Angels Don't Die (Madeleine Toche Series Book 2) (31 page)

             
Jack climbed the first of the Scuds and took a cigarette pack sized detonator out of his knapsack.  He pulled back a tarp that covered the nose of the Scud  missile and attached the magnetized charge to the warhead of the rocket, replacing the tarp to conceal the charge.  He moved towards the next vehicle and repeated the process.  He glanced up in time to see John kick open the door of the guard’s office and spray the interior with automatic fire.  Whoever was in there was dead.  He was moving towards the next vehicle when John ran up.  Jack tossed John the charge in his hand and motioned to the furthest launcher, gesturing with his head. John caught it and moved to set the charge.  By the time he returned Jack had finished the job.

             
“Are all the guards dead?” Jack asked.

             
“Two of them,” John said.

             
“All the detonators are set for eight to the second,” Jack said.  We need to distance ourselves and get in position for the retreat.”

             
“That gives us about five minutes.  Let’s go out the back door and make our way into the field that way,” John said moving back towards the large exit doors.  “How big a hole will one of these put in the ground?”

             
“Blast radius is around 200 meters,” Jack said starting to jog. “But that’s if the charges detonate the Scuds and doesn’t just destroy the rocket.”

             
“What’s the chance of the warheads detonating?”

             
“More likely than not,” Jack answered.  “The blast radius is around 200 meters, but since there’s more than one, we’re going to have one hell of an explosion.”

             
“Let’s make sure we’re far enough away,” John said.

             
“Good idea, mate,” Jack said.

             
Madeleine and Ariel stood near the entryway to the front door of the building. 

             
“There are three guards inside,” Madeleine said. “And that exterior door is locked.  We can shoot our way in or they can open the door for us.”

             
“How are we going to get them to do that?” Ariel said.

             
“You knock on the door, and when they open it, I’ll step up behind you and shoot past you,” Madeleine said.

             
“Why would they open the door for me?” Ariel said.

             
“They’re men, aren’t they?  You’re a young attractive woman.  Their first instinct will be to open the door.  You’ll leave you weapon with me.  Once the door is open, their attention will be on you for a moment, and that’s all I need,” Madeleine said.

             
“What if they ask me what I want?” Ariel asked.

             
“Tell them you need help and move forward. The first man will back up, if he doesn’t, pull your pistol from the small of your back, put it against his chest and pull the trigger,” Madeleine said.

             
“Ok, let’s do it,” Ariel said as she handed Madeleine her machinegun.  She slid her pistol into the elastic in the back of her pants, pointing the butt of the gun in the direction of her right hand. 

             
“Make sure you smile when he opens the door.  It helps,” Madeleine said.

             
“All my training and I’m using my body to get us into the building,” Ariel said.

             
“You use whatever you have to keep yourself alive,” Madeleine whispered.  “Now go.”

             
Ariel walked to the front door and knocked on the glass; all three men raised their heads and looked towards the door.  They started to rise in unison, when one man gestured for them to sit down and walked towards the door, smiling.  The man hadn’t touched his sidearm, nor did he appear alarmed as he pulled the door open.

             
“Where did you come from?” he said, gesturing for Ariel to step inside.

             
“Thank you,” Ariel said in Arabic returning the man’s smile as she touched him gently on the shoulder directly above his holstered pistol.  Before she could fully turn into the room, Madeleine burst in behind her sweeping her silenced pistol in a single arching movement dropping each of the men in succession.  Her first shot took out the man directly in front of Ariel.  Before Ariel could react, Madeleine pushed Ariel’s machinegun into her hands and moved over towards the security desk. Madeleine pushed a dead guard out of one of the chairs and scanned a chart in front of him.

             
“This is a diagram of the building.  There’s a secure area two floors below us.  Let’s hope he’s there,” Madeleine said.

             
“This one has keys, “Ariel said gesturing towards the guard at her feet as she reached down and detached them from his belt.

             
“It couldn’t be that easy,” Madeleine remarked as she moved towards the door leading to an interior hallway.

             
“It doesn’t look like they were expecting an attack,” Ariel said.

             
“Not if they were surprised that easily,” Madeleine said.  “Now let’s go find Tracy.”

             
Madeleine and Ariel moved down the hall towards the middle of the building where a stairwell was indicated on the security diagram.  As they approached the stairwell they heard voices coming up from below the stairs.  Madeleine held up two fingers, designating two soldiers approaching. Then raised one finger and pointed to Ariel and then two fingers and gestured to herself.  Ariel nodded as Madeleine moved to the other side of the stairwell.  Within moments, two Syrian soldiers walked into view.  Ariel waited until they were both in plain sight and fired her silenced pistol into the center of the lead man’s chest, while Madeleine shot the second.  The men crumpled to the floor as they died.

             
“We have to move these two out of sight,” Madeleine said, grabbing the first man and flipping him over onto his back.  “The last door we passed is open; we’ll put them in there. Ariel grabbed the second man and dragged him through the open door behind Madeleine.

             
“Someone is going to see the blood on the stairs,” Ariel said as they moved down the stairs.

             
“You see it, because you know it’s there,” Madeleine said.  “Those small caliber bullets don’t cause much spatter on impact.  Most people walking up the stairs won’t notice anything.  Besides, we’ll be discovered soon.  We’ll have to shoot our way into the area where Tracy’s cell must be located.  At some point an alarm will sound,” Madeleine said.

             
“I just hope we have Tracy by the time it does,” Ariel said.

             
“We have to,” Madeleine said, as they proceeded down the stairs.  At the bottom, the steps opened onto a long corridor.  Madeleine motioned for Ariel to get behind her. She looked around the corner of the stairwell and saw another security desk, manned by two men.

             
“They’re too far away to ensure a kill before they raise an alarm.  We can kill them before they have a chance to fire back, but I doubt we’ll be able to do that before one of them hits the alarm. I see a security door behind them.  If the guards don’t have keys, I will have to blow the door.  Once that’s detected, we will have Syrian soldiers converging on us.  We can’t be trapped down here. You have to stay at the top of the stairs and kill anyone that tries to block our escape.  They may come from both directions down the upstairs corridor.  They will be carrying automatic weapons.  Wait until they bunch up, and don’t shoot the first man you see.  Wait until at least three or four men are within range.  Fire on full automatic,” Madeleine said.

             
“I’ll hold the way open,” Ariel said.  “I think we should go out the way we came in.  Most of the offices and the barracks are farther into the building.”

             
“That’s what we’ll do then.  Good luck,” Madeleine said.  Ariel turned and proceeded up the stairs.  Madeleine flipped the selector on her machinegun to full auto.  She couldn’t chance using her pistol.  If she missed and didn’t kill both men, she’d be exposed with only a small caliber weapon in her hand.  Madeleine turned and sprayed the security desk and the men behind it with bullets; she continued firing in short bursts as she ran down the hall.  Both men were struck several times, their bodies dancing as the machinegun fire tore into their torsos.  Madeline ran up, uncertain whether either man had been able to push an alarm button.  The short silencer on the end of her gun had muted the noise, buying her additional time before a response team was alerted.

             
Madeleine rifled the bodies of the guards and their desk, but found no keys. Abandoning the search, she drew a plastic explosive charge from her pack, slapped it against the lock, and triggered it.  Sprinting down the hall, she threw herself to the floor, covering her ears to protect them from the blast concussion.

  
             
The charge detonated violently, tearing the door apart as it was flung down the security corridor.  Smoke filled the immediate space near the ruined door as Madeleine ran down the hallway.

 
             
There were three cells on each side of the hallway. Each had a window and was locked from the outside with a sliding bolt.  When she looked into the third cell window, she was staring into the face of Tracy Trunce.  She threw open the bolt.

             
“Madeleine? Is that you?” Tracy exclaimed.  “How did you get here?”

             
“I’ll explain later. Here take this,” she said, thrusting the machinegun into his hands.  She pulled out additional magazines and handed them to him. “There is another woman at the top of the stairs.  She is a Mossad agent. Your parents and Jack are outside.  We need to go.  The explosion will bring reinforcements down here, so shoot to kill.”

             
Madeleine turned and Tracy followed her down the hall and over the dead bodies of the security guards.  As they mounted the steps, they heard automatic gunfire from above as Ariel opened up with her machinegun.

             
“Hurry,” Madeleine exclaimed and the two ran to the top of the stairs taking two at a time.  When they reached the top, Ariel saw Tracy and gave him a brief smile.  Tracy turned and scanned the hallway in the opposite direction from where Ariel fired.  He saw three soldiers run around the corner and sprayed them with bullets.  The men went down as one.

             
“Let’s head to the front,” Madeleine said.  “Ariel, you and I will concentrate our fire on the front. Tracy, cover us from behind.”

             
“Got it,” Tracy said as the three ran down the hallway in the direction of the front door.

             
Seconds later, Syrian soldiers came from both directions. Tracy fired, killing two of the first men he saw, while Ariel and Madeleine took out two others who appeared in front of them.  As they approached the front security area, Madeleine screamed, “Down!” as three Syrian soldiers burst from a doorway, firing and narrowly missing them as they flung themselves to the floor.

  Ariel fired on the men, as Madeleine withdrew a grenade from inside her jacket.  She pulled the pin and slid the grenade along the floor towards the men who were crouching behind the security desk, blocking their escape.  The grenade exploded, flinging the men aside.  Madeleine and the others jumped to their feet and ran for the open door, ripped off its hinges by the grenade blast.  In single file all three ran out into the night with Madeleine in the lead.

             
“This way,” Madeleine called, as they ran away from the main building.  “We have a vehicle waiting there.”

An enormous explosion lit up the night. For an instant the darkness was illuminated by a brilliant flash.  The ground shook violently and the concussive force of the blast knocked the three of them to their knees.  They were up instantly, sprinting for the fence line.   As they ran, they could see a massive smoking crater strewn with bits of burning metal and wood.

             
“Did you do that?” Tracy yelled in full flight.

             
“John and Jack did; there must have been Scuds in there.

             
The force of the explosion had ripped apart the back end of the main building, but men came out of the front of the building, throwing themselves into three jeeps heading in their direction. Madeleine and the others were several yards from the hole in the fence, when the soldiers opened up with mounted machinegun fire.  Bullets hit the sand all around them.  From out of the darkness John and Jack appeared, firing directly into the soldier’s flank.  Several of the occupants were hit; and the jeeps stopped.  The surviving men got behind the jeeps and continued to fire.  Madeleine, Ariel and Tracy returned fire as they squirmed backwards towards the opening in the fence.  Jack and John ran directly for the fence line from their position, firing on the jeeps to keep the soldiers pinned down.  Jack continued to fire as John cut another hole in the fence with his wire cutter.  As he pulled the fence aside, John heard the sound of a helicopter approaching.