“Three, two, one…”
She pressed the bottom and a blast shook the building. After several seconds, they came back around the wall and ran to the loading platform. Twisted steel and smoke greeted them, as did an enormous hole in the shutter door the width of a small car.
Houston laughed. “Just meant to break the locks. I need a course on explosive yields.”
She removed a flashlight and they stepped into the building through the hole, careful to avoid the sharp and smoking edges. The air inside the place was stale, almost metallic tasting, the acrid smoke from the blast mingling with the stored smells of machines and dust. The echoing of their footsteps made it clear that the space was vast and open, but it was too dark to see much beyond the direct beam of the light, which only revealed the reflective hulls of large shapes.
Lopez led her arm. “Try the wall. Lights.”
Houston scanned the beam across the nearby wall and located a set of switches. Lopez faced away from her with his gun raised in anticipation. She flipped the switches together in one motion.
Ceiling-high bulbs winked to life with a buzz. Dim at first, the bulbs slowly waxed to full brightness, their combined numbers across the length of the warehouse causing the pair to squint as their eyes adjusted.
“Holy shit, Francisco.”
They stared down rows and rows of enormous bladed aircraft. The machines were variable, all devoid of a cockpit or other indication of a pilot’s chair. Some of the smaller units sported large cameras. The larger drones were outfitted with an array of cargo, all of it dangerous.
Lopez walked up to one of the larger ones, bulbous, metallic shapes strapped to its underside. “Bombs.”
“Looks like,” said Houston. “And those are aircraft sized machine guns on that one. Can you imagine the bullets?” She swung her gaze across the interior. “There’s got to be forty or fifty in here. It’s the drone motherlode.”
Lopez got to one knee and crossed himself. “At least it wasn’t for nothing.” Houston placed her hand on his shoulder.
“It had to be done,” she said, staring across the warehouse, seeming to see beyond it.
“It makes us as much murderers as them.”
“And the alternative?” She knelt down beside him. “We knew the moment we canvased this place that the drones were here. Stupid to put the place surrounded by hills, but it was muscled up. We weren’t going to be able to convert them to our cause. It was either more drone attacks or we fight this war.”
“Killing in war only makes it necessary, not moral.” He stood up, his composure returning. “It’s still killing, and we just left the biggest body count we ever have.”
She placed her hand on his face and looked into his eyes. “I know. I know it hurts you. And I know you do this only because you see that we had to. You’ll ask your God for forgiveness. And I know you’ll mean it. But, meanwhile, we need bring in the cavalry.”
“FBI?”
“Yes. This changes everything.” She held up a plastic bag with several phones. “And we got these.”
“You don’t think they’d be stupid enough to leave a trail?”
Houston shook her head. “Not Fawkes, but he’s got an army now. You’re only as secure as your weakest link.” She looked back outside toward the carnage. “Lots of bodies. Lots of hires. Lots of potential weak links.” She pulled out her phone.
“How much time do we have?”
“I don’t think the local police or fire will be out here quickly. It’s the middle of nowhere, and these guys weren’t plugged into their systems with a burglar alarm. No, just the opposite. I bet this place is off the grid completely.” She punched a number. “I think our Intel 1 pals will be the first on the scene.”
A voice crackled on the other end.
“Angel? This is Mary. We hit the jackpot. Tell John and the others to get to the address we sent you. And bring fire and a cleanup crew. And body bags. Lots of body bags.”
Hours later an army of police cars, FBI vehicles, SWAT vans, and emergency response crews were stationed around the smoldering scene. Spotlights were trained around the compound, and forensics teams darted around the bodies like fireflies with their flashlights and cameras.
Cohen slowly exited one of the black Crown Victorias. She hopped beside the door, removing a pair of crutches, and then proceeded to swing herself toward the stairways. Refusing the aid of several agents and police, she forced her way clumsily up the steps and into the warehouse.
Inside, a group of men stood marveling at the building’s inventory. Flashbulbs exploded around them, documenting the scene.
“John. Frank. Sorry I’m late.”
Savas turned around and the lines of his mouth tightened. It was hard to see her like this. The bruises had only begun to leave her face, the hideous black and green fading to a sickening yellow, scabs slowly being absorbed, hair lost from her left side where stitches ran over her scalp like laces on a game ball. Cohen limped toward them, her breath ragged, her eyes fatigued, yet a light burning within them.
“You didn’t miss anything,” said Savas, taking her arm. She relented and let him help her. “Or rather, we all missed the same thing. Hell of a fireworks display. And just look what Pandora’s box has inside it.”
Cohen whistled. “And no one noticed that someone was piling up large drone orders like this?”
Miller shook his head. “It didn’t look that way on paper. Our two shadows tracked it all down, like tributaries piling into a big river. Then they came here and did this,” he said, gesturing outside. “Who did you say those folks were?”
“I didn’t,” said Savas.
“Mmmm.”
“We’ve counted twenty-five of the largest models,” said Savas, “most equipped to bomb or shoot anything to smithereens. The rest are reconnaissance setups, smaller models with different imaging equipment ranging from cameras to infrared, audio — you name it.”
“The bodies outside?”
Savas nodded. “Need to confirm, but facial recognition from snapshots IDed two of them. Former contractors that worked in the Middle East, one ex-army.”
“More mercenaries,” growled Miller. “Fifteen of them, it seems. Your ghosts are better than Jason Bourne.”
“Moving on,” said Savas. “We’ll ID all we can and see what we can find from it.”
“Meanwhile, we’ve put a dent in their attack plans,” said Cohen.
“I hope so.”
“What do you mean?”
Savas sighed. “Fawkes used a bunch of shell companies, crisscrossing aliased orders to stock this place. It was to hide his tracks, hide this place from prying eyes. But I’m starting to think that he’s not the kind of guy to put all his eggs in one basket.”
Miller looked gravely at him. “You think he has more drones.”
“I know he does.”
Savas didn’t want to believe his own words. He needed a win, the kind of win that would let him believe he had declawed this nebulous monster. But the truth was too obvious.
Cohen changed tact. “You said there was a call from Gabriel?”
“Yes. They have a bag of phones. You can guess from where. Angel’s on it now, but it’s beyond her resources. I’m going to go long on this and bring in Simon.”
“Fred Simon of CIA?” she asked. “We haven’t contacted him since—” She caught herself. “Not for a while.”
Miller smiled. “Who’s he?”
“Someone who might can help,” said Savas. “We might also need the NSA to work those phones.”
“More Watchmen?” asked Cohen.
He nodded to her and stared at Miller a moment. “Why don’t you fill in Frank a bit on the group while I get this show wrapped up here. I think the usefulness of certain secrets has diminished greatly given the current circumstances.”