The Edge of Armageddon (5 page)

Drake dashed out of the building, Alicia, Mai and Beau at his side. Sweat already soaked the four of them. Determination sprang from every pore. Beau fished a state-of-the-art GPS out of a pocket and pinpointed the Edison.

“Times Square area,” he said, studying the route. “Across third and over Lexington Avenue. Make for the Waldorf Astoria.”

Drake raced into plodding traffic. There was nothing like trying to save the life of a New York cabbie as he tried desperately to break your legs at the knees, inching forward as best he could. Drake jumped at the last second, sliding over the front of the closest yellow cab and landing in full flow. Horns blared. Each member of the team had managed to commandeer a handgun on the way out and brandished them now whilst wishing they had more. But time was already wasting away. Drake checked his watch as he hit the sidewalk.

Seventeen minutes.

They crossed Lexington and then ran alongside the Waldorf, barely stopping as the cars along Park Avenue crawled along. Drake fought his way through a crowd at the traffic signal, finally confronted by an angry, red face.

“Look, buddy, I’m crossing here first if it kills me. Bosses’ bagels gonna get cold and that’s a damn no-no.”

Drake skirted the angry individual as Alicia and Mai burst past on the outside. The signals changed and the road was clear. Now with guns concealed they headed hard for the next main street—Madison Avenue. Again the crowds thronged the sidewalk. Beau skipped out onto 49
th
, hopping between cars and gaining a lead. Luckily, the traffic was now moving slowly and afforded them clear spaces in between rear bumpers and front fenders. The women followed Beau and then Drake fell into line.

Drivers shouted abuse at them.

Twelve minutes left.

If they were late, where would the terrorist cells strike? Drake imagined it would be in proximity to the Edison. Marsh would want the team to know his orders had been carried out to the letter. A car door opened ahead—just because the driver could—and Beau leaped over the top just in time. Alicia took hold of the edge of the frame and slammed it back into the man’s face.

Now they cut to the left, approaching 5
th
Avenue and even more crowds. Beau slipped through the worst of it like a pickpocket at a pop concert, followed by Alicia and Mai. Drake just shouted at everyone, his Yorkshireman’s patience finally running out. Both men and women blocked his path—men and women who didn’t give a rat’s shit whether he might be rushing to save his own life, one of his children’s, or even theirs. Drake muscled his way through, leaving one man sprawling. A woman with a baby glared at him hard enough to make him feel guilty, until he remembered what he was running for.

You’ll thank me later.

But, of course, she would never know. Whatever happened.

Now Beau shot left, running down the Avenue of the Americas towards 47
th
Street. A Magnolia Bakery passed by on the right, making Drake think of Mano, and then what the Hawaiian might have gleaned from Ramses by now. Two minutes later and they were blasting up 47
th
, Times Square suddenly visible to their left. The customary Starbucks sat to their right, bustling and queuing out the door. Drake scanned faces as he dashed by, but didn’t expect to come face to face with any suspects.

Four minutes.

Time was spinning away faster and even more precious than the last moments of a dying old man. The hotel’s gray façade and golden entrance appeared to the left, fronting the sidewalk, and Beau was the first to swing through the front doors. Drake skirted a luggage trolley and a dangerously reversing yellow cab to follow Mai inside. A wide foyer and patterned red carpet greeted them.

Beau and Alicia were already pressing the call buttons for separate elevators, hands close to concealed weapons, as a security guard watched them. Drake thought about producing the SPEAR team ID card, but it would only lead to more questions and the countdown was already inside the final three minutes. A chime announced that Alicia’s elevator had arrived and the team piled on. Drake stopped a young man from joining them, warding him off with an open palm. Thank God that worked, because the next gesture would have been a closed fist.

The four-strong team gathered themselves as the car rose, shaking off the run and drawing weapons. Once the door opened they piled out, searching for room 201. Instantly, a whirlwind of fists and legs was among them, shocking even Beau.

Somebody had been waiting.

Drake flinched as a fist connected above his eye socket but ignored the flash of pain. A foot tried to sweep his own but he sidestepped. The same figure moved away and beset Alicia, slamming her frame into the plastered wall. Mai stopped blows with raised hands and then Beau struck fast, a one-two that stopped all momentum and drove their attacker to his knees.

Drake leapt up and then punched downward with all his strength. Time was ebbing away. The figure, a chunky man wearing a thick jacket, shuddered under the Yorkshireman’s blow, but somehow managed to deflect the worst of it. Drake fell to the side, unbalanced.

“A punching bag,” Mai said. “He’s a punching bag. Positioned to slow us down.”

Beau drove in harder than before. “He is mine. You go.”

Drake jumped over the kneeling figure, checking room numbers. Their destination sat only three rooms away and they had one minute left. They were down to the final seconds. Drake paused outside the room and kicked at the door. Nothing happened.

Mai pushed him aside. “Move.”

One high kick and the wood splintered, a second and the frame collapsed. Drake coughed. “Must have weakened it for you.”

Inside, they spread out, guns ready and searching quickly but the object they sought was terribly obvious. It lay in the middle of the bed—an A4 size glossy photograph. Alicia approached the bed, staring from side to side.

“The room is immaculate,” Mai said. “No clues, I will bet.”

Alicia paused at the side of the bed, looking down and breathing shallowly. She shook her head and groaned as Drake joined her.

“Oh God. Is that a—”

The ringing telephone interrupted him. Drake leapt around the bed to the nightstand and snatched the receiver from the cradle.

“Yes!”

“Ah, I see you made it. Couldn’t have been easy.”

“Marsh! You crazy bastard. You’ve left us a photograph of the bomb? A fucking photograph?”

“Yes. Your first clue. Why, did you think I’d let you have the real thing? So stupid. Send it to your leaders and your eggheads. They will verify the serial numbers and all that other rubbish. The canisters of Plutonium E. The fissionable material. Boring stuff, really. The next clue will be even more telling.”

At that moment Beau entered the room. Drake was hoping he would be dragging Punchbag Man along with him but Beau drew an imaginary line across his carotid. “He killed himself,” the Frenchman said in a bemused voice. “Suicide pill.”

Shit.

“You see?” Marsh said. “We are very serious.”

“Please, Marsh,” Drake tried. “Just tell us what you want. We’ll do it right bloody now.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would. But we’ll save that for later, eh? How about this? Get running for clue number two. This chase is getting better and more difficult. You have twenty minutes to reach the Marea restaurant. It’s Italian, by the way and they make a mighty mean Nduju calzone, believe me. But no stopping for that, my friends, because this clue you will find placed under a toilet bowl. Enjoy.”

“Marsh—”

“Twenty minutes.”

The line went dead.

Drake cursed, turned, and ran like hell.

With no other option, Torsten Dahl and his team decided to dump the car and hoof it. He’d have liked nothing better than to hang on tight as Smyth threw a powerful SUV around half a dozen corners, tires squealing, objects shifting, but New York at this time was nothing but an angry snarl of yellow cabs, buses and hire cars. Gridlock was the word that entered Dahl’s mind, but it happened every day, most of the day, and still the horns blared and men shouted out of lowered windows. They ran hard, following directions. Lauren and Yorgi had shrugged into flak jackets. Kenzie jogged alongside Dahl, face turned down into a pout.

“I’d be of much more use to you,” she said to Dahl.

“No.”

“Oh, come on, how can it hurt?”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh, Torsty—”

“Kenzie, you are not getting your bloody katana back. And don’t call me that. Having one crazy woman assigning me nicknames is bad enough.”

“Oh, yeah? So did you and Alicia ever . . . you know?”

Smyth growled as they crossed another intersection, seeing pedestrians and bikes cramming the road at a green light, all taking their lives in their hands, but confident it wouldn’t be them who got hurt today. Quickly, they raced down the next street, soldiers barely feeling the burn of the sprint as they whipped around two slow-moving Prius’s, smashing wing mirrors. The GPS bleeped.

“Four minutes to the docks,” Yorgi estimated. “We should slow down.”

“I’ll slow down in three,” Smyth snapped. “Don’t tell me my job.”

Dahl handed Kenzie a Glock and a HK, not an easy task to perform covertly in New York. He winced as he did so. Against his better judgment they had practically been forced to accept the rogue agent’s help. This was no ordinary day and all measures, even desperate ones, were required. And truth be told, he still felt they might share a kinship, something of parallel military souls, which increased his level of trust.

He believed they might be able to save Bridget McKenzie no matter how hard she resisted.

Now Smyth veered across two lanes of traffic, shoulder-swiping a stalled F150 but continuing without a glance back. With no time they could afford no courtesies, and the terrible cloud hanging over them meant they were being forced to go all in, all of the time.

Dahl cocked his weapons. “Warehouse is less than a minute away,” he said. “And why the hell don’t they sort all these potholes?”

Smyth sympathized with him. The roads were an unending, pockmarked, hazardous tract where cars inched around jagged holes and roadworks were thrown up at any moment, seemingly uncaring of the time of day or density of traffic. It really was dog eat dog out there, with no man looking to help any other.

Quickly, they took their bearings from the GPS and aimed for the tip of the arrow. Early morning crispness threw pins and needles at their exposed skin, reminding them all it was still early. Sunlight filtered through breaks in the clouds, bathing the docks and the nearby river in pale gold. Those men that Dahl could see went about their business as usual. He’d imagined the dock area to be dark and dingy but apart from the warehouses the area was clean, and not particularly crowded. Nor was it busy, as the major shipping areas were across the bay in New Jersey. Still, Dahl saw large, battered containers and a long wide vessel stationary on the waters and enormous blue-painted container cranes that could traverse the length of the quay on rail tracks and collect their containers with spreaders.

Warehouses sat to the left, along with a yard full of more brightly colored containers. Dahl pointed to a building one hundred and fifty feet away.

“That’s our boy. Smyth, Kenzie, come forward. I want Lauren and Yorgi behind us.”

He moved off, focused now, concentrating on getting one assault behind them before they moved on to the next . . . and then the next until this nightmare was over and he could return to his family. Newly painted doors were dotted along the side of the building, and Dahl raised his head at the first window.

“Empty office. Let’s try the next.”

Minutes passed as the group crept along the side of the building, guns drawn, trying window after window, door after door. Dahl noticed with frustration that they were beginning to attract attention from the local workers. He didn’t want to spook their quarry.

“C’mon.”

They hurried along, finally reaching the fifth window along and taking a quick look. Dahl saw a wide space cluttered by cardboard boxes and wooden crates, but close to the window he also saw a rectangular table. Around the table sat four men, heads down as if they were talking, planning and thinking. Dahl dropped down and crouched with his back to the wall.

“We good?” Smyth asked.

“Possible,” Dahl said. “Could be nothing . . . but—”

“I trust you,” Kenzie said with a modicum of sarcasm. “You lead, I’ll follow,” Then she shook her head. “You people are really that mad? Just burst in there and start the shooting first?”

A man was approaching, squinting at them. Dahl raised his HK and the man froze, hands shooting up into the air. The decision was made mostly because the guy stood in the direct eye line of anyone inside the warehouse. Less than a second passed before Dahl rose, spun, and smashed a shoulder against the outer door. Smyth and Kenzie were with him, reading his thoughts.

As Dahl entered the spacious warehouse, four men jumped up from the table. Guns rested by their sides, and they withdrew them now, firing indiscriminately at the incoming strangers. Bullets flew everywhere, shattering the window and smashing through the swinging door. Dahl dived headlong, rolling, coming up firing. The men from the table scrambled away as they shot back, shooting over shoulders and even between their legs as they ran. Nowhere was safe. Errant gunfire filled the cavernous space. Dahl scrabbled on both elbows until he reached the table and upended it, using it as a shield. One end shattered as a high-caliber round passed straight through.

“Shit.”

“Are you trying to get me killed?” Kenzie muttered.

The big Swede changed tactics, picked up the huge table, and then launched it through the air. The tumbling edges caught one man around the ankles, sending him flying and his gun scudding away. As Dahl approached fast, Kenzie’s voice made him slow down.

“Careful with these little fuckers. I’ve worked all over the Middle East and seen a thousand of ’em wearing vests.”

Dahl hesitated. “I don’t think you can just—”

The explosion rocked the warehouse walls. The Swede flew off his feet, airborne, and smashed into the already devastated window. White noise filled his head, the overwhelming buzz of tinnitus, and for a second he couldn’t see. By the time his vision started to clear he was aware of Kenzie crouched before him, patting his cheeks.

“Wake up, man. It wasn’t the entire body, just a grenade.”

“Oh. Well that makes me feel better.”

“This is our chance,” she said. “The concussion knocked his idiot comrades down too.”

Dahl struggled to his feet. Smyth was up, but Lauren and Yorgi sat on their knees, fingers pressed to their temples. Dahl saw the terrorists starting to recover. Urgency pricked at him like a prong poking a piece of tenderized meat. Raising his gun he came under fire again but managed to wound one of the rising terrorists, and watched the man twist and fall.

Smyth raced past. “Got him.”

Dahl forged ahead. Kenzie squeezed off shots beside him. The two remaining terrorists turned a corner and Dahl realized they were headed outside. He slowed momentarily, then turned the same corner, firing carefully, but his bullets hit only empty air and concrete. The door was wide open.

A grenade bounced back inside.

The explosion was a matter of course now, the SPEAR team taking cover and waiting for the shrapnel to pass them by. Walls shuddered and cracked under an intense impact. Then they were up, squeezing out the door in cover formation and into the brightening day.

“One o clock,” Smyth said.

Dahl stared in the direction indicated, saw two running figures and, beyond them, the Hudson leading to the Upper Bay. “Bollocks, they may have speedboats.”

Kenzie dropped to one knee, sighting carefully. “Then we take—”

“No,” Dahl pushed her weapon’s barrel downward. “Can’t you see the civilians over there?”

“Zubi,” she cursed in Hebrew, a language Dahl had no understanding of. Together, Smyth, Kenzie and the Swede started a pursuit. The terrorists were quick, almost at the dockside already. Kenzie compromised by firing her HK into the air, expecting the civilians to either scatter or take cover.

“You can thank me after we save the day,” she barked.

Dahl saw an avenue of opportunity open up. Both terrorists were standing tall against a watery background, great targets, and Kenzie’s opportunistic fire had cleared the way. He slowed and fitted the stock to his shoulder, taking careful aim. Smyth followed suit at his side.

The terrorists turned as if practicing telepathy, already shooting. Dahl kept his focus as lead whizzed between the SPEAR team. His second bullet took his target in the chest, his third in the forehead, dead-center. The man toppled backwards, already dead.

“Keep one alive,” Lauren’s voice came through his earpiece.

Smyth fired. The last terrorist had already jumped aside, the bullet tugging at his jacket as Smyth adjusted. A swift movement saw the terrorist hurl another grenade—this one along the dockside itself.

“No!” Dahl fired fruitlessly, his heart leaping up into his throat.

The small bomb exploded with a loud report, the blast wave echoing across the docks. Dahl leapt behind a container for a moment and then sprang back out—but his momentum faltered as he saw there was now more than the remaining terrorist to worry about.

One of the container cranes had been damaged by the blast at its base, and was listing dangerously above the riverside. The sounds of screeching, tearing metal heralded an inevitable collapse. Men stared up and started running away from the high framework.

The terrorist took out another grenade.

“Not this time, asswipe.” Smyth was already poised on one knee, squinting along his sights. He squeezed the trigger, watching the last terrorist fall before he could pull the pin on the grenade.

But there was no stopping the crane. Leaning, slanting, and collapsing all along its frame, the heavy iron scaffold crashed down upon the dockside, destroying the skeleton and pulverizing the small hut it fell upon. Containers were damaged and moved backward several feet. Bars and spars of metal bounced down, rebounding off the ground like deadly matchsticks. A bright blue pole the size of a street light careened between Smyth and Dahl—something that could have broken them in half had it hit—and came to a halt only feet away from where Lauren and Yorgi stood with their backs to the warehouse.

“No go.” Kenzie sighted on the terrorist, double-checking. “He’s very dead.”

Dahl gathered his wits and surveyed the docks. A quick check showed that mercifully nobody had been hurt by the container crane. He placed a finger to his throat mic.

“Cell down,” he said. “But they’re all dead.”

Lauren came back. “All right, I’ll pass it on.”

Kenzie’s hand fell across Dahl’s shoulder. “You should have let me take the shot. I would have taken the bastard’s knees out; then we would have made him talk, one way or another.”

“Too risky.” Dahl understood why she didn’t get it. “And it’s doubtful we could have made him talk in the short time we have.”

Kenzie huffed. “You speak for Europe and America. I am Israeli.”

Lauren came back over the comms. “We have to go. There’s been a cell sighting. Not good.”

Dahl, Smyth and Kenzie hijacked the nearest vehicle, figuring if it only took them five minutes further than walking, the time-saving could be more than crucial.