Tears of God (The Blackwell Files Book 7)

by Steven F Freeman

  Once he left, Mallory leaned in. “Let’s get him talking. He might not know about the Tears of God project, but he may have seen or heard something that’ll help us.”

  Kevin returned. He handed Mastana two orange tablets and a paper cup of water. “Bottoms up.” He resumed his place on the bed.

  “You know, Kevin,” said Mallory from the room’s tiny desk, “at first, I wondered why the security around here was so tight. But now I think I understand. From what your director said, you all are working on some kind of project that other companies might want to steal, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s a ripper, taking venom from one of the local snakes and making some kind of heavy-duty painkiller from it. It’ll make the meds I just gave Sharbat look like lollies.”

  “Really?” said Mallory with all the mock amazement she could muster. “How in the world do they do that?”

  “No idea. The lab guys start with snakes’ venom and change it somehow. They keep their work pretty hush hush.”

  “You must have an interesting job, seeing all the people and equipment and animals going in and out.”

  Kevin issued a short laugh and shook his head. “It’s quiet as the grave at my post. All the traffic comes through the main gate.”

  “I think I saw the other side entrance, the one closer to the main gate, closed up earlier,” said Mallory. “Why do they keep yours open if they don’t use it?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself. I think maybe in case they get something that needs to be delivered to the Menagerie right away, like an animal. It’d be quicker to use my entrance than the main one. I’ve only seen that happen once, though.”

  Mallory had to fight the urge to glance at Mastana at the mention of the research building’s name, the same term Safi had used at the Pasha Tech site.

  Mastana spoke up. “Is the Menagerie the big building with the lights that flashed when we got too close earlier?”

  “Yes. That’s where all the research happens. Really, it’s the reason this place exists.”

  “It seems strange the lights would be needed,” said Mastana. “I mean, with such a big wall around this whole site, I would think that building would be safe inside it.”

  Kevin shrugged. “Maybe they’re worried about employees getting too curious, like kids that go looking for their hidden birthday presents.”

  Mastana started to nod but interrupted herself with an enormous yawn.

  Kevin chuckled. “It’s getting late, so I’ll be going. I hope your ankle will be on the mend soon.”

  Mastana’s eyes looked troubled, perhaps by the lie her silence endorsed, but she managed a smile. “Thank you. I hope so, too.”

  Shortly after Kevin’s departure, Silva entered the guest quarters. She shook her head in a frustrated, no luck manner.

  In case their introduction to the Director had initiated eavesdropping on their conversations, Mallory turned up the music on her phone and gestured to the others to gather close to talk.

  “It’s him! It’s Farid Safi!” said Mallory in an intense whisper. She explained to Silva the events of the past hour.

  “Are you absolutely sure it was Safi?” asked Silva. “That photo Vega showed us was pretty old.”

  “Yeah,” said Mallory. “He introduced himself as Director Tahir, remember? That’s Safi’s alias in DTI.” The truth began to sink in. Minutes earlier, she had met the man responsible for her father’s murder. “And if I have anything to do with it, he’ll know who I am before long.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Early the next morning, long shadows from the security wall’s floodlight poles stabbed across the Goldmine’s access road. Brisk temperatures invited Mallory and Mastana to set an invigorating pace on their walk.

  Heading south, towards the site’s main entrance, Mallory’s eyes darted to the ground beneath the security wall. She could spot no motion sensors or cameras on the ground or in the sparse clumps of landscaping that dotted the grounds.

  Having reached the eastern wall’s other entrance, Mallory turned to Mastana. “I don’t see anything, do you?”

  The teen shook her head.

  Mallory examined the desolate terrain outside the wall. “Let’s head back. I’ll let Bravo team know what we’ve found while we’re still away from the security building.”

  She removed a burner cellphone from a jacket pocket and dialed the number of a second one Alton had bought in Alice Springs. Purchasing the disposable devices with one of the fake IDs Vega had provided had not only eliminated the chance of DTI tracing their phone numbers but had also served to confirm Mallory’s cover story, as many tourists opted to buy burners while on vacation in Australia to avoid roaming charges on their domestic plans.

  Alton picked up after the first ring. “Darling, how are you?”

  “It’s okay,” replied Mallory with a grin. “I’m alone.”

  “Everything okay?” asked Alton.

  “Yes. We managed to get our hands on a passcode generator last night.”

  “Terrific! Now we need to decide how to use it.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” said Mallory, slowing her pace a little. “First the good news. Only one gate, the northernmost one on the eastern wall, is manned all night. The others are sealed up like we saw in Vega’s satellite images.”

  “So we can use the passcode generator to open the other one on the eastern wall since there’s no guard there,” inferred Alton.

  “Yep. The next step is deciding the best way to open it.”

  “The easiest way would be for you to let us in.”

  “Yeah,” said Mallory, “especially since I can operate from a distance. It looks like it works via infrared light, like a TV remote.”

  “Cool. Can you walk in the area of the gate late at night without looking suspicious?”

  “I think so,” said Mallory. “We took a late walk last night to ‘check out the wildlife.’ Taking another one shouldn’t seem too weird.” Having reached the edge of the plaza fronting the security building, she stopped. That edifice was the last place she wanted to conduct this conversation.

  “Good. Let’s agree on a time for you to let us in. What about 2300 hours?”

  “That’ll work. What about letting you out?”

  “Good question. I have no idea how long we’ll be inside, so we can’t decide on a rendezvous time.”

  “There’s a huge eucalyptus tree between the first and second gates,” said Mallory. “Why don’t I leave the passcode generator at its base?”

  “That’ll work.” Alton paused. “What’s the security like in there? Armed guards or mall cops?”

  Mallory stopped a moment to reflect. “They seem pretty professional, certainly not the mall-cop variety. But Kevin, the guard we met at the gate closest to the Menagerie, didn’t carry a weapon. I saw a few other guards last night. None of them carry weapons, either.”

  “Good. I’ll have Bravo team carry the non-lethals as our primary weapons, like we did at Pasha Tech.”

  “Sweetie,” said Mallory. “I also saw Safi last night. We know how dangerous he is. Make sure you bring plenty of conventional firepower, just in case.”

  “Will do.” Alton remained silent for a few seconds. “You doing okay?”

  “Yes. I’m ready to find out what that bastard is up to.”

  “Me, too. We should know soon enough.”

  “One more thing,” said Mallory. “The Menagerie has an unguarded entrance on its eastern side. But when you approach it, a set of cop-car lights go off when you’re about ten yards away. Make sure you use the passcode generator to deactivate the alarm before you get that close.”

  “That’s good intel. Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Okay. Once Bravo team makes it back outside the wall, I’ll pick you all up tomorrow as planned—the stranded tourist’s husband coming to collect her.”

  “At least acting like my husband will be easy to pull off,” said Mallory. “Silva, by
the way, has been grumbling the whole time about her role—not that I blame her. I’ll tell you all about it later.” It was good to talk to Alton. Mallory knew she should keep the call short but in her heart didn’t want to end it. “Be careful.”

  “You, too. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

  “You, too,” echoed Mallory. Ending the conversation, she lowered the phone to her side.

  A sense of restlessness troubled her mind, but she fought to push the feeling away. Executing her part of the mission was the best thing she could do to keep her husband and the others safe.

  She and Mastana entered the security building. They nodded to the guard behind the desk—someone they hadn’t seen before—and made a beeline for their quarters.

  Silva lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling with her eyebrows pulled together in deep thought. Mallory blew a sigh of relief. She hadn’t seen Silva since the previous evening.

  Mallory turned up the music on her phone and greeted her teammate. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah. It’s just that Bulldog guy, the one who’s usually out there,” said Silva, gesturing to the guard desk at the front of the building. “I’m praying I’ll have a chance to kick his nuts into his lower intestines before this mission is over.”

  “We’ll have to see how that goes,” said Mallory. She shared the details of the evening’s plan. “Once Bravo team withdraws,” she concluded, “Alton will come back to pick us up tomorrow.”

  “Good,” replied Silva. “That means no more letting guys hit on me.”

  “That’s right,” replied Mallory. “And for me, it means no more having to wait. In twenty-four hours, we should know what Safi is up to with his Tears of God project—and why it cost my dad his life.”

  CHAPTER 59

  That evening, Alton, David, and Gilbert prepared for their mission. Not knowing when they would eat again, they sat down to a solid dinner of grilled fish, sausage rolls, and biscuits—not overfilling, but sufficient to keep their energy up until morning.

  Their meal completed, they donned the desert camouflage uniforms and boots previously stowed in the hotel room’s closet. Once dressed, they applied camo face paint to themselves and each other until every inch of exposed skin was covered.

  After nightfall, Alton peered out of the hotel room’s window. “All clear. The parking lot is dead. Let’s move out.”

  Within minutes, Bravo team found themselves racing down State Route 2 towards the Goldmine. Twenty miles shy of the facility, Alton turned off the freeway on a course leading east of the site.

  Alton glanced at his watch. Still plenty of time before their rendezvous at 2300 hours. Jostling over the desert terrain, he slowed the SUV’s pace to a crawl and killed the lights. Better to play it safe. In a desert, the sight of headlamps could carry for miles.

  Soon, the Goldmine appeared on the horizon. As Alton approached, details of the perimeter wall and the three-story Menagerie began to appear. Floodlights shone at intervals around the wall, while rolls of razor wire created an indistinct haze on top of the structure. Closed, white mini-blinds covered the Menagerie’s plain windows, preventing the disclosure of any clue to the activities taking place inside the building.

  Alton pushed his SUV towards the objective but continued to decelerate, eventually slowing the vehicle down to a brisk walking pace. At a distance of nearly two miles from the facility, he pulled to a stop. “Let’s gear up,” he told the others.

  They shouldered on web gear and filled their cargo pockets with smoke, concussion, and conventional grenades. They used the remaining pockets to stow magazines loaded with rounds for their A4s and SIG Sauers. Strapping rifles across their backs and holstering pistols, they inserted tiny earpieces and fastened sub-vocalization microphones to their shirt collars, then slipped night-vision goggles over their eyes and attached holstered Tasers to their belts. The agents finished by using tape to strap down all loose items, mindful of the risk noisy, clanging equipment could pose.

  Knowing the demands he’d soon place on his bad leg, Alton popped three ibuprofen tablets in his mouth and chased them with a swallow of water from a canteen.

  He turned to Gilbert and David. “We’ll use the same approach as before, when we were at Pasha Tech. Stay on my ass. No lights, and no conversation unless absolutely necessary, in which case whisper into the mike. We’ll decide on the best way to navigate around the guarded entrance once we assess that location in person. Gilbert, when we’re inside the Menagerie, keep your eyes sharp. We need intel on what’s going on in there, and you’re the only one who can provide it. David and I will provide cover and keep our eyes open for unfriendlies.”

  With a swallow, the toxicologist nodded.

  “You all right?” asked Alton.

  “Yes,” Gilbert replied, his voice squeaking an octave higher. He shook his head at himself and cleared his throat, this time speaking in a normal voice. “Yes, I’m good.”

  Alton smiled. “You’re doing fine. Just stay focused.” He glanced at his watch again—2210 hours. “Let’s roll. This is one party where you don’t want to be fashionably late.”

  Through the night vision goggles, the terrain took on a ghostly, fluorescent-green color. Alton kept a steady pace while picking his way around desert brush and the occasional vertical crack in the dry ground’s surface. The towering eastern wall contained two entrances. As Mallory had indicated, the one on the right remained open, its floodlights piercing into the dark night. The entrance on the left, however, had already been secured for the night, its heavy steel door slid shut.

  At 2252 hours, Alton drew his team towards the left entrance and waited at a distance of fifty yards, well beyond the illuminating distance of the wall’s lights. To be safe, he crouched behind a scraggly clump of desert brush.

  He turned to the others and motioned for them to gather ‘round.

  “Alpha team will open the steel door any time now,” he murmured into his mike. “As soon as they do, move through the entrance and head to the right. That’ll lead us to the Menagerie. Stick to the wall as close as you can.”

  David and Gilbert nodded.

  The trio settled back behind the bush, studying the steel door for any signs of movement. For five minutes, nothing happened.

  Alton had started to remove the glare cover from his digital watch when a beam of light pierced through the darkness. The steel door had opened two or three feet, allowing light from a streetlamp inside the Goldmine to shine through.

  “This is it,” said Alton, moving the night-vision goggles back over his eyes. “Let’s roll.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Alton approached the open steel door from the side, so that an observer from inside the Goldmine couldn’t see him or his teammates approach. He lowered himself to the ground and wormed his head around the corner for a split second. Not seeing anything awry, he looked again, this time for a longer interval. The glare from the site’s many lamps proved to be too overpowering when viewed through for the night-vision goggles, so he moved them to the top of his head.

  He stood and glanced around the door with one eye. A pickup truck with DTI stenciled on its side motored south, towards the site’s main entrance. It disappeared, and the area of the Goldmine around this entrance showed no further signs of life.

  Alton hurried through the opening. He turned right, took two steps, and lowered himself into a crouch. Streetlamps illuminated a narrow paved road running parallel to the perimeter wall. Another set of floodlights shone down from atop the wall. Neither light source reached to the base of the wall itself, affording Bravo team a channel of darkness through which they should be able to pass undetected—at least until they reached the eastern wall’s second, guarded entrance.

  David and Gilbert made it through the opening.

  Alton studied the area one last time, making certain no one would observe their movement. He moved forward. The continuous crouch soon lit a slow burn in his damaged leg. But he couldn’t risk walking uprig
ht. The ribbon of shadow extended only five feet or so up the wall, so hunched over it was.

  By the time they had traveled several hundred yards, the sensation in Alton’s damaged leg had morphed from mild discomfort to lancing pain. He gritted his teeth and pressed forward.

  The team arrived at the eucalyptus tree Mallory had mentioned that morning. Mallory herself was long gone, not having been slowed by the need to stay hidden in the shadows. Alton searched at the tree’s base, at first not spotting the passcode generator. At last, he noticed a depression in the trunk of the tree itself. He reached his hand through and closed it around a bulky item sheathed in cloth. He withdrew it and found a passcode generator, looking for all the world like a television remote control. He slipped the device into one of the cargo pockets on his pants and continued forward.

  Before Alton could move his team out, a pair of scientists in lab coats appeared from the direction of the Menagerie. They walked down the sidewalk engrossed in deep conversation. They passed a few dozen yards from the NSA team’s place of concealment and continued on their journey.

  Bravo team continued forward. They approached the perimeter wall’s guarded entrance. Alton waved to his teammates to lower themselves to all fours. A clump of landscaped plants under the wall on each side of the entrance provided good cover for the interlopers.

  Alton peered around the bush’s pale-green leaves. The dark-haired guard had his back to him. The man seemed to be speaking to someone, presumably another guard, but he blocked any view of his companion.

  Alton scanned the area fronting the guarded entrance. A bit less light fell on a strip of land equidistant from the access road and the guards themselves. But if those guards looked in the direction of that dark strip, they would spot Bravo team with ease.

  A second clump of the landscaped plants grew about fifteen yards out from the wall. This second clump would shorten the distance they’d need to travel in the open, so Alton motioned his team to it.

  Looking back at the guard, Alton gave a start. The second person conversing with the guard was none other than Mastana! David must have made the same observation, for his eyes grew wide.