The Assault - By Brian Falkner Page 0,54

in excitement and relief.

“Cheese and rice!” Monster said, looking more surprised than anyone.

The tank began to back away, its main armament destroyed. Then it lurched to a halt, dead in the water.

Wilton and Price were on their feet now, looking dazed.

“Are you okay?” Chisnall asked.

Price shook off dust like a dog shaking off water. “Just winded,” she gasped.

Wilton gave him the thumbs-up.

“Let’s move,” Chisnall said. “Relocate to the far end of the corridor.”

Chisnall slung his rifle and went to pick up one end of the fifty-cal. Monster grabbed his hands before Chisnall could touch it, spitting on the barrel as he did so. The spit sizzled and evaporated instantly.

Idiot! Chisnall thought. Burned hands were all he needed right now. He should have known that the barrel of the gun would be red-hot. Monster handed him a thick cloth and he wrapped it around the barrel.

Boot steps sounded in the shattered entranceway and enemy rounds sprayed up into the ceiling of the corridor as they ran. They set the fifty-cal on the floor at the end of the corridor and Monster lay behind it. Wilton kneeled at the doorway, his rifle propped on his knee. Price and Chisnall took opposite sides of the doorway. Anyone foolish enough to stick his head around the other end of that corridor was going to lose it, real fast.

They waited. They could hear sounds coming from the other end of the long corridor, but there was no sign of anyone.

“The tank shell took out the stairs,” Price said. “They’ll have to bring up some ladders.”

“That won’t take long,” Chisnall said.

“We’re done.” It was Fleming’s voice on the comm. “We’re Oscar Mike.”

Finally!

“Monster, stay here,” Chisnall said. “Keep their heads down. Price, Wilton, on me. I’m going to open up the doors to the tunnel.”

They ran for the control room with the others and had just reached it when he heard the heavy stutter of Monster’s fifty-cal in the corridor behind him.

Brogan was sitting up but looked dazed.

“Brogan!” Chisnall tried to keep the relief out of his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I … I think so,” she said. She seemed vacant.

“Can you walk?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice came from somewhere far away.

Chisnall hoped it was just the aftereffects of the concussion and not something more permanent.

“Price, Wilton, take her with you. Get her inside the tunnel when I open the doors.”

He found the controls for the inner bay doors and shoved them open. Through a long glass window that looked out on the monorail bay, he could see the two SAS men already in the bay and waiting. Behind the wreckage of the car and the Tomahawk, the doors began to open.

Price and Wilton appeared on the stairs, Brogan stumbling between them.

“Grenades!” Monster yelled from the passageway.

“Get out of there!” Chisnall yelled.

“Monster did this already,” Monster said, running at full speed past the door to the control room.

The grenades in the passageway exploded in a series of sharp cracks.

The inner tunnel doors were almost fully open now. Chisnall took a grenade and set the timer to the maximum: sixty seconds. He placed it on the control desk and pulled the pin, then shoved the bay door controls back into the closed position.

He sprinted out into the corridor, only to be greeted by a hail of fire from the entrance. He threw himself back into the control room as chips flew from the stone walls around him, peppering his body armor.

He had two grenades left. One was a flash-bang. He pulled the pin and watched the safety lever spin away into a corner of the room. He threw it, hard, on an angle against the wall of the corridor so that it bounced off and along toward his attackers. Almost immediately, there was a blast of light and a crack of thunder, and he was moving, diving through the doorway of the control room and rolling across to the corridor opposite. A hard left turn and another short corridor, and the monorail bay was ahead of him. He pulled out his sidearm as he emerged into the bay on the upper observation level. Below him, Monster was climbing over the wreckage toward the closing bay doors. More firing came from behind. He snapped off a couple of quick shots with his pistol, not aiming.

He didn’t have enough time. He could see that now. The big metal doors were already half closed and he still had to get down to the platform and past the wreckage. If those doors shut,