The Edge of Armageddon

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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…”