Ignoring the commotion from the two squealing staffers in the backseat, Danika leaned out the window once more. She lined up her sights and squeezed the trigger on reflex. Immediately after the crack of her small pistol, the motorcyclist’s head jerked forward and he fell sideways off the bike, skidding down the cobblestone street as the Ducati slammed into a trash bin and careened back out into the middle of the road, flipping seat over handlebars in a shower of sparks.
The driver never slowed down. “There’s nowhere for us to go—hold on!”
The motorcyclist had just enough time to get to his hands and knees, trying to remove the now-ruined helmet that had saved his life when he saw Danika’s Mercedes bearing down on him. He threw up his hands and tried lurching to the side, but it was too late. Danika’s car clipped his hips and with a sickening crunch, the man disappeared over the roof.
“Shit!” said the chase car driver, to the sound of squealing tires. Danika watched in the side mirror as the limp body of the man tumbled over her own car only to land square on the windshield of the chase car and fly up into the air once more, legs and arms in different directions.
“Brace for impact!” called out her driver. He slammed on the brakes a second before they crashed into the abandoned Ducati. Danika saw the motorcycle had come to rest partially blocking the exit to the alley. She had time to put both hands up toward the dashboard as the driver spun his wheel in desperation to avoid smashing into the motorcycle. They only needed an extra foot of clearance and they would shoot out of the alley and into an empty road.
At the last second, someone opened the door across the street to step out and see what all the ruckus was about. On reflex, the driver swerved around the person, barreling straight into the motorcycle, lifting the right half of the car off the ground, sending them careening across the intersection, completely out of control.
Danika found herself looking out the open window as the buildings came perilously close to their car. Time slowed, and in the course of three heartbeats, she found herself staring at the cobblestone street, then the sky, then the street again. The stomach-churning sensation of weightlessness coincided with her seatbelt pressing down on her chest and her rear lifting out of the seat as the car landed awkwardly and rolled mere inches off the ground in a shower of sparks and broken glass.
No one had time to scream before the car flipped, landed on the driver’s side, and skidded across the street—only coming to rest against the corner of a brownstone bakery when the building creased the roof of the car.
13
The Cavalry
Cooper ignored the protestations of the local constabulary and continued strapping his IIIA polyethylene plate tactical armor over his torso. “Listen bub, if you’re not gonna help me, at least shut up so I can concentrate.”
“I will not shut up, you bloody Yank! Just because we’re not allowed to—” the red-faced Scotland Yard Investigator said.
“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard that before. The higher-ups won’t allow it, the red tape won’t allow it, custom won’t allow it…it’s just not done, old boy,” Cooper said, mimicking a British accent. “Excuse me,” he said, brushing the complaining investigator aside as he opened a range bag and extracted an M4 carbine from Danika’s gear. She’d been in place far longer than his nine hours in-country, and that meant she had gear already cleared through customs and security. It just took him a while to find it.
He lifted the rifle, pulled back the bolt and, satisfied the chamber was empty, released it with a clack while stuffing three loaded magazines into the pouches on his armor.
He knew he looked ridiculous wearing a business suit over a plate carrier, but he had no time to worry about fashion. The only thing he was truly concerned about was the fact that he wore business loafers instead of his tactical boots. But there simply wasn’t time to switch—he still had to find a way out of the building, commandeer a vehicle, and make it to 13’s location in time to offer assistance and potentially save the senator’s life.
Behind him, someone burst into the squad room and announced the gunfire had stopped, but the senator’s convoy had crashed a few kilometers away. The others, with cellphones to their ears appraising supervisors, shouted for more details.
“We don’t know!” replied the messenger, ducking back out of the door.
“Air unit is ready to take off—they’ll be on-scene in ten minutes,” someone called out from across the room, his hand over a cellphone.
“Ambulances dispatched. Expecting heavy casualties,” added another.
Cooper turned and looked at the man from Scotland Yard. “You gonna stand there looking like the kid who just got stood up at the prom, or are you gonna gear up and help me?”
“Dammit, man—” the red-faced investigator began.
“It’s Cooper,” he replied, brushing past.
“Angus!” the investigator replied. “Nice to meet you. But look here, you can’t—”
Cooper grabbed a squawking radio from the table next to him and clipped it to his web belt.
“Oi, that’s mine, mate!” one of the cops cried, turning from his phone.
Cooper leveled his gaze at the man. “It’s mine now.”
“Just where d’ye think you’re going?” the officer demanded in a thick accent. “We’re under lockdown.”
“To do the job that you assholes won’t!” Cooper snapped, starting for the exit. A pair of uniformed cops shot nervous glances at each other then stepped forward to bar his path. One raised a hand, the other on his billy club. “I’m sorry, but orders are orders, surely even a colonial knows that—no one gets in or out until further notice.”
Cooper grinned. “You know what? For a guy who does his job without a gun, you got some big hairy balls there, bub.” The smile vanished. “But the way I see it, I’m the one standing here with a fully automatic M4 carbine, and you’re the one with a stick. My partner and a United States Senator are out there fighting for their lives.”
“I’m no movin’, lad.”
Cooper took a step forward. “The fuck you won’t.”
The officer’s partner frowned and his face darkened. “Now you listen here, you sodding—”
Angus stepped in front of Cooper, placating the officers. “Look, lads, you’re up to high doh—we’re all on the same side here. Murtaugh, you haven’t read this bloke’s file.”
“So?” the bigger of the two uniformed cops said.
Angus glanced at Cooper. “Let him go, trust me.”
Cooper saw a moment of hesitation cross the officer’s face. He leaned around Angus and said, “I don’t want to hurt anybody. You need to listen to your friend—you two are not gonna to stop me.”
“He means it,” Angus warned.
As the cops stepped out of the way, albeit reluctantly, Cooper paused on his way through the sliding door. “Thanks, I owe you one.”
“Thank me when we’ve rescued your senator. Bloody Americans, always bollocksing things up…” muttered Angus.
Cooper laughed and jogged out into the street, ignoring the shouts and warnings from the bevy of police set up behind barricades that blocked off foot traffic to the parliament building. Police cars lined the street in every direction, parked haphazardly to impede vehicle traffic, blue lights flashing in silence.
“What’s the plan?” asked Angus as he trotted out the door behind Cooper, carrying a matching M4.
“You know how to use that thing? I thought all you guys use those little sticks over here or some shit…” Cooper said, his eyes scanning for a suitable vehicle to commandeer.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Angus said. “There’s no way we’re getting through to them in time! Your partner was right—there’s been roadblocks set up all through this sector of the city.”
Cooper nodded, mentally overlaying the map of Edinburgh in front of him. Damn, what I wouldn’t give to have those fucking AR glasses again…
He took off at a run, relishing the fact he didn’t n
eed the damn knee brace that had hampered him for so long. His thick, solid loafers slapped the cobblestone streets making him wince with every step, but there was no way for him to move as quickly or as confidently without having his tactical boots. If he took the time to change into more appropriate attire, 13 and the senator might not see tomorrow.
Cooper and Angus sprinted down the first street and made a left down a side alley, taking the steep steps three at a time until they tumbled to a stop at the bottom and checked the corner.
“Expecting trouble?” Angus panted.
“You’ve got a concerted effort to kidnap and possibly assassinate a United States Senator. The opposing force has clearly shown they’re not against taking shots in a densely populated urban center.” Cooper took another look around the stone corner. “In short, yeah, I’m expecting some shit. Now come on,” he said, barely breaking a sweat. He rounded the corner and then stopped dead in his tracks. At the end of the alley, a large garbage truck blocked his path. Two men stood behind it, idly chatting away and smoking cigarettes.
“What the bloody hell—” began Angus.
Before he finished speaking, Cooper had his rifle up. The two men did not have the look of sanitation engineers. They shared a trait Cooper had seen every day in the mirror. The calm, confident stature of men used to violence and trained to inflict it upon their nation’s enemies. The two men stood there smoking, coiled like springs yet when they turned, they moved with the natural grace of a warrior. They dropped their cigarettes, reached behind them, and their hands emerged with pistols. Cooper pulled the trigger twice on his M4, shifting his aim between trigger pulls, and dropped them both with center mass three-round bursts.
Over the deafening noise of the rifle cracking like thunder in the confined alley, he heard Angus scream.
“Christ!” the Scotland Yard investigator exclaimed. He fumbled at his radio and brought it to his lips. “This is 21 to base,” he announced, “I’ve got shots fired down Watchmen’s Close, two suspects armed with—”
“No time for that bullshit—let’s roll!” Cooper called, wedging himself between the building and the side of the idling trash truck. He ignored the stench and climbed into the driver’s seat, only to find that he was in the passenger seat. “Fucking foreigners,” he muttered, sliding behind the driver’s wheel on the right side.
Angus appeared at the driver’s door, saw Cooper had already occupied the throne, and ran around the front to squeeze into the passenger side. “Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
Cooper grinned as he shifted the trash truck in the gear. “Didn’t I tell you? We’re the cavalry.”
14
Trapped
Danika blinked back the tears from her bruised shoulder as she hung sideways in her seatbelt. She looked up, out her side window into the cloudy sky. Someone moaned in the back. Glass tinkled on the ground to her right, below her. The world had gone sideways.
The engine sputtered and died, but before she could process the constant beeping of the car’s instrument panel—and the blaring horn—she heard squealing tires and the crunch of glass and metal against stone.
No, please don’t fall for the trap, too…
She fumbled for the radio, an awkward task, hanging as she was from her seat. It was just out of reach on the floor—which was also her driver’s lap. He lay crumpled against his door, his neck bent at an odd angle. A small pool of dark red grew from under him somewhere. Over the iron taste in her mouth, she smelled smoke.
“You…” she grunted, coughing. “You okay?”
No answer.
Cursing in Swedish, she groped along her waist and pulled free the small knife she always carried tucked at her side. In one quick slice, the seatbelt parted, providing both instant relief to her aching chest, and a rush of pain as she collapsed onto the driver’s body. Car doors opened somewhere outside as she scrambled to find a weapon. Her pistol had disappeared in the crash and she couldn’t find the one the driver showed her when they’d first met.
“Johnson!” a voice called from outside the car with an American accent. “Jesus—you all right?”
She stood, ignoring the squishy feeling of her heels digging into the driver’s flesh—he was dead and wasn’t likely to file a complaint. Blinking in the light, she raised a hand to her head. “Over here,” she called out.
“Where’s Johnson?” asked the other driver. Blood ran in a bright red sheet down the side of his face.
Squealing tires in the distance brought the world into sharp focus. Danika looked past the chase car driver to his vehicle. It had come to rest behind her own, at a sharp angle. The rear quarter panel had kissed the building around which her car had attempted to wrap itself. The two vehicles created a little open pocket between the building and the street.
“They’re right behind us,” the second driver said, looking back down the alley they’d come.
Danika grunted as she ducked back into the ruined, smoking car. She peered around the headrest and looked at the mess in the backseat. One of the staffers hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. She assumed most of the blood and gore back there belonged to him. The other one stared at the blood on his hands with the wide, blank expression of someone already in the grips of shock.
“You see a gun back there?”
He looked up at her, eyes unfocused. He blinked.
“A gun?” she repeated. “Goes bang when you pull the trigger?”
“He…he’s dead, I think…what happened?”
Danika frowned. She didn’t have time to coddle the man. “Do…you…see…a…gun,” she repeated through clenched teeth. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Look, he’s dead—and you will be too if you don’t follow me and get out of here. Climb over the console and get out through my door. Yours is jammed.”
“But…”
Another set of tires announced the arrival of whoever had been chasing them. Doors opened and the first gunshot rang out like a crack of thunder.
“No time! Stay here, you’ll be safer.” She poked her head out in time to see the second driver dive for the front of his car, seeking shelter from incoming rounds. “I need cover!”
He looked at her from beside his car and nodded. “On three!”
He counted, then emerged from behind the car and fired several shots—two went wide but the last one clipped the leg of one of the shooters across the street. The man screamed and dropped to a knee, but his partner stepped forward and fired in response.
While the driver tangled with their attackers, Danika launched herself out of her car and scrambled over the side, falling in a heap to the sidewalk. She swore at the pain in her hands and knees, but at least she was behind the bulk of the car now. Rounds ricocheted off the undercarriage as the man across the street spotted her and took a few shots.
Too little, too late.
She caught the driver’s eye. “I need a weapon!”
“Here,” said Senator Tecumseh. He climbed out of the backseat of his own car and tossed her a carbine.
Danika snatched the weapon on the move, taking up a position next to the driver. She spared a second to glance at the politician as he yanked back the bolt on his weapon and took up position at the rear wheel.
“How are we going to get out of this?” he yelled over the noise.
Danika picked up the shattered side mirror from her own car and held it over the hood, taking a glance at the intersection on the other side of the chase car. A second vehicle took up position in the middle of the road, giving shelter to the first attackers.
“Dammit!” said the driver, falling to the ground on his back, clutching his left shoulder.
“Is it bad?” asked Danika, her eyes still on the mirror. Two in the front, two in the rear…three more exiting the second vehicle…shit…
“Just a scratch, but fuck it hurts!” the driver complained, rolling to his side to get out of the way.
“Senator! I need you to stay down—we can handle this,” D
anika ordered, lowering the mirror to see Tecumseh crouching, preparing to raise up and fire.
“Bullshit!” he snapped, pointing at the driver. “He’s hit, you need my help.” He stared at her, unflinching as rounds thudded into the car and showered glass on them.
“You got balls, sir,” said the driver, getting up off the ground. “But she’s right—we got this.”
A hail of rounds ripped through the car and Danika heard screaming from inside.
“Get me out of here!”
“Is that your chief of staff?” she asked. She popped up and sent a half-dozen rounds toward the attackers, causing them to duck, giving her side a brief respite from the assault.
Dammit, Braaten, where the hell are you?
“I’m stuck!” the man wailed. He started crying. “I think I’m shot…”
“Just stay down,” Tecumseh ordered. Over Danika’s objection, he raised up and fired a long burst from his own rifle just as their attackers recovered from her own volley. When he stopped and dropped back down, the wounded driver raised up and returned fire as well.
It was an effective tactic to buy them time, but they were woefully short on ammunition. It wouldn’t last much longer. “Did you hear anything from my partner?” she demanded of the other driver.
He shook his head and ducked as an incoming round ricocheted off the stone wall of the bakery behind them, pinging against the side of the car next to his head.
“He said they were locked down at the Parliament building—said we have to unfuck ourselves on our own.”
Danika frowned and shoved a lock of stray, bloodied hair out of her eyes. “That sounds like him.”
The driver raised up and fired twice more, then dropped down, cursing at his weapon. “I’m out!” he said, tossing it aside to clatter off the cobblestone sidewalk.
“Got one!” Senator Tecumseh exclaimed, dropping to the ground again.
“Ow!” the chief of staff yelled. “Help meeeeee!”
The Regent Page 10