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Beth went down, clutching her side, and dropped the tube. The other two instantly hit the ground and returned fire, clipping Dolap in the shoulder as he dropped down behind the Humvee to reload. The wound was no more than a bee sting to him, and he slapped another mag into the assault rifle.
When he rose again, he saw the dark-haired woman drag Beth around the building while the Chinese man laid down suppressing fire. Then they were out of sight.
Dolap charged forward and picked up the tube. It was marked Picasso in Beth’s handwriting from when she had appraised each painting. He opened it to quickly check and saw that there were at least three paintings inside.
With Beth injured, he considered continuing the pursuit, but he needed to inform Locsin that there were more intruders. He went into the paintings storage trailer as he called on the radio.
“Comrade Locsin, this is Dolap. Two more people have infiltrated the cavern and have taken Beth Anders.”
“Where are they now?” Locsin demanded.
“On the other side of the compound from your location. They broke into the paintings storage trailer and took them. I’m in pursuit.”
Locsin sounded uncharacteristically panicked when he asked, “Did they take all of them?”
Dolap looked around him at the discarded tubes all over the floor and then checked the storage cabinet and found it empty. Even the eagle finial was gone. Blood dripped from his arm, but it was already starting to clot.
“Not all of the paintings,” he said into the radio. “I have the Picasso and a couple of others in one of the tubes.”
“You’re sure it’s the Picasso?”
“Yes, comrade. The intruders are armed, so I’ll need more men to help me search for them.”
“No! Bring the paintings to me at once. I’m in the warehouse.”
“Yes, comrade. I’m on my way.”
• • •
JUAN HAD BEEN listening to the conversation between Locsin and Dolap over the radio he’d taken from the dead guard. He didn’t know why the paintings were so important to Locsin, but the communist leader seemed desperate to get them.
But Juan and Linc had more pressing problems. Specifically, the forty or so men who were currently inching their way through the rows of Kuyog drones. None of them had a clear shot yet, but it wouldn’t be long before they did.
As they crouched behind the partially dismantled Kuyog they were using for cover, Juan said to Linc, “You ready?”
Linc had the crossbow on his back and now held his assault rifle. He snapped the 40mm grenade into the under-barrel launcher, took a breath, and nodded. “Let’s cause a mess.”
Juan smiled and aimed his own M4 at the bricks of Semtex against the rear wall on the other side of the warehouse. It was a common mistake in movies that rifle rounds could set off extremely stable plastic explosives, but he wasn’t going to shoot bullets at it. He had his own grenade launcher.
They needed an escape route, and all their breaching charges were back in the Semtex storehouse, which was why Juan had raided the Kuyog for its payload. He squeezed the trigger, and the grenade hit the pile of Semtex dead center. The grenade itself wasn’t powerful enough to blow a hole in the wall, but its explosion acted as a detonator for the plastique.
The resulting bla
st knocked the wind out of Juan’s lungs and ripped a huge hole in the building’s exterior, but the job wasn’t done yet. Linc quickly recovered and leaned over the Kuyog to aim at the Kuyog closest to the front of the warehouse.
He fired, and the grenade lofted over the heads of the men interspersed amongst the dozens of drones filling the warehouse. Then he and Juan ran for their newly created exit route.
The shell hit the Kuyog dead center and exploded, setting off the Semtex inside the drone. It blew up in a fiery eruption that began a chain reaction, with one Kuyog after the other exploding like a synchronized fireworks display.
Locsin’s men, horrified to realize what was happening, ran for their lives, but the efficient arrangement of the Kuyogs meant they had no chance. The last thing Juan saw as he plunged through the exit was the insurgents disappearing in the white-hot flames and deadly shrapnel.
Linc and Juan ran toward the empty vastness of the cavern, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the warehouse as possible.
The explosions from the warehouse were coming so fast now that they seemed to meld together until finally the whole building blew apart, tossing girders and pieces of metal high into the air before being reduced to rubble. The concussion was so powerful that it knocked them off their feet, and, as he was falling, Juan really didn’t know if this was his last moment on earth.
66
Tagaan blinked his eyes as he regained consciousness. For a few seconds, he didn’t know where he was. Then he saw that he was close to the truck with the Typhoon supply inside. He must have been thrown far from the warehouse in the explosion.
