Shadow Watch

Faire la chasse.

“Can you give me a better fix on those bastards?” he said.

Delure fingered a button on his console to superimpose a digitized map over the radar image they’d been viewing.

“How’s that?”

“Good, good, now bring it in closer.”

Delure hit another button and zoomed the image. Thibodeau saw geographical features of the compound’s western grounds enlarge and clarify around the blips of light, indicating the intruders’ position.

“A non.” He pointed at a curving blue line on-screen. “Take a look at where they are.”

Delure gaped up at him. “Near the west drive. That’s the quickest route from our motor vehicle pool to the perimeter.”

Thibodeau nodded.

“Get the ‘hog on their asses, an’ this time hit ’em with something stronger than fancy lights,” he said. “Our chase cars gon’ be on that road any minute!”

* * *

The anti-vehicular mines they had set were simply but cleverly camouflaged, wrapped in tar paper to blend in with the pavement. By day they would have been difficult for a driver to spot. At night they would be completely invisible.

Moments after they left the access road to rejoin their teammates, Tomas and Raul heard a low whirring sound close by to the right. They were turning to investigate, their FAMAS rifles at the ready, when the security robot sped nimbly up on them, a tubular apparatus on its side swiveling in their direction, liquid issuing from its nozzle in a pressurized stream.

Neither man got to trigger his weapon before the polymer superlubricant fanned over them, drenching them at first, and then abruptly solidifying in a thin layer over their skin, combat garb, and the ground under their boots.

Raul’s immediate thought was that they had been sprayed with a disabling foam, but he quickly realized this substance was something very different — more like dry ice in the way it hardened, except scarcely cooler than the air around him. Indeed, it was almost as if the fluid had altered his physical state rather than its own, as if every part of him that it touched had metamorphosed into smooth, slick glass. All at once he couldn’t hold onto his rifle. The more he tried, the more slippery his grip became. His eyes widening in alarm and incomprehension, he watched the weapon leap from his hands, snapping out the cable that joined it to his helmet display like a hooked fish at the end of a line, then dangling almost ludicrously from his helmet. He snatched at it, his fingers making wild grabs at its stock and barrel, but it slid out from between them and dropped near his feet.

He was bending to recover it when the soles of his boots lost their traction and his legs went skating out from under him.

The ground came up hard against his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. He attempted to scramble upright, and only flopped onto his side. Tried again and slid back down. The grass beneath him was stiff and slippery. His clothes were as unbending as molded plastic. His skin was brittle and much too tight. Out of the comer of his eye he saw Tomas skidding about on his stomach in the same helpless, flailing manner that he was, looking weirdly like a man trying to swim across solid ice.

He screamed then, his mind hurtling over the edge of fear to full-blown panic, screamed at the top of his lungs, and was still crying out when the security cars dispatched by Thibodeau came racing up the access road behind them.

The same road where, moments ago, the two invaders had planted their mines.

The three dark-blue quick-response cars beat their air support out of the gate by several minutes — partly because their drivers had been closer to the motor pool than the chopper pilots were to the helipad, and partly because the Skyhawk copters had longer crank times than the armored Mercedes 300 SE sedans, which sprang to life with the turn of an ignition key.

The drivers knew going into their pursuit that the lag would be a problem. Their chopper-automobile teams were equipped with integrated thermal tracking systems that allowed them to accurately pinpoint the location of their quarry, accomplishing this by means of a microwave video link between the Skyhawks’ pod-mounted surveillance equipment and receivers on the chase cars’ dashboards. But without the aerial transmissions from the helicopters, the men in the cars were relying on nothing more sophisticated than their headlights to spot the intruders.

Tragically, they also lost any chance of being forewarned about the concealed mines awaiting them on the access road.

There were two men in the first car besides the driver, one seated next to him, another in the rear. Neither passenger ever knew what hit him. The driver did see an almost unnoticeable dark patch on the roadway about three yards before the mine came up on him, and thinking it was a bump or pothole, tried to swing around it. But the high speed at which he was traveling made that almost impossible.

The mine went off with a booming explosion as the edge of his left tire rolled over it. The Mercedes shot up into air, its front end bucking higher than the rear. While its armor-plated chassis had been designed to withstand a direct and sustained small-arms assault, its undercarriage was vulnerable to the blast of orange flame that went tearing into it, instantly killing all three of its occupants. A second later the vehicle came down on its right side and rolled crazily forward on two wheels before tumbling onto its roof, fire jetting from its shattered windshield.

His eyes large with shock and horror, the driver of the second vehicle pumped his brake furiously, swerved sideways, and went shooting past the ruined vehicle, coming close enough to see the charred, blistered remains of a face amid the flames in its rear window. Then his tires tripped a second mine and there was another roaring explosion. The last thing he heard as his vehicle was blown apart was the sound of his terrified scream mingling with those of his passengers.

Scarcely a dozen yards behind him, the third car’s driver succeeded where the others hadn’t. Chunks of metal and blasted pavement raking his hood, he wrenched his steering wheel sharply to the left, jolting off the road and onto the bordering lawn, his tires spinning up clots of soil and grass. With precious extra seconds to react, the man at the wheel of the last car veered in the opposite direction, also screeching to a halt in time to avoid sudden death.

In the darkness beyond the road, two members of Orange Team lay in silent hiding. Both intruders had moved off slightly ahead of their companions after sowing the road with mines, managing to outpace the northern perimeter’s security robot and stay well beyond its surveillance range.

They lingered where they were for several moments, peering at the conflagration through their night-vision glasses, watching the dazed survivors of the ambush stagger from their cars. Then a fresh explosion shook the compound to the west, sending a ragged wedge of fire into the sky.

Blue Team’s success violently confirmed, the two men retreated into the shadows. Their trap had been sprung, but they were not yet finished here tonight.

The final stage of the operation was about to get under way.

* * *

Kuhl stared ahead into the explosion’s glare and imagined its shock waves sending ripples through the hearts of his opposition. He had planned tonight’s mission carefully, overseen its every detail, and his preparation was bringing its dividends in results.

Now he heard a tearing metallic sound like some inhuman cry of agony, and saw a crumpled section of the perimeter fence launch into the air and then plunge earthward in a shower of sparks and debris.

It was time.

Kuhl turned to his driver and instructed him to give the signal to mobilize. He nodded in response, and flicked his headlights and taillights on and off once.

The driver at his rear did the same, and then the driver behind him, the signal rapidly making its way down the line of jeeps.

Their engines coming to life, they began rolling toward the fire and thunder of the blasts, the way into the installation open before them.