Running Blind

by Cindy Gerard

  “Gosh. I bet you say that to all the computer nerds.”

  He grinned. “Nah. Just the ones who smell good and wear my hickeys on their breasts.”

  She felt herself redden but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know he’d embarrassed her. “I’ll be sure to think about that while I do my nerd thing.”

  Saturday

  If the enemy is in range, so are you. When you’re short of everything but the enemy, you’re in combat.

  —Infantry Journal

  33

  1:13 a.m., above Area 51, Nevada

  Twenty-five thousand feet above Nevada, twenty-five miles north of the Groom Lake Air Force facility, the Boeing 727 flew through the early-morning hours, following the route commercial airliners used going to and from Vegas. Vadar Melnik looked at the men assembled in the darkened hold of the jet. Only his second in command, Ivan Grachev, noticed his concerned scowl. Ivan nodded, his look saying, They’ll be fine. They are ready.

  They’d better be more than ready. They’d been training for months. Waiting to get the call. Not, however, expecting the timeline to be stepped up this quickly and on such short notice.

  He thought of the assassin he knew only by the code name Anya.

  She had too much influence. She’d altered the plan by not eliminating the U.S. government’s biggest thorn in his side. Cooper, Taggart, Brown, and their friends should be dead by now. But no. Anya had thought it unwise. Worse, his employers agreed with her that it was much smarter to pick them off one by one over time, to keep the attention away from Mother Russia.

  She also had too much control over the soon-to-be-dearly-departed Dr. Corbet, who had had the bad sense to defect to America and to take his Eagle Claw research with him. Once they got what they needed from him, his reward would be death, the same fate that his wife and daughter would meet.

  That was what this raid was all about. In the early hours of this Saturday morning, they would bring home both Dr. Corbet and his technology and ensure Russia’s military domination. And it was happening tonight because Anya had said this was their only window of opportunity.

  He didn’t trust her. But he had no choice.

  He glanced again at Ivan, who looked secure in his place, secure in their mission. And he put his trust in Ivan’s assessment of the team’s readiness.

  Ivan had been at his side since they were both Spetsnaz, Soviet special forces. At the end of the Cold War and with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the turmoil following, their skills had no longer been required. At least, not for many years.

  But there were new games to be played in the twenty-first century. And the Russian mafia, working closely with Putin’s enforcers, had once again made Vadar a key figure in the order. An order that paid him well to deliver, instead of the pittance of a soldier’s wage.

  The men with him tonight were hand-picked for this mission. All had advanced parachute infiltration skills, except for the two technical support specialists, who were merely baggage as far as he was concerned but necessary according to his employer.

  For the jump, the two techs would be strapped to Nikolai’s and Pavel’s backs, like the explosives and weaponry the other jumpers would be carrying. Vadar shifted in his seat, where the parachute harness dug into his ass. Like his men, he carried seventy pounds of gear. It was a challenge. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. And he hated the metallic taste of the oxygen that flowed into his mask. He looked forward to switching to the bailout bottles strapped to his harness which would be used to get them down to where the air was thicker.

  He checked the altimeter on his wrist. Altitude twenty-five thousand feet. Air temperature minus forty-one Celsius. He went through the operation plan in his head for the hundredth time—there could be no room for mistakes. When given the go, they would jump, deploy their parachutes, group together in a “stack,” and guide themselves onto the target base using GPS. The high-altitude, high-opening, HAHO, jump was necessary for this mission. If they flew in low, radar would pick them up. By flying high above the no-fly zone surrounding the base, they’d be too small to detect on radar. And by landing precisely at their planned coordinates well inside the perimeter fence, they would avoid all but a handful of exterior guards.

  Once at the base, the plan was to get in, get Dr. Corbet and all technology related to Eagle Claw—the technicians were insurance, in case Corbet refused to cooperate—and get out, commandeering vehicles from the base to drive to the preset location, where a team would be waiting to extract them.

  This jump would be Vadar’s forty-second combat jump. The rest of his team had similar experience, some in Chechnya and others as far back as Afghanistan. Mavriky Shirshov, his team sergeant, was a veteran of brutal combat and an animal in battle.

  His second in command, Ivan Grachev, had fought alongside him in Chechnya and had once taken a bullet for his commander. Ivan was smart, tough, adaptable, and quiet; the fact that he also liked to torture prisoners was a plus. He could get a stone to talk with the tip of his blade, if the need arose.

  Vadar fingered the M4 rifle strapped to his harness. American-made, all the way. They were to leave no trace that Russia was involved in the attack. Which also meant no witnesses. With Mavriky carrying the M249 machine gun and the rest of them with M4s, that was ensured.

  Intel on the staffing had been thorough. The perimeter security would be tight and fully manned, but he had no concern about that. They wouldn’t drop within four miles of it. Since the manned fence was the first line of resistance, the security around the actual building would be light. Only a skeleton crew, inside and out, during the weekend.

  This obsession with weekends would become America’s downfall.

  The red light above the door lit. Five minutes to jump.

  The men struggled to their feet, fighting the heavy loads, then disconnected from the plane’s oxygen system to their bailout bottles. Without prompting, they checked one another’s gear, making sure that it was tight and strapped right. Yes, he had a good team. He’d paid a lot of money for the best in the business and fully anticipated both the rush from the jump and the money he’d net from this job.

  Using hand signals to communicate over the roaring jet engines, Nikolai and Pavel strapped on their unwilling technicians. Pavel had to cuff his behind the ear to get him to stop struggling.

  When everyone was upright, he motioned for them to put on their night-vision goggles as he shut off the cargo hold lights. Another good American piece of equipment. The NVGs in the Russian military tended to freeze solid at this altitude. It was difficult enough to jump out of a plane in the dark, and restricted vision meant you couldn’t see the team. It gave jumpers nightmares, because collisions at the speeds at which they were going to fall could be fatal.

  In the greenish glow of the NVGs, Vadar made his way to the cargo hatch door and opened it. Wind tore at his body, threatening to rip him out the door. The sky was lit by the moon and stars. He couldn’t see the ground, but that was never a problem; it was always down.

  Ivan made his way to the front so he would be the second one out the door. Vadar checked Ivan’s gear, then turned so Ivan could do the same with his.

  Satisfied that they were both strapped in tightly, Vadar glanced back at his men. They all gave him a thumbs-up.

  Then he stepped back far enough to see the jump light that glowed white instead of green through his NVGs.

  When the light changed color, he stepped out into the icy darkness and into free fall.

  34

  Rhonda had always looked at a computer system like a big jigsaw puzzle. Once you had the corners in place, then the borders, you could figure out a general picture. Even if the important details were jumbled, it was always solvable, given enough time. And the computer system at the Area 51 facility consisted of layers upon layers of puzzle pieces, all of them mixed up, all of them testing her
patience and her stamina.

  It had been a long day after a short night—although she wouldn’t have traded that night with Cooper for more sleep. At least, that was how she felt at 1:30 Saturday morning. Fatigue had done a damn fine job of mellowing her out in the Jamie Cooper department.

  The problem was, that mellowness was also a sign that she was losing her edge. And it was slowing her down.

  She’d been working the system for over four hours, and she was close, she thought, as she suppressed another yawn and continued to tap away at the keyboard. She knew that she was close to finding the worm hole that would allow her to burrow out from under all the security blocks and make contact with the outside world. But repeated attempts that resulted in slamming into brick walls finally had her frustrated to the point of pulling her hair.

  Literally.

  She shoved herself up out of her chair and glared at the computer monitor. “You are the queen bitch of the world!” When she realized she was yelling at a machine, she settled herself down.

  What was she missing?

  And where the heck was Cooper? He should have schmoozed those guards by now. Should have been back with some good news. Like he’d found a trap door that led outside. Or he’d discovered a time continuum that could transport them back to Langley and reinforcements.

  “I’ve got to get out of this room and make a fresh pot of coffee,” she muttered. And maybe take a quick shower to wake herself up before digging back into the system again.

  Where was that man?

  She’d tried to reach him several times just to see if they could keep in touch. Another go at it wouldn’t hurt. “Hey, Cooper. You out there?”

  When she stepped out of the room, she saw that the lights had cut to half power in the hallways. Probably because it was night and a weekend.

  She went back into the computer room, rummaged around until she found a flashlight, then returned to the hall, more jumpy than she’d like to be. And because she knew she’d probably panic alone in a semidark elevator, she decided to take the stairs. Not that the dark, shadowy stairwell was much better.

  “Cooper? Where the heck are you?” she asked again, feeling more uneasy as her boot heels echoed in the long, empty corridor.

  This place was spooky enough when it was fully staffed and knowing it was daylight aboveground. In the middle of the night, with nothing but her own shifting shadows dancing against the stairwell walls, it was enough to make a grown woman downright jumpy.

  When he finally answered, she did jump. “What’s up, Butter—”

  “Do not call me that,” she snapped, cutting him off as she pressed a hand to her racing heart. “I’m tired, I’m cranky, and I’m a failure to boot.”

  “Poor Bombshell,” he soothingly. “You’ve had a long, hard day.”

  She waited several beats. “What did you just call me?”

  A guilty silence rang over the line. “Call you? I didn’t call you anything.”

  “You called me Bombshell.”

  “Oh . . . oh, that. No. No, what I said was, it would take nothing less than a bombshell to break us out of this bunker.”

  She didn’t buy it, but she was too tired to raise a fuss. “Whatever. I’m heading for the commissary. Putting on a fresh pot of coffee. Then I’m taking a quick shower to wake myself up before hitting the system again.”

  “I could use coffee,” he said. “And I could use a shower myself. Maybe we could—”

  “Conserve on energy and shower together? That’s not happening.”

  “Actually, I was going to suggest that maybe we could take turns with a short combat nap.”

  She finally smiled. “That is not what you were thinking.”

  He laughed. “I guess my mind’s not nearly as complex as those computers. See you by the coffeepot.”

  • • •

  The jump went exactly as planned. There had been no radar detection; otherwise, the entire compound would be lit up, with horns blaring right now. They’d landed a little farther from the planned drop zone than Vadar would have liked, but taking the wind into account, a slight deviation was to be expected. The good news was that they were a quarter of a mile closer to the target building than had been planned.

  And when humping fifty to seventy pounds of gear, a mile hike was much preferable to a mile and a quarter.

  Once all the men had gathered, they fell in line in single file behind him, with Ivan pulling up the rear. No words were spoken. Everyone knew his assignment.

  Even in the bitter cold night and with the shorter walk, Vadar was soaked with sweat inside his American fatigues. Adrenaline still ran high in the wake of the jump—falling twenty-five thousand feet never became routine—so despite the uneven terrain and their heavy loads, they easily hiked what would normally be an arduous trek. It took less than twenty minutes to reach the target.

  He checked his watch as they bellied down behind a berm at the rear of the low building. They were exactly on their timetable.

  First course of action: take out the three guards patrolling the exterior of the building. Vadar lifted a hand, and three members of his team immediately crept forward, low and slow.

  He waited for the first cough of the sound-­suppressed M4 rifles. The second and the third shots were mere seconds behind. Three shots, three down. Now nothing remained between them and the inside of the building but a little finesse.

  He took a measured look around. Other than a tumbleweed blowing past, there was no activity. Assured that they’d raised no red flags, he stood and motioned for the remaining team to follow.

  As a group, they approached his three gunmen. Along with the guards’ uniforms, each held a badge and the bloody forefinger of the guard he had killed.

  Vadar selected a uniform that fit, took the badge and the finger that went with it, and slipped on the uniform. Quickly moving to the security scanner, he slid the badge through the magnetic reader and was prompted to verify with his fingerprint. He pressed the dead guard’s finger against the scanner, and the lock clicked.

  He quickly opened the door and held it for all but the three team members who were hiding the bodies of the dead guards. Then they would keep watch outside, posing as facility security.

  “What the hell are you doing in here, Leonard?”

  The MP behind the desk couldn’t see who had entered, but he knew the exterior door had been opened.

  Vadar walked to the desk and shot the shocked MP between the eyes before he could reach for his gun.

  Behind him, Ivan quickly checked the rooms directly off the security desk and nodded to Vadar. “No one else.”

  “Matvey.”

  The computer tech, still out of breath from the hike and his first experience at jumping—not to mention witnessing the cold-blooded execution of four men—shook as he stepped forward. “Sir.”

  “You know what to do.”

  Matvey Polzin shrugged out of his pack and sat down shakily in front of one of the computers in the security room. Ivan had assured Vadar that Polzin knew his tasks and had been instructed in exactly what he needed to do: take control of the security system, and allow the rest of the team into the areas they needed to access.

  “How many more guards in the building?” Vadar asked.

  Polzin scanned the printed log for any employees who remained in the bunker.

  “As our sources reported, one for each floor, sir. Plus the military policeman who has been . . . taken out of commission.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No one except Dr. Adolph Corbet, who is in his lab, as anticipated.”

  Vadar smiled. So the doctor did not break his promise. Amazing what a man would do when he believed he could prevent the death of someone he loved. And Corbet, it seemed, would do anything, including betraying the country that had given him asylum.

  Ivan h
ad opened a secure cabinet and taken out several pairs of radios. He handed them out to the men, who set them to a common frequency.

  One man was then assigned to each floor. Their mission was to eliminate the single guards roaming each hallway. Matvey would assist them by monitoring the cameras and alerting them of each guard’s position, using the main radio.

  Vadar glanced at a diagram of the facility. As their mole had told them, Corbet would be in his laboratory on level four.

  “Quickly,” Vadar said, and his team scrambled after him and gathered in the hallway outside the security office. He held up his watch. Fifteen minutes was all the time they should need to accomplish their task.

  Vadar felt a flash of satisfaction as he watched his men deploy, heading for the stairway to execute their mission.

  Keeping Ivan and the other tech, Iosif Yakovlev, with him, Vadar returned to the security desk. There he waited, watching the cameras. He anticipated that it would take no more than ten minutes for his men to eliminate all five guards.

  However, he had learned long ago that all was not always as it seemed. He would wait until he was assured that all threats had been eliminated. And then he would head down the stairwell toward the fourth floor and the prize that would make him a wealthy man.

  • • •

  Rhonda had revived herself on fresh coffee, then ducked in and out of a quick shower. Marginally refreshed, she set up shop at the small table in her assigned room instead of trudging up to the server room. Since there were no in-house computers in the living quarters, she plugged her tablet into the data port.

  In his own room, Cooper was still in the shower. She would have figured he’d fallen asleep in there, if she didn’t know he was as ramped up as she was trying to figure out a contact to the outside—

  Whoa.

  She sat up straight, fingers frozen above her keypad, her gaze locked on her tablet.

  What the heck?

  Maybe she was seeing things. Maybe her screen hadn’t just gone black, then popped back to life—but on a totally different drive from the one she’d been on.