Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (7 page)

Zhenya smiled at him and gave a small shrug.
“Don’t act so surprised, Dillon. It’s not as if you’re a blood
relative.”
Dillon knew then: knew that he would die. There were two
targets, both brandishing guns and the odds were against him dropping
them both in the blink of an eye... He was surely going to die, in that
kitchen under the bastard’s country castle. Murdered and so obviously
betrayed by... By who? And for what reason? What game was being
played here? And why was
he
the centre of attention all of a sudden?
“
Because you were always the target - you cock
,” whispered the stony
voice deep within his mind. A sudden calmness took over Dillon’s
mind - excitement made his finger-tips tingle - adrenalin pumped into
his heart - and Dillon knew exactly what he had to do...
Kirill was still standing a few feet away. He dabbed at his split lip
with a fore-finger and it came away flecked with blood. He waved the
heavy looking Browning in his right hand, his face a contorted animal
snarl. “I said drop your fucking weapon now!”
Dillon held both hands in the air as a sign of surrender, and then
began to stoop, as if to place the Glock on the ground.
Dillon blinked and the world changed from Technicolor to the
harsh black and white tones of a 1960’s film set. His brain screamed
at him; “
Do it now
...”
And, slowly, the merciless killer inside the darkest recess of
Dillon’s mind opened his eyes.

The scene was a stark colourless black and white picture. He
smiled at the blood smeared Kirill; the Glock felt good in his left
hand, reassuring, like an old friend. It had become a part of him, his
body and soul. It was held low as he stooped, at an angle. All it took
was a twitch.

Dillon flicked his wrist - faster than thought - and squeezed the
trigger.
Kirill was blown backwards, folding in half with a grunt of
expelled air, and he slumped, sprawling to the ground with a look of
sudden horror on his face. He dropped the gun. He looked down to
where his hands clutched a widening patch of crimson at his belly.
Dillon, in the same movement, spun on his heel, the Glock flashing
up sideways and, again, he pulled the trigger - the bullet smashed into
Zhenya’s shoulder, spinning her back to rebound from a tall stainless
steel cabinet. She hit the ground hard, moaning, blood splashing down
onto the cold stone floor, her small ornate Russian gun forgotten.
“Fucking devious woman,” snarled Dillon, and moved forward to
kneel beside Kirill.
“It takes a very long time and pain like you’ve never before
experienced to die from a stomach wound,” he said with malice. “It
really is going to hurt - a lot.” He smashed the butt of the Glock
across Kirill’s already broken nose. Kirill screamed out in pain - and
another two heavy blows silenced him, reducing his scream to a
foaming gurgle.
Dillon moved back across the room to the door at the rear of
the kitchen. He flicked open the mobile phone to scan the area for
anyone in the small preparation room on the other side. The device
was being jammed and every application; including normal phone
functions had been disabled. No scans. No location finder. Nothing.
Confusion wrenched his face as he realised that he was totally alone -
not even Vince Sharp could contact him.
Dillon searched the recesses of his mind - it took the blink of
an eye - then, opening the door, he ran across the room, vaulting
the stainless-steel worktop and toward the far wall, diving head long
into the rubbish chute, he pushed his way into the tight hole, kicked
at the stainless-steel base, and allowed himself to slide down and
out the other end into a large commercial size wheelie-bin that had,
thankfully, been emptied that morning.
The sound of rapid automatic gun-fire came from above.
Dillon climbed out and landed softly and looked around. He
was standing in an underground service area. He moved past pallets
and wooden crates towards the back of the room and a solid looking
door. He pushed it open, waited a few seconds, and when nothing
happened he crouched down low and rolled through the opening;
coming up to a squat with the Glock held out in front of him. He
checked left and then right, shifting his position to the cover of a large
upright pillar. The underground garage. He moved past various cars
covered with tailored protective covers. He halted, looking sideways
at a gleaming black Porsche 911 Carrera 4S - it took a second or two
for Dillon’s brain to register this. Then he ran forward to the ramp
and the wide Aluminium security roller shutter door leading from the
garage. He peered through the crack into total darkness. Dillon looked
down at the mobile phone in his hand, rolled it over gently in his palm
a couple of times and as if by magic the LED’s flickered and glowed
from the device. The app’s menu appeared and rotated around the
screen, Dillon tapped the screen twice and the colour of it changed
from blue to red and two spikes appeared at the base of the device.
He pressed the spikes against the electrical access panel to one side
of the roller door and the next instant the screen colour changed to
green and there was a sharp
click
and then a little smoke spiralled out
of the top of the casing. Silently, he eased the aluminium door up a
fraction.
Running back to the Porsche, he tried the door - locked. He
used the spikes on the phone, once again, to disarm the alarm and
override the vehicle’s locking system, then opened the driver’s door
leant in and felt for the ignition wiring. A few cuts. A few twists to
bypass the immobiliser and he was sitting behind the wheel gunning
the 3.6ltr flat-six engine, clutch dipped, into first, depress the throttle
to 6,000 revs.
Dillon settled back into to the leather sports seat and popped
the clutch.
The Carrera rear tyres gripped the tarmac and it shot up the
ramp and under the roller shutter door with barely six inches to spare.
Machine pistols on full automatic turned on Dillon as the Porsche
shot like a bullet down the gravel drive, the Glock thumping in
Dillon’s right hand. Skidding around the water fountain, Dillon blew a
hole in an Assassin’s head, that you could have driven a bus through,
with a single shot. He kept the revs high in second gear and the rear
wheels kicked up gravel as he drifted around the fountain one more
time before shooting off straight down the drive and away from the
three figures that ran from the gate-house with their machine pistols
blazing.
Bullets slammed into the side panels of the Porsche and Dillon
stamped on the throttle as the car hit 165 m.p.h. He held onto the
steering wheel like a limpet, an incredible grin across his face, the
Glock forgotten in the joy and concentration of controlling this
screaming insanity machine as the rev needle flickered on the redline.
Behind him, perhaps eight or ten black-masked figures swarmed
forward, and then suddenly halted. They watched the Porsche
disappear into darkness. Men were shouting - they jumped into 4x4s
and the black-clad Assassins leaped apart as the power of the V8
vehicles roared past in pursuit.
In the Porsche, Dillon had the audio system wound up to near
maximum and The Artic Monkeys blasting the night air. He spotted
the headlights far behind him, and another smile hijacked his face as
he drove the sports car even harder down the unlit lane surrounded by
thick woodland. He suddenly slowed, ventilated discs being gripped
and the nose of the car dipping under the harsh braking, and flicked
off the vehicles lights as the Porsche’s engine throttled back and the
rev needle flickered as he dropped down a couple of gears.
The V8 Range Rover engines approached at high speed. The
Glock kicked in Dillon’s hand as he emptied a full clip into the
windscreen of the lead vehicle. The Range Rover veered right and
slammed head-on into a large oak tree: a figure was flung through
the windscreen, a pulped corpse. Dillon blipped the accelerator pedal
and watched the rev counter dance. The rear wheels gripped as the
clutch was let out sharply; within seconds he had hit 100 m.p.h. and
again he switched on the lights as he took a slow left-hand bend.
As he came out the other side he opened the throttle again, his grin
broadened and the chase was forgotten as the Porsche was pushed to
the twitching 160 m.p.h. plus limits of the powerful engine’s ability.
“I just love fast cars,” Dillon said aloud.
Far behind, Kirill’s country residence blazed briefly as several
explosive devices located throughout the large building detonated one
after the other. Fire roared, ate, consumed - billowed up into the night
sky, causing Dillon to lock the Porsche’s wheels into a long broadside
skid, finally to halt and to glance back with an intense frown.
The explosions lit up the night - a vivid purple red in an otherwise
black sky.
Dillon selected first gear and let the clutch out with enthusiasm,
accelerating up the narrow road, leaving two streaks of burned rubber.
He disappeared into the blackness of the Cornish landscape.

Dillon sat in the ancient woods, listening to the rustling of leaves
in the light breeze and the gurgling of a small stream running nearby.
He was smoking a cigarette leant up against the twisted knurled trunk
of a three hundred year old oak tree. Nearby, well hidden, was the
scraped, scratched and mud-spattered Porsche behind a screen of
dense bushes.

Dillon wearily toyed with the mobile phone. He activated the
emergency homer, a bank of red, green and blue lights danced across
the touch-screen and, he felt it vibrate in the palm of his hand as the
state-of-the-art device started to send out its powerful signal to the
Ferran & Cardini International receiver in London. The longer he sat
there, the more effect the tranquil environment had on him. Dillon
felt the tension leave him and the sound of the running water was
having a soothing effect on his soul. But too many questions were
running around his head with no apparent answers to any of them.

The only thing that was obvious now - was that he had been
elaborately set-up.
Dillon felt a shiver run through his body; someone wanted him
dead - what was new about that. Somebody had wanted him dead
real fast. But why go to the trouble of inducing him out of his selfenforced retirement to undertake such an assignment? Of course -
to get him away from Scotland and into an environment where he
had little control... Somewhere he was totally on his own. If he was
supporting MI6 then he could not have been assigned to any other
Ferran & Cardini job.
And Zhenya.
Dillon shook his head. She had fooled him; and he had shot her.
She may be wounded or even dead and buried, and all to what end?
To kill
him
?
Kirill and Zhenya. They were both British Government... and
yet they had both tried to kill him. And it would seem that some of
the MI6 protection squad had been in on the betrayal... and those
explosions. What the fuck was that all about? And what in God’s
name had been going down back there?
After Dillon had started killing, events had taken on a dullness,
not dissimilar to a dream, without colour, or realness. The fury with
which he had automatically cut down anyone in his path had left a
sour feeling in his belly, and an empty void in his soul.
Dillon stared at the Glock in his hand. It had done its job - had
saved his life again as it had done many times before. But he was angry
at how he had been protecting his own would-be Assassin... and now
was she dead? Lying with Kirill in a cold freshly dug grave?
Dillon stood up and paced around the thick trunk of the oak
tree, stretching his back and rolling his neck, which cracked as it
realigned itself with the release of tension.
Why hadn’t they killed him earlier?
Dillon pondered. Maybe the explosions had been intended - not
just for him, but for the guests as well? But something had obviously
gone horribly wrong with their plan and he had messed it all up for
them, and so it had been left to Kirill and Zhenya to carry out the kill.
Maybe.
Dillon rolled the mobile phone in his palm, and then sent his
report to Ferran & Cardini.
What the hell, he thought. Let them figure it out! Maybe Vince
Sharp could discover what had happened when the signal to the
phone had disappeared as well...
Twenty minutes later, a low whomping sound made Dillon look
up through the canopy of the trees. The sound pounding over the
ancient wood.
Dillon held his position, safely concealed, while he patiently
waited for the helicopter to come into view. It hovered directly
overhead and then veered away to the right towards the clearing and
touched down. The
whump, whump,
of the rotors sent branches and
trees swaying and Dillon ran the hundred metres or so to the cockpit
and the serious face of Ferran & Cardini’s most experienced pilot,
Tony Brown.
“Come on, Dillon - hurry up,” he shouted. “We’ve got company
close by.”
“Company?”
Brown nodded as Dillon climbed into the cockpit of the modified
Bell Robinson four-man helicopter and belted himself in. “Put on the
spare helmet, will you. I may need your help. Whatever the hell you’ve
been up to down here, you’ve certainly stirred up a bloody hornet’s
nest. Ever used a helmet with a heads-up display before?”
“I had one in my own helicopter.”
“Why use the past-tense?”
“Because those bastards back there blew it up. That’s why you’re
here.”
“Oh. Well, let’s get this thing back in the air and as far away from
this place as possible.”
The Bell-Robinson’s powerful twin engines screamed and the
helicopter launched up into the total darkness of the night. Brown
veered left, the nose dipped and the next instant he was heading southeast, following the coast at an altitude of five hundred feet above the
white capped waves below.

The twin hulls of the American Navy
Sea Predator
stealth ship cut
through the tumultuous waters of the Barents Sea, pushed forward
at forty-five knots by its nuclear powered turbines. A vessel alone in
dark waters, seventy-five miles west of the Russian island of Ostrov
Kolguev.