X's for Eyes Read Free

detection. Didn’t hear a peep from the Army or the Air Force, which means the stealth system functioned like a champ. There’s action, though. Twenty minutes ago, Ronaldo caught chatter on the emergency band.”
    He nodded at his sibling who smiled gamely through streams of sweat. “I thought Labrador had twigged to the deal, at first. The boys at Zircon have stolen loads of our tech and brain-drained enough of our researchers, seems a fair bet they’ve got the codes to track this pretty baby.” He finished locking down a drill bit the length of his arm and squeezed the trigger. The motor shrieked. “Zircon hadn’t the foggiest. The installation Ron eavesdropped on didn’t spot the probe—Zircon intercepted a backchannel message from someone who did. Complete unknowns. A rival corporation, the CIA, hillbillies with a ham radio, anybody’s guess.”
    “Swell,” Mac said. He checked the bolt on the deer rifle. “What about my grandfather? Surely X-R is on top of this?”
    “Our side isn’t searching for Nancy. Two reasons. One, she’s supposed to splash down in the Atlantic—that’s the game plan, anyhow. Two, launch isn’t scheduled until the 11 th of June.”
    “Hey, hold the phone!” Dred said. “That’s next week! Which means the probe launched in secret and earlier. Wait, wait—unless we’re talking about multiple probes. My skull is aching.”
    “Nancy hasn’t launched. Sword Enterprises possesses more resources than God, but even we can’t afford multiple experimental space rockets this sophisticated.”
    “Fine. Then this is impossible.”
    “Absolutely. Step back, friend.” Arthur snugged his welding goggles. He drilled through a series of rivets, paused to change the bit, and removed the bolts. A small plate came free, exposing a circuit board and toggles. He flipped the toggles in varying orders until an alarm chimed deep within the probe and an oval section of the hull a hand-span wide rolled back. From a maze of wires, Arthur drew forth a pair of slender trapezoidal tubes, each roughly a yard in length and constructed of crystal shot through with black whorls and lightning bolts.
    Kasper swaddled the tubes in fireproof blankets. Dawn glinted among the gaps in the branches, a cool reddish glare that disquieted Mac for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on.
    “High time to make tracks,” he said as the last of the equipment was stowed.
    “Yeah, let’s am-scray,” Dred said. “I’ve got the heebie-jeebies.”

BIG BLACK
    The company hustled a quarter mile to where a two-ton canvas-backed farm truck awaited. Everybody piled in. Kasper drove through underbrush and between copses of paper birch, pine, and mulberry, until he hit a dirt road that wound along the valley floor and eventually merged with the highway. By consensus they decided to transport their prize to Mac and Dred’s house. Nowhere more secure except for corporate headquarters, and HQ was a last resort due to the fact Dr. Bole and chief of security Nail would demand an explanation.
    Kasper circled past Rosendale and took a secret access road that tunneled through Shawangunk Ridge and emerged at a huge old barn (the boys’ clubhouse) on the edge of the Tooms manor’s back forty. The interior of the barn contained a workshop, lab, a computer, and basement storage. An antenna array poked through the roof. Reinforced with battleship armor plates and powered courtesy of a thirty kilowatt diesel generator sealed inside a soundproof boiler compartment, the barn seemed a likely command post of opportunity.
    “Fellows, I don’t understand any of this,” Dred said.
    “You’re three sheets to the wind,” Mac said.
    “So are you, brother.”
    “None of us have a bead on the details,” Arthur said. He glanced at Mac. “Did you notice how slender the crystals are? Those are fabricated in a geovault. Specially engineered and grown. I’ve seen the tubes as they’re inserted into the mainframe. The ones we extracted