Endgame

31

Hansen sawed through the first line of paracord and began working on the second.

“It’s taking forever,” said Valentina.

“Best I can do.” The second one gave suddenly, and he began work on the third.

Something pinged hard just inside the door, near the concrete jamb, and Hansen realized with a start that he was taking fire. He pulled back the knife, shuddering as he did so.

“Shots,” he said through a gasp.

Her eyes widened. “What did you expect? He’s slowing us down even more. Come on.”

Hansen took a deep breath — just as another round struck the wall inside.

“That came from a distance,” he said, knowing that he would’ve heard a slight hand clap from inside but hadn’t heard anything. “Warning shots.”

“Just cut,” Valentina urged him.

Hansen thrust his hand back into the gap and began sawing once more. “Kim, you find anything up there?”

“Not yet,” she answered in his subdermal. “No other entrances or exits that we can see so far… There could be some farther down the line. Or maybe we went the wrong way. Still, he’s got to come out somewhere.”

“Roger that.”

Hansen cut hard into the last piece of paracord, which suddenly gave, and together he and Valentina shoved open the door.

They flipped down their goggles and switched to night vision. Water seeped down from a large crack in the ceiling, like a varicose vein bubbling with fluid, and, in fact, more water trickled inside from cracks all over the walls and floor, as though the place had become a sponge over time and was slowly being squeezed.

To their left and right lay a central passageway about thirty feet wide and seemingly miles long. Concrete stairwells intersected the passage, assumedly leading up to the old pillboxes and machine-gun emplacements, a few leading downward to who knew where, perhaps living quarters or storage facilities. Between the dust and rank odor of mildew, it was difficult not to cough.

“This place is a trap,” whispered Valentina. “If he doesn’t get us, a slip or fall will.”

“Go infrared,” he told her. “I’m willing to bet he’s navigating this way. Check it out. You can see the cool air rising up from the weaker parts of the floor… those blue plumes. The greenish ones are warmer air.”

“I see it. You’re pretty smart, cowboy.”

“Thanks, cowgirl.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ditto.”

“Follow me,” he said, staying close to the wall and leading her down the main passage.

He picked up Fisher’s footprints with the infrared in no time, and they led toward a concrete stanchion with a ladder built inside and leading up into a concrete shaft.

Something metallic pinged and clattered across the floor, followed by a second metal object. Hansen gave a hand signal to Valentina to get down. He zoomed in with the goggles to spot a rusting old bolt on the floor, accompanied by a second one. The bolts’ heads were rusty, but their shafts were darker, cleaner, as though they’d been wrenched out of something, the wall probably. They belonged to the ladder and were loosened because Fisher was up there.

As that realization struck, so did something else, thumping into the floor. Hansen threw Valentina another hand signal: Don’t move.

He zoomed in… and there it was, a Sticky Cam at the bottom of the shaft, panning toward them.

Hansen nodded to Valentina, and they advanced toward the shaft.

Another noise, this time from above, like a wheel turning hard against a rusty axle.

Now Hansen advanced himself, moving ahead of Valentina and ready to reach the shaft and mount the ladder rising up into the darkness.

But then, as he was about to steal a look up, something clanged hard on the floor, struck the upper edge of the shaft, and began rolling toward him.

The device was easily identifiable by its hexagonal end caps and perforated tube with brown and pastel green bands.

Of course the word “grenade” never made it out of Hansen’s mouth. He turned away, about to dive out of its path, when the flashbang brought instant hell.

A piercing shrill, at 170 decibels, threatened to shatter his eardrums while eight million candela of stark white light entered the Tridents and forced him to slam shut his eyes as he landed hard on his stomach. At the same time, the concussion struck like a Rolls-Royce jet engine suddenly switched on. He was literally knocked over onto his back.

And then… nothing, save for the bang echoing in his ears and the light still flashing behind his closed his eyes.

“Ben, what the—” Her voice came tinny and distant, barely perceptible behind all the ringing.

“Are you all right?” he asked, unable to hear his own voice.

“What happened?”

“Flashbang. Don’t try to move or do anything. Just wait a minute.”

Hansen opened his eyes, flipped up his goggles. Nope. He couldn’t see a damned thing, and his ears were now ringing even more loudly so that, despite the subdermal, he could barely hear Valentina say, “Okay.”

Gillespie had led Ames along the top of a cliff where it seemed the bunker line continued onward. They had searched for openings or hatches leading inside but had found only patches of concrete covered over by thick clumps of weeds.

She had paused near what might be a crumpling machine-gunner’s nest — it was hard to tell with all the erosion and overgrowth. In the distance she thought she saw something, a figure in silhouette. No, not one. Two.

And then they’d heard the muffled thump of something from deep inside the bunker. A gunshot? Grenade?

“Ben, where are you guys?”

No answer.

“Ben, you there?”

“Hey, check this out,” called Ames. “I got a hatch right here… ”

Noboru tensed as he listened to Gillespie trying to call Hansen. He’d heard the dull boom from behind those thick stone walls, too. He decided that if Hansen didn’t answer within the next twenty seconds, he’d go into the bunker after them. It wasn’t just Hansen he was worried about, of course.

He ticked off another ten seconds, then started toward the bunker door, when a voice came from above. “Nathan!”

Squinting up into the darkness, Noboru could not see the man at first — but he’d recognized that baritone voice.

Horatio.

Even as his heart sank and he lifted his pistol, Gothwhiler’s unmistakable British accent came from behind him. “Good boy, Nathan. Don’t move.”

Noboru froze.

How had they managed to draw so close to him? Well, he’d been a fool, daydreaming about a life with Maya Valentina, about romantic, candlelit dinners and long days at the beach. She’d dulled his senses, softened him, left him vulnerable to much more than her perfume and charm.

And now his old “friends” had exploited his lack of focus and current position. They didn’t want to face the rest of the team. They’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to capture him alone.

And now they had him.

Or not.

After living with them on his back for so long, Noboru had come to the realization that, if push came to shove, he wouldn’t be taken alive — and in a way death would be welcome and represent the end of the paranoia, the fear… finally… forever.

He judged Gothwhiler’s distance behind him at three meters. Horatio was now coming down the rocks: distance nine meters and closing.

Gothwhiler no doubt had a gun pointed at Noboru’s head, while Horatio kept his pistol up but was more concerned with judging his footing as he descended to the shoulder of the road, near the bridge.

Footfalls grew louder from behind. Closer. Noboru thought of making his move, but Horatio already had his pistol trained on him.

Abruptly, his Trident goggles were ripped off, and then the hard steel muzzle of a pistol made contact with that knobby bone covered by stubble on the back of his head.

“Just toss your weapon into the mud right there,” said Gothwhiler, his voice squeaking like a mouse’s. “Right there.” He relieved Noboru of his rifle, sliding the V-TRAC sling easily off his shoulder.

“I did a job for you,” Noboru said, his voice coming in a hiss. “I deserved to be paid. You ripped me off. I took back what was mine. There is nothing left between us. I told you that. I told you… ”

Horatio started forward. His pistol was a semiautomatic, to be sure, and he raised it to Noboru’s belly.

“Nathan, it ends tonight. You’ve made a fool out of us. And now we’ll send a message that no one can do that. Not ever. Now… hands behind your head! Kneel!”

Noboru tensed. “I’ve been your life’s work, huh? What’re you going to do without me? Who’re you going to chase?”

“You haven’t called your parents recently, have you?” said Gothwhiler.

Noboru began to lose his breath. “We had an agreement from the very beginning about them.”

“You gave them the money. They spent it. They paid the price.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.” Horatio raised his gun and pointed it at Noboru’s forehead.

Noboru took a deep breath. He was going to spring up and attack Horatio, taking his chances — knowing full well he would probably be shot — but perhaps the round would not kill instantly the way a head shot would. He would not be executed. He would fight. And death would, as he’d promised himself, bring relief.

“Pathetic boy,” Gothwhiler sang. “My grandfather was shooting you people out of trees during World War II.”

Noboru was about to reach out when a short clap from nearby echoed down into the ravine.

An odd look came over Horatio’s face. Then he just dropped to the ground.

Noboru craned his head in time to see Gothwhiler take a round two inches behind his temple. The gaunt man’s head wrenched back as he toppled to the ground and lay there, immobile, blood pouring from his wound.

The two perfectly executed shots, from a remarkable sniper, left Noboru breathless. Absolutely breathless.

Yet even through the shock, he still recognized the sound of an SC- 20 rifle and its 5.56mm ammo. There was no mistaking it. Someone on the team had just saved his life.

Or someone who just happened to have an SC-20 rifle.

Noboru stared off to his right, narrowing his eyes toward the shadows running along the cliff. He focused on a fallen log overlooking the lip of the ravine. That had to be the sniper’s nest. Slowly, he lowered his hands from behind his head and pulled himself up into a crouch, still wary as he shifted right toward where he had tossed his pistol.

A round punched into the mud not six inches from his hand.

He lifted both palms and slowly stood.

It was Fisher. Had to be.

All Noboru could do was shrug. The man could easily kill him now.

Noboru just stood there, waiting for some sign or indication that it was okay for him to move. None came. Then he spotted movement near the bridge, just twenty feet from it, and turned his head for a better look.

A voice rang out. “No. Face the cars.”

Definitely Fisher.

Noboru complied. “Was that you?”

“Was that me, what?”

Noboru jerked his head toward Horatio and Gothwhiler. “Them.”

“I needed their car. Something told me they weren’t cooperative types.”

Noboru swallowed. Fisher had no idea what he had just done, no idea of the immeasurable burden that had just been lifted from Noboru’s shoulders, and all he could manage at the moment was a simple “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Fisher said curtly.

Noboru opened his mouth, about to ask a half dozen questions about Fisher’s mission, about what the hell was really going on, when he felt the Cottonball make contact with his right shoulder, and the world went dark.