by Terry Mixon
One of the younger men spoke up. “Why the switch? Why not really ship the fuel back to Mexico when it was finished?”
Jess had asked that very question when she’d found out what they were doing. “The station everyone expected doesn’t need this kind of fuel. If they’d shipped it back then, there was a significantly higher chance of someone seeing something they shouldn’t.
“The cover story for this plant is that it was creating heavy water for research. Enough was on hand to verify the contents shipped to the test site in Italy. The first few barrels actually held heavy water. The rest came from a tap. No one ever checked past what they saw.”
Cradock grunted. “Clever. Only the government here fell and this became a lawless state. Now a warlord runs things. He looked the facility over and decided that he didn’t need something like that. Besides, a little common sense would tell someone that heavy water is pretty useless by itself.”
“Which explains the militants taking over,” Sandra said. “Common sense isn’t their strong suit. Do we have any idea how many hostiles we’re talking about?”
“We sent a drone over the area an hour ago. IR shows a good number of people scattered throughout the buildings. Including the target.”
“What’s the plan?”
Cradock leaned over the map. “We have helicopters inbound to pick us up. The militants have sentries out, but our scouts will take them down as soon as we’re on approach. We’ll drop in right on top of them. A few rockets into each of the other buildings will take out the majority of the hostiles.
“Our main team clears the barracks while the rest of the buildings burn. After they call the all clear, Miss Cook comes in to open the vault. We verify the fuel is present and she evacuates while we start loading the bins into cargo helicopters. Total mission time should be less than half an hour.”
Sandra nodded. “And we get her out of country before anyone starts getting nervous. I’m thinking of the warlord.”
“We’ve got a private jet fueled and ready to go in another hangar. Your group will return straight here and head to France.”
The rest of the mission planning went quickly. The helicopters arrived and the armed strike teams were on their way. The helicopter Jess rode in with Sandra’s group headed in the same direction, but more slowly.
Her chopper was an older cargo model fitted with door guns. Jess had flown similar craft a number of times. Earning her pilot’s license was a proud moment for her and flying was fun, as well as being useful in getting equipment to remote areas.
The helicopter crested a low hill and she saw the fuel facility burning. They landed without any fanfare and the mercenaries hustled her into the barracks.
The whole area smelled of gunpowder, fire, and death. A number of bodies lay scattered about. They all seemed to be men. Based on the number of weapons laying around, they’d fought back. Armed security people had a number of women and children crowded into a corner of the barracks. They were crying and screaming, of course.
Jess had limited sympathy for them. She’d seen plenty of video where men just like their husbands and fathers had done inhuman things. These people were here because they’d thought they could build a weapon. That made them fair game.
The bathroom was foul. She gagged from the stench, but forced herself to the showers. Someone had ripped the tile down in one area, probably so they could sell the pipes.
She pointed to a blank cinder block wall. “This has to come down. There’s a lift behind it.”
They pulled back and a few charges shattered the wall. The lift behind it was operational and took a group of them down to the lower level. A massive vault just outside the lift door yielded to her palm print.
Bins filled the storeroom. Jess opened one and examined the fuel pellets. They were sealed and looked good.
“All of these need to go. Without the factory, we won’t be making any more fuel in the foreseeable future.”
“Is that it?” Sandra asked. “Then let’s get the hell out of here. The clock is ticking.”
The trip back out of the building to the helicopter went much more quickly. As did the flight. Gunners kept a close lookout for other aircraft as they flew toward their ride out.
They landed outside another hangar. Sandra’s team dismounted and formed up around her. They made it halfway to the large doors before a number of trucks burst onto the airfield and raced toward them at high speed.
Chapter Nineteen
Harry and his team watched the security patrols for half an hour before they slipped in. They didn’t linger. Their caution proved wise when the enemy patrol they were using as cover circled back around. Someone had seen something.
The guards searched for a bit and then went on their way, likely convinced they’d been the victim of a false reading. Rex slipped away as soon as they were clear.
Harry’s team made good time to the executive neighborhood where Reynolds lived. They stayed out of sight as much as possible, but they had to skulk across several roads along the way.
The house that they’d identified wasn’t as extravagant as the rest in the area, but it had privacy in abundance. Set back into a forested area, it afforded the occupant a lot of isolation.
They scouted the trees, convinced they’d find both live guards and automated alarms. They found all that and more. It seemed the paranoid bastard was so worried about people slipping up on him that he’d planted antipersonnel mines.
If someone actually blew themselves up, Harry could only imagine how his mother would attempt to spin the situation to the police. Gas leak? Maybe. In any case, it would take a lot of money to hush the authorities up. He’d wager she had no idea what her security chief was doing to make himself feel safe at night.
It took them significantly longer to scout the way in than he’d planned for. The sun was up by the time they’d evaded the IR tripwires and motion sensors leading up to the grove where the house sat.
Two men patrolled the yard. He’d be taking a chance when running for the house, but Harry liked the second floor balcony as an entry point. It would hide them from casual view while they broke in and bypassed the alarm.
The man of the hour left as they were discussing how to best evade the yard patrol. They used the distraction of him walking out to an SUV to make it to the house. By the time Reynolds drove away, they were on the patio and scaling the exterior of the house.
The large balcony had a hot tub and a nice BBQ grill. It also had enough room for them to crouch down while the patrol walked below.
Jeremy worked the alarm slowly. This wasn’t the time to take chances. Only once he was certain that he’d disabled the sensors did they pick the lock and open the door leading into the man’s bedroom. There were no signs of a woman’s presence. Or a second man, for that matter.
That made sense. If you were torturing people in your basement, you didn’t want comments from the peanut gallery.
Jeremy pried the security keypad open carefully. “This is homegrown. It may take me a few minutes to hack into it.”
“But you can, right?” Harry asked.
“Probably. Especially with access to the panel. Here we go. A computer port. That’s helpful.”
The slender man pulled a tablet out of his pack and ran a cable to the jack. “I’m running some codes to get past the login. Unless he’s fiendishly clever, it shouldn’t take more than sixty seconds.”
It took three times that long.
“Got it. I’ve isolated the house from sending status changes. We can shut everything down and it’ll look like it’s still on to everyone else.”
“Do it.”
A few moments later, Jeremy unplugged his tablet. “We’re good. I have it linked to my gear wirelessly. If I need to make any other changes, I can do it on the fly.”
They spread out and searched the top floor. Harry spent a few minutes in the man’s home office while the team cleared everything else. A set of monitors showed the yard and several spots
in the forest. Reynolds had helpfully labeled the mine controls. The switch was in the off position.
Harry found a safe behind a painting, but he didn’t have time to spend cracking it. He wouldn’t count Jeremy out on that point, but that wasn’t their mission. Unless, of course, the data they needed was inside it. Only the client could tell them if it was still in play.
He called Jeremy in to start copying files off the man’s computer. Why waste the opportunity?
The security wizard ignored the ports and opened the machine. “It’ll be faster if I plug right into the drive. While it’s working, I’ll plant a chip on the board. Even if he swaps out the drives later, I might be able to access it remotely.”
“Come down when you’ve got it going. We can clear the first floor while you work. Then we head for the basement.”
It turned out that the torture room wasn’t in the basement. In the place where a normal house had a garage, Reynolds had a prison. The central portion was, as expected, a table with lots of straps and racks of tools one might see during the Middle Ages.
There were two narrow cells with excellent views of all the action. Both had occupants.
Harry didn’t recognize the woman in the first cell. She wasn’t in shape to tell him anything, either. Reynolds had strangled her.
Her sightless eyes stared at the ceiling from a face etched with terror and hopelessness. A zip tie bit into her neck and the torn skin around it told him that she’d been very much aware when Reynolds killed her. Based on the smell and bloating, she’d been gone for over a day.
Perhaps her body was a message to Vincent Cruz. He could hardly miss her from his cell.
The IT specialist looked to be in significantly better shape, though he wasn’t unscathed. The bastard had pulled out some of the man’s fingernails, broken a few fingers, and beaten him.
Cruz stared at them hopelessly. He probably thought they were there to take him out and do more nasty things to him.
“Mister Cruz,” Harry said, “we’re here to get you out. Where are the keys to the cell?”
The other man blinked. “What?”
“If you want to leave, now is the time to tell me how to open the door.”
That got the man’s attention. He stood abruptly. “Thank God. The keys are on a hook under the table.”
It only took Harry a moment to find them and open the cell. “Time is limited. Did you manage to hide the data that Mister Rogers paid you to get?”
Cruz suddenly shrank back. “How do I know this isn’t a trick? You just want me to tell you where it is and you’ll kill me!”
That was something they’d planned for. “You have a code word from our employer. Infinity. We’re for real.”
The other man sagged. “Thank God,” he repeated. “I didn’t tell them where the drive is. I knew they’d kill me as soon as I did. It’s safe.”
“Is it on the BenCorp campus? We don’t exactly have an all access pass.”
“It’s in the cafeteria computer. I hacked it and then ‘fixed it’ as a favor to the guy who runs the place. I didn’t connect the drive, so you have to go after it. I didn’t want them to be able to sniff it out over the network.”
That would make things more difficult. The cafeteria wasn’t in the headquarters building, but it was right next door to it. Somehow, they needed to sneak into the heart of enemy territory and retrieve it without raising the alarm.
His radio came to life. “Liberty Six, Hacker. We have a vehicle on the road. I think Reynolds is on his way back. He’s in a hurry. We might have triggered something.”
* * * * *
Kathleen Bennett had fumed about the situation all night. Her people had come in early and worked hard on double-checking what they knew about the space hotel project.
They didn’t have any spies working on it, though she’d had a man there early on. He’d seen nothing out of the ordinary and she’d found another area of her ex-husband’s business empire where he could do her more good. Or so she’d thought.
Someone had arranged for a telescope to give the orbiting project another look. She saw nothing that could hide a weapons platform. It had been another wild goose chase.
Just before dawn, she’d sent everyone home to clean up and to come back fresh after breaking their fast. They were already hard at work on what she considered plan B.
This time she wouldn’t let Nathan anywhere near it. This project required a fine hand and lightning execution. Donald Reynolds would head up the operation. He wouldn’t fail her.
She smiled. Her ex-husband would be screaming in frustration before the day was out. He only thought he knew what pain was. He’d learn his error the hard way.
* * * * *
Sandra took one look at the speeding vehicles and pushed Jess back toward the helicopter. “Move! It’s an ambush!”
Someone in the back of one of the trucks opened fire on the helicopter with a large machine gun. Bullets smashed into the fuselage and the pilot slumped over. The burst also cut down the co-pilot, who’d gotten out to check something. One of the door gunners returned fire and the hostile truck rolled, throwing a man high into the air. He bounced when he hit the ground and lay still.
Jess reversed course and opened the copilot’s door. “Get in!”
“You can fly?” Sandra shouted as she piled into the back with her team and the downed co-pilot.
“Well enough to get the hell out of here!”
As soon as the team was inside the aircraft, Jess opened the throttle and pulled up on the collective. The rotors bit into the air and the helicopter rose, far too slowly for her taste. As soon as she could, she pushed the cyclic forward and began building speed away from their attackers.
The sound of bullets slamming into the fuselage made her wince. She increased their speed even further and put a hangar between them and the trucks.
“Turn left,” Sandra shouted. “I need to lay down some covering fire.”
Jess pushed her left pedal in, skewing the helicopter somewhat to the left as it flew. As the co-pilot sat on the left side of the aircraft, she had a good view of Sandra shooting the living crap out of the trucks and the men trying to kill them.
One glance convinced her the pilot was dead. Yet another memory she’d be reliving at night.
The engine still sounded good and a check of the caution and warning lights showed no problems. The burst that had killed the pilot had taken out the radio, though. If that was all they’d lost, they were damned lucky.
The firing stopped as she crossed the airfield fence. She took her hands off the controls long enough to strap in. Sandra handed her one of the headsets from in back. The noise level immediately dropped.
“You’re a woman of many talents,” Sandra said over the intercom. “How did you learn to fly a helicopter?”
“Equipment needs to be moved all the time. It seemed like a handy skill to have in my toolbox. We’re lucky this is an older cargo chopper. I might not have been able to figure out something more modern.”
“You know Mister Scott could fly a helicopter, right? You’re stuck with that call sign now, Scotty.”
“That was Mister Sulu, but fine. There are worse things in life. The radio is toast. We need to warn the rest of the team away from the landing field. It’ll be swarming with nasty people before they get there.”
Sandra leaned in over Jess’ shoulder and stared out the blood-spattered canopy. “Land on that hill over there and I’ll make a call on my sat phone. We can get that poor bastard out of the other seat and into the back, too.”
Jess brought the helicopter down on the hilltop, slowed the engine to idle, and looked around. There was dust behind them, but she judged they’d have some time before their pursuers could catch up. Besides, the hill wasn’t on a road.
Two men opened the pilot’s door and pulled the body out. She rejected the idea of changing seats. Not that it really mattered. Blood covered the entire cockpit. It looked like a scene from a Paul E. Cooley
horror novel.
“Get me a rag to clean the canopy,” she shouted into the back.
One of the mercenaries handed her a white cloth and a canteen. That would have to do.
It worked well enough. By the time Sandra hung up and climbed into the blood-soaked pilot’s seat, Jess could see everything she needed to. “I called Cradock and warned them off. The new plan is to fly out to a container ship in the Med. He’ll text me the GPS coordinates. Do we have enough fuel for that?”
“It depends on where in the Med we’re talking about. Probably. I’ve never landed on a ship before.”
Sandra grinned at her. “Considering the things you’ve done this week, I’ll put my money on you pulling it off with panache. Let’s get the hell out of here before someone else starts shooting at us.”
Chapter Twenty
Harry grabbed Cruz by the arm and hustled him back up the stairs. They’d have to deal with the on-site security and the men in the vehicle. With luck, they could evade them long enough to get off the grounds with the client.
“Speed it up, Jeremy. Take the drive. We’re leaving now.”
He made a snap decision and dug into his pack as he called Rex over the radio. “Scout, Liberty Six. Turns out, we’ll be creating the distraction for you. Can you get into the main cafeteria and steal a drive from the computer? It’ll be the one not connected to anything.”
“Scout here. Copy. What kind of distraction will you be providing?”
“You’ll know it. Liberty Six out.”
Reynold’s vehicle slid to a halt outside, throwing gravel everywhere. He and the driver leapt out with their guns at the ready.
Yep, they must’ve triggered some kind of silent alarm. Time for the diversion.
Harry reached over to the minefield controls and switched them on. “Fire in the hole.” He selected them all and pressed the red button.
Reynolds had a lot more mines out there than Harry had expected. The noise almost rivaled the Mayan pyramid coming down.
