Silent Assassin(59)
“Cobra,” said Bishop. “This is not the time to dispute orders. We do what we’re told, and that’s the end of it. Get your ass in position. We’re going in.”
Spartan, who had been securing the rope to a sturdy exposed pipe a little ways up the stairs, was now in position. She was the first to rappel down.
“Okay,” said Shepard through the comm to the whole team. “Remember, the mainframe will be on the first floor down. Get in there and patch me in.”
Morgan took the rear. He waited as the others dropped down, keeping an eye on the stairway to the surface while clutching his Uzi. After Bishop disappeared into the shaft, he waited for the double pull to the rope that indicated that he had been disengaged. Morgan strapped it to himself and eased himself into the shaft. It smelled musty and chemical all at once. From the depths of the elevator shaft, straining his ears, he heard a muffled inhuman shriek reverberating upward.
Morgan reached the door onto the first level underground and swung out onto the ground. The first thing he noticed was broken glass clinking and crunching under his feet. On the floor were the corpses of two facility guards, in grey and black. The overhead lights were off, with only the scant fluorescent emergency lights illuminating the cramped underground spaces. From the elevator foyer, there was a short curved hallway with an electronically sealed steel door at one end, and an open one at the other. On the wall right across from the elevator door, Morgan saw a symbol he recognized, and it sent a chill down his spine. Extreme biohazard. He could still hear the faint screams down below. What the hell was this place?
The first floor down had its own little atrium with a single door to the stairs, clearly marked that they only went up, not down, and another door to the facility itself. The group had already made its way through that door, except for Rogue, who had waited for Morgan to make it down. They proceeded together, and Morgan found a hallway that stretched to his left, curving inward toward the elevator. There were two doors along the side of the hallway, one toward the center of the curve, marked MAINTENANCE, and another outward, marked MAINFRAME. At the far end of the hallway was another door, shut tight. The key-card reader next to it had been opened, and loose wires hung from a hole in the wall.
“All clear,” said Spartan, from down the hall.
“All right,” said Bishop, then emerging from the maintenance door. “Rogue, take the rear. “
Diesel examined the gutted panel. “There’ll be no getting this one open from this side,” he said. “It’s shot to hell.”
“To be expected,” said Shepard over the comm. “Don’t bother blowing it. Use your explosives to get to that mainframe. Once you’ve patched me in, I’ll get it open remotely.”
Diesel examined the mainframe door, knocking on it at various parts. It made a solid metallic sound.
“Steel,” he said. “Multiple-bolt locking system. Key-operated, as a fail-safe in case of mainframe failure. I’ve got . . . fourteen bolts, plus we’ve got to consider that those hinges are reinforced steel too.”
“What does that mean?” asked Bishop.
“It means we’re going to need a hell of a lot of explosives.” He began to apply a sticky white paste from something that looked like an oversize tube of toothpaste to certain spots on the edges of the door.
“Be careful with those explosives,” came Shepard’s voice over the comm. “Don’t damage the mainframe.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” said Diesel.
Morgan leaned back against the wall as Diesel worked. He looked at Rogue, who was fidgeting nervously. Morgan sympathized. Waiting in such a high-adrenaline situation was especially excruciating. He looked over at Spartan, but she had perfected the dead-eye approach to danger, one which he imagined she had learned rather early. She knew how much she’d hear if the only woman on the team was the one caught being nervous about a risky situation.
“All right, everybody take cover!” said Diesel.
Morgan and the others went around the corner and Diesel pushed a button on his remote detonator. There was a muted burst, and then a loud metallic thunk as the door fell to the ground. They all made their way back toward the door, which was now just its jamb on the wall. He saw the smoke that remained from the burst, and the charring around the spots where the plastic explosives had been. As he got closer, Morgan felt chill air coming from the dimly lit, newly opened room. He peered inside and saw a million LED lights, constant or blinking at various intervals, a mass of cables running between terminals or into the wall. The nerve center of the entire facility.