Blood Moon Rising (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 2)

by Dawson, Mark

  Come on.

  Not now.

  Come on.

  Keep it together.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then reached into her pocket for the packet of Zomorph. She dry-swallowed two of the pills, took a breath and carried on.

  The radio crackled with static, and then she heard Faulkner’s voice again.

  “Twelve, One. Copy?”

  “What is it?”

  “Outgoing call. Automated. There was a dead switch on the alarm. It’s calling out.”

  “Where to?”

  “I’m tracing it now. Not the police, though. I’m guessing it’s an internal team.”

  “Eyes on it. If you see anything, I need to know. Out.”

  A carpeted corridor extended back from the reception, with the conference rooms on either side. The walls were glazed, and the light reflected back at her as she swung it left and right. There was no one there.

  Downstairs would be different.

  She found the door to the stairs and opened it as carefully as she could. The hinges were in good shape, and it was silent. Small mercies.

  The stairs ended with a door. There was an emergency light at the bottom, casting an eerie green glow into the space.

  She crept down the steps, her joints aching with each step.

  She reached the bottom and moved to the door. It was wooden, with no window.

  She could hear movement inside.

  She heard a voice.

  Muffled: “. . . so you tell me.”

  A reply: “Brownout. Wouldn’t be the first.”

  “Like a third-world country.”

  “Not like. It is a third-world country.”

  “Thought we told them to make sure that didn’t happen anymore around here.”

  Beatrix rested her fingertips against the door and gave it the tiniest push. It opened a fraction. It wasn’t locked.

  “It’s Iraq, bro.”

  She wedged the Sig in her left armpit and took one of the M84 flash-bangs from the canteen pouch. She transferred it to her left hand.

  “What the fuck you expect?”

  She stood, her joints flashing with pain, and addressed the door. She pushed it open quietly, pulled the pin and rolled the grenade into the room beyond.

  She turned her face away, her hand coming up in a smooth and continuous motion from the throw. She gripped the pistol, hooking her index finger through the trigger guard and sliding it so that the trigger nestled against the top joint.

  The magnesium and ammonium nitrate mix detonated with an ear-splitting crack and a sunburst flash that glowed with coruscating brightness, flooding through the crack in the door.

  Beatrix kicked the door all the way open and went through, shouldering it aside as it bounced back against her.

  She assessed.

  A medium-sized room, twenty feet by twenty feet. Two rooms off it. Substantial doors in the way. Cells, perhaps.

  Two men.

  They had been close to the grenade. One was on his knees, his hands pressed to his eyes. Flash blind.

  The second was up against the wall, one arm braced against it while his free hand was clapped up against his left ear.

  Beatrix took her finger out of the trigger guard and gripped the gun barrel tightly, using the butt to bludgeon the man nearest to her. The second man turned, reaching for a pistol on a table just out of reach, but Beatrix closed on him faster than he could move. She balanced on her left leg, lashed her right foot into his gut, and then, as he jack-knifed, she kicked straight up, the blow catching the man square on the chin. He dropped like a stone, collapsing onto the first man in an untidy mess of arms and legs.

  Beatrix took the gun from the table and ejected the magazine. The first guard had a holstered pistol, and she ejected the magazine from that one, too.

  “Hello? Is someone there?”

  She pocketed the magazines and turned to the two doors.

  “Hello?” the voice came again.

  The voice was muffled, coming from behind one of the doors.

  “Hello?”

  She went to the door. “What’s your name?” she said.

  “Mackenzie West.”

  “Alright, Mackenzie, I’m here to get you out. I’m going to need you to stand as far away from the door as possible. I’m going to blast it open. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  She took the Cordtex detonation cord and a roll of sturdy double-sided tape from her pack and fixed the cord to the outline of the door, leaving a pigtail at the floor end. She primed the charge and backed out to the stairs to take cover.

  “Ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Breaching in three, two, one . . .”

  She fired the charge. The explosion was not large, but it was contained and amplified in the enclosed basement. There was a loud crump, a sudden discharge of dust and smoke, and then the ringing sound of the metal door as it fell to the floor.

  Beatrix rounded the corner with her gun halfway up.

  She recognised Mackenzie West from the picture that Pope had shown her. He was dirty, and his face, like Faik al-Kaysi’s, bore the evidence of several beatings. There were bruises of different colours, some newer than the others.

  He stumbled away from the wall, a fine coating of dust all over his body.

  “Are you alright?”

  He coughed and nodded.

  “My name is Beatrix Rose. I’ve been sent to get you out. I know what’s happened to you, why they’ve locked you up.”

  “We gotta get out. They’ll kill me before they let me go.”

  “We are getting out. Are you fit to walk?”

  “I think so.”

  “Stay behind me.”

  The radio hissed and fizzed. “Twelve, One. Copy?”

  “One, Twelve. Go ahead.”

  “We’ve got trouble. A car just pulled up . . . wait, shit, there’s another. Correction: two cars just pulled up, I’m counting four, five, six men, all armed.”

  “Have they seen you?”

  “Negative.”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do, Twelve. Wait until they’re inside. There’s a reception area, self-contained. We can take them from both ends at once. On my mark, throw in a flash-bang and then pick them off. I’ll do the same. Copy?”

  “Twelve, One. Copy that. On your mark. Getting into position now.”

  Beatrix turned to West. “There’s going to be some shooting. Stay behind me.”

  “I’m a soldier, ma’am. I understand.”

  She toggled radio. “One, Twelve. Update, please.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “One, Twelve. Stand by. On my mark.”

  Faulkner had crept up the wall of the building. The men had opened the door by overriding the failsafe and had filtered inside.

  They had left it open behind them.

  He could hear their voices, low and hard, as they moved farther into the ground floor.

  Faulkner took out the cylindrical flash-bang and clasped it in the web between his right thumb and forefinger. He slid his left index finger into the ring pull.

  “Three. Two. One. Mark.”

  He pulled the pin, the spoon sprung up and he rolled the grenade into the darkened room beyond.

  The flash-bang blared a starburst of light through the doorway.

  A second flash-bang detonated a fraction of a second after the first.

  Faulkner rolled around and raised the FN F2000.

  He heard firing from the other side of the room. He saw muzzle flash, neat and regular, every three seconds.

  Aim and shoot.

  Aim and shoot.

  Aim and shoot.

  The Sig fired out: blam, blam, blam.
<
br />   Rose was good.

  Every shot found its mark.

  Better than good. She was unbelievably good.

  She stopped firing, ducked back to reload.

  There were two Manage Risk guards nearer to him than to her. They were still stunned, just turning in the direction of the sound of Rose’s gun, their backs to him. He pressed the bullpup into his shoulder, squeezed off a controlled burst, aimed again, squeezed off another burst.

  The first man went down.

  The second man went down.

  He ducked back into cover to allow Rose to fire. She did, and the final operative hit the deck.

  “Clear,” Rose shouted, no need for the radio now.

  “Clear,” he confirmed.

  “Let’s get moving.”

  Rose changed magazines as they hurried out into the hot night. The Freelander was parked around the block. Faulkner reached it and turned. They were lagging behind him. West must have been struggling.

  And then he realised: it wasn’t West.

  It was Rose. She was moving awkwardly.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she said irritably. “Start the car. We’re taking too long.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  They drove back to the foundry.

  Mackenzie West sat in the back.

  “Who are you?” he asked finally.

  “Friends.”

  “Sent by who?”

  Faulkner turned in the seat to look back at him. “You have something you want to say about what happened the other day, don’t you? The riot?”

  “Yes, sir. I do.”

  “We’re going to make sure you get the chance to say it.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Not the government.”

  “Not your government, Mr West. I think they’d rather you were quiet, don’t you?”

  “I don’t care what they think.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “You’re getting me out of the country?”

  “Yes,” Beatrix intervened. “We’re just picking up some friends first.”

  They had left Faik and Mysha in a twenty-four-hour café attached to a gas station on the edge of town. They had dropped them there earlier, and after two short jabs of the horn, they emerged. They looked frightened and vulnerable. Beatrix felt a catch in her heart as she watched the girl reach out for her brother’s hand and lead him across to them.

  Beatrix got out. “Are you alright?” she asked when they had reached them.

  “We are fine,” Mysha answered for her brother.

  “Who is that?” Faik asked, pointing at West.

  “His name is Mackenzie. I was sent here to bring him out of the country.”

  “Why?”

  “He worked for the contractors.”

  Faik’s face flashed with anger as black as his bruises. “Then what is he . . .”

  “He’s going to give evidence against them. He was there when your mother was shot. He wants justice for her. For her and all the others.”

  The lights of a car that Beatrix didn’t recognise swept into the sandy lot.

  “Who is that?” Faik said fretfully.

  Beatrix turned to Faulkner. “Pope?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think?”

  “Who is it?” Faik repeated.

  “It’s your ride out of Iraq,” she said. “It’s fine. We’re here. We’ll make sure you get away safely. Stay here, alright? I’ll be back.”

  She turned to Faulkner and indicated with her eyes that he should stay with them. He nodded his understanding.

  She stepped up to the car. It was a Toyota Camry, slathered in dust. The headlights burrowed into the darkness and made it difficult for her to see any details beyond a black silhouette.

  The door opened, and a man stepped out.

  “Turn the lights off.”

  The man bent down and killed the lights.

  “Hands where I can see them,” she called out.

  “Easy!”

  She raised the pistol and aimed. “Hands up, right now.”

  The man did as he was told.

  He stepped forward so that she could see him.

  “Easy. It’s me.”

  It was Pope.

  “You think maybe you might have told me that you were going to come out here, too?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it. I didn’t think you’d be planning something as stupid as a jail break.”

  She glowered at him.

  He indicated the al-Kaysis. “These the two?”

  “Yes.”

  “And West?”

  “In the car.”

  “Duffy?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He took another step forward and squinted at her. “Are you alright?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look dreadful.”

  “It’s been a long day,” she said, waving his concern off.

  “Beatrix . . .”

  “I’m fine,” she said sharply. “Get back in the car. You need to get them out of here.”

  “Has he given you anything about Control?”

  “No,” she said. “Not yet. Please, Pope. Get going. You don’t have time to wait.”

  Pope walked to the Toyota and got back inside.

  Beatrix went to the Freelander and opened the rear door.

  “That’s your ride south,” she said to them all, but she was looking at Mysha.

  West and Faulkner got out.

  “Thank you,” Mysha said. “Again.”

  “Hurry,” Beatrix said. “You need to get going.”

  The girl slid out of the car.

  “Look after her,” Beatrix told Faik.

  “I will.”

  “You’ll be alright.”

  “I know,” he said. He offered her his hand, and she took it. “Thank you.”

  “Go.”

  Mysha came around the car and fell into her arms for the second time that day. Beatrix hugged her close, her face buried in her neck, and for just a moment, she thought she could smell the scent of Isabella’s hair. Her heart felt swollen and her eyes stung. She disentangled herself, stood and laid a hand on the girl’s cheek.

  “Good luck, Mysha.”

  The girl smiled up at her through a curtain of grateful tears. Beatrix withdrew her hand, smiled a sad smile back at her and turned away.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Beatrix sat in the back, and Faulkner drove them farther out into the desert. They followed Pope for a few miles before reaching a turn in the road and branching away from them. She watched the red glow of the tail lights in the darkness of the early morning, fainter and fainter as the cars sped away from one another. Beatrix thought of Faik and Mysha in the back of the car. They would be safe now. Pope would get them over the border and deliver them to their family. She had done all she could for them.

  She took out the burner phone and called the Manage Risk facility at Energy City. She explained to the operator that Mrs Sascha Duffy, the wife of Bryan Duffy, could be found locked in the walk-in refrigerator in the canteen of a foundry on the edge of town. She gave the woman the exact location, made her recite it back to her and then ended the call. She ejected the micro-sim, snapped it in two, and then tossed it and the phone out of the window.

  Faulkner was quiet, his attention on the road.

  Beatrix sat quietly, too, thinking about her list and what she still needed to do.

  The cough, when it came, took her by surprise. It started as a tickle in her throat and then worsened, a whooping bark that took thirty seconds to subside.

  Faulkner slowed the car.

  Beatri
x waved him off, and after examining her in the mirror, he gently accelerated again.

  “Jesus,” he said. “What was that?”

  “Sand in my lungs. I’m fine.”

  “If you say so.” They picked up the speed that they had lost. “Where do you want to take him?” he asked.

  “Keep going. Somewhere no one will see us.”

  She stared out the window. She concentrated on her breathing, keeping it even, focussing on it, trying to detect anything that was out of the ordinary. Any new symptoms.

  The terrain dipped down between sand dunes, and the lights of Pope’s car winked in and out and then finally they disappeared.

  They drove for an hour. It was two in the morning when they eventually arrived at a wide-open stretch of desert that offered views of the road in both directions for several miles. There would be no chance of anything coming across them unexpectedly.

  “Here,” Beatrix said.

  Faulkner slowed and drew up to a halt on the margin of the road.

  He took the FN F2000 from the passenger seat, stepped out and opened the back. Duffy was crammed into the compartment, his feet resting on one of the wheel arches. Beatrix prodded him with the Sig, and he rolled out, stumbling a little as he did. She took her knife and sliced through the tape around his ankles. She pushed him into motion, setting him off into the dunes.

  The three of them walked for five minutes until they were about two hundred yards from the Freelander.

  They stumbled down into a shallow depression, the sand rippling down after them.

  “Far enough,” she said.

  He stopped.

  She pulled the hessian sack over his head, tore the tape from his mouth and pulled out the rag that was stuffed inside.

  He gasped.

  “On your knees,” she said.

  “Rose. Let’s talk about this.”

  “On your knees.”

  “Come on, Rose. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Really?”

  “I was there, sure, but . . .”