He was permitting her to come after him, which led to a disturbing question. Why does your adversary give up the high ground? You’ve been fighting for days to take the hill only to find that the other side has relinquished it without a fight. In her experience, that meant the enemy had retreated to a more fortified position to renew the attack at a time of his choosing. Maybe Nemesis had set something in motion that would kill her and destroy all evidence of what had happened before fleeing the scene. Whatever his intentions, standing still would literally get her nowhere. Time to break inside the control room.
Time to soldier on.
CHAPTER 58
Wu made his way through the corridors a few paces behind the HRT. So far there had been no unexpected obstacles to contend with. He found the lack of response from Brinkley disturbing. Aware the facility was filled with surveillance cameras and listening devices, he couldn’t discuss options with the team leader. Benton had charted their course of action, and they were moving forward.
They had considered taking a frequency jammer down with them but decided it might interfere with their own com system. If Brinkley hadn’t seen them coming before, he knew they were here now.
The team was heading for the control center for two reasons. First, taking over the facility’s operating system would effectively prevent Brinkley from using his traps or deploying weapons against them. Second, the schematics they had studied showed that the control center was connected by two tubes large enough to walk through on opposite ends. One tube went to the main silo, where the game had been played—and presumably—where Vega was still trapped. The other tube connected to a hallway with stairs that led up to the surface.
They could not complete their mission without going through the control center, but both of its doors were equipped with a pressure lock.
“Decoding now,” Benton said over the com system.
The team must have reached the control room door, and Gizmo was using his device to get through another cipher lock. Brinkley had retrofitted the main doors with coded locks.
Benton’s voice carried through Wu’s earpiece. “Only one number left,” he said in an undertone. “Stand by.”
The HRT would unlock the door within seconds. If any traps were set, they would be inside.
Even though he was behind the team, Wu had his sidearm in low ready position. If a gunfight broke out, he would be ready.
The overhead bulbs went out, and they were swallowed in darkness.
“Night vision,” Benton said.
Even before he heard the command, Wu had reached up to flip the unit mounted on the front of his tactical helmet down over his eyes.
Instantly he could see the space around him. Brinkley was aware of their approach, but if he thought this would slow them down, he was mistaken.
A few seconds later, the lights flicked back on, blaring through the lenses. Before he could readjust, the lights began to flick on and off at high speed.
The curses around him told Wu the others were equally disoriented by the strobing lights, which had rendered their night-vision equipment useless.
Bam!
A shot rang out, and one of the bulbs exploded in a shower of falling shards.
Another volley of shots destroyed the rest of the lights, and darkness settled around them again.
Brinkley was more resourceful than he had suspected. Strobing the lights was an ingenious way to neutralize their advantage until they destroyed the flashing bulbs. What would they find when they entered the control room?
“Deploying FLIR,” Benton said, his voice barely audible over the ringing in Wu’s ears.
The team had taken forward-looking infrared thermal-imaging equipment to scan rooms inside the structure prior to making entry. The command indicated Gizmo had unlocked the door and the team was ready to move in.
“Heat signature detected,” Benton said. “One adult.”
Brinkley was in the control room, doubtless preparing more surprises for them. Benton gave a hand signal, and the team lined up in dynamic entry formation. Wu had done the same many times and knew what would happen next. He would rather have led the charge into the room but had to content himself with rising up on his toes to watch from close behind them.
Benton’s silent count ended, and the breacher opened the heavy door as the second operator barged through, shouting commands at the person inside. Strobing lights flickered inside the control room, turning the space into a disorienting spectacle.
The entire line surged in, their figures visible only in fractional freeze-frame increments. Gunshots rang out, the echoes making it impossible to tell who had fired first.
Less than ten seconds later, the shooting stopped.
“One subject down,” Benton said through the com system. “Confirmed deceased.”
Breaking his promise to wait for the all-clear, Wu rushed into the control room to see who the HRT had killed.
CHAPTER 59
Dani heard shouts and gunshots coming from the other side of the control room door. Thick blast-proof walls and a reinforced door prevented her from making out any words, but it sounded like several male voices and a collection of thudding boots.
Was Nemesis shooting at someone? Everyone else in the game was dead, but had he captured a fresh group of people to force into another round of competition?
A tiny spark of hope flared. Maybe the FBI had figured out where she was and had sent the HRT to attempt a rescue. If she called out, they might be able to hear her through the dense walls. Failing that, she could pound on the door to draw their attention.
But what if it wasn’t the HRT? Now that he knew her capabilities, Nemesis could have hired a team of mercenaries to hunt her down. Either way, making noise would give her position away to people who were armed.
Whoever they were, they had command of the control center and would open the door in front of her soon. What option would give her the best tactical advantage? Coming to a rapid decision, she began moving backward through the tube. Within seconds, she had descended back down to the lower level through the open hatch in the floor.
Glancing around, she took up a position of cover behind the nearest corner. The men would have to come through the hatch one at a time, climbing down the ladder feetfirst. From this vantage point, she could pick off an entire platoon one by one as long as her ammo lasted.
If they tossed down a grenade or a smoke bomb, she was already around the corner and could easily retreat to another location to reengage in an ambush attack.
If these men turned out to be mercenaries, they would not find her to be easy prey. She would use every kind of guerrilla tactic at her disposal. And she knew plenty.
She crouched down and laid her spare guns in a neat row in front of her, where she could grab them quickly. She raised her primary pistol up and trained her sights on the hatch in the ceiling when she heard a strange sound.
She whipped her head around but saw nothing. Listening closer, she made out a muffled cry for help coming from the far end of the corridor behind her.
CHAPTER 60
Wu rushed in, the strobing lights disorienting him as he glanced around the control room to find Benton.
“Is anyone from your team hurt?” he asked when he spotted the HRT’s team leader.
“Negative,” Benton said, then followed up with a sharp question. “Why are you in here? We haven’t cleared—”
“Where’s the body?” Wu cut in. “Who did you shoot?”
The team had seen only a heat signature before coming in, and he could not fight the sickening dread that they had surprised Vega, who wouldn’t have been able to make out the team in the chaos of a dynamic tactical entry combined with strobing lights. She might have fired on them, prompting them to return fire.
Benton gestured toward the ground behind the control panel, and Wu walked around to see the crumpled form of a man lying in a pool of blood. He blinked in the flickering lights and bent close enough to examine the face.
A relieved sigh escaped his lips when he recognized Oscar Brinkley. A semiautomatic pistol lay on the floor nearby, where it had been kicked by one of the tactical operators.
“We returned fire,” Benton said. “He got off one round right when we came in and another one after we hit him the first time.”
Wu’s next order of business was to stop the flashing lights and locate Vega. He stood and turned around to study the array of buttons, switches, and dials covering the control panel. Leaning closer, he spotted a cluster of switches under an image of a bulb. He pressed the farthest one to the left, hoping he didn’t inadvertently activate something that might hurt Vega.
The room went dark.
“What the fuck?” one of the men closest to him said.
Ignoring him, Wu pulled down his night-vision equipment and pressed the next button in line. The lights popped back on, and more curses went through the room as everyone flipped their night vision back up on their helmets.
“At least the damned lights stopped,” Benton said. “Was getting a headache.”
Now able to see properly for the first time, Wu took in the damage done to the control panel during the shootout. It looked like Brinkley had ducked behind it, and the team had blasted several rounds through it while trying to neutralize the threat.
Flint, who had entered the room behind Wu, crossed his arms as he gazed down at the panel. “You guys shot the shit out of that thing,” he said.