dozen meters away.
“Intel believes Red Hammer’s got a lab and small base up at Banikaiyan, about thirty minutes north of here. Come on…I’ll fill you in as we go.”
The convoy headed north from the airport, along RN1, passing the Grand Mosque and the National Museum, before crossing the river at the Pont des Martyrs. A left jog put them onto RN13, stuck briefly in heavy sotrama traffic, with hundreds of taxi vans honking and swerving through narrow streets, then out past Kambila into the desert hills north of the city. They passed isolated stands of kapok and baobab trees and approached the mudbrick village of Banikaiyan, nestled in a narrow valley between volcanic hillocks.
Here Delforza brought the convoy to a halt.
“We’re changing into unmarked vehicles here,” he explained. He pointed out a porthole of the crewtrac to a trio of gaily colored sotrama vans, parked along a dirt lane just outside the village. “This is a covert, direct-action operation and our mission is to penetrate the suspected Red Hammer compound—we think it’s buried under those hills north of the village, up where you see that old Berber trading fort—and collect all the intel we can, put this facility out of commission, MOB any personnel that obstruct us and then exfiltrate.”
Winger studied the view out of the porthole. “Why all the subterfuge, Lieutenant?”
Delforza smiled grimly. “We know from local sources that Red Hammer’s cozy with local Tuareg warlords…the amghar, they’re called—and the Malian Army isn’t much better. These soldiers escorting us from the airport are probably informers, letting Red Hammer know just where we are at all times. I’ve worked out a little mission for our escorts so they won’t know we’ve departed in those civilian vans. So…we do the mission and get the hell out of here. And that tasking comes directly from UNSAC himself. Word is he and the Secretary-General don’t want trouble with the General Assembly. HNRIV is the problem and we think Banikaiyan is one of the nerve centers.”
Winger looked over the small crew from 2nd Nano. “Maybe we ought to get to know each other before we go in…even if it’s just ANAD doing the op. You have any experience with solid-phase transit ops?”
Delforza said, “Does anybody?”
Winger decided to tell the Italian officer the truth about Detachment Alpha. “Lieutenant, in the interest of full disclosure, this Detachment isn’t made up of standard atomgrabbers…actually, sir, did Major Kraft inform you we’re all just cadets in nog school at Table Top?”
The Lieutenant was distracted by other matters. “I think Kraft mentioned something about it. But it doesn’t matter. Your outfit has the only experience with working ANAD swarms through solid rock.”
Winger swallowed. “We’ve studied the theory, Lieutenant. We’ve wargamed it. Did some classes and studies—“
Delforza interrupted. “You’re here. That’s what matters. “ He peered out at the convoy. “Now to get rid of our escort---they’re all Red Hammer informers. Or worse—“ He climbed out of the crewtrac, had a few words with a Malian Army sergeant, who gestured back angrily, then rounded up his men. They climbed into their jeeps and sped off into the village. Delforza climbed back inside.
“I just sent Sergeant Dikesi on a little recon sweep of Banikaiyan. That’ll take him a while and more importantly, it’ll get these clowns out of our hair. Soon as they disappear, we move our gear into those sotrama vans. They’re right from the streets of Bamako. Nobody will look twice at us.”
“What’s our destination, Lieutenant?” Winger asked.
Delforza pointed out the porthole to a distant hill. “See that old Berber fort up there? It’s called La Maghreb. Intel and surveillance ops in this area have shown us that something’s underground, below that fort, inside the hill. Some kind of Red Hammer facility, we think and it’s tied to HNRIV signatures. Q2 says the emissions, the acoustics, EM background in the area is all consistent with known HNRIV samples. Red Hammer’s doing something here and it involves HNRIV. We’ve got to find out what it is and put a stop to it. If we don’t, we could have a local pandemic on our hands.”
Winger, Barnes, D’Nunzio and the rest of the Detachment helped Delforza’s people move all their gear. The process took less than ten minutes.
Second Nano DPS Corporal Valery Laval drove one van, which was painted bright pastel colors in flashes and swoops. Hoyt Gibbs, Detachment Alpha IC1, the interface specialist, drove the other van, following Laval.
They skirted the outside of the village, crossed over a tributary of the Niger River, squeezed down several narrow alleys and lanes between low-rise adobe and sandstone huts and then worked their way up a narrow, rutted, dirt path to a landing just below the fort. There was little traffic along the way. Only once, did the convoy have to pause for a small caravan of camels and goats gingerly making their way down the rocky slopes of the mountain.
To enhance the illusion, several men got out and opened the engine hood of the lead van, gesturing and pointing at some problem inside.
For the light early evening traffic along the Banikaiyan Road, the trucks seemed nothing more than a small convoy of delivery vans, whose drivers were engaged in animated conversation, doubtless troubleshooting some mechanical problem along the side of the road. No one paid any attention to the incident. High above the road, in the craggy ramparts of the Banikaiyan Mountain, La Maghreb could be seen, its crenelated towers and parapets tucked into the folds and crevices of the ancient hills. The fort was dark and seemingly unoccupied.
Two hours later, no one noticed the pair of vans was still parked below the fort.
"Launch ANAD," Johnny Winger commanded. 1st Nano's TinyTown was secreted inside the second van. The launch tube extended from the containment pod through the floor of the van into a small six-inch hole that had been drilled into the hard limestone cliff alongside the road.
There was an audible swoosh as the vacuum system pulsed and discharged the small swarm with the ANAD master into the ground. The drone-snap of the discharge was followed by a momentary rumble as the horde transited the surface of the cliff and flew down the borehole they had drilled shortly before.
An Nguyen, serving as Detachment Alpha’s containment specialist CEC1, softly muttered a hex on their enemies as he secured TinyTown for ANAD's return. "Master away, Lieutenant."
"ANAD reports transiting….ready in all respects, sir," said Hoyt Gibbs, almost at the same time.
Winger studied the IC panel. "Very well…this is going to be ticklish for a while. Time to reach the end of the borehole?"
Gibby checked ANAD's progress, a few other gauges. "About twenty minutes, Wings. After that, he's on his own."
Winger knew that. He was making a huge gamble, but it seemed the only way. The plan was to locate any underground Red Hammer facility, then insert a small recon swarm inside the compound, and do a little snooping. They had to find out how the HNRIV airborne swarms were being controlled. They had to find a way to break that control link. The evidence pointed to Banikaiyan as a key node, if not the control center. Until 1st Nano could locate and take on Red Hammer directly, Banikaiyan would have to be the soft underbelly.
"If we can get inside and find out how they run those swarms, how they program and control the bastards," Winger told Delforza, "we can put 'em out of business. Or at least, shut down operations from here. If we don't find those links, a lot of people are going to become addicts. We've got to get in there, somehow, and pull the plug."
The trick was, Winger had told them, locating and getting inside the compound. It was a cinch, even though no outward evidence existed, that the place was crawling with nano--barriers and screens and filters and hunter-killer swarms, ready to make quick work of any intruders.
Now, Quantum Corps had come calling without an invitation and the real target was intelligence: just what level of activity was going on at Banikaiyan? Had the Human Neuro-Receptor Inhibiting Virus been intentionally designed to create remote-controlled addictio
ns in its patients? Who or what was in control of this man-made plague?
Johnny Winger had worked out a penetration strategy with Delforza and the rest of the Detachment. It might just work. They hoped it would work.
It had to work.
"More than likely," Mighty Mite Barnes had offered, "the compound is secured floor to ceiling with nanomech screens. If I were designing a security system, I'd tune my mechs to blanket the seals and locks, the doors and windows, and set up an airborne barrier overhead, just in case any intruders tried to slip in that way."
"What about coming in from below?" Gibby had asked.
"Below--how do you mean?"
Gibby stood next to Winger at the sim tank, watching simulated hordes of mechs flow over the diorama of Banikaiyan Mountain. "I mean from underground. Look, we know the place is tight from all angles up top. But there's a chance Red Hammer’s got little or no nanomech barrier protecting an underground approach."
"You're talking…through the mountain?" Winger had asked.
Gibby ran his fist through the hologram of the sim tank. "Right through the rock, sir. We assemble a small group of replicants outside, bore a hole, and let 'em filter into the rock of the mountainside. Make their way toward the complex. At the right time, we rep a larger swarm and start filtering in from below…I'll bet you good