The Hard Core

by Allen Manning

  Taking a quick breath, he nodded to reassure himself that his path would be clear. He reached the small structure, making a note of the skeletal framework that would fully enclose it once the base’s construction was complete.

  Ty picked the lock, pausing to shake his hands and rub them together. Clutching his backpack close, he held the Cracker Jack in his other hand as he eased the door open with his toe, peering inside.

  Empty. Finally, something is going my way, he thought, slipping into the dark room.

  * * *

  Parker typed several commands into one of the many windows he had open. A few seconds later, a stream of information fired up the screen.

  He turned his chair to the others. “I’m in. Ty got the device plugged in.”

  Dr. Spencer stared at Ty’s camera feed, showing only darkness now, her mouth falling open slightly. Travis sat with his eyes closed, head resting in his hands as he propped his elbows on his knees.

  “Hey, it’s game time,” Parker said. “I need both of you to snap out of it. I get it, Ty’s a maniac, and it always feels like a miracle when one of his plans works.”

  Travis put a hand on his chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack. I thought for sure Faust’s security teams were going to gun him down.”

  Miranda blinked twice. “Sorry, Parker. I’m still having trouble processing what we just watched. I’ll switch over to the surveillance terminals to help out.”

  “Alright, I’m going to open up the window for John and the others,” Parker said. “I need you to make sure no one is trying to manually regain control when that happens.”

  “Got it,” she said, adjusting her glasses.

  Parker quickly skimmed the contents of several windows, each time closing them when he didn’t find what he was looking for. He moved a few more to the side, digging further into the stack on his display. Finally, he found the one he needed.

  “This is it. Alright, I’m going to start the countdown. Let John know,” he said to Travis.

  * * *

  John held his finger to the earpiece. “Copy.” He turned to Chance. “Window’s open. Let’s go.”

  The ATVs rumbled awake and took off along the back trails running next to the main road. As the path bent around the tree line, they killed the engines and hopped off. John signaled for the others to sit tight as he crept through the shadows toward the narrowing road where the mountains opened up.

  The map showed a single sentry patrolling this carved out path. The window would give him enough time to dispatch the man and hide his body while they made their way to the base. John checked the time on his watch as the guard approached.

  He slid down closer to the patrol route, crouching behind a rock. The guard held his rifle at a low ready, finger resting above the trigger guard along the frame. John matched his steps to mask the sound, using long strides to get behind his target. Wrapping an arm around the sentry’s neck, John lifted the man off his feet as he pulled his other arm behind his back, away from his weapon.

  The guard struggled, but John snaked his hand along the side of his neck, between his head and the guard’s. He squeezed slowly, cutting off the blood flow to the man’s brain, stopping as his body went limp. John lay the man on his side and fished out the gag and flex cuffs to secure him.

  “Baker?” a voice from behind him called out. “You okay?”

  John cursed to himself. There was a second sentry, and he hadn’t double checked before making his move. Sloppy, John, he thought.

  The other man’s footsteps quickened as his flashlight beam bounced along the rocky terrain. John stayed in a crouch and turned, reaching for his rifle. He raised the weapon as the other sentry’s beam shined on him. Before John could fire a shadow eclipsed the flashlight’s illumination.

  The man’s body flipped over, letting out a hiss as the impact pushed the air from his lungs. The shadow straddled him and rolled to the side. Millie completed the maneuver ending up on top again in the glow of the flashlight several feet away. She had one of the man’s arms trapped next to his head, wrapping her legs around his neck and applying pressure. The mounted triangle choke rendered the second guard unconscious.

  Chance helped her secure the man’s arms and legs, gagging him before he regained consciousness. John lifted the other man’s body onto his shoulder and put him with the other guard, securing them to a tree so they wouldn’t be able to escape.

  “Get their radios,” John said. “And anything sharp that they might be able to use to get free. Look sharp, people, I think the alert level has been elevated.”

  “Man that was some real ninja stuff back there,” Roland said to Millie.

  “I don’t know ninjutsu,” she said, tossing a folding knife she pulled from one of the guards into the darkness.

  “What?” Roland had a puzzled look on his face.

  She brought her rifle around to the front, ignoring him, and hopping onto the back of John’s ATV. Roland followed behind, taking a seat behind Chance. The vehicles moved slowly, the engines letting out a low rumble as they circled around, following the rocky wall running around the training grounds.

  “Careful,” John said. “The window is about to close.”

  They only had a few minutes to pass the motion detectors that would have given them the most trouble. They neared a matte tan tower with several black rectangles in recessed slits along the top.

  John opened up the throttle a bit more to clear the sensor, Chance following his lead and doing the same. Seconds after they passed the device John pulled the ATV into a pool of darkness and stepped off, taking cover behind a low berm. Resting his weapon along the top edge, he fixed his sights on the main structure.

  “Window just closed,” Travis said. “Be careful out there.”

  “Copy,” John said. “Let’s move.”

  Using the shoot house for cover, they made their way to the base’s primary building. John shouldered his rifle and covered the distance with smooth steps to preserve his aim.

  He held the sights fixed on one of the spotlights until he reached the south facing wall of the structure. Millie was right behind him as they crept to the corner. Chance and Roland reached them and knelt in the dirt as they huddled.

  “Everyone remember their parts?” John asked.

  “Roland and I will enter here,” Chance said, pointing to the side door. “Then we head to the cell blocks to secure them and prevent anyone from escaping.”

  Millie leaned out to get a look around the corner. “I’ll continue circling around behind the base until I reach Ty. Once I grab him, we head back here to join Chance and Roland.”

  “Good. I’m going to capture Kingston, Blythe, and anyone else that looks important. We meet back here,” John said. “Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  Millie popped the lock open, letting Chance and Roland slip inside. She shut the door behind them and kept close to the building, melting into the shadows. The base came up almost right to the mountains sloping up behind it, leaving a dark passageway.

  Her steps were short and quick, gliding over the loosened dirt and gravel. She stopped where the building she used for cover ended. Millie leaned out just far enough to take the scene in a few degrees at a time. Spotlights swung around illuminating the distance, but lights along the front threw out their government-issue yellow glow.

  A bridge connected the building to the central part of the base. Millie needed to bridge the gap without the guards out front spotting her. A task made more difficult by the group of men hanging out between the buildings, talking and laughing.

  Millie took a step back and visually took in the two buildings. Pipes for drainage and conduit for power lines ran along the back of the building nearest to her. They led to a small ledge that wrapped around, giving her a path to the covered bridge connecting the structures.

  Walking backward, she measured off a half dozen steps and took a deep breath. She ran forward and hopped up, grabbing one of t
he drainage pipes. It clanged and rocked in her hand, groaning from supporting her weight.

  “What was that?” one of the guards asked.

  She scrambled higher and jumped to her right, securing a solid grip on the conduit for the power lines. Footsteps scraped along the ground as she shimmied up the steel pipe and grabbed the ledge.

  As the man rounded the corner, he looked left then right. Millie flattened her body to the wall as the guard continued his half-hearted searching, using the glow from his mobile phone’s screen to light up the pathway behind the building.

  The man gave up and returned to join the others. “It was nothing. Probably the pipes clanging from someone flushing the toilets.”

  His assessment garnered a round of laughter from the others. Millie let out a breath in a long slow exhale. She used every fixture and bit of texture along the building’s surface to make her way around to the bridge. The lights from inside spilled out, a broad beam of illumination bright enough to show the details on the rocks behind the base.

  Gripping the edge of the windows with her fingertips, Millie kept her head below the glass panes, bringing her knees up and using her feet to provide additional support along the bottom edge of the bridge itself. The strain slowly sapped the strength from her grip as she crossed the gap. Footsteps and voices entered the bridge, passing from the main building into the cell blocks.

  She stopped, not wanting the movement of her fingers to grab any unwanted attention. As the men passed by Millie tightened her jaw, gnashing her teeth together to manage the pain as her hands threatened to cramp up.

  The voices and thump of their footfalls receded in the distance. Millie pulled herself up, flattening her body against the glass as she supported the majority of her weight on the balls of her feet. She held onto the much thicker beam above the window with one hand as she shook out the other. After switching back and forth a few times, she dropped back below the glass and continued along until she reached the main building.

  From there, Millie used the thick bundle of cables, running from the base to one of the radar installations on the peak, to slide down to the ground. She landed with a soft rustling of debris. From there it was a straight shot to the control shack where Ty had taken refuge.

  * * *

  Chance kept his SMG pointed low as he moved into the dark hallway. “Stay close. We need to move slowly.”

  Roland nodded and matched the detective's pace, step for step as they reached a door. It had no markings or windows to let them see inside.

  Chance tried the knob slowly. As the latch eased out of the way, he nodded to Roland. The contractor held his weapon up to his shoulder, pointing toward the edge of the door, ready to take aim at anything inside.

  Roland held his sights on the opening, stepping forward as Chance widened the gap. They moved in, covering opposite ends of the room, their aim converging on the far end.

  “Clear,” Chance whispered.

  The small office had minimal furnishing, with no computers or telephone hooked up. It still smelled like the carpeting had just been laid down, the plastic fumes lingering in the air.

  “I don’t think this office is in use yet,” Roland said.

  “I think you’re right,” Chance said. “Let’s go check the others.

  One after the other, they moved into the rest of the rooms clearing them in order. At the end of the hall, the path branched off. A sign marked the door as the entrance to Cell Block A. Another sign denoted the stairs to the right, leading to Cell Blocks B and C.

  “Which way?” Roland asked.

  Chance took a step forward, heading toward the door. “Just like in life, we start from the bottom.”

  He held the handle to open it, looking back at Roland. They exchanged nods and Chance pulled the door open, letting Roland through first. He followed as they cleared the entryway.

  The cell block opened up to an ample open space with cell doors along one wall. The highly polished floors directed traffic via colored lines painted along the treated surface. The lights bathed the entire area in a sterile white glow from numerous LED fixtures embedded in the ceiling. Orange steel doors with tall, narrow rectangular windows sealed each of the cells.

  He caught a glimpse of a pair of legs in one of the bunks, but without walking up to each and taking a manual head count, Chance couldn’t tell which were occupied, and which were empty. Pointing toward the doors further ahead, he signaled Roland forward.

  The wall opposite the cells had only one pair of doors with a vast expanse of plexiglass between them. Chance knew this was where the guards watching this block could safely control the place, locked in and secure from any danger outside. A shadow swiped across the floor from someone moving inside.

  “Careful. There’s at least one inside there,” Chance whispered.

  “I’ll open the door, you sweep inside and surprise them. I’ll follow, and we’ll have everyone wrapped up in seconds,” Roland said, his eyes widening.

  “That door is most likely locked,” Chance said, pointing to the steel extending beyond the latch to block the striker plate.

  The hugged the wall, moving closer.

  “Can we hold them at gunpoint through that window and force them to open it?” Roland asked.

  “If this place is as secure as I believe it to be, that’s going to be bullet resistant plexi,” Chance said. “There’s no way our nines are cracking through that.”

  Chance slipped by Roland to take the lead, crouching next to the card reader at the door. If they could find someone with a keycard on one of the other floors, they would be able to get inside and secure the room and the cell block.

  Muffled shouts and hands slapping on metal pulled their attention to the cells. A bearded man with a crazed look in his eyes stared straight at Chance and Roland, pounding the door and screaming probable obscenities, though the secure door muted much of the sound.

  More inmates got up to see what had the first inmate riled up. They soon joined the chaotic chorus. Soon half the cell’s occupants were hammering at the doors, spitting, and shouting.

  Roland’s eyes widened. “Uh oh. I think—”

  The door buzzed and opened. Chance took a step back and rose to a ready stance, holding his MP5 against his shoulder. A sliver of light sliced through the door, blocked by the man exiting the control room.

  He stepped out, head facing the cell blocks, ready to berate the prisoners. The man noticed Chance and turned to meet him. Chance looked up. The man was tall, which in his mind was not a long enough word to describe this giant.

  The muzzle of the detective’s SMG tracked upward with his eyes. The movement took an eternity in his mind, like scrolling up a webpage with too much content. By the time their eyes met, Chance had stood at his full height. His head stopped at the guard’s chest.

  Before the guard could react, Chance planted a front kick in his chest, shoving him back into the security room. Roland slipped in after the tall man as Chance followed.

  Once inside the oak tree grabbed Chance’s weapon, whipping it to the side with a sweeping movement of his arm. The momentum tore the MP5 free from his grasp, sending it skittering away as Chance hit the back wall.

  “Hands up!” Roland shouted, staring at the other man and woman inside through the red dot sight mounted on his weapon. “On your knees.”

  The big man lumbered at Chance, completely ignoring Roland.

  The other guards complied, raising their hands. They dropped to their knees, the woman holding her hands up at eye level while the man laced his fingers on top of his head.

  “No one move,” Roland said, resisting the urge to peek behind him and see if Chance was okay fighting the giant.

  He pulled a set of flex cuffs from his belt, tossing them to the woman. “Secure his hands behind his back.” Roland nodded his head toward the other guard.

  The beast man covered the distance in only two steps, reaching down to grab Chance. He rolled away, avoiding the massive mitt. Coming u
p into a crouch, Chance pushed himself up, leaping into the air, driving a spinning side kick into his foe’s chest. The guard took a step back, his hand coming up to the boot print on his uniform.

  “Game on, Bigfoot,” Chance said.

  The big man came in swinging, his looping blows finding only empty air. Chance used his speed advantage to pick and choose his targets, chopping down the tree.

  A roundhouse landed flush on his opponent’s inner thigh. Chance used the bounce from the impact to snap a side kick to the opposite knee, buckling the support and dropping the giant to all fours.

  Chance wrapped his hands around the back of his foe’s neck and fired a knee straight up the pipe, slamming the man’s sternum. He followed with a second knee that hammered the guard’s jaw shut with a thunderous crack, knocking him out.

  “Is everyone else secure?” Chance asked.

  “Yeah. I got them cuffed,” Roland said. “No one is going to—”

  A klaxon blared as emergency lights along the ceiling flashed. Chance scooped up his submachine gun as Roland spun around. The woman had worked her way to her feet and made it to the control panel to trigger the alarm.

  “Uh, they might know we’re here,” Roland said.

  * * *

  John crouched behind a gunmetal gray jeep with a CARR Group decal stuck to the doors. He positioned himself by the rear bumper and leaned out for a look to assess the base’s level of activity. A spotlight swept his way, and he ducked back as it passed. Using the opening, John moved in a low run behind a collection of lumber and drywall piled up for the next day’s construction shift.

  The red dot slid across the group of guards near the main entrance of the base. He had ruled out the opening before the plan even started, instead opting for the far end of the primary structure. The intel showed a large open area for parking, with wide steel doors that could slide in from either side to secure it. But right now, only one door had been installed.