R.K. Robinson and his heavily armed guards fanned out across the grass, rushing from tree to bush to tree, dropping behind each bit of cover to fire at the muzzle flashes coming from the horde of attackers lining the perimeter fence.
Bart cut through the rolls of barbed wire topping the fence beside him so it sprung back, leaving an opening. Larry went over first, then O’B, panting heavily. They reversed and dropped down inside the fence. Bart followed, leaving the grappling hooks and the Gold Line in place for Trin. He dropped to the ground beside the gently snoring Dobermans, patted each dog on the head, then ran after the others, stuff-bag in hand. All three men were dressed like Xanadu security guards.
As the three DKA men got to the front steps of Xanadu, the two gate guards came panting toward them. When they were still too far away to see faces in the flickering light, O’B swung his arms at them.
“I’m the new Deputy Security Chief, Sergeant Ryan. Captain Robinson wants you to take a long, slow turn around this building and see everything is secure. We’re in control here!”
They split up to trot away around the building. The three DKA men ran up the front steps of Xanadu, and ducked into an open doorway a few yards inside the entrance. In like Flynn!
As Trin crawled inexpertly through the frigging woods, tearing his clothes, getting slapped in the face with branches, buzzed by a slug a foot from his head, he felt like a Green Beret, for Chrissake. Those guys shooting out into the darkness at the firecrackers were using live rounds.
The grappling hook with the line dangling down on his side of the fence was there, all right. The frigging dogs were out cold. He’d be up and over before they...
Voices! He leaped back into the bushes. Two guards came trotting right up to the fence and stared at the grappling hooks.
“Jesus, some of them came in this way, too.”
“Do we report this to Ryan or to Captain Robinson?”
“Whichever one we find first.”
The bastards took away the hooks and the Gold Line. Trin looked longingly at the Jeep parked behind the building on the other side of the fence. So near and yet so far. But hey, the new Morales, forty pounds lighter, could probably jump up, grab the top of the fence, scramble over without the line.
And then the dogs started stirring.
To hell with it. He had to do it now, before they were awake, or not at all. Trin crouched — and sprang.
Forty-five
R.K. Robinson was in the prone position behind a sturdy elm halfway to the front perimeter fence, peering through drifting smoke and popping gunfire. Their situation was precarious. They were taking heavy fire, and he could see by the attackers’ muzzle flashes that they were closing in on the bridged front gate. One of the gate guards dropped, panting, to the ground at his elbow. Good! He had made it! The guard held a set of grappling hooks.
“This was tangled up in the barbed wire on top of the perimeter fence at the rear of the facility, sir.”
Grim-faced, R.K. auto-buzzed Security Control.“Faded Rose Petal to Rose Bush. We believe the defenses at the back of Xanadu have been breached.”
Rose Bush’s voice said, “Perimeter fence power is knocked out, sir, but all other scanners and alarms are condition green.”
“Roger that. Keep me informed.”
The three DKA men were crowded into the janitor’s closet inside Xanadu’s front entrance. When O’B stuck an eye around the edge of the door frame, the surveillance camera was just swinging its baleful eye away from the closet.
“Now!” he said.
Larry Ballard thrust a can of shaving cream out and up to send a thick stream splatting against the lens of the camera. He and Bart burst from the janitor’s closet and raced down the hall with their stuff-bags over their shoulders. At the corner, Larry stuck his can of shaving cream around the edge. PHHHHHT!
Bart raced by him and up the stairs two at a time to just below the first landing. He stepped around the corner. PHHHHHT! Larry was already running by him to race up the next flight.
R.K. was heartened by the attackers’ slackening fire. None of his men had been hit. The invaders were lousy shots. He sprang to his feet to finally lead a concerted charge down the sloping lawn to the front gate — and his cell phone buzzed.
“Rose Bush to Faded Rose Petal. Scanners one and two are disabled, sir. And scanner three. And scanner four, sir.”
R.K. cupped his hands to shout at his men.
“All personnel fall in on me. Internal security of Xanadu has been compromised. Repeat. Xanadu security compromised!”
O’B walked along the first-floor hallway past the disabled overhead scanners, breaking the invisible infrared light beams crisscrossing the open doorways by throwing handfuls of steel ball bearings into each room that he passed.
“Rose Bush to Faded Rose Petal! Door light beams and floor pressure plates have been activated in Art Gallery A... Art Gallery B... There goes Computer Room One, and now, yes, Computer Room Two! The entire ground floor has been taken over by hostile personnel, sir!”
R.K. told his troopers, “They’ve occupied the entire ground floor, men. We gotta flush ’em out room by room!”
The second-floor hallway’s single scanning camera stared only at the locked-down steel door of the Security Control Center. On the floor in front of the Observation Room, Larry and Bart laid out the ten dental mirrors in two rows, each with a blob of adhesive putty on the handle. Larry sprinkled talcum powder generously on his palm, blew it into the open doorway.
The invisible light beams became thin red visible lines. Bart positioned himself by one side of the door frame with a dental mirror. Larry did the same thing on the other side.
“One... two... three!”
In unison, they moved their mirrors down to exactly face one of two paired photoelectric cells. The light emitted by that cell was reflected back into itself. No alarms sounded.
They pressed the adhesive putty against the doorjamb to hold the mirrors in place. O’B came down the hallway behind them and rummaged in his stuff-bag for the crossbow as they disabled the next set of sensors. O’B cranked the bow down, arming it.
R.K. Robinson stood tensely off to the side of Art Gallery A so as not to be hit by possible fire coming from the room. He spoke into his cell phone in low, guarded tones.
“Rose Bush, cut the security for Art Gallery A. Then cut the first-floor hallway lights.”
When the hallway lights went off, R.K. spun off the wall and into the doorway, Colt .45 in his right hand, flashlight in his left. The light gave him a quick glimpse of figures massed in the darkness. He emptied the .45’s clip at them.
Oh Jesus! He heard the sound of smashing terra-cotta over the slam of the .45. Taking his lead, the other men were firing.
“CEASE FIRE!” he bellowed. “Hold your fire, goddammit!”
The gallery was deserted except for the maimed art. He realized, all too late, that the enemy merely recced the room and moved on — no place to hide in here. No, they would be in the computer rooms where the machines would give them cover.
They converged on Computer Room One. R.K. gave the signal. Yelling, they charged in. And went into wild tarantellas as their feet came down on the ball bearings strewn across the floor. They crashed down like bowling pins. A perfect strike.
O’B heard the first far faint whup-whup-whup he’d been half-listening for. They would have maybe three minutes. He fitted the quarrel with the expanding-bolt head into the cranked-down crossbow. Fastened to a ring behind the fletching of the arrow was a coil of light, strong nylon rope. He raised the bow, sighted, pulled the trigger. SPRONG!