THE BLACK SEA
SOUTHEAST OF UKRAINE
“TWO MINUTES OUT,” Eddie called as Talia and Darcy strapped themselves in.
The island, initially a brown mass, took form in the windscreen. Tyler raised a monocular to his eye. “There’s fence along the shore, Mac. We’ll have to carry enough momentum to break through.”
“Yeah. Momentum’s not gonna be a problem, boss.”
“And there’s something else.” Tyler leaned forward, laying a hand on the dash. “Red Leader, what are those cylinders on the north and south points of the island?”
“Droids,” Eddie replied.
“Come again?”
“Sorry. That’s what I thought when I saw them at the Expo.” Eddie went quiet for a moment, and Talia could hear him clicking his keyboard in the background. “Although, now I see them in their natural environment, they look a lot more like knock-offs of the Phalanx point defense system than a pair of astromechs.”
“I followed less than half of that.” Finn squinted at the island. “Point defense system—what’s that supposed to mean?”
Seated between them, Tyler grabbed both Finn and Mac by the shoulders and yanked them down. “It means duck!”
Talia saw the spurts of fire from both ends of the island just before she threw her head down below the level of the dashboard. With a series of pings, spits, and crashes, high-velocity rounds peppered the hull and smashed through the windscreen. Glass flew into the cockpit. The leftmost engine burst into flames, and the whole craft yawed.
“I’ve got her!” Mac straightened her out, now flying on the ship’s antiquated instruments because he couldn’t lift his head above the dash.
“Do something, Eddie!” Talia shouted.
“I told you. I can’t hack the island’s security without a receiver in place.”
Another set of rounds strafed the craft. Mac fought the controls. Tyler growled into the comms. “Give me something, Eddie.”
“Uh . . . Okay, I can see the specs. They have a min range for safety.”
“Another engine’s on fire.” Mac pulled all six throttles back. “Gotta set her doon.”
“No!” Talia stretched a hand forward to catch his fist. She pushed it forward again.
“She’s right,” Tyler said. “Keep your speed.”
“One more engine and she’s comin’ doon whether ya like it or not.” Mac fought the yoke with both hands, letting Talia control the throttles. “If we hit the water too fast, we’re done for.”
The third volley from Eddie’s droids ended after only a few rounds, and Talia jerked the throttles back. “Min range for safety. That’s what Eddie said. Now that we’re close, they can’t shoot us.”
“Of course . . .” Finn peeked over the dash. “That also means we’re extremely close to the shore.”
Talia sat up and saw the fence and rocks coming on fast. Mac saw them too. He dumped the nose and splashed down. The seawater extinguished the engine fires and the cushioned impact slowed their speed, but not enough. The craft bounced on the surf.
“Brace for impact!” The Scotsman cinched his harness down and frowned at Tyler. “Ya know life has taken a right awful turn when ya have ta say that twice in one day.”
The screech of rocks against titanium came first, followed quickly by the fence. It left a band of concertina wire lodged in the broken windscreens, barely a foot from the faces of the three men in the front seats. A low ridge split the beach. Hitting it turned the craft. The monster’s nose went right, causing the pontoon to dig in and wrench the whole craft forty-five degrees. With a final groan, the tail—the section where Darcy had left her newfound explosives—rocked up into the air and slammed back down into the rocks.
Everyone cringed.
Nothing exploded.
“Out!” Tyler shouted.
“Watch it,” Eddie added. “Company’s on the way.”
Talia bent down to look through a portal at the beach to their right. “I see them. Five men coming over the rise at the south end of the beach. All armed.”
“Six, actually,” Eddie said. “One is a little pudgy. He’s lagging behind.”
Tyler helped Talia jump down from the open hatch as machine gun rounds smacked into the opposite side. He pressed her back against the hull beside the others. “We don’t have time for this, Red Leader. What can you do?”
“Talk to Finn. He’s got my receiver.”
The Aussie removed a black antenna from his tactical vest, furrowing his brow. But then he seemed to understand and took off toward the ridge at a run. “Right. Cover me!”
“With what?” Mac balanced himself against the craft and waved his crutch at the burglar. “Where’s he goin’?”
Talia didn’t take the time to answer. She had caught on to Eddie’s idea. “Darcy, did you hold any TNT back?”
“Two charges. Half a kilo each.”
“Use them.”
“But—”
Bullets kicked up dust on the ridge, pinning Finn down. He couldn’t get any higher than the wing of the ekranoplan.
“Use them!”
Darcy removed two squares that looked like caramel fudge from her vest, crammed a short metal tube into each, and with the attitude of a teenager forced to wear a blouse she despised, lobbed them over the wreckage. She did not flinch at either bang, or at the resulting shower of gravel. “There was no elegance to that, no panache.”
“There will be.” Talia rushed to the tail section to get a look at the security team. They were all running for cover. The pudgy one puffed and stumbled behind the rest. “Finn, go!”
He was already over the ridge, breathing hard on the comms. “I see a junction box, Red Leader. The lock is child’s play.”
“Good, find a cable that looks like a network line.”
“Will do.”
Talia cast a knowing glance at Tyler.
He nodded and caught Mac’s arm, leading him toward the place where the nose met the ridge. “You’re with me. Let’s have a little fun.”
On the comms, Finn was running again. “You’re in, Red Leader. Go!”
“One second . . .” Keys clicked, and Eddie talked to himself. “Where are you? Where are you? Aha! These are the droids I’m looking for.”
“Eddie . . . ,” Tyler said.
“I have control of the point defense guns. Removing safeties. And . . .” A stream of heavy rounds rocked the ekranoplan.
Talia covered her head. “Eddie!”
“Sorry. Sorry about that. My fault. Just getting the hang of things.”
Talia checked on their attackers. Seeing no further explosives, and perhaps emboldened by Eddie’s accidental cover fire, they had emerged from the rocks, advancing on the craft.
The next set of rounds from the defense guns pelted the ground behind them. They started running. Pudgy tripped and fell.
Eddie laughed. “That’s right, monkeys. Dance.”
“Drive them toward the nose,” Talia said. “We need those weapons.”
“Copy that.”
As Talia looked on from the tail section, Eddie steered his fire. All the guards except Pudgy ran halfway up the ridge and around the nose. They were too scared and confused to see what waited on the other side.
Mac met the first two with a front and back swing of his crutch, and the third caught a fist in the nose. He tried to get up, but Tyler grabbed him by the collar and smacked his head against the hull. Four and five came reeling to a stop, face to barrel with their comrades’ machine guns, now in Mac’s and Tyler’s hands. The security men dropped their weapons.
Finn rejoined the group and used the guards’ own zip ties to bind their hands and feet while Talia and Tyler checked on Pudgy.
“What should we do about him?” she asked as the lone guard raised his head to look their way.
Eddie unleashed a hail of artillery to make him duck again. “I’ve got him.”
“Let him go,” Tyler said. “Ten minutes to launch. We’re running out of time.”
The artillery ceased. Pudgy left his gun in the dirt and made a break for the hills.
While Tyler distributed the confiscated weapons, Talia briefed the team on her plan. She sent Finn, Mac, and Darcy over the rocks toward the island’s center while she and Tyler made for a bunker entrance fifty meters away. When they reached the shadow of its overhang, he offered her a familiar set of sunglasses. “Here. I saved these for you.”
The lenses faded to pale blue as she accepted them. “Franklin’s glasses.”
“I lifted them before we left the chateau this morning.”
“To limit my communication options?”
“To keep them safe.” Tyler nodded down at the device. “Put them on.” As he spoke, the bunker door swung open. “Thanks, Eddie.”
“You’re welcome. But that’s all I’ve got. The entrances were tied in to the same net as the defense guns. The interior doors are out of my reach.”
With a series of lefts and rights he guided them to the upper level of the missile control room. They encountered two guards at the final corner, and Talia shot both on instinct. A chill swept through her as she watched them fall. She had never shot anyone before, not for real.
Moaning, one of the guards tried to rise. Tyler rushed ahead and smashed him in the forehead with the butt of his gun, catching the other one in the temple when he sat up as well. “Vests,” he said, pulling down the second guard’s collar as Talia came up beside him. “In this world, if you really have to kill a man, aim for the head.”
One final door with a six-digit key code barred their path to the missile control room. “He’s in there,” Talia said. “And we have maybe eight minutes before the launch. How do we get through? Eddie?”
“I told you. The interior doors are out of my reach. But Finn has the skills to hot-wire that pad.”
“True . . . blue.” The cat burglar puffed into the comms. “But I can’t . . . reach you in time.”
“This one is on you, Talia.” Tyler positioned her in front of the pad. “You can do it.”
Six digits. An impossible number of combinations. Talia had bypassed locked doors at the Farm, but not under this level of pressure. When she was faced with key codes and passwords, her training had taught her to consider the organization—or in cases like this, consider the man. After a few more seconds, she let out a laugh. “Aria, Natasha . . .” She pictured the letters of a telephone keypad and tapped in the code. “P-O-R-T-I-A.”
The numbers flashed. The lock clicked.