CHAPTER 17

In the morning, the final skull sessions before the operation started early. Gathered in Pym’s lab, Scott ran them through it one more time. “All right, just so we’re clear, everyone here knows their role, right? Dave?”

“Wheels on the ground.”

“Kurt?”

“Eyes in the sky.”

“Luis?”

“Aw, man, you know it. You know what, I get to wear a uniform, that’s what’s up.”

This really wasn’t the time for Luis to be a goofball, Scott thought. “Luis,” he said again.

Luis looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I mean, I’m good, I’m good. I’m just excited, and plus your girlfriend’s really hot, so you know that makes me nervous, too, and you are very beautiful, ma’am.”

“Oh my lord,” Pym said.

“She’s not my—” Scott started to say, but he gave up, because once Luis got started there was no stopping him.

“Hey, you know what, I was thinking of a tactic, like when I go undercover, like a whistling, y’know, I’m saying, to like, blend in.” Luis looked pleased with himself.

“No,” Scott said. “Don’t whistle. No whistling, it’s not the Andy Griffith Show. No whistling.”

Luis looked crestfallen, but hey, this was serious business.

That night, the first thing the group did was get Dave and Kurt set up in the van. They disguised it as a utility worker’s vehicle, parked it down the street, and put construction cones around it like it was a job site. The reception where Darren Cross planned to announce the Yellowjacket project was crawling with two things: rich people in suits and armed security guards. One of them was Luis, who cleared security, got his badge and gun back, and headed to his position. As soon as Kurt got confirmation of this, he turned to Scott. “We’re set.”

Scott nodded. “Wish me luck,” he said. Then he opened the van’s sliding door and as he stepped out over the storm drain, he shrank and fell through the grate.

Luis, whistling a children’s tune, swiped his badge and went into the utility control room, keeping himself super casual. But he hadn’t expected anyone else to be in there.

“Hey,” another guard said, turning away from one of the control panels. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, boss man said to secure the area, so I’m securing,” Luis said while he tried to think of what to do next.

The man stepped up on him. “I’m the boss.”

“Oh!” That put a little different spin on things, Luis thought.

The guard got out a walkie-talkie. “Utilities workroom three,” he said, but he didn’t get any further than that, because Luis knocked him out with one punch.

When he’d told Scott he was the only guy ever to knock Peachy out, he wasn’t kidding.

With the guard down, Luis got to work. He was part of a team that was saving the world, man, and he had to act like it. Remembering the layout the old guy had shown him, he found the valve controlling the flow in the water main that fed the building and started cranking it.

“Water level is dropping,” Kurt said in Scott’s ear, but Scott already knew that because he was riding a raft of fire ants through the water main toward the building, and he had more head room than when he’d started. Ant-thony rode next to him.

“Whoa!” he said as the pipe turned straight down before leveling out again. Just as he got his balance again, Kurt said, “Coming up on extraction pipe.”

“I see it! All right, come on, I gotta get up there.” The fire ants reconfigured themselves into a kind of ladder and hoisted him up—and other ants in the extraction pipe formed a chain reaching down. They had to time it perfectly or the water would carry them past the extraction pipe, and there was no way Scott could get back upstream. “That’s it! That’s it, guys, yeah!” Scott encouraged them.

When the two columns of ants met, he swung up into the mouth of the pipe. “Yes! You got it! Come on!” He climbed the fire ant ladder up into Pym Tech’s interior plumbing, Ant-thony right behind him. A minute later he popped out in a sink.

“All right, let’s fly, Ant-thony,” he said. All the carpenter ants moved out, heading for an air vent.

“The Ant-Man is in the building,” Kurt reported.

Dave nodded. “Pym’s pulling up, right on time.” He watched Pym’s car… and then noticed another car that had parked nearby when he wasn’t watching. He sucked in a breath. “Got a Crown Vic right outside of here.”

“This is problem?” Kurt asked.

“Considering the Crown Vic’s the most commonly used car for undercover cops, man, yes, this is a problem.”

Dave watched as two cops jumped out of the car and headed after Pym. “Oh no,” he said. This was a complication they did not need.

Inside, Scott moved to help out Luis. “I’m employing the bullet ants,” Scott said, knowing that Luis and Hope would be in position. “Hapanera-clamda-mana-merna. I don’t remember what it’s called, but I feel bad for this guy.”

The bullet ants dropped out of the air vent onto the shoulders of the guard manning the entrance to the lab. As Luis strolled in the guard’s direction, the ants attacked and he started to jump around, yelling in pain. Luis took a big step forward and decked him. One punch and out, just like the plan.

“See, that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout, that’s what I call it, an unfortunate casualty, in a very serious operation,” he said as Hope walked by him and swiped her way into the lab.

She didn’t waste any time. Walking purposefully right to the server rack, she inserted the signal device into the rack and slid it shut. Meanwhile Luis dragged the unconscious guard into the server space where nobody would see him.

“Signal decoy in place,” Kurt reported as he saw it come online. “Mean pretty lady did good, Scott.”

Dave peered through binoculars at the cops who had stopped Pym before he could go inside the building. “Looks like Pym’s getting arrested,” he said.

“Scott, we have problem,” Kurt called out.

“Problem? What’s the problem?”

Before Kurt could answer, Dave opened the door and headed across the street. “Dave! Dave, that’s not part of plan!” Kurt yelled after him, but Dave was on a mission.

“Listen to me,” Hank said to the two cops. “If I don’t get into this building people will die.”

“That’s awfully dramatic,” Gale said. He didn’t believe a word of it. They had some questions for Pym, and they didn’t care about his reception.

Their questions were interrupted in the nick of time for Hank, when Dave hopped into the Crown Vic, turned on the lights and sirens, and squealed away.

“Are you kidding me?” Paxton couldn’t believe it. He and Gale took off after their car, while Pym took advantage of the diversion and got himself inside.

Observing from the van, Kurt said, “Problem solved.”