The
Dragon Factory
Ten minutes
ago
Grace Courtland and Alpha Team moved quickly
and quietly through the corridors of the Dragon Factory. They
avoided people when they could, and when they couldn’t they killed.
Redman and the others dragged bodies into closets or hid them under
office desks. The team moved on, searching for Cyrus Jakoby, driven
by the certain knowledge that time was running
out.
They saw two more of the massive guards
standing on either side of a huge hatch that was the size of a bank
safe. The hatch stood ajar and the guards were alert. Grace
crouched down behind a bushy potted plant at the far end of the
corridor and studied them through the magnification of her rifle
scope. The guards were unnaturally large, more muscular and massive
even than steroid-enhanced bodybuilders. They had similar features:
sloping foreheads with overhanging brows, blunt noses, and nearly
lipless mouths. These had to be the bruisers Joe had encountered at
Deep Iron, and she could well understand why Echo Team had thought
they were up against soldiers wearing exoskeletons. The guard on
the left had to have a chest that was seventy-five inches around
and thirty-inch biceps.
Redman leaned close and whispered, “What the
hell are they?”
“Transgenic soldiers,” said
Grace.
“They look like gorillas.”
“No kidding,” said Grace dryly, and then
Redman got it.
“Holy shit.”
“Fun with science,” Grace murmured. The
hatch the soldiers guarded looked inviting, and she was willing to
bet her next month’s pay that whatever was inside was important.
She was also willing to bet that Cyrus Jakoby was in there. The
guards were hyperalert, their posture absolutely
correct.
“I need to get in there,” she
said.
“We don’t have enough cover for two snipers.
Have to take them one at a time.”
She shook her head. “No. That’s not going to
work.”
She quickly outlined a plan that had Redman
shaking his head before she was finished.
“It’s not a suggestion,” Grace hissed. “Do
what you’re bloody well told.”
Redman nodded, but his face showed his
displeasure.
Grace faded back around the bend in the
corridor and quickly shrugged off her combat gear and jacket so
that she wore boots, pants, and a black tank top. She removed the
rubber band from her dark hair and shook it out. She slid a knife
into her pocket and tucked her.22 into the back waistband of her
fatigue pants.
“Be ready,” she whispered to Redman, and
then she walked out into the center of the hall and strolled up to
the guards.
The guard on the left spotted her first and
tapped his companion. They both turned to see the tall, slender,
beautiful woman walking toward them. Grace put just enough hip sway
into her walk to catch their attention, and as she drew close she
smiled up at them.
“This is a restricted area, miss,” said the
right-hand guard.
“I know,” she said. “But I wanted to tell
you guys something.”
“What?” asked the left-hand guard, but he
leaned slightly forward, making no pretense of hiding the fact that
he was looking down her top.
“Look what I have,” Grace said in a
conspiratorial whisper.
The guards bent closer
still.
She drew her pistol and shot the left-hand
guard through the eye. A split second later Redman put a bullet
through the right-hand guard’s forehead.
Grace smiled and waved her team forward,
thinking to herself that men-even mutant transgenic ape
soldiers-were all the same. Show them a little cleavage and they
lose all sense.
She stepped to the edge of the hatch and
peered carefully inside. She could see a group of people standing
thirty yards down a foliage-lined path. She recognized the Jakoby
Twins at once.
Suddenly warning buzzers began blaring
overhead and a recorded voice blared from wall-mounted speakers,
“Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!”
Down the hall there was a rattle of
automatic gunfire and immediately automatic fail-safes activated
and the hatch began to swing shut. There was no time to think;
Grace leaped through the hatch and ducked behind a thick shrub just
as the huge portal slammed shut.
OUTSIDE, REDMAN YELLED as the hatch clanged
into place. Gunfire and screams filled the air and people erupted
from rooms and side corridors. Some were unarmed staff; others had
guns. Everyone was yelling, and then the guards spotted them and
began firing.
More gunfire came from
behind.
There was no more time to think. Redman and
Alpha Team dove for what cover there was and returned
fire.