“These people wouldn’t show themselves,” she said. “They’ll be total pros. Mercs. Disgruntled commandos. Top-class fighters. I hope we’re not too late, I already fought my way out of a hotel against Kovalenko once.” It seemed a long time ago now since her boyfriend had been murdered.
She suddenly felt isolated, being so far away from the team. Since she had quit the SAS and the British Ninth Division, Alicia had been more than happy to go it alone, but then SPEAR came along with its many diverse personalities. Among them, Alicia had felt needed, even protected. When there was no immediate threat, leaving them for a while hadn’t seemed much of an issue. Now, even with her new biker family, she felt strangely alone.
Shit, what the hell is wrong with me? Is it something to do with Drake?
From the moment she had met him in that undignified way in Africa he had become a part of her heart.
Where did she belong? Never with a father who got fall-down drunk and beat her mother. Not even with the Army. With Drake? She thought about that one for a second, remembering that first meeting in Johannesburg during the firefight to end them all. She, Drake and two SAS teams had taken on an army of African commandos and lived to tell the tale. But no — she didn’t believe there was a future for the two of them.
Besides, now he had Mai.
Behind her, Lomas was calling the guys on his phone. It was quicker than trying to wake them up by knocking on every door. After five minutes of haranguing and sermonizing, Lomas had ordered them all to be gathered along the corridor in five minutes.
Alicia turned to him. “Good. We all need to enter the lobby together.”
“We have no weapons,” Lomas reminded her. “Short of your pistol and mine, Whipper’s whips and a truckload of knives. Maybe a couple of old Uzis somewhere.” He shrugged seriously. “Not much to fight with.”
Alicia smiled wistfully. “Then we’ll adopt one of Drakey’s tricks. We’ll pry them from the fingers of our dead enemies.”
The biker gang, looking messy, tired and bedraggled, yawned their way carelessly toward the lifts. Everyone had their belongings and bike keys at the ready, hands inches from concealed weapons. Laid-Back Lex viewed it all through slitted eyes while Ribeye scouted every meandering turn of the corridor.
“Three teams,” Alicia said. “One in each lift and one down the stairs. Ready?”
“Wait,” Dirty Sarah said. “Who made you Bitch Queen? This ain’t no democracy, dear.”
Lomas waved her off. “Stop. Any of you shitheads get accepted into the SAS?”
Most of the bikers shook their heads. A couple looked as if they were thinking hard, trying to remember their old lives.
“She did. Let her take the lead till we’re out of here.”
Alicia didn’t tell them again, just headed for the stairs. The stairwell was empty, the whole area as quiet as a mausoleum. She peered quickly over the rails, but saw no sign of movement.
“Come on.”
Lomas stayed close behind, followed by the veggie Ribeye, the young and pretty Trace, Whipper and several others. Whipper had no way of furtively carrying her whip, so she let it unfurl beside her, holding it close to her body.
Alicia led the way down three flights and put her face to the glass aperture in the door that led out to the lobby. “Nothing,” she said. “Stay close.”
With fingers wrapped around the butt of the gun in her jacket pocket, the Englishwoman stepped boldly out into the lobby. Silence greeted her; a silence wrapped in worry and stress. They heard the lifts ding and moved quickly to cover the automatic doors.
Nothing happened. The lobby was empty. Alicia crossed the carpeted floor, tense, expecting at any moment to hear the opening salvos of a fusillade of shots. The blackness of 0300 hours smothered every window, and the sparse pools of light outside shone on big puddles of nothing.
But beyond them… beyond them were landscaped gardens full of trees, bushes and undergrowth. And the major roads past that. She scanned the skies. No sign of movement.
Lomas took the time to check out. “That much for Pay-Per-View? Really?”
The woman behind the desk looked a little embarrassed. Lomas smiled. “Ah, I read your mind, honey, faster than you can say Jurassic Pork. That kind of Pay-Per-View? Well, we’re bikers. Unofficially, of course. We take it where we can get it.”
Alicia turned. “Time to go.”
She cracked the front door and walked out into the chilly night. The hotel’s parking area was right out front, which helped enormously. The gang picked their way among the silent cars, spreading out and taking different routes to where their crowd of two-wheeled machines sat waiting.
Alicia never stopped assessing. If anyone was out there they were good. She sensed nothing out of place, nothing that sent her radar twitching. And that radar had been fixed into her by the best mentors in the world. What could they be waiting for?
Nothing, she thought. They weren’t here yet.
Or spectacle, she thought again. Kovalenko was all about the spectacle. Well, fuck him. The more time they were given, the better their chance of survival. She watched as the gang slipped astride their bikes, weapons now exposed, and looked over to Lomas. The next step would be a noisy one.
Alicia climbed aboard Lomas’ Ducati Monster and squeezed his ribs. “Do it.”
“Which way?”
Alicia thought about it. A good adversary would already have the variables covered. “Head for the airport.”
Lomas inclined his head. The whole noisy ensemble started their engines en masse. The sweet music of throaty Sportster V-twins, Hondas, Suzukis, low-slung choppers and big Bark-o-loungers mingled into an earsplitting cacophony; a deafening roar and snarl of purpose. Lomas peeled out first, and the gang streamed after, satisfied to a man and woman now that they were back in their element. The night was dark, the lights low, and the long road was already beckoning.
The hotel stood at their backs, all but those occupants too drunk or drugged woken up and dragged out of bed by the noise, but by now everyone except Alicia barely remembered its name. Lomas guided his Ducati along a roaming path and through the hotel’s gates, out onto a wide service road. Two miles ahead stood a set of stoplights and a junction that led to Autobahn 8, a significant three-hundred-mile stretch of road that led from Salzburg to Luxembourg. Lomas powered down the two mile road, Alicia studying the blackness that blasted past. Every inch of tarmac that flashed by made her breathe a little easier. Within minutes, the entire gang had entered the Autobahn and were starting to open their throttles.
Lomas tipped his head back. “Looks like they couldn’t find us fast enough. We never actually registered under real names, you know.”
“Maybe you should have. Authorities wouldn’t know them.”
Lomas coughed. “Interpol might.”
Alicia saw meager amounts of traffic behind them. A helicopter hovered in the lighter skies toward Stuttgart. It all looked perfectly normal.
“Just don’t spare the horses.”
Alicia allowed the winding road to take her attention away as the turbulent stream of bikes tore through the night. It wouldn’t do to stay perfectly primed every step of the way; she needed to find time to unwind. The rest of the crew was constantly surveying the area, though of course in the dark every light looks the same.
Alicia tried to quell a flustered feeling, something totally alien to her. Drake’s call hadn’t been long, but it had intimated that the SPEAR team was falling apart. Even now, people she had come to like, even care about, could be dying. And she was over here in freakin’ Germany hanging with a pack of knuckleheads. She should be over there, in the fray, fighting their greatest battle yet. She needed that release.