Chapter 18 - Steel Against Stone
I struck like a phantom from the earth.
My left hand clamped over his mouth guard, twisting his head to mute his cry, while my right drove six inches of blackened steel between the base of his skull and his Kevlar collar. He went limp instantly. I dragged him silently into the depression before his knees even hit the floor.
Hayes stripped the mercenary’s night-vision rig and handed it to me. I clicked the monocular over my eye. The world erupted into sharp, phosphor-green lines.
Two more mercenaries were entering the threshold, their carbines searching the gloom.
"Now," I breathed.
Hayes and I fired simultaneously. Two suppressed double-taps echoed like sharp cracks of thunder within the enclosed cavern. Both men collapsed into the rubble, their weapons clattering against the stones.
"TOC, three hostiles neutralized," I reported, stripping the dead point-man's tactical rig for fresh magazines. "We’ve acquired two fresh carbines, six magazines of armor-piercing 5.45, and night-vision gear."
"Adele, get down!" Gordon’s voice suddenly screamed through the radio, devoid of all composure. "They know you’re in there! The lead vehicle has traversed its turret! Roll deep, right now!"
Before I could process his words, the world shattered.
The lead BMP outside didn't send in more men. The vehicle commander had simply ordered the 30mm autocannon to saturate the cave entrance. A continuous drumbeat of explosive rounds tore through the opening, pulverizing thousands of pounds of ancient granite in three seconds.
The roof of the entrance gave way with a deafening roar. Boulders the size of vehicles crashed down, sealing the mouth of the tunnel under a mountain of crushed debris. A wall of blinding dust and choking cordite rolled down the shaft, knocking us flat into the trench.
I coughed violently, spitting blood and pulverized rock, my ears bleeding from the catastrophic overpressure.
"Hayes! Miller!" I choked out.
"Alive, Captain!" Hayes wheezed through the darkness. "Miller’s still breathing, but the entrance... God Almighty, they buried us alive!"
I crawled forward on my hands and knees. The way back was completely gone—a solid wall of collapsed stone sealed us in like a tomb. The air was rapidly turning stale, thick with toxic explosive residue.
I tapped the radio button. Only harsh static hissed back.
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"TOC... TOC, this is Valkyrie Actual," I shouted, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Do you read? Gordon! Do you copy?!"
Nothing. The thousands of tons of fallen rock had severed our satellite uplink. We were trapped beneath a frozen mountain, running out of oxygen, with a dying comrade and an enemy waiting outside to ensure no one crawled out alive.