“Yep,” Wade confirmed.
Looked like what Ruby had said before might be true.Maybe the government had destroyed part of the complex or filled some of it in, but since then someone else had cleared part of it back out again.
Twenty yards down the main tunnel, they found the entrance to another.Ryan’s heart rate picked up as they checked the door and eased inside.He, Wade, and Taylor went in to check it out.They hit a dead end a hundred and fifty feet in and retraced their steps.
“Keep going,” Taylor told them all, and continued down the main tunnel.
In the glow of the penlight Wade aimed ahead, they saw the end of it.The entire forward section of the tunnel was caved in, rubble obliterating the entrance from floor to ceiling.But there was one final door a few feet away from it to their right.
Taylor waved them forward, stopping to check the door.Ryan flexed his fingers around the grips of his weapon, the butt snug against the front of his sore shoulder.The door didn’t look rigged, but opening it was a gamble.
Ryan stayed to the right of it as Taylor moved to its left and reached for the lever.He strained to twist it, the groan of metal on metal echoing in the tunnel, scraping over his nerve endings.
It opened slightly.Wade tossed in another flashbang.It exploded with a bright flash of light and a loud burst that pulsed against his eardrums.Then, nothing but silence.
Wade went in first this time, then Taylor and Ryan.Nothing but empty black space lay ahead of them.Then came the faint sound of footsteps from somewhere behind them.
“Shit, someone’s moving the other way,” Cam said.
Ryan rushed back out of the side tunnel with the others, the sound of someone running fading ahead of them in the distance.“He’s going for the main shaft.”
“And he’ll try to bury us all down here if we don’t stop him before he gets there,” Taylor muttered, saying exactly what Ryan had feared.
Fuck!The grenades.They’d left the goddamn grenades lying there.March could use them to pin them all down here, maybe even take a few of them out, then blow the tunnel entrance shut.
He ran back the way they’d come, right on Wade’s heels, Taylor behind him, then Cam and Jackson.They had to stop this fucker before he reached the grenades.
The darkness hampered them until Wade switched on the tac light on his weapon, flooding the tunnel with a beam of light.Ryan’s pulse thudded in his ears, the pain in his arm disappearing under the rush of fear and adrenaline.They were literally in a race for their lives and couldn’t afford to lose.
His boots thudded on the concrete floor with every step.Shots exploded down the tunnel.Bullets sprayed the floor and walls, bouncing all over, making them draw back into a huddle behind the bend in the wall for cover.
Then something metallic pinged off the floor up ahead.His heart seized.
“Grenade!”He dove to the ground, climbing half on top of Wade out of instinct to shield his teammate an instant before it detonated.Bits of concrete and dust pelted them but there was no sharp, hot bite of metal.
A vision of Candace appeared in his head.Laughing at something he’d said, her head thrown back, dark eyes dancing.Then he thought of her beautiful face crumpling with grief if he died tonight.He wasnotgoing to be buried alive down here.
Ryan lifted his head, surged to his feet, and ran headlong after Wade, determined to get the son of a bitch waiting up ahead.Just as they came to the last bend in the tunnel, another grenade rattled and rolled its way toward them.
They hit the ground again.Ryan bit back a howl of pain as red-hot agony swept up his right arm.
He vaguely saw Wade tossing his own grenade before hitting the floor on his belly.The two weapons detonated at almost the same moment, the combined concussion ringing his head and compressing his lungs.
“Think I hit him,” he heard Wade say, and clambered to his feet once more to give chase.The pain made his vision waver, but he shook it off.
In the beam of light from Wade’s weapon, Ryan saw March up ahead.Just a blur of motion as he started up the metal rungs in the concrete wall.
Everything slowed down to a fraction of normal time.His gaze locked on March’s hand as the man reached for the pin in another grenade.
He raised the muzzle of his weapon at the same time Wade did, aiming center mass before firing.They hit him dead in the chest, knocking him off the ladder.He fell, hitting the ground with a solid thud.
Taylor raced past them, weapon up.“Don’t fucking move, asshole,” he warned.
Ryan was right behind him, kicking away the man’s rifle as Taylor searched him for other weapons.Their bullets had hit March right in the center of his ballistic vest.He gasped for breath as Taylor rolled him over and secured his hands behind him.
It was only then that Ryan realized how fast he was breathing, how amped up he was.He wanted to smash March’s face in with his bare fist for what the man had done.For wounding Candace, for wounding and almost killing him and his teammates down here.
“Motherfucker.”
