First, Derek stepped out of the spacesuit. He’d destroyed all the Chimera and now he needed agility and dexterity. Moving quickly, he twisted off the steel safety caps on the gas tanks and examined the regulators. Yes, this would do nicely. He placed the five gas tanks — one oxygen, two nitrogen and two carbon dioxide — together, then surrounded them with as many bottles of chemicals he could find, preferably chemicals that when exposed to flame — or each other — would go up in a large and dangerous explosion. Derek tried to remember if he had seen a stack of gasoline containers along one side of this trailer. He was pretty sure there had been, but which side? He didn’t know for sure and there wasn’t much he could do about it. He moved on.
He needed some sort of fuse. Some laboratories kept lengths of cotton-fiber rope because they were used as the wicks for alcohol burners, which could, among other things, be used to sterilize coverslips. But he found no rope in the lab. He turned back to the little room where he had been held captive. On the plastic cot was a thin mattress. He dragged it out into the main part of the laboratory and, using a pair of scissors, cut it into long strips and tied them together until he had a length of cloth rope nearly thirty feet long.
Using a large two-liter beaker, he filled the glass container with ethanol and dropped the cloth rope into it.
He carefully took the glass bottles of vaccine, wrapped them in padding from the mattress and placed them in a small cardboard box that had once contained laboratory felt-tipped marker pens. He sealed the box with tape and tucked it under his arm.
Derek took a deep breath. If he wasn’t careful how he did this he would be at ground zero when all hell broke loose. He took a moment to think things through. Finding a piece of paper and a pencil, he drew a rough sketch of the warehouse as he remembered it. Thinking where the doors were, where the vehicles were kept, where the other trailers and various people were within the large rectangular space. Plotting his escape, he did what he had been trained by the U.S. Army to do: work out multiple escape routes.
When he thought he was ready, he opened the various doors to the trailers, leaving them open until he was just inside the final door to the rest of the warehouse. Heart hammering, he retraced his steps, took the alcohol-soaked cloth and wrapped it around the regulator’s outtake manifolds, then unreeled the sopping cloth through the trailer until it was just by the exit. The ventilation system was already working on the alcohol fumes and he was concerned that the alcohol would evaporate too quickly.
He hurried back to the compressed gas containers, turned the valves on full to release the gas. Carrying the bucket of alcohol, he poured it along the length of the cloth, emptying it by the final exit door.
With steady hands, he picked up a box of matches he had found in a drawer and lit it. The flame danced at the end of the matchstick. One, he thought.
He touched the match to the cloth. Two.
It ignited with a blue flame and fast, faster than he could have thought possible, the alcohol-soaked cloth caught flame.
His eyes grew wide, because the cloth didn’t ignite, the alcohol did. The blue flame raced toward the gas canisters within the laboratory.
Slamming himself against the door, Derek rushed out into the main warehouse, sprinting toward the exit.
58
Stuart English and James Johnston sat in a Ford Explorer four blocks from the warehouse they had identified as the probable headquarters of The Fallen Angels. English had a portable radio and was in contact with all of his men. The two men had agreed that English would be the tactical command and Johnston would oversee the operation.
English directed his men to slowly converge on the warehouse from all points of the compass. Because they were in a warehouse district — row after row of steel, concrete and brick warehouses — they entered the area in four trucks as if to make deliveries. One man drove, one rode in the passenger seat and three men were in the back. Once they were close to the warehouse they would fan out and begin their mission.
Each truck was given a radio designation of A, B, C, and D. Each man in each truck was given a letter one through five. They were reporting in now.
“Alpha-three in, I have the target in sight. There are no signs of human guards.”
“Delta-one here. I see video cameras. Confirm.”
“Beta-five, I confirm three video cameras on north side of target.”
Into his radio Stuart English said, “Confirm cameras on all areas.”
In a matter of minutes it was confirmed. There were twelve cameras identified, two at each corner and one in the middle. It was not an unexpected problem. The problem was exactly how to deal with them. The cameras were mounted high on the sides of the building and English’s crew were not equipped to climb and reach them in a fast, effective way. Also, timing was an issue. Although they had enough sharpshooters to take out the surveillance cameras, the element of surprise would be eliminated if they did so — they would have to make a full-out assault on the building simultaneously. This would be problematic because they had no idea what they were getting into. No idea how many people were inside, how they were armed and what the layout of the facility was. As far as anybody could tell, there were no blind spots.
English said to Johnston, “Any ideas?”
“Are there ventilation ducts?”
English passed on the question to his team. A moment later the Alpha-leader, Alpha-one, responded. “Affirmative. On south side of building and on the roof. Suggestion, sir.”
“Go ahead.” English raised an eyebrow at Johnston.
“One of the trucks can drive by close on one side as if on their way by. We can have someone flash one of the lights as we go by to cause a problem with one of the cameras. The passenger side, using a rope and grapple, will take that opportunity to get onto the roof. From there they should be able to—”
Alpha-One’s report was interrupted by the crumping sound of an explosion coming from inside the building. There were shouts and confusion. Even inside their Ford Explorer they could hear the sound of the explosion from four blocks away.
“What’s going on? Report!” English shouted into the radio.
“We don’t know. Something from inside the warehouse. Some sort of explosion. We don’t know what’s going on.”
Johnston gripped English’s arm. “Tell them to go in. It’s their diversion.”
English paled. He could be sending twenty men into a deadly situation. Then he nodded. “Code Pellinor. I repeat: Code Pellinor. Go in.”
59
Derek, Bare feet slapping on the cold pavement, did not get more than twenty steps from the trailer when there was a loud crumping sound. He saw four or five of Coffee’s terrorists turn from what they were doing to see the noise and spot him racing toward the nearest door.
Then there was a much louder sound and Derek felt a percussion wave slam into him like the hand of God and he found himself flying through the air and slamming hard to the pavement. A rain of debris — glass, wood, shards of aluminum — fell around him. With a desperate lunge he threw himself under another trailer, clutching the precious box of Chimera vaccine against his chest. From beneath the trailer he watched the destruction of the laboratory. It looked like it had been sitting on a volcano. The plywood that had layered the inside of the trailer burned with a huge cloud of black smoke. He didn’t think his bomb caused so much destruction; it must have been the stacks of fuel presumably used for generators and the complicated ventilation system of the laboratory.