Grady floored his car, hitting the horn as he did so. That was the signal for the others to get clear. That included the men inside the hospital, whom he'd been unable to alert with his cell phone.
"Jesus Christ!" O'Neil announced when the first rounds were fired. "Why the bloody hell didn't he-"
"Too late to worry, Timmy," Sam Barry told him, waving to his brother and running for the door. Jimmy Carr was there, and the final member of the inside team joined up ten seconds later, emerging from the door to the fire stairs.
"Time to go, lads," O'Neil told them. He looked at the two main hostages and thought to wave to them, but the pregnant one would only slow them down, and there were thirty meters to his van. The plan had come apart, though he didn't know why, and it was time to get the hell out of here.
The third military truck stopped a few yards behind Noonan's personal car. Eddie Price jumped out first, his MP10 up in his hands, then crouched, looking around to identify the noise. Whatever it was, it was happening too bloody fast, and there was no plan. He'd been trained for this as an ordinary infantryman, but that had been twenty years ago. Now he was a special-operations soldier, and supposed to know every step before he took it. Mike Pierce came down next to him.
"What the fuck's happening, Eddie?"
Just then, they saw Noonan jump down from the Volvo truck and swap out magazines on his pistol. The FBI agent saw them, and waved them forward.
"I suppose we follow him," Price said. Louis Loiselle appeared at Pierce's side and the two started off. Paddy Connolly caught up, reaching into his fanny pack for a flash-bang.
O'Neil and his four ran out the emergency-room entrance and made it all the way to their van without being spotted or engaged. He'd left the keys in, and had the vehicle moving before the others had a chance to close all the doors.
"Warning, warning," Franklin called over the radio. "We have bad guys in a brown van leaving the hospital, looks like four of them." Then he swiveled his rifle and took aim just aft of the left-front tire and fired.
The heavy bullet ripped through the fender as though it were a sheet of newspaper, then slammed into the iron block of the six-cylinder engine. It penetrated one cylinder, causing the piston to jam instantly, stopping the engine just as fast. The van swerved left with the sudden loss of engine power, almost tipping over to the right, but then slamming down and righting itself.
O'Neil screamed a curse and tried to restart the engine at once, with no result at all. The starter motor couldn't turn the jammed crankshaft. O'Neil didn't know why, but this vehicle was fully dead, and he was stuck in the open.
Franklin saw the result of his shot with some satisfaction and jacked in another round. This one was aimed at the driver's head. He centered his sight reticle and squeezed, but at the same moment the head moved, and the shot missed. That was something Fred Franklin had never done. He looked on in stunned surprise for a moment, then reloaded.
O'Neil was cut on the face by glass fragments. The bullet hadn't missed him by more than two inches, but the shack of it propelled him out of the driver's seat into the cargo area of the van. There he froze, without a clue as to what to do next.
Homer Johnston and Dieter Weber still had their rifles in the carrying cases, and since it didn't appear that either would have much chance to make use of them, right now they were moving with pistols only. In the rear of their team, they watched Eddie Price slash a hole in the rear cover of the second Volvo truck. Paddy Connolly pulled the pin on a flash-bang and tossed it inside. Two seconds later, the explosion of the pyro charge blew the canvas cover completely off the truck. Pierce and Loiselle jumped up, weapons ready in their hands, but the three men inside were stunned unconscious from the blast. Pierce jumped all the way in to disarm them, tossed their weapons clear of the truck, and kneeled over them.
In each of the three Volvo trucks, one of the armed men was also to be the driver. In the foremost of the three, this one was named Paul Murphy, and from the beginning he'd divided his time between shooting and watching Sean Grady's Jaguar. He saw that the car was moving and dropped his weapon to take the driver's seat and start the diesel engine. Looking up, he saw what had to be the body of Roddy Sands-but it appeared to be headless. What had happened? Sean's right arm came out of the window, waving in a circling motion for the truck to follow. Murphy slipped the truck into gear and pulled off to follow. He turned left to see the brown van Tim O'Neil had driven stopped cold in the hospital parking lot. His first instinct was to go down there and pick his comrades up,but the turn would have been difficult, and Sean was still waving, and so he followed his leader. In the back, one of his shooters lifted the rear flap and looked to see the other trucks, his AKMS rifle in his hands, but neither was moving, and there were men in black clothing there-
–One of those was Sergeant Scotty McTyler, and he had his MP-10 up and aimed. He fired a three-round burst at the face in the distance, and had the satisfaction to see a puff of pink before it dropped out of sight.
"Command, McTyler, we have a truck leaving the area with subjects aboard!" McTyler loosed another few rounds, but without visible effect, and turned away, looking for something else to do.
Popov had never seen a battle before, but that was what he watched now. It seemed chaotic, with people darting around seemingly without purpose. The people in blackwell, three were down at the truck from the initial gunfire, and others were moving, apparently in pursuit of the Jaguar, virtually identical with his, and the truck, now exiting the parking lot. Not three meters away, the TV reporter was speaking rapidly into his microphone, while his cameraman had his instrument locked on the events down the hill. Popov was sure it was exciting viewing for everybody in their sitting rooms. He was also sure that it was time for him to leave.
The Russian got back into his car, started the engine, and moved off, with a spray of gravel for the reporter in his wake.
"I got 'em. Bear's got 'em," Malloy reported, lowering his collective control to drop down to a thousand feet or so, his aviator's eyes looked on the two moving vehicles. "Anybody in command of this disaster?" the Marine asked next.
"Mr. C?" Ding asked.
"Bear, this is Six. I am in command now." Clark and Chavez sprinted back to Clark's official car, where both jumped in, and the driver, unbidden, started in pursuit. He was a corporal of military police in the British Army, and had never been part of the Rainbow team, which he'd always resented somewhat. But not now.
It wasn't much of a challenge. The Volvo truck was powerful, but no competition for the V-8 Jaguar racing up behind it.
Paul Murphy checked his mirror and was instantly confused. Coming up to join him was a Jaguar visually identical to the-he looked, yes, Sean was there, up in front of him. Then who was this? He turned to yell at the people in the back, but on looking, saw that one was down and clearly dead, a pool of blood sliding greasily across the steel floor of the truck. The other was just holding on.
"This is Price. Where is everyone? Where are the subjects?"
"Price, this is Rifle One-Two. I think we have one or more subjects in the brown van outside the hospital. I took the motor out with my rifle. They ain't going nowhere, Eddie."
"Okay." Price looked around. The local situation might even be under control or heading that way. He felt as though he'd been awakened by a tornado and was now looking at his wrecked farm and trying to make sense of what had taken place. One deep breath, and the responsibility of command asserted itself: "Connolly and Lincoln, go right. Tomlinson and Vega, down the hill to the left. Patterson, come with me. McTyler and Pierce, guard the prisoners. Weber and Johnston, get down to Team-1 and see how they are. Move!" he concluded.