With that he side-kicked Coyote’s knee, forcing her to fall, and came around, tumbling across the ground toward Drake. At the last minute he swerved and threw out a lightning punch that Drake didn’t even see.
But he felt it. The sudden agony in his throat made him reflexively send both his hands there, leaving the rest of his body open to violent, nerve-shattering attack. Beauregard was like Mai — one vital strike and you were dead.
Beauregard pounced.
And Michael Crouch took him down.
Drake flinched as Beauregard struck out, both fists flying, then let out a pent-up breath as Crouch landed on the man’s exposed back. The Frenchman slammed into the dirt as if he’d been poleaxed, mud exploding out from under him.
Drake breathed hard. “Nice move.” His throat was on fire.
Crouch shrugged. “I saw—” and suddenly disappeared. Drake blinked and saw Crouch hit the same mud as Beauregard, only the Frenchman was now standing upright, Crouch’s neck in his hand, fingers pressed deeply into his victim’s pressure points.
“You will die for that,” Beauregard mouthed at Crouch.
“No!” Drake shouted, knowing he wouldn’t make it in time.
The Frenchman flexed his fingers. Crouch screamed as if he’d been stabbed by a thousand daggers. His face turned instantly white, eyes glazing over.
And Drake could only watch as, unbelievably, Coyote leapt to the aid of her former boss. Her shriek of, “Michael!” was lost under the crunch of her body hitting Beauregard’s. Crouch fell away, gasping. Drake ran to his aid.
“Your word,” Drake heard Beauregard say to Coyote. “If your word can no longer be trusted, then you are no longer the Coyote.”
Drake heard another cry as he patted Crouch’s face. This one of twisted anguish.
Shit.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
He whirled, but Coyote was already on him, striking again and again, a pure killing machine. This time he made his punches tell; breaking ribs, jabbing at eyes and behind the ears, but it made no difference. Coyote was above it, beyond it, transported from a singular hell into a world of sudden chance — the world where she could again be Shelly — and now back to a life of pure torment and terrible desire. Choice made, she gave it her all.
Drake wilted slowly. When Beauregard appeared behind Coyote — a black angel of death — he knew the game was up.
Last man standing? Beauregard would win the day.
“I’m so sorry,” Coyote muttered even as she pounded at him.
Beauregard’s knife glinted with the fire of the rising sun.
The noise Drake would never have expected, the one that changed it all, was the roar of a motorbike. From the corner of his eye he saw a trial bike, ridden by Torsten Dahl, ten feet off the ground, soaring above them like the veritable bat out of hell. Dahl dangled from the seat and plucked the very blade from Beauregard’s hands as he started to plunge it downward, then threw it back at the Frenchman.
Beauregard fell hard, avoiding the knife but hurting himself in the process. Dahl landed and turned the bike on a penny, mud and wet grass shooting from the spinning wheel. Coyote still struck out at Drake, but her attack was distracted.
Dahl shot between the two of them, blasting both their bodies and faces with dirt and thick sludge.
They fell back, opening a gap. Drake suddenly found himself with allies at his side. Standing in a line behind him had been Mai, Alicia and Crouch, now joined by Dahl on his bike.
Facing them were Coyote and Beauregard.
The titans of combat came together.
CHAPTER FORTY
All hell broke loose in the town of Sunnyvale.
The SAS had slipped around the flanks of the merc army and were among them. Paid mercenaries twisted every which way, fighting hard. SO units came at them from covered positions. Men fell, twisted and bled in the dirt. A high inflatable slide exploded and rapidly deflated among them, its flapping sides knocking three men off their feet. A funhouse, built on two levels of shaking walkways, distorting mirrors, screaming sirens and irregular steps exploded as two RPGs hit it. Timber and flame fired high into the air, debris shooting out like crazy fireworks, the whole thing lit like a blazing bonfire. Whatever snipers were inside died instantly.
Drake, Mai and Alicia ran at Beauregard and Coyote. Dahl revved his bike and shot forward like a bullet.
The big wheel, poised above the funhouse and littered with burning wreckage from its arms to its gondolas, shuddered and groaned for the second time that morning. Then, in slow motion, it started to tilt, the massive structure now leaning over. For a moment, as all eyes turned upward, it halted, hesitating as if deciding whether to hang on or give up the ghost. The morning was still for one precious instant, a span of tension and fear and a little regret, and then the circular edifice collapsed.
It came down among the men, bodies darting everywhere, some waiting until the last second and coolly stepping aside, others tying to gauge the structure’s fall and being slammed into by those in a panic. Mayhem reigned. Those that still stood in the aftermath tried to pick off their enemies, some never losing a beat. Those that were injured or crushed yelled out to their colleagues and, depending on which side they were on, received immediate help.
Drake slid into Coyote, taking her legs. Alicia feinted past Beauregard, drawing his attention.
“Get a little closer, Beau. I got a ruler in my pocket and, man, do I wanna use it.”
The Frenchman paused, as if confused. That gave Dahl all the time he needed to ram the speeding bike into his body, hurling him away from the handlebars. The Swede didn’t let up on the throttle one bit, knowing they had to take such a dangerous enemy completely out of the picture.
When Beauregard landed, Alicia jumped atop him, just to make sure.
Drake had slid past Coyote, put a palm on the ground, and used it to spin his body back around. Now, as Coyote scrambled up, he hit her at the same time as Mai. The double-headed attack left the assassin lying on her back, winded and trying to catch her breath.
“Give it up,” Drake said. “Tell your mercs to stand down. It’s over.”
Coyote spat at him.
“Shelly,” Drake tried. “There’s no need for any more loss of life.”
Crouch joined them. “We protect our people, Shelly. Not sacrifice them.”
Coyote snarled. “Shelly died when she was eight! When I made her torture her first small animal. Innocent girl, long lost. Poor girl. Poor parents. They knew when she changed. They knew when the killer took root. Only it was me who learned to control it. To feed it slowly and never get caught. If Shelly ever came back… the animal would destroy her.”
Drake stepped back as Coyote kicked out and managed to regain her feet. Mai produced a pistol that she’d taken from a dead merc in anticipation of this moment.
“Stop,” she said. “This is over.”
Coyote smiled. The sugar-sweet tones slipped once more across Drake’s senses. “The nano-vests were an experiment for the Pythians,” she said. “In the event of my capture that was the last thing I was supposed to tell you. My job is over.”
“Experiment?” Drake repeated. “What kind of experiment?”
“I don’t know. When Kovalenko failed them in DC — he was supposed to put one on the President you know — it fell to me as the next person in line to try them out. My guess? It’s nothing fun.”
Drake felt his heart plummet like a falling star. “Kovalenko was working for someone? No way.”
“The Pythians helped bankroll him when he couldn’t get access to his money in prison. You think he did that? No way. They fine-tuned the op in DC. They gave him the drone that was used, the nano-vests.”