She slipped it free. A merc dived on it, desperate to keep the noise down. She relinquished her grip rather than pull free of Dahl. And so the two gladiators stood, back to back, jabbing and punching left and right, fencing with knives, as bloody as any two warriors who ever lived. When Alicia stumbled, Dahl sensed it as it happened and caught her under the arm. When the Swede took a mighty blow and staggered, Alicia performed a vicious, spinning elbow, devastating his opponent and barely taking her eyes off her own. Terrified yells could already be heard from inside the van. Alicia pressed hard against Dahl’s spine and stood her ground. Both used the van’s side to crack heads with. The intensity of the battle was so strong Alicia couldn’t even find a second to pose a wisecrack. Her arms were on fire, her muscles screaming. Even her reserves were beginning to dwindle.
Dahl breathed hard at her back. With a destructive effort he smashed three men against each other, cracking skulls, and stomped another. It was the last merc and a warning shout went up. Immediately, the back doors of the van swung open, but both Dahl and Alicia knew what to expect. Without pause they rolled and drew weapons, firing the instant they caught sight of a body. Their bullets struck legs. A man fell out face-first, his machine pistol hitting the grass at his side. A second went the same way, squirming as he dropped hard. Dahl rolled underneath the swinging doors, gun up, trigger finger at three-quarter pull weight.
Alicia shot at the last few mercs, winging them, and ran over to disarm them. Dahl watched the back of the truck. Lights blazed from inside but he was at too low an angle to get any kind of reasonable view.
Several hundred yards away, both Hayden and Kinimaka were sprinting to join the fight. Alicia made a huge deal of checking her watch.
Hayden held up a hand, forestalling the comment. “Did you guys do all this?”
Alicia blinked and surveyed the scene. Bodies writhed and struggled everywhere, some in piles, others squirming away. She shrugged, the small movement causing a lance of pain.
“Seemed like the right thing to do.”
Kinimaka joined Dahl, indicating that the Swede should rise to his feet. “Get a look at that, bro.”
The rear of the truck was set out like a computer station. Each side held two terminals, desks and chairs. Three scruffily dressed men and one woman sat inside, mouths open, hands in the air.
“Please,” one of them mouthed.
Hayden took control. She jumped into the back of the truck, Glock very much in evidence. “Show me the fucking Z-box now! Do it as if your lives depended on it.”
A gangly older man moved away from his console, revealing the small black box that had been positioned next to his elbow. Alicia had jumped in after Hayden and recognized the Chinese-manufactured device.
“Gives the words ‘Made in China’ a whole new meaning,” she muttered.
Hayden aimed the barrel of the gun at the man’s throat. “If I destroy that box will the blackout end?”
“It… it’s the master code box, the hub of the blackout program we designed, so yes… yes it should.”
Hayden fired a shot into the truck’s bulkhead. “Should?”
“Will! It will, it will!”
The next bullet wrecked the little box. Hayden looked over her shoulder at Dahl, who remained outside.
“Nothing happening,” he said. “Maybe something needs to reboot.”
“Call it in,” Hayden said. “We have rows of geeks sitting around waiting to take care of this.”
Alicia picked up the Z-box, placed it on the floor and crushed it beneath her boot heel. “Just to be sure,” she said with a wink and a grin. In truth, her body was crying for a break and to start healing but she knew any respite would only stiffen up her joints. There would be time to mend later.
Hayden jammed her Glock under the tall man’s throat. “Tell me all about Path 26,” she said. “And how it caused this blackout.”
Terrified eyes blinked rapidly. “Yes, yeah. Well… Path 26 is a set of three power lines that form the main link for Southern California’s electrical power grid. There are other hubs at San Jose and Silicon Valley. To get into the Path you need access to all three hubs, and you can’t remote it. It has to be done on site. That’s why we needed the three backdoors.” As the geek explained his work he began to relax, warm up even. “Path 26 can transmit 3700MW to Southern California which only needs 3000 at full capacity. Accessing Path 26 was the key to causing the blackout — turning off the power. It gave us access to the whole system. The Z-box made it all easier, cracking that system’s codes within seconds and allowing us free reign. That…” he started to stammer again, realizing he was out of words. “That’s it.”
Hayden didn’t take her eyes off the geek. “Dahl?”
“They’re working on it. Looks good, though.”
“Stand up and put your hands behind your backs. All of you. Alicia, tie these men up.”
“Ah, words I love to hear.”
Hayden faced the woman. “You. Stay handy. We might need you.” In another second she turned toward Kinimaka.
“And Mano?”
“Uh huh?”
“Give Drake a call. Tell him we’re on our way. The gang’s getting back together.”
“Fucking A.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Lauren Fox felt rather like a fish out of water. The deserts of Arizona and California were a far cry from the penthouses and luxury suites of thousand-dollar-an-hour clients. This new job — hazardous though it may be — was sure granting her some crazy opportunities. A breath of fresh air? Well, maybe, but the danger involved made it an unlikely outlook as well as being intoxicating. Go figure.
Now, as the team led her in the direction of the Pythian camp, she again turned her mind to infiltrating it on her own little lonesome. Back into the jaws of extreme jeopardy. Yes, Smyth would shadow her as far as he was able, but not even the super soldier could save her if Nicholas Bell proved to be a devil. Add to that the presence of Clifford Bay-Dale — the other Pythian present on this escapade — and the odds weren’t really stacked in her favor. But then she was a New York girl, through and through. She was used to bad odds.
Now, as darkness started to creep across her peripheral vision, the team halted and Drake confronted her once more.
This time, his words were silent, unnecessary. You don’t have to do this, love. She added the “love” part because she figured he’d be ramping up the Yorkshire accent a little bit.
Her gaze never wavered, her eyes pure steel. She even laid a hand on Smyth’s shoulder. “We’ll make this work.”
Drake studied the sky. “Ten more minutes. We’re gonna position so we’re minutes away. If you’re in there for more than ten — we’re coming in to get you, like it or not.”
It sounded good to her.
“And I’ll be listening in,” Smyth said.
She knew all this. She was ready. With a last glance toward Karin and Jenny she straightened out her clothes as best she could, ran a finger-comb through her hair and took a deep breath.
Time to earn your keep.
Lauren followed Smyth’s lead, creeping around the dunes toward the camp and staying low. They stuck to the lees and valleys, courting every shadow. No words were needed. Smyth crouched until a disinterested guard walked past, giving him time to reach the top corner of the camp. With a wave he urged Lauren along, boots crunching a little as they struck sand raised along the bottom edge of a large tent. Now he knelt, listening.