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Jerking the weapon away, Brandt turned to find the guards retreating in confusion. They clearly hadn’t expected to find the enemy behind them.
    Then they came to their senses. Behind or in front, the enemy had to be eliminated. Bullets flew overhead. Brandt scrambled to pull Vakasa behind the large crate. The cover was solid—however, he wasn’t so sure it was so great to have uranium aerosolized.
    “Lopez?”
    “Not ideal, boss,” the corporal answered. “But a whole hell of a lot better than a second RPG in here. I don’t think the roof could take it.”
    Brandt looked at the huge pile of rubble littering the floor, then up to the ceiling , which seemed to be held together by two large arches. If those came down, the entire mountainside would come down with them.
    It was up to Davidson to make sure that a second RPG didn’t end their night rather abruptly.
    * * *
    Davidson scanned the forest for signs of the team that had let off the RPG. It appeared to have come in the direction of the British team. A glint of silver caught his attention. Honing in on the figures between the leaves, Davidson found the Brits loading another RPG.
    He took his shot carefully, knocking the grenade launcher from the man’s hands. All guns went up, scanning for him, assuming he must be one of the chieftain’s men.
    Well, Davidson seriously doubted if the chieftain’s men would do this.
    After a few more well-placed bullets, Davidson pulled up his rifle. He’d just shot the Morse code message for “Back off: into the tree next to the commanding officer. If the Brits didn’t get the message after that, he would have to take more aggressive action.
    Luckily, the Brits looked like they knew their Morse code pretty well, and they lowered the RPG launcher to the ground.
    Davidson swiveled and trained his scope on the mouth of the cave.
    It was unmitigated chaos down there as the women and children ran from the site. The guards were too busy running from the bullets spitting from the cave to stop them. Further down the tunnel, it looked like there had been a partial cave-in.
    Once the men and civilians had gone down the shaft, Davidson had lost their heat signatures. Obviously, some of them had survived the attack. But who, and for how long, he didn’t know.
    Digging in deeper to his nest, Davidson did the only thing he could.
    Wait. With his finger on the trigger.
    * * *
    Rebecca slipped, again , and hit her head against the wall, which was cool to the touch, but not icy. Her hand ran along the smooth surface, realizing it was volcanic glass. They had left the glacier, and were now deep within the mountainside.
    “We’ve got to figure a way out,” Bunny said, as gunfire echoed down the tunnel from the cave. The Disciples sounded like they were in full-out assault mode. And the guides only had twenty bullets, max.
    There was no way they could go back though. The Disciples would have the cave entrance guarded, even if they could somehow get around the men in the cave.
    “We’ve got to just keep moving,” Rebecca said. Someone would miss them soon, and the Disciples weren’t going to hang around forever. They were more of a shock-and-awe kind of operation.
    Then the gunshots stopped. That was not good news.
    Hurrying down the black, slick tunnel, Rebecca’s hand slid over an opening.
    “Bunny, feel this,” Rebecca whispered.
    The redhead complied. “So?”
    “It’s a lava tube.”
    Rebecca imagined the glacier’s outer surface, pocked with holes. This was where the wind was coming in to create the moaning sound.
    “This is our way out,” Rebecca announced, feeling the perfectly round tunnel. Iceland was known for its lava tubes. It was home to some of the longest ones, stretching miles. They didn’t need this one to go that far. They just needed the tube to get them out of the cave system.
    Bunny squeezed her hand as she crawled over the smooth lip to the glassy interior of the tube. Bracing her feet to keep from