Drake clenched his fists. “Not gonna happen, Myles”
FORTY-FIVE
Alicia shocked him by ripping off her T-shirt, swirling it around itself until it became as tight as a rope, then swinging it two-handed around his neck. He struggled, but her improvised harness dragged him in.
Straight into her rising knees — Thai-boxing style. One. Two. Three.
He twisted around the first. Turned again. The second crunched by his ribs. The third caught him fully in the balls. Pain thudded through his belly, sickening, and he fell onto his backside.
Alicia stood above him, grinning. “What did I say? Tell me, Drakey, what exactly did I say.” She made a motion of handing him something.
“Your balls.”
She dropped a hip and twisted, shot out a side-kick aimed at his nose. Drake brought up both hands and blocked it. Felt one finger dislocate. She turned so she was facing him dead-on, swinging one leg high and over in an arc, then bringing the heel sharply down towards his forehead.
Axe kick.
Drake rolled back, but the kick still struck his chest. And, with the force Myles could muster, it hurt like a bitch.
She stamped on his ankle.
Drake screamed. His body was being systematically broken, bruised and lamed. She was breaking him, piece by piece. Damn the civilian years. But then — could he even blame the lay-off? She had always been good. Had she always been this good?
Civilian break or not, he was still SAS, and she was painting the floor with his blood.
He shuffled backwards. A trio of fighters fell over him, crashing all around. Drake enjoyed the respite of elbowing a German in the throat. He heard cartilage crack, felt a little better.
He stood up, aware that she had let him. She danced from foot to foot, eyes lit from within by devilry and brimstone. Beyond her, Dahl and Frey and Hudson were locked together, wrestling across the side of Odin’s coffin, faces constricted with pain.
Alicia flicked out her T-shirt at him. It connected like a whip, made the left side of his face burn. She struck again and he caught it. Pulled with intense strength. She came stumbling into his arms.
“Hi.”
He jammed both thumbs just below her ears, pressing hard. Instantly she began to writhe, all semblance of cockiness gone. He was pressing the nerve cluster hard enough to cause any normal man to black out.
Myles bucked and kicked like a rodeo bull.
He pressed harder. Finally, she leaned back in his harsh embrace, letting him take her weight, limp, trying to compartmentalise the pain. Then she shot upright and thrust both thumbs under his armpits.
Straight into his own nerve cluster. Agony blasted through his body.
And so they were locked. Two fearsome enemies, battling through waves of pain, barely moving, staring into each other’s eyes like long-lost lovers, ‘til death do they part.
Drake grunted, unable to hide his suffering. “Crazy… bitch. Why… why work for this… this man?”
“Means… to… an… end.”
Neither Drake nor Myles would back down. Around them the fight began to draw to a close. More coalition troops remained standing than Germans. But they battled on. And Drake could vaguely see Dahl and Frey locked in a similar, deadly embrace, fighting to the end.
No solider interrupted them. The respect was too high. In privacy and impartially these battles would be decided.
Drake fell to his knees, taking Alicia with him. Black spots danced before his eyes. He realised that if she found a way to break his hold he was well and truly done for. Energy drained from him by the second.
He wilted. She pressed harder, that ultimate killer instinct digging in. His thumbs slipped away. Alicia fell forward, striking with an elbow to his chin. Drake saw it coming but didn’t have the energy to stop it.
Sparks exploded behind his eyes. He fell flat on his back, staring up at Frey’s gothic ceiling. Alicia crawled over and blocked his line of sight with her pain-riddled face.
None of the soldiers around them tried to stop her. This would not end until one of the combatants either called a truce or died.
“Not bad,” she coughed. “You still got it, Drake. But I’m still better than you.”
He blinked. “I know.”
“What?”
“You have… that edge. That killer instinct. Battle fury. Whatever. It makes the difference. That… that’s why I quit.”
“Why would that stop you?”
“I cared about something outside the job,” he said. “That changes everything.”
Her fist was raised, ready to crush his throat. A moment passed. Then she said: “A life for a life?”
Drake was starting to feel the energy trickling slowly back into his limbs. “After everything I’ve done today I think they owe me that much.”
Alicia stepped back and held an arm out to help him to his feet. “I threw Wells towards the ropes at Mimir’s Well. I didn’t kill him at Odin’s Tomb. I diverted Frey’s attention away from Ben Blake. I’m not in this to destroy the world, Drake, I’m just here to have me some fun.”
“Acknowledged.” Drake steadied himself, just as Torsten Dahl heaved Abel Frey’s limp body off the wide rim of Odin’s coffin. It hit the floor with a wet crack, flopping lifelessly against the Italian marble pavers.
A cheer went up, echoed throughout the coalition troops.
Dahl pumped a fist as he stared inside the coffin.
“The bastard never got to see this prize,” he laughed. “His life’s work. Jesus Christ, guys, you’ve gotta see this.”
FORTY-SIX
A day later, Drake managed to escape from the endless round of debriefings to catch up on a few hours sleep at a nearby hotel, one of Stockholm’s oldest and finest.
In the lobby, he waited for the lift and wondered why all his thought processes were shot. They’d been made crazy by lack of sleep, constant beatings and intense pressure. He needed several days of recuperation.
The lift dinged. A figure came up beside him.
Kennedy — dressed in Saturday’s usual pantsuit, hair tightly swept back, surveying him with those tortured eyes.
“Hey.”
Words weren’t enough. To ask her if she was okay was beyond lame, it was downright foolish.
“Hey yourself.”
“Same floor?”
“Sure. They’re keeping us all boxed off but together.”
They got in. Stared at their shattered reflections in the mirror. Avoided contact with the requisite video camera. Drake pressed the button for nineteen.
“You getting through this as well as I am, Kennedy?”
She laughed genuinely. “A crazy week, or weeks. Not sure. It blows my mind that I ended up fighting my nemesis and clearing my name at the end of all this.”
Drake shrugged. “As did I. Ironic, eh?”
“Where’d she go? Alicia.”
“Into the night where all the best secrets go, her and that computer geek, Hudson,” Drake shrugged. “Gone before anyone who really mattered noticed them. Probably banging each others’ brains out as we speak.”
“You did the right thing. They weren’t the masterminds here. Alicia’s dangerous but not crazy. Oh, and don’t you mean into the still of the night.”
He took a moment to process her Dino-rock reference. He guffawed. His spirits rose faster than mercury on a sunny day.