As Boxers piloted the Batmobile up the remains of the rutted driveway, Jonathan explained. “What I said back in the Cave about increased security. Given what we know about Horne and his less-than-stable loyalties, I don’t want to provide more of a target that we have to. I want to make a tactical approach.”
Jonathan more sensed than saw the surprised glance from Big Guy. “You’re really spooked by this shit, aren’t you?”
“Damn skippy I’m spooked. The president has a lot of toys at his disposal. We’re good, but our abilities have limits.”
Boxers stared for a long time. After a few seconds of silence, Big Guy smiled and said, “Pussy.” Then he opened his door.
It took them all of five minutes to kit up. When they were done, they each wore a sidearm, a rifle, and a personal defense weapon, plus a ballistic vest whose pockets were stuffed with ten thirty-round magazines—5.56 millimeter for Jonathan’s M27 and 7.62 millimeter for Boxers’ HK417—plus one flashbang grenade and three frags each. Jonathan shifted his Colt to a thigh rig on his right side, and balanced it on the left with a folded MP7 in a holster on his thigh. Other pouches in his vest carried five spare mags for the .45 and three spares for the MP7. All told, including the existing loads in their weapons, each of them carried over four hundred rounds of ammunition. With decent marksmanship — both of them were far better than decent — it was enough armament to sack a well-fortified castle.
“Lids or no lids?” Boxers asked. It was his way of asking if they would be wearing Kevlar helmets.
“Sure,” Jonathan said. “In for a dime, right?”
When they were done, they looked like they were ready for battle. In fact, they were ready for battle.
Jonathan rocked his NVGs — night vision goggles — into place and instantly, the night became day, only tinted green. A glance to his left showed him that Boxers had already put his on. They’d only recently upgraded their night vision to a four-tube array, transforming their view from tunnel vision with the old two-tube models to nearly panoramic.
“Okay,” Jonathan said. “Let’s do this.”
Boxers rumbled out a laugh. “We’re going to scare the shit out of Horne.”
As they approached the farmhouse from the left side — the green side, as Jonathan thought of it — they moved as stealthily as they could. With winter in full swing, the forest floor was covered with dry, noisy leaves. They placed their feet carefully, but noisy was noisy.
“Good lord,” Boxers whispered. “I feel like we might as well be blasting music.”
“We’re still half a click away,” Jonathan said. “They won’t hear a thing.” He tried to sound assuring, but he didn’t think he pulled it off.
Sometimes, this business was easier when you knew for a fact that the guys on the other end of the mission were trying to kill you. In those cases, anybody you saw was a target, and the disposition options were obvious. Here, everything was a variable.
If he saw someone, was he friend or foe? If the person had a weapon, was the weapon for personal protection or for killing approaching good guys?
The only absolute was when the guy with the gun pointed said gun at Jonathan or Boxers. That was a capital offense, and the penalty was bestowed immediately.
That was a lot of thinking to do when the bad guy’s bullet could come at you at two thousand feet per second.
The route to the big barn took them over two fences, one built of stone, thanks, no doubt, to the labor of slaves two hundred years ago, and the other made of chain link and barbed wire. Boxers took out the wire with a pair of cutters.
The approach to the barn on Horne’s property took all of thirty minutes. Jonathan found the absence of threats to be unnerving. He wanted to see sentries and snipers. The fact that he didn’t see them merely made him wonder where the shooters were hiding.
Finally, they arrived at the green side of the barn itself. Solidly constructed of heavy timbers, almost no light escaped the structure.
They approached shoulder to shoulder, each of them cheating out ninety degrees to keep watch for threats that may materialize from any compass point. When they reached the near wall, they both spun to press their backs against the heavy timber.
With their backs against the wall, they sidestepped toward the corner where the green side met the white side, the front. With his M27 pressed to his shoulder, Jonathan led with the muzzle as he peered down the front wall. The image flared as his goggles amplified the light that spilled from under the enormous front doors.
He looked away from the flash of light, and scanned the night beyond the barn and to his left. “I don’t see any threats,” he said.
“I’m clear,” Big Guy agreed.
Still using the wall as cover, they glided through the night to a spot on the near side of the door.
“How do you want to handle it?” Boxers asked.
Jonathan lifted his NVGs out of the way. “Diplomatically,” he whispered. Then he bellowed, “Arc Flash! This is Scorpion. If you are inside the barn, speak up loudly and speak up now!”
“Diplomatic and subtle,” Boxers observed.
Jonathan heard movement beyond the walls, but nothing that he could make out as voices.
“Arc Flash! You do not want to cross me. I have Big Guy with me, and we are both heavily armed, and we are coming in. If you have a weapon, put it down, or I will shoot you when I see you! Acknowledge, please!”
He heard more movement from inside. Nothing sounded panicked, and he didn’t hear any of the characteristic sounds of rifle bolts being cycled. If anything, the noises from inside sounded routine, though even Jonathan couldn’t quite put his finger on what that meant. Sometimes you get a bad feeling about an entry, and sometimes you get a good feeling. This one fell in the middle.
Jonathan checked the latch on the big double doors. The thumb lever moved, and when he pulled the wooden panel, it swung open. He looked to Boxers. “You go high-right.”
“Rog.”
This was the moment that Jonathan simultaneously hated and loved, these few seconds before throwing open a door to the unknown, with heart, mind, and soul fully committed to dealing with whatever lay beyond.
He pulled open the left-hand door panel, weapon at the ready, and used his left heel to push it out of the way. Without a word between them, Jonathan and Boxers squirted inside. The room hadn’t changed much in the eighteen hours since they’d last been here, except there were no people.
Boxers said, “Who was making the noise?”
As if on cue, Jonathan heard it again. Closer this time, it sounded like furniture being moved. “Where is that coming from?” he wondered aloud.
They moved together, deeper into the vastness of the barn. They kept their rifles at their shoulders, scanning the shadows for threats. They scanned left-right, up-down, over and over again, fingers poised just outside their trigger guards.
When they’d made it to the halfway point — about to the spot where they had met with Irene and the White House people — Jonathan dared to let his weapon fall against its sling. He kept his gloved hand on the grip, just in case.
The noise happened again. Definitely the sound of something being dragged across wood.
What the hell?
Then Jonathan noticed something. “Hey, Big Guy. Does this room seem smaller on the inside than it does when you look at it from the outside?
Boxers took a few seconds to look around. “Come to think of it, yes.”
More dragging.
“It’s coming from behind there.” Jonathan pointed to the array of farm implements that hung from mounting brackets on the wall.