Diablo Mesa(88)

“Check out those two heavy wires,” Watts murmured. “They’re attached with insulators. This baby’s electrified.”

Skip nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was alarmed, as well.”

“How are we going to get in?” Corrie asked.

“Good question,” Watts replied.

They stood for a while, just staring at the fence. Even if they could get over it without being electrocuted, which seemed impossible, Skip was right: it would surely set off an alarm. Once on the other side, they’d be hunted down quickly.

“Maybe we could short-circuit it,” said Skip.

“That would set off the alarms even faster,” said Watts.

While they were talking, Corrie heard the low hoot of an owl, and then a sudden crackling and flash of light appeared about twenty feet up the fence.

They ducked down and listened.

“What the hell was that?” Skip whispered. “Did an owl just get zapped?”

Watts gestured for them to move along the fence toward the flash. He knelt to inspect the ground, looking for a bird, but shook his head, unable to see what might have caused it.

“Let’s walk a little farther,” he whispered. “Just in case there’s a weak spot in the fence.”

They moved along in single file, scanning the perimeter, but nowhere did it look possible to breach. Watts stopped periodically to examine the ground.

“What are we going to do?” Skip finally asked.

Watts shook his head. “I’m stumped.”

Another crackle split the night, with a flash of light a hundred yards farther up.

“You think it’s a pack of animals?” Corrie asked.

“Maybe a short, if we’re lucky,” said Skip. “Let’s go look.”

They continued northward. Here, the fence ran through some steep outcroppings of rock, forcing them to walk in single file.

Watts crouched again. “I’ll be damned.” A stick lay on the ground, still smoking. “How did this happen?”

Skip bent over to look as well. Corrie, bringing up the rear, suddenly felt herself seized from behind. One arm wrapped around her throat while hard, cold steel was pressed against her temple, forcing her back behind the cover of an outcropping.

Watts jumped up and pulled his weapon—but didn’t fire.

“You’re right to think it through,” came a voice. “Now drop it.”

It was Lime. He must have taken the dead soldier’s gun from the wreck of the chopper.

Watts didn’t move.

“You have no shot, and you know it. Stretch out your hand and drop the weapon. Now. Or she dies.”

Watts complied as Corrie felt Lime take back his weapon from her holster. Pushing her forward, he emerged from behind the rock. Lime kicked Watts’s weapon away.

“We share a common problem,” he said. “How to get through that fence. Right, Corrie?” He gave her a little shake.

“Fuck you.”

“You were turning into a good agent. Unfortunately, in this particular situation, too good. I realized that when we watched you search Morwood’s house and saw what even we had missed. I truly regret losing you. I can’t say the same, however, about your friends.” Lime gave a dry laugh. “Sheriff, they told me you were some sort of hotshot gunman. And you did outdraw me back there—that psychological trick of mine never failed me before. But it’s a pretty sad commentary, how you let me get the drop on you. And given the way Mr. Kelly, here, crashed the chopper, I presume he suffers from suicidal mania.”

He suddenly shoved Corrie to the ground. Keeping the gun trained on them, he circled around to Skip.

“Move just once, and I’ll indulge that death wish of yours.” He took Skip’s forearm and jerked it behind his back, forcing Skip to bend down. He shoved the gun in Skip’s ear and said to Corrie, “You can get up. Keep your hands in sight.”

Corrie rose cautiously, showing her hands.

Lime went on. “I’ve got a solution to our problem. A way for us to get in and alert the base in a hurry to your presence. Elwyn Kelly here is going to help. Right, Elwyn?” Lime propelled him toward the fence, keeping the gun pointed at his ear. “That fence carries six thousand volts at eleven amps—more than an electric chair. I saw a deer run into it once. That was some show.”

He pushed Skip closer. Corrie could hear the wires humming and smell the electricity in the air—and she realized with sudden horror just what Lime planned to do. She braced herself as Lime spun Skip forward toward the fence, using himself as a pivot. But Skip twisted around just as Lime shoved him, and at that moment Corrie lunged forward, slamming into Lime like a linebacker. The blow propelled the already off-balance Lime past Skip, turning his own momentum against him as Skip wrenched free of his grasp. The gun went off as it flew from his hands, while Lime windmilled, twisting backward and grunting in an effort to recover his balance. He succeeded only in striking the fence full-on with the back of his body, from head to thigh.

There was a great flash-boom of sound and light. Lime screamed briefly, once, as coruscating sparks rose like the embers of a disturbed campfire into the night sky. His skin began to fry with the sound of raw meat being seared in hot grease, first clothes, then hair bursting into flame. The wires popped and vaporized around him, whipping in sync with his writhing form. His eyes filled with crimson, swelled grotesquely, then popped, one after the other.