The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [133]
What had appeared to be a personnel hatch proved to be just that, when we got to it, and eminently blowable. Paddy wedged a blob of C-4 under its lip, inserted the detonator, unreeled the wire, and lay down flat with the priming assembly in his hands. Cy, Odin and I joined him on our bellies, and I invited Odin to clamp his hands over his ears. Backdoor triggered the explosive.
The whump! was deep and satisfying, and it was barely finished before I was back on my feet and sprinting for the hatch. The lid had flipped open on its hinges, what had been a plain domed disc of steel now a blackened, twistily fanlike thing. I fired a couple of shots with my Minimi down into the hatchway just in case there happened to be anyone immediately below. Then I pounced onto the ladder inside and slid down it, hands and feet on the uprights rather than the rungs, in time-honoured windowcleaner style.
I was in a narrow axial passageway, same dimensions as a coffin stood on end. Everything was lit blood-red by battle stations lighting. The passageway ran the length of Fenrir, with paired crawlspace tunnels leading off, two ahead, two behind. Access to the gun turrets. A second ladder awaited at the far end, going up the "neck" into the control cab, and also down. To the engine room, was my guess.
Odin appeared beside me, then Cy and Paddy.
"In, we're fucking in," Cy breathed. "We done it, man."
"Not yet," I cautioned. "We haven't done anything 'til the bastard stops rolling."
"It in't rolling right now, bruv."
Famous last fucking words. That very moment, Fenrir gave an almighty lurch, and suddenly was moving freely once more. The rock was gone and the driver had full control back. I felt the tank pivoting on its axis and pictured those twin artillery barrels being brought to bear on the castle and the lines of defence around it. The gun turrets were still rattling away, too, slaughtering trolls.
There was a shallow rise ahead. We had three minutes, I estimated, maybe less, before this travelling nightmare crested that and had the castle bang in its sights.
Fifty-Four
The good news was that the forward ladder did, indeed, go down into the engine room.
The bad news?
Fenrir wasn't just an all-terrain assault vehicle.
It was a bloody troop transport as well.
Next door to the engine room there was a hold containing fifty-plus American mercs, all tooled up and ready for some action.
How did we find this out?
Because the bastards were lying in wait for us.
They knew we were aboard. They knew we'd breached the roof hatch. They knew which way we'd be likely to head.
And no sooner had we arrived at the engine room than they laid into us.
They rushed in via a short passageway in single file, carrying Ka-Bar knives with 7-inch matt-black blades, which they brandished as they greeted us with cries of "Hostiles!" and "Kick their asses!" and "Hoo-ah!"
Five of them were in the confined space of the engine room with us before we got our shit together to respond. There was every chance they would have obliterated us, too, if they'd only decided to sneak up on us rather than go for the gung-ho, yelling-their-heads-off option.
My simple solution to the problem was to let them have it with the Minimi. The difference between us and them, at that moment, was that Fenrir was their ride and they had no desire to damage it. Hence the knives, a prudent precaution. Us? We didn't care. Damaging was what we were there to do, one way or another. It didn't much matter how.
The five went down, victims of a mixture of overconfidence (theirs) and ruthlessness (mine). Others behind them backed off down the passageway, suddenly appreciating the fact that we had little to lose and they had lots.