“Roger.” Harte might be chuckling, but his words came through clear. “Proceed.”
“Proceeding, sir.” He clamped down on the anticipation driving him to rush forward. There’d been a lot of hurry up and wait to reach this point. His Delta fire team had to break the seal of an airlock fused shut decades prior by the Army Corps of Engineers decommissioning team while Alpha, Bravo and Charlie fire teams stood by on watch. Once breached, Alpha led the way into the tunnel with Bravo and Charlie following, leaving Delta to stand watch at the entrance.
At the entrance to the air ducts, Marc and Victoria had scouted the next stage of entry into the underground complex while he and Lizzy had held their position. Meanwhile, Squadron Two’s fire teams had taken up positions above ground to keep an eye on the site’s activity.
It’d been a lot of waiting. Now that he and his team were inside and on point with a primary plan and a backup, everything they did would be action and reaction. Which was good, because An-mei Cheng had waited long enough.
Using hand signals, he motioned for Marc and Vicky to lead them forward. They crawled through a short stretch of air duct before sliding into the space between a wall and a massive pipe. There was a long-forgotten built-in access for a repair crew on the side of the pipe, allowing them to enter and climb down under the main part of the facility, still underground but a level or two above the matrix of tunnels branching out from the old site. The drain in the utility closet was industrial sized, large enough for them each to emerge and take position before heading out into the more dangerous hallway.
“For a decommissioned ICBM, the facilities are in surprisingly good repair.” Harte’s comment was nonchalant, confirming for Gabe that the camera feeds each of his men wore were in working order despite the underground distance.
“Well-lit, clean,” Gabe responded. There were a lot of these decommissioned sites dotting the United States, leftover from the Cold War when intercontinental ballistic missiles were scattered among “dummy” sites. Over time, they’d fallen into disrepair, and most were condemned. “Funny how this one didn’t show up as having a long-term lease.”
Sites like these could be contracted to local governments and corporations, even private military contractors in decades-long leases for preservation or training purposes. Cheaper for the federal government than maintaining the site, perfect for organizations like theirs to establish a training facility. In fact, Centurion Corporation had similar contracts for other types of sites.
Once his team cleared the glorified broom closet, they set up on the door and communicated through silent touches their readiness to breach it. Marc opened it quickly and the other three poured into the hall, Gabe at the lead, all weapons at high ready.
Never breaking step, the fire team embodied the mantra “smooth is fast, fast is smooth” as they flowed past other doors and danger points in a modified T.
“Not a spider or rat in sight.”
“You’d think someone wanted to maintain good laboratory practices for some reason.” Yeah. They’d confirmed this was their target when surveillance had caught some very interesting supplies arriving. Coated slides for protein and DNA microarrays, multi-well microarray substrates and a long list of other things, harder to pronounce and definitely for genetic research, all received in fairly regular shipments from various sources.
Whoever was maintaining the site had done a good job of hiding the supply draw from the eyes of anyone watching for a virtual paper trail, but for someone with eyes on the site? It was painfully obvious. Right up there with the number of fairly new surveillance cameras installed on the premises.
His team reached a juncture in the hallways and, having established a beachhead, crouched at the corners to wait for Bravo and Charlie teams.
The Bravo team would emerge with a mirrored formation to his own fire team a minute or two behind them to ensure they had heavy support on both sides. Charlie team would follow after, with Delta team holding position at the access point, ready to run in with medical support if the worst happened.
Once the teams had all emerged from the drain and were able to move quickly, he took them forward.
Based on the surveillance and intel they’d been able to gather, there were likely minimal patrols at this time of night. 0200 hours fell well into the graveyard watch, when those assigned to the shift became complacent with the night’s silence and, hopefully, bored enough to doze off. Any other personnel in the facility, maybe more kidnapped scientists like An-mei, should be asleep, and all were likely kept in separate quarters to prevent them from communicating more than was necessary.