Drenched by the bloody spray, Eli caught the failing corpse in his arms.
The remaining two belonged to Mack Bolan. He reholstered Big Thunder and relieved his last victim of a Kalashnikov and two magazines.
He slipped a new one into place and dived to the right, hitting on his shoulder and rolling on to regain his feet behind a thick stone column.
He was acutely aware that thirty odd lives hung in the balance, trapped in a room just behind him.
Rage at such intentional barbarity gave a manic edge to his movement. What Glinkov was trying to do was beyond loathsome. For Mack Bolan it was beyond all comprehension. Now Bolan was close to pulling the plug on it. He wanted desperately to do it. Do it now. He wanted to shut Glinkov down, but there was a succession of gunners and slugs to go through first.
Each one made him a little more angry.
He raised the Kalashnikov and squeezed. The two men in front of him dropped in their tracks.
The relentless fire seemed like the voice of outrage as it chattered and roared. And then was still. The gun was empty.
The last two gunners lay in their own blood.
Bolan wanted Glinkov.
He wanted him bad.
And he would have him.
Eli and Rachel hurried the hostages back to the surface. The elevator was running on emergency power, and there were too many people for a single load. On the way, Rachel explained what she knew of the situation. It was decided that the first group to go up should be technical people. Without them there was no chance to reverse the process Glinkov had set in motion. With them, there was precious little, but even a slim chance was worth taking when it was all you had.
Stevens was still in the control room. There had been no attempt to break into it. Everyone else in the plant had gone to Level 4 the hostages at gunpoint, Glinkov's men prodding them like wayward cattle, and the others in pursuit. And Stevens had waited. He was determined to get even with the bastards who had killed his friends.
When Eli Cohen arrived, he knew there was still a chance. But first they had to prevent a meltdown. Eli was no engineer. All he could do was sit and watch the dials. And wait. And pray.
And his prayers, if not answered, were at least being acknowledged. With the hostages free, there was still a chance to stop the nightmare. Anxiously the security chief paced behind the console as Stan Robbins tried desperately to reverse the damage and prevent a meltdown. It was too late to reinsert the control rods. The interior of the reactor was too far out of control. All he could do was try to cool it down.
Robbins told Eli that the fuel was already disintegrating. The reactor's internal alignment was so out of whack that there was no hope of a mechanical solution.
Both men paced and watched the dials. It seemed absurd that an array of colorful lamps could signify so much destruction. There had to be something useful they could do and didn't seem right to sit and do nothing. Finally Eli spoke. "Matt, we have to get outside."
"What's up?"
"There's a chopper coming. To pick up the Russian."
"No way. No way in hell that son of a bitch gets out of here."
"Let's go, then."
"Stan, you'll be all right here?" Stevens asked.
The engineer nodded without taking his eyes off the console.
"But you should start getting everybody else the hell out of here. There's not much more I can do. And if this doesn't work, I'll be in Boston before I stop running."
Stevens clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll tell somebody on the way out. I have some business to take care of."
Rachel joined them, handing Stevens an AK-47. "You'll need this," she said.
"Not if I get close enough to use my bare hands."
29
Andrey Glinkov was running for his life.
The footsteps following him grew louder.
Ahead, like the mouth of hell, yawned a fifteen-foot circle in the floor. A steel ladder led down to the floor below. Parsons descended.
The Russian had underestimated the man called Bolan. It would cost him dearly. Just how dearly, he wouldn't know for some time. If he managed to escape with his life, there was still the question of his superiors. There was no way to obscure the KGB presence in this fiasco. No way but one. Peter Achison was supposed to meet him in a stolen attack helicopter. The original intention was to use the chopper only for his escape. But it was heavily armed. And there was still a chance. If he could hold the world at bay long enough, the reactor would do the rest of his job for him. He'd already set in motion the forces of the chain reaction that would ultimately destroy the reactor complex. He might not be able to lock the hostages into the containment building as he had planned, but they were still in the plant. If he could keep them until he put his plan into action, the radiation would preserve the secret of his participation. But only if no one got out alive.
Especially Mack Bolan.
Right now, the odds did not favor that outcome. But it was still possible. Whoever was following him in the tunnel would have to be eliminated first, of course.
Then he might still be able to hook up with Achison. It would be a simple matter to use the chopper's firepower to prevent escape from Thunder Mountain. As long as the reactor was unchecked, it would eventually achieve his purpose. Sweat began to bead his brow as he ran through the tunnel. He could hear the footsteps of the man behind him. He didn't know who it was, but he couldn't afford to use his flashlight. It would give him away more quickly than it would pick out his pursuer. And if the pursuer were Mack Bolan, he wouldn't make it to the chopper.
The echo of his footsteps began to pound in his ears.
He had to catch his breath. He looked into the dark toward the man chasing him. Far behind, he could see a dim light descending to the floor of the tunnel.
Another man had joined the chase. Was one Mack Bolan?
He pushed on. A sharp pain stabbed through his chest.
Each breath brought with it the edge of a razor blade.
The slicing of the air into his lungs hurt like hell.
His legs were beginning to feel leaden. His feet felt as if they were encased in concrete.
It began to get warmer. The air around him seemed to dampen and heat up. The first slosh of water underfoot went unnoticed. And the second. By the third, he realized he was running in shallow water.
It wasn't until the fourth step that he began to wonder where it came from. The tunnels, he knew, were part of a vast complex that radiated in all directions from the heart of Thunder Mountain. They were all tied together to serve as emergency coolant conduits. If it became necessary to flood the reactor with large quantities of cool water, the tunnels would handle the runoff. If it ever became necessary to drain off the reactor coolant, the tunnels would handle that, too. He had begun draining the reactor. The water under his feet might be some of the coolant. It might be radioactive.
He had to find out whether he was heading in the right direction. He needed someplace to use a light for a minute, a place to get his bearings. A place to look at his map. He had to know whether he was heading toward the reactor or away from it. The water under his feet would mean certain death if it were radioactive.
Shielding a small flashlight with his palm as he ran, he sprayed a small beam against the wall for a second or so at a time. He was looking for someplace to duck in out of the main tunnel.
Every so often, he knew, there would be a ladder. They led from one level of tunnels to another. If he could find one, he could climb out of this tunnel into another, higher one. Once there, he could use his light to find out where the hell he was. And to ambush the men on his trail. The beam wavered. Snapping it off and on, he was taking the chance that he might miss one of the ladders. The third time the light went on, he saw a dim shadow against the wall.