“Where are you from?”
“What’s this all about?”
“It’s a simple question.”
The man huffed. “Is FBI doing this nonsense again?”
“Answer the question.”
“My brother and I defected 1989. My clearances are in order, and anyone who says otherwise can kiss my Ukrainian ass.” He started poking Odin in the chest. “And that includes you. You think you intimidate me? I’ll take that bird of yours and shove it straight up your JSOC ass. I was held by KGB for a year in Smolensk. There’s not a man in the world who can-”
Odin held up his hands. “Rocky! Okay, man. I just wanted to put something to rest. It’s cool. We’ll get out of your hair.” Odin gestured to McKinney and started heading back down the hall.
Rocky leaned out into the hall. “You haven’t introduced me to your lovely young friend, Odin.”
“Need-to-know, Rocky.”
“Ah… fuck you and your secrets. I have better secrets.” He went back into his lab and slammed the door.
McKinney sighed as she walked alongside Odin.
“If it will put your mind at ease, Professor, wander around the facility. I can’t open every door for you, but you can talk to whomever you find. Pump them for information if it helps you sleep.”
She nodded to herself. “I’ll do that.”
Odin turned down a side corridor. “Don’t stay up all night. We’re going to need to brief you on the baiting operation tomorrow. At no point will you be in actual danger.”
“Why am I not convinced of that?”
“Tomorrow.” Then he was gone.
For several minutes afterward McKinney walked the halls, but since most of the doors were locked she found herself heading toward the garage and the sound of metalwork under way. At first she just peered through the small wire-mesh windows in the doors, but then she walked through the double doors and out into the garage. Half a dozen workers were busy modifying vehicles to either side, with flashes of welding equipment and pounding of mallets as they made adjustments. Foxy stood talking to Smokey over a clipboard, both of them with submachine guns slung across their chests.
Foxy was flipping through pages on the clipboard. “Tell ’em they have four days to get their mission loads palletized and over to SOAR so they can calculate centers of gravity. Weapons go ‘air only’-no ordnance overland.”
Smokey nudged his head toward McKinney, and Foxy turned with some surprise to see her.
“Looking for something, Professor?”
“Can’t sleep. Odin said I could look around. You can check with him.”
“All right.” Foxy smiled, and then held a hand to his right ear, speaking softly to the air while Smokey watched her. She could see a small wire corkscrewing down from Foxy’s ear into his collar. After a moment he looked up and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Professor. Let me know if I can help with anything.”
She nodded absently, but she was already looking around the motor pool. A couple of the trucks that had been here when she arrived were gone. She couldn’t remember which ones. Before she reached halfway in the line of vehicles, she stopped to watch another military tech in his twenties digging through a bundle of wire he’d pulled from the side panel of a large four-wheel-drive truck. He was a clean-cut kid referring to a wiring diagram and using a voltmeter to test connections.
He noticed her watching him.
“Quite a project you’ve got there.”
“It’s the job, ma’am.” The kid had a southern accent that she couldn’t quite place. Texas? Georgia?
McKinney approached the ten-ton truck, running her hand along its gleaming fender. His eyes darted toward her furtively.
It was actually an impressive truck. Brand-new and with a broad chrome grille and a crew cab that could probably accommodate four or more people. It was branded with the shield logo of Ancile Services and looked ruggedized for overland seismic work, with the door handle at about eye height. However, most of the cargo area was taken up with what looked like a multiton electrical generator with twin oversized exhaust pipes. The side panels of the generator were open, exposing circuit boards, switch boxes, and bundles of wires that the tech was examining.
She nodded toward the bundles of wires. “How’d you learn to do all this?”
He glanced up. “The training, ma’am.” He grunted as he reached deep into the equipment panel.
“What are you guys doing out here, anyway?”
He paused. “Can’t discuss that, ma’am.”
She nodded slowly. “All right…” She ran her finger along the truck again and started wandering back along the garage, examining the vehicles on the far side.
McKinney wandered past a large four-wheel-drive U.S. Forest Service fire control truck. It had an extended four-person passenger cab and equipment panels along the length of its enclosed cargo bay-all teal green. Whatever modifications were being done to it were either finished or not yet started. Her eye strayed past it to the workbench just beyond-where a key fob hung on a peg from a metal carabiner.
She glanced back toward Foxy and Smokey, who were still engrossed over lists on the clipboard, then over at the kid working on the nearby truck. He was focused on wiring. McKinney purposefully walked over to the workbench and slipped the key chain from its peg. It bore a plastic tag marked International 7400 DT530 in bold black letters. She turned to see the International logo on the nearby truck’s large chrome grille.
She took a deep breath. Was she really considering this? Was it lack of sleep?
But then again, if these people were who they said they were, this would only be an inconvenience. If they weren’t, then she might be saving lives-her own among them.
McKinney climbed the steel step near the cab and opened the driver’s door. With one last furtive look around she got in and flexed her fingers over the steering wheel. After gathering her courage, she reached out and pulled the cab door closed. Another swift motion, and she stabbed the power door-lock button.
She put the key fob into the ignition and cranked the engine until it came to life with a rattling diesel roar. A glance in the tall rearview mirrors showed the young tech dropping his wiring diagram and running toward her truck.
McKinney released the parking brake, then depressed the clutch and smoothly threw the shifter into first. She revved the engine and popped the clutch, launching the massive truck forward. The young tech was almost up to the cab, but stepped back and appeared to be shouting for help now.
It all seemed surreal in the haze of her exhaustion, but she really seemed to be doing this. She was mounting an escape.
McKinney was already slamming the truck into second gear. Even under the circumstances, she had to admire the quality of the equipment. It was nothing like the ancient five-ton Mercedes trucks she’d driven on rough mountain roads in remote stretches of Africa or the jungles of the Amazon. This thing was brand-new.
She glanced out the passenger rearview mirror and could see Foxy and Smokey running forward, submachine guns ready in their hands. The words tumbled out of her mouth unbidden. “Please don’t shoot.” She had to be too valuable to them for that. She had to be.
McKinney brought the truck surging toward the workbench and the corrugated steel perimeter wall that enclosed this building-in-a-cave. She remembered that the empty buffer zone was patrolled by Expert Five’s automated fish. Then it was a straight shot to the second perimeter wall-and to freedom.
She plowed the truck through the sheet metal wall with a thunderous crash that echoed in the cavernous space, with pieces of metal hardware clanging away. In the confines of the mine the noise was deafening.
But the massive Fire Service truck plowed through the wall like paper. The green paint of the hood was scarred and scratched, but otherwise she was already hurtling off into the darkness of the buffer zone.
The engine roared as she put the truck into third gear and kicked on the headlights-then the overhead lights and sirens. They wailed away like a banshee in the confines of the mine, the lights exposing the exterior perimeter wall ahead as she weaved past a huge stone pillar.