Ragnarok

SEVENTY-THREE

Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

4 November, 0500 Hrs

King followed the woman around the energy portal, away from the side of the globe where dire wolves continued to run and climb out. On the far wall from the hangar door was a normal set of double doors with a symbol of a black jagged lightning bolt on a yellow triangle, universal for “electrical hazard.” The door was locked and it opened outward, so King couldn’t easily kick the door in.

He stepped back from the door and fired a burst of 9 mm bullets at the upper and lower hinges on the right side. The door simply fell outward and onto the floor. The woman rushed in first, followed by King, who skidded to a halt.

There wasn’t a turbine, or a generator, but there were banks and banks of electrical switches and fuses, circuit breakers, switchboards, electricity meters, transformers and fire alarm control panels. This was a power distribution room-not the power generating station.

“I’m not an electrician,” King said, “but I think this will do.”

He pulled a small brick of tan-colored C4 explosive from Velcro straps on the outside of an armored thigh, and then a tiny detonating blasting cap from his belt, which he inserted into the brick. He tossed the brick to the far end of the small room.

“Ten seconds and counting,” he said before pushing the Russian toward the door, though he was more concerned with the second countdown running in his head, the one that was at twenty seconds.

King ran for the door, and then grabbed the woman by the arm and tugged her to the side of the wall by the broken door. They ran three more steps when the C4 detonated. The explosion ripped out the room’s other door and hurled it into the portal. A good ten feet of the brick wall on either side of the double doorway spat brick and mortar. A second larger explosion ripped through the main chamber. The concussion shook the walls and another huge portion of the ceiling over the giant room collapsed, taking catwalks with it.

Deep Blue reached the southwest corner of the catwalk and threw his large, brownie-sized block of C4. Anna Beck, who played college softball, threw three more blocks, aiming for the concrete bases of struts, though anywhere near them would do the trick. Bishop handled the remaining two, lobbing them far across the large room.

The timers were set for twenty seconds and set to go off as one. If someone dropped one, or didn’t throw it in time, they were dead. But this knowledge motivated them and the C4 bricks all landed around the room with seconds to spare.

Several things happened at once-the electrical room on the ground floor exploded, billowing fire and smoke that obscured the view of the portal.

The six bricks of C4 in the main chamber detonated all at once, pulverizing the concrete holding the struts on the floor and killing the remaining dire wolves.

The rest of the ceiling over the eastern part of the portal fell, taking parts of the northern catwalk just after Bishop leapt away.

The portal bulged and distorted as it ate the falling wreckage. The eastern catwalk broke loose on the northeastern end, and began to fall down.

Rook, closer to the upper end of the now slanting metal slide, grabbed the railing. Queen was back by the stairwell-the most structurally sound part of the room at the moment. Beck was with her. Knight slid down the angled catwalk, scrabbling with his fingertips to get a hold in the metal grill.

With a groan of bending metal, the catwalk tipped and fell, jolting to a stop a few feet later as one of the giant curved struts fell back against the wall, and the catwalk above, pinning the whole structure to the wall.

Then all the light and sound vanished.

They were plunged into darkness.

The portal was closed.