Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

Rainer’s voice scratched in his ear. “Jack, why are you still on the wrong side of that wall?”


Sigler ignored the question. He activated his PAQ4 and directed the laser beam into the room, easing out once more into the danger zone. The green light stabbed into the dark interior, illuminating the space but revealing nothing more…

Something glinted in the laser light, right in front of him. A thin strand of monofilament was stretched across the door frame just above ankle level.

He keyed his mic. “All Cipher elements, this is One-Six, I’m calling the game. Fall back to rally one.”

“Jack?” Rainer didn’t bother with brevity codes.

“This is a set up, Boss.”

Sigler wasn’t sure what Rainer’s reaction would be. Another SOP was that anyone could pull the plug on a mission for any reason—he might catch hell in the after-action review if it turned out to be nothing but a case of jitters—but this close to the objective…

“It’s your call, Jack.”

Sigler led his squad back out, taking care to step only in the boot prints that marked their initial approach. Rainer was waiting at the designated rally point, two hundred meters from the building, along with Pettit, Klein and Sasha.

Sigler got right to the point. “It’s wired. We were expected.”

Sasha spoke up. “You don’t understand. I need to get inside.”

“No ma’am,” Rainer said. “You don’t understand. There’s nothing in there. This was a trap.”

“Shit,” growled Klein. “Can we at least sweep the place for NBC residue?”

If the facility had been used as a bio-weapons laboratory, it was conceivable, however unlikely, that trace evidence might be found.

“Negative. We’re done here. I’m calling the birds,” Rainer said.

Best news I’ve heard all day, Sigler thought.





SIX


Sasha Therion stumbled along behind Klein, trying to make sense of what was happening…trying and failing.

She’d come here to learn about the Voynich manuscript. It wasn’t just a book of herbal remedies. It contained something so much more fantastic than that… It had to. That was why its author had gone to such extraordinary lengths to encipher the text. The insurgents knew it, too. They had cracked its code, or were close to doing so, and planned to use its centuries’ old secret to make a weapon that could destroy life.

So why were the soldiers leaving?

Sasha didn’t like it when people changed the plan at the last minute. Plans were good; they were the only way to ensure orderliness. Changing plans meant introducing uncertainty into the equation, and uncertainty was a sure path to chaos. And chaos was relentless…insidious.

If they would just let me do what I came here for…

The helicopter swooped down, beating the earth all around her with its rotor wash. She felt Klein’s hand on her shoulder, urging her to duck low. She didn’t like it when people touched her, but she complied. A few seconds later, she was bundled inside and guided onto one of the bench seats. Klein sank down next to her, and a moment later, the Black Hawk climbed back into the sky.

She peered through the eyepiece of the night vision monocular the Delta operators had supplied her with, looking first at the Agency man and then at Rainer. She had to explain it to them, make them understand how important it was that they accomplish their goal.

One of the helicopter’s crew leaned back and craned his head toward Rainer. He was shouting, but his voice was barely audible over the strident whine of the turbine engines. “What happened?”

“A complication,” Rainer answered. “The plan is the same.”

Sasha didn’t understand. How could the plan be the same if they were leaving?

The crewman just nodded.

“Do it!” Rainer shouted.

Sasha was still trying to make sense of this when the Delta team leader brought his carbine up and fired two shots.

Klein jerked in the seat beside her. Sasha flinched, as a hot blast of sulfurous exhaust sprayed her face. Then she felt something else, something warm and wet on her shoulder. Klein had slumped against her with blood trickling from a pair of tiny holes in his forehead, and gushing from the enormous opening in the back of his skull.

The crewman Rainer had spoken with stretched out his arm, pointing across the cabin in the direction of his counterpart on the opposite side. As the other crewman started to turn, a tongue of flame leapt from the pistol in the first man’s hand. The second man slumped forward over his machine gun. At almost the same instant, there was another report from the cockpit.

“What the—” the man Sasha knew as Pettit stiffened on his seat, trying to get his own weapon up, but Rainer was already swinging his gun around. Two more shots erupted from Rainer’s carbine and punched into Pettit’s face.