Blood and Roses (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 3)

by Dawson, Mark

  The drive-in appeared in the near distance.

  Control watched with avid, almost manic, interest as his pilot turned through sixty degrees and followed the line of the main road until they reached the access road.

  “Looks like she’s here before us,” the pilot said, pointing to the car in the middle of the lot.

  He took up a pair of high-powered field glasses and examined the car as the pilot pulled up the nose and slowed. Beatrix Rose was sitting in the front seat. It looked as if she was alone. The car was parked to face the big, dirty wooden screen that would once have been wrapped with canvas. It was almost as if she had arrived to watch a film that would never be shown.

  “Chalk One to Command Post,” Control said into his headset microphone.

  “Copy that. Go ahead, Chalk One.”

  “Run a license check on plate number ADC-143.”

  “Copy that. Stand by.”

  He was terrified, and it was difficult to hide it. There was fear for his daughter, of course, but mostly it was fear for himself. He knew what Beatrix wanted. It was obvious. She hadn’t kidnapped Cassidy to bring him out here for a face-to-face. They had nothing to talk about. She had made that abundantly plain with the executions of the five agents.

  The agents who had let him down. He had no pity for them. They had reaped what they had sown. It was their own negligent failures that had sealed their death warrants.

  He knew what Rose wanted.

  “Command post to Chalk One. Come in, over.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The car is registered to an address in New Jersey. It was stolen a year ago.”

  Control absorbed the information and processed it, but didn’t respond.

  Beatrix was sitting in the front seat, her hands resting on the wheel. No sign of any weapons, but she had to be armed. She was as still as a statue. As the chopper edged around to face the car, he saw her clearly, staring impassively up at it. The cockpit windshield was tinted, and she couldn’t possibly have seen him, but he felt as if she could. He felt as if she was staring right through it and right at him.

  “Command post to Chalk One. Copy?”

  He couldn’t see the snipers, but he knew that they were there.

  Both teams would have her zeroed.

  All he had to do was give the word, and she would cease to be a problem.

  But what about Cassidy?

  His daughter was the only thing that stayed his hand.

  “Command Post to Chalk . . .”

  “Find out where that fucking car has been.”

  “We’re trying, sir.”

  Beatrix sat back in the seat and watched as the two helicopters circled her like raptors waiting to pounce down upon their prey. They called the MH-6J the Little Bird. She guessed that he was inside it. The bird had no armour and was probably within range of the explosion that she could trigger in a heartbeat. She had it within her power to bring all of this to an end, right here and now, but she did not. She needed more. She needed to see his face again before she scraped him off the face of the earth.

  She knew, of course, that they were not alone. The first sniper was well hidden, but she had known where to look. There was a two-man team on the lip of the bowl, reasonably well obscured with ghillie suits, but facing into the sun. She had seen the glint of daylight on the spotter’s binoculars.

  The second team was almost adjacent to the first, on the other side of the bowl.

  There was nowhere for her to hide. She could slip down beneath the wheel, but she was willing to bet that both soldiers were equipped with .50 calibre rifles, and bullets as big as that would cut through the bodywork like a hot knife through butter. The two of them had her in the middle of a killing zone that she wouldn’t be able to escape from.

  But she was alright with that.

  She didn’t want to escape.

  She reached into her shirt and took out her locket. She opened it and looked down at the picture of Isabella as a baby.

  The Apache circled out from behind the MH-6J, providing its weapons with a clear line of fire.

  She woke up her cellphone in its dashboard mount and called the number for Control.

  “Beatrix,” his voice played out of the speaker.

  “I told you not to bring anyone,” she said, “and you’ve brought a party.”

  “You didn’t expect . . .”

  “I expected you to care a little bit more about what might happen to your daughter.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Not far.”

  “Is she with John Milton?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that.”

  “If you’ve hurt her . . .”

  “You’re not in a position to make threats, Control.”

  “Neither are you.”

  Yes, I am, she thought. I have nothing to lose.

  “Where is she?”

  She didn’t reply. She could almost sense his anger and frustration.

  “Beatrix?”

  “She won’t be hurt if you do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to land.”

  She looked up at the Little Bird and then across to the Apache. The snipers seemed redundant now. The Apache had a full combat load: the big, brutal 30mm chain gun between the main landing gear, four hard points on the stub wings that were laden with Hellfire missiles and Hydra rocket pods.

  She felt the hard shape of the trigger clutched in her fist. It was a dead man’s switch. If she was shot, her hand would spasm and her grip would be released. The relay would be complete, and the bomb would detonate.

  “Bring that bird down, Control. Right now.”

  The Little Bird descended, the pilot landing deftly a hundred feet away.

  “Be ready to take off,” he said to the pilot.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He nodded up at the Apache. “Tell them to wait for my signal.”

  “Yes, sir. They know.”

  “When I’m ready, I want her wiped off the face of the planet.”

  He took a deep breath. His knees felt like water.

  Come on. See it through.

  He opened the cabin door and pushed it back against the fuselage, the downdraft from the blades wrapping him in a vortex of cold air. He stepped down, holding onto the edge of the door for support, and then set off towards the Impala.

  He heard the sound of Beatrix’s voice in the Bluetooth buds that were pressed into his ears. “That’s better. Come over to me.”

  His phone buzzed with another call.

  He pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the display.

  He didn’t recognise the number. He cancelled the call.

  He looked up at the car.

  Beatrix gestured for him to come ahead to her.

  The phone buzzed again.

  He stared at the number.

  The Apache hovered menacingly.

  He looked back at Beatrix.

  She opened the door and stepped outside.

  The phone buzzed. He cancelled it again.

  The driver’s door opened, and Beatrix stepped out of the car. The downdraft from the two choppers tousled her blonde hair and tugged at her clothes. Control was shocked. She was emaciated, and she moved with difficulty and evident pain, as if she had aged fifty years in the decade since he had seen her last. She looked feeble. He looked at her, and he couldn’t believe that she had dispatched five of his best operatives.

  The phone buzzed again.

  He selected the new call and put the phone to his ear.

  “What?”

  “Daddy!”

  “Cassidy?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He took a step back.

  “Where
are you?”

  Frustration flicked across Beatrix’s face.

  “I got away. I’m fine.”

  “Where . . .”

  “It’s a trap, Daddy. She’s got a bomb.”

  Beatrix saw the change of expression on Control’s face and knew the game was up.

  He turned away from her, stumbling, and then jerked his arm in her direction. “Shoot her!” he yelled over the noise of the rotors as he started to run.

  The chain gun whirled and whirred as it spooled up.

  A double track of bullets started to chew up the asphalt, racing towards her.

  She gripped the locket in her left hand.

  She released her grip on the trigger with her right.

  The electrical relay completed and current passed through it.

  Thoughts raced through her mind in a last mad, crazy tangle without form or structure.

  Isabella.

  Mohammed.

  Fatima.

  John Milton.

  Michael Pope.

  Control.

  Dear Lucas.

  The scene in her front room, ten years ago, a different world.

  Spenser.

  Chisholm.

  Joyce.

  Duffy.

  English.

  Control.

  Her cancer.

  Isabella.

  Isabella.

  The trigger passed the signal to the detonator, the circuit was completed and the explosive charge ignited a fraction of a fraction of a second before the petrol and the fertiliser in the trunk erupted. The firestorm blew the Impala into a billion tiny pieces and swept out in a monstrous, savage, cleansing wave.

  Chapter Twenty

  Isabella had hiked back through the undergrowth until she could see the freeway again. She moved slowly and carefully, acutely aware that Cassidy would contact the police and that their first move would be to hurry to the cabin where they had been staying. She had to keep out of sight. Her caution meant that it took her over an hour to reach the road, and she followed it inside the wooded margins for another hour until she was confident that she was far enough from the cabin to hitch a ride into town.

  She had had to wait only ten minutes before a car pulled over and the driver leaned over to open the passenger side door.

  “Where you headed?” the driver said.

  “Chesapeake.”

  “Me too. Hop in.”

  She did, assessing him quickly as she slipped in beside him. He was in his late middle age, dressed in a cheap suit and a white shirt with a dirty collar. He smelled a little, as if he hadn’t showered for a few days, and the back seat was strewn with clothes, empty fast food packaging and Styrofoam cups.

  “What you doing out here on your own?” he said as they pulled into the light early morning traffic.

  “I’ve been hiking,” she said.

  He looked over at her. “Really?” He smiled, revealing small and yellowed teeth. “At seven in the morning?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You aren’t dressed for it.”

  “I’m headed back into town,” she said hurriedly, her story already falling apart. “I was camping with some friends. We argued and so I left.”

  He looked across at her, still smiling. “How old are you?”

  She felt vulnerable, stuck in a car with a man she didn’t know. Her bag was open at the end farthest away from the man, and she slipped her hand inside, her fingers bumping up against the cold metal of the little pistol.

  “How old are you, sugar?” he asked again.

  “I’m thirteen.”

  “And your friends? How old are they?”

  “Older.”

  “And they let you just walk away?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You want maybe I should call the police? I don’t know much about the criminal law or nothing like that, but, you ask me, that’s child neglect or some such thing.”

  “It’s alright,” she said. “I’d rather just speak to my mother about it.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your accent. You’re not local, are you?”

  “Oh,” she said. “No. I’m not. I’m English. I live with my father most of the time, outside London. My parents are divorced.”

  “Oh, I . . .”

  She smiled awkwardly at his embarrassment. “My mother lives here, though. Chesapeake. I visit her twice a year.”

  “And you’ve got friends who let you wander off in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Cousins, actually.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He was quiet for a moment, staring out at the sparse lines of traffic, but she could see that he was processing all the answers she had given him. He didn’t strike her as very smart, but he wouldn’t need to be to realise that she was full of it, and every answer she gave surely made it more and more obvious.

  She could feel the cold steel of the pistol beneath her fingertips.

  The police would be looking for her as soon as they had pieced together what had happened. There would be an appeal when they couldn’t find her, maybe something on the television. This man, if he watched it, would remember her very well indeed.

  She had already drawn enough attention to herself.

  What would her mother have said?

  Would she have been disappointed?

  What would she have done?

  She changed her plan. She had to get out.

  They were on the edge of Chesapeake and fast approaching a gas station surrounded by collection of fast food restaurants.

  “Here, please,” she said. “This is fine.”

  “You don’t want me to take you into town?”

  “No, really. This is fine. My mother can get me from here.”

  “Fair enough.” He flicked the indicator and turned onto the exit ramp.

  There was a parking lot behind the gas station and the restaurants, and he pulled up into an empty space.

  “I kind of think I should stay and say something to your mother. I don’t know—it’s not right you being left out on the road like that, so young and all.”

  “That’s alright,” she said, quickly opening the door.

  She got out and closed the door.

  He leaned over and rolled the window down.

  “You sure you’re alright?”

  “Yes,” she said, gripping the straps of the bag. “Thank you.”

  He watched her for a moment, and then, with a shrug, rolled the window back up, reversed and headed back onto the ramp to merge with the flow of traffic.

  Isabella ground her teeth. That had been a mistake. Badly handled. She needed to do better.

  She hefted the bag and walked to the restaurants.

  The waitress watched the young girl as she sat at the table. She was staring at the news on the TV.

  She took her notepad from the pouch in the front of her apron and went over to her.

  “Morning, honey. How are you today?”

  “I’m fine,” the girl said, her eyes still on the TV.

  “What can I get you?”

  She glanced quickly down at the menu, said, “Pancakes, please, and a glass of orange juice,” and then looked back to the screen.

  “Coming right up.”

  The waitress went back to the kitchen and relayed the order. Five minutes later, she collected the plate and the juice and took them over to the girl’s table.

  “Here you go, darling.”

  “Thank you.”

  There was something strange about the girl, and the waitress was musing on that as she went to take the order from a family who had settled at a table on the other side of the restaurant. When she had finished with them, she
looked back at the girl again. She was still staring up at the screen, a faraway look on her face. She hadn’t touched the pancakes or the juice.

  The waitress returned to her table again. “Are you alright, honey?”

  The girl looked up her. Her eyes were the clearest blue, almost translucent, and the effect of her stare was disconcerting.

  “Pardon me?”

  “The pancakes alright? You haven’t touched them. Can I get you something else?”

  “Oh no,” she said, distractedly. “They’ll be fine.”

  The girl’s eyes went back to the screen.

  The waitress turned to look. It was a news special, an outside broadcast. There had been some sort of explosion. She watched the report for a moment before she recognised the old drive-in movie theatre out at Carrsville. The blackened wreckage of a car was visible in the big parking lot in the distance, over the shoulder of the reporter. There was a helicopter, too, a little one that looked as if it had crashed. It had fallen onto its side. The entrance to the drive-in had been cordoned off with black and yellow crime scene tape that twitched in the wind. A number of police vehicles, their lights flashing, were parked on the perimeter.

  “Hey, Herb,” she called out to the short-order cook, “Turn up the TV, will you?”

  Herb aimed the remote in the vague direction of the old set and enabled the volume. The reporter, a local whom the waitress recognised from years of watching the same channel, was interviewing a man identified as the chief of police.

  “So what are you saying?” the man asked. “You’re saying it was a bomb?”

  “I have to qualify all this by saying the investigation is in its early stages, but, yes, that’s what it looks like. A car bomb. Now, if you’re asking me who was responsible for this, that I can’t say, not right now.”

  “But you think it’s terrorism?”

  “That’s a possibility we’re looking into.”

  “Are there any victims?”

  “Yes,” he said. “One fatality.”

  “Do you have any details?”

  “We think it’s a woman.”

  “And any injuries?”