Free Blowout by Byron L. Dorgan Page A

the ladder from what was probably a maintenance point.
    It was Ashley Borden, the newspaper reporter Whitney had warned was coming their way. Pete might have hidden her there, but he was a PR flack, not combat trained, and he wouldn’t have had a chance against whoever these people were.
    Which was beside the point.
    Cameron sprinted to the door and out into the short corridor that ran back to the control center auxiliary electrical room, which held racks of repeaters for all the monitoring and operating panels, and directly to the right to another door that led out to the balcony from which stairs led down thirty feet to the turbine floor.
    The man with the carbine had moved to the left and was apparently talking into a lapel mike, while keeping his weapon pointed at Ashley.
    The distance was impossible for a pistol, but the noise was loud enough to more than easily cover the sounds of someone coming down the stairs, which Cameron took two at a time.
    The big man made a gesture with the weapon for Ashley to head in the same direction the other man had taken, but spotting Cameron, who’d nearly reached the bottom, she stepped back and suddenly dropped to her knees.
    Cameron fired four shots, center mass, as he moved in a dead run across the turbine floor, the first and second of them going wild, but the third and fourth hitting the big man in the right shoulder, and low in his back. He went down, the carbine skittering across the floor.
    â€œYou okay?” Cameron shouted to Ashley, his voice barely carrying over the turbine noise.
    â€œThere’re at least four others!” she shouted. She was white-faced, but she didn’t look frightened.
    The large man was struggling to reach inside his coveralls for something when Cameron pointed the Glock at his forehead from a distance of less than three feet.
    â€œNot worth dying for today.”
    Moose said something into his lapel mike, as he pulled out a standard U.S. Army–issue Beretta 92F semiauto pistol and started to raise it, a wild look in his dark eyes.
    Cameron fired one shot, the man’s head crashing back on the tile floor, a large pool of blood spreading from the back of his skull.
    Ashley got to her feet and stepped back. “They’ve planted explosives all over the place!” she shouted. “Plastique, I think. Wires leading from the detonator caps.”
    â€œCan you show me?”
    She nodded.
    â€œWhat about Pete Magliano, the guy who brought you over here?”
    â€œHe’s dead, back by the front of the turbine.”
    Cameron bent over Moose’s body and pulled the bud from the man’s left ear, and held it up to his ear.
    â€œTeam two, one, sitrep?” a man demanded.
    â€œTeam two, good to go in three,” a woman replied. “What delay do you want?”
    â€œStand by,” the man identified as one replied. “Base, one, clear?”
    â€œWe’re degrading, but still clear. Plus thirty-six, fifty-four remaining.”
    â€œMoose, one, I have Kemal. What’s the holdup?”
    Cameron bent close enough to Moose’s body so that he could speak into the lapel mike. “One, Moose. I have the reporter.”
    â€œGood, we’re out of here in three. Hustle,” Egan radioed. “Two, one. Fifteen-minute initial delay, coordinated over eight.”
    â€œRoger, setting it now,” the woman came back. She sounded excited.
    â€œRendezvous now,” Egan radioed and he sounded just as excited as the woman.
    Cameron pocketed the earbud. “Now show me where they planted the Semtex.”

 
    10
    OUTSIDE, BETWEEN THE south wall of the turbine building and the transformer yard where they’d parked the three ATVs, Barry waited with Dr. Kemal for the others. The wind had come up and Barry felt a deep chill, as if something or someone had just walked over his grave.
    He was about to speak into his lapel mike when Ada Norman came out of the door, a wild look in her