There was a collective sigh of relief among the elevator passengers as the car began its upward climb.
“Ready?” Dane asked rhetorically as the group saw the panel lights move to the hangar level.
The door opened.
They were immediately faced with an enormous cavern of a room.
This was the hangar deck, more than four stories tall, not a hallway as they had experienced up to now.
The elevator was in one corner of the room but was out in the open.
Dane pulled the stop button so that the door would stay open in case they needed to use it again to escape.
He scanned the area.
He saw a black helicopter over to their right.
The way to the left was clear.
Dane motioned to Dana and Randall to follow him as he dashed to his right, closely following the wall until they were behind the helicopter.
There was activity everywhere.
It actually did remind Dane of an aircraft carrier hangar deck.
He could see maintenance crews working on equipment and helicopters.
Several vehicles and aircraft tugs were moving throughout the hangar level.
So much for sneaking out unseen, he thought.
He continued to scan the room.
“Holy crap!” remarked Randall, beginning to see for the first time the enormity of the complex they had stumbled upon.
“This place is huge.”
Dana said nothing.
She too was in awe of this underground world.
Dane’s eye caught something.
It was a flight of steps that went up to an opening four stories above the hangar floor.
He had no idea where the stairs led but he was happy they went up and there was cover at the top.
The staircase was about thirty feet farther to their right but very close to a group of technicians working on a large Russian-made Hind heavy-lift helicopter.
Dane pointed the stairs out to Dana and Randall.
“Our way out,” he said.
Dane surveyed the area further.
Between them and the Hind were two small jeep vehicles and a large wooden crate over against the wall.
Dane figured they could easily get to the crate and move behind the two jeeps but the last several feet to the stairs were in the open.
And then there were the stairs themselves.
They were attached to the wall of the hangar in plain view of the entire room.
Once they began their climb to freedom, they would be in a clear kill zone for anyone with a weapon on the hangar level.
What they needed was a diversion.
Dane knew exactly what to do next.
The small group gathered together closely.
“Okay, we are leaving now.
You see the stairs over there?
That’s our way out.
We will sneak behind the crate here and past the two jeeps.
Once we are in position I will throw a grenade down the hangar deck that will get everyone’s attention while we scramble up the stairs to that door up there,” he said, pointing to the top of the stairs.
“You ready?”
“Let’s go,” said Randall.
Dana chimed in, “Ready.”
Dane reached into his vest and pulled out a grenade.
Still in a crouch, the threesome scurried behind the large crate and on along behind the jeeps.
They were now a few feet from the mechanics working on the Hind.
They could hear the conversations clearly in German between the workers.
Dane looked at Dana and Randall and nodded.
Both gave a thumbs-up signal.
Dane pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it as hard as he could down toward the far wall of the hangar level, about fifty yards away.
Dane saw the grenade hit the floor and skitter between several fifty-five gallon drums.
Almost immediately there was a deafening explosion.
Flames bolted from the area of the explosion and flaming fuel raced across the floor of the hangar.
People ran in all directions.
An alarm klaxon sounded.
Chaos ensued.
“Go, go, go!” screamed Dane.
Without hesitation the trio raced in a full run to the stairs and began climbing.
As they turned to take the next flight of steps, they saw two burning men screaming and running through the flames.
Others were running toward the men with hand-held fire extinguishers to douse the flames.
Heavy black smoke was beginning to overwhelm the area, rising to their level on the stairs.
The acrid black smoke served to shield the fleeing group from those below.
They kept climbing, climbing for their lives.
They were only one flight from the top when Dane noticed an armed German stepping out of the doorway above to see what happened.
Dane raised his silenced MP-5 and fired twice.
The man fell back from the railing of the stairs and onto the top landing.
Seconds later the group reached the top.
Dane ducked into the doorway hoping to find a clear way out.
Dana and Randall stood outside on the stairway landing, horrified at the mayhem below.
The grenade had landed among several aviation fuel barrels.
When it exploded, the blast sprayed burning fuel all over the area, igniting a jeep and another helicopter which was armed with machine guns and rockets.
The rockets exploded causing a massive blast that either killed or injured nearly everyone on that end of the hangar level.
Fire and smoke filled the area.
No one saw their escape since those that were not killed or injured were fighting the fires.
Some personnel had broken out hoses and were beginning to spray the deck with water.
Several men clad in silver fire suits were breaking out other fire equipment and clamoring onto firefighting rigs.
The fire alarm klaxon was still blaring.
The scene was utter chaos.
Neither Dana nor Randall had ever seen such destruction and loss of life.
Dane stuck his head back out of the door.
“Come on,” he yelled over the din of the hell below them.
The heat was getting intense.
The group ran through the door.
Dane closed it behind them.
The roar of the fire and the klaxon subsided.
Dana felt that she could think again.
“This way.
I found a hatchway out.”
They ran down a short hallway to a set of stairs leading up to a closed hatch.
Dane ran up the stairs and looked for a lock.
He had Maas’ keys so he felt they should be able to unlock the hatch.
To his dismay, he noticed a keypad lock on the wall just under the hatch cover.
Damn, he thought.
Not as easy as he thought it might be.
He stepped down to Dana and Randall.
“Randall, you watch that door.
I don’t expect anyone to come up but they could try to use it to escape the fire.
You must kill anyone that sets foot through that door.
Do you understand me?” asked Dane.
“Can you do it?”
“Yes, I got it,” said Randall as he stepped down the hall a few steps and leveled his weapon at the doorway.
Randall wondered to himself if he really could kill a man.
“Dana, you step back into the hall.
I’m going to have to blow this hatch.”
Dana stepped back without comment.
Dane took out a small cube charge of C-4 explosive and rolled it between his hands to make a “snake”.
He stepped back up the stairs and carefully ran the “snake” of C-4 around the inside of the hatch.
He jammed a detonator into the explosive and pulled the O-ring on the fuse.
Bounding down the steps, he grabbed Dana and stepped back down the hall.
There was a loud bang and immediately another alarm went off, this time a high-pitched siren.
Also two red LED lights began flashing in the hall.
Dane released Dana and ran around the corner, looked up and saw jungle!
They were free!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Inside Fortress Alpha;
10:20 a.m.
Hugo felt the blast almost before he heard it.
The huge room housing the power station vibrated as if there was an earthquake.
Within seconds, alarms were going off everywhere.
He wondered what the hell happened.
The rumble had to be an explosion.
He hoped it meant Dane had Dana and Randall and they were attempting their escape.
Several technicians were running from machine to machine and checking dials on the equipment below.
From where he stood on the gantry above, he could see the excitement and the large probe-like cylinder, the heart of the power station.
It seemed to go down forever.
That was the key, he thought.
Blow up the central core and that should do the job of blacking out the station.
Hugo moved deliberately further to his right, down two flights of stairs and onto the main station base level.
He did not run to not call attention to himself.
There were only a handful of personnel on the floor.
None seemed interested in him since he carried a shouldered weapon and was merely walking.
They were either scared to death that something was going to go wrong down here and cause a disaster or they just didn’t see him with their focused work on the machines.
He decided he could take advantage of this chaos.
He walked over to the side of the room.
He planned to move around the perimeter, get to the core itself and set his charges.
He stopped beside two huge pipes coming through the floor and checked his satchel.
Great!
He had two one-pound blocks of C-4 and a couple of detonators.
Now all he had to do was get to the core.
He scanned the room and saw a bank of generators and control systems in a row slightly to his right.
The line extended out to within ten feet of the core.
He surveyed the personnel in the area.
He could only see two technicians, both working furiously on something.
He planned to walk right past them, hoping they would not notice him.
Hugo removed his vest and laid his satchel down on the floor.
He doffed gear he did not need to use to escape.
Pushing the gear behind the piping, Hugo knelt down and pushed a detonator into each block of explosive. This was not the prescribed way to handle C-4 but it would have to do.
Normal ops would have been to place the explosives, then arm the package with the detonators.
But he wanted to get everything ready before standing out in the open setting charges.
He completed the rigging of the two C-4 packages, each with a small timer.
He set both timers to forty-five minutes.
He checked them again, quickly.
He had forty-five minutes to get the hell out of there.
All he had to do now was get across the room, slide up beside the core cylinder and place the charges.
Then he would get out of there fast.
The blaring of the alarm was endless.
Hugo wondered why someone had not turned the damn thing off.
But on the other hand, the alarm was causing such a chaotic effect, most everyone would not even pay attention to just one man moving through the equipment.
Hugo shouldered his weapon, picked up his two packages and took one last look around.
There were no technicians in sight.
He stood and hurried out behind the generators.
He stopped and looked again.
There was no one stirring around the core.
He quickly ran behind the systems cabinets and right up to the core cylinder.
There was a pulsating sound coming from it.
He reached out and felt heat coming from below the floor.
Scanning the area again, he knelt beside the core and placed one charge on one side and another on the other side of the huge cylinder.
He pressed the timer switches and the timers began.
He checked around the room again.
There was only one technician over by the wall more than twenty-five feet away.
He had his back to Hugo.