The Golden Crystal (9 page)

The theater entrance was directly in front of the main doors. Wayne slowed and took up a position outside the theater doors, careful to stay out of the light coming through the main entrance. He signaled for Jeff to stay put. 

Jeff turned, automatically taking up the rear guard. “If they come through the theater, they’ll have a straight shot through the main doors,” Wayne whispered almost inaudibly. “Stay here and don’t let ‘em get past you. I’ll move up to the next corner and see if they’re trying to get around the back way.” Without waiting for a reply, Wayne ran forward, hugging the wall. He paused for a second at the corner, peered around it, then disappeared from Jeff’s view. 

Wayne could see the far end of the hall clearly. Two men — soldiers from their looks — were standing against the wall, looking the other way. At first they didn’t see him coming toward them at a determined trot, but one of them eventually caught the movement in his peripheral vision. With a swift turn, the soldier lifted his assault rifle to his eye — just as his head disappeared in a cloud of blood as Wayne’s hollow point impacted the bridge of his nose.

Wayne’s Smith & Wesson Compact 9mm wasn’t silenced, and in the closed-in hallway the shot was almost deafening. Without slowing, he targeted the second man — now fumbling around, trying to bring his weapon to bear — and fired two more shots, putting the man down. As he fell, Wayne continued his quick jog, only slowing down as he reached the bodies and the next corner. As he dropped to one knee to check for vital signs and move the weapons out of reach, Jeff ran up, clearly making sure his brother hadn’t been caught alone in a gunfight. Taking stock of the situation, Jeff breathed a sigh of relief.

“Let’s get to work,” Jeff said, almost solemnly. His entire demeanor had changed completely. Five minutes earlier, he had been a fun-loving, carefree kid brother. Now Wayne saw Jeff’s face take on a steely resolve; the quietly angry look of a cowboy who’d just learned that there was a trespasser on his land. Wayne knew from experience that in situations like this it was best to point him in the right direction and stay the hell out of the way. 

They looked around the next corner, expecting an immediate onslaught of gunfire. Instead, there was almost complete silence as they cautiously moved ahead. The only sound was a faint beeping. They both pinpointed the source at the same time: About 200 feet ahead on the left wall, was a tiny blinking red light — each pulse corresponding to a muted beep.

“
Get back!”
Jeff yelled, almost lifting Wayne off his feet as he turned to get away. They ran together toward the safety of the corner wall, both men stretching out into a full sprint… 

The explosion lifted them off the floor and flung them toward the two dead soldiers. A shockwave and billowing heat enveloped them, close enough to choke them with scathing, burning smoke, but not close enough to injure them. Assuming that whoever had set the charge had planned it as an escape route, the brothers scrambled to their feet and charged back through the smoke, determined not to give the intruders any room for escape.

Two soldiers burst through the rear theater doors ahead of them, the first dropped instantly by Jeff’s 9mm. Wayne’s shot missed the second man, giving the soldier enough time to fire a wild round toward them before leaping out the newly formed smoldering exit. 

They dropped behind an overturned table to reload. Before they finished, a flashbang grenade popped to their right — thrown out the door by someone still within the theater — and their world went white. 

Jeff, being closest to the grenade, was knocked out of commission; temporarily blinded. Wayne fared slightly better, momentarily deafened and seeing double, but able to see nonetheless. He ensured that Jeff’s arms and legs were out of the line of oncoming fire and rolled sideways into the theater. 

Luckily, there was no one near the door as Wayne entered — no one jumped out to finish him off. Regaining his footing, he shook off the flash grenade’s effects, checked left, right, and center, and ducked behind a row of seats. He looked toward the stage. A red curtain was pulled across it, but a section of it was billowing softly. He could see a light behind the curtain interrupted by moving shadows. Someone was on the stage. 

Wayne moved quietly toward the side aisle leading to the stage right entrance, but he didn’t get far. There was a loud crash from behind the closed door, prompting him to duck down behind another row of seats.

A man burst through the backstage door, fuming. He was followed by two more soldiers, and they were dragging along a younger man, probably in his mid-twenties.

“I thought there was to be little resistance!” the man in the lead shouted to no one in particular. 

“Sir, we expected a light security detail, and our intel indicated there would be no more than three guards on duty at any time,” one of the soldiers said. The men were moving swiftly toward the exit, directly across from where Wayne now lay concealed on the floor. If they continued through the doors, they’d see him for sure — the seats would not keep him hidden as they walked past.

“I don’t care if they had a small army of attack dogs — this was supposed to be a covert mission! In and out — but then you shot that scientist and woke up the entire complex!” 

Wayne took it all in as the group closed in on his position. If he could swing around, somehow get a straight shot from under the chairs, he might be able to take out the leader — possibly give him a fighting chance. 

He tried to shift his position, but the row just wasn’t wide enough for him to do it without standing up.
Oh well,
he thought. He’d have to make a stand from here, lying on the ground and firing underneath the chairs at their feet. He didn’t want to take the chance of their finding Jeff sprawled out helpless in the hall. 

He waited until they were three steps away from the exit and only two away from spotting him. Wayne was good with a rifle — damn good — but firing a handgun, laying on his side, through two rows of chairs at a moving target — well, the closer, the better. 

He fired off two shots in rapid succession — missing the lead man’s foot but shattering the man’s shin. The soldier crumpled to the ground, screaming and clutching his leg.

The leader and his remaining backup raised their weapons and looked for the source of the shots. Wayne was way ahead of them. They were reacting to him, and he wanted to keep it that way. Another shot, and the leader flew backwards against the wall. The other soldier grabbed the unarmed younger man’s arm with one hand and fired two quick shots in Wayne’s general direction. Not wanting to let the young man go, he dropped his gun, snatched a round object from his belt, and flung it toward Wayne.

Grenade.
Not a flashbang, but a live military-issue fragmentation grenade. Time slowed down as Wayne took a fraction of a second to evaluate his options:

Run or crawl away — running would leave him vulnerable from the waist up, and crawling was too slow — he had no time to get away. 

Throw the grenade toward the exit — he might have a chance at injuring the last soldier or at least cutting off his escape route, but he also had a good chance of hurting his brother or the young hostage.

Wayne grabbed the grenade with his left hand, chancing the brief exposure to a sitting position, and threw it as hard as he could over his head onto the stage. It rolled under the curtain and out of sight backstage. Wayne crawled as fast as possible toward the exit as the other two men ran… and
—
for the second time in five minutes, his body was rocked by an explosive blast.

The fireball that erupted from the stage obliterated the raised platform and engulfed the walls next to it, but the blast was far enough away that the only immediate effect on Wayne was a renewed ringing in his ears. He lurched to his feet and ran for the door in pursuit of the two men.

JEFF GROANED AND SAT UP. Had he been unconscious? The blast from the flash grenade had rattled his brain, and it took him a minute to clear his mind. He heard gunshots in the theater, but he couldn’t get to his feet yet. He waited by the table for a moment, shaking his head and getting his equilibrium.
Where was Wayne?

After a few seconds, two men ran from the theater, the younger one being dragged along by one of the intruders. Jeff didn’t recognize either man, but he knew what he had to do. He reached for his gun, but found only the cold, empty floor.
Where was it?
He guessed that it had been knocked from his hand by the flashbang… 

Another explosion went off in the theater, sounding like a thunderclap.

At the same time, the younger man stumbled, dragging his captor down with him. Jeff saw his chance. 

I may not have a gun, but I can sure make this asshole’s escape a little more difficult.

Jeff’s high-school football coach would have been proud. The tackle was hard, fast, and incredibly effective. Jeff placed the crown of his head right in the soft part of the soldier’s gut, driving forward with his legs. Though shorter and more slightly built, Jeff took down the soldier in a tumbling heap that left them intertwined, rolling on the floor. Before the man could react, Jeff landed a devastating punch between the man’s eyes — a blow strong enough to shock a bull into motion back on his parent’s ranch. He followed with a few quick jabs to the man’s side — aiming for his liver. The sudden attack only kept the man off balance for a moment. Obviously trained to fight, he quickly regained his composure and easily started slipping Jeff’s punches.

Jeff tried to step up his barrage, but he was still feeling the effects of the flashbang and couldn’t get the upper hand. Suddenly, the soldier shot a fist hard into Jeff’s face. Jeff heard his own jaw crack. He instinctively raised his guard against the next blow, but the soldier went to his gut instead. The air left his body, and it was all he could do to reach up and try to wrap his arms around the larger man, trying to get him into a wrestler’s hold. He held fast, but the larger man was still on his feet and fully in control. With a swift elbow to the head, he dislodged Jeff from his body and fled through the hole in the wall. 

His legs like rubber, Jeff collapsed, beaten. He felt his consciousness slipping again, even as he was filled with rage at losing the fight.

THE OTHER MAN IN THE room, Agent Johannes Karn, was still slumped against the wall where he’d fallen, having landed there after the American man’s gunshot had knocked him off his feet. The bullet had punched through his clothing, but had stopped only a few millimeters into his Kevlar bulletproof vest. He’d watched as his second-in-command, Vladimir Beka, dragged Cole Reed from the theater, and he’d also watched the American security guard — surprisingly agile for his size — throw Beka’s grenade onto the stage.
An impressively quick reaction
, Karn thought. 

He had remained motionless against the wall since the bullet knocked him there. The explosion on stage had rocked the room, but had missed him entirely. He stayed still as the American ran out; he could not let this obviously well-trained guard know that he was still alive, still a threat. 

As soon as the American was gone, Agent Karn rose from the floor and used the cover of smoke to bolt onto the stage and out through the other exit. He’d see this “security guard” again — he was sure of it. 

JAMES WHITTENFIELD, JR. BARGED INTO the lounge. He’d been asleep at his estate ten miles down the road and had been alerted to the intrusion before the firefight was even over. “What happened? What did they want from us?” he asked. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Is everyone ok?” He gasped involuntarily as he took in the destruction of the lounge area inside Building E. A gaping, smoking hole was all that remained of the wall that used to separate the backstage area from this room, and debris and rubble from the grenade blast was scattered everywhere. One table had been wiped clear and turned into a gurney, which held the bleeding Alan Behar, who had been shot in the shoulder by the intruders. 

On the floor next to Behar’s table was a rumpled heap of the stage curtain in the shape of a man. Officer Eric Bensen hadn’t fared as well as Behar — a bullet in his chest had left him bleeding and dying on the lounge floor — until the grenade detonated on the other side of the wall, sending a shard of brick through the back part of his skull and killing him instantly. 

Bryce, seated at a table with the Thompsons, explained to Whittenfield what had happened. “We were breached by a well-armed force, one we estimate at least seven or eight strong. They were apparently looking for something. I was running the perimeter check and was ambushed next to Building H. The two guards on duty,” he continued, glancing toward Bensen’s corpse, “were also overpowered.”

“The Thompsons were inside Building E at the time of the attack, and they were able to stage a delaying action and hold the intruders at bay briefly, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. This man — Cole Reed, was with them. He claims he was abducted and brought here against his will.” Bryce nodded in the direction of a young man leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back. Jeff Thompson was watching the man with barely concealed suspicion.

“Whoever broke in was looking for something, which they apparently found,” Bryce finished. 

“Any idea what they wanted so bad?” Jeff asked, not taking his eyes off of Reed.

Whittenfield looked around at the group. He took a deep breath, calming his nerves, and sat down heavily. “Captain Reynolds, when I brought you onboard I mentioned that my research firm was originally started by my father.”

“The ‘Development of Substitute Materials’ project, or something like that.”

“Exactly. His team was tasked with developing the original atomic bomb — the infamous Manhattan Project, as it came to be known. They were supposed to build a laboratory for that project — the Las Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — but my father declined. He wasn’t happy with the direction of the project, and withdrew in search of a more ‘philanthropic’ breakthrough.”