Deep Black (22 page)

40

Dean and Karr rendezvoused with the Hind in a deserted field about five miles north of their target area. Fashona had had
to scrape his belly against the ground for nearly ten miles to be sure of missing the SA-6’s radar and was in a foul mood,
not even helping them unload the gear.

Dean remained dubious. The key to the plan was getting across the minefield using a scanning device attached to the handheld.
The problem, though, was that it wasn’t designed to find mines, just explosives.

“Works like the sniffers at airports,” Karr said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“I heard those things don’t work,” said Dean.

“Ah, sure they do, baby-sitter. The only problem is I have to calibrate it for one explosive at a time, say C-4 or gunpowder,
or what have you. Not a problem, though, because the Commies only have one kind of mine.”

“Bullshit,” said Dean, who’d dealt with mines in Vietnam. “And these guys aren’t the Commies.”

“You’ve been hanging around with Lia too long,” Karr told him. “You’re getting very negative.”

Lia, carrying a duffel bag of gear from the Hind, snorted in derision. Dean glanced momentarily at her sleek, muscled body,
her sweaty T-shirt clinging tightly to her breasts. Then he turned back to Karr.

“How do we get from the minefield to the buildings?” asked Dean.

“We cross the road.”

“Real funny,” said Dean.

“He’s a riot, isn’t he?” put in Lia.

“A comedian.”

“We just duck the patrol, that’s all.”

“We going to time it?” asked Dean.

“Nah. Take too long, and besides, you can’t count on these guys. Their watches are always off. Cheap Commie workmanship,”
said Karr. “We’ll watch them and go when they’re not there.”

“How?”

“The Bagel, baby-sitter. The Bagel.”

The Bagel looked like a kid’s hovercraft toy. Round with a hole in the middle—hence its name—it had two engines on either
side and a long twin-rudder tail. It carried five kilograms of fuel and could fly for about an hour and a half, feeding its
video to a receiver in Karr’s backpack. Though very slow, it was extremely quiet, and once in hover would stay at its designated
spot even in gale-force winds.

Dean looked at the thing doubtfully. Even its rotors were plastic. The front had a small clear panel; the rear featured a
thick set of baffles where the exhaust was muffled.

“Georgia uses these for traffic control,” said Karr. “Check out accidents, that sort of thing. They get better endurance because
they don’t worry about the noise.”

Karr took the Bagel and put it into the back of the truck. It didn’t quite fit and he had to angle it.

“Lia and Fashona can strap the weapons on the Hind. You and I have to get going,” said Karr, looking back to the helicopter.
“Long walk ahead of us. Get your vest, headset, gun, knife, the works.”

“I’m not a kindergartner, kid,” said Dean, picking up the lightweight armor.

“Sorry, graybeard.” Karr laughed and walked over to Lia near the cargo door to the helicopter. When he leaned down to kiss
her on the cheek, Dean felt a twinge of envy.

. . .

An hour later, Dean lay prone on the dirt above the embankment that led down to the fenced area, just out of view of the observation
post. The boxy A-2 machine gun was in his right hand. His pockets were stuffed with small grenades; on his back over the protective
armor was a wide but narrow rucksack. Inside were extra clips for the boxy gun and his two pistols, a backup com device, flares,
rope, and a kind of sling made of rope they’d use to carry Martin out if he was hurt. He also carried a .22-caliber Ruger
Mark II with a sonic suppressor—aka silencer—strapped in a holster at his chest.

In Dean’s opinion, the gun would be almost useless unless placed right on a victim’s head, assassination-style. Although it
was admittedly an excellent weapon in its proper application, its small and relatively slow bullets wouldn’t so much as bruise
someone wearing body armor.

Far better, Dean thought, to have MP-5Ns with suppressors—at least you’d have a chance of putting down the person who heard
you.

A good quiet crossbow—there was a weapon these high-tech junkies should look into.

“Thirty seconds, baby-sitter,” Karr hissed in his ear. He sounded like he was hyperventilating already.

Dean’s doubts flooded into his veins, replacing his blood with fear. It was a suicidal plan.

He’d done crazy things before. The whole reason he was here—the whole reason he was working for Hadash, if he was still working
for Hadash—was a crazy foolish plan.

One that had paid off handsomely.

That didn’t make this one any less ridiculous.

Karr leaped up. Dean followed, nearly tripping as they started down the embankment that led to the fence. A twenty-foot- wide
swath had been bulldozed around the fence, both as a perimeter road and to make it easier to see and shoot anyone there. Just
as they reached it, Karr pushed a button on his handheld, igniting a C-4 bomb he had set amid the gas cans in the back of
the pickup, which they had parked on the northwestern flank of the fence.

Dean pushed himself sideways, got up and reached the fence, then fell through the hole Karr had already cut. He put the fencing
back as carefully as he could, using the tape Karr had left to get it back into place well enough to withstand a cursory glance.

Meanwhile, gunfire, cannons, tracers ripped into the blackness. Even the ZSU-23s fired, their four-barreled volleys sounding
like the pounding of a giant tin drum. There were sirens and flares, shouts in the distance. Dean pushed toward the supports
for the guard tower on his right. Lights were switched on, searchlights—they were playing on the area in front of the fence,
the embankment they’d just come down. Dean moved toward the black hole Karr had disappeared into, knowing he could count on
only a few more seconds.

Bare seconds—but where the hell was Karr?

He could feel the lights coming, one playing across the interior of the yard errantly, another more purposefully. There was
a second explosion, this one in the woods beyond the embankment where they had come down. Automatic weapons began to bark
from the guard towers.

Dean felt the skin in the soft spot behind his jaw prickle with electricity. He ran forward at full speed, forgetting for
a second that he was running into a minefield. He saw a shadow on his left that had to be Karr, began to dart toward it, then
suddenly felt himself upended, flying in the air. He crashed against hard ground, cowering instinctively, sure the next thing
he felt would be oblivion.

“Don’t get ahead of me, baby-sitter,” said Karr, who’d reached out and upended him. “We’re real close to the mines.”

The guards stopped shooting. They concentrated their lights outside the fence, where the truck continued to burn.

“Sucker’s still going,” said Karr. “Guess we’ll have to walk if the chopper goes down, huh?”

“More likely fly to heaven,” said Dean.

“Hey, speak for yourself,” said Karr. “I’m going to the other place. Reservation’s all set.”

He knelt down, holding what looked like a miniature boom mike out in front of him. A thick wire ran to his back.

“First mine’s two feet in front of you. Then there’s one, um, on the left—shit, these guys are not fucking around. I’ve seen
checkerboards that were in a looser pattern.”

It took nearly twenty minutes for Karr to pick through the minefield. By then, things had calmed down to the point where the
guards weren’t firing randomly and they weren’t shooting off flares willy-nilly. Sooner or later, there would be a thorough
perimeter check. A careful look would find the hole in the fence. They needed to be in the building by then.

Karr waited next to a four-foot Cyclone fence for Dean to catch up as he cleared the end of the minefield. Just beyond the
fence was the main road in. About fifty or seventy yards to the right was a row of buildings that would block off the view
of the guards inside the gate, but with time getting tight Karr decided they’d have to take a shot at crossing the road and
not being seen. The Bagel’s infrared or IR camera showed that there were only two guards at the gate and another two between
them and the target buildings. Get past them, and they could get into the buildings without a problem.

Then the real fun would begin, since they didn’t know for sure which building Martin was in. The Art Room had assigned percentages
to the possibilities, though they hadn’t explained the formula they used to come up with the figures. The building on the
left was marked at 70 percent; the building on the right, 30. Karr’s gut refused to let him make a call, so he’d go with the
Art Room’s numbers.

According to the Art Room, there had been no more than six or seven people in both buildings at the time their bugs had run
out of juice. That struck him as optimistic, but you never knew—they were due for one good break somewhere along the way;
maybe that would be it.

Dean finally crept next to him.

“OK, baby-sitter, here’s the gig—we run straight to that building right there, one at a time. First guy runs, other guy watches
the observation post.”

“That’s a hike,” said Dean. He thumbed right. “Why don’t we head that way? We can sweep around, just be exposed on the right
there.”

“We can’t afford the time, and besides, the barracks will be able to see us anyway, so it’s not that high a percentage,” said
Karr. “At least here we know it’s just the one or two sets of eyes.”

He looked at the image from the Bagel; there was a truck coming from the barracks area, behind them to the right. “We’ll wait
for the truck to clear. It’s got troops in it. If they go to the gate, that’s where the guards’ attention will be.”

“OK.”

“If you start shooting, remember the contingency plan.”

“Which contingency plan?”

“Every man for himself,” chuckled Karr, hunkering down as the truck’s headlights swung up the road.

41

Lia punched the button on her handheld several times, frustrated that they had lost the feed from the Bagel. That didn’t mean
it had been shot down or run out of fuel—reception was notoriously difficult in the Hind.

But it wasn’t good. Lia pushed against the restraints of the gunners’ cockpit. It was a tight squeeze, even for her. With
the missiles and gun pod loaded on the stubby wings, she was paranoid about hitting the switches on the panels, even though
the gear was fully safed.

Karr had gone too far this time. It was uncharacteristic—she was the one who took chances, not him, not like this. Jesus,
he was out of his mind.

Dean’s fault. Karr obviously thought he had to impress the old fart.

Not that Dean was old, actually. Or a fart. Not a fart at all.

“How we doing?” Fashona asked over the interphone, or internal communications set.

“They’re working their way to the building, but I’ve lost the feed from the Bagel. Can you get higher?”

“I don’t want to show up on the radar. We’re just barely out of coverage range as it is.”

“We’re five miles away and five feet off the ground.”

“That would be twenty. The radar is definitely on and scanning.”

“I’d like to see what the hell is going on.”

“Relax. Karr knows what he’s doing.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about.”

“Hots for Charlie Dean, huh? He’s a hunk.”

“Screw yourself, Fashona.”

“Physically impossible, though many have tried,” he said. “You want me to go over the target list again?”

“Why don’t you suck on a grenade?”

“If I go, you go,” he told her.

“That may be an acceptable trade-off.”

42

Dean threw himself against the cement bricks of the building wall, his pulse thumping in his throat. The night glasses blurred
so badly all he could see was one dark shadow around him.

“Up, up,” said Karr in his ear.

Easy for him to say. Dean put his hand out and moved to the left, fishing for the nylon rope Karr had left for him. He found
it finally, took a breath, and started pulling himself upward.

“Jeez, Louise, what’s taking you?” hissed Karr. “I had to get up without a rope, and I gotta weigh about fifty pounds more
than you.”

“The fucking guard just about saw me.”

“Relax. I would’ve nailed him.”

“Fucking Ruger’s bullets would’ve bounced off his head.”

“Only if his skull’s as thick as mine. Come on. I’m ready to go through the roof.”

Dean pulled himself over the low rise at the edge of the roof, then immediately began hauling up the rope. Karr had already
taken out what he claimed was a silenced Makita portable saw and started cutting. It may in fact have been a Makita—it was
blue—but it looked more a small wastepaper basket with a five-inch saw blade than a battery-operated skillsaw. It wasn’t completely
silent, but Dean didn’t hear the high-pitched hum until he was about ten feet away.

“Here we go,” said Karr, standing up. He smacked his foot down against the cutout—and promptly fell through the hole.

Dean swung the A-2 forward as he leaped forward. After two steps he dropped knee-first into a slide and pushed the nose of
the gun into the hole ahead of his face.

Karr lay sprawled on his back eight feet below.

“Don’t shoot me yet, baby-sitter,” he said, groaning and cursing as he rolled over and got to his feet. “Luckily, I landed
on my head.”

Dean pushed his legs over the edge of the hole and jumped down, then crouched and scanned the unlit hallway. At the far end,
Karr paused by a set of double doors made of glass. He put out his hand, signaling for Dean to stop. Then Karr took a large
device that looked like the plunger head from a plumber’s helper from one of his vest pouches and put it against the glass.
A wire ran from the device; he plugged it into his handheld.

“Ssshhh,” warned Karr as Dean crept toward him.

“That some sort of bug?”

Karr didn’t answer. The device used a set of microphones to pick up sounds, calculating distance in roughly the same way a
submarine would use passive sonar. The closed stairwell and the glass were a perfect medium, though it could also work reasonably
well through a single-layer wall.

“Clear now.” Karr stood and, while still looking at the handheld screen, dusted the door hinges with silicone. It may have
helped, but the heavy door still creaked on its hinges.

They stopped at the bottom. Karr handed Dean his A-2, then took the pistol out.

“Two guards, coming toward us. Walking. I don’t think they know we’re here,” he said.

“You better hit them in the face.”

A smile poked up the corners of Karr’s mouth; then he was through the door. The bullets made a light popping sound as they
came from the pistol—two bullets, two guards on the ground.

Square in the forehead, both shots.

“Good work,” said Dean.

“I may not be as good as you, baby-sitter, but I can hit what I’m aiming at every so often.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“Basement door,” said Karr, pointing all the way down the hallway. A steel door sat next to the main entrance. He started
moving toward it, then stopped as a set of headlights swung across the front of the building. When the lights faded, Karr
trotted forward, then threw himself down and slid the last ten feet on his belly, possibly to keep from throwing a shadow
that could be seen through the front glass, though Dean thought Karr might just have done it for fun. He put his plunger up
again, fiddled with the handheld, and cursed.

“Door’s too thick. Doesn’t resonate enough.”

“Let’s search the rest of the place first,” suggested Dean.

“Nah. If I’m putting a jail in here, it’s going downstairs. Place looks like a lab or something, doesn’t it?”

Dean hadn’t seen inside of the rooms—they were all closed—so didn’t hazard a guess.

“You don’t have some X-ray machine that can see through the walls?” he said instead.

“Stinkin’ bean counters cut it out of the budget,” said Karr. He took a grenade from his belt, thumbed off the tape. Dean
still held his gun. “Hopefully, we don’t need this.”

“Agreed.”

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Sure you’re sure?”

“You gonna bust my chops all night or what?”

“Only as long as necessary, baby-sitter.” Karr jerked the door open, pushing himself across and into the opening. Dean waited
until he started to retape the grenade, then slid over to follow.

The basement was a long low-ceilinged room crammed with machinery. Several tables were tarped; others had racks of what looked
like oscilloscopes and discarded computer gear. They walked the length without seeing any sign that prisoners were kept here.

“Shit,” said Dean.

“Yeah, all right. Let’s check out the first floor.”

The doors to the rooms were locked by card-readers. Rather than fooling with the locks, Karr put his listening device up,
scanning the room sonically.

“You sure that’s good enough?” Dean asked.

“As long as he’s breathing, we’ll hear him. These doors aren’t that thick.”

“What if he’s dead?”

Karr shrugged and moved on. At the last door he pulled down the gear and took out a small drill, punching through the screws
that held the mechanism together. Dean tensed, his adrenaline once more starting to pump.

“There’s no one inside,” said Karr. “I just want to see what the hell they do here.”

With the cover of the lock off, he examined the circuit card, then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a set of alligator
clips. One of the LEDs on the reader mechanism flashed a few seconds after he began probing around, and the door lock clicked
open. Dean started to push inside, but Karr held him back, nodding toward the floor. The goggles picked up two fuzzy IR beams.
The room was filled with several dozen servers and storage devices, along with two workstations.

“They have the room alarmed but not the hallway?” said Dean.

“Pretty interesting, huh?” Karr took out a small digital camera and began taking pictures.

“What do you figure’s in those computers?”

“Could be porn.”

Dean wasn’t sure whether he was kidding or not. He followed Karr back upstairs, where a similar search revealed equally empty
rooms, though no more computers.

“I was afraid of this,” Karr said. “Let’s go next door. Get on my back.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going to lift you out of the building,” he told Dean. “Unless you think you’re strong enough to pick me up and let me
drop the rope to you.”

Dean scowled but said nothing, climbing up the bigger man’s back and then balancing precariously as he was lifted by the heels
up through the hole in the roof. He felt a little shaky; fatigue was starting to get to him, and he was hungry besides. He
managed to crawl out of the hole, then stopped a few feet away, resting for a moment before going for the rope. He was too
old for this shit, too old.

“Dean!” said Karr in his headset.

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” answered Dean.

He looked up. Two guards stood five feet from him, the laser targeting dots from their AK-74s crisscrossed on his chest.