‘Thanks Lynda, although I was kind of hoping I’d be wrong. What do you say, Pooh?’

Pooh Bear turned to face him. ‘Benjamin, my friend, you called it. You figured Marren would have some kind of panic button on his person and that they’d hack our plane to retrieve him. And also that they’d bring him here.’

‘You ready to rock?’ Stretch asked.

‘Oh, hell, yes,’ Pooh said.

‘The explosives are all set?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Then let’s get this party started,’ Stretch said. ‘Do it.’

At those words, Pooh Bear flicked the remote concealed in the palm of his left hand and—

BOOOOOM!

—a terrific explosion ripped apart the airliner behind them!

So powerful was the blast that the whole 737 was lifted momentarily off the ground. It cracked in its middle as a star-shaped burst of fire wrenched it open from within.

The ten Delta commandos recoiled from the blast, instinctively turning their bodies away . . .

. . . as Pooh, Stretch, Tracy and Lynda whipped out the guns they had hidden in the backs of their waistbands, raised them and started firing as they initiated one last-ditch plan.

The Red Sea Coast

29 December, 0330 hours

While all this was happening in America, another battle was taking place in Egypt: a surprise attack on the temporary airstrip that Jaeger Eins’s forces had set up on the Red Sea coast a short distance from where the Life Throne had risen up from the sea.

The attack was both brutal and one-sided.

A Russian Werewolf attack chopper—flown by Rufus and Sky Monster—rained hell down on the various trucks, jeeps and aircraft at the airstrip.

Anything parked in sight was destroyed, blown to smithereens.

Aloysius Knight and Easton sat behind Rufus and Sky Monster in the Werewolf.

‘Yee-ha!’ Aloysius yelled as he blazed away with a cannon.

With the Knights’ main force over on the oil rig now gone, the men back here at the base were leaderless and they fled into the desert, some in cars, others on foot.

By the time the smoke cleared, everything at the base was on fire.

There were so many plumes of smoke and they were so dense, that the sooty black haze blotted out the stars in the sky.

Aloysius nodded with satisfaction. ‘Take that, motherfuckers.’

He turned to the others.

‘I just hope Jack’s still alive inside the Labyrinth.’

Sky Monster scanned the wreckage of the airstrip and nodded to himself.

‘I’ve known Jack a long time,’ he said. ‘Met him in a really nasty part of the world. The first thing he ever did for me was save my ass. If I could pick anyone to step up now and save us all, it’d be Jack West Jr.’

A Man Named Jack: Part IV Basra, 1991

Jack’s Message from the Other Side continued:

For many years now, I’ve worn my trusty helmet.