Page 78 of Heart of Danger
Luckily, she was a fast study and could retain big chunks of technical data. The combat suits were made of nanotube carbon technology. The material tightened under ballistic pressure and was much more resistant than the old fashioned, heavy Kevlar protection some police officers still wore in poor cities.
What she was wearing also repelled infrared and instantly took on background coloring, making them almost invisible all along the visible spectrum.
“I remember the drills,” she answered softly. He looked at her intently for a long minute in the dimness of the helicopter cabin, then nodded and turned away.
She knew he’d just paid her a huge compliment. She knew how protective he was. When he held her hand she could feel his terror for her, feel how badly fear sat on him and knew that it was exclusively fear for her, not for himself.
But right now, he trusted in the information he and Nick and Jon had given her and her ability to process that information. She understood what a struggle it was for him and the demons he’d had to overcome to trust her to keep safe.
Jon was piloting a helicopter the likes of which she had never seen. It was tiny. They sat tightly squeezed together. The men’s gear and weaponry were loaded into two metal bladders affixed to the sides which Jon said were bulletproof.
The helicopter was a stealth one, invisible to radar, with a heat signature so dissipated it took highly sensitive instruments to track it or even show up on IR scans. Mac was counting on the fact that no one scanned the sky and the fact that they were off every flight path.
The helicopter was also completely silent. That was another thing that astonished her. Even inside, there was barely a sound—not louder than wind rustling in the trees. They were communicating via their inbuilt helmet comms because the men didn’t want to have to stop to put them on and test them when they landed.
And when they landed, Jon had assured her that they would have to land right on top of a person for them to hear the ‘helo’, as the men called it. And they weren’t going to do that because the helo boasted every single imaging device known to man and some that were unknown even to her. Jon was getting readouts about every single data pertinent to the mission, complete pictures of the terrain they were flying over, a complete picture of the empty sky around them, info so complete all that was missing was the price of pizza in the fast food franchises they flew over.
The bird was practically flying itself, though Jon told her he could grab control back in a micro second. She believed him. On a mission, he was no longer Cool Guy, laid back and detached. He was all fervent focus, like Mac and Nick.
The men were bent over a tablet showing a bird’s eye view of the Millon compound, sent from a drone that had preceded them. They had watched as the sentries changed over at 2 am, as per protocol.
It was 2:30 am and they were scheduled to land just outside the furthermost security perimeter in fifteen minutes.
The men were discussing tactics in a low murmur inside her helmet, their deep calm voices sounding like a river rushing by…
She started as a large gloved hand shook her shoulder. “We’re there, honey,” Mac said in her ear. “ETA 60 seconds. You ready?”
Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. She willed her heart rate down, thankful for all the biofeedback exercises she’d taken in grad school, took a sip of water from a reservoir that was secreted somewhere on her back and nodded.
“Yes,” she said, glad her voice sounded calm. “I am.”
She saw his eyes narrow at her. “Remember the drill. You stay?—”
“Inside the triangle you and Nick and Jon make at all times. I obey all hand signs—halt, forward and down—and I am to keep a low profile.” She narrowed her eyes back at him. “I know the drill.”
“Landing,” Jon’s voice sounded in their ears and the little helicopter simply drifted down and landed with barely a bump.
“Go go go,” Mac said and the men simply ghosted out, making no noise whatsoever. Catherine tried to emulate them but wasn’t as graceful as they were. Her boot brushed the helo skid with a little clang. She winced but they weren’t paying attention as they unloaded their gear in total silence from the external bladders.
“Gear check,” Mac said quietly, and they ran down the frighteningly long list of things they carried. At the end they jumped up and down silently, checking to see if anything jingled as they moved, but nothing did.
Mac gave the forward hand sign and they moved out, Catherine in the middle of a triangle of three very large and very brave men whose lives she held in her uncertain hands.
As they moved forward silently into the night, through a hole in the outer perimeter of security Mac had discovered, she sent her mind out tentatively, little tendrils of thought. Coming in on the helo, she thought she could detect faint echoes from Nine—Lucius Ward. It was a new development, a talent she had never had before and she had no idea if she could trust it.
It might even have been her intense desire to save the man blinding her into thinking she was receiving signals. If so, they were in deepest shit. It was terrible to think she might be leading Mac, Nick and Jon into danger on the false premise that she could somehow communicate with Ward when actually what she was communicating with was her own mind, leading them straight into the heart of danger.
What if Ward was already dead?
When the men halted at Mac’s raised fist, she stopped and closed her eyes, wiped her mind of all sense of self and sent herself out, as if dissolving into mist.
Where are you?
It came from her, though she had no memory of formulating the question. It was out there on its own.
Then the thought formed—we’re coming for you. Your men are coming for you. Where are you?
A faint…what? Sense of something. A burst, like fireworks behind a hill.
