The third gunman’s shadow oozed into the room as he made a slow approach. It was close enough. Juan and MacD popped up and fired. The closest gunman got off one shot, but the recoil made his rifle slip up and over his shoulder. MacD put him down with a three-round burst while Cabrillo stitched his covering partner across the chest. The third shooter tried to run, but Juan came around the mining machine, took aim, and shot him in the back. He had no qualms about gunning down a coward like that.

What concerned him now was the fourteen minutes gone from their half-hour deadline and the fact that they were nowhere near securing the crystals.

A fourth gunman he hadn’t seen suddenly opened fire from across the echoing room, blowing shards of salt off the wall to Cabrillo’s left. Bits got into his eyes as he ducked for cover, stinging them mercilessly. The need to pack in so many explosives meant neither of them had bothered with a canteen, so he had no water to flush them out.

With MacD covering him, Juan wasted precious moments wiping at his eyes in order to see again.

Lawless plucked his lone grenade, pulled the pin, and heaved it like a major-league pitcher. The deadly orb skittered along the ground after completing its flat arc and came to rest just around the corner from where the guard had taken cover. He couldn’t have placed it any better. He grabbed Juan’s arm to guide him like a blind man as the grenade exploded. The salt column was just crumbly enough for the explosives to blow a chunk out of the pillar’s corner and riddle the guard with shrapnel.

Tears streaming down his cheeks but his vision steadily improving, Cabrillo continued on through the underground labyrinth with Lawless at his side. They hit the ambush moments later.

They’d just passed on to another room when they came under scathing autofire from at least six rifles. The only way they’d gotten out of it unscathed was that one of the shooters fired at their shadow before they’d fully exposed themselves. The thick wall absorbed dozens of rounds as the gunmen poured on the fire.

“They’re going to pin us here while more men come around from behind,” Juan panted, his heart pounding in his chest.

He looked around. Their rear and flanks were fully exposed.

MacD fired a few blind rounds to let the terrorists know they’d survived the trap.

Cabrillo tossed his rifle up onto the conveyor belt and used its support girder to hoist himself after it. The belt itself was made of wire mesh and industrial rubber. When the mine had been shuttered, the salt that was already on its way out from the working faces had been left on it in a continuous pile of rubble.

Lawless saw what he was doing and climbed aboard alongside him.

“We need to be quick and silent,” Juan warned.

He fired off another burst from his REC7, which drew a thunderous fusillade. It was when the gunmen were hosing everything in sight that the pair made a desperate scramble along the salt piled on top of the conveyor belt. It was treacherous going, and any mistake would likely kick salt over the edge, giving away their position and inviting certain death.

Unseen, they moved like rats scurrying just above where the gunmen sought cover behind some more abandoned mining equipment. The rate of fire eventually slowed, but the echoes continued to clamor through the room, effectively deafening everyone.

Slithering and crawling, never loosening their grips on their rifles, Cabrillo and Lawless passed unseen through the enemy line. One of the gunmen questioned loudly in Arabic about why the Americans had stopped firing back.

“Because they lack courage,” another answered, and touched off another three-round burst.

“Silence!”

Juan recognized John Smith’s voice.

As badly as he wanted to confront Smith, there were too many men to engage, even from above, and because the rubberized belt provided little protection the pair continued to slink away. Only when they had gone well beyond visual range did Cabrillo roll over the conveyor’s edge and drop to the ground. He crouched under the mechanism.

“Good call,” MacD said. “How much time do we have?”

“Thirty seconds, give or take. Come on.”

They took off running again. Then they felt it. The earth barely moved. There was too much solid rock between them and the blast to dramatically shake the ground. It was more like a gentle bump, and then came a quick puff of air as the explosion sent shock waves through every open cavity and chamber. Now it really was a race against time.

HUNDREDS OF FEET ABOVE THEM, THE EXPLOSIVES HAD detonated in the confined room that had undercut the river bottom. The shattering blast fractured the already crumbling ceiling, gouging out a fifty-foot plug of salt that crashed to the floor in clouds of choking white dust. Max and the others had felt it where they waited at the entrance to the Maginot Line fortress and could only hope that MacD and Juan were racing for them already.

The thin layer of shale was all that remained between the river and the mine, a layer that had helped prevent the mine from flooding years ago. But without the underpinning of salt, the layer cracked under the weight of the water flowing above it. At first it was just a thin spray that found its way into the mine, but the crack soon widened as the water sought a fresh outlet. The spray turned into a stream, before the entire ceiling collapsed and the river poured in as a roaring cascade that made the opening larger still as it gushed through.

In seconds, nearly every acre-foot of the Arc River was being sucked into the earth as if a drain had been pulled. It was an otherworldly scene, almost biblical in its destructive might. Just a few rivulets managed to pass by the open maw, and it would remain like this until the entire mine flooded.

Moments after the explosion, the tumbling water found the two main shafts leading into the depths and began plunging downward in near-solid columns. Mercer hadn’t included calculations of how fast the mine would become inundated, but it appeared it would take far less time than anyone believed possible, and Cabrillo and Lawless were on the first level above the already flooded sections.

The explosion didn’t cause Juan’s and MacD’s steps to falter, as they kept running. They made it through two more rooms and were just two away from reaching the elevators when they came up short. Off in a distant corner was a brightly lit area that glowed cheerily. They were too far away to see details, but it was an incongruity that gave them both pause.

They crept closer, hugging the walls so as not to give themselves away. The area was partially partitioned off as if to hide the fact that it was deep underground, and through an opening they could see furniture had been brought from the surface so that Gunawan Bahar would be as comfortable as possible in his lair. No one was about at the moment, and the two men moved hastily away and soon found another incongruity. It was a steel box twice the size of a shipping container. It was too large to have been brought down the elevator, so Bahar must have had it constructed there.

Its size was the only thing comparable to a container, for this thing had smooth stainless steel sides and the sleek look of a high-tech machine. Dozens of cables snaked out of it like tentacles. These were power and data feeds, with multiple redundancies built in.

A glass vestibule protruded off one side, and within they could see the white coveralls commonly called bunny suits used in clean environments. There were pegs for four of them, but only three dangled like deflated balloons.

“Bahar?” Lawless asked.

“Doubtlessly,” Cabrillo replied, and changed out his partially empty magazine for a fresh one.

He opened the door and was hit by a gust of air from the overpressurized space. This was another measure to keep contaminants away from the quantum computer. He glanced at MacD, to sync up their timing, and spun the doorknob at the same time, throwing his full weight against it. He went low while Lawless covered overtop of him. They needn’t have bothered because this room was one more layer of protection, a second empty vestibule, with degaussing mats on the floor.