Don Pendleton - Splintered Sky

Lyons nodded. “Our mystery opponent took off, and we still haven’t assembled much in terms of ranking on this group. Chances are, the escapee was either the highest ranking, or the most experienced in the marauder party. Either way, that will make him valuable enough to be useful in Florida.”

“A hit on Cape Canaveral would be insane,” Schwarz stated. “The security forces on hand are well-trained.”

“So were the Air Force guards at Burgundy Lake. Besides, we’ve penetrated NASA security before, too,” Lyons countered.

“Okay. We hit the bricks and try to catch our boy on the way out of town,” Blancanales said. “I’d make it a safe bet he’d try a charter flight.”

“Check on it,” Lyons told him. “I’ll be at the battle site. Gadgets, check out the warehouse where the combined task force has the wreckage. A closer look at the stolen technology might tell us if this was an effort to steal and reverse-engineer the thrusters, or just getting it out of the way.”

“Knowing the state of international rocketry research, it’s a good bet that they already have their own version of the operating thrusters Burgundy Lake was working on,” Schwarz agreed. “And where will you be?”

“You don’t run into anything larger than a few homes or a roadhouse until you reach the coast,” Lyons replied. “The north is the eastern suburbs of Yuma, so there’ll be airports, but the only major airfield in Mexico is pretty deep behind the border, about halfway to the coast.”

“Your Spanish sucks, Ironman,” Blancanales mentioned.

“I know enough to get by. I’m just going there to see what they’ve got set up. Bear took a look on satellite and saw only single seaters, but these engines are supposed to be small maneuvering thrusters, so they can’t take up a lot of space on something like a ninety-nine-ton shuttle. Transporting a few examples via a puddle hopper won’t be difficult,” Lyons surmised.

“What about the mercenaries?” Schwarz asked.

“Cessna Stationaires hold six passengers. They dump their assault load out, and they can pack on two thruster prototypes a piece with the 180-pound luggage capacity. I saw only four in the one truck, so given the two we found in the other, we can count three Stationaires, eighteen mercenaries and six thrusters in the air toward the coast,” Lyons pointed out. “That accounts for half the force we eliminated. Don’t forget that in Mexico, whatever flight-plan paperwork exists is literally on paper, not something we could get with a hacker.”

“That’s quite a distance,” Blancanales noted, looking at the aerial photo map Lyons pointed to. “One man, doing it on foot, that’d be a hump, even to the nearest road, which would be Route 8, cutting from Sonoyta to Puerto Penasco.”

“You or I could do it,” Lyons replied. “A disciplined soldier could make Route 8 by sunrise, and there is traffic on the road.”

Schwarz spoke up. “And if he and his buddies thought ahead, they could have had a spot to dump off the heavy vehicles and transfer to less conspicuous rides before they got to the airport.”

He summoned up a satellite map on his PDA and began calculating distances from the previous night’s battle and the road to the coast.

“Foothills?” Lyons asked.

“Yup. Found it. Seriously broken ground where you could stash a used car lot and keep it invisible from the air,” Schwarz answered. “I’m going to check on the thrusters, but I think I’ll talk to Dr. Bertonni. Something tells me that she’s not out of danger yet.”

Blancanales thought for a moment. “Give me a few minutes on the phone, then I’ll hop out with you and Jack to the airfield to check it out.”

“Good plan,” Lyons replied. “The less dicking around we do here, the less chance we have of losing our wayward punk.”

“Good hunting,” Schwarz told his partners.

“Thanks,” Lyons answered. “This guy looks like he’s dangerous game.”

S ABRINA B ERTONNI DIDN’T feel any more comfortable after having her side stitched shut, but she was alive, and no longer bleeding.

She was tired, having been up for a long time, but the investigative team looking into the Burgundy Lake raid had brought her to the warehouse where recovered hardware and wreckage from the battle scene were assembled on long tables to be examined in depth for forensic traces. After a grueling inventory, the exhausted rocket scientist took a seat on a bench in a corner. A deceptively baby-faced, mustached man with a mop of unkempt brown hair and sparkling brown eyes held a bottle of cold cola out to her.

Bertonni took the bottle with a smile and he sat next to her, opening his own drink. “Thanks.”

He wore a badge naming him as Henry Miller. Sabrina raised an eyebrow as he took a seat beside her without drilling her with questions.

“You look like you could use the caffeine,” Gadgets Schwarz told her.

“Thanks, Deputy Miller,” Sabrina replied.

“Call me Gadgets,” Schwarz replied. “Deputy makes me sound like I belong in a Western.”

“Gadgets,” Bertonni repeated. “So you’re a tech-head?”

“Ever since I was a kid,” Schwarz replied, taking a sip. “I’m mostly electronics, programming and robotics, but I’ve dabbled in rocket science.”

Bertonni nodded, drawing a sip from her soda. “So what department are you with?”

“The Justice Department,” Schwarz answered. “But I’m more a tech-head than a field agent, despite the gun on my hip.”

“So I don’t have to dumb down answers to any questions you have?” the woman asked.

Schwarz shook his head. “Nope. Though I already know about the basics of your compact hydrogen cell.”

“How much do you understand?” Bertonni prodded.

“Enough to be impressed at your fuel to energy conversion formulas,” Schwarz responded. “I’m more solid-state technology, but I’ve got a solid grounding in chemistry and physics. The important thing we need to know is, how recoverable are the engine parts?”

“The thrusters were made to withstand considerable shake, rattle and roll. These were going to be tested out on the next ISS mission. We had everything set up to transport today,” Bertonni said. The words caught in her throat. “It’s so hard to believe that only a few hours ago…”

Schwarz rested his hand on her shoulder. Bertonni gulped, trying to dislodge the constriction in her windpipe, but her voice still crackled with tension.

“A plane was supposed to be coming in to pick up the test modules at Burgundy Lake this morning,” she explained. “Burgundy Lake…Stupid name for the test facility. There wasn’t anything for forty miles that was inhabitable, let alone moisture. Flat desert with just that compound, and the outskirts of Yuma safely shielded behind a mountain and…”

Schwarz gave her a gentle squeeze as she began to ramble. Bertonni wiped a tear and smiled gently at him. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Schwarz said. “It’s going to be all right.”

He frowned, then pulled his CPDA. An aerial view of the compound betrayed a landing strip not a mile away. “You didn’t happen to see what went down at the airstrip?”

“No, but explosive charges were placed around the dormitories for the staff, as well as the testing and administrative buildings. All we knew was that the trucks rolled up, and then my partners started…started…”

Schwarz gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. She rested her hand on his, smiling at the gesture. “You need to get some sleep. I’ve got a pair of well-armed federal Marshals who will keep you safe.”

“Could have used them six hours ago,” Bertonni said with a sob. “You’re going to make sure whoever did this won’t get away with my friends’ murders, won’t you?”