The Agent (An Isabella Rose Thriller Book 3)

by Mark Dawson

  Isabella led Maia to a spot halfway between their car and the two blacked-out SUVs.

  ‘Stop,’ she said.

  Maia did as she was told.

  ‘Get on your knees.’

  Maia lowered herself down.

  The man opened the door of the second Escalade. Three people got out. It was dark, but Isabella could see enough from the glow of the headlamps to make out a woman and two girls.

  ‘Pope?’

  She heard the emotion in his voice even through the static of the walkie-talkie. ‘It’s them. Call out – tell them to go to the helicopter and then get there yourself. Chuck will take off as soon as you’re aboard.’ He added, after a pause, ‘Thank you, Isabella.’

  ‘I’ll see you afterwards,’ she said. ‘Thank me then.’

  ‘They’re here,’ Bloom called out to her over the clamour of the Huey.

  ‘Send them to the helicopter!’

  Isabella retreated from Maia, still covering her with her pistol, and started to back towards the helicopter. She turned her head and saw that Pope’s wife was shepherding the two girls in the same direction.

  That was when she heard the explosion.

  The two soldiers were struggling to keep up, so Curry let them get ahead of him. He followed behind as they tracked up through the undergrowth, stumbling through the deep banks of snow. Their boots slipped and slid, the uncertain footing threatening to take them both off their feet. Curry was more careful, crouching down a little to lower his centre of balance and looking where he was putting his boots. They were moving without flashlights, and that made it more difficult. Curry had the advantage on them in that his retinas had many more light-sensitive receptors, meaning that even lower levels of light triggered the cascade of signals that passed through the interneurons and neurons to the optic nerves and then up to his brain. He might have been able to see better than they could, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to take unnecessary risks.

  Blaine’s voice over the troop net was cool and without stress. ‘Curry, this is Blaine. What’s your situation?’

  ‘North of your position,’ he said as quietly as he could. ‘Nothing yet. What about the drone?’

  ‘Sixteen minutes.’

  ‘If he’s up here, we’ll find him. What about Maia?’

  ‘She’s here. We’re making the exchange.’

  The two men ran into thicker brush and changed direction, clambering directly up the slope so that they could divert around it.

  Curry stopped.

  Something was wrong.

  He saw it too late: an almost imperceptible filament that had been strung across the first open gap in the undergrowth above the blockage.

  ‘Wait!’

  It was fishing line.

  A tripwire.

  The first man ran straight through it.

  There was a depression to Curry’s right. He threw himself into it just as the tripwire fired the defensive mine that had been placed on the trunk of a nearby tree. The detonation fired hundreds of steel balls in a fan-shaped arc two metres high and fifty metres wide. Curry heard dozens of individual impacts as the balls thudded into the trunks and branches of the trees on the mountainside. Drifts of snow were dislodged from the branches all around him, landing with soft thuds, and then he heard the moans from the two men who had been ahead of him.

  The explosion shook the ground.

  Pope had rigged the two booby traps one on either side of him, enclosing him within a protective cordon fifty feet across. He had built his own claymores with the explosives and the detonators that Isabella had found in Maia’s safe house, together with the ball bearings and other shrapnel that McCluskey had purchased for him that morning. He had piled everything into large plastic containers and lashed them around the tree trunks with duct tape. The fishing line that triggered them would be very difficult to see with conditions as they were.

  It was the mine to his right that had been triggered. The blast had rippled through the air, knocking thick inches of snow from the branches overhead.

  He took his binoculars, pressed them to his eyes and scanned the open space beneath him.

  The detonation had caused chaos.

  He saw Rachel and his kids. They had been walking towards the open door of the Huey, but now they were sprinting.

  Isabella was running, too. She had farther to go, but she was faster than they were and she was closing on them quickly.

  He heard the sound of a raised voice from the parking lot.

  Pope dropped the binoculars and pressed the rubberised eyepiece of the rifle scope to his eye. He sighted Bloom. He had dropped to the ground and was crawling away, heading for the nearest Escalade. Pope centred him within the sight’s reticule, slid his finger through the guard, drew in a deep breath and held it. The Huey’s downdraught was raising a gyre of snow and it obscured Bloom from him. By the time the cyclone had cleared, he was behind the SUV and in cover.

  He looked up. His kids were clambering into the Huey. Rachel was behind, pushing them inside. Isabella was ten feet away.

  Come on.

  He saw the flash of automatic gunfire, a starburst that bloomed around the muzzle of the rifle aimed by a soldier who had clattered out of the undergrowth on the opposite side of the parking lot.

  Get out of there!

  The man who had been standing with Bloom – the man who had chased them through the streets of Shanghai – started to run, too.

  He headed straight for the Huey.

  Chapter Seventy

  Curry had landed on his back.

  It had been a drop of six feet into the depression, but his fall had been cushioned by the bank of snow at the bottom. He pushed himself to his feet, confirmed that he had avoided injury and then arranged his helmet so that his goggles were correctly aligned over his eyes and the boom held the microphone over his mouth. He scrambled up the rough edges of the cleft until he was at the top again. The snow was falling harder, but as he crept forward, his weapon ready, ghostly green images resolved from the white: he saw body parts, gouts of dark blood that had been spread over the snow and, not far from where he had seen the tripwire, the remains of both soldiers.

  He ignored it all.

  Pope was close.

  Curry lowered himself to a crouch and moved forward. The second man had lost an arm and his leg below the knee. He was as good as dead and, even if Curry had thought he might have been able to evacuate him back down to the others, he wouldn’t have done it.

  His target was ahead of him. That was his focus.

  He heard the sound of the helicopter’s engine growing louder and louder, and then the rattle of automatic gunfire.

  He stepped over the man’s twitching body, his boots leaving bloody prints in the snow. He continued to climb, passing the blackened and broken tree to which the mine must have been attached, the fragments of the trunk standing out at crazy angles, smoke rising through the falling snow, denuded branches scattered all around.

  More gunfire. It was coming from the other side of the parking lot, from the second fire team.

  Curry slowed, placing his feet carefully, his eyes switching back and forth between the view ahead and the ground. He saw no other tripwires, nor any suggestion that there was anything else that might threaten him. He knew, of course, that the sound of the blast would have warned Pope that he was being approached. He hoped that his focus would be on the exchange in the parking area below, but he was careful enough to avoid moving too quickly and blundering into the business end of a firearm.

  McCluskey saw the flash of the explosion against the gloom that clung to the flanks of the mountain. One of Pope’s jerry-rigged devices had detonated.

  He glanced back into the cabin of the Huey. The door was open and he could see five figures hurrying across the snowy parking lot.

  Three of them running together in a group: two children and a woman.

  The girl, Isabella, followed a short distance behind them.

  A fifth
figure brought up the rear. It was a man, and he was devouring Isabella’s lead on him.

  McCluskey saw the flash of gunfire from the other side of the parking lot and heard the metallic snaps as rounds passed through the thin skin of the Huey’s fuselage.

  ‘Pope,’ he said into the radio. ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Have you got them all?’

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘I’m bugging out. Take—’

  The broadcast was interrupted by a wave of static.

  He turned back again and saw that the children and the woman were inside.

  Isabella Rose was seconds away.

  The man who was chasing her was seconds behind her.

  ‘Strap yourselves in,’ he called back into the cabin.

  He opened the throttle and the rotor speed increased. He pulled up slowly on the collective, increased the pitch and counteracted the sudden torque by pressing down on the left foot pedal.

  Struggling to make himself heard over the sound of the engine, he yelled, ‘Is the girl aboard?’

  ‘Yes!’ someone shouted.

  He kept pulling up, his foot pressed down firmly on the pedal, and the chopper grew light on its skids and slowly lifted off the ground. The downdraught whipped up the fresh snow and McCluskey’s visibility was reduced almost to zero once more.

  It was a white-out.

  He checked his instruments.

  They were climbing.

  The helicopter started to lift. Isabella was on the skid, one hand anchored to a trailing strap on the floor of the cabin and the other gripping the frame of the open door. She looked inside. There was a bench seat facing the door, and the woman who must have been Rachel Pope was sat between two girls: Flora and Clementine Pope. They had fastened the straps, but Rachel had reached out her arms to press her daughters even more firmly against the bench.

  ‘Help!’

  Rachel had no idea who she was, but it didn’t matter; she reached out a hand to help Isabella inside.

  Isabella stretched to take it . . .

  . . . when she felt a hand seize her right ankle.

  She slipped back, only just managing to hold on to the frame of the door.

  She looked down. The man from Shanghai had leapt up just enough so that he was able to grasp the helicopter’s skid. He was hanging by his left hand and had used his right to reach up and grab Isabella’s leg.

  She braced herself against the door frame, but it was no use. The man’s grip was fearsome, and as he started to yank, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold on.

  ‘Help!’ she called out desperately.

  Rachel Pope reached for her, but her movement was curtailed by the belt. Their fingertips touched for a moment before Isabella was yanked out of the cabin. Her feet fell off the skid and her hands slid down the frame, her fingers wrenched away from it.

  She slid down, flinging out her arms at the last moment and grabbing the man’s torso. She wrapped both arms around his waist, locking her hands above his stomach. He was still holding on with just one hand; the addition of her weight seemed to make no difference. He fixed his right hand next to the left and grunted with effort as he started to pull them both up.

  She jerked her head around and down.

  The helicopter was fifteen feet above the ground.

  Twenty.

  Isabella scrambled up the man’s body until she could hook her legs around his waist. She couldn’t let him get into the cabin. She let go of his jacket with her right hand and reached up for his face. She stretched up, her muscles burning, trying to claw and scratch his eyes.

  The effort was too much. Isabella felt her grip weaken.

  They were twenty-five feet above the ground and still climbing.

  Isabella clambered up another few inches, enough to reach the man’s face. She raked him with her nails, drawing them across his eye and down his cheek.

  The helicopter jerked.

  She felt blood between her fingers, a warm slickness on her palm.

  She felt for his eyes and clawed him again.

  He let go.

  They fell.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Maia was still on her knees.

  She watched as Isabella and Blaine tumbled to earth.

  The helicopter was a long way up. Twenty or thirty feet. The snow beneath it had been compacted. It wouldn’t offer a soft landing.

  Blaine was heavier, and he landed first. He took the impact on his back.

  Isabella hit a fraction of a second later. Her leg was bent beneath her when she landed; the sound of the crack as it snapped in two was as loud as a gunshot.

  The girl bounced once and then lay still.

  Maia saw movement to her left. Vivian Bloom had taken advantage of the confusion to move into cover behind the Escalade. He was shielded from Pope by the bulk of the big car.

  Bloom pointed at the helicopter. ‘Shoot it down!’ he screamed.

  Three soldiers had emerged from the undergrowth on the other side of the parking lot. They dropped into cover behind the Cherokee, aimed their rifles and unloaded at the Huey. The shots rang off the hull, drawing sparks, but the aircraft continued to rise.

  Maia turned back to Isabella. Blaine was on his feet. He looked unhurt. He picked Isabella up. She was still, hanging limply in the crook of his arm.

  The helicopter dipped its nose and accelerated away and out of range.

  Bloom punched the side of the Escalade. ‘Fuck!’ he yelled. ‘Fuck!’

  Maia stayed where she was. She felt strange. She tried to diagnose it, but she could not. She felt a disassociation, as if two parts of her were slowly splitting apart. She closed her eyes. What was it? She felt the throbbing of an incipient migraine. The pain soared up and up until it was intense. She was used to migraines – they were a side effect of her meds – but this was different. It felt as if a vice had been fastened around her temples, and now it was slowly being tightened.

  The three soldiers hurried across the parking lot. Blaine arrived, too. His jacket was covered in snow. He dropped Isabella, dumping her to the ground.

  ‘Where’s Pope?’ Bloom said.

  ‘Curry found where he was hiding. He’s not there.’

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘We’re looking.’

  ‘Where’s the drone?’

  ‘Still thirteen minutes out. It won’t be here in time.’

  Maia looked at Isabella. Her left leg was horribly broken. Maia could see the flash of bone where it had pierced the fabric of her trousers. She was face down and unmoving. Was she dead? It had been a steep fall, and the impact had been heavy. She was just a girl. It was possible.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Bloom asked.

  ‘We need to leave, sir.’

  ‘The helicopter?’

  ‘It’s gone.’

  Bloom turned to Maia. ‘At least we have her back,’ he said.

  Maia heard a low moaning.

  Blaine heard it, too. He turned to Isabella. ‘She’s alive,’ he said.

  Bloom looked old and tired. He rubbed his hand across his face. ‘We should take her with us,’ he said. ‘Maybe Pope cares enough about her to come back. Put her in the car.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Maia’s head pounded and she felt sick. But she made the effort to raise her head and open her eyes. Blaine crunched through the snow to where Isabella was slowly stirring. He reached down for her again and dragged her up. Her leg jammed down and she shrieked with pain.

  Maia felt a throb of adrenaline.

  She tried to free her hands. The bar held firm. She closed her eyes again, flexed her shoulders and forced her hands apart. She felt the metal bite into the skin, felt it against the bones in her wrist, but she screwed her eyes shut tighter and increased the pressure.

  The cuff around her right wrist popped out of the solid plastic bar that held the pair together. Her hands were free.

  Bloom was watching. His mouth fell open.

  Adrenaline c
oursed through Maia’s body.

  Fight or flight.

  The delicious anticipation of violence.

  Maia was next to one of the soldiers. The man was cradling his M4 in both hands, the weapon still on the strap. She reached out her leg and swept him to the ground. He fell to his knees. She put her left arm around his body so that her left hand grasped his right shoulder with her right hand around his head. She kept his shoulders firm as she yanked his head around, breaking his neck. His body went limp; she took the strap and yanked the weapon clear as he slumped forward.

  ‘Blaine!’ Bloom cried out.

  Maia raised the weapon.

  Curry hurried across the slope.

  He found the shooting position that Pope had chosen. It was high up, protected from view by a low fringe of scrub and offered a wide view of the parking lot below. The evidence that Pope had been here was all around: a discarded blanket; the imprint from where a body had been prone against the snow.

  He heard the sound of footsteps crunching away through the snow. Curry looked down and saw a set of deep prints disappearing into the trees.

  Pope was close. He wouldn’t be able to hide. Curry would be able to track him easily.

  He was about to set off when he heard the sound of a raised voice below him.

  ‘Blaine!’

  He went to the trees and looked down.

  He saw the two Escalades and the Cherokee.

  He saw the body of one of the Manage Risk soldiers on the ground.

  He saw Maia. She was standing, an M4 in her hands. She was partially shielded by one of the Escalades.

  The girl was on the ground.

  Blaine was standing over her.

  Maia was aiming the rifle at Blaine.

  Curry heard the sound of someone crashing away through the trees to his left.

  He couldn’t go after Pope. His first priority was to keep Vivian Bloom safe.

  He raised his M4 and took aim.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Maia cradled the M4 and aimed it at Blaine’s chest.

  ‘The girl goes with me.’

  Blaine raised his hands. ‘What are you doing? Put the gun down.’