Jack Be Nimble: A Lion About to Roar Book 4

by Ben English

  “How’s that?”

  “This one’s bigger and more symmetrical, for one thing.”

  The walls and large surfaces of the room before them were smooth and white, coated in ceramic, and broken only by niches and nooks crammed with server racks. These were kept well away from the center of the room, where stacked platforms wrapped around three widely-spaced glass columns, each ten feet in diameter and full of moving light. The platforms themselves hung a good twenty feet above the floor, to make room for the bunches of cables and molded steel housing that formed a thick nest around the base of each shining column.

  The light pulsed and shifted within each column, shadowed and full of shapes that shifted with a pattern that Jack’s mind and instinct told him was organic and intelligent, though he didn’t see how that could be. The shapes inside were massive, yet overlapped one another. They moved pensively, like a wolf in a cage. If whatever I’m looking at is alive, he thought, it wants out. Crazy ideas, yet he was aware that these thoughts were the nearest thing his mind could approach as a point of reference.

  A narrow gangway, barely wide enough for two, led out to a top platform; obviously a control area, with two concentric banks of instruments. The second platform, underneath, looked to be an area for accessing and servicing the instruments above, or the columns themselves. Most of it was wrapped in a Faraday cage, a mesh of conducting materials—in this case, strands of silver, gold, and copper.

  There was more than enough space on the second platform to stand and maneuver. He and Ian could easily jimmy the service doors to the controls above. They’d find a good place to nestle the Claymore.

  “You really surprised me with the Claymore, Ian.”

  “Thanks, boss, we try.”

  It was still strange to see him without his goatee. “Let’s see what sort of mischief we can get into.”

  As they walked up the gangway to the control level, Whitaker asked, “What’s the situation with Mercedes? That was her running, wasn’t it? She moves pretty fast for a big, broad-shouldered girl.”

  Jack nodded. “I think she’s fast enough to outrun the two guards who went after her. When I heard them say you were coming through with Marduk, I knew you weren’t leaving any enemies at your back. Figured it was safe for her.

  ‘You sent her out on purpose.”

  “I gave her a solid shot at getting out before we blow this thing. You’d have done the same.”

  Ian didn’t stop walking, but Jack could tell he was chewing the idea over. Probably thinking about his own wife. Jack clapped him on the back. “When we get out of this, will you introduce me to Leah?”

  They reached the platform.

  “Are you kidding? I’m counting on you to explain all of this to her.” Ian made a gesture intended to include the entire room, if not the whole island. “I’m not sure I understand any of it, myself!” He rubbed his chin, perhaps caressing the ghost of his beard. “So I’ve got one hundred feet of cord; where do you want to set this bastard off?”

  Jack eased himself down to the lower platform. The ceramic coating over the structure was slick and grainy at the same time, like shark’s skin. The access panels below weren’t even locked, and he wedged the claymore in tightly between what looked like a temperature regulator and one of the glass or crystal columns, at the point where it passed through the upper platform. Gingerly, he attached the detonators and made sure Ian’s ignition cable didn’t catch on anything.

  By the time he climbed back up Ian had unspooled the cable to its end, near the door. He waited until Jack joined him, then without ceremony plugged in the clacker and squeezed the grips together.

  The boom rolled around the vaulted space for several seconds, and when the air conditioning units pulled away the last of the smoke and the echoes died, Jack and Ian could clearly see each column and platform, completely undamaged. The fire extinguishing system hadn’t even activated.

  *

  Alonzo didn’t waste any time, seizing a crowbar and popping the covers off of two barrels of tractor fuel and kicking them toward opposite sides of the barn. He took a deep breath before removing the caps from two gas cans, and poured them out as he walked backward towards the door, ending by saturating one side of a stack of ancient, baled hay.

  He sparked his lighter and dropped it onto the hay, where it abruptly attempted to flash-burn his eyebrows off. A moment later he was running from the barn, sprinting backwards in case the Colombians had rounded the barn and felt like shooting him in the back. He didn’t want to be shot in the back.

  Remembering the low fence at the last moment, Alonzo wove around it and headed straight for –well, of course. Of course that’s what it was. A quick look around at they symmetry and dimensions of the field confirmed it. Jungle grass covered everything, but when you built one of these the right way, parts of it lasted forever.

  He counted his strides past the fence until he’d measured a good sixty feet, and noticed a slight rise in the land. There was no twenty-four by six-inch slab of rubber under his feet, but Alonzo knew exactly where he was. He ran another sixty feet or so and then skidded to a stop.

  There was movement in the taller grass near the barn. They’d heard all the noise inside, he’d made no effort to muffle his efforts. Maybe they thought he was still inside.

  A low whistle sounded nearby, followed by a short wave. Allison joined him, looking flushed and exhilarated. Lying down, their heads were far below the level of the grass. “Where is your radio? I thought you were down.”

  “Had to leave it behind,” he said, then explained about the mercenaries advancing on her blind spot. “How did the hostage snatch go?”

  “Spot on. There were three nannies patrolling the outside of the building, and once they were down the Tanners went right in.”

  She’d taken down three mercenaries; that was exceptional.

  “They used a side door, which was a good thing: all the hostages were practically stacked against the front door, ready to be blown apart if anyone tried to breach the entrance.” She shook her head. “These men working for Raines—whether the mercenaries or his own private army—they have a mean streak.”

  “And the escape route?”

  “Up and over the hill to the lighthouse area. There was one snag. None of their children were with them. The parents are none too keen to leave their kids behind, as you can imagine, and they’re going to be impossible to control unless we reunite the families.”

  Alonzo didn’t reply, instead diverting all his attention to the area around them. He’d heard a noise he couldn’t identify, and it spooked him. The field they sat in was a flat bowl, bordered by rising land and thicker trees.

  He imagined the mercenaries had advanced around the barn by now, giving it a wide berth due to the exfoliation and lack of cover. That was fine. Any moment now.

  Allison quietly reloaded. “Where to now?”

  “Right here,” he whispered back. “We stay right here for just a bit longer. Something’s going to explode soon.” To her raised eyebrows, he replied. “I’ve been bad.”

  “Aren’t we too exposed? What’s so special about this place?”

  “It’s a baseball diamond.”

  “You’re putting me on.”

  “No, really. A regulation baseball diamond. Used to be a military camp here, right? Well, for the past hundred years, anywhere in the world where U.S. Marines stay more than a week, they build a baseball field. Kadena, Subic Bay, Coronado Fields, Rota. First base is right over there,” he indicated. “I practically fell over the backstop behind the catcher’s box.”

  There it was again. A sound unlike anything he’d ever—

  “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  It wasn’t just his shell-shocked imagination. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his ears registered it, only that it did in fact exist. It was an accretive noise, gathering volume and reverb as it grew. Maybe it was a combination of different things.

  Was that a trickle of smo
ke coming from the barn?

  “The mortar is approaching,” Allison said, and she was right. Alonzo heard the rumble of the engine pushing six tires against the soft ground, and the tick-tick-hum of the mortar barrel traversing as it moved into a new firing position. The brakes squealed a bit—must be a nightmare keeping that thing clean at this latitude, he thought—but the sound was enough to help them pinpoint the location of the vehicle. It seemed to be in the right place.

  He imagined the men inside the vehicle, feeding targets into the computer. Probably start with the fleeing hostages. They would program the shells to fire a few degrees apart, get them to hit simultaneously at the head and tail of the ragged column (where each of the Tanners would be, of course), and then walk the shells right up and down the long, frayed group of civilians.

  At least the mercenaries on the ridge would hang back during the shelling so as not to get hit (and Jack would laugh at that little piece of amusing sunshine)—although they’d inevitably sweep down on any survivors.

  He hoped Steve’s idea worked.

  The motors tick-hummed again, and Alonzo imagined the twin mortar barrels traversing up and up. He felt like leaping up and charging the damn thing, but it was probably armored and he wasn’t carrying tungsten-tipped armor piercing rounds. And he sure as hell wasn’t backed up by whatever platoon of Marines built this field.

  Under any other circumstances it would be a gorgeous, sultry day. Torrid by any standard, hot even by Hades’ thermometer. Definitely too warm to go tear-assing around this latitude.

  At that thought, the day suddenly grew hotter by an order of magnitude.

  The barn blew, and it seemed to all go at once. The explosion threw the curved roof off in three directions, shredding it with a great screech and pop like a steel balloon. A wide spout of flame went up, and then another, looked like a thousand feet, launching oil drums skyward to explode before they reached their apogee, casting rolling red sprays of fire outward in widening circles around the blast site. Bags of nitrogen fertilizer began detonating at ground level, and as each container went, a surge of hot air blew over them. The grass flattened under this dry wind, first away from the building, then in the opposite direction as the conflagration demanded more and more oxygen.

  The fire was breathing, sending out waves of burning mist and the screams of men, then inhaling the driest stalks of grass right out of the ground.

  One of the men ran past Alonzo, flaming. Others fell. A low, sharp crackle sounded from the direction of home plate. The flames were beginning to run through the grass.

  Alonzo swore at himself. Another lesson forgotten from his youth: if the wind was just right, the fire could easily outrun them.

  “Now, we move!”

  Another smoky, molten ball roared up into the sky above the ruin of the barn. Alonzo stood to run and saw the armored mortar, not fifty yards away. His phone was somewhere over there.

  Bits of steel, mostly rake tines and iron fittings, began to rain down all around them. It sounded like hail against the mortar’s skin. The twin dual barrels tracked up, up, and locked into place.

  *

  Miklos was battered. Marduk had never seen the man in anything other than his impeccable grey suit, and found himself wondering if any bits of it survived the impact with the storm-driven tree. From the looks of things, the man himself barely remained. Most of his visible flesh was bruised or crusted and caked with dried blood. His eyes blazed.

  By the looks of his weapons, he’d reprovisioned himself at the expense of several guards. Miklos wasted no time leveling a combat shotgun at Marduk’s face.

  “You left me out in the storm,” he said. “You betrayed me and your own men. Even with the devices in their bodies they perished, torn apart. One of them lived twenty minutes, and where were you? Where were you? Warm and dry.”

  “The tree.” Marduk choked. “It carried all of you outside the grounds, we thought you were in the water, or gone. We looked.”

  Miklos advanced, and Marduk backed away, down the long hallway toward the children’s wing. The other man closed fast--there were twists of leaf and bark tangled in his hair. “You lie,” he said, and slid the blade of a knife into Marduk’s forearm. The tip emerged from the opposite side.

  Marduk screamed in surprise and pain, shocked to his core that something could hurt so perfectly. His arm throbbed, the agony in sync with his own heartbeat. At the sight of the red, wet blade, bisecting his flesh, all the strength went out of his legs. He sat down hard against the wall.

  The pain filled his mind, blinded him worse than Whitaker’s grenade. When he came to himself, tears cut hot lines down his face.

  Miklos stood over him, holding a flat package wrapped in aluminum foil. His eyes and expression were lost in shadow.

  “I need medical,” Marduk said, and Miklos kicked him in the back of his thigh. Pain jolted through him again. It felt like his leg was broken, like the man kicked a hole completely through him. Eventually, he could lay hold on enough air to plead, “What do you want?”

  Miklos dropped the package in his lap. “Show me how this works,” he said.

  Raines’ computer, the one Flynn had taken from the ops center. It felt cold. “Where did you find it?”

  “A refrigerator in the kitchen, where Flynn hid like a rat while the storm passed. Show me how this works, now.”

  The screen activated, and the computer came alive. The small portion of his brain that was not dedicated to cataloging pain noted that the network connection still worked, despite the increased generator activity. The shielding worked as well here as it had in London.

  Without pulling up a screen, Marduk tapped out a quick S.O.S., one-handed. “What do you want to see?”

  “Get past the encryption. Show me how you use this to heal yourself. Then show me the global trigger.”

  “That’s encrypt—” The other man casually dropped the barrel of the shotgun against Marduk’s inner thigh, and he heard himself whimper.

  “You programmed the encryption. Deal with it. And then I want you to tell me where Jack Flynn is. Is he carrying the nanodevices?”

  Marduk shook his head. “Not yet.” He typed out the password string. It was very long, and took him two tries.

  The instant the program sprang open, a message notification appeared onscreen. Before Marduk could react, Raines’ voice sounded from the machine.

  “George, what are you doing? You told me this machine was lost to us, then you distract me with the fool’s errand of rebuilding the code?”

  Of course, Raines held the twin to the computer in his hands. He’d seen him the moment he went online. The two men were in constant contact, whatever the tech—since before there was such as thing as instant messaging. Technology bound them together.

  It took Marduk a moment to speak. “Alex, I’m hurt.”

  “There were two men in the lodge, just now. Two men, whom you recruited.” Marduk recognized the tone, and his blood went cold.

  A schematic view of the surrounding area told him Raines—or at least his computer—was physically approaching. Miklos leaned in and pitched his voice so only Marduk could hear. “He’s going to betray you.”

  Raines’ voice held more of an edge. “Did you send them?”

  His hand flew across the screen, instructing the nanodevices to see to his arm and whatever other damage he’d physically sustained. They would get to it eventually themselves, but Marduk felt the need to stand quickly. Perhaps to run.

  He tried again with Raines. “I’m with Miklos, Miklos is here.”

  “I see.”

  The knife still bisected his arm, and Marduk gasped with pain. “Alex, help me. Please.”

  He almost didn’t notice it begin. The cold began at his core. Swirling, swirling like so many motes of ice. Multiplying within his system. The pain in his arm and leg suddenly increased again. The nanodevices within him had received other instructions.

  Marduk dropped the computer, clutching at himself
with both hands. An unstoppable, frigid haze consumed his world from the inside out. His distressed arm twitched, and the pain knifed through the mental torpor overtaking him.

  As his vision dimmed, he made out Miklos, kneeling in front of him, pressing the computer close to his face. With his other hand, Miklos gripped the handle of the knife still embedded in Marduk’s arm, angling it so his fingertips brushed the onscreen keyboard. The pain was a bright fire cutting through the haze, and Marduk found if he concentrated hard enough, narrowed his world down to the tips of two fingers, he could work the machine.

  “Yes,” said Miklos. “Show me how to do that.”

  *

  “We really did a number on the cooling system,” Ian said. “And there are some live wires down here, but everything else is working.”

  He couldn’t figure out what they’d done wrong. The Claymore contained enough C-4 to reduce a charging barbarian horde to small wet bits, and yet apparently had no effect on Raines’ device, aside from blowing the covers off all the access panels underneath the main platform.

  From underneath, he saw that wasn’t exactly true. Many of the circuit boards in the cabinets had been sliced into pointed, splintery confetti by the Claymore’s ball bearings, and the raw heat from the explosive melted much of the wiring.

  Yet above, all the blinking lights still showed green.

  “You’d think we’d be better at breaking things,” said Jack from one of the raised control stations atop the platform. He’d spent an hour in the operations center that morning, studying the control systems before the attack. “The electrical field is still stable,” he said.

  “Oh, good,” replied Ian. He wondered what would happen if the electrical field went down. He eyed the light-filled columns suspiciously.

  A few of the steel balls had struck the platform with great force, splintering off some of the ceramic coating. The wires beneath looked alive.