Ryan moved at a blur and from a kneeling position sent a roundhouse right into the man’s already bleeding mouth.
Jonesy fell back flat, unconscious, his own rifle still in his hands.
Before Poseidon could step back out, Ryan snatched up the AK-47 and sent a burst of rounds through the door of the redoubt. The Admiral retreated inside, farther away from the door.
“Cawdor! What are you doing out there? Damn you!”
Ryan sprang to his feet and hit the keypad a second time, reversing the code to 2-5-3. The vanadium-steel door began to descend.
“You wanted in and now you’ve got it! Enjoy your stay, you cold-hearted son of a bitch!” Ryan roared, firing the rifle through the lowering door until the clip was empty. As the door slid down farther, the hapless Jonesy was caught on the floor at waist level. The door was relentless in its descent as it started to cut the unconscious man in two, his torso on the far side with Poseidon and his legs out in the basement.
Ryan debated pulling him away from certain death, then shook his head.
“I owe you for those shots to the kidneys,” Ryan said as he turned away, not waiting to see the final bloody splash when the door hit home in the groove in the floor.
EVEN ON THE BEST OF DAYS and the easiest of missions, J. B. Dix wasn’t the most patient of men. Mildred once tlid the man he was like a worm in hot ashes—always moving, always on the go.
Even J.B.’s sleep was restless, with constant movement of his leanly muscled arms and legs. Mildred was happy he didn’t snore, but he made up for it by waking her up every hour on the hour with a stray limb whacking her in the nose or back or breast.
After the initial entry into Kings Point at approximately six o’clock, the captured Edgerton had decided to play hero and alert the guard. Before the sec man could press the panic button, J.B. had fired a burst at him through the ob slit in the Land Rover. At the sound of gunfire, Edgerton had hit the gas and taken the wag into a swerve, knocking down part of the guard booth in a crash of wood and glass and causing Ryan to shift in his position in the passenger seat.
Edgerton opened his driver’s side door and jumped to the pavement, legs pumping as he sprinted for safety, screaming for someone to help.
Ryan cursed as he brought up the SIG-Sauer and fired, catching the fleeing man low in the left leg. As Edgerton fell on his side like a dropped rag doll, three more sec men came out from a second wag that had been parked in a motor pool off to one side of the guard shack.
The firefight was on.
Edgerton died in the middle of it, unprotected and alone.
Ryan and Shauna broke away, diverting the sec men’s fire and giving J.B., Mildred and Alan Carter a chance to escape, maybe salvage something from the mission.
What the trio couldn’t know was that Ryan decided being captured alive wasn’t so bad. What better way to see the leader up close and personal?
The other three, who remained free, had been forced to hide until nightfall.
Under the cover of darkness, it hadn’t taken very long to plant their dozen grens, all preset to go off at midnight: a fuel-storage tower, the support beams over wheeled wags. There were many places to create chaos and diversion. Once things started to blow, everyone was to converge on where they had left the damaged wag, which was near the ruin of the gate and the guard shack.
Ryan and Shauna, if they weren’t able to get close to Poseidon, were to abandon their objective and go home if they could. The rest of the squad wasn’t to wait, but instead pull out for the commune.
Not that J.B. and Mildred were even considering that option.
They would all leave together, one way or the other.
“What do you think of this place, Millie?” J.B. whispered. “That far end is mighty nice, with the lights and construction and all. Wonder why he hasn’t fixed up the rest of the base?”