Brothers In Arms (Matt Drake 5) (26 page)

Dahl crab walked along the side of the fast-moving eighteen-wheeler. When he reached the cab, he fired through the window. Glass exploded, but the passenger was ready for him. The man flung the door wide, leaning out with a machine pistol cocked and ready. Dahl froze. But the driver of the truck hadn’t reckoned for the sudden explosion of glass. The shock made him jerk the wheel, the Mack swerved violently, and the passenger lost his balance, tumbling right out of the door and crashing to the concrete road below.

Even Dahl winced as the truck bounced over him.

The Swede grabbed the swinging door, unhooked his strap and brought all his considerable strength to bear as he leaped into the cab. The truck driver just stared at him—this mad Swede with fiery eyes and a face set as hard as obsidian—and licked dry lips.

“I give up, man. Whatever you want. Just don’t kill me.”

Dahl nodded at the wheel. “Stop the bloody truck.”

The driver practically stood up on the brakes and Dahl smashed into the windshield. The truck jackknifed, back end swinging around at high speed. Komodo hit
the gas even harder, urging the Humvee to outrun the approaching mass of metal, at first losing the race but then, inch by inch, gaining enough ground to stay marginally ahead of certain death.

Dahl waited until the truck began to coast, slowing down. He saw Drake’s and Hayden’s armored cars and the three fast cop cars flash by.

“Bollocks.”

The driver gawped at him. Dahl motioned him out of the truck
as the standard black-and-whites caught up. “Half a dozen small container crates in the back,” he told one of the cops as he climbed down, shaking the road dust and grit from his clothes. “Probably full of advanced weapons so, whatever you bloody do, don’t look inside.”

The cop stared.

“Ever hear the saying ‘if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you?’ Same principal applies here.” He shrugged in explanation.

Then his eyes lit on something magnificent. “Oh, would you look at that.”

And he walked off, hearing the cop mutter something about “
English ass”
at his back, eyes full of the gorgeous light blue Shelby GT500 Mustang that stood idling near the median of the highway. It seemed luck and good fortune was on his side today.

The Shelby’s driver stared at him with frightened eyes.

Dahl gave him a feral grin. “Step aside.”

Lauren Fox slipped off her old sweater and settled into the plush armchair. She watched admiringly as Karin quickly manipulated a host of shaky images and transferred the best ones to the main screen. From there, Jonathan Gates, Karin and Lauren watched the road battle on live T.V.

Gates used the Blake girl’s cleverness to assist with his decisions. It was Gates who had originally pulled the mass of cop cars back. Gates who had recalled the choppers, ordering them to follow at distance. Gates who now told Karin to scroll ahead using the American government’s own version of Google maps to determine Kingston’s destination.

“Got it,” Karin said. “Palicki airfield. Ten miles ahead. I’ll put them on alert.”

“Now that’s bad news.” Gates breathed over her shoulder. “It means they’re on their own. We can’t get any backup there in time.”

“Maybe you can’t,” Lauren said. “But you have time to scramble some of those F-35’s to make sure the asshole doesn’t get away.”

Gates looked approvingly at her. “I knew you would become a valuable asset, Miss Fox.”

Lauren narrowed her eyes.
What was the old guy spouting?
She hoped to high hell that he wasn’t angling for some kind of secret
rendezvous
or a big discount. She’d seen it before. The more powerful and rich these guys got, the more they wanted everything for free.

Yeah, even that.

But Gates didn’t come across as the sleazy type. In fact, the entire team, bar Alicia Myles, had treated her with respect and even a form of acceptance. Still, it seemed odd that the truck driver, Mike Stevens, had been sent home whilst she watched events related to national security unfold right before her eyes.

Gates wandered over to the far wall, speaking quietly into a cellphone. Lauren didn’t dare wonder whom he might be speaking too. She stretched surreptitiously, searching the room for hidden cameras for the third time. When dealing with government figures, you just never knew who else might be watching.

Then Karin gasped and Lauren joined her as they watched the Swede, Dahl, take the big truck out of the race. Lauren then followed his progress as he commandeered some guy’s sports car and returned to the fray.

“That guy’s frickin’ awesome.” She breathed heavily, eyes wide.

Karin glanced at her. “It’s just Dahl,” she answered. “He does that.”

Gates was suddenly at her side. “Where we at?”

“Drake just went for the F150.”

Mai scrambled over to check Hibiki’s vitals. Despite a lot of groaning and coughing, the Japanese agent managed to smile through a mask of blood.

“I knew I could take
the fight out of them using just my body.”

Mai laid a hand on his head, her own skin dappled with her enemy’s blood. “I have the most important job for you, Hibiki-san.”

Smyth, over by the doorway, growled low in his throat “C’mon, Maggie, move it.”
Mai waited for Hibiki’s eyes to clear and meet her own. “I need you to go to the comms room. I need you to make a distress call.”

Hibiki struggled to sit up. “SOS? Of course.”

Mai moved away. “We’ll draw them away. I’m depending on you.”

Smyth charged up the corridor, firing as more Korean guards entered the narrow space. His weapon discharged quickly, but he had a second and a third slung over each
shoulder. Mai scooped up every gun she could find as she chased him. Behind her, she heard Hibiki struggling to follow. Smyth passed the door that led to the lab and outside to the partially burned comms room, slowing as he saw it standing open. Mai was about to warn him when he switched left and chose a darker room.

Shot out the windows at a dead run. . .

. . . and dove through. Smyth landed headfirst, rolled, and came up with a gun nestled against his shoulder. Then the Korean guards opened fire.

A round sent him toppling back among shards of shattered glass. Mai barely
missed landing on him, registering the bloom of blood and seeing his eyes close before opening fire with a machine gun in each hand. A lead curtain of fury burst through the soldiers. Within seconds they were dead or twitching.

Mai turned to Smyth.

But at that moment, another group of Koreans came running around the side of the building—the ones who had been lying in wait outside the open door.
Good,
Mai thought.
That will give Hibiki his window to walk or crawl over to the comms room.

And judging by their cautious gait and by the way they huddled around their overweight boss, this was the last of them.

Mai focused hard and all fell into place. She saw the sway of the trees behind them. The way the wind blew little tornadoes of leaves from the brush toward the shorter grass. How the sunlight dappled the killing grounds. She heard the rush of the surf, the deeper pounding of the waves out on the ocean.

Her mind relaxed whilst her body prepared.

The chubby island leader strode forward, unable to contain his curiosity. “And how do you plan to escape from this, Miss Kitano?” His expression betrayed his worst fears.

“I intend to cut the head off the snake.” Mai widened her stance.

The island boss frowned in confusion. “Are you talking about me? My head? Even in death the People’s Republic will be victorious. Even with a thousand—”

Mai sighed. “Do it, Smyth.”

The marine answered even as he fell into motion. “Now I can die happy.” He crawled between her open legs, and shot the boss through the neck. The ground shook and birds took flight as the lifeless body hit the ground. The remaining soldiers froze, then glanced sidelong at each other.

Smyth remained where he was, savoring the moment. Blood seeped from an open wound in his shoulder where the Korean’s bullet had winged him. Mai didn’t move a muscle but she examined every face, looking for their tells.

They were beaten.

“Cover me.” She marched forward and put a foot on the dead Korean’s back. “Drop your weapons, boys. This island belongs to us now.”

And even as the guns started clattering to the ground, her thoughts turned to Drake, wondering where in the world he was, and how they would react to each other when they met once again back in civilization.

Hayden watched Drake speed up to the F150. Its occupants looked ragged now, not the force they had been only a half hour ago when this nightmarish interstate chase had begun. But they still had guns and plenty of volition. And it was now all concentrated on Drake.

Hayden quickly maneuvered her own Humvee, screaming past a civilian-driven Pontiac that idled sensibly on the hard shoulder, its driver and passengers perched on the concrete K-rail, pointing their cellphones at the streaming mass of cars that sped by. Hayden approached the black SUVs. Even as she came up close, the blacked-out windows didn’t crack. The big cars just kept on going, forming a barrier between themselves, the limo and the Viper in front.

“Take ’em out.” Hayden backed off a little, giving Kinimaka space to work. But before he had sighted his Glock, one of the SUVs veered sharply and smashed into the Humvee’s front end. Hayden laughed. The SUV would destroy itself long before it wrecked the Humvee.

A second SUV slowed rapidly, tires screeching and black smoke funneling from beneath its wheels until it drew level with the Humvee. The third SUV performed a similar maneuver and came up slightly behind them.

“Boxed in,” Hayden muttered. “I don’t think so.”

The second SUV turned sharply, slamming against the Humvee’s side. Hayden struggled to control the wheel, forced into the left hand lane. And now, all the windows slid open and weap
ons were poked out. Even the wide rear window of the SUV in front powered fully open.

“Oh fu—” Kinimaka began, and then the deadly fireworks started.

*****

Drake twisted the wheel hard. Alicia draped herself out the window shouting something like
“Here, boys!”
at the top of her voice, but the wind took her words and shredded them. He counted only three men left alive in the back of the F150. A second ago, they had thrown one of their dead brethren over the vehicle’s tailgate to give themselves more room.

There was no love lost between mercenaries and hired guns.

Alicia fired. Bullets pinged off the F150. One took out the small rear window. The car slewed dramatically.

“Driver’s hit,” Drake said. “You crazy bitch.”

“One,” Alicia shouted back. “That puts you last, Drake.”

Drake took matters into his own hands. These Humvees didn’t come equipped with cruise control, but they did sport something similar called
throttle lock
.
Only difference was this thing didn’t turn off by applying the brakes. He clambered up onto the seat, keeping the wheel straight with his knees, and arched his back out of the window. His first shot sent a man flying over the side of the Ford.

“Now we’re even.”

Then the F150, driverless, careened across the interstate at fifty miles an hour and smashed into Drake’s vehicle.

*****

Hayden reacted without thinking, turning the wheel and veering toward the hard shoulder. She heard Kinimaka’s matter-of-fact comment “It’s what they want,”
and peered through the hail of fire.

“We’ll lose ’em in the trees.”

Kinimaka stared at her, then back at the highway. “What?”

Hayden wrenched the wheel hard just as the third SUV swung toward her. The realignment sent their Humvee across the hard shoulder and onto the grass verge. The car began to bounce as if they’d joined
a dirt track, but the three SUVs followed her.

“Look out!” Kinimaka at last saw the trees ahead.

Hayden looked grim. She ploughed toward them, pulling left at the last minute. Two SUVs followed her; the third went right. All four vehicles lost traction in the grass and dirt. The straight line of tall palm trees continued ahead for as far as the eye could see.

“Let’s slalom the shit out of this thing.” Hayden skidded right, churning up grass and mud. The enormous frond of a palm tree whacked the windshield as they scrambled by.

Kinimaka stared. “You get palm trees in Washington state?”

Hayden grimaced. “How the hell would I know? I’m from Toledo.”

Kinimaka held on tight as they cut sharp left. “Doesn’t look right is all.”

Hayden aimed the big car at the sharp camber of an upcoming curve. “Mano, Hawaii doesn’t have the monopoly on palm trees. Get over it.”