“I’m glad it was a Russian lock,” she muttered. “Get weapons, make sure you have ammunition.”
Ivan stared at her and licked his lips.
“What do you wish now, Cora Leader?”
“Lead us to the radio room.”
“We have to pass other guards to get to the radio room,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I do not wish to die. If they see me with my hands in the air, they’ll kill me to get you.”
“How many and where are they?”
“One, a turnkey like me, is three corridors away down there.” He thumbed to his right. “Farther down the same corridor is the guard to the operations area. Sometimes he’s out in the corridor and sometimes he’s in the tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
“Operations is surrounded by two-meter-thick walls.” He shrugged apologetically. “It’s like being inside a rock.”
“Operations is where the radio room is located?”
“Yes. There’s another guard—” He swallowed heavily again. “—just inside the radio room.”
“Three guards total.”
“Yes, Cora Leader.”
“Good.” She glanced around at them. “Now here’s what we’re going to do.”
With the redoubt on alert, the guard in Cell Block 2 looked up when the other guard turned the corner. He squinted, trying to make out exactly what the private was doing.
The younger guard thundered down the corridor at him, weapon in his left hand and pulling a struggling Native woman by—a gun barrel—with his right?
“Yuvonovich?” He saw the woman’s left hand flash at her side. “What the hell are you do—”
With a quick, underhanded throw, Cora flashed the skinning knife into his throat, severing the jugular vein.
She told Yuvonovich to stop at the body. While she pulled the knife out, he glanced down.
“He wasn’t such a bad fellow even if he was a corporal.”
“Do you want to talk to the next one? Maybe save his life?”
He hesitated.
“Can’t talk that fast?” she asked.
“I can talk that fast, but he listens slow.”
“His loss.” She motioned the others forward. “Move out.”
As they hurried down the concrete corridor, a man stepped out of a doorway. He moved with the stately ponderousness of someone in charge of a secure world. By the time he looked up with studied indifference, Cora and Yuvonovich had closed to two meters.
“Sergeant!” Yuvonovich said urgently as he hurried toward the man.
“What?”
“Let loose of the barrel!” Cora snapped.
The sergeant grabbed at his weapon and she shot him once through the head. He slammed back and smeared down the wall. She shoved Yuvonovich to keep him from stopping.
“Get in there, now!”
He stiff-armed the metal door, ran down the short corridor to the radio room, and kicked the door open.
“Emergency! Emergency!” he shouted. Cora ran in behind him.
Two men wearing headsets sat in front of gray consoles. A third man, armed with one of the ubiquitous machine pistols, jerked to his feet, knocking over a cup of tea on the small table next to him. He brought the barrel up and pointed it at Yuvonovich.
“Get out of the way!” the guard screamed.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
The guard didn’t hesitate. A burst of bullets threw Yuvonovich backward. The noise in the small room nearly deafened Cora.
She feinted to the side and put five rounds through the guard’s chest, knocking him into one of the radio operators.
“What the hell is going on here? What are you doing?” the other radioman shouted. The other five Indians and Stoddard crowded into the room.
“Freeze right where you are,” she said. “Put your hands on your head.”
“Yes. Whatever you say. Please don’t shoot.”
The other radioman lay under the guard’s bleeding body, his eyes wide.
“May I get up?”
With a quick thrust of her foot she shoved the body off the man.
“Yes. But very slowly. Don’t forget I am a nervous woman with an automatic weapon.”
“Yes!” The man got to his feet, sat his chair upright, and slowly sank onto the seat with his hands over his head.
Cora looked back at her people crowding around.
“Heron, you stay with me. The rest of you take up positions out in the corridor, I don’t want to get trapped in here.”
The radio crackled and a voice squawked from a headset on the floor.
“Put that on a speaker so we all can hear it,” she told the man covered with secondhand blood.
“Yes.” He turned to the console and pulled a switch.
“This is Imperial Eagle One. Do you copy me, Chena Redoubt? Over.”
“Answer him.” She jerked the weapon toward the bloodied man because he sat closest to her. “You close your eyes and put your head down on your hands,” she told the other one.
“We copy, Imperial Eagle One, over.”
“Imperial Eagle Leader failed to get a response from you, so we thought he might be blocked.”
“We did hear a transmission, but it came in all broken up. Over.”
“This is Imperial Eagle Leader, can you hear me now, Chena Redoubt?”
“Loud and clear, Colonel.”
Cora smiled and nodded approvingly. The radioman gave her a tight smile.
“Contact Tetlin Aerodrome immediately. I want close combat support within the hour. Gunships and at least two Yak fighters. Read that back, over.”
The radioman repeated the transmission back to him letter perfect. As he finished speaking, his eyes flashed up and then back to the console.
In that glance Cora saw her control questioned, threatened, perhaps challenged. She shook the weapon hard enough to make the strap slap against blued steel. The man’s eyes turned submissive.
She pointed to the speaker and gave him a wide grin and a thumbs up. Heron pointed his gun at him.
“We’ll send the message immediately, Colonel.”
“I’m going to join the ground force. I’ll be out of contact for a few minutes, over and clear.”
“Acknowledged and out.” The man regarded her with an expression of doubt. “There are other bases monitoring these signals.”
“Don’t count on it, tovirich. You’ll tell him exactly what I say, nothing else, eh?”
“What happens when they come back, other than me getting shot for treason, I mean?”
“History is changing today. Do as you’re told and you might live to tell your grandchildren about it.” She handed him a scrap of paper. “Switch to this frequency.”
The knob clicked as it turned. He waited for more instructions. Cora glanced over at the other radioman.
His head was still resting quietly on his hands. No—just one hand lay between head and console.
“You back there!” she snapped. “Get your other hand up where I can see it.”
His head moved and his eyes gleamed like those of a cornered animal. His hand jerked up with a pistol in it.
He fired.
33
Static issued from the radio speaker while the assault team waited, shifting from foot to foot and scratching imaginary itches. A light click sounded and the hum of a carrier wave took over.
“Somebody just switched to our frequency,” James, the radioman, said. He didn’t look up from the dials, knobs, and read-outs in front of him. The small shelter grew quiet as all six occupants stilled and unconsciously held their breath.
The radio hissed impotently.
“Maybe they’ve captured her and she told them the frequency,” Paul whispered, “and they’re trying to hear us.”
“Quiet!” Nathan whispered back.
The speaker clicked and a strained voice carried easily to all of them.