Typhoon Fury

63

On their way to the barracks, Raven and Eddie had seen only two men. They were guarding a truck near the front of the factory building that Juan and Linc had entered. Everyone else seemed to be asleep. Raven was watching Eddie’s back as he used an endoscope attached to his phone to look into the barracks windows. She understood that it was better than charging into the building, guns blazing, but the search was tedious. So far, they’d found a dozen rooms with bunk beds full of snoring communist insurgents, but none with Beth.

“We’ve got movement inside the factory,” Juan whispered over the comm link. “Going silent.”

Raven and Eddie quickly shared a concerned look, but there was nothing they could do to help, so they kept searching. Two rooms later, they hit the jackpot. This room was different because it had just a single bed. Beth was sound asleep on it, a tray of dirty dishes next to her on a nightstand.

Raven counted the rooms from the entrance and nodded to Eddie, who put away the scope.

They went to the front door and entered with their suppressed pistols in hand. No sounds except for a few snorts from the sleeping men.

They went down the hall as fast as they could while staying quiet. As they approached the correct room, Raven saw that there was an empty chair outside as if someone had been guarding it. Either the post had been abandoned or the guard would be back at any moment.

The door was locked with a key. Eddie knelt and took out a set of lockpicks from his pocket. In seconds, he turned the unsophisticated lock. Raven was duly impressed by the skills he’d acquired in the CIA.

He eased the door open, and Raven slipped quietly inside to find Beth about to swing the nightstand at her. Raven put up a hand to stop her and held a finger to her lips.

Beth dropped the nightstand on the bed and launched herself at Raven, grabbing her in a surprisingly strong bear hug.

“You got my message,” Beth whispered through a choked sob. “I thought Locsin killed you.”

“He tried,” Raven whispered back. “Didn’t work.”

Eddie had his eyes on the hallway. “Hate to break this up, but we need to go. Juan has already set the charges.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “He’s blowing up this place?”

“That’s the plan.”

“The paintings are here. We need to save them.”

Eddie shook his head. “Sorry. We’re cutting this close as it is. Let’s go.”

Beth crossed her arms and didn’t budge. “I’m not letting them be destroyed.”

Raven looked at Eddie. “Believe me, it’ll be faster if we do it her way.”

Eddie sighed and looked at his watch. “All right. I’ll give us five minutes.” He radioed Juan that they had Beth.

They stole back out of the building. Beth pointed across the compound to a trailer-sized building. The guards by the truck were no longer visible. They must have been the ones Juan was dealing with inside the factory.

They dashed to the building and went inside. Instead of turning on the lights, Eddie lowered his night vision goggles. Raven did the same and led Beth by the hand.

“They should be in the back,” Beth said. “They’ll be in sixteen tubes.”

“Sixteen paintings?” Raven asked.

“They’ve amassed an incredible collection.”

“We can’t carry that many,” Eddie said.

“The tubes are large in diameter, so we can take them out and roll up some of them together. We won’t need more than six tubes.”

“Will that damage the paintings?”

Beth shrugged. “It’s better than leaving them here to burn. The tubes have straps, so we can carry them easily.”

“These paintings better be amazing,” Eddie grumbled.

“You have no idea.”

At the back of the trailer, there was a large metal cabinet. It was secured by a heavy padlock.

“This is a tough one,” Eddie said. “Might take me a little longer than that door.”

He crouched down next to it and got to work.

Juan didn’t dare close the door of the explosives storage room or make a move for the exit. The acoustics of the quiet factory meant that he and Linc could easily hear what was being said all the way on the other side. Tagaan was talking to four other men. All of them were armed with Chinese assault rifles.

“Comrade Locsin has become a threat to our movement,” Tagaan said. “We have almost a million Typhoon pills in the truck, but he wants to waste our advantage and risk everything before we are ready.”

One of the men protested, “But he will kill us all if he finds out that we are going to betray him. So will all the others who are loyal to him.”

“That’s why we need to act now. His guard is down because of the storm. When he’s dead, they will see that I’m the one who should lead us.”

Linc raised an eyebrow at Juan. “We should let them off each other,” he whispered.

Juan nodded. “If only we had the time.”

“Locsin will begin his daily factory inspection at dawn,” Tagaan said. “Two of you will wait in the Semtex storage area. When he enters, make sure you shoot him in the head. The other two and I will kill Dolap and his most faithful men. Then we will take the truck to secure the Typhoon supply. Understood?” They nodded, and two of the men started heading toward the storage room.

“I understand that we better get out of here,” Linc whispered.

Juan readied his pistol. “Wait until they’re close. We’ll try to take them out silently.”

Linc raised the crossbow.

As they were walking, one of the men walking toward Juan and Linc called back over his shoulder, “Comrade Tagaan, why is the door to the storage room only partly closed?”

Tagaan turned around, alarmed. He gestured for the other two men to join the first two.

“That plan failed in record time,” Juan said. He holstered his pistol and swung the assault rifle around. With a nod, he kicked the door wide open and shot the closest man through the heart. Linc got his companion through the eye with a crossbow bolt.

“MacD’s going to have to fight me for this,” he said.

With their presence revealed, Juan and Linc ran for the factory’s side door. A few shots came their way until Tagaan ordered his men to avoid hitting the Kuyogs. Then they raced out the front entrance.

Juan and Linc burst through the side door, but Tagaan was waiting for them to appear. From the cover of the building corner, he let loose a wild volley with his assault rifle. The other men would be coming out the side door any second, and it was a long way to the far end of the factory, so Juan sprinted to the building next to them and charged through the door. He and Linc made it inside just as bullets slammed into the closed door behind them.

The lights in this building must have been connected to the ones in the factory because they were all on. It was apparently a final assembly facility and warehouse. Long rows of Kuyog drones were arrayed nose to tail in a pristine white environment. The ones at the front of the building looked complete and ready for shipment while those at the back were just missing the all-important imaging sensor.

Juan and Linc ducked low so they wouldn’t be seen over the Kuyogs and put some distance between them and the side door.

“I don’t see a back exit, do you?” Linc asked. “And I don’t think we want to go out the front.”

“Not with everybody wide awake now. It looks like I’ve got us boxed in.”

“You have a Plan B, right?”

“Plan B was the one where we leave by truck if we need to.”

Dozens of shouts and pounding footsteps outside the building made it clear that they had an army coming at them.

“Then I hope you have a Plan C,” Linc said.

Juan looked at the nearest Kuyog and nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do. But you’re not going to like it.”

“Why?”

“Because it means getting as many of them in here with us as possible.”