Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [104]
Using the line, he lowered the demolition charge into the building, looking over the edge of the ventilator shaft to put the bomb as close to the fan blades as he could without touching them. At least the bomb would detonate inside the walls of the power building.
Securing the line and checking everything twice, Chief Harris made note of the time on his wrist chronometer. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge before a small sun was born just a few meters from where he was standing. Moving back to the wall, the chief peeked over to see where the truck was. It was just one gun emplacement over from where he had left it, and he could see Jackson and Falco moving another box. Going over to a spot where he was right above the truck, the chief slipped over the side of the building and dropped softly to the roof of the truck.
“Checkout time, gentlemen,” the chief said quietly.
Not acting as if they had heard anything at all, Jackson and Falco returned to the truck. As Falco moved to the rear hatch, Chief Harris rolled off the roof of the truck and down onto the open ramp. The two men went back inside the cargo compartment, and Falco hit the interior ramp control. The control had been easy to locate; it was a duplicate of the one on the outside wall of the cargo compartment.
“Wake up, mister,” Jackson said inside the truck cab. He roughly shook the prisoner and slapped him twice. He was not trying to hurt the man, only to shock him awake.
As soon as the prisoner stopped struggling, Jackson held him tightly and looked straight into his wild eyes above the gag.
“We’re leaving now,” Jackson said quietly. “Play along and you’ll get to live through this.”
Calming only slightly, the man nodded. That gesture was the same on Earth as it was on this planet, Jackson thought. At least he hoped so as he cut the prisoner’s bonds.
There was a tight moment at the front gate when the machine seemed to resist letting the truck out. Jackson fingered the detonator in his pocket, and the driver spoke into a grid next to his door. He simply said that they had to go back for additional supplies, that the requisition had been short.
A mechanical voice from the grid stated that the discrepancy would be noted and reported. Then the gate bars slid open. None of the men started to breathe until they were well down the road and had stopped beyond the groves, more than ten kilometers from the facility. The SEALS officer had forced the alien driver to push the vehicle as fast as it would go, risking everything to put some distance between themselves and the hell that was about to be released behind them. They finally stopped when the truck had passed over a small rise and was next to a deep, wide irrigation canal with sloping sides. It was the best cover that could be seen anywhere close by, and they were running very short of time.
“I would take cover if I were you,” Jackson said as he left the stopped truck.
“One minute, LT,” Chief Harris said urgently from where he lay in the canal. Falco already was lying prone on the side of the canal, his feet crossed at the ankles and pointing back toward the facility; his hands were crossed over his head, and his arms were covering his ears. Chief Harris was looking up at Jackson with some concern in his eyes.
“Thirty seconds, sir,” Harris almost shouted.
“Don’t look at the facility,” Jackson warned as he trotted over and jumped in next to his men. They all took up the same strange prone position.
As the driver wondered about the odd behavior of the puzzling aliens, he felt heat on his back as the night suddenly grew as bright as the day. The small hill behind them would give them some cover from the blast, but it wouldn