11. Five Rounds Rapid

Corridor 52-B
10:44 AM

"...Point me," a low voice hissed. The Kimmunicator's screen fuzzed as it strained to pick up a faint GPS signal. After about fifteen seconds, far longer than normal, the onscreen map attained a lock on her position. Several seconds more, and the right-hand path of an upcoming intersection blinked dimly.

Kim Possible now crept though the bowls of al-Qaeda's bunker-mountain. She slid the Kimmunicator into her back pocket, smoothly scanned her eyes from left to right, and whispered away from her position glued in the dark shadows of the wall. Her movement caused the floor beneath her feet to tamp slightly; she gasped quietly and pulled her foot back as if she had almost triggered a sensor. In reality, she walked on metal plating. Rough, dark rock walls had given way to barren, rigidly square hallways plated all in brushed steel.

Erruug, talk about a Feng-shui disaster! You can way tell a guy did this…

Kim bit her lip and adopted a more flowing, gliding step. Mentally thanking Wade for the soft rubber in her soles, she tried to tuck her bright auburn swath of hair out of sight.

Maybe I should get my hair cut… Something neck-length might be a bit of an adventure… She paused for a moment to toy with her hair, pushing it to around her shoulder blades, before snapping back to the task at hand.

A strip of harsh, flat fluorescent lighting ran down the center of the hallway. Not that it did much good at actual illumination; every third or forth light was out, giving Kim ample space to hide. The rest crackled and flickered, humming ethereally.

Too busy out killing to replace a few lightbulbs?

She reached the intersection and melded into the wall. Arms spread out to their maximum at her sides, palms flat against the wall, grasping the gun in left hand. Her legs solid bent fluid; breathing light, quick. She strained her eyes right, almost trying to X-ray through the perfect 90-degree corner just beyond the fingers of her right hand. Listening. There was nothing. Just like at the past six intersections.

Spin right? Edge around? Spin… fastandfluid… need lots of recover time. …Open…. Farfromthewall. Edge… edge… slowandquiet. Shhh quiet. Asians see the gun. Know me coming. Me dead. Edgeorspin? Edge. Spin. Spin. Edge. Spin. Spin. SPIN!

In one motion, she swung the gun in her left hand to bring it into firing hold with her right, her legs moving liquid. She whirled low around the corner, legs crouched and braced, the gun pointed deadly in front of her. Her long firetail of hair accentuated the blinding sweep and finished her wave of motion, its tip gently kissing the bare skin of her left arm before flowing back.

Nothing. She held her battle position another second before she realized the only thing she threatened was silent air. Kim rose slowly, hands breaking apart, and the gun again slid down to relax at her hip. The adrenaline high slowed to a trickle, leaving her shivery and edged.

This lack of contact is really getting to me, she thought as she slunk back to the shadowy wall. Hitchcock, you had this terror trick nailed. Kim blinked, trying to clear her mind. Instantly the vision came to her, throbbing with the beat of her heart. The slow draw, the impact, the stunned stare… She shivered and opened her eyes.

Shell shock, Isle 9, next to the goldfish…

She moved on, cautiously, with a litheness that showed the mark of an expert. Her breathing echoed off the barren walls to mock her fear, punctuated by the gentle tamp-tamp of her feet. The incessant, hair-prickling mosquito buzz of the faulty fluorescents pushed her already-jangly nerves to the breaking point.

So when the Kimmunicator's ring tone blasted out of her rear pocket, she yelped and jumped nearly a foot into the air. Hastily biting a glove to cut off the yell, she flashed into a dim patch of wall. With a heart rate at truly hypersonic speeds, she klicked on her device. "Sweet Jesus, Wade!"

"Ahh! I'm so sorry, Kim; your vitals just went through the roof!" Wade said apologetically. His voice and video crackled and jumped strangely.

"So not the dram – hey, wait a minute… How do you have my vitals?"

"Electrodes woven in your clothing. But that's not important right now," he said hastily. "I'm going to up-power the Kimmunicator's transmission satellites. The bedrock is blocking my signal."

"More bars in more places, huh?" she said dryly. "Any idea why I haven't met anybody yet? The strain's playing hacky-sack with my nerves."

Wade pondered his screens thoughtfully. His face wavered with the weakened signal. "I dunno… I guess they're all down in the Great Hall fighting us. My scans picked up a large bogey force diagonally of you by several floors, but I haven't been able to update recently. Your depth and some unexpected high-level cloud cover prevent me from bringing out the high-gain scanner until I transfer to the more powerful signal. Making the switch'll cut me off for several minutes. I'm sorry."

"No big, I guess…. Kim out." She patted the Kimmunicator into her pocket and unpasted herself from her hiding place. After the conversation and the comforting sound of her own voice, the sudden silence roared in her ears. It pounded on her as she inched forward to a second intersection.

It's quiet… too qui—Aaack! She broke off and mentally slapped herself. No, no, no, not the quiet line! That cheesy action movie staple has doomed almost as many extras as "Well, it can't get any worse than this!"

Her attention was snapped forward as her taught senses, at last, picked up a sound that wasn't her own. Boots. Ahead of her. Around the corner. And they weren't bothering to keep it down.

Kim flowed into the darkest stretch of wall she could find and gave Major Edward A. Murphy a deadpan look.

…And it never fails…

She slowly groped backward until she felt cold steel trace against her spine. Her tension suddenly cleared like birds after a shotgun blast. Battle blood now flowed through her, deepening her breathing and infixing her muscles with steel. She quietly dropped to a half-crouch, delicately balancing on the balls of her feet. She angled toward the intersection slightly to maintain trim. Flattening her upper body to the wall, she swept her arms to the sides in a gentle upward curve instead of the standard "T" to break up the traditional outline of her body. Her hair folded and parted gracefully over her left shoulder and hung there, a thin curtain falling over the left corner of her vision. The inside line of her body flowed almost unbroken from the tip of her right-hand fingers, swooped an inverted c down her torso and upper leg, and dropped straight to the floor after the knee.

Be liquid rock… liquid rock liquid rock liquidrockliquidrock, she thought against a quiver in her thigh as she fought to maintain the exhausting position.

Tac…! Tac…! Tac...! Heavy boots thudded off the metal floor, drawing closer.

He's walking heel-toe, heel-toe, the back of her mind informed her like an overenthusiastic tour guide, Slight favor to his right foot. A swaggering sonahva', too. I wish he would hurry up; my legs are getting sore…

…Tac! Tac! TAC!

With a final hobnailed footstep, he swung around the corner. Kim froze solid and held her tongue between her teeth. From her lowered position, she assessed him from the bottom up. Worn desert-toned cargos spilled from shin-length boots. Light gray Bedouin robes billowed sloppily out of the belted waistband of his pants. Overtop the robe rode an olive vest; Kim was unsure if it was bulletproof or not. His head was uncovered. A close, dense black beard softened the lines of a weathered, hamlike face and short, bent nose. Deep crinkles around his eyes accentuated a self-confident smirk of a smile. He reeked of tobacco smoke. The smirk and bullying swagger probably stemmed from the large, beefy machine gun, a Russian-made RPK, he cradled between his hands.

Note to self: Find cure for testosterone poisoning.

With a shock of horror, Kim realized her once-useful khakis now screamed violently from the dark shadow and gray behind her. All he would have to do would was look down and…

I wish I was in Ron's pants! she thought frantically.

A pause.

Wait a minute, that didn't come out right…

He was six feet, three feet, two feet from her, still not looking down.

Gonnaseemegonnaseemegonnaseemegonnaseeme…

He was level. Kim held her breath and warred with herself to stay still motionless. A band of sweat popped out on her forehead from the effort. One large silver bead detached and trickled down the center of her brow and along the bridge of her nose. She fought to keep herself from wriggling . It hovered a liquid diamond at the very tip of her nose, almost as if to taunt her into sneezing. It then loosened itself and began to fall. Realizing even the gentle pip of liquid hitting floor could make the fighter turn, she stuck out her tongue and caught it as it fell. She glanced up. The man's shadow fell over her.

He was a foot from her, he was past her, his back was to her, he was several strides from her.

Why didn't he turn? He will. He will. He'sgonnaturngonnaturnturnturnturn…

Six feet from her, he suddenly stopped dead.

OHcrapohcrapohcrap, hedidseeme!

His hand drifted to a large bulge in his side pocket.

Kim cast a final, fleeting thought to the gun in her hand. Maybe I could plug him with his back turned? No good… dunno if the jacket's bulletproof. Anyway, he'll hear the noise, turn, and unload that machine gun or the pistol he's reaching for before I can say holy f-

He pulled out a white box of cigarettes. Lighting one with a pocket Bic, he took a long pull until the tip glowed bright red. Exhaling satisfiedly, he filled the hall with an acrid stench.

The redhead's nose twitched hard. Oh, now this is just too great…! Who does this guy think he is, Solid Snake?! she thought angrily against a force building inside her windpipe.

Kim's body did only three things that she could not explain. The first was an strange, inexplicable nausea around the fumes of rubbing alcohol. The second, two violent sneezes in quick succession immediately following someone lighting up. After that first reaction, she had no problem with the smoke. As for the third symptom… She still worried how serious her father had been about the deep-space probe.

The al-Qaeda fighter stood puffing for about thirty seconds. Kim started to see spots on her vision as bad air triggers fired in her brain from lack of oxygen. Her eyes watered from the smoke, She felt her lungs would rip apart from the inside out if she had to hold in the sneezes any longer… With a final pwhat of exhale, the fighter carelessly tossed the glowing butt of his spent cig over his shoulder. The burning tip hit the wall just below the bare skin of Kim's arm and crumpled to the floor as a stick of ash. He readjusted his hold on his gun, and his boots tac-taced down the hall. He turned a far corner, and he was gone.

Kim waited another second until the silence became complete before she collapsed. From her hands and knees, the two double sneezes exploded out of her, wrenching her to an almost upright position before letting her fall back down. She trembled on her knees with her eyes closed for more than a minute, pulling deep, gasping breaths. Oxygen flooded back to her brain. Her legs, her arms, her whole body felt weak and shaky after the massive strain. Panting like a near-drowning victim, she wobbled to her feet.

Ooo-kaaay, so that takes "close encounter" to a whole new level…

Checking her six, she slipped around the corner. This hallway was dark. Only a handful of lights still worked along the hundred-yard stretch. The rest showed signs of drunken revelry; she saw electrical wiring dangling through bullet holes. Kim slowed cautiously, holding the gun questingly in front of her.

Don't stop, gotta keep moving…

In the middle, the light faded to dusky twilight, fed only by the illuminated corridors at each end. Kim moved away from the wall. No need to inch along in shadows when the entire walkway was full of them. At about 75 yards, the light and dark swirled together to form a sort of anitlight, neither illuminating nor shadowing. It reminded Kim strangely of deep-sea dives she had led. This is U-boat light, she thought, remembering her foray into the North Atlantic and her research about U-529. This is the light their hulls were made for… back when wolfpacks went in for the kill…

The slightest breath of a sound behind her cut short the opening scenes of Das Boot beginning to play in her head. She froze and twisted around. Visual faded into the gloom after a few feet. There was nothing there.

You're letting it play you, Kim, she thought as she resumed skulking. Little white noises don't make this big girl come apart…

A whiff of cigarette smoke.

Kim's brain made the command to turn around. Her body never got the chance. She felt something close like a vice on the flowing tail of her hair and she was wrenched backward, her scalp screaming from every hair root.

Shitshitshitshitshit!Allaboutshit! Forgotthesix! Forgotthesix! Where the hell did he come from?!

In one quick motion, the ham-faced cigarette man pinned her against his chest, wrestled her into a chokehold, and wrenched her arm painfully up and back, forcing her to drop the gun. It clattered to the floor and her attacker kicked it away.

"Maybe I should get my hair cut"… make that definitely!

A gleaming Ka-bar flashed coldly to her throat.

Shhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiittttt!

---------

A second passed, the silence broken by his pants of triumph. "I knew I sawgh somethng!" he snarled in her ear in rough English. "Haha, you will nacht leave me alive, leetle… leetle…" He looked down in surprise at the curvy form he held. "… gidrl?!"

"Congratulations, you just won $64,000. I am, in fact, a girl," Kim said smoothly, relaxing into his chest, if only to ease the pressure of the razor edge on her neck. Realizing struggle would end very messily, she forced herself to put escape plans temporarily on hold. She had to wait for the opportune moment.

The blade quickly persued her as realization dawned. "Youreh… Youreh… Kim Possible!" His astonished voice hardened. "…I will slit your throat! Behead you with my rifle!" He smiled grimly. "Does dhis scare you, infidel gidrl? Are you apfraid of death?!"

"Not as much as your breath," Kim said dryly.

He growled and tightened his half-nelson until she exhaled sharply from the pain. Satisfied, he continued his scare tactics. "…I will dhrow your sluttly head back to your Amerikan friends-"

"Wait, wait. How'd you know they're here?"

"One does not have to see the elephant to feel its stomping… After you are dead, I will alert my comrades… Where was I, again?"

"My head."

"Oh, right… And dhen we will crush dhem! Crush dhem! With you and yhor military friends out of the way, it will be oned less obstikal in pushing back yhor unclean ways and yhor unrepentant apostasy, and oned step closer to the borderless global state of united Islamic brotherhood!"

"Well, at least I could finally dich the visaaaaack!" Her quip was cut short as he pressed the flat of the knife hard against her windpipe to cut her off. He then began gently rubbing the edge, very cold and ticklish, up and down the front of her throat as he spoke again.

"Stop interrupting-! Do you think us a joke, Ms. Possible?" he said, his voice dropping to a deadly hiss. "Did you think you could actually win? Did you really think you could just… trounce in here and take us over that easily, like this was one of your little world-saving games? Fool.... We are not your Drakken. We are not your Monkey Fist or your Señor Senior Senior. We are not your villain-of-the-week. No. We are world-wide; we are infecting from within every country who dares defy the holy sanctions of the Koran. You cannot stop us, lhittle gidrl. We have no countries to sanction; no bases to hit. Shut dhown one link, and we garow another one. It is but a giant game of – what do you Amerikans call it? Whack-a-Mole. Kill one ov us, Ms. Possible, and tdree more rise to take the fallen martyr's place. We have Allah, God, on our side, and it is useless to fight when your saviors are backed by the blessings of God."

Blah, blah, blah-blah-blah, thought Kim with slight irritation. Now we get to the good ol' religious spiel. That un' goes all the way back to the Crusades, and then some… Cigarette Man's next words, however, stopped her cold.

"…But, I think," he in a slow grate, "we should bering this pointlessss conversadton to an end. You are alone, Kim Possible. You are helpless, Kim Possible," He moved the blade out and to the left of her throat to gain leverage, "And nhow et is time for you to die."

Kim knew her race was run. There had been no opportune moment. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the guy was an experienced killer. Then, at least, the agony would be quick. I wonder, she mused, If my life will flash before my eyes… Hopefully I can get a few slo-mo replays of Ron pasting Bonnie upside the head with a slushball… She smiled in spite of herself, wondering if the defiant smirk on her face would be any consolation when Simms found her body. She waited, adrenaline-tensed, heart hammering, for a tearing slice just below her line of vision, a second of unworldly pain as she watched the life flood out of her, then…… nothing.

She kept waiting. After what felt like an hour, she tentatively opened her eyes. The Ka-bar was still poised. Kim looked up. The man's face was frozen, eyes glinting slightly, as the wheels in his head slowly turned. Kim saw him mouth "alone." He gradually looked down at her, and his face broke into a predatory leer. Kim felt a chill lump drop in her stomach, cold as if she had swallowed a chunk of ice.

"It… does not seem… right," he murmured pensively, "to waste such a fine…" The hand not holding the knife trickled slowly toward her chest, "…prize on death first… Maybe I will give you a leetle… test drive first, before Allah has your unclean soul…" He scanned quickly up and down the dark, utterly deserted corridor. When he looked back, the carnal gleam in his eyes was stronger, his face shining with eager sweat, flushing just as quickly Kim's was draining of color. His lowering hand slipped beneath her bra, but the knife prevented her from slapping it away. A flush of parched, prickly embarrassment competed with the whiteness of her face. Below her mounting sense of horror boiled a sizzling, white-hot hate.

Now even he noticed her expression of mingled loathing and fear. "Whdel, whdel, et looks like I've… finally struck… a nherve!" he panted, voice rising, his smile widening sickeningly. "I like… to play rough, leetle girl…" he shook her violently, "But with your… body, I think… you… can handle it!"

Behind her, Kim heard the unmistakable sninker–clink! of a belt slithering excitedly to the floor. In his testosterone-flooded haste, his grip loosened very slightly.

The knife inadvertently splayed away from her throat.

He never knew what hit him. Kim stabbed the points of her elbows into his outer chest, sending him gasping backward. Then like pistons, she punched her arms under his armpits, braced her feet and bent her legs slightly, then swung him up and over her head, nearly lifting him out of his zipped-down pants. She used his weight and momentum to slam him onto the steel floor in front of her in a sitting position, facing away from her. The force would have cleanly cracked the coccyx of an ordinary man, but judging from the strength of his bear hug, Kim doubted he had the ordinary man's build. In a movement that seemed as natural as night following day, she levered her foot back and drove it forward in a perfect punt kick. The steel toe of her low-cut boot smashed into the back of his neck.

A distinct crack, like the breaking of pencil, emanated from the point of impact.

The pained shout of a man immediately rose to the high-pitched death shriek of a rabbit. His pupils contracted to sand grains in the center of his eyes, scream trailing off into a faint squeak. His body arched, unpleasantly bending his neck much more than it should have, stiffened like a board, then toppled rigidly over. He gurgled morosely and lay still.

Kim stood motionless for a minute behind the corpse, breathing heavily, eyes closed, fists clenched. The shock of how close she had come to violation was far too new; too raw. Where he had groped her breast burned like the touch had been of fire, not flesh. She glared down at her assailant.

"Think with your other head next time, dipshit!" Instead of horror and revulsion as with her previous homicide, her insides now scorched with affronted rage. It flowed warm through her, instilling her with a strange, frightening sense of power. She imagined it was what a strong shot of vodka felt like. She crouched and picked up her gun from where Cigarette Man had kicked it. Looking down, she watched her hand tremble slightly. She stared unblinkingly at the fingers wrapped around the grip of the gun, and the quivering faded away. With her left hand, she brought out the Kimmunicator and glanced at the map upon it. It blinked resolutely, patiently waiting for her to take the course ahead.

Bad... boy... bad boy... bad boy, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do, when I come for you...

When Kim lifted her eyes, it was with irises that matched the tint of her hair.

"Buckle up boys," she said softly, "'Cause you're in for one badical Red Scare."

Great Hall
10:45 AM

"IN THE NAME OF ALLAH…. CHAAAARRRGE!"

"What in th' – ohhh shit! Here they come! Barkin, open fire NOW!"

"ONWARD, SOLDIERS OF GOD! ONWARD! VICTORY IS WITHIN REACH!"

"Maintain positions! Hold, hold!"

"UP AND OVER! UP AND OVER! CRUSH THE CHILDREN OF SWINE!"

"BRACE! BRACE! BRAAAAAAHHHHH! Die, die, DIE!"

Corridor 12-C

Silence. The word hovered in the fringes of Kim's mind as she lifted the Kimmunicator again. Silence. Twenty skin-crawling minutes had passed since the attempted rape. Twenty minutes soundless as the grave, twenty minutes of edging carefully around blind corners and creeping along dusky hallways filled with dead or flickering lights.

She had met no one, so her hotheaded rage had cooled slightly, pushed back by immediate tension. Currently Kim crouched roughly two-thirds the way down a moderately well-lit passage - the metal walls sparkled hopefully in the fluorescent glow. Glancing absentmindedly at the PDA's screen, she quirked an eyebrow. Instead of Wade's upbeat mug or at the very least a map, she faced a snowstorm of frenetic black-and-white pixels. With an inquisitive frown, she tapped it on the side with a finger. Nothing happened. Uneasily, she klicked the Kimmunicator off and slipped it back into her pocket.

"Wade must be changing frequencies," she said aloud, unconsciously voicing her thoughts to break up the eerie quiet around her.

Her voice masked the sound of a terrorist swinging around the corner ahead of her, an insulated travel thermos halfway over his face. Kim froze, zero to the bone. Caught in the middle of a bright hallway less than fifty feet from the new arrival, there was no way she could stealth or kickflip her way out of this one. Without her Kimmunicator, she had no way of knowing if more baddies were behind this one, and if a pistol shot would bring them all running.

The terrorist must have been equally surprised, because as he matched eyes with Kim, they widened over the rim of his mug. He choked into his drink, sending creamy tan liquid boiling over the opposite side. He was lanky, faintly slouched, and wore robes that looked slightly too big for his frame. Hacking and coughing, he wrenched the thermos away from his face and dove toward a pistol slung over his hip. He faltered unprofessionally, trying to drag his gun out with one hand while keeping the thermos clutched in the other.

Kim, taking advantage of the distraction, acted on a harebrained, split-second decision and charged. Covering the gap in less than a second, she powered into him, spinning him around. The chrome-sheathed travel mug flung from his grasp and clattered to the floor, slicking the floor with its contents. The unmistakable burst of coffee aroma filled the air. Twirling her semiautomatic smartly around in her hands, Kim caught the gun by the silencer and cracked the pistol butt sharply into her prey's shoulder. He yelled in pain and dropped his Beretta. She rocked back half a step before bulldozing him squarely into the metal wall with a body check. He was only a few inches taller than her, but she took no chances, pinning his face and upper body to the wall with a shoulder planted in the small of his back. She leaned in close to his ear, ignoring his muffled swears and threats.

"Try black coffee next time," she hissed in a voice of poisoned honey, gently sliding her index and pointer up the back of his neck to where it joined his skull. "You'll stay awake longer!" She pressed hard at a point on the back of his neck.

One second.

His struggling stopped.

Two seconds.

The curses died away, replaced by a low, shuddering gasp.

Three seconds.

Kim felt his body go limp; her shoulder now supported deadweight. Waiting a half second more, she lifted her fingers and stepped away. He collapsed and crumpled down the wall, twisting around so he faced her in a slumped sitting position. The motion scrunched his headscarf across one side of his face.

Kim ignored it. She stared at her open, empty hands with a mixture of awe and fear, almost terrified by the power contained within her fingertips. She had just performed a move from an obscure discipline called dim-mak. Acupuncture's evil twin, the basis of dim-mak consisted of 43 pressure points on the body that, if touched in the right manner, would deliver excruciating pain to the victim. More importantly, a handful of the points, called neurological shutdown points, allowed direct manipulation of a victim's nervous and circulatory systems.

And Kim had just used the deadliest one – capable of causing unconsciousness in three seconds, soundless death within four. She had only used it twice before, and never beyond a rigid three-second limit. The first time was for an emergency backwoods amputation. A backpacker had crushed his leg up to the knee between two boulders. Without the amputation, he would have died before the medevac chopper was off the pad, and Kim's mountain rescue group had no general anesthetic. The second instance involved an airplane crash survivor with second-degree burns over seventy percent of her body. At least with those two, she'd had their consent.

Angel of Death, she thought with a shudder. Damn, I've gotta be careful when I touch Ron…

With that, she squatted next to her would-be assailant and checked the pulse in his neck. Well, you'll live. Glad I didn't kill you, I guess… she thought dispassionately as she pried up one of his eyelids to check pupil dilation. But… you'll be out for a while. Waaaaayyy out…

She noticed his scrunched-up bandana.

Huh… Let's see what you look like…

She gently peeled the scarf away from his face, gasped, and stumbled backward several steps. The man – young man, she mentally interjected – could not have been a week older than her. He had the standard olive-brown skin and jet black hair, but his face was surprisingly smooth and gentle.

Whoa… whoa. Damn, he looks my age to the day. Now I'm really glad I didn't kill him… After a moment of consideration, she carefully bent him over so he was lying on his side in a safe unconscious position. But… should I really be that surprised? she told herself, How many times have you seen kids young as six throwing rocks and bottles at the big US or Israeli tanks? And the violent, gun-wielding, car-torching mobs of the "Arab Street" – aren't they usually teenagers? It's always a cruel surprise, though… I sometimes wonder about their backstories - how'd they get suckered into this nonsense?

She paused. Heck, how'd I get suckered into this nonsense? Carrying a gun, ammo, and everything… I know it's been said in every single war movie ever made, but it still has that ring to it – War really is hell…

She gave herself a small shake. Waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute. That's downer talk, Kim… Lead block talk. Drowner talk. Gotta float like oil on water.

Returning to business, she patted him down, searching for concealed weapons. Finding none, she emptied his bandoliers of ammunition. To her disappointment, they were the wrong caliber for her gun. To be on the safe side, she kicked his Beretta down the hall and stashed its magazines in her backpack. Swinging on her pack, she checked the round count in her own gun. Satisfied, she quietly stepped down the hall, oiled around the corner, and vanished.

-----------------

The Kimmunicator rang softly in Kim's pocket. Her nerves smoother than from the previous unexpected calling, Kim simply registered it and slid into a nearby alcove in the wall. It helped that she had turned the calltone volume down. Shoving a bust of Osama out of her way, she klicked on the device.

"What's the sitch?"

"Good to see you, Kim," said Wade. "Sorry for blackout there. The frequency switch took longer than I expected."

"So not the drama," said Kim with a smile. "Well, OK, maybe s little drama. I ran into somebody while you were out, but he was no big."

"Oooh, sorry 'bout that," Wade said apologetically. "In addition to the switch, I had a bit of trouble with my main satellite out in the South Pacific. I like the position 'cause there's absolutely nothing out there to interfere with it. Apparently, the US Navy had the same thoughts and thought it was the perfect place to try out their new high-altitude EMP weapon... Naturally, I've protected all my hard work with a suppressant system, usually designed to block solar flare junk, but it automatically shuts down all the electronics when it senses an EMP or whatever so everything won't fry... So my entire communications grid was down for about ten minutes..."

Kim zoned out slightly to Wade's voice. She looked up at the ceiling, and to her surprise found a faded, crumbling red arrow painted on the rock, pointed toward the back of the alcove. At the same time, she realized she was sitting on a small Persian carpet and instantly recognized it as a prayer rug. I must be in a little prayer corner, she thought, And the red arrow... she looked up again, The red arrow... must point toward Mecca! Her head was snapped back down to the screen as she heard Wade say,

"...So I'm kinda worried about Ron. The last I heard, it sounded like they were still in the middle of the firefight. Maybe bigger than the one you left."

"What?" Kim went white.

Wade looked startled. "Calm down, Kim," he said, attempting to be comforting, "They're a Special Ops group -"

"Ron isn't!" Kim wailed. She checked herself and continued in a strained whisper, "Unless he's juiced on MMP, he doesn't know the first thing about defending himself!"

"You'd be surprised..." came the cryptic reply. "...And, well, look – everyone down there's probably been in real sticky sitches before.... Simms, Director, Barkin; they'll take care of him. Make sure nobody gets hurt. I'm sure they'll be fine."

"O…kay… I guess you're right…" said Kim, lying through her teeth. She used the slight pause to change the subject. "I'm still wondering – I haven't run into large groups of people. Just isolated incidents. I thought this place would be buzzing like Club Banana on Black Friday."

"Well, I am rather proud of my squelcher network. All the enemy hears on their radios is static hiss… That, and I assume it's because you're in the officer's quarters. Rank-and-file would be on the lower level. I've picked up fewer heat signatures in the complex, too. You wouldn't know this, but there's been a big uptick in truck bombings, suicide attacks, and stuff all over the Middle East and the Indies since the 23rd. I guess they've sent out a bunch of their troops to stir up trouble."

"Mmmmph," growled Kim, scowling. "Well… Got any new directions for me, Wade?"

"None that I can see… Up ahead about a hundred feet, you take a left turn, walk thirty feet, and hit a four-way intersection. Go straight; my plans show a stairway. After that, it's about a seven-minute slink to Osama's quarters… I trust you know what to do once you get there."

Kim's mouth twitched faintly in a smile. "I'll think of something creative…" She switched topics abruptly again. "Heard anything from Ron?"

"None yet. I'm trying to reestablish my radio contacts. I'll let you know when I get through… Wade out." The Kimmunicator shut off automatically.

With an anxious chew on her lip, Kim slipped the blue device back in her pocket and thought back on the first verse of the Serenity Prayer.

…Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…

In little more than a minute, Kim arrived at the intersection. The hallways widened out, indicating a high-traffic area. The teen quickly checked a 360. She saw no one, and stepped out into the middle of the intersection. She had to cross it anyway, and now she had a sight advantage. The junction was lit from above by one large fluorescent light embedded into the ceiling. Immediately in front of her was a set of stairs, the rise of the bottommost step flush with the wall. Kim slowly walked toward the arched entryway and cautiously peered up, absentmindedly snapping open and fingering the cloth cover of an ammo belt pouch. The walls formed an upward-slating vault much like a tunnel. Due to the slope of the walls, the stairwell was not covered by metal plating; instead, the walls and steps themselves were bored out of the native rock, as rough and dark as the rock walls in the Great Hall. Above, she could see a glimpse of the hallway above. The metal plating resumed. With the exception of naked incandescents bolted to the crown of the arched ceiling, the stairwell would not have looked out of place in a castle dungeon; a crude throwback wedged between painfully modern decors.

Which, actually, reflected Kim, is a pretty good description of the contemporary terrorist network…

"Who thaaaa… hell are y'u?"

It took the chip a split-second longer than normal to translate the slurred, disjointed Arabic. Kim spun around, bringing her gun to firing position. Damn it, I'm really having trouble with my six today!

Kim came to face a giant of a man, black-skinned and roughly six-and-a-half feet tall. Even from 30 feet away, she could see a thick film of sweat glistening over his tightly bound muscles and protuberant forehead. More immediately, she saw he had an AK-47 pointed directly at her chest.

"Kim Possible," she said cautiously back in Arabic, keeping an eye locked on his trigger finger.

"Errrahhhrrrr…" he trailed off, a bubble of spittle forming and popping at the corner of his mouth. He staggered forward a halting step, his eyes unfocused and glazed. Kim responded by taking a step back and tightening the grip on her gun.

The tense standoff lasted for another four seconds. Then, without warning, he opened up, spraying wildly. Kim writhed and bounced, a breakdancer on fast-forward, pumping off a series of three shots from her own gun. The loud, dry clatter of the AK-47 formed a direct contrast to the low-pitched phum! of the silenced handgun. Points of light skimmed around her, missing her body by nanometers. Bright muzzle flashes popped across her vision like Christmas lights, and the pounding reports shаttered in her ears.

This is no big, Kim thought as she executed a backflip, I've dodged lasers… I've dodged sharks… Heck, I've dodged sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! A couple of bullets shouldn't be a –

A round sliced across her right shoulder, slitting the fabric and drawing blood.

OK, never mind.

Following the muzzle flashes, Kim noticed that the thug was swinging his gun in a wide clockwise circle. She realized that if she timed it right, she could shoot where the enemy was, while not being where the enemy would shoot. But that was made all the more difficult now that the confined space was filling with gunsmoke. Tracers sliced surreally through a thickening white fog. As she rolled to the left and flung herself to the wall to avoid the downward turn of the circle, meaning the right side of the hall was fragmenting, she fired twice more. She heard a small click and the empty magazine fell to the floor.

Crap.

At the same, she sensed her attacker was beginning the upward stroke of his firing circle. She threw herself to the right in a one-handed cartwheel. In her intense concentration, everything seemed to slow down. The bullets flying along and between her outstretched arms and legs moved as if through water. A round whined past, an inch from Kim's nose. She could see the spinning lead tip, lit up by exhaust gasses like a firefly. Even the cavitation of air behind the bullet was slightly visible, giving the appearance of a thin tail on a tadpole. Sounds became selective. She could clearly hear her hand slap the concrete floor, the individual round cycling of the AK-47, but the reports were now far apart and muffled as if by earplugs. Upside down, Kim felt a magazine glide out of the pocket she had snapped open earlier and fall slowly through the air. She bent her other hand backward so that the opening in the butt of her gun faced upward. The clip slipped in as if guided and locked into place, the sound oddly loud in her mind's quiet. The upper half of her body bent over to finish the cartwheel, and time ripped back to normal as she crunched into the wall. Quietly stunned that the move had actually worked, she had the odd feeling she'd just experienced a bizarre, real-life homage to the Matrix.

She bounced upright. The machine gun had stopped; a cloud of cordite obscured her target. Presumably, he was out of ammunition or, most likely, dead. Kim stood panting, her gun at the ready. The rip in her shoulder screamed at her.

Slowly, the gray haze of smoke wafted away and vanished.

Kim felt her mouth drop open.

Standing there, staggering like a drunk puppy, spurting blood and intestinal fluid from five gunshot wounds like a busted radiator, stood the giant. He let out a high-pitched, maniacal cackle and stumbled forward like a zombie. He grinned widely, the sneer stretching his skin wide and tight like a skull mask. With a flick of the wrist, he thumped the AK-47 between his hands so he held it, like a staff, by the stock and blistering-hot barrel. Horrified, Kim fired into his lung. He twisted slightly from the impact, hacked up a mouthful of thick blood, and continued forward, laughing even more insanely.

Simm's voice floated back to her.

"…You're letting your aim drift as you fire, but unless that target's tripping on PCP, he'd be dead anyway…"

A wild, dangerous gleam to his eyes, the thug broke into a barreling run. Kim stumbled backward, eyes widening in increasing desperation and bewilderment. Abandoning all pretext, Kim blasted him five rounds rapid.

No effect. It was like trying to stop a locomotive.

Gahah, stupid, stupid hollow-point bullets!

Taking another round square to the chest, he took a flying leap toward her. Time slowed down again. Her empty cartridge ejected. She had just enough time to jam her gun to the autoloader, hear it click, and lift it halfway back up. He smashed into her like a cinderblock. Together they flew into the stairway, Kim on the bottom. She crunched hard into the worn granite steps and ramped upward due to their angle. The man's body weight kept her lower half pinned down. Grunting like a bull, the maniac popped up into something like a push-up, wracked the AK's action into her throat, his arms straight out and locked, attempting to strangle her. Gasping and turning purple, Kim raised her arms and planted the silencer's muzzle flat to the man's chest, directly above his heart.

He glanced down at it, then back up at her, surprise etched over his face. Looking straight into his eyes, Kim flashed him a cold, hard smile. Then she twisted her face into an ugly snarl and unloaded.

Except for the near-continuous clack-clack-clack of the hammer, it was virtually silent. His body went rigid as it digested the first slug, then became increasingly limp on the remaining four. Unstable from the angle of the stairs and his propped position, the force of the continuous contact shots sent him over the tipping point. As the Sigma's action finished cycling, he slowly tilted on his heels and fell backward, majestically as an oak tree. The only difference was that this tree trailed a line of smoke from a fist-sized hole in the middle of its trunk.

Kim eased halfway up, winded. She'd heard a story of a California cop who was sprayed at car's-length by 28 bullets from an automatic, yet escaped almost unharmed… But she thought such things were usually confined to action movies, and had doubted it actually happened that way "real life." Or at least to her.

She rubbed a series of deep throbs running horizontally down her back and winced. They would develop into deep purple bruises in about an hour. Noticing the empty magazine box lying across her midriff, she mechanically chunked a fresh load into her gun. Casings littered the steps, winking up at her.

...You wouldn't have even had all this trouble, the Monday-morning quarterback in her head chided, If you'd used that boom-boom-tap thingy. Moron.

Standing, she tentatively approached the body. There was almost no blood; his organs were on their final legs when he bodyslammed her, and the final blasting destroyed his chest cavity. She peered at the large entry wound, both revolted and morbidly curious. Instead of the large "O" she had expected, his chest was crossed with a raised "X." (Later she would learn from Ben this was because the propellant gasses, usually vented into the air, had nowhere to go once they entered the body. They injected into his soft tissue, expanded, and tore the skin around the wound. Although Kim didn't know it, there were no usual burnt gunpowder marks (tattooing) for this reason; all components of the gunshot went into the body.)

Her revulsion and bile finally catching up with her, she gently rolled him over with a prod of her boot. Poking through the robes in his back was the mushed tip of a JHP, folded and curled like a brass flower. As he turned, Kim heard a light, musical tinkle of breaking glass. Squatting, she found a slim vial crumbling out of a hip pocket of his jeans. Trickling like sand from the broken tube was a pure white powder. Kim lifted a pinch from the floor and rubbed it quizzically between her fingers. It wasn't cocaine or pulverized crack; that she had seen firsthand while assisting the Coast Guard in the Gulf. And it wasn't hashish, a ubiquitous Middle Eastern drug, either. It didn't have the yellowish color, for one thing, or the stupefying effects. She churned on it, thinking back to all the scare-tactic lessons on drugs at MHS. Then it clicked; her mind had even told her.

"…unless that target's tripping on PCP…"

It now made sense. Kim didn't have a photographic memory, but now that she knew the drug on-hand, its details came back to her. Effects of PCP… let's see… temperature spikes – that explains the sweat, slurred speech, blank stares… and the notorious rage and pain detach. Kim picked up the unbroken end of the vial and held to eye-level, the splintery glass tines refracting and sparkling in the light. And by the looks of it, our guy was an absolute slave to this crap… There's enough here to flatline a normal guy. Shaking her head in disgust, she stood up. The motion was colder than it should have been and she looked herself down.

"Oh… Yaahhhhggggg!"

It was odd she hadn't noticed it before, but most of her torso and midsection was coated with a thin film of blood. Cooled, it had the feel and consistency of maple syrup; the thug's parting gift before she stopped his heart. Sick and dizzy, fighting the urge to heave again, Kim quickly checked the Kimmunicator before dashing to a nearby bathroom.

Emerging several minutes later, Kim still felt queasy. She swilled a last mouthful of water to wash out the remaining traces of the vomit, then spat magnificently onto the floor.

The blood washed quickly off her skin, leaving only a faint tinge of red, like a dunked magic marker. The shirt was a slightly different story. Being synthetic, it dried swiftly, and the color came out easily enough, but it left a sticky residue like soda. Kim was thankful she had brought a spare set of clothes to the American base.

Well, at least it doesn't show up much, I guess, she thought, giving the lower section another rub. Yay for black!

After putting a sharp crink in the barrel of the AK-47, she eased up the stairway. Lying flat, she slid her eyes above the top step. Seeing the corridor vacant, she hurried along the new floor at a crouched run.

Fifty yards and three corners later, Kim arrived at a T-intersection. Several of the lights were out, casting the zone into twilight. Her lesson learned, she flattened to the wall and silently klicked on the Kimmunicator. Unwinding the fiber-optic viewing cable from a small red port above the screen, she carefully snaked it around the bend. She discovered a lone sentry standing guard in front of a heavy vault door. A light flickered above him, dispelling the gloom. Kim pressed the rocker switch and zoomed in. The door was held shut by an electronic lock.

She recalled the cable and backed away from the intersection about ten paces. Sliding to the floor, she flicked the view screen to her techie's face.

"What's the supergenius take on this, Wade?"

"You'll have to take out the doorman before I can do anything, of course… Hold up while I crunch a stillframe of your vid through a few of my references." He entered a few keystrokes, waited two or three minutes, then rolled down a spreadsheet. "Hmm...This door was designed to compartmentalize the complex and stop threats like, well, you."

"As if!"

"I've run the zoomed image of the lock through GJ, CIA, and FSB databases. Apparently, it's Soviet-made. It's at least from the early 80's; a relic from the Cold War. Which means there's nothing to hack. No wireless, no networking, no interlink with the 'Net…" he trailed off, looking shaken. "I'm at somewhat of a loss."

"Well, what should I do?"

"Start with the sentry. I'll think of something." The PDA turned off.

Wheeee… more killing, Kim thought sadly. She inched back to the intersection. The guard still hadn't moved. He stuck his hands lazily in his pockets, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Kim unreeled the fiber-optic and pasted it to the top of the silencer with a blob of pink lipstick goo. Gingerly, she rotated the barrel around the corner, careful not to attract his attention. Using the Kimmunicator screen like a periscope, she lined up the sight of the man's forehead. She repositioned the gun slightly in her sweating hands. Taking a deep breath, holding it, she turned the Kimmunicator screen away from her and pulled the trigger.

A dry pneumatic phump! was followed a second later by a chocked cry and a dull, rustling thud. Kim eased around the corner. The sentry lay crumpled beside the door, a dark red hole in both ends of his skull. Mentally blocking it out, Kim stepped across his lifeless form and peered closely at the lock. It was a fairly simple punchcode arrangement with the addition of a manual deadbolt.

"Got this, Wade?"

The Kimmunicator, resting in voice-activated standby mode, awakened. "Yeah… You took out the guard, obviously."

Kim glanced back over at the body. "Ehh, yes," she said remorsefully. She averted her eyes and returned to topic. For the heck of it, she took the doorknob and rattled it back and forth. "Well, so much for that idea… Should I break it?" she asked, already sizing up which leg had the most accuracy and power.

"Weeellll, I dunno…"

"Wade, c'mon," Kim said teasingly, "You know my motto – If the brute force approach doesn't work, you're obviously not using enough brute force." She paused, looking confused. "Oh, no, wait, that's Shego's motto."

"No, the thing is, this type of lock has an extra surprise of shutting down if physically smashed. Then you'd need a torch to open it back up…." He drummed his fingers on the table, looking pensive. "Unless…" He sat up and snapped his pudgy fingers. "Kim, dig in your pack for the lip gloss!"

Puzzled, Kim rifled through her rucksack's contents and pulled up the silver tin of Kissy Girl. "Lemme guess… high explosive… stink formula… perhaps, just maybe… normal lip gloss?" She raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

"It's acid to melt the lock."

"…"

"What…? Ron had a good idea."

Rolling her eyes, Kim followed Wade's instructions. She scraped out a large glob with a corrosion-resistant nalgene spatula and spread it over the lock. Impressed, she noticed the acid gel was white, creamy, and otherwise indistinguishable from normal lip gloss, and the spatula was the cleverly-designed handle to her blush brush. After about half a minute of nothing, the acid started to smoke. Before the clear cream turned a sludgy black, Kim saw the metal below the chemical bubbling. Hissing audibly and releasing a large amount of smoke smelling of burnt plastic, it burrowed into the metal like a boring machine. A few electrical sparks flared inside the newly-created tunnel as the lock struggled and died. Waiting another forty-five seconds, she followed Wade's prompt and coated the rim, the hole, and the remaining corrosive with nail polish, in reality a base compound to neutralize the acid. The mixture hissed loudly a final time and fell silent. Kim warily turned the safe-style handle and the blast door swung smoothly open.

"Wade, how did you…?"

"The USSR never expected stuff like this on its locks, and it had never dreamed of all the synthetic compounds and mixtures we can create today. The lock was designed for crude physical shocks, not 21st-centry chemicals. The acid went right through the components, cauterizing them like a lightsaber."

"A… lightsaber?" Kim said gently.

Wade looked slightly embarrassed. "Um, yes… Geeked out a little there."

"No big," Kim said with a smile.

"So… I'll give you a small beep if my scans pick up anyone coming?"

"Please-and-thank-you… Kim out." She set the device on standby and pocketed it. Sliding around the half-open door slab, she carefully edged along the wall. Clearly, she had entered the top brass's section. Overhead lighting was provided every thirty feet or so by two low-wattage incandescent bulbs in a golden, cheap plastic chandelier. While not comparable to even a one-star motel, at least the fixtures didn't buzz or flicker, and the cast was warmer than the fluorescents'.

Of course, Kim thought wryly, It would be so the irony if these guys are so cheap they got all this stuff from Smarty Mart. The Great Satan has everyday low prices, after all...

Periodically, she came upon a picture in a gold-colored plastic frame screwed to the wall. The pictures were a series of prints of fundamentalist Muslim life: beautiful, lovingly handcrafted calligraphies spouting death rants to America, and watercolor depictions of important scenes from the Koran, as interpreted and aggrandized by al-Qaeda. All important figures in the religious prints were pasted over with colorful geometric cutouts, as per religious code. Unfortunately, the attempt to bring élan to the cold, hard metal walls backfired miserably. The pictures simply accentuated the bare spots and made them even more glaring by comparison. Attempting to bring cheer and color to the aseptic, evil place was like trying into light up a skyscraper with a flashlight.

The thin corridor was a zigzagged, and no other hallways intersected or branched out from it. Scattered unevenly down the passage, doors lead to offices and living quarters of top al-Qaeda leaders. Kim ducked below the doorknob level at each one, wary of a small glass peephole set into each entry. Small placards dangling from various doorknobs stated in Arabic such things as, "Gone to fight the infidel in Tora Bora. Back in 5 days," and "God is Great! Leading our holy troops against the vile Crusaders in Iraq. Will return next Thursday. Feed the fish."

Presently, the doors dropped away and she moved into a more ornate section – there was carpet on the floor. As Kim approached a sharp 90-degree corner, the Kimmunicator peeped softly. She huddled into the wall, just at the lip of the turn, and swiftly pulled out the handheld. On the map, the hallway formed a rough Z, the slanting bar positioned vertically. She crouched at the bottom turn of the Z. A small red dot haltingly turned the upper bar and began walking down the long connector. Within a few seconds, she heard padded footsteps, muffled only slightly by the thin, worn carpet. The slow pace of the footfalls indicated the walker was concentrating on something. Sure enough, once he neared where Kim stood tensing, she heard the airy rustle of flipping papers. She let the index of her right hand slide off the action to cradle the trigger tongue. Less than ten feet from the bend, she heard a paper waft gently to the floor and skish softly. His knees cracked as he bent down the retrieve it. As he straightened, an electronic device warbled. With a small exclamation of surprise, he snapped a folder shut.

Panic-stricken, Kim looked down. The Kimmunicator was blank. Mouth half-open in incomprehension, she heard a belt clip snap and an electronic kic as he activated a walkie-talkie. The radio immediately started yelling at him, cut across by his rapid-fire inquiries. The wall prevented her from clearly hearing everything that was said.

Where'd in the bejezus did he get a working walkie-talkie?! She thought rapidly, Have Wade's squelchers failed? Is this guy using a separate network??

Kim's alarm evaporated a few lines later, replaced by an electrical storm crackling in her veins. As she listened to the fluent Arabic, it slowly dawned on her that she was overhearing the conversations of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command.

Softly, she ratcheted back her left arm and held it poised like a coiled spring, palm facing outward, fingers bent over. Her adrenaline rise paused as she distinctly heard her name spit out of the talkie's speaker, followed by "strike force." At once, Al-Zawahiri's speech became clipped, tense, and agitated. He barked a few loud commands into the radio and then angrily shut it off. Kim heard him whirl around, undecided, cursing. Fighting an internal battle, he stepped forward, back. Kim's worry turned to panic as she heard him take a final spin and pound back the way he had come. Then he stopped. After another few seconds of unsure pacing, he turned and dashed back toward her, footsteps loud and slapping.

Blood pounding in her ears, Kim cocked her arm back ever further, so her palm was now level with her lip. As al-Zawahiri skidded around the corner, Kim's arm exploded forward like a piston. The hard base of her palm collided with the bottom of his nose in a burst of flying papers and blood mist. Combined with Kim's forward thrust and al-Zawahiri's momentum, the sudden deceleration of his head flung the rest of his body forward and up.

Everything slowed down again. He hung at chest level, horizontal, as if suspended, before falling straight down and landing lifelessly on his back. The remaining papers from a manila folder he had carried gently fluttered down and around like snow.

You know, they're going to have to learn not to build all these blind corners...

Panting and clammy as the adrenaline wound down, Kim took a step back to regroup herself. Composed again, she looked down at the terrorist leader sprawled at her feet. His nose had all-but disappeared. Its tip currently resided on the level of his cheekbones. His eyes were clouded and dark red; a result of bone shards driven back into his brain and upper face. The deep trench where his nose had traveled was quickly filling with blood and brain fluid. Undecided between triumph and nausea, Kim quickly turned her attention to the papers. Kneeling, she scrabbled for the sheets slithering away across the floor. Gathering them into a large, untidy pile, she began hastily scanning titles, the chip deciphering the Arabic as she went.

Her eyes slowly widened as she thumbed through the documents. The folder's contents detailed pending and future al-Qaeda operations and attacks, with proposed dates of launch. A chimera virus, one segment read, Made up of smallpox and HIV. Make use of disaffected South Korean and Russian biological scientists. Smallpox translates into massive first-wave deaths and contamination. Accelerated HIV process produces extended second-wave. Deploy location: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, via aerosol vegetation-tending sprayers. One report showed a gigantic orange bomb, nearly the length of a school bus. Spoil of war, read the text. Imperative deployment. Suggested use: tractor-trailer truck bomb on Golden Gate Bridge. Secondary use: flattening six city blocks of LA financial/entertainment district.

There was more. Small-scale, high-terror chemical/biological attacks on major cities using modified model rockets (Delivery system in development, said the report.) The rockets would be launched from a park near the target, using D engines and a tilted launch pad for maximum range. The contaminant would be released when the engine's parachute-ejection charge fired. (Nearly untraceable, extolled the findings). Power grid disruptions. Internet hostages. Children and babies used as human bombs, being easier to replace. The 4/23 profile stamped with a red "Success!" mark.
Kim flipped faster, mouth open. There were paper trails of all sorts. Al-Qaeda power structure flowcharts. Cash transferals and deposits. Lists of weapons distributions. Most damningly, the paper trails appeared to link Iran, al-Qaeda, and North Korea. The Iranian nuclear power plants built after Ahmadinejad finally got bored of toying the U.N. had been a front all along. Enriched uranium would be arriving at the compound in several weeks; transfer hinged on Bin Laden's pending signature. Rocket casings from North Korea's Taepodong-3 series, which Kim had never heard of, were due for delivery slightly after the yellowcake. Deployment schedule: any major U.S. city of choice within six months.

Trembling, Kim stuffed the papers roughly into the file folder. Her brow and exposed skin ran with cold sweat. With a contemptuous snarl, she slapped the thick file over al-Zawahiri's destroyed face. She made sure Simms and the rest of the Special Forces team would see it.

Standing at the corner, she pulled out the Kimmunicator and used the four-way rocker switch to zoom out on the map. She pulled out until she was past the Z turn. At the end of the upper bar, there was a final right-angle turn like an L. At the end of the L's long bar, a square room steadily blinked yellow. Kim's mouth pulled, slightly exposing a set of gritted teeth. The fluid, powerful, foreign feeling of rage returned, the temperature of her blood rising from a simmer to quick bubble. She greased soundlessly around the curves, emotions rising with each step. At the final bend, she fought to maintain control.

Don't blow up, she pep-talked to herself, Not here. Not now. You've done too much; are too close, to be stupid now and get killed. Don't let the Kim-ness take control. Don't let the Kim-ness take control…

She swiftly peeked around the corner. The hall dead-ended about thirty feet away at a polished metal door. Two stocky, robed, highly-decorated men flanked each doorpost. They carried black-market Russian RPK-74s nonchalantly at their sides. Kim quickly sized them up.

Doofusi Standardus. Your basic, average lackey. …Should be no big.

Amazingly, it appeared news of the attack had not filtered this far back into the fortress. Wade's information blackout had done its work.

Kim took a deep breath, steeled herself, and then fired a round above the sentries into the wall where it met the ceiling. Before the retort died, she flashed around the corner and sprinted forward. As the bullet impacted, both sentries twisted to look up at it, stunned. Too late they turned back to see a taloned phoenix bearing down on them. Once within striking distance, Kim hurled herself into the air with a guttural yell while snapping her legs outward in a side split. Using her forward momentum, she crushed into their sternums with a foot. Twisting her right arm under her crotch, she angled the gun parallel to her leg and plugged the goon on the left. Using the recoil, she turned in midair to the man on the right and used gravity to hammer him with her legs, riding down on his chest like it was an elevator. They crashed to the ground and he lay still. Kim stepped off, half-expecting the door in front of her to burst open.

Nothing happened. The three walls were silent, reflecting the sound of Kim's hard breathing back at her. She checked the gunshot body. Dead before he hit the floor. Swinging around, she dispassionately put the gun barrel to the second man's forehead before bending forward to check his pulse. As she stretched her hand toward his mouth, a warm breeze slid across her fingers - he was still alive. Battle blood still flowing through her, Kim straightened and pressed the barrel harder to his forehead. With deadened eyes, she wrapped her finger around the trigger and pulled.

Her muscles did not respond. She continued to stand, index on the trigger and gun poised for a perfect, soundless contact shot. Slowly, she let the muzzle fall from his forehead. It left a small, circular, pale red indent in the skin.

I… I… can't do it. Not in cold blood. Fighting is one thing, but… not while he's out of it. Never knowing what hit him... No. I'm not that kind of girl. Not yet. Not ever.

To be safe, however, she kneeled and bound his hands and feet with zip-ties she dug out of her backpack.

Her remorse faded as she stood and stared at the closed door only feet from her.

Three inches of separation. After all this - that's all that's left. Three inches of metal separation.

Her focus spun slightly as she tried to grasp her position. A single door separated her from the USS Cole. The Nairobi embassy. Riyadh. World Trade Center, 1993. World Trade Center 2001. The Pentagon. Madrid '04. London '05. Bali. Afghanistan. Pakistan. Iraq. 4/23.

Kim felt hate, pure, unaccustomed hate, build inside her like water flooding up an elevator shaft.

Bad boys, bad boys…

Extending her arm, she unscrewed the silencer from her gun. Coolly, she ejected the depleted magazine and made to insert a new one. Pausing, she stared at the small, soft-gray box settled in the palm of her glove.

Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do…

She gently slipped it back into a hip pocket and withdrew a different magazine from the back. After brushing away a whiff of hair hanging in front of her eyes, she rammed home a full load of armor-piercing full-metal-jackets with a solid ka-chick.

…When they come for you?

She slunk to the doorframe. After doing one final checkdown to make sure nothing was bleeding too severely, she flattened her back against the door and passed the gun to her left hand. Kim pressed her ear firmly to the flat metal surface. She heard nothing. Calculating each muscle movement, she slid her right hand to the gleaming brass doorknob. Her fingers poised, grasping for a moment. Then she wrapped each finger individually around the brass bulb. It was cool, smooth, and worn; firm under her touch. The temperature change caused sweat on her gloves to condense.

Kim rolled her eyes down, looking at the system only awaiting a command. The veins in her wrist automatically tightened as her arm prepared itself to move.

A voice floated back to her.

...Oh, yeah, like he's just gonna leave the back door open!

She twitched her hand counterclockwise.

The knob turned. Biting her lip to keep down a burst of excitement, she twisted her wrist a bit more. The handle rotated a centimeter more and then caught. Kim froze.

This always happens when you want to be quietest… Alllwayyys…

Holding the tip of her tongue anxiously between her teeth, she hesitatingly applied more torque. Nothing. Resignedly, she used more pressure… bit more… more… She knew the strain was building…. She knew it was coming… no way to get around it… Worth the risk? Yes, she decided, putting on more strain. She squeezed her eyes shut. Only a little… bit… farther… and…

POW!

The sound of the catch popping in the lock resounded down the silent hallway like a proverbial gunshot. Kim pulled in a quick, sharp breath; it hissed wetly between her clenched teeth. When no angry, whining bullets punched through the door after several nerve-wracking seconds, Kim tentatively rotated the doorknob. It easily turned the rest of the way. Taking a deep breath and blowing it slowly back out, Kim eased the nervous tension threading down her spine. A line of perspiration ran down her temple as her adrenaline warmed again. Bracing her right leg forward, she firmly planted her right foot against the bottom corner of the door. Her entire body formed a series of tightening angles as it geared for action. She lifted her gun to the ready.

This is it. All or nothing. …Here we go.

With pulse pounding and gun held whisperingly just under her chin à la Bond, she applied pressure with her shoulder and softly nudged the door open.

Bad boy, bad boy – whatcha gonna do...? I'VE COME FOR YOU!

April 26, 2007
11:00 AM
Bunker #462
Corridor 36-C
Chamber of the Most Prodigious Great Crusader.

To be continued...