Deep Black

15

Lia began trotting toward a pile of wrecked buses farther back in the lot.

“Is Karr hurt?” Dean asked, running to catch up.

“Nah.”

“Where is he?”

“He started circling around to ambush them when you didn’t show up,” she said. “He just took out the machine gun. He’s looking to see if there’s anybody else our friends in the Art Room missed.”

“Aren’t we going to back him up?” asked Dean, grabbing her arm as they reached the closest bus.

She jerked her arm away. “He can handle it. Just watch my ass, okay?”

“She’s got a cute one,” said Karr in his earphones.

Dean reached to his shirt and undid the muffle, putting his mike back in place. “What happened to you?” he asked.

“I had to go deep. You did a good job, Charlie Dean. Noisy, though.”

“They fired first.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Karr laughed. “Stick on Lia. I’ll come over and play tail gunner. I always like the dirt road.”

Dean walked past a row of Mercedes S sedans. There was a break in the row about ten cars down on his left; he turned up and walked past another two rows of pickup trucks, these mismatched among Fords, Chevys, and Toyotas. Beyond the second row sat a decrepit bus. Dean walked to the right and saw that the rest of the yard was laid out with various pieces of machinery and pipes. He nearly tripped over the bodies of two dogs, then saw a figure working at a piece of metal ten feet away, beyond a large Y-shaped piece of metal piping. A small blue flame appeared and danced in the air.

“Lia?”

“What?” she snapped without turning around.

“Just making sure it was you.”

“No, it’s Mr. Midas.” She went back to cutting the metal.

Dean, his left hand on the clip of the gun, scanned the area to make sure they were alone. Lia kicked at the metal, removing a rectangle about twelve inches long. She worked at the remaining piece almost as if she were a sculptor, burning the edge into a wavy pattern.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked finally.

“Baking a cake,” she said. “I think this is it.”

“Okay, Princess, let’s move,” said Karr.

“Coming.”

“Dean?”

“I can hear you,” he said.

“Grab her and pull her out of there.”

“Fuck you,” said Lia, jumping up and grabbing the piece of metal she had cut off. She kicked the dirt around in what seemed to Dean a fairly useless attempt to scatter the bits of burnt metal that had fallen off and then cover her tracks. Then, as Dean moved backward toward the old bus, she started to run full speed toward one of the pickups on the right, tossing something in the back.

“Come on, Chuckie,” she said, catching up on a dead run.

Dean started to run after her. “What’s up?”

“Two trucks,” announced Karr. “Mile away. Meet me at the perimeter fence where we came in.”

Dean followed Lia out past the buildings, through the marshy field, and back along the alley where he’d originally been posted. Lia sprinted hard and threw herself about eight feet up the fence, hustling upward seemingly without breaking stride.

“Separation,” she hissed as she hit the top and twirled over.

“Screw separation,” said Dean, starting up after her as the headlights of the approaching truck swung across the far side of the fence.

“Charlie, take the blankets and clips with you,” said Karr. “Don’t forget them.”

Dean had trouble with one of the clips, and the blanket on the razor wire was hooked on the inside of the fence. He tugged and almost lost it over the side, which would have meant going back in. Finally he got it and, barely holding his grip with his left hand, managed to drop it below. Just as he started down, gunfire erupted beyond the lot where they had left the van. Within thirty seconds, Kalashnikovs were roaring all along the fence line. Dean couldn’t tell from where he was what was going on, and he didn’t stop to observe, dropping the last eight feet from the fence, grabbing the blanket and tucking it beneath into his pants as he ran. A flare shot up from the access roadway, lighting the night. As Dean squared his AKSU in the direction of the gunfire, he heard a loud hush, the sort of sound a vacuum might make in a sewer system. It was followed by a crinkling explosion and then a loud rumble; one of the trucks had been hit by a small antitank missile, which ignited its fuel tank and a store of ammunition.

A second later, the compound they’d just left erupted with a series of explosions. The loudest came from the pipe area Karr had told him earlier to ignore — the underground tank exploded, spewing fire into the air.

Dean stared at it for a second, then realized the van was starting to move. He ran to it, grabbing at the rear door as the truck veered suddenly to the left. Somehow he managed to throw his weapon and then himself inside. One of the AKSUs fired from the front cab and then a grenade exploded nearby. Smoke and the acrid smell of burning metal filled the back. The van slammed to a stop and then quickly began backing up at high speed. Both Lia and Karr were shooting now — Dean fished for his gun but lost it as the truck tipped hard to the right, wheeled around, and sped erratically over the field, bouncing wildly over ruts and through a ditch.

And then it was over. The gunfire stopped, the ride smoothed out; they were on the highway. Dean couldn’t even see the glow of the burning flares through the window.

“How you doing back there, baby-sitter?” snarled Lia from the front. She was in the driver’s seat. “Pee your pants yet?”

“I thought he did pretty well,” said Karr. “Sorry about the big bangs at the end, Charlie. That was mostly for effect.”

Dean looked up at the top of the truck. Several rounds had come through the walls.

“Some effect,” he said.

“The problem with dealing with the Russians is that you have to act like the Russians,” said Karr. “You have to be as totally obnoxious about things as they would be. Otherwise they get suspicious.”

The agent explained that they had made the operation look like a rival mafiya gang had hit the storehouse of another, blowing up most of their vehicles with a Russian version of C-4. Hitting the trucks on the way out was necessary, since a rival gang would not have missed such an easy opportunity.

“Plus we wanted to get rid of the part from our airplane,” added Karr.

“Was it your airplane?” Dean asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Now what do we do?”

“See, they found the wreckage and scavenged the engines,” Karr explained. “But they also brought along a little piece of the tail with some Russian serial numbers. The Art Room will check it out, but in the meantime we’re going to go to the place where they found it and see if anything else is left.”

“Why didn’t we go there in the first place?” Dean asked.

“Not my call,” said Karr. “But I assume they had it under surveillance, saw that these guys took something, and wanted to find out what it was. It was the motors, right, Lia? I mean, you do know the difference between motors and wings.”

“Oh, har-har.”

“If you hadn’t taken out the guards, we might have just snuck out,” Karr told Dean. “But that kind of committed us. Better to blow all the shit up anyway. Plus I can’t resist using the Russian bazooka. What’d you think of the pyro shit at the gas tanks? Wasn’t that cool?”

“If I hadn’t taken them out they would have killed you,” said Dean.

“Water over the dam now.”

“Wait a second. You’re criticizing me for bailing you out? I saved your butts.”

“I’m not criticizing you, Charlie,” said Karr. He sounded almost hurt.

“We almost got killed. Your high-tech gear isn’t worth shit,” said Dean. He began surveying his body to see if any of the various aches and pains he felt were serious wounds. “And your plan sucked.”

“Oh, please,” said Lia.

“Well, the support team didn’t cover itself with glory,” said Karr. “I’ll give you that. But we weren’t almost killed.”

“You got ambushed. If I wasn’t there, you’d be dead.”

“If you weren’t there, we would’ve done it differently.”

“I suppose the Marines have a better way,” said Lia.

“A Marine operation would have had more people.”

“And less dogs,” said Karr brightly.

“Yeah. Your high-tech gizmos were outsmarted by dogs,” said Dean. “Shit.”

“Nobody in the Art Room has pets. That’s the problem,” said Karr, stepping on the accelerator.