The Athena Project

CHAPTER 59

PREMANTURA

ISTRIAN PENINSULA

CROATIA

Go, go, go,” Casey ordered her teammates as the Russian mobsters began their attack on the front of the compound. All of the alarms and sensors were going off at this point. The hope was that the attack on the front of the compound was so intense that it would hold the focus of Abressian’s men while the women carried out their assignment.

They climbed the rest of the rock and positioned themselves on an almost nonexistent piece of ledge.

“Megan, you’re up,” Casey said.

Rhodes removed a grappling hook and a length of rope from her pack. When she was ready, she swung the rope up and over the wall at a point where she believed it would catch. Pulling on it to make sure the hook had a good grab, she began to climb.

Once she was at the top of the wall, she looked out over the pandemonium raging in the compound. Abressian’s security team, dressed in military-style fatigues, were engaged in a heavy firefight with the Russians. Now was their chance.

Megan unslung the new LaRue OBR rifle she had been issued and signaled the others to come up. She kept each of them covered until they had climbed over the wall and down the other side. Once they were all inside the compound, it was time to move.

They hugged the wall and ran for cover. The sound of the gun battle raged, punctuated by the frequent detonation of grenades fired from launchers beneath the weapons of Mikhailov’s as well as Abressian’s men.

Following Casey, they broke for the church in a single-file stack. Casey watched for anything in front. Cooper and Ericsson handled their exposed left side, and Rhodes kept their backs, or their “six” as it was referred to, clear of any danger.

They pulled up short just before the church and pressed themselves against the wall. There were three guards crouched nearby. Casey signaled for Cooper and Ericsson to take them out. Alex and Julie broke off, their suppressed MP7 submachine guns up and at the ready.

Cooper took out the man nearest them while Ericsson quietly took out the other two. Once that was done, they rejoined the others.

The cords leading from the large generators into the church told them they were exactly where they needed to be.

“Everyone ready?” Casey whispered as they neared the doors. Rhodes, Ericsson, and Cooper all nodded.

“On three,” said Gretchen. “One, two, three!”

She pulled open the doors and the team swept inside. They found themselves in the nave and immediately spread out and took cover.

At the very end of the building, where the altar should have been, was what looked like an enormous representation of the Greek symbol for Omega, Ω. It was at least twenty feet high and covered with runic symbols. It was humming and seemed to be pulsating.

“We need to shut that thing off,” said Cooper. “Now.”

Casey agreed. “You and Julie disable those generators, fast. Megan and I will handle this. Go.”

Cooper and Ericsson snuck back outside, while Casey and Rhodes crept forward. They used the desks, computers, and other pieces of equipment as best they could for cover.

As they got closer, they could see three people frantically up to something at the front of the room. There was a man in his sixties with gray hair and a beard, flanked by two others-a man in a sport coat and another wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. Next to them were stacked the EMP bombs from Bianchi’s warehouse in Ljubljana. Casey and Rhodes knew they were looking at the Kammler Device and that the men in front of them were arming the EMP bombs to shove through. It was decision time.

Casey signaled to Megan to start shooting. Coming up from behind one of the desks, Casey got the man with the beard in her sights and was about to pull the trigger when the computer next to her exploded in a burst of gunfire.

She spun just as Megan Rhodes fired two shots in quick succession. She couldn’t tell where the shot at her had come from until she saw a head pop back up along with a weapon.

She got her MP7 up first and pulled the trigger, hitting the man with a three-round burst to the head. As he went down, she scanned for any other threats, but less than halfway through sweeping the room everything went dark. Cooper and Ericsson had made it to the generators and had cut the power.

Outside, the firefight continued to rage.

“I got two,” said Rhodes. “The guy in the sport coat and the guy with the T-shirt.”

“What about the guy with the beard?”

“I lost him when the lights went out.”

Casey signaled for her to sweep up toward the altar area from the right side, while she took the left.

They moved slowly. The interior lights had been so bright, it was tough getting adjusted to the darkness. Shouts, gunfire, and the occasional explosion of a grenade continued from outside.

“They’ve seen us,” Cooper said over the radio. “A bunch of security personnel have broken away from the front and we’re starting to take heavy fire.”

“Hold them off,” Casey ordered, “and make sure no one leaves this building except us.”

“Roger that,” Cooper replied.

As the fighting intensified outside, Casey and Rhodes converged on the Kammler Device. Sure enough, just as Megan had said, she had nailed both the man in the T-shirt and the man in the sport coat. There was no sign of the man with the beard, though. Casey signaled to keep looking.

From behind the altar area she heard a sound and quickly spun with her weapon. She thought she saw a flash of motion, but then it was gone.

Moving over to where it had been, she found that the wall behind the altar space was covered with wood paneling. She called Rhodes over to stand guard as she pushed against all of the panels. After a few moments of searching, she found one that gave beneath the pressure of her hand.

Popping it open, she discovered a stairwell and heard noises receding below. Transitioning to her pistol, Casey slung her MP7 and pulled out her flashlight. Rhodes did the same and followed right behind her.

The stone stairs curved down to the left. They seemed to go on forever.

Without warning, the stairs suddenly emptied into a small chamber. Even though the beam of Casey’s light was focused downward, it still gave them away. The walls and ceiling sparked as bullets popped and zinged all around them. They retreated up several steps and then, pointing their weapons around the wall and into the chamber, began firing.

When they crept back down they found the body of another of Abressian’s security personnel.

The chamber had a door at the end that had been left open. It led to a low tunnel and beyond that, the outdoors. They could see moonlight and thought they could hear the sea. There was also something else, the sound of a car being started. Casey and Rhodes both burst through the doorway and ran through the tunnel. Outside, they spotted a car quickly pulling away.

They emptied their pistol magazines and transitioned back to their primary weapons. Gretchen put a couple of rounds through the trunk and Megan managed to take out the back window, but the vehicle kept moving. They were certain that the bearded man was in the car and that he had to be Armen Abressian.

Casey knew that Hutton and the team back at Bragg were watching the entire scenario unfold in real time via satellite. “We’ve got a vehicle at the bottom of the hill, southwest corner, fleeing the facility and heading east,” said Casey.

“We see it,” replied a voice over Casey’s headset.

“Take it out,” she ordered.

“Roger that. Engaging target,” the voice radioed back.

Moments later there was a flash of light from out over the Adriatic as one of the F-16s from Aviano Air Force Base locked on the vehicle and fired.

No sooner had the car erupted than Casey and Rhodes were headed back toward the tunnel.

“We’re coming back your way,” Casey said over the radio to Cooper and Ericsson.

“Hurry up,” Ericsson replied. “They’ve got a lot of firepower up here.”

“We’re on our way.”

Casey and Rhodes ran down the tunnel and through the door into the chamber. As they ran up the stairs, they reloaded their weapons.

Bursting back into the church, they heard Cooper over the radio yell, “Grenade!” as the nave exploded.

Casey and Rhodes took cover behind the Kammler Device, narrowly escaping the force of the blast that tore through the church.

Even before the dust had settled, Gretchen tried to raise her colleagues, but they didn’t answer. She and Rhodes ignored the gunfire pouring into the building and raced forward. They found Cooper and Ericsson behind an overturned desk.

Before any of the women could say anything, another grenade was loosed. This time it was Rhodes who yelled out the warning as she and Casey dove to cover their two teammates.

The grenade exploded with a deafening blast and tore a huge chunk from the facade only feet from where they lay.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Casey.

“There’s too many of them,” replied Ericsson.

“We’re not going that way,” said Rhodes as she helped Cooper to her feet.

Half-carrying their teammates, Casey and Rhodes moved as fast as they could to the back of the church. Bullets flew all around them.

They were only partway down the stairs when they heard the distant thump of another grenade detonating somewhere back outside in the compound.

The team made it to the chamber below, then through the tunnel and out into the countryside. As they retreated away from the facility, Casey pulled a flare from her vest and launched it high above the compound. It was the signal she and Luka Mikhailov had agreed upon. She hoped he saw it, because he and his men wouldn’t have much time before fire fell from the sky.

Getting back on the radio, she informed Hutton and the rest of the team back at Bragg that they had found the EMP bombs and the Kammler Device. She then informed them that the compound was crawling with Abressian’s people and requested a strafing run by the F-16s with their 20 mm Gatling-style cannons. “Rain it down,” she said. “Smoke anything that moves. Blanket the entire compound.”