled, bringing the rifle around in a blur. The stock caught the figure on the side of the jaw and dropped him to the floor. Sykes pushed past, his pistol held an inch from the unconscious man’s head as he patted him down with his free hand. His search turned up nothing.

The man was in his sixties, painfully thin and deeply wrinkled. He wore the robes of a monk. His breathing was even, though blood dribbled from a gash on his cheek.

“Jesus!” Sykes hissed. “You didn’t say anything about noncombatants here.”

“I didn’t know.” Mercer’s heart still hammered from the shock of the unexpected confrontation.

Sykes keyed his throat mike. “Dwarfs, this is Doc. We just ran into an unarmed monk. This place may be crawling with civilians. Be on the lookout.” He gestured to Mercer. “Let’s go.”

He hadn’t taken more than three steps when another monk rounded a corner. Sykes raised his Beretta. The monk, who was younger than the first, froze, his dark eyes widening at the sight of two black-clad soldiers inside the monastery, one of them holding a pistol on him, the other an automatic rifle. He dropped to his knees and cried out in Tibetan.

Sykes put his finger over his lips to silence the frightened man, but the gesture did no good. His cries grew louder and sharper. Sykes glanced back to mutter a disgusted oath at Mercer. The monk dropped his hands toward his waist. Mercer saw the movement. He held his fire for an instant, hoping Sykes would turn to see what was happening. There was no time for a warning.

As soon as he saw the gun coming from under the monk’s robe, Mercer fired a single shot. The rifle’s crack echoed down the hall as the man was blown back, scarlet drops spraying from the bullet hole in his forehead.

Sykes turned to see the gunman fall flat. His pistol lay on the floor next to him. “Contact,” he said coolly into the radio on the off chance his men hadn’t heard the M-4’s sharp bark in the otherwise silent monastery. “Shot fired. If they didn’t know we’re here before, they sure know now.” He unscrewed the long silencer from his pistol and tossed it aside before holstering the weapon and reaching for his M-4. “Nice shot,” he said to Mercer. “Thanks. I screwed up.”

He looked down the long corridor, trying to hear if anyone was coming for them. “This is going to get real ugly, real fast. There are seven of us on unfamiliar ground facing an unknown number of enemies. Situations don’t get much worse.”

“Look on the bright side,” Mercer said softly.

“What bright side?”

“I was hoping you’d think of one.”

Sykes took point again as they continued their search for Tisa. Every minute or so one of the other teams would report their progress. So far Grumpy was the only other person to make contact. He’d left an elderly woman bound and gagged in a temple room.

They’d covered no more than a quarter of the top floor in fifteen minutes. Sykes was becoming agitated. Someone must have heard the shot and yet no one was coming to investigate. It meant either no one else was here or they were laying an ambush.