Red flashing lights and a blasting alarm, hot air and the smell of sulphur, screams of pain echoing off craggy rock walls—it’s something right out of Dante’s Inferno.
Another gunshot. A bullet whizzes by inches from my left ear. I duck and roll, take cover behind a console of computer equipment, and watch as Ryan and Murphy drop to a knee just inside the tunnel, rifles raised. Behind them stand Dick, Kasey, and Reid, flanking the walls. A blistering volley of shots ring out as they all open fire on two guards standing at the railing on the raised platform across the cave. Jerking and flailing their arms, they go down in a hail of bullets.
At the top of my lungs, I holler, “Tabby!”
When I hear her scream my name in answer, I move faster than I’ve ever moved in my life. It’s like I’ve been shot out of a cannon. I leap to my feet and charge toward the spiral stairs that lead up to the platform from where her scream came. All thoughts of my own safety vanish. I don’t heed the bullets whizzing by my body, or the shrieking alarm, or the armed men who leap out at me with rifles raised. I cut them down and keep moving.
I take the stairs three at a time. I don’t hesitate at the top, even though there might be a man with a gun waiting there—the woman I love is in peril, screaming my name. Nothing on this earth could stop me or even slow me down.
I fly up the last step, fully prepared to spray death on anyone standing in my way. But I see only two dead guards riddled with holes and Tabby, lying in a pool of her own blood.
I quickly sweep the area. No one else in sight.
Tabby says, “They’re gone.”
I rip off my helmet and goggles and go to her side. She’s white, shaking, curled around herself, gripping her thigh.
It has a big fucking hole in it. And it’s leaking. Bad.
“You’re okay, princess.” I keep my voice completely steady although I’m anything but sure she’s going to be okay. In fact, if the bullet nicked an artery—
Nope. Not going there either.
“S?ren and two guards,” she says through gritted teeth. “They went—” She jerks her head toward an opening in the cave wall, a tunnel that curves out of sight beyond a bank of computer servers. A smear of blood leads to the tunnel. I don’t know if it’s her blood that he’s trailing or if he’s injured, but if he isn’t, he will be soon.
I shuck off my rucksack, tear it open, dig out the IFAK, remove the tourniquet and the QuikClot pack. I rip a larger hole in Tabby’s pants around the bullet hole, quickly tie a tourniquet above the wound—my heart thudding as she groans in pain—and then tear the packet open and carefully press the gauze directly on the wound. The product is coated in a mineral clotting agent that will help stanch the blood flow, but she’s already lost a lot.
Then Ryan is at the top of the stairs, gun raised. When he sees only Tabby and me, he lowers his weapon, crosses to us, and takes a knee. “Hey, Red. Funny meeting you here.”
Tabby nods, her eyes closed, her lips pressed together so hard, they’re white all around the edges. I know she’s in excruciating pain. Ryan and I share a look.
“First level’s being secured. Doesn’t look like there are any more guards than those we’ve already encountered. Here?”
“Two points of egress, two non-breathing hostiles, and a couple of runners, including the Big Bad.” I nod to the tunnel with the smear of blood leading to it.
Ryan checks his watch. “Exfil in twenty.”
We share another look.
The Army’s Special Operations Aviation Regiment arrives within a thirty-second window. We have to be in the extraction point exactly on time. Which means I don’t have long.
Ryan says, “I got her, and I’ve got your six. Go get some.”
“Get some” doesn’t mean to a soldier what it means to civilians. When I hesitate, not wanting to leave Tabby’s side, he repeats more forcefully, “Go!”
I squeeze Tabby’s arm and then leap to my feet and follow the trail of blood to the mouth of the tunnel.
I know I’m getting close when someone takes a shot at me.
“Where the fuck did you learn to shoot, numbnuts?” I mutter, ducking back around a corner of the tunnel. Not that I’m complaining, but that shot was wide by a mile. After a few seconds when I chance a look around the corner, I can see why.
Two guards are dragging a third man—who must be Killgaard—between them. He’s hopping on one bare foot, barely able to stay upright, his arms slung around their shoulders. One of the guards is looking back, moving forward while shooting to the rear.
I take a knee, take aim, and take him out.
When he falls, the other guard spins around, dropping S?ren in the process. The guard lifts his rifle and points it at me—
And then he’s dead too.
I’m in a loping run before he even hits the ground. When I’m about three meters away from S?ren, I hear the noise.
It’s a wet, wheezing, sucking noise, like nothing I’ve ever heard.