A search of the desk yielded a map of the complex, and he used it to find the archives, where the Red Queen had told him Mulamba would be going next. He pushed the talk button again. “Ace Spades, this is Ace Diamonds, send a two-man element to secure the structure on the east side. That’s the primary target. We’ll finish here and then move over to set up our welcoming committee.”
“Affirmative. Ace Spades, out.”
As he lowered the walkie-talkie, it occurred to Ace Diamonds that he might have been a little hasty in storming the museum. What if Mulamba didn’t show until morning? They couldn’t hold the museum all night long. It was only a matter of time before…
He let the thought trail off as he stared at the unchanging images on the video monitors. He had thought it particularly lucky that he had been able to blow the door with a small breaching charge, and then make his way to the security office without attracting the watchman’s notice. The cameras clearly showed the exterior. Ace would have been visible for several seconds during the time he set the charge. Stranger still, all the door indicator lights were green.
A malfunction?
He kept watching the cameras, certain that he was missing something, but the rotating shots of exhibition halls, labs and corridors showed no change. None whatsoever.
The cameras are on a loop, he realized with a start. Somebody disabled the security system before we got here.
With equal parts dread and anticipation, Ace Diamonds raised the walkie-talkie once more. “All units, converge on the Stanley Pavilion — the east building. They’re already here.”
28
The shot was barely audible. In fact, Queen didn’t even realize she had heard anything until Aleman said, “What was that? It sounded like a gun.”
Before she could reply, he answered his own question. “Nine mil. Single round.”
Aleman was a walking encyclopedia of firearms trivia, but she knew the only way he could have made that identification was by running the audio transmission through some kind of gun noise database.
“I’m dropping the video loop… Queen, get out of there! You’re not alone.”
Queen jolted into action. “Rook, lights!”
He knew without asking that something was wrong. He swept a hand across the light switch and then moved to Mulamba’s side, pulling the man down into a crouch. Although the room was plunged into instant darkness, Queen clearly saw Rook pluck the letter from Mulamba’s grasp and tuck it into the man’s inside jacket pocket. “We’ll read it later,” he whispered.
“I’ll recon,” Queen said. She turned and jogged out of the room. Her leg throbbed with each step, but she compartmentalized the pain and moved without even a limp. She’d experienced far, far worse, and she was reminded of it every time she saw the bright red brand on her forehead in a mirror.
Ghost images began appearing in her field of view. Aleman was integrating the security camera feed into the virtual environment. She saw, as if looking through the walls, two figures crowned with red dots, entering the building through the front door. “Two coming in,” she whispered to Rook. “Make your way to the fire exit, if you can. I’ll go meet the neighbors.”
“Be care… Ah, I mean, go get ‘em, tiger!”
She smiled in the darkness, then spun away running silently through the dark halls. The two men were creeping along, and as she neared the lobby, she could see the beams of flashlights bobbing. She also saw more red dots outside the Stanley Pavilion, closing in from all directions, moving to cut off all the exits.
Damn it.
“Aleman,” she whispered. “Can you call Rook’s phone? Let him know that the exit is a no go?”
“I’ll try. No guarantee he’ll pick up. They aren’t really ‘telephones’ in the literal sense, you know.”
“Busy now.” She waited until the flashlights were pointing into the corners of the big room, then dashed forward and ducked behind the nearest display case. She watched the lights a few seconds longer, fixing their pattern and dodging between displays until she was behind the two men. The nearest gunman, able to see only what was illuminated in the cone of his flashlight, looked right past her and kept going.
There was no time for subtlety. She sprang forward and punched the man in the throat. It sent him reeling back, gagging softly. As he staggered away, she wrestled the pistol from his grasp and turned it on the second man. The gun erupted in a flash of light and noise, and the man pitched backward into a display case. Whether it was the sudden weight of a human body or the bullet passing through, she could not say, but the glass shattered. The man’s bulk snapped the shelf apart, smashing and scattering the contents.
The ghost images of the men outside showed an immediate reaction to the noise of gunfire from inside the Stanley Pavilion. They continued their advance, but now they were in a defensive posture, ready to engage the unseen enemies within. Queen heard a crackle of static and then a voice.
“Three Spades, report.”
There was no answer and she realized the sound had come from a radio clipped to the belt of the first man she had taken out. She grabbed the radio and twisted its volume knob down so she could monitor their communications without giving her own position away. Then, she fell back toward the hallway that led deeper into the pavilion.
Another voice sounded, this time as if inside her head. “Queen, we’re cut off here. No way out except up. Déjà vu all over again.”
She turned, finding Rook’s icon in the virtual display. He was only about twenty-five yards away, on the other side of a wall, standing near the rear stairwell. “Go for it,” she said. “I’ll meet you on the roof.”
“The roof?”
There was another inquiry from the walkie-talkie, more urgent this time. She ignored it and addressed Rook’s question. “Aleman, what’s the ETA for Crescent?”
“ETA?” The tech genius sounded confused. “You mean to the rally point?”
The original plan had called for them to make their way into the Belgian countryside, where the stealth plane could land and take them on without attracting attention. The plane was invisible to radar and much quieter than a commercial jet, but when the thrust from its turbofans was directed earthward during a vertical landing, it sounded and felt like a gale force wind.
“Change of plans. We need a pick-up from the roof of this building. How long for that?”
It was an almost unthinkable request. Stealth plane or not, people would notice the angular black aircraft hovering above a building in the middle of the city. Aleman made a choking sound, but thankfully did not point out the obvious. “They’re over the channel. Thirteen minutes.”
Queen reached the open staircase opposite the entry doors and started up. “Tell them to kick in the afterburners. They need to be here in three.”
That too, was an extraordinary thing to request. Crescent’s sonic boom would advertise its presence to every military listening post in northern Europe, and without the protection of the US government, the only real question was which government would scramble its interceptors first.
In a small voice, Aleman answered. “I’ll tell them.”
She rounded the banister at the top of the stairs and looked back at the entry. One of the mercenaries eased through the doorway. She fired twice in his direction, missing but driving him back. She considered staying put, holding off their advance to buy a little more time, but it would make little difference. More men were congregating at the main entrance, and on the north side of the building, two more were forcing open the basement level door. She headed into a corridor, following Rook’s icon.