Harvath flipped on the laser sight, swung the MP5 around the side of the crates, and rolled out onto his stomach. The man at the other end of the corridor was on full auto, and the bullets sent pieces of gray-painted rock everywhere. Despite how close the shots were falling, Harvath focused his concentration, gently squeezed the trigger, and fired. The spray from the other end of the corridor came to an abrupt halt, and the man fell to the floor, dead.

That’s one down, he thought, but how many more to go?

“Scot, I think you’d better get back here,” said Claudia, immediately answering his question.

He rolled behind the crates and began hearing what Claudia had heard-footsteps, and lots of them, coming fast from the opposite direction. Claudia had the assault rifle ready to go. When the first of the men appeared around the corner, she let loose with a deafening round of fire. Everyone’s weapons to this point had been silenced, so the unsilenced SG551 Swiss SWAT assault rifle sounded like a rapidly booming cannon. The men retreated back around the corner.

“Now’s our chance. Let’s go.”

Harvath jumped up and pushed Claudia around the crates, in the direction they had originally come. Scot ran as best he could backward, guarding their six, as Claudia ran as fast as her legs would carry her forward. They came upon and passed right through the T intersection where they had been five minutes ago. Now they were running down the corridor to the right, opposite of all the other tunnels.

Only sporadic doors were visible along this passageway, and they were all locked. This hallway was carved much rougher than the others and seemed to be some sort of access or service tunnel. Eventually, it began to curve back around to the left. Scot and Claudia kept running.

Fifty meters later, the tunnel opened up onto a large cargo bay complete with overhead winches. Huge pallets stacked with food and bottled water sat in the middle of the otherwise empty room. Scot walked over to examine the pallets.

“Evian,” he said.

“There’s also French wine and Italian pastas,” said Claudia.

“Somebody’s got good taste.”

“But, how’d they get it in here?”

“That way,” said Scot, pointing to a set of railway tracks on the far side of the bay that led into a dark tunnel. “I’ll bet you a year’s worth of water that those tracks link up somehow with the cogwheel railway.”

At the far end of the pallets was a smaller pallet covered with a green canvas tarp. Scot walked over to it and drew it back. Underneath were crates of ammunition and wooden boxes filled with various weapons. The look on Claudia’s face said it all as she stepped closer.

“Let me guess,” said Harvath. “Your stolen weapons.”

“Yes. I don’t know why I’m going to say this, but I can’t believe it.”

“Well, that takes care of everything on your Christmas list. Now for mine. Where’s that U.S. president I asked for?”

From behind the pallet closest to Claudia, the groundsman sprang up and placed the point of his pistol against her temple. “That is not part of the tour, I’m afraid,” he said.

Harvath’s eyes bored into the man, and he tightened the grip on his MP5.

“I suggest you drop your weapons,” said the groundsman.

Claudia hesitated until he grabbed her left arm and gave it a good, strong jerk. She let her assault rifle clatter to the floor.

Scot also hesitated, but then set the H amp;K down gently.

“Very good,” the groundsman said, as he ran his hands along Claudia’s body. He found her holster and removed the SIG-Sauer. “And what about you?” said the killer, indicating he was speaking to Harvath. “You American cowboys never only have one weapon. I should expect at least five or six, no? Let’s go. Out with the rest of them!” He kept a firm grip on Claudia’s arm as he pointed his pistol at Scot to emphasize the seriousness of his point.

“You know,” began Harvath, “I really hate it when people point things at me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s guns, knives, or…now, Claudia!”

Harvath dove for the deck on the off chance an involuntary spasm might cause the pistol the killer had trained on him to go off. Claudia clumsily drove the blade of her knife deep into the side of her captor’s throat and stepped back. He clutched ineffectively at the blade, falling to his knees in agony. As the blood gushed from his neck, all that was visible of the knife was the bone handle.

Claudia rushed to Scot, who pulled her into his arms. “You okay?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Not bad, but remind me to teach you sometime the correct way to use one of those things.”

Claudia stared at the man, who had killed so many in his lifetime, lying on the floor dying. “My grandfather gave me that knife. I never climbed without it.”

Scot was about to say that he liked Claudia’s grandfather more and more with each passing minute, but he didn’t get the chance. A group of men emerged from the access tunnel and began shooting.

Claudia tried to reach for her assault rifle, but Scot pulled her away.

“There’s no time. Let’s move!” he yelled, grabbing her hand and running toward the opposite end of the cargo bay. The pallets provided some cover at first, but the bullets got closer and closer as they broke into the open and ran for the nearest hallway.

79

Between the two of them, the only weapon they had left was Scot’s Beretta. Out of habit, he examined the clip and drew back the slide to check the chamber. He had sixteen shots, semiautomatic. Not much against a group of men carrying submachine guns, but it was better than nothing. He and Claudia kept running.

They came to another intersection, and before they knew what was happening, two men with H amp;Ks appeared from around a corner. Scot dropped to one knee, and Claudia hid behind him. He fired three shots at each man, taking them both down in a roar of gunfire that echoed throughout the tunnel. Scot and Claudia were deafened by the blasts from the Beretta and couldn’t hear the men from the cargo bay coming down the hall behind them, but Scot sensed it.

He whirled, and managed to keep Claudia protected as he fired again from his crouched position. The bullets didn’t find their targets as quickly this time, and he pulled the trigger repeatedly until, finally, one man fell and then another. Scot yanked Claudia to her feet and pushed her down the corridor. They came to another intersection.

“Which way?” she yelled.

Scot pointed left and they ran. Thirty meters later they hit another intersection. Scot glanced quickly behind them and motioned for Claudia to go right. They did, and Claudia stopped dead in her tracks.

She wasn’t sure what she noticed first, the man or the smell. Fifteen feet in front of them was a man dressed in desert fatigues with an Arabian-style headdress. Only his eyes were visible, but even then, they were shaded by the fabric. In his right hand, he held a model 61 Skorpion machine pistol, and it was pointed right at them.

Scot, who was right behind Claudia and had almost bumped into her when she stopped so suddenly, reached his left hand out for her waistband, knowing the man in front of them couldn’t see it.

“Drop your pistol on the floor!” Scot yelled.

Harvath hoped Claudia understood what he was going to do, or they were both dead for sure. He gave her waistband the first tug as if to say, one. Then came another tug, two. Claudia nodded her head ever so slightly as if to say she understood, and on tug three she let her legs go limp, and the two of them dropped.

Scot’s first shot went off just as he was hitting the floor and missed the man’s head by a fraction of a centimeter. His next shot was dead-on, right between the eyes, and the man went down. Scot’s pistol was empty, and he let it fall where he lay.