Full Assault Mode (47 page)

Shit, gotta decide, control room or spent-fuel pool. Wasting time here.

“Did you look down into the pool?” Kolt asked, hoping Officer Polamalu could provide some guy-on-the-ground information, maybe a hint, or even a hunch.

“No, we never do!” the officer answered, obviously puzzled by the question.

Kolt laid the pistol on the floor a few feet from Officer Polamalu and turned to flow through the auxiliary building. After a series of turns that threatened to throw Kolt off course, he recognized a bright orange door with a light blue vertical stripe. Posted on the door was a sign in magenta and yellow, warning personnel that, beyond the door, was a “High Rad Area” requiring dosimetry to enter. Kolt knew that, although he was risking taking a dose of radiation if he entered the door, he risked a lot more by hastily pieing the open doors and cursorily clearing the corners. But, in this situation, he also knew that speed was security, particularly since he was losing a lot of blood and leaving a trail in his wake. He just had to accept the radiation risk or change his mind and head for the control room.

It was just a guess as to where the terrorists were now. They could be in front of the main control panel, dead plant operators scattered, setting explosive charges on the console. Kolt knew the only information he had to work with was what Hawk shared. He hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, but Hawk said she did. Maybe she was delirious? She had lost a good amount of blood, was dehydrated from over a month of captivity, and was on the verge of going into shock. It wasn’t too late to turn back, head to the control room. Maybe pick up Officer Polamalu en route, increase the odds, roll as a pair. If that’s what Kolt’s gut instinct told him, he would certainly audible the play.

Small bottles, air tanks … trust the guy on the ground.

At the door’s card reader, Kolt swiped Officer Polamalu’s access badge and waited for the red light to turn to green. A long second later, there was a click, signaling that the door’s balanced magnetic switch successfully released. Kolt pulled the heavy door to him, stepped inside, and in three strides reached the radiological-controlled-area turnstiles, which he jumped. He kept on running through the radiation-portal monitors, which alarmed, and made for the blue double doors marked
HIGH-RAD-FUEL-HANDLING BUILDING
.

Swiping the badge again, Kolt stepped onto the lower floor. Years of training made his clearing procedure automatic and swift.
So far, so good
. Having cleared the area on his level, he raised his rifle to clear high, searching for targets.

C’mon, c’mon, where are they?

Now, just five feet inside the double doors, face-to-face with a massive three-story-high concrete wall, Kolt caught the first sign of movement. It was just beyond the bright yellow guardrail at the very top. Easing his rifle up, he tucked the stock against his right cheek, naturally centering the Trijicon’s red dot. Thumbing the selector switch to fire, he squeezed his finger to take up the slack in the trigger.

Too late.

Damn!

Kolt lowered his rifle and quickly turned to the right and sprinted to the elevator door. His lungs were heaving by the time he reached it, and spots flashed before his eyes. He kicked off his black leather Doc Martens as he pulled out his creds and pushed the open button. The silver doors slid open as the elevator bell rang. Kolt set his boots inside the elevator, dress right, dress, and toes facing out. He then laid his creds down in front of the boots and pushed the button for the pool deck before stepping back out.

Kolt raced for the stairwell door. He knew he was running out of time. They all were.

He ignored all his training. The time for sound, close-quarter battle fundamentals was long gone. This was charge-of-the-fucking-light-brigade time. Throwing caution to wind, he took the stairs three at a time, a sudden thirst and numbing of his left arm growing more noticeable with each step. Blood loss was going to bring him down if he didn’t hurry.

Kolt reached the stairwell door, huffing for breath. He gulped down some air and pushed the crash bar, opening the door enough to step through. The first thing that hit him was the odd smell, like a mix of chlorine and engine oil. It was coming from the massive pool of water used to cool the spent fusion rods. He didn’t gag, but he came close. He looked to his left and saw a five-foot-tall piece of corner ballistic steel with a sliding gun port half-opened. On his right was the yellow guardrail he had seen from below.

Across the pool deck, an armed security officer stood with his back to Kolt in front of the open elevator door. He wore the same tan boots and black-over-tan dress as Officer Polamalu and was also armed with a rifle. This created a problem for Kolt. If the guy was in normal civilian clothing, he’d have lit him up, figuring he had to be one of the terrorists who’d taken Kolt’s bait. But the Yellow Creek security officer uniform gave Kolt pause. He knew he wasn’t going to kill another American. No, the burden was on Kolt to prove to the armed officers that
he
wasn’t a terrorist,
not
the other way around. He had to discriminate.

“Hey, federal agent. Don’t shoot!” Kolt yelled. That’s when he noticed a pile of shoes, some odd gear, and a brown zippered bag just on the edge of the pool. A large puddle of water had settled on the surface nearby, at the pool’s edge.

Shit! Am I too late? They’re in the pool already.

The guard turned, raising what looked like an AK-47.

Terrorist!

“Allah u Akbar!”

There was no mistaking that running password! With no time to aim, Kolt sprayed a couple of rounds toward the terrorist, preventing him from getting a shot off, while lunging for the safety of the corner steel. The ballistic position was slightly rusted at the connections and bolted areas, most likely a legacy position from an old protective strategy but never removed.

Kolt reached up to close the sliding port another inch or so as 7.62 mm rounds impacted all around it. The metal reverberated with each hit, adding to the ringing in his ears from the earlier explosion. Several bullets tore through the opening and punctured the thin-metal-skin stairwell door to his rear. Kolt ducked, then slid the opening closed. A ricochet from an AK-47 round could be lethal.

He leaned over to his right and extended his rifle muzzle slightly around the corner of the barrier. Kolt didn’t have a lot of ammo to burn. He was down to less than a full mag now.

Kolt peeked and fired three rapid rounds. He exposed himself just long enough to see the terrorist behind his own piece of ballistic cover. They exchanged fire several more times, two and three rounds at a time, neither getting the better of the other.

Gotta do something, Kolt. Plan A ain’t working.

Kolt continued the cat and mouse until his magazine ran dry. He dropped it, pulled the partial spare from his back pocket, press-checked it for the number of rounds remaining, which he figured to be no more than twelve, and then inserted it. He slapped the bolt release to load the top round and then paused to consider just what the hell to do next. He was wounded, terrorists were in the water pool, and time was running out. He took a breath, taking in the bitter smell of sawdust, nitroglycerin, and graphite that hung heavy in the air.

The terrorist snapped off two rounds and then a five-round burst, convincing Kolt that the terrorist was packing a lot more ammo than he was. This was it, then. The terrorist in the pool must be close to planting his explosives. He’s probably already said his good-byes and is planning on a one-way trip. Safely back home for these terrorists meant moving on to the next plane of existence.

Fucking martyrdom in swim trunks
.

Kolt blinked and shook his head. He was sitting, not acting. He shifted his legs underneath him and focused. A light above the stairwell door had been shot out. Without the light, the area he was in darkened significantly and shadows extended farther across the deck.

Kolt looked left and spied three more lights along the wall past the yellow guardrails. He quickly turned back to the right, looking around the corner to see another three lights on the far wall beyond the pool.

Six lights, twelve rounds. Kolt had his plan B, assuming he could determine his hold-off with a round or two using Officer Palomalu’s rifle. Kolt turned back left, raised the rifle, and placed the red dot center mass of the first light, raised it roughly eight inches, and broke the trigger.

THIRTY

Spent-Fuel Deck, Yellow Creek

Hit!

He moved to the next light, farther down and center of the wall.

Hit.

The terrorist screamed something Kolt couldn’t understand and snapped off another three-round burst. Kolt ducked, then lined up on the farthest light, just to the right of the elevator doors. Six, maybe seven inches hold-off and broke the shot.

Miss! Shot high.

Shit! Breathe, Kolt. Breathe!

Five inches hold off. Blading his body to prevent the terrorist from changing his plans again, Kolt steadied the rifle against the side of the corner steel. He broke the shot.

Hit! The left side was now in darkness.

Kolt turned quickly to service the lights on the far wall of the pool.

He remembered the holds, taking all three lights out. It was now much darker, with the only two lights remaining just behind the terrorist’s steel position. Kolt pressed the mag release and yanked the mag out of his rifle. Too dark to see down in the mag, he tried to stick his forefinger inside the mag to get a good round count. No luck. Kolt quickly stripped the brass from the mag, careful not to drop any on the floor. One, two. Only two rounds remaining in the mag, with one in the pipe still. Three rounds. Three rounds to either take the two lights or try to take the terrorist.

Safely concealed by the dark side of the pool deck, Kolt noticed the terrorist was entirely backlit by the lights. If Kolt was patient, the terrorist would likely reveal himself, allowing Kolt to cut him down with a single shot to the cranium vault. However, killing him wouldn’t stop the diver. Killing him wouldn’t stop the spent-fuel wall from being breached, creating a massive hole that would cause the inventory, just over 270,000 gallons of cooling water, to drain faster than the spray lines could replace it. Once the water drained enough to expose the top of the nuclear fuel assemblies, the loss of water coolant would cause the fuel to overheat and melt, resulting in a major local zircalloy fire, and would cause a massive release of radiation to the atmosphere. The fire, after melting down the aluminum fuel assemblies containing fuel rods with millions of uranium dioxide fuel pellets, would not be able to be contained. It would snake quickly through the non-airtight doors, contaminate the hallways, and take the path of least resistance until it reached the open air, killing in short order tens of thousands of citizens in and around the area. Anyone—man, woman, or child—anywhere in the downwind-plum hazard path, would eventually die from a lethal dose of invisible radiation.

No time to wait. Gotta stop the crow in the pool.

Kolt abandoned the idea of trying to tag the terrorist. There just wasn’t time to wait him out. He opted to take his vision instead. Kolt knew if he could only take all the lightbulbs, it would be as dark as three feet up a bull’s ass, giving him the cloak he needed to take a swim. The terrorist wouldn’t see him. Sure, he might hear him jump in the pool, but he risked killing his own man if he fired blindly into the water.

Kolt indexed on the light above and to the right of the terrorist’s steel-protected position. He took a deep breath, exhaled halfway, and pressed the trigger.

Shit! Misfire! Not now.

Muscle memory took over as Kolt slapped up on the bottom of the magazine, two-fingered the charging handle. He sensed rather than saw the ejector grab the misfired round and eject it from the port. A glint showed the round tumbling through the air to skitter across the pool-deck floor.

The terrorist yelled more unintelligible threats and sprayed at least ten rounds in Kolt’s direction.

“Easy, Sunshine, I’m coming,” Kolt said, releasing the charging handle and tapping the forward assist on the right side of the rifle. Satisfied, he reacquired his bright four-inch target.

Two rounds, two lights to go.

Kolt aimed, debating his hold off for several seconds, before breaking the shot.

Hit!

With a single 5.56 mm bullet standing between him and the possibility of saving upward of two hundred thousand people, Kolt transitioned to the last light, just above and to the right of the terrorist.

Before Kolt could take the only remaining light, AK-47 rounds slammed into the corner steel and wall behind him. Kolt took cover. A short lull in the fire and then another burst. Kolt knew the terrorist was on to plan B.

Kolt steadied himself and slowly took aim around the steel, several times stopping to blink his eyes and manage his breathing. This was to be the shot of Kolt’s lifetime, and no shooter alive, given the same circumstances, would be cool as ice. Maybe the SEAL Team Six snipers on the USS
Bainbridge
240 miles off the coast of Somalia, but not even they would be cool in the innermost bowels of a Mississippi-based nuke plant.

Kolt felt his heart pounding. He didn’t even bother himself with trying to think ahead to plan C. No, if it went there, with no ammunition, he was definitely going to come up short.

Kolt snapped the rifle up as he had done a million times before, indexed from muscle memory, held the dot with confidence, and broke the trigger.

Hit!

Kolt immediately unslung the rifle and placed it gently on the floor. He slipped around the corner steel on all fours. As he scrambled toward the edge of the pool, he suddenly wondered, what if the terrorist had night-vision goggles?

Little fucking late to think of that, he told himself. He took two deep breaths and slid headfirst into the water.