The Ghost Ships of Arizona

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Alicia embraced the darkness like a close friend, inviting it inside as well as all around her. Her life had led up to this. The recent quest where she and her second team discovered hidden Crusader’s gold had led to this. The time was at hand.

No more running. No more avoiding.

Life would always pursue her and now that it had caught up she was ready to accept the explosion. Who would suffer? Only those closest to her, who would say that it was a long time coming and would take everything that she gave.

So… soon. Today. Tomorrow. When events dictated.

God help whoever got caught inside her blast zone. And she meant that, truly, in a religious way.

For now though, it was Dahl who had her back, and there was only one other whom she would prefer. The Swede crept beside her like a capable hound, eyes spotting traces even she might miss. The ground underfoot was gravel-strewn, and not even they could stop the occasional crunch. At the perimeter of the property, however, soil and earth returned. Dahl fell to his knees.

“Thirty meters,” he said. “Ready?”

Alicia didn’t need to check. “Do you recall a time when I wasn’t? For anything?”

Dahl crawled off. Alicia dropped behind him. They crept under an overhanging tree, stroked by the long branches, pausing in the deepest shadow near its trunk. Dahl then scooted to the bottom of a shallow ditch and crabbed along its bottom. As they neared the truck they paused to listen.

Alicia heard the faintest scuffling sound and then footfalls coming from the back of the truck. Somebody was definitely moving around inside there. Dahl waited patiently, scanning the almost impenetrable surroundings.

Can’t see fuck all, he mouthed back at her eventually.

She strained to read his lips, then shrugged and indicated the tomb of darkness all around. Neither can California.

Dahl nodded. Decision made, they moved rapidly. Dahl ran up to the rear of the truck and flattened his back against one of the doors. Alicia reached for the handle. A booming sound erupted and for half a second Alicia thought a bomb might have gone off, but then enormous round lights fixed to the back and sides of the truck’s roof illuminated, bathing the whole area in brightness.

“Now that’s a major clusterfuck,” a voice said — the mercenary leader’s. “You really think we wouldn’t have backup?”

Alicia stared away from the blinding truck, into the overhanging forest at its side and the thick brush at its back. Groups of men were emerging, all carrying rifles and machine pistols, and with faces painted black, wearing bulletproof vests and combat boots and backpacks full of spare ammo. The leader’s next comment gave her a flash of hope though.

“Kill them quiet. Lights have been illuminated all around the substation so the cops won’t figure this out too quick, but the sound of gunfire might help them.”

Alicia reached for her gun, but the mercs charged in a tight cluster. Knives appeared in their hands, wide military knives with serrated edges. Just one shot…

But they were too close. Dahl readied his hands and diverted two knife thrusts simultaneously. Alicia turned one lunge against another, making one man stab his partner through the wrist. Their entanglement stalled those coming behind.

Dahl barged another attacker to one side and then grabbed one of the truck’s vertical rear bars, heaving himself up and above the heads of the mercs. First, he kicked out, dropping another man. As more congregated though he launched himself with a great yell, slamming down on top of them. Bodies tumbled and sprawled. Legs and arms jerked and broke. Dahl twisted instantly upon landing, allowing no easy target, but causing maximum chaos.

Alicia parried and dodged, her vision a blur of knives and fists. The entire scene reflected in her eyes with a vivid intensity. It grew clear in her mind that this was everything the Pythians had been driving for — thwart this attack and their plan was in tatters. And maybe the entire organization along with it.

The downside was they were but a few soldiers, the very same problem that had been frustrating the team all along. The upside was that they were two of the best soldiers in the world.

Alicia caused chaos with every blink of an eye, every slight move. Legs and arms, even the bump of her hips, sent an unwary mercenary off balance. She plucked blade after blade from her opponents’ hands, depositing them in the next attacker. Fingers were broken and wrists fractured. She slipped past the side of the truck, then realized there was empty space at her back.

Bad move.

Dahl smashed heads left and right. Like Alicia he too wore a stab vest. Without it he would have been brought down four times already. The mercs were becoming more and more desperate as they saw the caliber of their adversaries. They stumbled, they dropped weapons, and Dahl maneuvered his way over to Alicia.

“Get behind me.”

Another wave of mercs struck. Alicia approved of Dahl’s quick thinking and positioned herself so that they stood back to back with the truck at one side. Again the wave broke over them, flooding past, bleeding and gashed and dying, yet leaving nothing but bruises on the rocks that it hit. For a moment Alicia saw nothing but snarling faces and shaven skulls; not the sky, not the mountains, not the enormous facility all around them. Life was made up of sweat and screaming and blood, and she felt that it always had been. A knife thrust against her vest, bouncing to the side even as the bruise it formed screamed at her. A punch connected solidly with her forehead, shaking her brain, but she did not flinch. Fingernails scraped at her cheek. A knee rose into her abdomen. Her response was elbows and knees, boots, fists and forehead all flashing back and forth faster than a Ferrari paddle-shifted, faster than anything these mercenaries had ever seen. As more fell the rest found it harder to get close. Alicia saw an opportunity to draw her gun.

She slipped it free. A merc dived on it, desperate to keep the noise down. She relinquished her grip rather than pull free of Dahl. And so the two gladiators stood, back to back, jabbing and punching left and right, fencing with knives, as bloody as any two warriors who ever lived. When Alicia stumbled, Dahl sensed it as it happened and caught her under the arm. When the Swede took a mighty blow and staggered, Alicia performed a vicious, spinning elbow, devastating his opponent and barely taking her eyes off her own. Terrified yells could already be heard from inside the van. Alicia pressed hard against Dahl’s spine and stood her ground. Both used the van’s side to crack heads with. The intensity of the battle was so strong Alicia couldn’t even find a second to pose a wisecrack. Her arms were on fire, her muscles screaming. Even her reserves were beginning to dwindle.

Dahl breathed hard at her back. With a destructive effort he smashed three men against each other, cracking skulls, and stomped another. It was the last merc and a warning shout went up. Immediately, the back doors of the van swung open, but both Dahl and Alicia knew what to expect. Without pause they rolled and drew weapons, firing the instant they caught sight of a body. Their bullets struck legs. A man fell out face-first, his machine pistol hitting the grass at his side. A second went the same way, squirming as he dropped hard. Dahl rolled underneath the swinging doors, gun up, trigger finger at three-quarter pull weight.

Alicia shot at the last few mercs, winging them, and ran over to disarm them. Dahl watched the back of the truck. Lights blazed from inside but he was at too low an angle to get any kind of reasonable view.

Several hundred yards away, both Hayden and Kinimaka were sprinting to join the fight. Alicia made a huge deal of checking her watch.

Hayden held up a hand, forestalling the comment. “Did you guys do all this?”

Alicia blinked and surveyed the scene. Bodies writhed and struggled everywhere, some in piles, others squirming away. She shrugged, the small movement causing a lance of pain.

“Seemed like the right thing to do.”

Kinimaka joined Dahl, indicating that the Swede should rise to his feet. “Get a look at that, bro.”

The rear of the truck was set out like a computer station. Each side held two terminals, desks and chairs. Three scruffily dressed men and one woman sat inside, mouths open, hands in the air.

“Please,” one of them mouthed.

Hayden took control. She jumped into the back of the truck, Glock very much in evidence. “Show me the fucking Z-box now! Do it as if your lives depended on it.”

A gangly older man moved away from his console, revealing the small black box that had been positioned next to his elbow. Alicia had jumped in after Hayden and recognized the Chinese-manufactured device.

“Gives the words ‘Made in China’ a whole new meaning,” she muttered.

Hayden aimed the barrel of the gun at the man’s throat. “If I destroy that box will the blackout end?”

“It… it’s the master code box, the hub of the blackout program we designed, so yes… yes it should.”

Hayden fired a shot into the truck’s bulkhead. “Should?”

“Will! It will, it will!”

The next bullet wrecked the little box. Hayden looked over her shoulder at Dahl, who remained outside.

“Nothing happening,” he said. “Maybe something needs to reboot.”

“Call it in,” Hayden said. “We have rows of geeks sitting around waiting to take care of this.”

Alicia picked up the Z-box, placed it on the floor and crushed it beneath her boot heel. “Just to be sure,” she said with a wink and a grin. In truth, her body was crying for a break and to start healing but she knew any respite would only stiffen up her joints. There would be time to mend later.

Hayden jammed her Glock under the tall man’s throat. “Tell me all about Path 26,” she said. “And how it caused this blackout.”

Terrified eyes blinked rapidly. “Yes, yeah. Well… Path 26 is a set of three power lines that form the main link for Southern California’s electrical power grid. There are other hubs at San Jose and Silicon Valley. To get into the Path you need access to all three hubs, and you can’t remote it. It has to be done on site. That’s why we needed the three backdoors.” As the geek explained his work he began to relax, warm up even. “Path 26 can transmit 3700MW to Southern California which only needs 3000 at full capacity. Accessing Path 26 was the key to causing the blackout — turning off the power. It gave us access to the whole system. The Z-box made it all easier, cracking that system’s codes within seconds and allowing us free reign. That…” he started to stammer again, realizing he was out of words. “That’s it.”

Hayden didn’t take her eyes off the geek. “Dahl?”

“They’re working on it. Looks good, though.”

“Stand up and put your hands behind your backs. All of you. Alicia, tie these men up.”

“Ah, words I love to hear.”

Hayden faced the woman. “You. Stay handy. We might need you.” In another second she turned toward Kinimaka.

“And Mano?”

“Uh huh?”

“Give Drake a call. Tell him we’re on our way. The gang’s getting back together.”

“Fucking A.”