Having dropped its passengers, the C-123 made a sharp turn, pulling up to gain altitude as it rose over the fjord.

A line of smoke lanced out from the edge of the fjord, the trail of a Stinger antiaircraft missile as it homed in…

And exploded!

One wing blown off in a burning cloud of fuel, the Provider corkscrewed helplessly into the steep-sided valley, plowing into the rocky wall and bursting apart in a thunderous fireball.

“Holy shit!” Starkman yelled.

“Looks like we’re walking home!” Chase shouted back. Now free of his parachute, he readied his weapon, a Heckler and Koch UMP-45 submachine gun. “Okay! Let’s melt the Frost!”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Nina watched in horror from the Mercedes as the plane plunged into the side of the fjord and exploded. “Jesus!”

“Qobras’s people-it has to be!” Kari shouted. “They’re making a last stand!”

“Well, hoo-ray for them!” Nina twisted to look out of the rear window. The last of the parachutists were now on the ground. “I hope they blow the place to hell, and your father with it!”

Slap!

Nina reeled. Kari had hit her! The hot sting across her cheek wasn’t so much painful as humiliating, but somehow that actually made it worse.

Kari issued orders as the Mercedes approached the bridge. “Call the security center and warn them that we have fourteen intruders heading for the biolab! And you,” she added, turning to the driver, “get us to the plane, now!”

“Melt the Frost?” Starkman said in disbelief as the team ran towards the biolab. “How long have you been waiting to say that?”

“Since Tibet,” Chase admitted. He assessed the tactical situation. The open ground provided little cover-for Frost’s men as well as for Starkman’s. The buildings would give their opponents some protection, but it would be easy to outflank them.

The Stinger had been fired from the security building at the northwestern corner of the facility. If Frost’s men had any other heavy weapons, that was where they would be.

“Jason! Six men, cover!” He made a chopping gesture towards the security block. Starkman nodded and passed on the order.

The team of six split off from the main group. Chase quickly advanced on the lab’s entrance. The biolab didn’t have many exits-aside from the main doors and the security entrance, the only other ways in or out were through fire escapes and the ramp leading to the underground garage. Which meant that the closest place any of Frost’s forces could emerge was…

The dark glass doors of the main entrance flew open, uniformed guards rushing out. Armed guards, equipped with MP-7s. Armor-piercing rounds, like the ones Chase himself had used in Tibet.

“Hit ’me!” he shouted, diving to the ground and bringing up his UMP. Starkman and the other six men did the same. The front wall of the biolab erupted with fountains of dust as they raked the building with.45-caliber fire. The doors burst into black shards, blood spraying among the glass as the guards fell.

More MP-7 fire crackled off to Chase’s left as another group of guards ran from the security block. They were better prepared than their late colleagues, and also had more cover, ducking behind the walls on either side of the steps.

Starkman’s second team was about thirty yards distant from them, out in the open with the road still to cross. They had split into two groups of three, one group diving to the ground to give the other covering fire as they raced for the nearest building.

The security forces fired back, trying to catch the running men before they reached cover. One of the guards put his head too far above the wall and had a chunk of his skull blown away by a.45 round, gore sluicing through the air as he fell backwards.

But the others kept firing.

One of the running men fell, bloody wounds blossoming across his chest. His companions didn’t even break their stride until they reached the building and flung themselves into cover.

The guards turned their fire on the men lying on the ground. Clods flew up into the air as bullets thudded into the earth. Chase saw a line of spraying dirt advancing on one man like a snake at its prey, but there was no way he could warn him.

Red blood spouted into the air among the churned-up soil.

The guards redirected their fire, trying to pin down the other men on the ground-

A pair of grenades arced through the air, tossed with precision by the team in the cover of the building. They exploded at head height over the steps and showered the guards with lethal shrapnel. Every window within thirty feet shattered under the double blast.

“Main doors!” yelled Chase, sprinting towards the entrance. Starkman and the others followed, spreading out to provide cover.

Chase reached the wrecked doors, flattening himself against one side and glancing into the building’s interior. The horseshoe-shaped reception desk was unmanned, the guards staffing it now dead at his feet.

Starkman took up position on the other side of the doors. Chase moved into the lobby, backed up by another of the American’s men. Beyond the desk was the entrance to the glass-roofed central corridor; to one side, stairs led up and down.

A door opened, and Chase snapped up his gun. A young blond woman emerged, freezing in fear as she saw him.

“Hi,” said Chase, waving for Starkman to hold fire. “You speak English?”

The woman nodded, wide-eyed.

“Okay. Get out of the building. There’s going to be a fire. Well, more of an explosion, actually, but…” He spotted a fire alarm on the wall nearby. “Anyone else in there?”

She nodded again, too frightened to speak.

“Okay, tell them to get out… and run like hell!” He smashed the glass covering the alarm with the stock of his UMP. Bells rang. Chase winced at the noise-it would make it harder to hear any approaching guards-but the faster the civilians were out of the building, the better.

Because in five minutes, there wasn’t going to be a building.

He moved past the door-keeping his weapon aimed at the people running out, in case any of them were armed-and kicked open the next one. A security station. Empty.

But he knew there were more guards elsewhere in the building…

Starkman and the rest of his men clattered into the lobby as the civilians fled. “Set charges in there!” Chase shouted over the clamor of the fire bells, pointing at the door from which Frost’s employees had come. “Make sure all the civvies get out first!”

“This is gonna get messy!” Starkman complained. People from the floor above were hurrying down the stairs. “If there’s any guards mixed in with the staff-”

“Then aim! You Yanks do remember how to do that, don’t you?” Chase shot Starkman a sarcastic smile before taking cover behind the desk, watching the stairs and the central corridor as the biolab employees rushed through the lobby. Scientists, technicians…

And guards! Shoving through the crowd, MP-7s coming up-

Chase hoped the civvies had the sense to keep their heads down. He fired a three-round burst, deliberately aiming high, before ducking. People screamed. MP-7 fire echoed through the lobby, the expensive marble top of the reception desk splintering as armor-piercing rounds ripped into it.

More gunfire, the deeper thudding of UMPs as Starkman and his men fired back. More screams, and the firing stopped. Chase peered over the desk, and was relieved to see that only the guards had been hit.

“You were right!” Starkman called. “That whole aiming thing really does work!”

Chase grinned, then gestured to the people on the stairs, directing them towards the doors. “Everybody out! Jason, get your guys to plant some more charges on the support columns in the garage-we can drop this whole place into the ground!”