Once the gunships were in position, the slower Black Hawks swooped lower still — flaring in to land on the airport tarmac and in the wide-open spaces between hangars, office buildings, machine shops, labs, and warehouses. Squads of heavily armed infantry poured out of the grounded helicopters. They were accompanied by groups of journalists and camera crews wearing body armor and helmets over their civilian clothes.
Directed by their officers and NCOs, the soldiers deployed fast across the compound. Some units fanned out to surround key buildings. Others stormed inside with their weapons at the ready.
Grim-faced now, Brad reopened his radio link. “Wolf One to Two and Three. You know how we thought this situation was already pretty bad? Well, believe it or not, but I’m pretty sure things just got a heck of a lot worse.”
With his hands clasped firmly on the back of his head, Hunter Noble walked into the spacious corner office. At the sight of the two other top Sky Masters executives already inside, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh, man,” he said over his shoulder to the soldier behind him. “This is so unfair. You cannot sling me in here with these hard-core lifers. I’m too damned pretty. They’ll carve me up.”
The middle-aged noncom only rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Doc. I’ll make sure I catch your comedy club act the next time I’m in town. Now get over with those people and keep your mouth shut until the colonel gets here.” He prodded Boomer ahead with the barrel of his M4 carbine.
“Tough crowd today.” Boomer sighed. He moved farther into the room to join the others.
Jason Richter, a retired U.S. Army colonel and now the company’s chief executive officer, sat in one of the chairs in front of his own desk. The tall, athletic man’s face was carefully blank, empty of all obvious emotion. Sky Masters’ president, Dr. Helen Kaddiri, sat next to him. She wore an expensive dark gray business suit. Her very long black hair was tied back in an intricate knot at the nape of her neck. Her dark eyes were watchful. They were being held at gunpoint by four stern-looking young soldiers wearing the ivy-leaf shoulder sleeve patch of the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Carson, Colorado.
The troops stiffened to attention when a trim, efficient-looking lieutenant colonel strode into the office. The name tape on his uniform read strang. “At ease,” he snapped. He motioned for them to lower their weapons. “These people aren’t going to cause us any trouble.” He turned to Boomer and the others. “Are you?”
“We have no intention of violently resisting this illegal action, if that’s what you mean, Colonel,” Helen Kaddiri said carefully. Her lips were pursed. “But I fully expect our lawyers to file a series of vigorous legal challenges to this unwarranted trespass on our property. And to our arrests.”
The Army officer shook his head with a fractional smile. “You’re not under arrest, Dr. Kaddiri. At least not yet.” He shrugged his shoulders. “For the moment, the president, acting under the authority granted her by the Insurrection Act, is placing you and your entire staff in protective custody — pending further investigation. The same goes for your corporate facilities and other property.”
“On what grounds?” Richter asked bluntly.
“Suspicion of possible involvement in terrorist actions against the United States,” the other man replied.
Boomer snorted. “That’s crazy! Barbeau’s lost her freaking mind.”
“I am not here to debate the issue,” the lieutenant colonel said, without batting an eye. “Now, with respect, I need you all on your feet and moving outside.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got helicopters waiting to fly you and all of your people out of here.”
Gracefully, Helen Kaddiri rose from her chair, a movement echoed by Jason Richter. “Fly us to where, exactly?”
“A safe location.”
Richter shook his head. “You’re making a very big mistake, Colonel Strang.”
Squinting against the sun, Hunter Noble jumped down out of the just-landed Black Hawk helicopter and strolled out from under its still-turning rotors. He straightened up and turned to take a look around. At least twenty UH-60 troop carriers sat on a wide concrete apron. Armed Air Force and Army security personnel surrounded clumps of frightened Sky Masters employees as they scrambled out of the helicopters — shepherding them toward a tent city being erected by sweating soldiers next to the base motor pool. Coils of razor wire surrounded the half-finished camp.
“What do you think, Boomer?” Jason Richter asked quietly. The Sky Masters CEO had come up beside him.
Boomer shook his head, staring at the flat, featureless landscape beyond the base perimeter. It stretched on for miles and miles and more damned miles. Far off, along the northern horizon, he could barely make out a few darker shapes that might be foothills of the Sawtooth Range, an offshoot of the Rocky Mountains.
“I think this sucks,” he said finally. He jerked a thumb toward the tents. “I bet there’s no cable. And no pool. Hell, I bet even the Wi-Fi is as slow as molasses.” He folded his arms stubbornly. “In fact, I’m so pissed off that I am seriously considering voting against our good pal Stacy Anne come November.”
Richter gave him a pained half smile. “That’s not quite what I meant, but I take your point.”
“Okay, more seriously, I’d say we’re being herded into an out-and-out prison camp. Not that I ever bought the good Colonel Strang’s line of bullshit about putting us in ‘protective custody.’”
“Yeah, that was a pretty glaring bit of fiction,” Richter agreed. “I suppose calling it that serves Barbeau’s legal purposes, but the ground truth is pretty clear. We’re in the bag — at least until the courts or Congress can spring us.” His eyes narrowed. “But I don’t think locking us up is all she’s got in mind.”
Puzzled, Boomer turned to stare at him. “Say again?”
Richter nodded toward a group of camouflaged shapes visible in the distance beyond the flight line. “Take a good, hard look over there and tell me what you see.”
Boomer did as he was asked. His own eyes widened in surprise. “Jesus, those are M1A1 Abrams tanks. And Bradley fighting vehicles.”
“And Paladin self-propelled howitzers,” Richter pointed out quietly.
“What the hell’s up with that?” Boomer wondered. He grimaced. “Except for you and maybe me, nobody else at Sky Masters is exactly he-man fighting material. The Army doesn’t need that kind of heavy-duty firepower to keep a bunch of engineers and scientists in line.”
“No, they don’t,” Richter agreed. His jaw tightened. “Which is why I’m reasonably sure we’re more than just prisoners or detainees.”
“Then what are we?”
“We’re bait, Dr. Noble,” the other man said. “A nice, shiny lure dangling on a hook.”
Twenty-Seven
Brad watched the four F-16s break off their patrol orbit over Battle Mountain and fly back east. The fighters passed high over another wave of helicopters ferrying in more troops and equipment from the 4th Infantry Division. He frowned. There were already at least two full infantry battalions deployed around the Sky Masters facility and they were fortifying their perimeter — digging fighting positions and building sandbagged bunkers for machine guns, mortars, and Javelin antitank missile teams. This was no snatch-and-grab raid. This was a full-fledged military occupation.