The lights were still out inside.
Blade wiped the knives clean on his pants and slid them into their sheaths. A moment later he had two AK-47’s slung over his arm and the third gripped in his hands. A cool breeze caressed his skin as he moved to the southeast corner of the barracks and surveyed the structures.
The white front door of the barracks was closed. To his left, parked in front of the nearest hangar, sat a huge tandem helicopter. He remembered Milton saying that the HGP Unit was on alert status 24 hours a day, which meant the Unit had to have a copter ready to go at any hour of the day.
Therefore, Blade deduced, the tandem job must be on line and fueled for immediate lift-off.
How convenient.
Blade stalked to the front door and paused. Should he bust it in or try a sneak attack? If he kicked in the door, he’d awaken every commando inside and give them precious seconds to react. The element of surprise was essential to his success.
Oh, well.
Blade tried the knob and found it unlocked. He opened the door slowly to the accompaniment of loud snoring. Since, if an alert sounded, they had to be out the door in minutes, all of the commandos must be asleep within a short distance of the doorway. He slipped into the barracks and eased the door shut, vowing that none of the HGP Unit would get past him alive.
Somewhere someone farted.
The Warrior groped the wall to his right for a light switch. In seconds his probing fingers found it. He stood stock still, girding himself, asserting control over his emotions and his body, willing himself to relax, counting in his mind.
One.
Sixteen to one weren’t such bad odds. He’d have the jump on them. The crucial edge.
Two.
If he did die, it wouldn’t be without a fight the Russians would long remember. Either way they would require years to rebuild their HGP Unit.
Three.
Blade flicked the switch and overhead lights came on all along the length of the barracks, revealing a desk and several chairs to his left and to his right a room containing sinks, toilets, and showers. Ten feet from the entrance was another door, ajar about eighteen inches, and from behind it came the snoring.
Damn!
The Warrior dashed to the second door, but as he grabbed the knob he heard a gruff voice on the other side.
“Who the hell turned on the lights?”
Blade jerked the door wide and stepped into the sleeping quarters.
There were ten bunk beds, five on each side of the room. Only two beds were empty, the two apparently belonging to the pair he’d slain, leaving 18 occupied bunks where there should be only 16 and no time to contemplate the reason for the discrepancy because the commandos were coming alive.
“It’s Blade!” the man in the bottom bunk to the Warrior’s left shouted, scrambling from under the covers.
“Get him!” chimed in another.
The Warrior sent a half-dozen rounds into the bigmouth to his left and saw the man pitch to the floor, and then he brought the barrel higher to catch the commando in the top bunk, the heavy slugs flinging the supersoldier from his roost, screeching in anguish. Blade took two strides into the room, trying to watch all of the commandos at once, and as he moved he noticed the black footlockers at the foot of each bunk. Set out neatly on top of each locker were two camouflage uniforms, except for the footlocker near the empty bunk and the footlocker next to the first bed on his right. On that one were brown uniforms. At that moment he also made a chilling observation. Leaning against the post at the foot of each bunk, with the exception of the first bunk to his right, were assault rifles, and hanging from the upright posts were holsters.
All this Blade perceived in the span of three seconds while the men and women in the bunks struggled to shake the sleep from their eyes. And then, in a terrible moment of savage action, the battle was joined.
A woman three bunks down on the left clawed at her AK-47.
Blade shot her in the head, the rounds spraying her brains and pretty red hair all over the footlocker and the floor. He strode farther into the room, squeezing the trigger, Firing a steady burst, killing the commando in the bunk above her, then reversing direction to blast the two men in the second bunk on the left. Oaths and shouts and screams filled the air. The super-soldiers were all going for their weapons.
A woman in the fourth bunk on the right got hold of her pistol.
His lips a thin, grim line. Blade let her have several rounds in the chest.
He spun to the right and shot the two men in the second bunk on his right. They thrashed as they were hit, crimson geysers spurting from their ruined torsos. He swung around, aiming at the commandos at the back of the barracks, when the unexpected occurred.
The AK-47 went empty.
In a twinkling he realized there should have been more rounds in the magazine, and he realized he’d inadvertently used the same weapon he had employed at the hospital. He tossed the assault rifle to the right and unslung the AK-47 over his right shoulder, but even as he did other guns boomed and chattered and he leaped behind the flimsy cover of the bunk bed to his left. He’d lost the advantage, and as soon as he showed himself he was dead. The concerted enemy fire would be overwhelming.
Unless.
Unless he met their superior firepower with concentrated firepower of his own.
Bullets were thudding into the bunk above him.
Blade twisted onto his stomach and crawled frantically to the head of the bunks, then turned to the left and squeezed between the next bunk and the wall. The commandos were pouring their shots into the bunk he’d left, unaware of his move, giving him the gift of a moment’s breathing space.
He quickly unslung the third AK-47, took hold of one in each brawny hand, then rose, firing as he straightened, shooting underneath the top bunk, downing several supersoldiers who were caught by surprise. But he couldn’t stand still, not even for an instant, so he darted to the center of the room again, firing as he ran, and he continued to fire once he was in the aisle, sending a burst into a nearby woman, then taking the forehead off a stocky man who lunged at him from the right, and still he fired, swinging the barrels from side to side and up and down, always firing, firing,firing, always in motion, spinning and ducking and weaving. He fired as some of the commandos rushed him. He fired as they sniped at him from behind the bunks. And he fired at the few who attempted to flee out of the rear door. Only the fact that both magazines went empty almost simultaneously stopped him from firing.
An awful silence enveloped the barracks.
Blade threw the assault rifles to the floor and grabbed yet another leaning against a bed to his right. Acrid smoke hung heavy in the room.
Bodies were sprawled in the aisle, on the bunks, and near the back door.
Blood flowed copiously. Someone groaned.
No one else moved.
But there were two men still alive.
Blade swung toward the first bunk bed on the east side of the room and covered the men who were lying in a state of transfixed terror, the same men who owned the brown uniforms.
Scowling, he stepped over to the bunks. “You don’t belong to the HGP
Unit. Who are you?”
The dark-haired man in the bottom bunk winced at the raspy, threatening tone in the Warrior’s voice, while the man in the top bunk regained his composure, glared defiantly, and crossed his arms.
“I’ll never tell you a damn thing!” the defiant one declared.
“Then who needs you?” Blade responded, and shot him.