The Four Corners of the Earth (Matt Drake Book 16)

by David Leadbeater

  At the back, she saw several guards break for the cab of the flatbed.

  “Watch out,” she keyed the comms, “I can see men headed around the front. My God, are they gonna try to drive them outta here?”

  “Oh no,” DC voiced the reply to everyone. “You have to neutralize those nukes. If these guys have the launch codes, even one being loosed would be catastrophic. Listen, all six must be neutralized. Now!”

  *

  “Fuckin’ easy for you to say,” Alicia muttered. “Wrapped in your dressing gown and sipping yer frothy cappuccino. Wait, I see them heading for the cab here too.”

  Drake switched directions, seeing that he could race down this side of the flatbed and meet no opposition. Waving to Alicia, he set off fast.

  Mai’s voice cut through his concentration. “Watch your feet!”

  Wha ... ?

  A man wearing a thick black leather jacket came sliding under the flatbed, legs outstretched. By luck or clever design they struck Drake at the shins and sent him tumbling. The machine pistol skidded on ahead. Drake ignored the new set of bruises and scrambled under the truck just as the guard opened fire. Bullets scored the concrete in his wake. The guard pursued him, gun out.

  Drake scrambled right under the truck, conscious of the enormous weapon above his head. The guard ducked, then crouched. Drake fired his Glock, and took the man’s forehead apart. A scramble of footsteps came from behind and then he was tackled hard, the weight of another man crashing down on top of him. Drake’s chin struck the ground, sending stars and blackness swirling into his vision. His teeth smashed together, tiny chippings cracked off. Pain exploded everywhere. He rolled, smashed an elbow into a face. A gun came up, fired; the bullets missed Drake’s skull by an inch and went straight up, into the base of the nuke.

  Drake felt the adrenaline surge. “That’s a—” he grabbed the man’s head and struck it against the concrete as hard as he could “—fucking. Nuclear. Missile.” Each word a slam. In the end the head lolled. Drake scrambled back out from under the truck, and met Alicia sprinting on.

  “No time for a nap, Drakey. This is some serious shit.”

  The Yorkshireman snatched up his machine pistol and tried to shake the ringing sound from his ears. Alicia’s voice helped.

  “Mai? You okay?”

  “No! Pinned down.”

  A roar came from the engine of the flatbed.

  “Run faster,” Drake said. “A few more seconds and these live nukes are outta here!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Drake poured on the speed. These days it was uncommon that he see straight, so today was business as usual. The door to the cab came up ahead, over head-height. Drake reached up, grabbed the handle and pulled. Alicia aimed her Glock.

  A hand grenade bounced out.

  Drake stared in utter disbelief. “Are you fucking kiddi—”

  Alicia struck him around the chest, propelling him backward and around the front of the truck. The grenade exploded violently, shrapnel spitting in all directions. Drake rolled with Alicia, the two held together. The truck’s door went spinning and tumbling ahead of the vehicle. When Drake looked up there was only one man sat in the cab, high up, grinning evilly down at him. He goosed the gas pedal.

  Drake knew there was no chance in hell that the vehicle could set off fast enough to run them down. He glanced to the side and saw three more guards rushing them. The truck bellowed, its wheels started to grip and propel it forward an inch at a time. The roller doors hadn’t moved, but that wouldn’t stop it.

  The comms burst to life.

  “They’re driving the trucks out of here! Cabs are bulletproof. And damn hard to reach.” It was Hayden’s voice. “

  “No way inside?” Kinimaka asked.

  “No. It’s sealed. And I don’t want to use too much force, if you know what I mean.”

  And though Drake knew their own truck was now missing a side door, there were still two more to worry about.

  “Jump up onto the flatbed,” he said. “Start unfastening those nukes. They’ll be forced to stop.”

  “Risky. Friggin’ risky, Drake. What if one of the warheads comes loose?”

  Drake ran around the side of the cab, firing at their attackers. “One bloody problem at a time. What are we—whiz kids?”

  Alicia shot a pursuer. “More like ‘iffy bastards’ these days I’m afraid.”

  Together, they leapt up to the flatbed and came face to face with the nuke.

  *

  “This works on two fronts,” Drake now said through the comms. “We can neutralize and detach at the same time.”

  Hayden grunted. “Try not to sound so smug about it.”

  “Yorkshiremen don’t do smug, love. We do simply awesome with just a dash of humility.”

  “Plus a few thousand crap things.” Dahl sounded like he was running. “Yorkshire puddings. Terriers. Beer. Sporting teams. And that accent?”

  Drake felt the truck starting to move beneath him. “Where’s the control panel, people?”

  A tech answered immediately. “See the warhead is made up of approximately thirty curved panels? It’s the eighth one from the pointy end.”

  “My kinda language.”

  More shots rang out. Alicia was already concentrating on the pursuit. Mai had just leapt up onto the back of the flatbed. Now, she looked over the backend of the nuke.

  “Bad news. The British are here.”

  “I think we have the Chinese,” Dahl spoke.

  “French,” Kinimaka said. “A new team.”

  Drake leapt at the control panel. Do we know where the Sword of Mars is?”

  “Yes, Matt. But I can’t exactly say it out loud now, can I?” a voice answered.

  “Duh,” Dahl said.

  Drake grimaced and pulled out a small electric screwdriver with a universal bit. Quickly, he undid eight bolts and let them drop out. He was faced with two small control panels the size of car satnav screens, a keyboard panel, and an array of flashing white symbols.

  “Cyrillic,” he said. “Of course it is.”

  “Can this day get any worse?” Alicia shouted across.

  The Yorkshireman hung his head. “It bloody will now.”

  The truck picked up speed, heading for the roller door. The British came in tight formation from the rear of the warehouse. The guards spread out all around them.

  The nuke flashed, fully live, awaiting the launch code or the kill code.

  Drake knew they had to move. He knew they couldn’t move. The only thing he didn’t know—who would die first?

  *

  The guards rushed first, firing. Drake was a large target, and unmoving, bullets flashed past Alicia, striking the warhead. For a second Drake’s life passed before his eyes, then Alicia felled one guard and Mai another. He saw more coming though and knew more came from their blind side. The white symbols flashed, a cursor blinked and waited.

  “Do you think the guards might detonate?” Smyth said suddenly, quietly. “Could that be their orders?”

  “Why would they die?” Kenzie asked.

  “We’ve seen it before,” Kinimaka said. “Families receiving huge payouts, needed medical attention or desperate relocation when their family head dies. If they belong to a mafia or a triad for instance. It’s possible.”

  Drake knew they couldn’t stay lucky much longer. Alicia managed to loosen a strap as the truck rolled along. Hopefully, the driver would see. But then would he care? Drake saw no other option.

  He raced down the flatbed, toward the back, waving his arms madly.

  “Wait! Stop, stop. Don’t shoot. I’m English!”

  Dahl’s grunt said it all, no words needed.

  Drake dropped to his knees at the back of the truck, the tail fin of the nuke to his left, hands in the air and facing the oncoming five-man SAS unit completely unarmed.

  “We need your help,” he said. “There’s too much at stake for us to wage war.”

  He saw a younger man switc
h to comms, saw two older men fix onto his face. Perhaps they would recognize him. Maybe they knew of Michael Crouch. He spoke again.

  “I’m Matt Drake. Ex-SAS. Ex-soldier. Working for an international team of Special Forces called SPEAR. I trained at Hereford. I was trained by Crouch.”

  The name registered, all of it. Two of the five weapons were lowered. Drake heard Alicia’s voice over the comms.

  “You could mention my name too.”

  He winced slightly. “Probably not the best idea, love.”

  Mai and Alicia kept the guards at bay. Seconds passed. The British SAS soldiers fired on more approaching guards, ducking behind oil drums used to fill up the flat bed. Drake waited. The man with the radio finally finished.

  “Matt Drake? I’m Cambridge. We met earlier. What do you need?”

  Happy day, he thought. The SAS are on board.

  “Help us secure this warehouse, stop this truck and neutralize that nuke,” he said. “In that order.”

  The British jumped to it.

  Splitting and running down both sides of the flatbed they picked off the oncoming guards, working beautifully as a team. Drake saw it and reveled, remembering the older days. There was a fluid grace to the movement of the team, a regal bearing and an implacable confidence. He’d thought SPEAR was the best team in the world, but now ...

  “Drake! Mai cried. “The nuke!”

  Oh yeah. He raced back to the control panel, stared at the screens, the keyboard and the digits.

  “Geeks?” he asked. “Do we know the code?”

  “It could literally be anything,” someone answered.

  “That’s not exactly fucking helpful, ya bloody bell-end.”

  “Sorry. If we knew the identities of the Order we could try their birthdays?”

  Drake knew he was talking to a man that didn’t care. It was a man they’d conversed with earlier, the obnoxious asshole.

  Lauren shouted up, “You mentioned the Order. If they were here, they probably programmed the nukes. I can’t believe they wouldn’t leave a note of the codes.”

  “Maybe there is no code, babe,” the asshole said. “Remember the signal you loosed by opening Geronimo’s grave? Maybe that happened here too, and armed the nukes.”

  Drake stood back. “Shit, are they armed?”

  “Fully. The flashing white symbols you see are numbers on countdown.”

  Sharp ice water flooded his body and he could barely breathe. “How ... how long?”

  A cough. “Sixty-four seconds. Then you and your bastard brethren are history. The Order will forever reign supreme! They live through me! I am the Order!”

  A scuffle and a large amount of shouting followed. Drake watched the seconds passing on his wristwatch.

  “Hello? You there?” a young voice asked.

  “Hi, mate,” Drake murmured. “We have thirty one seconds.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Your friend Lauren mentioned the Order. Well, they must have a kill code. And, since everything else is a part of the text, I just had a check through. Remember? It reads ‘the only kill code is when the Horsemen arose.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  Drake wracked his brain, but could think of nothing but the descending second count. “Arose?” he repeated. “Woke up? Resurrected? Think how the Order thinks? How the Nazis meant it. If a Horseman arises he—”

  “Is born,” the young voice said. “It’s their dates of birth, maybe? But it can’t be. Those eighties-era nukes usually have a three-digit kill code.” He sounded desperate.

  Nineteen seconds until destruction.

  Kenzie spoke up. “Three digit, you say? Usually?”

  “Yes.”

  Sixteen.

  Drake looked around at Alicia, saw her crouched beside a strap, trying to unfasten it and shoot a guard at the same time. Saw her hair, her body, her amazing, astonishing spirit. Alicia ...

  Ten seconds.

  Kenzie then shouted up, an affirmation of Dahl’s belief in her. “I have it. Try seven hundred.”

  “Seven—oh—oh. Why?”

  “Don’t ask. Just do it!”

  The young techie gave Drake the Cyrillic number symbols and the Yorkshireman hit the buttons.

  Four—three—two—

  “It didn’t work,” he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “Yeah,” Kenzie came back. “It did.”

  Of course, she’d disarmed their own and Lauren had disarmed theirs. Drake looked down the body of the nuke to Mai, where she stood in front of another keypad. All six nukes had been disarmed.

  He stared at his watch. “We were at less than a second,” he said.

  All around the SAS made short work of the guards. Alicia undid a second strap and the warhead shifted slightly. Drake felt it picking up speed as it approached the roller doors.

  “Anyone stopped their truck yet?”

  “I’m on it!” Kenzie cried. “Literally!”

  “Not a chance,” Kinimaka said. “The French are everywhere the guards aren’t. It’s a riot in here.”

  Drake watched the SAS dealing with the guards; Alicia tugging at another strap and Mai flinging a guard against the truck’s rear tire.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” The SPEAR team were unbelievably stretched.

  “I can see something else going on,” the young tech began. “I—”

  Their link to Washington went dead.

  “Say again?” Drake tried.

  Ominous silence was his only reply.

  “Shit, this can’t be good.” Drake swept the entire warehouse.

  SEAL Team 7 hit them like all hell exploding.

  *

  Dahl ran behind the truck as it approached the roller doors of Warehouse 18. The Chinese raced across the front of the rumbling truck, heading for the far side door. They fired crosswise as they ran. Guards tried to stop them. Chinese Special Forces decimated them with bullets and hand-to-hand. Hayden was unlucky enough to be at the front of the flatbed when the action began.

  She broke a guard’s neck, then used his body to shield her as the Chinese opened fire indiscriminately. Bullets thudding into the body sent her backward. Her shield flopped. Dropping him, she leapt behind one of the forward, rumbling tires, walking behind it as it rolled forward. The Chinese crossed the front of the truck.

  Dahl laid down fire, sending them scattering like bowling pins. Incredible to watch, it served to demonstrate their almost inhuman reaction. Even leaping away they returned fire.

  Dahl took cover hastily, ducking behind the truck, then peeked out and fired more rounds. The Chinese were momentarily pinned down as guards came at them from behind. Dahl glanced over at Kenzie.

  Not where she was supposed to be.

  “Kenz? You okay?”

  “Oh yeah, just picking up an old friend.”

  Dahl turned instinctively, saw her rummaging inside the crates, her head well inside, stomach perched on the edge of the lid, ass high in the air.

  “That’s a little off-putting.”

  “What? Oh, missing the wife? She might be cooler than you are, Torst, but remember—that only makes you hotter than she is.”

  He looked away, feeling torn. He lived in that state between marriage and divorce, and yet with the chance to do something about it all. What on earth was he doing here?

  My job.

  The Chinese burst into action again, shredding the approaching guards with machine-gun fire and pinning Dahl and Hayden down. The Swede turned to see Kenzie slithering out of a wooden crate.

  “Oh, balls. Really?”

  She held a new gleaming katana before her eyes, blade up. “I just knew I would find one if I dug deep enough. Robbers can’t resist a sword.”

  “Where’s the bloody Sword of Mars?”

  “Oh, I dropped it in the crate.”

  “Damn!”

  She ran, sword in one hand, machine pistol in the other, then vaulted right back onto the bed of the truck, a blur before Dahl’s eyes. D
ropping the katana she opened fire at the running Chinese.

  “Where are they going?”

  “Warehouse 17,” Dahl said. “And we have to go with them.”

  *

  Lauren saw the French contingent attack from the right side of Warehouse 19. Kinimaka and Smyth were already over in that direction and engaged immediately. Yorgi was crouched behind barrels, taking potshots at the guards. Lauren felt her heart lurch when the truck carrying the two nukes moved forward.

  Remembering all that had been said, she jumped atop the truck, using the wheels for purchase. Then she set about loosening the first strap. If they could make the load highly unstable the trucks would be forced to stop. She poked her head up, peering over the nuke by stepping onto one of the large chocks, and saw Smyth fist fighting with one of the French guys.

  DC came in over the comms. “Just confirmed by an agent in Paris. Remember Armand Argento? He’s helped you guys a few times over the years. Well, he says the French contingent are unsanctioned. Totally. There could be some savage warfare inside there.”

  Lauren gulped and watched Smyth fall backward, going down on one knee. The Frenchman above him took hold of his hair, tore a strip from the roots and threw it aside. Smyth cried out. A knee to the nose sent him reeling. The French guy jumped on top. Smyth struggled. Lauren looked from him to Kinimaka to Yorgi, the nuclear warhead and the approaching shutter doors.

  What do I do?

  Make some goddamn noise.

  She emptied the magazine of her Glock high above the enemies’ heads, making them flinch and duck. It gave Smyth and Kinimaka precious seconds. Smyth saw space and fired up into it, felling his attacker. Kinimaka broke a man’s neck, another’s face, and shot point blank into a third, sending him reeling, out of the battle.

  One Frenchman remained.

  Lauren dropped as a bullet clanged off the shell of the nuke. How scary was it that it didn’t even bother her? How inured had she become? But she was part of this team and determined to stay with it as long as they would have her. She’d found this family, and would support it.