Heart of Danger (35 page)

“Mac,” she said urgently, “we need to get these men to an exit point. Can the three of you carry these men about five hundred yards?”

“Sure. Tell us where the exit point is and we’ll make it. Get out fast. We went over the sentry positions in our drills. If you go out the east side you should be okay. We’ll rendezvous at the helo. If we don’t make it, there’s a kit with survival equipment next to the pilot’s seat. It has ten thousand dollars in cash, take it and go—”

She was shocked, mouth open, eyes wide. Then she looked angry as her eyes narrowed. “What’s
wrong
with you? We went over this before and you still want me to
leave
you? I can’t believe you said that. Back home you’re paying for that comment, Thomas McEnroe. Nick, Jon, since neither of you appear to be boneheads, follow me.”

They headed out as fast as they could, Mac carrying the Captain over his shoulder and holding on to one side of the blanket with Lundquist in it while Jon held on to the other, Romero over on his shoulder. Nick had Pelton over his shoulder and was checking his screen.

They were following Catherine blindly. After her outburst she hadn’t looked at him. Even her back, beautiful as it was, looked mad.

“Rule Number One, meathead,” Jon muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t piss off your ladylove.”

“How the fuck would you know about ladyloves,” Mac answered. “Your record is four nights in a row.”

He’d make it up to her, if they survived. They weren’t able to go at a dead run and carrying the men meant they couldn’t reduce their profile. The men they were rescuing didn’t have camouflage body armor. They’d be big fat targets out there. And the helo was rated for five people, not eight. She might not lift off.

They were not making good time. Mac estimated they were a good fifteen minutes out from the helo, not counting the fact that they would have to blast their way through the microwave barrier.

A lot of shit could happen in fifteen minutes plus. A lot of fatal shit.

Mac tried to go to that cold place inside himself that was his fortress in battle. He was used to taking himself right out of the equation, as if he were a Cylon, a robot. A mass of flesh and bones, yes, but a compendium of battle strategies, lines of fire, the deadly ballet of battle.

He couldn’t find that place, however frantically he looked for it. He was team leader, and now not only Nick and Jon depended on his cold-blooded ability to strategize, but also the Captain, Lundquist, Romero and Pelton. Not to mention Catherine. If they were going to get out of this alive, he had to become a soldier, not a man.

But someone who reminded him every step of the way that he was a man, with a man’s weaknesses, was running ahead of him. Catherine.

She was messing with his head. She was messing with his ability to distance himself from the situation and think coldly and clearly.

On a mission, in a fight, Mac did everything he could to protect his men but, always, the mission came first. They were all soldiers, they all knew the price to pay and they all accepted it. Some of them might not make it to home base, but as long as the mission was successful, it was acceptable.

Losing Catherine was not acceptable. Not an option.

Fear for her fried his circuits, made him slow. He was operating under a pressure so intense it almost made him crack wide open. Loving Catherine made him a better man but a worse soldier, and she needed the soldier now, not the man.

“Up ahead!” Catherine turned, gasping, and Mac saw the fear on her face and another huge pulse of love ran through him. She was terrified but she was working through it. Not slowing them down, not at all. Helping them with every fiber of her being, notwithstanding the fear.

This woman deserved his best. He was going to see her through this because she was the most important mission of his life.

“What, honey?”

They were almost at an intersection. Catherine had stopped, small fist raised, and they all stopped, too. She was winded, narrow chest billowing in and out, but she ignored that, turning to Nick. “Anyone in the corridor to the right?” she gasped.

The ceiling rippled. Nick was turning what was left of his Antz to the right.

“Not getting a completely clear picture,” he murmured. “But the corridor is empty. Except for a piece of machinery.”

She grabbed the screen, smiled, and gave a little panting whoop, reached up and kissed Mac on the mouth. Mac smiled back, because he simply couldn’t not smile at Catherine and because he was forgiven.

“You can’t see that from here but it’s an electric cart. If you’re sure the coast is clear, we can load Ward and the other men on it, and if we time things right, we can make a run to the helo on it.”

Nick gave a whoop, completely un-Nick-like, leaned over and kissed Catherine. A big, loud smack on the mouth.

“Hey!” Mac frowned.

“Just thanking the boss lady, boss.” Nick concentrated on his screen. The image was fuzzy, with sections of static. “We’re good to . . . go!”

They ran around the corner, down the hallway to the cart. It was used to transport equipment but it could transport people, too. They lay the men down on the back, stacked like firewood. Mac pulled out a small ball of material, opened it up, pulled it fast over the Captain and his teammates. A refractive blanket. It wasn’t perfect but it should shield them from IR imaging.

“Jon, take the wheel, Nick face the rear,” Mac ordered, and they took up a defensive perimeter. Nick and Mac were back-to-back. Mac faced front, behind Jon and Catherine.

Jon started the cart up and they rolled down the corridor.

The alarm changed in pitch again, much higher and more strident. “Second evacuation signal,” Catherine said.

That was good news. More confusion, legitimate people running around. Security guards would hesitate before firing. Mac and his men wouldn’t. After seeing the Captain and the rest of his teammates, anyone in this facility was fair game and would be shot on sight.

Another intersection. Catherine leaned to Jon and murmured something. Jon never slowed but turned to the left. In the distance was a long ramp, at the top a set of huge metal double doors.

“Jon!” Mac called. “Can you make this piece of shit go faster?”

“Only one way to find out,” Jon said grimly, increasing the speed fractionally. As the cart made the transition from the horizontal corridor to the beginning of the ramp, the doors started to open. They saw the night sky, velvety smooth.

“Night vision, men,” Mac said, as he switched his on. The enemy would have night vision, too. Didn’t matter. Mac felt his spirits rise as they rode up and out into the night. Trapped in a building they weren’t familiar with, he’d felt cornered, but now they were on equal ground, and however many guards Millon employed and were able to deploy, they were no match for him and his men.

They could face down a hundred. And with Catherine to defend? A fucking thousand.

“Nick,” he said quietly. Nick rolled off and began running. Mac turned sideways, covering a 180-degree field of fire, then turned back. Jon was driving with one hand, weapon in the other.

“Mac?” Catherine turned her face up to his. He didn’t dare look straight at her but he had good peripheral vision and could see her beautiful pale face, looking worried.

“Don’t worry, honey. Nick’s going to give us a diversion on the other side of the building. He’ll catch up.”

“Okay.” Her face cleared and she turned back to face the front.

She trusted him. She trusted them.

He wasn’t going to let her down.

Lights were on all over the facility, bright spotlights lighting parts of the grounds like day, leaving cones of darkness. The lights had been designed by architects, however, for beauty and not for security. If Mac had designed the lighting system he would have made sure the entire place was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree in an emergency.

He and Jon were ready, but Catherine flinched at the sound of the huge explosion. They couldn’t see the fire and destruction, they only saw the smoke billowing over the rooftops, but from the sound and size of the cloud, Nick had done a good job.

Jon was driving them at the cart’s maximum power. Not fast but faster than they could have run weighed down with the deadweight of the wounded men. They powered over a hump, landing with a thud. The Captain stirred, eyes flickering open, then closing.

The night vision showed everything a flat green field but Mac knew the distances, knew the microwave barrier was a hundred meters out. He could see Nick running flat out fifty meters to their right, heading straight for the microwave barrier.

Men were running in the distance, but running toward the explosion, paying them no attention. Somewhere, a guard was seeing them in his IR field, but so far the intel hadn’t filtered down.

Mac tapped his earpiece. “Grenade,” he said. “Catherine, cover your head.” She bent forward, arms over her head.

“Yeah.” Nick didn’t sound winded. They all kept up with conditioning in exile. If anything, they’d stepped up their daily training. Having the entire U.S. government and military hunting you kept you on your toes. “Now.”

Nick’s arm came up and out, lobbing a grenade precisely where the cart was headed. It detonated on impact, taking out six of the vases, interrupting the transmission of microwave beams.

Clods of dirt rose up and fell onto the cart, together with shards of the hard ceramic. It all bounced off their suits and the refractive blanket harmlessly.

Jon drove straight through the center of what had once been a deadly microwave fence, the cart bouncing hard off the uneven terrain. The camouflage blanket came loose, lifted up, blew away.

Shit! They were visible now to guards with scans.

A shout, and five men veered off and started running toward them.

“Busted!” Jon shouted, looking in the rearview mirror to the side of the open-topped cart. “Hang on tight!”

He began a series of evasive maneuvers as more clods of earth sprang up from the bullets. It was a numbers game now. Number of minutes times number of shooters. Nick was behind them, now pacing them . . . he hopped aboard, walking over the sick men to his sentry position. In a second, he had his rifle to his shoulder and they were back-to-back again, covering 360 degrees.

“Drone!” Mac barked. “Outer perimeter?”

Nick had his screen set to holo, he positioned it to the side so they could both see. There were three red points running forward, the outer perimeter guards. Fuck, this was exactly what the guards were trained for. Preventing an outbreak.

Nick sent a copy of the holo to the front of the cart so Jon and Catherine could watch it. They were four minutes out.

IR showed dots converging on them, a hundred meters away.

“They can’t see the helo, they’re coming for us!” Jon shouted.

They needed to get to the helo fast and get out of Dodge. Once they were in the air, they could breathe easy. Until then, they were targets and outnumbered. And Catherine was with them.

She was quiet, hanging hard on to the bar in front of her, beautiful face set, saying nothing. Not wanting to distract them.

Three minutes out.

The dots were running fast toward them, weapons up, seventy meters away. They shouldered their rifles at a dead run. Mac shouldered his own rifle, took aim, feet naturally counteracting the bouncing vehicle, waiting . . . there it was! A moment of steadiness. He breathed out, and halfway through the breath squeezed the trigger. One down. Another steady moment and the other went down. He swiveled and the third went down.

Two minutes out.

The three guards would have given their coordinates. Now the entire compound would know a Millon cart full of armed men was making a break for it. Nick shouldered his rifle and a man speaking into a shoulder mike behind them went down.

One minute out.

They were near the helo, though they couldn’t see it. It was going to be tight. Red dots were converging on them from all points of the compass.

Mac tapped his ear, to the entire team. “Catherine, pull the camouflage tarp off the helo. Nick and I will provide security. Jon, load the Captain and the men. We’ll have a window of about a minute and a half to take off.”

Unspoken was the idea—
if we can take off
. The helo was rated for speed and invisibility, she wasn’t a workhorse. She was a sleek piece of technology but she had her limits and carrying seven people was definitely it. The only thing that could save them was that the sick men were so emaciated. Together, the four men weighed as much as two men.

The helo would simply have to be up to it.

Mac quickly ran alternate scenarios through his head if they crash-landed somewhere between here and Haven. They could steal a van, make it up the mountain . . .

Here they were! The cart stopped, rocking a little. Catherine raced out and quickly, efficiently started pulling the tarp off. Jon was loading the Captain and the men. Catherine had finished and had hopped up and was helping to position the unconscious men and restrain them for takeoff.

Four men were running toward them, shooting. Mac felt a sharp pain in his side and ignored it. The ballistic vest would take care of it. He might have a bruised rib but that was all. He took the fucker down and the man next to him. Nick took care of the other two.

Jon was in the cockpit, powering up the engine.
“Go go go!”
he shouted.

Mac grabbed hold of the strut, pulled himself up with a wince. Man, his side hurt like a bitch. The helo started lifting, slowly at first. Nick had put on his harness and was hanging outside the open door, laying down suppressive fire. Another bright light, and another man went down.

Something crackled and danced.

Fuck! That was a stunner! Put on high, it would have dropped them like cattle.

A bullet pinged harmlessly off a skid. They would be barely visible to the men on the ground now and invisible on scan.

Nose down, the helo rose in the air, now beyond the reach of bullets and stunners. Mac looked down at the pale green faces, guns pointing in every direction as the guards lost them, unable to track them by sound and radar and IR. The helo veered north, gaining speed with every passing second. They were headed home.