Drake sat back, looking at the roof. “One more time?”
Hayden knew what he was thinking. “You believe it’ll all change after this?”
He smiled sadly. “I do.”
“Then let’s hit it hard,” Dahl said. “As a team, as colleagues. Let’s do this one final time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
The SPEAR team came in hard. The old, abandoned base was simply a haphazard arrangement of large, elongated warehouses with a network of flat dirt roads running between them. The roads were extra wide to allow for larger trucks. Drake imagined it had been some kind of storage depot once, a place to shout at for a vast array of military equipment. The helicopters came down on the outskirts, outside a rusted, wilting fence-line, and powered down almost instantly.
“Team ready,” Hayden said into her comms.
“Go,” DC told her. “Ensure the warheads are disabled and the other item is safe.”
Dahl grumbled at the ground. “Talk about locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
The team had already fixed the position of all three warehouses in their minds, and had a good idea of the twisting road network. Basically, everything crossed with everything else. There were no dead ends, no cul-de-sacs, no exit routes except one. The perimeter warehouses all backed up against dense forest, but the interior ones — the vital three — sat in the midst of others in a random arrangement.
Together, they ran.
“We’ll have to split up, neutralize the nukes, then find a way of getting them out of here and to a nicer place,” Hayden said. “Romania’s not far.”
Lauren was with them now, fully plugged in to DC and, having proved that she could think under pressure, they might need her when it came to handling the nukes. A steady head capable of relaying information through channels couldn’t be underestimated. They stayed low, fast, and on course for the warehouses.
A dirt road opened up before them, deserted. Beyond that the entire area was bare earth and shale with just a few tufts of straggly brown grass. Drake surveyed the scene and gave the order to move. They ran out into the open, guns at the ready. The smell of dirt and oil struck his senses and a cold breeze slapped his face. Their gear jangled, their boots struck the earth hard.
They came up against the first warehouse wall, and paused with their backs against it. Drake glanced down the line.
“Ready?”
“Go.”
He examined the next leg of their route, knowing they didn’t have any CCTV to worry about since instruments detected no signals coming out of the base except cellphones. The nukes themselves gave off a low frequency hum. Beyond that, the place was barren.
Another run and they came up against another warehouse. Each one had its designated number painted in black scrawl across the side. Each one appeared rundown, tawdry, with runnels of rust descending from the roof to the floor. Guttering swung free, jagged lengths pointing at the ground, dripping dirty water.
Ahead now, Drake made out the left corner of Warehouse 17. “We cross this road,” he said. “Make our way up the flank of that warehouse until we reach the end. That way, we’re only twenty feet from Seventeen.”
He moved out, then paused. A security vehicle passed along the road ahead, traveling the path that intersected theirs. Nothing happened though. Drake heaved a sigh of relief.
“No friends here,” Dahl reminded them. “Do not trust anyone outside the team.” He didn’t have to add, “Even Americans.”
Now Drake moved, hugged the warehouse wall and made his way forward. Warehouse 17 had two small windows looking out front. Drake cursed silently, but saw there was no other way to go.
“Move,” he said urgently. “Move it now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
They ran for the warehouse doors, splitting up into three groups. Drake, Alicia and Mai took Seventeen; Dahl, Kenzie and Hayden took Eighteen, which left Smyth, Lauren, Kinimaka and Yorgi with Nineteen. They hit the main doors as one.
Drake kicked it in, smashing it off its hinges. A man was just exiting an office inside. Drake took him under his arm, wrenched hard and flung him against the opposite office wall. The narrow passage they were in opened up ahead into the warehouse proper so Alicia and Mai bypassed him.
Drake finished the man off, left him comatose, and checked the small offices before joining the women. A spectacular sight met his eyes. The warehouse was vast, long and high. At its center, facing a set of roller doors, sat a long, low flatbed truck — a big-engined cab at the front. Two nuclear warheads sat on the back of the truck, plain as day, their nosecones facing the front, black straps fastening them down at regular intervals. The straps would allow flexibility without great movement — a good idea for transit, Drake guessed, since nobody wanted a deadly missile smashing against an immovable object. A vast bundle of side-curtains lay at the side of the huge truck, which he guessed would be attached before departure.
“No guards,” Mai said.
Alicia pointed out another office to the right of the truck. “My guess.”
“You’d think they would be more concerned,” Mai said.
Drake couldn’t help but check for CCTV, finding it hard to rely totally on a band of geeks sat in an air-conditioned office. “Our old friend, complacency, is probably at work,” he said. “They’ve been sitting on this secret a long time.”
Through the comms they heard sounds of combat, the other teams were engaged.
Alicia sprinted for the truck. “On me!”
Dahl picked up the closest man and threw him toward the rafters, getting a decent amount of air time before seeing him smash awkwardly down to earth. Bones broke. Blood oozed. Kenzie slipped past, firing her machine pistol, striking running men who then introduced their faces to the ground hard. Hayden ranged to the other side, favoring her Glock. The enormous truck they’d found sat at the center of the warehouse, with a trio of offices alongside and several rows of crates. They had no idea what lay inside, but thought it might be prudent to find out.
Hayden headed for the truck, eyes scanning the pair of nukes seated above her head. Damn, they were enormous at this distance. Monsters with no purpose other than to lay waste. Assuredly then, they were Death, and clearly a part of the fourth Horseman. Attila was the second most ancient figure of the four, born seven hundred years after Hannibal and, coincidentally, seven hundred years before Genghis Kahn. Geronimo was born in 1829. All horsemen in their own right. All kings, killers, generals, unequalled strategists. All had defied their supposed betters.
Was this why the Order chose them?
The DC mole, she knew, was mocking them with knowledge.
No time to change anything now. She crossed behind the flatbed, angling for the crates. Some of the lids were askew, others leaned against the wooden sides. Straw and other packing materials leaked out of the top. Hayden shot one man, then traded bullets with another, and was forced to dive to the ground and take cover.
She ended up at the rear of the truck with the tail end of a nuclear warhead looming over her.
“What the hell happens if a bullet hits one of these things?”
“Don’t worry, it would have to be a good shot to directly strike the core, or the explosive,” a voice told her through the comms. “But I guess there’s always the chance of a fluke.”
Hayden ground her teeth. “Oh, thanks, buddy.”
“No problem. Don’t worry, it’s unlikely to happen.”
Hayden ignored the bland, unemotional commentary, rolling out into the open and firing an entire magazine at her adversary. The man fell, bleeding. Hayden rammed in another mag as she dashed over to the crates.