Drake moved through a tangled network of what appeared to be oil barrels, tracking two more mercs. “Oh aye. We keep hoping she’ll settle down. Take up PlayStation or something.”
“That may not help. My kid, Mikey, has one. Even makes him crazy.”
“Shit. We’ll keep video games behind a childproof lock then.”
Drake tackled a barrel like an American footballer, hitting hard, forcing it back and then over . . . right on top of the man sheltering behind it. The rim of the barrel struck just above the man’s eyes, leaving him bloody and unconscious. Drake sprawled atop him.
In full view of the second merc’s raised rifle.
Trent vaulted his own barrel, both feet connecting heavily with the merc’s skull. His shot, a reaction, went wild as his body slumped to the ground.
Drake spun, intent on the others. Alicia was still circling Dudley, a bruise on her cheek revealing that he’d made it past her defenses at least once. The arrival of more mercs took Drake’s attention.
Alicia had had enough of letting Dudley take the lead. It wasn’t her way. She’d already purposely given him a way through her defenses. When he tried a second time she was ready, feinting at the last moment and ducking in.
Up close.
She delivered a flurry of punches. Ribs, solar plexus and gut. The Irishman’s muscles absorbed the worst of it, but Alicia was no soft touch and she drove him back. Suddenly his onslaught was forgotten as he tried to cover up.
Alicia used her feet. A strike to the knee made Dudley stagger. As he went down Alicia stepped in, only to walk straight onto a powerful rising uppercut. If the blow had connected under her chin it would have been lights out at the very least. As it was, the blow smashed into her sternum and clipped her chin, making her bend double and then fall to one knee.
She couldn’t remember ever being hit so hard.
Dudley danced away, skipping his feet from side to side. “Ah, yeah! Gotcha! Yer won’t beat ole Callan Dudley in a bout o’ boxin’, little love. Champ o’ the Irish underground I was, and then some. Now let’s put yer on yer back.”
He kicked out, aiming for her face. Alicia rolled backwards, coming up on her feet and trying to mask her pain. Dudley wasted another minute of his advantage rapping at her and then advanced again in a boxer’s stance. Alicia saw she was going to have to break this bastard out of his comfort zone.
Drake finished the mercs off with a low grenade, ducking as explosive debris saturated the air. Trent caught a loner by the neck and fought hard for a few moments before the man collapsed. Mai caught the attention of two more.
Their decision to take her on directly proved to be a bad one.
Drake paused at the side of one of the lengthy tables. A computer screen flickered alongside him. Comms chatter had been crackling along quite efficiently throughout the battle. He already knew that Crouch and team were engaged above Niagara Falls and Hayden’s team were involved in a road-warrior battle with three Jags.
Dudley’s voice brought him back to the moment. “Stand still while I hit ya. Yer like a feckin’ meerkat popping up and down like that!”
Alicia jabbed at his throat, shutting him up. Drake moved toward her from her left, Dahl from her right, but the Englishwoman stepped back and held up a hand.
“No,” she said. “Sometimes you just gotta fight crazy with crazy. This one’s mine.”
Drake didn’t like it, but knew better than to ignore her. Dahl pulled up too, but kept his gun handy.
Alicia took a blow to the forehead, feinted right and again dived in. Dudley was a pure boxer, he didn’t like his legs messed with. Alicia kicked his knees, his thighs and then clasped him tight, bringing a knee up to the groin. When his eyes bulged she pushed him away, hard.
Dudley gasped. Alicia leaped in again, nose to nose, chest to chest. “A hit to the plums and you’re suddenly a jelly? Pathetic!”
She repeated the move. Dudley caught his breath without making more than a brief shriek, threw another cross-jab at her, but the attempt was unfocused, weak. Alicia stepped in once more.
Dudley rose, all power and lethal ability, again faking the hurt in an effort to draw his quarry in.
Alicia saw the about-turn too late, saw it in his eyes a moment after she was totally committed. This is it then, she thought. The killing blow. Dudley had engineered this opening by sacrificing his nuts and would be putting all of his homicidal strength into this move.
But only as Alicia had anticipated. Yes it was risky, but she wagered that an Irish brawler of Dudley’s obvious prowess wouldn’t balk too much at a blow to the gonads. Probably even enjoyed it. So she faked it, faked the final step in so he would at last show his hand.
And Dudley did. He swung upward and with every ounce of strength, missing Alicia by a whisker and exposing his entire body below the chin.
Alicia had been trained to take a man out with a single blow. Now, with every inch of Dudley unprotected she delivered more than half a dozen to his vital areas. The sack of meat that hit the ground a moment later was fully incapacitated, unable even to crawl.
Drake leaped over with a set of plastic ties.
“Aw.” Alicia tried not to show her pain. “My trusty, obedient bunny.”
Dahl approached, one hand touching the comms set fastened to his ear. “About bloody time!” he shouted. “Hurry it up. We have a lead on the Pythians’ HQ!”
“And the antidote?” Mai asked.
“They’re fighting for it,” Trent replied, stern face looking worried. “They’re sure fighting for it.”
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Crouch swerved their ‘copter into the path of an oncoming enemy machine at the last minute, preventing a broadside gun battle, and making them pull up swiftly. This caused one man to fall, plunging straight down into the turbulent, frigid waters below. Crouch came around in a wide, ascending circle, finishing on the tail of his would-be assailant. Healey leaned out and fired a volley, young face set rigid with concentration.
Crouch noticed Caitlyn watching him with fear and was reminded that the two were trying to set up a date.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”
“God I hope so. He’s too young and virile to end up as fish-food down there.”
The comms crackled. Alicia’s voice, predictably dry. “And that arse is so terrific and instantly slappable . . .”
Caitlyn blushed, having forgotten about the comms in the heat of battle. “I guess you’re never going to let me forget that one. We’re gonna have to find a way to mask personal observations,” she commented. “Maybe keywords or something.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Alicia laughed.
Crouch finessed his machine in the other’s wake, allowing Healey to fire off a well-directed volley. The tail rotor of the other shredded after a moment and the craft swerved hard and fell away, searching desperately for a place to land. Crouch saw it crash nose-first into the cliff wall underneath one of the observation decks, plumes of fire rolling up toward the guard rails.
“Get out of the goddamn way,” he muttered as people leaped safely to all sides.
“Three down,” Caitlyn observed. “One to go.”
Crouch nodded. Russo’s bird was tracking the final mercenary ‘copter high above, following the curve of the falls around the Horseshoe bend and all the way to the American side. An arch bridge spanned the river there, called the Rainbow Bridge, which separated the Canadian side from the American side, tall and gray, eye-catching. Crouch saw the final chopper heading toward it.
A plethora of worries invaded his heart. Everything from a rocket attack against the bridge to a landing in one of the many featureless parking lots. Quickly he hauled on the collective and gave chase from below as Russo pursued from above. The last chopper swooped low and shot through the great arch of the Rainbow Bridge, closely followed by Russo and Crouch, pushing for even more speed. Shots were fired from the fleeing machine but seemed rather half-hearted now.
“So no
w they have another agenda?” Crouch realized. “It has to be the Pythians! What else could it be? Who else could turn this chopper around? Listen everyone, I’m guessing that the Pythians have a pretty much foolproof evacuation plan and a whole army of men to execute it. They’ve called in the reinforcements now. Follow our lead.”
Affirmations snapped in through the comms, most of them implying grim relief. The Pythians were on the run. At last. It was a capture or kill mission now.
*
Hayden felt like she’d been sidelined for years. Truth be told, since she’d been shot, she hadn’t really missed the field. The break had given her time to think, to adjust, to recuperate whilst reflecting on her life. From FBI agent and then liaison to Secretary Gates to leader of SPEAR in so short a time; through her chaotic relationships until she finally let Mano Kinimaka be the person he’d always wanted to be. For most of her life she’d felt as if she’d been waiting for something to happen.
Treading water.
Always the person on the fringes, looking in. But since she met Matt Drake the adventure, the whirlwind, had never stopped.
She hoped to God it would never end.
Fired up, she let Kinimaka drive whilst she took the Alfa’s passenger seat. The Hawaiian, big behind the small wheel, nevertheless drove with dexterity and brilliance, shooting the mid-size, lime-green car to within a hair’s breadth of the third Jag’s black rear fender. With all the windows open the snarl emitting from the car’s twin tailpipe was a noisy, powerful, mechanical howl.
Kinimaka held the Alfa at top speed, seeing a clear stretch ahead.
Karin shook her head. “They’re gonna pull away from us.”
“Not if I can help it.” Hayden watched as all the Jag’s windows came down and black barrels were poked out. The other car, the red Lexus, powered past to her left, its own windows down and Smyth’s head sticking out: a pissed-off, vengeful Alsatian. The Jaguar slowed slightly, and came up alongside.
Hayden threw her door open, clung with one hand to the top side of the door frame and leaned across the roof, steadying her gun by lying on the smooth metal. Gusts of wind ripped at her. Tiny motes of debris blasted her clothing. She took aim on the array of gun barrels and didn’t waste a moment.
She opened fire. One . . . two . . . three shots pumped into the back seat and then the front. Blood splashed the side of the car, red against pitch black. A gun slithered out, bounced against the asphalt. Shots were fired wildly into the air. The last Jaguar veered and then righted itself as Smyth’s Lexus swerved in on the second in line. Hayden fired more shots in the driver’s direction. A bout of return fire sent her ducking behind the frame, knowing how futile the gesture was but accepting it as a normal reaction. Her own window shattered but no bullet struck her.
Kinimaka’s face was distorted by worry and anger. “Get in!”
Hayden fired one more time, sighting carefully and taking a deep breath. Her bullet took out the driver. The black Jag bumped across a concrete verge, spun a one-eighty and then motored up the first hill of a verdant golf course, chewing grass and snapping off a lonely flag. Men in white T-shirts and checkered pants ran screaming.
Hayden climbed back inside. “One down.”
“I hate it when you do that!” Kinimaka nevertheless floored the gas pedal to come up behind Smyth’s Lexus.
“Been a while,” Hayden said. “Missed it.”
She watched ahead as the second Jag in line suddenly spouted an excess of gun barrels through its side windows. Smyth, being the closest, flung his own door open and stepped onto the door sill, hanging with one hand on the frame. Unlike Hayden, he was on the right side of the car, next to the Jag. Screaming at the top of his voice he reached out and wrenched a gun away from its owner, then another. As his driver inched even closer Smyth reached inside the other car’s window and grabbed a man’s throat, pulling him half out the window.
Stuck as they were outside the window, the gun barrels couldn’t properly reposition to fire at him. Then the Lexus swerved, striking a pothole, and Smyth lost his grip. Thinking fast he pushed off the side of the Jag and landed back inside his own car, almost sprawling onto Lauren.
The New Yorker’s eyes were open, lackluster, almost lifeless, but she still managed a wan smile. “Still playing the clown, huh?”
Smyth had never played the clown and both of them knew it. Even now she was teasing him. He held out a calloused, bloody hand and placed it so gently on her knee she could barely feel the pressure.
“Hang in there, beautiful. We’re close.”
Through his comms he heard Hayden explaining that the third Jaguar had been seized and searched by following police and nothing resembling an antidote had been found. She also confirmed that the road ahead was relatively clear. The authorities, using police choppers and commandeering others, had sealed off most of the off and on ramps.
He sat up. Bullets pinged through the car, smashing windows. In a moment he realized Agent Collins had been far from idle; seated in the front passenger seat she had replicated Hayden’s earlier movements and was holding the door frame and leaning away from their car, out over the asphalt at ninety miles an hour, to evade enemy fire.
Smyth growled, jumped back onto the door sill and wrestled another gun away from its owner. Then, without a split second’s pause, he launched his torso across the deadly gap and through the Jag’s open window.
Inside the rear, it was an instant melee. Two bodies already crowded the footwell. Smyth punched hard into the chest of the man he’d landed upon, the one he’d disarmed a second ago. As he did that a final merc, shuffling around in the far seat, took a bead on his face with a handgun.
“Say bye bye, soldier boy.”
The finger pressed. Smyth couldn’t get out of the way, but continued punching his own adversary right into the last instant of his life. Anything . . . anything to save Lauren and take these mercs and their evil bosses all the way down to a place where they could only drink brimstone.
The merc fired.
Smyth jerked his head back, expecting pain and death. Instead he saw the merc lurch sideways as a bullet took him in the side of the face. His shot twitched wide.
Smyth, still punching, glanced back. Collins lay prone on the top of the Lexus, entire body outside the car, sighting along her outstretched arms.
Smyth stared. “Jesus Christ.” Is she for real?
Her business-like grin said that she was.
Turning back he realized that the merc he was punching had succumbed long ago. Now only the man in the driver’s seat was still moving.
“Get out! Get out!” Smyth heard Collins’ scream barely through the ringing in his ears. What the . . . ?
Looking ahead he saw that the Jag was out of control, the driver now slumped, the car veering slowly toward a Shell gas station and a dozen empty pumps. Faster than he could think he scissored his body around and opened the rear door, letting it swing wide.
Komodo guided the Lexus to within a foot of the speeding, drifting Jag.
Smyth leaped over as Collins rolled off the roof and distorted her body to fit back through the open window. The movement took its toll, wrenching her handgun away, scraping her spine and elbows and making her scream, but the result was worth it.
Panting, she rolled toward Smyth.
“You okay, buddy?”
His vision was momentarily blinded as the second Jaguar careened into the gas station, smashing through upstanding pumps and rebounding off a metal stanchion, then spinning several revolutions before hurtling into the kiosk. Bricks and mortar rained down on it.
His thoughts were only for Lauren. “I just hope the antidote wasn’t in that car,” he said as the first licks of flame surrounded it.
Lauren Fox reached out a shaking hand to comfort him. “Don’t . . . worry. Don’t. Thank you for trying.” A breath rattled through her frame. It sounded like her last.
Smyth had to turn away. As he did he felt the covered syringe move in one of his
pockets. The drug that would slow her metabolic rate! Heart surging with hope he withdrew the hard plastic tube and prepped the liquid.
Please. Please work.
Quickly, he uncovered Lauren’s arm and injected the fluid. Now they were working on hope and luck and good will. He smiled as her eyes fluttered open.
Collins nodded, grim-faced, at the lead Jag.
“Now we end this. And them.”
*
Hayden ordered Kinimaka to plant his foot through the floor. Their Alfa spurted forward just as the Lexus sped up. If these Jaguars had initially been heading for the Pythian HQ, delivering an antidote that the second facility had just formulated, then they were now fleeing for their freedom, their lives. It wouldn’t have surprised Hayden to find that the Pythians had ordered the second driver to smash into the gas station. Hopefully, the lead driver wouldn’t do anything quite so foolish.
As their cars swept up to the side of the last remaining Jaguar, the men inside started shooting. The Lexus took a peppering to the front fender, the Alfa a stippling around the front wheel arch. Still, nobody backed down. Engines roared in protest, shuddering the very air they dispersed. Ahead now, the two-lane carriageway was about to run out, the road curving into a built-up area. Hayden realized they had seconds to act.
“Again!”
She flung her door wide, but it was already too late. The Jag roared ahead as its driver decided to utilize its own firepower rather than its occupants’. At the last moment Komodo, driving the Lexus, tried to swing over into its slipstream but turned an instant too soon.
The Lexus impacted against the rear of the Jag hard enough to make the driver lose control. The results were terrifying, sending the huge black car into an eighty-miles-per-hour spin and its occupants into a fortunate oblivion. At first the Jaguar swerved within the limits of the road but then it hit the high curb and flipped, spinning slowly lengthways as all its wheels left the ground. Rolling helplessly, it smashed into a wide glass restaurant frontage, destroying the window, its frames and the brick wall above it. Wreckage exploded inside and outside the restaurant. Tables scattered.
The Matt Drake Series Books: 7-9 (The Matt Drake Series Boxset 2) Page 66