The Edge of Armageddon (19 page)

Six minutes.

Drake rushed into the Tropical Zone, shouting until his throat hurt, desperate to get a fix on the bomb. The low cry that answered did not come from Hayden, but he followed it as best he could. Veins pounded all along his forehead. Tension curled his hands into fists. As the entire team entered the building, faced with winding wooden walkways and a tree-lined habitat, they spread out to take advantage of their numbers.

“Fuck!” Kinimaka cried, stress almost destroying him now. “Hayden!”

Another muffled cry. Drake spread his arms in utter frustration, unable to pinpoint the exact location. Seconds ticked by. A brightly colored parrot bombarded them, making Alicia take a step back. Drake couldn’t help but check his watch again.

Five minutes.

The White House would now be exuding such a flood of anxiety it would wash right up Capitol Hill. The approaching NEST team, the bomb squad, the cops and agents and firefighters who were aware, would be either sprinting until their legs gave out or falling to their knees, searching the skies and praying for their lives. If any world leaders had been briefed they too would be on their feet, watching the clock, and preparing a few sentences.

The world held sway.

Drake shuddered in relief on hearing a shout from Mai, then took more seconds finding its source. The team met as one, but what they found confounded all their expectations. Yorgi was standing back alongside Lauren; Beau and Kenzie tried to work it out from afar, and the rest of the team either fell to their knees or crawled alongside the mass.

Drake stared. The first thing he saw was the body of a naked woman, wrapped around with duct tape and blue wire, laying spread-eagled about two meters off the ground. Still baffled he saw that below the soles of her feet stuck another pair of feet, these belonging to a man judging by the hairy legs that were attached to them.

Hayden is the bomb, Ramses had told him.

But . . . what the hell . . .

Below the naked man he now saw boots that he recognized. Hayden, it seemed, lay at the bottom of this pile.

Then where the hell is the nuke?

Alicia raised her head from her position next to the unknown female. “Listen up. Zoe says the bomb is strapped underneath Hayden, at the bottom of this peculiarity. It is armed, has a pretty robust motion sensor and is protected by a backpack. The wires wrapped all around their bodies are attached to the bloody trigger.” She shook her head. “I can’t see a way through. This is the time for bright ideas, guys.”

Drake stared at the bodies, the endless trail of wires, all the same blue color. His first reaction was to agree.

“Does it have a collapsing circuit?” Kinimaka asked.

“My best guess is ‘no’,” Dahl said. “That would be too risky, since the people attached to it might shift. The collapsing circuit—an anti-handling device—would detect Hayden’s movement, assume someone would be touching the bomb, and boom.”

“Don’t say that.” Alicia cringed.

Drake fell to his knees close to where he assumed Hayden’s head was. “By the same principal then, the motion detector would be fairly loose. Again, to allow some movement from the captives.”

“Yes.”

His head hurt from tension overload. “We have the deactivation codes,” he said.

“Which could still be fake. And worse, we have to input them on the pad attached to the trigger underneath Hayden.”

“You guys had better hurry,” Kenzie said softly. “We have three minutes left.”

Drake rubbed his scalp furiously. This was no time to entertain doubts. He shared a look with Dahl.

What next, my friend? Have we finally come to the end of the line?

Julian Marsh spoke up. “I saw them arm it,” he said. “I can disarm it. This was never supposed to happen. Money was the only objective . . . not this millions die, end of the world crap.”

“Webb knew,” Lauren said. “Your boss. He knew all along.”

Marsh only coughed. “Just get me out of here.”

Drake didn’t move. To expose the bomb they would have to turn the human pile. They didn’t have time to snip off all the tape. But there was a faster way to disarm a bomb, always had been. They didn’t show it on TV because it hardly made for edge-of-the-seat viewing.

You didn’t cut the wire. You just pulled them all out.

But that was as risky as cutting the wrong wire. He knelt down so that his eyes were at the same level as Marsh’s.

“Julian. Do you want to die?”

“No!”

“I see no other way,” he breathed. “Guys, let’s move them around.”

Directing the team, he slowly, slowly, turned the body pile until Hayden’s stomach came off the floor and the backpack was revealed. Groans escaped from Zoe and Marsh and even Hayden as they all rolled on to their sides, and Kinimaka urged all of them to remain still. Despite Zoe’s claims no one knew how sensitive the motion detector actually was, although it seemed clear if it had lasted this long it wasn’t set on anything near a hair-trigger. Indeed, it had to have been programmed to be all but impervious to ensure Drake would arrive before it exploded.

It was necessary to unloop the wires from Marsh’s body and pick them from Zoe’s extremities, a dirty job but one the team barely noticed. The ones wrapped around Hayden’s frame came away easily, as they were hampered by her clothing. Now, under direction, and still held with duct tape, Marsh brought his hands up so that they passed around Hayden’s right side and hovered over the backpack. The Pythian flexed his fingers.

“Pins and needles.”

Mai placed her hands on the backpack, over the nuclear bomb. With deft fingers she undid the buckles and pulled the top flap away. Then, utilizing great and dexterous strength, she held the sides of the backpack and slid the bomb with its metal casing right out.

A black casing surrounded it. Mai threw the pack away and rotated the bomb very slowly, sweating now as the seconds ticked down. Hayden’s eyes were bright as she stared at the bomb, and Kinimaka was already kneeling at her side, clutching a hand.

The countdown panel came into view, attached by four screws to the outside of the bomb. Blue wires snaked under it and into the heart of utter disaster. Marsh stared at the wires, four of them, tangled and wrapped together.

“Take the panel off. I need to see which one is which.”

Drake bit his tongue as he eyed his watch.

Seconds left now.

Fifty nine, fifty eight . . .

Smyth fell to his knees beside them, the soldier already with his utility blade out. Taking everyone’s life into his hands he took the responsibility of removing the screws. One scrape, one stubborn thread, one lack of concentration and they would either lose time or cause a terrifying detonation. Drake closed his eyes for a moment as the man worked. Behind him, Dahl breathed heavily and even Kenzie fidgeted.

As Smyth worked on the last screw, Alicia suddenly screamed. The entire group jolted, hearts in their mouths.

Drake whirled around. “What is it?”

“A snake! I saw a snake! Big yellow bastard it was.”

Smyth growled angrily as he held up the plate and carefully removed the countdown panel with its flashing red clock face. “Which wire?”

They were down to thirty seven seconds.

Marsh crawled closer, eyes searching through the interwoven tangle of blue wires, seeking the point where he remembered seeing Gator arm the device.

“I don’t see it! I don’t fucking see it!”

“That’s it,” Drake threw him aside. “I’m pulling all the wires!”

“No,” Dahl landed heavily at his side. “If you do that this bomb will explode.”

“Then what do we do, Torsten? What do we do?”

Twenty nine . . . twenty eight . . . twenty seven . . .

Drake’s memory snapped to the fore. Ramses had deliberately told him that Hayden was the bomb. But what the hell did that really mean?

Looking now, he saw the three wires wrapped around her. Which one led to the trigger? Dahl pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

“The codes,” he said. “There is now no other way.”

“Let Marsh try again. Ramses made a point of mentioning Hayden.”

“We use the codes.”

“They could be bloody fake! Their own trigger!”

Marsh was already peering at Hayden’s body. Drake scrambled across and grabbed Kinimaka’s attention. “Roll her.”

Hayden helped as best she could, muscles and tendons no doubt screaming their agony, but receiving no relief. The clock ticked. The bomb neared fruition. And the world waited.

Marsh leaned in, following the wires around her body as Drake raised one arm, then a leg and finally unbuckled her belt where two wires crossed. When he saw the knotted pair passing again through her knees he pointed at Kinimaka. “There.”

Suffering a nightmare game of Twister, Hayden watched as Marsh followed the path of every wire back to the timer.

“For sure,” he said, squinting hard, one eye wide, the other closed. “It’s the one on the right.”

Drake glared at the suitcase nuke. Kenzie joined him and Dahl on the floor right beside it. “A specific configuration of parts and mechanisms is required to detonate this thing. It is . . . so delicate. Do we really trust the man who brought it into the country at this point?”

Drake drew the deepest breath of his life.

“No choice.”

He pulled the wire.

Drake yanked swiftly and the wire came away in his hand, coppery end exposed. On a knife edge, everyone present leaned forward to check the countdown.

Twelve . . . eleven . . . ten . . .

“It’s still armed!” Alicia cried.

Drake fell away onto his backside, stunned, still holding the wire up as if it might even now spark and kill the bomb. “It’s . . . it’s . . .”

“Still ticking!” Alicia wailed.

Dahl dived in, forehead-palming the Yorkshireman away. “My way,” he said. “We’ll be lucky if we have time now.”

Eight . . .

Zoe started to cry. Marsh blubbered, apologizing for every mistake he’d ever made. Hayden and Kinimaka stared without emotion as the team worked, hands white and locked together, accepting that they could do nothing. Smyth let the utility knife fall from his hands and looked for Lauren, reaching with shaking fingers to touch hers. Yorgi sank to the ground. Drake looked at Alicia and Alicia stared at Mai, unable to tear her eyes away. Beau stood between them, his expression clear as he watched Dahl work.

The Swede tapped the deactivation codes into the panel. Each one registered with a bleep. Only seconds remained as he entered the final number.

Five . . .

Dahl hit the “enter” button and stopped breathing.

But the clock still ticked down.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

*

In the final second Torsten Dahl did not despair. He did not give up and turn away to die. He had a family to go back to—a wife and two children—and nothing would stop him from keeping them safe tonight.

There was always a Plan B. Drake had taught him that.

He was ready.

Crazy mode kicked in, calculated insanity fell over him, giving him strength beyond normal. For the last hour he had been listening to one person or another flout the perfection, the accurate and exact equipment that comprised a suitcase nuke. He had been hearing how precise it all was.

Well, what if it was subjected to a bit of Dahl madness. How would that work?

As the display showed one, the Swede already had the sledgehammer in hand. He brought it down with last-gasp, final-move strength, swinging with all his might. The sledgehammer smashed into the heart of the nuclear bomb and even in that endless second he saw Drake’s horror, Alicia’s acceptance. And then he saw no more.

The clock ticked

Zero.

Time stopped for nobody, and especially at this crucial hour.

Drake saw Dahl with his body prostrate over the bomb as if he might shield his friends and the world from its terrible fire. He saw the metal casing bent, the insides dented, battered, surrounding the sledgehammer; and then he saw the countdown timer.

Stuck on zero.

“Oh fuck,” he said in the most heartfelt manner possible. “Oh bloody fuck.”

One by one, the team became aware. Drake breathed fresh air he’d never expected to taste again. He crawled over to Dahl and slapped the Swede’s broad back. “Good lad,” he said. “Hit it with a big hammer. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Being a Yorkshireman,” Dahl spoke into the core of the bomb. “I wondered that too.”

Drake dragged him backward. “Listen,” he said. “This thing’s stuck, right? Maybe broken inside. But what’s to stop it starting again?”

“We are,” said a voice from behind.

Drake turned to see both NEST and bomb squad teams approaching with packs and open laptops in hand. “You guys are late,” he breathed.

“Yeah, man. We usually are.”

Kinimaka, Yorgi and Lauren started to untangle Hayden from the bizarre mesh she shared with Zoe Sheers and Julian Marsh. The two Pythians were covered up as much as could be but didn’t seem overly bothered by their nakedness.

“I helped,” Marsh said over and over. “Don’t forget to tell them I helped.”

Hayden ended up on her knees, rolling each limb to allow circulation to return, and rubbing areas where joint pain had accumulated. Kinimaka gave her his jacket, which she gratefully accepted.

Alicia grabbed Drake’s shoulders, tears in her eyes. “We’re alive!” she cried.

And then she pulled him close, lips finding his, kissing him as hard as she could. Drake pulled away at first, but then realized he was exactly where he wanted to be. He kissed her back. Her tongue flashed out and found his, and their tensions fell away.

“Now that,” Smyth said, “has been a long time coming. Sorry, Mai.”

“Oh hell, I miss my wife,” Dahl said.

Beau stared, his face set like granite but otherwise unreadable.

Mai managed a weak smile. “If the tables were turned Alicia would be muttering something about joining in right now.”

“Feel free.” Alicia pulled away from Drake with a throaty chuckle. “I never kissed a movie star before.”

Smyth colored at the reference to older days. “Ah, I have now accepted that Mai is not in fact the great Maggie Q. Sorry about that.”

“I’m better than Maggie Q.” Mai smiled.

Smyth wilted, legs buckling. Lauren reached out to steady him.

Alicia cocked her head. “Oh, wait, I have kissed a movie star. Jack something. Or was that his screen name? Ah, two in fact. Or maybe three . . .”

Kenzie moved among them. “Nice kiss,” she said. “You never kissed me like that.”

“That’s only because you’re a bitch.”

“Ooh, thanks.”

“Wait,” Drake said. “You kissed Kenzie? When?”

“Old story,” Alicia said. “Barely remember.”

He made a point of catching her full attention with his eyes. “So, was that a ‘glad we’re alive’ kiss? Or something more?”

“What do you think?” Alicia looked wary.

“I think I’d like you to do it again.”

“Okay . . .”

“Later.”

“Sure. Because we have work to do.”

Drake looked now to Hayden, the leader of their team. “Ramses and Gator are still out there,” he said. “We can’t allow them to escape.”

“Umm, excuse me?” one of the bomb squad guys said.

Hayden looked to Marsh and Sheers. “You two can earn extra credit if you have information.”

“Ramses barely spoke to me,” Sheers said. “And Gator was the biggest lunatic I ever met. I wish I knew where they were.”

Drake stared at him. “Gator was the biggest lunatic—”

“Excuse me. Guys?” the NEST leader said.

Marsh glared. “Ramses is a bug,” he said. “I should have stamped on him when I had the chance. All that money—gone. The power, the prestige—gone. What will I do?”

“Rot in jail I hope,” Smyth said. “With a killer for company.”

“Listen!” the NEST people shouted.

Hayden looked over at them, then Dahl. Drake glanced past Alicia’s shoulder. The NEST team leader was on his feet and his face had turned pasty white, the color of absolute fear.

“This bomb is a dud.”

“What?”

“The electrical detonators are missing. The lenses cracked, I guess possibly from the hammer. But the uranium? Although we can detect traces, which tell us that it was once here, it . . . it’s missing.”

“No.” Drake felt his muscles tremble. “No way, you can’t be telling me this. Are you saying that this bomb was a fucking fake?”

“No,” the leader said, tapping at his laptop. “I’m telling you that this isn’t the right bomb. It’s been rendered harmless by removing all the parts that make it work. Now, it’s fake. This man—Ramses—probably has the real one.”

The team didn’t hesitate for a second.

Hayden reached for a phone and dialed Moore’s number. Drake shouted that she should call in choppers.

“How many do we need?”

“Fill the fucking skies,” he said.

Without complaint, they picked their aching bodies up and made a brisk sprint for the door. Hayden spoke fast as she ran, exhibiting no physical aftereffects from her treatment. It was the mental consequences that had the power to scar her forever.

“Moore, the bomb over at Central Park is a fake. Stripped out, closed down. We think the innards and explosive detonators were removed, then inserted into another device.”

Drake heard Moore’s gasp from three feet away.

“And we thought the nightmare was over.”

“This was Ramses’ plan all along.” Hayden kicked the outer door off its hinges without losing stride. “Now he detonates in his own time and escapes. Are there any choppers flying out of New York?”

“Military. Police. Special Ops, I guess.”

“Start there. He has a plan, Moore, and we believe Gator’s ex-Special Ops. How are the CCTV cams looking?”

“We’re compiling every face, every figure. We have been for hours. If Ramses is fleeing through the city we’ll pick him up.”

Drake hurdled a trash can, Dahl at his side. Choppers thundered overhead, two setting down on the road outside the zoo entrance. As he looked up, Drake saw beyond the churning rotors to the office buildings where, among the white blinds, many faces pressed to the windows. Social media would be imploding today, and allowing it to carry on had yielded zero results. Truth was, it had probably hampered their efforts.

Hayden raced for the closest chopper, stopping just outside the rotor wash. “This time,” she said to Moore. “Ramses won’t be showboating. That was all a diversion to help him survive. This is about his reputation—the Crown Prince of Terror repairing his status and going down in history. He brings a nuclear weapon to New York, detonates it, and escapes scot free. If you let him go now, Moore, you’ll never see him again. And the game will be up.”

“I know that, Agent Jaye. I know that.”

Drake hovered at Hayden’s shoulder, listening, the remainder of the team chafing at the bit close by. Dahl was studying the nearby area, reeling off the best places for an ambush and then checking each one out with his field glasses. Odd, but at least it kept him busy. Drake nudged him.

“Where’s the sledge?”

“Left it behind.” Dahl did look a little unhappy. “Bloody fine weapon that.”

Kenzie butted in. “I reminded him that I still don’t have my favored weapon. If he gets a sledgehammer, I should get a katana.”

Drake watched the Swede. “Sounds like a deal.”

“Oh, come on, stop giving her ammunition. And where would I pick up a katana around here anyway?”

A voice broke in: “They’re out near Staten Island, Hayden.”

Drake’s head whirled around so fast he winced. “What was that?”

Hayden asked Moore to repeat and then turned to the team. “We have a sighting, guys. Phoned in by a civilian, just like Moore predicted, and confirmed by camera. Move your asses!”

Head down, the team sprinted over the sidewalk and into the clear, barricaded road, jumped through the open chopper doors and buckled into their seats. Two birds rose, rotors clipping leaves off nearby trees and shooting garbage across the street. Drake removed handguns and a rifle, a military blade and Taser, checking all were in working order and fully prepped. Dahl checked the communiquės.

The pilot cleared the rooftops and then veered sharply toward the south, piling on the speed. Alicia ran through her own weapons, discarding one she had taken from a legionnaire and keeping another. Kinimaka stole glances at Hayden, which she tried to ignore, still taking in information from Moore and his agents. Beau was quiet, in a corner, as he had been since Drake and Alicia kissed. For her part Mai sat serenely, unreadable Japanese features fixed firmly on their goal. The rest of the team double checked everything, all except Kenzie who complained about the helicopter’s ride, the buffeting winds, the smell of sweat and the fact that she’d ever laid eyes on the SPEAR team.

“Nobody asked you to stay with us,” Alicia said quietly.

“What else would I do? Run away like a frightened church mouse?”

“So this is about proving you’re brave?”

Kenzie glared. “I don’t want to see Armageddon. Do you?”

“I’ve already seen it. Ben Affleck’s surprisingly gay and Bruce Willis rocks it harder than the damn asteroid. But hell, is this you trying to tell us that you actually have a heart?”

Kenzie stared out the window.

“The archaeological-artefact-thief has a heart. Who would’ve known?”

“I’m just trying to get back to my business in the Middle East. Alone. Helping you fools will go a long way to doing that. Fuck your goddamn heart.”

The chopper swooped above the rooftops of Manhattan as Hayden received clarification that Ramses and Gator had not left the island yet, having been sighted close to the Staten Island Ferry.

“The bits that get lost in translation could kill us all,” Hayden sighed, and Drake recognized the truth in that. From the youngest schoolyard spat to a war between presidents and prime ministers—nuance was everything.

Their destination came closer as buildings flashed by. The pilot dove between two skyscrapers to maintain velocity, arrowing in on their target. Drake held on with grim purpose. The bay’s rolling gray waters lay ahead. Down below they could see a cluster of landing choppers, all battling for space.

“There!” Hayden cried.

But the pilot was already plummeting, making the chopper land hard to get the primary space before a row of planters and a bus stop. Drake felt his stomach heave up through his mouth. Hayden shouted into her cell.

“Of course the terminal’s closed,” she said. “If Ramses is here what’s he hoping to accomplish?”

“There should be some railings behind you and a line of cars parked under the trees. The cops have a woman there who was the last one to see him.”

“Great. So now we—”

“Wait!” Alicia’s ears caught the sounds before anyone else’s. “I hear gunfire.”

“Go.”

Piling out, the team headed for the terminal, sprinting alongside the building. Drake spied that, behind the sweeping curve of the main entrance, a long concrete slip led out to the docking area. The shots were resounding from there, fired through an open space, not muffled as if by walls.

“Back there,” he said. “It’s coming from the slipway.”

Choppers filled the skies behind them. A groaning body lay in their way, a policeman, but he waved them ahead, exhibiting no signs of injury. More shots exploded through the air. The team drew weapons, ran in tandem, and searched the areas ahead. Another cop knelt before them, head hanging, holding his arm.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Go. Just a flesh wound. We need you guys. They’re . . . they’re getting away.”

“Not today,” Hayden said and ran past.

Drake spied the end of the slipway, and the protrusions to his left, all concrete slipways used for the ferries. Waves lapped at their bases. “You hear that?” he said as more gunfire broke out. “Ramses has got himself a Squad Automatic.”

Lauren was the only one who shook her head. “Which is?”

“More rounds per minute than an AK. Six to eight hundred round mag. Interchangeable barrels for when it gets too hot. Not accurate, but intimidating as hell.”

“I hope the fucker melts in his hands,” Alicia said.

A group of cops knelt up ahead, constantly ducking for cover as the SAW spat forth its rounds. A tracery of bullets raced overhead. Two cops returned fire, aiming down at the slipway’s far end where a ferry was docked.

“Do not tell me . . .” Dahl said.

“We think he’s taking a ferry right there, from one of the maintenance slips,” one of the cops said. “Two guys. One trained on us, the other starting up the boat.”