Age of Blood

49

Yank and Hoover were waiting for them at the side entrance to the Museo de Historia Natural. Across the plaza, an earthquake siren began to blast its banshee wail. Earthquakes were common Mexico City and the government continually practiced evacuation drills. The locals fled first, followed by everyone else as the bone-vibrating sound filled the square. The only problem was that no one wanted to run into any of the buildings, so everyone milled around like frantic refugees, waiting for the ground itself to move beneath them.

All this meant no one was watching the two pretend-Canadians running toward the side of the Museum of Natural History, nor were they seen as they slipped inside. Yank shut the door behind them and chained it shut.

Yank’s sweat-sheened face reflected his nervousness. He pulled a duffel bag from where it lay against the wall behind him, then pulled out another duffel bag and passed one to each of them.

“What’s that?” Walker straightened and pointed to the second duffle.

“Holmes wants her to gear up.”

“She’s a civilian.” Walker reached for the bag, but Yank jerked it away. “She’s not wearing it.”

Yank shook his head as he held fast to the bag. “He wants her to have some armor in case something happens.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Jen and Yank stared at Walker, waiting to see what he was going to do.

The problem was Walker didn’t know what he wanted to do. Worse, he knew that Holmes was listening in over their bone-conducting communications gear. He had to be. Walker didn’t like it, but the inevitable conclusion that if Jen was to follow them into combat she had to have armor was an inescapably correct idea.

“Want to talk to him?” Yank asked.

Walker shook his head, furious, but he understood. “No. That’s fine.”

He stripped and put on black camo fatigues. He traded his flip-flops for socks and boots. He checked the leads and attachments for his BCCG, then slipped on his level-six armor. After adding the Rhodesian vest and his ballistic gloves, he put on his mask. Yank gave him a HK416 with a suppressor, which Walker cleared and then loaded. Finally Yank tossed him a holster containing a P229; this Walker strapped to his right thigh.

Meanwhile, Jen had on her own boots and fatigues, but was struggling with the body armor. It wasn’t exactly made for a woman’s figure. Walker moved to help her as Yank watched their perimeter.

“Listen,” Walker instructed her. “You stay behind us unless we’re running, then I want you in front.” His voice was calm but firm. “Follow our lead. Keep your eyes on what we do, not what the enemy does.”

“How can I tell who the enemy is?”

“We’re normally shooting at them. Now, this armor will stop pretty much everything they can fire at you with a handgun. Not that you should be brave, just don’t be so scared you put yourself in a position where you can get hurt.” He patted her rib cage. “This area isn’t so protected because we need to have freedom of movement.”

He came to the last two things in the bag, which were a ballistics mask, orange with a white diagonal stripe, and a P229 in a holster. He handed the mask to her, which she put on. But he held on to the pistol, staring at it.

“We don’t have comms for you, so you’ll have to stick close to one of us. This is for defense. Period. I don’t want you to… you don’t need to be charging into anything. This pistol holds fifteen nine-millimeter parabellum rounds. It fires quick. Keep your grip tight and steady if you have to fire it.” He handed it to her as if it were a live grenade. “Understand?”

“Jack, I—”

“I asked if you understood.”

She nodded, then added, “Yes.”

She began to attach it to her thigh in a drop-down holster as Walker had done, but her hands were shaking. He took it from her and attached the two straps, adjusted them to her leg, then slid the 9mm into place.

Damn it all to hell, Holmes, he wanted to shout. Wasn’t there any other way? Why couldn’t she be topside with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? But Walker knew the answer. She’d made herself a known quantity by going operational with him. She’d already been part of their distraction. It wouldn’t be long before the Zetas investigated the operation of the seismic alarm to see if a drill had been scheduled. If the Zetas decided to roll everyone up, she’d be in danger. She’d been necessary to help them identify some of the players and now because she’d been seen, she’d be sought out, interrogated if she was caught, and probably even killed. No, her coming with them was the best choice. Perhaps even the only one.

So instead of shouting at the moon, he squeezed her shoulders gently and stared into her eyes. Behind the mask his own eyes were twisted into pools of emotion. “Keep low. Keep cool. Everything will be okay.”

She nodded, the look in her eyes trying to work itself into something he’d find reassuring but failing miserably.

He placed her Pro-Tec helmet on her head, then slid into his own. He pulled out the QuadEye and slid it into a pouch in his vest. The night lights inside the building were functioning well enough so that he wasn’t going to need it.

“Ready,” Walker said as Yank was finishing gearing up Hoover.

Yank and the dog had originally traversed the area as a blind man with his guide dog. The ruse no longer needed, they were the epitome of combat-ready. Yank was dressed much like Walker, except that he wore a fuchsia-colored mask, as opposed to Walker’s bloodred-colored mask. Hoover, on the other hand, had undergone a makeover. Gone was her usual tactical harness, replaced by a K9 Storm Intruder. Custom fitted, the Intruder was a high-tech multifunctional body-armor harness that protected the dog’s sternum, as well as her central body. An integrated camera periscope rose from the dog’s back, providing night vision and IR up to a thousand meters, which could be remotely fed. An antenna allowed for communications to the dog in the event that she became separated from the team. Hoover wore green-lensed IR goggles, giving her a bug-eyed appearance. Storage pockets held grenades and a first aid kit, as well as several vials of holy water, a cross from the Second Temple of Solomon, and two blue blankets.

Walker leaned down and scratched Hoover behind one ear.

The dog stepped backwards and stared at him as if to say, How dare you touch me!

Walker whispered, “Don’t be a prima donna.”

Hoover gave him a long blank look, then shook his hand away.

Walker laughed on the inside. He supposed it was a good thing that the dog thought of herself as a badass.

Yank nodded and began to pad down the side of a maintenance hallway. Walker and Jen followed after him. Walker and Yank held their HKs at tactical ready. Jen’s hands were free, held out beside her as if they could give her some balance in this new combat universe. They arrived at a door.

“Team One, ready,” Yank said.

“Team One, proceed,” came Holmes’s voice.

Yank placed an electronic surreptitious entry device (ESED) over the security pad, depressed the red button on the side, and let the device do its business. Ten seconds later they heard a click; that was followed by the red light on the slide flipping to green.

After placing the device back inside a vest pocket, Yank opened the door and nudged the barrel of the HK through. He followed it, checking left and right. “Clear.”

Walker and Jen joined Yank as they began to edge down the left hallway. They passed several rooms on the left. On the right were dioramas showing Mexico City in stark relief, Aztec pyramids rising from a bloodred floor with the Popocatépetl volcano commanding the background.

They came to a bend in the hallway and Yank pointed to a camera, a green LED signaling it was on.

“Team Two, first checkpoint reached,” Walker asked.

“Roger, One. Remain in place,” said Guildenstern, which meant Laws and Holmes had already moved out and were heading to their mission start point.

They’d patched into the museum security system and were tracking the guards. Additional signals had gone out, running an interval deletion loop that would ensure that no recordings were made of their time inside the museum.

Walker glanced back at Jen, whose gaze was on the floor. When she caught him looking, she met his eyes. He couldn’t read her. He couldn’t even smile reassuringly. But she nodded. She was doing okay.

After twenty seconds, they heard, “Team One, advance to Checkpoint Two.”

The three of them moved down the left side of the hall at a half jog. They passed a gift shop, then came to a foyer that boasted a large staircase made from marble and polished silver. They moved to a door that had a black silhouette of a woman on the front and slipped through it.

“Team One at Checkpoint Two.”

“Hold.”

Another thirty seconds passed; then came the words they hadn’t anticipated. “Oh, shit.”

“Report,” Walker said, wondering about the depth of trouble they were in now.

“Guard is coming your way.”

“Female?”

“No, male.”

Yank motioned for Walker, Jen, and Hoover to find a stall. While they did so, Yank used the knob and the transom to climb to the ceiling, where he wedged himself between the edge of the transom and the corner of the room.

The sound of a man whistling grew louder and louder.

Guildenstern counted down from ten, leaving the last three numbers for the team to count beneath their breaths. Walker did so, and as he got to zero, the door opened and a museum security guard strolled in, whistling. He carried a thirty-eight in a holster on his waist. Keys and a flashlight dragged down the other side, leaving his stomach pressing precariously at the beltline. He was about the same height as Jen, but twice the weight. He entered the room oblivious to Yank hovering in the corner above him. The guard selected the stall at the end and spent several minutes doing his business. All the while he whistled, the sound reverberating off the tiles in the bathroom. No one dared say anything, much less shift their stance.

The whistling stopped for a moment. By the jangling of the keys, they knew he was tucking his shirt in and cinching his belt. As he exited the stall, he began to whistle again.

The man washed his hands, then went to the door. This was the moment that made Walker the most nervous. Heading straight to the door, all the guard had to do was look up and he’d see Yank. The problem was, what would they do if he saw him? The guard was a noncombatant and none of them wanted to see him harmed. Thankfully he opened the door and went back into the foyer.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief… until the whistling suddenly stopped.

Yank leaped from his perch, landing on the bathroom floor. He hurried to the stall the man had used. Jen and Walker were already there. Walker hissed for Hoover, who tore around the corner and joined them. They closed the door. Walker got up on the porcelain and squatted. Yank and Jen climbed up on either side of him, counterbalancing with their weight. Yank and Jen lifted Hoover off the floor by grasping either end of the dog’s vest.

The bathroom door swung open.

“Qué aquí?” the guard asked.

He shuffled around the entry for a moment, then opened the first three stall doors. Each time the slam of the door against metal made Jen jump. When he was at the final door, he stopped. They heard him laughing to himself. Then he turned, his keys jingling in his wake as he resumed whistling.