Shadow of Betrayal (32 page)

Quinn parked near the motel’s office, then waited in the car with Orlando while Nate went inside to check in. While the sketch of Quinn from New York hadn’t been in the news for the last twenty-four hours, he still felt the need to keep a low profile.

“How you feeling?” he asked Orlando.

She hesitated, then said, “I’m fine.”

“You’re cute when you lie,” he said.

“I’m fine, really,” she said. “You want to know if it hurts? Of course it does. But I’m fine.”

They were silent for a few moments.

“I assume you want to do a recon,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Then we can just drop off our bags and go.”

“You’re staying here,” Quinn said.

“I said I was fine.”

“I know you did. But you could use some rest. You look exhausted.”

“I don’t want to argue with you about this,” she said.

“I don’t want to argue, either. But this first trip out, we’re just going to do a scout. That I don’t need you for.”

The look on her face was far from happy. “I can stay in the car. Monitor communications. Something might go wrong. You’ll need me there.”

“No,” Quinn said. “We won’t. We’re not going to get close enough for anything to go wrong.”

She leaned back into her seat, her lips pressed together and her eyes drilling a hole in the center of Quinn’s forehead.

“Come on. Don’t be stupid. You don’t have all your strength back yet. You know that. I
will
need you, and when I do I’ll need you fully rested. Going out now with us will drain you, and that I
don’t
need.”

“Fine,” she said, her tone indicating it was anything but.

“You know I’m right.”

Before she could respond, the car door opened and Nate climbed back in.

“Our rooms are toward the back,” Nate said, holding up two key cards. “Rooms 4 and 5. The guy inside said there’s parking right in front of them.”

Before Quinn could turn around to restart the car, Orlando snatched one of the keys from Nate, then looked at Quinn.

“I’ll take this room,” she said. “You can stay with Nate.”

The terrain north of Lone Pine was similar to that which they had just been driving through for the past hour, except for one large exception. To the left, between the highway and the Sierras, were the Alabama
Hills, a rolling pile of granite and volcanic rocks. To Quinn it looked like a dump of surplus material someone decided wasn’t needed to make the mountains.

According to the information Nate had dug up, most of the hills were under the protection of the Bureau of Land Management, and were set aside for public use. But there was an area toward the north end that had been claimed by the military, and cordoned off decades ago.

Yellowhammer
, Quinn thought.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Nate said, pointing across the highway at a dirt road leading off into the hills.

Quinn glanced at his odometer. They were 4.7 miles north of Lone Pine. “Mileage is right.”

The map Peter had sent them indicated that the road they had just passed was the only direct approach to the facility’s entrance. Chances were good that whoever was running it now had security in place to warn them the minute someone headed their way.

They went a couple miles farther up the divided road, then looped back using a dirt access road between the two strips of asphalt. Besides the main entrance to Yellowhammer, the map highlighted several other roads that led into the hills.

There was one that came within a half mile of the Yellowhammer road before turning back north. Quinn pulled to the side of the highway, a few car lengths away from where it met the highway. He could see that the dirt road cut a straight line across the barren expanse between the highway and where the hills jutted upward, where it then disappeared into a gap between some boulders.

Nate reached into the rear seat, and retrieved the electronics sniffer from his backpack. It looked a little like a palm-size TV remote, and was able to detect electrical signals up to a hundred feet away.

“Be right back,” he said.

He got out, then jogged over to where the dirt road began. Quinn thought he detected a bit of a limp. But maybe it was just Nate’s new gait.

Dammit, you’ve got to let this go
, Quinn thought.
He’s going to be fine.

Nate disappeared behind the downward slope just beyond the
shoulder, then reappeared two minutes later. Again, there was the limp as he ran back to the car.

“It’s clear,” he said as he climbed in. “No trip wires. Didn’t pick up any signals, either.”

“Good,” Quinn said as he put the BMW back in drive.

Up until the dirt road entered the rocky hills, it was a smooth ride. But the moment they passed between the boulders they had seen from the highway, things changed.

Ruts and erosion had deteriorated the surface of the road to the point where Quinn had to take it down to a near crawl. Even then, several times the BMW’s tires smacked the top of the wheel wells. The rocks that lined the way were also a danger. They undulated in a random pattern, often coming within inches of banging into the side of Quinn’s car.

The road bent to the south for several minutes, but then, two and a half miles in, it turned east for a couple hundred feet before swinging back to the north.

“Shit,” Nate said. “I think that was it.”

“Think, or it was?” Quinn asked, stopping the car.

Nate looked at the map for a moment, then said, “Yes, that was it. This will just take us farther and farther away.”

Quinn backed the BMW down a gap between the rocks, following its contour as it curved around one of the hills. Once he was sure the car could not be seen from the road, he stopped.

Quinn popped the trunk, then they both got out and met at the rear of the BMW. From a case in the back, they each chose a firearm— Quinn taking his SIG, and Nate grabbing the Glock.

“Comm gear?” Nate asked.

“Yes,” Quinn said.

Nate tossed a set to Quinn.

“Thanks,” Quinn said.

As soon as he had his earpiece in and mic secured, Quinn pulled out his own equipment backpack and donned it.

He stopped before he closed the trunk and looked up at the sky. While it was still afternoon, their proximity to the mountains meant the sun would pass out of sight in the next hour or so, putting this part
of the valley into a deep shadow. That could be helpful while they did their recon, but it might also make getting back to the car difficult.

He reached back in and moved a couple of the boxes out of the way until he found what he was looking for. It was a black hard-plastic container not much bigger than an old-fashioned cigarette case. Inside were four plastic squares stacked together. They were each about the size of a business card cut in half, and an eighth of an inch thick. To their right was a small panel built into the box housing a single button. It was a homing device. All the squares were linked to the device and, when on, would guide the bearer back to the box. Quinn removed two of the squares, then touched the button on the panel, shut the box, and placed it back in the trunk.

“Here,” he said, tossing one of the squares to Nate. “It’s going to be dark soon. We may need a little help getting back.”

Nate pocketed the remote, then they headed out across the hills toward the road that led to Yellowhammer.

“I doubt they’ll have audio sensors, but we should keep conversation to a minimum just in case,” Quinn said after they’d been walking for several minutes.

“Copy that,” Nate said.

The hike wasn’t an easy one. Everywhere there were rocks, most the size of small cars, some the size of a house. Red and gray, vertical and horizontal, stable and loose, it was like the set for an alien planet out of some sixties sci-fi show.
Star Trek
, maybe. Or
Lost in Space.
Boulders balanced on top of boulders, others jetted upward and leaned against each other like books on a shelf. Where enough rocks gathered together, they formed the hills.

Quinn tried to lead them through the lower passes, but at times they were forced to go higher on the hillsides to find the easier route.

After fifteen minutes, Nate took over the lead. Quinn kept an eye on him, looking for signs of fatigue or struggle, but his apprentice pressed on as if both his legs were whole.

“I see the road,” Nate said a few minutes later.

He was about thirty feet ahead of Quinn. He had crouched down near the top of the next hill.

“Empty?” Quinn asked.

“Seems so,” Nate said.

“Any sign of sensors?”

“Hold on,” Nate said.

Nate pulled out the sniffer.

“I’m not picking up anything,” Nate said. “But the road’s just at the edge of this thing’s range.”

He set the sniffer down and removed a pair of small but high-powered binoculars out of his pack. Quinn watched as Nate moved his head from right to left, then returned to a spot just off center and stayed there for a moment.

“There’s something down there that might be a motion sensor,” Nate said. “Come take a look.”

Quinn climbed up beside him and pulled out his own binoculars.

“Where?” he asked.

“See that rock that’s leaning about twenty degrees to the left?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Nate said. “Now go another ten feet to the right, and closer to the road, maybe three feet from the edge. Mounted on top of a small rock.”

Small was relative out here. The small rock Nate was talking about was the size of a recliner. There was a bump on it that seemed out of place. Quinn adjusted his zoom to get a better look. It was hard to tell, but there was no question that it was man-made. A square box with a little rounded dome on top. He retrieved his camera and shot off several images so they could take another look at it back at the motel, then match it up to a specific product.

“This is about as close to the road as we should get. If we go down there, they’ll know it right away.” Quinn looked back behind them. “We can parallel it from over here.”

“Okay.”

“Keep the sniffer on.”

“I guess this means we’re at the right place, at least,” Nate said.

“Doesn’t mean anything yet.”

They started out again, this time heading toward the Sierras, always keeping a mound of rocks between them and the Yellowhammer
road. Every five minutes they would check the road again, and each time they spotted more of the sensors.

“That one looks brand new,” Nate said at one stop.

The sensor he was referring to was only a dozen yards away, at the base of the hill they were perched on top of.

Quinn held his hand out, and Nate gave him his binoculars. One look at the device confirmed Nate’s assessment.

“Probably we can rule out that they were left by somebody else,” Nate said.

Quinn wasn’t surprised. It was the assumption he’d been working under since they’d seen the first one. Still, it would have been nice to discover that the sensors had been no more than junk left by a previous occupant. But nothing was ever that easy.

“Come on,” Quinn said as he pushed back from the edge.

Distance was hard to tell out here. Their route was far from straight. Instead it wound through the boulder graveyard. But after another ten minutes, Quinn figured they were about three miles from the highway.

“The map shows an obstruction crossing the road,” Quinn said. “If I’m right, we’re less than a quarter mile from it. It’s got to be a fence. My bet is it goes around the entire perimeter of the facility. Keep an eye out. We don’t want to get too close.”

Nate was a good twenty feet ahead of him. He made no physical indication that he had been listening, but his voice came through Quinn’s earpiece loud and clear. “Copy.”

Two minutes further on Nate cut to the left for another road check.

“I’ve got movement,” Nate said. His voice was hushed but urgent. “A man.”

Quinn stopped at the bottom of the slope. “Did he see you?”

“No,” Nate said.

“What’s he doing?” Quinn asked.

“I only have a partial visual,” Nate whispered. “Waist and above. He’s walking down the road. East, in our direction. He’s armed. M16. And he’s wearing fatigues. Brown camouflage. Army… wait, he stopped.”

“He’s alone?”

“I don’t see anyone else,” Nate said. “He’s turning around and heading back the way he came. Looks like guard duty to me.” Nate said nothing for several moments, then, “Okay, he’s moving out of sight… and … gone.”

Quinn waited for Nate to crawl back down, then said, “I think we need to put a little more distance between us and the road. Just to be safe.”

“Safe sounds good.”

The sun slipped behind the ridge of the Sierras five minutes later engulfing Quinn and Nate in a dark shadow, and almost instantly dropping the temperature several degrees.

“Tighten up,” Quinn said into his mic. “It’s going to get dark quick. Let’s keep each other in sight.”

“Do you hear that?” Nate asked.

“You hear someone?”

“Not someone. It’s constant, low. I can almost feel it more than hear it.”

“Hold your position.”

Quinn jogged ahead until he was standing next to Nate.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said.

“My ears are younger than yours.”

“Go to hell.”

“Shhh. Just listen.”

Both fell silent again.

A half-minute passed, then there it was. Very low, almost blending into the background. Even as hard as it was to hear, Quinn could tell it was not something that belonged in the hushed hills.

By silent agreement, they moved toward the sound side-by-side. It seemed to be coming from just beyond the pile of rocks directly in front of them.

“Around, or over the top?” Nate whispered.

“To the top, but not over. Let’s see what we can see from there.”

The closer they got to the top, the easier it was to hear it. When he first heard it, Quinn had thought it was like the sound of a distant freeway. But now he realized it was more like a hum than a drone.

The valley was almost in complete shadow when they reached the top. And here, the sound was much louder, the hill no longer shielding the noise.