by Rob Jones
This time the bullet struck Baupin in the upper arm, shattering the bone and forcing him to drop the weapon. It landed with a smack on the floor just as the Frenchman was grunting in pain and gripping at the wound with his other hand. He moved to pick it back up, and Harry fired his last shot and struck Baupin in the chest.
A look of confused terror and regret crossed the stricken man’s face as he stumbled back and toppled over the edge of the viewing platform, screaming as he went. Niko and Lucia peered over the edge and watched him as he spun around in the wind on the short journey toward the pavement three hundred meters below, and then they pulled themselves back before the wind claimed two more lives.
As Niko picked up the laptop case and collected the guns, Harry walked over to Lucia and steered her away from the jagged hole and toward the center of the platform. “It’s over,” he said. “We’d know by now if the dust had deployed.”
She looked at him with confused relief in her eyes. “Really?”
“Really,” he said, glancing at his watch. “And if we’re quick we can catch the end of the fireworks.”
“And what about Paradise?” she said.
“Paradise?”
“In the Prado you told me when all this hell was over you would take me to Paradise?”
“Ah…” he said.
FORTY-THREE
Paradise was a new international fusion restaurant on the fortieth floor of the Heron Tower in the City of London. It was early in the evening, and yet most of the tables were full thanks partly to the Shard being closed for repairs. According to the newspapers, less than twenty-four hours ago the top floors had suffered a large electrical fire and many of the restaurants in the skyscraper would be closed for weeks.
Better news was that Aleksi Karhu had been identified as the killer of Pablo, Mariana Vidal and the two Spanish police officers, and the European Arrest Warrant for Harry and Lucia had been rescinded. That, at least, was something – as was the safe delivery of the Ministry’s laptop to MI5.
Harry pulled out a chair for Lucia and went to do the same for Zoey but she was already sitting down and looking at the menu. Looking southwest, the winter sun was on the horizon now, hovering just above the Waterloo skyline.
“So you brought me to Paradise after all,” Lucia said, and smiled.
Harry saw the smile, and for a moment he saw the face of the woman he had known so many years ago, when they were both so much younger. Despite her terrible start in life, she was a kind person, but tonight’s smile was a sad reflection of the recent tragedy she had endured with the death of her boyfriend Pablo.
“Cool place,” Zoey said.
“Everyone hungry?” Harriet said.
Harry turned to his twin sister and smiled. “I think we’re all hungry after the day we’ve just had… and you might have to pay for this by the way.”
“Me – why?”
“Oh, nothing serious,” Harry said.
“None of us exist anymore,” said Zoey, rummaging in her bag. “I got a few dead presidents here who can help out some but after that I’m down and out.” She dropped a wad of crumpled American bills on the table and belched loudly.
A rotund man at the next table threw his napkin down in horror and turned in his chair. “How dare you do that in front of my wife?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was your wife’s turn.”
“Well, I never…!”
Leo burst out laughing but Niko tried to hide behind his menu.
Harry leaned forward to reassure the man. “She’s very sorry. Truly.”
“Sorry, and yes, hungry – hungry for booze, baby,” Zoey said with a wink. She turned in her chair and clicked her fingers at a passing waiter. “Hey, seven cold beers, garçon!”
“The bar is over there, madam,” the man said, and continued on his way.
The new friends looked at each other and started laughing again. After a few moments, Harry said, “I’ve never heard anyone say the word madam like that before.”
“With so much disgust, you mean?” Niko said. “I concur.”
“Typical Scorpio,” Zoey said with a shrug. “And I don’t see why he’s so snooty with hair like that. He looks like Karl Marx, only with much bigger hair. You could stuff a mattress with it.”
“I think you mean Harpo Marx.”
“That’s right – I'm so sorry! He was much funnier than his brother Karl.” Before anyone could correct her, she slapped Niko’s thigh. “Now get your ass up to the bar, Nikky and make yourself useful… we might be here for some time.”
“What do you mean – you don’t exist anymore?” Harriet asked. The concern was clear on her face.
“It’s what the Ministry does,” Maja said. “Anyone who crosses them has their lives deleted from every record. You will never get them back.”
“True story,” Zoey said. “I just tried to book a flight back to the States and it told me my passport isn’t recognized. So this really is happening… Jesus, Harry – what the hell have you gotten me into?”
Even without Maja’s warning, Harry knew the Ministry meant business, and worse than that was the spectre of their reach – above and beyond national governments. It looked like they had made the worst kind of enemy imaginable.
“But now we eat, right?” Zoey said.
Harry turned to his sister. “Please tell me your card still works?”
She gave a serious nod. “Yes. Unlike you I don’t go around upsetting powerful secret orders.”
They sat in silence for a while, thinking about the implications of their new lives, and then Niko returned with the beers and they ordered their food.
Zoey’s eyes widened like saucers. “Like, we can have anything on here, and you’re definitely paying, right?”
Harriet laughed. “For the last time, yes.”
“In that case I’ll have the truffle flat bread with pancetta and ricotta for starters and the lobster with lemon verbena for the headline act followed by the New York cheesecake. Gotta see if it’s authentic or not, right?”
“Of course,” Harry said with a smile.
Lucia ordered the sea bass with fennel and olives and after much hemming and hawing, Niko finally went with the king crab with sauerkraut and saffron hollandaise while Leo and Maja opted for the crispy duck confit.
Harry stuck with something simple and ordered a beef tenderloin with a Beaujolais jus and then they sat back and enjoyed their cold beers. Lucia had worked out it had been less than two days since she had run to Harry in the casino to ask for his help, but soon they all returned to the shadow over their lives: the Ministry – about what the sinister order really was, who was in it, and how it had so easily deleted all of their lives from the face of the Earth.
“It’s scary,” Maja said, placing down her phone. “I’m gone too – even my listing in the online Gothenburg phone book, and my Facebook page. Nothing.”
“I’m okay,” Leo said. “I still exist – for now.”
“You weren’t there until the end,” Harry said.
“Can we even trust each other?” Niko said. “What if someone tries to infiltrate us?”
Zoey smirked. “When was the last time you infiltrated anyone, Nikky?”
“So funny,” the Swiss man said, reaching over to the bread.
After a long period of silence as they watched the sun slip below the horizon and the London night lights buzz to life, Lucia raised her beer bottle in the center of the table. “At least we stopped them, I guess,” she said. “So here’s to the six of us.”
“To us!” Niko said.
Zoey rolled her eyes and picked up her beer bottle. “I hate this sort of buddy-buddy crap, but if we have to, then… here’s to us and Harry – the bane of my life,” she said, nudging Harry in the ribs and winking at him.
“Oh no,” he said with a sigh. “If I had a pound for every time…”
She smiled. “I’m just kidding with you, Henry.”
“It’s
Harry.”
“Your sister calls you Henry.”
“That’s my sister. You can call me Harry.”
“Sure thing, Henry.”
“It’s better than Chief I guess.”
Like the others, Harry Bane had no idea what tomorrow would bring, but he lived for the moment, so as they waited for dinner, he pulled the deck of cards from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He gave them another shuffle just as he had done for Lucia back in Madrid, and handed them to Zoey. “Give them another good shuffle.”
She surprised no one by giving the deck a speedy and faultless riffle shuffle and then brought her eyes back to Harry’s. “Done.”
“Cut them wherever you want,” he said, slowly losing his confidence.
Zoey cut the deck in half and now two small piles of cards were sitting face down on the smooth white tablecloth. Everyone was watching closely, holding their beers together like a group of old friends. “Now what?”
“Okay.” He put his finger on one of the piles. “Simply by looking at the fourth card down in my pile, I can tell you what the fourth card down is in your pile.”
“Sure you can.”
He counted four cards off the top of his pile and glanced at the card. Without touching Zoey’s pile, he looked at his card and placed it back down. “The fourth card down in your pile is the Queen of Hearts.”
“Show me.”
Harry counted four cards off the second, untouched pile in front of Zoey Conway and flipped over the fourth card to reveal the Queen of Hearts.
Everyone at the table gasped, including even Leo, but Zoey just winked at him and smiled. “The Power of Four. You gotta love some classic mentalism, plus I saw both your false cuts at the start – you pass me that bread right there?”
As everyone laughed and Harriet gave him a consolatory pat on the back, Harry gave Zoey the bread and took a long sip of his beer. Something told him this could be the start of a difficult relationship.
THE END.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Armageddon Protocol was always going to be a standalone thriller, but while I was writing it I sketched out another two more adventures for Harry and the rest of the team and gave them a problem to sort out – namely having their identities deleted from the world by the Ministry. Whether they get their lives back or not, only time will tell... ;)
I’m hoping to release The Sword of Fire (Joe Hawke #9) in the spring of 2017 (including a note about the future of the series) so long as I get a fair tail wind, but the next release is a new project I’ve been working on called The Hunt for Shambhala. This is similar in style to the Hawke books with new characters and stories based on archaeological mysteries and treasure hunting but with a major difference – these guys have what you might call a mobile office...
Let me here once again thank everyone who has left me a review on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s a really important way of supporting the novels and I sincerely appreciate it. If you enjoyed The Armageddon Protocol, please consider leaving a review:
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Finally, If you would like to follow the progress of the Joe Hawke Series or any of my other novels, as well as future developments, please visit the following pages.
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Other Books by Rob Jones
The Joe Hawke Series
The Vault of Poseidon (Joe Hawke #1)
Thunder God (Joe Hawke #2)
The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke #3)
The Curse of Medusa (Joe Hawke #4)
Valhalla Gold (Joe Hawke #5)
The Aztec Prophecy (Joe Hawke #6)
The Secret of Atlantis (Joe Hawke 7)
The Lost City (Joe Hawke 8)
The Armageddon Protocol
COMING SOON
The Hunt for Shambhala (The Avalon Adventures #1)
You can find updates, information and all other news about my novels, including new book releases on my Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/RobJonesNovels/