And even then…
She followed Crouch, darkness her only ally. The gloom was so inscrutable it was like walking through a cave, apart from the slight breeze. The only light picked out the plane they were walking toward and all its flaws.
Kenzie’s voice drifted from the murk. “Hands up and line up. I don’t want to have to chop you people to pieces. Yet.”
Alicia instinctively lowered her body, turning sideways to the threat, hands hovering over weapons that had been supplied back at the safe house.
Crouch looked ready to start stamping his foot. “How the hell did you find us again?”
Kenzie sounded smug. “I have my contacts too, Michael.” She stressed the word “contacts” ever so slightly.
Crouch didn’t respond, just looked worried. Alicia understood exactly what he was thinking. If his chain of international contacts was compromised… then he had no contacts at all. No trust. The world was falling down on Crouch as the enemies and victories of his past began to catch up with him.
“I followed you this far. Now, tell me the rest.”
Alicia cleared her mind, practically willing her eyes to pick enemies out of the darkness. They were only ten feet from the plane and its lowered cargo door. Shelter in the form of old crates and even a rusted old car littered the disheveled airfield. The problem would be after they boarded the plane. Did Kenzie have enough firepower to take it down? Would she go that far? Alicia didn’t know.
“You murdered Naz,” she said. “You and me, we will have a reckoning for that one day.”
“Go suck it, bitch. One day I’ll stomp you into the ground.”
Alicia’s mouth almost fell open. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been spoken to that way. A lesson was in need of being taught. She said nothing, but the expression on her face could have frozen the polar north.
“So what do you want?” Crouch asked.
Alicia saw the pilots now approaching through the cargo hold, both looking uncertain. She knew from experience that any kind of tinder could set off a gun battle and almost spoke up to stop them, but what Kenzie said next stopped her dead.
“I want your treasure and then I want you all dead. In that order. Now talk before I change my mind and we move on to the next set of sad tomb raiders.”
Kenzie was never going to let them go. The field was isolated, the perfect death trap. Alicia saw faces now as their enemy loomed unconsciously closer, itching for action. She saw eight, maybe ten faces and that of Kenzie’s, tight with hate.
“There’s no future here,” she said, indicating their enemy. “We’d be doing the world a favor.”
Crouch nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’m already there, Alicia.”
Kenzie seemed to leap forward. “What are you saying?”
“That the treasure’s still in St. Mark’s Basilica,” Russo shouted unexpectedly. “With the Horses. They were never parted.”
Alicia cringed.
“Then why are you about to hop onto a plane, Einstein?”
Russo caught flies.
Crouch stepped in. “Even if we knew, which we don’t, we’d never tell you where the treasure is.”
Kenzie nodded. “I know.”
“Then what’s next?”
“I guess you’re making me do something I love. I’ll have to torture it out of you.”
Alicia spread her arms. “Go right ahead.”
TWENTY
Alicia twisted away, knowing their enemy would already have weapons drawn. The rusted car stood at her back and she ducked behind the flat wheels. The noise she heard then, however, wasn’t the expected gunfire, it was the roaring whine of a motorcycle engine. No, she thought as she lifted her head over the side. Dirt bikes.
Swerving left and right, men burst toward them. They must have wheeled them into position, she thought. That meant somebody had known the team’s destination almost at the same time they did.
We’re bugged. Or…
Not even the slightest hint of betrayal entered her mind. Not with this team. The approaching men all held compact machine pistols which Alicia recognized as the GEN4 Glock; deadly and accurate at the worst of times.
Her first shot hammered into a front tire, upsetting the bike’s balance and sending its rider flying into the front of the immobile car. The crunch of impact told her they would no longer be a problem. By then, a second bike was scrambling up to her position, its muddy wheels spitting gravel like tiny missiles. Alicia ducked as she heard the clatter and bang of flying stones and a rush of dirt flew over the car and onto the top of her head.
“Bastard’s gonna pay for that.”
She rose, firing, but the merc had already leapt from his bike and crashed down upon her. Alicia felt the unexpected impact like a house collapsing and folded. Stars exploded before her eyes. The ground was a stunning, ungiving slab. Her opponent tumbled past, his momentum unstoppable. Alicia groaned for an instant and remained immobile until some sense of reality returned.
It came in the form of Russo’s boot being planted beside her head.
“No time for napping. We’ve a plane to catch.”
Alicia struggled to her knees, head still spinning. The pilots had raced back to the plane’s cockpit and started the engines. Power was already starting to thrum through the wings and down into the tarmac. Russo rendered the flying merc comatose as Alicia finally rose unsteadily to her feet.
“Wow, felt like I was hit by a truck.”
“Let’s hope it knocks some sense into you, eh?”
Alicia took in her surroundings in an instant. Kenzie was hoofing it toward the plane, Crouch and Caitlyn trying to cut her off. Healey stood before two dirt bike riders as bullets ripped up the road at his feet. Three more were slewing around the front of the rusted car.
Alicia and Russo picked up the fallen merc between them and hurled his body at the new arrivals. Their combined force was enough to take two down and make the third cartwheel over their wreckage. Russo finished them off fast as Alicia vaulted the front of the rusted car, still with a ringing in her ears, and returned fire at those who assailed Healey.
With a sudden lunge she was lucky enough to pluck one off his bike. The merc landed well though and was quickly up, confronting her. Alicia feinted, but fell to one knee, still unbalanced by her earlier collision. The merc struck at her. Quickly, she rolled on to her side firing upwards. The world spun again and a sense of nausea came over her. Healey backed up. A bike shot past, between them, a fire-breathing monster with intent to kill.
Crouch headed Kenzie off at the cargo door, planting his bulk before her advance. With a handgun steadied at his side he paused for a moment. “This isn’t your game. Not anymore. Get out whilst you can.”
“What? Go back to robbing Arabs of the petty treasures they’ve unearthed in the desert? To laying in the sand and dust for hours? To slogging through scorching sunshine and coughing my lungs up every night? I think not.”
Crouch uttered a grunt of shock when Kenzie produced a gleaming weapon.
“A sword? Are you kidding?”
“It’s a katana. Reforged from several swords originally made of true Damascus steel. My sweetheart.”
Alicia staggered toward the confrontation. “Your sweetheart’s a sword? And you melted down old Damascus steel to make it? Lady, you truly are a crackhead looney.”