the left-side passage. He transmitted this decision over his mic, but he didn’t think anyone still alive upstairs could have possibly heard him down here belowground.
* * *
• • •
Hightower, Brewer, and Hanley heard the garbled transmission, and they pieced it together. Anthem, right. Violator, left. The three moved slowly and quietly out of the dim stairwell and into the dungeon area. They arrived at the circular room one minute after receiving Violator’s call, and they continued forward, under the middle arch.
* * *
• • •
Feodor Zakharov followed behind the two sleepers still alive as they pushed on through the dungeon towards the secret door that led down to Loch Ness. They knew the way, but they had a stop to make along the way first. Also, they were slowed somewhat scanning with their flashlights, checking the placement of the daisy chain of explosives that had been attached around the dungeon level. Zakharov had sent Fox and Hines off in another direction to check the explosives there. The wires were supposed to be out of the pathways, running instead along the walls, but the men who wired the subterranean level had a lot of ground to cover and little time, so it was an obvious rush job. Everyone knew that accidentally kicking a wire would set off the cigarette-pack-sized amount of C-4 the wire had been attached to, and this would kill anyone ten yards in any direction, so they did what they could to avoid this eventuality.
The Russian mercenaries hadn’t brought enough C-4 to drop the entire castle, not by a long shot. But a timer had been attached to one of the devices, and all the devices were wired together. It was set for ten minutes, but now Zakharov wanted to find the device with the timer on it and speed the countdown to five minutes before getting into the passageway to the water, detonating thirty small but powerful charges down here in the lower levels to eliminate any pursuers.
Behind him he heard a distant, echoing voice. “Papa? Papa, I’m coming for you!”
Zakharov felt the twinge of fear run down his back now as he kept moving forward with the others.
CHAPTER 66
Court moved quickly up a hallway, checking each dungeon cell with a flash from the light hanging on his rifle. Some rooms were storage now, others empty, and some rooms in this subterranean warren seemed to serve no purpose but to lead to more rooms. He flashed his weapon light on, then back off, moved forward a few feet to cover, and did it again. Over and over. It was not the fastest way to move, but it did expose him to the least amount of danger.
Or so he thought.
He knelt down behind a row of old, steel box fans in the arched stone corridor, held his rifle up, and flashed the light. Just past an archway with a massive steel gate above it suspended there by thick rope tied to a metal hook in the floor, he saw a large room and, from the quick look he gave it when the light was on, he could tell there were several mirrors in there, because of the flash reflected back on him. He was distracted by the bright light in his face for a few seconds, rubbed his eyes, and then squinted. Flashing again but towards the floor to avoid the reflections, this time he could see movement in the room, a shadow streaking right to left in the dim.
Court grabbed a flash bang grenade hooked to his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it underhanded into the room. He ducked down quickly to avoid the blast, and as soon as the distraction device erupted he rose and ran into the room with his rifle held high.
And as he entered the room he realized the flash bang had been a mistake. The device instantly started a fire in a collection of old, dusty, and unframed oil paintings, blueprints, and maps stacked in piles and leaning haphazardly along the wall.
Shit, the last thing he wanted was to be stuck down here in this dungeon in a fire.
He looked for something to extinguish the fire with, turning to the corner on his right and shining a light to see what he could find.
And then he realized he had been wrong before. This, this was the last thing he wanted.
There, three feet away and closing fast, was Jon Hines. Behind him he caught a glimpse of Fox, running under a