Gray was impressed by the Gypsies’ attack strategy—both now and moments before.
On the way up here from the airport, all the vehicles in the region appeared to be just ordinary rural traffic, wandering the mountainside roads and dirt tracks. Then, upon a coordinated signal, the entire peaceful-looking countryside rose and turned upon the mountain in a synchronized assault. Rifles bristled out of bunkers built into the centers of hay trucks. Horses broke away from wagons with riders bearing shotguns, covering steeper terrain swiftly. Motorcycles rocketed out of the back of paneled milk trucks and shot up the side roads. The sudden transformation locked the mountainside down in a matter of minutes.
The Russians who had already left the subterranean compound were waylaid on the road, driven into ditches, stripped of weapons, and tied up. By the time Gray reached the mountain entrance, the advance assault team was already barreling into the throat of the tunnel, leaving a trail of smoke and fire for him to follow.
Gray hadn’t hesitated. They had no time to spare. Operation Saturn had to be found and stopped.
And Luca’s men assisted there, too. Like any good army, the Gypsies had gathered intelligence in advance of an attack. On the way up here, a man in a black ankle-length duster had stood in the middle of the road and waved Luca’s truck to stop. Two men in laboratory coats knelt in the roadside ditch, hands behind their backs, rifles held at their heads. The Gypsies hadn’t been gentle. Then again, it was the Russians who had slaughtered their mountaintop village and kidnapped their children.
The Russians had started this war; the Gypsies intended to finish it.
The interrogator passed Luca a hand-drawn map, splattered with blood. Luca handed it off to Gray. It was a crude schematic of Chelyabinsk 88, including a circle around the control station for Operation Saturn, located in a subbasement bunker beneath one of the cavern’s apartment structures.
With the goal known, Gray careened the truck down the curving road toward the ongoing siege at the high-rise complex. The initial attack, while dramatic and surprising, had also clogged the road with rubble. One entire building had fallen across the central roadway.
Gypsies in trucks continued to mount a fiery barrage.
Others abandoned their vehicles and prepared for a ground offensive.
Gray skidded his truck to where the men gathered and rolled out. Kowalski and Rosauro joined him. Hopping out of the truck bed, Luca called out in Romani. Men responded. After a few exchanges, Luca turned to Gray and hunkered down with him behind one of the trucks.
“The Russians have taken to the buildings, defending more fiercely the deeper you go.”
Gray knew why. “They’ve pulled their forces back to defend the control station. If they’ve not already initiated Saturn, they will soon. We can’t wait.”
Luca held up a restraining hand and glanced back toward the gathered ground troops. “I have a man…ah, here he is.”
A small figure ran low over to them. He wore cement-gray clothes and a black cap. The two Romani men spoke quickly.
“This is Rat,” Luca introduced the newcomer.
“Nice name,” Kowalski mumbled.
“He’s a scout. Skilled at finding paths no one would think to guard. He may know a way, but it’ll have to be a small party. No more than five or six.” Luca looked around at their small group. “Perhaps just us. Va?”
“Va,” Kowalski agreed, then glanced to Gray for confirmation.
“The other men will keep the Russians busy,” Luca added, waving to the ground forces and trucks.
“We go then?” Rat asked in stilted English.
“Va,” Gray answered, earning a grin from the man and a clap on his knee.
They readied their weapons—rifles and sidearms—and followed the small man toward a pile of rubble. Gray could see no way through. Luca motioned to the ground forces as they passed. A sharp warbling whistle spread across the smoky cavern.
Rat waved their small team under a tilted section of wall. Gray ducked and found it led to a basement window of the closest apartment building.
As they slowly continued into the scout’s maze, Gray heard a shout rise behind him.
“Opre Roma!”
Like a flame set to dry grass, the clarion call spread.
Gunfire and rocket blasts intensified.
Continuing onward, Gray prayed they weren’t too late.
Savina moved swiftly down the stairs and into the bunker. She ignored the twinges from her back, the shooting pains down her legs, and her pounding heart. At the first sound of attack, she had the blast doors to the tunnel sealed and locked.
Above, waiting for her, a group of the five strongest soldiers had been summoned by Dr. Petrov. The plan was to abscond with five children, carried on the backs of the soldiers. No more. She could not take all ten. Their best chance to escape was to move quickly and efficiently. The American prisoner had given her the idea. He and the children had fled out a back service tunnel. They would do the same.
But Savina had one last measure to address.
She entered the bunker and found the technician and engineer tearing out keyboards. They had already used magnetic wands to wipe the hard drives. The damage to the controls would guarantee that nothing would interfere with the progress of Operation Saturn.
“Is everything locked down?”
The engineer nodded his head vigorously. “It would take an electrical genius weeks to repair it.”
“Very good.” She lifted her pistol and shot the engineer through the forehead. The technician tried to run, but Savina swung her arm and dropped him at the foot of the stairs, pierced through the neck. He writhed, choking on his own blood.
She could not risk these two being caught. What they dismantled, they might be forced to fix at gunpoint.
She could not let that happen.
To satisfy herself even further, Savina grabbed a fire ax from the back wall and crossed to the boards. Lifting it high, she smashed both computers and electronics boards. Afterward, she rested the ax on the floor and leaned on its handle. She stared at the row of LCD screens. They still displayed views from various cameras. She considered smashing the monitors, too, but with her back in full spasm, she didn’t know if she could lift the ax again.
And in the end, what did it matter?
She shoved the ax to the floor and stared at the centermost screen. Water poured in a toxic black stream.
Let them see what she had wrought.
She smiled, enjoying this one last act of cruelty, then turned and headed for the stairs.
Let them watch the world die.
No one could stop her.