The Genesis Plague (2010)

out on opposite sides of the boulder with weapons drawn.
    The black smoke was still thick enough to provide cover for the Arabs, but Jason was relieved to see Al-Zahrani’s awkward, tall form being pulled up the slope by a pair of cronies. The remaining two Arabs trailed behind them, hauling a second polyethylene case.
    As Jason and Camel closed in behind them, Meat broke cover to pull up the rear.
    Then Jam popped out from the gulch and began sprinting along the ridge in a perpendicular intercept. He had his now-useless AK-74 clutched menacingly in his right hand, knowing the best he could do was intimidate the Arabs, maybe slow their advance.
    The dragnet was closing.
    When Jason broke through the smoke, he saw that the Arabs had decided against the crevasse and were instead heading for a sizable opening in the cliff face that looked like a cave. Judging by the flames licking the rocky outcropping above the opening and the fresh scars above it where an entire section of the mountain had sheared away and tumbled down the slope, Jason figured that it had been the impact point for the deflected Hydra missile.
    Once the Arabs had funnelled into the opening and disappeared from sight, Jason slowed his advance and signalled to the others to take cover. No telling what the Arabs were planning, and chasing after them into a cave wouldn’t be smart.
    Could the blast hole be that deep? he wondered. And why would they corner themselves like that?

2
    From behind a boulder, Jason scanned the opening with his binoculars. No sign of the jihad quintet, but when he zoomed in, he did notice something peculiar: about two metres into the opening the black void was framed by a rectangular enclosure - like an open doorway. Tighter magnification revealed bolt heads lining the hard, unnatural lines.
    ‘What do we have here?’ he muttered.
    Someone whistled loudly.
    Lowering the binoculars, Jason peered over to Meat, who was pointing to a smoking object that lay not far from where he’d taken cover. Even from a distance, Jason could tell that the mangled and blackened rectangular hulk of metal was the door that had been blown clear off the frame he’d just spied. Scoping the object, he determined it to be roughly one by two metres, fat as a phone book, with a wide circular turn-crank like he’d expect to find on a submarine hatch. The door’s unmarred sections showed that it had been painted to match the mountain’s earth tones. Around its edges were remnants from military-grade camouflage netting. Must have been quite effective, he thought, if no one had spotted it earlier. The opening was certainly positioned high enough to trick the naked eye.
    Maybe the militants hadn’t intended to slip through the mountains. Maybe they were heading to this place all along. Perhaps it was a bunker.
    Then again, Jason had seen the Arabs do a double-take before running into the opening - like they were equally surprised to see it there. Either way, since this was no mere blast hole, there was a strong possibility that whatever had been protected behind that security door ran deep - really deep; the snaking cave systems running beneath these mountains could put Rome’s most impressive catacombs to shame.
    He’d read in his field manual that the Zagros Mountains were formed from the ancient tectonic collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates. The jagged range stretched 1,500 kilometres from northern Iraq down to the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, with peaks reaching 4,500 metres (even taller than Colorado’s Pikes Peak, he’d noted). Caves and tunnels resulted from the erosion of the softer mineral-laden rocks inside the mountains. The Zagros’s most bittersweet contribution to the region, however, was the sedimentary deposits trapped beneath its eastern foothills - Iran’s massive oil fields.
    From out of the cave came a muffled fizzy sound, like a freshly cracked bottle of pop releasing its carbonation. Just as Jason’s eyes found the opening, a blinding glow flashed in the black void beyond the doorframe … the silhouette of a projectile … a resounding whump . In the next instant, a roiling fireball billowed out from the opening, throwing heat waves that rippled down the slope. Huge rock fragments shot out in all directions.
    The Americans went for cover as the debris came raining down around them.
    A softball-sized stone plummeted down and struck Jason squarely between the shoulder blades, knocking him flat to the