“Colonel Fischer,” the copilot called back. “The outbuilding is destroyed, but the main facility looks intact. The teams are ready to land.”
“Tell them to take it,” Paul said.
In the distance, the two Black Hawks broke out of their circle and closed in on the facility.
RADAR TRACKED THE distance of the approaching aircraft. One hundred and fifty meters and closing.
Erika Hoel cried. Duct tape held her to the security room chair, the same chair in which Gunther Jones had cranked out two full novels and most of a third. She couldn’t slide her hands out of the thick, silver tape, and each time she tried her ribs raged with their stabbing-glass pain.
…one hundred twenty-five meters…
More of that same roll of duct tape was wrapped around her shins, where it held a fist-sized ball of soft putty against her skin. Magnus had calmly explained the putty was Demex, a kind of plastic explosive. He had walked her through the process, told her exactly what would happen when the incoming aircraft closed to one hundred meters.
…one hundred fifteen meters…
A coiled wire ran from the Demex to a small router he’d connected to the radar system. That router showed ten red lights, one light for each of ten wires. The other nine wires led out of the security room door, spreading throughout the facility where they connected to much larger balls of Demex.
No one was going to save her. Her petty vindictiveness had killed Brady, and now it would result in her death as well. Cold acceptance finally settled in. She stopped crying. Erika made one final wish that Claus Rhumkorrf and Galina Poriskova would have long, happy lives.
At exactly one hundred meters, the radar system sent a signal to the router.
A COORDINATED EXPLOSION shattered the mostly cinder-block facility. Even though he was five hundred yards away, Fischer flinched back from the blossoming fireball that briefly lit up the night and reflected off the white snow. A solid building one second, a shattered, burning, smoking wreck the next.
“Get clear! Get clear!” he heard the pilot say. Fischer’s Black Hawk didn’t move, but the other two zipped away from the facility in case there were more explosions or hostiles on the ground that might take potshots.
Colding was a clever fucker, no question, but he wouldn’t have done that. Magnus Paglione. Had to be. Dammit.
“Just stay away from the main facility,” Paul shouted to the copilot. “Tell the other Black Hawks to circle wide, look for people on the ground, and use extreme caution—some of Genada’s staff have special forces training.”
Fischer knew the men would find nothing. No research, no evidence. Genada had slipped away again.
NOVEMBER 8: PEEJ
TWENTY MINUTES AFTER takeoff, Colding watched Sara descend the fore ladder. She smiled at her passengers and spoke with the mock hospitality of a flight attendant.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re under way. Please feel free to move about the cabin.”
Tim was still out cold, but Jian and Rhumkorrf unbuckled. Rhumkorrf stood and walked slowly past the cattle stalls to the aft ladder, where he climbed up to his second-deck lab. Jian followed him, the petabyte drive still clutched in her arms like a stuffed animal.
Gunther and Andy stood and stretched—for the rest of the flight, they wouldn’t have much to do.
“Fucking Brady,” Gunther said. “All the garbage we’ve survived and he dies on this job.”
“No shit,” Andy said, then grabbed Gunther’s shoulder in a rare display of camaraderie. “Remember that house outside Kabul?”
Gunther looked away, then down. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember it. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Brady.”
“You and me both, brother,” Andy said.
Gunther looked up at Sara. Shadows of not-quite-suppressed memories clouded his eyes. “Hey, is there a workstation here or something with a word processor? Where I could plug in this?” He pulled a key ring out of his pocket. A silver flash drive with the red Genada label hung from the end.
Sara looked at the drive. “What’s that? Work stuff?”
“It’s his faggy novel,” Andy said. “That’s how Gun escapes memories of all the good times we used to have. Ain’t that right, Gun?”
Gunther shrugged and looked down again.
“We have a workstation,” Sara said quickly. “All of you, follow me. And Colding, I’m serious about you not getting blood on my plane. I’ll get you cleaned up. If any of you want to sleep, I’ll show you the bunk room.”
Andy leered at Sara. “You want to join me for a nap? Maybe confiscate my weapon the old-fashioned way?”
Sara rolled her eyes. “In your dreams, little man.”
Andy laughed, his mouth twisting into a half-smile, half-sneer. He didn’t seem that torn up by his best buddy’s death, but then again Colding had little combat experience. Maybe the ability to move on quickly was part of what made someone a professional soldier.
Instead of taking them up the fore or aft ladder, Sara pushed and held a button on the inside hull. Machinery whined as the ten-by-ten platform lowered via a telescoping hydraulic pole mounted at each corner.
“We use this for heavy stuff,” Sara said. “Or when someone is gimpy and needs to go up to the infirmary.”
They walked onto the platform’s metal-grate floor. Sara pushed and held a button mounted on one of the hydraulic poles and they rode up.
When the platform reached the top, Colding looked aft at the thousand square feet of second-deck lab space. A large flat-panel monitor, eight feet wide by five feet high, dominated the rear bulkhead. Soft fluorescent lights illuminated gleaming metal equipment, black lab tables, small computer screens and white cabinets, all packed perfectly into the C-5’s arcing hull.
Already lost in code, Jian sat in an exact copy of her seven-monitor computer station. Rhumkorrf moved from machine to machine, running his hands over the various surfaces, staring for a second, then nodding with satisfaction and moving on to the next. Colding felt a bloom of pride at seeing his design brought to life, and at seeing Jian and Rhumkorrf’s apparent approval.
“You packed this baby tight,” Sara said. “I don’t know what any of this shit is for, but it sure looks expensive.”
Colding nodded. “You have no idea.”
“Come on,” Sara said. “Bunk room is between the lab and the cockpit.” She walked through a narrow hallway and pointed out the C-5’s features: a tiny galley, an infirmary with two beds, a bunk room with three bunks, and a small room that had two couches and a flat-panel TV mounted on the wall. A video game console and a rack of games sat in a small entertainment center on the floor below the TV.
“Now we’re talking,” Andy said. He immediately sat down and fired up a game of Madden.
“Damn,” Gunther said. “This plane is huge.”
Colding nodded. “That’s why we picked it. With our payload it will do over thirty-five hundred miles without refueling. Gives us a massive range. And we’re encapsulated—we do all the work right onboard.”
Sara pointed to a laptop sitting on a wall-mounted table. “If you want to write, Gunther, there you go.”
“Actually, I’m beat,” he said. “Think I’ll get some sleep.”
Maybe Andy could quickly forget Brady’s death, but Gunther looked haunted. How long had he known Brady? Five years? Ten? Colding felt the loss like a fist in his chest, but he’d known the man not even two years and they had never been tight friends. Gunther had to be hurting bad.