The Plagues of Pandora

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

Drake roared the black Augusta up the curb, taking flight over the sidewalk, touching down inside the warehouse’s grounds and almost clipping the back of the braking Alfa Romeo. Before the car stopped Alicia was out of the driver’s seat and already in her stride, Mai doing the same from the passenger side. Drake let the Augusta fall, jumping to the side. Trent swung out of the rear of the Alfa.

The second car dispersed the rest of their team as engines roared from the rear of the lengthy, blue-panel corrugated structure. Drake headed toward a half-open roller-shutter front door, then hesitated.

“Shit, if the truck was a diversion that could be—”

“The real thing?” Smyth was white with worry, standing over Lauren who rested in the back of the second car.

Hayden paused, caught between two impossible choices. “Damn!” Her gaze snapped to Lauren, then the warehouse. “I don’t… I don’t…”

It was the first time Drake had ever seen her stumble.

Kinimaka placed an enormous hand on her shoulder. “We have the manpower for both.”

Hayden nodded, snapping back to routine. “Drake’s team, since you’re already practically inside, take the warehouse. We’ll stop whatever comes around this goddamn corner!”

“Hope it’s not a tank,” Alicia wisecracked from near the roller-shutter door.

“Doesn’t matter what comes around,” Smyth snarled. “Party’s over for these motherfuckers.”

Drake urged his team into the dim innards of the warehouse. Instantly, they were beset. The place itself was outfitted much the same way as the first facility back in Greece, half a dozen tables stretched down the middle of the space, each one equipped with laboratory supplies and computers. No chairs were in evidence. Glass phials and test tubes, jugs and juice containers, deep freezers and lighted display cabinets were everywhere. Drake came to a sudden halt when he was faced by a dozen men in white lab coats.

To a man they looked terrified.

Somewhere, a gun was cocked.

And a voice roared out, “Yer again, may the devil choke yer and yer feckin’ mother’s offspring. This time yer feckin’ dead, yer hear? Dead!”

The blood-crazed mercenary, Callan Dudley, opened fire, blasting apart the laboratory workers who, moments ago, had been helping him with the Pandora’s Box plague samples. The first thing Drake knew was the red spots appearing on the white coats, then the stumbling figures and shattered midriffs.

“Down!” he screamed. “Get down!”

Hayden raced to the side of the warehouse just as three black Jaguar XFs came into sight. Engines roaring, windows totally blacked out so that they appeared to be low-slung monsters, enormous grilles like bared teeth, they were speeding down the narrow driveway toward her.

She jerked back, Kinimaka at her side. “They mean business, guys! I’d be guessing if I said this was the antidote on its way to the Pythians but, either way, they need stopping.”

“Any news from the white truck?” Karin asked.

“Yes. The police are there now, examining the dead mercenaries. Nothing has been found either on them or inside the truck.”

“So it was a diversion.”

“Who knows? We can only deal with what’s in front of us.”

Her words became immediately prophetic as the three powerful black cars shot past toward the road, the last in line slewing across the gravel before its driver managed to get it under control. Hayden jumped into the discarded Alfa with Kinimaka and Karin and urged Collins, Smyth and Komodo back into the vehicle they’d arrived in — a bright red, four-door Lexus.

Together, they peeled out in pursuit.

“Get up close!” Smyth had strapped Lauren in as tightly as he could and was leaning across the back seat now, rifle in hand. “Give me a terrorist to shoot.”

Collins bounced around the passenger seat. “Almost there, man. You gonna fight me for the privilege of wasting these assholes?”

“Damn right I am.”

As the three Jaguars snarled down Kister Road, heading hard toward the north, the Alfa and the Lexus coaxed enough speed and power out of their engines to pull alongside. Suddenly it was a five-vehicle chase without a car’s length between them, the antidote to a deadly aerosolized plague being the prize.

Smyth powered down his own window just as all three Jaguars powered down theirs.

Guns bristled through the openings.

“Now we’re fucking talking,” the Delta soldier rasped.

Crouch’s vision was filled by a tremendous, all-encompassing cascade of furious white water. This was the Horseshoe Falls, one of three that made up the great cataract and by far the most powerful. One hundred and sixty five feet straight down, the raging torrent dropped in freefall, sending spray blooming into the atmosphere and colorful rainbows arcing over the landscape. Crouch had read somewhere that over four million cubic feet of water traveled over the falls every single minute, a figure that was almost impossible to comprehend. From this position, however, it wasn’t difficult at all.

“Pull up!” Caitlyn cried.

Crouch saw the large white ship below them, famously known as the Maid of the Mist. And in spectacular fashion a vast wall of mist was even now pluming upward. The chopper almost skimmed waves as it dropped low, then shot up before the great falls. Water spray enshrouded it, billowing past. One of the mercenary helos paced them, almost alongside, its occupants leaning out and trying to shoot him down.

Then Russo’s machine was barreling in from the side, Silk and Radford locked on with their weapons. Their shots smacked home on target, puncturing metal skin and glass windows and then the bodies inside. The chopper groaned and went into freefall, plunging through the mists and the turmoil of water to the harsh rocks below.

An explosion rocked the base of the falls, fire competing with water for a few brief seconds before the deluge consumed all.

Crouch swept up over the top of the falls, attention fragmented by the beauty of the sweeping horseshoe and the nearby Bridal Veil Falls, the colossal width of the river, and the stretch of railing to his right where hundreds of people stood watching.

No time for niceties, Michael.

He swung the bird around, sprayed by water, momentarily lining up with Russo’s own deadly whirlybird, before shooting off in a different direction. This time he swooped down vertically with the water, almost matching the falls’ deluge foot for foot, watching as the drifting ship below grew closer and closer. Faint flashes sparkled from down there; tourists taking photos. Crouch leaned his bird over, allowing Healey to fire out of what was now effectively the “top”. Ignoring the engine’s groaning complaints he saw Healey fire into the undercarriage of another merc chopper, making the whole frame judder. As he righted his own machine he saw Russo dipping down under fire, following the great curve of the Horseshoe Falls, blasted by water and mist.

Healey fired once more, sending another merc chopper into the hungry waters below. Now they were two on two and Crouch didn’t expect their good fortune to last much longer. A moment later he cursed himself, realizing he’d tempted fate as his own windscreen cracked under fire. Not only that, as he evaded and swung away he was faced by a different bird, this one with a man leaning out of the door and an RPG in hand.

“Evade!” Caitlyn screamed.

Crouch shoved the stick almost through the floor as Healey yelled and the weapon discharged. Yorgi smashed his skull against the door’s metal frame, drawing blood and almost losing his grip on his weapon. The RPG skimmed them with a whistle, passing through the white cascade and detonating soundlessly against the wall of the falls. Crouch veered around as their enemy prepped another rocket.

“Healey!” he cried.

The soldier turned but he was on the wrong side. Yorgi, holding his weapon clumsily and wiping blood across his cheeks, sighted their adversary.

“I may not be good shot. But you, my friend, are worth whole clip.”

He kept his finger depressed until the man with the RPG fell from the chopper, swallowed by churning waters. Unfortunately he dropped the grenade launcher inside the chopper and it was picked up by another man.

Crouch blasted forward again, crisscrossing Russo’s own path but fifty feet below. His route took him up and over the concrete viewing deck which sent uncountable tourists and locals scrambling to safety.

Russo thundered above the falls once more, the sound of his rotors scything through the air muted but not lost under the overwhelming noise of flowing water.

Crouch touched his comms. “Remember your training, Russo. Get on their tails. Let’s finish this.”

Drake rolled and tucked, escaping any stray bullets as the twelve lab rats went down screaming. To either side he saw Alicia and Mai, Dahl and Trent jumping for cover but also carefully watching their rear to gauge what was going to happen next.

As the scientists went down Callan Dudley was revealed, tall, brawny and sneering, eyes wild with promised violence. Alongside him were six men, all toting weapons.

“Ain’t no cures here, arsehole. Yer bitch is as good as dead! The antidote, as they say, just left the building.”

Drake relayed the information through his comms.

Alicia glanced from behind a low-standing freezer. “Do you ever stop talking? You’re louder than a friggin’ space shuttle launch.”

“Oh aye? Well come out here, bitch, and we’ll do more than blather.”

“If that means ‘talk’ then all right.”

Drake wasn’t caught unawares by Alicia’s sudden move. He knew her well enough by now to be expecting it. When she popped up from behind the freezer he rose too. Mai fell to the floor to their right, already firing. Bullets formed a lattice network in the air, a lethal grid of death. Alicia took a hit to the chest, Trent to the arm. By design, both wore Kevlar and neither faltered. Drake didn’t fail to notice that Alicia stayed on her feet when hit but hoped the intense situation would make her forget.

Dudley paced forward with all the arrogance and rolling shoulders of a prize fighter. He wore a white vest that showed off brawny arm muscles and faded tattoos, tight blue jeans and highly polished Doc Martens. He flung his gun at Alicia as she shrugged off the bullet.

“Yer goin’ on yer back, bitch.”

Alicia’s smile was as sweet as honey. “You clearly don’t know me very well.”

Dudley punched hard like a boxer, keeping his right fist at his cheek as his left probed with exploratory jabs. Alicia palmed the hits away, light on her feet, always moving. Drake snaked around the side of the large space, coming up on a mercenary about to take a shot at Alicia.

“Ey up!”

Confusion was his final expression before a bullet ended his contract with the Pythians.

Drake pushed on. Dahl was a bulldozer barging down the middle, leaping from table to table onto intimidated mercs. Mai swept up behind him, rendering his wounded victims unconscious before they could rise and cause further problems.

Trent crouched at Drake’s side. “Alicia Myles,” he said. “I’ve heard stories about her. The real thing is a little different. More… rousing.”

Drake moved through a tangled network of what appeared to be oil barrels, tracking two more mercs. “Oh aye. We keep hoping she’ll settle down. Take up PlayStation or something.”

“That may not help. My kid, Mikey, has one. Even makes him crazy.”

“Shit. We’ll keep video games behind a childproof lock then.”

Drake tackled a barrel like an American footballer, hitting hard, forcing it back and then over… right on top of the man sheltering behind it. The rim of the barrel struck just above the man’s eyes, leaving him bloody and unconscious. Drake sprawled atop him.

In full view of the second merc’s raised rifle.

Trent vaulted his own barrel, both feet connecting heavily with the merc’s skull. His shot, a reaction, went wild as his body slumped to the ground.

Drake spun, intent on the others. Alicia was still circling Dudley, a bruise on her cheek revealing that he’d made it past her defenses at least once. The arrival of more mercs took Drake’s attention.

Alicia had had enough of letting Dudley take the lead. It wasn’t her way. She’d already purposely given him a way through her defenses. When he tried a second time she was ready, feinting at the last moment and ducking in.

Up close.

She delivered a flurry of punches. Ribs, solar plexus and gut. The Irishman’s muscles absorbed the worst of it, but Alicia was no soft touch and she drove him back. Suddenly his onslaught was forgotten as he tried to cover up.

Alicia used her feet. A strike to the knee made Dudley stagger. As he went down Alicia stepped in, only to walk straight onto a powerful rising uppercut. If the blow had connected under her chin it would have been lights out at the very least. As it was, the blow smashed into her sternum and clipped her chin, making her bend double and then fall to one knee.

She couldn’t remember ever being hit so hard.

Dudley danced away, skipping his feet from side to side. “Ah, yeah! Gotcha! Yer won’t beat ole Callan Dudley in a bout o’ boxin’, little love. Champ o’ the Irish underground I was, and then some. Now let’s put yer on yer back.”

He kicked out, aiming for her face. Alicia rolled backwards, coming up on her feet and trying to mask her pain. Dudley wasted another minute of his advantage rapping at her and then advanced again in a boxer’s stance. Alicia saw she was going to have to break this bastard out of his comfort zone.

Drake finished the mercs off with a low grenade, ducking as explosive debris saturated the air. Trent caught a loner by the neck and fought hard for a few moments before the man collapsed. Mai caught the attention of two more.

Their decision to take her on directly proved to be a bad one.

Drake paused at the side of one of the lengthy tables. A computer screen flickered alongside him. Comms chatter had been crackling along quite efficiently throughout the battle. He already knew that Crouch and team were engaged above Niagara Falls and Hayden’s team were involved in a road-warrior battle with three Jags.

Dudley’s voice brought him back to the moment. “Stand still while I hit ya. Yer like a feckin’ meerkat popping up and down like that!”

Alicia jabbed at his throat, shutting him up. Drake moved toward her from her left, Dahl from her right, but the Englishwoman stepped back and held up a hand.

“No,” she said. “Sometimes you just gotta fight crazy with crazy. This one’s mine.”

Drake didn’t like it, but knew better than to ignore her. Dahl pulled up too, but kept his gun handy.

Alicia took a blow to the forehead, feinted right and again dived in. Dudley was a pure boxer, he didn’t like his legs messed with. Alicia kicked his knees, his thighs and then clasped him tight, bringing a knee up to the groin. When his eyes bulged she pushed him away, hard.

Dudley gasped. Alicia leaped in again, nose to nose, chest to chest. “A hit to the plums and you’re suddenly a jelly? Pathetic!”

She repeated the move. Dudley caught his breath without making more than a brief shriek, threw another cross-jab at her, but the attempt was unfocused, weak. Alicia stepped in once more.

Dudley rose, all power and lethal ability, again faking the hurt in an effort to draw his quarry in.

Alicia saw the about-turn too late, saw it in his eyes a moment after she was totally committed. This is it then, she thought. The killing blow. Dudley had engineered this opening by sacrificing his nuts and would be putting all of his homicidal strength into this move.

But only as Alicia had anticipated. Yes it was risky, but she wagered that an Irish brawler of Dudley’s obvious prowess wouldn’t balk too much at a blow to the gonads. Probably even enjoyed it. So she faked it, faked the final step in so he would at last show his hand.

And Dudley did. He swung upward and with every ounce of strength, missing Alicia by a whisker and exposing his entire body below the chin.

Alicia had been trained to take a man out with a single blow. Now, with every inch of Dudley unprotected she delivered more than half a dozen to his vital areas. The sack of meat that hit the ground a moment later was fully incapacitated, unable even to crawl.

Drake leaped over with a set of plastic ties.

“Aw.” Alicia tried not to show her pain. “My trusty, obedient bunny.”

Dahl approached, one hand touching the comms set fastened to his ear. “About bloody time!” he shouted. “Hurry it up. We have a lead on the Pythians’ HQ!”

“And the antidote?” Mai asked.

“They’re fighting for it,” Trent replied, stern face looking worried. “They’re sure fighting for it.”