Hell Island - Matthew Reilly [7]
Then a terrifying sound shot through the radio.
A horrific animal roar.
‘SEAL team, I repeat! This is Condor! Come in!’ the Airborne commander kept saying over the radio.
‘Scarecrow!’ Mother exclaimed. ‘I got something here . . .’
‘What?’ Schofield hurried over to her console.
‘Those binary beeps just went off the charts. It’s like a thousand fax machines all dialled up at once. There was a jump thirty seconds ago as well, just after Condor called the SEALs the first time.’
‘Shit . . .’ Schofield said. ‘Quickly, Mother. Find the ship’s dry-dock security systems. Initiate the motion sensors.’
Every American warship had standard security features for use when they were in dry-dock. One was an infrared motion sensor array positioned throughout the ship’s main corridors—to detect intruders who might enter the boat when it was deserted. The USS Nimitz possessed just such a system.
‘Got it,’ Mother said.
‘Initialise,’ Schofield said.
A wire-frame image of the Nimitz appeared on a big freestanding glass screen in the centre of the control room, a cross-section shown from the right-hand side.
‘Holy shit . . .’ Hulk said, seeing the screen.
‘Mama mia . . .’ Sanchez breathed.
A veritable river of red dots was flowing out from the main hangar bay, heading toward the bow of the carrier . . . where a far smaller cluster of ten dots stood stationary: Condor’s Airborne team.
Each dot represented an individual moving past the infrared sensors. There were perhaps 400 dots on the screen right now. And they were moving at incredible speed, practically leap-frogging each other in their frenzy to get forward.
For Schofield, things were starting to make sense.
The binary beeps were the encrypted digital communications of his enemy, spiking whenever they radioed each other. He also now knew for sure that they had Signet-5 radio tracers. Damn.
‘SEAL team! Come in!’ Condor said again over the airwaves.
‘Another spike in the digital chatter,’ Mother reported.
The dots on the glass screen picked up their pace.
‘Christ. He’s got to get off the air,’ Schofield said. ‘He’s bringing them right to him.’
‘We have to tell him, warn him . . .’ Sanchez said.
‘How?’ Mother demanded. ‘If we call him on our radios, we’ll only be giving away our own position.’
‘We can’t just leave him there, with all those things on the way!’
‘Wanna bet?’ Mother said.
‘The Airborne guys know their job,’ Schofield interrupted. ‘As do we. And our job is not to babysit them. We have to trust they know what they’re doing. We also have our own mission: to find out what’s been happening here and to end it. Which is why we’re going down to the main hangar right now.’
Schofield’s team hustled out of the bridge, sliding down the drop-ladders.
Last to leave was Sanchez, covering the rear.
With a final glare at Schofield, he pulled out his radio, selected the Airborne team’s private channel, and started talking.
Then he took off after the others.
Descending through the tower, the Marines came level with the flight deck, but instead of going outside, they kept climbing down, heading belowdecks.
Through some tight passageways, lighting the way with their helmet- and barrel-mounted flashlights.
Blood smears lined the walls.
All was dark and grim.
But still no bodies, no nothing.
Then over the main radio network came the sound of gunfire: Condor’s Airborne team had engaged the enemy.
Desperate shouts, screams, sustained fire. Men dying, one by one, just as had happened to the SEAL team.
Listening in, Mother stopped briefly at a security checkpoint—a small computer console sunk into the corridor’s wall. These consoles were linked to the Nimitz’s security system and on them she could bring up the digital cross-section of the ship, showing where the motion sensors had been triggered.
Right now—to the sound of the Airborne team’s desperate shouts—she could see the large swarm of red dots at the right-hand end of the image overwhelming the Airborne team.