Firestorm: Book III of the Wildfire Saga (4 page)

He looked into the magnified image in his helmet and grimaced.
 
Jesus, that’s rough.
He spotted several jagged boulders sticking up through the fresh powder, waiting to impale his Team.
 
He’d count himself lucky if everyone walked away from this one.

Unwilling to break radio silence even to call out a warning to those behind him, Cooper relied on his training and faith in the men who followed that they'd land without breaking any body parts vital to mission success.
 
It was all he could do.
 

The tallest of the snow-kissed boulders raced up to meet him and Cooper bent his knees, preparing for impact.
 

Too fast…too fast…

C
HAPTER
4

Skye, Scotland.

Dunkeith Castle.

R
EGINALD
PAUSED
IN
HIS
evening walk to admire the last rays of light glinting off the western slopes of the Cuillin.
 
He breathed deep of the sea breeze and focused on the gulls wheeling in the sky above him.

“You've no idea how hard it is to run things, do you?"

He sighed and sat on the crumbling crenelation of his family’s castle, which gave the earldom its name: Dunkeith.
 
On the southern and hotly disputed border of MacLeod lands, the castle ruins had been a pet project of his, passed down from his father, the 6
^th
Earl.
 
Reginald’s father had spent obscene amounts of money to restore the family seat to its rightful place among the western clans, but there was still plenty of work to be done.

These crenelations need to be repaired immediately.
 
Should things go south, this rock won’t long survive a direct assault
.
 
He glanced out over the rugged landscape surrounding the castle proper.
 
Half this island once belonged to us.
 
When this flu business is concluded, it will be so again.
 

Since his father’s death, Reginald had continued the dream of restoring Dunkeith Castle to glory from the inside out.
 
He turned to glance at the already dark central keep.
 
It had taken millions of pounds to ensure the structural stability of the massive Norman-style central structure.
 
He supposed it would take millions more to finish.

The inside—at least parts of it—looked like a luxury hotel: sumptuous carpeting and silk tapestries, the finest hand-carved furniture from Europe, Italian leather accents, priceless artwork and a world-class kitchen.
 
The staff made his people at the chalet seem like amateurs.
 
Of his Swiss staff, only Stefan, his steward, had made the trip to Skye.
 

From the outside though, Dunkeith was a different animal all together.

Reginald clicked his teeth in exasperation.
 
“Bloody Urquhart looks better, and it’s nothing more than a crumbling tourist trap.”
 
He spat over the side of the wall and stared over the well-maintained grounds thirty feet below.
 
At least the landscaping was immaculate.
 
He idly supposed artists might pay good money to paint the scene.

Reginald pursed his lips as he stared at the keep.
 
The gray stones, pitted and weathered by centuries of harsh coastal storms, looked positively ancient.
 
They
would
pay good money to see you, wouldn’t they?

Reginald laughed into the wind.
 
What do I need more money for?
 
The Chinese just doubled the family fortune in one transaction and what I shall take from the Council will make me a rival of the King himself.

Reginald sighed.
 
He was wasting time.
 
A glance at his watch told him he’d spent more than ten minutes loafing about on the castle walk.
 
He still hadn't inspected the new repairs on the south tower.
 
He’d only taken three steps when a shout from the castle yard far below brought him up short.
 

“My lord!”

Reginald peered over the inner wall.
 
Stefan stood waiting.
 
“Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t to be disturbed?”

“Yes, my lord, but I do believe this to be an emergency.
 
You’ve a priority call from the chalet.”

“Bollocks,” Reginald hissed.
 
He glanced down the walkway toward the next guard post: a small, five foot opening carved out of the outer wall.
 
Not much more than space for a short man to huddle by a brazier on a winter’s night, it offered crude shelter from the wind and nothing more.
 

Four hundred years ago, that had certainly been the case—now, Reginald had equipped each post with state of the art communications and surveillance equipment.
 
The guard posts had been reborn as sensor nodes, part of the greater network of early-warning alarms that blanketed the entire estate in concentric rings.

"Put it through,” he yelled, pointing toward the guard post.
 
He walked quickly along
 
the uneven walkway, ignoring the response from below.

Out of the sea-breeze, Reginald let his eyes adjust to the darkness and activated the largest of the computer screens.
 
He keyed the password and was rewarded with the image of his under-steward in Switzerland.

“Rolf, what is it?” he demanded.

“Possible intruders, my lord.
 
We detected a plane with stealth characteristics as it disappeared to the west.
 
I plotted its most likely flight path.
 
Passed very close to us, sir.”

Reginald looked at the map on his screen and the green dots that represented the plane's projected travel near the chalet.
 

He’s right.
 
That was close
.

“It appears to have stayed in the commercial flight path…”

“It did, sir, but I still thought it warranted bringing to your attention.”

“That remains to be seen,” Reginald said, fingers tapping his chin.
 
“Have you discovered anything on the ground?”

“Not as yet, my lord, but I put out extra patrols, per protocol.”

“Good man.”
 
Reginald thought for a moment.
 
The silence from Jayne, Harris getting his codes back, now a stealth plane appears near his chalet?
 
The circumstantial evidence made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
 
“I want you to double the usual guard and bring the men close.
 
Something is going on and until I get it sorted, we must prepare for the worst.”

“Shall I go into lockdown?”

Reginald paused.
 
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary.
 
Not yet.
 
If that plane offloaded anyone, we’d have seen them by now.
 
You’re sure the radar detected nothing?
 
No parachutes?”

“Positive, my lord.
 
We picked up a scattered flock of birds a while ago, but they quickly disappeared.
 
That was too long after the plane passed—and it was to the north, well off the flight plane's flight path.”

Reginald nodded.
 
“Good work.
 
Keep me informed.”

He stared at the blank screen long after Rolf disappeared.
 
Why couldn’t he move on?
 
Something tugged at his subconscious and wouldn’t let go.
 
Reginald worked through all the facts to clear his mind—the tower would have to wait until morning.

Were there any leaks?
 
No.
 
He'd destroyed the lab, there could be no survivors.
 
The staff never knew of its existence—or if they did, they never knew the lab was under their feet.
 

Even Stefan thinks it’s in Malaysia.
 
The British?
 
They don’t have an obsession with stealth technology—not like the Americans.
 
And that’s what it would take to approach the chalet undetected.
 
He thought for a moment.
 
No one has stealth parachutes as far as I know.
 
Silly idea.
 
Why send a man when you can send a drone?
 
Besides, the Royals aren’t interested in alpine chalets just now.
 
They’re occupied with the flu.

The Americans?
 
They'd love to get their hands on me, but they don’t know who I am, let alone where I live.
 
Even if they did, it’s only been a few days since they reestablished the National Command Authority.
 
They do nothing in less than a month.
 
Too much red tape.
 
The bureaucracy is back in power.

And Svea?
 
Her mission was a success.
 
She’s probably rotting in some hole in Denver.
 
But she got to the Source, got Boatner’s data, and got me the vaccine.
 
If she’s dead, I’ll drink a toast.
 
If she’s alive, she’ll escape or die.
 

Reginald stepped back out onto the castle walk and braced his naked torso against the North Atlantic wind.
 
The temperature was dropping.
 
Far off to the west, storm clouds gathered in the twilight.
 
An ominous sign if ever there was one.

Where the bloody hell are you, Jayne?

C
HAPTER
5

The Swiss Alps.

Chalet Tillcott.

C
OOPER
WINCED
AS
HE
tightened the knee brace on his right knee.
 
That had not been the smoothest landing he'd ever performed.
 
He folded up his parachute and placed a football sized rock on top of the silk to keep it from fluttering downslope and drawing attention.
 
A quick scan of his HUD showed the rest of the Team had dispersed.

Switchplate, in command of the surviving SEALs returned from Afghanistan, led his squad farther up the very edge of the mountain.
 

"Switchplate, how copy?"

After a moment, Cooper heard the other man's voice: "
Five by, Hoss.
 
Ready on your mark."

"Standby one," Cooper said.
 
He selected Charlie from the available options on his comms menu.
 
“Two, we ready?"

"Roger that, Actual, everybody in position and parachutes secured.
 
Let’s get this show on the road…”

“Copy that,” said Cooper.
 
He suppressed a shiver.
 
Their HAHO suits were excellent insulators, designed to protect the human body from the high-altitude jet stream, but typically not worn in such a hostile environment for more than half hour or so.
 
Cooper glanced at his dive watch.
 
They were already at the outer limits of what the suits could handle.
 
They needed to get up the mountain and inside the chalet.
 

Cooper checked his wrist pad one last time.
 
A storm front approached from the south.
 
With high winds and possible snow on the way, he did not want to be exposed on the mountain when the storm hit.
 
The wind shear was already strong enough to make climbing difficult.

Cooper leaned around a boulder.
 
His night-vision revealed a rocky, partially snow-covered slope that angled up toward the flattened peak of the mountain at about 60°.
 
Not a sheer cliff, but not walk in the park either.