Nightstalkers (39 page)

The team was dressed in their Senators Club camouflage: golfing shorts, shirts, khakis—a hodgepodge of civilian clothing. Roland had a large, sky-blue canvas bag with the UNC logo on the side packed full of goodies slung over his shoulder while the rest of the team had their MK-23s under their shirts.

Eagle brought the Snake low over a cemetery in the middle of campus on South Road, several blocks from the research building and the clock tower that was the center of the UNC campus. The side doors slid back, fast ropes were tossed out, and they were all on the ground in five seconds. The ropes were cut loose and the Snake disappeared, flying low away from the target.

The team rendezvoused at the edge of the cemetery.

Moms looked at her team. She managed a smile. “We survived Senators Club. We can do this. Some of you even went to college, right?”

“I—” Doc began, but Mac cut him off.

“Went to a whole bunch of colleges and got a whole bunch of degrees. We know.”

“I went to Harvard,” Eagle said, surprising everyone. “They partied hard there.”

“Then let’s party,” Moms said.

Roland hefted the UNC bag. Moms looped her arm through Kirk’s as much to look like they were a couple as to help him with his injured side.

The Nightstalkers began walking down the street. The physics building wasn’t in sight yet. They passed the student stores. The Wilson Library with the clock tower to their left.

“Showtime,” Moms said.

Roland began bellowing “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” Moms and Nada did “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” and to add southern charm, Kirk added a country tune.

None of them sang well and they began to stagger as if drunk.

Inside the lab, the golden sphere was changing shape, becoming an iris. Expanding, growing taller, wider. Burns and the other Ivars were kneeling in front of it, like worshippers.

On the roof, the Russian mercs spotted the group staggering down the sidewalk, singing something awful, very loudly.

One of the mercs spit over the edge of the building. “Drunken American fools.” He pointed up. “Keep watch.”

Eagle had the Snake at a hover a half mile away, equal in altitude to the roof of the building. “You were right, Nada,” he said over the net. “I’ve got six hot on the roof.” He flipped a switch and the chain gun extended out of the nose of the Snake.

The team went past the front of the physics lab building, then staggered into the parking lot.

Two big SUVs were parked near the back doors of the physics building, away from the parking lights in the shadows.

“I think Forrenzo is here,” Nada said.

Roland was still singing loudly.

“What’s in the lab is the priority,” Moms said, “not the arms dealer.”

“He’s an arms dealer,” Nada said. “He’s probably got guns that can shoot at us.”

“Then shoot back,” Moms said.

With efficient hand and arms signals, Moms moved the team toward the open doors.

Roland stopped singing and opened the bag, passing out MP-5s and strapping on his flamer.

They sprinted toward the back doors.

On the roof, the Russians heard the sudden cessation of singing. One ran to the edge and looked down. He saw the last of the team disappear into the building.

“They’re in!” he yelled over his own team’s radio.

The six mercs rushed to the stairwell on the corner of the roof. They jammed in, hurrying to get down to support Forrenzo.

Which is when the stream of thirty-millimeter bullets from the Snake tore through the wall and the stairwell became their grave.

“Scratch six,” Eagle reported.

Moms didn’t acknowledge.

“Drop your weapons!” Moms yelled as she peeked around the edge of the stairwell door into the corridor, spotting two men holding automatic weapons. Not that she expected them to, and Roland was a trigger ahead of her anyway. They were Russian arms dealers after all. Weapon dropping was not part of their repertoire.

As the two mercs brought them to bear, Roland stepped past Moms and blew them against the wall with a well-controlled and precise burst from his MP-5. They crumpled to the floor in bloody heaps.

Nada took out Stone-face with a double-tap to the forehead. Which left Forrenzo holding his gun to Ivar’s chin.

The Nightstalkers spread out, surrounding Forrenzo.

“We don’t care about him,” Nada said, nodding at Ivar, “so you can kill him or not, you’re not getting out of here.”

“Actually we don’t even really care about you,” Moms said to Forrenzo. “But you are a bad man...”

Inside the lab the iris reached from floor to ceiling. It was pulsing and the color was shifting, from gold to something darker. And deep inside, as if it had distance far behind the room and they were looking into a very long corridor, something was stirring. Something that looked vaguely human, but wasn’t.

The golden glow in Burns’s eyes was flickering. The cactus spike next to his right eye, through which the sixth Firefly from the Fun Outside Tucson had gotten into his brain, was vibrating. The spike pressed forward, tearing into his eye, and he didn’t feel it.

His face was fixed with a rigid, insane grin, blood seeping from the slashes across it. It was the mask of a man controlled by something far more powerful and dangerous than even the human brain.

“I want a car and—” Forrenzo began, but the team had no time for him.

Nada double-tapped and Forrenzo dropped like a sack of potatoes. No dying finger twitch, another thing Forrenzo should have known was false in the movies.

Ivar screamed like a girl.

“Mac,” Moms said. “The door.”

Mac reached for his ruck and pulled out a shaped charge. He put it over the lock on the steel door. “Clear!” he yelled, and the team backed up as he pressed the igniter.

The charge blew the lock out.

Kirk reached out and pulled the door open, the rest of the team ready with their weapons as they entered.

Burns faced them, his face scored with blood, a thorn poking out of his right eye. The left eye was completely gold.
Behind him, three Ivars stood shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes glowing golden. Another was on the bicycle, furiously pedaling backward.

“Fuck me,” Nada muttered as Roland fired, hitting Burns and all the Ivars.

With no effect, except to stagger them slightly as their bodies absorbed the bullets.