The Four Corners of the Earth

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Drake poured on the speed. These days it was uncommon that he see straight, so today was business as usual. The door to the cab came up ahead, over head-height. Drake reached up, grabbed the handle and pulled. Alicia aimed her Glock.

A hand grenade bounced out.

Drake stared in utter disbelief. “Are you fucking kiddi—”

Alicia struck him around the chest, propelling him backward and around the front of the truck. The grenade exploded violently, shrapnel spitting in all directions. Drake rolled with Alicia, the two held together. The truck’s door went spinning and tumbling ahead of the vehicle. When Drake looked up there was only one man sat in the cab, high up, grinning evilly down at him. He goosed the gas pedal.

Drake knew there was no chance in hell that the vehicle could set off fast enough to run them down. He glanced to the side and saw three more guards rushing them. The truck bellowed, its wheels started to grip and propel it forward an inch at a time. The roller doors hadn’t moved, but that wouldn’t stop it.

The comms burst to life.

“They’re driving the trucks out of here! Cabs are bulletproof. And damn hard to reach.” It was Hayden’s voice. “

“No way inside?” Kinimaka asked.

“No. It’s sealed. And I don’t want to use too much force, if you know what I mean.”

And though Drake knew their own truck was now missing a side door, there were still two more to worry about.

“Jump up onto the flatbed,” he said. “Start unfastening those nukes. They’ll be forced to stop.”

“Risky. Friggin’ risky, Drake. What if one of the warheads comes loose?”

Drake ran around the side of the cab, firing at their attackers. “One bloody problem at a time. What are we — whiz kids?”

Alicia shot a pursuer. “More like ‘iffy bastards’ these days I’m afraid.”

Together, they leapt up to the flatbed and came face to face with the nuke.

“This works on two fronts,” Drake now said through the comms. “We can neutralize and detach at the same time.”

Hayden grunted. “Try not to sound so smug about it.”

“Yorkshiremen don’t do smug, love. We do simply awesome with just a dash of humility.”

“Plus a few thousand crap things.” Dahl sounded like he was running. “Yorkshire puddings. Terriers. Beer. Sporting teams. And that accent?”

Drake felt the truck starting to move beneath him. “Where’s the control panel, people?”

A tech answered immediately. “See the warhead is made up of approximately thirty curved panels? It’s the eighth one from the pointy end.”

“My kinda language.”

More shots rang out. Alicia was already concentrating on the pursuit. Mai had just leapt up onto the back of the flatbed. Now, she looked over the backend of the nuke.

“Bad news. The British are here.”

“I think we have the Chinese,” Dahl spoke.

“French,” Kinimaka said. “A new team.”

Drake leapt at the control panel. Do we know where the Sword of Mars is?”

“Yes, Matt. But I can’t exactly say it out loud now, can I?” a voice answered.

“Duh,” Dahl said.

Drake grimaced and pulled out a small electric screwdriver with a universal bit. Quickly, he undid eight bolts and let them drop out. He was faced with two small control panels the size of car satnav screens, a keyboard panel, and an array of flashing white symbols.

“Cyrillic,” he said. “Of course it is.”

“Can this day get any worse?” Alicia shouted across.

The Yorkshireman hung his head. “It bloody will now.”

The truck picked up speed, heading for the roller door. The British came in tight formation from the rear of the warehouse. The guards spread out all around them.

The nuke flashed, fully live, awaiting the launch code or the kill code.

Drake knew they had to move. He knew they couldn’t move. The only thing he didn’t know — who would die first?

The guards rushed first, firing. Drake was a large target, and unmoving, bullets flashed past Alicia, striking the warhead. For a second Drake’s life passed before his eyes, then Alicia felled one guard and Mai another. He saw more coming though and knew more came from their blind side. The white symbols flashed, a cursor blinked and waited.

“Do you think the guards might detonate?” Smyth said suddenly, quietly. “Could that be their orders?”

“Why would they die?” Kenzie asked.

“We’ve seen it before,” Kinimaka said. “Families receiving huge payouts, needed medical attention or desperate relocation when their family head dies. If they belong to a mafia or a triad for instance. It’s possible.”

Drake knew they couldn’t stay lucky much longer. Alicia managed to loosen a strap as the truck rolled along. Hopefully, the driver would see. But then would he care? Drake saw no other option.

He raced down the flatbed, toward the back, waving his arms madly.

“Wait! Stop, stop. Don’t shoot. I’m English!”

Dahl’s grunt said it all, no words needed.

Drake dropped to his knees at the back of the truck, the tail fin of the nuke to his left, hands in the air and facing the oncoming five-man SAS unit completely unarmed.

“We need your help,” he said. “There’s too much at stake for us to wage war.”

He saw a younger man switch to comms, saw two older men fix onto his face. Perhaps they would recognize him. Maybe they knew of Michael Crouch. He spoke again.

“I’m Matt Drake. Ex-SAS. Ex-soldier. Working for an international team of Special Forces called SPEAR. I trained at Hereford. I was trained by Crouch.”

The name registered, all of it. Two of the five weapons were lowered. Drake heard Alicia’s voice over the comms.

“You could mention my name too.”

He winced slightly. “Probably not the best idea, love.”

Mai and Alicia kept the guards at bay. Seconds passed. The British SAS soldiers fired on more approaching guards, ducking behind oil drums used to fill up the flat bed. Drake waited. The man with the radio finally finished.

“Matt Drake? I’m Cambridge. We met earlier. What do you need?”

Happy day, he thought. The SAS are on board.

“Help us secure this warehouse, stop this truck and neutralize that nuke,” he said. “In that order.”

The British jumped to it.

Splitting and running down both sides of the flatbed they picked off the oncoming guards, working beautifully as a team. Drake saw it and reveled, remembering the older days. There was a fluid grace to the movement of the team, a regal bearing and an implacable confidence. He’d thought SPEAR was the best team in the world, but now…

“Drake! Mai cried. “The nuke!”

Oh yeah. He raced back to the control panel, stared at the screens, the keyboard and the digits.

“Geeks?” he asked. “Do we know the code?”

“It could literally be anything,” someone answered.

“That’s not exactly fucking helpful, ya bloody bell-end.”

“Sorry. If we knew the identities of the Order we could try their birthdays?”

Drake knew he was talking to a man that didn’t care. It was a man they’d conversed with earlier, the obnoxious asshole.

Lauren shouted up, “You mentioned the Order. If they were here, they probably programmed the nukes. I can’t believe they wouldn’t leave a note of the codes.”

“Maybe there is no code, babe,” the asshole said. “Remember the signal you loosed by opening Geronimo’s grave? Maybe that happened here too, and armed the nukes.”

Drake stood back. “Shit, are they armed?”

“Fully. The flashing white symbols you see are numbers on countdown.”

Sharp ice water flooded his body and he could barely breathe. “How… how long?”

A cough. “Sixty-four seconds. Then you and your bastard brethren are history. The Order will forever reign supreme! They live through me! I am the Order!”

A scuffle and a large amount of shouting followed. Drake watched the seconds passing on his wristwatch.

“Hello? You there?” a young voice asked.

“Hi, mate,” Drake murmured. “We have thirty one seconds.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Your friend Lauren mentioned the Order. Well, they must have a kill code. And, since everything else is a part of the text, I just had a check through. Remember? It reads ‘the only kill code is when the Horsemen arose.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Drake wracked his brain, but could think of nothing but the descending second count. “Arose?” he repeated. “Woke up? Resurrected? Think how the Order thinks? How the Nazis meant it. If a Horseman arises he—”

“Is born,” the young voice said. “It’s their dates of birth, maybe? But it can’t be. Those eighties-era nukes usually have a three-digit kill code.” He sounded desperate.

Nineteen seconds until destruction.

Kenzie spoke up. “Three digit, you say? Usually?”

“Yes.”

Sixteen.

Drake looked around at Alicia, saw her crouched beside a strap, trying to unfasten it and shoot a guard at the same time. Saw her hair, her body, her amazing, astonishing spirit. Alicia…

Ten seconds.

Kenzie then shouted up, an affirmation of Dahl’s belief in her. “I have it. Try seven hundred.”

“Seven — oh — oh. Why?”

“Don’t ask. Just do it!”

The young techie gave Drake the Cyrillic number symbols and the Yorkshireman hit the buttons.

Four — three — two—

“It didn’t work,” he said.