Avoiding the patrolling terrorists, the two men hid behind the rusted wreckage of a Ford pickup truck and gazed toward the warehouse. They saw a commotion at the entrance, where a large group of terrorists gathered, shouting slogans.
Jack patted Harry on the shoulder, motioning him to look toward the cabin on the other side. Two teams of four terrorists, each with flashlights, were approaching. Their paths intersected right at the entrance to the cabin,
suggesting they might notice the body inside.
Their hearts sank. They had originally planned to sneak in through the unnoticed side of the warehouse, hoping to cause some confusion, but now they were being exposed.
Just then, the terrorists gathered inside the warehouse finished their chants and fired their automatic weapons into the air, a deafening roar of gunfire.
Opportunity!
Jack and Harry exchanged a glance, then simultaneously left their hiding place in the wreckage of the pickup truck and lunged toward the nearest patrol.
The two had only captured two small pistols. Jack gave Harry the Beretta 92, which was in better condition, and held a rusty, almost worn-out black Kohler-Koch P9S.
But his shooting was enhanced by a cheat. While his first shot missed, his second corrected its trajectory, blasting the nearest man in a turban directly in the head.
As the turbaned man's flashlight fell to the ground, his third shot successfully punctured the head of his teammate behind him. But when Jack pulled the trigger again, the cartridge jammed.
Cursing silently, he casually used his pistol as a hidden weapon to smash into the third enemy's head. Jack slid, his shoe scraping a trail of dust on the sand as he vanished behind a pile of wooden crates.
Shouts and bullets followed, sending wood chips flying. One of the remaining terrorists clutched his head and screamed, while the other, after firing a burst of bullets at the crates, bent down to pick up his flashlight.
Jack emerged from the other side of the pile of crates like a ghost, a rusty crowbar in his hand.
With a flick of his wrist, the crowbar flew with a crackling sound like the blades of a spinning windmill. Under the moonlight, it smashed a trail of red and white objects, its momentum undiminished, nailing them directly into the outer wall of the hut. After a thud, it continued to tremble and hum.
The last terrorist, whose head had been shattered by the pistol, looked up in horror and instinctively tried to pull the trigger, only to be met with a cloud of sand right in the face.
With a scream, the man began to fire wildly, but the AKM's firing only lasted a second before pausing.
Jack, a short figure, appeared behind him, loosened his grip, laid the body to the ground, reached out to catch the AKM, and fired.
Elsewhere, the bearded man struggling with Harry for the AKM had his skull torn off. The gunfire from the nearby warehouse also died down at that moment.
Harry was outnumbered, but his speed in dispatching his foes was no less impressive than Jackson's.
Gathering the spoils took longer than the two men had taken to deal with the eight terrorists. Jack picked up a fairly good M10 submachine gun and slung an AKM. He also switched to the same Beretta 92 pistol as Harry, and stowed two extra rifle magazines.
Harry grabbed two M67 "Lemons" that Jack had used at Alcatraz and also slung an AKM.
Of the automatic weapons used by these terrorists, who were clearly not very good at maintaining their weapons, these Russian-made weapons were the only ones in decent condition. At the very least, any malfunctions were relatively easy to troubleshoot.
The two men tiptoed up the ladder to the second floor of the warehouse, where miscellaneous items were stored. From top to bottom, they had a panoramic view of the warehouse.
The three ancient Persian stone sculptures had been reduced to a pile of worthless rubble. A cement mixer had just finished dumping cement onto the back of a truck.
The truck's rear end faced a repair tunnel, where the unboxed W-80 nuclear warhead lay.
Jack crouched behind a railing, searching for two more boxes containing nuclear warheads. He finally peeked at one through the open rear door of a van parked at the warehouse entrance.
Aziz stood at the front of the tunnel, ceremoniously removing a necklace from his neck. On it lay a strangely shaped key.
"Quiet!"
he shouted in Arabic. For a moment, everyone watched his movements with tense expressions.
Aziz squatted before the control box, inserted the key, and twisted it. A terrorist with a camera quickly approached to capture a close-up.
Beside him, another man held something like an instruction manual, muttering the instructions in a low voice. "Turn the key, turn the switch, and set the timer for one turn."
Harry instinctively wanted to raise his gun, but then stopped himself. It was too late to stop him anyway, so he might as well listen to the other party's next plan.
"In six hours, the wrath of the gods will descend upon this place, illuminating the entire sky. Then the whole world will know our resolve.
The evil Americans will understand that the days of wantonly slaughtering our innocent women and children are over. They can no longer operate drones from safe havens to drop bombs on our cities.
Now, we have the ability to retaliate in kind. Their cities will be destroyed, and their loved ones will cry helplessly in the deadly flash and radioactive fallout."
Aziz unplugged the cables and held the control box aloft for everyone to see. Two of his men quickly stepped forward, draped the nuclear bomb with a Stars and Stripes banner, and then pulled back the truck bed.
Cement poured down, sealing the activated nuclear warhead and the Stars and Stripes together in the tunnel.
Harry whispered in Jack's ear, "Isn't this a bit unnecessary? Since we're on the island, why not just load the remaining two bombs onto a helicopter and transport them away? Why use a truck?"
Jack couldn't remember the exact city in which the subsequent events in the original film took place, but he had some memory of the cross-sea bridge being blown up. America has so many cross-sea bridges, and he didn't know which one was destroyed.
After a moment's thought, he replied, "Perhaps they're still not putting all their eggs in one basket. One bomb can be transported by helicopter, and the other, along with the bomb and vehicle, can be shipped to the nearest island.
Since they've decided to demonstrate the power of a nuclear bomb here, it means we're not overseas, but on an uninhabited island within our borders.
The detonation time is set at six hours. Perhaps there's a cross-sea highway connecting to a larger island nearby. Once they reach land, they can simply use the truck to maneuver around."
Harry nodded in agreement. "That way, we won't have time to wait for reinforcements. We must find a way to create chaos and prevent the bomb from leaving, ideally seizing a helicopter."
(End of Chapter)