The two men immediately went to work. Harry set his sights on a pile of ammunition crates in a corner of the warehouse, where a woman in a flowered headscarf was sorting equipment.
Jack slipped out of the warehouse again, searching for Juno.
The sound of a helicopter engine starting up could be heard from the dock. A barge slowly lowered its rear hatch, and someone shouted instructions in Arabic, guiding a van into the hold.
Seizing the opportunity, Jack wrenched the necks of two lone terrorists. Finally, he found a watch on one of their wrists and determined the time to be 12:10.
This meant that around 6:00 AM, the island he was currently on would be greeted by two suns simultaneously.
For the Dark Jihad's leader, Aziz's intelligence was undeniably high. After launching the nuclear bomb, he immediately sealed it with cement, leaving no room for defused weapons.
A W-80 nuclear warhead weighs approximately 130 kilograms, and covered with several tons of quick-drying cement, even Harry, transformed into a "Terminator" robot, would be helpless.
That awful system never gave Jack the ability to dismantle a nuclear bomb, and even if it had, he wouldn't have planned to. Who knows what's inside a warhead that's clearly been dismantled once? Opening it might cause a radioactive leak.
Preventing the remaining two nuclear warheads from leaving the island would be ideal, but Jack's primary goal remains finding a satellite phone or other means of communication.
Helicopters and ships docked at the docks certainly have these, but unfortunately, those are also the most heavily guarded areas. Reality isn't a game where you can sneak in with just a cardboard box on your head.
And while many of these terrorists wore the same turbans worn by wealthy Middle Easterners, this was a tropical island; no one would cover their faces.
Consequently, even if Jack had the nerve to dress like a dead person, he wouldn't have been able to get to the docks.
While he was at a loss, Harry, in the warehouse, was busy. Seeing Aziz directing several of his men to load boxes containing nuclear warheads into a van parked at the entrance, he knew it would be too late if he didn't act now.
Slowly lowering himself down, his legs hooked on the ropes, Harry silently appeared behind a man in a turban packing a PKM light machine gun. With a twist of his hands, he spun his head 180 degrees.
Carefully lowering the body, Harry landed with a litheness belying his size. Leaning against the box, Harry examined the weapon, a personal weapon modified by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the "Father of the AK."
The light machine gun weighed only 7.5 kilograms empty, and even with its 100-round aluminum magazine, it weighed only 11 kilograms. It boasted extremely low recoil and exceptional reliability.
Reaching out of the ammunition crate, he lifted two magazines and placed them at his feet. Harry loaded his rifle but didn't fire immediately. Instead, he pulled a previously captured M67 "Lemon" from his waistband, peered over to the target he'd chosen, and bit off the pull tab with his teeth.
The "Lemon" flew in a slightly straight arc from the depths of the warehouse, landing precisely in a pile of oil drums near the entrance.
As the explosion rang out, Harry drew his pistol and fired several shots at the halogen light above him, burying himself in the darkness.
The truck carrying the nuclear warhead had just started moving, and Aziz, who was clinging to the side of the truck to get in, was thrown off by the scorching blast.
For a moment, he didn't realize his side was under attack, believing it was an accident.
Several terrorists standing near the oil drums were set on fire by the blast, rolling on the ground and wailing miserably. The horrible smell of burning filled everyone's nostrils, and the warehouse entrance was suddenly in chaos.
"Put out the fire! Put out the fire!" Aziz, having just huddled up from the ground, his pupils constricted as he glanced inside the warehouse. He dove for cover by the door. The
crisp crackle of PKM light machine gun fire rang out, and Harry, who had been crouching on the ground, hiding beneath a pile of ammunition boxes and tarpaulins, expertly fired long bursts.
Several terrorists, gathered together, stripping off their clothes and swatting away the flames, screamed and fell to the ground.
The PKM's 7.62x54mm steel-core rounds posed a threat even to lightly armored targets. While its combat rate of fire was limited to 250 rounds per minute, it was enough to unleash a bloody hail of slaughter.
"Move! Get out of here!"
Waving repeatedly at the truck driver, who was still foolishly looking back, Aziz pulled over one of his men, ready to charge into the warehouse, and barked out orders, "Idiot! He's at the very back. Go around the side."
It took only three or four minutes to empty two 100-round boxes. As Harry released the trigger, a deathly silence descended upon the warehouse.
At the warehouse entrance, besides a pile of bodies, only the lingering flames burned through the few flammable materials, such as crates, with crackling sounds.
The pile of oil drums at the entrance was mostly empty, and the explosions didn't spark the blaze Harry had hoped for, nor did they prevent the truck carrying the nuclear warhead from leaving.
With a regretful pout, Harry reloaded his machine gun with a fresh magazine. Then, bent over, he prepared to leave through the warehouse's side door, attempting to single-handedly encircle the dock.
Just as he was about to leave, a shirtless burly man, who had snuck up at some point, suddenly lunged from behind a pillar and grabbed Harry's neck in a chokehold.
"Here! Here! I've got him!" the shirtless man shouted, convinced he had him under control.
The small door to the side of the warehouse was kicked open, and two terrorists, armed with AKMs, excitedly pointed their guns at Harry, who was struggling to escape, ready to pull the trigger, disregarding their teammates' safety.
Gunfire rang out, and the two men at the door collapsed to the ground, trembling. Then Jack appeared, waving and smiling.
"Looks like you need help?"
Harry, his face flushing crimson, thrust his hips hard, hurling the shirtless man, who was no less physically imposing than him, to the ground. He then picked up the fallen machine gun and forced the scorching barrel into his mouth.
"Ah!"
The shirtless man, scalded, leaped and thrashed like a landed catfish until Harry squeezed the trigger.
This bloody scene was a bit too inappropriate for children. Harry, his face splattered with a few drops of unknown liquid, had a fierce gleam in his eyes. In the dim firelight, he looked incredibly ferocious, yet somehow, Jack felt a sense of familiarity.
(End of Chapter)