Along the edge of the roof hatch sat twelve CS gas canisters in a neat row. They heard and felt the two explosions below and Grenville was startled out of his stargazing. He said, “It sounds like the time has come to chuck these canisters down there.”
“Correct,” said Stewart, “and you’ll follow the canisters.” He nodded toward two nylon rappelling lines tied to the bases of two antennas. “Ready?”
Grenville didn’t think he was. He glanced at his watch. “Isn’t this supposed to end soon?”
“Ready! Open it!”
Grenville opened the heavy, hinged roof hatch and heard more clearly the sound of gunfire and pandemonium below.
Johnson and Stewart began pulling the pins on the canisters and throwing them down at various angles. The CS canisters popped and disgorged billows of white nausea and tear-producing gas. Grenville threw the last two canisters down, then slammed the hatch cover closed. “We’ll give that five minutes to work.”
Stewart glared at him. “We’ll give it sixty seconds.” Stewart looked at his digital watch, then commented, “You’ll be down there in less than five seconds if you do it properly, Tom. Don’t panic and hang on the rope or you’ll be a sitting duck. And don’t let go, for God’s sake, or you’ll break every bone in your body. Saw that happen once.”
“In the Falklands?” suggested Grenville.
“No, lad, in Glasgow. Fellow trying to get out the window of a lady’s bedroom as the husband returned home.” He laughed, then reached out and patted Grenville’s shoulder. “You’re a good lad. Steady now.” He looked at Johnson. “Keep an eye on the boy, General. I’ll cover as best I can up here.” Stewart glanced at his watch. “Ready.”
“How long were you in the Falklands?” asked Grenville.
“Ready! Gas masks.”
Johnson and Grenville pulled their masks over their faces and adjusted the fit, then put on climbing gloves.
“Open it.”
They pulled the hatch open. The nausea gas hung below, as it was made to do, a thick white blanket lying over the area like a snowdrift.
Grenville and Johnson threw their rappelling lines into the opening.
“Go!”
They each went over the edge of the square hatch, rifles nestled in their arms, and began the two-story slide to the floor of the communications room.
Abrams and Cameron slid on their gas masks and moved quickly but cautiously toward the gas-filled doorway.
Katherine stayed behind in the television studio to cover the open hatchway.
Abrams and Cameron could hear the sounds of retching and coughing coming from the room. Abrams entered first, followed by Cameron. They moved as quickly as possible through the blinding smoke. Abrams thought Cameron seemed to be passing by the incapacitated men and women very reluctantly, like an alcoholic passing a bottle. But they had matters more pressing than adding more notches to Cameron’s rifle. They were looking for the main radio transmitter, and for Androv, and for Henry Kimberly — and for the third man, whoever he was.
Sutter watched as a figure appeared through the heavy-hanging gas, climbed through the break in the wall, and collapsed. He dragged the body away from the edge of the spreading gas. It was a young girl in brown overalls. Her face was blotchy and flecked with vomit.
Ann knelt beside her and slapped her. She said in Russian, “Breathe. Breathe.”
The girl took a deep breath.
Ann said, “Where’s the radio you use to transmit voice messages to Moscow?”
The girl squinted up at Ann through running eyes.
Ann repeated the question, adding, “You have five seconds to tell me or we’ll kill you.”
The girl drew another breath and said, “The radio… against the north wall…”
Ann asked her a few brief technical questions regarding frequencies, voice scramblers, and power setting, then slid on her mask and rushed toward the opening in the wall. Llewelyn and Sutter followed.
They moved quickly through the room toward the long right wall.
Many of the Russians had climbed atop the consoles to try to escape the low-clinging gas. One of them, Vasili Churnik, a survivor of the railroad tunnel incident, stood atop a computer and watched the two men and the woman walk in.
Tom Grenville’s gloved hands squeaked down the rope. He felt his feet hit the floor, bent his knees, and rolled off into a kneeling position, his rifle raised to his shoulder. He peered into the dense gas, but his visibility was less than five feet. The lights on the electronic consoles glowed eerily through the opaque fog.
Johnson was back to back with him now, forming a pitiful defensive perimeter of two. Johnson’s muffled voice came through the mask. “You see, Grenville, if they’d been prepared with proper chemical protective devices, we’d have been massacred. In war,” said the general, quoting an old army axiom, “as in life, lack of prior planning produces a piss-poor performance.”
Grenville turned his head back to Johnson. “General.”
“Yes, son.”
“Shut the fuck up. And don’t say another word unless it has something to do with saving my life. Got it?”
Johnson replied, “All right… if that’s the way—”
“Move out. You go your way, I’ll go mine. See you later.” Grenville made out three black-clad figures through the rolling gas, two men and a woman. He was disoriented and didn’t know if that was part of Pembroke’s team, including Ann, coming from the north, or Cameron’s team, including Katherine, from the south. But they weren’t Russians and he moved toward them.
Vasili Churnik watched as the three Americans passed by. The other Russians in the room, mostly technical people, had accepted the fact that they had been overrun by what must be a large number of commandos, and they were concerned only with gasping for air. But Churnik, by training and temperament, like Cameron, had difficulty letting a target pass. Especially after his humiliation earlier in the evening. He drew his pistol, a .38 revolver, and fired all six rounds into the backs of the three.
Grenville, who was very close, heard, then saw, the man fire from the top of the gray console. He fired a single shot and the Russian toppled over.
There was screaming in the room now and Abrams shouted, “Down! Down!” He unscrewed his silencer and fired into the walls to underscore his meaning. Men and women began diving to the floor.
Cameron rushed over to the three fallen people. Llewelyn was dead, shot in the back of the head. Sutter was stunned, but his bulletproof vest had stopped the two rounds that hit him. Ann was bleeding from the neck.
Cameron examined Ann’s wound, a crease along the left side of the neck. “Well, it’s not so bad as it looks, lass. Just bloody. Let’s stand up, then. We ought to find that radio.”
Ann stood unsteadily.
The Russian technicians were edging toward the two exits, into the short arms of the T. When they realized no one was stopping them, they stampeded out of the room.
Katherine sat on the desk in the television studio and watched silently as half a dozen people ran by her in the darkness and headed for the open trapdoor. Discovering that the ladder was gone, they stopped. Below, men shouted up at them. Guards, Katherine thought.
The Russians began jumping through the open attic hatch to the floor below. One of them, Katherine saw with horror, had separated from the rest and was heading toward her. She held her pistol tight and slipped under the desk.
The man, tall, well dressed, and distinguished-looking, came right up to the desk. The lighting was so poor, she was sure he couldn’t see her crouched under it.