Templar's Quest

80

0545 hours

Cracking the door on the stairwell, Finn scanned the shadowy hallway. Not a soul in sight.

Dumb bastards.

The reason why there weren’t any sentries posted in the laboratory was because the Seven didn’t think that he and Aisquith had a snowball’s chance of breaching the security system. Big mistake, underestimating the enemy. It will always come back to haunt you.

Making like a ghost warrior, Finn hoofed down the hall. According to the architectural blueprint, the maintenance engineering room was located sixty feet from the stairwell, entry on the right. His mission was straightforward: destroy the laboratory’s infrastructure and functional capability without compromising the structural integrity of the building above. With his training in explosives, Finn was confident that he could demolish the mechanical system without bringing down the house.

In theory, it would be similar to what happened in ’93 when the car bomb went off in the basement of the World Trade Center. The blast did a helluva lot of damage underground, but didn’t disturb a thing top side. Which, in retrospect, proved a bad thing, inciting the terrorists to change tactics. Terrorists, like Uhlemann and his Nazi fuckers, were a primeval force of evil.

Arriving at the maintenance engineering room, Finn opened the door and peered inside the dark recess. No unfriendlies. I love it when the op goes according to plan.

He stepped across the threshold, closed the door and turned on the light switch. His ocular nerve was instantly blasted with a blinding burst of light. It felt like he’d just gone snow blind.

‘I don’t care if fluorescent lights are more energy efficient,’ he muttered. ‘There ought to be a law against ’em.’

Still squinting, he scoped out the room. Basic concrete block construction with a poured cement floor. Everything, including the walls, was painted a blah shade of grey, khaki or black. Strictly utilitarian. Unlike the slick Euro design of the research facility. Upstairs, downstairs. World of difference.

At a glance, Finn could see that the room housed a state-of-the-art system with an array of pipes, ducts, tubes, coils, conduit boxes, boilers and compressors. Building anatomy no different to human anatomy, these were the internal organs that made the pretty office space upstairs functional. The heart, bladder, liver and kidneys.

He walked over to a large industrial panel box bolted into the wall. Opening the metal door, he smiled at seeing the configured cables, connectors and signal modules. Sweet. It was the building automation system. An integrated assembly that controlled the electric, heating and air-conditioning. The joint’s cerebral cortex.

The six homemade pipe bombs would more than do the trick.

I got a feeling this is going to be a clean job instead of a suicide mission, Finn thought with a measure of relief as he removed the towelling-wrapped bundle from his Go Bag.

‘God, I hope so.’

There were things that he needed to tell Kate. Should have told her back at the hotel. But didn’t. Probably because he didn’t have a lot of experience with the man–woman thing. At least, not the emotional part of it. The physical part, oh yeah. Put a blush to your face.

Walking over to a nearby work bench, he removed his supplies from the Go Bag. He felt a strange tightening in his gut. He didn’t know if he loved Kate Bauer. Hell, he barely knew her. But she was different from any other woman he’d ever known. Serene, smart, sexy. And incredibly fragile. He had no idea whether she’d be interested in a man like him. For the long haul, that is. Find out soon enough. Hopefully.

Not there to sightsee, Finn rummaged through his Go Bag, retrieving a plastic zip-lock bag that contained two lighters. One he stuck into his T-shirt breast pocket; the second one – the emergency back-up lighter – he stuffed into his boot. That done, he surveyed the room, determining where to set the pipe bombs to achieve maximum effect. The plan was to set the six bombs then wait until he had confirmation from Aisquith that Kate had been safely removed from the premises before he detonated. The gasoline-soaked fuses would ensure a slow burn and that, in turn, should give him enough lag time to clear out. Wouldn’t want to get his ass blown to Kingdom Come.

Logistics figured out, he very carefully picked up two pipe bombs. Ready to rock and roll.

As if on cue, his phone softly vibrated against his waist.

Finn set the bombs back on the table and checked the LCD screen. Incoming from Aisquith. He assumed the Brit was letting him know that he’d found Kate. He flipped the phone open.

Fuck!

Message read, Finn flipped the clam phone shut and clipped it on his waistband. According to Aisquith, there was an armed unfriendly headed in his direction.

He re-wrapped the six pipe bombs in the towel, taking care even as he hurriedly cleared the work table. He did not want it carved on his tombstone that he was a dumb-fuck bomb maker who died from bad dumb luck.

No sooner had he slipped the bundled pipe bombs into his Go Bag and unsheathed his KA-BAR knife than he heard footsteps just outside the door.

He ducked behind a rotund hot-water boiler, stashing his Go Bag in the corner.

The doorknob turned. Finn stilled his breath. Completely hidden out of sight, he had the advantage. And the beauty of an edged weapon? It would not run out of bullets or jam on him. If you knew how to hit the sweet spot, a knife could be just as lethal as a loaded gun.

The door swung open. Finn peered between the boiler and a set of copper pipes. A big bruiser with a solid build entered the room. He had the confident stride of a man who had some serious military training. Uhlemann’s muscle, obviously.

Luckily, the bruiser didn’t seem the least bit perturbed that the overhead lights were turned on. Finn’s gaze honed in on the holstered Sig Sauer P6.

Finn wanted that gun in the worst awful way.

Quickly he ran through his options: attacking and using the KA-BAR in a close-quarter situation, slicing or punching a hole in a major artery; tossing the KA-BAR at the dude’s heart; or tossing the knife at his backside, then disarming him from behind.

Settling on the last option, he soft-footed away from the boiler, keeping to the shadows. The bruiser was headed for the trio of big aluminium condensers on the other side of the room. Finn took aim and hurled the KA-BAR knife.

The bruiser, seeing the blur of motion reflected in the shiny aluminium, lurched out of the way at the last possible instant, the KA-BAR puncturing a hole in the condenser instead of the bruiser.

Possessed with quick reflexes, the other man spun on his heel as he reached for the P6.

Fuck!