‘In energy terms, the Mongolia event is estimated at over nine point five on the Richter Scale,’ Daniel explained. ‘That far eclipses what happened at Tunguska in 1908, close on the equivalent of three gigatons of TNT. The biggest thermonuclear device ever detonated tips the scale at only fifty megatons. By comparison to this Mongolia incident, the Taráca quake was just a ripple.’
Roberta was frowning. ‘So what are you saying, that they’re increasing the power as they go?’
Daniel nodded. ‘Assuming that the devastation in the Altai Mountains was not a natural event, and it’s too strange and coincidental to assume otherwise, then that would appear so, yes. They’re cranking up the volume bit by bit, testing the capabilities of the technology. I believe that what we’ve seen up until now was just a dry run, if you will. A rehearsal.’
‘A rehearsal for what?’ Roberta asked, her frown deepening.
Daniel spread his hands. ‘I don’t know. Neither did Claudine. But I think that Mitch Shelton probably did.’
‘Okay, and who’s he?’
‘According to our sources, Shelton was a CIA operative allegedly also employed by the classified agency that may or may not be directly behind this. Seems he found out a little too much of what was going on, became alarmed and confided some of what he’d discovered to an American journalist and conspiracy investigator called Chester Guardini. When Claudine and I met Guardini at a Free Earth symposium in Frankfurt last October, he seemed terrified. Kept looking over his shoulder. Wouldn’t say much, except that something big was in the offing.’
‘Something big?’ Roberta said. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. He kept talking about something called Nemesis. Some kind of secret program. He wouldn’t say more, just that he and Shelton were planning to blow the lid off real soon. Said it would be the biggest thing since … well, the biggest thing since ever. But it never happened. And it never will. Just days after we spoke to him, we heard that Guardini’s car had been totalled by a truck back home in Chicago. With him in it, that is. Pronounced dead at the scene. Around the same time, Mitch Shelton drowned accidentally on a fishing trip near Miami. Believe that if you can. Coincidence? I don’t think so.’
‘So with all the potential witnesses gone, we basically have no idea what this Nemesis program is?’ Ben said.
‘Pretty much none,’ Daniel replied. ‘And they’re serious about keeping it that way. After we heard about the deaths of Guardini and Shelton, I started getting scared. Claudine and I had been right there with him, talking in a public place. Who was to say we hadn’t been watched, followed, caught on camera? I told her it was getting too dangerous, that we should back off. If we get in too deep, I said, we’ll never get out again. But she wouldn’t listen. We argued.’
‘She was wilful that way,’ Roberta said. ‘Once she got an idea in her head, that was it.’
Ben looked at her and felt like saying ‘Claudine wasn’t the only one’, but he kept his mouth shut. A movement from the window caught his eye and he glanced outside to see that more birds had flown down to join the little flock greedily crowding around the food in the dirt. A shred of ham went flying; a crumb was snapped up by a darting beak. At least somebody was having a good time.
Daniel’s face cracked. He bowed his head and he started to weep pitifully. ‘I should have done more to persuade her,’ he sobbed, his shoulders quaking. ‘I should have been more forceful. Now she’s dead and it’s my fault. And next,’ he sniffed, wiping his tears, ‘they’ll come after me. I know it. What am I going to do? I found a safe place out here. I leave, they’ll zoom in on me and I’m history.’
With a sympathetic expression Roberta went over to Daniel and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘We can get you out of Sweden without them knowing, Daniel. Can’t we?’ she added, turning towards Ben. Daniel’s face seemed to brighten a little. ‘You can? But how?’
‘By flying right under those sonsofbitches’ radar,’ she replied. ‘That’s how we got here unnoticed. We have a plane.’
‘You have an aircraft? Where?’
‘At an airstrip, a little way south of here,’ she said. ‘We could get there in just a few hours in your Land Rover.’
‘I’m ready to leave any time,’ Daniel said.
‘Ben? What do you say?’
‘Two questions,’ Ben said. ‘The first, where are we supposed to take him? The second, where are we going ourselves? It looks to me as if we’ve hit a dead end.’
Daniel paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, then said, ‘Maybe not. I haven’t told you everything I know.’
But Ben had suddenly lost interest in what Daniel knew. Another movement outside had distracted his attention. The flock of birds gathered to peck at Daniel’s tossed sandwich had suddenly scattered, erupting like a small explosion and flying away in all directions for the safety of the trees. Ben jumped up and strode quickly to the window.
‘What is it?’ Roberta said, her eyes widening in alarm.
He stared intently at the trees. Nothing moved. The forest seemed perfectly still. It could have been anything. The approach of some predator, a fox, maybe. Even just a ripple of wind through the branches could have frightened the wary birds.
And yet …
Ben’s senses were jangling. Something was wrong.
‘Ben?’ Roberta asked anxiously. ‘What have you seen?’
‘Somebody’s out there,’ Ben said.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They knew who they were dealing with. A full ten-man complement had been deployed for the assault team who were now making the final approach towards the isolated cabin on foot. The team leader led the way, stalking carefully and quietly through the trees, an assault weapon with fitted grenade launcher hanging from his neck. He and the other nine were clad in black tactical entry vests and masks, and wearing radio earpieces. Their automatic rifles were loaded and ready.
Their objective was simple: take out the targets. Take no chances. Leave no trace.
The team leader was Lloyd McGrath. Under the black ski mask, his face was hard. He signalled the men to pause as the parked Land Rover and the cabin beyond it came into view through the foliage. For a few moments, he watched and listened intently. Fifty yards away, the cabin seemed still. In his mind’s eye McGrath could see the two men and the woman inside. The attack would be swift. Ten men. Not even a former SAS guy stood a chance. He might be good; he might be every bit as good as the old man seemed to think he was. But McGrath hadn’t seen a Special Forces superman yet who wasn’t made of the same mortal flesh and blood as anyone else. And McGrath was an expert on flesh and blood: how to destroy the one; how to spill the other.
Ben Hope wasn’t coming out of this alive, not this time. Not after the embarrassment of Paris.
At McGrath’s further signal, four men broke off from the team. Two moved stealthily under cover of the foliage around the sides of the cabin, left and right, working their way around to rejoin at the back. The other pair trotted forward towards the parked Land Rover, keeping low to the ground. They reached the vehicle and crouched down, awaiting further orders from their earpieces.
The forest was completely silent except for the whisper of the breeze through the leaves.
McGrath unslung his AR-15. He slipped a grenade from the holder on his belt into the tube assembly mounted under the weapon’s barrel, forward of the curved 30-round magazine. Resting the weapon in the crook of a tree, he took careful aim at the cabin through his illuminated optical sights. He braced his feet apart against the recoil, then tugged the grenade launcher’s trigger.
The steel cylindrical projectile fired out of the tube with a loud hollow thud. It sailed in an arc towards the cabin and smashed with a tinkling of glass through the front window where McGrath had been aiming.
A moment later, there was a muffled crump as the stun munition detonated inside the cabin. The shockwave was to disorientate the targets. To soften them up, not to kill them. That would come next. The Direc
tor wanted neat, identifiable kills, not a mound of charred body parts.
That remit still gave McGrath plenty of scope to enjoy himself. The last time he’d got to do a woman had been the Claudine Pommier job. Now he was looking forward to the sight of the Ryder bitch with her pretty features all messed up by a bullet.
‘Go,’ he said into his throat mike, and watched as the two initial entry pairs stormed simultaneously up to the front and back doors, weapons levelled.
McGrath waited for the gunfire. He heard nothing.
Seconds later the report came back through his earpiece: the targets weren’t in the cabin.
‘Find them,’ McGrath said.
There hadn’t been time to make it to the vehicle or escape into the woods. But the little trap-door under the living room rug had allowed the three of them to slip out under the cabin floor, hidden from view by the wooden skirt that ran around its base.
Ben was lying on his back on the bare, cool earth with Daniel’s shotgun at his side, looking up at the floorboards two feet above him. The sturdy planking had protected them from the stun munition blast. Ben knew that was only the opening gambit.
Roberta was sprawled close by him, clutching the Beretta submachine gun, eyes wide and turned upwards, nervously biting her lip. Ben was a lot more worried about Daniel. The Swede looked about to fall apart in a sweating, gibbering panic. Ben put his finger to his lips and gave him a warning look.
Heavy footsteps rang off the boards over them. Through the gaps in the planking Ben could see the dark figures of the intruders striding about. As far as he could tell, there were three in the living room and a fourth had just walked out of the front door, reporting on a radio. He wasn’t Swedish. He was American.
None of the other three had yet noticed the rug pulled unevenly to one side or the small trapdoor neatly inset into the floorboards, but they soon might. One was standing right over the trapdoor. If he spotted it now, the game was up.
Ben gripped the Mossberg. Its five-shot tube magazine was refilled and there was a sixth cartridge in the breech. He silently, gently, eased off the safety. He gave Roberta a look that told her what he was about to do. His expression said, ‘Stick close by me. It’ll be fine.’ She stared mutely back at him, visibly fluttering with adrenaline.
Ben didn’t believe in prayer at a time like this. He closed his eyes for a second. Visualised his targets. Saw them going down one after another with speed and precision. Readied himself mentally and felt his heart rate ease a notch. He took a deep breath, counted one – two – three.
And then crashed the trapdoor lid open with the barrel of the shotgun and burst up through the floor.
Chapter Forty
There was a split-second pause as the man standing over the trapdoor stared down at Ben, the eyes in the ski-mask slits boggling in surprise.
Ben jabbed the shotgun barrel up towards him and squeezed the trigger at closer than point blank range. That close up, even a round of bird-shot could kill just about anything.
The twelve-bore went off with a sound like a bomb in the cabin and recoiled heavily in Ben’s hands. The force of the blast picked the man up off his feet and threw him halfway across the room. Before he’d hit the floor, Ben was already working the action and tracking the gun anticlockwise through thirty degrees to engage his second target. Another deafening explosion; another man in black went down as if a scythe had taken his legs out from under him. Ben shot him again.
The sudden noise and violence had thrown the intruders into a confusion. The third man in the room was racing for the cover of the passage doorway. Ben got off another shot, but it went wide as the man darted out of sight. He saw flecks of blood hit the wall around the ragged hole left by the shotgun blast.
Ben felt movement at his feet and looked down. Daniel was scrabbling past Roberta in his haste to get out of the trapdoor. ‘Give me a gun!’ he piped, panic-stricken. ‘I need a gun!’
Ben ignored him. He was more concerned about that grenade shooter outside. Now the element of surprise was spent, the guy wouldn’t be slow to figure out where to deliver his next charge. A stun munition going off in the confined space under the cabin would lay them all out unconscious, and make easy pickings of them for the attackers. Seconds counted, and there wouldn’t be many of them to spare.
‘A gun!’ Daniel was still babbling. ‘You can’t leave me defenceless!’
Ben impatiently ripped the Browning from his belt and thrust it into Daniel’s hands. ‘Take it and shut up,’ he rasped. He reached down past Daniel, grabbed Roberta by the hand and yanked her up out of the square hole with the Beretta hanging about her neck. At that instant, he heard the flat whoof of the second grenade firing from the trees and the clattering thud as it bounced its way deep under the cabin.
‘Shit,’ he breathed. Not good. Time was a little pressing now.
Ben hauled Daniel from the trapdoor as if he’d been a sack of coal. The Swede let out a cry as the Browning snagged and he clumsily let it drop from his hand. There was no time to go back for it. Ben dumped him in a heap on the floor and kicked the trap shut just in time to block out the pressure wave of the stun blast as it burst violently under the floorboards, shaking the whole cabin. Daniel staggered upright, pressed his hands to his ears.
‘Close one,’ Roberta said.
Ben looked quickly around him. The living room was cleared, but it wouldn’t be for many more seconds. One dead man was lying spread-eagled on the floor, the other was slumped against the wall. The blood trail from the third led out into the passage. A glance through the shattered front window: more black-clad figures outside. Maybe three, maybe four. Making fast for the cabin. Footsteps crashing on the front porch.
A figure appeared in the doorway. The flash of black gunmetal; Ben swung round with the shotgun at his hip and let off another round before the shooter could fire. The booming Mossberg took a semi-circular bite out of the doorframe and wall. The black figure fell back. More swarmed up behind him. Ben racked the Mossberg and fired twice more. Answering shots rang out. Ben felt the wind of a bullet pass his face. Splinters flew from the wall behind him. His last shot was gone and his pistol was lost under the cabin. Roberta had the only working weapon and she was determinedly bringing it to bear on the entrance when Ben grabbed her from behind and pulled her back towards the passage before she got shot. Daniel had already darted through the doorway ahead of them.
Bullets drilled through the walls as they ran. Three yards down the passage, and they were suddenly confronted by the hobbling figure of the shooter Ben had winged. The man raised his gun. Roberta aimed the Beretta. Before either of them could get off a shot, Ben hurled the heavy steel mass of the Mossberg at him like a spear. The tip of the muzzle hit him in the chest. Then Ben was into him, knocking him violently to the floor and stamping his head as he trampled over the top of him. ‘Come on!’ he yelled at the others. There wasn’t even time to pick up the fallen man’s weapon before their pursuers appeared behind them in the passage. Two more shots rang out. Roberta let out a cry and clapped a hand to her arm.
Hauling her along behind him, Ben burst into the cluttered back hallway through which he’d come earlier. The rear exit was in front of him, the kitchen door to his right. Through the dirty glass of the back door he could see two more men rushing towards the porch.
Barely time to think. Nearby were the two spare propane gas cylinders. He nudged them with his knee, felt the weight of the liquid gas inside. He snatched up the little hatchet from the kindling box and used the blunt end of the blade like a hammer on the valves on the top of each bottle. In two wild blows they were bent crooked and gas was hissing out. He dropped the hatchet and swept his arm up to the shelf above, grabbed the wire handles of the two paraffin lamps and ripped them down as he leapt towards the kitchen doorway.
The men outside were thundering up the porch steps. The ones inside were racing up the passage. Ben crashed into the kitchen, hauling Roberta through with him. Daniel followed in a
panic. Ben shouldered the door shut. There was a heavy iron bolt. He slid it quickly home, then dashed across to the pine kitchen table. With a violent heave he overturned it with the thick tabletop facing the door. He grasped Roberta’s hand and pulled her down into a crouch behind the makeshift barrier. ‘Let me see that.’ He ripped urgently at her bloody sleeve and saw with relief that the bullet had only creased the top layer of skin.
‘This isn’t the time for first aid,’ she said, but her words were drowned out by the flurry of gunfire that began hammering into the kitchen door. Before Ben could stop her, Roberta had darted out from behind the cover of the overturned table, switched the Beretta to full-auto and was hosing bullets at the door. The kitchen filled with deafening noise as she let off the entire contents of the magazine. Empty cases rained down on the floor. The splintering wood was rapidly disintegrating as a large ragged hole appeared in the middle of the door. By the time Ben grabbed her and spun her back behind the tabletop, the Beretta was empty.
Now they had no weapon. Any number of heavily-armed attackers were just the other side of the door; it was going to fall apart any second from the overwhelming amount of gunfire being sprayed into the kitchen. Bullets were hammering like crazy into the tabletop, chewing away the wood, and it wouldn’t shield them much longer. Daniel was cringing in a ball with his hands over his head.
Ben took the box of matches from his pocket and grabbed the two paraffin lamps. He sniffed them and caught the sharp tang of fuel he’d been hoping to smell.
‘What are you doing?’ Roberta yelled.
‘It’s time to warm things up a little,’ Ben said, and struck a match.
Chapter Forty-One
One paraffin lamp sputtered rapidly into life, then the other. Ben peered over the top of the table. The ragged hole in the door was almost large enough for a man to crawl through. He hurled a lamp. It shattered against the edge of the hole. There was a flash of igniting fuel, a scream as the passage filled with flames. Ben hurled the second lamp. It went cleanly through the hole. He ducked back behind the table and pressed Roberta down, shielding her with his body from what was about to happen.