The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

The hornets weren’t flown manually. Once a target was selected, each hornet was directed by its carrier drone to its destination.

All three were heading straight for Simaku’s men outside the barracks door, with one specifically aimed at the men returning with lights and another centered on Simaku. A range finder on the view screen counted down the distance to target for each hornet.

When the hornets were seconds from hitting, Linda radioed to Juan, “Now!”

The back wall of the barracks blew out, showering the cars with stones and shattering windshields and windows.

At the sound of the explosion, an alert bodyguard launched himself at Simaku and knocked him to the ground just as the hornets hit. The view screen bloomed with three white flashes of destruction. Men and body parts went flying in all directions. Linda estimated that they’d taken out at least a third of Simaku’s men in that strike, which was the only one coming. They were now out of hornets.

She didn’t need to tell Juan to move. She could see him and MacD emerge through the blasted opening in the barracks with their night vision goggles on. Two mafiosi who hadn’t been killed in the explosions went down under Juan and MacD’s covering fire as eight more people stumbled through the blasthole and out of the barracks.

Linda recognized Gretchen and Murph, but she tilted her head in astonishment at what she saw on the view screen.

“Are those kids?” Max said, incredulous.

“I don’t think they’re hobbits,” Gomez replied.

Linda spotted movement by one of the towers at the castle’s entrance. “Chairman, you’ve got two men coming out of the nearest tower. They’re both carrying rifles.”

They must have been the men manning the gate controls. With the children behind the cover of the cars, Juan and MacD circled around and flanked the gunmen, who were focused on the chaos at the barracks entrance. Juan and MacD popped up from behind the Mercedes and each took out one of the men with a single shot.

Simaku’s men were quickly regrouping and were about to close in, now that they had picked up the remaining undamaged lights. Even though his forces were thinned, he still had at least twenty men at his disposal, more than enough to wipe out Juan’s team.

Juan herded his gaggle toward the tower, providing cover fire, along with MacD, as they went. The children screamed in terror but followed their father’s instructions to come with him. Though the aunt cringed at the gunfire, she remained stoic. When they reached the tower, MacD ducked inside. When they got the all clear from him, they followed him in.

Simaku split his men, sending half of them to follow Juan toward the tower, while he and the other half disappeared through a door in the wall near the main building.

“It looks like Simaku’s trying to trap you in a pincer movement,” Linda told Juan. “Stay low once you reach the top of the wall.”

“Affirmative,” Juan said. “Let me know when his men are by the cars.”

The men approached the cars cautiously, intending to use them as cover. Linda smiled grimly. Irony.

“Hit it,” she said.

A second later, the C-4 charges attached to the cars blew up one after the other. Linda was satisfied to see that most of the bad guys were taken out at the same time. The few who were still able to move spent their next moments extinguishing their flaming clothes.

With eight fiery cars illuminating the castle, lighting was no longer a problem.

Juan came out of the gate tower onto the top of the wall.

“You’re clear for the moment,” Linda said. The rest of them exited the tower and joined him.

“Where’s the cargo drone?” Juan asked.

Linda turned to Gomez, who was piloting the drone using his own screen.

“About to touch down, Chairman,” he said.

The cargo drone entered the view screen, backlit by the auto bonfire below. The drone was much larger than the observation quadcopters, with double the number of propellers but half the lifting power of the Oregon’s helicopter. Although it couldn’t carry passengers, it was tailor-made for delivering gear to inhospitable and dangerous locations.

It touched down atop the wall that Juan and the team had scaled from the sea. It stayed there for just a second and released its load, a container the size of a steamer trunk, before it rose back into the air.

Simaku and his men reached the top of the wall at the far end of the compound in time to see the cargo drone taking off. They unleashed a torrent of fire in its direction.

“I’m taking hits!” Gomez yelled.

“Get it back to the Oregon, if possible,” Linda said, “but keep those observation drones on station.”