Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (37 page)

"I'm here."

"See the two tall trees south of you?" he asked through the mic. At her affirmative he gave her instruction on how to get to the plane.

"Hook the dogs to it—it's on skis—then drag it all the way to the other end of the runway and turn it back the way you came. Hopefully this snow will keep up long enough to cover the tarp. You'll be able to hide it in plain sight. Can you do that?"

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"Ah—Of c-course," Lily assured him, teeth chattering. "I'm presuming you know it'll f-fly, and it has gas and all that good s-stuff?"

"Yeah. This puppy is old, but well maintained. It'll fly. Not until we get a break in the weather, but it's sound. Load the dogs in it when you have it situated. It'll give you better protection from the elements. I'll meet you there when I'm done."

As casually as if he were calling from work to see if she needed a quart of milk on his way home, Lily thought. She eyeballed the two trees up ahead, reluctant to leave the dubious protection of the trees under which she'd stopped to wait for him to reconnoiter the installation.

"I'll take care of it," she told him, striving to sound calm and competent. "Go do your thing. We'll be fine.

Hike
," she told the dogs quietly, and they moved forward. The headset went silent.

She'd go and find the de Havilland, she and the kids would drag it wherever the hell Derek wanted it, and then they'd climb aboard and wait for him.

But there was no way, no way in hell, she was flying
anywhere
.

Derek had to block Lily out of his mind. He needed full concentration on the job at hand. He'd practically fallen over the plane, and that was only because the Quonset hut was large enough to slam into. It had taken a little more time to find the cement building he was looking for. And then only because he had precise coordinates.

The snow reflected a little light, and his night-vision goggles provided enough definition to see shapes.

Pretty much everything looked like a snow hill.

All that was visible was a wide door, cracked open a few inches; the rest of the small, shedlike structure had been buried in wind-driven snow.

He walked the circumference, found two snowmobiles backing the building, both half covered with snow, but clearly there'd been no attempt to hide them. Not the personnel manning the station. They'd used the de Havilland.

Each vehicle could potentially carry six men. But there was no sign of anyone. No visual. No sound.

"Am I allowed to talk?" Lily whispered in his ear.

"Go," he told her barely above a whisper as he pulled the distributor wires from each vehicle and tucked them into his pockets.

"I found the plane. I'm hooking it up to the gang line now."

"Be careful," Derek told her, scanning the area for footprints or anything else indicating how many men had entered the building.

"You, too. I—Just be extra careful, okay?"

"Make sure the tarp's covering the entire plane when you get it situated, get in and lock the doors," he
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told her softly, blocking out the tremor of fear he heard in her voice. He doubted anyone who didn't know Lily well would've picked up that she was scared out of her mind. "I'll be there before you know it," he told her gently, and then added, "Radio silence unless you have an emergency."

He clicked off before she replied. Lily may be afraid, but she'd do what he asked of her, and she wouldn't take any foolish chances. She was aware of how volatile the situation was. Still, when he'd packed for this last leg of their trip he'd transferred most of his weapons and ammo to her. An arsenal.

Keeping several weapons for his own use, he'd given her the Walther and his rifle, both fully loaded, and ammunition to spare for each. She was an excellent shot. And he knew she wouldn't hesitate to shoot should the need arise.

He circled back to the front of the building. It was hard to tell how long the door had stood open, but a knee-high pile of snow indicated some time had passed since anyone had stepped inside.

Loaded for bear, weapons ready, Derek slipped sideways through the opening and paused to let his eye adjust to the deeper darkness inside. Usually he had superior night vision, but one eye, no matter how good, was no match for pitch black even with the nvg's.

The anteroom he was in measured ten by fifteen. Cement block. No windows. Door at his back. On his right a narrow elevator without a door. On his left, steep cement stairs leading down.

He took a moment to jam the elevator simply by stuffing his heavy fur hat into the crack between the cement floor and the floor of the elevator. It wouldn't be going anywhere. And in the dark, the hat would be damn near impossible to see—unless one was specifically looking for it. As added insurance, he used the KaBar to wedge the fur good and tight into the chink.

He removed his coat and tossed it behind the door. Next he carried cupped handfuls of snow across the room to the top of the stairs; after several trips, he crouched to spread the soft mounds into a thin frosting across the width of the landing and the top two steps. Then he poured water from his flask until the snow melted and started setting up nicely.

He paused to listen. There was a faint sound from far below, echoing like a memory up the stairwell.

Derek's heart leaped in his chest with anticipation and his concentration focused tightly. Razor sharp. All his senses went to high red alert.

Keeping close to the left-hand wall, his blind side, Derek stepped over the rapidly forming ice on the floor and started running lightly, soundlessly, down the stairs.

Eventually the black receded; he pushed up the goggles as the golden glow of lights from below became brighter and brighter. He paused on the landing five stories below ground level. One level above the action on the main floor.

The steady, low-grade hum of electronics.

Booted feet scuffing on bare cement.

Voices.

And the sharp, fetid stink of death.

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Dragging a plane in the dark—as it probably would in broad daylight as well—proved to be quite an adventure. Fortunately, the snow gave off a faint gleam, which was the only way Lily could see where she and the team were going. Derek had told her not to use her flashlight.

This spy business was proving very interesting. Nerve-racking, but interesting. The heavy plane slid with ease on its skis, and the team pulled it along as if it weighed no more than a loaded sled.

The runway—if the narrow clearing between the trees was the runway—wasn't long. It only took about twenty minutes to get the plane where Derek wanted it. Having worked up a comfortable sweat helping the dogs, Lily went to the leads, her Arrow and Derek's Max, and coaxed them to make a wide circle to turn the plane back the way they'd come. Their tracks had already been obliterated by the gently falling snow and the soft gusts of wind, sweeping the clearing as effectively as a broom. While there was no way on God's green earth Lily was going to go up in the plane, it was going to make a decent shelter from the bitter cold.

"Derek's spy pals will be here soon," she whispered to the dogs as she walked them into the wide turn necessary at the end of the runway. "What's the bet they're on their way as we speak? In nice fast snowmobiles. What, Rio? You'd prefer a
truck
with a
heater
? Good thinking. Me, too."

With the plane turned, Lily focused on getting inside. No easy feat. First the tarp had to be pulled aside; already half covered with snow, it was heavy and unwieldy. Using the sled as a step, she opened the door and shone her flashlight inside, her cupped hand directing the beam and subduing the light.

It would be a tight fit. There were eighteen dogs, plus herself and, in a while, Derek. There was room for two up front, and six passenger seats in back. God. Just
looking
at those bucket seats in the close confines of the cabin made her mouth go bone dry and her heart pound erratically. She hadn't been anywhere near a plane in years. Not since she was a child, in fact.

Think of it as a doghouse, Lily told herself firmly. Just a shelter. Nothing else.

"You kids are going to have to double up. So behave." Fortunately the dogs, once liberated from the line, were able to jump inside the plane unaided, except for Dingbat. Lily picked up all sixty pounds of wet, shaking fur and lugged him to the plane, then heaved him inside. "There you go, big boy. Find a nice spot for a nap."

She grabbed the essentials from the sled, then, coffeepot in hand, clambered into the doorway, tugged down the tarp and closed the door.

God. How could her nose bypass wet dog and only smell
plane
? Leather, dust, jet fuel—blood.

No. No.
No
. "Ow!" Lily pinched the back of her hand to make herself snap out of the impending panic attack, then sat there listening to her own harsh breathing echo in her ears in time with her manic heartbeat.

Doghouse. Shelter. On the ground.

It was dark as a tomb without her flashlight. She shone the narrow beam around the interior to check the dogs. They didn't care what was going on around them. They were in shelter and a lucky few lay on padded seats. Noses tucked under their tails, they were asleep in minutes.

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Dingbat curled up on the pilot's seat with his head on his paws and huffed. Lily leaned over to rub his soft ears. "It's okay, boy. Everything is okay. Close your eyes now and take a little nap. Nothing's going to happen to Derek. He'll be here soon, and then we'll all go home, safe and sound. Good boy, that's it, close your eyes."

Clicking off the flashlight, Lily closed her own eyes on a little prayer. "Please, God. It's bad to lie to animals. Back me up here. Keep Derek safe. Amen."

The state-of-the-art computers on the various work centers were dark, the vast underground room dimly lit with what was clearly emergency lighting. Derek counted heads.

Five men standing. Bad guys?

Only five? His first thought flew to Lily.

Of course, it was
possible
only five people had come to do whatever they'd come to do. But what if the other men were up there?

He resisted the overwhelming urge to hear Lily's voice, but clicked into her channel, just to hear her steady breathing.

Sleeping.

Safe.

He clicked off, scanning the room, this time counting the dead Marines slumped over their workstations.

Six head shots.

Bad guys, five. Good guy, one.

Not bad odds, Derek thought, flattening himself against the wall in the stairwell and taking aim.

Pop.

Head shot. Make that four bad guys, he thought with satisfaction as the man closest to him dropped, soundlessly, like a shattered watermelon. He shot the next man right between his startled eyes as he turned to see what the
thump
was. He shot the next in the throat before he could draw his weapon.

Two to go.

Derek hit the floor running. A moving target, with the element of surprise on his side, he wasn't wasting time. Two bad guys, or two hundred. Whatever they were doing here had to be stopped.

He was it.

"
Gospadi! Amyerikányets
!" Shots went wild as each man ducked behind a workstation for protection.

"Hell, yeah, assholes," Derek yelled back in Russian. "Pray. This American's here to stop your sorry
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asses!"

Where the hell was the bomb?

"Ëb tvoju mat'!"

Ignoring the curses, Derek got off another shot, which shattered a monitor in a spray of glass and plastic near one guy's head. Bleeding, the man screamed and ducked again.

Out of the corner of his right eye, Derek observed the first guy moving closer.
Good, stay on that side
of me, asshole
. He got off a shot, released the magazine and slammed in another clip, moving forward in a crouch.

The second guy, small and agile, moved with the speed and stealth of a cat. A woman? Moved in around his left side. He lost sight of her for a moment as he concentrated on the man, closer to him. A loud
pop
as a bullet winged him on his blind side, causing Derek to stagger as the bullet went through his right bicep.
Jesus
. His arm immediately went numb. He switched the Baer to his left hand, and despite the blood on the grip, got off a volley of fast shots.
Pop. Pop. Pop
.

The woman spun with the velocity, then dropped to the floor out of sight. Derek edged his way toward her in a crouch, leaned over and felt under her jaw for a pulse. There wasn't one.

Sorry about that, ma'am
. Four down. One to go.

They circled each other like tigers in a small cage.

"
Khuem grushi okolatachivat', khuilo
?" Derek taunted, closing the gap.

The last remaining man, not happy with being told he was a lazy son of a bitch, came up from his hiding place with a vengeance.

Derek fired off a series of rounds in rapid fire. The man, looking surprised, fell to his knees, then crumpled, slow-mo, on his face and lay still.

Derek reloaded, then went to inspect the damage. He quickly felt for pulses, then looked around for the detonation device.

There.

Christ. The countdown had started.

22:31:56

Pulling the webbed belt off a dead Marine lying staring at the ceiling, he wrapped the fabric about his upper arm to staunch the blood flow. The pain made nausea rise to the back of his throat. He'd felt worse, and blocked it out. He managed a clumsy tie, then yanked it tight with his other hand and his teeth. Pain bolted through his arm directly into his brain. He ground his teeth together until it ebbed.