The Edge of Armageddon (9 page)

Drake took the battle to the terrorists. Unleashing his HK, he concentrated on the two who were worrying Beau and Mai. One fell instantly, his life spilled all over the concrete, a hard death for a hard-bitten heart. The other swiveled at the last moment, taking a bullet, but still able to return fire. Drake followed the man’s roll with bullets, filling his wake with death. In the end the man had nowhere to go and stopped, then sat up and fired a final round toward Mai as Drake’s gun ended his threat.

Mai saw it coming and pulled Beau to the floor. The Frenchman protested, landing in an ungainly heap, but Mai kept her elbows on top of him, preventing movement. Chunks burst from the wall right where their heads had been.

Beau stared upward. “Merci, Mai.”

“Ki ni shinaide.”

Drake by now had drawn the attention of the last remaining terrorist, but none of that mattered. Only the terrible fear in his soul mattered. Only the despairing pounding of his heart mattered.

They had missed the deadline.

His mood rose a little as he saw Mai and Beau race into the museum, and then Alicia stepped out of concealment to send the final terrorist to the raging hell he deserved. One more man bleeding on the sidewalk. One more soul lost and sacrificed.

They were endless, these people. They were the raging sea.

Drake then saw the last, supposedly dead, terrorist rise and stagger away. Drake figured he must have been wearing a vest. He sighted on the bobbing shoulders and fired, but the shot skimmed just millimeters above its target. Exhaling slowly he sighted in a second shot. Now the man fell to his knees and then rose again, and in the next instant he was barging into a crowd of people, looky loos, locals and kids with cameras all trying to grab their one minute of fame on Facebook or Instagram.

Drake staggered over to Alicia. “So that was one of Ramses’ cells?”

“Four men. Just as Dahl described. This would be the third cell we’ve encountered as a team.”

“And we still don’t know Marsh’s terms.”

Alicia scanned the streets all around, the road and the stalled, abandoned cars. Then she whirled as Mai’s shout caught their attention.

“We have the guard!”

Drake charged up the steps, head down, not even attempting to put his guns away. This was everything, this was their whole world. If Marsh rang they could—

Jose Gonzales held a cellphone out. “Are you the Englishman?”

Drake closed his eyes and put the device to his ear. “Marsh. You utter c—”

The Pythian’s laughter cut him short. “Now, now, do not resort to banal profanities. Cursing is for the uneducated or so I am told. Or is it the other way around? But congratulations, my new friend, you are alive!”

“It’ll take more than a few knobjobs to take us down.”

“Oh, I’m sure. Would a nuke do it?”

Drake felt he could continue the infuriated rejoinders indefinitely but made a conscious effort to sew his mouth shut. Alicia, Mai and Beau crowded around the phone, and Jose Gonzales watched on with foreboding.

“Cat got your tongue? Oh and hey, why on earth didn’t you answer Gonzales’s phone?”

Drake bit his upper lip until the blood flowed. “I’m right here.”

“Yes, yes, I can see that. But where were you . . . umm . . . four minutes ago?”

Drake remained silent.

“Poor old Jose was forced to answer his own phone. Didn’t have a clue what I was babbling on about.”

Drake attempted to divert Marsh. “We have the jacket. Where—”

“You’re not listening to me, Englishman. You were late. Do you remember the penalty for being late?”

“Marsh. Stop fucking around. Do you want your demands met or not?”

“My demands? Well, of course they will be met, when I decide I’m good and ready. Now, you three be good little soldiers and wait right there. I’ll just order up a couple of takeaways.”

Drake cursed. “Don’t do it. Don’t you bloody do it!”

“Speak soon.”

The line went dead. Drake stared into three pairs of haunted eyes and knew they were a mere reflection of his own. They had failed.

With a giant effort he managed to refrain from crushing the phone. Alicia took it upon herself to call in the imminent threat to Homeland. Mai made Gonzales shrug himself out of his jacket.

“Let’s get on with it,” she said. “We deal with what is before us and ready ourselves for what may come next.”

Drake studied the horizons, the concrete and tree-lined ones, mind and heart far away and crushed at the very idea of Marsh’s intentions. In the next few minutes innocents would die, and if he failed again there would be more.

“Marsh is going to detonate that bomb,” he said. “Whatever he says. If we don’t find it, the whole world will suffer. We’re standing on the very edge . . .”

Marsh laughed and hung up the phone with a flourish. Zoe cuddled in even further. “You sure showed him,” she purred.

“Oh, yes, and now I’m going to show him even more.”

Marsh plucked out yet another burner cell and checked the number he’d already saved to the memory. Convinced it was the right one he quickly dialed and waited. The voice that answered, all gruff and imposing, confirmed his expectations.

“You know what to do,” he said.

“One? Or two?”

“Two, as we agreed. Then move on in case I need you again.”

“Sure boss. I’ve been keeping up with events through my cellphone’s app. Would sure have loved me some of that action.”

Marsh huffed. “Are you a terrorist, Stephen?”

“Well, no I wouldn’t put myself in that class. Not exactly.”

“The do the job you’ve been paid to do. Right now.”

Marsh flicked one of the screens to a city camera, just a mini-surveillance unit the neighboring businesses used to keep tabs on the comings and goings along the sidewalk. Stephen would cause havoc along this particular street and Marsh wanted to watch.

Zoe leaned across, trying to get a better view. “So what else are we going to do today?”

Marsh stared. “Isn’t this enough for you? And you do suddenly seem a little soft, somewhat malleable, for a woman invited to join the big bad Pythians, Miss Zoe Sheers. Why is that? Is it because you like the mad in me?”

“I think so. And more than just a little. Maybe the champagne is going to my head.”

“Good. Now shut up and watch.”

The next few moments unfolded as Marsh wanted them to. Normal men and women would flinch at what they saw, even tough ones, but Marsh and Sheers viewed it with cold detachment. It then took Marsh only five minutes to save the footage and video-message it to the Englishman with the attached note:
Send this on to Homeland. I’ll be in touch shortly.

He wrapped Zoe up in one arm. Together they studied the chase’s next scenario, which would have the Englishman and his three stooges actually knowing they would arrive too late before they even began. Superb. And the mayhem at the end . . . priceless.

Marsh remembered then that there were other people in the room. Ramses’ primary cell and its members. They were sitting so quietly in a far corner of the apartment that he barely recalled their faces.

“Hey,” he called. “The lady has run out of champagne. Would one of you drifter types be able to freshen her up?”

A man rose, his eyes filled with so much contempt that Marsh squirmed. But the expression was quickly masked and became a fast bobbing of the head. “Sure can.”

“Excellent. One more bottle should do it.”

Drake watched Mai rip open the guard’s jacket as she searched for a list of demands. Alicia and Beau searched the gathering crowds, almost certain the last remaining member of the third cell would make some kind of move. Homeland were en route, only two minutes out. Sirens shrieked nearby as the cops gathered. Drake knew that by now the culminating incidents would have all New Yorkers on edge, and sightseers rattled. It might not be a bad thing if people stayed off the streets, but what more could the White House actually do?

Drones with radiation detectors were looping through the skies. Metal detectors were stopping everyone who merited attention and many who didn’t. The Army and NEST were here. So many agents were roaming the streets it felt like a veteran’s reunion. If Homeland, the FBI, CIA and NSA were doing their jobs correctly, then Marsh would surely be found.

Drake checked his watch. It was somewhat over an hour since this nightmare began.

Is that all?

Alicia nudged him. “She found something.”

Drake watched as Mai removed a folded sheet of paper from Gonzales’s ruined jacket.

The New Yorker winced at her and picked up a tattered sleeve in each hand. “Will the city give me comp . . . compen . . . compens—”

“The city can give you some advice,” Alicia said dead-pan. “Next time use a little warm oil. Don’t pay for bad company.”

Gonzales shut up and slunk away.

Drake moved over to Mai. Marsh’s demands had been printed on a white A4 sheet in what appeared to be the biggest typesetting. All in all, they were pretty straight forward.

“Five hundred million dollars,” Mai read out. “And nothing else.”

Beneath the demand was a sentence written in a contrasting small script.

“Details to follow shortly.”

Drake knew exactly what that meant. “We’re about to be sent on another wild goose chase.”

Beauregard watched the crowds. “And we remain under surveillance, no doubt. It is certain this time that we will fail again.”

Drake lost count of the cellphones being held up among the gathered throng, then heard the dull buzz of his cell’s message tone and checked the screen. Even before he clicked onto the video link his scalp started to itch with deep foreboding. “Guys,” he said and held the device at arm’s length as they crowded around.

It was grainy and it was in black and white, but the camera was steady and clearly showed one of Drake’s worst nightmares. “This is senseless,” he said. “Killing people who have no idea what’s going on. It’s not for terror, it’s not for gain. It’s for . . .” He couldn’t go on.

“Pleasure,” Mai breathed. “We dig up more of these bottom feeders every day. And the worst thing is, they dwell at the very heart of our communities.”

Drake didn’t waste another moment, but sent the link on to Homeland. The fact that Marsh appeared to be able to pluck his cellphone number out of the air wasn’t particularly surprising given all he’d accomplished so far. The terrorists helping him were clearly more than expendable foot soldiers.

Drake watched the cops do their jobs. Alicia moved closer to him, then randomly pulled up the leg of her pants. “Y’ see this?” she intoned. “Got this when you tried to kick my ass in the desert. And it’s still bloody fresh. That’s how fast this thing is moving along.”

Drake took more than one impression from her words. There was the memory of their bonding, their new attraction; the inference to Mai and Beau that something had happened between them; and the more obvious reference to her own life so far—how fast it had been moving and how she was trying to slow things down.

In the direct line of fire.

“If we survive this,” he said. “Team SPEAR is taking a week off.”

“Torsty’s already booked for Barbados,” Alicia said.

“What happened in the desert?” Mai wondered.

Drake checked his watch, then his phone, overcome by an odd, surreal moment. Mounting upon the needless death and surging threat, upon the endless chase and the brutal battle, they were now kicking their heels and being forced to take several moment’s respite. Of course, they needed the time to let go of the tension, the mounting anxiety that might eventually get them killed . . . but Alicia’s way of doing it was always somewhat out of the box.

“Bikini. Beach. Blue waves,” Alicia said. “That’s me.”

“Are you taking your new best friend?” Mai smiled. “Kenzie?”

“Y’know, Alicia, I don’t think Dahl’s booked a team holiday,” Drake said, only half-joking. “More a family vacation.”

Alicia growled. “What a bastard. We are family.”

“Yes, but not in the way he wants. Y’know, Johanna and Dahl need a little time.”

But Alicia was now staring hard at Mai. “And in answer to that initial jibe, Sprite, no, I was thinking of taking Drakey. That okay with you?”

Drake looked away fast, lips pursed in a silent whistle. Behind him he heard Beau’s comment.

“Does that mean you and I are now finished?”

Mai’s voice remained calm. “I guess that’s up to Matt to decide.”

Oh thanks. Thanks a bloody bunch.

It came almost with a tone of relief when his own phone rang. “Yes?”

“Marsh here. Are my little soldiers ready for a brisk jog?”

“You killed those innocent people. When we meet I will see you answer for that.”

“No, friend, it is you who are about to answer. You read my demands, yes? Five hundred million. It is a fair sum for a city full of men, women and little tykes.”

Drake closed his eyes, grating his teeth. “What next?”

“Details for the payment, naturally. Go to Grand Central Station. They’re waiting inside one of the central cafés.” He mentioned the name. “Folded neatly and tucked inside an envelope which some kind soul has stuck to the underside of the last table at the far end of the counter. Trust me, you’ll understand when you get there.”

“And if we don’t?” Drake hadn’t forgotten about the escaped cell member nor the existence of at least two further cells.

“Then I’ll call on the next donkey to carry my load and blow up a donut shop. That sound okay with you?”

Drake fantasized for a moment about what he might do to Marsh when they captured him. “How long?”

“Oh, ten minutes should do it.”

“Ten minutes? That’s bollocks, Marsh, and you know it. Grand Central is over twenty minutes from here. Probably double that.”

“I never said you had to walk.”

Drake clenched his fists. They were being set up to fail and they all knew it.

“Tell you what,” Marsh said. “To prove I can be pliable I’ll change that to twelve minutes. And counting . . .”

Drake started to run.