Six other vehicles were parked around the open hangar. Two from the base’s own military police, one from the intelligence team based at Nellis, two DMS Humvees from the Casino, the Nevada Field Office located in an actual—though no-longer-operating—hotel casino. Lucky Team had gone inside with the military investigators, leaving most of Echo Team outside to bake in the sun. Only Ricky Gomez and Snake Henderson from Echo went in with the others. They lost the coin toss.
Echo Team was here to do some babysitting. Lucky Team was down three men following a raid on a Reno chemical lab that had turned into a firefight. The intel from the FBI had been weak, indicating that there were only five hostiles on-site, but Lucky had walked into a nest of thirty. By the time an HRT unit could roll, two DMS agents were dead and the team’s former leader, Colonel Dolcyk, had taken a bullet graze on the forehead that would keep him in the hospital for weeks. The second in command, Leto Nelson, had rallied his team and laid into the hostiles like the wrath of God. They’d held their line until the backup arrived, killing eleven of the terrorists and wounding six others, but it had been a bad day for them. Echo was here to make sure it didn’t turn into a pattern. When luck goes bad it can keep flowing downhill.
The operation itself was little more than a “look-see.” Over the last three nights the surveillance cameras on the base had malfunctioned. Once could be mechanical failure; twice was an alert. Three times was deliberate action even to the most hesitant and short-budgeted military pencil pusher. On any other base the response would have been an increase of guard patrols and the installation of a secondary and covert set of cameras that would watch the standard security cameras, and a check-back of everyone who had access to the security office. But this corner of Area 51 was home to the Locust FB-119, the newest generation of stealth aircraft. Unlike previous generations, the Locust FB-119 was designed to be totally invisible to radar, building on a radical new design philosophy that was generations up from the faceted surfaces of earlier stealth craft. The Locust could also disguise its infrared emissions to make it harder to detect by heat-seeking surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles, and chameleon fast-adapting skin that immediately changed its underbelly colors to match the skies through which it flew, with a lag time of .093 seconds. Six Locusts sat in the hangar, ready for the last phase of tests before Senate approval for mass production.
If even a single photograph of the craft hit the Net or fell into North Korean, Iranian, or Chinese hands it could spark a new and ugly round of the arms race, because it would be clear to any aeronautics engineer that these birds were designed to deliver nuclear payloads.
Bunny squinted up at the unrelenting sun.
“December my ass,” Bunny complained. “Got to be ninety.”
“It’s seventy-three,” said Khalid, and under his breath he said, “Kisich.”
“Hey, I heard that.”
“But you don’t know what it means.”
“If I shoot you enough times you’ll tell me.”
Top touched his ear jack. “Go for Sims,” he said, and listened for a moment. “Copy that, Snake. Sounds like it’s Miller time. Tell Lucky Team that first round’s on Echo—”
And the hangar blew up.
They saw it before they heard it. The windows above the half-open doors bowed outward and the entire roof leaped in a single unit above the building. A split second later the heavy
Top twisted and dove for cover, tackling DeeDee as he went, spilling them both into the open door of the Humvee even as the shock wave lifted the vehicle and battered it onto its other side. Bunny was plucked off the ground and slammed into Khalid and they struck the ground on the far side of the vehicle, both of them losing their weapons as superheated gasses blew them along the hardpan like debris. John Smith tried to run, but a piece of debris—a half-melted plastic bucket—struck him in the lower back and dropped him like he’d been shot.
The Humvee lurched over onto its side and rocked back and forth as gravity pulled Top and DeeDee down into an awkward tangle of too many arms and legs against the door of the passenger side. There were more explosions, one after the other, the force of them rumbling with earthquake power through the ground, rattling every bolt and fitting in the big vehicle. The windows shattered and a hail of gummed safety glass hammered them.
The long, slow
Then there was silence.
To Top Sims the silence felt like it was filled with knives. He hovered on the edge of consciousness, agony stabbing through every bruised inch of him. Top knew he was hurt, but he could not tell how badly. His head throbbed horribly and there was warmth in his ears. Blood? He prayed that his eardrums hadn’t been blown out.
He lay still for a moment, listening for the sounds of combat. The echoes of the blasts kept pounding inside his head. He worked his jaw and something clicked behind his jaw and one ear popped. He could hear. First his own labored breathing and then a muffled sound. Below him.
“DeeDee,” he croaked.
She made a soft, hurt sound.
“Talk to me, soldier,” he said as he tried to shift his weight off her. She was a strong woman, but his 175 pounds were smashed down on top of her 130, and at an angle that was doing neither of them any good.
“Can’t … breathe … ,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
Top reached up to grab the steering wheel and pulled his weight away from her. He heard her gasp in a lungful of air.
“Better,” she said, but her voice was weak.
“I’m going to climb out. Got to see what’s what. I’ll be back for you.”
“I … I’m good,” she said without conviction.
Top reached up with his other hand, taking the knobbed wheel in both fists, then set his teeth and pulled. It was like doing a chin-up through a junk-cluttered manhole, and the strain on his muscles was incredible. Particularly on his left side, which had only recently healed from injuries from a mission down in the Bahamas back in August. As he pulled himself up he could feel the burn along the newly healed ribs and barely knit muscle in his shoulder. Top set his teeth against the pain and hauled.
“Top!”
He looked up as a big shadow moved above him, blocking out the sky. Bunny’s face was streaked with dust and lines of blood, but his eyes were clear. He reached a hand down and knotted his fist in the front of Top’s combat vest, then with a grunt like an angry bear reared back and hauled Top out of the Humvee as easily as Top might pull out a child. The huge muscles in the big young man’s arms swelled like ripe melons as Bunny … pulled. Top caught the edge of the frame and hoisted himself onto the side of the vehicle.
“You may be ugly, Farmboy, but right now I could kiss you.”
“Buy me dinner and a movie first, old man.” He wiped sweat from his eyes. Top’s trembling fingers fumbled for his sidearm, but Bunny said, “We’re not under fire, Top. No hostiles. No nothing.”
“Got to get DeeDee out.”
Bunny bowed down and thrust his head and shoulders into the Humvee. “Hey … DeeDee … how we doing down there?”
“Just fine. I’m down here doing my fucking nails.”
Bunny snorted and took the hands that she reached up to him and pulled her out. She and Top hopped down onto the ground, dazed and unsteady.
“Report,” gasped Top.
Bunny crouched atop the Humvee. “We’re not under fire. This isn’t an active attack. Khalid’s winded. I landed on top of him. Smith’s good.” His blue eyes were hard as diamonds. “Top, Ricky and Snake were inside when it blew.”
Top closed his eyes.
Ricky Gomez had been with Echo for three months, the longest active service besides Bunny. He’d proven himself in half a dozen tough assignments. But … Snake. God. This was only Snake’s third day on the job. His first field op.
