Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Fuck.”

Alicia Myles slammed her phone down on the bedside table and shook Lomas. When the bearded biker didn’t twitch a muscle, Alicia sat up and delivered a hard blow to his ribs.

“Urrghhh,” Lomas groaned, coming out of a foggy sleep. “Let me sleep. What—”

“Get the fuck up,” Alicia was already shrugging on her clothes. “Or I’ll squeeze your balls until your eyes pop.”

Lomas rolled over. “Again? I didn’t even enjoy it the first time.”

“Come on. Drake called. The bloody Blood King escaped. There’ll be a vendetta out on me, you and the entire crew.”

“The bloody Blood King? Is that Kovelanko’s crazy brother or something?”

Alicia sat down to buckle her boots. “Just hurry.”

“Christ, Myles,” Lomas leaned on an elbow, watching her. “There’s always a vendetta out on us. We’re bikers, for shit’s sake, every one of us a one-percenter. What’s so different about this vendetta?”

A one-percenter was a biker belonging to that small ratio of bikers who didn’t abide by the law. Alicia turned to Lomas and, as she had anticipated, the deep anxiety stretched across her face was almost enough to get him going. She added more, “He’s killed some of my friends, their families, the Secretary of Defense, and has kidnapped the President in the last hour.”

“The President?” Lomas looked blank for a second, then shot up. “What, the President? Of the US? But… but what makes you think he’ll have time for us?”

Alicia bit back her frustration, taking a second to clear her head. To protect the bikers, she would need Lomas. These guys were tough and wouldn’t be moved easily; certainly not through mere threat. “I was part of the team that put him away. Even before that, he swore a blood vendetta on our lives and the lives of our families and friends. This is the man who taught the CIA new lessons in how to disappear. The man who led a terrorist attack on Hawaii. Remember? And now,” she reached out, “Now he’s after us.”

“But he’s just a man.”

Alicia nodded. “He is. But he’s better connected than Parliament and Congress put together. Look, I already seriously doubt everyone will survive the next few hours.” She paused. “The longer we wait the more of us will die.”

At last, Lomas seemed to get the picture. He pulled away from her, stared a moment longer, then seemed to remember exactly who was saying these things to him — the strongest, hardest, most capable warrior he had ever met. “What should we do?”

“Get the fuck gone. Off the grid.”

Alicia grabbed her gear and padded over to the window. They were three floors up in yet another luxurious European hotel paid for by a grateful US government. Outside, the night was black; the glaring hotel lights showed no activity save for the flitting of a little white electric security car.

“These people wouldn’t show themselves,” she said. “They’ll be total pros. Mercs. Disgruntled commandos. Top-class fighters. I hope we’re not too late, I already fought my way out of a hotel against Kovalenko once.” It seemed a long time ago now since her boyfriend had been murdered.

She suddenly felt isolated, being so far away from the team. Since she had quit the SAS and the British Ninth Division, Alicia had been more than happy to go it alone, but then SPEAR came along with its many diverse personalities. Among them, Alicia had felt needed, even protected. When there was no immediate threat, leaving them for a while hadn’t seemed much of an issue. Now, even with her new biker family, she felt strangely alone.

Shit, what the hell is wrong with me? Is it something to do with Drake?

From the moment she had met him in that undignified way in Africa he had become a part of her heart.

Where did she belong? Never with a father who got fall-down drunk and beat her mother. Not even with the Army. With Drake? She thought about that one for a second, remembering that first meeting in Johannesburg during the firefight to end them all. She, Drake and two SAS teams had taken on an army of African commandos and lived to tell the tale. But no — she didn’t believe there was a future for the two of them.

Besides, now he had Mai.

Behind her, Lomas was calling the guys on his phone. It was quicker than trying to wake them up by knocking on every door. After five minutes of haranguing and sermonizing, Lomas had ordered them all to be gathered along the corridor in five minutes.

Alicia turned to him. “Good. We all need to enter the lobby together.”

“We have no weapons,” Lomas reminded her. “Short of your pistol and mine, Whipper’s whips and a truckload of knives. Maybe a couple of old Uzis somewhere.” He shrugged seriously. “Not much to fight with.”

Alicia smiled wistfully. “Then we’ll adopt one of Drakey’s tricks. We’ll pry them from the fingers of our dead enemies.”

The biker gang, looking messy, tired and bedraggled, yawned their way carelessly toward the lifts. Everyone had their belongings and bike keys at the ready, hands inches from concealed weapons. Laid-Back Lex viewed it all through slitted eyes while Ribeye scouted every meandering turn of the corridor.

“Three teams,” Alicia said. “One in each lift and one down the stairs. Ready?”

“Wait,” Dirty Sarah said. “Who made you Bitch Queen? This ain’t no democracy, dear.”

Lomas waved her off. “Stop. Any of you shitheads get accepted into the SAS?”

Most of the bikers shook their heads. A couple looked as if they were thinking hard, trying to remember their old lives.

“She did. Let her take the lead till we’re out of here.”

Alicia didn’t tell them again, just headed for the stairs. The stairwell was empty, the whole area as quiet as a mausoleum. She peered quickly over the rails, but saw no sign of movement.

“Come on.”

Lomas stayed close behind, followed by the veggie Ribeye, the young and pretty Trace, Whipper and several others. Whipper had no way of furtively carrying her whip, so she let it unfurl beside her, holding it close to her body.

Alicia led the way down three flights and put her face to the glass aperture in the door that led out to the lobby. “Nothing,” she said. “Stay close.”

With fingers wrapped around the butt of the gun in her jacket pocket, the Englishwoman stepped boldly out into the lobby. Silence greeted her; a silence wrapped in worry and stress. They heard the lifts ding and moved quickly to cover the automatic doors.

Nothing happened. The lobby was empty. Alicia crossed the carpeted floor, tense, expecting at any moment to hear the opening salvos of a fusillade of shots. The blackness of 0300 hours smothered every window, and the sparse pools of light outside shone on big puddles of nothing.

But beyond them… beyond them were landscaped gardens full of trees, bushes and undergrowth. And the major roads past that. She scanned the skies. No sign of movement.

Lomas took the time to check out. “That much for Pay-Per-View? Really?”

The woman behind the desk looked a little embarrassed. Lomas smiled. “Ah, I read your mind, honey, faster than you can say Jurassic Pork. That kind of Pay-Per-View? Well, we’re bikers. Unofficially, of course. We take it where we can get it.”

Alicia turned. “Time to go.”

She cracked the front door and walked out into the chilly night. The hotel’s parking area was right out front, which helped enormously. The gang picked their way among the silent cars, spreading out and taking different routes to where their crowd of two-wheeled machines sat waiting.

Alicia never stopped assessing. If anyone was out there they were good. She sensed nothing out of place, nothing that sent her radar twitching. And that radar had been fixed into her by the best mentors in the world. What could they be waiting for?

Nothing, she thought. They weren’t here yet.

Or spectacle, she thought again. Kovalenko was all about the spectacle. Well, fuck him. The more time they were given, the better their chance of survival. She watched as the gang slipped astride their bikes, weapons now exposed, and looked over to Lomas. The next step would be a noisy one.

Alicia climbed aboard Lomas’ Ducati Monster and squeezed his ribs. “Do it.”

“Which way?”

Alicia thought about it. A good adversary would already have the variables covered. “Head for the airport.”

Lomas inclined his head. The whole noisy ensemble started their engines en masse. The sweet music of throaty Sportster V-twins, Hondas, Suzukis, low-slung choppers and big Bark-o-loungers mingled into an earsplitting cacophony; a deafening roar and snarl of purpose. Lomas peeled out first, and the gang streamed after, satisfied to a man and woman now that they were back in their element. The night was dark, the lights low, and the long road was already beckoning.

The hotel stood at their backs, all but those occupants too drunk or drugged woken up and dragged out of bed by the noise, but by now everyone except Alicia barely remembered its name. Lomas guided his Ducati along a roaming path and through the hotel’s gates, out onto a wide service road. Two miles ahead stood a set of stoplights and a junction that led to Autobahn 8, a significant three-hundred-mile stretch of road that led from Salzburg to Luxembourg. Lomas powered down the two mile road, Alicia studying the blackness that blasted past. Every inch of tarmac that flashed by made her breathe a little easier. Within minutes, the entire gang had entered the Autobahn and were starting to open their throttles.

Lomas tipped his head back. “Looks like they couldn’t find us fast enough. We never actually registered under real names, you know.”

“Maybe you should have. Authorities wouldn’t know them.”

Lomas coughed. “Interpol might.”

Alicia saw meager amounts of traffic behind them. A helicopter hovered in the lighter skies toward Stuttgart. It all looked perfectly normal.

“Just don’t spare the horses.”

Alicia allowed the winding road to take her attention away as the turbulent stream of bikes tore through the night. It wouldn’t do to stay perfectly primed every step of the way; she needed to find time to unwind. The rest of the crew was constantly surveying the area, though of course in the dark every light looks the same.

Alicia tried to quell a flustered feeling, something totally alien to her. Drake’s call hadn’t been long, but it had intimated that the SPEAR team was falling apart. Even now, people she had come to like, even care about, could be dying. And she was over here in freakin’ Germany hanging with a pack of knuckleheads. She should be over there, in the fray, fighting their greatest battle yet. She needed that release.

Well, maybe I can get there before it’s all done.

Glittering lights emerged out of the utter dark ahead. Alicia saw a long bridge stretching over a deep chasm, floodlit every few feet. Three lanes to both carriageways and a barrier down the middle. It stood like a glaring oasis in a land of shadow. As the growling procession poured across the bridge, a sudden shout rang out, passing through the gang’s hissing Bluetooth helmet microphones.

Lomas slowed and looked back. “What did he say?”

Alicia had already seen it. “Big black vehicle just blocked the bridge behind us.”

“Probably a BMW,” Lomas speculated. “Some of those Bavarian Motor Works car drivers can be real wankers.”

“Make that two.”

Alicia didn’t have to employ her sixth and seventh senses for trouble to know this was about to get way beyond ugly. The floodlit bridge was a spectacle Kovalenko and his men wouldn’t pass up. As the bikers powered on, it soon became obvious that the way ahead was also blocked.

“Shit.” Lomas pulled up. “There ain’t no way off this bridge, Taz.”

Alicia scanned in both directions, trying to discern their enemy’s intent. The biker gang gathered and formed a rough circle like the cavalry at Custer’s Last Stand. Laid-Back Lex was as calm as ever.

“What are we doin’ here, Lomas? Waitin’ around to be rat-packed by these fuckers? Tell us to do something!”

Lomas ignored him, along with everyone else. If Lex wasn’t bitchin’, politicians weren’t on the take and local councils were in it for the people. Alicia watched and waited and then both sets of vehicles parted no more than a car’s width and four powerful Nissan coupés shot through the gaps.

“Here they come.”

Front and behind, the fast cars blasted clear of the road block and spread out across the three lanes, attacking the circle of bikers head on. Men leaned out of every window, rifles in hand, taking aim.

“This ain’t gonna be pretty,” Ribeye said.

Alicia made eye contact with Lomas. “Not everyone will survive. Just do the best you can.”

Lomas revved up the Monster. “Take ‘em apart, boys.”