Clenching the steering wheel, he resisted the impulse to slam on his brakes, and instead tapped the pedal lightly and repeatedly with his toe. The car bounced another couple of times and tried slewing toward the right, but he held on tightly and kept it under control. In a moment he got the feel of the runflat roller that had been emplaced within the tire and was now in contact with the road, ragged bits of rubber flapping around it, its shock-absorbent elastomer surface preventing the wheel rim from being damaged, stabilizing the car, and allowing him to keep moving almost as if the shot had never been fired and his tire was still intact.
As the invaders opened up on them, the QR squads reacted according to well-rehearsed tactical procedures. Carlysle’s trio of cars broke sharply to the left and stopped aslant the road, their wheels turned outward. The other group cut to the right shoulder of the access-way on which they were approaching and halted with their tires at a similarly extreme angle. Then the men in both squads poured out the sides of their cars, using their open doors and outturned wheels for protection.
Carlysle had no sooner gotten into a crouch behind his door than bullets came ripping into it from several different directions at once. The man who’d been riding shotgun with him, a recent transfer from the Malaysian ground station named Ron Newell, returned fire, aiming toward the spot where he’d seen the slender outline of a rifle angling out from behind a mobile crane, and then flattening against the car just as more gunfire studded its armored surface.
Squatting beside him, Carlysle thrust the barrel of his VVRS weapon around his door and squeezed out a long volley. He couldn’t help but wonder when their remote comer of Brazil had turned into Dodge City.
He looked over at Newell, saw that he hadn’t been hit, and gave him a thumbs-up to indicate he was also doing okay. Then there was another burst of incoming, followed by a bright flash in the darkness, and a whistling noise that rapidly got closer and louder. An instant later some kind of explosive projectile smashed into the chase car to Carlysle’s right, detonating with a bright rush of flame, crunching in the flank of the Mercedes as if it were the side of a tin box.
Carlysle stayed put, his ears ringing from the blast. The situation had to change, and change ASAP. He would not let his men remain pinned down behind their vehicles, where they were sitting ducks for whatever was being hurled at them by an enemy that could draw an accurate bead without breaking cover.
His right hand around his pistol grip, he reached into the car with his left and snatched his dashboard microphone off its hook, pressing one of the mike’s control buttons as he eyed the video screen above it. The invaders’ advanced night-vision equipment was formidable, but he and his men had something else going in their favor. Something that could prove even more advantageous if used to its best capacity.
They had the Skyhawks.
In the copilot’s seat of his circling chopper, Winter lowered his handset and turned toward Graham. Carlysle had just broken contact after sending up his request over a ground-to-air channel.
“We need to peel the blankets back from over those fuckers’ heads, give our guys downstairs a better fix on where they’re shooting from,” he said above the roar of the blades.
Graham gave him a look. “If we go any lower, it’ll be hard to avoid the ground fire.”
Winter made a face that said he knew.
Graham shrugged.
“Okay,” he said. Then: “Here’s how I want it done.”
How Graham wanted it done was for his chopper and one of the others at the scene to pull in tight over the invaders and provide closeups of their positions, while the third aircraft continued making passes from a greater height, beaming down wide-angle images. The picture-in-picture options on the QR cars’ monitors would enable all three video feeds to be seen simultaneously, giving the chase squads a composite view of the fire zone.
It was, as Graham and Winter had acknowledged, a risky plan. Submachine guns burst up at the two Skyhawks the instant they dropped in altitude. Steeling himself, Graham slipped between two huge earthmoving vehicles where some of the invaders had taken cover. Bullets sprayed his fuselage as he swept over them, rattling against it like gravel.
Graham steadied the bird and hovered. To his right, he saw the second descending Skyhawk come under heavy fire. Never a religious man, he was surprised to find himself muttering a silent prayer on behalf of its crew.
His fingers moist around the sticks, Graham hung over the attackers for several more seconds, his camera transmitting its information to the mobile receivers. Then he throttled into high gear and leapfrogged off toward another group of invaders, hoping he’d given the ground units what they needed.
The guard was sprawled on his stomach, his face turned sideways so one cheek was in the dirt. His name tag read BRYCE. He had been stabbed from behind, the knife driven in below the shoulder blades and then upward and across into the soft organs. There were tiny bubbles of blood and saliva in the comer of his mouth, and they glistened in the revealing output of Thibodeau’s flashlight.
Thibodeau knelt beside him and touched the pulse points on his wrist and neck, but felt nothing. Dead. Like the two other guards he had discovered around the corner of the building. In their case a gun, or guns, had been used. Probably, Thibodeau thought, the shots had attracted Bryce’s attention. His position suggested he had been rounding the side of the building to investigate when his killer came up and sank the knife into his back.
Thibodeau turned his flash onto the warehouse’s loading dock, and was not surprised to find its door half raised. Countless dollars had been spent on providing security for the installation — the ’hogs alone cost hundreds of thousands — but their placement had been largely intended to detect outside intruders, and in any event, no system was without gaps. While this section of the warehouse complex held important spare parts for the ISS’s laboratory racks, it was not among the handful of restricted storage or R&D areas. The level of security clearance needed to gain access was minimal. An employee swipe card taken off one of the dead guards would have been all it took.
Rising from the body, Thibodeau stepped over to the partially open door. He would need to call for assistance, but it would take at least five minutes for the nearest men to arrive, possibly as long as ten. If he waited, what sort of damage might the intruders do in the meantime?
Hesitant, a sick taste in his mouth, Thibodeau glanced again at the corpse on the ground. Bryce. He had a smooth, clean-shaven face and hair the color of wheat, and was maybe twenty-five years old. Barely more than a kid. He’d been new on the job and Thibodeau hadn’t known him too well. Never would now.
Thibodeau stood there outside the warehouse entrance and looked at him. The foam of oxygenated blood on his lips was the kind that came brewing up from the lungs with a deep stab wound. His scrubbed features were still contorted with the agony of his final moments. The killer had been savage and pitiless.
Frowning unconsciously, Thibodeau shined his flashlight through the partially open door, pushed it further up, and stepped into the darkened space beyond.
“We’ve got ten, twelve of them behind that big half-track crane on the near left, about half as many using the ’dozers for cover, a couple more—”
Momentarily releasing the “talk” button of his radio, Carlysle held his breath as a stream of ammunition babbled noisily in his direction, striking the outer flank of his car. Thus far his plan was working, the chase squads’ aerial support providing a visual lock on their opponents’ positions. Those chopper pilots, opening themselves up to direct fire, putting their lives in jeopardy… if he hadn’t been busy trying to keep his own skin from acquiring any unwanted holes, he’d have been singing their praises to the sun, moon, and stars. But maybe there would be a chance to express his gratitude later.