Читать книгу Damage Control - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 14

Running feet sounded outside in the corridor, then shouts and shots.

Alan had made his decision. “We have a vehicle in the fleet-exercise car park. I have to get to it.”

“I will try, sir.”

“Plus I got three more people downstairs.” And he wasn’t leaving without them, for sure.

The sergeant licked his lips, chewed on the upper one as if trying to bite the small moustache there. “Okay, we try.”

“Benvenuto, you okay?”

The young man was rubbing his throat. “Little hoarse, sir.”

“We have to disable the JOTS.” Alan jerked his head. The terminal was critical hardware, its innards as highly classified as anything the Navy had. “Out the window. It’s two floors down to asphalt.”

Benvenuto’s mouth opened. He was being asked to go from being the JOTS’ mother hen to its terminator in one breath. “Ok-a-a-a-y, sir—”

They got two of the Indian EMs to help while one of the Marines broke the unopenable window, and without ceremony they toppled the device over the sill. Alan leaned at the corner of the window and watched it smash on the pavement below. There was more shooting out there now, and when he raised his head he could see smoke billowing above a row of trees.

The sergeant was instructing the other Marines and the Indian personnel. Alan looked for the pistol he had tossed away but didn’t see it; he supposed that one of the Marines had kicked it out of the way. The sergeant was already by the door, bouncing up and down on his toes from tension. Alan got down low, spotted the pistol under a computer table, grabbed it, then looked around the ruined room, pausing for a bitter moment at Borgman.

“All right, let’s go.”