The Circle of Eight (27 page)

“Blast!” yelled Reading, putting the car in reverse and
flooring it. The car whined backward as the men rushed after them. Reading hit
the brakes, shifted to first and surged toward them, cranking the wheel at the
last second, sending the back end sliding toward their pursuers, the satisfying
thumps of bodies discovering the futile physics of human versus automobile
heard several times. Reading pulled away, around the sculpture in the center of
the driveway, skirting it in the opposite direction of which he had come, then
turned onto the laneway.

Within moments they were roaring down the road, nobody
in pursuit.

James stuck a hand between the front seats and grabbed Laura’s
hand, squeezing it tight, then turned to their friend as he expertly executed
their escape.

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Acton.

“I could ask the same bloody thing!”

“We were kidnapped, thank you very much.”

“And I was called in by the Bravo Team to help two of
their men escape arrest by the Swiss police, and then find out you two have
been kidnapped by forces unknown!” He shook his head as he made a turn. “I’m
liable to lose my blasted post for this!”

“Border’s coming up!” announced Laura, sighing in relief
as she realized their ordeal was essentially over. Then a thought popped in her
mind. “Where are we? Do we need passports?”

“No, you’re in San Marino. It’s an open border,” replied
Reading as he slowed down, driving through the ancient city gates that marked
the border, and into Italy.

“Where to now?” asked James.

“Back to your universities if you know what’s good for
you,” growled Reading.

James shook his head. “These people need to be stopped.”

“Bloody hell,” muttered Reading. “You two don’t know
when
to stop!” He glanced in the rearview mirror at Laura. “Surely you aren’t going
along with this as well.”

“Absolutely. These people are dangerous. Billions of
lives could be at stake if they were to succeed.”

“Bloody hell!” cried Reading, hammering on the brakes
and bringing the car to a stop at the side of the road. “Why don’t you two tell
me what the blazes is going on?”

And for the next ten minutes they explained everything
they knew, Reading interrupting from time to time with his own questions or
curses.

“Bottom line is we don’t know what their plan is or what
they’re capable of, but if they’re willing to kill over people just seeing a
file folder with a symbol on it, it must be bad,” summed up James. “So are you
in?”

Reading scowled at James then put the car back in gear,
spinning the tires on the gravel shoulder and bursting back onto the pavement.

“If I’m not, you two will get yourselves killed, or
worse, in a damned coma like Martin.”

“How’s he doing?” asked Laura, reaching forward and
squeezing her friend’s shoulder.

“No change.” Reading’s eyes glassed over. “I’m not optimistic.”

The phone vibrated in Laura’s pocket and she jumped,
pulling it out. The call display simply said, ‘M’. She held it up for the
others to see.

“M as in Martin Lacroix?” suggested Reading.

James shook his head.

“No, M as in Master.”

Route des Acacias, Geneva, Switzerland

“Equipment check,” ordered Dawson as he tapped his body armor and
checked his weapon, traffic at a standstill, the two police vehicles still
directly in front of him. The light turned green and the first vehicle began to
move forward, advancing into the intersection. The brake lights on the second
vehicle went out as it moved too.

Suddenly the squeal of tires erupted ahead and Dawson
watched as Red’s BMW rental whipped through the intersection and impaled itself
at almost forty miles per hour into the driver’s side door.

“Let’s go!” yelled Dawson as three doors of the SUV flew
open and his team advanced. Dawson ran up the driver’s side of the rear paddy
wagon. The door opened and Dawson reached in, placing the Taser directly against
the man’s neck, stunning him as Spock did the same on the other side. Zip ties
to the wrists, through the steering wheel, and his man was out of commission.
Pounding could be heard from the rear of the vehicle as the occupants worked
the glued door.

The driver of the lead vehicle had made the mistake of
opening his door, giving Niner clear access to nail him with the Taser then
train his weapon on the passenger. Dawson loaded a probe on his Taser as he ran
up to the door, juicing him. Niner began to zip tie the two men as Dawson
reached into the BMW, the engine steaming and Red still sitting behind the
steering wheel, pushing the airbags back.

“You okay?” asked Dawson, undoing the seatbelt.

“Yeah. Safety systems are a bit better than on most
things I get to crash.”

Red climbed up onto the seat then stepped over to the
passenger side and out onto the pavement. He waved off Dawson, who immediately
returned to the rear of the first vehicle. He pounded twice.

“Anybody in there?” he asked, winking at Spock whose
MP5K was trained on the door, along with Mickey who had been let out nearby to
avoid risking him in the accident.

“Just two shaken and stirred men who enjoy long walks
and cuddling by the firelight,” came Jimmy’s voice through the metal doors.

“And your company?”

“Visions of sugar plums dancing through their heads.”

“Stand back, we’re blowing the doors.”

Spock placed the charge then prepped the trigger as they
all stood to either side of the vehicle.

“Fire in the hole!” yelled Spock, who then pressed the
detonator.

There was a small explosion and the doors flew open, the
sound Dawson was certain deafening on the inside of the tin can. Spock and
Mickey jumped inside, pulling the slightly disoriented pair out as sirens could
be heard fast approaching in the distance.

“Let’s go!” yelled Dawson, “we’re about to have
company!”

He rushed back to their SUV, jumping in the driver’s
seat and putting the vehicle in gear as the rest of the team climbed in. With
the last door shut, he pulled around the three vehicles just as the rear doors
flew open, one of the trapped officers inside sailing out feet first, almost as
if he had been used as a human battering ram by the others inside.

Must have been the rookie.

Dawson rounded the smoking BMW and turned right,
flooring it, dodging back and forth through the traffic as he put distance
between them and the attack.

“Anybody hurt?” he asked, glancing in the rearview
mirror.

Heads shook in response.

“My ears are ringing,” said Red, “and I’ll be stiff in
the morning, but I’ll live.”

“And our friendly Swiss hosts? Did any get killed?”

A round of “Negatives” had him breathing easy. The
operation had gone exactly according to plan, everyone was intact on both
sides, and now they just had to make their getaway clean.

“Wings, report.”

Wings’ voice squawked over the comm.

“You’ve got half a dozen squad cars behind you, about
three klicks back, plus four more headed right for you on the other side. You
need to reach the next intersection before them or you’ll be blocked, over.”

“Roger that,” said Dawson, flooring it. He could see the
intersection in the distance, and beyond that, the flashing lights of the
police. “Atlas, find us an alternate rendezvous, over.”

“Take a right at this intersection,” said Atlas over the
comm. “Straight for two miles then there’s a large parking lot at a stadium
that has nothing going on there today. Should be lots of space for Wings to
land, over.”

“Wings, scout ahead and make sure.”

“No need, I can see it from here, lots of space, but
you’re not going to be first, over.”

“Shit!” yelled Dawson. “Buckle up boys, this is going to
be rough.”

He heard seatbelts clicking and Jesus handles being
grabbed as he went full throttle toward the intersection. Suddenly overhead he
heard the thumping of rotors and dust begin to fill the air around them, brake
lights blazing on as he dodged between the last few cars, the flashing of
police cars already turning into the intersection to block him filling his
field of vision.

The SUV shook as Dawson cut it hard to the right, his
side sliding into a squad car with a terrific crunch of metal. He kept the
accelerator floored and pulled away from the crash and down the road Atlas had
indicated.

Dawson looked behind and all he saw was a cloud of dust
with brilliant red brake lights and flashing police lights lost in the
confusion. To the right he could see the stadium approaching, the parking lot
nearly empty, the gates down. He cranked the wheel to the right, blasted
through the flimsy wood barrier and out into the sea of pavement where he raced
toward a completely open area to the left.

“Let’s go, Wings!” yelled Dawson as he screeched to a
halt, the team exiting the vehicle and grabbing their gear. The thunder of
Wings’ helicopter overhead ended any further conversation as dust and litter
was whipped about. Moments later the skids bounced down and the team loaded
into the back as the confusion at the intersection cleared, the police cars
resuming the chase toward the stadium.

Dawson climbed aboard last, sliding the door shut as
Wings lifted off, angling the chopper directly toward the lead vehicle causing
the driver to slam on his brakes as Wings blasted overhead, leaving the Swiss
police in disarray, unable to pursue them. Wings kept low over the roof tops,
his transponder disabled to keep him off standard civilian scopes and within
minutes they were landing outside the city in a field where they had
pre-positioned another SUV.

Dawson let Spock drive after all eight of them were in
the new vehicle, Dawson acting as navigator as they headed for their new digs
found earlier in the day, confident this time they hadn’t been tracked.

Jimmy looked at Niner.

“So, what took you so damned long?”

Niner slugged him in the shoulder. Hard.

On route to Federico Fellini International Airport, Rimini, Italy

Martin Lacroix frowned as he heard the call go to voicemail. His
apprentice had never missed a call in all the years he had known him, or if he
had, there was a near immediate callback. It was almost a matter of pride with
the man who had been with him for almost fifteen years, the last five as his
finally selected apprentice. He knew the other candidates had been profoundly
disappointed, and he had given them all the option to leave his employ and
pursue other opportunities within The Order, but there had been no takers, for
they knew the advantages of working directly for one of The Circle, apprentice
or not.

He continued to stare at the phone, waiting for the
callback, but it never came.

Perhaps something went wrong with the executions?

Ordering the deaths of the two professors hadn’t fazed
him at all. With the staged death of the fiancée gathering nothing beyond a
vague reference to the cataloging of an estate, he knew there was nothing
further to gain from Professor Acton, and since she hadn’t been in his life at
the time, the beautiful Professor Palmer had been of no use beyond the pawn she
had already played.

She
was
beautiful.

He felt a twinge as he thought of her.

She would have been fun to wrestle with.

But she was dead by now, unless his apprentice had
decided to have a little fun of his own. He felt a flash of jealousy that an
underling should have some fun when he couldn’t, but it passed. His last taste
of fun had led to the current situation.

The phone still hadn’t rung.

He dialed another number and it was immediately
answered.

“Yes, Master, how may I help you?” asked the breathless
voice.

“What’s wrong? I can’t reach my apprentice.”

“The two professors have escaped. They had help from the
outside. Your apprentice, Master, I’m sorry, but—” There was a pause, as if the
man were terrified to say the words Lacroix already knew.

“He’s dead.”

“Yes, Master. One other is dead, several more are
injured. They had help from the outside. A car with a single occupant. We got
the license plate and are trying to track it now. All we do know is they
definitely have left San Marino already.”

Lacroix’s jaw was clenched tight, his blood pressure
building as the rage within seethed, it not yet finding an outlet. His fist
flew into the passenger seat rest in front of him, startling his driver who
didn’t risk even glancing in the rearview mirror.

“They must be found,” growled Lacroix.

“Yes, my master, we are doing everything we can.”

“Very well.”

“Master, wait! I have news!”

The excitement in the man’s voice conveyed the subject
matter to Lacroix better than any words could.

“You’ve found it.”

“Yes, sir, well sort of. We found the estate that had
the auction, and one of our operatives paid the auction house a visit.”

“And?”

“And we found the buyer. It was part of a lot, so it
wasn’t purchased specifically. We’ve got two operatives heading there now.”

“Where?”

“Barcelona.”

“Tell them to exercise utmost caution. This could be the
most important mission of their lives.”

“I already have, my master, but I will remind them again
immediately.”

“Very well. Keep me informed. The Circle will want
regular updates on your progress.”

“Absolutely, Master.”

Lacroix killed the call, tossing the phone on the plush
leather beside him. If his people could find the long lost Catalyst, he would
go down in history as one of the greatest members of The Order ever, and it
might even put him in contention for Number One’s position should he die.
Though Number One had his own apprentice, upon the death, a vote was held
amongst the surviving members of The Circle to determine who should be the new
Number One, then they were all renumbered according to number of ballots
received.