Full Assault Mode (45 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Kolt thought about it. Hawk was definitely implying that the terrorists went into the storm drain.
Why?
There was no water in those drains this time of year. Moreover, they wouldn’t need supplemental oxygen tanks like scuba gear—self-contained breathing apparatuses. So why lug around scuba gear if there was no water in the underground storm drains? Were they being overly cautious? Kolt dismissed that at once. They weren’t worried about surviving the attack. He thought about it some more. Hawk had said that the waterways and the spent-fuel pools in a power plant were not connected.

No, a terrorist wouldn’t need underwater breathing support to meltdown the land-locked Yellow Creek from the parking lot. Some other power plants or critical infrastructure in the United States, maybe. Hydroelectric dams, for sure—even some chemical plants located on major waterways. But scuba at Yellow Creek?

Kolt recalled the conversation with Cindy at the café and the napkin she doodled on. She was giving him a crash course in the operation of a pressurized water reactor. Could that be it? Cindy mentioned that all plants have large pools of water that store the spent nuclear fuel. Fuel that has already been used inside the main reactor and can no longer create electricity efficiently. She said this large pool holds the spent fuel rods for years to allow them to cool over time.

Think, Kolt, think! You gotta decide!

It was the hardest decision of his life. He knew it, and he had less than a minute to make it. Likely not enough time.

Hawk or the nuke cell? Save a Delta mate or save tens of thousands of innocent Americans sleeping in their homes tonight, unaware that al Qaeda has struck again on U.S. soil.

“
Damn it, Racer!” Kolt barked. “Think, you son of a bitch. Think!”

Then Kolt remembered the turned-over Pepsi can, most of its contents spilled on the floorboard.

That’s it; that’s my out.

The aluminum can wasn’t the entire solution, but it was a good first step. Kolt knew that if he released the pressure from Hawk’s major arterial bleeder, she was a goner. But he had to do something, or the bomb would take a lot more people out than just the two of them.

Kolt noticed the paracord and whistle in Hawk’s right hand. He pulled it from her and quickly wrapped it around her upper right leg, pushing it as high as he could toward her blood-soiled crotch to get the pressure between the bleeder and her heart.

Kolt noticed Hawk barely flinched.
She’s alive, but definitely going into shock!

Satisfied he had the paracord as high on her thigh as possible, Kolt tied an overhand knot, cinching it down as hard as he could, holding one running end in his teeth to maintain tension while routing the other end to finish the square knot.

Kolt didn’t waste time assessing if it worked or not. He reached for the Pepsi can with his left hand and set it on the cloth seat. He wiped Cindy’s blood from his hands on the seat before continuing. Yanking his pocketknife out and thumbing the blade open, he jammed it into the can. Forced to use both hands, he cut an odd rectangle and triangular shape in the side of the can, wiggling and pulling at the edges to free it from the can. With the small piece in his hand now, he folded two edges over, then one more fold, leaving him with a narrow piece of aluminum with a point end about a quarter inch wide.

Kolt dropped his knees onto the floorboard and found the Master combination lock under the driver’s seat. Holding the lock in his left hand, he inserted the folded piece of aluminum into the narrow space where the U-shaped steel shackle enters the stainless steel outer case of the lock. He pushed down with the aluminum pick slightly and tugged on the shackle. No luck. His fingers were still sticky with Hawk’s blood and were making it difficult for him to manipulate his field-expedient lock pick. He needed a light but solid touch.

Kolt wiped his hands vigorously on his pant legs, ensuring he had found a dry spot to clean the blood from his fingers. Satisfied, he went back to the lock and tried a second time.

This time it worked. The shackle released from the case, and Kolt frantically pulled the chain from the eyebolt secured to the floor. He pulled it from around Hawk’s handcuffed wrists, finally freeing her from her certain tomb. He looked at the LED timer attached to the bomb.

00:56, 00:55, 00:54 …

Kolt reached under both of Hawk’s arms, secured a good hold on her armpits, and pulled her from her seat and out into the parking lot. He lifted her up just as a new groom carries his bride. He turned, spotted the source of red and blue lights, and took off for the ambulance.

Weaving through several parked cars, Kolt moved toward the first two paramedics he could see.

“Medic! Medic!” Kolt yelled.

The two paramedics turned to see Kolt carrying Hawk. Their eyes went wide, and they came over to help right away. Kolt laid Hawk on the hard asphalt.

“She is critical,” Kolt said calmly. “Sunken chest wound, right side, major arterial bleeder, right leg.”

The paramedics called for another medic to bring the oxygen and stretcher from the ambulance.

Kolt kneeled down next to Hawk, placing his hand over her chest to control the air escaping from the wound. He knew he couldn’t stay long, but something was freezing him in place. Something personal, for sure. He vapor-locked for a moment, experienced vivid visions of TJ lying in the parking lot behind the long tractor-trailer near Andrews Air Force Base, and shivered at the thought of his longtime buddy Josh Timble dying in his arms.

“Sir, we’ll take her from here,” the paramedic said. “Are you hurt, sir?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Do what you can for her,” Kolt said. “She’s a Delta operator … a true hero,” he said, his voice catching.

The paramedics looked at him as if he had a head wound.

Kolt turned his attention back to the black Durango sitting ominously only four or five car lengths away. He jumped to his feet and sprinted for the Durango, weaving back through the cars in the way.

Kolt opened the driver’s-side door and pulled the terrorist’s body from the car. The Ruger fell out and bounced off the asphalt. Kolt picked up the pistol and slid it into his waistband near his appendix. He bent over and patted the terrorist’s two front pant pockets, looking for the keys. He jumped in the driver’s seat and frantically reached for the ignition area on the dash, praying his hands would find the keys still in the ignition. They were.

The Durango turned over easily, providing a short moment of relief to Kolt. Kolt placed the gearshift in reverse and turned around to see through the back window to ensure he had a clear path of travel. Just as he stepped on the gas, he looked at the LED counter.

00:32, 00:31, 00:30 …

Steering with his left hand and still turned to navigate through the back window, Kolt gunned it, burning rubber and letting everyone in the area know that there was something seriously wrong. Kolt was headed directly for the intake canal, the long, narrow body of water that pulls fresh water into the power plant to cool the reactor fuel and to produce steam to turn the turbine generators.

Kolt dodged a few cars, having to touch the brakes twice, before he was about two hundred and fifty yards away, at the back end of the main parking lot. He noticed a long row of poured concrete blocks that were four feet high and five feet wide and maneuvered the Durango twenty yards behind them.

He threw it in park, opened the driver’s-side door, and jumped out of the Durango. He didn’t look back as he ran for the protection of the concrete blocks. He knew he was inside the kill zone of the imminent blast, and that he would certainly suffer major eardrum damage from the overpressure of the massive explosion. But if he survived this mission, he could get a hearing aide. What he desperately wanted to avoid was eating frag from the Durango.

Kolt reached the blocks at a dead sprint and, without breaking stride, jumped on top, took two steps, and leaped off the other side, rolling his body forward in a somersault before coming to a stop on his back and looking into the star-filled night sky. If nothing else, he may just be able to see a flying engine block soaring toward him.

This won’t hurt. This won’t hurt. Fuck m—

*   *   *

Kolt’s body first sank, then rose from the ground as the force of the pressure wave from the explosion passed by. His chest cavity vibrated with such force that he wondered if every rib was broken. He pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth, but it wasn’t enough to filter the thick mix of smoke and flying dirt that made up the massive smoke plume. Unable to see if any major pieces of debris were heading his way, he rolled over to his belly and tried to cough his lungs clean.

Kolt blinked several times and shook his head. His ears were ringing, and every nerve in his body was crying for attention. It took another minute before he was able to get back to his feet. He stood, looked down, and inventoried his body from his chest down to his boots. He ran his hand over his shaved head, feeling the layer of dirt that had settled. No blood. He ran his hands down the front of his chest, feeling the semiauto pistol he had taken from the dead driver, then bent over to continue down his pants. Still no blood. He felt for his wallet—creds were still with him.

Holy crap, I’m frickin’ good to go!

The blast was violent and had created a wicked-looking mess of metal shards. Still, given that he survived this close to ground zero, he was pretty confident everyone else had. If anything, Kolt had hoped the blast would quiet the loud emergency siren.

The plant’s standard taped PA announcement pulled him back to what he knew needed to be done.

“CODE RED, CODE RED. INTRUDERS HALT. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED.”

The fight wasn’t over. Kolt knew it, and he knew the terrorists knew it. First, he had identified the rabbit VBIED in the Durango Joma was driving, then the real vehicle bomb had safely been detonated away from the vital plant equipment. But Kolt knew the rest of the terrorists were still unaccounted for. Two were dead, but there had to be more. He knew they would have planned something more complex than simply one vehicle bomb and a diversion bomb.

And then he remembered the hole in the bottom of the Durango, just behind Hawk’s rear seat.

“Shit!” Kolt said. “The underground pathways.”

Kolt took off at a dead sprint back to the second black Durango’s original parking spot. Well, he meant to. His first few steps were more like a drunk exiting a bar at closing time. He slowed his pace and focused on the mechanics of putting one foot in front of the other. The blast might have ruptured an eardrum and fucked up his balance. As he ran, he hoped like hell that the vehicles were the sum total of the terrorists’ plan, that the nuke plot had been thwarted. That there was no penetration of Yellow Creek’s protected area or, worse, the vital area where the nuclear fuel was located.

Kolt picked up speed, regaining his sense of balance.
This is more like it
. He closed the distance at a rapid pace, spying several squad cars parked near the main access facility. Their blue dome lights were spinning, illuminating the area and parked vehicles around them.

This place is like Fort Knox. It would take a battalion of Marines to get in.

Kolt could see the dead terrorist lying ahead, in the same contorted position that Kolt had left him in. Kolt slowed, taking it all in, assessing the situation.

The dead terrorist’s head was bent at a sharp angle on a neck that might be broken. He was facedown in a large puddle of blood. The weapon, the pumps that had penetrated the lower portion of his cranium with every bit of their three-inch heels, sat just a few feet away.

Kolt reached down to pick up the high heel and noticed the large orange and rust-colored cast iron manhole cover sitting off kilter at the top of its circular drainage hole. Kolt dropped the pump and moved to the manhole cover, reaching down and grabbing it with both hands. It was heavy, and Kolt struggled a bit but was able to slide it out of the way to reveal the vertical line in the catch basin.

Kolt dropped to his knees and leaned over the hole, looking down past the rusted ladder rungs secured to the side of the basin and into total darkness. He pulled out the Ruger SR9, checked to ensure he had one in the pipe, and then pulled his cell off his hip. He thumbed the screen and pulled up the flashlight app on his iPhone and tapped it. Moving to his belly and over the open basin, he aimed the pistol and the light into the hole. It was fairly deep, maybe ten to fifteen feet.

Kolt’s stomach hollowed out. Was there more to the attack? He needed to know. He turned around and dropped both legs into the basin, finding the ladder rungs with his feet. He secured his phone and descended the ladder with one hand, keeping the pistol at a low ready. At the bottom, he turned the flashlight back on. The horizontal pipe was definitely big enough for a human to crawl through, with plenty of freeboard and maybe six inches of water at the bottom.

As Kolt stooped down to get a better look, his knee came down on something hard. He winced in pain and turned the light toward the bottom.

Crow bar!

Kolt’s stomach lurched. He knew immediately what he was facing. The nuke plot was more than just two vehicle bombs. The terrorists weren’t settling for simple terrorism on this one. Cherokee was probably only a test. They’d be watching for how America responded, what security features were in place, what would be modified in the attack’s wake, what local law enforcement would do, and whether the president activated the National Guard. At Cherokee, terrorism was the simple goal.

At Yellow Creek, it was so much more: the goal was radiological sabotage and the indiscriminate killing of thousands of people, who still had no idea that the second nuke plot by al Qaeda operatives had come to their hometown. Residents within a ten-mile radius would likely be awake by now. The wailing sirens reached that far and were too annoying to ignore. After waking up, they would be waiting for a phone call, remaining in their homes, closing all windows, doors, and sources of outside air. But if Kolt didn’t stop the attack, folks inside the ten-mile radius from the power plant would have a ton to worry about.