The Four Corners of the Earth

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

They ran for the warehouse doors, splitting up into three groups. Drake, Alicia and Mai took Seventeen; Dahl, Kenzie and Hayden took Eighteen, which left Smyth, Lauren, Kinimaka and Yorgi with Nineteen. They hit the main doors as one.

Drake kicked it in, smashing it off its hinges. A man was just exiting an office inside. Drake took him under his arm, wrenched hard and flung him against the opposite office wall. The narrow passage they were in opened up ahead into the warehouse proper so Alicia and Mai bypassed him.

Drake finished the man off, left him comatose, and checked the small offices before joining the women. A spectacular sight met his eyes. The warehouse was vast, long and high. At its center, facing a set of roller doors, sat a long, low flatbed truck — a big-engined cab at the front. Two nuclear warheads sat on the back of the truck, plain as day, their nosecones facing the front, black straps fastening them down at regular intervals. The straps would allow flexibility without great movement — a good idea for transit, Drake guessed, since nobody wanted a deadly missile smashing against an immovable object. A vast bundle of side-curtains lay at the side of the huge truck, which he guessed would be attached before departure.

“No guards,” Mai said.

Alicia pointed out another office to the right of the truck. “My guess.”

“You’d think they would be more concerned,” Mai said.

Drake couldn’t help but check for CCTV, finding it hard to rely totally on a band of geeks sat in an air-conditioned office. “Our old friend, complacency, is probably at work,” he said. “They’ve been sitting on this secret a long time.”

Through the comms they heard sounds of combat, the other teams were engaged.

Alicia sprinted for the truck. “On me!”

Dahl picked up the closest man and threw him toward the rafters, getting a decent amount of air time before seeing him smash awkwardly down to earth. Bones broke. Blood oozed. Kenzie slipped past, firing her machine pistol, striking running men who then introduced their faces to the ground hard. Hayden ranged to the other side, favoring her Glock. The enormous truck they’d found sat at the center of the warehouse, with a trio of offices alongside and several rows of crates. They had no idea what lay inside, but thought it might be prudent to find out.

Hayden headed for the truck, eyes scanning the pair of nukes seated above her head. Damn, they were enormous at this distance. Monsters with no purpose other than to lay waste. Assuredly then, they were Death, and clearly a part of the fourth Horseman. Attila was the second most ancient figure of the four, born seven hundred years after Hannibal and, coincidentally, seven hundred years before Genghis Kahn. Geronimo was born in 1829. All horsemen in their own right. All kings, killers, generals, unequalled strategists. All had defied their supposed betters.

Was this why the Order chose them?

The DC mole, she knew, was mocking them with knowledge.

No time to change anything now. She crossed behind the flatbed, angling for the crates. Some of the lids were askew, others leaned against the wooden sides. Straw and other packing materials leaked out of the top. Hayden shot one man, then traded bullets with another, and was forced to dive to the ground and take cover.

She ended up at the rear of the truck with the tail end of a nuclear warhead looming over her.

“What the hell happens if a bullet hits one of these things?”

“Don’t worry, it would have to be a good shot to directly strike the core, or the explosive,” a voice told her through the comms. “But I guess there’s always the chance of a fluke.”

Hayden ground her teeth. “Oh, thanks, buddy.”

“No problem. Don’t worry, it’s unlikely to happen.”

Hayden ignored the bland, unemotional commentary, rolling out into the open and firing an entire magazine at her adversary. The man fell, bleeding. Hayden rammed in another mag as she dashed over to the crates.

The vast warehouse surrounded her, resounding with gunshots, spacious enough to be unsettling, the rafters so high they could easily hide an unfriendly antagonist. She peered over the top of the crates.

“I think we’re good,” she said. “Seems that they have more than one operation going on here.”

Kenzie ran up, brandishing the Sword of Mars. “What is it?”

Dahl crouched by the flatbed’s huge wheel. “Keep an eye out. We have more than one enemy here.”

Hayden sifted the straw. “Stolen goods,” she said. “Must be a waypoint. Quite an assortment here.”

Kenzie drew out a golden statue. “They have teams doing house raids. Burglaries. It’s a huge business. Everything gets shipped off, sold on or melted down. The conscience behind these crimes rates is below zero.”

Dahl whispered, “To your left.”

Hayden ducked behind a crate, sighted her prey and opened fire.

Lauren Fox followed Mano Kinimaka into the lion’s den. She saw Smyth take out an adversary and leave him for dead. She saw Yorgi pick the lock of an office door, enter and declare it obsolete in less than a minute. Every day, she tried desperately to keep up. Every day, she worried she might lose her place in the team. This was part of why she courted Nicholas Bell’s favor, why she ran the comms and looked for other ways to help.

She loved the team, and wanted to stay a part of it.

Now, she stayed at the back, Glock in hand and hoping she wouldn’t have to use it. The flatbeds took up most of her vision, outsized and terrible. The warheads were a dull greenish color, non-reflective, surely one of the most menacing shapes the modern human mind might summon up. Smyth engaged with a large guard, took several blows and then disabled the guy just as Lauren was sneaking up to help. To her right Kinimaka shot two more. Bullets began to crisscross the warehouse as the rest realized they were under attack.

At the back, she saw several guards break for the cab of the flatbed.

“Watch out,” she keyed the comms, “I can see men headed around the front. My God, are they gonna try to drive them outta here?”

“Oh no,” DC voiced the reply to everyone. “You have to neutralize those nukes. If these guys have the launch codes, even one being loosed would be catastrophic. Listen, all six must be neutralized. Now!”

“Fuckin’ easy for you to say,” Alicia muttered. “Wrapped in your dressing gown and sipping yer frothy cappuccino. Wait, I see them heading for the cab here too.”

Drake switched directions, seeing that he could race down this side of the flatbed and meet no opposition. Waving to Alicia, he set off fast.

Mai’s voice cut through his concentration. “Watch your feet!”

Wha…?

A man wearing a thick black leather jacket came sliding under the flatbed, legs outstretched. By luck or clever design they struck Drake at the shins and sent him tumbling. The machine pistol skidded on ahead. Drake ignored the new set of bruises and scrambled under the truck just as the guard opened fire. Bullets scored the concrete in his wake. The guard pursued him, gun out.

Drake scrambled right under the truck, conscious of the enormous weapon above his head. The guard ducked, then crouched. Drake fired his Glock, and took the man’s forehead apart. A scramble of footsteps came from behind and then he was tackled hard, the weight of another man crashing down on top of him. Drake’s chin struck the ground, sending stars and blackness swirling into his vision. His teeth smashed together, tiny chippings cracked off. Pain exploded everywhere. He rolled, smashed an elbow into a face. A gun came up, fired; the bullets missed Drake’s skull by an inch and went straight up, into the base of the nuke.

Drake felt the adrenaline surge. “That’s a—” he grabbed the man’s head and struck it against the concrete as hard as he could “—fucking. Nuclear. Missile.” Each word a slam. In the end the head lolled. Drake scrambled back out from under the truck, and met Alicia sprinting on.

“No time for a nap, Drakey. This is some serious shit.”

The Yorkshireman snatched up his machine pistol and tried to shake the ringing sound from his ears. Alicia’s voice helped.

“Mai? You okay?”

“No! Pinned down.”

A roar came from the engine of the flatbed.

“Run faster,” Drake said. “A few more seconds and these live nukes are outta here!”