“We stay down here full-time?”
He shrugged. “It’s not so bad. Nothing’s more comfy than knowing you’re not gonna get blown up in your sleep.”
McKinney pondered that for a moment as she watched another flying shark “swim” past the right side of the van.
In a few moments they pulled up to another corrugated steel wall and a rolltop gate, this one unmarked. The gate rose automatically to reveal a brightly lit garage bay over a hundred feet long and half as wide, containing several large trucks, heavy equipment, and other gear. The floor was painted gray and marked with yellow parking and lane lines. Metalworking equipment, welding rigs, and workbenches were scattered about the place. Interior walls sectioned off the garage, and several doors led off into other areas of the complex.
Standing in the middle of the garage and pointing with two gloved hands to an open space was an athletic Latino in his twenties. He had tattoos of two different women on either bicep and small, pretzel-like ears that lay flush against his crew-cut head. He wore a blue Ancile Services polo shirt with jeans, and tan combat boots—as well as a small black submachine gun slung against his chest.
“Home sweet home.” Foxy pulled the van into a space and killed the engine.
The rolltop gate was still rumbling closed as the Latino came up to the van. McKinney nodded to him, and he nodded back. The air was about sixty-five degrees and smelled powerfully of cut stone.
Foxy exchanged a complex, full-body handshake with the man. “Smokey, how the hell are you, man?”
“All right. All right.”
Foxy gestured to McKinney. “Smokey, this is—”
“I know who it is, dipshit.” He removed a shooting glove and extended his hand. “Professor. Pleasure. They call me Smokey. You didn’t see me in Africa, but I was on the ground. Glad to see you made it out okay.”
Foxy was busy grabbing gear. “You ever find that F50?”
“Naw, it was crazy back there, son. People with guns runnin’ around.”
McKinney felt her eyes drooping in exhaustion.
Foxy slapped Smokey on the shoulder. “Hey, looks like the professor needs some rack time. So do I.”
“All right, we’ll catch up later.”
They left Smokey behind and headed toward double doors. As McKinney padded across the floor, it occurred to her it wasn’t concrete. It was solid rock, probably hundreds of feet thick, ground flat by mining equipment and polished. Their shoes made almost no sound as they walked across it.
Looking around at the other vehicles in the large garage, McKinney noticed some were marked with the same Ancile Services shield logo she wore, while others were painted teal green and marked with U.S. Forest Service insignia. There were also a couple of four-wheel-drive Dodge Power Wagon crew-cab pickups in the process of being painted with Bureau of Land Management livery—the word Ranger partially stenciled and taped out along the side. All of the vehicles were rugged-looking; obviously made for off-road work, with the largest trucks being ten-ton, four-wheel-drive monstrosities. She’d seen similar Unimog trucks in Africa used by pricey European or South African tour groups. Apparently no expense had been spared on this place; there were three gleaming multi-ton Amerigo four-wheel-drive survey trucks with sensors and antennas sticking up from a windowed control room in their cargo area. They looked like oil company seismic trucks, but they were partially disassembled in places with welding equipment stored close by and modifications half-finished.
McKinney gestured to the vehicles and looked at Foxy quizzically.
“Need-to-know, Professor.”
“You realize that conducting covert military operations inside the United States is illegal.”
“Someone’s attacking us, Professor. When that happens we get to shoot back. No sense panicking everyone in the meantime.”
They pushed through the doors and entered a plain white hallway that smelled strongly of spackling, fresh paint, and adhesives. The whole place was brand-new. It had the look of a medical office building. Foxy brought her ahead and to the right, down a side corridor.
“Your hooch is this way. . . .”
McKinney’s head kept darting about. “This whole place was built just for this project?”
Foxy sighed. “Yeah, and let me tell you, top-secret general contractors don’t come cheap.”
They turned a corner to see a man with tightly curled gray hair standing with his back to them in the middle of the hallway; he was dressed in a sweater and slacks, holding a tablet computer in his hands while he watched a lawn mower–sized unmanned electric vehicle with large, off-road wheels weaving through doorways, following some sort of search pattern.