MacD grinned and shouldered the crossbow. With a press of the trigger, the hook arced silently up over the battlement, trailing a rope ladder behind it. MacD slung the crossbow over his back and pulled the ladder down until the rubberized hook was firmly snagged on the wall above.
“We’re good to go,” he said.
Gretchen stepped forward and flashed a smile. “Ladies first again?”
Juan shook his head and put his head through the sling of his silenced MP5 submachine gun. “This time, you’re second.” He insisted on being first in and last out on a mission whenever possible.
He tested the rope ladder and found that it could hold his weight. A glance at his watch told him that there were thirteen minutes left before the next security patrol.
That is, if the guards kept to their regular schedule.
Juan put his foot into the lowest ladder rung and began to climb.
SEVENTEEN
Linda pointed at the upper right quadrant of the main view screen from the command seat. Eric was at the helm, Hali at his communications station, and Gomez focused on the drone controls. The Oregon was five miles south of the castle, all her lights out so that she wouldn’t be seen.
“Two guards are coming around the top of the wall counterclockwise,” Linda said to Juan. Hali had put him on speaker so she could communicate directly with him.
Gomez was coordinating three drones that gave the op center a comprehensive view of the castle from the air. Instead of the winged drone he’d flown this morning, these were quadcopter drones that could hover in position. They had to fly closer to the castle for good sight lines, but the darkness concealed them. Gimballed cameras hanging from them could zoom in with high-definition visible light mode or could be switched to infrared and night vision modes.
One of the cameras showed two men making their sweep around the rim of the castle wall on the side opposite from Juan and his team. They walked lazily and smoked cigarettes, displaying little of the discipline that Linda had demanded of her crew in the Navy and expected, without a thought, on the Oregon.
Linda watched as Juan and his team crabbed along the top of the ten-foot-wide wall. They disappeared into the closest gate tower before the approaching guards could turn the corner and spot them.
A minute later, Juan’s voice came over the radio. “We’ve got two men manning the gatehouse. They’re about as bored as the two guards on the wall. They didn’t notice us sneak by. We’ll hold up outside behind one of the SUVs until you give us the all clear.”
Juan and the others hustled out of a ground-level door into the center yard. They gathered behind the largest SUV, out of the predicted path of the two guards who were coming down from their wall patrol.
The guards appeared a few moments later in the courtyard and ambled toward the main building and past the hiding team. They seemed to be idly chatting, suspecting nothing strange. Finally, they went inside. Linda noted the time and reset the clock for another fifteen minutes.
“You’re clear,” she said. “No one else is outside.”
Juan pointed at the front gate, and MacD raced toward it to plant C-4 charges so they could blow a hole in it to allow their escape by car. Juan and Gretchen darted among the vehicles, slapping smaller plastic explosive bundles into the wheel wells. Murph went over to Simaku’s Mercedes and pulled the door handle. It popped open.
“Nailed it,” he said. “Nobody locks the doors inside a castle.”
He climbed inside and turned off the dome light. The plan was for him to program a blank electronic key fob with the onboard diagnostics system used by Mercedes mechanics. The Oregon’s Magic Shop had a full set of tools for hacking into the cars of all the major manufacturers.
After a minute, he closed the door quietly and said, “We’ve got wheels.”
They all converged back at the SUV.
Linda made one last check of the castle grounds and then had Gomez switch to infrared to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone. A warm body would have appeared as a bright white figure. All three drone images were dark.
“You’re all alone,” she said.
“Copy.”
Juan and the others sprinted to the barracks’s only door, which was set into the narrow end facing away from the gates. They pressed themselves against the wall, Juan and Gretchen on one side of the door and MacD and Murph on the other side.
Juan put his hand on the door handle and said, “The door’s thick, but I can hear laughter. We’re going in.”
“Good hunting,” Linda said.
Juan pushed the door open and dashed inside.
—