Boy made a good act of plodding exhaustedly toward the annex. The backpack looked like a dead weight on his back. I guessed he wasn’t playacting that part of it. The bag contained nothing but a welded steel frame that fitted tightly into it like a hand in a glove. Tony had spent half the night making the thing. Now, pray God it was strong enough.
“There it goes,” I whispered. “See the bunker door opening?”
“Hell, it must be a foot thick,” Zak breathed.
“As soon as he wedges the bag in the doorway, move. And for God’s sake keep off the lawn. There are landmines under the grass.” I glanced at Zak. “You happy carrying the dynamite?”
“I’ll do it. Don’t worry about me.”
I nodded. “Once we’re in, Phoenix will do whatever he can to make life hard for us. There’ll be no light, so use the flashlights. He’ll probably hit us with water. Even a lot of noise.”
“If those are his only weapons we’re laughing.”
“Just say a little prayer he’s got nothing else. Wait; Boy’s almost there. Get ready. But keep down until we know the door’s jammed. OK?”
Without rising from the cover of the bushes I pulled the strap of the rifle over my shoulder and checked that the. 45 automatic was still strapped to my hip. At either side of me Zak and Tony checked their weapons. Tony sported a submachine gun with spare ammo clips taped together, while Zak carried a pair of sawed-off shotguns. He also hoisted the backpack containing the bundles of dynamite over his shoulders.
Hell, there was so much to check. Flashlights, ammo. I patted my pockets, feeling a rising panic. I’d forgotten the goddam cigarette lighter to ignite the fuses. Shit, you idiot, Valdiva, you fucking class A idiot, you should -Thank Christ. I felt hard tube shapes in my shirt pocket. I’d placed a pair of lighters there earlier. But pulling this off was like the plate-spinning trick you see at the circus. You have to make every little element of the plan work. Anything forgotten, anything mistimed, it all went crap.
“Any second now,” Zak whispered.
Still playing the weary refugee, Boy made it to the bunker. I saw him stop to listen again to a voice we couldn’t hear. No doubt Phoenix was giving the same instructions Michaela and I’d received in the same soft, whispering voice. Boy nodded again, then limped to the open doorway. As he entered he slipped the heavy bag from his shoulders. This time lightning-quick he spun ’round and jammed the bag lengthways into the entranceway. A second later the big armored door slid forward, as if to seal the aperture. It made it a third of the way, then stopped. It slid back. Shut again. But it couldn’t slide more than a third of the way across. An alarm began to sound from the bunker.
“He’s done it.” I scrambled to my feet and repeated the earlier warning: “For God’s sake keep off the grass. Touch that and you’ll go fucking sky high.”
The two followed me along the path to the bunker entrance.
Fifty
This was it. Adrenaline blasted me into overdrive. The world blurred as I ran hard at the bunker.
Boy danced outside the bunker door. “I did it, I did it!”
“Great work. Now get behind the bunker. And keep off the goddam grass.” I looked down at the doorway. The metal frame inside the bag still held against the pressure of the door. Even so, it had closed now maybe halfway, leaving a two-foot opening. I heard pneumatics hiss. The steel frame groaned; there was the sound of metal on metal grinding somewhere inside.
“It’s holding,” I shouted. “But it might not hold for long.”
Then Phoenix’s voice rolled from the speakers. “Valdiva! Get out of here! You’re a dead man! I’ll crush you!”
“Yeah, you and whose army?”
“You are dead, Valdiva. Get away from here! Get away!”
The voice thundered across the plastic lawns away into the forest.
“You’ve got bunker boy all riled,” Tony said as he switched on his flashlight.
“I’ll go first,” I said. “He’s going to turn this place into a fun house the moment we go in there.”
Phoenix boomed like the voice of God: “YOU’RE DEAD MEN WALKING. D’YA HEAR? GET AWAY FROM HERE… LEAVE AND YOU’LL LIVE!”
“Sounds as if you’ve spooked him, too.”
Zak lumbered up with the heavy pack of dynamite on his pack. He turned ’round so I could pull open the zipper on the backpack. I reached in, tugged out a bundle of dynamite, then started to unreel the fuse that I’d carefully wound ’round it.
“Tony, hold the end of the fuse. Zak, stick close to the bunker wall… no-farther back from the doorway.” Suddenly this seemed crazy; to be standing there with five sticks of dynamite in my hand. Hell, I’d never used the stuff before. OK, I’d shoved the gleaming steel-shelled detonator into the center. But is that where it went? Jesus, sweet Jesus… “All right.” I took a deep breath. “Stay back. The trick is to use just enough to blow the doors… not bring the whole house down.”
Maybe Zak saw me hesitating, as if I doubted I could pull this off. “He’s got a lot of goodies in there, Greg. Do it.”
“Keep a grip on that fuse, Tony. If I yell ‘Light it!’ just light it anyway, OK?”
He nodded, his face grim.
The door was still trying to crush the steel frame. I heard metal groaning as I stepped over it. The outer door wasn’t my target. It would take a whole truckload of explosive to even dent that. My only hope was that it didn’t manage to force itself shut. If I was trapped in there… hell, I didn’t want to paint any mind pictures about that one…
As I suspected, Phoenix didn’t help me by switching on the lights. Instead I moved along that same decontamination chamber I had entered before, this time a flashlight in my hand. The light danced on the tiled floor; the fuse trailed behind me. I repeatedly looked back to see if it had snagged against the door that slid backward and forward as Phoenix tried to batter the obstruction to crud.
At that moment spray hit me in the face. Hell, he was using the decontamination procedure as a weapon. The disinfectant caught me squarely, shooting into my mouth and eyes. The stuff burned like fire.
Half blinded, I stumbled forward, still holding the dynamite in one hand, the flashlight in the other, and trying to steady my balance with my elbow. Then he hit me with the cold water spray.
“Getting desperate, are we, bunker boy?” I murmured. I had anticipated his suddenly appearing in the doorway with a machine gun to blast us. He must have hundreds of weapons at his disposal. But something told me now he wouldn’t have the guts to venture out of his safe house to face us.
“We’re coming in, Phoenix!” I yelled over the hiss of water. “We’ll find you.”
“You bastards. You won’t get close to me. You’re dead men… dead men!”
I reached the door to the locker room. Although hardly flimsy, it was only a fraction as thick as the outer door. Carefully, I set the dynamite down so it was touching the door.
Too much explosive? Too little? Dammit, I just didn’t know. Behind me metal shrieked as if in pain. I glanced back to see the outer door had all but crushed its way shut.
Taking a deep breath, I bellowed: “Tony! Light the fuse!”
The outer door had become a great champing mouth. It slid back, then rumbled forward to crush the steel frame. The fuse snaked across the mangled back pack.
“You’ve made yourself a tomb!” Phoenix ranted. “D’ ya hear me, Valdiva? I’m going to sit here. I’m going to enjoy watching you rot!”
Come on, Tony, do it… light it… if the door slides all the way shut it’s gonna kill the fuse. I looked ’round for something else to wedge in the door, but this passageway consisted of nothing but naked walls. I ran back to the outer door, tried to hold it back with my bare hands. Shit. I might as well have tried to stop the sun rising with nothing but my own two arms. With a hiss it rolled along the groove again to slam against the mangled frame, nearly pulping me in the process.