But no amount of sweet-talking could ease my nerves that night. It didn’t matter how well prepared we thought we were. The truth was, we had no idea what we were up against, or what it would look like when we got there. And we didn’t even know how the people around us were going to react to it. I had never been part of such a large operation before, and I didn’t trust it. There was too much that could go wrong.
Especially given that I was part of the frontline team, the ones who would be breaching the building first and risking our lives.
It must’ve been close to 5:00 a.m. by the time I finally drifted off, and I let myself sleep in, hitting snooze on the alarm more times than I cared to admit, knowing that I desperately needed the rest for the mission, when my brain and senses would have to be razor sharp.
I wasn’t due to leave until 4:00 p.m., and I slept as close to that hour as possible before climbing out of bed and getting ready. I showered, and, once I’d slipped into my most flexible set of black clothes and pulled my hair back into the tightest bun I could manage, I prepared my backpack. Then it was time to lock up the cabin and drive to the Roundhouse, where I was due to meet my colleagues.
The sun had begun its steady descent toward the horizon by the time I arrived, a few minutes late, thanks to a little traffic. I headed around the pub to the compound at the back, and found my team already there, leaning against the aircraft. And given the way their eyes snapped toward me, they were all just as high-strung as I was.
Everyone except Nelson, who was going to be providing technical support remotely from her office, was there, and they lost no time in bundling into the ship once I arrived. I followed, trying to focus on my breathing as we seated ourselves among the exo-suits, and Marco took off. I looked to the pale faces of my colleagues, noting the shadows beneath their eyes. Even the twins were like deflated balloons compared to their usual selves.
“Oh,” Jackie murmured suddenly, after about ten minutes of silence. She reached a hand into her backpack and pulled out a fistful of black masks, which looked identical to the new one she’d been wearing during our last outing.
“Here, I managed to get these for you,” she said, handing them to Ant, who was sitting closest to her, and gesturing for him to pass them around.
“Oh, thanks,” Ant mumbled, taking one and then passing the bundle on to Abe, who tossed one at me.
“Thanks,” I said, catching it, and feeling glad that I had something tangible to distract myself with, if only for a few minutes. I traced a finger over the tough fabric, the sturdiness of it comforting me, and then pulled it over my head, trying it on.
“Feels a bit more stifling than what we’re used to,” Abe muttered.
Jackie nodded. “Yeah, that’s kind of the price you pay for having a sturdier material.”
I flexed my facial muscles beneath the fabric, discovering that Abe was right. But I would get used to it soon enough. I was going to be wearing a suit, as were Jackie, Ant, Abe, and the rest of our agreed-upon ground team, and while we would obviously keep our tinted visors down, extra camouflage underneath was important. Because none of us knew what was going to happen once we hit the ground. It was a new experience for all of us, and from what I’d gleaned from the other members, none of us had ever pulled off such a large operation before. Everyone had previously only worked in small, few-person groups, doing their own little projects.
I sat back and tried to get some rest, thinking that it might help me prepare for the mission, but the hours felt like they somehow compressed themselves, and before I knew it, Marco was saying that we were there.
I gazed through the window and saw swathes of inky blackness stretching out beneath us, with the glow of orange lights a haze in the distance. We were meeting in a rural area on the edge of the estate where our target building was located, so that we would have somewhere safe to touch base before moving in. And the darkness made this a perfect landing spot. We hovered directly over the border of one of the fields for a moment, and then Marco began to lower the aircraft. My stomach flipped—and not just from the jolt of gravity. This was it. Stage one of our plan, upon us, almost before I even realized it: regrouping and breaching the building.
My hands gripped the arms of my seat hard as we landed with a soft thud, and then all of us were shooting to our feet. Jackie, Abe, Ant, and I rushed to the suits while Julia began to work on preparing one of the drones, getting ready to stay behind with Marco and guide us from the safety of the ship.
Being closest to the hatch, I opened it, and found the rest of tonight’s team already waiting outside, huddled in a tight-knit circle, some of them having driven vehicles into the field from the road that ran nearby. As almost two dozen eyes fell on me, my hands instinctively rose to my head, feeling the need to double check that my visor was down, even though I was wearing a mask beneath it. I was much more confident with the people we were working with now than I had been before, but my nerves were jittery with the possibility that something might go wrong. I wanted to make sure that my face was covered. That I was unrecognizable.
Then I spotted Jace at the back of the crowd, towering over everyone else, and I quickly looked away. I couldn’t tell if he had spotted me yet, through the darkness (and even if he had, he probably couldn’t tell it was me beneath the suit), but either way, I didn’t have the time or emotional bandwidth to dwell on him.
Jackie and I got to work passing suits to some of the folks standing in the field, while they handed three large black bags bulging with equipment to us, and then Jace, Kory, Zion, Winter, and Austin (a tall, skinny guy who was our frontline tech) joined us in the ship, as we had planned. My colleagues and I backed into one corner to allow room for them as they fetched their own suits and began climbing into them, and then we started strapping the equipment we’d need to bandoliers and fastening them around our waists.
After a minute, I found myself glancing over at Jace despite myself, knowing that he might be having trouble customizing his suit to fit. But then Kory stepped in, and I let out a breath and leaned back against the wall.
I realized that I probably should try to break the ice with Jace a little, before we touched down, given that we were going to be working closely together. But now didn’t seem like the right time, in such a small space, and with people still fitting into their suits. It was all we could do just to find somewhere to stand, even after having offloaded some of the suits.
But we managed, and five minutes later, Marco was closing the hatch again and the aircraft was rising.
The team we’d left on the ground was the decoy/backup team, and they would be making their way over to the site on foot to pull off their part of tonight’s plan. We estimated it would take them about ten minutes at a fast jog. Which meant Marco could take his time finding a decent angle at which to hover above the large factory-turned-office. We soared silently over the dark fields until we reached the orange glow of streetlights, and as the building came into view, a chill ran down my spine. It, and its barbed-wired compound, suddenly seemed much more intimidating than when I’d last seen it, and my heart beat even harder when I caught a glimpse of two security guards outside leaning against the interior of the barb-topped wall and talking.
Thankfully, the clouds were low and dense tonight, the moon nowhere to be seen, and the aircraft in its silence would blend in with the darkness, unlikely to draw attention. Especially as Marco began navigating it out of view of the guards, at an angle, using the building’s wide roof to act as coverage for us.
My eyes moved to the field beyond, and I noticed the subtle glimmer of flashlights. Our decoy team was swiftly approaching, and Marco seemed to notice it too, as the aircraft rose slightly, giving us all a better look. Once they had reached the shadows of the outer perimeter of the parking lot beyond the compound, it was time for the next stage: moving in.
I clenched my fingers within the suit, then rolled my neck and shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension there, while Julia made her way to
the hatch and ordered us all to stand back. She wasn’t wearing a suit; none of the techs were. The bespectacled girl called Alexy was here to assist Julia with aerial surveillance, so she didn’t need one, and Austin, who was going to be entering the building with us, had decided that the suit wouldn’t allow enough dexterity for the IT work he was probably going to have to do. Julia and Alexy crammed into the front corner of the ship while the rest of us did our best to get out of their way, and a moment later Julia had opened the hatch and launched her drone into the air.
I could feel only a small whisper of the night breeze waft through the ventilation of my suit, but it was a welcome sensation. Sweat was already beading on the small of my back, in spite of the moderate temperature.
I watched through the window closest to me as the drone silently positioned itself closer to the roof, and then began doing a round of the perimeter. Julia was being careful to keep it within the boundaries of the roof to keep it from being spotted from the ground.
Perhaps the trickiest thing about today was that we couldn’t knock out the electricity, per Nelson’s usual protocol. Because the X-ray had shown lots of computers in this place, and that was where we suspected we would find the evidence we required. We needed them fully functional if we were going to find what we were searching for.
Not having the electricity blacked out made everything even more dicey, because it took away our element of surprise. It also made me a whole lot more grateful for the extra protection the exo-suits provided us. They gave us a much stronger chance of getting out of there alive and unrecognized.
“Okay, begin final preparations,” Julia announced softly, as she finished doing a loop of the roof with the drone. Her gaze was on a little screen on the other side of the passenger cabin wall, where the X-ray details were beginning to populate, though I couldn’t make it out properly from where I stood.
Following her instruction, I dropped my eyes to the belt around my waist and pulled out two rubber handgrips, sliding them over the fingers of my suit, and then I opened my visor briefly to attach the comms equipment to my ears and around my neck.
Once everyone had announced that they had done the same, one of the twins pulled a lever to lower the winch from the ceiling, then beckoned over the first volunteer. We glanced at one another for a moment, tension radiating from each of us, and then the bulky form of Winter De Ville raised a hand. She was closest to the winch, so it made sense for her to go first, but I admired her bravery all the same. Glancing down at the long, dark roof, I knew being the first to touch down would be the most stressful. We were fairly certain that there were no security cameras on the roof itself, but just gaining a firm grip on the slanted, corrugated metal surface could be a challenge in these suits. We’d come prepared with rubberized grips, but still, we’d never tried this before.
Jackie helped Winter hook up, and then the larger woman was moving backward. Reaching the edge, she crouched down and lowered her legs into thin air, then surrendered herself to the line. The winch creaked slightly under her sudden weight, which, combined with the weight of the suit, had to be considerable, and Julia lowered her at a slow pace. I let out a sigh of relief when Winter’s feet softly made contact with the roof, and she immediately leaned all her weight against the roof’s slant, her rubberized fingers reaching down and finding purchase. She pulled herself up to a higher point, until she looked like she felt comfortable with her positioning, and then unhooked the line from her belt and allowed Julia to pull it back up.
Jackie was next in line, and managed to land as silently and gracefully as Winter, followed by the twins, Austin, and then Zion and Kory, until it was just Jace and me left, the two of us automatically shuffling closer to the winch as the aircraft emptied.
Jace’s visor looked in my direction, and I got the feeling that he sensed it was me. I was about to take the opportunity to wish him good luck when he held out a hand, gesturing to the line.
“You wanna go next?” he asked softly, and I nodded, swallowing back my words.
I guessed I understood why he wanted to be the last one down. He was the largest, and a part of me was sure that the worry had to be playing on his mind that the thing might break.
“Break a leg,” I said quietly, hooking myself up to the line.
He nodded. “You too,” he murmured, and it irked me a bit that I couldn’t see his expression. I’d have liked to know if there was any humor there at all in that moment, as it probably would have done something to ease my nerves. Not just about our situation, but in regard to him.
But that was going to have to suffice, I supposed.
Because then I was backing away, toward the edge of the aircraft, getting on all fours and lowering myself down slowly, legs first—until I felt confident enough to let go.
31
The line jerked as I dropped several feet, and I gripped it tightly to steady myself, trying not to worry about the slight creaking sound the winch had made. I tilted my head down, focusing on where I was going to land, and was ready for it when my feet hit the slanted, ridged surface. I mimicked the actions I’d watched the others take, leaning all my weight into the slant, and then slowly climbed up to a higher level, where the two sloped sides of the roof joined and the surface became level, seating myself next to the twins.
I then looked back up and watched tentatively as Jace came into view. He lowered himself down, his legs gradually dangling off the edge of the aircraft, but then he let go, lurching downward with a sudden jolt that made my heart leap into my throat. The slack of the line caught, pulling him to a stop midair, but I still winced as the winch made its loudest protest yet. I doubted it would break—after all, it had supported the weight of as many as four lines at once before—but the noise was more than we could afford to be making right now, and I prayed nobody in or outside the building had heard.
I watched with bated breath as Jace lowered himself the rest of the way, at a painstakingly slow pace, and exhaled when his feet finally hit the roof’s surface. It took him a moment to get secure on the corrugated slats, but then he was climbing up toward me, his palms and feet making thankfully little sound. Once he’d seated himself next to me, he detached the hook from his belt, allowing the winch to suck it back up.
Now that we’d all made it down okay, I turned to my right to look at the twins and saw that they were already prepared with their night vision cameras.
“Okay, I’m gonna do a quick intro now,” one of twins whispered. “So smile, everyone.”
He fumbled with a button on one side of the camera, then began to do a quick sweep over each of the hulking forms crouching on the roof.
“Just be careful not to get Nelson’s aircraft in view,” Jackie muttered.
“I know. And now I’ve got to edit out the sound, too,” the twin shot back.
I rolled my eyes, then watched as the second twin did a sweep with his camera as well, capturing the greater area that surrounded the building. As a group, we’d debated a couple of things regarding this video footage idea, the first being whether it would be wise to get our exo-suits on the shots. Some had raised the concern that they could possibly be traced back to Montague and his company, but when we asked him, he said that there were many of them in regular usage, and that there wouldn’t be any risk of these being traced back to him specifically. Second, we’d discussed whether the twins ought to wear them at all, given the risk of the metal heads hampering their vision, and the metal hands hampering their camera-operating capabilities. But they’d practiced with them and decided they were comfortable enough to wear them, too.
Which had been a relief, because I didn’t want them walking around without any protection. Not if we could help it.
Which left Austin as the only one down here without a suit. He’d been uneasy at the idea of going without the extra protection—still was, from the nervous glimmer in his eyes—but the hands on the suit just weren’t suitable for the kind of precise hacking work he might have to perform once we
got into the building and reached the computers. So we’d arranged for a bulletproof vest for him, which was better than nothing. But I still didn’t like it.
“Okay, we’re done,” Twin 2—the one farthest from me—announced, and I pulled my eyes away from Austin to see the brothers attaching the camera straps higher on their arms, to free up their hands for climbing.
A moment later, Alexy’s voice crackled in our ears. “Launching Drone 2.”
I glanced up to see it soar out from the aircraft’s interior, then swerve instantly away from the building and its compound. Her job was to keep an eye on the surrounding area and watch out for anyone else approaching the property from the outside. It was important, not just for those of us going into the building, but also our backup team, who were currently crouching in the shadows of the adjacent parking lot.
“Okay, we talk over comms from now on,” Zion’s whisper came through our ears. “And let’s get moving.” He rose slightly from where he had been crouching on the other end of the line and began making his way toward one of the three skylights fixed into the metal roof. From what we had been able to tell from the X-rays, these openings led directly into an attic, which would make for the easiest and most discreet entrance into the building.
Each of us moved after him, choosing caution over speed, knowing that one slip could result in us tumbling off the roof. Going quickly would also mean making more noise, which we couldn’t risk, especially when we knew there were security guards outside. There could also be people within the building, though we were still waiting for Julia or Alexy to confirm that. We stuck to the flat, top area of the roof as much as we could until we reached the skylight closest to us—and also farthest away from where we’d seen the two guards standing in the compound.