The Four Corners of the Earth

CHAPTER FORTY

“Yeah,” Kenzie came back. “It did.”

Of course, she’d disarmed their own and Lauren had disarmed theirs. Drake looked down the body of the nuke to Mai, where she stood in front of another keypad. All six nukes had been disarmed.

He stared at his watch. “We were at less than a second,” he said.

All around the SAS made short work of the guards. Alicia undid a second strap and the warhead shifted slightly. Drake felt it picking up speed as it approached the roller doors.

“Anyone stopped their truck yet?”

“I’m on it!” Kenzie cried. “Literally!”

“Not a chance,” Kinimaka said. “The French are everywhere the guards aren’t. It’s a riot in here.”

Drake watched the SAS dealing with the guards; Alicia tugging at another strap and Mai flinging a guard against the truck’s rear tire.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” The SPEAR team were unbelievably stretched.

“I can see something else going on,” the young tech began. “I—”

Their link to Washington went dead.

“Say again?” Drake tried.

Ominous silence was his only reply.

“Shit, this can’t be good.” Drake swept the entire warehouse.

SEAL Team 7 hit them like all hell exploding.

Dahl ran behind the truck as it approached the roller doors of Warehouse 18. The Chinese raced across the front of the rumbling truck, heading for the far side door. They fired crosswise as they ran. Guards tried to stop them. Chinese Special Forces decimated them with bullets and hand-to-hand. Hayden was unlucky enough to be at the front of the flatbed when the action began.

She broke a guard’s neck, then used his body to shield her as the Chinese opened fire indiscriminately. Bullets thudding into the body sent her backward. Her shield flopped. Dropping him, she leapt behind one of the forward, rumbling tires, walking behind it as it rolled forward. The Chinese crossed the front of the truck.

Dahl laid down fire, sending them scattering like bowling pins. Incredible to watch, it served to demonstrate their almost inhuman reaction. Even leaping away they returned fire.

Dahl took cover hastily, ducking behind the truck, then peeked out and fired more rounds. The Chinese were momentarily pinned down as guards came at them from behind. Dahl glanced over at Kenzie.

Not where she was supposed to be.

“Kenz? You okay?”

“Oh yeah, just picking up an old friend.”

Dahl turned instinctively, saw her rummaging inside the crates, her head well inside, stomach perched on the edge of the lid, ass high in the air.

“That’s a little off-putting.”

“What? Oh, missing the wife? She might be cooler than you are, Torst, but remember — that only makes you hotter than she is.”

He looked away, feeling torn. He lived in that state between marriage and divorce, and yet with the chance to do something about it all. What on earth was he doing here?

My job.

The Chinese burst into action again, shredding the approaching guards with machine-gun fire and pinning Dahl and Hayden down. The Swede turned to see Kenzie slithering out of a wooden crate.

“Oh, balls. Really?”

She held a new gleaming katana before her eyes, blade up. “I just knew I would find one if I dug deep enough. Robbers can’t resist a sword.”

“Where’s the bloody Sword of Mars?”

“Oh, I dropped it in the crate.”

“Damn!”

She ran, sword in one hand, machine pistol in the other, then vaulted right back onto the bed of the truck, a blur before Dahl’s eyes. Dropping the katana she opened fire at the running Chinese.

“Where are they going?”

“Warehouse 17,” Dahl said. “And we have to go with them.”

Lauren saw the French contingent attack from the right side of Warehouse 19. Kinimaka and Smyth were already over in that direction and engaged immediately. Yorgi was crouched behind barrels, taking potshots at the guards. Lauren felt her heart lurch when the truck carrying the two nukes moved forward.

Remembering all that had been said, she jumped atop the truck, using the wheels for purchase. Then she set about loosening the first strap. If they could make the load highly unstable the trucks would be forced to stop. She poked her head up, peering over the nuke by stepping onto one of the large chocks, and saw Smyth fist fighting with one of the French guys.

DC came in over the comms. “Just confirmed by an agent in Paris. Remember Armand Argento? He’s helped you guys a few times over the years. Well, he says the French contingent are unsanctioned. Totally. There could be some savage warfare inside there.”

Lauren gulped and watched Smyth fall backward, going down on one knee. The Frenchman above him took hold of his hair, tore a strip from the roots and threw it aside. Smyth cried out. A knee to the nose sent him reeling. The French guy jumped on top. Smyth struggled. Lauren looked from him to Kinimaka to Yorgi, the nuclear warhead and the approaching shutter doors.

What do I do?

Make some goddamn noise.

She emptied the magazine of her Glock high above the enemies’ heads, making them flinch and duck. It gave Smyth and Kinimaka precious seconds. Smyth saw space and fired up into it, felling his attacker. Kinimaka broke a man’s neck, another’s face, and shot point blank into a third, sending him reeling, out of the battle.

One Frenchman remained.

Lauren dropped as a bullet clanged off the shell of the nuke. How scary was it that it didn’t even bother her? How inured had she become? But she was part of this team and determined to stay with it as long as they would have her. She’d found this family, and would support it.

The enormous truck picked up rapid speed as it accelerated hard, straight at the roller shutter door, impacting it, making the front cab rebound slightly, and then smashing straight through.

Lauren threw herself down onto the bed of the truck.

Drake winced as the SEALs engaged the SAS and SPEAR alongside a moving nuclear warhead, wondering if any battle could get more fucked up, or become more deadly than this. A few words from the comms told him it most certainly could.

All three trucks, carrying six nukes, burst through the roller shutter doors at the same time. Metal shrapnel flew everywhere as the ripped-open doors sagged. The trucks bounced through. Men leapt at the trucks, jumping aboard, sensing they would only pick up speed. Drake now saw two Chinese soldiers sprinting alongside. He steadied himself on the flatbed, and saw Alicia and Mai further back, sheltering behind one of the wooden chocks. The nuke shifted as they hit one of the world’s biggest potholes.

Drake cringed. If the enormous, heavy weapon freed from its chocks and broke its straps they were all in trouble.

Out into the daylight they raced. Twenty miles per hour and then thirty, the three flatbeds roared as their drivers hit the gas pedal. A wide open road opened out ahead, almost straight toward the base exit about two miles away. Now alongside each other, Drake could look across from his own truck to Dahl’s and then to Kinimaka’s. The sight of massive, shifting nuclear missiles, battling men alongside, guns being fired, knives and fists being used, people being thrown off, no quarter given, the road bending and all three trucks downshifting into the turn, stunned him to the core. It was a bedlam of greed and violence, a glimpse into Hell.

But now the SEALs took his full attention.

Four strong, they had first attacked the SAS, taking one down without concern. The British rallied and came back hard, forcing the SEALs to take cover. Four men now ran behind the trucks, hoping to jump aboard. The SAS commander, Cambridge, fought hand to hand with a SEAL, both taking blows. Mai and Alicia were busy kicking off guards and trying to find a hole in the melee.

Drake came face to face with the SEAL team leader. “Why?” he said.

“Don’t ask questions,” the man growled and came at Drake. The blows were precise and incredibly harsh, much like his own. He blocked, felt the pain from those blocks, and punched back. He kicked solidly. A knife appeared in the other man’s hand. Drake parried it with his own, sending both weapons flickering away and off the truck.

“Why?” he said again.

“You fucked up. You and your crew.”

“How?” Drake backpedalled to gain some space.

“And why would the bastards want to kill us?” Alicia asked, popping up behind the man.

He struck instantly, catching her across the temple. Drake shoved a boot into his kidneys, and watched him fall. Alicia planted her own foot into his face. Together, they threw him spinning over the side.

Ahead, the road widened.

Mai dispatched two guards. Another SAS man went down and now the British and the Americans were evenly matched. Three versus three. Drake saw the two Chinese he’d seen earlier creep like spiders over the top of the nuke.

“Watch it!”

Too late. They fell upon him.

Dahl knew, in essence, that they were headed to Romania. That was good. It was the half-hour-long drive that might kill them before they got there.

He fought the Chinese and the guards, kicked them back and found they jumped up, wanting more. The Chinese slipped around his guard, hitting with force, and twice almost skewering him with their wicked blades. More guards surrounded him. Hayden resorted to flinging them off the truck until their numbers wilted.

At the rear, Kenzie dispatched the last of her enemies. The machine gun was empty, the katana dripping red. She stalked back up the flatbed, now narrowing her eyes as two Chinese came at her together, stabbing with knives. She parried, stepping around. They pulled guns. She leapt into their faces, surprising them. A shot went under her arm, glancing off the nuke. She found herself next to one of the chocks with a handgun pointed at her face.

“Crap.”

The only way was up. She kicked the arm that held the gun, flinging it away, and then scrambled up the chock and onto the body of the nuke. She reached the top, found it was simply a gentle curve up there, but hazardous to balance. Instead, she sat astride the nuke, katana in hand.

“Come and fucking get me!” she screamed. “If you dare.”

They went up fast, perfectly balanced. Kenzie stood on top of the warhead, twirling her sword and they came at her with knives. A thrust and a swipe. She parried, but they drew blood. It spattered onto the missile. The truck jounced at thirty miles per hour. The Chinese adjusted supremely. Kenzie lost her balance, slipped, and once again fell astride the missile.

“Ow.”

The wind gusted through her hair, cold as a freezer. A knife came down at her. She switched the katana to the other hand, caught the wrist between her fingers and then jerked harshly to the side. The wrist broke, the knife fell. She wrenched the body that way too, and saw it fly headfirst from the truck. The second man was already attacking. Kenzie threw the katana back to her right hand and let him run right into the point. He hung for a moment until Kenzie cast him aside.

Then she looked down from her perch atop the nuke, katana blade dripping blood onto those that battled below.

“Two Chinese down. Three to go.”

Alicia was looking over at her from her won truck, having watched the battle atop the warhead. “That looked so friggin’ awesome,” she said. “I do believe I have an erection.”

Dahl stared up at her from his own truck. “Me too.”

But then the warhead began to shift.