The Nemesis Origin

XXVII

Ethan hauled himself out of his seat as he struggled to orientate himself, sparkling chunks of glass spilling from his hair. The truck had spun a hundred and eighty degrees after crashing onto its side, the cabin now facing back the way they had come. Ethan took immediate advantage of the cover provided by the rest of the vehicle as with one boot he kicked out what remained of the windscreen and clambered from the vehicle.

He slumped onto his knees and tried to clear his head. He looked up and saw that the traffic was being diverted around the scene by a series of bollards, as though workmen were busy digging in the road. But there were no workmen and now the crashed truck looked as though it was already cordoned off by police. Armed police.

The sound of running boots crunching on broken glass reached his ears. Ethan tucked himself in against the vehicle’s front fender, the smell of leaking oil acrid in the air as the damaged engine spilled its contents onto the asphalt. He heard the back of the truck being opened and the shouts of men commanding Lopez and Lucy to come out with their hands behind their heads. Russian accents, angry and determined.

Ethan knew that Lopez would probably have concealed her pistol somewhere on her person, but the voices sounded far too efficient to neglect to search for the weapon. He could not tell how many there were: only that he was seriously outnumbered.

Ethan gripped his pistol tighter and prepared to take on the first man that appeared at the front of the truck to check the cab. He knew he would only have seconds to disarm and take them hostage in the hopes that he could trade Lopez and Lucy for one of their own.

In the distance he could hear sirens, and suddenly he hoped that the law enforcement they were trying to evade might now come to their rescue. If he could only hold them off just a few more seconds…

‘Ethan Warner!’ The name was shouted out like an accusation. ‘We have them. Come out now with your hands insight!’

The sirens were still too far away, no doubt held up by the same traffic that had hindered their own escape. Ethan could hear nothing but the click of a pistol being cocked.

‘I’ll kill the Latino first,’ the voice growled.

Ethan cursed as he got to his feet with his hands in the air, the pistol held in plain sight as he got his first look at their attackers.

‘Step forward and put the gun down on the ground, now!’

Ethan placed his pistol on the ground and took a pace forward as three gunmen surrounded him. Lopez and Lucy were held between two men, and a sixth man was sitting in a vehicle nearby waiting for his colleagues to make their getaway.

The apparent leader of the group, a man with slick black hair and sly eyes whom Ethan assumed must be Vladimir Polkov, gestured to Ethan.

‘Hand over the quipu.’

‘I don’t have it,’ Ethan replied.

‘One of you does, and it’s going to end up in my hand in the next two seconds or we’ll be rummaging through your dead bodies for it.’

Ethan forced himself not to look at Lopez as he recalled her putting the quipu in her pocket. Instead, his mind was spinning as he tried to understand how it was that so many people had ended up pursuing them. The men at the museum were clearly American agents, and yet now they were being confronted by Russian mercenaries. He was attempting to put the two together when there was a sudden screech of rubber on asphalt and headlights swept across them all as three new SUVs pulled in, glossy black vehicles on private plates. The doors to the vehicles swung open as one, the occupants spilling out but remaining hidden behind the doors as they aimed pistols at the Russians and a sharp American voice yelled out.

‘Weapons on the ground!’

The Russians stared about themselves in amazement as they were suddenly outgunned and outnumbered. Ethan and Lopez likewise exchanged a stunned glance as they watched as the Americans weapons aimed at the Russians.

‘We’re going nowhere without the quipu!’ Vladimir yelled back as he grabbed Lucy Morgan as a human shield and pressed his pistol tight against her neck.

There was a moment of silence before the American replied. ‘Then we have ourselves a problem. You don’t hand her over, you’re going nowhere.’

The sirens became louder as they closed in on the scene of carnage, and this time Ethan thought he could heard the distant, rhythmic thump thump thump of helicopter blades surging through the night air.

‘You don’t hand over that quipu, nobody is going anywhere!’ Vladimir bellowed defiantly back.

Ethan was about to speak when Lucy Morgan called out. ‘Take the damned quipu and fight over it amongst yourselves!’

Ethan this time glanced at Lopez, and she pulled the quipu from her pocket and held it up in the air.

‘Is this what you’re looking for?’

The Russian yanked Lucy Morgan around, the pistol still pressed to her neck as his eyes locked onto the valuable artefact. ‘Hand it over now or I’ll ventilate her!’

‘Give up on the theatricals, Ivan,’ Lopez mocked. ‘You want the quipu, you let her go. You go back to your vehicle with me and we go for a little drive so the Americans don’t open fire and shred you and your goons, and I’ll hand it over before you take off.’

Vladimir peered at her suspiciously and at the massed ranks of Americans aiming their weapons at him. Then he shuffled over to Lopez’s side before hurriedly switching Lucy for Lopez and pressing the pistol against her neck.

‘You try anything, it’ll be the last thing that you do,’ Ethan heard him hiss to Lopez.

Ethan watched in silence, the Americans also making no move to intervene as the Russians began retreating towards their vehicle, Vladimir using Lopez as a human shield once again as he backed up against the side of the vehicle and climbed carefully into the rear passenger seat. He hesitated there for a moment as his men got on board, and then he pulled Lopez into the vehicle with him and shouted a command.

‘Go!’

The vehicle turned and accelerated away with the squeal of tires to vanish into the traffic flow seething past the crashed truck. Ethan turned and picked up his discarded pistol as he grabbed Lucy and pulled her out of sight behind the wreckage of the delivery truck.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Lucy demanded.

‘We don’t know who they are,’ Ethan replied as he peered around the edge of the damaged truck at the amassed vehicles.

‘Mr Warner,’ another American voice called, ‘it’s time to hand yourself over to the authorities before this gets out of hand.’

‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are!’ Ethan yelled back.

‘We’re running out of time,’ called the voice again. ‘If we don’t leave immediately we will all be under arrest, and I don’t believe that the DIA would want to have to dig you out of trouble overseas once again!’

Ethan frowned in surprise and cautiously stepped out, the pistol still held firmly in his grip as from around the side of the truck walked an old man in sharp suit, the dark blue fabric seeming almost black in the German night. The man walked with his hands in his pockets as casually as though he were taking an evening stroll, and he offered Ethan a laconic smile as though he had seen the destruction that surrounded Ethan all before: which he had, many times.

‘Jarvis,’ Ethan grasped, ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Ethan,’ Jarvis acknowledged him as he looked at the scene around them of crashed vehicles, bullet holes and traffic chaos. ‘Nice to see you’re still a dab hand at working under the radar, keeping yourself to yourself so to speak.’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Shall we leave?’ Jarvis asked casually. ‘I’d hate to have to deal with the paperwork required to clear up the mess you’ve made here, and I can explain everything on the way.’