Tears of God (The Blackwell Files Book 7)

by Steven F Freeman

  Silva rubbed her neck and stretched an arm straight overhead in a languid fashion, pressing her breasts forward with an arched back. The hint of a smile danced across her lips. Apparently, the agent had indeed embraced her part.

  The guard swallowed. “One of you can use the phone in Sergeant Michael’s office. It’s in the back, through the door on the left. The others can wait here.” He turned his eyes back to Silva and stared, like a predator sizing up the right moment to launch its attack.

  “I’ll make the call,” chimed in Mallory before the others could speak. She entered the adjacent office but left the door open so she could keep an eye on her companions. As previously planned, she dialed the number of a Melbourne hotel room Alton had rented via the internet the previous evening. The phone call went to voice mail, affording Mallory the opportunity to create the appearance of a conversation on her end.

  In the lobby, Mastana took a seat, but Silva wandered over to the desk and leaned over, revealing even more of her cleavage to the Bulldog.

  “This place is so big,” she said. “I bet you know all about it, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “I’d love for someone to show me around, but I guess there won’t be time before we leave.”

  The Bulldog shrugged, a motion resembling seismic activity on a foothill. “Yeah, I guess not.” He licked his lips. “Too bad.”

  Mallory returned to the lobby, hoping her affected look of distress appeared genuine. “I called Allen. He said they’re still in Melbourne and can’t get up here for a couple of days. What should we do?”

  The guard seemed torn between exasperation and lust.

  Silva looked determined to break the tie. She leaned over again. “I don’t suppose you have a place we could stay until her husband arrives, do you?” she asked, gesturing to Mallory. “Maybe you could give me that tour after all. I’ve always loved a man in uniform.”

  The Bulldog took a deep breath. “We don’t normally let outsiders stay here. The Director says it’s too much of a risk. But I don’t suppose he’d mind helping a few stranded ladies.” He gestured over his shoulder. “There’s a couple of guest rooms in the back. Don’t normally use ‘em for outsiders, but if I explain to my lieutenant, I think he’ll make an exception. Especially if he has a chance to check you—I mean, meet you.”

  Silva shot an alluring smile in the man’s direction. “Wonderful! I don’t know how I can show my gratitude, but I’m sure I’ll figure out a way.”

  CHAPTER 52

  The Bulldog showed his American guests to their temporary quarters, a tiny pair of connecting rooms, each with an aluminum bunk bed.

  “Toilet’s here in this space between your rooms,” he said, pointing to a sink and metal commode occupying a narrow passage between the rooms. “Showers are down the left hall, self-serve laundry down the right.”

  “You’ll give my husband’s name to the men at the front entrance, won’t you?” asked Mallory with mock concern. “I want to be sure they’ll let him in when he arrives.”

  “No need. We’ll walk you to the entrance when he gets here. But you said that’ll be a few days, right?”

  “Yes. Melbourne’s a long drive.”

  “You’re not kidding. That’s a helluva long way. I don’t envy him.” He turned and leered at Silva. “You ladies need anything, you just let me know.”

  “Thank you,” replied Silva. “I’m sure I will.”

  With a final stare in the Latina’s direction, the man waddled towards his post at the front desk.

  Mallory removed a change of clothes from her duffle bag and stowed it inside the top drawer of a small dresser. While unpacking a few toiletries, she turned to Silva. “You were laying it on a little thick with that guard, weren’t you?”

  Silva snorted. “The man’s a pig. He wouldn’t know subtlety if it kicked him in the balls.”

  Mastana tried to suppress a laugh and ended up coughing.

  “I have to admit,” said Mallory, “it seems to work. I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.”

  “Not those beady little things,” said Silva. She shuddered. “That dude gives me the creeps. Let’s not take too long getting our hands on a passcode generator.”

  “Maybe you can get one from your admirer,” said Mallory, nodding back in the direction of the front desk.

  “That’s the idea, but we can’t count on that. He might not have a spare. If we’re all working with different guards to get one, it’ll probably happen sooner. I don’t know how long I can hold off Mr. Romantic out there before he gets suspicious.”

  Thirty minutes later, showered and in clean clothes, the trio approached the security desk.

  “Is there some place we can buy lunch?” asked Mallory.

  “I’ll walk you to the employee cafeteria,” said the Bulldog. He led them down a corridor to the back of the building, slid a magnetic key card through a keypad, and pushed open the door.

  Mallory’s eyes required a few seconds to adjust to the bright, late-morning sun. She tried to examine as much of the surroundings as possible without appearing overly inquisitive. A concrete sidewalk led from the security building directly into the heart of the site. It ended at a smaller brick building with floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “That’s the cafeteria,” said the Bulldog. “Employees have accounts, but you can use a credit card.”

  “What about cash?” asked Mallory. “We didn’t expect to go anywhere except the outback today, so I left my credit cards back at the hotel.” Of course—no way was she going to bring credit cards bearing her true name.

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  Minutes later, the three ladies sequestered themselves in a far corner of the cafeteria. They nibbled on deli sandwiches and chips while discussing their next steps.

  “I’ll keep working on Mr. Romantic,” said Silva. “I have a feeling it won’t take long to find out if he can help us.”

  Mallory nodded. “Mastana, you stick with me. The Menagerie is just north of the security building. We’ll take a tour and see if we can check it out. If we meet any guards along the way, let’s see if we can make friends, just in case Silva’s suitor doesn’t have a spare passcode generator.

  Mastana nodded. “I think this is a good plan.”

  Mallory turned to Silva. “Maybe you can distract your suitor so he doesn’t see me and Mastana leave. He hasn’t told us outright to stay put, but I don’t think he’d like us wandering around.”

  The members of Alpha team soon finished their lunch. Silva left to seek out her would-be suitor, the Bulldog.

  “You ready for this?” Mallory asked Mastana.

  “Yes.”

  Before setting out for the Menagerie, the pair returned to the security building to retrieve their sunglasses. They waited for the Bulldog to waddle to another part of the building with Silva before slipping past the guard desk and pushing through the building’s main door.

  Mallory squinted and put on her shades. Across a small plaza of concrete and the narrow access road stood the formidable perimeter wall—smooth, immense, towering, and bristling with razor wire, lights, and motion detectors. The idea of anyone scaling that enormous barrier seemed absurd. They had to lay their hands on a passcode generator to have any chance of success.

  The pair cut left across the plaza, reached the access road, and headed north, away from the Goldmine’s main entrance. In moments, the plaza’s concrete narrowed down to sidewalk width.

  An arid breeze swept a loose strand of hair across Mallory’s face. She began to scan her surroundings, trying to commit as much to memory as possible. Unlike the rich, red tones of the desert outside the wall, the Goldmine site contained an oasis of greenery, from a thick carpet of grass to rows of manicured shrubbery. A quad of buildings framed a rectangular patch of lawn, not unlike the recreational area of the NSA’s Washington HQ.

  Mallory and Mastana sauntered along the sidewalk as a pair of bored tourists would, all the
while snapping surreptitious photos with cellphones carried at their sides. Before long, they passed one of the perimeter wall’s secured entrances. A young Aboriginal guard studied their progress with curious eyes.

  Mallory leaned close to Mastana. “See that area near the wall, to the left of the entrance? That’s the ground Bravo team will have to cover once they’re inside.” She stopped. “Act like you’re posing for pics. That’ll give me a chance to photograph the terrain. It’ll be good intel for Alton.”

  Hand on hip, Mastana flashed a dazzling smile. She changed poses often, affording Mallory the opportunity to snap a panoramic view of the interior grounds. After two minutes of photography, they continued on their way. The eyes of the mocha-skinned guard followed their movements.

  As they neared the Menagerie, all remained quiet. Only the distant sound of a diesel truck broke the silence. The site’s absence of animal sounds seemed curious. Did the human settlement scare them away, or were animals simply few and far between in this wilderness? Mallory shook her head. No time to worry about that now.

  The three-story, brick building of the Menagerie continued to rise above them as they closed the distance. Its southern wall contained a large entrance with two sets of glass doors. Inside the entrance, Mallory could make out a full-body metal detector. DTI was taking no chances in securing the facility.

  Mallory and Mastana walked past the edifice, anxious to demonstrate their lack of curiosity. Just as the building’s blueprint had indicated, the closest wall—a smaller, eastern-facing surface with few windows—also contained an entrance. A keypad for the passcode generator had been bolted to the wall next to this unguarded door.

  They continued past the building without looking back at it. Within ten minutes, they reached the Goldmine site’s northern wall. Shrugging, Mallory turned around, and Mastana followed suit.

  Soon, the Menagerie slipped back into view. A line of industrial air-conditioner units abutted its northern side, while a strange apparatus—the desert climate-control mechanism, perhaps—sat atop its roof at a slight angle, like a drunkard’s baseball cap.

  Before they came too close, Mastana stopped, ostensibly to pose for more pictures. Mallory set the magnification on her phone to maximum zoom and snapped a quick succession of photos of the Menagerie from this new direction.

  They continued on their way and neared the building. Anxious to test out its defenses, if any, Mallory walked down a narrow sidewalk towards the unguarded eastern entrance. As she reached a distance of about ten yards, a pair of orange lights inside clear, plastic shells mounted on either side of the door snapped on and began rotating like that of a police car. The sight would be hard for anyone to miss.

  Mallory scurried away, and the lights switched off.

  “Let’s keep going,” she murmured to Mastana. “I don’t want to call any more attention to ourselves. We’ve learned as much as we can for now.”

  “I agree,” said Mastana, looking behind her with an anxious face.

  Another three minutes of walking brought them once again near the perimeter wall’s guarded entrance. The guard gestured for them to come over. A plain khaki uniform couldn’t hide his rough good looks, but the man’s demeanor was all business.

  “What were you doing over there?” he asked, pointing back to the Menagerie.

  “Sorry,” said Mallory. “She was going to take a picture of me but said I was backlit. I tried to find a spot where the sun wasn’t right behind me. I didn’t know your alarm thingy would go off like that.”

  The tension around the man’s eyes eased. “It’s okay. Just don’t go so close again.”

  “I won’t. Those flashing lights mess up the shot anyway.”

  The man’s eyes watched Mallory when she talked but seemed pulled to Mastana at all other times.

  “That place with the lights,” said Mastana. “There are no bombs in the ground, are there?”

  “Nah. The lights just flash to keep people away. If you stay there too long, the security will come out and find out what’s going on.” Seeing Mastana’s look of confusion, he continued. “The motion detector that sets off the lights also triggers a signal to the guard house, that building you just came from.”

  “Ah,” said Mastana. “I see you know these things well.”

  The guard smiled, revealing white teeth in handsome contrast to his dark complexion. “That’s my job.”

  Mastana returned the smile. “Do you know as much about this area? We have just arrived in your country to see all its beautiful sights.”

  The guard’s eyes took on a wistful quality. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” He pointed outside the perimeter wall. The ground’s downward slope ended at a thread of water winding its way through a slight depression. “See that creek over there, the one running off the foothill?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a family of kangaroos that go down there every day.”

  Mastana’s eyes lit up. “Oh, really? I would love to see them! We have been here for two days, but we haven’t seen any kangaroos except in the sanctuary in Alice Springs.”

  “There’s nothing like seeing ‘em in the wild.”

  “Nothing at all.” She eyed the stream that trickled beyond the heavy steel arm blocking external traffic. “Would it be okay for me to go down there for a while and take a look?”

  The man shuffled his feet. “I don’t mind, but my relief will be here in an hour or so. You might have trouble talking your way back inside. I can leave word with him, but Kelly’s straight down the line.”

  “Excuse me?” said Mastana.

  The guard laughed. “By the book. He’s kinda stuck in his ways.”

  “Maybe if I look for only a few minutes, before Kelly arrives?”

  “Yeah, go ahead. Just don’t go where I can’t see you.”

  “I’ll go too, if you don’t mind,” said Mallory.

  The guard, who looked to be no more than his early twenties, nodded but kept his eyes glued to Mastana.

  Mallory smiled to herself. Mastana had been right. Of the three members of Alpha team, the teen might very well be the first to lay her hands on a passcode generator.

  Twenty minutes later, the pair returned.

  “See anything?” asked the guard.

  “Yes,” said Mastana, grinning. “Some birds. I don’t know what kind they are, but they were quite beautiful.”

  “What about the ‘roos?”

  “Yes! Only they were far away.” Mastana’s eyes brightened. “Perhaps if I go out there again, they will be closer. Will you be working here later today?”

  “Yeah. I’m just going for lunch. I’ll be back at three.”

  “Ah, so I can see you…I mean the kangaroos…later today. I would like that.”

  The guard produced a shy grin. “I wouldn’t object to that myself.”

  “I will see you later…?” She raised her eyebrows.

  “Kevin,” he replied, answering the unspoken question.

  “And I am Sharbat,” said Mastana, using her assumed name. “I look forward to seeing you again, Kevin.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Back in their quarters in the security building, Mallory sat on the bunk next to Mastana. In case the room was bugged, she started a song on her cellphone and turned up the volume. “You did a first-rate job getting Kevin interested back there. I think he’d give you his shirt if you asked for it.”

  Mastana said nothing and stared at her knees.

  “Wait,” said Mallory. “What’s wrong?”

  Mastana spoke in a quiet voice. “After you and Alton rescued me from the Cult of Stones, I decided I would like to do the kind of work you do. Until now, I didn’t think this would mean I would have to lie to good people.”

  “Mastana, we don’t really know what Kevin is like. Remember the project he’s guarding. Farid Safi has done some terrible things. He could be planning something worse. Kevin could be a part of that.”

  “When I was a prisoner of the cult, I
could see the evil in the eyes of the people who held me captive.” She shook her head. “I do not see evil in Kevin’s eyes. If Safi is doing bad things, I don’t think Kevin knows about it.”

  Mallory thought for a moment. “You’re probably right. Safi has shown himself to be borderline paranoid about keeping his project secret. He’s certainly not going to tell anyone but his most trusted associates about Tears of God.”

  Relief flooded Mastana’s eyes. “Yes! Kevin is a good man.”

  Mallory laid her hand on Mastana’s. “I think’s it’s a little early to reach that conclusion, but I’m sure as far as Kevin is concerned, he thinks he’s guarding valuable research on the Razor project, nothing more.” She looked in Mastana’s eyes. “We still need to get our hands on a passcode generator. And if we do, we might keep Kevin from getting in trouble for guarding a place that’s conducting illegal activity.”

  It was Mastana’s turn to stop and reflect. “I didn’t think about that. Yes, we need to stop Tears of God for many reasons.”

  Silva walked into the room. “Any luck?”

  Mallory recapped the last hour’s activities. “How about you? Made any progress with Mr. Romantic?”

  Silva shuddered. “Ug. That guy…arms of an octopus and intellect of a jellyfish.”

  “How about the passcode generator of a guard?”

  Silva sat on the bunk and shook her head. “Nope. The only one he has access to is the one he carries on his belt. At first, I tried to hint about borrowing it for a few hours to look around outside, but he didn’t take the clue. When I came out and asked, he said no.”

  “Did he say why?” asked Mallory. “Other guards may have the same reason. We need to be ready to respond.”

  “First, he said he’s not allowed to give it to anyone else. When I pressed a little more, he said he couldn’t even if he was allowed. He said he uses it all the time, and it’s his only one.”

  “Hmm. That could be a problem. How do we find one that isn’t constantly in use?”

  “We’ll just have to keep trying,” said Silva. “Speaking of which, do you have a target in mind?”