Acts of Nature - By Jonathon King Page 0,75

indoor hangar to park them. Some appeared to have simply folded in on themselves, fuselages crushed in the middle like broken spines. Others sat upright but their wings were missing, picked off and discarded like a mean kid might do to a giant dragonfly. There was little activity on the south side of the airfield so Harmon broke all normal driving rules and made a beeline across the tarmac to the Fleet Company hangar. He could see Squires’s Jeep sitting next to the open bay doors, and before he got to park, his partner and another big man appeared, moving slowly out of the huge building and putting their backs into the task of wheeling a helicopter onto the airfield. Harmon pulled up next to the black Wrangler and sorted through his ops bag; let them do the heavy work, he wasn’t in the mood for heavy work today.

Again he checked off the list in his head as he touched each item in his bag. He stopped at the frequency transmitter. He’d used them before to electronically restart the power systems on ocean oil rigs. You needed lights to land and the frequency could switch them on and unlock doors before you even touched down. And then his fingers settled on the slick skin of a brick of incendiary C-4 explosive.

This was not standard equipment in the states and the order to take it along was unnerving to Harmon. In domestic work he and Squires were a security team, not a demolition unit. Yeah, they might have had to muscle some rig workers in the past. And yeah, they did have to entice the manager of one gas operation to confess to his paper swindling with the help of a gun muzzle pressed to his forehead. But the idea of blowing up and melting infrastructure on home soil was a new twist for Harmon. He knew ATF guys. He knew how good their bomb investigators were. If they were put on the site after a suspicious explosion they were bound to find something.

But Crandall’s instructions had been pretty clear. He was the boss. “If the place looks compromised, like anyone has been on the site and might expose its purpose or existence, fire it off the planet.”

The orders had set Harmon’s senses buzzing. There was something here unknown to him and that always got him going. What was going on inside the United States that the company would be willing to take a chance and incinerate a site? Won’t know until I get there, he had finally determined. But you bet I’m not blowing anything until I know what I’m blowing. Harmon zipped up the bag and got out, locked the doors of his Crown Victoria, and crossed over to where the men were loading the aircraft.

“Morning, chief,” Squires said to him. They shook hands as usual, and as usual Harmon visually checked his partner’s eyes for broken blood vessels and dilated pupils or any other sign that might indicate he was not completely sober or was too hungover to perform his duty, which basically was to protect Harmon’s ass. And as usual, Squires showed absolutely no sign of impairment. The man was a physical wonder work. He was dressed in his black cargo pants and a black T-shirt, a plain baseball cap on his head that only seemed odd because of the absence of a logo. He looked like a SWAT team member and you wouldn’t be far off to describe him as such. Harmon on the other hand had refused to revert back to a time of what he sometimes called his ill- spent youth. He had dressed that morning in a pair of blue jeans and a knit polo shirt, same as always. The night before he had fueled the generator system of his home and started the emergency power system. His was the only house on his block that had shown light through its windows after dusk. He had kissed his wife this morning on the cheek when he left. He’d told her that he would be home before nightfall. She always knew that his promise was contingent on many factors, factors she never bothered to ask about. She had been with him for many years. She was his wife when he was still in the military and still bore his children. When he got out and started working clandestine missions she knew too what his nature was and that it would never change. There was