Bennings hoisted the dolly inside, closed the hatchback, and then he and Petkova got in without speaking. As they drove off in the Pathfinder, Kit checked the rearview mirror. It looked as if Simms advised his men to stand by, and he closed the exterior roll-up door, remaining in the air lock alone.
CHAPTER 30
Sandia wasn’t a huge facility, but it would take at least a couple of minutes to get to the Eubank Boulevard gate. Kit clutched the two-way radio, put an earbud in his ear, and turned the volume up.
“If he follows procedure, we should have just enough time to get off base. But if he pops the lid to the crate right there in the air lock, we’re screwed.”
“Either way, as American people say, we are in deep doo-doo now,” said Yulana, looking worried.
“Yes, we are.” Kit tromped on the accelerator, driving dangerously fast toward the gate as he continued to listen for Simms to call in an alarm to dispatch. His face muscles tightened. Did Simms follow his orders or not?
At the time he was standing in the air lock with Simms, he thought the mention of the 898th’s decertification was a good idea to put the sergeant on the defensive, but it instead made him pricklier, more of a stickler for procedure… as long as Bennings was standing there. But as soon as Kit and Yulana drove away, what would Simms really do? Then Bennings asked himself what he would do.
“The sergeant hasn’t radioed in a problem, and the gate is around the corner. But, damn it, if it was me, I’d just pop the sucker open.”
“Maybe he didn’t use the radio.”
Kit slammed on the brakes and they skidded to a stop just short of rounding the corner, so they were still out of sight from the gate guards, but just barely. “You’re right. He’d use a landline. You don’t want to put out on the radio a big screwup unless you have to.”
He threw the vehicle into reverse and spun a 180-degree turnaround.
Kit pressed the TALK button on the radio. “Dispatch, this is unit——” He hit the squelch button, causing feedback to cover up the fact that he didn’t have a radio handle to use. “Three, repeat, three drones now landing inside the base on the west side of Building sixty-seven. They are all painted black. Some kind of electrical interference——” Kit hit squelch again and then turned the radio off.
“Diversions,” said Kit as he looked at Yulana. “I forgot to set up any diversions in case we had to make a run for it.”
Having been alerted by Sgt. Simms to secure the gates and stop the couple in the Pathfinder, the guards at every gate that wasn’t already closed had raised up the pneumatic posts from the ground that comprised impenetrable vehicle blockades.
All gate guards at Sandia placed loaded magazines into their M4s, as frantic radio traffic squawked about intruders with a stolen bomb and drones and mobile units being dispatched to Building 67.
The perimeters of most sensitive facilities are not as formidable as one might think; they are designed to keep the honest people out, not the bad guys in. So Kit raced the Pathfinder off-road across an expanse of brown grass and slammed through eight-foot-high chain-link fencing topped with concertina wire.
He fishtailed onto Eubank Boulevard and floored it heading north. Just as he looked into the rearview mirror, the headlights of a vehicle came on and it pulled onto the road behind him, accelerating fast.
“Who the hell is that?”
Yulana looked back. “Police?”
“If it’s the police, where are the flashing lights?”
Kit made a screeching right turn onto Southern Boulevard, and the vehicle following did likewise. He saw that it was a dark SUV with tinted windows.
“It can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?” asked Kit.
“Popov,” she said, making the word sound like a curse.
Kit’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
“It’s the Feds, it has to be FBI, or… maybe plainclothes Sandia security.”
But as he thought about it, why couldn’t it be Popov? The Russians had to suspect he might come to Sandia to steal the weapon, and Sandia wasn’t that big. But, surely…
Kit wrenched the wheel at the thought and veered up Elizabeth Street to Central Avenue, where he hung another wide right, glancing off an old Ford, which then spun out.
The dark SUV relentlessly followed and closed ground.
Did Yulana borrow the sergeant’s phone while she was out of my sight and call someone? Someone who was standing by in the vicinity, just waiting to pounce? The thought almost made him physically sick.
An oncoming sedan suddenly veered across the double yellow lines of Central right at them. More of Popov’s men. Kit careened left into oncoming lanes and then tried to correct, but he was traveling too fast. He lost control, and the Pathfinder skidded sideways and exploded through the storefront of a large indoor flea market.
Shattering glass and splintering wood rained like a downpour in monsoon season, as the Pathfinder tore a new path through antique furniture, old appliances, and funky jewelry displays. Miraculously, the vehicle didn’t flip.
Bullets pinged into the driver’s compartment. Definitely not the Feds or security. Yulana threw open her door and rolled out onto the concrete floor of the flea market. Kit reached into the backseat for his backpack and the Kel-Tec subgun. He felt a burning sensation in his upper arm; he’d been shot.
The incoming grew more intense, so he kicked his door open, scrambled out, and found cover behind an old Kenmore fridge.
As he put on his backpack, he quickly counted eight different muzzle flashes closing in from the darkness. Eight killers. He had to backpedal now! Just as he began to lay grazing fire, he saw movement to his left. He wheeled and was about to fire, when Yulana, wild-eyed with fear, crawled toward him.
“What do we do? We can’t leave the device!” As soon as she got the words out, a fusillade of lead tore in all around them.
“It’s too late. If we stay, we die. Come on!” He pulled on her arm and they retreated.
Had Yulana betrayed him? He wanted to give the woman whose hand he now held as they ran in the darkness the benefit of the doubt; he couldn’t assume she’d been nothing but a spy after all they’d been through. But as they crouched low and moved deeper into the market, a different thought consumed him. How could a scientist operate as slickly as she did? Was she working for Popov after all?
He pulled up next to some old stoves and laid down covering fire. The bolt locking back on his weapon told him he was out of ammo. Sounds of killers bumping into furniture on both sides of them meant they were being flanked. He had only seconds to decide: make a break for it alone, or bring her with him?
He looked into her eyes. Could she possibly fake the kind of fright on her face right now? No, he decided, and so he pulled her along, running flat out in the dark.
They crashed out of a rear door to the flea market. Moonlight revealed old refrigerators next to the door, so Kit heaved and pushed one onto its side, blocking the door from opening. Almost instantly he heard voices from inside the building as men tried to open the door. Kit pulled Yulana along, threading through piles of rusty stoves, broken tables, and clunky office furniture stacked into towering piles.
Voices closed in, looking for them. At the six-foot-high rear wall, he boosted her up, and she climbed over easily. But when he tried to follow, searing pain from where he’d been shot stabbed through his arm and into his shoulder as he struggled to pull himself up. Gritting his teeth as he grimaced, he finally got a leg onto the ledge and spilled over the top of the wall.