The Edge of Armageddon (20 page)

“He can’t escape this way,” Hayden protested. “It . . . it’s . . . game over.” Her eyes glistened with terror.

“For him,” Alicia said smugly.

“No, no,” Hayden whispered. “For us. We got it wrong. Ramses is literally going out with a bang. Sealing his legacy. Guys, he’s gonna detonate that nuke.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Best guess? He’s headed for Liberty Island and the statue, and he’s about to plaster it all over social media. Oh God, oh God, imagine—” she choked up. “I can’t . . . just can’t . . .”

Kinimaka hauled her to her feet, the big man growling with purpose. “We’re not going to let this happen. We have to do something. Now.”

And Drake saw the flash of the SAW about fifty feet away, the deadliness of its rounds, the one thing standing between them and Ramses, and the nuke.

“Who wants to live forever, right?”

“Nah,” Alicia said quietly. “Forever would be boring as fuck.”

And Dahl gave the team one final look. “I’ll take lead.”

In that last split-second the heroes of New York made ready; the SPEAR team and then every single cop and agent within earshot. Everyone rose to their feet, faced the spitting weapon, and made the last choice of their life.

Dahl started it. “Charge!”

Drake ran at the center of his friends, right where he wanted to be, gun up and firing hard. Bullets discharged from every single running gun at two thousand five hundred feet per second, multiple blasts echoing around the slipways. Windows shattered all along the ferry.

In seconds they had halved the gap, still shooting hard. The SAW user modified immediately, shocked by the ferocity of the assault. Not that he stopped firing; his bullets stitched a trail across the slipways and out to sea as he quite possibly staggered back. Drake fitted the scope to his eyes, finger on the trigger, and made out the features of the man holding the SAW.

“That’s Gator,” Hayden said through the comms. “Don’t miss.”

The SAW panned around, heading back towards them and still spitting lead. Drake imagined the barrel had to be so hot right now it was on the verge of melting, but not fast enough. A bullet caught a cop in the vest and then a second broke the arm of another. At this point their hearts were in their mouths, but they did not stop the charge or reduce the gunfire. The lower-rear sides of the ferry fell away, shattered, the open rear end so perforated it resembled a cheese grater. Gator swung the SAW hard, over-compensating. Bullets laced the spaces above their heads.

The dull note of the ferry’s engine turned to a slow roar, and that changed everything. Gator jumped aboard, still firing wildly. Water started to churn from the back and the vessel lurched ahead. Drake saw they were still twenty feet from the back end, saw it turning to the left and away, and knew they would never make it in time.

Shouting, falling, he dropped to his side, skidding to a halt. Dahl dropped alongside. Hayden rolled, all this to further impair Gator’s aim, but the man didn’t seem to care anymore. His figure could be seen backing away, heading deeper into the ferry.

Drake signaled to Hayden and Hayden called in the choppers.

Black birds lunged to the slipway, dropping abruptly, and hovering three feet off the ground as the SPEAR team climbed aboard. At the cops’ and agents’ assembled salutes, a new bond formed that would never break, they saluted back as best they could, then the choppers practically leapt into the air. Pilots forced the machines to their limits, chasing the churning ferry and soon coming overhead. It was a sight Drake could never have imagined, the birds hanging like deadly black predators in the skies of New York, the famous skyline as a backdrop, preparing to take out a Staten Island Ferry.

“Hit them hard,” Hayden spoke into the chopper’s radio. “And fast.”

Plummeting now, two choppers dove toward the ferry’s rear. Almost immediately the irrepressible Gator popped his head out of a side window and let loose a vicious salvo. His third burst smashed into the choppers’ outer skin, punching through parts and glancing off others. The helicopters plunged like boulders, falling from the skies. Dahl cracked his door and returned fire, the bullets passing hopelessly wide.

“Shoots like he shags,” Drake grunted. “Never hits the right target.”

“Piss off.” Dahl gave up trying to hit Gator and readied for the coming impact.

Three seconds later it came, only it wasn’t an impact just a sudden stop. The first chopper hovered above the ferry’s top deck as the second one hovered to the left side, the rest of the SPEAR team aboard. They exited fast, boots striking the deck and forming into groups. The choppers then ascended to join their brethren in the air, tracking the ferry.

Hayden faced the team for a few seconds. “We know where he is. Engine room. Let’s end this right now.”

They started to run, adrenalin pumping beyond measure, and then Gator clearly changed tactics on the deck below.

An RPG screamed through the air, impacting with a chopper and exploding. The bird lost control, metal ripping away in all directions, fire engulfing the black shell, and fell without power towards the ferry’s top deck.

Toward the running SPEAR team.

Drake heard the change in the helicopter’s engine note and knew, without checking, that the machine was hurtling toward them. If that wasn’t enough the extending predatorial shadow spreading across the deck drilled it home.

Run or die.

He crashed shoulder first into an outer door, ripping the whole framework away from the hinges and falling into the area beyond. Bodies dived after him, rolling, sprawling, scrambling and jostling. The chopper came down hard, rotors shearing off and metal shell disintegrating. Everything from fragments to arm-length spears chopped at the air, slicing it apart. The ferry swayed and groaned, water churning to left and right.

A fireball shot up toward the other choppers who took immediate evasive action, pure luck preventing them from colliding. Streamers of fire licked around the top deck too, starting new conflagrations, and charring paintwork and metal pillars, melting paint. A rotor bent as it smashed against a stanchion to Drake’s right, bouncing to the floor with all momentum abruptly halted. Other flying missiles smashed windows and pierced framework, one terrible barb passing straight through the side of the boat and heading out to sea. Drake felt a lick of flame as the heat passed over him, looked under his shoulder and saw the entire team prone, Smyth even lying on top of Lauren. The explosion passed and they stared to rise, and then Gator took events to the level of utter madness.

Lunacy.

The next RPG came up through the boat itself, streaking out of the missile launcher and shattering decks as it flew. The explosion occurred as it breached their deck, sending more gouts of fire and deadly debris their way. Drake groaned as splinters drove into his scalp and shoulder, relieved that the pain showed him he was still alive. Taking one moment to breathe, he checked out the new environment ahead.

A jagged hole had been blown through the deck. Heaps of timber lay all around. Smoke and fire streamed through the once-enclosed middle-upper-deck.

“Way’s clear,” he said.

“Only to you!” Lauren almost screamed.

“Then stay,” Kenzie spat as she pulled at Dahl’s shoulder. “You all right, Torst?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Put me down.”

Drake set off at half pace, more wary than he could remember being in his entire life. The group behind him bunched together, knowing exactly where he was headed. At the last moment, as he’d expected, Dahl appeared right at his shoulder.

“We doing it, pal?”

“Damn fucking right we are.”

And down they leapt, through the new hole, feet first and eyes searching for enemies. They hit the lower deck hard, rolling, unmolested, and came up with guns leveled.

“Clear!” Drake cried.

Boots struck the hard deck at their backs.

Kenzie came last, and Drake saw, first—that she had removed her heavyweight inner jacket and, second—that she had wrapped it around the base of a three-foot long, splintered part of the chopper’s rotor. Her face was smug when she turned it upon the Swede.

“Now,” she said, “I have my weapon.”

“Gods help us.”

They stormed the vessel as one, taking the fight to Ramses and Gator. The ferry gained speed with every moment that passed. Liberty Island grew too, larger and larger on the skyline.

“Doesn’t the maniac realize he won’t reach the statue?” Kinimaka panted.

“Don’t say it,” Hayden snapped back. “Do not say it.”

“Oh, yeah I get it.”

“They won’t sink this ferry,” Dahl assured them. “The bay’s not deep enough to absorb a . . . well, you know what.”

On the next deck down they finally found their quarry. Gator guarded the door whilst Ramses piloted the ferry. In the mold of his already-revealed partiality to madness the bombmaker let loose the RPG he’d prepared for just such a moment. Drake couldn’t help but gasp and shout for everyone to take cover, and then the missile was streaking up the center of the ferry at head height, a trail of smoke pluming behind and propelled by Gator’s manic laughter.

“You like thaaaat? You catch iiiit? We already dieeee!”

Drake looked up and found Gator almost on top of him, running in the wake of the missile, carrying his rocket launcher with him. The missile itself sped through the ferry and exited the back end, exploding in mid-air. Gator swung the rocket launcher at Drake’s head.

The Yorkshireman ducked as Ramses finally turned, one hand resting nonchalantly on the wheel.

“You are already too late,” he said.

Drake struck up at Gator’s stomach, but the man danced back, still wielding his cumbersome weapon. To be fair it held the team back for an extra moment. Nobody wanted to get planted by such a meaty stick, but the inside of the ferry was a large space and gave Dahl and the others plenty of maneuverability. Gator snarled and swung around and then ran straight to Ramses, the terrorist prince now holding a semi-automatic. Drake noted the pack strapped to Gator’s back.

“You only delay the inevitable,” Ramses intoned.

Spraying the inside of the ferry with one hand, he amended the course a little with the other, targeting Liberty Island.

“You were never bothered about living?” Drake said, from behind a stanchion. “The bazaar? The castle? The elaborate plan to escape? What the hell was all that?”

“Ah, the bazaar was simply a—how do you say—‘clearout’ sale? A disposal of all my worldly goods. The castle—a goodbye and means to an end. You did take me straight to New York, after all. And the escape plan—yes a little elaborate I’ll grant you that. But do you see now? You’re already too late. The clock is ticking.”

Drake didn’t know exactly what Ramses meant but the implication was clear. Stepping out from cover, he sprayed the wheelhouse with bullets and ran in the wake of them, his team at his side. No more talking; this was his endgame. Ramses staggered back, blood fountaining from his shoulder. Gator screamed as rounds entered his body. Glass covered both terrorists in a jagged spray.

Drake smashed the door and then slipped, bouncing off the framework and skidding to an abrupt halt, cursing his luck. Dahl leapt over him, Kenzie at his side. The two entered the wheelhouse and raised weapons to kill. Ramses met them with all the force of a seven-foot-tall, muscle-bound madman, grinning like a feral, rabid dog; he barged and tried to fling them about.

Dahl was having none of it, standing up to the brute strength and absorbing all blows. Kenzie danced around them both, striking at Ramses’ flanks like she would a dangerous wolf. The radical prince pummeled the Swede. A shoulder barge made Dahl shudder. Immensely powerful hands gripped the Swede’s throat and began to squeeze. Bringing his own arms up, Dahl half-broke the hold and then took one himself; both men swaying and clutching until neither could breathe. Ramses swung Dahl around and slammed his back against a wall, but the Swede’s only reaction was to crack a wider smile.

Kenzie leaped into the air, raising an elbow that she brought down with crushing strength, right onto Ramses’ leaking bullet wound. Never expecting one blow to end such a struggle, she then followed up with a punch to the man’s throat even as he screamed, causing his eyes to bulge.

Then Ramses, staggering, covered in blood, pulled away, retching. Dahl let him go, sensing the end. The terrorist’s eyes latched onto the Swede’s and there was no sign of defeat in them.

“I will take this moment as one of victory,” he croaked. “And crush the heart of capitalism.”

He reached out as if to touch Gator.

Dahl fired in reaction. A round slammed into Ramses’ stomach, knocking him back.

Gator leapt and fell towards Ramses.

The terrorist prince managed to catch hold of the backpack strapped to Gator’s falling back, his outstretched hand gripping an exposed blue wire as they both collapsed.

Kenzie shot forward, targeting the arm that held the wire with the only weapon she kept close, the best weapon she had—the crude katana. Her blade chopped down swiftly, severing Ramses’ arm at the shoulder, wrenching a look of intense surprise from the terrorist.

The arm hit the floor at the same time as Gator, but the fingers still grasped the now exposed end of the blue wire.

“Failsafe,” Ramses coughed. “You were right to attack me in such a way. The clock wasn’t ticking. But . . .” A spasm wracked him, blood leaking fast from abdomen, arm and left shoulder.

“It . . . is . . . now.”