Johnson lunged laterally for the backpack to the strains of the Gen Y man screaming, as the two creatures began to devour the bleeding man. Johnson dropped his handgun, but held onto his knife as he scrabbled for the straps on the backpack. His body slid headfirst across the slick white floor of the corridor. At the last second before the backpack dipped into the gaping hole in the closet’s floor, Pete Johnson snagged the tailing strap on the canvas-covered bomb. Unfortunately, his body was still sliding and moving so fast that by the time he attempted to arrest his momentum, the pack, his arm and part of his torso had all already fallen into the hole. Johnson was just about to accept the inevitability of the fall to the cavern floor, nearly a mile below him, when he felt a strong tug on his leg.
He twisted as he fell and looked back up the hole into the closet. The heel of his combat boot had stopped at the lip of the hole. He was hanging upside down, the bomb dangling in the yawning abyss below his head. The salamander that had come for him began to slide into the hole with him, its tongue tightly wrapped around his leg like the stripes on a candy cane. When the beast’s shoulders jammed against the edges of the hole, they both came to a jerky halt. Johnson looked up at the creature in astonishment as it opened and closed its massive maw, scrabbling backward with its suction cup-like toes. For a second, it seemed like a stalemate to Johnson. They were stuck, with the salamander jammed into the hole and Johnson’s body dangling over the cavern like the Sword of Damocles.
Then the salamander found its purchase and began moving backward, hauling Johnson’s leg up out of the hole.
“Oh for the love of…” He pushed against the lip of the hole with his other foot, halting his ascent.
Johnson quickly ran though his choices. Plunge to certain death with a bomb that might destroy everything or get hauled up and eaten by a mutant monster. There was no guarantee if he got the bomb back up into the corridor that it would minimize the effects of the detonation. On the other hand, if he managed to survive the fall for even a few minutes after the impact, he might be able to defuse the bomb. Unless it went off while he was fighting the salamander.
There was no choice after all.
Johnson shoved his leg hard, dragging the Salamander’s head back into the hole. It opened its mouth again and made a noise that sounded to Johnson like a growl as it struggled to regain its footing. When they stopped descending again as the creature’s shoulders lodged against the edge of the hole, Johnson brought his bayonet up. The salamander growled at him even louder.
“Wanna impress me, fucker? Follow me down.”
Pete Johnson, White Five, swiped at the long pink tongue wrapped around his leg with the knife, and the sharp edge split the meat and tissue with ease. The salamander retreated back out of the hole as Johnson started to fall into darkness. As he fell, he pulled the backpack with the bomb to his chest and hugged it tightly, ready for the ride.
16.
Section Central, Former Manifold Alpha Facility, White Mountains, NH
White One had heard enough. He had peeked around a pallet and seen the black uniforms and the chest emblems. He knew the men in his hangar were Gen Y. There were about ten of them and he’d overheard that at least one of them was heading into the cavern below the Labs to plant another bomb down there like Ridley had done. This group was heading to the computer lab and then the submarine dock. And the Irishman was their leader.
Carrack seethed. These scum had casually strutted into his base, killed his men with deathtraps and planned to blow the place off the face of the planet when they were done. So much for going into action before things turn FUBAR, he thought.
At least I can still bring the hellfire.
Carrack stood up from behind his pallet and pulled the safety clip off of an M67 fragmentation grenade. As a lefty, he held the device upside down. He pulled the pin out and let the safety lever flip into his right hand. He paused one second and then lobbed the device through the air of the hangar at the cluster of Gen Y men by the corridor leading down to the train platform. He squatted down behind the protection of his pallet just as the device detonated. The resounding boom of the explosion echoed loudly in the confined space and the smoke from the Composition B detonation filled the space between the corridor and Carrack’s cover.
Men were screaming and Carrack heard MP5 fire. He had no idea whether his opponents knew the general direction from which the grenade had come. He figured they didn’t. It was panic fire. He glanced around the side of his pallet, with his head no more than a foot off the ground. The smoke was rising in the hangar’s air—he wouldn’t be able to see the corridor at head height but he could see their ankles. It looked like his blast had killed at least five of the men. Then he corrected his assessment when he saw that one of the men on the floor was moving and hollering at the damage to his leg.
“Shut it!” Carrack heard the Irishman shout at the wounded man, a moment before the loud report of a 9mm handgun went off. The injured man stopped moving and made no more noise.