SEAL Team 13 (SEAL Team 13 series) (28 page)

“How’s your fuel?” Judith asked, leaning forward.

“We’ve got time before we’re bingo for fuel, Captain.”

“Touch and go,” Masters spoke up. “You’re our only way out of this nightmare. Don’t spend any time on the ground if you can help it.”

The pilot glanced at Judith, who scowled but nodded in agreement.

“Roger that. We’ll touch you down just outside the main building, then circle until you’re ready for pickup. Be quick about it, though. We have fuel, but it won’t last forever.”

With that in mind, Masters led his team in a surprisingly textbook touch-and-go dismount from the chopper, and they took the airport in under a minute.

“Secure the doors, and kill those emergency lights,” he said as he headed for the administrator’s office. “I’ll get the computer.”

Security locks in an airport were a joke at the best of times, but here they were even more lacking. It took him only a few seconds to pop the lock and make his way over to the computer he was looking for. When the power was switched off, the airport had changed over to backup power, just as he’d been expecting it would. If it hadn’t—well, it would have taken a bit longer to get the intel he needed. As it was, the computer had been left on after its last use, and the password was actually stuck to the screen with a Post-it. He hadn’t been counting on that; Masters knew his way around most common security systems, and he’d been confident that he could get into this one, but he was happy to take the easy route.

“Anything?” Norton asked, making his way inside.

“Just a second. I’m checking the records now,” he said, tapping in a few quick searches. “All right. Normal flights check out, nothing unusual. Food, medical, and so on.”

“What about the medical flights?” Norton asked. “Sounds like a good way to ship a body.”

“Nothing recent,” Masters said. “A few caskets going out, that’s it. On to special flights…” He whistled. “Your Asatru buddies got a few things flagged here.”

“Oh yeah? Any caskets?” Norton asked, stepping over to lean on the desk and look for himself.

“No, small arms, axes, swords.” Masters snorted. “The swords were what raised a few eyebrows.”

Norton grinned. “Imagine that.”

“All right, that leaves the oil companies,” Masters said. “Lots of flights from them, mostly transport—people from what I can tell. Nothing logged in here looks strange, except…”

“Except?” Norton prodded.

“There’s a Gulfstream parked out in a hangar that came in a few days ago and skipped past the inspection team here. Nothing too unusual about that, but they did note that a truck pulled in and left a while later with a covered bed,” Masters said. “Could be our vampire.”

“Why in the hell would an oil company import a vampire, Hawk?” Norton looked genuinely confused. “It isn’t exactly good for business, you know?”

“Right now, I’m less concerned with the why than the where,” Masters mumbled, shaking his head. “There’s no extra info in here, just that it’s a Benthic Petrol plane. A British company is leasing the rights here.”

“Well then, I’d say that we check their rigs first, wouldn’t you?”

Masters nodded. “Yeah. We’ve got a target.”

The two left the office, heading out into the airport proper. Masters nodded at Judith as he approached. “We’ve got a target; call in the bird.”

Southwest of town, the fires of hell were burning.

Masters didn’t know what had lit off the wells, but he expected the news services would have a field day once this was exposed. The entire mission was turning into a nightmare, in more ways than one. Even tabling the fact that monsters were stalking the night around here, the aftermath was certain to be brutal.

“That’s the BP site, right there!” the pilot called back over his shoulder.

“You sure?” Judith asked, cocking her head to look out.

“Positive! Made more than one flight through here this year already. First time I had to dodge smoke plumes, though.”

Judith nodded, leaning back as she looked over at Masters. “I hope you have a plan.”

He was staring down at the site, where flames were erupting from the ground like a godly blowtorch.…It wasn’t exactly making him feel great about the situation. They needed a good firefighting team up here, though he’d put money on it that Keyz would be able to put those out in a pinch. Either way, he wasn’t about to call in for civilians or send Keyz off to play with high explosives until he knew the area was secure.

“Course I do,” he said before glancing over at Norton, whose gaze was fixed on the flames too. “We have a plan, right?”

Norton shot him a mild glare, then sighed and shook his head.

“Crap.”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Norton said. “You don’t know what we’re dealing with, Hawk. Vampires, they’re something different. They’re not like most things you’ve seen, not even on our side of the veil. The old ones are rare and damned near unstoppable.”

“Nothing’s unstoppable, Alex,” Masters told him grimly.

“Death rejects these people, Hal. These people have done things so hideous that they’ve managed to change the very nature of the universe,” Alex said. “That just doesn’t happen. Death doesn’t just reject people, Hawk.”

“Alex.” Masters shook his head. “You know as well as I do that what happens beyond the veil doesn’t obey natural laws.”

“That’s bullshit,” Alex said vehemently. “Everything obeys natural laws.”

“I’ve seen you tell
gravity
to piss off, Alex!” Masters growled. “Don’t give me that. Hell, we’ve got a damned ice witch in the chopper with us. How is that any different?”

Alex just glared at him. “There’s a world of difference between playing the game and breaking the rules, Hawk.”

“In my book, all that means is that we don’t understand all the rules yet.” Masters shrugged. “These things have been destroyed in the past, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, nodding. “Yeah, they have. Supposedly.”

“Then I just need to know how.”

Alex sighed. “The best results have always been fire. Lots of it.”

Hawk Masters snorted, looking out the open door of the chopper at the well fires exploding from the earth like the devil’s own blowtorches.

“Fire is the one thing we’ve got plenty of.”

“You ever have a pet cat?”

“Yeah, why?” Masters frowned.

“You ever give that cat a bath?” Alex asked wryly.

Masters grimaced involuntarily.

“Shit.”

Alex smirked. “Yeah, now think about how much this little kitten will scratch when you try to bathe
her
in those flames down there.”

Black smoke curled into the dark sky, only visible for an ephemeral instant in the flickering firelight as the chopper hovered low over the ground to let men and women pour out. The team dropped into the watery slush that covered the ground, boots ankle deep in the runoff from the burning wells.

Hawk waved them forward as the chopper lifted again into the darkness, leaving them on their own as they moved toward the closest building that seemed mostly intact. It was a trailer, a cheap, prefab building that had seen its better days well over a decade ago, but it wasn’t in cinders, and that made it a good first stop.

Hayes and Turner took the door, breaching like they’d been born doing tactical entries. For all Masters knew, they had been. Their file didn’t say much on what they’d done before joining the navy.

“Clear!”

He and Alex followed them in, tearing through the place quickly. There was a computer plugged into an uninterrupted power supply, and Masters dropped into the cheap desk chair in front of it.

He tapped away at it for a minute, opening files and checking the history as well as the trash bin.

“Nothing. Just bookkeeping files.” He snorted, getting up. “I don’t think they could fit a coffin in this place anyway, not through those doors.”

“Storage building, then,” Eddie offered up. “There’s a couple of them nearby that haven’t been torched.”

“Yeah.” Masters nodded. “Let’s go.”

They could feel the heat pouring off the nearest well fire, though it wasn’t really all that close. Still, it was near enough to make them sweat as they approached the first of the storage buildings, eyeing the darkened windows carefully.

“Looks dead,” Eddie said as they moved toward the doors.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d use a different word; thanks so much,” Alex growled, his eyes flicking back and forth. He wasn’t only expecting trouble, he was pretty sure it had already arrived.

The Asatru duo chuckled between themselves, seeming a little too gleeful for the comfort of the rest of the group, save perhaps Hannah.

“Death is but another step in the journey of life, Black,” Perry Rand said.

“Yeah. The last step,” Alex rejoined sourly.

“I find it both interesting and ironic that someone of your stature in the communities seems to be such a nihilist,” Rand told him, honestly bemused. “You don’t believe in an afterlife?”

“Never met anyone who could prove it exists,” Alex shrugged, “and I live in a world where I
know
gods exist, so frankly I find the lack of evidence all the more compelling.”

“Come on, Black, do you want to live forever?”

“Another sixty years would be nice.”

“Can the chitchat.” Masters finally stepped in. “We have a door to breach.”

It wasn’t much of a door, as such things went. Security was lax, but there was no reason for it to be tight in such an area. Probably the worst the company expected to deal with out here was bored teenagers from Barrow, drunk and looking for something to do in the long night.

So they didn’t bother wasting what little other ammo they did have. Mack just mule-kicked the door while Derek performed the entry, leading the group into the darkened shed.

Lights flicked on as they swept the room, finding nothing hidden in the shadows as best any of them could tell. In fact, there was nothing there at all.

“Empty. You’d think there would be something in here.”

Masters didn’t like it, not at all, but then he didn’t much like anything about the entire op. There wasn’t a lot to like from where he was standing, pop culture’s obsession with zombies and their ilk notwithstanding.

“Clear the corners,” he ordered. “We have another building near here to check, and one stone-cold bitch to put back in her grave.”

The group nodded, clearing the area as best they could. The building was expansive, filled with junk and material that had probably been scrapped from equipment repairs on site.

“We’re clear.”

Masters nodded. “All right. Next building.”

With Eddie on point, the team crossed the slush-filled terrain and made their way to the second large storage building on site. The door was locked, which Masters took as a good sign, but it was when Norton raised a hand that he knew they’d hit pay dirt. Alex cocked his head to one side as he felt along the door and then the wall with his hand, stopping and nodding slowly.

Masters looked over at his friend and gestured, palms up, but stayed silent. Norton nodded, showing two fingers, then pointed to the door.

Two just inside. Good, must be guards
, he thought, looking over the scene. Finally Masters nodded and stepped back, waving Keyz forward. He pointed to the hinges and pantomimed an explosion with an opening fist. Robbie just grinned and nodded, white teeth gleaming against the dark of the twilit night.