“It’s what makes us human,” Driscoll said.
“You’re wrong again,” he said. “It’s what makes you weak.” Langton rose from his chair. “I’ve wasted enough time on them. Get on with it.”
“Anyone in particular?” Huff asked.
Langton pointed to Sonny. “The comedian.”
“How about we start off with a nice decapitation?”
“Whatever. Just leave Driscoll till last.”
Huff removed a knife from his belt and walked behind the line of prisoners until he was standing behind Sonny. He grabbed a clump of blond hair and leaned in close. “You ever seen someone decapitated with a knife?” he asked. “It isn’t like using an ax or guillotine. You have to saw back and forth, slicing the tendons and muscles until you reach the spinal column. I’ll save your windpipe until last so you can tell me how painful it is.”
While talking, Huff placed the key to the cuffs in Sonny’s hands. When he’d finished his little act, Sonny said a single word.
“Ready.”
Huff stood upright and transferred the knife to his left hand, then reached into his jacket and pulled out his Glock. He pointed it at Klaasen. “Take it out, nice and slow.”
Henry Langton’s bodyguard stiffened, then reached into his own coat and took out a pistol using a finger and thumb. He tossed the weapon at Huff’s feet.
“What the hell are you doing?” Edward Langton asked.
“Bringing you down,” Huff said.
Sonny released the handcuffs securing his ankles, then got up and freed Driscoll, who picked up Klaasen’s weapon.
Huff took his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “If you look closely at the corners of the room, gentlemen, you’ll see the cameras I set up yesterday. Every word you’ve said has been captured for all time.”
Langton took a step toward Huff. “Are you a total moron? Weren’t you listening to a word I said? I control the news. No one’s airing any recordings you make. If you put it on a website, it’ll be taken down in minutes.”
“Not quite,” Huff said. “Ever heard of Facebook?”
Langton refused to dignify the question with a response.
“I thought so. Then you might be familiar with Facebook Live. It lets you stream video to your friends in real time.”
“Then you’ve just killed your ‘friends.’ I’ll wipe them off the planet before the week’s out.”
“Not just our friends,” Driscoll said. “I’m afraid we lied when we said Farooq Naser was dead. He’s also familiar with Facebook and how to reach its two billion users. A lot of them are online at this very moment, watching. Farooq worked his magic and managed to stream this video on the feed of every active account. Carl, how many people are watching us right now?”
Huff looked at the screen of his smartphone and smiled. “Just short of four hundred million, including twenty-six White House staff accounts. We’ve got forty-one British MPs, seventeen in Germany’s Bundestag, a couple dozen in the French Senate . . . the list goes on.” He looked up at one of the cameras. “And if any of the news channels refuses to show this recording and air the full story, it means they were complicit in Langton’s activities. Copies will be sent to your offices shortly, and I suggest the producers cut their ties with the ESO immediately and start reporting this. Help us to bring these people to justice.”
While Huff was playing to the camera and Driscoll was preoccupied releasing Smart and Colback from their bonds, Klaasen saw an opportunity to strike. He raised his arms above his head and activated the gravity-fed valve sewn into the lining of his sleeve. A small metal ball slid down inside a tube filled with viscous liquid. Klaasen began the five-second countdown in his head.
On one, he started walking toward Henry Langton. “Sir.”
Langton turned and saw what his bodyguard was doing. He in turn began to move, taking small steps away from Klaasen, who was still walking toward the center of the basement.
“Look out!” shouted Colback.
Eva looked up from unshackling Colback’s feet and saw the big South African moving toward her. She also spotted Langton backing away.
As Langton twisted and covered his ears, Eva tried to shout a warning to the others, but the blinding flash and ear-splitting bang worked as intended. The improvised flashbangs that had been fashioned to look like pockets on the front of Klaasen’s jacket had disoriented everyone in the room, with the exception of the big South African. Even Henry Langton, who had known to expect a blast, had been knocked off his feet.
Eva tried to clear her vision and the ringing in her ears, but Klaasen was on her before she had a chance to recover. He delivered a punch to the side of her jaw and she flew sideways into the chairs, landing on top of Colback and sending them both sprawling.
“Go!” Klaasen shouted to his boss, and Henry Langton grabbed his son by the collar and pulled him toward the staircase.
Klaasen went after Eva once more, moving for the gun in her waistband as she lay on her front, but before he could grasp it, she lashed out with her left hand and caught him in the temple with her fist. Klaasen shrugged off the blow, but now Eva had flipped over and onto her feet to face him. She brought a knee to connect with his jaw, but Klaasen blocked the attack and countered with another punch to her face. Blood exploded from her nose and Eva saw stars. She aimed a blow at his face but missed by a few inches, and Klaasen went for her abdomen, landing a combination of lefts and rights that knocked her onto her back. Eva brought her feet up to protect herself, then kicked out, catching Klaasen in the chest. He flew backward but steadied himself, then saw Huff’s knife on the floor. He picked it up and launched himself at the supine woman in the same movement, the knife high and arcing down for her chest. Once more, Eva brought her knees up and planted her feet on his chest, using his momentum to flip him over her head. She moved to continue her attack but only managed to get onto one knee before Klaasen flipped himself upright like a gymnast and reversed the knife. He came at her again and Eva got to her feet just in time to block his attempt to ram the blade into her skull.
Her knee was halfway to Klaasen’s crotch when the side of his head exploded.
“We haven’t got time for that kung fu shit,” Sonny said, lowering Huff’s pistol. “Langton’s getting away.”
Smart staggered to his feet, while Huff remained on his knees, still clearing his head. Colback, who himself had blood dripping from one nostril, helped Huff up and checked he was able to walk.
Eva took out her gun and ran to the bottom of the stairs. She stuck her head around the wooden post, glanced up to the door, and was instantly met with a hail of bullets. They shredded the wood above her head as she backed away and took Huff by the arm.
“Is there another way out of here?”
Huff watched her mouth moving, and she guessed his hearing had been affected by the blast. He’d been standing closest to Klaasen and had taken the bulk of the flashbang’s impact.
She wiped snot and blood from her nose and asked the question again, enunciating her words so he could read her lips.
“No,” he shouted. “That’s the only way in or out.”
Damn. “How many men does Langton have in the house?”
“Twelve.”
It wasn’t looking good. All they had between them were two handguns, and the only way out of the basement was well defended by a dozen men with unknown firepower.
Eva pinched her bloody nose as she scanned the basement for something that might aid their escape. She saw the cardboard boxes that lined the walls and started rummaging through them in search of a weapon of any kind. Most contained paperwork, some faded yellow from years underground. One box was full of old sports equipment and another was home to an eclectic assortment of books.
Nothing useful, not even a bottle of alcohol to turn into a Molotov cocktail.
They were well and truly trapped. Langton’s men simply had to wait them out, or perhaps call in Kevlar-clad reinforcements and storm the bas
ement. They might even soften them up with more flashbangs or grenades . . .
An idea came to her. It was risky, and she would only have one chance at it, but there were no other options. She had to make her move before Langton got too far and the enemy count increased beyond a manageable number.
“We’ve got to get out of here before they start using grenades!” Eva shouted at the top of her voice.
Sonny ran over to her, waving his hands to tell her to stop. “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered. “You’re giving them ideas!”
“I know,” she said more quietly. “It’s our only way out of here.”
She waved him away and stood at the foot of the stairs, just out of sight of Langton’s men. All she could do now was wait and see if her ploy had worked.
It wasn’t long before the answer came.
The moment she heard the sound of metal bouncing on the stone steps, Eva switched the pistol to her left hand and took a couple of steps to the left so she was standing at the foot of the stairs. She fired off a few rounds at the door, but her focus was the bouncing grenade. She watched it ping off the seventh step from the bottom and caught it as it came back down. In the same movement, she tossed it back to the top of the stairs and ran for cover. A second later the explosion reached her ears, and she sprang into action.
“Go!”
Eva took the stairs two at a time, and Sonny was a couple of steps behind her. At the door, she saw the devastation that the grenade had caused. Five men looked like they’d been pureed in a blender, but she had another seven to contend with before they could get to the Langtons.
Eva stowed her pistol and replaced it with an M4A1 from one of the corpses. She ripped the comms from the dead man’s ear and followed the wire to the transceiver clipped to his belt. Sonny did the same, and pocketed a couple of grenades and spare magazines at the same time.
He took the lead as they made for the kitchen door. On the way, he picked up a large cooking pot, and when he got to the doorway he stuck it out into the hall. Bullets immediately pinged off it, and Sonny hand-signaled the direction the gunfire had come from. Following his lead, Eva went high while Sonny crouched and stuck the nose of the rifle around the corner. He let off a burst, then ran from cover and took out one target who stuck his head out a little too far. Eva followed Sonny into the hallway and they ran to the next corner.
A couple of shots rang out from behind them, and Eva spun around to see Smart aiming a pistol at the other end of the hallway. Another of Langton’s men was down, leaving five to deal with. Colback appeared from the kitchen, assault rifle in hand, Huff just behind him.
“Carl, on me!” Sonny shouted. “You two, that way!”
Huff sprinted to Sonny and relieved the dead guard of his spare ammunition.
“All the transport will be in the courtyard,” Huff said. “Follow me.”
He checked around the next corner, then set off at pace toward the double doors that led outside. He was just in time to see Henry Langton’s limousine fishtail as the driver floored it through the gates.
The window next to him shattered, and Huff was spun around as a bullet slammed into his shoulder. Eva answered the gunfire with a burst of her own as he staggered to cover.
“How bad is it?”
“It hurts like hell but I’ll live.”
Sonny also opened up on the two shooters who were taking cover behind the ornamental fountain in the center of the courtyard.
“We need to flank them,” he told Eva. “Keep them pinned down.”
Sonny sprinted back the way he’d come as Eva’s weapon chattered away. He raced up the main staircase to the second floor, then ran around to the east wing, where he found a door leading to a balcony overlooking the fountain. Two three-round bursts ended the standoff.
“Clear!” he called. “Get a vehicle. I’m on my way down!”
Sonny was breathing hard by the time he joined the others outside. Smart and Colback were also there, and Huff was looking through a valet keyboard. He found a set and pressed a button on the fob. The blinkers on a gleaming Range Rover flashed twice.
“Nice choice,” Sonny smiled, as he snatched the keys from Huff’s hand and got behind the wheel. “Buckle up, people.”
The Range Rover was moving within seconds. Sonny gunned it through the gates, then spun the wheel to the right. The backend tried to get away, but Sonny easily corrected the slide and floored it. He kept it to a reasonable eighty miles an hour until the gravel gave way to asphalt, then pushed the Range Rover to its limit.
He soon saw the rear end of Langton’s limo.
“What now?” he asked his companions. “Shoot his tires out?”
“They’re composite runflats and the car’s armor-plated,” Huff said, applying pressure to his bloody shoulder. “Our weapons won’t make a dent.”
“We have to at least try,” Colback said. “Try and ram him off the road.”
“It won’t work,” Huff warned, but Sonny tried anyway.
“Whoa!”
Sonny had intended to tap the right-rear fender of the limousine with the nose of the Range Rover to send it into a spin, but he found the three-ton limo immovable.
“We need to try something else,” Sonny said, reaching into his pocket. He came out with a grenade, which he tossed to Smart sitting next to him. “I’ll get ahead of him; you give him the good news.”
The engine roared as Sonny coaxed more power out of the big five-liter V8, and 550 horses pushed him ahead of the sleek black limo.
“A little to the left,” Smart said.
When Sonny complied, he dropped the grenade out the window.
Apart from Sonny, they all turned to watch the explosion and collectively cursed as the small bomb disappeared under Langton’s vehicle and exploded with no effect on the car. It remained on a true line and began to close in on the Range Rover.
The change in speed took Sonny by surprise, and before he knew it, the other driver had executed the perfect PIT—or Pursuit Intervention Technique—maneuver. Sonny tried to steer into the skid, but it was too late. The SUV performed a slow ninety-degree turn, pinned to the front of the other car, then the tires caught on the asphalt and the Range Rover flipped. It rolled twice, three times, then came to rest on its wheels.
Sonny fought off several airbags and tried to restart the engine, but it wouldn’t catch. He turned his head in time to see the limo screech to a halt and reverse back toward them. It stopped fifty yards away, the rear doors opened, and two armed men dived out. The doors closed again as Langton’s remaining bodyguards walked toward the Range Rover, their weapons up and firing.
“Incoming!” Sonny shouted, but the bullets pinging off the bodywork rendered his warning redundant.
Eva kicked at her door. The frame had buckled in the crash, trapping her inside. After a couple of attempts, she gave up. Instead, she took out her pistol and started returning fire through the rear window. She got one of the shooters in the sternum and he dropped to the grass, but the other got into the Range Rover’s blind spot and continued to pump rounds into the vehicle.
Smart managed to get his door open and crawled out, using the body of the SUV for cover. He popped up from behind the hood and opened up on the remaining bodyguard, almost cutting him in half as he used the better part of a full magazine to end the battle.
“Len, help me with this door!”
Smart tugged at Eva’s door, and between them they managed to get it open.
“Anyone hurt?”
Sonny, Colback, and Smart responded that they were fine, and Huff managed a groan as he kept pressure on his wound.
“Erm, I think we might be in deep shit.” Sonny pointed into the distance.
A convoy of red and blue lights was soon accompanied by the sound of multiple sirens.
“Back down the road!” Eva shouted. “Into the trees!”
They’d passed the woods half a mile earlier. If they hauled ass, they might just make it. What they’d do
once they got there was another matter.
Eva leaned into the car and unclipped Huff’s seatbelt, then dragged him out by his good arm. “We gotta go,” she said. “Do you think you can run?”
Huff looked beyond her, then shook his head and rested it on her shoulder.
Eva turned and, like the others, stared at the two AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships bearing down on them.
The pressure of the last few weeks suddenly seemed to hit her all at once. It exploded in her gut and left a huge hole that quickly began to fill with despair.
Langton was going to get away with it. All her efforts had been for nothing.
The moment she’d learned of her brother’s faked suicide, she should have realized the ESO was involved and backed off. But no, she had to push it, and even with the firepower hovering above her and the police barreling toward them, she felt it had been the right decision. She couldn’t have lived with herself knowing that someone had murdered Jeff and she hadn’t done anything about it.
The only thing she regretted was all the lives she’d taken under false pretenses. If she’d really killed those people to protect her country, she could have lived with it, but to have murdered so many simply to further Langton’s agenda would haunt her forever.
Part of her wanted to make one last stand, but that meant certain death. Her own, she could deal with, but she would most certainly get the others killed too. After all they’d been through, she wasn’t about to make that decision for them.
She eased Huff back onto the seat, then took the pistol from her waistband and tossed it away. She took a few steps away from the wrecked Range Rover, then got down on her knees and put her hands behind her head.
Seeing Eva admit defeat, one by one her companions relinquished their weapons and assumed the position.
Henry Langton watched Driscoll throw her gun away and fall to her knees. He checked the road ahead and saw that the police were around a mile away. They would be on the scene in approximately one minute.
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