Talib climbed into the passenger side of the heavy vehicle; Ishmael slid behind the wheel. In the distance, the line of headlights had snaked away from the gates of Crane’s compound and was moving southward.
Brother Ishmael’s mask still sat atop his head; his eyes glinted hard in the starlight. He opened the focus, and the truck shot forward, its cowcatcher zeroed on the gates three miles distant. Ishmael’s jaw was set, his teeth bared. “They won’t even see us until we’re on top of them,” he said low.
“Please,” Talib whispered. “Promise me you won’t hurt Crane if you find him.”
“I won’t hurt him,” Ishmael said. “I will kill him.”
“Ishmael—”
“Savor it,” Ishmael said. “You are about to see justice in its purest form.”
Ishmael reached up and hit a switch that activated all the cams they’d brought with them, including one in the truck. Both Ishmael and Talib, their faces exposed, were already flashing through the Net.
The three speeding trucks were abreast now, separated by thirty yards, bouncing on the uneven ground as the perimeter warning lights flared brilliantly white, lighting them to daylight. Added to this visual excitement was a prerecorded, carefully crafted speech by Ishmael explaining the objective and purpose of the holy mission they were undertaking.
“Here we go!” Ishmael yelled. He activated the sound blockers in his ears, pulled down his mask, and jerked up the hood of his burnoose.
Talib fumbled with his gear, his mind numb, heart racing, sweat pouring off him.
Gas!
They were driving blind, through roiling clouds of noxious gas, both men pulling down their goggles and going to infrared. Talib was shaking uncontrollably, his mouth dry. What was he doing here? What madness had put him in this truck?
They hit the razored fence with a loud clang, chain link hooking on the catcher, then whipping back to smash their windshield, turning it into a kaleidoscope of spider webs in the thick smoke.
He turned to Ishmael, who’d picked up his shotgun and set it against the windshield, then pulled the trigger and blew out the vestiges of the windshield. Suddenly a man stood before them. The catcher hit him at knee level, cutting him in two. His torso bounced onto the hood: his head punched through Talib’s side of the windshield. The still-living man bled through the eye and mouth holes of his smiling FPF mask as his arms flailed wildly on the other side of the shattered glass.
Talib was screaming inside his own skull.
Burt Hill had just gone into the equipment shed to return a shovel he’d found on the grounds, when he heard gunfire popping like fireworks. He cautiously looked through a small window in the door to see three trucks in the compound.
The perimeter guards went down within seconds, their defensive systems useless against such a savage, surprise attack. One truck veered toward the barracks; the other two headed straight for the elevator building.
Explosions wracked the barracks. The first truck to reach the elevator plowed through the concrete covered walkway leading to it. Chunks of concrete flew in all directions; screams mixed with the sounds of gunfire at the barracks.
Burt’s finger went to his pad to hit Crane’s emergency fiber, then froze. They’d be scanning for transmissions. If he communicated with Crane, they’d know Crane and his family were down there. They’d know where he was. There was nowhere to hide below except in the tubes themselves. Silence was his ally right now. He’d take the shaft service elevator down and make his stand in the tubes.
Shovel still in hand, he moved to the back of the equipment room and voiceprinted into the small elevator that serviced the shaft coils for the main lift. He climbed in, grimly determined, and hit the down button. This elevator wasn’t as fast as the main lift, but it would get him there soon enough.
Abu Talib jumped out of the truck, yanked up his mask, and vomited. The G who’d come through the window had finally died, but not before pumping most of his blood through the carotid artery onto Talib. The dead man still lay on the hood of the truck. Talib shimmered with blood, dark heart blood, his clothes heavy with it.
Smoke drifted through the compound, and alarm horns blared. Automatic weapons fire finished off the rest of the G in the barracks. Talib was in shock.
The masked men, loaded down with satchels and weapons, poured out of the back of the truck into the thick of the rubble in the elevator entryway. At Ishmael’s signal, everyone with an aural deactivated his sound blocker.
“God is great!” Ishmael shouted. “And we are His instruments!”
Ishmael grabbed Talib by the arm and pulled him to the entry security controls. “What does it take?” he asked. “Quickly!”
“Eye scan,” Talib said. “Uh … uh … fingerprints. Sorry, I’m—”
“Bring the prisoner!” Ishmael called. The third truck screeched to a halt and a G was dragged to the big sliding door.
Ishmael ripped off the smiling mask on the G to reveal a woman, her lips moving soundlessly, her eyes listless. Blood bubbled out from under her slick white uniform. Ishmael slammed her face against the scan screen as Talib stuck her right thumb on the plate. The controls went green; the big door popped open to cheers from the Fruit of Islam.
Ishmael heaved the woman aside. She slid down the wall to a sitting position, and he kicked her body into the doorway to keep it from closing.
“Bring in the bomb truck!” Ishmael yelled. The truck eased forward, men walking next to it through the wide doorway. Talib entered slowly, moving as if in the grip of a dream.
The bomb truck drove into the center of the elevator, knocking furniture aside, the rest of the men rushing in. It was meant to take out the elevator shaft, to seal the works below into a sarcophagus.
Ishmael shoved the G’s body out of the way, the door closing immediately. He walked over to Talib.
“Pull yourself together, Brother,” he said. “Be a man.”
“If Crane’s down there,” Talib said. “It’s possible that his wife and son are down there, too.”
Ishmael smiled in satisfaction. “We could clean out the whole nest of vipers,” he said, then turned to the man sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck. “Hit the timer on the truck charge. Brothers, we have exactly one hour until the shaft blows.”
Talib felt the elevator jerk to a start, then begin its slow descent into the precinct of Hell.
Lanie Crane heard the elevator’s arrival bell from the computer room, followed by a lot of voices. For a moment she thought the guests had returned for some reason. Then Mohammed Ishmael’s booming voice told her it was the end of the world.
She grabbed Charlie from where he slept on a blanket on the floor and raced into the hallway to the stairs.
Charlie awoke and began to cry. She covered his mouth with her hand and turned right at the bottom of the stairs, darted past the line of carts there and ran to the shaft maintenance elevator. She hit the button.
“I’m sorry,” the pleasant computer voice said, “but the shaft maintenance elevator is in use.”
She could hear them now in the computer room, hear their gunfire and the crashing of blasted items onto the concrete floor. Large shards of glass exploded out of the observation glass, showering her and Charlie, who screamed in terror.
She charged back to the carts and grabbed one, tearing off down B Corridor, her child held tightly in her right arm. She fled because she had to … knowing there was nowhere to go.
Three and a half miles down Tube #63, Crane stood in his sealed elevator cage inspecting the leak. Minimal. It wouldn’t interfere with the blast. He shouldn’t have worn his burn suit. It made maneuvering too difficult. The suit was large and hot, its hard-shelled exterior designed to protect the wearer from falling debris. Even a pebble dropped four miles could be deadly.