He turned back, pushing on, hyper-alert now, knowing that it would not be long before he lost the advantage of surprise.
There were four elevators spaced out along a single broad corridor. He stared at them a moment, then shook his head. A place like this, dug deep into the mountainside, would be hard to defend unless one devised a system of independent levels, and of bottlenecks linking them—bottlenecks that could be defended like the barbican in an ancient castle, the killing ground. So here. These lifts— seemingly so innocuous—were their barbican. But unlike in a castle there would be another way into the next level of the fortress. There had to be, because if the power ever failed, they had to have some way of ensuring that they still got air down in the lower tunnels.
There would be shafts. Ventilation shafts. As above.
Karr turned and beckoned the squad leader over.
"Locate the down shafts. Then I want one man sent down each of them straight away. They're to secure the corridors beneath the shafts while the rest of the men come through. Understand?"
The young lieutenant bowed, then hurried away, sending his men off to do as Karr had ordered. He was back a moment later.
"They're sealed, Major Karr."
"Well? Break the seals!"
"But they're alarmed. Maybe even boobytrapped."
Karr grunted, impatient now. "Show me!"
The shaft was in a tiny corridor leading off what seemed to be some kind of storeroom. Karr studied it a moment, noting its strange construction; then, knowing he had no alternative, he raised his fist and brought it down hard. The seal cracked but didn't break. He struck it again, harder this time, and it gave, splintering into the space below.
Somewhere below he could hear a siren sounding, security doors slamming into place.
"Let's get moving. They know we're here now. The sooner we hit them the better, neh?"
He went first, bracing himself against the walls of the narrow tunnel as he went down, his shoulders almost too wide for the confined space. Others followed, almost on top of him.
Some five ch'i above the bottom seal he stopped and brought his gun around, aiming it down between his legs. He opened fire. The seal shattered with a great upward hiss of air, tiny splinters thrown up at him.
He narrowed his eyes, then understood. The separate levels were kept at different pressures, which meant there were air locks. But why? What were they doing here? He scrambled down, then dropped. As he hit the floor he twisted about. A body lay to one side of the shaft's exit point, otherwise the corridor was empty.
It was a straight stretch of corridor, sixty ch'i long at most, ending in a T-junction at each end. There were no doors, no windows, and as far as he could make out, no cameras.
Left or right? If the ground plan followed that of the level above, the lifts would be somewhere off to the left, but he didn't think it would be that simple. Not if Devore had designed this place.
Men were jumping down behind him, forming up either side, kneeling, their weapons raised to their shoulders, covering both ends of the corridor.
Last down was the squad leader. Karr quickly dispatched him off to the left with six men, while he went right with the rest.
He had not gone more than a dozen paces when there was a loud clunk and a huge metal fire door began to come down.
From the yells behind him, he knew at once that the same was happening at the other end of the corridor. No cameras, eh? How could he have been so naive!
He ran, hurling himself at the diminishing gap, half sliding, half rolling beneath the door just before it slammed into the floor. As he thudded into the end wall he felt his gun go clattering away from him, but there was no time to think of that. As he came up from the floor the first of them was on him, slashing down with a knife the length of his forearm.
Karr blocked the blow and counterpunched, feeling the man's jaw shatter. Behind him, only a few paces off, a second guard was raising his automatic. Kan-ducked, using the injured guard as a shield, thrusting his head into the man's chest as he began to fall, pushing him upward and back, into the second man.
Too late, the guard opened fire, the shells ricocheting harmlessly off the end wall as he stumbled backwards.
Karr kicked him in the stomach, then stood over him, chopping down savagely, finishing him off. He stepped back, looking about him. His gun was over to the right. He picked it up and ran on, hearing voices approaching up ahead.
He grinned fiercely. The last thing they would expect was a single man coming at them. Even so, it might be best to give himself some additional advantage. He looked up. As he'd thought, they hadn't bothered to set the pipework and cabling into the rock, but had simply secured it to the ceiling of the tunnel with brackets. The brackets looked firm enough—big metallic things—but were they strong enough to bear his weight?
There was only one way to find out. He tucked his gun into his tunic and reached up, pulling himself up slowly. Bringing his legs up, he reached out with his boots to get a firmer grip. So far so good. If he could hold himself there with his feet and one hand, he would be above them when they came into view. The rest should be easy.
They were close now. At any moment they would appear at the end of the corridor. Slowly he drew the gun from his tunic, resting the stock of it against his knee.
There! Four of them, moving quickly but confidently, talking among themselves, assuming there was no danger. He let them come on four, five paces, then squeezed the trigger.
As he opened fire, the bracket next to his feet jerked, then came away from the wall. At once a whole section of cabling slewed toward him, his weight dragging it down. Along the whole length of the ceiling the securing brackets gave, bringing down thick clouds of rock and debris.
Karr rolled to one side, freeing himself from the tangle, bringing his gun Up to his chest. Through the dust he could see that two of them were down. They lay still, as if dead, pinned down by the cables. A third was getting up slowly, groaning, one hand pressed to the back of his head where the cabling had struck him. The fourth was on his feet, his gun raised, looking straight at Karr.
There was the deafening noise of automatic fire. Shells hammered into the wall beside him, cutting into his left arm and shoulder, but he was safe. His own fire had ripped into the guards an instant earlier, throwing them backward.
Karr got up slowly, the pain in his upper arm intense, the shoulder wound less painful but more awkward. The bone felt broken—smashed probably. He crouched there a moment, feeling sick, then straightened up, gritting his teeth, knowing there was no option but to press on. It was just as it had been in the Pit all those years ago. He had a choice. He could go on and he could live, or he could give up and let himself be killed.
A choice? He laughed sourly. No, there had never really been a choice. He had always had to fight. As far back as he could remember, it had always been the same. It was the price for being who he was, for living where he'd lived, beneath the Net.
He went on, each step jolting his shoulder painfully, taking his breath. The gun was heavy in his right hand. Designed for two-handed use, its balance was wrong when used one-handed, the aim less certain.
Surprise. It was the last card left up his sleeve. Surprise and sheer audacity.
He was lucky. The guard outside the control room had his back to Karr as he came out into the main corridor. There was a good twenty ch'i between them, but his luck held. He was on top of the man before he realized he was there, smashing the stock of the gun into the back of his head.
As the man sank to his knees, Karr stepped past him into the doorway and opened fire, spraying the room with shells. It was messy—not the way he'd normally have done it—but effective. When his gun fell silent again, there were six corpses on the floor of the room.