Ken Goddard - Prey

Abercombie and the technician waited expectantly, but there was no answer.

"For Christ's sake, I'm going to the training area to get Maas," Lisa Abercombie snarled, and then started for the door when the first shots rang out in the underground training facility.

The first stretcher team was waved through by Command Sergeant Major Clarence MacDonald and Master Gunnery Sergeant Gary Brickard, both dressed in full combat gear and armed with M-16 assault rifles.

As soon as they were inside, Paxton rolled off the stretcher. The carriers, both officers of the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game, let the stretcher drop. All three men, armed with shoulder-holstered pistols and wearing Kevlar vests under their fire-fighting jackets, took up defensive positions. Gunter Aben took one look and cut loose with a stream of 9mm submachine gun bullets that caught one of the Louisiana officers across the chest and throat. Aben immediately twisted away then and disappeared as a burst of 5.56mm ball ammo from MacDonald's M-16 and three evenly spaced hollow-point rounds from Paxton's SIG-Sauer shredded wood and plasterboard around his head.

The second stretcher team, consisting of Lightstone and Takahara as the bearers of a stretcher loaded with assault rifles, shotguns, stun grenades, ammo pouches, and first-aid gear, hit the floor to avoid the first flurry of gunshots. They disappeared then down the sloping helipad access tunnel, followed by MacDonald and Brickard and the Louisiana sergeant as the third stretcher team-consisting of the four remaining Louisiana officers and Stoner-moved into defensive positions and immediately went to the aid of the injured officer.

By the time they got to the end of the tunnel and were positioned to cover the swinging access doors to the conference room and the stairwell, MacDonald was already forming a plan.

As Brickard, Lightstone, Takahara, the Louisiana sergeant, and three of his officers crouched against the angled walls, their weapons out and ready, watching for the first sign of movement at either of the doors, MacDonald nodded at Lightstone.

"I'm Clarence MacDonald," the veteran combat soldier said, and then motioned with his head. "The gunny over there is Gary Brickard. You Lightstone?"

"Yeah," Lightstone nodded as he continued to scan the opposite corridor.

"Anybody else on the way?"

"Eventually there'll probably be a couple hundred FBI agents surrounding the park," Lightstone replied, "but right now, we're it. How many of them are there?"

"Seven," MacDonald said, "and they're all damn good."

"Which one's the white-haired asshole with the rhino-skin boots?" Lightstone asked.

"That's Maas," Brickard said. "He's the one you really gotta watch out for," the gunny sergeant advised. "Man's got reflexes like a cat. You see him, you better put him down fast."

"What about Chareaux?" the Louisiana sergeant asked quickly.

"They brought him in about a half hour ago on the end of a chain," MacDonald said, "beat to shit, and now they're hauling him around like a goddamn dog."

"We want him alive," the Louisiana sergeant said.

"Fine with me," MacDonald shrugged. "Okay, here's what we'll-"

At that moment, a pair of crashing gunshots rang out, followed by the sound of a loud, pulsing alarm that echoed through the huge underground facility.

The volley of gunfire in the distant corridor sent Lisa Abercombie running back into the command-and-control room, where she found Dr. Morito Asai trying to follow the movements of the invading law-enforcement officers on a bank of monitors as he spoke into his headset microphone. The communications technician had long since disappeared.

"Who are they?" Abercombie demanded as she closed and locked the glass-paneled door behind her.

"I don't know yet." Asai shook his head as he continued to adjust one of the security cameras.

"Look, there!" he said, pointing to the main screen.

"Who… wait a minute!" Lisa Abercombie's eyes bulged. "That's Paxton! He's supposed to be dead!"

"And Agent Stoner, too," Asai said as he switched over to the outside helipad camera. He focused on the huge agent who was guarding the entry into the facility.

"And Takahara, and… oh, my God, Lightner, he's here!" Lisa Abercombie whispered as Asai focused security camera number twelve on his easily recognizable face.

"Yes, definitely him," Asai smiled as he hit a button with his foot and spoke into his headset microphone.

"Maas, I can see eight intruders outside the lower-level stairwell. One of them is Lightner."

"Ah, gut!" The German assault-group leader's voice echoed over the speakers.

Then Asai and Abercombie whirled around with a start, Asai going for his shoulder-holstered semiautomatic pistol pistol, as Paul Saltmann entered the control room with a Smith amp; Wesson. 44 Magnum revolver in his muscular hand.

"Christ! You scared the shit out of me," Lisa Abercombie gasped as she glared at her intelligence specialist. "What the hell is going on out there?"

"Looks to me like MacDonald and Brickard changed sides," Saltmann said as he glanced over at one of the monitors and saw the two combat-uniformed soldiers. "How many of them are there?"

"Not so many," Asai shrugged as he took his hand away from the grip of the small automatic. "Maybe ten at the most."

Saltmann smiled and shook his curly head sadly. "Those poor bastards. Maas can handle that many by him-Oh, shit!" The intelligence specialist blinked, his eyes widening in surprise as he stared at one of the far monitors.

"What's the matter?" Abercombie demanded, and then stared in horror at the row of camera monitors that showed the expanse of land surrounding the facility. Each of the six small screens showed at least two assault-type helicopters landing and unloading armed combatants.

Saltmann shook his head and turned to Asai. "Can you tell who they are?"

Dr. Morito Asai made several rapid adjustments to the control panel. The camera lenses zoomed in until all three of them could easily read the lettering on the raid jackets and the sides of the helicopters.

"FBI and U.S. Army," Lisa Abercombie whispered. "My God, what are we going to do?"

Dr. Morito Asai turned to look at Abercombie, and she realized that he was waiting for her to make a decision.

It occurred to her then that she might have a chance, after all, if she could tell her story to the right people… to someone who would appreciate the significance of what they had tried to do and the magnitude of the risks that were necessarily involved.

Someone who would understand.

"Tell Maas that we must surrender immediately. There are too many of them for us to fight," she said to the Japanese team leader, who nodded solemnly and turned back to his control board.

Paul Saltmann raised the. 44 Magnum and triggered off a high-velocity round that blew Dr. Morito Asai out of the console chair like a rag doll. The concussion sent Lisa Abercombie staggering back against the glass wall in shock, her hands clenched tightly over her ears.

"Why did you do that?" she shrieked, deafened by the explosive force of the contained gunshot, unable to hear the words even as she screamed them.

"Sorry, folks, but we are not going to surrender," Saltmann said evenly. He shifted the aim point of the powerful handgun in his two-handed grip and fired a second expanding. 44 bullet. The creator of ICER, hit square in the chest, was flung backward through the shattering glass wall.

Paul Saltmann checked to make sure that no one else was around, moved up to the control board and called up the menu on the computer screen. He selected "Security," typed in his password, and selected "Destruction," typed in a second password, checked his watch, typed in the numerals 45, selected "Activate," and then "Confirm."