Del’s nape prickled.It felt like a trap.
Cath followed Henderson, Zeke lumbering silently in her wake.Boomer, carrying the plastic explosive, would peel away to visit the core—if they could infiltrate that deep.
Blowing the power and security grid might give them enough time to get the hell out of here.For a seat-of-the-pants plan to infiltrate the most secure Sig installation in the country, it wasn’t half bad.
If, that was, they could pull it off.
Adrenaline lay copper against his tongue.They might even get in and out of here unseen.
Yeah.And next pigs will fly.
“Stop, hold position,” Yoshi suddenly breathed through the commlink.Everyone froze.“There’s a sweep heading your way.”
Del heard them pass—footsteps and the snuffling of a tracker-psion.Zeke exhaled a slow, soft breath.His imperviousness to psionic attack also generated a useful bit of psychic static; the footprint allowed them to move without detection.Once Zeke went with the other half of the team to take out the grids, it was up to Del and Henderson not to trip any psychic alarms.
Or physical ones.
“Safe,” Yoshi said.“Boomer, Cath, Zeke, your turn coming up.Stay to your right at the next intersection, hug the left wall after the turn.Del, Henderson, straight ahead.”
They moved out in waves, the team functioning a well-oiled machine.Christ, if we pull this off I might just start believing in miracles instead of percentages.
Cath, Zeke, and Boomer vanished at the next intersection.Del’s gaze met Henderson’s.The old man nodded, mouth a tight, straight line.Disbelieving Del’s report hadn’t even occurred to him to disbelieve.If Agent Breaker had been a Sigma mole, they would have been trussed and Zed-wiped by now.
An odd feeling, realizing how much Henderson implicitly trusted him.Del never thought he’d be so grateful for an unspoken assumption.
I owe him big, and I’m not even nervous about the debt.
They made it to the building Yoshi had marked, a massive four-storey concrete pile, ugly as sin but secure enough, Del supposed, given the outer defenses.It took him forty-five seconds to get the maglock on the door open, then they were swallowed by the maw.
If Yoshi was right, Rowan was in here somewhere.Del just hoped she wasn’t on an IV of Zed.He was fairly sure the drug wouldn’t entirely work on her, but with something like that you could never be sure enough.
There were other procedures to break a psion, especially a female one.Rape, drugs, sleep deprivation, torture.Now there was an idea.Her capacity to heal would make her an ideal candidate for physical?—
Stop thinking like that.Concentrate.Just be safe, Ro.Please, angel, just be safe.
“Stairs at your nine, Del.Zeke, tighten it up.”
Delgado eased around another corner.Clear.Of course, all the mindwiped psions that weren’t on chatscan, codestringing, or intra-security patrols with handlers would be locked securely in cages, and the handlers catching some rest.Mission Control was on the other side of the complex; that was where any activity was likely to be.
Over here were the labs and training rooms, deserted at night save for the patrols and passive alarms Del and Henderson were eluding.If anyone in Control found their comm channel, things would get real ugly, real quick.
“Standby, Zeke.I’m initiating the code for the doors.Del, you’re going to go down to the end of the hall, turn right, four doors on your left.That’s the best pinpoint I have on her, according to the listing here.”Yoshi’s voice crackled; he was just as calm as ever.You couldn’t tell he was navigating two teams at once through an unfamiliar complex on a console that might trip him up at any moment, working with an enemy system and stringing code by the seat of his pants.
Del nodded, forgetting Yosh couldn’t see him except through security cameras.Brew was probably doing the trip-loops, jacked into the cameras and running safe footage to keep any other onlookers blind.Henderson covered another ghostly hallway, made sure it was deserted, and moved to the next cover position.
It was agonizingly slow.All Del wanted to do was charge in, guns blazing, and drag her out.
As if the thought had summoned it, there was a sudden clattering racket around the corner at the hallway’s far end.The pops and zings of gunfire echoed against linoleum and metal doors.Del’s heart leapt.
“Oh, shit.”Yoshi sighed.“Guys, Rowan’s making a break for it and just ran across some armed guards.Brew, take over with Zeke and Cath, on my mark, mark.Del, Henderson, get the fuckdown, she’s heading your way.”
“Get down,” Del mouthed, but Henderson was already in a crouch, his comm glinting in the dimness.Del found himself crouching too.
No cover in the hall.They had to fall back.
“Ro’s making a break for it.”He felt compelled, as if speaking made it more real.That means she’s ambulatory, and thinking.
“Cheeky girl,” Henderson mouthed.“Shit.”
