William and the four soldiers accompanying him darted to the closest home and entered through the back door. The older man brought up the rear. His limp slowed him down some, but Peyton thought he was moving well, considering.
She counted down the seconds, but nothing occurred. Minutes passed. Then two soldiers slipped out the back door, ran back into the tree line, and exited farther down, by the fourth house from the corner. They entered that house in a similar way.
A soldier spoke urgently on the radio. “Zulu leader, request backup at location two.”
Orders then came quickly over the comm.
Six team members sprang up, raced along the tree line, and burst out, into the second home the troops had entered. Peyton was amazed at their speed. She swallowed. Her father was in the first house. Is he okay? The thought of losing him now terrified her; she only realized it in that moment, when his life was at great risk.
Desmond looked at her and nodded slightly, a gesture only she could see, trying to reassure her.
Avery crept to the leader of Zulu team and whispered to him, too low for Peyton to hear. The man shook his head and pushed her back, seeming annoyed.
She didn’t let it go. Seconds later, she rose and barreled down the hill.
The man’s voice was hard over the comm. “Medusa, return to rally point.”
Avery didn’t stop.
“Fox team, be advised, Medusa is inbound to your twenty.”
Zulu leader looked back at Desmond, who just shrugged, letting the man know they’d been dealing with the same thing.
Another electric car emerged from the wooded path and parked at a house unoccupied by the soldiers. Two more cars drove to different houses. Along the perimeter, several of the black-clad troops began spreading closer to those houses.
Peyton desperately wanted to know what was going on, but she held her tongue and tried to stay calm.
A hushed voice came over the comm, a soldier; wounded, Peyton thought. “Zulu, Bravo teams. Move in. Hurry.”
Chapter 113
Inside the second home, the blinds were closed. Blood spread across the wide-plank hardwood floor. Peyton stopped at the sight, walked slowly around it. The Marines and Navy SEALs moving through barely took notice. They went from room to room, calling “Clear!” before re-entering the central hallway.
Peyton relaxed when she heard her father’s voice in the dining room. She found him standing with Avery and two other soldiers. They had taken a painting from the wall and had drawn a map of the island and its buildings on the back.
William activated the comm and laid out his plan, broadcasting to their forces and to the Boxer’s Combat Information Center.
He and the soldiers had interrogated several of the homes’ residents and had learned a great deal. The map was an updated view of the island’s layout, which had changed some since the sixties. About two hundred private security contractors were housed in barracks near the harbor. The island had also been upgraded with significant defensive capabilities, including advanced sonar and radar. The technology likely would have detected the larger amphibious landers long before they reached the beach. They were unsure whether the small boats they’d used to come ashore had been detected, but they were hopeful they’d gone unseen. The detection grid was focused on the harbor side of the island.
The most concerning fortifications were the island’s surface-to-air and surface-to-sea defenses. The Citium was capable of fending off attacks from the Boxer’s air wing, and it had missiles with sufficient range to reach the ships of the expeditionary strike group.
William urged them not to move the vessels back; if the formation of ships was already under surveillance, withdrawing might raise suspicion—and launch a search of the island.
William had flagged two buildings of interest: a lab complex, and an administrative building that housed the island’s data center and communications equipment. According to the residents they’d interrogated, neither building was heavily guarded, and the current work shift would be ending within the hour—that would be the best time to infiltrate the buildings.
Quickly, they made a plan that struck Peyton as well conceived. The SEALs and Force Recon troops would make their way to the barracks and defense complex. Their first priority would be disabling the island’s radar and missile capabilities. Then they would rig explosives to the troop carriers; the logic was that if the island’s infantry units were mobilized to repel a ground assault, they could be neutralized quickly. The plan was efficient and deadly, and perhaps the best they could do with their limited forces.
Their search of the homes had turned up an IT administrator named Carl and a senior biomedical engineer named Gretchen. Their shifts were about to start, and they would provide a cover for the infiltration teams. Desmond, William, and Avery would enter the administrative building with Carl, who would tell anyone who asked that they were new consultants who needed access to the database. Charlotte and Peyton would enter the lab complex with Gretchen, and search for any information related to the cure. Two Navy SEALs would go with the second team. Each team member had brought along civilian clothes and a disguise for this exact type of infiltration.
In the bathroom, Peyton began washing off the face paint. When she looked in the mirror, she saw Desmond standing in the doorway.
“Be careful.”
She stared at him in the mirror. “You too.”
“I’ll see you on the other side.”
“I’ll be there.” And she hoped he would too.
Chapter 114