By the time darkness fell Tommy-Lee still hadn’t heard the van leave and wondered what the men were up to. They must still be in the hangar with the drones; there was no other reason to keep them here.
James was asleep, his breathing now even and less frantic after an initial attack of near-hysteria following Paul’s final words. The Tylenol and candy had helped, Tommy-Lee figured, along with exhaustion. He wet a piece of torn shirt and placed it over the man’s forehead, which was still hot, then took out his knife and walked to the door.
Two minutes later he was outside and studying the hangar. For a while he couldn’t see a thing except for a faint static glow on the side where the office lay. Then the glow changed and morphed into three flashlights moving around inside the building. He got ready to duck back into the room and pull the door shut, then realised they were moving towards the opposite side of the hangar door and the runway. He held his breath. They were all together, walking in a line that didn’t vary in distance, like they were joined by a rope.
When they disappeared round the side of the building, he pulled the door to behind him, resting the hinge side against the frame, then set off across the grass after them. By the time he reached the corner where the lights had gone, he was breathing heavy, although not from his exertions; this was crazy and he knew it, but he had to know what they were doing.
The lights were about two hundred yards away at a guess, and heading away from the hangar down the old runway in a line. That made sense; if they were moving in the dark, even with flashlights to help them, staying on the concrete would be a lot easier than heading out into the uneven terrain of rock, brush and potholes waiting to trip them up.
But why were they spaced out that way?
The problem he faced was the lack of cover out here save for the dark. If one of them should turn back for any reason he’d be caught wrong-footed with nowhere to go.
He compromised by keeping to the edge of the runway, where the grass and brush were heavy enough to give him an even chance of staying out of sight if he had to hit the ground fast.
He counted his paces to give himself a feel for the distance he was covering, eyes fixed on the lights. They didn’t seem to be getting any closer, which was good, and as long as he could see three still moving, that was all he had to worry about.
Then he realised they’d stopped moving. Had they sensed his presence?
He froze and lowered himself to the ground, moving slowly. Quick movement, even at night, gets spotted easily, he knew that from his military training. He could hear the murmur of the men’s voices now, carrying on the night breeze with nothing out here to stop them. And they were closer, about a hundred yards he figured.
The lights were still in a cluster, but now much closer. He edged forward, treading carefully to avoid dry strands of brushwood and hoping he didn’t step on a snake.
Eighty yards. Their voices were more than just a murmur now, and he could pick out Paul’s quite easily over the other two. He sounded impatient and snappy, a man who liked giving orders and having no time for delay in others.
He sank to his knees and edged closer, pushing aside clumps of coarse grass with his hands.
Fifty yards.
He was close enough now to see that the three men were all wearing headlights and standing around four of the crates from the hangar; two large, two small. Maybe that explained the way they’d been moving: they’d been carrying the crates in a line. By the lights he could see that Donny was on his knees and holding one of the white drones, which now had its skids and propellers fitted. He placed the drone to one side, then lifted one of the control units with its video screen out of the smaller box next to it. After a few moments he stood up and said something to the other two, and all three men moved back several feet and spread out.
Donny hunched over the controls and there was a frantic buzzing noise and a flick of light, and the drone seemed to shake itself before lifting off the ground and into the sky, the white casing a ghostly blur reflecting the glow of the men’s headlights. When the buzzing began to fade, Paul said something sharp. Donny replied and seconds later the buzzing grew again and the drone appeared in the lights, moving about fifteen feet off the ground. It flitted back and forth unevenly, then shot away again and over their heads.
It was now heading directly towards the position where Tommy-Lee was hiding.
He burrowed backwards, keeping low, then turned and scurried away on his elbows and knees as fast as he could, toes digging into the ground to give him purchase. Seconds later the drone passed right over his head and he hugged the earth and froze, then turned back towards the men. He watched it go but didn’t dare move; he was still in their direct line of sight and all it would take was for one of them to take their eyes off the drone and they might spot him. As soon as it flitted away to one side, drawing the headlights with it, he started moving again to give himself some distance in case it came back.
Suddenly the buzzing took on a higher, more frantic pitch and Tommy-Lee turned round to look. There was a flash as the drone was caught in one of the men’s headlights for a split second, then it dipped suddenly and hit the ground with a dull crunch.
He heard Bill laugh. But Paul said something ugly, cutting the big man off in mid-stream. Then Donny stood up where he’d been kneeling on the ground and walked away like he’d lost his pet dog.
Paul hadn’t moved; he stood like a statue, watching Donny. Then he lifted his head and said something sharp to the big man, who turned and began walking in a wide circle, head swinging left and right like a guard dog, the light playing on the ground wherever he looked. When he turned his way, Tommy-Lee ground his face into the dirt and didn’t move a muscle. He was pretty sure the big lug wouldn’t see him this low down, but he held his breath all the same, breathing in the aroma of sun-baked soil, jackrabbit shit or whatever the hell else was lying around here.
After a couple of seconds Bill’s headlight swung away and he resumed his patrol. Tommy-Lee relaxed. That Paul must have the instincts of a jackrabbit; yet he was sure he hadn’t made a wrong move and given away his presence. So what had spooked him like that?
Then he recalled the camera he’d seen in the bottom of the smaller case, and the screen attached to the control unit. Damn, he’d been careless; the thought that they might have been able to see him watching them made his blood run cold.
Even as he thought it, he saw something. It was a flicker of movement beyond where the men were standing. It was too quick to identify, but something low to the ground. He figured it might be a fox or a dog, come to see what was going on, and Paul had seen the same movement.
He breathed more easily and moments later saw Donny rejoin Paul. The bigger man was giving the geek a hard time, the words snapping out like a whip in the dark. Donny didn’t say a thing, just stood there and took it, head down like a beaten child. After a while Paul seemed to run out of steam and the geek went back to kneeling on the ground again, only this time working on the other two crates.
Ten minutes later another shape took off, dipping sharply towards the ground before recovering and disappearing into the dark just like the last one. This one had a small red light on it, showing its position about fifteen feet above the ground and moving to one side some fifty yards away.
Tommy-Lee figured it was some kind of locator light so they could follow its progress in the dark. Maybe the last one hadn’t been working properly. The light didn’t stay on for long. After several manoeuvres that took it closer and closer to the ground, it suddenly flew high in the air like it had been fitted with a booster rocket, the buzzing frantic and high-pitched. He heard Paul shout a warning and saw Bill running off to one side to get out of the way. But it was too late. The red light dipped and went down to the ground way faster than it had gone up.
There was another crash followed by a howl of frustration from Paul. This time Bill was silent. Paul strode across to Donny and swung his arm in a roundhouse punch. There was the sound of a fist on flesh and Donny gave a shrill cry and fell to the ground, his head-light flying off to one side.
Tommy-Lee had seen enough. The morons had as much chance of keeping those things in the air as they did of flying to the moon. Whatever they thought they were going to do, they weren’t going to accomplish anything except make holes in the ground and smash up their toys.
All he wanted was his money and he could be out of here.
As for Chadwick, he’d have to take his chances.
He was turning to go when he heard a phone ringing, followed by Paul’s voice. He sounded angry.
‘I told you who they work for. All you have to do is track the movements of any personnel from London. Use the brotherhood to enter the company’s systems. There are only two of them and one is a woman; it should be simple enough. Do not let them get in my way. I don’t care how you do it, but find them, follow them and stop them! End it now!’