The Edge of Armageddon

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

The intersection right outside the precinct was normally bustling with people, the crossing crammed with pedestrians and the roads rumbling to the constant cadence of passing cars. Tall, many-windowed buildings usually rebounded the sounds of honking horns and laughter between them, an upsurge of human interaction, but the scene was very different today.

Smoke swirled across the road and billowed toward the sky. Window fragments littered the sidewalks. Hushed voices whispered around the hub as the shell-shocked and the injured picked themselves up or emerged from hiding. In the near-distance, sirens shrieked. The side of their building that fronted 3rd Avenue looked like a giant mouse had mistaken it for a lump of gray cheese and taken enormous nibbles out of it.

Hayden registered little of this, jogging out of the station and then slowing as she cast around for the escapees. Dead ahead, loping down 51st, they were the only people running — eleven men clad in black and the unmistakable Ramses — towering above the rest. Hayden raced across the rubble-strewn intersection, amazed at the stillness that surrounded her, the clamor of quiet, and the swelling clouds of dust that sought to blind her. Above, in patches between the roofs of the office buildings — the straight columns of concrete marking a perpendicular path like lines on a grid — the morning sunlight struggled to compete. The sun rarely hit the streets before midday, it would reflect off the windows for a while early on and burnish only the cross-streets, until it rose overhead and could find a path down between buildings.

Kinimaka, the faithful old dog, hurried along at her side. “That’s twelve of them,” he said. “Moore is following our position. We follow them until we get backup, agreed?”

“Ramses,” she said. “Is our priority. We get him back at all costs.”

“Hayden,” Kinimaka barely missed colliding with a parked van. “You’re not thinking this through. Ramses planned everything. And even if he didn’t — even if his whereabouts was somehow leaked to the fifth cell — it doesn’t matter now. It’s the bomb we have to find.”

“Another reason to nab Ramses.”

“He will never tell us,” Kinimaka said. “But maybe one of his disciples will.”

“The longer we can keep Ramses off-balance,” Hayden said. “The better chance this city has of making it through all this.”

They raced along the sidewalk, keeping to the few shadows offered by the high-rises, and trying to stay quiet. Ramses was at the center of his pack, issuing orders, and Hayden remembered now that, back at the bazaar, he used to call these men his “legionnaires”. Every single one was lethal and true to the cause, many steps above the regular mercs. At first, the twelve men hurried without much thought, gaining a little distance between themselves and the precinct, but after a minute they started to slow and two cast around to check for pursuers.

Hayden opened fire, the Glock barking angrily. One man fell and the others spun, shooting back. The two ex-CIA agents ducked behind a concrete planter, staying low. Hayden peered around its circular edge, unwilling to lose sight of her enemy. Ramses was down low, shielded by his men. Robert Price, she now saw, was being left to fend for himself and barely able to keep up, but still doing well for a battered, aging man. Her concentration switched back to Ramses.

“He’s right there, Mano. Let’s finish this. You think they’ll still detonate if he’s dead?”

“Shit, I dunno. Taking him alive would work better. Maybe we could ransom him.”

“Yeah, well, we gotta get close enough first.”

The cell took off again, this time covering their escape. Hayden ducked from planter to planter, chasing them along the street. Bullets whizzed between the two groups, shattering windows and impacting against parked vehicles. A series of strewn yellow cabs offered Hayden better cover, and a chance to get closer, and she didn’t hesitate to take it.

“C’mon!”

She made the first cab, slipped around the side and used another that had been abandoned side-on, to cover herself as she ran to the next. Windows exploded all around her as the cell sought to pick them off, but the cover meant Ramses’ new legionnaires never quite knew where they were. Four cabs later and they were forcing the runners to take cover, slowing them down.

Kinimaka’s earpiece crackled. “Help is five minutes away.”

But even that was uncertain.

Again, the cell ran as a compact group. Hayden gave chase, unable to safely close the gap now and also having to conserve ammo. It became obvious that the cell was also starting to worry about the possibility of backup arriving as their movements became more frantic, less careful. Hayden lined one of the rearguards up in her sights and missed only because he passed by a sculpted tree as she fired.

Pure bad luck.

“Mano,” she said suddenly. “Did we lose one of them somewhere?”

“Count again.”

She could only count ten figures!

He came out of nowhere, rolling stylishly out from under a parked car. His first kick was to the back of Kinimaka’s knee, making the big man buckle. As he kicked out, his right hand brought a small PPK around, the size making it no less deadly. Hayden smashed Kinimaka aside, her comparatively small frame as powerful and energized as any world-class athletes, but even that could only move the big man a little.

The bullet passed between them, stunning, breath-taking, the briefest moment of sheer hell, and then the legionnaire was shifting again. Another kick connected with Hayden’s knee and Mano continued his fall, slamming his chest into the same parked car their enemy had used for concealment. A grunt escaped him as he caught himself, now trying desperately to spin on his knees.

Hayden felt a stab of pain around her knee and, more importantly, a sudden lack of balance. She was more aware of the escaping Ramses and the nightmarish smorgasbord that entailed than the fighting legionnaire, and wanted with every ounce of her being to end this quickly. But the man was a fighter, a real scrapper, and clearly wanted to survive.

He fired the gun once more. Hayden was now glad she’d overbalanced because she wasn’t where he’d anticipated she would be. The bullet nevertheless grazed her shoulder. Kinimaka launched himself at the gun arm, burying it beneath a mountain of brawn.

The legionnaire relinquished it instantly, seeing the futility of struggling with the Hawaiian. He then withdrew a terrifying eight inch blade and swooped at Hayden. Awkwardly, she twisted, gaining a fraction of space to avert the deadly cutting edge. Kinimaka came up with the gun but the legionnaire anticipated it and swung far faster, the knife slashing hard across the Hawaiian’s chest, rendered trivial by the man’s vest, but still knocking him back onto his haunches.

The exchange gave Hayden the chance she needed. Removing her gun she guessed what the legionnaire would do — spin back and throw the knife underhand — so she sidestepped as she squeezed the trigger.

Three bullets took the man’s chest apart as the knife bounced off a car door and clattered harmlessly to the floor.

“Grab his Walther,” Hayden told Kinimaka. “We’re gonna need every bullet.”

Rising up, she saw the unmistakable group of armed men hustling along the street, several hundred yards distant. It was getting harder now — knots of people had emerged and were wandering along, heading home or checking out the damage or even standing exposed and flicking at their android devices — but the sight of Ramses’ head popping up every few feet was instantly recognizable.

“Now move,” she said, forcing aching, bruised limbs to work beyond their limits.

The cell vanished.

“What the—”

Kinimaka skirted a car as she vaulted over the hood.

“A large sports store,” the Hawaiian panted. “They ducked inside.”

“End of the line, Prince Ramses,” Hayden spat the last two words with disdain. “Hurry it up, Mano. Like I said — we have to keep the bastard busy and his attention away from that nuke. Every minute, every second, counts.”