“Circumstance?” Smyth said sarcastically. “Doesn’t turn you into an expedition leader. He might have even ordered those mercs to move on our position.”
“He’s worth a try,” Lauren said with conviction. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Smyth sent a look of disgust her way.
“I wonder if poor Kelly left anyone behind,” Lauren said, changing the subject.
Smyth took her arm. “We’ll ask when we’re safe. Now keep moving.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hayden, Dahl and Kinimaka headed for Silicon Valley at a rapid rate of knots. Weapons were prepped on the way, teams armed. If the last assault was anything to go by, the one on Silicon Valley would be huge.
Even then, they couldn’t have guessed how huge.
Hayden leapt down from the still hovering chopper, taking care to step away from Kinimaka’s landing spot. They had put down at the side of the road — a two-way carriageway now crammed full of cop cars and black vans. Sunshine beat down hard at the asphalt, but even that had a hard time outshining the array of flashing lights. Hayden quickly sought out the man in charge.
“Hayden Jaye.” She shook hands with a tall, spare man wearing a flak jacket, her words almost torn away in the tumult.
“Jack. Jack Crews.”
“What do we have, Crews?”
After taking an extended look at her badge and then Kinimaka’s bulk and Dahl’s obvious European features he made the clear decision to cooperate. “Large group of mercenaries have stormed the Silicon Valley electrical facility. We’ve taken the area where they discarded their vehicles, without much incident to be honest. It’s almost as if they broke in without expecting to get out.”
Hayden scanned the skies. “Unless they have options on the way. Do you have an estimate as to their numbers?”
“At least forty. Possibly as many as seventy.”
Hayden turned to Dahl. “Thoughts?”
“These guys will have to wait.” The Swede motioned at the milling throng of authorities. “Doesn’t mean we have to.”
Hayden nodded.
Crews frowned. “Wait. What?”
“Worry not, my man.” Dahl grinned. “The less you know the better.”
“What the hell does that mean? And there’s no way I’m letting a Brit take the lead on this. What the hell is SPEAR anyway?”
Hayden made a show of blinking at all the questions as both Kinimaka and Dahl made a last check. Finally, Dahl addressed the agent.
“I’m not British, or English. Or even Australian. The best thing you could do is accept what’s about to happen. Oh, and look the other way.”
Hayden tapped his shoulder and they were away. Clumps of trees sat adjacent to the high metal fence that circuited the facility, offering a welcome area of cover. As they ducked under the overhanging boughs, Kinimaka took out a small pair of heavy duty clippers and set about the fence. A notorious fact was that security was mostly for display at electrical facilities around the US and the world, despite the numerous sniper and other armed attacks of recent years. Power companies, Hayden thought, clearly don’t make enough of a profit to afford better security for their staff and customers. Of course they didn’t.
Kinimaka clipped a hole and the three crouched down together to survey the interior. Similar to the San Jose plant, a large open-plan area was home to many electrical stations, transformers and pylons, with an office building sitting at the far side. Unlike the other plant this one was extensive and its machinery immense.
“This is a major facility,” Hayden said. “And if the mercs are following the same orders as San Jose they’ll have headed right for the control room.”
“So what do we do?” Kinimaka rumbled.
“Fifty mercs between us and them.” Dahl took an estimate. “What are we waiting for?”
He set off first, pushing through the gap with Hayden a step behind. Kinimaka grunted. “It’d be easier with a full team.”
Hayden agreed but said nothing. Not only was the separation of their family group personally incapacitating it made every operation that much more dangerous. Crucial decisions were made differently; outcomes changed. Dahl ran ahead of her, staying low and stopping behind a bank of machinery. Two more swift runs and they were within distance of the entrance doors. Hayden glanced back at the perimeter and the gaggle of cop cars parked there. Quickly, she radioed Crews.
“Any contact with the inside?”
“Yeah, one guy has a cellphone. He says most of the mercs are armed to the teeth, not afraid to use force and massing close to the central office. I’d say look out for guards though. All the civilians have been herded and barred inside their locker room.”
Hayden turned the radio off, relaying the news to her companions.
“No exfil?” Dahl asked.
“Not yet.”
“This feels like a last gasp scenario,” Dahl said about the last few days, sitting back on his haunches for a moment. “An entity throwing everything they have at something just to see how it turns out, maybe get a result.”
“Or that they just don’t care anymore.”
Dahl sighed. “There is that, too.”
Hayden reached the entrance without incident and glanced inside, surprised at the lack of guards. Her brain screamed at her to be careful, that this wasn’t right, but one quick flick of her eyes around the inside explained why.
“It’s laid out differently,” she said. “Pretty much one vast room full of machinery and it looks like they have guards perched on the gantries above, watching over. There’s no easy way in, guys.”
Dahl cursed. “Then we take the hard way. The civilians are safe inside the locker room. Let’s take this facility back.”
With that, the Swede flung open the door and charted the interior with nothing more than a quick glance. Raising his weapon he slipped inside, then flung grenades in two directions at once. Shots rang out. Dahl returned fire, racing fast around the inside perimeter of the open shell. Hayden tried to keep up, with Kinimaka at her back.
Explosions shook the structure. Twin gouts of flame rocketed toward the ceiling. One of the gantries shook as its foundation wobbled. Two snipers, clinging to its side, fell as the entire scaffold collapsed. Another metal stanchion rocked from the impact of the second explosion. A gunman fired at them even as his footing slipped, the shot striking a spot twenty feet above their heads. Dahl raced down the center of the vast room and tucked in underneath the central support beam. Mercenaries stationed above tried to lock him into their sights. Hayden and Kinimaka fell to one knee.
Firing, they picked two more guards off. Dahl hurled another grenade, this one exploding immediately as it struck another support beam. More gantries leaned and tipped. Cries of alarm went up. Hayden saw a knot of mercs squeezing through a far door that led to the building’s main office block.
She fired off three sharp shots, hoping to keep them pinned down. Kinimaka ran to shelter, then covered her as she ran to his side. Dahl held a grenade in each hand with his gun slung over his shoulder. To their left another gantry tumbled, the metalwork shearing down and crashing to the floor in a deadly splatter. A merc who survived the fall turned his weapon upon them.
Dahl dived away as Hayden picked the man off. As he rolled he threw one of the grenades toward the advancing force, then rolled back. The subsequent explosions shook foundations and rafters, and made the mercs dive for cover. Kinimaka stared upward, seeing the entire inner metal framework wobble.
“Umm… shit.”
Dahl wasn’t done, not by a long shot. Terror? He’d give these fuckers terror all right. Some were bought and paid and gave a fuck about the money, others did it for the depraved thrill. Then there were those who did it to make a difference… but none did it better than Torsten Dahl. Diving headlong beneath the array of gantries with bullets peppering the ground just inches from his every extremity, he rolled and hurled one last grenade. The bouncing bomb came up against another support member and instantly exploded.