Jade Sky (14 page)

"What about her parents?"

"Katies have no parents."

Matt sighed.

"Is there anything else you can tell me about Conor Flynn?"

"I have no truths you would hear." He turned and headed back toward the other side of the shore.

"The symbol on those crosses, what can you tell me about it?"

"Nothing."

"Why not?"

"Those crosses are the reason I chose this place for our sacred home. They predate us, and the original Barnacle farm, which you passed on the way in, and the earliest records of the settlers. But when I saw them, I knew this place was meant for the Katies and Bens."

"Are all the men here named Ben?"

"Of course."

*   *   *

On his way out of town, Matt pulled over into the parking lot of the Alligator Moon Motel, or that's what he assumed given the crescent-alligator flag and the neon VACANCY sign. The dilapidated, periwinkle-blue, one-story structure had all of three rooms, plus a tiny office. He called 911, reported what Case had told him about "Katie's" murder, left his contact information, and drove back to the airport.

He typed his report on the plane, then put it away to focus on their next operation: killing Dawkins and dismantling his Jade empire to the last brick.

Matt hit the clicker, and the smart board projected an image onto the wall of conference room B of the Nashville Federal Building. Centered between Rwanda and the Congo, a large island sat in the middle of a massive lake.

"What are we looking at, sir?" Garrett asked.

"That'd be central Africa, corporal," Akash said with a grin.

Garrett flipped him the bird, and Matt stifled a sigh.

"That," Matt said, "is Idjwi Island in Lake Kivu, on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Jungle not that long ago, now it's three hundred and forty square kilometers of clear-cut subsistence farms for a quarter-million half-starved refugees. Except for this." He hit the button and the picture changed to a construction site on the shore, where dozens of bulldozers and cranes cleared land and erected buildings. "Two years ago the DRC broke ground on a series of two-megawatt power plants to compete with the Rwandan operation on the eastern shore." The next slide showed a series of smoke stacks jutting into the sky. "The first three facilities went online a few months ago, and they anticipate at least six more over the next decade."

Akash raised a hand, and Matt nodded to him. "Go ahead."

"Why build power plants in a warzone? That doesn't make any sense."

"It does," Matt said. "First, it ain't much of a warzone anymore, and Idjwi is in firm control of the Congolese army. Second, Lake Kivu is a so-called 'explosive lake.' It's got enormous amounts of dissolved methane a hundred meters down. They pump it up from the bottom, it bubbles out of the water in the lower pressure, and they burn it. They use the heat to boil the water, spin some turbines with it, and there you go. The water goes back into the lake, they get electricity for next to free, and it makes the lake less likely to explode again. It's a win-win for everyone."

Matt let the conversation wander to the hows and whys of exploding lakes and the unwise decision to live on or near one before clicking to the next slide: the front of the facility, a large brick edifice complete with a marquee emblazoned "Idjwi Power Inc." in bold, six-foot letters. "IPI is a privately-held firm incorporated in DRC that seems to have greased all the right palms. We're not sure who's the owner or owners, but it sprang out of nowhere three years ago and now owns half the Idjwi coastline. Their contractors are French, Swiss, and Japanese, all reliable construction firms and all on the up-and-up. IPI have gone way out of its way to ease the concerns of environmentalists and have created a state-of-the-art lab to monitor and minimize the impact of their operation on the ecosystem."

A series of slides showed satellite photos of forklifts offloading pallets from ferries and bringing them into a large octagonal building. "One of the primary concerns is algal blooms from the returned water, and as such they've purchased billions of dollars of algal vats, centrifuges, dehydrators, glassware . . . ." He let the list sink in. A state-of-the-art biochemistry lab that size could produce a lot of Jade.

"So," Garrett said. "Dawkins?"

Matt nodded. "According to Onofre Garza, it's the seat of his global operations. The power plant's a perfect cover. The political instability means he can carve out a place and stock it with goons, and the location gives him easy access to the Congo, the Nile, and land in any direction." He clicked to the next slide, a small airfield, not much more than a pair of dirt runways half-concealed with camouflage netting. "Not to mention millions of square kilometers of virtually unmonitored air space." The next slide showed a pair of tanks, old Soviet T-55s under inadequate camouflage. "And the DRC army at his beck and call."

Akash rubbed his hands. "When do we go in?"

Garrett grunted. Matt raised an eyebrow at him.

"I think 'how' is a better question," Garrett said. "We've got no means of entry they won't see coming. They've got huge fields of fire in every direction, and we'd be fools to assume he doesn't have radar."

"Right," Matt said. "I've got pictures of the radar installations on a later slide. It's outdated Chinese kit but good enough for most purposes."

Blossom spoke up. "No bombs because of lake, yes?"

Matt nodded. "Right. We don't think an air strike would trigger the lake, even with the pumps running, but we aren't confident enough to risk it."

"So what if it did?" Garrett asked. "That'd take care of the problem, wouldn't it?"

Matt flipped through several slides until he found the one he wanted, a closer satellite image of the lake and all of the surrounding cities. "It's like shaking a Coke bottle. If the lake erupts, the explosion wouldn't be that big of a deal unless you live right near shore. But the lake's on high ground, and carbon dioxide is heavier than air. Once released, it'll flow downhill and suffocate everything for dozens of clicks. Two million people, give or take."

"Well," Garrett said, "that's inconvenient."

"Almost like he picked the spot on purpose," Akash said, irony dripping from every word. "So how do we go in?"

"We need goals first," Blossom said. "'Why' is first, before 'how' or 'when.'"

"Right," Matt said. "I've talked this over with Jeff. Our mission parameters are a targeted assassination. Go in, kill him, trash the facility, and get out." He set down the clicker and met their eyes, one by one. "But that's not what we're going to do." He ticked points off on his fingers. "So as far as you're concerned, our primary objective is the apprehension of Dawkins, alive. Secondary objectives include gathering intelligence on his operation and destroying the Jade processing capabilities of the facility. Tertiary objectives are eliminating product and capturing targets of opportunity."

Nobody said anything.

"Look," Matt said. "The facility ain't going anywhere, so there's no major hurry. If we verify he's there, we grab him. Somehow. Let the bigwigs worry about the rest of it."

"Great," Akash said. "So we go in, bag the bastard, and get out. Like Garrett said, how do we do that, eh?"

*   *   *

"THIS IS INSANE!" Akash shouted over the C130’s droning engine, his oxygen mask muffling the scream to a bare murmur. The fuselage pitched in the turbulence, and the engines whined in protest at the punishment of 350 knots at 32,000 feet. The air drop into Rwanda couldn't slow down or change course without drawing attention, so the HALO jump had to be at speeds that would kill normal paratroopers. To avoid a suspicious change in radar profile, they couldn't even jump out the back.

Matt patted Akash's shoulder and grabbed the door handle. Muscles straining, he wrenched the unwilling metal toward the back of the plane. The roar of the freezing wind made verbal communication impossible as the wispy clouds under them came into view. He returned Akash's wide-eyed stare with a thumbs-up as the door locked into place.

Akash rolled his eyes and jumped, body tucked around the REC7 assault rifle strapped to his abdomen. Garrett and Blossom followed. Matt braced himself, bit down on the oxygen tube, and leapt.

The wind broke him. He screamed as tendons shredded from the impact with the air. The world flashed dark and light as he tumbled, but he used the dusk sun to orient himself straight up and down in a pencil dive. As his body knitted back together, he felt the itch on his face as frostbitten skin healed and refroze, healed and refroze. Looking down, his augmented vision picked out the three specks that were Garrett, Akash, and Blossom, already formed up in a dive toward the western shore of Lake Kivu.

His joints ached as what little nitrogen remaining in his blood boiled. Between hypoxia, the bends, and frostbite, they'd all be ravenous by the time they hit the ground.
Speaking of which . . .
. His altimeter read 26,000 feet and dropped fast. He kept the pencil dive until he formed up with the others, spread out just enough to match their speed, and then they dove together.

At six thousand feet they jettisoned their oxygen masks, tucked into balls, then lengthened back out, belly to earth. Matt took the lead, activating his wingpack. A compact, jet-powered glider patterned on the ESG Gryphon, the carbon-fiber ICAP pattern unfolded just fast enough to level them out eighty feet above the water. He couldn't help but laugh.
To infinity, and beyond!

With the setting sun at their backs, they zoomed toward Dawkins's compound at two hundred kilometers an hour. In radio silence they unholstered their weapons, the latter three with silenced REC7s, Matt with a brace of Beretta M9A1 pistols, also silenced. The AA-12 combat shotgun strapped to his thigh would stay out of play unless stealth failed them. Computer-guided, fin-stabilized micro-grenades couldn't be silenced when they went off. Matt dropped his visor.

The HUD highlighted hostiles in orange double-triangles. Consistent with the satellite imagery, four men sat on each roof, machine-gunners hunkered behind sandbag emplacements. Akash took his shots first, and blips dropped off of Matt's HUD. Garrett and Blossom opened fire as they zipped overhead. Garrett's target remained until Blossom fired again, neutralizing the last guard.

They banked straight up, retracted the glider wings at the top of the arc. Two hundred feet above the top of the buildings, they stalled and fell, pulling their reserve chutes at the last second. As his boots crunched on the gravel roof, Matt popped the harness, and the entire pack fell away, pulling the oxygen tank with it. The others followed suit, then formed up in front of the roof-access door.

Blossom signed, too fast for Matt to follow. Garrett flipped her the bird.

A wooden shim propped the door open a crack, through which Matt could see a metal staircase. He smelled lamb curry, and Justin Bieber sang in the distance through tinny, low-quality speakers. Blossom took point, then Matt, then Akash, with Garrett covering the rear. Intel had Dawkins's office on the second floor, above the lobby. They jammed steel bars through door handles as they descended two levels to the correct landing.

Video camera
, Akash signed.
Covers the whole hallway.
Doors lined both sides of the thirty-foot hall. The camera perched at the far end, and if Matt had to guess another just like it lurked above them, just inside the door.

Below us, too,
Blossom signed. Matt looked. A security camera covered the stairs to the first floor.

The information scrolling across Matt's HUD hadn't changed; Dawkins hadn't left his office, thick bars precluded any escape out the windows, and they stood at the only exit.
On three,
he signed.
One . . . Two . . . Go!

Blossom had made it halfway down the hall when a massive hand punched through the wall and grabbed her arm. Her REC7 fell from her grip as the bonk yanked her through in a spray of imploding plaster. Her machine pistol fired two short bursts, then she flew into the hallway and rebounded off the far wall, weaponless. As Akash advanced, Matt tossed a flash-bang grenade, then choked up the AA12.

Their visors blocked most of the light, and their ears recovered from the bang in a split second. It wouldn't do any good against a bonk, but any normals in the area were another story. Garrett fired when the farthest door opened, and a figure ducked out of sight. Akash tossed a fragmentation grenade through the hole in the wall, but the massive aug broke into the hallway before it went off. Matt's ears rang, and shrapnel peppered the ten-foot wall of uniformed muscle without slowing it down.

Akash pulled the trigger, and blood erupted from its neck. He ducked the bonk's haymaker, then caught a knee to the helmet. With Akash prone, Matt opened fire. The combat shotgun bucked as three explosive shells plunged through muscle into the bonk's abdomen. It roared as entrails coated the wall and kicked Akash ten feet, into Matt. Matt rolled to the side and fired again, but his shots just bounced off its armored chest.

A REC7 chattered behind him. "Company," Garrett said. AK fire answered him up the stairwell. "Normals. I'll hold them."