“It’s no use. We’re probably too far underground for these cheap Russian-made radios to work,” said Jackson as he gently picked up Cardinal.
“Okay then, let’s make for the roof,” said Mitchell.
The nearest door leading to the stairs was at the far end of the hallway. Mitchell took the lead with Jackson carrying Cardinal in the middle and Sam bringing up the rear.
The loud siren stopped, replaced by the sounds of men hurrying down the hallway, yelling to one another.
Colonel Hwan had been reading in bed when the alarm went off. Throwing on his only set of rumpled clothes, he tried calling the main office to find out what was going on; however, the only person there spoke Mongolian. Cursing the man, Hwan slammed the phone down and decided to see for himself what was going on. Hwan looked about and saw a couple of heavily armed guards run by as they jammed fully loaded magazines into their AKs.
A second later, he saw Cypher and Atsuko hurrying down the hallway. He had to stifle a snicker. Cypher was still dressed in his pajamas, with a bright red silk housecoat overtop; in his hand was a pistol. Atsuko wore a designer-made, tan flight suit that hugged her lithe body.
“What’s going on?” demanded Hwan.
“We have intruders trapped in the elevator,” said Cypher as he strode past, without bothering to look over at Hwan.
“Where?” asked Hwan, chasing after Cypher.
“On the next floor.”
“Who are they?”
“They are private security people who have come to rescue a couple of their friends.”
“What the hell? Are you telling me that you’ve been holding people prisoner in this complex?”
“It doesn’t concern you,” snapped Cypher, opening the door to the stairwell, climbing the stairs two at a time.
Hwan reached over and grabbed Cypher’s arm, twisting him around. “Listen here, Mister Cypher, everything you do is my government’s concern. We are paying you a great deal of money to see this project through. If these people somehow escape, this could seriously jeopardize our entire operation.”
Cypher scowled at the annoying man. He yanked his arm free and said, “They won’t escape. I knew that these overgrown Boy Scouts would come for their friends, so I left them alive, so I could kill them all together.”
Hwan gritted his teeth. “They had better not get away, or I will hold you personally responsible.”
Cypher ignored the threat and carried on. A couple of seconds later, he joined a group of guards as they took up positions outside of the elevator, their weapons tight against their shoulders.
“Open it,” ordered Cypher.
With a quick nod, a guard stepped forward and placed a key in the elevator control panel and the then turned the key over. The doors slid open.
Everyone tensed, expecting a gun battle.
Instead, they found themselves looking at an empty elevator stuck halfway between the floor they were on and the next.
“They’re gone,” said the guard.
“I can bloody well see that,” snapped Cypher. “Find them! Make sure you tell the security detail commander to lock down the complex. No one gets in or out without my permission.”
The guard nodded and then grabbed his Motorola to speak to his supervisor back at the command post.
“Lost something?” said Hwan dryly.
Cypher spun about on his heels. Anger filled his eyes. If he had been any other man, Cypher would have killed him on the spot.
“If know what’s good for you, you’ll keep out of my face, Hwan,” said Cypher. He rushed to join a couple of guards as they hurried to the far stairwell.
Hwan shook his head and began to wonder why General Pak had chosen this capitalist fool with such an important part of the plan to unify Korea under his leadership. As more men hurried for the stairs, Hwan decided to follow.
29
The sound of bullets hitting the metal stairs in front of Mitchell sounded like hail hitting a tin roof during a summer hailstorm.
Mitchell swore. Without aiming, he raised his machine pistol and fired off a quick burst up the stairwell, forcing the guard who had fired on him to dive for cover.
Behind, Sam opened up, wounding a guard in the arm.
“There are people on the stairs above me. Looks like the roof is a non-starter,” yelled Mitchell over his shoulder.
“We can’t go back, either,” said Jackson as Sam fired another long burst at the men coming up the stairs behind them.
Mitchell pulled open a door leading off the stairs. With his machine pistol held out in front of him, he looked down the empty hallway. They didn’t have a choice; they would have to find another way out and fast.
With another long burst up and down the stairwell, Sam leaped into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her.
“Jam it,” ordered Mitchell.
Sam grinned as she reached for a dropped Mongolian coin lying on the floor. Quickly picking it up, she jammed it in as hard as she could between the door and the doorframe.
“Let’s go. It won’t hold them for long,” said Sam.
Mitchell turned about and began to jog down the long, sterile-looking hallway. As they ran past, technicians in white lab coats stuck their heads out of their offices. Most were curious as to what all the fuss was about while several angrily demanded to know what was going on. Behind them, they could hear men yelling and pounding on the jammed door.
A man with thinning blond hair above his well-tanned face stepped out of his room and raised a hand to stop Mitchell. “You there, just what the hell is going on around here?” said the man, his accent was Australian.
Mitchell brought his weapon up until he was looking over his sights into the man’s eyes. “Where do they keep the transport vehicles?”
With the look of a frightened rabbit, the man pointed down the hallway. “The hangar floor… on the far side.”
“Thanks, and this is what you get for working for the wrong people,” said Mitchell as he smashed his weapon into the man’s face, knocking him out cold. Without waiting for the man to hit the floor, Mitchell was off again.
“That’s your plan; we’re simply gonna drive out of here?” said Jackson, huffing and puffing as he ran to keep up.
“If you’ve got a better one, I’m all ears,” replied Mitchell.
Jackson shook his head. Sometimes a simple plan was the best plan. In this case, it was their only plan.
Mitchell ran out onto the expansive hangar floor. Quickly checking for any security guards, he was relieved to see that for now, the coast was clear. A few forklifts moved about, carrying pallets of goods to unpack, their drivers oblivious to the strangers dashing across the open floor.
With an ear-shattering explosion, the jammed door blew open. Shards of wood and twisted metal flew down the hallway, sliding along the polished floor. A guard had suggested dismantling the door, but Cypher was in no mood to wait. He ordered it to be blown apart. Cypher was like a bloodhound on the trail of a fox; there was nothing that was going to stop him from catching his quarry.
Before the smoke had cleared, Cypher was through the blasted wreckage and sprinting down the long, narrow corridor. Behind him, Atsuko and a dozen guards ran to keep up.
Hwan stopped and picked up a dropped AK from one of the wounded guards. He checked that it was loaded and then hurried to catch up. He wasn’t fooled; the people they were chasing weren’t amateurs. They had foiled Cypher’s attempts to catch them and had killed or wounded several guards, quickly and efficiently. If Cypher and his men couldn’t stop them, Hwan intended to.
“There, that one over there will do,” called out Mitchell.
Sweat poured like rivers down Jackson’s forehead into his eyes. Carrying Cardinal didn’t ever register; it was all the running around that his body objected to. As he ran past a couple of eighteen-wheelers parked against the wall, Jackson saw the vehicles Mitchell had spotted. Two Mongolian six-wheeled, all-terrain, army vehicles were being looked over by a group of mechanics. One had its hood up, while the other was having its driver’s-side front wheel replaced.