Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] by Nick Pollotta Read Free Book Online Page B

mines,” I cursed, returning the device to my coat.
    My team gave assorted noises of displeasure, but we kept it relatively clean, since Donaher was present.
    "What kind of mines?” Katrina asked, a touch of fear marring her lovely face.
    The big priest stared at her aghast. “Saints above, lass! What kind? The kind that go boom. Are there any others?"
    "Who cares?” Raul stated cavalierly, the tiny bells on his yacht moccasins chiming a merry two o'clock. “We're mages. The mines won't go off when we walk on them. Katrina and I will blaze a path for the rest. Okay?"
    As the only ex-soldiers in the group, George gave me a weary glance, and I returned the look with proper embellishments. Civilians!
    "Wrong, Mr. Wizard,” George explained. “Some mines explode when you step on them. Others when you get near. And others detonate when you step on some other mine yards away. Plus, a few wait after being stepped on and then explode later."
    Blinking hard, Raul turned paler than usual. “Good gods, why?"
    "A delayed blast gets more of the invading group by exploding in the middle of them."
    There was a long pause. “Oh,” he said softly.
    "And some first ignite a small charge to shoot the huge secondary charge into the air so it explodes in your face,” I added succinctly.
    "Or your groin,” George snarled as a curse. “I know a couple of soprano Marines who can testify to that. They're called Bouncing’ Bettys."
    "The land mines, not the Marines,” he quickly corrected.
    Morally outraged at the very concept, Father Donaher hawked to spit at the minefield, then paused in reflection, and swallowed instead. Wise move.
    "So how do we get past them? Circle round to the main road?” Jessica asked, turning along the fence. Suddenly, the bushes and trees in that direction went very still. “No. Never mind. That's probably even better protected than this side exit."
    "We could crawl along on our hands and knees probing the soil with a knife like they do in the old war movies,” Mindy suggested eagerly, drawing a foot-long butterfly knife from inside her shirt.
    "Knifing may work, may not,” George growled, pulling the arming bolt on his M60 machine rifle. “But this definitely will."
    In a thunderous roar, the weapon began spraying a stream of armor-piercing rounds into the ground, the big .30 bullets chewing a path through the manicured grass. A few meters away the soil exploded in a geyser of flame. Then a bit further out a dark metallic oval boomed into the air and then exploded at chest level. There was another of those, two more geysers and the bullets began impinging on the wooden fence. In a spray of splinters the clapboard collapsed offering us a path through to the town.
    Releasing the trigger, a ringing silence engulfed us and for a moment everybody worked their jaws to try and stop the echoes in our ears. Wow. Dolby sense-a-surround, eat your heart out. Even the animated forest seemed temporarily stunned. However, I had been watching the town during the bombardment, and not a window curtain stirred, nor a light blinked on. Hadleyville appeared totally deserted. Yet, somehow, I had the feeling that we were not alone. Maybe it was only ghosts.
    On the other hand, what the hell was this place? Augmented humanoids, animated trees, high tech proximity sensor wires, and a Whitman's Sampler of land mines. What had we stumbled upon here, a lost Bureau 13 base?
    Obviously thinking along the same line, Mindy made the same observation aloud, Katrina asked for an explanation, and Jessica obliged. In the summer of 1977, an unknown foe had decimated the Bureau, killing 90% of our operatives in less than four hours. We still had no idea who, or why, it was done.
    Only slightly less important than the identity of the mysterious foe, was the fact that a lot of files were lost in the aftermath, including the locations of hundreds of our secret hideouts. Mostly small boltholes, some only hidden rooms on the 13th floor of hotels,