There were at least eight Rangers out of the vehicle now, two of them with sidearms. A Ranger patted down the MPs and took a key ring, while another unhooked a coil of zip ties from one MP’s belt and cuffed the two terrified policemen.
The Ranger with the keys unlocked the armory, and then the men began emptying it of rifles, RPGs, grenade launchers, and crates of ordnance. They each equipped themselves with rifles and sidearms and put the rest of the gear in their truck.
Greer began to walk out from their cover toward the men. Brodie grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Stay put.”
Greer looked down at Brodie’s hand around his left biceps. Then he grabbed Brodie’s wrist with his right hand and squeezed it hard to loosen his grip, then twisted away and ran toward the Rangers.
Brodie and Taylor hung back and watched as Greer ran toward the floodlight. The startled Rangers swung their weapons in his direction, and for a moment Brodie feared the worst was about to happen.
Greer tripped and fell on his face, then rolled onto his back in the dusty road and stayed there.
One of the guys said, “Tom? What are you doing?”
A few more voices started talking over each other, and someone laughed. “He’s totally fucked up.”
Greer started cackling. Two Rangers picked him up and he said to them, “I’m in hell.”
“Yeah,” said one of the guys as he put his arm around Greer. “Welcome back.”
Another Ranger walked forward, in silhouette before the floodlight, and asked Greer, “Where are the CID agents?”
It was Sergeant First Class Mike Miller.
Greer turned and pointed toward their position, and Brodie and Taylor bolted down the alleyway, then made a few more random turns as they ran. Eventually they stopped behind a dumpster next to a large building.
Taylor said, “Mutiny? Counter-mutiny? What the hell is going on here?”
“What’s going on is that seven MPs were never going to be able to hold this place down. Colonel Howe miscalculated. And now we have to operate in this clusterfuck without getting arrested for aiding a mutiny, or whatever charges General Morgan will cook up.”
He switched on his walkie and cycled the channels to see if he could hear any chatter. Nothing but dead air.
Then he heard some commotion to the west of their position, and the sound of a fast-moving vehicle.
He tried to pull up a mental image of Camp Hayden’s layout. In their haste to get away from the Rangers he was pretty sure they’d doubled back too far east of the lab. They needed to head west, and a little to the north.
He signaled to Taylor, then moved quickly down a dirt roadway.
They made a few more turns, and then Brodie could hear voices ahead. As they approached the DEVCOM lab building, he could make out the voice of Caroline Dixon. She didn’t sound happy.
They edged around the corner, enough so they had a view of the front of the lab, illuminated by a nearby streetlamp. A group of six Rangers stood by the front door, which was ajar.
In their midst, Dixon was cuffed and yelling at a staff sergeant as they led her away.
Taylor whispered, “Scott…”
“Just wait.”
They watched as the Rangers put Dixon in the back of a Humvee, her cursing at them the whole time, then they all got in, with two in the back on either side of her, and the vehicle sped off.
Brodie now spotted a figure in the open doorway of the lab. The person moved out a little into the light and watched the Humvee drive away. It was Major Klasky.
Brodie and Taylor waited a few more moments, then stepped out. Brodie said, “Good evening, Major.”
Klasky whipped his head around, startled. Then he looked at them curiously. “What are you doing here?”
“I have the same question. You first.”
The man nodded. “I’m responsible for operational security at Camp Hayden, so I’ve got a monitor set up to detect unauthorized or suspicious activity on the network. I got an alert about an hour ago that someone had connected to an external server. I rushed over here and found Caroline Dixon transferring code using an FTP client. That’s classified Intel. As officers of the law, I’m sure you’re aware of the gravity of that.”
