“Did you launch the Strikefire?” asked Flagg.
“Sir, we’ve lost the signal,” said the operator.
“As in permanently?” asked Flagg, grinding his teeth.
“Nothing is transmitting. I’ve only seen this with lightning strikes or a catastrophic high-impact crash. We’re reviewing the data tape for any indication of a critical failure.”
“Report immediately if you discover something,” said Flagg, dialing Leeds.
“I missed the fireball,” said Leeds.
“There was no fireball. I think we lost the drone.”
“What?”
“I need you back on the highway,” said Flagg. “You may get your wish to finish this yourself.”
“I’m on La Costa headed to State Route 11,” said Leeds. “I can’t turn around and catch them at this point, no matter how fast we go. The jeep is a few miles from the Camp Pendleton exit at this point. What the hell happened?”
“We’re investigating,” said Flagg. “I want you on the 5, anyway. He might fuck up and go for the Pulgas Gate or the San Onofre gate at the northern end of the base. His battalion is stationed up north.”
“He won’t screw that up,” said Leeds. “And that’s a long stretch of road between gates, with nothing in between. If we’re losing stealth drones, we might want to consider getting our assets under cover until we figure out what happened.”
Flagg knew Leeds was right, but he still wanted to press the attack. His opportunity to deliver decisive results, well ahead of schedule, was evaporating. Chances like this were rare in an operation where public perception and political support factored just as importantly as striking targeted blows to the opposition, but required months of carefully staged events and circumstances. Shooting a lieutenant governor or trashing a nuclear reactor was easy. Swaying the public took time and money—the result often never guaranteed.
He’d let impatience get the better of him, putting too much stock in framing Fisher. He should have ordered Leeds to blow the guy’s head off with a shotgun the same afternoon he spoke with the police. Problem solved. Instead, Flagg had been lured by the big score, a mistake he’d sworn he’d never make again. He’d amassed a considerable track record of big successes at Cerberus observing that rule.
“I agree,” Flagg said reluctantly. “Pull everyone back and regroup. I want your tech team to walk Maclean through the process of disabling the tracker on Fisher’s car. We need to make that vehicle disappear until we decide where it should reappear, hopefully containing a freshly decomposing Fisher family.”
“I’ll take care of it immediately,” said Leeds.
“When you get back, we’ll figure out the best way to slip some of our people onto Camp Pendleton.”
“That won’t be difficult,” said Leeds. “We have a fat portfolio of counterfeit IDs. We’ll send as many as feasible in the morning, when all of the Marines living off base report for duty. They’ll comb the base hotels, campgrounds, officers’ quarters, restaurants, and commissaries. The Fishers left in a hurry, with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They’ll need to buy replacement clothing, backpacks, toiletries, food—and everything on Pendleton is closed right now. I just checked. We’ll have our people watching all of the major stores on base when they open. We might get lucky.”
CHAPTER 45
Nathan tightened his grip on the jeep’s roll-bar grab handle as Quinn rocketed between two cars directly in front of them, lightly scraping one of them.
“I don’t see the laser anymore!” said Owen.
“You can slow down now,” Nathan told Quinn.
“Not yet!” said Quinn, swerving the jeep two lanes to the left.
“Damn it! You’re going to get us killed!” yelled Keira.
“I’m not slowing down until I know we’re safe from a possible missile strike!”
“How the hell will you know that? You’ll have to drive like this until we get to Camp Pendleton. We’ll get pulled over by the police before we get there.”
“That might work to our advantage,” said Quinn. “They wouldn’t hit us with a missile with the police chasing us.”
“I’m not slowing down until we reach Pendleton.”
A brilliant orange fireball appeared in the distance ahead of them, seeming to rise in the middle of the interstate. A second explosion erupted to the right of the first, followed a few seconds later by two tightly spaced booms. The jeep slowed as brake lights raced toward them, but it wasn’t going to be enough.
“Quinn!” yelled Nathan.
“Hold on!”
The jeep swerved right as Keira and Owen yelled, narrowly avoiding a stopped sedan and screeching to a halt on the paved shoulder of the road.
“That was awesome!” yelled Owen.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Keira.
Nathan started to unbuckle his seat belt, assuming they were done driving along the freeway, when the jeep suddenly launched forward. For a second he thought they’d been rear-ended, but the jeep continued to accelerate.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us past this mess,” said Quinn.
“Shouldn’t we be driving away from the explosions?” asked Nathan.
“We can’t get off the interstate here on foot or in the jeep,” Quinn said, nodding at the reinforced antipedestrian fence several yards beyond the shoulder. “And we can’t go back—for a number of reasons.”
Nathan looked beyond Owen’s and Keira’s silhouettes at the mass of headlights stacking up behind them—any one of which could be their pursuer’s van.
“Be careful. You won’t be the only one with this idea.”
Quinn was forced to take the jeep onto the evenly sloped dirt embankment beyond the car-packed shoulder as they approached the source of the flames. Fire leaped dozens of feet into the air in the southbound lanes, illuminating the inside of the jeep. Keira held the MP-20 just below the window, staring intently at the line of cars passing down their left side. Owen peered through the headrest supports, keeping his laser vigil. Nathan shifted his attention to the wreckage on the other side of the interstate.
At first glance, he thought a small, private airplane had crashed landed into traffic. The flames were spread over a fifty-yard section of the freeway, mostly confined to the southbound lanes. A few small fires burned in the median and northbound passing lane. Through the slowed traffic on his side of the highway, he counted at least four cars burning furiously around the highest tower of flame, which was centered on a warped gray fuselage. Part of a wing extended skyward, partially enveloped by the raging fire. He’d never seen anything like it.
“What is that?”
“Looks like part of an airplane,” said Keira.
“It’s not an airplane,” stated Quinn. “Not in the traditional sense.”
The jeep sped forward, passing directly parallel to the burning wreckage. He was right. The only recognizable piece inside the inferno looked definitely military. Sleek and angled. Stealthy.
“Drone?” asked Nathan.
“Sure as hell looks like it,” muttered Quinn.
Owen turned in response to their conversation. “Holy shhh—. That looks like part of a Raptor drone.”
“That was my guess,” said Quinn.
“How could Owen know that?” asked Keira.
Nathan and Quinn answered at the same time for Owen. “Call of Duty.”
“You can control those in the game,” said Nathan’s son.
“What happened to it?” asked Keira.
Nathan wondered the same thing. They’d seen an equally large explosion to the right of the first, possibly east of the interstate, but he couldn’t locate a second fire amid the bright glow of the burning drone. Was it possible they got lucky and the drone sent to kill them had collided with a commercial aircraft or another drone? Statistically, the chances were slim that this had been an accident, but he had no better explanation.
“I don’t know, but we got a lucky break. P
endleton is just a few minutes up the road. Keep your guard up until we get on base. I don’t think we have to worry about drones, but you never know what they might throw at us. I think we’re good, though.”
Nathan leaned his head against the headrest and took a deep breath. Good for how long?
CHAPTER 46
Flagg rubbed his chin, trying to make sense of what had happened. An incoming satellite call from the Ramona airfield interrupted his thoughts.
“What do you have?”
“Something,” said the drone operator. “The Raptor’s top-facing proximity sensor fired right before we lost the link. It’s possible that the drone collided with another aerial object, maybe a civilian aircraft or a privately operated drone.”
“Or a surface-to-air missile?”
“Not likely,” said the operator. “SAMs typically chase engine exhaust or independently lock onto some kind of reflected signal, arriving from a lower altitude. Air-to-air missile, maybe.”
“I hope not,” said Flagg, remembering something else. “Do we have any additional information on the hillside observers?”
“I can patch you through to the security head,” said the operator. “They just arrived at the observation post.”
“Do it,” said Flagg.
A few seconds later, a gruff voice filled the room. “This is Kestler.”
“Mr. Kestler, this is Mason Flagg,” he said. “What can you tell me about our uninvited guests?”
“They’re dead,” said Kestler, pausing long enough to spark several murderous thoughts in Flagg’s mind. He didn’t give a single shit if they were dead or alive. He needed data. “And they have a satellite antenna. Looks intact. The woman died clutching some electronics gear. A thermal scope and some kind of data terminal. We’ll bag that once we wipe her guts off the gear. I got a second meat smear about fifty yards down the hill, where the gully widens. Not much left of that one.”
“Is the data terminal still functional?”
“Hold on,” said Kestler. He issued orders to his team.
Flagg waited in silence for close to a minute before Kestler spoke again.
“It’s functional,” said Kestler. “But no one here knows how to operate it. Looks like an old piece of gear.”
“What does the screen say? I assume the screen works,” said Flagg.
“It says ‘transmission progress one hundred percent,’” said Kestler. “Had to wipe away a big chunk of her stomach to read that.”
Well, congratulations.
“Bag up everything and bring it back to the airfield,” said Flagg, disconnecting the call before the idiot could respond.
His next call went to the field operative in charge of the airfield.
“Mr. Powers?” asked Flagg. “Evacuate the facility immediately. I want everything gone within the hour. Assume any unscheduled vehicles arriving at the facility to be hostile. Understood?”
“Understood,” said Powers.
Flagg stared at the green screen displayed on the array in front of him. “LINK FAILED.” How? He hoped to have the answer in a few hours, after his technicians figured out what the hillside team had transmitted before they were obliterated by airfield security.
CHAPTER 47
Quinn read the green sign as it raced by on the right of the interstate. EXIT 54B. CAMP PENDLETON. NEXT EXIT.
“Time to hide the contraband.”
“Can’t they sniff it at the gate?” asked Nathan.
“They occasionally run the dogs between the cars or do a few random searches during the morning rush, but it’s primarily a deterrent. Unlike the great state of California, the military still respects the Constitution.”
“Maybe California will create its own constitution,” said Nathan.
“Don’t say that,” said Quinn. “I’d be willing to bet all of this is related to this secession nonsense.”
“A lot of people believe in their cause,” said Keira.
“Based on what I saw tonight, a lot of people are going to die because of their cause,” said Quinn.
“This wasn’t the California Liberation Movement,” said Keira.
“Really?” asked Quinn. “They killed a congresswoman ready to side with the One Nation Coalition, and they killed the lieutenant governor. McDaid unabashedly supported One Nation. You don’t assassinate your most powerful, politically connected allies. Typically.”
“My dad said the boats were linked to Cerberus, which is Sentinel. They fall directly into the One Nation camp,” said Nathan. “The secessionists have every reason to keep us alive, if we can link the boats to the reactor sabotage.”
“It doesn’t matter. Someone powerful is trying to kill you and the rest of us,” said Quinn, slowing for the off-ramp. “Hand your rifle to Keira. Make sure you engage the safety. Stuff the weapons as deep as possible under the camping gear. Nothing showing. They’ll probably shine a flashlight in the back while I sign your names into the visitor log.”
“You going to use our real names?” asked Nathan, carefully handing the MP-20 to his wife.
“It won’t matter,” said Quinn. “My name has to go on the log—with three guests. I can change your names to Moe, Larry, and Curly and I don’t think it will fool anyone.”
“It won’t take them long to find us on Pendleton,” said Nathan.
“Honey,” Keira whispered, motioning not so subtly toward Owen.
“I understand what’s going on, Mom,” said Owen. “We have to be careful wherever we go from now on.”
“They won’t find you where I’m taking you,” said Quinn. “Ever been up North Range Road, Nathan?”
“I can’t remember,” said Nathan.
“It’s tucked behind the Whiskey Impact area in the northeastern corner of Pendleton.”
“By Case Springs?” asked Nathan. “Shouldn’t we avoid known recreation areas?”
“This isn’t a recreation area,” said Quinn, laughing. “It’s a little more rustic.”
“Great.”
Quinn eased the car onto Harbor Drive, approaching a red stoplight within sight of the main gate.
“Last check through the car,” he said, tucking the pistol he’d taken off one of the operatives under his seat.
“Is it a good idea to have a pistol sliding around like that?” asked Nathan.
“I have a holster rigged to the bottom of the seat,” said Quinn. “It’s secure.”
Nathan moved his legs and checked the passenger foot well. “Looks clear.”
“Same back here,” said Keira.
“All right,” said Quinn. “I have to take us into the parking lot and into the Base Access building to fill out the visitor paperwork. All you need are your IDs.”
“That’s not going to work,” said Keira.
“What’s wrong?” asked Quinn, scanning the side windows.
“Shit,” said Nathan. “She doesn’t have her purse. We had to get out of there fast.”
“Forget it.” Quinn looked at Nathan. “Do you have your wallet?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding emphatically.
Quinn drove through the empty intersection toward the gate.
“Then here’s what we need to do,” said Quinn, addressing both of them. “Your son will have to accompany us into the building. They can run Nathan’s driver’s license through the DMV system and verify all of your identities, but that taps into a state-run computer database. The state will know where you are.”
“I’m still in San Diego County,” said Nathan.
“True,” said Quinn. “But if the police have questions about anything that went down in your neighborhood, they’ll know where to find you.”
“What do you think happened to our house?” asked Keira.
“They probably turned the place inside out,” said Nathan.
Quinn thought about this as he pulled into the parking lot and steered toward the visitor’s parking lot. “I don’t think they had the time,” he said. “Not after the van crashed. They
would have sanitized the scene and exfiltrated as quickly as possible.”
“Sanitized. Exfiltrated,” muttered Keira. “It all sounds so quaint.”
“Game faces, everyone,” said Quinn. “If anyone asks, I’m taking you to my house in the San Luis Rey housing area. We’re hanging out tonight and heading up to San Clemente beach tomorrow to take surfing lessons.”
“Sounds better than the North Range Road camping trip,” said Nathan.
“When all of this blows over,” said Quinn, nodding at Owen, “I’ll take you surfing for real.”
“Really?” asked Owen.
“Cross my heart, sir,” said Quinn, reaching back to give him a fist bump. “I’ll even drive down to pick you up, so you don’t waste all of your precious out-of-sector time, or whatever the state calls it.”
“I’d gladly drive up myself if it meant all of this disappeared,” said Nathan.
He shared a doubtful look with Quinn before they got out of the car to register the Fisher family as visitors to Camp Pendleton.
CHAPTER 48
The jeep finally came to a stop, after a mercilessly bumpy dirt-road drive through the pitch-black hills of Camp Pendleton. Keira checked her watch. It was 11:24 p.m. It had taken Quinn over an hour to navigate them to this spot, and she wasn’t sure they’d arrived at their final destination.
“I think we’re here,” said Quinn, raising the night-vision goggles strapped to his head.
“You think we’re here?” she said.
“In all honesty, I usually make this trip during the day. With a lance corporal driving.”
“And you can’t turn on your headlights for five seconds?” asked Nathan.
“I’d rather not. The brake lights are bad enough out here,” said Quinn. “I think we’re at the intersection of North Range and Talega Road.”
Fractured State (Fractured State Series Book 1) Page 20