Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

They looked inside, to find…

The barrel was full of crushed gray ore with a silvery sheen. “Definitely not diamonds,” said Nina, about to pick up a piece.

Chase grabbed her wrist. “Don’t.” The tone of warning in the single word chilled her to the bone.

“Do you know what it is?” she asked.

“Yes. I know.” His expression was hard, a look she hadn’t seen on him for a long time. A stony, focused determination. Chase was now 100 percent business. “It’s uranium.”

Nina flinched back. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve had some experience with WMDs, so yeah. I’m sure.” He shoved the lid of the barrel back into place. “We need to leave. Now.”

“But what about the map?” Nina asked, looking up at the cabins.

“Fuck the map,” Chase said coldly. He screwed the nuts back onto the bolts. “We’ve got to get out of here and contact the U.N., warn them what we’ve found-and do it before anyone realizes we were here. If we get caught, we’re dead.”

Nina’s anger at Chase was overcome by fear. “But uranium’s mined all over the world-”

“And every mine’s monitored really closely,” he interrupted. “The International Atomic Energy Agency knows exactly how much uranium’s in circulation-and where it came from, and where it went for processing. If terrorists got hold of a nuke and set it off, there’d be slightly different radioactive traces depending on who made it, ’cause there are different ways to make weapons-grade uranium. So you can trace the bomb back to its source.” He tightened the final bolt. “But if you’ve got a supply of uranium nobody knows about, that cuts the trail right at the start. And if you can process it as well…”

“My husband has industrial facilities all over the world,” Sophia said. “If anyone has the resources to build a secret processing plant, he does.”

“Which means he could make nukes and sell them to terrorists or rogue states without anyone ever knowing about it-until one goes off.” Chase turned the final wing nut as far as he could, then tossed the wrench back into the toolbox. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

Nina didn’t move. “Wait-”

“No,” Chase snapped. “Forget your map; it’s not important anymore.” He grabbed her arm.

“That’s not what I mean! Don’t you hear it?”

Realization crossed his face and he looked at one of the tunnels. A chugging came from it, getting louder-

A squat little truck burst from the tunnel mouth. Four men in dirty overalls and hard hats rode on top of it. One of them glanced across at the processor-and reacted with shock at the sight of the three unfamiliar people standing by it. He grabbed a walkie-talkie from his tool belt and shouted into it as the driver swerved the truck towards the intruders.

“Fuck!” Chase whipped out his gun and fired. The man with the walkie-talkie flew off the back of the truck, blood spewing from his chest. The driver hurriedly changed direction, heading for the tunnel leading outside as the other miners flung themselves off the vehicle and ran for cover.

An alarm honked furiously, adding to the racket from the machinery. The man’s warning had been heard.

The cabin doors flew open, men running along the catwalks. Fang appeared in one of the windows.

He saw Nina…

And smiled .

“Run!” Chase yelled, shoving Nina towards the exit. Sophia was already sprinting ahead. He raised his gun again, aiming at the driver. If they could steal the truck, it would give them a head start down the tunnel-

Automatic weapons fire crackled behind them. The ground ahead of Sophia suddenly erupted into geysers of dirt and stone chips, blocking her path. She threw up a hand to protect her eyes from the stinging debris, having nowhere to go but back to the processor. Nina shrieked and ducked behind the machinery as more bullets hit near her feet.

Chase whirled and looked up at the cabins. Men were charging down the steps, and on the upper level the man he’d seen with Fang was now crouched with an MP-5 submachine gun, firing another burst.

He wasn’t trying to kill the intruders. He was trying to contain them, prevent them from escaping.

Chase fired two shots, but the gunman rolled along the catwalk, the Magnum rounds punching holes in the wall of the cabin above him.

More MP-5 fire from another angle: Fang, joining the attack from the cabin door. Unlike the other man, he wasn’t aiming to miss, tracking Chase as he threw himself headlong into the cover of the processor.

“Jesus!” Chase gasped as bullets clonked against the heavy machinery just behind him. Nina and Sophia were hunched against the crusher a few yards away. “They want you alive!” he shouted.

“What about you?” Nina cried.

“Not so much!” He popped his head around the corner of the processor for a fraction of a second, the brief glimpse showing him what he needed to know. Fang was running down the catwalk towards the other end of the crusher, while the other man crouched with the MP-5 aimed down at his hiding place. He expected bullets to follow, and he was right, rounds ripping into the steel casing of the machinery-

The firing stopped.

Chase had been counting the shots almost on a subconscious level from the moment the first was fired. An MP-5 magazine held thirty rounds, and now they were gone, requiring a reload.

He didn’t allow one, whipping out from cover and firing a single shot that exploded square in the center of the gunman’s chest as he fumbled for a new magazine. The man fell backwards, dead.

“Eddie!”

He whirled to see one of the mine workers round the crusher and grab Nina in a bear hug. She struggled and kicked, thrashing against her captor-meaning Chase couldn’t risk taking a shot…

Sophia smashed the man on the back of his neck with a large wrench. The crack of bone could be heard even over the noise of the crusher. He instantly collapsed, but took Nina down with him, landing on top of her.

“Sophia!” Chase warned. Another man ran under the conveyor and lunged at her-only to spin back as Chase shot him. Sophia gave him a quick look of thanks.

Then her eyes flicked up to something above him-

Chase was slammed to the ground as a man jumped onto him from the catwalk above the processor, knocking the Wildey from his grip.

Sophia dragged the unmoving body of the mine worker off Nina and pulled her to her feet as another two men ducked under the conveyor belt towards them. With Chase disarmed, the two miners from the now departed truck had been emboldened and were running at them from the other direction.

Chase saw his attacker’s knee flash at his groin and just barely managed to twist his hips away in time to turn an incapacitating blow into a merely eye-watering one. “You fucker!” he spat, lashing out with his leg. He caught the man’s shin, knocking his foot out from under him and dropping him face-first onto the ground. A blow of Chase’s own elbow against the back of the miner’s skull resulted in a satisfying splat of blood and teeth.

He looked for Nina and Sophia, seeing them racing up a set of stairs to the first level of the catwalk. A moment later, the four men running for them converged at the base of the steps. Two of them went after the women-the other pair charged at him.

No time to look for his gun. The first man was unarmed, the second wielding a steel pipe. Chase jumped up to face them, fists raised.

They moved apart to take him from two directions at once. The one with the pipe made the first move, savagely swinging it at Chase’s chest and forcing him to jump back-into the reach of his companion.

He grabbed Chase from behind, trying to pin his arms down at his sides as the pipe pulled back for another strike…