Deep Rising (An Outside the Lines Novel) (Entangled Select) (22 page)

“I’m willing to listen. But I sure as hell don’t trust you. Mr. Hawthorne got rid of you for a reason. If you try anything, I’ll shoot first and feel sorry if I’m wrong later.”

“Jared is in danger. We all are. Where is he?”

“I’m not his partner,” the man confessed. “Or his protector. Your man’s using me for transportation. Nothing more.”

“He’s not my man.”

Randall shrugged. “There’s food near the patio. Have a bite to eat. Sit. Start praying.”

“I’m not about to snack on hors d’oeuvres while his life hangs on the line.”

“There’s nothing you can do. From what I understand, if he doesn’t make it back we’re both dead anyway.”

“Is he going to the tunnels or the rift?” She watched the man carefully, praying he’d give away some hint. If Jared hadn’t knocked her unconscious, she would’ve discussed both options. She would’ve confided in him her opinion. Randall continued to stare at her blankly. She didn’t have time for these games. “Look, asshole, a group of seriously psychotic terrorists have elected to decimate the entire Eastern Seaboard.” There would be damage to South America, Africa and Europe too, but she didn’t bother with the details. “There are two main places on this island that would make for catalyst points. The first is in the tunnels. The second is on the ridgeline, in the rift that opened after the earthquakes and eruptions back in 1949. I’m a volcanologist. I’ve studied these sites.
I
outlined the weak spots. I
know
what I’m talking about!” She paused to let the implications set in. “A flank collapse will kill tens of millions of people—maybe more.” She stepped closer to him. “
Where did Jared go
?”

Randall must have believed her because he sighed, then cursed and mumbled something about her and pains in his ass. “He’s at the tunnels.”

Shit.
“He’s headed to the wrong location.” Lana had walked and measured the trench. She’d discussed the ten-kilometer rift that marked the fault on the island like a giant zipper. And then she’d shared that information with her family, with her brother, back when she’d been young and overzealous and blindly focused on publishing her work and finishing her doctorate.

The man stalked away from her. “No offense, but he’s an elite CIA operative. They don’t make mistakes. He has access to the best intel and the most up-to-the-minute information attainable.”

She contemplated telling this guy about her brother. Problem was, he didn’t trust her, and mentioning that little tidbit might get her tied and gagged and left behind—or worse. “What if there’s more than one person? What if this is a trap and they plan to detonate at a second location?” Even with military support at the other, they might not know what to look for. And what if Jared was walking into a trap? She couldn’t bear to think of him alone and outnumbered. “He needs our help. Hell, if I could find him on my own, what’s to stop a professional?”

She watched the man rake a hand through his hair and curse again beneath his breath.

“You’re probably wrong,” he mumbled.

“What if I’m not?” Lana countered.

Randall withdrew a large duffel bag from beneath the mattress and dumped it atop the double bed. Weapons tumbled onto the duvet like candy from a bag. He tossed a matte black pistol to Lana.

The gun surprised her with its heavy weight.

“Where does this madman intend to go?” he asked.

If only she’d been more straightforward with Jared when he had questioned her on the plane…

“Do you know exactly where to go?” he asked again.

“Of course.” She palmed the gun and switched off the safety. “The terrorist is following
my
instructions.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Along the jagged, natural portion of the cave, water seeped through cracks in the ceilings and walls. Where man reinforced and burrowed with machine, the scars lingered, visible to the naked eye.

As Jared crept along the tunnel he could hear the low mumblings of men absorbed in conversation. The distance prevented him from discerning their words.

A hundred meters in, he encountered another secured area. A giant gate spanned the width of the tunnel from ceiling to floor. He didn’t need to rip apart the digital security system to hack it. A light dusting of florescent fingerprinting powder over the keypad illuminated the four digits that corresponded to the code. The thickness of the powder revealed the sequence, more oil being transferred from a scientist’s fingers to the initial numbers than the last. Additional oil meant additional absorbed powder, revealing the sequence.

7-5-2-4

The gate unlocked. Keeping his weapon trained in front of him, Jared slipped through.

A large trailer took up the right side of the tunnel. Beside it, three diesel generators provided power. This was the particle accelerator laboratory, the area beneath the extinct volcano where scientists toiled to uncover dark matter, that enigmatic, untraceable constituent of the universe. The murmur of electronic equipment and the soft hiss of fans designed to keep those instruments cool told him they had neglected to dismantle anything within the lab. But did they add something?

Jared jogged up the steps to the trailer. Heavy steel beams reinforced the portable computer station. Outside, the linear particle accelerator pipes began. The electron-positron collider pipe trailed for as far as Jared could see. Two-ton magnets were interspersed along the line at intervals, ensuring that the beam stayed its course.

He dismissed everything associated with cosmology and physics. Concentrating on the trailer from whence he heard voices, he approached and tested the door. Unlocked. But he didn’t barge in. He considered the trailer for a moment. The aluminum, portable laboratory possessed no windows. He couldn’t see inside to determine if the men had already activated the bomb. The door itself could be a rigged detonator. Any number of devices could catalyze the explosion.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Jared depressed the receiver on his personal GPS unit. It would take a minute or two, but backup would arrive.

On a hunch, Jared hammered on the door.

The door would open to the left, so he positioned himself to the far right, pressing his body against the wall of the building. He heard some commotion. Clearly, someone within the room decided to respond.

The door creaked open.

Kicking out, Jared’s heel connected with the door and he sent it swinging open. He recognized a man as one of the Russians who had escaped from the tube in Hawaii. He shot him in the chest.

Shots rang in reply to his initial attack. He didn’t know how many men hid inside, but a cursory glance revealed at least two sets of legs.

“Come out with your hands up!” he shouted.

With Sergei dead, Jared didn’t think whoever lingered would be willing to commit suicide in order to trigger the tsunami. Suicide, even for a noble cause, violated every intrinsic instinct.

Jared heard the distinct sound of two stroke engines roaring to life. Running to the far end of the lab, he noted a second entrance. Two men mounted dirt bikes, escaping in a cloud of dust. Miles of branching corridors existed, and Jared wasn’t familiar with the terrain. On foot, his chances of catching them were piss-poor.

“Stop!” he shouted.

Jared didn’t really expect the men to desist. But one of the attackers, the man who had claimed to be John Gelonese, stopped dead in his tracks. Jared didn’t lower his weapon. He held the Glock loaded with the tracer rounds in his left hand. In his right, he clenched a fully automatic compact machine gun.

“You waste time!” The imposter mumbled something to his comrade, and the second man darted up the tunnel in a flurry of squealing tires and flying gravel.

“The bomb is within the lab,” he said. “You must consider the proximity to the particle accelerator. I do not think it will be able to generate a nuclear reaction but…”

“Why are you doing this?” Jared roared.

“I’m not,” the man maintained. “You have caught us because I allowed you to,” the man replied cryptically. “But it does not end here. The Wolf does not dirty his hands but neither shall he rest…”

“This is madness. You must stop!”

The man shifted gears.

Jared teetered with his finger on the trigger. Something compelled him to spare this man for the moment. Some instinct urged him to believe more information could be gleaned from this vile underling. Jared detected the unmistakable thunder of troops bombarding the tunnel. He didn’t divert his attention from the imposter.

“Stop!” he yelled again, but the Russian made no move to obey. Jared’s finger tightened on the trigger.

The recoil barely caused his left arm to twitch.

The man jerked and the bike skidded from beneath him. He glanced back at Jared and hissed. Clenching his arm, the wounded man managed to climb back on the dirt bike. Jared heard the whine of the engine and witnessed the man’s wobbly retreat. With the Russian accounted for, he tore into the lab.

Stacked like old books in the corner of the room, the four scientists lay piled atop each other. Their eyes and mouths drooped open. Blood pooled in proportion to their positions. He could do nothing for them. They had been dead for at least a day.

In the center of the lab…
damn.

The terrorists had welded a bomb directly to the particle accelerator. Beside it—
damn it all to hell
—were two six-by-six containers.

Thermite.

“Son of a bitch! Why can’t anything be easy?”

Jared immediately went to work. He didn’t bother with attempting to dismantle the bomb. The incendiary device might boast the capacity to obliterate six city blocks, but the clock read twenty-three minutes—ample time. Carefully tracing the outside of the canister, he probed for any inconsistencies. Ah, a trip wire beneath the housing. Clever, but expected.

The grumbling racket of Humvees barreling up the tunnel prompted Jared to scream, “I’m inside! The situation is under control!” With the way things had transpired since the onset of his mission, catching friendly fire would prove par for the course.

Four SEALs appeared at the entranceway, stacked, packed, and armed to the teeth.

“We have twenty-two-forty on the clock.” Jared spoke in a level voice. “We’ve got sufficient time to disarm this baby.”

“I’m Master Chief Tyler Houston,” one man said. “I’m the team leader.”

“You see those two crates beside the door, Chief?” Jared asked.

“Yeah. One box bears the formula for aluminum.”

Jared pulled pliers from his pack. “The other holds iron oxide.”

“Put them together and you’ve got thermite,” Tyler mumbled.

“How bad is it?” another SEAL asked. The stitching on his uniform read “Mannuelos.”

Jared glanced at him. “Add heat and it undergoes an exothermic reaction hot enough to bend steel. The reagents burn until they’re exhausted. There’s no extinguishing that kind of fire.”

“Smart,” Tyler said. “Considering this mountain’s basically a giant sponge. That puts us in the belly of a steam cooker.”

“Exactly.”

To his team, the SEAL chief hollered, “Bring the lifts!”

Jared caught a glimpse of eight men carefully separating the crates and carrying the lighter iron oxide out of the lab.

“Get it on a truck or hump it out of here,” Jared told them.

They moved to obey.

“Hustle, boys,” Tyler shouted. “Any sign of The Wolf?”

“None.”

Jared regarded the thickset man. The fellow SEALs had been subjected to a time-tested tradition of military training, meaning that everyone essentially received the privilege of getting beaten down and built up exactly the same way. It created a stereotypical personality. Jared found it annoying, the brutal conditioning and consequent loss of individuality, but at a time like this, he appreciated it. It assured him they all remained on the same page.

“Get in here, Chief, and give me a hand,” Jared insisted. “A suspect took off up the cave, but he had some parting words and they’ve got me concerned.”

The broad-shouldered man squatted beside him. His dark, wide-set eyes scrutinized the incendiary device. “There’s a transmitter attached to the central case,” the SEAL leader said. He pulled out an electric screwdriver. “May I?”

Jared nodded, starting in on the opposite set of screws. Together, they lifted the main housing.

“I see it,” Jared murmured. He had suspected that something was amiss when he first encountered the bomb, and now he knew why. “It’s a synchronized timer.”

Tyler dismantled the timer while Jared deconstructed the radio transmitter that would allow this bomb to be remotely detonated by the other.

“We’re clear,” Tyler said. “But there is another bomb out there.”

“Yeah,” Jared replied. “The other bomb is at the other site. We need to get moving.”

…

Hiking along the ridge, Lana scoured the hillside for any evidence of human manipulation. The landscape, for the most part, consisted of barren volcanic rock, loose topsoil, and below the tree line, an impenetrable sea of green. She didn’t give a damn about bicycling trails or ATV routes. She hunted for the actual fault that had opened up like a giant crack when Cumbre Vieja last erupted. Rumors abounded about the fault spanning twenty miles. It didn’t. Another falsehood claimed the flank of the stratovolcano had dropped twenty feet during the eruption. There had been no evidence of either event then, and it didn’t exist now. But the fault line did exist. Not as obvious as the tunnels bored directly into the island, but it did provide a natural, prominent position for implanting an incendiary device. Jared had gone to the tunnels, but this was the place she had mentioned to her brother oh-so-long ago. A large enough bomb, inserted deeply enough into the fault, had the potential to cleave off a portion of the island. She thought of an atomic bomb. When she’d first begun her research, it had been sparked by a newspaper headline spouting a quote from the Federation of American Scientists, a group founded by the very scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project. The FAS claimed that there were some 15000 nuclear bombs in existence—or more. But it would only take one . . .

“I hope you know what you’re looking for, lady,” the pilot mumbled.

Shining her flashlight ahead of her, Lana caught a flicker of something. Her light reflected off metal or some other polished surface, perhaps a half a mile up the trail.

“Did you—”

“I saw it,” Randall grabbed for the flashlight. “If we could see it, whoever’s out there will have a clear bead on us! Shut that off!”

Lana abruptly threw the light in the opposite direction. She broke into a run.

A hard arm caught her wrist, pulling so forcefully that her shoulder strained at the socket. “The only thing you’re going to accomplish racing into that clearing is a swift and mindless execution! Use your head. Keep to the ground. Use the rocks and trees for cover.”

“We don’t have time.”

Randall lifted his rifle. He stared down the scope, scanning the area. “There could be a hundred mines between here and there. Infrared scopes. Snipers.”

“Stay if it suits you,” Lana said. “Like your previous boss, I just needed a ride.”

He begrudgingly grinned. “I believe you missed your calling, lady.”

Lana didn’t have time for small talk. She had not survived so many momentous obstacles in the past two months only to stand idle on the sidelines now.

“Cover me,” she demanded, before sprinting ahead.

She ran flat-out over the rough terrain. Her foot caught an uneven rock and her ankle rolled. Pain shot up her leg, but she ignored it. The clear outline of an ATV came into focus. Behind the four-wheeler, a trailer carried a giant metal crate. Several crates perched side by side in the trench.

Holding the gun in front of her, Lana fired off shots. She wasn’t fool enough to aim for the men, not with their proximity to the giant crate, and not while she was running all-out. She couldn’t chance inadvertently setting off the bomb. She aimed over their heads, and hoped it would be enough to make them stop.

The muzzle of her weapon smoked.

As planned, the gunfire effectively startled the two men around the crates, and they shuffled for cover.

“Don’t do this!” she screamed, spanning the distance to the crevasse.

Fifty feet. Forty.

She fired two more shots, desperately striving to keep the men jockeying for cover rather than fixing her in their sights. She summoned all her strength and sprinted for the trench.

Thirty feet. Twenty.

A man stepped from the cover of the freight box.

Lana froze.

“Sergei?”

“Ah, my sweet sister, we meet again. I had not thought to see you again in this world.”

“You died.”

“I am a Messenger. Your petty attempts to defeat me were futile. I cannot die.”

Mindful of his fragile mental state since he was obviously delusional, Lana fixed a remorseful expression on her face. Rather than antagonize Sergei, she aimed the gun at his accomplice. The squat, middle-aged man continued to skulk along the fault line. Lana didn’t trust him for a second.

“Stop where you are! Keep your hands where I can see them!” she warned the man in his native tongue.

He laughed at her but halted.

“I watched you fall,” she whispered. “You were shot.”

He nodded. “Man’s weapons have no effect on me.”

Lana begged to differ. He was pale, sweating, and obviously not well.

“I escaped,” he continued. “Matteo, he helped me to the harbor. With one call, we obtained a boat.” His eerie smile chilled her to the bone. “Americans,” he sneered the word. “Your precious CIA, they aided us in our retreat.”

Dear God, the world was so corrupt! There had been an autopsy proving her brother was dead!
Jared had known something was wrong.
The attack on her cabin and now this information confirmed it.