Phantom zero, p.16
Phantom Zero, page 16
Zero calmly drew his handgun and aimed it past Alan at the car. The driver swore and slammed on his brakes. His companion frowned, looked at Zero, then slammed on his brakes too.
“Zero!” Alan cried. “Damn—Shit!”
The first curse came when Alan saw the panel truck Zero nearly hit in the oncoming lane. The second came when he saw the gun pointed through the window.
“Had to get someone out of my way,” Zero explained.
“And they saw your face and your truck, dipshit!”
“There are masks in the glovebox,” Zero said. “We can wear those.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna help with the kids wetting the front seats of their Camaros right now,” Alan said, opening the glovebox and pulling out two ski masks.
Zero watched the road, still weaving through traffic. His truck was protesting the effort now, groaning and creaking and shuddering. The temperature gauge was slowly climbing. Zero figured he would need a new truck when this was over.
“Shit,” Alan said. “They’re still not answering.”
“Can you track their phones?”
“Normally, I can, but not right now. Mischa disabled tracking.”
The blood drained from Zero’s face. Why couldn’t they just stay in the cabin? Why couldn’t they listen just this once?
He should have taken them. He should have listened to Alan and taken the girls with him on stakeout. He thought he was keeping them safe by going after the Meridian attack force without them. He actually thought he could sneak up on them and destroy them, then go home to the girls and say, “Hey, sorry, not sorry, but I actually killed all the bad guys already.”
What a fool. What an utter fool.
“Get off the freeway up there,” Alan said. “It’s a longer route, but there’s less traffic than the highway, and there are only two lights.”
Zero nodded and cut across to the exit. An old lady in a Camry politely beeped her horn, but Zero ignored it. He drifted around the corner and sped down the road, tires squealing. The high-temperature warning light activated on his dashboard, and a soft smoky smell emanated from his dashboard.
“I’ll buy you a new truck,” Alan said absently. “Or well, I’ll fix up an old one. Or this one. Shit, we’re what, nine miles away now?”
Zero checked the GPS. “Eight. And I can buy my own truck.”
“Fine. Whatever.” He checked his handgun and shook his head. “We should have brought our rifles.”
“Yeah, you’re not wrong,” Zero admitted. “We’ll just take some off the first criminals we kill. I have a machine gun in the bed we can use in the meantime.”
“We’re not going to use a fucking machine gun,” Alan said. “This is going to take place in a residential neighborhood. There’s a high chance for collateral damage.”
Zero’s heart dropped to his feet. He was going to save his girls at any cost, but he hadn’t internalized just how high that cost might be.
“We need to avoid that,” he said. “If at all possible. We need to place our shots carefully and use knives as much as possible.”
“Gee, really? Wow. Why didn’t I think about that?”
“Alan—”
“I can use my knife, but I’m a lot better with it when I don’t need to move fast.”
“You’re a hell of a shot with that handgun, though. Just fire shots that won’t punch through walls and find a civilian head.”
Alan sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”
He didn’t sound very confident, and Zero didn’t blame him. This was as close to the worst-case scenario as they could get.
But it wasn’t the worst-case scenario. Not yet. As long as Sara and Mischa were alive, they could get through this.
He rounded the final corner, forcing a minivan and an SUV to slam on their brakes and just barely avoid colliding with each other. He could see the roof of Sara's apartment complex ahead, visible through the arches of a McDonald's. He didn't see any muzzle flashes, but he probably wouldn't in this daylight, and he couldn't actually see the floors anyway, just the roof.
One minute away. Visible smoke now rose from his hood, and his engine was rattling softly. The temperature needle was firmly in the red, and Zero was pretty sure the next time he tried to start the engine, it would shoot a rod through the block.
That was fine. He just needed to get there.
When he reached the parking lot, he sighed with relief. They had made it.
That relief lasted about a quarter second. That was the time it took him to register the ten Meridian vehicles parked in the lot, three of them around Sara’s Honda Civic. Another quarter second allowed him to see the dozens of Meridian fighters climbing the stairs and moving through the courtyard to the other side of the building.
One Meridian agent stood in front of Sara’s door, preparing to break it down and go inside to kill Zero’s daughters.
Zero hit the gas, ignoring Alan’s cries of consternation. There was a small gap in between vehicles that would allow Zero to drive into the courtyard and into a cluster of the bad guys.
They turned toward him, and their eyes widened in alarm. Zero felt cold satisfaction when he saw their fear.
Remember this, Chen. Remember the day you dared to threaten my children.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Maya expected to see terrorists moving within the bunker, but when they entered the building and spread out across the wide hangar-like entryway, she saw nothing.
She frowned and switched her thermal imaging off. They were indeed in a hangar. A large Sikorsky S-92 transport was parked inside.
But there were no terrorists. They had fled inside and hidden from the attacking forces.
“There are doors on either side,” Trent said. “Do we split up, or do we pick one and go from there?”
Maya didn’t like the idea of splitting up. Their enemies might be cowards, but cowards fought viciously when they were backed into a corner. The three of them might be better trained, but they were fighting through exhaustion, and they would be badly outnumbered.
On the other hand, there was the chance that they were enacting or had already enacted phase two. At best, that meant a long-term disruption of air travel. At worst, that could mean usurping control of all global communications and gaining access to all classified intelligence.
“We split up,” she said. “Take the right side; I’ll take the left. Bolton, watch our six.”
Trent nodded. “Works for me.”
“I’ll make sure we don’t have any more surprises to deal with,” Bolton said.
The pillboxes weren’t trying to shoot at them anymore. Either they had assumed the threat was dealt with when they didn’t see Trent, Maya, and Bolton after the smoke cleared or they couldn’t turn around and shoot at their own bunker. Maya appreciated that small stroke of luck. She doubted they would get many more.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They moved toward the other doors but halfway there, a whirring sound interrupted them. Maya came to a stop and looked for the source of the noise.
Her arms went slack when she found it. Multiple sections of the hangar walls and ceilings spun around, revealing machine guns aimed directly at the team. These ones weren’t armored like the pillboxes, but they had the entire hangar floor covered. They were sitting ducks.
“Go!” Trent shouted. “Find cover now!”
Maya snapped out of her funk and sprinted toward the only cover available, the helicopter. She fired at the machine gun ahead of her, slicing through the wiring controlling it. It fizzled, then hung loosely, dangling by frayed cables.
The other machine guns opened fire. Maya dove through two streams of bullets and skidded underneath the fuselage. Bullets pinged against the helicopter, punching through the sides of the bird and denting the floor above Maya’s head. She fired at another machine gun, this one on the right wall, and the wiring exploded in a shower of sparks.
She heard a gasp and saw Bolton holding a hand to his navel. He collapsed to the ground and rolled under the helicopter next to Maya.
“You all right?” Maya asked.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Bolton growled. He moved his hand from his stomach. Blood flowed from the wound. “Okay, maybe not so good.”
“Shit. Okay, stay down here. Trent and I will continue onward.”
“Ma’am, I respect the hell out of you, but there is no way on God’s chartreuse Earth that I’m staying behind.”
Maya smiled and hoped the tension she felt didn’t show. She couldn’t lose anyone else. She was tired of losing people.
Something broke inside Maya. She was so sick of this. She was so damned sick of these fucking terrorists thinking they could hurt whoever they wanted just because they were hurt.
Anger flared in her, white-hot, searing.
Then it disappeared. What was left behind was something cold and vicious. If Zero had been there, he would have recognized Kent Steele’s flat eyes.
She slid out from under the fuselage, ignoring Trent’s shouts of protest. She aimed at one machine gun, fired, then aimed at another. The first fell from its emplacement as she shot a third.
She dove back underneath the helicopter. A bullet sliced through her thigh, but she ignored the pain and scanned the roof, eyes flicking to each weapon, determining where the fire would come from and gauging the safest path through. One weapon aimed toward her, trying to cover her exit from the helicopter. She feinted that way, then rolled the other way, avoiding the volley and destroying the gun that fired it. She rolled under the fuselage again, switched her clip as she rolled, came out the other side, and shot the weapon above her before it could aim its weapon at her chest. She leaped to her feet, dove under another burst and came up to shoot the offending machine gun and shred the targeting sensor controlling it. The gun gyrated wildly, firing as it moved. It shot two of its fellows before Maya put it out of its misery.
The last machine gun emplacement sprayed a sweeping stream of gunfire toward Maya, trying to take away her movement and force her into a corner where it could kill her. She ran up the wall and fired. The gun shuddered, then went limp as Maya kicked off the wall. She did a backflip in midair and landed in front of the helicopter. Trent’s shocked face stared up at her from behind one of the landing gear.
She took a deep breath, then issued a command. “Let’s go. We have terrorists to stop.”
Trent helped Bolton up. The older agent grimaced, but he refused Trent’s repeated offer to stay behind and instead pulled his vest off, then his shirt. As he tied the shirt around the wound, he said, “How about instead of coddling me, we get our asses inside and get to Keller. We’re running out of time.”
“He’s right,” Maya said.
She dropped in front of the door on the left and extended a small telescoping camera underneath. The camera was standard equipment for the EOT and installed in a sturdy case that could withstand significant shock, such as a plane crash followed by an avalanche, for example.
The adrenaline of the battle in the hangar was calming down, leaving her feeling drained. She didn’t want to wait too long and have that become a full adrenaline dump, but she also didn’t want to barge into another trap. Lucifer’s Gift were clearly prepared to defend themselves, and they had no way out now. They would fight viciously to repel the invaders.
Sure enough, the camera revealed about two dozen men and women in body armor on the other side of the door. They carried assault rifles and wore the wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights expressions of people who knew they faced death. Behind their fear, though, Maya saw fanaticism. They were fiercely devoted to their cause. Like Maya and her comrades, they were willing to die to defend it.
Why? It made no sense to her? Maya was fighting for the safety of innocent people all over the world. That was a cause worth dying for. These people were fighting to make the government tell whether or not aliens really landed at Roswell.
Except it was worse than that. They were fighting, whether they knew it or not, to avenge some asshole’s bruised ego. Keller was pissed that someone had done him wrong, and now he was taking that out on an entire planet full of innocent people.
Maya retracted the camera and motioned for her team to get into position. Trent took one side and Maya the other. Bolton stood in front of the door and wedged his ice pick just in between the door and the wall. The door was closed by a simple electronic lock. Defeat that, and they should be able to force the door open.
Maya held up three fingers and dropped them one at a time. When she closed her hands into a fist, Trent shot the electronic lock. Bolton immediately jammed the pick deeper and wrenched the door open. The pick snapped, but not before the door opened, exposing the terrorists.
The enemy opened fire immediately, turning the entry into an impassable blizzard of bullets. Fortunately, the three of them were positioned far enough to the side to avoid the initial volley, allowing the American agents to toss grenades through the door.
“No! Wait!” one of the terrorists called.
Too late, Maya thought as the grenades went off.
They wasted no time. They pulled their goggles down and waded into the mess, firing at the discombobulated terrorists. In the confined quarters of the hallway, the grenades had worked to awesome effect. Fully half of the terrorists were dead, torn to pieces by shrapnel. The others were disoriented and unable to put up meaningful resistance against the attackers. Maya shot two before the enemy was able to return fire, and another before the fire was close enough that she had to react to it.
She dropped to a knee, and an enemy volley went over her head. Bolton killed the woman firing at her, so Maya moved her rifle to the right and caught a terrorist trying to shoot Trent.
Trent sliced one man’s throat with his knife, then buried the weapon into the midsection of another terrorist, driving it up underneath his chest plate. The man gasped and tried to fire back at Trent before he died, but Maya shot him through the head.
The remaining terrorists fled deeper into the facility. Bolton killed two of them before Maya called, “Wait! Hold your fire! Follow them!”
Hopefully these terrorists would lead them to the heart of the bunker where Maya could get a look at the system holding the world’s aircraft hostage and potentially reverse the effects. They did just that, rushing through a door into a room that reminded Maya vaguely of a rocket launch control center. Three rows of seven desks, each sporting a computer terminal, stretched across the room. The desks were unoccupied, but another half dozen terrorists waited for them.
Bolton grabbed Maya and yanked her out of harm’s way just before the terrorists fired. Trent dropped to the other side, taking a grazing blow on his shoulder.
From inside, a female voice commanded, “Hold your fire! Save your ammo and just hold the line!”
Maya shared a look with Trent. Bolton put her thoughts to words. “They’re trying to hold us off long enough for the deadline to pass and Keller to launch phase two.”
"That's right," the female terrorist called through the door. "And if you're smart, you'll stay right there. You can’t kill all of us.”
“You contributed to the deaths of thousands of civilians,” Maya said. “We’ll do what we have to do.”
“Go ahead. Die if you want to die that badly.”
“Screw it,” Trent said.
He tossed his flashbang into the room. Terrorists cursed, and as soon as the grenade went off, the three of them ran into the room. The terrorists fired back, but they were wobbly, and their aim was off. Maya felt a lance of fire across her buttocks, but it was a minor wound. She fired at one terrorist who dropped like a rock, then shot another woman through the forehead. Bolton drew his knife and buried it in the throat of the nearest enemy, then kicked another toward Trent, who thrust his own knife into the man’s eye.
The terrorist leader shrieked, “Take cover! God damn it!”
Maya whipped her gun toward her and fired, but the woman had already dropped behind a desk. She switched her aim toward a man stumbling toward another desk and dropped him before he could find safety.
But now the terrorists were returning more effective fire. She took refuge behind the front row of desks, wincing as bullets ricocheted off of the steel panels. One bullet punched straight through, nearly puncturing her neck.
“Move!” she called to the team. “The desks aren’t adequate cover!”
“Good to know,” Bolton growled.
He got to his feet and fired through a desk in the back row. A terrorist fell backward, choking and spraying blood from his mouth. Trent fired through another desk, and a man jumped up, screaming and clutching the stump of his severed hand. Maya put him out of his misery.
The terrorist leader rushed down the left side of the desks, knife drawn. Maya saw her coming and sprinted toward that side, firing before she could reach Trent. She caught the woman in the shoulder and spun her around. Her knife flew from her hand, and Maya caught it before it hit her jugular.
Two more terrorists cried out as Trent and Bolton rushed their positions. Another one called, “Shit! I’m out of ammo!”
“Then use your—”
Maya assumed he was going to say “knife”, but Bolton shot him through the head. The surviving two through their weapons down and stood, faces ashen.
“Cowards!” their leader cried. “Goddamned cowards!”
“Disarm them,” Maya commanded. “Then cuff them to the desks.”
She approached the terrorist leader and found her fumbling for her handgun with her good hand. Maya stepped on that hand and put her weight down. The woman cried out and hissed at her. She appeared to be in her late thirties, maybe early forties. She had a faded Airborne tattoo on her neck, and Maya’s lips curled. “Are you proud of your service?”
“Fuck you.”
Maya ground her heel, and the woman shrieked. “Agggh! God damn!”
“Where is Keller?”
“Go to hell.”
“From what I understand, I’m already there. Are you going to answer my question, or should I kill you and ask your friends?”
