“I don’t miss very often,” she said confidently.
“Good.”
She climbed out with the explosive in one hand and a Beretta submachine gun over her shoulder. Edging to the corner, she flipped the explosive down the adjacent tunnel toward Shakir’s men and pulled back.
Joe revved the engine and jammed the vehicle back into gear. It surged forward, riding unevenly on its damaged tires. It passed the top of the T-junction in a second as a half dozen shots still came his way. Joe ducked instinctively. When he passed the far wall, he looked back.
Renata had moved, as planned, aimed and fired. A deafening boom thundered through the cave, hurling up a cloud of dust. When it cleared, the ATV down the hall was on its side. Several men lay around it, the others were gone. It seemed as if Shakir and his men were running for the hills.
“I’m going for the lab,” Renata shouted. “To see if there’s anything else useful there.”
She ran down the hall, covered face to foot in brown dust. It was quite effective camouflage.
Joe watched her go, got the AS-42 back into position and rolled down the tunnel, driving with one hand and firing the Breda with the other hand anytime he spotted a group of Shakir’s men.
—
Kurt noticed something flashing on the screen. “What’s that?” he demanded.
“Elevator,” one of the techs said. He pointed beyond the side door. “Down that tunnel. It goes to the pump house up top.”
The display showed it descending from four hundred feet above them.
“Elevator?” Kurt muttered. “I wish someone would have told me about that. Can you stop it?”
The men shook their heads.
“I don’t see you two carrying weapons,” Kurt said. “So I’m going to let you go. If I were you, I’d take the first train out of here.”
The men got up, one of them tried to thank Kurt.
“Just go!” he shouted.
They took off down the hall, running toward the burial chamber and the access corridor. When Kurt was confident they wouldn’t turn around, he made his way toward the side exit.
He found Joe coming down the hall in the Italian armored car.
“New problem,” Kurt shouted, waving his friend down.
“What’s that?”
“There’s an elevator along this passageway.”
“Elevator?” Joe said.
“Apparently,” Kurt replied. “We need to take it out before the car gets down here to engineering.”
“Wouldn’t we want to use it?” Joe replied.
“Shakir’s men are using it. Reinforcements are coming down from the surface.”
“Gotcha,” Joe said.
Kurt went to climb in but stopped. “Where’s Renata?”
Joe pointed. “She went looking for the lab.”
“I’m going to catch up with her,” Kurt said. “Meet us down there. We seem to have these guys on the run.”