Deciding the area was clear for the moment, they dropped to the ground and crawled across the few yards of open land to reach the closest support column. Safe in its web of shadows, they closely inspected the thick girder. The imposing array of riveted steel was strong enough to not only support the dish, but to also completely resist the push of any wind against the titanic mass.
Finding a junction, Krysty cupped her hands and boosted Doc up into the maze of metal. Using fingertip pressure, he molded the wad of plas into a long strip. Its job wasn’t to blow a hole in the support column, but to weaken the strut sufficiently so that gravity would pull down the dish and complete the destruction.
Hearing the sound of bootsteps coming their way, Krysty tapped Doc’s shin, urging him to hide. Releasing the plas, the old man chinned himself into the struts while Krysty curled into a ball on the ground, making herself as small as possible.
Smoking cigs, four sec men walked by the companions less than a yard away. Unseen blasters tracked the blues from the shadows until they crossed the street and went inside the barracks. Her hair writhing under the confining bandanna, Krysty hissed at Doc, and he redoubled his speed. He pressed the plas into place, stabbed in the two timing pencils, setting the alternate times, and gracefully jumped to the ground.
Glancing upward, Krysty could see nothing amiss in the struts overhead and nodded in satisfaction as they stealthily moved into the night once more, just as the searchlight swept over the blockhouse and support columns with its brilliant white light.
CROUCHED OUTSIDE the power plant, Ryan and J.B. could hear the steam boilers hissing loudly and the massive pumps pounding as they turned banks of generators to make the electricity to power the comps and the motors that operated the dish. This was the hard job. The others could plant their charges on the outside of the buildings, but that wouldn’t work here. These explosives needed to be planted directly on the boilers.
The taste of coal was thick in their mouths, as the two men peered through a grimy window. Inside was a group of blues in T-shirts playing cards and drinking cold beer taken from a small fridge, their shirts hung over the backs of their chairs, Kalashnikovs standing along the wall in a tidy row for fast access. Retreating from the window, Ryan tugged J.B. on the cuff and made a knocking motion. The Armorer nodded.
J.B. knocked softly. A grumbling voice demanded to know what the fuck was wrong now and shoved the door aside. Ryan fired the SIG-Sauer twice in soft chugs, blood exploding from the sec man’s throat and left eye.
The man staggered backward, and the masked companions rushed inside the office, using the body as a shield. The blues stood up, shouting in surprise, only one of them going for a blaster. Ryan kneecapped the man, and he hit the floor inches short of the deadly rapidfires. They pushed the corpse into the others and pulled their knives, slashing throats and stabbing into armpits with deadly results. In under a minute the floor of the office was awash with blood.
The heat from the boilers was stifling. Reluctantly, Ryan and J.B. removed their bandannas and loosened their shirts, sweat already trickling the axle grease from their faces.
A wall of glass windows fronted the office, but the glass was yellowed from the soot and condensed creosote, almost too dingy to see through. Ryan took a bloody shirt and rubbed a spot clean to peek inside the power plant. Apparently, they had chosen the right spot to strike. Beyond the office was the main floor of the boiler assembly. The chimneys were brick, but the boilers were seamless vats containing countless tons of pressure. Steam hissed from a hundred joints in the feeder pipes and from the ever cycling pistons. Ryan couldn’t imagine how Silas got it here through the little gateway. It had to have already been here, something from predark days that Silas repaired into a functioning power plant. What other explanation could there be?
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