The Edge of Armageddon

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Following Moore’s instructions the ten strong team wasted even more precious minutes diverting down a side street to commandeer a pair of police cars. The call was made by the time they got there and the cops were waiting, their efforts at clearing the streets starting to show reward. Smyth climbed behind one wheel, Dahl another, and the vehicles flicked on their sirens and flashers and tore around the corner of 3rd Avenue, burning rubber straight toward the zoo. Buildings and scared faces flashed past at forty, then fifty, miles an hour. Smyth smashed an abandoned cab aside by slamming its front end, shunting it straight. Only one police cordon stood in their way and they had already received orders to let them pass. They shot through the hastily cleared intersection approaching sixty.

Drake almost ignored a new call on his cell, thinking it might be Ramses ringing back to gloat. But then he thought: even that could give us some clues.

“What?” he barked tersely.

“Drake? This is President Coburn. Do you have a moment?”

The Yorkshireman started in surprise, then checked the GPS. “Four minutes, sir.”

“Then listen. I know I don’t have to tell you how bad this will be if that bomb is allowed to go off. Retaliations are inevitable. And we don’t even know the true nationality or political penchants of this Ramses character. One of the larger emerging problems is that this other character — Gator — has visited Russia four times this year.”

Drake’s mouth turned to sand. “Russia?”

“Yes. It’s not decisive, but…”

Drake knew exactly what the pause meant. Nothing needed to be decisive in a world manipulated by news channels and social media. “If this information gets out—”

“Yes. We’re looking at a high-level event.”

Drake certainly didn’t want to know what that meant. He did know that, presently, there were men out in the wider world, vastly powerful men, who had the means to survive a nuclear war and often imagined what it would be like if they could live in a brand new, barely populated world. Some of these men were already leaders.

“Disarm the bomb if you have to, Drake. I’m told NEST are en route but will arrive after you. And so is everyone else. Everyone. This is our new darkest hour.”

“We will stop it, sir. This city will survive to see tomorrow.”

As Drake ended the call, Alicia put a hand on his shoulder. “So,” she said. “When Moore said this was the Tropical Zone and a mini rainforest, did he mean there would be snakes too?”

Drake covered her hand with his own. “There are always snakes, Alicia.”

Mai coughed. “Some larger than others.”

Smyth swung their car around a blockage, sped by a flashing ambulance with all its doors open and paramedics working on people involved in the incident, and jammed his foot on the gas pedal once more.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Mai?” Alicia said evenly and politely. “When you left the team behind?”

It had all happened so long ago now, but Drake vividly remembered Mai Kitano walking away, her head brimming with guilt at the deaths she had inadvertently caused. Out of that single incident during the search for her parents — the killing of a Yakuza money launderer — much had changed.

“My parents are now safe,” Mai said. “As is Grace. I beat the clan. Chika. Dai. I found much of what I sought.”

“So why did you come back?”

Drake found his eyes fixed firmly to the road, and his ears pinned firmly toward the back seat. It was an unusual time to be debating consequences and questioning decisions, but it was quite typical for Alicia, and might be their last chance to set at least something straight.

“Why did I come back?” Mai repeated lightly. “Because I care. I care for this team.”

Alicia whistled. “Good answer. Is that the only reason?”

“You’re asking if I came back for Drake. If I anticipated that you two would build some kind of new rapport. If I thought for one second that he’d have moved on. Even, if he might give me a second chance. Well, the answer is simple — I don’t know.”

“Third chance,” Alicia pointed out. “If he was dumb enough to take you back again it would be your third chance.”

Drake saw the approaching entrance to the zoo as he felt the rising tension in the back seat, the poignant and precarious emotions bristling. They needed a room for all this, preferably a padded one.

“Wrap it up, guys,” he said. “We’re here.”

“This ain’t done, Sprite. This Alicia is the new model. She’s decided not to run into the sunset anymore. Now, we stand, we learn, and we deal with it.”

“I see that and admire it,” Mai said. “I do like the new you, Alicia, despite what you might think.”

Drake turned away, filled with mutual respect, and at a total loss as to how this scenario might eventually play out. But it was time to file it all away now, place it on the shelf, because they were heading fast towards the new Armageddon, soldiers and saviors and heroes to the very end.

And if they were watching, perhaps playing chess, even God and the Devil would have caught their breath.