BIRTHRIGHT Book One: The First Key

Chapter 26

The rubble of the operating room still smolders with heat from the floor below. Steel support beams, still red-hot from the explosion, stoke the smattering of sill-burning fires, filling the cavernous space with smoke and ash.

Suddenly, two marines rappel from the ceiling into the basement carrying two pistols each. Taking a quick sweep of the area, one marine hustles toward the wide corridor aiming is weapon into the darkness while the other gestures above him through the hole that he and his comrade just passed through. Two heavily armed artillery marines land next.

The big guns.

Lumbering off in opposite directions, these two are heavily weighed down by the considerable artillery they carry. Someone is expecting Target 17 to put up a hell of a fight. Next, the Captain lands next along with his Lieutenant. Both are sporting a rifle in one hand and a tracking device in the other.

Finally Isaac lands behind them all, eating a fruit roll-up and talking with his mouth full. "Alright," Isaac begins, taking charge of the situation "I want three of you with me, you, you and you." Isaac points to the captain, to a heavy gun and to a dual-pistol point-man. "We're taking the west corridors. You three, take the east ones." he says, sloppily gesturing in the general direction of the other three marines.

The Captain aims his gun at Isaac. "Hey, I don't know who you think you are here, civilian, but I'm in charge of my men. Under no circumstances is my squad splitting up. We're headed North to close 'em in."

With lightning fast reflexes, Isaac grabs the Lieutenant's tracking device and steps toward the captain. For a fraction of an instant, imperceptible to a human eye, it glows with a green energy.

"North? Do you smell that, Captain tightpants?" Isaac says, sniffing the air. "That's the smell of a simple chemical bomb. Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen." He looks around at the stunned faces of the marines. "So we're all in agreement: it was Tetrazine. And it's wafting down from that north corridor.

The captain mimics Isaac, trying to smell what he's talking about. But it just smells like plain old air to him.

"It's wafting from the north because it's being drawn from a dead end, past us toward the only open air exits," Isaac turns away from the Captain to point down two wide corridors, "east and west. The target has a fifteen minute head start, and would have already made it to that blockage and needed to turn back to here by now if he was as stupid as you are, and went north."

The Lieutenant glares at his Captain, who is almost shrinking from the chemistry and strategy lesson he's receiving.

"But I happen to know he's not. So he's already headed down one of these two clear corridors, on his way to freedom." Isaac turns back toward the Captain and, nose-to-nose, stares him down. "Which he's gonna make it to if we listen to you and waste time going north."

Looking around and conferring with one another, the marines seem sold on Isaac's read of the situation.

Isaac turns to address the other marines. "Unless this squad splits to cover both the east and west corridors at once, Target 17 has fifty-fifty odds of getting off the base within the hour right under your nose, Captain."

He tosses the Lieutenant his tracking device, who is in as much shock as his Captain. Befuddled and not sure quite what to say, the Captain does, however, seem certain of one thing; he continues to point his gun to Isaac.

Looking down at his rifle, the Captain regains his mettle. "Don't think I won't shoot you where you stand if you try any--"

"I'm well aware of your orders, Captain." Isaac sneers. "Lets just do this and do it fast. I've got better things to do than baby-sit marines."

Gritting his teeth, the Captain steps back from Isaac, and gritting his teeth, he hopes his next orders engender some confidence within his men. "Lieutenant, you've got Travis and Hicks. You're east. Everybody else is west. Move."

With a nod, the lieutenant marches off toward the western corridor with a point-man and a heavy artillery marine following suit. The Captain gives Isaac another look of disdain as he motions for his remaining men to follow him east.

As the Captain turns his back, Isaac cracks a smile and diligently follows along.