Dark Watch

“I infiltrated this facility from the landward side, and I have to say it’s bloody enormous. I’ve been observing the place for a week, and even I don’t know the full scope of Singh’s operation.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that if you’re only giving yourself thirty minutes to find him, then I think I can lead you to where he keeps his residence when he’s here.”

Juan hesitated for a fraction of a second. Tory Ballinger was a virtual stranger to him, but he felt like he knew her because he recognized a great deal of himself in her steady gaze. She’d handled herself well just moments earlier, and he still didn’t know how she’d kept her wits when she was trapped aboard the Avalon. He saw in her the same indefatigable British spirit that had once made their island the most powerful nation on earth and had seen England through the blitz during World War Two. While in Winston Churchill that look came across as pugnacious confidence, in Tory it was alluring drive.

And to top it off, Juan thought, her own investigation had led her to the very same place his had taken him, and he doubted she’d blown up a building and kidnapped a corrupt lawyer to get here.

“You’re on.”

Tory had expected an argument. It was in the storm clouds building behind her bright blue eyes. Juan’s quick acceptance of her offer left her off balance for a moment and her mouth agape.

“We’ve got about five minutes to change and kit up. Come with me. You, too, Linc. We’re not done yet.”

Moments after the Robinson R-44 lifted from its hydraulically operated pad, the Oregon cut a tight circle in the bay using her athwartships bow thruster, and Linda Ross gave Eric Stone the order for full speed. Max Hanley was down in his beloved engine room. As soon as the order came through, the quad magnetohydrodynamic engines spooled up like aircraft turbines, and almost instantly the water at her stern boiled up with the raw force of her revolutionary propulsion system. Linda also ordered Mark Murphy to rake the sea just short of the beach with the Gatling gun to give the departing chopper a few moments of cover fire.

George Adams sat in the Robinson’s left-hand seat with Juan at his side. Linc and Tory took up the rear bench seats. With their personal weapons and equipment as well as the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle lying across Linc’s lap, the chopper was crowded. Adams looped them out to sea and crossed the shoreline well north of the breaker’s yard.

“There’s a compound up the beach about a mile,” Tory said over the helo’s intercom. “It’s where the executives live. I watched them for a couple of days over the past week. One of the houses is much larger than the others, and now that I’ve seen Shere Singh up close and personal, I remember him living there.”

“Any guards?” Juan asked.

“A few, but after tonight I expect the area to be lousy with them.”

Juan smiled at her turn of phrase, but inside he knew to expect the worst. “What about access to the facility?”

“There is a road that runs north and south behind it. There’s a hydro dam and a smelting factory to the north.”

“Much traffic?’

“Mostly lorries hauling the steel plates to be melted. And almost nothing after nightfall.”

“Okay, folks, we’re coming back over the coastline.” Adams’s helmet was integrated with a night vision camera mounted on the Robinson’s nose to give him greater visibility. “I see the compound she just mentioned. A lot of lights and a lot of people milling around. And, as luck would have it, a few of them aren’t armed.”

“Keep us out of their range and let’s see what’s happening.”

“I see a chopper pad a little farther away from the compound,” Adams said. “It looks like they’ve got a JetRanger, and her rotors are starting to turn.”

“Can we follow them?” Tory asked.

“She’s got us by forty or fifty knots and at least a hundred miles of range,” Juan told her. He looked back at Franklin Lincoln. “How about it, big man?”

“I’m on it, boss.”

“George, hold us steady,” Lincoln said as he loosened his shoulder harness. He opened his door, ignoring the frenzied hurricane of downwash from the rotors that whipped into the small chopper’s cabin. The Barrett was an ugly weapon, nearly five feet long and heavy. In the hands of an expert the half-inch bullets it fired were accurate up to a mile.

Adams turned the Robinson broadside to clear Linc’s view. A few guards in the distant compound fired at the hovering helicopter, but the distance was too great. Lincoln fitted the big rifle to his shoulder and checked the sight picture through the night vision scope. The world was an eerie green through the optics, but somehow intimate. He could see the frustration on the guards’ faces as they fired at the chopper. He scanned the scene and settled the reticle on the idling JetRanger helicopter. His view was so sharp he could see the air shimmering from the heat that poured from the turbine’s exhaust.