Thunder Down Under

by Don Pendleton

  The drone began following the trail as the tablet connected with a satellite and routed the call to WN HQ. After a few seconds a pleasant-faced woman with a headset appeared in the window.

  “Wallcorloo National Security Division, how may I help you?”

  “This is Senior Patrol Officer Logan Weathers, with Probationary Officer Connor King at the Amadeus LNG plant,” Logan replied. “We’re reporting a drone sighting of what looks like trespasser tracks inside the facility. To the best of our knowledge, there isn’t supposed to be anyone on-site at this time.” As he spoke, Weathers isolated the footage and forwarded it to the security woman.

  “We’ve received no notice of an intrusion.” The woman reviewed the snippet of video, a faint furrow appearing above the bridge of her nose. “Are you sure this isn’t leftover tracks by the last engineer team?”

  “Pretty sure,” Weathers replied. “Especially considering they would have started out from right where we’re standing now. How should we follow up?”

  “Just a moment.” The woman was typing something on the keyboard in front of her and began speaking into her headset, but King couldn’t hear what she was saying. He flashed a quizzical frown at Logan, who was still watching the screen.

  “She’s kicking it upstairs. Standard CYA procedure.” Eyes still on the screen, Weathers removed a keychain from his belt, selected a small black key by feel and held it out to the younger man. “Open the weapons locker in the back.”

  “You sure? I mean, she hasn’t even come back yet—”

  “Officer Weathers, thanks for holding,” the woman said. “We are classifying this as a Level 1 Incident. You and your partner are to investigate the tracks and secure the area, making sure that no trespassers are on the grounds. Anyone you encounter should be taken into custody. Above all, take care to prevent any damage to the facility. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “We’ll report in once we’ve cleared the area. Weathers out.”

  He blanked the comm screen and returned his attention to the drone’s camera view. “Hang on...what the hell’s going on here?”

  King leaned over to glimpse what his partner was looking at. He caught flashes of figures moving among the pipes deep in the complex. Weathers zoomed the drone camera in as far as he could, until it appeared they were only a few meters from the trespassers.

  The younger man grunted. “Definitely got blokes running around where they shouldn’t be. No sign of a vehicle, which means they must’ve stashed it nearby and walked in.”

  Something was niggling at King’s mind and he voiced it the moment it crystallized. “But how’d they get inside without setting off any alarms?”

  Weathers nodded. “Bloody good question. We’ll be sure to ask ’em once we have ’em in custody. Break out the heavy stuff, mate.”

  Trying to control his suddenly shaky hand, King flipped back the carpet in the Rover’s cargo area and unlocked the steel-lined compartment underneath. Lifting the cover revealed two Heckler & Koch MP-5 K personal defense weapons and several 30-round magazines, plus black bulletproof vests and ceramic riot helmets with clear visors.

  “How do you want to play this?” King asked, pleased to note that he sounded reasonably calm given the circumstances.

  “We’re taking no chances.” Weathers set the drone to hover where it was in the crystal-clear blue sky, then pulled a vest out and slipped it over his head. “Suit up. Helmet, too.”

  In a couple of minutes they were both outfitted in protective gear. The older man nodded at the compact submachine gun. “Load up with nonlethal, but grab a couple regular mags, just in case. Don’t forget we’re watching out for the facility, as well.”

  “What if they’re armed, too, and using real bullets?” King asked as he cleared the chamber and checked the action on his HK. He then loaded a magazine of rubber bullets and chambered one.

  “Well, we should have surprise. So, assuming we get the drop on them, we should have them dead-bang.” Logan adjusted his shooter’s glasses then flipped his helmet visor over his face. “If not, and they start shooting, we’re damn sure shooting back—with lead. I don’t care how much this place cost, I’m not laying my life down for it and you ain’t, either. Got it?”

  King nodded as the older man set the iPad down and opened the drone control app on his smartphone, attaching it to his forearm with a Velcro sleeve. “Good, let’s go catch us some vandals.”

  His hammering heart feeling like it had risen to the back to his throat, King followed his partner in the approved fashion, a meter back and a meter off to his right. The older man held his HK in a loose port arms, ready to bring the weapon into action at a moment’s notice. In minutes, they’d left the Rover behind and entered the maze of parallel pipes and pumping control stations of the facility proper.

  “We probably aren’t gonna see them for a few minutes as least, but keep your eyes open, anyway,” Weathers muttered as they checked a corner before creeping around it. “If they’re smart enough to bust in without setting off the alarms—”

  His voice was cut off in midsentence and King felt drops of something patter across his helmet and visor like a burst of rain. He glanced at his partner to ask him what had happened, only to see the other man falling to the ground, blood fountaining from his misshapen head as the report of the weapon that had killed him thundered across the desert.

  King stood stock-still for a moment before his reflexes kicked in and he dived to the hard-packed dirt as another shot buzzed overhead, followed by the report again. Weathers’s body had finished its graceless collapse and lay in an ungainly heap, his arms and legs twitching as his nervous system sent last, fruitless, messages to limbs incapable of reacting anymore.

  King could hear a high-pitched wheezing and it took him a moment to realize he was making the noise as he panted for breath. Blood roared in his ears as his pressure spiked and he tasted an acrid, metallic tang in his suddenly dry mouth. His training reasserted itself after a few moments and he scrabbled for his radio, which would link to a satellite relay and allow him to call back to base.

  “WN Security, officer down! I repeat, officer down! This is Probationary Officer Connor King. Come in please!” he said.

  A voice replied after a couple seconds’ delay. “This is WN Security. Go ahead, Officer King.”

  “I am under fire by unknown number of assailants at the Amadeus LNG site! My partner is down. I think—I think he’s dead!” King was sure of it, actually, but he didn’t want to commit to that over the radio. “I’ve taken cover nearby, please advise!”

  “All right, Officer King, stay calm,” the dispatcher said. “Do you have a visual on your attackers?”

  “Uh, no, not really...hang on.” Swallowing the fist-sized lump in his throat, King turned and stuck his head out past the corner of the pipe wall for a brief second, then pulled it back, expecting to see two or three attackers charging toward him.

  But other than Weathers’s motionless body, there was no one there.

  “Officer King, please report your status,” the voice said.

  “No—I have no visual. Repeat, I have no visual on the assailants.”

  “All right. We’re sending reinforcements via helicopter, but they won’t be there for approximately three hours. You are to fall back to your vehicle and exit the perimeter, then take up a defensive position to cover the front gate. Help is on the way. Do you understand?”

  “Affirmative.” King glanced over at Weathers’s legs. “What about...what about Officer Weathers?”

  “Our telemetry readings show him to be deceased” came the dispassionate reply. “We do not want you to risk your own life trying to recover his body. Fall back as ordered, and your backup team will assist you upon their arrival.”

  “Yeah...yeah, I hear you. Officer King falling back as ordered.” He cut the transmission and holster
ed his radio then gripped his subgun tighter and decided to risk one more glance down the corridor of pipes before moving out. Taking a deep breath, he readied his weapon to fire before peeking out again.

  And, once again, the corridor was completely empty. What the hell? Where were they? he wondered. Glancing at his partner’s body, he focused on the smartphone on Weathers’s forearm, wondering if he should retrieve it. What, and risk getting his head blown off, as well? he thought. He had to get the hell out of there, like they’d told him.

  The only problem was that he would have to run at least a couple straightaways to get back to the Rover—and there was every indication that the unseen shooter was waiting for him to do just that. For a moment he thought of just hunkering down and waiting for help to arrive, but he discarded that plan since the other people on-site might already be creeping up on him right now.

  Time to go. King rose, took one last deep breath and then took off running back the way he’d come. He zigzagged as erratically as possible, trying to throw off the aim of anyone looking to shoot him, and expecting to feel the punch of a bullet between his shoulder blades at any moment. A ghoulish thought ran through his mind as he ran for his life: at least a head shot would mean he’d never feel it...

  The left corner that should give him cover from the shooter was only a few meters ahead, and King poured on the speed, giving it everything he had. He juked one more time, then aimed for the corner and rounded it in a spray of desert dust. Once there, he plastered his back against the vertical row of pipes and waited a few moments, sucking in the parching desert air. Remembering his water bottle, he grabbed it and drained it. The warm, flat liquid had never tasted so good.

  Almost there... His sprint had brought him a lot closer to the vehicle. He figured one more balls-to-the-wall run could get him to its relative safety. He slung his HK and then took several deep breaths, trying to load up on oxygen for the final dash.

  Three...two...one...go! Arms and legs pumping for all they were worth, he retraced the path back outside the facility, still zigzagging every few steps to present a more difficult target.

  Every step felt like it took a minute. His combat-booted feet pounded the ground, sending puffs of dust up around his legs, but Connor didn’t pause to look down or back. He didn’t stop for anything, just kept moving toward his goal, just like when he’d carried the ball back at university and nothing was gonna stop him from reaching the line—

  And just like that, he hit the blisteringly hot side of the Range Rover so hard he almost bounced off it. Crouching, King duck-walked around the back to the passenger side, figuring he should be safe from the shooter there.

  The sun was still high overhead and beat down mercilessly on his uncovered head. King realized he’d lost his hat somewhere, but didn’t care about that; he just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  Dropping to the ground, he crawled underneath the SUV to the right front tire, then reached up into the wheel well to clean the dust off the spare-key holder mounted there. Digging out his smartphone, he transmitted a combination and was rewarded with the small box popping open. Grabbing the ignition key, he closed the box, was about to crawl back to the passenger side when he happened to look at the rear of the vehicle and the open cargo bay.

  The drone... The footage it had taken could reveal who had set up the ambush. In any case, it would be invaluable evidence of what had happened.

  Connor swallowed hard. It was a hell of a risk but one he had to take.

  He began crawling toward the back of the Range Rover, ready for someone to charge up and demand he come out of there, or just shoot him where he lay. But no voices were heard, no bullets were fired, and he reached the back with no difficulty.

  Stretching up again, he couldn’t get to the iPad from where he was and had to stick his upper body out to grab it. Again, he tensed at the possibility of a bullet plowing through him, but he was able to recover the tablet and scoot back under cover of the SUV without incident. Waking it up, he took control of the drone, which was still hovering in place over the facility, and guided it back to him. At any point he expected the phantom sniper to blow it out of the sky and was a bit surprised to see it settle to an ungainly landing near the back of the Rover.

  King stretched out far enough to grab it and toss it into the cargo bay, then shoved the door closed behind it. Next, he slithered through the dust to the passenger side, unlocked his door and crawled inside. Climbing into the driver’s seat, he stayed hunched over as he slid the key into the ignition and started the Rover.

  The window next to him exploded in a shower of safety glass pellets, and his shoulder felt like it had been struck with a sledgehammer. Pain bloomed across his chest. The closest thing he could compare it to was being dump-tackled during a scrum his freshman year and his shoulder being dislocated when he slammed into the ground. This injury was similar but about a hundred times more painful, and even worse. Connor tried to lift his right hand enough to engage the gearshift lever, but it refused to obey his frantic mental efforts.

  As the echoes of the sniper’s shot died away, King could hear the crunch of boots approaching his position. He tried to make his right arm move again and was gratified to have it obey, if haltingly. No matter, he managed to get his numbed hand around the pistol grip of his HK and tried to bring it up to point at his assailant.

  “Whoa, mate!” a voice said as the driver’s door opened and King fell out, the submachine gun pulled out of his hand as he tumbled onto the hardpan. He hit with an impact that sent agony screaming down his chest and opened his mouth to speak, only to expel a gob of blood onto the ground.

  “Hey—he ain’t dead yet,” the man said to someone King couldn’t see. Something about the speaker’s voice sounded familiar and he struggled to look up at him. “Yeah. Fetch the drone. We’re gonna need it, too.”

  His vision tunneling into a gray haze, King looked up at the person who had most likely killed him—and his mouth dropped open again when he saw the uniform of his attacker. “Wh-wh—” he tried to say through the blood filling his throat.

  “Sorry, mate,” the man said as he aimed a pistol between the younger man’s eyes. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The muzzle exploding in a blast of flame was the last thing Connor King saw.

  Chapter Two

  Barbara Price had rarely seen her boss so angry.

  No, the mission controller for Stony Man Farm thought as she shifted in her leather chair at the long conference table, she’d never seen him this angry.

  To be fair, however, the Justice Department honcho and director of the Sensitive Operations Group, part of the clandestine organization known as Stony Man, based at Stony Man Farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, was doing an admirable job of restraining his temper. With his pouched, slightly bloodshot eyes and sometimes dour demeanor, the big Fed resembled a bulldog someone had dressed in a rumpled suit.

  Price had worked with him for so long that she could read every physical tic, from his blunt fingers tightly intertwined on table in front of him, to the jut of his jaw as he clamped down on the unlit cigar sticking defiantly out of his mouth. He was furious, to put it bluntly.

  At the moment, however, she couldn’t tell what he was more upset with, although she had a pretty good idea.

  The first possibility was playing out on a TV monitor on the wall in front of them.

  “—these attacks on sovereign Australian industries are an offense against the good, hardworking men and women of this country and they have to stop immediately!”

  Angus Martin—the man’s name was plastered across the bottom of the screen—was florid-faced and paunchy, with a shock of unruly, light red hair and the beginnings of jowls starting to cover what was otherwise a strong jawline. He shook a finger at his interviewer as she tried to follow up with a question.

  “This most rece
nt one resulted in the deaths of two fine Mobile Patrol officers!” he continued. “It’s the latest in a long string of outrages that have been inflicted on my company and its personnel by these cretins, and we’re not going to take it anymore! I’ve asked the local and national government time after time to step in and stop these terrorists, the so-called AFN—”

  “Yes, the nonviolent political group known as Aboriginal Freedom Now—” the interviewer tried to interject.

  “Nonviolent my arse!” Martin nearly shouted. “Why don’t you ask what my two employees think about their ‘nonviolent’ methods? Oh, that’s right, you can’t—because they’re dead! Nevertheless, the governing politicians seem content to sit on their bloody hands and let these...these people continue to run amok and destroy the livelihoods of hundreds—no, thousands—of decent Australian citizens just trying to earn a living! It’s absolutely disgraceful, I’m telling you, and I’ll keep repeating that until people start listening!”

  Martin, dressed in what would have been an impressive three-piece suit if it had been tailored for his chunky frame, continued his monologue over the vain efforts of the interviewer to get a word in edgewise. “Mark my words—I will not stand for another assault on my own country’s infrastructure, and the Australian people won’t stand for it, either! If these bastards think they’re gonna stop me from mining the interior—which I have the absolute right to do, by the way—they’ve got another think coming!”

  Brognola snatched the unlit cigar from his mouth and waved it at the loudmouth on the monitor. “All right, turn it off. I’ve heard enough.”

  Price was sure he had. However she would have bet her next paycheck the real target of Brognola’s ire was sitting in the third occupied seat in the room.

  “As you can see, Mr. Martin is quite upset at what is happening to his family’s company, in his own country,” Christian Payne, the pallid, bloodless man dressed in a spotless, navy Brooks Brothers’ three-piece suit, said as he steepled his fingers. “While the US government has more pressing matters on its plate in other parts of the world, word of this particular...issue has reached the Oval Office and the President has tasked me with coming up with a solution.” The man spread his hands to indicate Brognola and Price. “Which is why I’m here speaking with both of you today. And I have to say, I did not appreciate having to wear a blindfold during the flight here. It’s ridiculous.”