She nodded to herself. “I’ll do that.”
Odin turned down a side corridor. “Don’t stay up all night. We’re going to need to brief you on the baiting operation tomorrow. At no point will you be in actual danger.”
“Why am I not convinced of that?”
“Tomorrow.” Then he was gone.
For several minutes afterward McKinney walked the halls, but since most of the doors were locked she found herself heading toward the garage and the sound of metalwork under way. At first she just peered through the small wire-mesh windows in the doors, but then she walked through the double doors and out into the garage. Half a dozen workers were busy modifying vehicles to either side, with flashes of welding equipment and pounding of mallets as they made adjustments. Foxy stood talking to Smokey over a clipboard, both of them with submachine guns slung across their chests.
Foxy was flipping through pages on the clipboard. “Tell ’em they have four days to get their mission loads palletized and over to SOAR so they can calculate centers of gravity. Weapons go ‘air only’—no ordnance overland.”
Smokey nudged his head toward McKinney, and Foxy turned with some surprise to see her.
“Looking for something, Professor?”
“Can’t sleep. Odin said I could look around. You can check with him.”
“All right.” Foxy smiled, and then held a hand to his right ear, speaking softly to the air while Smokey watched her. She could see a small wire corkscrewing down from Foxy’s ear into his collar. After a moment he looked up and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Professor. Let me know if I can help with anything.”
She nodded absently, but she was already looking around the motor pool. A couple of the trucks that had been here when she arrived were gone. She couldn’t remember which ones. Before she reached halfway in the line of vehicles, she stopped to watch another military tech in his twenties digging through a bundle of wire he’d pulled from the side panel of a large four-wheel-drive truck. He was a clean-cut kid referring to a wiring diagram and using a voltmeter to test connections.
He noticed her watching him.
“Quite a project you’ve got there.”
“It’s the job, ma’am.” The kid had a southern accent that she couldn’t quite place. Texas? Georgia?
McKinney approached the ten-ton truck, running her hand along its gleaming fender. His eyes darted toward her furtively.
It was actually an impressive truck. Brand-new and with a broad chrome grille and a crew cab that could probably accommodate four or more people. It was branded with the shield logo of Ancile Services and looked ruggedized for overland seismic work, with the door handle at about eye height. However, most of the cargo area was taken up with what looked like a multiton electrical generator with twin oversized exhaust pipes. The side panels of the generator were open, exposing circuit boards, switch boxes, and bundles of wires that the tech was examining.
She nodded toward the bundles of wires. “How’d you learn to do all this?”
He glanced up. “The training, ma’am.” He grunted as he reached deep into the equipment panel.
“What are you guys doing out here, anyway?”
He paused. “Can’t discuss that, ma’am.”
She nodded slowly. “All right. . . .” She ran her finger along the truck again and started wandering back along the garage, examining the vehicles on the far side.
McKinney wandered past a large four-wheel-drive U.S. Forest Service fire control truck. It had an extended four-person passenger cab and equipment panels along the length of its enclosed cargo bay—all teal green. Whatever modifications were being done to it were either finished or not yet started. Her eye strayed past it to the workbench just beyond—where a key fob hung on a peg from a metal carabiner.
She glanced back toward Foxy and Smokey, who were still engrossed over lists on the clipboard, then over at the kid working on the nearby truck. He was focused on wiring. McKinney purposefully walked over to the workbench and slipped the key chain from its peg. It bore a plastic tag marked International 7400 DT530 in bold black letters. She turned to see the International logo on the nearby truck’s large chrome grille.
She took a deep breath. Was she really considering this? Was it lack of sleep?
But then again, if these people were who they said they were, this would only be an inconvenience. If they weren’t, then she might be saving lives—her own among them.
McKinney climbed the steel step near the cab and opened the driver’s door. With one last furtive look around she got in and flexed her fingers over the steering wheel. After gathering her courage, she reached out and pulled the cab door closed. Another swift motion, and she stabbed the power door-lock button.