“None was given.”
He handed her a rifle and they continued up the stairs, taking out three more Epsilons along the way. However, other than that, resistance on the upper levels was surprisingly light.
Vinnick would not have so few of his Epsilons guarding him. He must not be here.
Enzo cursed. Was he too late? Had he delayed too long? Well, no matter. As long as he showed the Russian government who controlled the Genjix and who they should be dealing with, that was all that mattered. Sometimes, a show of strength was the best form of diplomacy, even if it was technically against his own people. Especially if it was against his own people. The Russians could only imagine how he would treat them if he treated other Genjix who crossed him in this way.
He put his ear to the comm. “Report status.”
“Front gates secured,” Matthew said.
“Epsilon group at rear exit. We have them pinned down,” Akelatis added.
Enzo leaned into his comm. “The Epsilons are useless to me. Leave no survivors.”
He looked at Azumi, who nodded and left the room. The operation here was almost completed. All they needed to do now was round up Vinnick’s surviving intermediaries to the Federal Assembly and show these bought politicians how little their bribes were actually worth.
23 Genjix Facility
Timestamp: 2944
Eventually, we learned to game the system and stay below the radar. At first, my family and I tried to live a normal life as the entire Prophus network entrenched and reinvented itself. We enrolled Cameron in grade school. Jill joined a small law practice and I… um… I ran a black market for firearms. Hey, let me know if you guys need some real guns. Ha ha, okay you’re right. It’s not funny.
We could never stay in one place for long, though. Those damn Penetra nets kept popping up all over the place, and the government was making scanners increasingly smaller and more efficient. If either Jill or my son got caught in just one of those nets, the damn IXTF swooped in, and then we’d have to move.
It was rare to have Marco at a complete loss for words. He stared through the monocular and stuttered. “That… that is supposed to be a reclamation plant? What the bloody hell do you boys recycle there? Plutonium?”
He handed the monocular to Roen, who whistled. “That’s no moon.”
“Pardon?” Marco asked.
“Never mind. You suck.”
Elias, lying on his stomach next to Roen, rolled onto his back and checked their surroundings. He gestured at Chase to make a round on the perimeter. Then he pulled out a small map of the area. “Like I said, this joint is nigh impenetrable.”
Marco pointed at the double layers of fences around a two-story concrete wall. “It’s like bloody Fort Knox over there.” He turned to Roen. “You Americans must take your recycling very seriously.”
Roen scanned the perimeter. The two rows of fences, barbed wired on the top, spanned the entire length of the facility and made a ninety-degree turn directly into a steep mountain wall. The wall itself seemed to have been artificially carved so that it cupped the back of the facility like a lid. The front central gatehouse, nestled between double-layered fences, guarded a dirt road just wide enough for a small car. How did the Genjix move supplies in and out? Then Roen noticed something else.
“Oh come on,” he muttered. “That fence is electrified.”
“Splendid,” Marco said. He pointed at several tubes protruding out along the far corner. “Any idea what those are? Exhausts? Waste expulsion?”
Roen moved his sights to two clusters of pipes along each end of the building. He watched as two birds flitted around it. “Can’t be. Intake.” He continued to study the perimeter, growing more uneasy by the second. “What the… I think that’s a machine gun nest. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think those were murder holes.”
“Did the Genjix use Henry Yeverley to design this place?” Marco mused. “All they’re missing is a drawbridge.”
Roen counted the number of searchlights that lined the perimeter along the top of the walls at intervals of a few meters. With almost two hundred meters of clearance from the tree line, a frontal assault would be impossible, and given how the facility was nestled in a mountain, that was really the only way to hit it, unless they went in from above, which would pose a different set of problems.
“How did Prie get in before?” Roen asked.
“Come with me,” Elias said.
The small group made a wide circle around the perimeter just outside the tree line. A side entrance was bored directly into the mountain a little ways up the base of a steep hill, with a partially hidden tunnel just wide enough for two trucks side by side. If Roen hadn’t been looking carefully, he would have missed the entrance entirely.
Elias pointed into the dark tunnel with the dim fluorescent lights on the ceiling. “This is where all their supplies are off-loaded. Prie waited four days for a supply convoy and snuck in with it. He was able to grab a couple of samples before he was discovered. Based on how he described the interior, we believe the real facility goes far deeper into the mountain. The buildings that we see up front are just the entrance. The Genjix probably excavated deep into the rock to mask their real operation.”
Roen and his team spent another two hours surveying the Genjix base from every angle before making the hour-long trek back to the station wagon, which they had hidden off the side of the road. The group was palpably gloomy as they trudged through the foliage back to the car. Roen had seen his fair share of battles, and while modern warfare was a far cry from the often trench- and battle-lined firefights of the twentieth century, attacking this facility would be the equivalent of landing on Omaha Beach. If the defenses of the base were as strong as they looked, any attacking force would be charging into a wood chipper.
“I don’t know about you, but Ahngr thinks we’re proper fucked,” said Marco.
Roen grunted. “I didn’t need a Quasing to tell me that.”
Chase, manning point, dropped to one knee and raised a fist. The group flattened to the ground and froze. He crept forward a few paces and then signaled back at them. He pointed at his eyes, held up four fingers, then pointed west. Roen listened for anything out of the ordinary. At first, it was nearly imperceptible, but he soon detected a steady pattern of footsteps on leaves and low conversations coming from that direction.
Their group was too close together. If discovered, they would be easy targets for whoever was out there. Marco fell back, signaling for Roen to move forward and for Elias to pull left. Roen swung his rifle forward and kept it close to his body. They held their position.
Chase returned a few seconds later and drew on his hands with his fingers. A dot and a line that passed very close to it. The cracking sound got louder. Roen pulled Chase with him and they retreated into the brush. A few seconds later, a patrol of five soldiers wearing full camo gear passed through where they had just been. He immediately saw the Penetra scanner on one of the men and prayed Marco was far enough away to avoid detection.
Roen, being in the middle of his group, motioned to each: Elias lead. Chase two. Then he set his sights on the third in the group, trailing after them as they passed by. Time slowed. The group, walking single-file, was as relaxed as a pack of wolves on the prowl. Judging by the way they moved, they were professionals. They looked well-armored and -geared too.
Chase put his finger on the trigger and looked to him for confirmation. Roen shook his head. Their team was unarmored. In a firefight, even with surprise on their side, they would be at a disadvantage. Armor technology had far outpaced weapons technology in recent years. Even at their distance of forty meters, unless they got a head shot, these might not be killing blows.