Remo crouched to examine one shooter. He lay on his back.
His flesh was inert. A fading warmth was seeping out of it.
The man was dead.
Remo flipped him over. A pair of crimson streaks painted the lighter patches of his camouflage jacket. Shot in the back.
Remo checked the others. All had been shot at close range; even some of the ones Remo had finished off had suffered additional minor flesh wounds, he discovered.
205
It had to be the work of the lone AR-15 that had opened up while Remo was busy avoiding the shotgun attack.
While he crouched beside the body of a fresh-faced believer, Remo felt an unaccustomed coolness at the back of his right knee. He turned his leg slightly and noticed a tiny rip in the fabric of his chinos. Pulling the material between thumb and forefinger, he discovered a second small tear. Both were the size of moth holes, and Remo realized that a single fragment of buckshot must have passed through the back of his pant leg during the second wave of fire.
All thoughts of the dead Truth Church disciples vanished as Remo wondered how he could possibly have been sloppy enough to allow a single fragment of shot to touch his clothing.
When he heard the questioning calls from the approaching Truth Church patrols, his gaze went to the perimeter fence.
The firing had kept the rest of the Ragnarok soldiers at bay. Now the spotlights were having the precise effect they were supposed to have. His pursuers lurked out among the harsh fans of light, staying in the shadows.
An army of holy killers, remote-controlled spotlights, phantom cameras. This assignment, which should have been simple, had gotten complicated. Remo wanted to finish it. Now.
Remo left the soldiers behind and headed for the cluster of concrete buildings, determination writ in his face.
206
Raccoon Eyes had lost sight of the Evil One when the shotguns started blasting.
He was surprised that he could hear the cacophony through the security bunker walls, and wondered if it was dug in as deeply as it should have been.
When the dull thuds of the shotguns stopped filtering through the insulating sand and packed earth, he knew that the Evil One was on his way.
But that didn't matter now.
His expression bland, his skin drained of color, Raccoon Eyes stared at the scarlet toggle switch on his control board.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," chimed a happy voice from down the concrete hallway, as though humoring children.
The Evil One had penetrated underground!
The other men and women in the security room glanced nervously at one another. All had participated in the firing-squad-style murders of Truth Church dissenters—it was a requirement of Esther Clear-Seer that all church members not shy away from the blood of pagans—but the guns in their hands felt somehow heavier this night. In unison they lifted their weapons toward the open bunker doorway.
The digital clock read 00.38.32. It was in military time, equivalent to nearly 12:39 a.m., and Raccoon Eyes watched the seconds click rapidly past in tenths, the numbers a flashing red blur.
Nothing mattered any longer.
"Yoo-hoo!" a voice shouted from somewhere nearby. "Can Esther come out and play?"
He was getting closer.
207
Raccoon Eyes stared intently at the clock. His hand snaked out for the scarlet toggle switch.
00.38.53.
It didn't matter.
00.38.59.
Nothing mattered.
00.39.04.
Raccoon Eyes flipped the scarlet switch. An electrical current went zipping through shielded wiring, seeking a strategically buried cache of inert gray plastic matter.
And a thunderous explosion rocked the security bunker.
As tons of rock and earth collapsed behind him, Remo was forced farther into the tunnel. He found a safe spot at a reinforced angle, threw himself flat, then curled into a fetal position to protect head and vital organs.
A succession of smaller, echoing detonations came, sealing off all branching paths that snaked off to the surface from the main tunnel.
The last handfuls of dirt were tumbling in mini-avalanches down the piles of displaced earth when Remo got back to his feet. A cloud of choking dust rose into the tunnel's musty air.
Remo shook dirt from his dark hair as he surveyed the ruins.
He had descended into the subterranean bunker complex through the newly formed tunnel at the rear of Esther Clear-Seer's ranch. That belowground route was now blocked by a wall of solid earth.
All exit corridors at this end of the bunker complex
208
had been effectively sealed. Remo saw he had no choice but to move deeper into the underground world.
He moved along the chilly corridor, past room upon room of survivalist supplies, without encountering a single living soul.
Remo checked several of the larger rooms along the way and found evidence of other cave-ins. Every escape route in the center of the complex had been collapsed. Remo felt the same vague concern at being outguessed by Yogi Mom he had felt earlier. It was as if she could anticipate his every move. He didn't like that.
Targets didn't anticipate Sinanju. It was against everything Remo had been taught. This was all wrong.
Eventually he entered a newly constructed section of tunnel. The soles of his loafers made not a sound as they glided along the concrete floor.
The recirculated air tasted more stale the farther Remo went, and he recognized a familiar underlying odor that was growing stronger with each cat-footed step. It was the same rotten-egg smell that had clung to Esther Clear-Seer like a shroud; the same smell that had held enough significance for the Master of Sinanju to terminate his contract with Smith.
While Remo ordinarily wouldn't have let a single awful smell dictate his actions, he decided that the strangeness of his encounters at Ranch Ragnarok were too great to ignore. He proceeded with caution.