Brothers in Arms

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Matt Drake hadn’t seen Alicia for some time, but the moment when they reunited in Germany contained no more emotion than two workmates meeting at a coffee shop, a bit of backslapping, a few innuendos about Mai, and many leading questions. Drake did his best to field them all. Alicia did spare a handshake for Romero and the look in her eyes spoke volumes for how much she appreciated him helping keep Drake and Mai alive.

“Trouble with this team,” she told him privately, “is it gets under your skin. You don’t wanna let go. Keeps me awake at bloody night.”

“One day,” Romero told her, “I hope to meet the rest of your team.”

“Can’t see why.” Alicia turned away. “They’re a bunch of boring bastards.”

Drake surveyed the area. Alicia had organized the meeting. It was an empty airfield situated about two miles out of Frankfurt. Most of the place was overgrown, brown grass and barren trees were whipped by a stiff wind out of the east. A broken down hangar stood like an imposing old man, barren and desolate against the bloody dawn. A weed-strewn, pitted runway was the only road out.

“Forget something?” Drake turned to Alicia.

But the Englishwoman was already texting. Drake shook his head. “Next thing you’ll be a Facebook celebrity.”

“Always been a social media flirt.” She smiled a little. “Now I’m just a social whore.”

Romero turned to Drake. “Did she mean to miss out the word media at the end there?”

“Believe me, mate, nothing Alicia does or says is by accident.”

Then the roar of many engines starting up made a mockery of the quiet morning. Drake watched as a stream of big bikes poured out of the hangar’s open doors. Like a gleaming metal torrent, it twisted and snaked around until it came alongside them. Then, as one, every engine shut off, leaving nothing but a tremendous, overwhelming silence.

Alicia stepped up to the lead biker, leaned over and placed an arm around his big shoulders. “Meet Lomas. My newest friend.”

Drake nodded. “We’ve met before.”

“The big guy there’s called Tiny. That’s JPS. Fat Bob. Knuckler.” Alicia pointed the first few ranks of bikers out with a grin. “The lady there’s called Whipper. Oh, and this is Dirty Sarah.”

Drake didn’t know where to start. He knew enough about bikers to know how they got their nicknames. Generally it referred to a person’s attitude or character, sometimes to their physical appearance. So a big guy became Tiny. A fastidiously clean woman became Dirty Sarah.

But Whipper?

“Thanks for helping out,” he managed, feeling a little bit spotlighted before the two dozen bikes and riders.

Lomas, their leader, removed his sunglasses, fixing Drake with bright, blue eyes. Drake saw a hardness there that had nothing to do with life on the road. “Gig pays well,” he said in a British accent. “Or so I’m promised.”

Alicia whispered something in his ear. The biker tried hard not to smile. Romero leaned in. “I’d love to know what she’s saying. Even the guy’s beard’s twitching.”

Drake made a warning face. “Cos I like you, I’ll say this just once. My advice — stay clear of Alicia Myles. I’d tell the bikers the same thing but we need their help.”

Drake turned to the assembled men and women. “We’re talking about taking down a criminal headquarters. A human trafficking ring. If it’s anything like the last one Romero and I just saw in Russia, it could get messy.” Nobody moved a muscle as he looked them over. “Just so you know what you’re letting yourselves in for.”

Alicia came over, unzipping her jacket and pulling out a sheaf of papers. “Lomas and Tiny printed off some Google maps.” She winked. “We’ve already planned the attack. Question is, Drake, you ready to saddle up with the Slayers?”

Drake trusted her skill and training without question. “So long as I don’t have to join the bloody gang. The name’s not the most original I ever heard.”

Alicia shrugged. “Your choice. It’s actually short for Bitchin’ Motherfuckin’ Hellslayers. But they couldn’t fit the whole thing on their business cards.” She slowly climbed astride Lomas’s Ducatti Monster. “Life’s a twat, sometimes.”

Drake and Romero followed the biker pack as they came through the hills and down into the streets of Frankfurt. Drake, in the passenger seat, checked out the weapons Lomas and his gang had brought for them, grunting a sigh of approval as they neared their target area. Quickly, he tried calling the Washington HQ, but the call failed. Perhaps the lines were down at their end.

The address proved to be one of the many buildings and warehouses that littered the train yard and container yards around Frankfurt’s railway station. He wondered briefly if these people somehow manipulated space on various trains, but then the procession of Moto Guzzi’s and Ducatti’s and Harley’s pulled up, its riders reluctantly climbing off their mounts, most already looking eager to get back on. For a biker, life was about the journey and the ride, everything in between was mere chaff and static.

Alicia strode up to the car. “Ya think anyone noticed us?”

Romero laughed. Drake was used to her and rolled his eyes. “Don’t encourage her.”

Lomas and his second-in-charge, Tiny, strode up, leathers creaking. “One thing you can be sure of…getaway’s gonna be right pretty.”

Drake felt a stab of guilt. “Seriously, if you have good friends or loved ones here, you might wanna consider giving them a pass. At the very least we’re going to get in a firefight. The Russians might have warned them we were coming. I can’t guarantee everyone’s safety here, and I won’t promise to be able to save them if they get in any major trouble.”

“Message understood, SAS.” Lomas grunted, sharp eyes again betraying the scruffy, disheveled-looking exterior. “We know the risks.”

“And I ain’t SAS,” Drake mumbled, though for some reason he flashed back to Alyson and her hard-spoken certainties that he would never be anything other than a soldier.

“Bah. You guys are like our gangs. Once a brother always a brother. No mind…” Lomas held out a hand. “Let’s go fuck up some kidnapper’s day.”

Drake shook it. The leaders threaded back through the assembled gang and walked right up to the open gates of the business, ignoring the amazed stares of a few passersby. Drake stopped by the gates. The front yard was small, just an acre of bare concrete for parking cars and dominated by a large Portakabin. He glimpsed the top of a gantry crane rising above the Portakabin and guessed the rear yard was where the bulk of the business lay.

“Balls out?” Alicia suggested.

Drake shook his head as Romero choked, clearly not understanding the phrase. “It’s still not entirely clear we have the right address. There’s not even a sign in the yard stating their alleged business.” He eyed Lomas. “You two up for a stroll?”

A minute later Lomas and Alicia wandered into the empty yard. Together they walked boldly up to the cabin door, leaning on each other to help hide weapons and create an innocent appearance.

Alicia reached out to turn the handle, then stopped suddenly. With a quick body shunt, she hit the deck, pulling Lomas with her in an awkward heap. “It’s wired!” There was a moment of expectation and then a relative anti-climax as a small blast sent the door flying outward.

Problem solved, Drake thought. He signaled the charge. The ex-SAS man, the marine, and twenty-two leather-jacket-and-blue-jean-wearing bikers tore across the parking lot, pulling weapons from every pocket, pouch and waistband as they ran. Following a quick signal, they split into two streams, going left and right down the side of the cabin.

“Assholes must be waiting in back,” Romero said as Alicia and Lomas joined them.

No one responded. They all pealed around the side, ready now. Drake got a glimpse of railroad tracks, big containers and a few small cranes, and then the entire vista opened up into an enormous yard. Myriad train tracks and a few old carriages dominated the scene, but the huge blue gantry crane to the right and the steel girders stacked below drew the eye. Drake immediately saw movement on the gantry walkway and in between the girders and yelled a warning.

But it was the man standing ahead with legs apart and aiming an RPG in their direction who really bothered him.

The weapon clicked, and the missile took flight with a supercharged hiss. Drake flung himself headlong, firing as he scraped along the ground to make sure the man didn’t let loose any more rockets. The RPG went high, slamming into the surrounding wall and exploding. The only damage to the biker gang came from bricks landing on their hastily covered shoulders and heads.

“Cover me!”

Alicia scrambled across the ground, spying the discarded rocket launcher and a spare shell. Drake immediately opened fire on the girders, seeing his bullets spark and clang off the rusted metal. He bought Alicia half a minute, which was all she needed to load, aim and fire the weapon.

The rocket hit hard, exploding and smearing fire all across the face of the iron. Big girders caromed left and right, stacks toppled over, landing on top of those sheltering behind and below. The screaming began.

Drake slipped behind a container, running its length, Romero and several others at his back. Near the far end, he got a good view of the gantry crane and spotted a man in a suit running up its integral ladder.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s strange.”

Romero peered around him. “Ya know what? I bet the Russkies told ’em there’d be just the two of us. They’re not expecting a mini-army. Explains the small door charge and the man with the RPG. Rush job.”

“Kudos to Mother Russia.” Drake sprinted forward, firing at anything that moved. “Clear the yard, but leave me some alive!”

He raced up the metal steps two at a time, at first surprised by the instability of the crane structure, but then ignoring it. The suit climbed ahead of him, overweight and puffing. Drake caught up rapidly just as the man reached the top.

“Sit down.” A club over the head with the rifle butt made the man do just that. Drake viewed the length of the gantry, saw half a dozen kidnappers sitting among the struts and aiming guns at his friends below. The height momentarily disoriented him, but then his training took over. He peppered the platform with bullets. Kidnappers yelped in surprise, most losing their grip and tumbling to the yard below. Others fell dead. Only one stood defiantly, aiming his weapon back at Drake.

“I got your boss.” Drake rolled his eyes in the direction of the groans. “Give it up, pal.”

The man shrugged, ponytail falling across one shoulder. “He’s not the boss.”

Drake advanced across the metal bridge, ignoring the slight sway of the structure, and the noise of the creaking, swinging crane. The two men stared down the V of their sights at each other.

“Come to think of it,” ponytail said, “I didn’t like the bastard anyway.”

He squeezed the trigger. But Drake was ready. With anticipation born of superhuman ability, he threw himself off the gantry just as the kidnapper pulled the trigger.

Alicia fired from below, winging the guy and making him fall to his knees, gun clattering.

Drake fell through space. The jaws of the crane came up quick. He let go of his weapon, reached out and grasped the cold steel as his body rushed by. For a second his hands gripped, arresting his fall, but then with the smooth surface offering no purchase his fingers simply slipped away and he continued his fall.

Straight down to the hard concrete.

With milliseconds to prepare, he curled his body, realizing his back was about to take the brunt of the fall. The distance from the crane to the ground wasn’t that far but…

…then he hit.

Alicia saw him coming. Lomas, Tiny and Dirty Sarah were pounding up the gantry steps toward the kidnappers, so she fixed her attention on the falling man. When he landed, she held her arms out and slipped her body under his, letting the impact be absorbed by the both of them.

It still hurt like a mother.

Drake groaned against her chest. After a moment, Alicia realized she wasn’t badly hurt and neither was he.

“Fucksake, Drake,” she whispered. “You should know by now. There’s easier ways to get on top of me.”

Drake was well enough to chuckle into her breasts. “Yeah. But I was all out of Nutella.”

As always, time was against them. The area around the girders had proved to be the main hiding place for the kidnapping gang’s hierarchy. When the RPG destroyed it, most of the men had died, but a few wounded and dying still lay crying in the dirt.

Drake found no compassion in his heart. Whatever small consideration for enemies had existed inside him had been cleaved away the day Kennedy Moore died. Now, he threw one wounded man against the other and ignored their pleas and the aching of his own bruised bones.

“I know you kidnap Europeans and Americans,” he said. “Adults. Some homeless, some down-and-outs. If I find out you kidnap kids, I’ll bring a fucking army down on you and paint the earth with your blood and crushed bones. Do you understand me?”

The men lying before him blinked. Before this, these men had been tough, brutal and dangerous. Now all they could feel was their torn and crushed flesh. All they could see was their own slaughter. The men nodded. One of the two suits they had rounded up wailed; the other sat with blood pumping from his thigh, trying to maintain a ruthless expression on his face.

“Alright. I want to know all about this kidnap operation. The entire chain. Where the orders come from. Your feeding grounds. The whole lot.” He checked his watch. “Oh, and I want it in the next four minutes.”

He glanced up at Lomas. “Prep the bikes. We’ll be leaving in six.”