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  “I don’t, actually.”

  “Morrow, he had a fucking shovel against a CDM. What the fuck do you think happened?”

  Shaw nodded once more to the inside of the refrigerator, and Nick obediently went inside. The door closed behind him, and it got a lot darker in the small room. Someone had cracked a few glowsticks, so Nick could make out the four Marines now sitting back down on the floor. Three men, one woman.

  “So, how’d they catch you, man?” one of the men asked.

  “Shut up,” Nick hissed. He pulled his radio earpiece out of his front pocket and put it in his ear. “McShane, you get all that?”

  “Yeah, mate. Including the dig about my planning. Ouch.”

  “Two guards on the front door, at least two more guys close by. The hostages are with me. Walk-in refrigerator in the kitchen. Didn’t see any guards on that.”

  “Copy that. Can you get the hostages out of there?”

  “Working on it. Hold off on your assault for five minutes. I think I can take down their boss without a shot.”

  “Copy. Five minutes, and we go.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Who the fuck were you talking to?” the same male Marine asked from the floor.

  “British SAS. They’re going to hit this building in five minutes. Any of you injured?”

  Nick heard a few negative mumbles.

  “Outstanding. Who’s the ranking officer?”

  “That’ll be me. First Sergeant Bates,” another of the male Marines said.

  “Not anymore. Lieutenant Nick Morrow. I need you all to get to the back of the room, here.”

  “Need any help, Lieutenant?” the female Marine asked. She’d moved like a cat, silently appearing at Nick’s side.

  “I’m okay here,” Nick said.

  “Looks like C4 you just pulled out of your boot. And you’re using a bit much if you just want to blow the door. May I?” she asked.

  “Be my guest, uh…”

  “Staff Sergeant Hill.”

  “Right. Hill. Got a first name?”

  “Kirsten.”

  “All yours, Kirsten.”

  Kirstin took the ball of C4 out of Nick’s hand and split it in two, handing half of it back to him. She flattened out the portion she kept, making a small disc slightly larger than a quarter, and stuck it to the door handle.

  “You Special Forces guys always use way too much of this stuff. Detonator?”

  “Here you go.”

  It took her less than a second to finish the charge, and the two of them joined the other three Marines at the back of the refrigerator.

  Nick brought up the detonation program on the command screen on his sleeve.

  “Ready?”

  “Oh, sure. We’re going to be fine this far back,” Kirstin said, yawning.

  Nick detonated the C4 and heard a loud pop. He felt almost no heat from the explosion, however, and the door swung open, flooding the room with light.

  “Nice work, Sergeant. There’s a guy in my unit who could learn a thing or six from you.”

  “It’s what I used to do before they transferred me to Echo.”

  “You’ll have to tell me the story sometime. Now, let’s get you out of here. The SAS guys will be here in about three minutes, and I’d love to not be in their crosshairs.”

  “Best way out’s through the back service door,” Bates said. “Only one guard there. He’s in my unit, and he’s a fuck-up. Shouldn’t be too hard to take him out.”

  “McShane. We’re going out the back,” Nick said, toggling his throat mic.

  “I heard you, mate. The girl Marine sounds cute. Is she cute?”

  Nick turned to look at Kirstin in the light. She was about his height, thin and dark-skinned. She wore her black hair in a tight ponytail, and wore BDU pants and an olive-green T-shirt. She had a silly, lopsided grin and thin, fine features. Nick guessed she had a nice figure, but BDUs tended to hide that, and as he looked at her, he could understand the reasoning for the baggy uniforms.

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “You’ll have to introduce us. Chicks dig the accent, you know. I’ll send a team round back to pick you up.”

  “Copy that. And the accent thing is a myth.”

  They were moving through the back hallway as Nick heard McShane chuckle over the radio. Bates was in the lead, and Nick was right behind him. Suddenly, Bates stopped and held up one hand. He peered around the corner, then held up one finger and pointed to the right.

  One guy, down that hall.

  Bates looked back at the four Marines behind him and placed one hand over his eyes.

  And his back is to us.

  Nick tapped Bates on the shoulder and pointed to himself. He made a walking motion with his fingers then pushed his right fist into his open left palm. Bates gave the thumbs-up and pressed himself flat against the wall, looking around the corner once more. He waved his hand forward, and Nick was on the move.

  He saw the convict, standing with his back to the hallway, looking through the small window in the back service door. That made sense, Nick supposed. The guy didn’t expect any hostiles to be coming up behind him. Nick was on him in seconds, quickly wrapping his left arm around the man’s throat and squeezing hard, using his right arm to pull his left arm back even harder. The convict tried to yell out but no air was getting from his lungs to his mouth, and he was unconscious in eight seconds. As Nick slowly lowered the guy to the carpet, he raised his left hand, two fingers up, and made two circles in the air with it. He heard the four Marines form up behind him as he took the convict’s M-16 and Ruger .45.

  “What kind of weapons are we looking at?” Nick whispered to the other Marines.

  “M-16s are the worst of it,” a young Sergeant whose nametape read “Priest” said. “We loaded out with fifteen of those. Past that, semiauto. Two or three shotguns. Probably nothing that’ll even breach your guys’ body armor.”

  “All right. You four, out the back door. The SAS will take you to the EVAC. I’m taking homeboy’s M-16 and helping them out.”

  “Hand me that .45, Lieutenant. I’ll back you up,” Kirstin said.

  “That’s a negative, Sergeant. My job was to get you out of here, and I don’t feel like getting bitched out by my bosses. Appreciate it, though.”

  “Yeah, I hate the bosses,” Kirstin said, sighing.

  Bates opened the back door, and all four Marines quietly slid outside. Nick headed for the staircase, since his command screen showed that most of the convicts were upstairs. Now that Shaw didn’t have any hostages, maybe he’d stand down.

  He was just about to open the door to the third floor, where his screen indicated the largest number of convicts, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Kirstin standing behind him, carrying his M4 from the helicopter and grinning.

  “Didn’t I tell you to go back to the chopper?”

  “Yeah, I don’t really take orders too well,” she whispered, grinning. “You didn’t wonder why I was in charge of a convict unit? That’s why. Well, that and a Razor I kinda accidentally blew up, but…”

  Nick would have preferred to go it alone, but trying to talk Kirstin out of coming along would have just wasted time. Besides, he reasoned, she might end up being helpful.

  “Fine. Stay on me. Remember, if we have to shoot, try not to kill them. Command wants them alive and back to work.”

  “I know. Poor bastards,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Tell you what. We accomplish this mission successfully, and I have two crates of AK-47s I’ll get to you. Deal?”

  “That would be a big help, Lieutenant.”

  “It’s Nick. Never much into the rank thing.”

  He slowly opened the door and looked outside. There were two men walking down the hall away from him. He motioned to Kirstin to follow him then padded up behind them. He was almost close enough to touch them when they stopped and started to turn around. He slammed the butt of the M-16 into the one on the
right’s skull, at the same time kicking the one on the left in the back of his knee. As the first convict crumpled to the carpet, Nick brought his rifle around and smacked it into the side of the second’s head.

  “Man, you’re quick,” Kirstin whispered.

  “Just what every guy wants to hear from a pretty girl,” Nick mumbled.

  Kirstin bit off a laugh.

  Nick crept to the end of the hall and checked his screen. Twenty-eight of the convicts were in what looked like a large conference room, probably all looking outside to see if they could spot the incoming invaders. He handed his M-16 to Kirstin.

  “I’m going to try to talk to Shaw. If I get in trouble…well, try to bail me out if you can.”

  “Breaching now,” he heard in his ear.

  Through a large window in the hall, he saw the Puma helicopter speed into view, headed for the roof.

  “Scratch that,” he said, grabbing his weapon back from Kirstin. “They’ll be ready to shoot people now. Get back.”

  The two of them ducked into an empty room on Nick’s left and watched as most of the convicts came running out of the conference room, no doubt prepared to cover the roof access door. As the convicts passed and turned down the hall, Nick toggled his radio.

  “McShane, most of the Echoes are heading for the roof. Let your team up there know that they’re outnumbered five to.”

  “Copy that.”

  Nick checked his command screen. Now there were only three red dots left in the conference room.

  “All right. I like those odds a lot better. Let’s move.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Timebomb

  When Nick kicked in the door to the conference room, he expected to find Shaw pointing a gun at him. Instead, he found the skinhead on the radio. The two convicts with him scrambled for their weapons, but Nick and Kirstin had them dead to rights. They froze.

  “Party’s over, Shaw. I released the hostages, and the infiltration team already has control of the rest of the building. Call off your men on the roof if you want them to live.”

  “I suppose you’re right. The game is over,” Shaw said. “Except…well, I expected this might happen.”

  The skinhead stood up and looked at his two men.

  “Go ahead and put your guns down, boys. Won’t need ’em.”

  “Good to see you making sense, Shaw. Now, I’ve talked to Kirstin here, and I’m going to do everything I can to get you guys some decent guns.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Morrow.”

  “Least I can do. I remember what it was like.”

  “No, I mean don’t worry about it, because none of us are walking out of here,” Shaw said, sighing.

  “You’re a confident motherfucker, Shaw. But we’ve already got this place.”

  “This place is about to be rubble. We had more than a hundred grenades with us for the mission. I had one of my guys turn those into a bomb. It’s attached to the fuel oil tanks downstairs in the laundry room. Should bring this whole place down in, oh, two minutes if he wired the computer up right.”

  Nick turned to Kirstin.

  “It’s possible,” she said, nodding.

  “Fuck. Why’d you go and do that?” Nick groaned. He kept himself from kicking Shaw in the groin—it wouldn’t accomplish anything, no matter how much better it would make him feel.

  “Rather die than go back out there, man. It was fun playing soldier at first, but now it’s just horrifying. You ever faced down a tank with a .357 Magnum? Because I have.”

  “McShane,” Nick said, “there’s a timed explosive in the basement. It’s going to blow this whole building.”

  “You watch these assholes,” Kirstin said, slinging her M4 over her back. “I can defuse the bomb.”

  “You sure?” Nick asked.

  “It’s what I do.”

  At that moment, Alex and two more of the SAS soldiers burst into the conference room. They quickly fired tasers at Shaw and his men, dropping them.

  “The rest of them are covering the roof access,” Nick said.

  “Right on, mate. We’ll have ’em cleaned up in a jiffy,” Alex said, tapping a gas grenade attached to his vest.

  “Good man. Kirstin, lead the way.”

  Kirstin broke out into a run, heading for the same stairwell they’d used to access the third floor. Nick followed her as they dashed down the stairs. He toggled his radio as his boots hit the second floor landing.

  “We’re heading down to the laundry room, Captain. That’s where the bomb is. Sergeant Hill thinks she can defuse it.”

  “We’ve cleared floors one and two, so you should only have to worry about the one guy we have on the screens in that room,” McShane said. “We’ll start dragging out the prisoners, but you’ll tell me if that thing looks like it’s gonna go, yeah?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “There’s a good chap.”

  As they reached the first floor, Kirstin threw open the door and sprinted down the hall. Nick followed her, but she was lighter on her feet than he was. She made it to the laundry room door a few seconds before him, raised her weapon and kicked in the door.

  “Hands!” she yelled as Nick came up to cover her.

  The surprised convict raised his hands, looking over at the MP5 submachine gun sitting on the table next to him.

  “Come on, guy. You’re not that dumb,” Nick told the young skinhead.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m not,” he said, sinking to his knees and putting his hands on his shaved head.

  “Good boy. Nick, keep an eye on him. I’m off to tackle that,” Kirstin said, slinging her M4 and nodding at the three fuel drums ringed with hand grenades. A small notebook computer sat on top of them, running a simple command-line program.

  “You won’t be able to defuse it, Sergeant. Once the timer reaches zero, the computer sends an electrical pulse through the USB port into the first grenade. It’ll set off a chain reaction that’ll blow all of the rest of the explosives,” the young Aryan said.

  He had a smug smile on his face, and Nick suddenly found himself wanting to smack the grin right off the kid’s head. The reaction surprised him a little—he was usually calmer than this, more levelheaded. Maybe it’s stress. The New York thing, he rationalized, keeping his weapon trained on the kid.

  Kirstin looked at the contraption for a few seconds, then turned back to the young man with his hands on his head.

  “Forrester, right? You’re in Sergeant Priest’s squad?”

  “That’s me, Sergeant.”

  “Well, Forrester, I hate to break this to you, but your design…I mean, it’s clever, but it has one major design flaw.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Forrester asked, turning his head to look at the bomb.

  “This.” Kirstin pulled the connecting cord out of the USB port and picked up the computer. She brought it over and in front of Forrester, held down the power button for ten seconds until the computer shut off.

  “It only works if the USB cord is connected when the power surge goes out,” she said.

  “Oh. Yeah. I suppose so. Damn. I put this thing together so quick I didn’t think of that,” Forrester mumbled.

  “Really, though. Other than that, it’s pretty good. Kind of brilliant, even. Especially for an improvised device. I would have loved to see what it could have done.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Well, from a professional standpoint, of course,” she said. There was that goofy, lopsided grin again.

  “Oh, of course.”

  Nick’s adrenaline levels would normally be evening out right about then, now that he and the others were out of immediate danger, but they didn’t. He still found himself wanting to knock out the young skinhead kneeling on the floor, and this time, his leg muscles tightened in preparation to do just that. Fortunately for the skinhead, Nick’s radio switched on.

  “Building’s secure, Nick. How are you two doing down there?” McShane radioed.


  “Bomb’s inactive, Captain. I’d say we got this one done.”

  “Chinooks are inbound to pick up the prisoners. Good work, Lieutenant. So, about introducing me to the Marine bird…”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Nick was sitting on the curb outside the hotel next to Shaw, who had his hands zip-tied in front of him. The Aryan leader had just regained consciousness a few minutes before and had the beginnings of impressive shiners on both eyes. His nose, broken by the butt of an SAS L85A2 assault rifle, was taped up and dripping blood.

  “Want a cigarette, Shaw?” Nick asked.

  “Fuck yes,” Shaw grumbled. His voice sounded muted and flat, like he had a bad cold.

  Nick handed him a smoke, then lit it for him and lit one of his own.

  “Probably do a nice couple of days in the box for this,” Shaw said as he exhaled smoke, referring to a punishment device the tech geeks at DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—had cooked up for keeping the convict units in line. Nick had done some time in the box the year before, and he remembered intense heat, maddening noise, and total darkness. He remembered worrying that he was going to die when he stopped sweating, and his bosses hadn’t even kept him in the box for twenty-four hours. He couldn’t imagine facing days inside the thing without going insane.

  “Yeah, just make sure to hydrate first,” Nick said.

  “Not my first trip to the box. I’ll live. Guess the offer of better weapons is off the table, huh?”

  “Nope. I radioed my guys back at Zulu. They bribed a chopper pilot to bring them out to Sergeant Hill as soon as you guys get back.”

  “Mighty white of you, Morrow.”

  Nick took a long drag of his own smoke and exhaled before speaking again. His anger, his desire to punch one of these guys until his hands bled, had finally started to calm down.

  “For what it’s worth, Shaw, I don’t blame you for what you did. Fact that you didn’t just kill your COs and make a run for it means you’re not a psycho.”

  “Where am I gonna run to, man? Have you noticed this is Siberia? I mean, literally. Siberia. You think I’m gonna just head North and hope to paddle to Alaska?”

  “Yeah, probably not.”