Drake would never trust a double-agent. If they’d turned once they could do so again. The real reason they turned the first time was all a prospective new handler needed to explore.
The Yorkshireman played backup to Dahl for a while, running and covering and pinning the enemy down. At last they cleared the breach in the wall and met up with Hayden.
“You see how many are inside?” she asked.
“Dozens,” Drake said. “I lost count.”
Dahl bashed the head in of a man who suddenly rose beside them.
“Fucking zombie,” Smyth growled.
Drake looked back to their transport. Inside, Karin, Lauren and Yorgi were monitoring the comms. “You guys hear anything?”
“You have major backup on the way,” Lauren said, probably talking for Karin who would be collating the information. “But it’s still fifteen minutes out. Maybe a few cops here in five, but that’s as good as it gets. The FBI are en route too.”
Drake shook his head. “These pricks will be vamoosed by then.”
“Contact from inside the substation suggests they are trying to defend.”
“No,” Hayden said. “Tell the staff and security men to stand down and hide as best they can. This ain’t worth their lives and the mercenaries are tooled up to the max. We’re gonna try to slow them down.”
“Understood.”
Drake climbed over what was left of the wall first, much to Dahl’s annoyance. The Swede quickly jumped across next and then the entire team were running carefully between pylons and junction boxes, exploring the starkly-lit alien world and trying to keep sight of the mercs ahead. Drake squinted, aware that such bright lights would leave an afterimage on his retina and impair his vision once they were clear. An explosion rang out. They saw an entire section of wall collapse and then the mercs were inside, scrambling over the rubble. Gunshots sounded, but Drake just hoped they were warning rounds and that the staff had heeded their warnings.
Another contingent of men had stayed behind, either to aid escape or deter the authorities. Drake and his team did not stop. They raced ahead, taking cover behind pylons and wincing as bullets chimed and reverberated around them, sometimes passing straight through.
To a man, they dropped to the ground.
Drake aimed for legs, taking three men down. He crawled to the next available cover. Dahl fired at his side and Smyth beside him. The ground was hard concrete, almost blinding in the artificial light. The entire place hummed as if possessed by a swarm of bees and, above, sparks flew as if neighboring pylons might be attracted to each other.
The SPEAR team fell among the remaining mercs, their speed stunning as they converged from three sides. Drake slammed the butt of his rifle into one man’s face, always wanting the death toll to be as low as possible, and fighting against elements of old training that urged him to never leave a live enemy behind.
The world was different now, and it was hard not to change with it.
Dahl rendered another merc comatose to the side, then Smyth disarmed a third. Hayden shot a fourth an instant before he fired on her, his loosed shot slamming into a nearby pylon. Kinimaka was down, struggling with another but using his considerable weight, twisting the man’s arm until he let go of his weapon.
Dahl surveyed the facility. It seemed an RPG had been brought to bear on the main door, blasting it right off its hinges. Hayden’s phone chirped, much to her annoyance.
“Fuck’s sake! Even in the middle of a battle they can’t leave me well alone!”
Drake hauled up one of the survivors and pulled off his ski-mask “So tell me, matey. What’s going on?”
The mercenary struggled. He was a battered-looking individual — face crisscrossed with old scars and an odd “broken” look to his jaw, as if had dislocated once and never properly reset. His eyes fired bullets as violently as any old Uzi.
“Go fu—”
Drake shook him, then realized how futile the gesture was. “Not even a cryptic clue?” he asked. “A tidbit?”
“Like I said, asshole—”
Smyth stepped in just as Hayden cursed. The entire team turned toward her as she stared in dumb disbelief at the facility all around them.
“It’s a ruse,” she whispered. “This entire attack. These men…” She gestured at the dead and wounded. “The poor bastards who work here… it’s all a fucking trick.”
“What?” Drake couldn’t stop his eyes practically bulging.
Dahl clucked, disbelieving. “Not a chance. This is a full scale assault, Hayden.”
“I know. And the mercs who blasted their way inside? They ran straight through, leaving by the rear even now, according to those stuck inside. While an even larger force is currently attacking the main San Jose substation.”
“I don’t… get it,” Lauren said through the comms.
“Neither do I. Clearly… our informant… either lied or was fed false information. This attack is all subterfuge whilst the Pythians hit their main target.”
“But we’re in San Jose,” Yorgi said. “How many substations are there?”
“Many thousands,” Hayden said. “Karin. Where’s the principal San Jose substation?”
“Not three miles from you,” Karin said. “And get this. That same substation was hit by a sniper attack, disabling it a few years ago, and then suffered another security breach a few years later. The Pythians appear to have targeted a facility that has a long history of breaches.”
“Three miles?” Dahl heard only what was currently relevant to him. “Then let’s get over there.”
Drake nodded and raised his weapon as sirens sounded close by. “What are we waiting for?”
Hayden was already stalking away. “Get the fucking transport ready. This time we’ll be going in hot.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hayden had ensured all combatants were in the first of their two SUVs, whilst communications would be handled by the second. That way they could drive as far inside the power plant as they were able.
Reports indicated that the second assault force was even larger. Drake began now to realize the size of the new problem they were up against.
“Beauregard told us that they’d swamped the ranks with mercenaries,” he said. “I guess we didn’t fully understand how many until now.”
The SUV jounced along the badly asphalted road. Hayden grunted. “He might have been right about that point,” she said. “But why send us to the wrong substation?”
“We can’t answer that now,” Dahl said. “Let’s leave the questions for later and work on getting a step ahead of our enemy this time.”
“Better still,” Kinimaka muttered. “Our focus should be on finding this asshole, Webb. Put an end to the threat at its source in one big swoop.”
Drake agreed. “He’s right. Cut off the head and the body dies. We’re not talking a terrorist organization here, folks, we’re talking a bunch of rich autocrats.”
“As much as I agree with both of you,” Hayden said, pointing ahead. “We already have our main focus right now. Webb has been firing attack after attack at us since the Pythians began. He will implode soon. He has to. Right now we have this facility and the ghost ships to focus on. Our job, for now at least, is pretty clear.”
The San Jose substation bore every resemblance imaginable to its smaller sister. PG&E, it seemed — the people who owned the facility — weren’t big on change.
Smyth, driving their SUV, aimed for the demolished outer wall. No mercs guarded this entry point and the vehicle bounced through, riding the rough terrain presented by the scattered heaps of bricks. Drake clung on to the grab handle whilst scanning the area ahead.