The rush of water.
Tons of water.
He also knew what it all meant the explosion, the subterranean waterfall it meant he had failed. Operation Saturn was under way, dumping a toxic slurry into the heart of the world.
The loudspeaker squawked again by the blast doors.
Drop your weapons! the woman said with a mix of ice and fire, cold determination laced with anger. Bring the boy to the door. And I suggest you move quickly. The radiation levels are rising rapidly. You have less than five minutes before you absorb a lethal dosage.
Monk had no choice. He shrugged off the rifles and let them clatter to the tracks. Pyotr reached over and grabbed the sleeve of his stumped arm.
Together they hurried the last couple hundred yards, racing as radiation rose in the tunnel. Ahead, the blast doors slowly parted, revealing a line of five soldiers with rifles leveled.
Their welcoming committee.
Pyotr urged him faster, as if the boy knew something Monk did not.
Monk's wounded leg lanced an agonizing spike with every step. His chest tightened. His breathing wheezed. He stared down toward his waist. He still wore his dosimeter badge. It flapped with each step. Monk could see the surface. It showed crimson, but with each passing yard, it grew a shade darker.
Despite his leg, he sped faster.
Monk and Pyotr sprinted for the doors.
As they neared the exit, a massive blast shattered like thunder, coming from out in the cavern of Chelyabinsk 88. Monk's steps stuttered in surprise, but Pyotr tugged him onward.
The guards, equally startled, twisted around. One dropped flat in fear.
Pyotr aimed for the gap. Hitting the line, the boy leaped over the soldier's prone form. His other hand darted and snatched a sidearm from the holster of a neighboring soldier. The boy swung and slapped the weapon into Monk's one hand.
There was no fumbling. It had hit his palm perfectly. Monk swung out his arm.
From point-blank range, he fired into the line, using a reflexive skill buried deeper than his erased memory.
He emptied the entire clip, dropping all five men.
Monk tossed the pistol aside. Pyotr dashed forward and grabbed another. He passed it to Monk, snatched his sleeve again, and they were off.
All around the cavern, more explosions rocked. Men screamed and smoke poured from several of the abandoned apartment buildings. As he ran, he spotted the screaming passage of a rocket-propelled mortar or grenade. It slammed into another of the buildings. Concrete and glass exploded outward, showering the soldiers below.
The base was under attack.
But by whom?
Gray raced the truck down the concrete ramp and through the massive doors. On the plane ride here, he had read about these complexes, these cities underground. The Soviets used to bring in orchestras and bands to play for the workers, filling subterranean amphitheaters. Still, Gray was not ready for the sheer size of the place.
Nor the chaos.
Six trucks had led the initial assault.
To soften them up, Luca had said.
Gray couldn't argue. This was Luca's army, not his.
He had one mission.
Gray shot through a wall of smoke. He saw rocket fire slamming into the five-story apartment buildings, collapsing entire sections. Luca was in the bed of the truck, braced with a rocket on his shoulder. Two trucks flanked to either side. Kowalski drove one, Rosauro the other.
After their trucks passed through the mouth of the tunnel, the Gypsies closed off the exit road behind them, blocking the way with a pair of logging trucks, heavy with timber. Two dozen men manned the barricade and kept anyone from leaving.
Gray was impressed by the Gypsies' attack strategy both now and moments before.
On the way up here from the airport, all the vehicles in the region appeared to be just ordinary rural traffic, wandering the mountainside roads and dirt tracks. Then, upon a coordinated signal, the entire peaceful-looking countryside rose and turned upon the mountain in a synchronized assault. Rifles bristled out of bunkers built into the centers of hay trucks. Horses broke away from wagons with riders bearing shotguns, covering steeper terrain swiftly. Motorcycles rocketed out of the back of paneled milk trucks and shot up the side roads. The sudden transformation locked the mountainside down in a matter of minutes.
The Russians who had already left the subterranean compound were waylaid on the road, driven into ditches, stripped of weapons, and tied up. By the time Gray reached the mountain entrance, the advance assault team was already barreling into the throat of the tunnel, leaving a trail of smoke and fire for him to follow.
Gray hadn't hesitated. They had no time to spare. Operation Saturn had to be found and stopped.
And Luca's men assisted there, too. Like any good army, the Gypsies had gathered intelligence in advance of an attack. On the way up here, a man in a black ankle-length duster had stood in the middle of the road and waved Luca's truck to stop. Two men in laboratory coats knelt in the roadside ditch, hands behind their backs, rifles held at their heads. The Gypsies hadn't been gentle. Then again, it was the Russians who had slaughtered their mountaintop village and kidnapped their children.
The Russians had started this war; the Gypsies intended to finish it.
The interrogator passed Luca a hand-drawn map, splattered with blood. Luca handed it off to Gray. It was a crude schematic of Chelyabinsk 88, including a circle around the control station for Operation Saturn, located in a subbasement bunker beneath one of the cavern's apartment structures.
With the goal known, Gray careened the truck down the curving road toward the ongoing siege at the high-rise complex. The initial attack, while dramatic and surprising, had also clogged the road with rubble. One entire building had fallen across the central roadway.
Gypsies in trucks continued to mount a fiery barrage.
Others abandoned their vehicles and prepared for a ground offensive.
Gray skidded his truck to where the men gathered and rolled out. Kowalski and
Rosauro joined him. Hopping out of the truck bed, Luca called out in Romani. Men responded. After a few exchanges, Luca turned to Gray and hunkered down with him behind one of the trucks.
The Russians have taken to the buildings, defending more fiercely the deeper you go.
Gray knew why. They've pulled their forces back to defend the control station.
If they've not already initiated Saturn, they will soon. We can't wait.
Luca held up a restraining hand and glanced back toward the gathered ground troops. I have a man ah, here he is.
A small figure ran low over to them. He wore cement-gray clothes and a black cap. The two Romani men spoke quickly.
This is Rat, Luca introduced the newcomer.
Nice name, Kowalski mumbled.
He's a scout. Skilled at finding paths no one would think to guard. He may know a way, but it'll have to be a small party. No more than five or six. Luca looked around at their small group. Perhaps just us. Va?
Va, Kowalski agreed, then glanced to Gray for confirmation.
The other men will keep the Russians busy, Luca added, waving to the ground forces and trucks.
We go then? Rat asked in stilted English.
Va, Gray answered, earning a grin from the man and a clap on his knee.
They readied their weapons rifles and sidearms and followed the small man toward a pile of rubble. Gray could see no way through. Luca motioned to the ground forces as they passed. A sharp warbling whistle spread across the smoky cavern.
Rat waved their small team under a tilted section of wall. Gray ducked and found it led to a basement window of the closest apartment building.
As they slowly continued into the scout's maze, Gray heard a shout rise behind him.
Opre Roma!
Like a flame set to dry grass, the clarion call spread.