‘Drake, stop moving.’
‘Call signs only,’ Drake growled in response. Nonetheless, his screen stopped moving, as did Mason’s. Both men were holding position, waiting to see what would happen.
‘Pan left, Alpha,’ she continued, angry at herself for breaking radio protocol. ‘Slowly.’
Drake did as she asked, carefully rotating his view left, tracking back over the area of warehouse wall he’d just surveyed.
‘There!’ she called out, seeing the barely perceptible gleam of light reflecting off a glass lens about halfway up the wall. Keen observation combined with a dash of luck had allowed her to spot it. ‘Straight ahead, about 20 feet up. It’s a surveillance camera.’
‘I see it. Looks like it’s covering your approach,’ Keegan confirmed. ‘Good spot, Delta.’
‘Can we neutralise it?’ Drake asked.
‘It’s a long shot, but I’m pretty sure I can hit it from here,’ their sniper said.
‘No, don’t,’ Frost said immediately. ‘If they’re watching and their camera goes down for too long, they’ll send people to investigate.’
‘I assume you have a better idea,’ Drake prompted her.
‘Wait one,’ Frost said, already bringing up a new tool on her laptop screen that might be able to help her out. ‘Alpha, you should have a broad-range signal scanner with you.’
She heard a Velcro pouch being undone, and through Mason’s screen saw Drake remove from his webbing a small square device that resembled a walkie-talkie, only with several different antennae emerging from the top.
‘Power it up, set it to Uplink Mode and point it directly at the camera,’ she said, forcing herself to speak slowly and calmly. Drake didn’t need to be listening to a panicked and jittery tech operator.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I can do or I can explain, Alpha. Which would you prefer?’ Frost’s confidence was growing by the second. This was her world now, her area of expertise.
Drake did as instructed, and within ten seconds or so she had managed to establish a connection with the signal scanner in his hand.
‘Running the scan now,’ she said, blowing into her hands to try to get some warmth into her fingers.
‘Make it quick, Delta. We’re exposed out here,’ Mason warned her.
‘Come on, come on,’ she said under her breath, waiting while the program ran an automated scan of all available signal frequencies.
After what seemed like an eternity, a box appeared onscreen: SIGNAL ISOLATED.
‘Okay, I’ve isolated their feed,’ she said, her relief palpable. ‘Alpha and Bravo, get ready to move on my mark.’
‘Copy that. Standing by,’ Drake confirmed.
Frost’s finger hovered over the key. ‘Three, two, one, mark.’
She sent the command for the signal scanner to transmit on the same frequency as the wireless camera guarding the factory, effectively overriding it and jamming the signal. It could buy them time to get in, but seconds only. Any longer than that, and whoever was monitoring the camera would know something was up.
Drake and Mason rose to their feet and sprinted forward, their camera feeds a blur of movement as they ran, before settling down when the two men had backed up against the wall of the factory.
‘Camera coming back online… now,’ she said, allowing the camera to revert back to its standard broadcasting mode. Anyone watching would have seen nothing more than a few seconds of static interference.
‘Good work, Delta,’ Drake said, for once acknowledging her positively.
Frost watched as Drake and Mason sidled along the wall until they were standing on either side of an access door. It was too small to be a loading dock or goods entrance. More likely it was a fire escape or auxiliary access point.
‘Got a new lock here,’ Mason remarked, leaning in close so that she could see the padlock holding the door secure. It was big and solid, and looked like it had just come off the shelf.
‘Alpha, check for electronic safeguards,’ she said. ‘Pressure plates, motion sensors—’
‘I know what to look for, Delta,’ Drake assured her, bending to his task.
It didn’t take him long to locate a pair of wires trailing along the edge of the door frame, apparently part of a recently installed alarm system.
‘What am I looking at, Delta?’
Frost’s mind was racing. It was rather like trying to assemble a jigsaw when one could only see a quarter of the pieces. Still, training and experience were on her side.
‘Looks like a standard double-loop interrupt system,’ she said. ‘Simple but effective. You open the door, it breaks the circuit and triggers an alarm that alerts the guys inside.’
‘Great. How do I get past it?’
‘Okay, you need to cut and bypass the ground wire to maintain the current flow. Make sure you don’t cut the lead wire or you’ll trigger the alarm system.’
‘So which one’s the ground wire?’
That was the question indeed. There was no standardised way of coding or positioning wires in systems like this. And they were in a different country on a different continent now. Whoever rigged this system up could have done it any way they saw fit.
If they cut the wrong wire, their mission was over.
‘Delta, come in,’ Drake pressed her. ‘Is it the inner or the outer wire?’
Unable to say for sure, Frost fell back on her own logic, training and common sense. If you want to figure out how something’s put together, think what you would have done if you’d built it – that was what had been drilled into her during her military training, and it had held up pretty well so far. Most technicians and engineers were, by their nature, inherently logical people no matter which country they hailed from. They thus tended to think alike.
If she had to construct a system like this, she would fix the ground wire to the outer doorframe. It was the most sensible way of doing things, as it would reduce the chance of power interruptions that could trigger the alarm accidentally.
Of course, she also knew that the element of chance was always waiting in the wings, ready to fuck things up for everyone.
‘It’s the outer wire,’ she said.
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘Copy that. Cutting now.’ She watched as Drake bent in close with a pair of electrical shears, and held her breath as the wire was severed.
Nothing happened. No alarm sounded.
‘Okay, bypass it and splice it into the lead wire,’ she instructed, somehow managing to keep the elation from showing in her voice. ‘That should allow you to open the door.’
In under a minute, Drake had stripped the insulation from the lead wire and spliced in a bypass, effectively disabling the alarm. Once he had finished his task, he nodded to Mason, who immediately went to work on the padlock with a tension wrench and lockpick gun.
Picking pin-tumbler-style locks, even with advanced tools like these, was an art rather than a science. Some people possess the steady hand and finesse needed to do it quickly and efficiently, and others don’t. Mason was clearly one of the former, and in short order he’d unshackled the bolt and removed the lock.
Glancing at his teammate, who readied his weapon and nodded affirmation, Mason reached out, pushed the door inward and advanced inside, with Drake falling in right behind him.
They were inside.
Chapter 12
They were obliged to change hideouts not long after that, as their building had finally been earmarked for redevelopment. It was a couple of days before Stevie was able to scope out a new place, during which there was little choice but to sleep out on the streets again, huddled together for warmth. It was late January by now, with sombre grey skies and sleet falling almost constantly.
By the time they found a new building to hide out in, Keira was already sick with a cold that wouldn’t seem to clear up. Within a week it had gone into her chest, and she was coughing almost ceaselessly. Eventually she was unable
even to venture outside as her weight slowly dropped off and her strength waned. Stevie watched Keira in brooding silence one night as she doubled over with another painful coughing fit, and Keira could guess what she was thinking.
Sooner or later she’s going to die.
‘You need a hospital, fish,’ she said quietly when the fit finally abated. ‘You look like shit.’
Keira gave her a sharp look. ‘You’re not so hot yourself.’
‘I ain’t bullshitting you. You need antibiotics or some—’
‘I said drop it!’ Keira snapped. ‘People ask questions in hospitals, they want money, insurance. Who’s going to pay up? You?’
She was cold and shivering, and in no mood for an argument. Crawling into her camp bed, she pulled the blanket up about her, trying in vain to generate some warmth. She was trembling uncontrollably now.
‘Fuck,’ Stevie mumbled.
Keira heard footsteps coming closer, the rustling of blankets, and felt the girl slide in beside her, arms wrapped around her.
‘Relax, I won’t try anything,’ Stevie said. ‘You ain’t pretty enough for me.’
It was a half-hearted joke, but Keira couldn’t help but retort. ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
Nonetheless, their shared body heat gradually started to generate some warmth, and though Keira appreciated her friend’s gesture, her body seemed to be immune to it. Whatever was eating away at her had hit her hard.
‘Stevie?’ she said, her voice quieter now.
‘Yeah?’
‘Why did you let me in that night?’
She felt the young woman shift position, as if uncomfortable with the question. ‘Shit doesn’t matter now. Why do you care?’
‘I just wanted to know. Please.’ She didn’t add that she might not get another chance to ask.
She was silent for some time before finally answering. ‘I’ll make you a deal. When you get better, I’ll tell you.’
‘But I—’
Before she could finish, Stevie had withdrawn from the bed, marched determinedly over to her own sleeping place and snatched up her coat.
‘Hang here,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back soon.’
‘Where you going?’ Keira asked, almost frightened at the prospect of being left alone after so long together.
‘To make you better.’
* * *
According to the briefing documents Frost had pored over during the flight out here, the Jupiter factory had officially been labelled as a consumer electronics’ manufacturer by the Soviet government, putting out cassette recorders and other devices for home use. This however had been nothing but a front for its real purpose, which was the production of classified electronics for the military: everything from experimental robotic systems to satellite components. At its peak, the plant employed over 3,500 people: the biggest source of labour in the area besides the nuclear power station.
Such had been the strategic importance of the work done here, that the Jupiter factory had actually resumed operations to a limited extent once the worst of the radiation had been contained. Only the fall of the USSR and resulting loss of funding had seen the facility finally close some time in the mid-1990s.
These days it was supposedly abandoned like the rest of Pripyat, but it was clear from the grainy night-vision images on her screen that the place hadn’t suffered from the same neglect as the nearby city. The roof, supported by great concrete beams and steel girders spanning the full width of the building, was still sound, as evidenced by the lack of mould or moisture on the bare concrete floor. There was also less rust and decay here than in the other buildings they had passed through. Heavy ductwork that had likely been part of a sophisticated ventilation system snaked across the roof, suspended by steel cables.
As Drake and Mason advanced deeper into the facility, they passed the remains of work benches and assembly lines, some still supporting ancient computers that looked like they’d just been shut down, testing equipment, dismantled circuit boards and other bits of dusty old machinery that had once been state of the art.
‘Delta, we’re on the main machine floor,’ Drake’s hushed voice reached her over the radio. The two men had parted company after making entry, fanning out so as to cover the factory’s voluminous internal space more efficiently. ‘No contacts here.’
Frost could do nothing but watch, hunched over her laptop screen. She felt curiously divorced from the reality of what was happening just a couple of hundred yards away, as if she were merely watching a movie instead of real men risking their lives.
She glanced at the USP that was resting on the counter top beside her computer, its bulky metal frame as cold and forbidding as her surroundings, and out of habit stole a look at her watch. Two hours and twenty minutes left.
They were cutting this very close.
Mason had veered off to the left, and halted beside what had once been a set of double doors. Beyond, stairs led downward into the darkness.
‘Got a stairwell over here,’ he reported. ‘South-east corner.’
‘Copy that. Alpha’s on the way.’
Drake’s camera window bounced and jolted over toward where Mason was standing, his weapon pointing down the stairwell. Both men were focussed on something on the ground near their feet, but it wasn’t until Drake crouched down lower that Frost was able to identify it.
‘Looks like someone’s been here recently,’ he said, reaching out and touching the bloodstain on the concrete step. It came away with a dark smear.
Frost knew it was wrong to say what she said next, but she couldn’t help herself. It came out before she could stop it.
‘I don’t like the look of this.’
‘Stay cool, Delta,’ Drake warned her. ‘We came here to find our man, and we’re not leaving until we do. We’re going down.’
More jolting movement as the two men descended the stairs, each visible through his comrade’s headset camera as a ghostly blur of thermal radiation. She could only imagine what was going through their minds at that moment as they pressed further into the dark, unknown depths of the facility, ever watchful for explosive devices. Skilled defenders would place such traps in hard-to-see places, perhaps using a dummy tripwire to lure their enemies into a false sense of security. Frost knew well enough that a single Claymore anti-personnel mine in such a confined space would easily wipe her comrades out, but she couldn't do much except trust in their skill and experience.
As she watched their progress, the screen froze, then resumed, only to freeze again a few seconds later.
‘Alpha, I’m getting pretty bad signal distortion here,’ she warned. ‘Are you still reading me?’
‘Probably in… ence from the st… ture,’ Mason’s voice was starting to break up. The two men were essentially in an underground concrete box, so it certainly made sense. It didn’t make her feel any better, though.
‘Can… clean it up?’ Drake asked.
She checked the laptop’s decryption software in case there was anything she could do to enhance it. ‘Signal gain’s already at maximum. There’s nothing more I can do.’
‘Understood. Then we stick to the plan,’ Drake decided. ‘You’ve… your part, now… us do ours.’
Frost leaned back from her screen. She knew he was right, and that they could hardly abandon the mission at this crucial stage because of communications problems, but it didn’t sit well with her.
Presently the stairwell bottomed out into a larger room, presumably a machine space or sub-basement of some kind. This suspicion was confirmed by the presence of a pair of hulking emergency generators at the edge of Drake’s screen. Most other objects of value had long since been dismantled or looted, but the big diesel units sat defiantly where they had been left, rusting and useless from years of inactivity. Frost could only assume they were too large and heavy to remove.
This place was in much worse shape than the assembly floor above, with collapsed ductwork hanging down from the ceiling and rusted electrical boxes
everywhere. Likely the walls had become structurally compromised, causing the room to flood during the summer months and hastening the deterioration.
However, Frost’s bleak appraisal of the team’s surroundings was immediately cut short by Mason’s hard, urgent warning.
‘Tango in sight.’
She tensed up, and saw Drake doing the same. Presumably Mason had tapped him on the shoulder and indicated the direction of his sighting, because straightaway he turned toward something near the centre of the room.
A chair, with a man sitting on it, facing away from them.
‘Spread out. Let’s go,’ Drake hissed, pressing forward.
Frost’s heart was pounding so hard it was almost painful. Was this it? Had they found Flashback? If so, was he still alive? And where were his captors? Why was there no one in this factory that seemed so well protected?
Both men circled around so as to approach the man from different directions, pausing for a second or two to watch and listen. Frost was able to see each in the other’s line of sight, with the third man still seated between them. If he was alive, he gave no sign that he was aware of their approach; his head hung low, resting on his chest.
‘Go,’ Drake ordered, making straight for him, with Mason following his lead.
It happened in a matter of seconds, both operatives closing the distance with their target, weapons up and trained on him. She could see the twin pinpoints of light from the MP5’s under-barrel laser sights, both fixed on his centre mass.
‘Don’t move,’ Drake warned as he crossed the last few feet.
Mason beat Drake to the punch; his camera feed highlighting the blood that had soaked into the man’s jacket.
‘This guy isn’t going anywhere,’ he said, his voice grim. Another asset they had arrived too late to rescue. Another life lost in the endless war waged by men like them.
Circling around in front of the dead man strapped to the chair, Drake reached out and pulled back his head, allowing him to view his face and confirm Flashback’s fate.
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