Chasing Gold

CHAPTER NINE

Without pause or caution, the mercenaries opened fire. Alicia dived headlong, rolling into a shop entryway as bullets peppered the framework. Russo joined her. Austin and Caitlyn scrambled back behind the car, using it for shelter. Alicia moved further into the entry cubicle so she could see through two sets of windows back out into the street.

“All present and correct,” she said. “Cutler, Lee, four mercs and Crouch. Oh, and the pilot too.”

“Let’s get among them,” Russo growled.

Alicia ducked low and raced back out into the street, firing twice. One bullet hit the burning wreckage of the helicopter; the second flew past a merc’s head. The enemy group were running ahead of the wreckage now, using the flaming bulk of it as a shield.

Alicia and Russo started to sprint.

Caitlyn’s voice reached them just in time. “No! It’s gonna explode, you—”

The rest was lost as Alicia ducked behind the nearest parked car, again taking the skin off her exposed arms as she hit the ground and skidded to a halt. Russo stumbled over her, sprawling, and coming down like a felled rhino. The chopper detonated loudly, flames licking in all directions, washing right over the car they hid behind. Alicia felt the heat, and saw the flames reflected in the shop window just before the glass was shattered by metal fragments.

She took only a moment to raise her head, saw the enemy group still racing away down the now debris-littered street.

“C’mon, Russo. Get moving.”

“I’m trying.”

“Get your leg off… fuck… you’re harder to move than a dead cow.”

Russo finally dragged himself clear of her legs and climbed to his feet. “Now they’re desperate.”

Alicia moved to see past the burning wreckage. Their enemies were collectively running, limping and dragging themselves away, herding their captives between them at gunpoint. Some were bleeding, some just looked angry.

“Cops are on their way,” Caitlyn said. “And ironically, that’s a bad thing now. It’d take hours to explain all this, by which time Crouch would be gone.”

Alicia swore at their new situation. “Bollocks.”

They moved out carefully, skirting the wreckage and keeping to the opposite sidewalk. Some random shots were fired ahead for no apparent reason, but Alicia thought it might be to keep any gawkers at bay. It was a fraught, reckless run as they tried to close the gap but keep safe at the same time. Russo fired once, winging an enemy, but then had to duck below a brick wall as two others turned, knelt and opened fire.

Bullets filled the street, slamming into concrete, brick and glass. Windows shattered. Hell rained down on the Gold Team for half a minute. Alicia cried out in frustration, knowing what was happening but unable to do anything about it.

Cautiously, she peered out. “They have a car.”

Screeching tires punctuated her sentence and then Russo and she were running into the middle of the street. Now she could see all the twitching curtains and even one person standing in plain sight in his window, not caring about his safety. Russo kept running, head down as if trying to catch up with the vehicle. Alicia assumed he was trying to get the number plate.

“Here.” Austin made a beeline for the nearest car, a storm-gray Nissan SUV, then apparently thought better of it and headed for an older American car. “Easier to hotwire,” he said by way of explanation.

Alicia yanked open the passenger door. “Where the hell did Crouch find you, boy?”

“Well, it wasn’t rowing club.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“Thanks very much.”

“He needed a petty thief and we got you?”

“Think about it.” Austin started the car with a twist of wires, then slammed the gearstick into drive. “Almost every job you do, every quest you guys undertake, what’s the one thing you need but never have?”

Alicia snapped her seatbelt into place. “Well, there’s an interesting question,” she said, hanging on as Austin checked Russo and Caitlyn were ready and then screeched off in hot pursuit. “I mean — are we talking equipment? Weapons? Tech stuff?” She paused. “Toys?”

Austin coughed loudly. “I’m a driver.”

“Wow.” Alicia made use of the time by checking her handgun. The trouble with taking guns off dead mercs was the lack of spare ammo. “That’s… great.”

“Not just a driver,” Austin affirmed. “A driver. I can grand theft any auto, hotwire any vehicle, and drive better than Lewis Hamilton.”

“Dude,” Alicia laughed. “You’re like… ten.”

“I was driving before I was ten,” Austin told them. “I mean, check out my name for starters. It’s an English car manufacturer. My parents wanted a racing driver and started me young on their farm.”

“What went wrong?” Russo asked, cheek squashed up against the glass as Austin took a sharp bend.

“Fell in with the wrong crowd,” Austin admitted more quietly. “My dad died. We lost the farm. Mum ended up in an East End bedsit. We needed the dosh.”

Alicia gave the kid some slack, aware by now that he knew how to take a corner and a racing line. Hopefully, he wasn’t a street racer too, but even that might help them now. The bends came thick and fast at first as they sought to keep the other car in sight, red tail-lights and white paint always the giveaway. They left the DC area, passing towns called Seven Corners and Jefferson. In the end they joined a long, straight road, the only clear, discernible route passing through small towns where they could easily become lost or get caught. In the end, the journey became so long that Caitlyn finally took a deep breath, swigged a big gulp of water, and started the long job of locating the right person inside the FBI that she needed to speak to.

“We hoping they run out of petrol?” Russo asked.

“Gas,” Austin corrected. “Over here they call it gas.”

“Why? It’s liquid.”

“Short for gasoline, man. But to answer your question — if they have a full tank they’ll outrun us. They have a seventy-liter gas tank in that thing. We have a fifty. Chances are, we’ll run out first.”

“Umm, thanks for the info. You getting anywhere, Caitlyn?”

“Slowly, slowly,” she responded in a whisper.

The miles flashed past the window, first open fields and then another barely lit town nestling off the highway, followed by more monotonous scenery. Alicia had already checked and rechecked her gun three times.

The bullet count wasn’t increasing.

We can’t stop because we’ll lose them. We can’t attack because that’d put Crouch and the thieves in danger. We can’t get hold of the FBI.

No good choices presented themselves. But soon, the decision would be made by one of the vehicles.

Alicia found herself reminiscing over their earlier adventures. Russo, whilst often presenting the gentle-giant persona, sometimes, uncontrollably, turned into a berserker, unable to control his rage when confronted with a deadly, difficult situation. Russo hated losing it, hated himself for being unable to restrain the beast inside. Alicia had seen it once — in fact it had saved their lives — but that didn’t placate Russo.

He saw it as a weakness.

Caitlyn had gone from strength to strength since joining the Gold Team. Once an MI6 whizz, she had burned out after learning the truth about her parents’ abusive relationship, then been put in contact with Crouch through a mutual friend named Armand Argento, who worked for Interpol. Caitlyn was intelligent, geeky and a gym-queen. Before he died, Zack Healey had been training her in unarmed combat and in the use of firearms. Alicia had no idea how far she’d come.

And then there was Michael Crouch. Such a larger-than-life figure, she didn’t have the time nor patience right now to think about him.

“Dawn’s breaking.” Austin pointed at the eastern horizon. “Should make it easier to track them.”

“Or harder.” Russo yawned. “And easier for them to see us.”

“Pessimist.”

Alicia tried to stave off the infectious yawn. “It’s the only thing he’s good at.”

The car ahead jammed its brakes on, and then swerved toward the side of the highway. It stopped briefly though Alicia, squinting, couldn’t see why as it stood in a pool of shadows made by overhanging trees, and then roared off once more, laying rubber down on the asphalt.

“What was all that—” Russo started to say.

“Slow down,” Caitlyn said.

“Yeah.” Alicia leaned forward, but Austin was already feathering the brakes, cutting the speed at a gradual rate.

Before they could make anything out, bullets started peppering the side of the car. The windshield exploded. Austin jammed on the brakes and then controlled the skid, letting the tail-end slide out. Now they could see the man on one knee, automatic weapon balanced and sighted on them. Alicia ducked as the side window imploded.

A tire burst, and then the rear of their car side-swiped the shooter, sending him flying backward into the air. The car tipped at that point, both tires now collapsed, and rolled over onto its roof. Alicia hung on, finding herself upside down, her eyes searching for the shooter.

Hopefully, he was dead.

He wasn’t. Limping, dragging one foot and clutching his chest, he staggered across to the place where his gun had come to rest. With difficulty, he tried to bend down to scoop it up.

Still upside down, Alicia aimed her handgun and shot him through the left temple. Finally, she looked around.

The fear on everyone’s face wasn’t for themselves, it was for the man they had now lost.