The team went prone again.
Once it was clear, Fitz gestured to Dohi. The tracker rushed across the street toward the warehouse. He pressed himself against the wall of the facility, following it to a door. Then he looked into a window and turned and motioned for the team to follow.
Fitz and the others joined him, and Dohi opened the door. Fitz moved his finger to the trigger in anticipation of guards.
But they met no resistance as the team entered a vast, empty room reeking of something rancid—something worse even than the gruesome underground hives and web-covered tunnels.
Cages were stacked in columns nearly fifteen-feet high. All appeared empty, though red webbing stretched between them winding between the thin bars.
Fitz roved his rifle back and forth, looking for signs of life. Nothing moved except for the slowly pulsating tendrils of webbing.
Most of the enclosures were no taller or wider than three feet. They appeared much too small for people to fit comfortably inside.
Then again, the New Gods didn’t care about their prisoners’ comforts.
Dohi pointed at the floor of one of the cages. It was covered in what looked like soil, except that it had a pungent, acidic odor.
“Guano,” Dohi whispered.
“Gross,” Rico said quietly. She covered her nose with her sleeve.
Fitz looked around in a mixture of awe and fear.
All these cages, the hundreds of them in this otherwise empty warehouse, were once filled with bats. Mutated creatures like the ones that had plagued the outposts of the Allied States. The odor of the guano indicated the bats had been here recently.
“Jesus,” Fitz whispered. He knew exactly where these bats were heading.
“Should we warn Galveston?” Dohi asked, sensing his thoughts.
Fitz wasn’t sure. Doing so could jeopardize their mission. If the New Gods intercepted radio activity in Los Alamos, their attempt to incite a covert insurrection would be over before it even began.
For that reason, he shook his head. “They’re ready. They can handle the bats.”
Dohi nodded and started to lead them out of the warehouse back into the cold night on the eastern side of the building. Outside, he crouched behind a line of bushes near a street heading north. Across the way were other buildings and laboratories.
Using his NVGs, Fitz spotted three patrols of soldiers, at least a dozen Scions. Engines rumbled somewhere else in the base. Somehow, Ghost had to get around all of them, identify the prison, recruit their army, and do it all before dawn.
He looked at his watch. They were already behind schedule.
The clock was ticking, and they couldn’t afford to waste any more time. Neither could their friends, family, and countrymen counting on them back in Galveston.
— 22 —
Beckham strode along a steel-panel-bulwarked wall on the west side of the secured island coast. From his vantage point, he could see the sliding gate of the island’s outer walls leading to the old Interstate 45 bridge connecting Galveston to the rest of Texas. The defensive forces had loaded the bridge with explosives earlier to stop a potential attack from that direction.
They would sacrifice the bridge should things get bad, cutting off their only route to the mainland.
But they wouldn’t need it anyways. There was no escape plan. All they could do was fight to the last breath, just like the soldiers at the Alamo.
He shook away the thought.
This would be different than the Alamo. Beckham had faith because they had something the soldiers at the Alamo did not: Team Ghost and Kate’s science team.
Stars studded the blanket of darkness above them, but they were being swallowed by fast-moving clouds. A bank of fog rolled toward them from the east.
“I smell rain,” Sergeant Ruckley said, walking beside him.
She walked with a bad limp, as if each step was sending a pain through her body. This is what it had come down to, using injured soldiers, some only able to walk because of pain meds.
They needed every person and every gun on the walls.
They paused near the open entrance into the top level of a guard tower that looked like a pillbox built into the wall. It had reinforced walls and small windows offering shooting lanes over the side of the island. Commander Jacobs was inside speaking to a few soldiers standing next to an M249 on a tripod.
The engineers and soldiers had also positioned three automated Phalanx CIWS turrets adapted to cut down any aerial threats around the island. The closest was located at the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig museum just off the pier near the Harbor House Hotel. Another was near the hospital at the northern side of the base, and the third was south of their position, closer to the airfield.
Commander Jacobs finished giving orders and joined Ruckley and Beckham outside the entrance to the tower. “Everything’s set. We’re just waiting on the first groups to return from injecting the anthrax.”
Beckham looked back toward the bridge. “No one’s made it back yet?”
“I received word from the first few teams that they’ll be back soon. Recon Charlie reported seeing a few Variants out there. Most of the other groups have remained radio silent.”
“Any word from Recon Sigma?” Beckham asked, referring to Horn and Timothy’s team.
“Nothing yet,” Jacobs said.
“I’m sure they’re doing fine,” Ruckley said.
Beckham had wanted to go with, but he trusted Horn and he was needed here to help with the final defenses.
“Recon Sigma went to one of the farthest sets of tunnels northwest of Houston,” Jacobs said. “I wouldn’t expect them back any time soon.”
“And we still got a long time before dawn,” Ruckley said. “Trust me, I’ve been up and down the northeast with Timothy. Driving through Houston and injecting a bit of anthrax is nothing that young man can’t handle.”
“I know you’re right,” Beckham said. “How about news on the First Fleet?”
“We haven’t spotted them yet, but this cloud cover isn’t helping. Seems like a storm is rolling in. They can’t hide from us forever, though. Our final aircraft are on standby
