Raiders

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mason watched as Holloway and Ambrose jumped into the Jag. A second later it skidded away west along Beaumont Street and swerved left onto Worcester Street in a cloud of burned tire rubber and diesel fumes.

“Into the police cars,” Ben said as they sprinted down the front steps. “I’ll drive one and you take the other.” He tossed Mason the keys and they all piled into the two marked police Volvos parked in the street; Ella, Milo and Caleb joined Ben, while Zara, Eva and Virgil climbed in with Mason.

The Londoner turned the key and the engine turned over.

Then the windshield exploded into a mess of shattered glass, but stayed wedged in the frame. “Looks like they’ve worked out where we are,” Virgil said.

“You were top of your class, right?” said Zara, reloading her Glock.

“I don’t think Agent Speers is going to like that,” said Virgil, glancing down at the freshly loaded weapon in her lap. “He’s going to be very disappointed in you.”

“Your lives are like one, long rollercoaster ride,” Eva said, rubbing her head. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“It’s not always like this,” said Zara. “Sometimes it gets really violent and dangerous.”

Mason gave Eva an apologetic shrug of his shoulders and stamped on the accelerator. The front-wheel drive Volvo roared in response and the two wheels spun around like demons, producing a vast cloud of burned rubber. When he dumped the clutch the car surged forward into the night, leaving two long, black trails of burned rubber swerving all over the street outside the museum’s entrance.

“Hey!” Virgil said, pointing at Ben’s car up front. “He’s got the lights on, and the sirens! Why can’t we do that?”

Eva turned and gave Virgil a look of pity. “What are you, like five?”

“He’s right,” Zara said. “Trust me, I was a cop in LA for years. You slap those babies on and you’re getting where you want ten times faster.”

“Hit it, Z,” Mason said, swerving the car into St. Giles and heading north.

Zara didn’t need to be asked twice, and she quickly fired up what British police called the ‘blues and twos’, activating the flashing blue lights and sirens.

“Oh, man,” Virgil said. “This is so cool, and now we get to go to Paris, too.”

“I hate to dump on your lunch, Virgil,” Zara said, tipping her head to glance in the rear view mirror, “but we have two douche nozzles on our six and they’re gaining fast. Looks like they’re in a BMW.”

“She’s right,” Mason said, checking his mirror. “They’re in an M6.”

Eva looked concerned. “What does that mean?”

“It means the only way we’re getting away from these punks is if Jed can out-drive them,” Virgil said.

“And can you do that, Jed?” Eva asked.

Mason changed down and floored the throttle. Beneath the hood, the two litre turbo roared like a lion. His face lit a gentle mint green by the instrument panel, he smiled and said, “Only one way to find out.”

“Is their car that much faster then?” Eva said.

Zara pushed her window down. “Not with their front tires shot out, it’s not.”

Virgil leaned closer to Eva. “Dr Starling, I suggest you put your fingers in your ears, because any min…”

The sound of Zara’s Glock cracked hard in the night. Most of the sound was outside the car, but it was loud enough in the car to make Eva Starling jump in her seat and quickly follow Virgil’s advice.

“No way are these assholes following me to Paris,” Zara yelled as she squinted down the sights. “When I get there I want coffee, wine,” she fired another shot. “Maybe a croissant, and some Me Time,” another two shots. “I do not want to be wasting my time chasing a bunch of assholes who think they’re in the next Matrix movie.”

“She has a good point,” Virgil said. “Paris is fantastic this time of year.”

Eva held her head in her hands. “You guys are making my head spin. You really are.”

Zara yelled from outside the car. “They’re returning fire!”

Kiya leaned out the passenger window and fired a short volley from a pistol. The rounds sprayed up the back of the police car, shattering the rear window and exploding the lights on the roof.

They reached the north end of Banbury road and Mason plowed the battered and dented police Volvo over the roundabout and headed for the final stretch. Kidlington was fast approaching and that meant Oxford London Airport was just minutes away.

As Mason swerved off the roundabout and hit the Oxford Road he was doing more than seventy miles per hour, but the Raven was driving the BMW hard, and seconds later he had caught up with them.

As they raced through the center of Kidlington, the Raven smashed the powerful German car into the rear of the Volvo and they all braced against the impact. The police car was a heavy vehicle, and absorbed most of the energy, but Tekin had now placed the BMW right on their tail and given Kiya a clear shot at them.

Zara threw herself inside the cab. “MP5! Get down!”

Her words were still echoing in the car when Kiya fired the machine pistol and sprayed bullets all over the back of the Volvo. 10 mm auto jacketed flat point rounds drilled though the Volvo’s bodywork, pinging off the side panels but puncturing the tailgate and shredding into the body armor and gun cases in the back.

Eva screamed, Mason looked ahead and saw Ben hanging a hard left on Langford Lane. “We’re almost there!” he yelled.

Taking the same hard left, he stamped on the throttle one last time and pushed the Volvo as hard as he could. Slowly, they caught up with Ben and the rest of the Raiders who were now turning right and driving into the airport.

With Kiya and Tekin right on their tail, Mason turned right and drove into the airport. He was instantly relieved when he saw a bank of flashing blue lights up ahead, and saw half a dozen police cars parked in a line to block the entrance to the airport.

“Ben must have called for back-up,” he said. “Thank God.”

“They didn’t have to come far,” said Virgil, pointing to a series of new, two storey buildings to their right. “According to my smart phone, that’s the HQ for the local police.”

“They’re forming a barricade!” Eva said.

Mason shook his head. “No, they’ve left a gap for us to get through. When we drive in they’ll close the gap and open fire on our friends behind.”

“I just hope Ezra wasn’t right about so many people being under the control of the Hidden Hand,” Zara said. “Because if they are, then those guns are for us, not Kiya and her insane boyfriend.”

But they were safe, and seconds after screeching though the barricade, the police cars closed the gap and issued a warning to Tekin to stop the car.

The Bride and the Raven ignored the warning and increased speed, racing toward the police line with everything the M6’s mighty engine could give them.

The police issued a second warning and when that was ignored they opened fire on the BMW.

Mason was now airside and bringing the Volvo to a halt on the apron beside Ben’s police car. The team jumped out of the battered car and headed toward the Citation which was parked up where they had left it hours earlier.

Behind them, the sound of gunfire crackled in the night air.

“They’re fighting back,” Zara said.

Virgil nodded. “Sounds like they’re using the MP5s against the police.”

Mason was just pleased that someone else was watching their back, and as he approached the jet, he could hear the engines were already starting to spool up. When he climbed on board the jet he found the rest of his team, plus Ben, strapping themselves into their seats. “I thought we said you could stay with us until the airport?”

Ben shrugged and looked at Ella.

Mason looked at her too. “Well?”

“Come on, Jed! He saved our lives tonight.”

“Plus he called the police to the airport,” Milo said. “Even gave them a special codeword us civilian plebs aren’t supposed to know about.”

Caleb waded in. “Come on, Jed. He’s MI5 and Ella’s boyfriend.”

Mason gave Caleb a look. “Can we talk for a second, Cal?”

The two men moved toward the cockpit, and Mason talked first. “Listen, we don’t know the first thing about this guy.”

Caleb sighed. “We know Ella’s been seeing him for over a year and they’re talking about getting engaged, and we also know he organized an armed road block that saved our asses and is at this very moment filling the Hidden Hand with hot lead.”

Mason sighed and looked over Caleb’s shoulder at his crew buckling themselves into their seats and preparing for the short flight to Paris.

“Fine,” he said. “But you’re telling Ezra about it.”

Mason gave the order to take off, and seconds later they were bursting through the clouds and banking south to Paris.