Vanishing Point - Marc Cerasini [86]
He waited until Sable was on his back, and smoke was coming out of the man's ears, eyes and nostrils before he cut the power.
"Yeah, there's your deal, old buddy," snarled Tony.
Legs numb, Tony stumbled to the hangar door, peered through the crack. He saw the Boeing 737 squatting on the tarmac, two men guarding it, both armed with assault rifles. A third man was pumping jet fuel into the aircraft. It was clear the enemy — whoever they were — was planning to escape in the same aircraft that brought them.
Tony grinned mirthlessly. Not if I can help it.
Shirtless, Tony was clad in light gray sweat pants and white sneakers that practically glowed in the dark — no match for the black camouflaged BDUs the bad guys were wearing. After he stashed Dr. Sable's still smoldering corpse in a storage bin, Tony raced to the grease pit behind the helicopter.
Dipping his hand in the muck, Tony smeared the brackish tar all over his pants, his shoes, then his hard-muscled arms and torso. Finally, he streaked oil across his forehead, his cheeks, under his eyes.
Tony moved to the rear of the hanger. On the way he grabbed Sable's cell phone and tucked it into his sweats.
Who knows, I might get to use it yet, he thought.
Cautiously, Tony slipped out the back door and vanished in the fast fading night...
* * *
4:49:14 a.m. PDT
Hangar Six, Experimental Weapons Testing Range
Groom Lake Air Force Base
Jong Lee's commandos had corralled their hostages in Hangar Six. The doors were open and the massive interior of the hangar blazed with light.
The hostages, mostly scientists, engineers and researchers, had been rousted out of their beds and marched to this place. Many still wore robes, pajamas, sweats or underwear, and walked in bare feet or slippers. The few airmen and officers spared immediate execution were in uniform or work clothes. Now everyone was huddled on the concrete floor, hands on their heads, and their armed captors silently watched over them.
Captain Hsu's men had stormed the dormitory and captured its occupants in an efficient and methodical manner. But the prisoners soon learned that their captors were prone to casual violence if their authority was challenged in the smallest way.
As they were herded out of the dorm at the start of their march, Dr. Megan Reed — ridiculously clad in a pink Meow, Meow Kitty teddy and little else — refused to obey one of the soldier's commands quickly enough, and was knocked to the ground by the butt of his rifle. Corporal Stratowski moved to defend the woman and was executed on the spot, in front of everyone.
After that, the hostages were cowed, though Dr. Bascomb had to be restrained by Alvin Toth, or the middle-aged, pony-tailed scientist would have been murdered, too.
Gunfire could be heard all over the base. While Captain Hsu grabbed the prisoners, the bulk of the raiders descended on the hangars, stripping them of everything of value.
When the hostages were led past a 737 parked on the runway near Hangar 18, they saw men in black BDUs packing the cargo bays with everything from computers to prototypes of advanced weapons systems, test missiles, even bits of random machinery. Like technology-starved locusts, the raiders stripped advanced avionics systems out of the cockpit of experimental aircraft, looted file cabinets, ripped the hard drives out of every computer.
From her spot on the floor, Dr. Reed observed the activity swirling around the airplane. She also used her time to study their captors, listen to their words. Some of the men spoke Spanish, but most were Asians and spoke a dialect of Chinese. If Dr. Chang were here, she could translate. Megan wondered what had happened to her friend, Beverly. Perhaps she got away.
Dani Welles sidled a little closer to her boss. "How's the jaw?" she whispered.
Megan Reed frowned. She'd done everything she could to