the face. Mooch pulled a dense balaclava over her head.
“Radio earphones too. I want her jacked into team comms.” Odin turned. “Foxy, Tin Man, get up to White, Bravo, Two and draw some fire. I want a map of every sniper station between us and the airstrip.”
“What if they’re mobile? It’d be a waste of time.”
Mooch shook his head. “Look at the GBOSS images. They’re dug in like ticks out there. They’re not going anywhere.”
“Right.” Foxy pulled an uninflated pool toy from one case, and then he inserted an air canister into its base. The pool toy quickly inflated into a human bust-a Caucasian male in a suit. He affixed it to a plastic pole, then he and Tin Man ran upstairs with it.
“Watch your ears… firing!”
Odin aimed the shotgun at the skylight on the ceiling at the far side of the entry hall. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Glass rained down onto the floor planks ten feet away. The sky was now open above them. Odin leaned down to the ravens, who seemed unfazed by the gunfire. He held up an index finger. “Huginn. Recce. Recce. Muninn. Recce. Recce. Go!”
They caw ed back at him loudly, then flew up through the skylight into the blue sky.
McKinney watched them go. “They could get shot, Odin.”
He finished getting his asymmetrical armor on. “We know the OS of just about every autonomous sniper station on the market, Professor. They’re made to kill people, not birds.” He was watching his Rover tablet, an image from one of the birds’ cameras. “The twins will do a mile orbit, and we’ll see what’s between us and the airstrip.”
Several shots rang out in the distance-a crackling that echoed in the hills. It gave Odin pause. However, his video image kept running uninterrupted, and in a moment Smokey and Tin Man ran down with a deflated human decoy.
“Trigger-happy little bastards. We barely got near the wall with the decoy when they opened up on us- straight through the planks.”
Mooch nodded to a bank of monitors on a nearby table. “There’s your vector map, Odin.”
Odin stooped to examine the video monitor. It showed a series of dots and glowing lines projected on the hillside, illustrating the path of incoming bullets. “Okay, two high on the ridge, eight hundred and nine hundred meters, one closer on this rise-about seven-eighty. Foxy, what do you think-Lapua Magnums?”
“That’s what I’d use.”
“All right.” Odin clicked around the computer screen. “That gives the bullets a flight time of about a second, give or take.” He stood up. “Even if they bracket us, that’s too far for them to hit an evasive target. Foxy!”
“Yeah?”
“Take the mirror blind and mark targets with near-red. Smokey, Tin Man, assemble the M224 in defilade- behind the SUVs might be good. On Foxy’s direction drop some seven-twenties on those two sniper stations. Clear us a path to the airstrip.” He looked around. “Objections?”
Everyone nodded and murmured assent.
“All right, then. Do it.”
They immediately launched into action, grabbing yet another equipment case and dragging it toward the front door.
McKinney gave Odin a quizzical look. “Then you’ve faced these things before?”
He nodded. “Our team has unique expertise, Professor. We illuminate them with a near-red laser for targeting-heatless light. It’s based on insect bioluminescence, actually. Helps conceal our presence. These machines can see infrared light like we can see visible light, so we don’t use it.”
Foxy and the others, now in their cool suits, swiftly opened the front door, Foxy holding the mirrored, curving shield in front of him. Smokey and Tin Man followed him through the door, and although everyone tensed visibly as they ran out into the open, their cool suits and other equipment apparently made them invisible to the autosnipers in the hills.
McKinney moved over to the security monitors and watched over Mooch’s shoulder. The screen showed Foxy moving to kneel behind the mirror shield in the driveway. Behind the SUV Smokey and Tin Man quickly opened the Pelican case and set up what looked to be a light mortar. In less than a minute Tin Man radioed in.
“All right, Foxy, burn Target One.”
“Burning.”
Smokey was monitoring some sort of electronic device that he then held against a mortar round Tin Man offered to him.
“Round programmed. Firing.”
Tin Man dropped the mortar round into the tube, and they both ducked down with their mouths open.
The mortar blasted with a CHOOM sound that was audible inside the house.
Mooch tapped another monitor focused on the distant sniper station. It looked like an evergreen bush with a black pipe sticking out of it. But in a few seconds the bush exploded, revealing a shattered optical lens and a tripod mount as it tipped onto its side.
Mooch radioed. “Target One down.”
“Copy that, Mooch.”
They quickly acquired the second target and repeated the process, requiring two rounds this time until they were satisfied it was knocked out. The entire team in the foyer breathed in relief as Foxy radioed in.
“Targets eliminated.”
Odin nodded. “All right, everyone. Let’s move everything to the SUVs.”
But suddenly a deep humming sound started to emanate from somewhere outside-somewhere away in the hills. They all looked at each other.
McKinney spoke first. “What is that?”
It sounded like a thousand weed whackers heard from a mile away.
Mooch examined the bank of camera monitors. “I don’t see anything. And we’re jamming common drone radio frequencies. And GPS signals.”
Foxy’s voice came in on the radio. “Odin, we’re hearing a strange sound out here. You got anything on the sensors?”
The sound was getting louder. Odin studied the rover screen. “Foxy, get your team back inside. Now!”
On the video monitor they grabbed their gear and dragged it back toward the front door of the house.
To McKinney the humming started to take on the sound of bees. Very large bees.
Ripper was aiming her rifle from doorway to doorway on the balconies above them. “What the hell is that?”
Odin was studying the Rover screen. “We’re gonna need a new plan.” He turned the screen to face them. It was a raven’s-eye view, flying over the forested hills-following what looked like a massive flock of black birds, thousands strong. Except that they didn’t move like birds; they swarmed low through and around the trees, hugging the land. Following something. The raven perspective showed that the cloud was moving, in surges and leaps, straight toward the house.
Foxy frowned. “What the hell…?”
McKinney studied the image. “Oh, my God…”
Foxy, Tin Man, and Smokey came back in through the double doors. Foxy lowered the mirror shield. “What is it?”
Odin stowed the Rover. “Batten down the hatches, people. We’re about to get hit, and if it’s what I think it is, it means we shoot everything that moves.”
The team started grabbing extra ammunition from the Pelican cases.
Ripper pulled her smaller, lighter ammo clip out and slapped a heavy, translucent, twin-drum magazine into her weapon. “Smokey, you got any spare drums for a HK416?”
“No, I wasn’t packing for an assault.”
“Mooch! Bag Hoov’s body. We’re taking him with us.”
“Right.” Mooch got busy, removing a body bag from his rucksack.
“Foxy!”
“Yeah?”
