by Graham Brown
The street was quiet, the neighborhood was quiet, and Danielle had also been quiet for several minutes.
He grabbed the phone and clicked the push-to-talk button. “You finding anything?”
It took a few seconds before the reply came.
“Some kind of lab in here,” she said. “Computers, incubators, microscopes. Everything rigged to explosives.”
“Wonderful,” he said, thinking maybe they should get the French police and the bomb squad involved.
“Any trouble out there?”
“The coast seems clear for now, but …”
Hawker’s voice trailed off. The Isuzu truck had returned. It pulled up in front of the town house and stopped.
When was he going to learn to keep his mouth shut?
“Hold on a second,” he said. “You might have company.”
“From where?”
“Front door,” Hawker said.
“How many?”
The Isuzu had parked directly in front of the town house, blocking Hawker’s view of the entrance. Three men jumped out, dressed like movers. One guy milled around near the back of the van and the other two moved toward the front and the entrance to the town home.
“Two at least,” he said. “A third out here.”
“I need to know if they’re coming in,” she said.
Hawker could hear the frustration in Danielle’s voice. He knew she would wait until the last second, maybe even push it too far. That was her way. He thought of telling her the men were headed in now, just to get her moving.
“They seem to be bumbling around,” he said. “But you might want to look for a back way out.”
“I need more time,” she said.
“It’s not exactly up to me.”
Hawker stared at the truck, trying to think of some way to distract the men at the front door, when a shadow caught the corner of his eye. It crossed from behind.
He ducked instinctively just as the side window shattered and the pop, pop of a suppressor-equipped handgun sounded.
No time to look back; he scrambled across the car as a third shot was fired. A long finger of padding exploded from one of the seats, marking the bullet’s track to his left.
He grabbed the door handle, pushed the passenger’s door open, and tumbled out onto the sidewalk. Pulling his gun as he hit the cement, he twisted and fired blindly back into the car and all around it.
Inside the townhome, Danielle heard the shots. She knew the sound of Hawker’s .45.
She needed to go, but she felt the answer was close. She flipped through the pages of the notebook, skipping toward the end until she found a page that was only half-full. The last entry was dated one month prior.
She rang her finger down the list.
Series 947—results inconclusive, subject terminated.
Series 948—results inconclusive, subject terminated.
Series 949—results determinable, vitality affected, subject did not survive.
Another gunshot rang out. Danielle glanced that way and then back at the notes.
Series 950—results inconclusive, subject terminated.
Series 951—outcome unequivocal, subject telomeres shortened, activity level unaffected, life span reduced by 51 %.
That was the last entry.
Danielle stared at the words as if in a trance. Telomeres shortened … life span reduced.
Telomeres were molecular chains at the end of the DNA strand. They were known to be connected with cellular reproduction, cellular life span, and even human life span.
What the hell were these people messing around with?
Another shot boomed outside the door and Danielle knew she’d run out of time.
She ripped the page from the notebook and turned toward the back of the home. Then, realizing the flash drive was still attached to the computer, she ran to it.
A loud crashing noise told her the front door had been breached. She yanked the drive free, turned, and raced to the back of the house.
Hawker lay pressed against the ground, near the rear wheel of the vehicle. The gunman who’d missed him was on the other side of the car, crouched down near the front of the vehicle, no more than ten feet away.
Hawker stared under the car, watching for the man’s feet. Then he raised his gun and fired through the car. Two shots, glass shattering everywhere, but the bastard didn’t flinch.
The problems as Hawker saw them were threefold. First, he was outnumbered and sooner or later they would come at him from two directions. Second, Danielle was stuck in the building, unless she’d busted out the back as he hoped. Third, the man trying to kill him was up front, protected by the engine block, while Hawker crouched a mere fourteen inches from the half-filled gas tank.
He glanced at the big Isuzu: no one there. He guessed they’d gone inside.
A bullet hit the wall behind him. High and wide.
Time to move. Hawker scrambled backward, scooting on his backside, aiming the gun at the rear of the Peugeot. He fired repeatedly. One shot after another.
Finally there was an explosion. Not the conflagration seen in Hollywood movies, but a bang that blew the trunk off and shattered the rear window. In an instant the flames were licking around the car.
The gunman on the other side was thrown back. Looking under the car, Hawker saw the man’s feet as he stood and ran.
Hawker fired, low and flat, skipping the bullets under the car and off the pavement. With his third shot, the man’s ankle exploded and he tumbled down face-first into the street, screaming in agony.
Inside, Danielle had made it through the kitchen to a frosted glass door with a dead bolt. White light poured in through it and freedom beckoned.
She heard footsteps behind her, men shouting to each other. She hastily checked the door for red wires. Finding none, she turned the lock, threw the door open, and raced outside into the rear yard.
Halfway across a man tackled her and pinned her to the ground. She tried to throw him off, but he held a knife beside her face and she went still.
He snatched the papers from her hand, along with the Beretta 9 mm that sat uselessly in a shoulder holster.
“Get up!” the man shouted.
As his weight came off her, she complied. Two other men were with him.
“Take her to the boat,” one of them said. The two men dragged her off as the third made his way inside.
Hawker saw the man in the street writhing in pain. He thought of racing past him to the house, but the other thugs had just gone in. And at any rate, if Danielle was smart, she’d gone out the back.
He turned, examining the houses along the street. Spotting an alleyway between two of the old homes, he ran for it.
Sliding through the narrow chasm, he came out behind the row of houses.
Across the backyards he saw Danielle with two men marching her toward the river. He stepped forward and raised his weapon.
A thundering explosion knocked him sideways.
A flash of heat singed his face. Shrapnel of wood, plaster, and glass blasted him from the side.
He hit the ground hard, rolled over in case he was on fire, and then got to his hands and knees. His head was foggy, his ears ringing. He had no idea what had happened.
As dark smoke billowed around him, he glanced over his shoulder. The townhome had been obliterated from within. Three walls blown out, the roof collapsing, the building was nothing more than a shell now. Flames rose up from inside, chasing the dark smoke as the last wall of brick bulged and collapsed in a sliding pile.
Out in the yard, Danielle and the two men were down. She seemed to have fared better than they had, as if their bodies behind her had acted as a shield.
Hawker climbed to his feet and ran to her, arriving just as she pushed one of the men off. The guy had to be dead, a jagged length of pipe sticking through him.
The other assailant rolled groggily. Hawker dropped down beside him, pulling an old revolver from his hand and tossing it away. The man didn
’t resist but just stared, glassy-eyed.
“And you think I like to break things,” he said, helping Danielle up.
She found her Beretta and put it back in her holster.
“What the hell happened?” Hawker asked.
Danielle looked around, appearing disoriented. “Guess somebody checked out the wrong book.”
Ash rained down around them now. Fragments of burning paper falling from the heavens left trails of glowing cinders and smoke as whatever knowledge had been hidden in that building burned itself to dust.
Danielle rubbed her temple, looking down at the dead man.
“Could have been you,” Hawker said.
She nodded, and then her mind seemed to clear. She turned toward the river.
“They were taking me to a boat.”
Hawker looked that way as Danielle began to walk. The lawn led to a fence with gate, beyond which lay a road and an imposing wall made of stone. A flight of steps cut into the wall had to lead to the Seine.
The sound of a motorboat starting ripped through the air. And Hawker watched as Danielle took off running.
CHAPTER 10
Caught flat-footed, Hawker raced after Danielle as she crashed through an iron gate at the rear of the property, sprinted across the road, and angled toward the wide stairwell. The stairs cut an angled cleft in the wall and sloped down toward the river.
She disappeared down the first few steps as Hawker ran across the street, dodging traffic to try to catch up with her.
The sound of more gunfire rang out, and Hawker tore around the wall’s edge and raced down the stairs.
He found Danielle taking cover behind the last pillar of the railing. Someone on the tail end of a speedboat was firing at her as the boat accelerated away, cutting a deep white swath into the calm river.
Hawker stared at the man, wondering if he was looking at Ranga’s killer.
He glanced around. There were no other boats tied up by the stairs except an old dinghy with two wooden oars. That wasn’t going to help.
Hawker looked back toward the road, had one of those thoughts that he should have tossed out as madness, and raced back up the steps looking for a vehicle.
The Seine flowed through the heart of Paris, for the most part completely and utterly walled in. A thousand years of history will do that to a river in the midst of a city. And that meant this particular boat on this particular river could be chased by a car.
Hawker pushed out onto the street, looking for a car. A fast car. Nothing, and then …
He stepped in front of a moving motorcycle, raising his gun.
The rider skidded to a stop.
“I need your bike,” he said.
The rider laid it down without shutting it off and backed away with his hands up.
Hawker shoved the .45 into his shoulder holster and picked up the bike. Throwing a leg over, he jumped on, gunned the throttle, and dropped the red Ducati into gear.
By the time Danielle reached the top of the stairs she had her phone open, trying to get the French police. But the French 911 system seemed to be busy. She looked around, guessing that dozens if not hundreds of calls were being made about the shooting and explosion. It would probably be a minute or two.
She looked around for Hawker and saw a man in a motorcycle helmet without a motorcycle, gesturing madly. Down the road she saw the bike blazing off into the distance.
“Oh hell,” she mumbled. The situation was going from bad to worse.
She hung up the phone and focused in on a rubber-necker in a sedan who’d slowed to check out the burning house.
Reluctantly, and knowing there would be hell to pay, she did almost exactly as Hawker had just done.
Raising her gun, she motioned for the man to step out of the vehicle.
He froze as if it was “the end.”
She waved the gun. “Move!”
He gripped the wheel, petrified.
She exhaled in frustration. “Oh come on,” she said.
“Just get out of the car. I’m not really going to shoot you.”
Finally, the white-haired gentleman opened the door and stepped out. Danielle took his place, tossed the phone on the front seat, and jammed the car into gear.
A second later she was racing down the street, the Seine to her right, Hawker somewhere up ahead, and the sound of police sirens growing in her ears.
Hawker raced along in the Ducati, weaving in and out of traffic. He had no idea exactly where he was going, but the frontage road along the Seine cut back and forth between buildings and mostly mirrored the water’s edge.
A slow-moving truck got in his way and he cut to the inside lane, slicing through the space between two other cars, close enough to reach out and touch both of them had he wanted to.
Shooting out between them, he accelerated further just as the road popped up on a high stretch. From there he scanned the river looking for the boat, catching sight of it about a half mile ahead, hauling ass down the center of the channel. A long white wake stretched out behind it.
Of course, there was one big flaw in his plan. He could follow the boat, but unless the Ducati turned into a Jet Ski, he could not get to it.
He thought of reaching for his phone, trying to shout over the wind that he was the madman who’d just blown up a house and stolen a motorbike at gunpoint, which he was using to chase a speedboat, and politely request backup from the French police. But even in a land where Jerry Lewis was nearly a saint, he guessed that request might not be taken in the light he’d hoped it would. Besides, his French sucked.
Then he saw a chance. A mile or so up ahead, a line of barges sat on the right side of the river. The boat would have to move closer to the left bank and there Hawker would have his chance.
He twisted the throttle and the bike leapt forward.
As she raced through traffic, Danielle was trying to accomplish a great many things. First, catch Hawker before he did anything stupid; second, avoid killing anyone; and third, stay ahead of the French police.
She saw them in the mirror, blue lights flashing, distinctive singsong wail of their sirens ringing in her ears. She kept her foot down on the accelerator and her eyes forward.
She caught sight of Hawker for a moment, far up ahead, but the sedan was neither as fast nor as maneuverable as the Ducati. He was there for a second and in a blink he was gone, just as another police car swerved onto the road beside her and slammed into the sedan.
She pulled away and regained control and edged in front of the offending vehicle.
“Pull over,” she heard from a loudspeaker. “You must pull your vehicle to the curb.”
The road bent sharply to the right; she tapped the brakes, squeezed the police car for space, forcing it to drop back, and then mashed on the accelerator once again. It was a bit late to start acting rational.
She made it half a mile farther before two more squad cars pulled onto the road in front of her.
She tried to shoot the gap between them but they closed it. She swerved to the left to cut around but one of them cut left as well, pinning her against the wall. Another car blocked her way and slammed on its brakes. Danielle tried to stop, but too late.
She slammed into the rear of the police unit. The air-bag fired and the next thing she knew she was at a dead stop, dust and residue from the airbag’s explosive swirling around her.
Disoriented, she tried to get out. The door opened, then hands reached in and grabbed her, dragging her from the car and holding her to the ground.
Up ahead, Hawker continued racing down the road. Out in the river, the speedboat had slowed a bit, its driver apparently unaware that he was being followed. The boat was pulling closer to the left bank and Hawker knew this was his only chance.
Matching his speed with the boat’s, he watched for an opening. He spotted a gap in the stone rail that ran along the river’s edge, angled toward it, and accelerated. Cutting across the grass, he lined up with the opening and pinned the throttle open.
At fifty miles an hour, he hit the gap and the bike launched itself toward the speeding boat. The heavy Ducati began to fall away beneath him and Hawker pushed off it, throwing himself to the right.
He heard a tremendous crunch and then he hit the water behind the boat.
Breaking the surface a moment later, he saw the speedboat floundering, the fiberglass cracked and broken where the four-hundred-pound Ducati had slammed into it, like a stone hitting a paper cup.
Shedding his jacket, Hawker swam toward the boat as it began to go down. There were two men aboard. One appeared injured, maybe unconscious, but the other was getting back to his feet. He spotted Hawker, raised a pistol, and fired.
Hawker dove under the water. Bullets cut white lines through the murk here and there as he swam to a new position. He held his breath until the gunfire stopped and then he cautiously popped up.
The man with the pistol was gone, either hiding or gone overboard himself.
Hawker swam up to the swamped vessel. He slipped his own gun out of the holster, put a hand on what remained of the stern, and looked around.
The boat shifted and tilted, debris floating about. Seat cushions, life jackets, and a few empty water bottles bobbed up and down, but Hawker did not see the gunman.
As the boat began to roll, Hawker grabbed the injured man and pulled him into the water.
A moment later the speedboat flipped over. It remained floating, a few feet of the keel sticking out of the water.
Hawker held on to the unconscious man and kicked away from the boat, swimming backward toward the shore, his eyes still on the boat. No movement. He looked around in all directions, but the gunman had disappeared.
CHAPTER 11
Virginia Industrial Complex, Virginia
Arnold Moore, director of operations at the National Research Institute, sat at a metallic desk with a glass top. Papers arranged in neat stacks lined both sides of a computer monitor that would fold flat into the desktop for more workspace if he needed it. To the left and right, printers and scanners and screens for satellite videoconferencing sat dormant, only their “standby” LEDs blinking softly in the semidarkness.