been carrying nothing except his Uzi: no radio, no torch, not even one of those strange silver grenades.
Someone spoke unintelligibly in the stairwell, and I knew I had to go. I raced back to Reuben’s room. “Get ready to move,” I whispered. “We’re leaving.”
“How? Aren’t there bad guys on the stairs?”
“We won’t take the stairs.”
He stared at me. I said, “Stand back. When I run, follow.”
Plenty of noise on the stairs now. Four mercs; maybe more. But before I’d killed the previous one, I’d arranged a vigorous welcome for such visitors.
I’d removed the two spare oxygen tanks from the end room and positioned them on either side of the doorway to the stairs. At the base of one tank, I’d placed the bottle of rubbing alcohol. By the other, I’d set the spray can of disinfectant. The arrangement might look odd to someone peeking out from the stairwell, but not enough to raise dire suspicions. After all, oxygen tanks and the rest were common items in a clinic. The mercenaries would probably assume the tanks were kept by the stairwell for lack of better storage space.
A man appeared in the doorway. I ducked out of sight. Five seconds passed. Then I heard the scuff of army boots as someone scurried out of the stairwell and bolted to the first doorway. The mercenaries clearly planned to advance forward, one man at a time, straight from the team ops’ textbook. I waited for boots again, then popped one Uzi around the doorframe and fired.
I didn’t have to see my targets—I wasn’t aiming at men in motion, I was shooting at the unmoving oxygen tanks. A burst of full auto straight down the hall couldn’t help hitting both big metal canisters just standing there. Couldn’t help puncturing them either . . . at which point the two steel tanks containing gas under high pressure turned into modest but effective pipe bombs.
This wasn’t the sort of explosion that’s powered by a flaming detonation. The percussive energy came entirely from oxygen bursting outward with a force of thousands of pounds per square inch. I doubt if it caught fire at all; but then I can’t give an eyewitness description. It seemed unwise to stick my head out into a corridor full of (a) gunmen, and (b) shards of flying metal. Still, I heard the tanks rupture with a satisfying bang, followed by rapid-fire thunks as bits of steel blew outward and embedded themselves into anything nearby. That included at least one ruffian, who screamed in astonished agony.
But the hurtling metal fragments were only the start of the chaos. The oxygen tanks were holed and breached but still mostly intact. All the holes were on the side facing me . . . which meant that the oxygen shot straight down the hall at high pressure, like the exhaust blast from rocket engines. In response to Newton’s third law, the tanks embarked upon an equal and opposite reaction: bashing their way through the thin wall separating the corridor from the stairs and careening into the stairwell at significant velocity. The stairwell, being part of the church’s original bell tower, was stone lined and strong enough to withstand the flying O 2 tanks. The tanks clanged furiously within the contained volume, bouncing off anything in their path until all the gas inside had escaped.
I myself have never been struck full force by a jet-propelled oxygen tank. Judging by the shrieks from the men on the stairs, I doubt it’s a pleasant experience.
The immediate response was gunfire—shooting at random. The mercenaries weren’t sure who’d attacked them, but their first instincts said to spray the world with bullets. They were probably smart enough not to shoot each other; beyond that, all bets were off.
I can’t tell you if the bottle of rubbing alcohol got broken at that point, or if it had already been smashed when the oxygen tanks blew. Either way, this was the moment at which the flammable alcohol caught fire amid the pandemonium of hot lead and muzzle
Someone spoke unintelligibly in the stairwell, and I knew I had to go. I raced back to Reuben’s room. “Get ready to move,” I whispered. “We’re leaving.”
“How? Aren’t there bad guys on the stairs?”
“We won’t take the stairs.”
He stared at me. I said, “Stand back. When I run, follow.”
Plenty of noise on the stairs now. Four mercs; maybe more. But before I’d killed the previous one, I’d arranged a vigorous welcome for such visitors.
I’d removed the two spare oxygen tanks from the end room and positioned them on either side of the doorway to the stairs. At the base of one tank, I’d placed the bottle of rubbing alcohol. By the other, I’d set the spray can of disinfectant. The arrangement might look odd to someone peeking out from the stairwell, but not enough to raise dire suspicions. After all, oxygen tanks and the rest were common items in a clinic. The mercenaries would probably assume the tanks were kept by the stairwell for lack of better storage space.
A man appeared in the doorway. I ducked out of sight. Five seconds passed. Then I heard the scuff of army boots as someone scurried out of the stairwell and bolted to the first doorway. The mercenaries clearly planned to advance forward, one man at a time, straight from the team ops’ textbook. I waited for boots again, then popped one Uzi around the doorframe and fired.
I didn’t have to see my targets—I wasn’t aiming at men in motion, I was shooting at the unmoving oxygen tanks. A burst of full auto straight down the hall couldn’t help hitting both big metal canisters just standing there. Couldn’t help puncturing them either . . . at which point the two steel tanks containing gas under high pressure turned into modest but effective pipe bombs.
This wasn’t the sort of explosion that’s powered by a flaming detonation. The percussive energy came entirely from oxygen bursting outward with a force of thousands of pounds per square inch. I doubt if it caught fire at all; but then I can’t give an eyewitness description. It seemed unwise to stick my head out into a corridor full of (a) gunmen, and (b) shards of flying metal. Still, I heard the tanks rupture with a satisfying bang, followed by rapid-fire thunks as bits of steel blew outward and embedded themselves into anything nearby. That included at least one ruffian, who screamed in astonished agony.
But the hurtling metal fragments were only the start of the chaos. The oxygen tanks were holed and breached but still mostly intact. All the holes were on the side facing me . . . which meant that the oxygen shot straight down the hall at high pressure, like the exhaust blast from rocket engines. In response to Newton’s third law, the tanks embarked upon an equal and opposite reaction: bashing their way through the thin wall separating the corridor from the stairs and careening into the stairwell at significant velocity. The stairwell, being part of the church’s original bell tower, was stone lined and strong enough to withstand the flying O 2 tanks. The tanks clanged furiously within the contained volume, bouncing off anything in their path until all the gas inside had escaped.
I myself have never been struck full force by a jet-propelled oxygen tank. Judging by the shrieks from the men on the stairs, I doubt it’s a pleasant experience.
The immediate response was gunfire—shooting at random. The mercenaries weren’t sure who’d attacked them, but their first instincts said to spray the world with bullets. They were probably smart enough not to shoot each other; beyond that, all bets were off.
I can’t tell you if the bottle of rubbing alcohol got broken at that point, or if it had already been smashed when the oxygen tanks blew. Either way, this was the moment at which the flammable alcohol caught fire amid the pandemonium of hot lead and muzzle
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