The Edge of Armageddon

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

Drake heard the change in the helicopter’s engine note and knew, without checking, that the machine was hurtling toward them. If that wasn’t enough the extending predatorial shadow spreading across the deck drilled it home.

Run or die.

He crashed shoulder first into an outer door, ripping the whole framework away from the hinges and falling into the area beyond. Bodies dived after him, rolling, sprawling, scrambling and jostling. The chopper came down hard, rotors shearing off and metal shell disintegrating. Everything from fragments to arm-length spears chopped at the air, slicing it apart. The ferry swayed and groaned, water churning to left and right.

A fireball shot up toward the other choppers who took immediate evasive action, pure luck preventing them from colliding. Streamers of fire licked around the top deck too, starting new conflagrations, and charring paintwork and metal pillars, melting paint. A rotor bent as it smashed against a stanchion to Drake’s right, bouncing to the floor with all momentum abruptly halted. Other flying missiles smashed windows and pierced framework, one terrible barb passing straight through the side of the boat and heading out to sea. Drake felt a lick of flame as the heat passed over him, looked under his shoulder and saw the entire team prone, Smyth even lying on top of Lauren. The explosion passed and they stared to rise, and then Gator took events to the level of utter madness.

Lunacy.

The next RPG came up through the boat itself, streaking out of the missile launcher and shattering decks as it flew. The explosion occurred as it breached their deck, sending more gouts of fire and deadly debris their way. Drake groaned as splinters drove into his scalp and shoulder, relieved that the pain showed him he was still alive. Taking one moment to breathe, he checked out the new environment ahead.

A jagged hole had been blown through the deck. Heaps of timber lay all around. Smoke and fire streamed through the once-enclosed middle-upper-deck.

“Way’s clear,” he said.

“Only to you!” Lauren almost screamed.

“Then stay,” Kenzie spat as she pulled at Dahl’s shoulder. “You all right, Torst?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Put me down.”

Drake set off at half pace, more wary than he could remember being in his entire life. The group behind him bunched together, knowing exactly where he was headed. At the last moment, as he’d expected, Dahl appeared right at his shoulder.

“We doing it, pal?”

“Damn fucking right we are.”

And down they leapt, through the new hole, feet first and eyes searching for enemies. They hit the lower deck hard, rolling, unmolested, and came up with guns leveled.

“Clear!” Drake cried.

Boots struck the hard deck at their backs.

Kenzie came last, and Drake saw, first — that she had removed her heavyweight inner jacket and, second — that she had wrapped it around the base of a three-foot long, splintered part of the chopper’s rotor. Her face was smug when she turned it upon the Swede.

“Now,” she said, “I have my weapon.”

“Gods help us.”

They stormed the vessel as one, taking the fight to Ramses and Gator. The ferry gained speed with every moment that passed. Liberty Island grew too, larger and larger on the skyline.

“Doesn’t the maniac realize he won’t reach the statue?” Kinimaka panted.

“Don’t say it,” Hayden snapped back. “Do not say it.”

“Oh, yeah I get it.”

“They won’t sink this ferry,” Dahl assured them. “The bay’s not deep enough to absorb a… well, you know what.”

On the next deck down they finally found their quarry. Gator guarded the door whilst Ramses piloted the ferry. In the mold of his already-revealed partiality to madness the bombmaker let loose the RPG he’d prepared for just such a moment. Drake couldn’t help but gasp and shout for everyone to take cover, and then the missile was streaking up the center of the ferry at head height, a trail of smoke pluming behind and propelled by Gator’s manic laughter.

“You like thaaaat? You catch iiiit? We already dieeee!”

Drake looked up and found Gator almost on top of him, running in the wake of the missile, carrying his rocket launcher with him. The missile itself sped through the ferry and exited the back end, exploding in mid-air. Gator swung the rocket launcher at Drake’s head.

The Yorkshireman ducked as Ramses finally turned, one hand resting nonchalantly on the wheel.

“You are already too late,” he said.

Drake struck up at Gator’s stomach, but the man danced back, still wielding his cumbersome weapon. To be fair it held the team back for an extra moment. Nobody wanted to get planted by such a meaty stick, but the inside of the ferry was a large space and gave Dahl and the others plenty of maneuverability. Gator snarled and swung around and then ran straight to Ramses, the terrorist prince now holding a semi-automatic. Drake noted the pack strapped to Gator’s back.

“You only delay the inevitable,” Ramses intoned.

Spraying the inside of the ferry with one hand, he amended the course a little with the other, targeting Liberty Island.

“You were never bothered about living?” Drake said, from behind a stanchion. “The bazaar? The castle? The elaborate plan to escape? What the hell was all that?”

“Ah, the bazaar was simply a — how do you say—‘clearout’ sale? A disposal of all my worldly goods. The castle — a goodbye and means to an end. You did take me straight to New York, after all. And the escape plan — yes a little elaborate I’ll grant you that. But do you see now? You’re already too late. The clock is ticking.”

Drake didn’t know exactly what Ramses meant but the implication was clear. Stepping out from cover, he sprayed the wheelhouse with bullets and ran in the wake of them, his team at his side. No more talking; this was his endgame. Ramses staggered back, blood fountaining from his shoulder. Gator screamed as rounds entered his body. Glass covered both terrorists in a jagged spray.

Drake smashed the door and then slipped, bouncing off the framework and skidding to an abrupt halt, cursing his luck. Dahl leapt over him, Kenzie at his side. The two entered the wheelhouse and raised weapons to kill. Ramses met them with all the force of a seven-foot-tall, muscle-bound madman, grinning like a feral, rabid dog; he barged and tried to fling them about.

Dahl was having none of it, standing up to the brute strength and absorbing all blows. Kenzie danced around them both, striking at Ramses’ flanks like she would a dangerous wolf. The radical prince pummeled the Swede. A shoulder barge made Dahl shudder. Immensely powerful hands gripped the Swede’s throat and began to squeeze. Bringing his own arms up, Dahl half-broke the hold and then took one himself; both men swaying and clutching until neither could breathe. Ramses swung Dahl around and slammed his back against a wall, but the Swede’s only reaction was to crack a wider smile.

Kenzie leaped into the air, raising an elbow that she brought down with crushing strength, right onto Ramses’ leaking bullet wound. Never expecting one blow to end such a struggle, she then followed up with a punch to the man’s throat even as he screamed, causing his eyes to bulge.

Then Ramses, staggering, covered in blood, pulled away, retching. Dahl let him go, sensing the end. The terrorist’s eyes latched onto the Swede’s and there was no sign of defeat in them.

“I will take this moment as one of victory,” he croaked. “And crush the heart of capitalism.”

He reached out as if to touch Gator.

Dahl fired in reaction. A round slammed into Ramses’ stomach, knocking him back.

Gator leapt and fell towards Ramses.

The terrorist prince managed to catch hold of the backpack strapped to Gator’s falling back, his outstretched hand gripping an exposed blue wire as they both collapsed.

Kenzie shot forward, targeting the arm that held the wire with the only weapon she kept close, the best weapon she had — the crude katana. Her blade chopped down swiftly, severing Ramses’ arm at the shoulder, wrenching a look of intense surprise from the terrorist.

The arm hit the floor at the same time as Gator, but the fingers still grasped the now exposed end of the blue wire.

“Failsafe,” Ramses coughed. “You were right to attack me in such a way. The clock wasn’t ticking. But…” A spasm wracked him, blood leaking fast from abdomen, arm and left shoulder.

“It… is… now.”