Vaughn stared at Hannah for a moment. ‘Say what now?’
Hannah blinked, trying to understand what had just happened. ‘I saw it,’ she said, already becoming aware of how ridiculous she sounded. ‘Lot Four, District Storage. Take a left onto Wisconsin and hit the gas, we’ll beat Warner and his team to it.’
Vaughn did not reply as he peeled off from following the SUVs and then slammed the accelerator down and lit their pursuit lights up. The Lincoln surged forward as Hannah shook her head in an effort to clear it. Vaughn shot her a sideways glance.
‘So, you’re using the Force now?’
Hannah stared out of the windshield into the middle distance as the Lincoln turned right and accelerated as its tires squealed, Vaughn pushing the vehicle hard, swerving in and out of the traffic.
‘I don’t know what happened but I saw the building and I know where he is. If I turn out to be wrong you can shoot me yourself.’
Vaughn did not reply as they raced over the District and Maryland border. Hannah glanced right in the hope of seeing Warner’s convoy across to the north east, but she could see nothing as they raced toward the storage facility.
‘We’re almost there,’ Vaughn warned her. ‘What the hell do we do when we arrive? If by some miracle Abrahem’s there, which will for sure freak me out by the way, we can’t call for back up. We’re not even supposed to be here.’
Hannah reached for her pistol and checked it before she glanced at her cell phone. She knew that if Abrahem was in the building she would have to call for support of some kind – the terrorist presented too great a threat to let inter–agency squabbling get in the way of his arrest.
‘Be ready to call in,’ she said to Vaughn finally. ‘If this goes south, we’ll have to use Warner for support.’
‘Warner?!’ Vaughn gasped. ‘You’re going to call the person we’re supposed to be apprehending?!’
‘Let’s see if we can’t grab Nassir first, okay?’
Vaughn said nothing as he shut off the Lincoln’s lights and slowed down as they approached the lock–ups, located on a large lot surrounded by a twelve foot chain link fence. Hannah saw two potential exits, both open, and a number of vehicles parked in the lot.
‘Stay clear of the lot,’ Hannah said. ‘Let’s park around the block and move in on foot.’
‘If they see us coming, we won’t have an effective escape method,’ Vaughn cautioned.
‘Warner and his team will be here in minutes. We either get Abrahem pinned down or we’ll lose the collar and access to the case. Let’s move.’
Vaughn drove around the corner of the block and pulled in, several other cars lining the sidewalk ahead and a small number of business workers standing outside in the sunshine, perhaps on their lunch breaks, some smoking as they chatted.
Hannah got out of the Lincoln and began walking back toward the lock–ups. A high pitched wolf whistle from behind her made her turn to see a small group of male workers on the opposite side of the street watching her with leering smiles. Hannah pulled the side of her jacket back to reveal her FBI shield and pistol and immediately the men turned away and shrank back inside their workplace.
‘I’ll go in,’ Hannah said. ‘You cover me from outside in case they make a run for it.’
‘You’ll be outnumbered,’ Vaughn insisted.
Hannah pulled her pistol from its holster and held it low by her thigh as they reached the lot’s main entrance.
‘It’s worth it Vaughn,’ she said. ‘Just cover me, okay?’
Hannah’s lethargy had fallen away from her like ice melting beneath the warmth of the summer sun, and she could feel adrenaline coursing through her body as she turned into the lot and saw immediately a large 4 on a storage building further inside the lot and to her left. Outside the building was parked a white van and a jeep with private plates and glossy black paint.
Hannah kept her breathing under control as she walked toward lot number 2 instead, hoping to delay any suspicion until the very last moment. Even as she strode through the lot she saw two men of Middle Eastern origin head toward the black jeep. Her legs felt as though they were guiding themselves, carrying her along without conscious effort, and then without any thought she turned directly toward Lot 4.
‘Hannah?’ Vaughn whispered in despair from nearby.
Hannah heard nothing, saw nothing except her targets as they looked up and noticed her approaching. Both of their eyes locked onto the pistol in her hand and they responded instantly, both reaching beneath their jackets.
Hannah raised the pistol and without hesitation she fired twice. The gunshots cracked the air like thunder and the closer of the two men took the first round straight through his chest and was hurled back against the jeep even as Hannah fired her second shot.
The second man ducked behind the vehicle and yelled something in Arabic as Hannah kept moving, firing round after round into the side of the jeep. She heard Vaughn screaming from somewhere behind her, but her focus was entirely on the rounds smashing into the side of the jeep’s doors. She knew instinctively that vehicles were no real defense against bullets at such close range, and she was rewarded with the sight of the second man tumbling to the ground, blood pouring in torrents from the back of his head.
‘Hannah, stand down!’ Vaughn yelled.
Hannah reached the jeep and circled around it even as the door to the storage lot opened and a man rushed out screaming, an assault rifle in his grasp. Hannah saw the barrel come up but she continued walking and fired from almost point–blank range.
The shot hit the gunman in the shoulder and he spun aside and slammed into the wall of the building, then whirled and aimed again. Hannah pulled her trigger and the pistol clicked as she realized that she had emptied the magazine.
The gunman aimed his rifle at her, and an ear–shattering gunshot thundered in her ears as her world spun wildly and she collapsed onto the hot asphalt.
*
‘Shots fired at District Storage, Bethesda!’
The call came across as Ethan saw the lot and the low rows of storage buildings ahead and he almost screamed at the driver.
‘Go, now! All units, go!’
The vehicles screeched into the parking lot, the police driver aiming straight for lot number 4. Ethan could already see bodies strewn across the asphalt and a man crouched over one of them with his pistol in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
Ethan leaped out of the SUV even before it had stopped moving and dashed toward the crouching man. Already he could see that the body lying before him was a woman, her long auburn hair snaking across the ground. Special Agent Vaughn looked up at Ethan as he sprinted toward them and pointed frantically.
‘Four men, running out back!’ he yelled. ‘Go!’
Ethan dashed past the black jeep, Vaughn and Hannah Ford as he saw the bodies of three foreign looking, armed men lying in pools of blood around the entrance to the storage building.
He kept moving, sprinting hard and pumping his arms to keep his chest open and air flooding into his lungs as he built up speed and rounded the far corner of the storage buildings.
He immediately saw three men clambering up and over the fences toward a small copse of trees that led into the parking lot of what looked like a nearby shopping mall. One of them was already over the fence, something on his back in a rucksack, and for a brief moment the man looked up and saw Ethan running toward him. Dark eyes, a broad jaw thickly forested with black growth, closely cropped hair and the glitter of radicalism flaring like a distant supernova in his gaze.
Abrahem Nassir.
Ethan ran harder but the two men on the fence jumped back down and pulled weapons from their jackets. Ethan changed direction for the parked vehicles to his right and threw himself down into cover as a hail of gunfire showered the cars. Ricochets zipped up over his head and pinged off hot bodywork as he rolled out of sight and pulled his pistol out.
The two men were twenty yards away and at that range they could hardly hop
e to hit Ethan, the bodywork of the vehicles strong enough to slow and catch the rounds being fired before they got to him.
Moments later a thunderous broadside of assault rifle fire erupted from Ethan’s left as his support team rushed to his aid. Ethan broke cover, coming up over the hood of one of the parked vehicles and aiming at the two men in time to see them cut down by the savage gunfire.
‘Hold your fire!’ he yelled.
The rifles fell silent as Ethan saw Abrahem Nassir and an older man hurry out of sight across the mall’s parking lot and vanish into the crowds. Ethan spoke quickly into his microphone as he emerged from behind the vehicles, the DIA team advancing on the fallen gunmen.
‘Suspects on foot, headed north through the mall lot, Abrahem Nassir and Tariq Adel confirmed. All available units pursue immediately.’
Ethan cursed as he heard sirens wailing across the city and jogged back toward where Vaughn was still crouched over Hannah.
‘What the hell was that?!’ he demanded.
Vaughn stood up, his hands open toward Ethan. ‘I don’t know. She just went for it, almost got herself killed and now she’s out cold. She wasn’t even shooting straight, just aiming at anything that moved, and then she kind of woke up and just stood there as someone was aiming a rifle at her. I barely got the last guy before he took her down. She wanted to arrest Abrahem Nassir before you guys got here.’
Ethan looked down at Hannah for a moment and saw blood trickling from her nose.
The sound of an engine starting caught his attention, and he turned to see a white van pull away from the sidewalk nearby and begin accelerating down the street.
Ethan broke into a run without conscious thought as he sprinted out of the lot exit and onto the street.
***
XXXIX
Ethan ran hard as the white van accelerated away, turning in the middle of the street as it sought to escape back toward the south and the district. Ethan heard the squeal of its tires on the asphalt as it spun round and saw the face of the driver as he hauled on the wheel.
Oriental, maybe thirty years of age.
The van’s rear quarter presented itself to Ethan as he ran, and he stretched out and jumped up onto the rear step as the vehicle rushed away from the storage buildings. His hands slipped on the surface of the van and Ethan’s heart missed a beat as he flailed and thought that he was going to slip and fall. He let his gun fall from his grasp as he reached out and his fingers gripped the edges of the closed door, barely hanging on as the van lurched from left to right in an effort to shake him off.
The rear door of the van burst open alongside Ethan and a Chinese man poked his head out, a pistol in his grip as he turned and looked at Ethan in surprise.
Ethan grabbed the man’s collar and hauled himself up again as the gunman grabbed the door rail in terror and he tried to stop himself from being pulled out of the vehicle. Ethan pulled hard on him as though to throw him out onto the asphalt racing past inches beneath them, and then purposefully shoved him back into the vehicle.
The unexpected change of motion caught the gunman off guard and he tumbled back into the van as Ethan grabbed the open door and launched himself inside. The gunman crashed onto his back in a tangle of limbs alongside two men sitting at computer consoles who were staring in wide eyed terror as Ethan flew past them and crashed down on top of the gunman.
Ethan’s left hand clamped around the gunman’s wrist and smashed it down against the metal floor of the van as he let his right knee plough deep into the gunman’s plexus. The Chinese man’s eyes bulged and he folded up at the waist as his head raised toward Ethan in sympathy with the blow, and Ethan ducked his head down and thrust it forward in time to smack into the man’s nose with a sickening crunch.
The gunman’s eyes rolled up into their sockets and he slumped back again, the back of his head hitting the floor of the van with a resounding thump as Ethan grasped for the pistol.
‘Don’t move!’
Ethan froze, one hand on the weapon as he swiveled his gaze to his right and saw both of the computer technicians standing, reared up against their consoles as the open door of the van swung against its hinges. One of them was holding a pistol close to Ethan’s head, the man’s aim trembling as he spoke in heavily accented English.
‘Hands behind your head!’
Ethan hesitated, then glanced at the cab where the driver and another passenger were looking over their shoulders and waiting to see what would happen. Ethan looked back to where the technician was aiming the pistol, barely inches from Ethan’s temple. Too close, within easy reach.
Ethan nodded slowly, released the gun he was pinning to the floor of the vehicle and began slowly to raise his hands, his right hand only inches from his assailant’s pistol. As he did so, the gunman took an instinctive step back to give himself space, lifting one foot off the floor of the van to do so.
‘No!’
The driver’s warning was too late as Ethan’s right hand whipped sideways and knocked the pistol away from his head. Ethan drove upward with one foot and turned as he swung his left fist and it impacted the technician’s jaw with a loud crack.
The technician’s body whirled and flew sideways as it hit the open door at the back of the van and flew out into mid–air. Ethan saw the man’s body smack down onto the hot asphalt behind them and roll to a halt in an unconscious tangle of limbs as vehicles swerved in chaos to avoid it.
The second technician’s right hand swept toward Ethan’s throat in a scything motion designed to collapse his thorax and choke him to death. Ethan jerked his left forearm up vertically and blocked the blow as he turned on one heel and slammed his right knee up into the Chinaman’s groin.
The technician’s eyes bulged like fishbowls as Ethan’s knee crunched into his testicles and he folded up with an agonized gasp. Ethan pivoted to his left and lifted his left boot up as he drove his right elbow down into the back of the technician’s skull, just behind his right ear. The blow sent the smaller man sprawling across the floor of the van as Ethan ducked down, grabbed the discarded pistol from the floor and aimed it into the cab.
Ethan offered the two occupants a breathless grin. ‘Fancy a chat?’
The two Chinamen looked at each other, and Ethan could see that they both knew that they had no plays left. The van began to slow as the driver sought a place to pull over.
The impact came from behind Ethan, his only warning the sound of a screaming engine. He turned in time to see through the open rear door the shape of a dark blue Chevrolet just as it smashed into the rear quarter of the van with the force of a fallen angel. Ethan was hurled across the rear of the van and smashed into the sidewall even as he heard cries of fear and pain from the cab.
The van mounted the sidewalk and as Ethan was smashed into the computer terminals he heard the engine roar and felt the vehicle lift off. He glimpsed through the windshield leaves and branches looming before them before the van suddenly smashed into a large tree.
Ethan crashed into the rear of the cab as though he had been hit by a train. His vision starred and dimmed and he sensed rather than felt himself collapse onto the floor in the rear of the vehicle as the computers smashed into the rear of the cab and toppled down onto him, the body of the gunman and technician landing alongside the equipment and pinning Ethan in place.
Ethan lay stunned and silent for a few moments, became aware of an acrid burning smell wafting through the vehicle. He tried to get up but his limbs felt numb and the weight of the computer equipment and two bodies was too great for him to budge. A bolt of nausea poisoned his guts as his vision swirled. He closed his eyes for a moment as he waited for the nausea to pass so that he could reach out and once more make a grab for either of the pistols on the floor of the van.
The rear of the vehicle moved, sank down, and Ethan opened one eye to see a figure vault lithely inside and move toward him, the bright sunlight from outside flaring and forcing Ethan to squint. Ethan shifted his hand to where he thought a p
istol might be and instantly the shadowy figure lunged forward. A heavy shoe pressed down on Ethan’s wrist and pinned it in place.
The man leaned down and picked up the pistol, and then he looked at Ethan and aimed the weapon at him.
Ethan lay on his back, disorientated and pinned down by the computer equipment as he looked up into the eyes of Aaron Mitchell. The assassin looked back down at Ethan as in the distance the sound of wailing sirens grew louder.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Ethan croaked.
Mitchell looked down at Ethan for a moment longer, and then with his free hand he reached out and grabbed hold of a computer hard drive that was hanging by a set of leads from the twisted wreckage of the desks. Mitchell yanked the drive free and then looked back down at Ethan.
‘The right time,’ he replied in his deep, gravelly voice.
Mitchell lowered the pistol as he turned and jumped down from the rear of the van, and then vanished from sight. Ethan fought to right himself and sat up, pushing the wreckage off his chest bit by bit until he was able to struggle to his feet. Beside him lay the Chinese man he had struck first, groaning now as blood oozed in thick lumps from his shattered nose, his labored breath rattling in his throat. The technician was still unconscious, as were the two men in the front of the vehicle, their faces lost in impact bags that had burst from the dashboard before them. Ethan dragged the first gunman onto his side, fearful that he would suffocate, and then stepped down out of the vehicle and looked around.
Mitchell was nowhere to be seen, and Ethan slumped wearily onto the rear step of the van and sat there until SUVs screeched to a halt nearby and DIA agents sprinted toward him.
One of them vaulted up into the vehicle and crouched down alongside Ethan, handing him back the pistol he had dropped when he had pursued the van.
‘You okay, man?’
Ethan nodded as he slipped the gun back into his shoulder holster.
‘Two more in the cab,’ he gasped. ‘Get these assholes out of here and back to the DIAC building. They’ve got some talking to do.’
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 25