“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” Conley replied.
“On three,” Morgan said.
“Two.”
“One.”
The agents fired together and Morgan was grateful for the .308’s relatively quiet report.
Morgan watched through the scope as the security camera disintegrated.
“Got it,” Conley said.
The agents grabbed their rifles and headed back to the power station.
Morgan knew that when the cameras went out, the base’s few guards would investigate—though there wouldn’t be any immediate alarms or any rush. When two cameras went out simultaneously in a non-sensitive area, their first thought would be equipment failure.
With luck, Morgan and Conley’s next move would also be chalked up to equipment failure, at least for a short time. In unison, the agents each took a device from the webbing on their chests, and unfolded it to reveal a small drone with four propellers. Morgan hit a switch on the bottom of the drone and it sprang to life as Conley did the same.
When released, the drones took to the air, one in a random flight pattern behind the storage shed, while the other flew off to make mischief elsewhere on the base. Both would activate motion and heat sensors—telling the base security system that something or someone was moving around. Of course, video would show nothing and, once again base command would assume equipment malfunction.
“This may actually work,” Morgan remarked.
“Clockwork so far, my friend,” Conley replied. “Stealth. You don’t always have to go in the front door, guns blazing.”
Morgan grunted. It was true he often favored a more direct approached, but ultimately, he believed in doing whatever worked. In this case, sneaking around had worked out pretty well so far.
They were on the move, heading to the rear of the power station, where they used their sniper rifles to take out the video cameras and then simply walked up to the back door.
Morgan tried the door. It was unlocked.
Conley shrugged. “I guess they don’t worry about unannounced guests.”
“Not out here,” Morgan replied.
The agents stepped inside. The room was filled with the hum of the generators in front of them. That was good; the noise would cover what they were about to do.
The primary and backup generators ran on natural gas. A larger base that wasn’t top secret might have had a small nuclear reactor, but those were harder to hide.
There was nothing fancy or stealthy about what they did next. They took two of Shepard’s incendiaries from their gear and placed them at two different points on each generator’s natural gas supply lines and set the timers.
“Let’s go find our ride,” Conley said.
The door in front of them opened and two Chinese soldiers stepped into the generator room from the front of the building.
The soldiers were startled when they saw the Americans, but before either could react—or even reach for their sidearm—Conley called out something in Mandarin.
Whatever Conley said, the two soldiers turned their attention to the ceiling.
Instantly, Morgan and Conley were on the move. Morgan took three steps toward the soldier closest to him and threw himself into the air. The other man barely had time to look down from the ceiling to see Morgan hurtling toward him in a flying tackle.
The soldier went down pretty hard, hitting the ground with Morgan’s weight on top of him. Yet the man stayed conscious and started flailing at Morgan. Twisting his body, Morgan positioned himself behind the solider and placed the man in a chokehold.
Still dazed, the soldier grabbed at Morgan’s arm for perhaps a minute and then went still, unconscious. They were under orders not to kill the base personnel unless absolutely necessary. That order came from the very top of Zeta—from Mr. Smith himself, apparently.
Morgan saw that Conley had also laid out his soldier.
Normally, Morgan would not have liked to leave enemies around who could wake up and make trouble for them. But in this case, one way or the other, the mission would be over before these men woke up.
Morgan could hear voices from the front office area, even over the hum of the equipment. A quick look told him that there was no way to lock the door from this side. That made sense; there would be no reason to lock base personnel out.
That’s when Dan reached into one of his pouches and pulled out four of his own favorite toys. They weren’t as sophisticated as some of the ones Shepard designed, but they would do the job.
He heard Conley’s chuckle as he took the rubber doorstops and placed two of them on each of the double doors, wedging the steel doors shut.
If anyone tried the door, it would buy the agents at least a few minutes—and that was all they needed.
“Less than five minutes,” Conley said, checking his watch.
Morgan was up. Then he thought about the soldiers. The men weren’t dead, but they would be close by when the incendiaries went off. Then, of course, the generators and their tanks would likely blow.
“Let’s drag them outside,” Morgan said.
Conley didn’t argue. They took the soldiers outside and relieved them of their weapons.
Morgan checked his watch. Three minutes until the fireworks started.
They had to get away from the power station and in position for the next phase of the plan. With luck, they would be in the air in about fifteen minutes. And with no power, base command wouldn’t even be able to report what had happened until they were long gone.
They kept to the foothills of the mountains as they ringed around, counter-clockwise, to the hangar.
“Do you hear that?” Conley asked.
“It’s the hum from the…” Morgan said.
“I thought so too at first, but that’s not the generators,” Conley said.
Of course, they wouldn’t be able to hear them this far outside the building. Certainly, they wouldn’t be getting louder.
Whatever the sound was, it definitely wasn’t good.
And Morgan was pretty sure he knew exactly what it was.
“Yep, there it is,” Conley pointed.
The Chinese military troop transport was making its final approach on the airstrip. They would be down in minutes.
“Looks like the General’s early,” Morgan said.
“Not likely,” Conley replied. “I’m sure he’s exactly on time. They probably moved up the test flight.” Checking his watch, he added, “By exactly two hours.”
“How many men does he have in his honor guard?” Morgan said.
“About fifty. Then there’s the aircraft crew,” Conley said.
Morgan remembered something and checked his watch just as there was a thud from the power station, followed by a satisfying explosion. The flash reached maybe fifty feet in the sky.
“There goes their power, and communications,” Conley said. “Of course, the transport will have long range communications.”
They watched the transport sail over the pass that they had barely cleared in their wingsuits. The aircraft would be on the ground in minutes.
“I think we need a new plan,” Morgan said.
Chapter 3
The two agents watched as the military transport—which was the size of a commercial airliner—touched down.
“Maybe if we have a few dozen of Shepard’s little helicopters we could confuse all of the soldiers individually,” Morgan said.
“Or maybe if you had some more of your doorstops,” Conley said.
“You know we can’t abort,” Morgan said.
Conley knew. It wasn’t just about completing the mission. The base command and their new reinforcements now knew someone was here. Morgan and Conley couldn’t just walk into the mountains—they’d be caught within hours.
There was still
only one way out of here. They needed to get to their ride, and the faster the better.
“Do you think our plane is fueled?” Morgan said.
“Probably…Definitely. If they moved everything up it would have to be ready,” Conley said.
“Can you handle the ground crew on your own?” Morgan asked.
“Course,” Conley said. “What are you thinking?”
“Not sure,” Morgan replied. “Just prep the plane and wait for my signal.”
“So you have a plan?”
“Not exactly…I’m just going to look for a doorstop.”
As Conley set out for the hangar, Morgan headed in the other direction. From behind him, Morgan heard Conley call out. “I’d make sure the doorstop is a big one.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Morgan replied.
He kept to the foothills as he watched the plane. It had landed and turned around. Now it was just sitting on the runway. Morgan knew why—the pass was the only way in or out of the small group of mountains. The transport was now positioned to take off and head straight for the pass.
It was safer for the plane and worked nicely for Morgan because it put a long runway between the base and the aircraft. Thus, there would be a healthy delay if base command wanted to use the plane’s communications system to sound an alert to, say, scramble fighters at the closest airbase. To get any signal out, command would have to get to and use the aircraft’s communications system.
If nothing else, that delay would give Morgan and Conley a few minutes’ head start in the event that they actually got their own plane in the air.
By the time Morgan reached the hills behind the transport, a large group of soldiers had already filed out and was standing behind an older man in a general’s uniform. He was talking to a small number of base personnel. Morgan watched as the entire group started to march together toward the base. There were no guards left outside the plane, which was one lucky break.
Even if there was crew left on the transport, with a bit more luck they wouldn’t know he’d been there until he was gone. He stepped out of the foothills and approached the aircraft, then walked under the wing with purpose. He was out in the open, so there was no point in stealth now. In fact, creeping around would only call attention to him.
He made a point of examining the underside of the plane, as a member of the ground crew would do. He stopped at the wing’s landing gear and then walked forward, along the fuselage.
He stopped again at the front landing gear and reached into a pouch on his side, confirming that he had two incendiaries left.
The problem was that he needed to save an incendiary for the fuel depot, but there were two tires in the front landing gear. A single explosive might take them both out, but maybe not.
And with even one tire, the plane could still get in the air. Even if it couldn’t pursue them, getting airborne would increase its communications range.
So he needed to be sure that he’d taken both tires out—
Looking up into the plane, he smiled when he realized what he’d missed. He could ground the plane with a single device. Grabbing the incendiary, he set the timer for five minutes and tossed it into the fuselage through the opening for the landing gear.
Even if fire control put the fire out in record time, the plane would likely be out of commission—at least in the short term.
And the short term was all they needed.
Morgan gave up any pretense of belonging on the base. He sprinted for the fuel depot, following the hose that was already connected to the plane. He was relieved but not surprised. Protocol for the Chinese army required every available man to be there to greet the general at whatever reception or ceremony they had planned, so Morgan was able to work in peace.
The depot had four fuel tanks, large ones. He debated where to put the last incendiary. The tanks themselves were solid enough that they would likely shake off the blast, which was more flash than bang. His best chance was one of the relatively small pipes that connected the tanks.
He chose one of the pipes, and set the device for two minutes
Then he ran like hell.
The second incendiary would go off about two minutes after the one in the underside of the plane. He heard the device in the plane go off and didn’t even turn around. He kept to the edge of the landing strip, keeping close to the rocky foothills.
His internal clock told him that there was about one minute left on the second timer. He had no idea how much fuel was in the tanks and how big any blast might be, or if he would even get more than one tank to blow.
But whatever happened, Morgan didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when he found out.
* * * *
Conley moved fast but was careful to stay out of sight, keeping to the rear of the hangar, and keeping the foothills behind him. They provided a little cover and kept him partly out of sight.
He found a rear door and saw that it wasn’t locked. Again, out here, in the middle of nowhere, what was the point of locking anything?
He took a good look inside. There was no one in sight. In fact, though the hangar was large enough for a transport even bigger than the one on the landing site, there was almost nothing there.
A single fighter sat in the center, gleaming in the morning light that poured in from the open doors. It was impressive, even more so than the reconnaissance photos and drawings he had seen.
Conley looked forward to stealing it and seeing what it could do.
There was even a ladder on wheels against the cockpit—as if the plane were ready and waiting for him.
Just to be sure, Conley crept up to the offices on the rear of the building. Empty.
Bless the Chinese and their protocols, he thought.
He sprinted for the plane. On the way, he saw stacks of what appeared to be one-meter drones of some sort. There were at least a few dozen of them.
He spared a second to wonder what they were for. Target practice, most likely. After all, the General had come today for a demonstration of the new weapon prototype. Well, Conley was determined to give him a demonstration—even if it wasn’t the one he was expecting. He leapt into the cockpit and went right to work. The first thing he checked was the fuel tanks: they were full.
He could have the plane in the air in a couple of minutes. The only thing missing now was Morgan.
Looking up, Conley saw the nose of the troop carrier was billowing smoke, from both the underside of the plane where the front landing gear jutted out and the cockpit windows.
Well, that took care of their worry about base command using the plane’s communications system.
Then there was a bright flash from just to the right of the plane. Then another. And another. And another.
And another.
He heard the loud report from each explosion. Each was impressive, reaching at least a hundred feet into the sky.
He guessed that Morgan had found his doorstop.
Then he received another surprise as the troop transport blew up in front of him. This sent a massive report, and Conley could actually feel the blast wave. The fireball was huge, and he could see pieces of the fuselage rain down from the sky. The plane must have had a fuel line running from the tanks when it blew.
Morgan had found his doorstop all right. And it was a pretty big one.
Conley could only hope his friend was far away when it blew, but he couldn’t spare a second for worry. He had to run his pre-flight check on the plane.
Scanning the instruments, he was glad he had brushed up on his Mandarin. He recognized the controls and almost all of the instruments, enough to get them in the air. There were some Chinese characters that didn’t make sense, and he assumed they were code names for something or other—most likely the new weapon system, whatever that was.
He had just started his pre-flight checks when he heard Mor
gan’s voice. “Conley!”
He watched his friend sprinting toward the plane from the open front of the hangar.
“Hop in,” Conley called out.
Morgan didn’t seem any worse for wear as he approached the plane and raced up the ladder to slide into the co-pilot seat behind him.
“Impressive display,” Conley said.
“Thanks,” Morgan replied, catching his breath
“Any trouble getting out of there?” Conley asked.
“Nope,” Morgan said.
Conley laughed; the smell of Morgan’s singed hair told a different story.
“Can you get us in the air?” Morgan asked.
“Of course, we’re fully fueled and ready. If we had time I would taxi to the other side of the runway so we could take off and have a straight shot into the pass. As it is, I’ll take off toward your burning wreckage and swing us around.”
“Can you get in the air and turn in time to avoid the mountains over there?” Morgan asked.
Under normal circumstances, on a plane he knew, Conley would say yes. But this was his first time in the cockpit of this plane. He didn’t know what it could do, and had no experience in how it handled. He’d read the reports and the analysis, but the only way to know how an aircraft handled was to fly it.
And new planes were notoriously unpredictable. Thus, the most dangerous job in the Air Force was acting as a test pilot for a new aircraft. And that was after extensive briefings on the systems, and dozens of hours in a simulator.
However, they just hadn’t known enough about this new jet to put together a simulation.
“Can you do it?” Morgan repeated.
“Probably,” Conley replied.
“Probably?”
“Almost definitely.”
“I guess that’s as good as we get on this mission,” Morgan said.
The mountains weren’t Conley’s greatest concern. Though the base didn’t have anti-aircraft batteries, they would absolutely have shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles. The longer the two agents spent circling the base, the better the chance that someone on the ground would get lucky with a SAM.
Threat Level Alpha Page 3