Brad Thor - The Athena Project

Alex Cooper had no idea Heger’s men were there until their red dot lasers lit her up like a Christmas tree. Their message couldn’t have been any clearer- Make one false move and you die.

She had been so well concealed that it took her a moment to realize how they had found her. Setting down her weapon, she stood and raised her hands above her head. That was when the men materialized.

All of them were wearing night vision goggles. But unlike Cooper, they hadn’t activated their infrared illuminators. She might as well have been sitting there waving a flashlight back and forth.

She had tried to communicate with Casey, Ericsson, and Rhodes, but the radio signal was too weak to reach all the way down into the complex. She caught the tail end of Gretchen’s message just as one of the Czechs, a tall man with a crew cut and pockmarked face, took her radio from her. He and his colleagues were wearing the same tactical boots she had seen on the men getting into the Range Rover with Heger outside the hotel earlier.

Casey had said they were on their way out. Using their distress code-a word meant to convey that the operation had been compromised-was impossible. So, she did the next best thing and yelled for the rest of her team to run.

The shooting started almost immediately, and Casey, Rhodes, and Ericsson dove for the ground. There was no cover to be had anywhere. They were sitting ducks, and what was worse was that tunnels had a bad habit of funneling gunfire right at you.

They had all drawn the pistols Vlcek had given them, but they knew their weapons were no match for the fully automatic weapons they could hear being fired just outside.

Casey tried once more to raise Cooper over the radio, but quickly gave up. There was no answer. If she was still alive, she’d be in the fight. The only problem was that none of the three women in the tunnel could hear Cooper’s pistol being fired.

“We’ve got to get to Alex,” said Rhodes.

Casey nodded and the trio popped up onto their feet, but stayed as low to the ground as possible. Rhodes charged right out in front.

As the gunfire continued, all three of the women picked up speed. They could now see Alex Cooper engaged in serious hand-to-hand combat with what appeared to be one of Heger’s men. Another was already sprawled on the ground nearby.

She delivered a series of punches, culminating with a jab that dropped the man right where he stood. Reaching down, she seized his CZ Skorpion EVO submachine gun, took cover behind a large rock, and began firing in controlled, three-round bursts.

When Casey, Ericsson, and Rhodes ran up, they glanced at the two men. One had night vision goggles on and was bleeding profusely from his nose. There was no telling if he was alive or dead. The other man had had his head wrenched to the side and his NVGs thrown clear. He lay on the ground with his eyes wide open. He was definitely dead. Alex Cooper’s bad side was a very dangerous place to be.

A fusillade of bullets erupted around them and the three women dove for cover near Cooper. Casey grabbed the pant leg of the dead man and dragged him behind the rock, stripped him of his weapon and extra magazines, and got in the fight with Alex.

Casey didn’t have time to put on her NVGs, so Cooper called out where to fire. “Three o’clock! Eleven o’clock! Ten o’clock!”

Rhodes dragged the other man behind the rock with them and felt for a pulse. He was still breathing. She stripped off all of his extra magazines and handed them to Ericsson so she could feed them to Casey and Cooper as needed.

Rhodes found a bundle of plastic FlexCuffs in the man’s pocket and, rolling him onto his stomach, bound his wrists behind his back. She relieved him of his sidearm, an auto knife, and another knife in his boot, then put her knee in his back and got her NVGs on.

Ericsson had hers on now, too, and took the Skorpion from Casey, who immediately pulled her NVGs from her pack. “How many are there?” yelled Ericsson as Cooper continued to fire.

“At least six, maybe more,” she said.

“How did they know we were here?” she asked as she engaged two men creeping up on their position and nailed both of them in the head. The men fell to the ground dead.

Cooper swung her weapon to the right and nailed one of the Czechs in the throat. “There must have been an intrusion device we didn’t see.”

Rhodes leaned her body well beyond the boulder and fired four shots. It was an overly aggressive move that almost got her killed. Dust and rock chips exploded all around her. One bullet missed her head by millimeters.

“Let’s switch it up,” she said, tapping Ericsson on the shoulder.

Casey and Rhodes were the team’s best shooters, and Cooper and Ericsson now handed the submachine guns over to them. Julie placed her knee in the unconscious man’s back.

“How much ammo do we have left?” asked Casey.

“One mag apiece,” answered Ericsson.

“Let’s make them count,” she said, as she indicated to Rhodes what she wanted to do.

Rhodes nodded and transitioned to her pistol. She counted to three and then said, “Go!”

Leaning out from behind the rock, Rhodes swept the pistol in a wide arc and laid down a wave of suppression fire as Casey ran for cover on the other side of the tunnel entrance. Once she had fired her last round, she ducked back behind the rock and transitioned to the Skorpion. Now, Heger’s men were really going to get it.

Seeing that the Czechs were using night vision goggles, none of the women had activated their illuminators. While that made it more difficult for them to see, it also made it more difficult for them to be seen. Cooper, who had learned the hard way that the men were wearing NVGs, had already shut her illuminator off.

Casey and Rhodes waited for the men to show themselves. They had very little ammo left. They needed to use it sparingly.

Cooper looked at Megan and said, “I’m going to flank them.” It was a good idea, especially as the men were probably planning on doing the same to them.

Rhodes got Casey’s attention and signaled to her what Alex wanted to do. Casey gave them the thumbs-up. Ericsson wanted to go too, but someone needed to keep an eye on the prisoner. Rhodes couldn’t focus on Heger’s men and their prisoner at the same time. Besides, there was still a chance someone might come over the top of the tunnel behind them, and they needed Julie to be the eyes in the backs of their heads.

No sooner had Rhodes given her the signal to watch their six o’clock than Ericsson’s pistol flew up and she pulled the trigger twice, double-tapping one of the Czechs, who had come over the hill behind them.

His lifeless body toppled over and landed on the ground in front of the tunnel.

Before the man had even made impact, Cooper took off running.

Casey saw movement down the path from them and squeezed her trigger. “Gotcha,” she said as another Czech fell.

Rhodes kept her weapon up and ready. She knew they were still out there; they were just too well hidden for her to see. That gave her an idea.

“Jules,” she said. “When I say go, activate the illuminator on the dead guy’s NVGs and toss them off to my three o’clock.”

“Roger that,” said Ericsson as she kept her pistol trained on the hill behind them and reached over for the abandoned night vision goggles.

“Ready?” asked Rhodes.

Ericsson felt along the device until she found the illuminator and then replied, “Ready.”

Megan tightened her grip on her weapon and said, “Okay, go!”

Ericsson tossed the NVGs as Rhodes had instructed and it had exactly the intended effect. One of Heger’s men fired and gave away his position.

“Czech-out time,” whispered Rhodes as she pulled her trigger and nailed him with two rounds to the chest and one to the head.