Part 14 (1/2)

Howard hurried to the Humvee. They had gotten an exact distance from the compound to this location from the foot-printing satellite. They'd be running on spookeyes without lights, but the terrain was mostly flat with a little scrub, and they had a route mapped, so they should be able to calculate their speed and distance and nail it to the second.

”Drive, Sergeant. And switch off the brake lights. I don't want the yahoos to see us flas.h.i.+ng red because you stopped for a lizard in our path.”

”Already done, sir. I've been down this road before.”

Fernandez slid his helmet visor down and clicked his spook-eyes on, then cranked the engine and moved out. Howard picked his computerized helmet up from the floor by his feet and slipped it on, put the visor down, and lit his own night-vision scope. He buckled his three-point seat belt into place, snapping the black steel latch shut with a hard clack clack!

The landscape seemed to light up in that eerie, washed-out green that the starlight amplifiers traded for the seemingly opaque darkness. Then the suit's computer kicked in, adding false colors to give a more realistic image, and it was almost like driving in a somewhat dim and hazy afternoon.

”You don't think this pointy-nose plastic stuff is really going to hide us from radar, do you?” Fernandez said. ”Seems like a shame to ruin a perfectly good truck by hanging all this c.r.a.p on it.”

Howard said, ”I don't think the boys in the ranch had time to set up a full-scale HQ. They only had a day and some to plan the attack. I'd be surprised if they had a mobile field unit roll into this location with radar or doppler.”

”Would you look at that,” Fernandez said. ”Bugs Bunny!”

A jackrabbit angled across their path, then cut sharply back and stopped as the Humvee rolled past. It sat there watching as the cruisers also zipped past, turning its head to track them. Howard looked over his shoulder at the small creature.

I wonder what a rabbit thinks when he sees four black vehicles with pointy-nose plastic c.r.a.p hanging all over them rumble past his burrow at two in the morning.

”There's something you don't see every day,” Fernandez said.

”Excuse me?”

”Probably what the rabbit was thinking.”

Howard smiled. They'd been serving together for a long time. Must be a little telepathic spillage.

He was pumped, but even so, there was this... weary feeling, as if he could stretch out and take a long nap, could sleep for a week, and still not wake up feeling refreshed. What was this all about, this lethargy? It was worrisome. Well. He'd have to deal with it later. He had business to take care of just now. Serious business.

Alex Michaels walked back to the AWD car they'd given him, a little Subaru Outback. The strike team was out of sight in the darkness, heading for a rendezvous with the bad guys ten miles away. He should have stayed at the tent HQ back at the Texaco truck stop in Tonopah, but even if he wasn't a frontline soldier, he had wanted to come at least this far. By the time he got back to the tent, Howard's attack would be in full swing, maybe even over. All things going well.

He started the car, then headed back to the dirt road a mile or so away that would take him to the highway a couple miles past that.

This was a risky business, the a.s.sault. If it went sour, it would probably be bad enough so he'd be looking for a new job.

He laughed to himself. It seemed like every time he turned around, his job was at risk. But that went with the territory. Steve Day, the first Commander of Net Force, had never mentioned that part to him. Maybe if he hadn't been killed by that Russian computer genius's a.s.sa.s.sins, he would have eventually gotten around to telling Michaels about it...

It was really dark out here, the only source of illumination his headlights, and he bounced along for what seemed like a lot longer than a mile, the little car rocking pretty hard over some of the dips and holes in the ground. He reached the dirt road.

Finally.

For just a moment, he wasn't sure about which way to turn.

Then he remembered he had followed Howard's Humvee off the road into the desert by making a right; therefore, he should turn left to head back in the direction of the highway. He hadn't been tracking on the odometer, but it seemed like that had been a couple-three miles.

Alex paused, then made up his mind. There was no danger, he knew, not to himself nor to Colonel Howard's strike team. The terrorist camp was several miles away-at least four or five-so he could head this way for a couple of miles. If he didn't hit the highway by then, he'd turn around or check his virgil... something he was reluctant to do. That would be admitting defeat. He had always hated to ask for directions, a legacy from his father, and even looking at a map was considered unmanly in his family. The Michaels didn't get lost, according to the old man.

He turned left and picked up a little speed now that he was on a road of sorts.

A large bug splashed against the winds.h.i.+eld in front of his face, leaving a blob of greenish goo. The body fluids of that one joined those of several other low-flying moths, mosquitoes, beetles, and whatevers. Apparently the insects didn't hibernate for the winter here. He wasn't driving that fast, and you'd think they could see him coming for a long way off, but they kept splattering against the front of the car. He turned the wipers on, smeared the bug goo around, added the washer fluid to the mix, and managed to clear a patch of gla.s.s he could see through.

The road dipped into a gully, then came up, and he rolled over several half-buried rocks in the dirt, jolting him hard enough so his head nearly hit the ceiling.

He didn't remember that part of the drive coming in. None of it looked familiar. Dark as it was, he couldn't see anything but what was in the cone of his headlights, but surely he should have reached the highway by now.

Had he somehow taken a wrong turn?

He looked at his odometer. The highway couldn't have been more than three or four miles from the dirt road. He must have come that far, he'd been driving for at least twenty or thirty minutes. It was 2:20 a.m. Howard would be hitting the terrorists in five minutes.

Maybe it was time to check the GPS.

Well, not yet. Give it another mile. If he didn't see the highway by then, he'd turn around and backtrack.

Michaels shook his head. Brother. Wouldn't that be a story for the folks at HQ? You heard about how Commander Michaels got lost in the desert?

I don't think think so, Alex, m'boy so, Alex, m'boy.

There was a hillock ahead that curved to the left. As he rounded the curve, the dirt was loose, and the car fishtailed and slipped traction, so he slowed to a crawl. To his left, there was a little stand of scrub trees, stunted pines or some such, none of which looked to be more than ten or twelve feet tall. That was practically a forest out here.

A man stepped out of the scrub growth. He wore chocolate-chip desert camouflage pants and a jacket, and held a short a.s.sault weapon in his hands, pointed at Michaels's car. He waved the weapon, his meaning clear: Pull over.

An AK-47?

For a moment, just a moment, Michaels thought it must be one of Howard's troops, but then he knew the man was all wrong. Wrong clothes, wrong gun, wrong place.

Fear spasmed in Michaels' belly as he realized who this must be: It was one of the terrorists-!

Oh, s.h.i.+t! What had he done? Better still-what was he going to do now?

Chapter Eighteen.

Sunday, December 26th, 2:24 a.m. Gila Bend, Arizona Howard looked at his watch. A gift from his wife on his thirty-fifth birthday, it was a Bulova Field Grade Marine Star, with a black face and a dial light, an a.n.a.log quartz whose battery was recharged by the smallest body motion. It wasn't the most expensive watch made, not by a long shot, but she had saved for a year to buy it. It kept dead-on time, and right now the sweep second hand was moving toward 0225 hours. Thirty seconds left...

It was time.

”Ready to rock, Sergeant?”