Marauder (Oregon Files 15)

“No, let it keep running,” Juan said. “We’re trying to get as much info as possible before it’s erased.”

“Roger that.”

“Meet us back by the truck. We’re leaving in four minutes.”

“Understood.”

They went back into the hall to complete their search. As they moved to the next room, the door at the other end of the corridor opened. A guard entered, calling out in Chinese as if he were looking for someone.

For a moment, he stared in shock at the three strangers standing in the hall. He recovered quickly and raised his assault rifle.

Before he could get it to his shoulder, MacD snapped off a shot with his crossbow. The bolt went through the guard’s eye, and he keeled over backward.

“He was probably looking for the truck driver,” Linda said.

They hurried to the door. Linc looked out, but there was no one there. However, a voice was calling on the radio attached to the dead guard’s belt. The tone was getting increasingly urgent.

“Chairman,” Linc said into his mic, “we had to cap one of the guards, and I think someone is about to come looking for him.”

THIRTY

Although he’d needed Parsons to pilot the Marsh Flyer, Polk had never liked the swaggering Marine. He was too much of a Boy Scout. Just last week, when one of the factory scientists injured himself while loading the hovercraft, Parsons insisted on taking him to the infirmary in Nhulunbuy instead of letting them patch him up at the swamp facility, despite the severe breach of security protocol. The action ended up saving the man’s life—at least for a few more days—but it was clear Parsons could be trouble. If Polk had any other choice of pilots when it happened, he would have killed Parsons then and there.

Now Polk would get his wish.

“I’m happy to tell you that your services are no longer needed, Parsons.”

Parsons smirked at him. “You’ve found someone else to pilot the Flyer back to Nhulunbuy?”

Polk fixed him with a stony stare. “No.”

“So you’re just going to leave it here?”

“More or less. Not all in one piece.”

Parsons finally got it and looked at the guards surrounding him. “I’m not getting any severance pay, am I?”

“No need for it.” Polk nodded at two of the guards, then pulled out his pistol and leveled it at Parsons’ chest. The guards bound Parsons’ hands behind his back with a zip tie.

Parsons gave a rueful chuckle. “I should have known you would do something like this. What a great Christmas present. And I suppose Miller isn’t your real name?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point. Would you believe me if I said that I’ve kept a record of everything I saw here, and it’ll get out if anything happens to me?”

“We’ve been observing you. You haven’t spoken to anyone outside of Nhulunbuy about your job since you started working for us, and my men have already searched your rental and examined your phone. They found nothing.”

“You tapped my phone?”

“You shouldn’t have left it unattended in the hovercraft cockpit.”

Parsons looked at the gun and sighed. “I guess I’m too stupid to live then. Get it over with.”

“As much as I’d like to shoot you, that’s not what’s going to happen. A bullet in your head would ruin any appearance of an accident here.” Polk motioned to two of the guards. “Take him to the cold storage room and lock him in. When we’re ready, we’ll find an appropriate place to put him along with the other bodies. He’ll be another casualty of the explosion.”

Parsons glared at Polk while the two guards shoved him away.

“Now, where’s my missing truck?” Polk said in Mandarin to a guard holding a walkie-talkie. While he waited for an answer, he climbed into the bed of the nearest one and opened the box holding the timer for this truck’s detonator. He set it for two hours, plenty of time to get everything in order before they left. All the trucks were loaded with dynamite and spaced so close together it would set off a chain reaction that would reduce the building to fragments.