“Let’s give it a once-over,” said MacAlister, gently maneuvering the helo in the direction of the landing pad. He flew twice around the roof, inspecting the pad, looking for any obvious structural damage. “Wouldn’t want to land on it and have the damn thing collapse beneath us, would we?” he informed his passengers.
He must have been satisfied because the next words out of his mouth were, “Okay, here we go,” and the helo abruptly dipped toward the landing pad.
Emily found herself once again searching for something to hold on to as the Black Hawk swooped down toward the Tacoma and her stomach tried to claw its way up her throat.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” she mumbled. She thought she heard MacAlister give a cackle of glee at her discomfort.
And then with a bump and bone-rattling shudder they were down and Emily felt her fingers slowly begin to unfasten from the chair.
“Welcome to Las Vegas, lady and gentlemen,” said MacAlister, smirking beneath the mirrored lenses of his aviators. “Just stay in your seats until I tell you, please.” And with that, he began flipping switches on the console to their off position.
Emily punched MacAlister hard on the arm. “Bastard,” she said, with a half smile.
MacAlister cut the engines, grabbed his rifle, and leaped out onto the roof of the Tacoma, quickly followed by Reilly and Burris, their rifles raised and at the ready.
A set of rickety-looking steps led down from the landing pad onto a flat roof surrounded by a raised wall along its edges. Air vents protruded seemingly at random from the rooftop cover, their aluminum skins dully reflecting the sun. Access to the roof from the hotel was via a wardrobe-size stucco box with a large door that stood off toward the eastern side of the roof. At the center of the oblong-shaped roof sat two massive cages containing what Emily assumed must have been industrial-strength air-conditioning units or pumps of some kind. The three sailors methodically fanned out across the top of the building, checking every possible location as they maneuvered between the air vents, scrutinizing the opposite side of the roof access, the blind corners, and shadowed access passage between the two cages.
“Clear!” MacAlister yelled after he completed the scouting run across his section of rooftop.
“Clear!” the two sailors echoed back within seconds of each other, lowering their weapons, even as their eyes continued to move, checking the sky and every shadow for any sign of movement.
Emily opened her door and was immediately hit by a wave of desert heat that sucked the moisture from her throat.
“Good God, it’s hot,” she said to Thor as she slid open the passenger compartment door and enticed the malamute down onto the pad. They both stretched, and then quickly joined the three men in the shadow of one of the huge air-conditioning units.
“Alright,” MacAlister said, “let’s get this show on the road. Reilly, unload the UAV. Burris, lend a hand.” Both sailors nodded and moved back to the helicopter and began to unload the case carrying the drone. They hefted it out and moved it onto the landing pad next to the helo and quickly began pulling pieces of the disassembled drone from the foam-protected interior.
“Excuse me for a minute while I make sure those two clowns don’t bugger it up,” MacAlister said and joined his comrades.
Emily moved to the edge of the roof. A brick security wall that came up to just above her midriff ran around the circumference of the Tacoma. She leaned over and looked down almost fifteen stories to where the pavement should have been. Below, she could see nothing but a red sea of creeping vegetation. It filled the space between the Tacoma and every other building. The alien plants had found easy purchase on the white filigree panel decoration fixed below each set of room windows on every floor. The rising tide of jungle had managed to make it to the eighth floor of the Tacoma, obscuring every level below that with its red vines and branches; skinny shoots had already begun their ascent toward the next floor.
A heat shimmer lay over the red canopy of the jungle, the light refraction giving the reaching shoots and vines on the side of the building a disconcerting illusion of movement; at least, Emily thought it was an illusion.
The town smelled… dank, wet. It was how she imagined the Amazon rainforest might smelclass="underline" pungent with humidity and strange, unknown life. All that was missing to complete the picture were the wild screams of monkeys as they flung themselves from branch to branch or the shrill mating calls of birds echoing from deep within the foliage. But there was no sound other than the rustle of leaves and branches as the hot Mojave winds blew between the buildings. That and the occasional cuss word from the men on the pad as they tried to follow the instructions for assembling the UAV.
Emily was already sweating—it must be at least ninety degrees thanks to a cloudless sky and a merciless sun—but the humidity made the air feel thick and slow and Emily found herself sucking in rapid, deep breaths of the hot air. Thor was panting loudly, drool falling from his open jaws, droplets hitting the hot roof around his paws and evaporating before they could form a pool. He had positioned himself in the limited shade offered by the shadow of the security wall. This was not the kind of weather a thick-coated mutt like him was designed for and she made a mental note to make sure she gave him plenty of water while they were here.
A few minutes later MacAlister rejoined Emily at the ledge. He was wearing his combat jacket and trousers, a scrim-net scarf tied around his neck, and a camo baseball cap perched on his head. He cradled his rifle in one arm like a child; in his other hand he held a canteen of water, which he offered to her.
“No thanks,” she said, tapping her own water bottle on her hip.
Mac took a long swallow of the water then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, apparently they actually do know what they’re doing. The UAV should be ready to launch in a couple of minutes. Care to join us on the veranda?” He made a sweeping gesture toward the helipad.
“I’m sure I’d love to,” Emily replied in her best Southern belle accent. She was rewarded by one of Mac’s wry smiles as they walked back to join the two seamen.
CHAPTER 23
The UAV did not look like anything Emily had been expecting. She had thought it would resemble a model airplane or maybe a miniature version of the Black Hawk. Instead it was circular, about three feet in diameter, with four electric motor-driven propellers positioned toward the outer edge, supported by an x-frame with a larger central section that housed the battery and the essential electrical systems. It stood on three stubby legs that raised it just over a foot off the bitumen-covered rooftop. Positioned between the legs of the aircraft, fastened by a cradle fixed to the underside of the fuselage, hung a digital video camera.
“It’s a quadcopter,” Reilly said, as if he could sense her confusion. “Much more agile than a plane or a helicopter, more versatile too. And because the motors are electric rather than internal combustion, it’s quiet as fu—. It’s just really quiet. I can sneak this little bugger right up next to ’em and they won’t even know it’s there. The camera’s fully adjustable, zooms up to times-twenty magnification. Takes video and stills and feeds it all back to this laptop controller.”
Reilly tapped the cover of a modified laptop computer sitting next to the UAV. Most of the keys on the computer were the same as would be found on any regular laptop you could buy from a big-box electronics store, but to the right, where you would usually find a numeric pad, was a small joystick and a set of sliders.