Shef cut a flap into the bottom of the plasteel and rolled it back. Del and Kwai wriggled under the fence, then Del held the flap for Shef to do the same. The three of them lay in the scrub on the other side for several long minutes, while the searchlights from the tower swept over them. But they had timed their run at the fence well; they hadn’t been seen.
After the light passed overhead one more time, they got up and started running. Shef was in the lead, and Del brought up the rear, the skin of his back prickling with fear that the tower guards had drawn a bead on him. But they made the outside range of the searchlight, then the dirt track that led to the excavation, without discovery. No shouts. No sirens. No whine of laze rifles.
Del knew bigger challenges lay ahead. The road rose toward the lip of the bowl where they’d begun the tunnel so many weeks before. Shef took a right off the track into the desert as they approached the crest. There was little cover here, but the low brush was better than nothing, and it would allow them to scope out the tunnel entrance with a better chance of remaining hidden.
Just before the top, Shef flopped to his belly and crawled the rest of the way to a cluster of rocks on the lip overlooking the bowl. Kwai and Del joined him there, staring down at the tunnel entrance.
“Shit. Thing’s lit like Times Square,” Del said.
Shef swiveled to look at him. “I used to know what that meant. Fucking mindwipe. But, yeah, won’t be easy to get past those lights.”
“Allow me a moment.” Kwai moved away in the darkness, noiseless, and, after a few steps, invisible.
Del stared at the scene below: two guards on a loop around the entrance; stacks of heavy durasteel I-beams for shoring up the excavation; piping; scaffolding; two huge slag heaps on either side of the entrance; three of the carts used to transport men and materials in and out of the tunnel—all lit as bright as day by huge klieg lights mounted on poles around the bowl.
Until it wasn’t.
As things went dark, Del and Shef launched themselves over the ridgeline, charging for the entrance as fast as they could make it. Del heard a few grunts from the guards, then silence. He could see little ahead of him but the looming shapes of the stacks and heaps he’d identified before. He ran from one to the other, ready at any moment to round a corner and meet some pissed-off Ninoctin a foot taller than he was, but he reached the mine entrance a second later than Shef, having seen no one.
Kwai was waiting for them, armed with a stun gun taken from one of the guards at his feet.
Shef grinned at him. “Is there anything you can’t do, fisherman?”
“’Can’t’ is not a concept allowed in the Dhar-Bey philosophy,” Kwai replied.
“Beginning to believe that,” Shef said. “So, can you tell us if there are more guards inside?”
But Kwai just put a finger to his lips and motioned Del and Shef to the side. A second later, Del heard heavy footsteps running up the tunnel toward the entrance.
Kwai signaled his companions: One. Then he pointed to his own chest: Mine.
Del waved a hand at him: He’s all yours.
The man ran to just outside the entrance and stopped, taking in the two fallen guards and the lack of light, presumably wondering just how badly things had gone wrong. Kwai stepped up behind him, touched his head lightly and caught him as he dropped to the ground, boneless.
Sheff gaped. “How the hell did you learn to do that?”
“Practice,” Kwai responded, as they moved off down the tunnel.
“Was that the last guard?” Del asked.
“Yes,” Kwai confirmed. “And I suggest we hurry. We rendezvous with the shuttle in fifteen minutes.”
They double-timed it then, dashing down the path marked by blue emergency lights until they reached the wide incubation chamber. Piping and heat regulation equipment lined the rock walls of the chamber now, harnessing the power of the planet’s hydrothermal system. The place was as hot and humid as a steambath; Del was dripping sweat in seconds.
But there in the center of the chamber, suspended in its durasteel cradle, was the spherical metal “egg” they had come for. “Looks like titanium—” Shef reached out a hand.
“No!” Kwai pulled him back. “Alarms, perhaps.”
Or something worse, if Del read the fisherman’s expression correctly. “Don’t touch anything. Let’s just set that charge and go.”
“Copy that.” Shef glanced around, then pointed. “Should I strap this thing right under Baby’s cradle?”
“Not yet.” Del had been studying the computer console that curved around the titanium egg like a protective nest. “Kwai, what do you make of this?”
Kwai looked from the console to the sphere and back. “The technology is Minertsan; I recognize the script.” He indicated a bank of lights and slide controls at one end. “These are for the hydrothermal system. The rest—” he shrugged “—for the incubator itself?”
“Controls,” Del said. “Then here is where we should place the charge. It’s close enough to take out the incubator with it, and with any luck, the hydrothermals will go, too.”
Shef grinned as he unloaded the device they’d wrapped in a ragged shirt. “More bang for the buck! I like it.” He knelt and placed the crude collection of plasmion packets on a narrow shelf under the console. Then he set the timing device next to it.
He glanced up at Del and Kwai. “Once I hook this up and set the timer, we’ll have thirty minutes before it blows. Should be plenty of time to get in the shuttle and hit orbit.”
They’d been over the plan. Shef was just looking for the final go-ahead.
Del gave it to him. “Light it up.”
Shef pulled the nanoprocessors out of his pocket and attached them, first to the explosives, then to the timer. He was careful. He was deliberate. Still, the work took only seconds. He stood, and they all turned to go.
The sphere burst into life, suddenly glowing from within with a piercing white light. It . . . screamed . . . the sound not mechanical, not electronic, but something animal. Almost alive. Kwai and Shef ran for the tunnel entrance, but Del was closest to the thing, and he was rooted to the spot, unable to take a step. He doubled over, his hands pressed to his ears. That sound!
Unreasoning fear speared through him. Panic blanked his vision. He crumpled to his knees, the sound a desperate howling in his brain:
NO! LIVE! SURVIVE! STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Stop! Stop! NO!”
Gabriel left his work at the dining table and crossed the few steps to where Del was thrashing in his recliner. The old man’s eyes were open, but he wasn’t fully conscious. His gaze was fixed on the space in front of him, seeing things that no one else could see, and he was so agitated he was in danger of falling to the floor.
Rayna and Lana stood with Gabriel at the old man’s side. “What the hell?” Rayna said.
“You have to do something, k’taam,” Lana said. Love and reassurance came across their bond, overlaying the worry he could sense in her. She knew as well as he did that Rafe wouldn’t have allowed this, but he had no choice.
He strengthened his shields and placed his hands on Del’s forearms, sending a subliminal command for calm while he spoke to him. “You are safe, Del. You’re at home, among friends. There is no danger here.” He repeated the words until Del’s breathing began to slow and recognition began to return to his eyes.
Rayna slipped away and returned from the kitchen with two small tablets. “A chart on the refrigerator says it’s time for his medication. The bottles say these tabs dissolve under the tongue.”
Gabriel placed the tabs in Del’s mouth, and before he was even fully back to this world, the meds were on their way to helping him.
After a moment, Del looked at Gabriel with clear eyes. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Gabriel. From Rescue.” He turned to the others. “This is my bond—uh, my partner Lana. And Rayna, the Chief of Field Operations.”
Del shifted his gaze to Rayna. “CFO, huh? To what do we owe the honor?”
Rayna smiled. “Big mission, Del. But we can talk about that later. You feeling okay?”
“Sure. Why shouldn’t I?” He scowled—embarrassed? Or simply confused?
“That nightmare—seemed like a bad one,” Rayna said.
Gabriel frowned. Rayna was on shaky ethical ground here. Rafe couldn’t have been any clearer that he didn’t want them probing his father for information. But he said nothing and waited. Maybe the old man wouldn’t even remember what had disturbed him about it.
But Del’s jaw clenched. “The fucking thing was screaming at me. I thought I’d never get out of there.” He stopped, his brows drawn together.
Despite his shields, Gabriel had felt the terror. Still, it was if the emotion belonged to someone else, not to Del.
“What thing? What was screaming at you?” Rayna asked the question gently enough, but Gabriel could feel the old man’s tension rising.
Del shook his head hard, as if he was trying to dislodge the nightmare images from his brain. “Never knew what it was. Just knew we had to blow it sky high.” He met Rayna’s gaze, fully present now and remembering more than just a bad dream. “And we did. Shef and Kwai and I. We set the charge, and we heard the blast. We brought the whole mulaak mountain down on that thing!”
Like Kwai, Del thought they had destroyed the planet-killer. That explained why they had never tried to find it again, Gabriel thought. But that one piece of crucial information—the location of the labor camp—was still locked in Del’s crumbling mind. If he could just—
But the old man had had enough of interrogation. “Where’s Rafe?” he said. “And where’s my lunch?”
Gabriel stood up and turned to check the time. It was past noon. Rafe should have been back by now.
“Rafe will be home soon,” he said, seeking to reassure the old man. “We’ll get your lunch ready.”
He joined the women in the kitchen as they assembled Del’s tray. “Do you suppose he has these . . . dreams . . . often?”
“I don’t think they’re dreams,” Lana said. “I did some research; they aren’t like the hallucinations that are typical of his dementia, either. He’s reliving something from his past.”
“He remembers a lot more than people give him credit for, then,” Rayna said.
“Possibly,” Gabriel said. “But unless Rafe allows me to do my job, we’ll only have these short glimpses of what he remembers. We’ll never get the full story—or the piece of it we need.”
Rayna started to reply, but was interrupted by a beep from her comm. “Rafe?” She hit the group function so they could all hear.
“Consider this an apology for my asshole behavior. We have a major problem, and I need your help.”
Gabriel watched as a series of emotions crossed Rayna’s face—anger, amusement, resignation. She included all her companions in a shake of her head.
“By all means,” she drawled. “What can Rescue do for you today, Agent Gordon?”
“The locals Zouk recruited to help with Del’s assassination? Well, they figured we might trade Del for somebody valuable. So, they took a friend of Charlie’s first, thinking she might cooperate. Instead, Charlie called the sheriff. Turns out the sheriff works for the gang, and he grabbed her up. Now they have both women, and I just got a phone call. They’re demanding we bring them Del. I know where they are—I followed the sheriff’s car. There are only about ten men here, give or take. Shouldn’t be too much trouble to go in and get my girl back.”
Rayna stared at her comm; Lana and Gabriel stared at Rayna. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Um, let me think. No.” Rafe’s voice held an edge.
“You realize we have rules, right? Keeping a low profile, etcetera? This is fucking Earth, Gordon!”
“Yeah, remind me of that again once we’ve saved the two Earthers inside that freakin’ farmhouse. I’m sending the coordinates. Leave somebody with Del; I’ll need the rest of you, with surveillance nanotech and weaponry. Gordon out.”
Rayna met Gabriel’s gaze. “You know, I’m wondering just when I lost control of this whole fucking mission.”
Charlie stared at the dismal bologna sandwich, the white bread curling up at the corners, and debated whether she was hungry enough to eat it. Her stomach growled, but that could be nerves or—
“Oh, for God’s sake, it ain’t gonna kill ya,” Louise said. “Go ahead and eat the thing. You need to keep your strength up.” Her friend had already gobbled hers down, leaving nothing but crumbs on her paper plate.
What the hell. First rule of survival, right? She bit into the dry sandwich and found a smear of redeeming mustard in the middle. Sooner than she wanted, the food was gone, along with the small plastic cup of water.
No more distractions; no more putting this off. “Louise, I’m so sorry you got mixed up in all this.”
The older woman waved a hand. “Aw, hush. Sonny’s just plumb crazy. How were you to know he would do such a thing?” She paused to catch Charlie’s gaze. “But I am kinda wondering: what do they want with Del?”
Charlie sighed. “I don’t know, Louise. Makes no sense to me.” She was tempted—oh, so tempted—to tell Louise everything, but she held her tongue. Even open-minded-child-of-the-Sixties-Louise might draw the line at assassins in the night and bodies in shallow graves. “Rafe says his father made enemies when he was undercover in the RCMP in Canada, but why bother killing the old man now?”
“RCMP? You mean the Mounties?” Louise’s voice went up an octave.
“Yeah, I know. Sounds like a joke.”
“Well, if it’s a joke, we’re the punchline,” Louise said. “Shouldn’t we be tied to a railroad track somewhere?”
“Ha. Funny.” She stood and walked the confines of the stone basement. “I don’t suppose there’s any way out of here?” Beyond the small cleared area they occupied, the place was full of musty boxes and furniture covered with canvas dropcloths.
“Nope. No windows. No vents. There’s a door to the outside, but one of Doc’s boys is standing right in front of it.” Louise catalogued their woes with a steady voice. “I took the tour earlier. One good thing—they mostly leave you alone down here. It’s not like I’ve had to put up with any bullshit.”
That hadn’t occurred to her. “Oh, uh, good.” She looked at Louise, who met her gaze straight on. She opened her mouth to speak, but her friend raised a palm.
“Don’t. This wasn’t your fault, and we’re gonna get out of here. Somehow. Your fella will figure something out, don’t worry.”
She nodded. Rafe wouldn’t leave them here alone. And he had his friends, who had come ready to play. She’d just have to believe they would think of something.
Security was lax at Doc Rainey’s farmhouse, considering two women were being held for ransom inside, Rafe thought. He forced himself to focus on the details of that security to avoid any thought of what Charlie might be enduring inside the old place. Acknowledging his fear for her might be the distraction that would doom his mission to failure.
The nanobots on the ground and the sensors from the Shadowhawk in orbit above had reported only four men patrolling the farmhouse outside and half a dozen inside, presumably including Sonny Milsap and Doc Rainey himself. Cars and trucks did seem to come and go with annoying regularity, though, including the sheriff’s cruiser, which had left a while ago. From his hiding place at the intersection of two fencerows tangled with dead, brown vines not ten meters from the house, Rafe still couldn’t tell whether the other vehicles held more of Rainey’s men, or customers for his drugs.
Under other circumstances Rafe might have thought his chosen spot was uncomfortably close to the patrolling guards. But the four men outside strolled around their territory with arrogant carelessness. Maybe Doc’s arrangement with local law enforcement explained it. The men weren’t used to having anyone to look out for most of the time.
They weren’t aware they w
ere about to face a small, very determined army.
It had taken a couple of hours to get that army into place, time he’d begged for with a clenched fist around the phone during his call with Sonny. He’d blamed the Old Man’s rigid schedule, the difficulties of moving him. The little punk hadn’t liked it, but he’d finally agreed to the exchange at 1300 hours. It was 1250 now.
Of course, all the time Rafe had been talking he’d been following the sheriff’s cruiser to the Rainey farm. He’d passed the farmhouse and hidden the car around the next bend out of sight. Then he’d worked his way down the fencerow to his spot in the corner, waiting for the plan he’d worked out with the others to unfold.
And all the while he had only one thought: Hang on, baby. I’m coming.
Rayna was positioned with a laze rifle on a low ridge across the ridge, covering the house and yard. Nanobots transmitted the EM signatures of each of the guards, both inside and out, to a tiny pad strapped to her arm. Once Gabriel drove up the driveway and made his move, Rayna would take out as many of the guards as she could. But to hear Ray tell it, she wouldn’t have anything to do. The Thrane would take care of the guards, and he and Rafe could waltz right in.
To say Rafe was skeptical would be an understatement. He was fully prepared to jump in and save the Thrane’s ass, if that’s what it took to get this job done. As long as the ptark didn’t start talking to him in his head or some shit.
Then he saw Rescue’s rental vehicle turn into the driveway. The two guards in the front yard snapped to alert. They hustled to the driver’s side, snatching their guns out of shoulder holsters as Gabriel emerged with his hands up. The Thrane said something—Rafe couldn’t hear what it was—then grabbed each man by the shoulder. And that was it. The goons crumpled to the ground and lay as if Gabriel had removed every bone in their bodies.
Rafe pushed up from the ground and launched himself over the fence. Exposed, he could do nothing to help Gabriel as the two other outside guards skidded around opposite sides of the house, guns raised. Gabriel whirled and raised a hand, but the two men dropped, one after the other, as thin blue lines of laze fire streamed from the ridge across the road. Gabriel grinned and waved to Rayna in thanks.
Not Fade Away Page 24
