Section 8

CHAPTER 15

"I have a job for you."

Royce stared at Foster and waited.

The scientist in charge of the Sim-Center avoided his eyes.

"I'm doing the job I was given."

"Multitask," Royce said simply.

Foster glanced into the control room where the military people were changing from day shift to evening shift.

"Did that person really die in the parachute drop?" He nodded his head toward the control room.

"They think it's part of an obstacle in their exercise, losing half the recon element. But you and I know better, don't we? I didn't program it in. That was a real message from real people."

Royce folded his hands in his lap.

"You think you know better? Than what? You don't have a clue."

And neither do I, he thought.

"You're doing all this for deniability," Foster said.

"You're using me as a cutout – don't think I don't realize that I take the fall if the shit hits the fan on this."

Royce had read Foster's file. The man was not stupid, that was certain, although he had been rather indiscreet years ago. Royce briefly wondered how many people worked for the Organization simply going around and gathering blackmail material on people the Organization might eventually use someday. And not for the first time he wondered what the Organization had on him.

"You know what happens to you if the shit hits the fan?" Royce asked.

"What?"

"You die."

Foster blinked, then ran his tongue over his lips.

"Who are you? That other guy said he was NSA. But you're not NSA, are you?"

"No."

Royce said nothing more.

Foster fidgeted in his seat for several moments.

"All right," he finally said.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to hack into Space Command's tracking records."

He gave Foster the time period and estimated location in which David's plane had gone down.

"I want whatever they have on it. I want to know exactly when and where it went down. I know they track every goddamn thing moving in the sky now with their satellites."

Ever since 9/11, keeping an eye on the skies had become a much higher priority.

"Who was on this plane and why do you think it crashed?"

"That's not something you need to know," Royce said.

Foster was confused.

"But why don't you send a request – "

"I want you to do this without anyone knowing you're doing it. Between me and you. Are you capable of that?"

Foster slowly nodded.

"I should be able to get in there. I have access to the government's secure system, so that helps a lot. The hard part will be leaving no trace of my visit."

"I recommend you don't," Royce said.

"Or else you'll get visitors who won't be as nice as me."

Moreno knew he should stay on the submarine. He'd even promised Abayon that he would, though at the time they both knew it was a promise that would not be kept. Since their first days together as teenagers fighting the Japanese, they had always held the belief that a leader led from the front. Moreno knew that a major reason why the Abu Sayef had not been as active as it might have been was Abayon's confinement to the wheelchair. While it had been a politically prudent move for the group to lay low for many years, it was also partly because it took Moreno a long time to convince his old friend that even though he could not personally lead his men, he could – and had to – issue orders for others to go out and kill and die.

Moreno, though, was not confined to a wheelchair, and the spry old man slid down the side of the submarine into the waiting rubber boat crowded with his men. There were two other similar boats, each holding sixteen men. That left a skeleton crew of five on board the submarine, enough to hold it in place until they returned.

Moreno sniffed the air as they cast off in the dark. The wind was shoreborne, as he had planned. There was no moon yet, leaving only the scant illumination of the stars. He didn't need a compass to find Johnston Atoll, though. The complex was well-lit, glittering like a beacon three kilometers away.

Using small electric engines, the three Zodiacs glided silently through the water toward the lights. Moreno sat in the bow of the lead boat, his silenced submachine gun across his knees. A kilometer from shore he directed the small fleet to the left, to the landing spot he had picked, out of the glare of the lights. The three boats ran up on the beach and the crews jumped overboard, dragging them above the tide mark.

There was no need for Moreno to issue any orders now, since they had rehearsed what they were about to do at least a hundred times on a mock-up of the facility on Jolo Island. The forty-eight men moved toward a fenced compound set about three hundred meters away from the main complex. Inside the eight-foot-high fence topped with razor wire, there was a bunker shaped like a pyramid with the top half cut off. According to the intelligence Moreno had been able to gather, it was built according to U.S. government specifications. He had been able to find the exact same type of bunker in Subic Bay at the abandoned American base there. It was used to hold precision munitions when the American fleet operated out of Subic – at least, that's what the Americans had publicly claimed. The persistent rumor was that the bunker had held the fleet's nuclear weapons.

Moreno grimaced as he pushed through a spiny bush. The Americans lied. They lied, and then they said no one else could do what they did. They bombed and invaded at will, yet acted like they were protecting the world.

Moreno paused in the cover of the bushes as four pairs of men crawled up to the fence and began snipping the links with bolt cutters. He looked left and right and was satisfied that his flank security sections were doing exactly as they had been trained. There was no sign of any guard, which he found surprising and a bit disconcerting. He could not believe the Americans would leave what was supposed to be in the bunker unguarded. Had the intelligence they'd bought at such great price been wrong?

They made four holes in the fence. The lead scouts crawled through. Moreno forced himself to hold back and let the scouts do their job. A minute passed. Another. Then a dark figure reappeared near the fence, gesturing. Moreno led the rest of the force out of the bushes and through the fence. The force deployed around the bunker as he and four men went to the large steel doors.

It was as the source had said. A lock was bolted in place on a thick hasp. One of the men shrugged off a backpack and removed a bottle of powerful acid. The others stepped back as the man donned a breathing mask, then opened the bottle and began to drip the acid on the lock. They had timed this on the same grade and amount of steel, and it would take fifteen minutes. But it was quiet, as opposed to the quick work an explosive charge would make of the lock.

As one poured the acid, other men checked the outside of the doors, searching for any alarm systems. There were none. The arrogance of the lack of security systems only played into what Moreno already believed about the Americans.

He could feel the tension mounting among his men as each minute passed. They had expected to meet at least one guard. If there were none posted, then there was a good chance there would be a roving patrol. The last thing they needed was gunfire or any sort of alarm to be given. Everything relied on stealth. Moreno's men were all armed with silenced weapons, but the guards would certainly not be. One shot and the plan would unravel. There were contingencies, but Moreno preferred not to have to use them.

With a startling clank the lock fell off.

Moreno and the others stepped forward and slid open the hasp, then grabbed the handles for the heavy doors. With a slight squeak of protest, the doors swung wide open. The interior of the bunker was pitch-black. Half of the group edged in, the other half staying outside. The doors swung shut and flashlights were turned on.

Moreno let out a slight sigh, not enough to be noticed by others, but enough to release the tension that had been building ever since he noted there was no guard on the bunker. The target was there, the only object in the large cavernous space. Set on a cart were four large, stainless steel canisters, each five feet high and two feet in diameter. Prominently displayed on the side of each was the warning triangle for a deadly chemical agent.

The U.S. government had long claimed it had destroyed all toxic agents in its inventory at the plant here on Johnston Atoll. As with many other things, Moreno knew for certain now that it was a lie. In those four canisters was a classified nerve agent, a variation of the extremely dangerous VX, which had been designated ZX.

He directed his special handling teams forward. Four men to each canister. They removed the four canisters and placed them on stretchers. They then strapped the canisters down and gathered near the large doors. The flashlights were turned off, the doors opened, and the group exited.

They carefully made their way through the holes in the fence and back to the Zodiacs. The rubber boats were shoved off and they headed back toward the submarine. There was still no sign of any alarm being raised.

Moreno sat in the bow of the lead boat staring at the steel canister that rested in the center of it. Not only was information about ZX a highly held secret, the fact that it had been developed before its sister agent, VX, was something very few people were privy to. According to most sources, VX was developed in 1952 by the British. In fact, ZX was developed in early 1945 by the Japanese at Unit 731. The formula for it was appropriated by the Americans when they gathered several of the lead scientists from 731 under the auspices of Operation Paper Clip. The information was shared by the Americans with the British, who developed a less lethal version they designated VX.

All this information had been gained by the Abu Sayef at great expense and effort. Bribery, torture, and murder had blazed a trail to these truths. While VX was considered by many to be the most lethal chemical agent in the world, it had half the lethality of ZX. Anyone exposed to just five milligrams of ZX died. Each of these canisters contained the potential for two million lethal doses. What made ZX very different and much more dangerous than VX – besides the higher lethality – was while the latter was in liquid form and difficult to make into a gas, ZX was already in a compressed gas state inside the tubes.

They arrived at the submarine, and looking toward shore, saw no sign of any alert or activity. With great care they hauled the canisters on deck. They slid three of them through the deck hatch into the sub, securing them in the forward torpedo room in place of the longer weapons. Moreno remained on deck with the fourth. Where a three-inch gun had once been bolted, there was now a device that resembled a gun with an oversized barrel that flared out to a four-foot-wide nozzle.

The fourth canister was slid into a rack at the base of the erstwhile gun placement and tied down. Moreno then ordered everyone else off the deck except one man. He was their chemical expert and wore a protective suit and mask. The man glanced at Moreno, waiting for him to leave also. The elder man shook his head. He wanted to set an example and make sure everything was done exactly right. He gestured for the expert to continue.

The man shrugged, then connected a hose to the back of the tube. As he was doing this, Moreno climbed up the outside of the conning tower and took his position on the small space on top. He held onto the railing with one hand as he picked up the mike with the other. He issued orders for the submarine to get under way, setting a course that would bring it closer to the atoll.

Moreno glanced down at the deck. The expert gave him the thumbs-up.

When Moreno nodded, the man walked to the bottom of the tower and stripped off the protective suit, then joined him on the bridge. Johnston Atoll was now less than two kilometers away.

Moreno and the expert went into the sub.

"Seal all hatches," Moreno ordered.

When the board showed all green, Moreno turned to the expert.

"Do it."

The man held a small remote. He pressed the red button.

It was anticlimactic, Moreno thought, as he went to the periscope. The sub was still on the surface.

"Turn to course one eight zero, maintain slow," Moreno ordered.

He shifted the periscope as the sub turned and ran parallel to the atoll. Moreno could see no sign of the agent being sprayed, so he had to trust that the job had been done right. He glanced at the expert, who was watching a stopwatch.

His attention back on the periscope, Moreno saw they were now even with the island. He watched as it slowly slid by. He turned the periscope and glanced at the expert. The man clicked the watch and gave a thumbs-up. Moreno looked one more time at Johnston Atoll. Still no sign of anything unusual. He snapped up the handles.

"Dive," he ordered.

"Course one-one-four degrees, full speed."

He looked at the digital clock in the control room.

"We must make the rendezvous in three hours and six minutes exactly."

On Johnston Atoll death came on the air, unseen and odorless. Some of the buildings in the main complex had been designed to handle Level IV contaminants, but these building with their complex filtering systems were designed to keep biological and chemical agents inside, not prevent outside agents from entering.

The first to be affected was the lone guard on duty at the airstrip control tower. The ZX was borne in from the ocean by the wind, carried across the runway. He had been reading a novel while the raid was conducted a kilometer and a half away. He was still reading as the first molecules of ZX arrived. He blinked as he felt unexpected tears form in his eyes. Two seconds later his throat constricted and he gasped for breath. His mind was desperately trying to figure out what was happening as it passed from consciousness to unconsciousness.

Which was fortunate for him. Every muscle in his body began to convulse as the agent spread, the ZX binding to the acetylcholinesterase enzymes at the end of each synaptic membrane. This made the AChE inactive, which then made it impossible for the nerve endings to stop firing, thus the uncontrolled muscle activity. Which quickly led to paralysis and death as the lungs stopped working.

All of this happened within thirty seconds.

The gas floated into the main complex, sucked in by the air-conditioning units in all the buildings and spewed out into the rooms inside. The results were the same. Most of those on the island were contaminated while they slept, and went from sleep to unconsciousness to death in half a minute without any awareness. The few others who were awake had those few moments of awareness that something was wrong. Then they too died.

Nine hundred sixty civilians and 250 military personnel were dead within five minutes.

The generators, amply fueled, continued to run, and the lights on the island continued to glow in the darkness.

Vaughn looked up and could see the first stars. He tried to count the days back to the failed raid. He had to assume his brother-in-law's body was back in the States by now. Most likely even in the ground. A military funeral. And he hadn't been there for his sister or to pay his respects. He looked up at the shaft still blowing hot air out. The one who was responsible was in there.

"You all right?" Tai asked.

Vaughn was startled. He'd forgotten all about his partner.

"I wish we hadn't lost our NVGs on the jump. They'd be real helpful in there."

Tai's dark eyes regarded him for several moments.

"What were you really thinking about?"

"A military funeral."

"I don't think we'll get one with this outfit."

That brought a slight smile to Vaughn's lips.

"Not for us. I plan on us getting out of this in one piece."

"That's a good plan," Tai said.

"Let's hope everyone else is on the same sheet of music."

"What do you mean?" Tai grabbed her ruck and slid the shoulder straps on.

"Nothing."

"Ladies first," Vaughn said.

"Don't go bullshit on me now," Tai snapped. In reply, Vaughn grabbed the edge of the tunnel and pulled himself up and in. It was about five feet wide, which meant they couldn't stand upright but wouldn't have to crawl. It was made of corrugated metal and sloped upward at about a twenty-degree angle. Vaughn pulled his red lens flashlight off his combat vest and clicked it on. The light penetrated ahead as far as he could see, about twenty meters. And the tunnel showed no end at that distance. He felt Tai's presence behind him. She put her free hand on his shoulder and he began to move forward, crouching slightly.

He held the MP-5 in one hand and the flashlight in the other. Had he known he'd be without night vision goggles, he would have made sure to bolt a light to the side of the gun. He was glad that he had the red lens flashlight, or else they would literally be in the dark.

Vaughn tried to keep a pace count as they went up the tunnel but knew it had to be off because of the awkward way he was walking. He estimated they had gone over one hundred meters when the pipe changed angles and went level. The blow of warm air continued unabated as they moved onto the level part and faced their first decision. The large pipe split into two smaller ones, each about four feet in diameter.

"This keeps up, we're gonna be on our bellies," Tai whispered as Vaughn shined the light up each passage. Both went level and straight as far as he could see.

"Any preference?" he asked.

Instead of answering, Tai stuck her head in the left tube and cocked her head, listening as she sniffed. Then did the right tube.

"The air is warmer in this one," she said, pointing to the right.

"And?"

Tai smiled and shrugged.

"I don't know what it means. I was just mentioning it."

"That's a lot of help," Vaughn muttered.

"All right. This way."

He led the way into the warmer tube. The only sound was their boots scraping along the metal and their breathing as they went farther into the mountain. After another fifty meters Vaughn paused. Tai bumped up against him and then also became still.

There was the slightest of sounds. Rhythmic.

"Air pump," Tai finally said.

Vaughn thought about the information he'd researched on underground bunkers. Where were the intake for the air handlers usually located? Above. That was good, he thought. It was always best to approach an objective with the higher terrain advantage, even if, as in this case, the terrain was inside a mountain. He continued forward, Tai close behind.

The sound of the air pump grew louder and the blow of air seemed stronger, though Vaughn figured that was just his imagination working overtime. He froze when he saw a metal grate at the far reach of the red light, immediately switching the light off.

He and Tai waited in the darkness, and gradually they began to see a faint light on the other side of the grate. Vaughn got down on his belly and crawled forward, careful not to make any sound. Tai was right behind him, her face scant inches from his boots.

The light grew stronger as he got closer to the grate. He arrived at it and peered through. All he could see was a gray plastic tube that curved down. Warm air blew on his face, pumped up into the tube. The light was dimly coming through the plastic. The sound of the air pump was loud now, right ahead of and below them.

Vaughn scooted as far to one side as he could, and Tai crawled up next to him. Their bodies were pressed together as they considered their situation. Vaughn looked at the grate. The metal strips were only about a quarter inch thick, spaced every three inches or so. He was sure it was designed more to keep animals from coming in than to prevent human entry. He reached out and tugged on it, and the entire thing gave about half an inch. He looked over at Tai and raised his eyebrows in question.

She nodded and grabbed her side of the grate. Together they pushed inward until the metal gave and then popped loose. Twisting, they slid it over their heads and farther down the tunnel.

"Hey," Tai hissed, pointing to the left. Engraved in the metal were Japanese characters and a series of numbers.

"So this was built during the war by the Japanese."

"Looks like," Vaughn agreed. He pointed forward.

"Take a look. I'll hold you."

Tai scooted forward as Vaughn moved back, wrapping his arms around her thighs. She moved farther into the plastic tube, and he had to exert more effort to keep her from tumbling forward. Finally he felt her pull back and helped her, bringing her back into the steel tube.

"There's a damn big fan at the bottom of that thing, about eight feet down from the curve," Tai reported.

"We do not want to go into that."

Vaughn slid his knife out of its sheath. She nodded. He moved to the edge and put the tip of the knife against the plastic. Bearing down on it, he broke through the thin material and then began to cut. On the other side, Tai did the same. They met in the middle on the bottom, having severed the lower half of the plastic tube. Securing his knife back in the sheath, Vaughn grabbed the plastic and pushed it open. A dirty tile floor was about twelve feet below their position in a narrow space between the large machine holding the fan and the rock wall. The space was about two feet wide.

Vaughn moved forward but Tai grabbed his arm.

"How do we get back in here?"

"If we need to leave this way," he said, "we crab up between the wall and the machine."

Tai nodded, and Vaughn edged out, swinging his feet down. His toes scrambled for purchase, one foot on the wall, one on the machine. He flexed his legs, pressing outward, then began his descent. Within seconds he was on the floor. He quickly scooted to the edge of the machine and looked, half expecting to see some sort of custodian or engineer. But the ten-by-twenty-meter cavern was empty. At the far end was a steel door.

Tai was right behind Vaughn, weapon at the ready. He nodded toward the door and they moved forward.

Sinclair walked into the latrine and heard the sound of vomiting from one of the stalls. He walked over and, given that Kasen and Orson were still in the planning room, knew that it was Hayes occupying the stall.

"You all right?" Sinclair asked.

The noise had stopped and now there was a strange silence.

"Hey?" Sinclair tapped on the door.

"Hayes. You okay, man?"

There was no reply. Cursing, Sinclair pulled his knife out and slid it between the door and the jamb, releasing the latch. The door swung open, revealing Hayes passed out next to the toilet, bloody vomit everywhere.

"Goddamn," Sinclair muttered. He reached down and grabbed the man. He pulled him out of the stall and then into the operations room.

"Hey, guys. We need a medic."

Orson and Kasen ran over as Sinclair put Hayes on one of the planning tables. Sinclair slapped his face a few times and Hayes's eyes flickered, then opened.

"What happened?" he muttered.

"Clean him up," Orson snapped.

Sinclair grabbed some paper towels and dabbed off the blood and vomit on Hayes's face while Kasen offered his canteen. Hayes weakly took the canteen as he sat up, his upper body wobbly. He took a swig, washed it around in his mouth, then spit to the side. Then he took a deep drink.

Orson was standing still, watching, hands on hips.

"We need a medic," Sinclair repeated.

Orson slowly nodded.

"All right. I'll take care of it."

He went over to the phone linking them to the ASTs and quietly spoke into it.

"An ambulance is on the way," he said afterward.

Then he went to his laptop, typed in a message and transmitted it.

Ruiz wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead as he stood in the warehouse. Behind him were three large wooden crates resting on pallets. They contained the rest of the Golden Lily treasure from the cave that was supposed to be auctioned this evening. He checked his watch once more. It was time, but where was -

He looked up as the small door set into the large sliding door for the warehouse opened. The Japanese woman walked in. She was dressed all in black: slacks, shirt, and leather coat. She was carrying a metal briefcase. She walked up to the small table set in front of Ruiz and put the case on it without a word. Then she gestured with one hand, indicating for him to open it.

Ruiz hesitated as he considered the possibility the case was rigged. But his greed overcame his fear and he flipped the two latches and swung the lid up. Stacks of cash along with a plane ticket were lying on top, and a Japanese passport.

"As promised," the woman said.

"Only half the money. The other half will be given to you at the airfield after we ensure you have given us what we paid for and to make certain that you truly are gone. We don't want you having second thoughts."

A second thought was the last thing on Ruiz's mind as he checked the plane ticket and saw his picture in the passport along with a new name.

"Is this real?" he asked, holding up the passport.

"Yes."

He stared at the cash.

"Everything remaining is in the crates."

"I'm sure it is," the woman said. She was looking at him strangely, and he wondered what she was thinking.

His focus shifted back to the case and the money.

"Abayon," she said. Ruiz was startled.

"What?"

"Abayon. Why did he put these pieces out for auction? He's been sitting on them for over half a century."

Ruiz shrugged.

"He wants to help fund other groups. He has so much there…" He paused, not sure how much he should say.

"He has the Golden Lily, of which this is only a taste," the woman said.

"You knew that," Ruiz said.

"Or else you would not have sent the envoy."

"Who you killed."

Ruiz licked his lips.

"Abayon did that. I wasn't even there."

"What else does Abayon have planned?"

"Nothing."

"You lie."

Ruiz took a step back from the table.

"No. I have no idea. This was my job…" He indicated the crates.

"Abayon is very good at keeping things compartmentalized. I only know what I needed to know to do this."

"That is too bad," the woman said. Her hands were on her hips, the long leather coat pulled back. For the first time Ruiz noted a sword hanging at her side. A samurai sword.

"We have a deal," Ruiz said, his throat tight.

"Yes, we do."

The woman indicated the case.

"Take it."

Ruiz tentatively stepped forward, snapped the case shut and picked it up. He held it at his side.

"Our deal is complete now, yes?" the woman asked.

Ruiz frowned.

"Yes."

"Very good. I am a person of honor. I would never allow it to be said I do not fulfill my word."

"Well, that's good," Ruiz said. He glanced over his shoulder toward the back door. He froze as he saw a large black man with a wicked looking gun in his hand standing there.

"What the hell?"

"The deal is done," the woman said. The door behind her opened and another man walked in, short and muscular, with a submachine gun in his hands.

"Hey."

Ruiz held up the briefcase.

"I – "

"Made a deal," the woman said. She flipped aside the right side of her long leather coat and smoothly drew the sword.

"Both of us kept our word. But now the deal is over."

"Wait!" Ruiz begged.

"For…?" The woman cocked her head.

"Abayon is up to something else," Ruiz said.

"We know that," the woman said.

"That statement is of no help."

"A submarine. It involves a submarine."

The woman lowered the sword.

"If everything is so compartmentalized, how do you know this?"

"I talked to one of the men who was to be part of her crew. They kept the submarine hidden, probably in one of the coves on Jolo, but they had to get men to operate her."

"What does Abayon plan to do with the submarine?"

"The man didn't know," Ruiz said.

"He said it was an old submarine."

"That is not very specific."

"He was very drunk," Ruiz said.

"He said it was a one-way mission. They were all volunteers who had agreed to give their lives."

"That is all?" Ruiz nodded, a sheen of sweat on his forehead again.

"Good, then you will not mind giving your life either."

She gestured at the black man, and he drew a similar sword from a scabbard on his back.

"Take it," the woman said as the man came forward and laid it on the table.

Ruiz shook his head.

"No. This is not – "

"Take it or they will shoot you," she said.

"An honorable death is to be preferred over being shot down like a dog."

"But we made a deal," Ruiz whined.

"And I told you all I know."

"And we completed the deal. And you told me all you know, so you are of no more use to me. Now you must go through me to get out of here."

"But why?" Ruiz was frozen.

"Pick it up."

She tapped the table with the tip of her sword.

"There really is no choice."

Ruiz's shoulders slumped. There was now a third armed man in the warehouse. With a trembling hand, Ruiz picked up the sword. He awkwardly held it in front of him, blade vertical, trying to protect his upper body.

The Japanese woman smiled coldly. She stepped around the table, her sword gripped in both hands, blade held low. Ruiz did the unexpected, charging forward, the blade swinging in a wide arc at the woman's head. Unexpected to the members of the team gathered around, but apparently not to the woman. She ducked under the swing and jabbed her sword into Ruiz's stomach, piercing right through and coming out his back. Just as quickly, she withdrew the blade and, as the first gasp of pain left his lips, gracefully spun, blade level and extended, and severed his head from his body.

Ruiz's lips were still open in the gasp as the head bounced off the concrete floor.

The woman pulled out a lace kerchief and wiped the blade clean, then slid it back in its scabbard.

The corridor was six feet wide by eight high. The walls were roughly hewn rock, and Vaughn assumed that an existing tunnel had been expanded to make this passageway. He doubted that the technology existed during World War II to completely carve this out of solid rock. His assumption was confirmed as he noted occasional natural openings on either side as they moved farther into the mountain.

Their progress was stopped after about a hundred meters by an iron door that appeared to be bolted on the other side, since it did not budge when both he and Tai put their weight on it.

"What now?" Tai asked as she considered the door.

They had a limited amount of explosives, but using them was the last thing Vaughn wanted to do.

"The room we just left," he said.

"What about it?"

"It's moving air out of the complex, right?" He didn't wait for an answer.

"So there have to be air shafts coming into it from below. Beneath that big fan."

Tai nodded and turned back the way they had come. They retraced their steps and entered the room. Vaughn looked at the large air handler. There was a service panel on one side, so he pulled out his multipurpose tool and unscrewed it.

"Shit," Tai said as the opening revealed the large, six-foot-diameter fan, spinning, the blades thumping through the air, pushing it up. There was an open shaft below it.

"How do we – "

Vaughn answered by pointing at a bundle of wires.

"We cut those, we stop it."

"Won't someone notice?"

"Probably."

"Then we need a better plan."

Vaughn waved his hand, indicating she could do whatever she wished. He stepped back as Tai stuck her head in the opening, looking about.

"The tips of the fan don't make it to the sides," she noted.

"There's about eighteen inches of room."

Vaughn was already shaking his head.

"We hit those fans and it'll cut us in two."

"There's room," Tai insisted.

Vaughn looked. She was right. But it would be damn close. He shined his flashlight down and saw. The shaft below the fan curved, so he couldn't see how far it dropped.

"I don't like it," he finally said.

"We don't have much choice," she replied.

She was right about that. But he didn't see how they were going to get out of there once they went in. He took a deep breath. This was representative of what he'd been feeling ever since becoming part of Section 8. They were on a one-way trip.

"Ladies first," Vaughn said, and the tone of his voice indicated it wasn't a choice.

Tai responded by edging over into the opening. She gripped the side with her hands and slowly lowered herself. Vaughn anxiously watched as her legs reached the level of the fan. The metal whipped by, less than six inches from her flesh. She continued to lower herself until her arms were fully extended. The fan was at chest level, barely missing her. She looked up at Vaughn, gave him a wan smile, then let go. She slid down the tube and out of sight.

Cursing to himself, Vaughn climbed into the machine and duplicated her actions. As he lowered himself, he could feel the power of the fan so close. As he extended his arms, the edge of one of the blades hit the back of his combat vest, cutting through it and the shirt underneath but barely missing his skin. Abandoning caution for speed, Vaughn let go and slid down, safe from the fan now but uncertain where and when his fall would be arrested.

The tube curved, but only slightly, and he gained speed as he went down. He tried slowing his progress with his hands but there was nothing to grip. The tube was steel, too new to be from the original World War II structure. Vaughn gasped as he suddenly went airborne into a black void. He braced himself for impact, hoping the fall would be brief.

It was. He slammed onto a steel platform with a solid thud.

"That you?" Tai asked.

"No," Vaughn grunted as he inwardly reviewed his body for injuries.

A red light came on, and he could see Tai now, about four feet away. He slowly got to his feet. They were in an open space, and as Tai slowly shifted her light, he saw that it was about ten meters square with a steel floor. He looked up and saw the opening he had fallen out of about eight feet above his head. Not good, he thought, as he considered how the hell they were going to get out of there.

Tai directed her light toward a couple of openings in the floor. She walked over to the closest one, and Vaughn joined her. There was a two-foot depression, then a metal grate in the three-foot-wide hole. Air was being drawn up through the opening. They both knelt next to the opening and she shined her flashlight down. The red light penetrated the darkness for a few feet but they couldn't see anything.

"I assume no one's in there since it's dark," Tai said.

"Unless it's a barracks room," Vaughn said, "and there's a bunch of guys with guns sleeping."

"Always the optimist."

Tai turned off her flashlight, leaving them in darkness. Vaughn could hear her unscrewing the cover. She turned the light back on, flooding the room with white light. She pointed it down at the grate.

Both of them gasped as a golden glow was reflected back at them. Directly below the grate was a five-foot-high stack of gold bullion.