SEAL Team Bravo, page 24
“I know what to do," she affirmed.
He raced to the main doors and put his ear to the woodwork. The voices sounded as if they were several meters away, and he took the chance. He checked the magazine on his AKM, and it was half-full. Replaced it, cocked the action, opened the doors, and pointed the barrel outside. The sudden appearance of the enemy was a surprise, and they weren’t prepared. He pulled the trigger, hosing them down with 7.62mm rounds until the firing pin clicked on empty. Nolan slammed the doors closed, slid the bolt across to hold them back, and replaced the empty magazine.
Across the room, John-Wesley had Firooz in a bundle of black robes, cowering on the floor. The SEAL’s knife blade danced in the sunlight that streamed into the room, and it slashed down, repeatedly. He knew where to cut, knew how to wound and how to kill and cause the maximum pain. Firooz’s scream was one of constant agony, but his cries for mercy fell on deaf ears.
Ryder shouted back, "Yeah, you don't like it, do you shithead? You dish this out to your victims and that’s okay, but when it comes being on the receiving end, it's a different story. Where is the nuke?"
"No, no! I will not tell you.”
The knife plunged again.
"Ryder," Nolan called over to him, "We’re almost out of time."
"Two more minutes, and I'm done."
Nolan spent the remaining seconds planting the tiny charges they’d brought with them. One attached to the double doors, one to the door through which the torturer had escaped, and one in the center of the room, beneath the chair Borowski had occupied. Her shout interrupted him, "Nolan, I hear footsteps. They’re coming."
"Roger that. Hold your position. We’re almost out of here."
A second later, Ryder shouted, "I've got it, Boss. He says it’s in the basement. There are several basements, but he says it’s the one below the tower. What he calls the hanging tower, where they carry out most of their executions."
"Yeah, we know about that place. We're leaving, and bring that bastard with you.”
“Bring him?" He stared at him in surprise, "It would be easier to finish him now. He’s just so much excess baggage. ‘Cursed be he who does the Lord’s work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood.’ Half a second and it’s over, the bastard won’t go torturing any more of the righteous.”
"Negative, we may need him. If they know we have their boss, they may not be so keen to shoot at us. Get him up the staircase. I'll wait until you're up there, and then join you."
Ryder hustled him up the staircase, almost dragging him like a sack of garbage. Nolan followed, and the main doors were starting to bulge as the shouting mob outside attempted to smash through. When the doors burst open, they'd fill the room with the fanatical Islamists, shooting at anything that moved. The trick was to stop them before their eager fingers pulled the triggers.
He crouched on the middle stair, head down, and waited. It was no more than a few seconds. With an almighty cheer, and a rending, splintering noise of broken timbers, the doors gave. A dozen men poured inside the hall. He had the remote detonator ready in his hand, and he punched the detonate button. The first explosion tore into them, and while they were reeling back in shock, he emptied an entire magazine into their midst. The bloodthirsty charge became a screaming, terrified mass of dead and wounded. Four more Islamists ran into the hall, and he detonated the other two charges. The blasts knocked more of them back, and while smoke swirled around, he raced up the stairs and joined Amber, who was kneeling, covering the passage.
"That’s it. Let's go."
She looked worried. "I can hear them coming from this end."
"Then kill the fuckers."
They ran, and Ryder caught up with him, dragging the shocked Firooz. "Does that mean we're leaving?"
"It means we still have to locate the nuke. You said it’s down in the basement, beneath the hanging tower. That’s where we’re going.” He looked at Amber, “Have you heard shooting from anywhere else in the fortress? Anything to give us an idea where Will and Vince are?"
She shook her head. "Nothing."
“Okay, we’ll find them. Keep running!”
All that mattered was the nuke. They raced along dark corridors, down three narrow flights of stone steps and encountered a startled sentry, standing outside a heavy wooden door. Without pause, Amber put two bullets into him and opened the door he’d been guarding. They were in a large underground room, lit by dim, bulkhead lights inside metal cages screwed to the walls.
In the center of the room lay a large, metallic object resting on a steel frame. Both SEALs recognized it as once, the device they'd first seen hauled from an icy lake on top of Mount Hermon, in Syria. The nuclear warhead. He started forward, stopping as the door burst open and two men rushed at them. They swung up the rifles, ready to fire, but one of the new arrivals shouted, "Hold it. It’s us. Will and Vince."
Nolan felt a rush of relief. "Will, Vince, it’s good to see you got here. We found it.”
The Master Chief regarded the device on the cradle and nodded. "I reckon you did. Our old friend from Hermon. Question is, Boss, how do we get out of here? It seems to me we don't have a great number of choices. Unless there's an exit we don't know about, we have to return the way we came in. Which means fighting our way through thirty or forty hostiles baying for our blood. And they’re on the way, about to arrive any moment."
“We have to deal with the nuke. That’s why we’re all here, and that’s what got us into this. Will, bolt the door, and make sure they can’t get in. Vince, John-Wesley, start looking for an exit. There has to be something, a trapdoor in the floor, an opening in the wall, anything. I don’t care what it is or where it leads, find it!”
They searched every corner of the room in a desperate search for an exit. Tapping at walls with their gun butts, touching the stone slabs on the floor, even looking up at the ceiling, in case a vent or chimney existed. It took several minutes to discover they were trapped, with no way out. The first hammer blows began to echo through the room as they attacked the door, attempting to force a way in.
They'd come to the end. In a few minutes, the savage Lashkar-e-Taiba horde would smash down the door. They’d tear them apart, and their deaths would be long and terrible. Nolan's eyes rested on the bomb sitting on the cradle, and he locked his gaze with Will.
"There is a way out. We could detonate nuke.”
He grimaced. "You're talking an endgame. I never figured you as a suicide bomber, a Shaheed.”
The others stared at him, at first not comprehending, and when they understood, Nolan read the horror in their eyes. The pounding on the door had become almost a mechanical rhythm, a continuous ‘bang, bang,’ as the hostiles made desperate efforts to break it down to reach the prize inside, the nuke to maim and kill tens of thousands, and the infidels to feed their bestial bloodlust.
"It's not the way I saw this panning out," he said, “Jesus Christ, if there were any other way, I’d take it. It's just that I can't see it. Face it, we're gonna die in this place, one way or the other. It’s just deciding whether to take the easy way, or the hard way."
They didn’t say anything, and just listened to the rhythmic pounding of the sledgehammers echoing through the dark chamber. They looked at each other and at the nuclear warhead on its cradle. The girl broke the shocked silence.
"No!"
He stared at Amber. "What do you mean, no? You'd sooner take your chances with those animals outside that door?"
She shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant. I'd prefer we don’t die, period. I have an idea. There is a chance, a possible way out. Nolan, you and John-Wesley used your charges. What about you, Will, do you have any explosives?"
Both Will and Vince nodded. "We’re each carrying a small charge and a remote detonator," the Master Chief said," What are you suggesting, we blow ourselves up, a quick death? Do you think the C4 would be an easier way to die?"
"No one is going to die!" she snapped, "We can blow a hole in the wall." Amber pointed at the far wall of the basement chamber. Nolan shot her a puzzled frown.
"What good does that do us? I mean, I get it; it has to be an outside wall. Sure, we could blast a hole through, big enough to escape. Escape to where? We’re a few meters short of a thousand meters above ground level. Last I heard we’re not carrying parachutes. It's a sheer drop, and there’s no way to climb down. That's why the fortress is impregnable."
"The hanging tower," she said, pointing upward, "Don’t you remember, they hanged their victims from it? I recall they talked about a rope that hangs down from the top. It must be two hundred meters long. They put the noose around the neck, toss them off, and let the poor devils pick up speed. When they run out of rope, the noose rips off their heads. We can use that rope to climb up to the tower and escape from there."
She paused. “Maybe. It’s the best I can do.”
No one replied for almost a minute, and then he couldn’t help it. He hugged her to him and kissed her. It was just like old times, and for a millisecond, he was somewhere else, not in this deathtrap. Taken by surprise, she didn’t push him away. Until she recovered and gave him a hard shove. He didn’t care. He was working frantically to assess whether her plan was possible.
Could we blast a hole in the wall? Will the rope be near enough for us to grab?
And then it all came crashing down, the major flaw she hadn’t considered.
"Amber, it's a good idea, but we don't know anything about nuclear weapons. A simple detonation is one thing, but a timed explosion is something else. We'd need an ordnance expert to get it to work. The last I heard, we didn't bring an ordnance expert along with us."
"Yes, you did."
They spun around and looked at Sergeant Borowski.
"That's what trained for in the Marines before I volunteered for this crazy operation."
"You mean you played around with nuclear warheads?"
He shrugged. "Not nukes as such, but I've seen and trained on them. I can rig something, I’m sure I can.” He gestured to his bloodied face, “Get some payback for what they did to me. Let me do this. This place will be toast.”
Nolan nodded. "Get to work. You don’t have much time. Will, Vince, set the charges, one to bring down part of the wall to cover the nuke. Stop them disarming it once we’ve started the timer. Set others against the outside wall, and make a guess about where the rope hangs. Then blow a damn hole in it, and let’s get out of here.”
Borowski shouted a question. “Lieutenant Nolan, how long do you want me to set the timer for?”
Ryder replied first. “About five years. I hate nukes.”
“Make it one hour. If we’re not out of here by then, we’re not getting out.”
The SEALs used their rifle butts to hammer away at some of the loose masonry to make small recesses enough to pack with explosive. Borowski started toward the warhead, but his legs gave out. Amber rushed to help. Nolan helped her carry him to the warhead and propped him in front of the inspection hatch. He left her to look after him.
The machine gun bullets hammering at the door were more intense, and splinters started to appear in the heavy oak. He shouted across to Will, "Make it snappy. We'll be lucky if they give us more than two or three minutes."
He and Ryder went to the door, and they stood either side, covering it in case the timbers collapsed, and the hostiles began to pour inside. The machine gun stopped abruptly, and he was speculating on what would come next, when he heard a thump of something hitting the door. In a split second he knew with absolute certainty what had made that noise, and he shouted, "Grenade.” At the same moment, he slid back the bolt and wrenched open the door. The grenade lay in front of him. It had come to rest against the doorframe. He had two or three seconds at most before it detonated.
Twenty hostiles had taken cover flat on the floor, and they stared back at his sudden appearance in astonishment. He didn't give them time to recover but snatched up the grenade, threw it into the mass of men, slammed the door shut, and slid the bolt across.
The explosion was massive, and despite the heavy door, the shock waves from outside were like the punch of a giant’s hand. The thick stone walls of the basement contained the blast, amplifying the effect. The screams came, agonizing wails of men mortally hit with flying, hot metal fragments. One sliced through an already weakened part of the timber and ripped into his left hand. It went through the palm and exited the other side, leaving blood dripping down onto the floor. Automatically, he stepped back and flexed his fingers. They didn’t move.
Amber darted him an anxious glance, but he waved her away.
“Stay with Sammy. I’ve got this.”
He snatched out a piece of rag and wrapped it round the wound. It was the best he could do, but Ryder was staring at him, and he knew what was going through his mind. If they managed to blow a hole in the wall and get to the rope, he'd need both hands to make the long climb up to the hanging tower. He didn’t have both hands. One was useless. He glanced at it, and blood had already soaked through the makeshift dressing to drip on the floor.
"I can make it."
Ryder nodded. "If you say so, Boss. We’ll be there to lend a hand."
"I said I can make it," he growled.
“Sure you can. But…”
He never got the rest out. Bryce shouted, "We’re all set. Fire in the hole! Hit the deck!"
They dove for the floor, and the blast punched a huge section of wall outward, almost two meters square. The chill winds roared into the basement room in triumph. He ran to look outside; huge chunks of stone from the fortress wall were tumbling to the bottom, almost a thousand meters below. Something caught his eye, something swinging in the harsh winds that blew against the mountaintop. The rope, it was there, about a meter away. He used the banana-shaped magazine of his rifle like a hook and brought it in. Ryder grabbed it and tied it off to an oak beam.
“We have a way out,” he shouted to them, “Borowski, how’s that timer doing?”
“Almost there. Give me a minute.”
“That’s about all we have.”
The Marine worked feverishly at the mechanism inside the inspection place. Will and Vince were busy packing the last explosive charge into the crack they’d make in the inside wall.
Borowski shouted, “It’s done. The timer is ready for a one hour delay. When do you want me to start the countdown?”
He was looking at Nolan, who gave him a one word answer. “Now.”
“Timer is set.”
Will and Vince rushed to the cradle, pushing and manhandling it across the room. Bryce took out the remote detonator. “You want me to do this? If anything goes wrong, we all die in one hour.”
“Do it.”
“Cover! Fire in the hole!”
He hit the button, and the charge had been well placed. This time, the blast was a flat ‘crack’. Chunks of stone slowly fell on top of the warhead until it was covered by tons of masonry. In one hour, it would detonate, and nothing short of a mechanical digger would get to it in time to stop it. Nolan climbed to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his injured hand.
“That’s it, time to leave. We’ll help Sammy out first.”
“I’ll carry him,” Will insisted, and before they could argue, he picked up the Marine and slung him on his shoulder. He went to the rope, untied it from the wooden beam, and looked back at them. “I’ll see you at the top. Sammy, I wouldn’t let go if I were you.”
He made it look easy, swinging out into nothingness and began to shin up the rope. Nolan nodded to Vince. “You next, and lend him a hand if he needs it.”
Vince grinned. “Will Bryce needing a hand? Not in my lifetime.”
He swung out after him, and the rope jerked and danced as he climbed after Will.
“Amber, your turn.”
Her mouth opened. “No, I’d prefer to…”
“I don’t give a shit what you’d prefer. Get on that rope and start climbing. I’ll see you at the top. Keep a tight grip on the rope. It'll be slippery. I don’t want you falling a thousand meters, not without a parachute.”
She sniffed. “Funnee. Why don’t you try it, Nolan? Let go, and see what it’s like when someone drops you into a deep, dark place.”
“I told you I was sorry.”
“Yeah, you did. Anyway, I outrank you. I’m an O-3. You’re an O-2.”
“And I’m bigger than you. I’m running this operation, and I can put you over my knee if you don’t follow orders. Now git!”
Hey expression was a mix between a grin and anger. She sketched a hazy salute, said “Yes, Sir,” and grabbed the rope. She swung out into space, began hauling herself up, and she was gone. He looked at Ryder.
“Your turn. I’ll cover the door, and make sure they don’t bust through while we’re still climbing.”
He shook his head. “It won’t happen, Boss. We do this together, and I have an idea that’ll buy us some time.”
He pointed to Firooz, huddled and bloody in a corner, almost forgotten. “We’re taking him with us, right?”
“Have to, yeah.”
“Okay, here’s how it works.”
He spoke quickly, and Nolan nodded. It was sound, the best they could do, and they had nothing to lose. They picked up the Lashkar Chief of Staff and dragged him to the door. The plan was to show him to the men outside, hoping it would dissuade them from shooting with their leader still a prisoner. If it worked, it would buy them time. If it didn’t, they’d blast them the moment the door opened.
He put his hand on the bolt, slid it across, and opened the door.
* * *
The man with the scarf over his face was growing impatient. The foreign infidels had trapped their Chief of Staff inside the room, together with the warhead that was central to Lashkar strategy. They’d gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to secure that weapon. Killing the crew of the ship, replacing them with men who swore loyalty to their cause, and then to transport it there, to Northern Pakistan; ready for the final phase of the operation.
The fools didn’t know yet what they had planned, but it was straightforward enough. The cause they served thrived on chaos, violence, and death. When Kabul erupted into nuclear fire, the subsequent inquiry would find evidence of Pakistan’s involvement. The result would be war, war between America’s puppet, Afghanistan and the nuclear-armed Pakistan, home to many of the faithful.
