Fall of Hades (34 page)

“Opening S-001.” The door unlocked. “Collars off.”

I opened the door. The GPs didn't move.

“Déjà vu,” I said. “Just like the academy.” I looked at the men. “You can speak.”

No one did.

“Maybe they don't speak English,” Taylor said.

“I speak English,” one of them said with a British accent.

“Good. We are here to free you. But we have to fight against the Elgen. Will you help?”

“Yes.”

“What's your name?”

“I am Enele Saluni, grandson of the prime minister.”

“After we overthrow the Elgen, your grandfather will be free to rule again,” I said. “But right now the Elgen are coming and we need your men to fight.”

“The Elgen are coming here?”

“All of them. To destroy the prison.”

“Do we have weapons?”

“For everyone,” I said.

Enele turned and spoke in Tuvaluan, and the men immediately stood at attention.

“We will help,” Enele said.

“We've got to let everyone out,” I said. “We'll need everyone.”

We walked out, then opened the first four doors on the south side of the hall, releasing twenty prisoners. I led them back to Jack, leaving Taylor with the radio and Enele. When I returned to the armory, Welch was standing there with J.D., another crew member, Quentin, Tara, Torstyn, and Cassy.

“Everyone ready?” I asked.

“Where are we going?” J.D. asked defiantly. He must have figured out that he had nothing to lose, as he'd already lost his previous humility.

“There's been a change of plans,” Welch said. “You're going to sail back to Nike just as you told Hatch you would.”

J.D. scowled. “And if I refuse?”

Welch's eyes narrowed. “Imagine what it would feel like to have your hand in a microwave oven for sixty seconds. Torstyn can show you how that feels. And then he will melt your eyes, your tongue, then your brain, in that order. Do you understand?”

J.D. swallowed. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Torstyn, these are Hatch's friends and collaborators. If they make one wrong move, melt them. Slowly.”

“Just give the word,” Torstyn said, staring hatefully at J.D.

“Let's go.” Welch lifted his radio. “Come in, Gervaso.”

“Gervaso, copy.”

“This is Welch. We're headed down the tunnel. Just didn't want you to shoot us.”

“I'm headed out now for the dock. Good luck.”

“Roger,” Welch said into his radio. Then he turned to his group and said, “Let's go.”

I looked at Cassy. “Good luck.”

“I'll make sure they come back, if I have to drive the boat myself,” she said.

As we were parting, our radios squelched. “This is Ian. We've got small rafts landing on the west side of the island. Three of them. Here they come.”

“Looks like some of our guests arrived early,” Welch said. “Let's get this party started.” As the others began climbing down the ladder to the tunnel, Welch turned to me. “If we don't come back, it's because we failed or are dead. You can trust us.”

“I do,” I said. “Good luck.”

“Just hold out.” He turned and followed the rest of his group down the tunnel. Jack and his soldiers were standing quietly, sizing up the GPs.

“That's all there is?” one of the guards asked.

“It's just the first group,” I said. “We think there's about two hundred. Not all of them speak English. Not all of them are fit to fight.”

Jack turned to the GPs and asked, “Who speaks English?”

Three of the men raised their hands.

“Get up here,” he said to the biggest. “You're second-in-command of the squad.”

There was at least one English speaker for every ten natives, which was all we needed. While Taylor and I were releasing prisoners, Jack had established a chain of command with the guards and gone over the map of the installation, establishing their battle stations. He had also distributed radios to each Squad Captain.

With the guidance of a former Elgen Zone Captain, Jack created a plan to hold the outer wall.

The group of prisoners I had just brought were assigned a leader, and the man created the first squad, arming his men and leading them out to defend the west wall, where the Elgen had started landing.

By the time I returned to the south corridor, Taylor and Enele had released nearly a hundred prisoners.

“We better stop for now,” I said to Enele, a little nervous of so many unstable men roaming free. “We'll need a little time to assign them to squads.”

“Do not worry,” Enele said. “They will follow directions.”

I led the men back to the armory, where Jack and the guards divided them up while Taylor and Enele freed the rest. There were more prisoners than we expected, two hundred and thirty-two in all, so Jack created an extra squad, with Enele in charge.

*  *  *

After all the men had been sent out in squads, Taylor and I climbed the stairs four stories to the central watchtower. As we entered the observation room, we saw Tanner sitting cross-legged on one of the shelves, looking out through binoculars. He was wet, and there was a pool of water beneath him. He had opened a window and rain was blowing in, drenching him.

He's lost it,
I thought.

Nichelle was on the west side of the tower, and Ian was on the east side talking into his radio. He didn't need binoculars. It didn't even matter what side he sat on.

He turned toward us. “Guys, this rock is starting to crawl. I'm having trouble keeping track of them all. The first major wave is about to hit the west shore. Did you get my message about the early rafts?”

“Yes, we heard it. Did you warn Gervaso?”

“I don't know if he heard me. He didn't answer.”

“If he saw them, he turned his radio off so he wouldn't give himself away.”

Tanner spun around on the counter. “Hey, kidlings. There are more binoculars over there on that shelf. These things rock.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said warily.

We each took a pair. Then I walked over to Nichelle. “How are you?”

“You know, the sea scares me. I didn't want to tell you that on the boat. Thought it might worry you. But I think the devil rides the waves.”

I looked out and saw the first flotilla of Elgen boats approaching the island.

“He definitely is today,” I said. “How's Tanner?”

She just shook her head.

Just then, over the radio came, “Ian, this is Gervaso. Do you read me?”

A
fter Gervaso had established his machine gun nest at the inside neck of the tunnel, he grabbed the backpack he'd filled with explosives and, carrying just a Beretta handgun, crawled out the outer end of the tunnel. Just as he was about to surface, his radio squawked.

“Come in, Gervaso.”

“Gervaso, copy.”

“This is Welch. We're headed down the tunnel. Just didn't want you to shoot us.”

“I'm headed out now for the dock,” Gervaso said. “Good luck.”

“Roger.”

Gervaso turned off his radio and climbed out of the tunnel. The rain was pouring down, and the ocean looked pitted from a million raindrops.

He didn't see anyone, so he crossed the road to a row of charred bushes and began crawling toward the dock. When he got there, he waded into the water beneath the dock, carrying his backpack. To blow the dock he would have to link the explosives together, connecting them close enough to each other so they would trip each other, resulting in complete annihilation.

Because of the turbulence of the sea, the waves kept slamming him into the underside of the dock, and it took Gervaso nearly twenty minutes to set the explosives, ten minutes longer than he had planned. It made him nervous. He suspected that the Elgen would be landing soon—if they hadn't already.

After he finished setting the detonator, he again looked around to make sure he was alone, tossed his backpack into the sea, and then climbed to the top of the dock. He stopped to look out toward the sea. Through the rain and darkness he could see the
Faraday
about eight hundred yards out. That meant serious trouble. The
Faraday
was capable of transporting more than thirty-five hundred soldiers. If they all were allowed to dock, men would pour out faster than they could handle. The prison would be overrun.

He looked around. The
Risky Business
was still where Welch had left it. He wondered where Welch was. He lifted his radio and turned it back on. “Ian, this is Gervaso. Come in.”

“This is Ian.”

“We've got Elgen to the north in the
Faraday
. They're going to try to dock.”

“I can see it. Does the dock still stand?”

“I'm about to blow it. Did Welch get out?”

“They're out of the tunnel. He shouldn't be far from you now.”

“Roger. Over.”

“Over,” Ian said.

Gervaso returned the radio to his belt. He knelt down on the dock and hung over to check his wiring once more, then stood. As he turned to go, he saw the shadows of Welch and his team creeping beneath the cover of the wall.

Finally,
he thought. Gervaso raised his hand and shouted in a muted yell, “Good luck.”

The shadows stopped. Then a gun opened fire, hitting Gervaso in the chest and knocking him back onto the dock.

Bleeding, Gervaso slowly pulled himself around to see who had fired on him. The men he'd mistaken for Welch's group were Elgen guards. They walked toward him, their guns pointing at him.

“Expecting someone else?” a guard asked.

Gervaso feebly lifted his handgun but was hit two more times from Elgen bullets as the squad stepped up onto the dock. Gervaso gasped for breath as he reached into his pocket and rolled over to his stomach, bracing for the next round.

“Finish him,” the captain said to one of his men.

The front guard, barely older than twenty, walked on the blood-soaked dock until he was next to Gervaso. He pointed his gun at the back of Gervaso's head. “Good-bye, man.”

Gervaso rolled over to look the young guard in the eyes. In his hand Gervaso held a grenade, its pin already pulled. “Yeah, good-bye.”

“Hit the deck!” the guard shouted, but it was too late. The grenade blew, igniting the chain of explosives. The entire dock exploded in a blinding flash. When the smoke cleared, the dock, the Elgen, and Gervaso were gone.