The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

Ever the caretaker.

Rafe sighed. The boy would still have to be dealt with, but not when Ashanda was watching.

Until then . . .

He faced the screen, giving it his full concentration.

Back to the show.

11:38 P.M.

Painter worked quickly atop a small bench inside the applied physics lab as Denton held a penlight. The professor had guided him safely here, not far from the stairwell that led up to the main building.

Despite his qualms about involving a civilian, he was glad that Denton had accompanied him. The lab was tucked off the main hall, easy to miss. The long narrow room held a jumble of gear and equipment, dominated by a large cubic press with stainless-steel anvils used for high-pressure studies, as in the creation of synthetic diamonds.

But Painter’s goal here was more priceless than any diamond.

Denton had guided him to a locked cabinet. After a breathless fumble of keys, he got it open and passed Painter a box of solid-pack electric blasting caps. “Will this do?” he had whispered, breathless with hope.

It would have to . . . but it still required some improvisation.

Painter concentrated on his work, using tweezers and needle-nose pliers, performing delicate surgery. These types of caps required a jolt of electricity to ignite, like from a cell-phone battery or some other source. And you didn’t want to be close by when that cap exploded the C4. He needed a remote way of shocking the blasting cap from a distance—and with no cell-phone reception down here, that left only one other possibility.

With great care, he crimped the cap’s fuse wires to the battery leads on the gutted XREP Taser shell. The shotgun shell was the same size as any twelve-gauge round, but its casing was transparent and packed with electronics rather than standard buckshot. Even with his background in electrical engineering and microdesign, Painter held his breath. Any misstep could blow off his fingers.

As he secured the last wire—checking to make sure he didn’t disturb the device’s transformer and microprocessor—a furtive noise drew his attention toward the lab’s door. The telltale tramp of boots on stairs echoed over to them, followed by muffled voices, clipped and terse, definitely military. The search team was headed down here, confident, moving with minimal caution, thinking their targets were nothing more than frightened, unarmed civilians.

Painter quickly reassembled his jury-rigged shell, pocketed it, and grabbed the Mossberg shotgun from where it leaned against the bench. Turning, he whispered and motioned to Denton. “On my signal, you take off for the others. I’ll buy us some time.”

The professor nodded, but the penlight in his hand shook as he flicked it off.

Painter led the way back to the lab’s door and crossed the few steps to the main hall. With Denton hovering behind him, he peeked around the corner. In the wan illumination of emergency signs, he spotted a clutch of men in black commando uniforms gathering at the foot of the stairs. With hand gestures, the team prepared to split: half to search the basement beneath the science building, the others preparing to enter the underground facility that extended north of the center.

Painter didn’t have a moment to spare. With a finger to his lips, he waved for Denton to head down the hall, away from the gathering in \the stairwell. Denton wouldn’t be exposed for long. Fifteen feet away, the darkened hall turned abruptly to the left. Once around that corner, the professor had a clear run straight for the others.

Denton seemed to realize this. Hugging the wall, he hurried toward safety. Painter used the Mossberg’s ghost-ring sighting system to keep a watch on the assault team. If any of them made an aggressive move in Denton’s direction, he intended to drop the man with a sizzling jolt of a Taser round. The surprise of such armed resistance should drive the hunters into momentary cover, hopefully buying Painter enough time to make it around the same corner as Denton before the team regrouped.

Without taking his eyes off the assault team, he listened to the soft tread of Denton’s retreating steps. When he reached the corner, a soft double cough sounded from that direction. Painter turned in time to see Denton’s body blown away from the corner and hit the far wall. He slid into a boneless slump, half his face gone.

Painter fought against reacting, going deadly calm, hardened by fury.

A large figure stalked into view from around the corner, a pistol fitted with a silencer smoking in his grip. The man wore black combat gear like the others, his helmet fitted with night-vision goggles. Unlike his teammates, there was nothing sloppy about his manner. The sureness of his movement spoke of command. He must have silently sneaked past Painter’s position in the applied physics lab, taking point and scouting ahead on his own. From his wary posture, the fleeing professor must have caught him off guard. The soldier clearly didn’t intend to allow that to happen again as he swung toward Painter’s direction.

Whether he’d been spotted or not, Painter knew that his only hope lay in taking the offensive. He dove low into the hall. A pistol cracked in his direction—the man was fast, but in his haste, he shot too high.

Painter fired as he slid on one shoulder, the shotgun blast loud in the confined hallway. He hit the man in the upper thigh, marked by a bluish spark of electricity as the Taser ignited. The man gasped, going rigid with a violent tremble of his limbs. As he toppled toward the floor, Painter rolled on his back, pumping the Mossberg with one hand, ejecting the spent cartridge and positioning another.

Leaping to his feet, he fired blindly toward the stairwell and turned away. He heard a shocked cry from that direction, indicating he’d hit someone. He let that small victory fuel his flight down the hall. Reaching the corner, he vaulted over the twitching, agonized body of the ambusher.

As he passed, he caught a glimpse of Denton on the floor, knew he was dead. Guilt flashed through him. The professor had been under his protection. He should never have exposed him like this—but he knew why he had.

He pictured Kai’s face, scared, wide-eyed as a doe, looking years younger than eighteen. He’d taken risks he normally wouldn’t have dared to take—and another man had paid the price for his recklessness.

Still, for the moment, he had no time for remorse.

As he turned the hall’s corner, gunfire spattered behind him. He ducked and fled out of the direct line of fire from the assault team—but such a reprieve wouldn’t last for long.

11:39 P.M.

“Get up!” Rafe yelled at the screen.

Through the camera feed, he had watched Bern shoot some white-coated old man in the face, savoring that frozen look of surprise before it vanished in a fog of bone and blood. But that victory was short-lived. A moment later, his second-in-command was on his back. The camera feed revealed a twitching view of the ceiling—then a shadowy figure leaped over Bern’s body, carrying a rifle or shotgun in one hand.