Vanishing Point - Marc Cerasini [94]
"Yizi reports that the jamming continues," the man said after saluting. "She has not communicated with the base in Mexico since the initial message was sent."
"Tell her to keep trying. If the curtain of jamming parts, I want her to be ready to send and receive messages at a moment's notice."
* * *
8:50:49 a.m. PDT
Hangar Six, Experimental Weapons Testing Range
Groom Lake Air Force Base
Tony Almeida spent a long, torturous hour crawling face down through a shallow ravine outside of Hangar Six. His filthy sweat pants clung to his legs and sand filled his sneakers. Though he was covered with grease and grit, the hot morning sun broiled the skin on his back and sent rivulets of sweat rolling down his flanks. He moved slowly to avoid discovery — Tony knew he was being hunted, he'd seen the men fan out across the base. They'd found other hostages, hiding in hangars or in bunkers, but so far he'd managed to elude them.
Finally, he was within sight of the side entrance. The door was locked, but Tony had rigged it so he could open it without a key, back when he was spying on Steve Sable. Risking detection, Tony rose and sprinted across the final stretch of sand. He made it to the door in seconds, yanked it open and ducked inside.
The dim interior of the hangar's forgotten storage room was at least fifteen degrees cooler than the air outside, and Tony was out of the direct sunlight — a double blessing. He was exhausted and thirsty, and the burn marks on his chest and legs throbbed, an ever present reminder of the torture he'd endured at the hands of the late Dr. Sable.
Tony slumped to the cool floor between two stacks of crates and paused to catch his breath. Just fifty yards away, at the front of the hangar, the hostages were still being held at gunpoint by an unknown number of guards. Tony dared not doze off, his mind remained sharp and alert while he rested his tired muscles. Mouth parched, he longed for a cold beer.
He heard an animal snort. Quietly, Tony rose to his feet, crept to a mountain of wooden crates and peered around them. A man was there, his back to Tony. He slumped in the battered office chair beside the workbench, head lolled to the side. While Tony watched the man snored again.
Tony retreated to a massive spool of cable mounted on a rack. Irregular lengths of the black wire lay around his feet like dead snakes. He selected the most useful one and crept back to the sleeping man.
Tony moved around the work bench and behind the snoring man. It was one of the Cubans. Tony had heard the men speaking Spanish while he spied on them and recognized their accents, though how the Cubans and Chinese came together for this operation was beyond Tony's grasp at the moment.
Crouched behind the man, Tony saw a Makarov PM tucked his belt. He longed for that weapon more than he'd wanted the beer. Peeking between boxes and banks of machinery, Tony could see a guard standing over the hostages, who were still huddled on the floor.
He would have to strike quickly and quietly, or he would die in this dusty storage room. Hands rock steady, he looped the wire, then slipped it around the man's neck.
The Cuban's legs kicked out and, choking, he flopped in his chair, but the only sound he made was a faint gargle. The Cuban clutched at the wire around his throat, but it was sunk so deeply into his flesh, he could not get his fingers around it. Grunting, Tony yanked harder, crushing the man's trachea, the arteries in his neck. A final tug, and the Cuban's neck snapped. The struggling ceased. Tony released the cable and snatched the pistol from the man's belt.
He fumbled through the dead man's pockets, discovered two more clips of ammunition, a fake passport identifying him as a Salvadoran. When Tony was finished tossing the corpse, he carefully adjusted the man in the chair so he would appear asleep. Then Tony faded back into the shadows of the hangar, to plot his