Nothing. All was well. A few seconds later the second signal sounded in his head and he moved on quickly, his body acting almost without thought, doing what it had rehearsed a hundred times in the last few days.
He could sense his men moving in the darkness all about him; two hundred and sixty-four of them, elite trained. The best in City Europe.
At the top of the steps Ebert stopped. While his sergeant, Auden, set the charge on the solid metal door, he looked back through the darkness at the mainland. Hammerfest lay six li to the east, like a vast slab of glacial ice, thrusting out into the cold northern sea. To north and south of it the great wall of the City's edge ran into the distance like a jagged ribbon, its pale whiteness lit from within, tracing the shoreline of the ancient Finn-
mark of Norway. He shivered and turned back, conscious of the unseen presence of the old fortress walls towering above him in the moonless dark. It was a bugger of a place. Just the kind of site one would expect SimFic to build a special research unit in.
Auden came back to him. Together they crouched behind the blast shield, lowering their infrared lenses over their eyes. The charges would be fired automatically by the third signal. They waited. Without warning the night was rent by a whole series of detonations, some near, some farther off. They let the shield fall forward and, not waiting for the smoke to clear, charged through the gaping doorway, followed by a dozen other men. At fifteen other points about the island the same thing was happening. Even as he entered the empty corridor he could hear the first bursts of small-arms fire.
The first intersection was exactly where it should have been. Ebert stood at the corner, looking to his left, his gun held against his shoulder, searching out targets in the darkness up ahead. He waited until his squad was formed up behind him, then counted them through, his sergeant Auden first. Up ahead was the first of the guard posts, if the plans were accurate, and beyond that the first of the laboratories.
Ebert touched the last man's arm as he went through, then glanced back the way he'd come. For a moment he thought he saw movement and hesitated, but there was nothing in the infrared. He turned back quickly, then set off, running hard after his squad, hearing their boots echoing on the floor up ahead of him. But he had gone only ten or so strides when the floor seemed to .give in front of him and he was tumbling forward down a slope.
He spread his legs behind him to slow himself and tried to dig his gun into the glassy surface of the slope. He slowed marginally, slewing to the left, then, abruptly, thumped into the wall. For a moment he was disoriented, his body twisted about violently. He felt his gun clatter away from him, then he was sliding again, head first this time, the yells closer now, mixed with a harsh muttering. A moment later he thumped bruisingly into a pile of bodies.
Ebert groaned, then looked up and saw Auden above him, the heated recognition patch at his neck identifying him.
"Is anyone hurt?" Ebert said softly, almost breathlessly, letting Auden help him to his feet.
Auden leaned close and whispered in his ear. "I think Leiter's dead, sir. A broken neck. He was just behind me when it went. And there seem to be a few other minor injuries. But otherwise . . ."
"Gods . . ." Ebert looked about him. "Where are we?"
"I don't know, sir. This isn't on the plans."
To three sides of them the walls went up vertically for forty, maybe fifty ctii. It felt like they were at the bottom of a big, square-bottomed well. Ebert stepped back and stared up into the darkness overhead, trying to make something out. "There," he said, after a moment, pointing upward. "If we can fire a rope up there we can get out."
"If they don't pick us off first."
"Right." Ebert took a breath, then nodded. "You break up the surface about six or eight ch'i up the slope. Meanwhile, let's keep the bastards' heads down, eh?"
The sergeant gave a slight bow and turned to bark an order at one of his men. Meanwhile Ebert took two grenades from his belt. It was hard to make out just how far up the entrance to the corridor was. Thirty ch'i, perhaps. Maybe more. There was only the slightest change in the heat-emission pattern—the vaguest hint of an outline. He hefted one of the grenades, released the pin, then leaned back and hurled it up into the darkness. If he missed...
He heard it rattle on the surface overhead. Heard shouts of surprise and panic. Then the darkness was filled with sudden, brilliant light. As it faded he threw the second grenade, more confident this time, aiming it at the smoldering red mouth of the tunnel. Someone was screaming up there—an awful, unnatural, high-pitched scream that chilled his blood—-then the second explosion shuddered the air and the screaming stopped abruptly.
Ebert turned. Auden had chipped footholds into the slippery surface of the slope. Now he stood there, the big ascent gun at his hip, waiting for his captain's order.
"Okay," Ebert said. "Try and fix it into the roof of the tunnel.
As soon as it's there I'll start up. Once I'm at the top I want a man to follow me every ten seconds. Got that?"
"Sir!"
Auden looked up, judging the distance, then raised the heavy rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bolt flew up, trailing its thin, strong cord. They heard it thud into the ceiling of the tunnel, then two of the men were hauling on the slack of the cord, testing that the bolt was securely fixed overhead.
One of them turned, facing Ebert, his head bowed. "Rope secure, sir."
"Good." He stepped forward and took the gun from the soldier's shoulder. "Take Leiter's gun, Spitz. Or mine if you can find it."
"Sir!"
Ebert slipped the gun over his right shoulder, then took the rope firmly and began to climb, hauling himself up quickly, hands and feet working thoughtlessly. Three-quarters of the way up he slowed and shrugged the gun from his shoulder into his right hand, then began to climb again, pulling himself up one-handedly toward the lip.
They would be waiting. The grenades had done some damage, but they wouldn't have finished them off. There would be backups.
He stopped just beneath the lip and looked back down, signaling to Auden that he should begin. At once he felt the rope tighten beneath him as it took the weight of the first of the soldiers. Turning back, Ebert freed the safety with his thumb, then poked the barrel over the edge and squeezed the trigger. Almost at once the air was filled with the noise of return fire. Three, maybe four of them, he estimated.
Beneath him the rope swayed, then steadied again as the men below took the slack. Ebert took a long, shuddering breath, then heaved himself up, staring over the lip into the tunnel beyond.
He ducked down quickly, just as they opened up again. But he knew where they were now. Knew what cover he had up there. Quickly, his fingers fumbling at the catch, he freed the smoke bomb from his belt, twisted the neck of it sharply, then hurled it into the tunnel above him. He heard the shout of warning and knew they thought it was another grenade. Taking another long breath, he pulled the mask up over his mouth and nose, then heaved himself up over the lip and threw himself flat on the floor, covering his eyes.
There was a faint pop, then a brilliant glare of light. A moment later the tunnel was filled with billowing smoke.
Ebert crawled forward quickly, taking cover behind two badly mutilated bodies that lay one atop the other against the left-hand wall. It was not a moment too soon. Bullets raked the tunnel wall only a hand's width above his head. He waited a second, then, taking the first of his targets from memory, fired through the dense smoke.
There was a short scream, then the firing started up again. But only two of them this time.
He felt the bullets thump into the corpse he was leaning on and rolled aside quickly, moving to his right. There was a moment's silence. Or almost silence. Behind him he heard sounds—strangely familiar sounds. A soft rustling that seemed somehow out of context here. He lifted his gun, about to open fire again, when he heard a faint click and the clatter of something small but heavy rolling toward him.