Red Sky At Morning 249

Jesus! What the hell could happen next?

A wild yell punctured the room, and the door was flung open. The terrorists whirled and brought their guns up, screaming warnings as a disheveled blonde figure stumbled into the room, looking around frantically. The man closest to the door leaped at her only to be intercepted by a tall, menacing shadow that grabbed him, disarmed him, and tossed him against the wall in one long, sweeping motion.

“Awright,” Andrew’s voice boomed out. “Y’all stay still, or figure yourself Swiss cheese.” With a solid, scary sound, he cocked the big black shotgun the man had been carrying, then lifted it and aimed it at the biggest guy there, a man half again his weight but about the same height as he was.

“Dar!” Kerry bolted for her.

Oh. Dar’s tired mind sighed. That’s what could happen next. Do yourself a favor, Dar. Don’t imagine anything else.

“TELL ME AGAIN what this all is?” Andrew stood, with his hands on his hips, glaring at the hapless leader of the “terrorists.” “Them people out there sent you all in here?”

“Look, sir.” The bear-like soldier had both hands empty and held out in abject defense. “It’s the training exercise. They told us to come in here and take hostages.” He looked around. “We came in here and took hostages. They weren’t supposed to fight back.”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed. His voice lowered in pitch. “You saying it was my kid’s fault she got hurt?”

“N...no, sir.” The soldier shook his head. “I’m saying we got surprised, and Niles over there got kicked in a place that really needs ice, if you know what I mean.”

Andrew threw a glance at the tallest soldier, who grimaced and crossed his legs gingerly. “What comes next?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea. “Them youngsters outside come git you?”

The man nodded. “We’re assigned to hold them off. I’ve got explosives and extra ammo in those packs. We’re supposed to blockade the room and maintain a defensive perimeter.” He hesitated. “Sir, they told us they were going to throw in some unexpected things. I thought...” He glanced over to where the rest of the “hostages” were seated. “I thought they were part of it.”

“Uh-huh.” Andrew gave him a very disapproving glare. “Well, I’m fixing to end this here exercise right quick. Don’t you go nowhere.” He shouldered the shotgun and turned toward the door, only pausing when he heard Dar’s cell phone ring. “Now what?”

“I’ll get that.” Kerry slid the phone out of the holder clipped at Dar’s waist and opened it. “Yes?”

I can answer my own phone. Dar protested, but the words never emerged, and she was content merely to listen. It was easier to think 250 Melissa Good that way.

“Mark...Mark...wait...slow down.” Kerry’s voice sharpened and took on urgency. “Hold on...ho— What?”

“Give me that.” Dar took the phone from her and listened to the chaotic sounds from the other side. She let out a yell. “MARK!” The chaos continued, then subsided.

“Boss...boss...this place is going nuts. We gotta get outta here,”

Mark yammered. “Some half-ass wackos came into that com center and trashed it! We hid in the punch down closet.” His voice went muffled.

“Get down, Brent. You fucking jerk, get your fucking head down before I kick it off!”

Ah. Dar took a breath. He’s learning my management style. “Mark, calm down. Were these military guys? They’ve got some war game crap going on in here.”

“I don’t know what the fuck they were.” Mark sounded unusually panicked. “They had guns, Dar. They fucking shot the Ethernet hub.”

Dar frowned and glanced up at Andrew, who had crossed over to kneel at her side. “Are they supposed to be firing live rounds?”

“Hell, no.” Andrew removed a shotgun shell from the gun he was carrying and showed it to her. “Dummies.”

“Can dummies blow holes in electronic equipment?”

“No way.” The terrorist leader had also come over. “We’re not supposed to break anything—in fact, my CO told me if I dented any of these machines, he’d take ’em out of my paycheck for the next twenty years.”

What the hell was going on? “Mark, stay right where you are,” Dar ordered into the phone. “Don’t take any chances. If those idiots are shooting real bullets, you three stay put until we figure out what the deal is.”

Andrew nodded. “Good idea.”

“Yeah.” The terrorist scratched his jaw and agreed.

There was a scuffle, then the sound of a slamming door, and it got more or less quiet. “Okay,” Mark panted. “We’re in here, but let me tell you, boss, I’m bucking for a bonus after this.”

Dar let her breath out with a soft grunt. “You’ll get it.” She folded the phone and let it drop onto her thigh as her eyes lifted to Andrew’s.

“Dad, what the hell is this?”

“Maybe it’s a mistake,” the terrorist leader offered. “I don’t think they really shot anything up, ma’am.”

Kerry shook her head. “No. The man on the other end of that phone isn’t someone who makes things up or panics for no reason,” she disagreed, putting a hand on Dar’s forearm. “If he says they were shooting, they were.”

Ceci cleared her throat. “Does that mean they’re coming here next?”

Everyone exchanged glances. “Well...” The burly terrorist Red Sky At Morning 251

hesitated. “We’re their target, so yeah, I guess.”

“If they’re shooting real bullets, that could be a problem.”

Andrew scrubbed a hand across his face. “Lord,” he sighed. “Ain’t this a mess. I think we’d better all just get on out of here, Dardar. Pick up your gear, and let’s move.” He touched Dar’s lower leg. “Need to get you back to where Dr. Steve can take a peek at that skull.”

Dar had to admit that was probably a good idea. The spot where she’d been hit felt hot and swollen, and it ached. Kerry had found a large bruise spreading down her neck, and with everything else that had happened, even Dar couldn’t argue with being on the safe side.

“Okay.” She glanced at her redheaded tech. “Is that download done?”

Doug, his name was, if she recalled.

“Almost,” Doug replied.

“Dar, forget it,” Kerry urged gently. “Let’s just get out of here. It’s not worth risking you.” She could see the unevenly dilating pupils in Dar’s eyes and guessed she had a concussion. It was all too much, and she found their jobs counting for less and less as each minute went on.

“C’mon.”

For a moment, she thought Dar was going to refuse. The blue eyes studied her face quietly, searching it intently before Kerry saw the surrender, then the faint nod of agreement. Dar handed her the cell phone. “I’ll tell Mark to sneak out and meet us in the parking lot.”

Ceci stood up and let Andrew get around next to Dar, gently helping her up. She had put the sling back on her daughter’s arm with surprisingly little resistance, and now Dar accepted Andrew’s assistance with the same silent gratitude.

Frankly, that scared the poo out of Ceci. The only time she’d ever seen Dar meekly submitting to this kind of babying was when she’d been really, really hurt. That broken leg, she recalled, was the last time, when the sixteen year-old Dar had huddled in Andrew’s arms, trying very hard not to cry as he carried her into the hospital.

Leaving, she decided, was a very good idea. “All right, let’s go.”

She started to lead the way toward the door when it was abruptly thrust inward and Chief Daniel entered, slamming it behind her. “Ah.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.” Daniel pointed at Dar, so angry she was almost spitting. “Went right to your buddy and told him, didn’t you?”

Dar stared at her. “No. We didn’t tell anyone here.” She glanced over to where the JAG officer had been crouched, then realized he was gone. “Wh—”

“Someone did,” the chief spat. “’Cause they’re coming through this place and wrecking everything they can get their hands on.” She turned and looked at the terrorists. “You better get your asses out of here, because they’re on the way. Unless you want to end up looking like hamburger, get lost.”

They heard a crunching sound, from not far away.


252 Melissa Good

“Too late fer that,” Andrew stated quietly. “Looks like we got us a problem.”

CECI WATCHED THE men in fatigues move cabinets in front of the door. “Should we call the cops? Andy, this is getting out of hand.” She was standing behind Dar, who was seated again at the console, laboriously pecking at the keyboard with a single index finger.

“Don’t got time,” her husband replied as he hopped up onto a desk and peered out through the glass panels that topped the wall separating them from the hallway. “Cops gotta come down from Largo, anyhow.

They get a lick of traffic, might as well ferget it.”

“So what are we doing?” Ceci knew she sounded nervous, but the loud noises of destruction were coming closer, and she had a lot of things to worry about in the room. Andrew, for one, who tended to believe in his own indestructibility.

“’Specting us to hold em off, so that’s what we’re gonna do,”

Andrew replied. “Give ’em ’nough trouble to make ’em run off somewheres else.”

Chief Daniel snorted. “This is where they want to be.” She pointed at the mainframes. “They won’t leave those standing.”

The leader of the terrorist SEALs glanced between Andrew and the chief, obviously confused. “Ma’am, just what the hell’s going on here?”

“You don’t want to know,” the chief told him point blank. “Because if you did, you’d have to spend the next ten years in some admin’s office doing paperwork on it, got me?” She looked around the room and shook her head. “We can’t hold this place.”

“Sure we can,” Andrew disagreed. “Just need us some unconventional ammo, that’s all.” He looked over to see Kerry crouched next to Dar, ostensibly watching the screen, but with her attention obviously focused on her injured friend. “What you got in them guns, paint?”

The lead terrorist nodded, then jumped as they heard the distinct sound of bodies thumping against the wall in the hallway. “Here they come.”

“All right.” Andrew pointed. “Ceci, get down behind that there cabinet. Take the kids with you.”

Dar and Kerry exchanged glances, then looked at Ceci. “Kids?”

Kerry objected, but got up to move anyway. “Come on, Dar.”

“In a minute,” Dar replied absently, typing in a final command.

“This is almost done.”

“Dar.” Kerry heard the crackle of a megaphone outside. “Now, please?” She tugged very gently on her lover’s uninjured arm.

“You there inside,” a voice boomed out. “We know you’ve got hostages. If you know what’s good for you, let them go.”

Dar reluctantly got up and joined Kerry and her mother behind the Red Sky At Morning 253

big computer consoles, where Doug and his co-worker were also crouched. She took out her cell phone and opened it, redialing Mark’s number.

“You stay where you are, or these guys get it,” the terrorist leader recited dutifully. “I got women in here, and I’ll waste ’em.”

Andrew gave him a look.

“That’s what they told us to say, sir,” the man rumbled apologetically. He deployed his men to either side of the doorway and told them to keep down. “They’re going by the plan, too. You sure this isn’t just part of the exercise?”

At that instant, the lights went off. A thick, dark silence fell over the room as the air conditioning stopped and the computers shut down in a sad, dying whirr of fans.

“Note to self.” Dar’s voice cut through the gloom. “Recommend independent UPS systems.”

“Jesus,” Kerry whispered.

“Doug, disconnect the box, and pull it over toward me,” Dar said quietly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Andrew blinked, then blinked again to see if that would help him see anything in the darkened room. No such luck. His mind ran through the possibilities and didn’t much like any of them. “Figure they’re gonna toss something through them there winders next,” he muttered.

“Gas? Yeah,” the terrorist leader agreed softly. “We got masks.”

“Not enough of ’em.” Andrew let his eyes close as he stood up.

“Stay here. You hear something, get down.”

“Yes, sir.”

Doug crept across the tile floor dragging the big box. “Okay, here it is, ma’am.”

Dar felt the equipment, making sure the cover was tightly on and the back ports were secured. She thought a minute, then felt around her until her hand touched a box of fanfold paper intended for the big line printer nearby.