Bennett took off his right shoe, pulled off his sock, and put it over his left hand. Then, using that hand, he turned the handle and pulled the door opened. A blast of superheated air hit him in the face and he drew back, using the door as a shield. He put his sock and shoe back on and looked around the room. The fires in the hallway provided more than enough visibility to see the destruction that had been wrought all around him. He'd been lucky to survive the initial blasts. It was an oddly comforting thought, but it didn't last long.
Suddenly he heard the crackle of automatic gunfire. It was muffled and distant. For a moment, he couldn't tell if it was above ground or from the other side of the sprawling Gaza Station complex. Either way, a shot of adrenaline coursed through his veins. He had no way of knowing who was shooting at whom. But how was he supposed to defend himself if he had to—when he had to? McCoy always had that 9-mm Beretta with her, usually in her bag. His eyes darted around the room. He didn't see it. Maybe she had it with her now. He hoped she did. Maybe she was working her way back from wherever she was to him? Then again, maybe she was dead.
The thought terrified him. She couldn't be dead. He was falling in love with her. He couldn't even explain why. Not exactly. She had something he didn't have, and he had everything. She knew something he didn't. She was something he wasn't, and it drew him to her like a magnet. Better yet, she loved him. She'd never said it. But she'd never had to. He just knew it. It was instinct, and he had great instincts. That was his job — finding buried treasure — and he'd found it in McCoy.
Another explosion ripped through the building. Bennett wiped his face. It was soaked in sweat, as was his entire body. The temperature in this room had to be heading past a hundred degrees. Out in the hallway, it had to be fifteen to twenty degrees worse. He was out of time. He couldn't stay there. He needed to make his way down the hall, to the main control room, to Galishnikov and Sa'id's room. He needed to find McCoy, to make sure she was safe, to get them all out of there, come what may.
First, though, he moved to Ziegler's desk. The heat was unbearable. The floor was rapidly filling with water from the shattered pipes in the bathroom. He tore open the desk drawers and began ripping out everything he could find. But it wasn't until the bottom file drawer on the right-hand side that he found what he was looking for — two .357 Magnums, locked and loaded, Bennett clicked off both safeties, used his shoulder to wipe the sweat off his face again, then moved toward the hallway, holding both guns out in front of him. His heart was racing. His mouth was dry. His head was pounding with question after question. What if he didn't shoot fast enough? Or worse, what if he shot one of his own?
He worked his way to the door of the main control room.
He was on his stomach, on the floor — the only place he could breathe— covered in at least a foot of water. The water was ice cold now and pouring out of a dozen other shattered pipes. But in forty-five minutes to an hour,
it would be heating toward a boil. He didn't have any choice. He had to keep moving.
Bennett could hear men shouting in Arabic — he assumed it was Arabic, anyway — but he hadn't seen anyone, dead or alive. Where were they? All he could see were flames and smoke and the water he was trudging through, For that, he was oddly, slightly grateful for the flames — at least they provided some light in this subterranean labyrinth. But the raging electrical fires in the walls and ceilings also worried him. It would only take one wire or cable falling into all this water and he'd be electrocuted instantly. An involuntary shudder rippled through his body.
His eyes — bloodshot and stinging from all the smoke — searched wildly for escape routes. But his options, limited from the beginning, were narrow ing fast. The fires blocked his path to Galishnikov and Sa'id's room. Now they also blocked the way back to Ziegler's room. He wasn't completely trapped, but it was only a matter of time. He couldn't move laterally. He couldn't go back. The only way out was forward. There was only one door through which he could be saved. The question was, who or what was on the other side?
A gun battle had been under way in the control room for the last few minutes. But now things were quiet. Should he take a chance, or wait and keep listening? What was worse, the prospect of being electrocuted or boiled to death by staying put, or being shot in the head the minute he went through this door? It wasn't much of a choice, and only the thought of finding McCoy tipped the scales. The smoke was too thick to let him stand up. He'd suffocate for sure. All he could do was yank on the door handle and roll into the control room like he'd seen on TV. A moving target in a smoke-filled room with no light but exploding computer consoles and a back draft in the walls and ceilings couldn't be that easy to hit, right? He made up his mind. He'd move fast and take his chances.
Bennett took a deep breath. Then he lunged for the handle, tugged the door open and rolled into the room.
The sound of the door swinging open and the sloshing water was a near-lethal combination. The place exploded with automatic gunfire. Bennett could hear the rounds smashing into the concrete walls and ricocheting into the water all around him. In all the noise and confusion, he dove under a desk. He pressed himself flat against the floor, his eyes and nose just barely above the waterline. Then he held his breath and tried to be completely silent, completely still.
A few seconds later, the gunfire stopped. All was quiet again.
Bennett squinted through the smoke.
His eyes burned. His lungs burned. He glanced to the left, then back to the right, scanning the room for movement. His vantage point was actually pretty good. He was under Tariq's desk and next to one of the mainframe computer consoles. He had decent cover, and could see most of the open spaces in the room from there.
He couldn't see into the various conference rooms and hallways jutting off this main control room. He had to assume that's where the gunfire was coming from. But at least he knew there was no one behind him, and he'd be able to see anyone that tried to approach him from the front or sides.
But now what? Was he supposed to just lie there, pinned down forever? The hatch to the Hotel Baghdad was only five or six yards ahead. But how could he make it without getting shot in the back? Even if he did make it up the ladder, he wouldn't be able to get out, would he? That lobby no longer existed. It was buried in five stories of concrete. If there was another way out, he had no idea what or where it was. Suddenly he heard the slosh of water behind him. Someone was yanking the door open. Bennett rolled onto his back and pointed both guns at the door. Sprinting through the door wasn't a face he recognized. It wasn't a face he'd ever seen before. It wasn't a face at all. It was a man shrouded in a mask — a black hood, actually — like the ones he'd seen on the streets of Gaza City as they'd tried to escape the ambush at the PLC headquarters. He held a machine gun. He was moving fast, moving toward him. Bennett didn't think twice. Both weapons fired. Both guns exploded. The man in the black hood snapped back, slammed against the wall, and slowly slumped to the floor into the water rapidly turning red. He was dead. Bennett had killed him. But now everyone knew where he was. The room again erupted in automatic weapons fire.
Bennett rolled right — away from the dead man, toward the hatch. He didn't know why. He was operating purely on adrenaline and instinct and fear. Bullets were crashing into computers and files and walls. He saw a figure in the shadows, on the other side of the room, moving to take up a better position, also masked in black, his eyes glowing red in the fierce glow of the flickering flames.