Soon, thirty-two men stood in the dark, illuminated only by the blue and green running lights of the tunnel. For now, the dart guns were holstered and submachine guns took their place. The men started forward, chambering rounds as they did. They knew from this point on, the Event Group personnel would not be so easy to subdue.
The fall of the Event Group complex was now more than just a plan; it was close to a fact.
Three hundred feet above the loading dock, the four VTOL aircraft popped into the air a hundred feet short of the dilapidated hangar that was the cover for gate 1. As each aircraft peeled off, two to the right and two to the left, the gunners in the open doorway brought their night-vision goggles down to cover their eyes. They chambered the larger dart rounds into a large pneumatic six-barreled cannon. Soon, the gunner in the lead aircraft had several targets.
Event Group security kept a small squad on duty outside of the massive hangar where large loads were brought into the complex. The first of these soldiers, a marine, saw the strange craft slow. He took aim at the unauthorized intruders and was about to open fire with his M249 machine gun when the sound of a hundred bees surrounded him. Several of these angry insects struck him in the chest and the torso. As he fell forward with the darts protruding from his body, he saw several of his team succumb to the same quick fate.
Soon, the entire eight-man squad of Event Group security was eliminated as a threat to the assault units now landing outside the old hangar. Soon forty more heavily armed men stormed inside the hangar and lined the giant elevator. Within thirty seconds the dark-clad men were headed down into the heart of the Event Group.
Niles Compton rubbed his eyes and then picked up his phone. He punched in the three-digit code for the computer center. The line was dead. He then swiveled in his chair and turned on his Europa monitor, but all that appeared was a blue screen. Concerned, Niles replaced his glasses and stood from his desk. Just as he was about to move toward the oaken double doors, they opened and several hooded men dressed in navy-blue body armor and BDUs came through. Niles froze as three submachine guns, the likes of which he had never seen before, were leveled at his chest. The man in the center of the five intruders gestured quickly for his team to lower their weapons.
Niles saw through the open doorway that his assistants were being rounded up, and plastic wire-ties were being used to bind their wrists.
"Dr. Compton, you have our sincerest apologies for this sudden intrusion," the tall man in the center of the group said as he moved quickly to the bank of monitors lining the wall. He flipped a switch marked GATE 1 and watched as the security camera sent its signal from the mock dilapidated hangar. Satisfied when he saw several of his own men in command of the gate, he turned to Compton. "You'll pardon our haste, but I understand your Captain Everett is due to return shortly with his men, and I am led to believe that he would not take too kindly to our visit."
One of his men stepped forward and whispered something. He was holding a small radio in his hand.
"Doctor, I assure you, your people are being well treated. There have only been five casualties thus far, four of them from your interior security department, and I am informed two of those will live. We do not wish any more loss of life."
"You knew from the start the meeting in New York would be compromised," Niles said, standing straight and looking directly at the man as he removed his hood. Niles risked a quick glance at the closed-circuit camera that was independent of Europa, and saw the small red light was still on. The same system that was installed at gate 1, they had intentionally not shut it down because they needed eyes on that gate.
"Yes, but the ruse was useful to get Captain Everett and the more experienced members of his team out of the complex. He and his men would have made the taking of the most secure location inside the United States, well, to say the least, a challenge."
"And now your plans are?" Niles asked.
The tall man moved to Compton's desk and looked it over. The man was average looking, his hair was somewhat longer than a military-style cut, and he had a decidedly menacing quality about him. His English had an Irish lean to it. Compton knew that if the closed-circuit camera was working, their conversation was being recorded along with this man's face.
"Your presence is required by my superiors for two reasons. One is information; two is so you can bear witness to what the world is up against."
"And if I refuse to come along?"
"You won't. I don't need to make threats against your people, that's the stuff of television. We are under orders to act accordingly. So if you will follow us"--he pulled up his sleeve and looked at his wristwatch--"we will depart."
Sarah was riding the elevator down to the personal quarter's area on level eight when the elevator lurched, and then continued on to her selected floor. She didn't like it when there was anything out of the ordinary about the elevators. She knew they rode in a tube and were raised and lowered on a cushion of air.
Finally, the indicator said she had arrived on level eight and the doors slowly slid open. Then the power failed. The elevator again lurched. Sarah wondered why Europa didn't compensate for the loss of pumped air; she decided not to take a chance and dove from the car just as it hissed and then was sent crashing down into the complex. Sarah rolled over her sling, crying out as she hurt her damaged shoulder. That was when she hit someone standing in the hallway. The dark figure looked down, quite surprised when he saw a woman at his feet. He maneuvered his weapon just as it crossed Sarah's mind as to what kind of screwed-up security drill Carl was running, but she was in too much pain to think, only react. Then she saw the weapon in the man's hands point down toward her prone body.
Taken with the default of the elevator, she realized instantly that this was no security drill. She pivoted on her hip and kicked out with her right leg, hitting the man right at both ankles. His legs were knocked out from under him and his weapon discharged, creating bright flashes in the darkened hallway. The bullets thumped into the plastic wall as the man struck the carpeting. Sarah, still on her back, quickly raised her left foot and brought it down into the man's face, her heel striking precisely where she had aimed it: the nose. The man grunted in pain, then lay still.
She heard a shuffling coming down the hallway and knew immediately the downed man hadn't been alone. Sarah was blind and on her back. She quickly felt around for the man's fallen weapon and finally hit upon it as ten silenced rounds thumped into the wall and carpeting around her, with one actually striking the cast on her arm, breaking it apart in large chunks.
"Bastard!" she mumbled as she quickly raised the strange weapon. She prayed it wasn't on safebecause in the dark she would never find the selector switch on a weapon she knew nothing about. She squeezed the trigger. The weapon erupted with fire and a loud clacking noise as the silencer did its job. Bullets struck the wall, floor, and ceiling, and then in the flare of the muzzle, she saw bullets stitch a crooked pattern on a man no more than six feet from her, with a bullet finally striking him in an unprotected spot just above his body armor.
Sarah was shaking badly as she tore the night-vision scope from the face of the man under her. That was when she noticed his companion's bullets had struck him several times in the side. She quickly held the scope to her eyes and looked around frantically. She tried desperately to control her breathing, thinking that anyone in a hundred-foot radius could hear her terror.