Page 90 of Heart of Danger
“Just thanking the boss lady, boss.” Nick concentrated on his screen. The image was fuzzy, with sections of static. “We’re good to…go!”
They ran around the corner, down the hallway to the cart. It was used to transport equipment but it could transport people, too. They lay the men down on the back, stacked like firewood. Mac pulled out a small ball of material, opened it up, pulled it fast over the Colonel and his teammates. A refractive blanket. It wasn’t perfect but it should shield them from IR imaging.
“Jon, take the wheel, Nick face the rear,” Mac ordered and they took up a defensive perimeter. Nick and Mac were back to back. Mac faced front, behind Jon and Catherine.
Jon started the cart up and they rolled down the corridor.
The alarm changed in pitch again, much higher and more strident. “Second evacuation signal,” Catherine said.
That was good news. More confusion, legitimate people running around. Security guards would hesitate before firing. Mac and his men wouldn’t. After seeing the Colonel and the rest of his teammates, anyone in this facility was fair game and would be shot on sight.
Another intersection. Catherine leaned to Jon and murmured something. Jon never slowed but turned to the left. In the distance was a long ramp, at the top a set of huge metal double doors was opening.
“Jon!” Mac called. “Can you make this piece of shit go faster?”
“Only one way to find out,” Jon said grimly, increasing the speed fractionally. As the cart made the transition from the horizontal corridor to the beginning of the ramp, the doors started to open. They saw the night sky, velvety smooth.
“Night vision men,” Mac said, as he switched his on. The enemy would have night vision too. Didn’t matter. Mac felt his spirits rise as they rode up and out into the night. Trapped in a building they weren’t familiar with he’d felt cornered, but now they were on equal ground and however many guards Millon employed and were able to deploy, they were no match for him and his men.
They could face down a hundred. And with Catherine to defend? A fucking thousand.
“Nick,” he said quietly. Nick rolled off and began running. Mac turned sideways, covering a 180° field of fire, then turned back. Jon was driving with one hand, weapon in the other.
“Mac?” Catherine turned her face up to his. He didn’t dare look straight at her but he had good peripheral vision and could see her beautiful pale face, looking worried. “Don’t worry, honey. Nick’s going to give us a diversion on the other side of the building. He’ll catch up.”
“Okay.” Her face cleared and she turned back to face the front.
She trusted him. She trusted them.
He wasn’t going to let her down.
Lights were on all over the facility, bright spotlights lighting parts of the grounds like day, leaving cones of darkness. The lights had been designed by architects, however, for beauty and not for security. If Mac had designed the lighting system he would have made sure the entire place was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree in an emergency.
He and Jon were ready, but Catherine flinched at the sound of the huge explosion. They couldn’t see the fire and destruction, they only saw the smoke billowing over the rooftops but from the sound and size of the cloud, Nick had done a good job.
Jon was driving them at the cart’s maximum power. Not fast but faster than they could have run weighed down with the deadweight of the wounded men. They powered over a hump, landing with a thud. The Colonel stirred, eyes flickering open then closing.
The night vision showed everything a flat green field but Mac knew the distances, knew the microwave barrier was 100 meters out. He could see Nick running flat out fifty meters to their right, heading straight for the microwave barrier.
Men were running in the distance, but running toward the explosion, paying them no attention. Somewhere, a guard was seeing them in his IR field, but so far the intel hadn’t filtered down.
Mac tapped his earpiece. “Grenade,” he said. “Catherine, cover your head.” She bent forward, arms over her head.
“Yeah.” Nick didn’t sound winded. They all kept up with conditioning in exile. If anything, they’d stepped up their daily training. Having the entire US government and military hunting you kept you on your toes. “Now.”
Nick’s arm came up and out, lobbing a grenade precisely where the cart was headed. It detonated on impact, taking out six of the vases, interrupting the transmission of microwave beams.
Clods of dirt rose up and fell onto the cart, together with shards of the hard ceramic. It all bounced off their suits harmlessly.
Jon drove straight through the center of what had once been a deadly microwave fence, the cart bouncing hard off the uneven terrain. Part of the camouflage blanket came loose, lifted up, blew away.
Shit! They were visible now to guards with scans.
A shout, and five men veered off and started running toward them.
“Busted!” Jon shouted, looking in the rearview mirror to the side of the open-topped cart. “Hang on tight!”
He began a series of evasive maneuvers as more clods of earth sprang up from the bullets. It was a numbers game, now. Number of minutes times number of shooters. Nick was behind them, now pacing them…he hopped aboard, walking over the sick men, to his sentry position. In a second, he had his rifle to his shoulder and they were back to back now, covering 360°.
