Dammit!
“Shut down that camera!” Cutter yelled. “Hurry!”
The operator wasn’t fast enough. With a flash, all of the video feeds blinked out.
FIFTY-THREE
When the attack had started, Turner had ordered them to retreat into the third level hallway. Locke had been about to open the door, but Grant stopped him. His history with Cutter made him think that’s exactly what Cutter wanted. He also predicted the attack from above. Grant’s instinct was good enough for Locke. When they heard the explosion from the first level, confirming Grant’s suspicions, Turner agreed. They dropped a couple of grenades down the stairs and did what Cutter wouldn’t expect. They went up.
Grant saw the remains of the camera on the level two landing and told Locke he had a way to take out the cameras, which were becoming a real nuisance. Even if they shut down each camera as they went, doing so would eat into time they didn’t have, and Cutter could track them by the sequence of outages. Locke wasn’t an electrical engineer, so he had overlooked something that grabbed Grant’s attention.
The cameras were all on the same circuit and weren’t shielded. If Grant could find a high voltage wire and tie it directly into a camera’s video feed, he could overload the whole system.
In the second level hallway, Grant balanced on Locke and Turner’s shoulders to reach. Sparks flew when he spliced the wires together, and Locke heard a pop from another camera down the hall.
Grant jumped down. “We should be good to go. That’ll teach them for giving the construction contract to someone without my amazing skills.”
The klaxon shut off. A few doors opened. Civilians lured out by the voices. They must be on a residential level.
“Everyone stay in your rooms,” Locke yelled, and the doors slammed shut.
He led them to the stairway at the west end of the hallway. Turner followed without a word. Since Locke knew the basic layout better than anyone else, Turner had deferred the point position to him.
Only fifteen minutes were left, and they all felt the pressure to move quickly, but they couldn’t risk attacking head-on a fortified position they had little intel about. Anything the guard doped up on truth serum might be able to tell them would be worth the time.
They went cautiously into the stairwell and saw no one. They were halfway down when the door from the third level opened. Turner had the angle and fired two quick bursts, taking down two guards before they could react. The bodies kept the door from closing, and Locke could see another two guards retreat down the hallway.
This must have been the ambush team that Grant assumed would be waiting for them. Now Locke had the advantage of numbers. He ran into the hall firing shots at the running guards, who were going for the east stairwell. Just like Locke wanted.
He could see one of the guards halt before opening the door as if the man were listening to someone in his earpiece. But the other soldier barreled past him and launched himself at the door. The first guard tried to hold him back, but the door was already swinging open and hit the striker of the claymore that Locke had reset there.
The blast threw them backwards, and the guards came to rest face down, their bodies a mess of blood and dust.
“Which room?” Locke asked Dilara.
She led them to a room around the corner. Grant covered them while Locke opened the door. They found the doctor and the drugged guard still on the floor.
Grant and Turner picked up the guard and put him in the chair, clasping the restraints over his wrists.
“What’s your name?” Locke asked the guard while Turner wrapped the doctor’s wrists and ankles with plastic cuffs.
The guard’s eyes were completely dilated, unable to fix on who was speaking to him.
“Connelly.” He voice was slurred, like he’d chugged a twelve-pack.
“How many guards are there, Connelly?”
“Guards?”
“Your men. How many?”
“Thirty-two total security forces.”
“Looks like this stuff is working,” Grant said.
“How many inside?” Locke asked.
Connelly paused, confused. The math was too much for him. Locke had to make it less complicated.
“How many men are usually posted outside, Connelly?”
“Standard operations is 12.”
With the four in the hangar that meant 16 outside when the barriers came down. Cutter started with 16 inside, and now less than that. If Locke was lucky, Cutter had fewer than 10 men left. With that few, it would be risky for him to try another assault and lose more men.
Cutter would pull his men back to the control room and make a stand there. He would make it a battle of attrition, but Locke had to worry about the time. Ten minutes until the bomb dropped.
“What about the civilians, Connelly?” Locke asked. “Are they armed?”
Connelly shook his head lazily. “Garrett doesn’t want them to have weapons. Only us.”
That would feed into Garrett’s plan for dominating the group once he had wiped out everyone outside Oasis. He wanted a bunch of sheep he could command in his New World. Cutter wouldn’t be getting help from anyone else, just his security forces.
“Where is the bio lab?’
“Fifth level,” Connelly said.
“How do we get in?”
“Can’t. Palm scanner.”
“What about the control room? Where is it?”
“Seventh level.”
“Palm scanner?”
Connelly nodded. “If it isn’t locked manually from the inside.”
“Which they would probably do,” Turner said.
“Connelly, if you were attacking the control room, how would you do it?”
“East stairwell. Direct shot at the door. RPG.” Rocket propelled grenade.
“Two problems with that,” Grant said. “We don’t have an RPG, and it might blow the whole room apart. We need it functional to open those barriers.”
Locke shook Connelly. “How else? How do we get in?”
“Can’t. Have to wait until they come out.”
Get them to come out. That was it. And how do you get them to come out? Panic.
“Connelly,” Locke said, “does your palm print give you access to the bio lab?”
Connelly nodded.
Locke turned to Grant. “Help me pick him up. We’re taking him with us.”
They had their way in.
FIFTY-FOUR
On the fifth level landing of the west stairwell, Turner and Grant watched up and down the stairs while Locke pressed Connelly’s hand against the palm scanner leading into the bio lab. The screen changed into a keypad and said, “Enter pass code.”
“What’s the pass code?” Locke asked.
