He turned a corner and nearly stopped at what was the most astonishing thing he’d ever seen. A curved line of cloud extended to the horizon, like a giant white wall—and above it, pale blue sky. A brilliant orange ball of light broke over the rim of clouds, and the first bright rays of sunlight hit Gideon square in the face.

We’re in the eye of the storm, he thought.

The rain had stopped and the wind had gone still. But there was no time to enjoy the extraordinary calm that surrounded him. If they were going to survive, he had to stop Timken.

CHAPTER FORTY

MAJOR DALE ROYCE JR. looked around, then turned to the pilot. “Where’d he go?”

“Who?” the pilot said.

“The meteorologist,” Royce snapped. He had been making last-minute preparations with his team and he’d come to the cockpit to see how the weather was holding out.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

“He’s in the head.” the pilot said. Royce thought to...

The pilot didn’t notice what had happened—she was squinting out the windscreen into the blackness of the clouds, responding to someone on her radio.

“Copy that, SAT Seven.” She looked over her shoulder at Royce. “Good news, Major,him widt221; she said. “Satellite’s got a visual on the Obelisk. It’s in the eye. You’re cleared to jump.”

The pain was starting now, a sickening fire that was starting to burn its way up his leg. Royce gave the pilot a tight smile. “Outstanding,” he said.

Then he turned and began limping back into the cabin, trying not to let his boys see the agony in his face.

“All right, ladies, lock and load,” Major Royce shouted. “We’re going in!”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

IN THE SUDDEN EERIE silence, Gideon could hear a steady thudding on the other side of the rig. He realized it was the sound of Timken’s footsteps. Where was he going? Not that it mattered. If he could cut him off and kill him, the leaderless mercenaries would be easier to take out. Then all he’d have to do was find Earl Parker.

He pulled the mag of the Makarov. It was a single-stack mag, nine-shot capacity. Except for the two bullets Timken had used on Big Al, the mag was full and the chamber was loaded. He slammed it back into the Makarov and pulled back the hammer, ready to fire single action.

Timken’s footsteps pounded up the stairs of the BLP and onto the bridge linking it to the drilling platform.

Gideon hoped he’d get a shot at him while he was exposed. But by the time he reached the bridge, Timken was on the other side, disappearing into the stairwell leading down to D Deck. Gideon could only figure that he was heading for the remote bomb controls in D-4. The son of a bitch was going to blow the rig!

Gideon charged across the bridge. Two mercenaries popped up on B Deck over on the drilling platform, swinging their AKs at him. He crouched behind a pipe halfway across the bridge, squeezed off a shot at the first man, caught him high in the chest. The man dropped. He squeezed off another round at the second mercenary, but the man ducked down and disappeared.

Now he was down to five rounds.

He jumped from his cover and ran toward the drilling platform. A third man stepped out from behind a bulkhead. Gideon fired as he ran, his sight picture bobbing and jiggling. The first two rounds missed, but his third shot hit the man in the face. Gideon hoped he’d be able to scoop up the man’s AK on the way. But he was too late. The dying man dropped it over the side as he fell screaming to the deck, his jaw blown cockeyed and slinging blood.

Two rounds left.

Gideon hit the drilling platform, grabbed the railing, and wheeled around, taking the stairs three at a time down to D Deck.

Timken’s footsteps thumped down the hallway in front of him. Gideon turned the corner in time to see Timken disappearing into the storage room where the bomb control equipment was located. Gideon blasted through the door, expecting to see Timken heading for the bomb controls. But instead he found Timken on the far side of the big steel box, standing in front of the equipment locker door, spinning the dial on the padlock. He was still unarmed. As Gideon charged into the room, Tim-ken yanked the lock off and pulled open the door.

Behind him, Gideon heard the clank of a rifle boepsotstelt slamming home.

He froze, realizing the mistake he’d made. One of Timken’s men had been standing behind the door, ready to ambush him.

Timken spun around, then grinned, his hand still resting on the knob of the half-open door behind the metal box. “Too impulsive there, chief,” he said.

Gideon looked over his shoulder. A very thin, somewhat frightened-looking young man stood behind the door, eyeing Gideon through a pair of thick glasses. He wore an odd vest with a great many pockets that contained a variety of tools, bits of wire, detonators, pieces of circuit board. It occurred to Gideon that this man must be the demolitions specialist, the man who had rigged the bomb.

“Go ahead, Rashid,” Timken said. “Shoot him.”

Rashid hesitated. Timken was directly behind Gideon, putting him in the line of fire. To avoid shooting Timken, Rashid moved sideways. Gideon seized his opportunity. He dropped to his knees, rotating as he dropped, and squeezed off a round. It caught the bomb-maker center mass. Gideon saw in the very instant that he pressed the trigger that he’d made a mistake. The vest worn by the bomb-maker didn’t carry just his tools; it also contained a large Kevlar panel. Rashid grunted and stepped backward, essentially unharmed.

Gideon raised the sight twelve inches, fired again. The shot shattered one of the lenses in the bomb-maker’s glasses. He fell backward without a sound. Then Gideon turned his gun on Timken, who was jabbing his finger toward the bomb controls. “Now I’m the only one who knows how to disarm the bomb. Kill me and everybody on the rig dies.”

Gideon had counted his rounds and knew his clip was empty. He kept the gun trained on Timken, hoping he wouldn’t notice. No such luck. Timken’s eyes flicked to the slide of Gideon’s Makarov. It was locked back, the chamber open, indicating that the pistol was out of ammunition. “Damn, that’s inconvenient for you, huh? Kind of levels the playing field.”

Gideon noticed that the downed bomb-maker had dropped his AK-47 as he fell. It was about ten feet away, closer to Gideon than to Tim-ken. He coiled, preparing to spring toward the weapon.

But Timken had seen it, too. As Gideon leapt, Timken leaned his shoulder against the big metal box, gave a primal scream, and heaved. The box was set on a metal frame, which in turn rested on four large rollers. The steel box began to move, heading straight toward Gideon, and slamming into him just before he could grab the AK-47. Timken propelled the box forward like a nose tackle pushing a blocking sled, pinning Gideon against the wall.

And there they stopped. Timken, though several inches shorter than Gideon, was a powerfully built man. And with his feet sprawled behind him and his shoulder against the box, he was perfectly situated to keep Gideon pinned to the wall.

Gideon struggled to free himself, but with his back against the wall, he had no leverage. If Timken let go to pounce on the AK, Gideon would get free. The AK lay closer to Gideon than to Timken. It was a stalemate.

Timken grinned at Gideon.

Gideon had thought Timken was coming here to trigger the bomb. And yet when he entered the room, Timken had ignored the bomb controls and headed for the equipment locker on the far side of the room"0e¡€†. Were there weapons inside? No—if there had been weapons in the equipment locker, Timken would have grabbed something from the locker instead of attacking Gideon with a clumsy metal box.

The box.

“What was in the box?” Gideon said. It occurred to Gideon that whatever they had smuggled onto the rig in the box was probably now somewhere in the equipment locker. “It obviously wasn’t the bomb. So what was it?”