Gun Metal Heart (33 page)

She hunkered down again, now holding almost six feet of wiry antenna in her left hand.

 

Forty-Two

In the van, Winslow retasked the drones to head for the Parliament building. That meant removing two of the three Hotspurs, the birds that were loaded with the ten-inch-long pyrophoric rockets. He left one Hotspur behind for the annoying Israeli. That drone had fired twice—once at Petrovic, once at Daria—and still had four rounds left.

Daria had “killed” two of the Mercutio spotters, leaving six. Winslow assigned four to go with the rocket-launching drones, leaving two to find Daria.

The Chinese embassy grounds are across the street and one block down from Parliament. It took his drones less than fifteen seconds to get back on target.

Both Hotspur drones arced toward the capital building. One drone fired. Relieved of the additional weight, it arced sharply upward.

Dragan Petrovic had been the last established target, so the missile defaulted and aimed for Petrovic's office.

The explosion knocked out windows in a two-block radius.

The missile's external blast-fragmentation sleeves disintegrated on impact, multiplying the effects of the carnage. The pyrophoric nature of the weapon meant that everything in the foreign minister's office—including Dragan Petrovic—instantly ignited.

*   *   *

Daria, hunkered behind the Kamaz truck, went to her knees, and covered her ears as the office in the Parliament building disintegrated. She listened as glass and concrete and plastic and metal clattered into the street. Cars began smashing into each other in blind panic.

*   *   *

The explosions shook the ambassador's residence. The lights flickered, failed, then stuttered back on. Marines and Deputy Chief of Mission Allison Duffy were the first to react.

The blond TV presenter in high-fashion leather ensemble and stilettos hardly reacted at all. Same for her camera crew. They'd been waiting for the explosion.

Serbians older than thirty know the sound of buildings exploding. People began streaming for the exits.

Not knowing if the embassy was under attack, the Marine captain in charge of security decided the best bet was to get out of the way of the civilians who wanted to flee. He spoke into his shoulder mic, and his men threw open the double doors to the front of the residence.

Some guests and staff streamed out. Some stayed inside, hoping that was the safer bet.

None of the Marines noticed John Broom, dressed like everyone else, slip into the courtyard, then into the embassy, amid the tumult. He stumbled on a tote bag a woman must have dropped as she fled. John rummaged through it and found a cell phone. He dialed an international number from memory.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon D.C. time. One of the four summer interns in Senator Singer Cavanaugh's office answered. Before she could go through her greeting ritual, John shouted, “It's Broom! I'm in Serbia! I'm in trouble!”

“John! It's Piper. We miss you! What—”

He found a walk-in coat closet that provided a modicum of privacy. “Kinda under fire here, Piper! I need help, quick!”

“You need the senator?” she asked.

“Nope. I need you! And Bryce and Ryder and Paige!”

Among the people who did not panic was the seniormost representative from the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Professor Zoran Antic limped gingerly over to the TV news crew. Both camera operators snapped on their lights, lifted their rigs to their shoulders, and aimed at the old man.

Viorica moved past him without a word. She wended her way deftly between jittery civilians. She got to the stairs that led upward.

Seconds later, General Howard Cathcart raced downstairs. He'd been up on the second story balcony, looking for the so-called Major Arcana to show. At the foot of the stairs he skidded to a halt in his well-shined shoes, mouth agape, seeing the woman he'd been looking for.

“General. Hello!” she said in English, flashing her radiant smile. “Are you ready for your close-up?”

She pivoted and kicked him in the knee. The joint hyperextended, the anterior cruciate ligament tearing.

The general fell like a guillotine.

*   *   *

The Afrikaaner hitman, Danziger, was safe enough behind the silver van. He'd shielded his ears when the first drone strike had destroyed the third-story office, kitty-corner from his position.

The hacker, Winslow, was doing his part. Time for Danziger to do his.

Danziger peeked out from behind the van. The Israeli woman fired. Danziger ducked back behind the van. She couldn't hit him, but she kept on firing. Five shots. Eight. Ten.

Amateur!
he thought.
Dumb enough to waste bullets on a man hiding behind a van. What could she have been…?

The pure stupidity of his position hit him like the physical blow.

The Israeli wasn't firing at him, hiding behind the van. She was firing
at
the van.

It's fine to hide behind a van during a firefight. But not inside one. Few .45s can penetrate both walls of a van but most can penetrate one. Danziger scrambled for the front passengerside door of the van, ripped it open, clamored in.

Too-white light from the ground-floor floods poured in through holes in the van's wall. Winslow lay on the floor, holding his upper thigh, keening in pain. Blood oozed from between his clutching fingers.

Inky, acidic smoke curled up from three of his ruined monitors.

Danziger screamed into his head set. “Winslow's down! She's taking out the computers!”

*   *   *

In the ambassador's residence, Viorica heard the call. She made eye contact with her camera crew
,
tossed the microphone to the rigger, and sprinted for the door.

She passed John Broom without recognizing him.

John was talking on the stolen cell phone. He recognized her but was too late to stop her.

*   *   *

Daria emptied the second Makarov into the side of the silver van. She tossed the weapon aside. Nothing to do now but wait.

She'd hoped she'd done enough damage to the van—the transceiver array on the roof suggested that that was how they were directing the Flying Monkeys. But she hugged herself against the tireless rim of a truck wheel as one of the hawks swooped in and fired a .22 into the ground, an inch from her knee.

She could only see one hawk now. The other two must be vectoring for the Parliament building.

There had been no further explosions. That counted as some sort of good news.

She heard the unartful pounding of the big man's size-fifteen boots tearing across the ruptured cement patio. The man fired a few rounds in the general direction of the Russian truck to keep Daria pinned down. His plan was to overpower her with his speed, size, and weapon while the drone overhead circled and set up for a shot.

The man would come in on her left, on his right. She'd seen it in the way he moved. Right-handed, right-footed, right-eyed. The fellow wouldn't go to his left to get out of a burning building.

Daria calculated the gyre of the hawk—ten seconds to get back into a shooting glide path.

*   *   *

Danziger rounded the bulky, rusted-out Kamaz, expecting to be shot at any second. He was a very, very big man, capable of running very, very fast. Shooting a big, fast man rarely stops him in his tracks. They still tend to move forward, even if wounded. And he was willing to bet his life he could round the truck and be on top of the damned Israeli before she fired a killing shot.

He fired one more blind bullet to keep her head down, roared out his rage, and sprinted around the truck.

There was no way she could tell which direction he'd come from. Chances were, she'd be facing away from him.

She wasn't.

And insanely, the Israeli had moved
toward him
, not away.

Danziger's brain registered pain. Lightning hit him, and his body spasmed, feet landing wrong, momentum turned from friend to foe in the blink of a thought. His vision blurred and his pain receptors maxed out. He plowed, headfirst like a base-stealer, into the raised and ruined cement pavers. He skidded, his nose breaking. His SIG clattering away.

He had no idea what she'd done to him.

Daria used the whip aerial from the truck as if it were a real whip. The springy metal antenna, six feet long, sliced into Danziger's face, from the upper left to the lower right, and across his chest and his right biceps. With Daria's full weight behind the blow, the aerial had sliced through skin and tendons, and scored bones.

The man crash-landed. His head ricocheted off the cement and blood spattered in a hundred-degree arc.

Daria counted down in her head. The hawk would be back in five seconds.

She turned and snapped the whip antenna again, this time severing the man's carotid artery. The blood geyser was most impressive.

Daria circled the pulsing gush of blood, gathered the man's SIG, and hauled ass toward the silver van. Her boots chewed up the distance.

The hawk would be back in two seconds.

She ran and the hawk completed its turn, firing at her from above.

But she'd made her run crosswise to its gyre—running to the inside of its circular course. That forced the hawk into too tight a turn, and it couldn't compensate for the moving target.

The bullet embedded itself in a paver three meters behind her.

Ten more seconds for the bird to come around again.

Daria got to the van, threw open the back door, gun aimed inside.

She found a smallish man, dressed as a civilian, lying on his side, screaming bloody murder, his arms and legs soaked with blood.

She glanced out just in time to see Viorica, wearing haute couture and impossible heels, sprint across Avenue Kralja Milana. The tall blonde drew a Glock from a handbag—a nice Prada piece, Daria noted wryly.

Viorica hit the gate of the security fence and it flew open.

Daria ducked into the van, thinking,
Splendid. Spring heroically over the gate, you bloody great idiot. Don't bother to check if it's locked.

 

Forty-Three

In the U.S. ambassador's residence Zoran Antic told the camera operator to start rolling.

The film crew looked at each other. “The major's orders were to wait for the full explosions.”

“And she has run off to assure that they happen,” the old man hissed. He had ordered his entourage to line up behind him. “We are running out of time. Begin the broadcast.”

The rigger knelt and began adjusting controls on his portable production unit. The speech from inside the ambassador's residence would be broadcast, live, throughout Central Europe. Thanks to the lash-up to the embassy's own communications array.

The same array through which the drones were being run.

*   *   *

Daria ducked low behind the van's computer array as Viorica's bullets began penetrating the side of the van. The embassy's powerful floodlights were on that side of the van, and each bullet hole produced a conical blast of light, illuminating the growing haze of acrid smoke from the burned-out computers.

The Englishman lay in the fetal position and howled in pain. The amount of blood he'd lost suggested Daria had clipped his femoral artery. A lucky shot.

Daria checked the stolen SIG-Sauer. The big man had fired a feverish fusillade at her when she'd hidden behind the old truck. He'd emptied the magazine. She tossed the gun aside, drew the cutthroat blade from her backpack, and began hacking through the power cords behind the computers. One by one, they shut down. Daria hadn't noticed them hum until they stopped.

The Englishman sobbed. “God, Jesus! Oh God, pleeeeeaase!” The oozing of blood around his hands was diminishing.

“If I destroy the computers, do you lose control of the damn drones?”

Viorica fired another bullet through the van wall.

“Oh God! Pleeeease…!”

“Answer me and I'll save you!” she lied.

“Yes! Computers … ah, God! This hurts!”

“Tell me!”

“We … Incantada … command module. It's, oh, Jesus Christ!”

“What command module? The bag Viorica stole? In Florence?”

“Yes!”

“What's it do?”

“Override for the drones!” He sobbed. “Help me!”

Daria felt the shock absorbers dip a bit. Someone—Viorica?—had climbed into the cab up front. Daria rose to her knees and scrambled for the rear door.

“Wait!” the Englishman wailed. “Please!”

Daria hit the door with her shoulder and rolled out, making a tight bundle, a smallish target, as she hit the cement.

The tall blonde had been in the cab but was no longer. She was dashing away, hauling a maple-colored, pebbled leather doctor's bag with twin buckled straps. Daria recognized the bag; Dr. Gabriella Incantada had carried it into the Hotel Criterion in Florence.

Daria sprinted after the blonde.

They were heading for the smashed husk of the Chinese embassy building.

*   *   *

“My friends. My name is Zoran Antic.”

The old man spoke in Bosnian. He looked dignified and somber, his lined face humorless, pained but humble.

“Today, as we speak, Western forces are attacking the government of Serbia. Using the same drone technology that has terrorized Afghanistan. Terrorized Pakistan. And Sudan, and Libya.

“Today, as I speak, the West is bombing Belgrade. As they did a decade before. And a decade before that.

“I am not Serbian. I am a Bosnian. A Catholic. I have fought against the Serbians. But today, I stand with my brethren, with the Balkan people, against Western aggression.”

Professor Antic motioned to his left, and the camera operator panned that way. General Cathcart had risen to one knee, his left leg useless. He'd never experienced such pain as the torn ACL in his knee.

“This is General Howard Cathcart, U.S. Army. He is in charge of the aerial bombardment of the civilian government of Belgrade. He and his forces currently are smashing the Parliament building, in the heart of the city, endangering civilians. Once again.