After nearly being kidnapped off the street in broad daylight, Jen had taken Israeli Krav Maga lessons to learn how to protect herself. She launched a closed fist at the man’s face. Instinctively, he brought a hand up to block her attack, leaving his mid-section and groin open. In a flash, she brought her right leg up and with all the strength she could muster, she shot it into the guard’s groin. With a gasp of pain, the guard dropped to his knees. His hands covered his injured groin. Jen stepped back slightly and with a loud yell, she brought her leg around and smashed it into the injured man’s head, knocking him unconscious.
From beginning to end, the fight had taken less than ten seconds. Jen’s heart was beating wildly in her chest. She had never fought another person in her life.
“My God, where did you learn to do that? Were you in the army?” asked Owen.
“No, I wasn’t,” said Jen, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. “I learned to do that at my local YWCA. Now quit standing there and take his weapon while I look for a cell phone.”
Owen cringed as he picked up the strange-looking rifle.
“Bingo,” said Jen triumphantly as she held up a phone.
“Now what?” asked Owen.
“We keep moving. There has to be a way out of here.”
With that, Jen opened the door the guard had come through and nearly leapt for joy. At the end of the tunnel was a metal ladder bolted into the rock. The ladder went up into the ceiling and vanished from sight.
“Come on,” said Jen as she glanced down at her watch. They had three minutes left to escape. With Owen running behind her, Jen ran as fast as she could for the ladder. The only thought on her mind was survival. Nothing else mattered right now. She wanted to live.
45
The smell of cordite hung heavy in the air.
Mitchell adjusted his position and fired off another shot, wounding a man. He knew that he only had two or three bullets left. After that, they would have to surrender or go down fighting. He looked over at Grace and Cardinal and saw that they had slowed their rate of fire as well.
The sound of the semi-trailer truck’s engine starting up roared like a lion across the cavernous hangar floor.
Mitchell swore when he saw the lead Hummer begin to slowly drive away. McMasters was leaving. In frustration, Mitchell took a shot at the lead vehicle. The bullet bounced harmlessly off the bulletproof glass.
Yuri burst from the safety of the stairwell, slid down beside Mitchell and pointed to his watch. “Ryan, unless you do something we’re all going to die.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“The fuel, it’s aviation fuel, shoot the fuel drums and start a fire,” said Yuri, pointing over at a row of forty-five-gallon drums.
With his remaining three rounds, Mitchell fired one round per drum. In seconds, the fuel, like a river, began to surge across the floor.
Yuri rolled on his back and reached into his pockets until he found his lighter. He turned around and saw a wrench lying on the floor. Inching over, he grabbed it and quickly wrapped a piece of his shirt around the wrench. Yuri carefully lit the fabric, got up on one knee, and with a yell, he hurled the flaming wrench towards the fuel drums.
It fell short.
Both Mitchell and Yuri swore.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mitchell saw Cardinal throw his rifle to the ground in anger. Only Grace had any ammunition left, and she was nearly out.
A couple of autos over, Jackson popped his head out and watched as the last of the up-armored vehicles turned down a side tunnel and disappeared from sight. He gritted his teeth in anger. McMasters was getting away, and they were all pinned down with no hope of stopping him.
Jackson’s hoped-for miracle came in the form of a river of highly flammable fuel. Yuri’s attempt to set the fuel on fire had fallen short, but the gas soon washed over the burning wrench, instantly bursting into flames. The flames raced back towards the row of fuel drums, triggering a massive explosion. Like so many rockets, the fuel drums exploded and flew up into the air, raining burning fuel down onto the ground. Those guards unlucky enough to be near the fuel were drenched in flames. With the fire spreading, the guards panicked and stampeded to get away from the hellish inferno.
Jackson tossed his rifle over to Mitchell, got up onto his feet, and sprinted for the parked Hummer.
Mitchell grabbed the weapon out of the air, tucked it in tight into his shoulder, and dropped anyone foolish enough to try to stop Jackson.
Jumping into the driver’s seat of the Hummer, Jackson turned it on, shifted it into reverse, and jammed his foot down on the gas pedal. With a loud squeal from the vehicle’s tires, Jackson drove the Hummer straight back, coming to a sudden stop in front of the car Mitchell was using for cover.
“Get in,” yelled Mitchell to Yuri. He looked over at Grace, Sam, and Cardinal and told them to run.
Grace fired off her last bullet and dropped her rifle. She didn’t bother to crouch down as she ran for her life.
Mitchell watched as his friends piled into the back of Hummer. Turning his head, he looked back towards the stairwell, expecting to see Jen and Owen.
Yuri said, “Pretty lady took man to find another way out.”
Mitchell hesitated. He couldn’t leave, not without Jen.
“Ryan, we have to go,” called out Jackson.
Mitchell jumped in, angrily slamming the door shut.
Jackson changed gears and, with his foot all the way down on the accelerator, took off after McMasters.
“Where are we going?” asked Sam from the backseat.
“McMasters and his goons went this way,” pointed out Jackson, as he drove through a thick cloud of black smoke and turned down a long, dimly lit tunnel. In the far distance, he could see the taillights from one of the Hummers.
“How much time have we got left?” asked Grace.
“I don’t know, a couple of minutes, maybe,” replied Mitchell as he glanced down at his watch.
McMasters, riding in the armored truck containing the weaponized anthrax, dug out a remote and pressed a small red button. A couple of seconds later, two steel blast doors opened at the end of the tunnel, and the convoy raced out into the open and turned onto a narrow trail at the back of the mountain. In the distance, the sky was turning gray on the horizon. The convoy paused for a moment to let David Houston get into his SUV. With the architect of the coming global genocide aboard, the convoy quickly picked up speed. They wanted to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the base before the UAVs struck it in the next couple of minutes, obliterating everything and everyone trapped inside.
“Speed up!” Mitchell yelled at Jackson. “The doors are closing!”
“I’m already doing eighty.”
“Do ninety!” screamed Sam.
Up ahead, the doors were slowly moving towards one another.
Mitchell could see the light from outside begin to fade as the doors swung inwards. With his hands on the dash to brace himself, Mitchell knew it was going to be close, too close for comfort.
Jen put her back onto the closed hatch above her head and pushed hard. To have come this far and be trapped made her want to cry. She was scared and nearing exhaustion.
“Move over and let me help,” said Owen as he climbed up the ladder.
There was barely enough room for both of them in the narrow passage.
“On three,” said Jen.
Together they counted down. With their shoulders on the hatch, they both pushed as hard as they could. For a moment, it didn’t budge. With a loud creak, the hatch moved a little and then flew wide open. Cool, refreshing air rushed down from the outside.