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“Why will they expect a pre-dawn escape?” he queried.

“Lot of these guys are ex-military. It’s when most military types would make the attempt.”

It was, indeed, when he would have tried it. His training taught that people’s body rhythms were at their lowest in the pre-dawn hours, and most people would be deeply asleep at that time. Those who’d tried to stay awake would be at their least alert and fighting off an urge to nod off.

He set a silent alarm on his cell phone to vibrate him awake in a half hour, and Piper did the same. A power nap never hurt in the middle of an op. Except, when he closed his eyes, his mind drifted back to the object he’d seen under the tarp in the back of that airplane. That large magnetic coil had been connected to a motor of some kind. An electro-magnet, then. There had been something inside the coil, but he hadn’t been able to take a good look at it before Brothers and company had burst in.

What could these guys be doing with a large electro-mag?—

--It hit him like a ton of bricks.Ho. Lee. Shit.

That was an electro-magnetic pulse generator. The concept was simple. Explode a small bomb inside a magnetic field, and a giant wave of energy would propagate outward. Said wave would be electro-magnetic in nature and wipe out all electrical objects in its path. Generators, televisions, phones, computers, toasters,anything using electrical current would be fried. As in destroyed. Permanently unusable.

Of course. These guys wanted to take America back to the nineteenth century. How better to do that than by wrecking all modern technology? Cripes. He had to get another look at that bomb. See how powerful it was. Hell, disable it.

He lay tense and still beneath Piper as she napped on his chest. Where were they planning to detonate this bomb of theirs? With a small airplane, they could fly it just about anywhere in the United States. And if they happened to explode their bomb while airborne, the pulse would travel line of sight for miles. That one device could wipe out a big chunk of a major city.

A suicide bomber? Was one among them? Or would they remote-pilot the plane? The technology was available to turn a plane into a drone easily enough.

His silent alarm vibrated against his hip, and Piper jerked awake beside him. He breathed in her ear, “Arrange your sleeping bag so it looks like you’re still in it, then follow me. We’re going back to the shop to have another look at that airplane’s cargo.”

Piper stiffened and whispered back, “We have to get out of here.”

“After that.”

“But—“

“No arguments. We have to do this, even if we get caught again.”

“If they catch us in there again, they’ll shoot us.”

His response was grim. “So be it. Consider this an order. Life or death. I’ll explain later.” Thankfully, she nodded and made no further protest even though the expression in her eyes was doubtful.

They worked in silence, bunching up their sleeping bags and lacing on their boots quietly. She hand-signaled that she was ready to go, and he headed for the window least back-lit by the fireplace. He oiled the wooden jamb and eased it open. They climbed out the window quickly, rolling to the ground to scan the area around them. No movement. No reaction to their escape. At least not yet. He reached up to ease the window shut and signaled Piper to follow him.

He led the way behind several cabins toward the big shop building. The dogs didn’t show themselves, and he didn’t go looking for them. This time when he broke into the shop, he operated on the assumption that there were silent alarms and electronic surveillance. He found the main incoming electrical feed, disabled it, and waited in the bushes behind the building for a good ten minutes to see if anyone would react to the loss of power.

Since no men with guns showed up, he gathered that their security was not so sophisticated that a power interruption would trigger an alarm. He jimmied open the small window in the back wall and, again, waited for a response. Nothing. He indicated that Piper should stay outside and stand watch while he infiltrated the shop.

As he slithered through the window, he contemplated that this was the first time a woman had ever had his back on an infil mission.

Not just any woman. Piper. Did he trust her? She hadn’t revealed to anyone in the government who her family was, what her connection to the PHP was. It wasn’t exactly a lie to have omitted the truth, but it cast serious doubt on her motives.

Even if she did betray him, he had no choice but to go forward with this maneuver. No way could he leave an operational EMP weapon sitting in the hands of dangerous nutballs. He gained his feet inside the hangar and froze,checking for telltale signs of motion detectors or other security measures that might still be operational. Avoiding the rubber mats on the floor that might be hiding pressure plates, he moved quickly to the airplane. The pilot’s door was still unlatched from before, and he reached for it just as a silhouette briefly appeared in the window he’d used.

He reached for his sidearm before he recognized the lithe shape of Piper joining him.

“I told you to stay outside,” he whispered tersely.

“It’ll go faster in here with two of us. What are we looking for?”

Irritation raged through him, but the damage was already done. She was already inside. “Search the cockpit for anything that might indicate where they’re planning to fly this bird to.”

She nodded, and he climbed into the back, straddling the bomb. He ducked under the tarp with the bomb and turned on his flashlight. Shielding it heavily with his hand, he let a small beam of light trickle down on the device. Bundles of dynamite nestled inside the copper coil of the electromagnet. He had to disable this thing. But in a way the PHP wouldn’t see and repair before they tried to detonate it.

He carefully unscrewed the housing covering the detonation circuit board, timer and trigger. Using the tip of his knife, he carefully detached the wires between the three components. He reattached them randomly, leaving out a couple of vital connections that would complete the circuits. When all the wire ends had a home, he replaced the housing and screwed it back in place. Good Lord willing, the bomb’s maker would not recheck the wiring closely before trying to explode it.

He turned around in the cramped space to where Piper was searching the passenger side map pocket built into the door. “Find anything?” he breathed.