CHAPTER 85

DARKNESS.

No NODs. No suppressor. No team.

Reece slipped inside and began to work his way down the tunnel. That he wasn’t killed right away told him whoever was ahead had been counting on the rear security he had just eliminated to cover their six. That, or they had someone barricaded deeper in the tunnel.

He had what was probably twenty-eight or thirty rounds in the AK, his SIG P365 in the ankle holster, a SureFire flashlight from Agent Scheer, and the tomahawk.

What lay ahead in the blackness? One man? Two? A squad of heavily armed terrorists? Had they already mixed the binary components of the Novichok? Were thousands of Ukrainians already dead and dying from the deadly compound? Reece pressed on.

Reece remembered stories of the tunnel rats in Vietnam from his father’s unit, descending into the subterranean labyrinths carrying nothing but a flashlight and a 1911 handgun. And, he remembered his friends and teammates going into tunnel complexes in the mountains of Afghanistan at the start of the war.

He refrained from using the flashlight as he didn’t want to telegraph his arrival, though it was in his left hand pressed against the stock of the AK. He was one man against an entrenched enemy force, with an unknown number of weapons, in possession of a deadly nerve toxin, hidden somewhere ahead in complete darkness, beneath the streets of an ancient city in what amounted to an unmapped labyrinth of caves and tunnels three levels deep.

The passage began to narrow, the air cold and heavy. Reece used his left shoulder to guide him forward along the corridor, the cold damp limestone walls bearing witness to yet another battle in a new war.

Reece heard them first. Coming to a stop, he listened.

Did they have night vision and IR lights? Reece was about to find out.

Like he had done as a bow hunter making the final approach on his prey, Reece removed his shoes to quiet his movement as he inched forward.

A light began to illuminate the tunnel and Reece worked his way toward it. As much as he wanted to sprint into the breach, he knew he wouldn’t do anyone any good if even one of those he pursued lived to launch the toxin.

A new sound made Reece freeze in his tracks. What was that? It sounded like a vacuum. Then it went silent. Reece moved forward more quickly, the light ahead getting brighter.

He was close and could hear a strange, almost computerized whispering in Arabic. Taking a knee, Reece leaned to his right, away from the wall, to get a better angle on his target.

Twenty yards down the tunnel was a puzzling sight that turned to horror as Reece’s brain processed the scene. A lantern illuminated a man standing guard with an AK similar to the one Reece now carried. His attention wasn’t on security, though he did look in Reece’s direction every few seconds. His focus was on his companions.

Three people wearing white chemical suits with respirators were working to attach what looked like an industrial fan to a bright yellow tube, the type used to ventilate sewer systems through manholes or construction tunnels that could be maneuvered in and around corners like an oversized vacuum. It was fixed to the wall of the cavern. It took a moment for Reece to process what was happening, but then it all came together. Designed to ventilate small spaces, the fan and its attached tube had been turned into a weapon of terror. The high-powered fan was on the floor of the tunnel, plugged into a mobile battery pack. Strewn around it were two discarded plastic containers with Cyrillic writing. They were in the final stages of setting up their system designed to blow the lethal Novichok down a side tunnel and into the colonnade above. It was ready to go. Just as Dr. Belanger had briefed, the toxin was inside the mazelike catacombs, and the fan was set to blow it into the crowded streets of Odessa.

“Ziad? ” Reece heard the digitized voice-altering challenge through the respirator from the guard with the AK, who now peered attentively in Reece’s direction.

The fan started to turn.

Shit!

Reece answered with five rounds from the AK, but without illumination to line up his sights in the dark his shots went wide. The guard immediately began firing on full auto in Reece’s direction, forcing him back and out of the cone of fire. The rifle fire was deafening inside the confines of the cave, and the muzzle flashes were blinding.

Fortune favors the bold.

Reece depressed the button on his flashlight and dropped it to the ground, at the same time moving to the opposite side of the tunnel.

With his enemy’s attention on the bright light, Reece stitched him up with another ten rounds from the rifle and charged forward toward the fan.

• • •

As their accomplice dropped dead on the floor of the catacombs, one of the conspirators reached for an AK as two others retreated into the darkness, disappearing down the tunnel complex. Rounds from Reece’s AK found their mark in the upper chest of the chemical-suit-clad terrorist, and two more exploded through the respirator’s face mask, dropping him in a bloody heap. Reece resisted the urge to pursue and instead stopped in front of the large fan, the high-pitched whine of the electric motor pushing the chemical agent toward daylight. Within seconds, the deadly vapor would reach ground level, killing hundreds if not thousands of civilians, transforming the entire area into a toxic wasteland.

Reece’s finger began to take the slack out of the heavy trigger as he aimed at the fan’s motor. Then he stopped and released the pressure.

Think, Reece. Adapt.

Fuck it!

Reece couldn’t read whatever language was on the dial, but it was as intuitive as could be. Reaching down he cranked the dial to the left and felt the fan switch directions, pulling the Novichok back into the ventilation tube, returning it to the catacombs.

Turning to run, Reece stopped and directed the fan deeper into the tunnel system toward those who had unleashed it. As it sucked the deadly nerve toxin into the underworld he sprinted back the way he had come.

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