Ben put his hand on his father's shoulder. "That's the last thing I want to do, Pop. I can't speak for Diego, but at the very least, I want to wipe that big fake igloo off the face of the earth."
"That's a tall order for two men," Ryan said. "You'll need help." "Thanks, Mark, I know you mean well, but the others need you more than we do."
"You're not the only one who has a score to settle," Ryan said. His voice gained a steely edge. "Barker killed Joshua, and he sank my ship. Now he's trying to kill the oceans. I owe him big-time. That thing on the other side of the lake is no grass hut. You're not going to blow it down with a huff and a puff."
"We know that. We'll figure it out."
"You don't have time for trial and error. I know how we can send that dome into the stratosphere." Ryan turned to Mercer. "You re- member what we talked about?"
"Yeah, I remember. We said we could give Barker a big hotfoot if we got the chance."
"Well, Ben, how about it?" Ryan said. "Are we in?"
"It's not my decision alone." He turned to Diego.
The Basque said, "There are many of them and only a few of us.
Pablo is out of action. We would have to be very lucky merely to stay alive."
Ben hesitated. "Okay, Mark. You're in."
Ryan's mouth widened in a triumphant grin. "We'll need some ex- plosives. Our C-4 was taken away when we were captured."
"My brother and I have some hand grenades," Diego said, reach- ing over to tap his backpack. "Three apiece. Enough?"
In answer, Ryan glanced at Mercer, who said, "It could work if they're positioned in the right place."
"What can I do?" said Therri, who had been listening to the dis- cussion.
"Ben's people are in pretty tough shape," Ryan said. "They'll need your help, especially the kids."
"I'll do my best," Therri said. She kissed him and gave Mercer and Ben a peck on the cheek as well. "Take care of yourselves."
As Therri made her way back into the forest, Ben and the other men pushed the catamaran off the beach and climbed aboard. The boat's twin hulls and powerful motors gave it a respectable speed. They scudded over the surface of the lake and soon reached the op- posite shore. Pablo and Diego rode shotgun in the bow as the boat coasted up to the pier. They quickly tied up and headed inland.
Mercer made a stop at the boat shed and emerged with two reels of three-eighths docking line, some cord and a roll of duct tape. Walking single file, they detoured around the plaza. With Ryan in the lead, the group made its way undetected to the side of the dome.
Ryan found what he was looking for: a tall, cylindrical fuel tank lo- cated in a clearing surrounded by dense woods. Painted on the side was a warning that the tank contained highly flammable contents. A steel pipe about six inches in diameter ran from the tank to the side of the building. Next to where the pipe entered the airship hangar was a locked door. Like the dome itself, the door was made of a plas- tic material and easily gave way to the strength and determination be- hind Diego's shoulders.
Then he and the others stepped into a short passageway that ran parallel to the pipe for several yards. The conduit disappeared through a wall next to another door, this one unlocked. Ryan took the lead and opened the door a crack, giving him a view of the inte- rior of the airship hangar. Men milled around in the middle of the building, where the airship had been tied down. Others were coiling lines or moving gantries and scaffolding. A few guards were drift- ing out the hangar's main door.
Ryan motioned for the others to stay put while he and Mercer stepped into the hangar. They crawled along the wall behind tall stacks of coiled hose until they came to where the pipe entered the building. Barker had gestured toward the hose when he had ex- plained why he used hydrogen rather than helium to fill the airship's gasbags. A valve controlled by a large hand-turned wheel allowed the flow of gas into the hose. Ryan turned the wheel on the pipe until they could hear the hiss of gas escaping through the nozzle.
The escaping gas rose to the roof, where it wouldn't be detected, they hoped, until it was too late. With their work done, they slipped out the door and followed the passageway into the open. Ben and Diego had been equally busy. Following Mercer's instructions, they had taped the hand grenades onto the tank. Short lengths of cord had been attached to the sa
fety-pin rings and ganged to the line from one of the spools. Ryan and Mercer inspected the work, found it satis- factory, then walked back to the lake, uncoiling the line behind them. They tried to run the line straight back to the lake, keeping it clear of bushes and trees where it could snag.
When they'd emptied one two-hundred-foot-long spool, they spliced the free end onto another spool. They were still a dozen yards short of the lake when that spool gave out, too. Mercer ducked into the boat shed and came out with several lengths and sizes of rope that they spliced together until the rope reached to the water's edge. When all was ready, Diego headed back to the plaza and took a position be- hind a thick tree.
With their work inside the hangar done, Kiolyan men were streaming out into the plaza, some of them heading in the direction of their barracks. The Basque coldly took a bead on a guard and let off a short burst. The man fell to the ground. More guards came running from the direction of the barracks and began to fire indis- criminately into the woods where they saw muzzle flashes, but Diego moved after each kill and the bullets went far wide of their targets. When two more of their number were killed, the men in the plaza ran for the door of the giant igloo.
Diego had counted on exactly this reaction. He had tried to pick off the men who were making a break for the woods. The effect was to herd the guards into the "protection" of the structure. He knew that, given time, they would emerge from other exits in the dome and fan out into the woods and try a flanking maneuver. But as the last man disappeared into the airship hangar, leaving the plaza deserted, Diego was already sprinting back to the beach.
Waiting on shore, where he and the others had been alerted by the sound of gunfire, Ryan saw Diego running toward him and handed the end of the line to Ben.
"Would you like to do the honors?"
"Thanks," Ben said, taking the line. "Nothing would give me more pleasure."