Just when Hazo looked ready to pass out, Crawford relinquished his grip on the knife’s hilt. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a foot-long plastic zip-tie. Tugging at the Kurd’s limp arm, he strapped the wrist snugly to the rail.
Hazo screamed in agony, coughed up a wad of mucus and blood.
‘Sounds like you’ve got a hairball in there. Oh, sorry … that’s just the plague. Same plague these rats are going to spread to every one of your Arab brothers.’ Crawford stood and eyed the huge generator. ‘You aren’t as stupid as most Arabs, I’ll give you that. You see, this sure is a nuclear reactor. World’s most efficient battery. But a couple of puny bullets won’t do it much harm.’ Then he squatted beside a luggage-sized olive drab box bolted to the base of the reactor, saying, ‘But this baby, here, can pack enough punch to vaporize everything inside this mountain.’ Crawford patted the boxy shell that protected the W54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition, feeling both affection and respect for what was inside it: the plutonium equivalent of twenty-two tons of TNT. ‘Before that happens, I’m going to push these rats out of here, using my little whistle here.’ Crawford tapped his walkie-talkie. ‘That way they can swarm over this godforsaken sandbox you call a country to set things straight once and for all.’
Horrified, Hazo watched the colonel unhinge the bomb’s lid to access a control console. When Crawford inserted a keycard into a slot on the panel, a digital display illuminated.
‘Please, think about what you are doing,’ Hazo pleaded. ‘Destroy the cave … me … That is fine. You can leave this place and no one will ever know. But you can’t spread this disease. Please. Think of all the innocent people. Even you can’t do such thing.’
‘I can do anything I damn well please,’ Crawford replied coyly, entering an eight-digit code on the console’s number pad to override the remote arming system linked to Stokes’s computer halfway around the world. ‘And don’t you worry about my conscience. After all this is done, I’ll sleep like a baby.’ He pressed a button and a digital display illuminated with numbers: 00:20:00. He looked at Hazo and grinned.
‘Please. Don’t.’
‘Let the games begin.’ Crawford hit another key and the countdown began. ‘You’ve got less than twenty minutes. Plenty of time for some fond memories and a few prayers. Then it’s off to reunite with your papa. In the meantime, I’ve got some work to do.’
‘Crawford!’ a deep voice bellowed out from the darkness.
The colonel’s bravado instantly turned to alarm. He wheeled and drew his M-16 — all in one motion. His light lanced the darkness and found the target near the entrance tunneclass="underline" one of those damn mercenaries; the Goliath-sized guy they called ‘Meat’. ‘Don’t you assholes know when to die?’ He opened fire before the man could raise his weapon. But Meat managed to duck for cover into the tunnel. ‘Fucker,’ he grumbled.
Meanwhile, with Crawford’s attention focused on Meat, Jason crept up the ladder leading to the platform. He glanced down at the unbelievably huge brood of rats — all those gleaming red eyes filled with malice staring back at him. Crawford’s tirade filled in many of the blanks as to what Stokes’s master plan entailed, making it perfectly clear that the rats themselves were to be what Flaherty had dubbed the plague’s ‘delivery system’. All this sophisticated equipment Stokes had installed was no doubt designed to increase the rats’ numbers, while pumping them full of virus.
As he’d advanced through the shadows, Jason had seen Crawford tap the device on his belt and refer to it as a ‘whistle’ — the tool he’d be using to drive the rats out from the cave. Judging from the way the rats stayed far away from Crawford’s position, he guessed it was a variant of an ultrasonic transmitter commonly used by the marines to ward off critters and pests from camp provisions. He could see that the rats were trying to break through the invisible barrier that kept them at a distance of ten metres. A wave of rats would spill into the void, cower against the ultrasonic blast and scrabble back in retreat. Then another bunch would test their mettle with the same result. Fortunately, the natural bottleneck at the cave’s centre contained the rats. But they needed to be destroyed — every single one of them.
Near the top of the ladder, Jason peeked up over the edge of the platform. Crawford was facing sideways, using his light to probe the entryway for Meat. Though Crawford was wearing a helmet and a flak jacket, Jason could easily put a bullet through his face. However tempting that might seem, he’d need to try to take him alive. With Roselli and Stokes out of the picture, Crawford was the lone survivor of the twisted cabal who’d masterminded Operation Genesis. And there were plenty of questions still unanswered.
‘You are finished, Crawford,’ Hazo whispered, smiling grimly.
‘Not even close, Haji,’ he said, turning to face Hazo. Glowering, he pressed the M-16’s muzzle against Hazo’s head.
It was exactly what Hazo expected Crawford to do. And it drew all the attention away from Jason, who was now quietly stepping up on to the platform.
At the last instant, however, Crawford was alerted to Jason’s presence by the subtle shift in the metal grating under his feet. By the time Crawford turned, Jason had lunged forward like a linebacker, burying a shoulder into Crawford’s abdomen and thrusting him back against the safety rail that looped in front of the reactor.
Jason drove his elbow up into Crawford’s jaw, then landed a smashing head-butt on the bridge of his nose. Blood sprayed everywhere. Jason grabbed for Crawford’s right forearm and pushed the M-16 away. Shots sprayed wildly into the cave’s vault. Then with all his might, Jason pressed the forearm longways over the metal rail — kept pushing down until he heard bones snap. Dazed, Crawford yelped in pain, thrashing viciously. The M-16 slipped out from his grip, tumbled over the railing and disappeared.
Crawford brought his left elbow down between Jason’s shoulder blades directly on the spine. He followed it up with a knee to Jason’s face.
Jason reeled, stumbled backwards and collapsed on to the platform.
Crawford used his left hand to yank the knife out from Hazo’s shoulder. Hazo screamed in anguish as blood began spilling out from the unplugged wound.
Jason sprang to his feet and squared off with Crawford.
‘Still got some fight left, eh?’ Crawford said, grinning deviously. His misshapen right arm dangled limply at his side, and he clutched the defiled knife in his left hand.
‘Plenty,’ Jason said, wiping blood from a gash over his left eye.
‘You’re gonna need it, boy,’ Crawford warned, with a menacing thrust of the knife. He eyed the spinning numbers on the nuke’s console. ‘You can’t stop this now,’ he said. ‘Even I can’t override the countdown.’
‘I’m not asking you to stop it,’ Jason replied, crouching in a wrestling stance.
‘You’re a cocky son of a bitch, aren’t you?’ Crawford said. ‘But tell me, Yaeger … when you found Al-Zahrani drowned in his own filth, didn’t you just love it?’
Jason didn’t answer.
‘Must have been thrilling to see him go like that.’ Crawford kept low and shifted side to side. ‘All that horrible suffering. After what he did to your brother, it must’ve tickled your dick.’
‘You don’t know shit about my brother.’
Crawford tested Yaeger’s reflexes with another thrust of the knife. Jason pulled back nimbly. ‘But I know plenty about you, Yaeger,’ he said. ‘You want revenge. You want blood. And here I am handing you retribution wrapped in a bow … and you’re fighting me? You want this just as bad as me. These rats … this plague … it’s the answer to all our problems.’