The Project 04 - Black Harvest

the goggles. They entered the compound and ran for Building Four. They reached the entrance, a recessed doorway halfway down the side. There was a camera over the door. Ronnie sprayed the lens with black.
    Any patrol coming would appear to the north or south along the road.
    "Selena, cover north. Ronnie, you take south." She ran across to the next building and ducked into the doorway, reached up and sprayed the camera.
    Korov placed a charge against the door lock on Building Four. It went off with a dull thump. They pushed the door open, stepped inside and closed it. They turned on lights mounted on the sides of their helmets.
    They were in a long corridor with a door at the end. A door in the wall led into a room with an airlock. From outside came the rumble of diesel engines starting up. A row of lights came on in the hallway.
    Korov and Carter ran to the end of the hall and opened the door. They entered a modern laboratory. Tables, microscopes, centrifuges. Things Nick couldn't indentify. A row of refrigerators on one wall. Korov opened them. The last one contained glass jars filled with the virus. Korov began placing charges. Nick went to the back wall. He tried the handle on the freezer door.
    Locked.
    He shaped charges around the lock and hinges, set detonators and moved away.
    Korov never glanced up when it blew. The door fell onto the floor. Cold air rushed into the room. Sealed boxes filled the freezer, each about two feet long and a foot high. Nick pulled off his pack and began.
    The heat from the charges would melt the steel walls of the freezer and its contents along with the supporting beams of the roof. The thermite might explode as it mixed with vapor from the freezer. Adam had warned about explosions, but there wasn't anything Nick could do about it. If it did blow, the heat ought to take care of it. He hoped.
    "Done." Korov came over. He helped Nick finish the sequence.
    Nick activated the timers. "Ten minutes. Time to boogie."
    "Boogie?"
    "Get out of here."
    "Nick." Selena's voice sounded in his headset. "Patrol. Coming from the north."
    "Don't engage unless they spot you."
    "Roger."
    "I think," Korov said, "that now it gets interesting."

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

    Selena watched a black Suburban drive between the buildings, shining a spotlight into the shadows. The light swept back and forth across the road. She raised her MP-5, risked a quick look through the night scope and focused on the windshield in front of the driver. He had a microphone to his mouth. Her heart began pounding.
    Steady your breathing. Relax. Slow your heart rate, take up the slack. Take your time. Don't fire until you have to.
    Easy, standing on a firing range. Not so easy when the adrenals began pumping. She ducked back into the doorway. Across the way, Ronnie waited. Nick and Korov emerged behind him. The spotlight found them. She leaned out of the doorway and put eight rounds into the windshield of the SUV. The stuttering ripple of shots broke the silence.
    The light went out. The windshield shattered. The Suburban skewed left and rammed into the side of a building. The passenger door opened and a man rolled out into the street. He had an M-16. He brought it up and fired, the bullets slamming into the wall above her head. The MP-5 bucked against her shoulder and Selena shot him, three rounds, center of the body.
    A loud, shrieking alarm began. The sound came from everywhere, echoing down the space between the buildings, bouncing from the walls, filling the night air.
    Nick spoke into his microphone. "That tears it. Back to the vehicles."
    "Nick." Lamont's voice on the headset. "They're piling out of the barracks. One Humvee pulling out already, man on the gun. They're scrambling. Get your ass out of there."
    "Take out the generators and the propane tanks."
    "Roger that."
    The generators were big, but they were essentially diesel engines. A few rounds through the radiators and the block would put them out of action. The unmistakable sound of the .50 boomed loud in the Texas night. They ran for the fence. The lights flickered. The Barrett had a ten round magazine. Nick heard two more fast shots. Half the lights died.
    They reached the last row of buildings before the fence. A Humvee wheeled around the corner at the far end and turned onto the road between the buildings. The gunner up top cut loose with the belt fed machine gun. The M240 spit out 7.62mm rounds, lots of them. Selena and Ronnie went right, Nick and Korov left,