Not inside this tiny brick-walled room, crowded together, as the last seconds ticked away before the grenade exploded.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dahl saw the world go dark. He saw time slow to crawling pace, the beat of every living heart measured in endless moments. When the grenade bounced, displacing dust and dirt from the floor in a tiny mushroom cloud, his bullet entered the terrorist’s skull, clattering around before it burst out of the back and struck the wall amidst a wide fountain of blood. The body slackened, the life already departed. The grenade came down for its second bounce and Dahl started to let the gun fall away from his face.
Precious seconds remained.
Three terrorists were still on their knees, groaning and defeated, and they did not see what was coming. SWAT guys were trying to arrest their momentum or scramble back up the steps.
Smyth was turning his gaze up at Dahl, the last vision of his life.
Dahl knew that Kenzie and Lauren and Yorgi were at the top of the stairs and had half a moment of hope they were far enough away from the epicenter.
And still, this is all for my children…
The grenade exploded at the height of its second bounce, the sound momentarily the loudest thing the Swede had ever heard. Then all sound was suddenly smothered as thought fell away…
His eyes were fixed ahead, and couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
The SWAT leader had sprinted with everything he had, knowing what was coming and determined to save as many as he could, realizing instantly that he was the only person who could do so. His run took him above the grenade, enabling him to fall directly on top of it in the split-second before it erupted. Through Kevlar and flesh and bone it detonated, but did not touch those who stood transfixed about the room. The blast was muffled and then was gone.
Dahl cleared his throat, unable to believe his own eyes. The selflessness of his colleagues always humbled him, but this was on another level.
I didn’t… I didn’t even know his name.
And still, terrorists knelt before him.
Dahl raced down the last few steps, tears blinding his eyes even as he kicked the three men onto their backs. Smyth tore their jackets open. No explosive vests were apparent, but one man started to foam at the mouth even as Smyth knelt by his side. Another writhed in agony. The third was pinned down, immobile. Dahl met the man’s terrible, polar-cap gaze with a hatred of his own. Kenzie came up and caught the Swede’s attention, looking at Dahl, her ice-blue eyes so clear and cold and flooded with feeling they appeared to be a vast, thawing landscape, and mouthed the only words she could muster.
“He saved us by sacrificing himself. I… I feel so deficient, so deplorable, compared to him.”
Dahl, in all his days, had never found himself unable to comment. He did now.
Smyth frisked all three men, coming up with more grenades, bullets and small arms. Papers and notes were crumpled in pockets, so the assembled men started to rummage through them.
Others walked over to their fallen leader, heads bowed. One man knelt and reached out a hand to touch the officer’s back.
The third terrorist died, whatever poison he had consumed simply taking longer to act than his colleagues’. Dahl watched dispassionately. When his earpiece squawked and Moore’s voice filled his head he listened but could think of no answer.
“Five cells,” Moore told him. “Our sources have found that Ramses has five cells in total. You’ve encountered two, which leaves three remaining. Do you have any new information for me, Dahl? Hello? You there? What the hell is happening?”
The mad Swede toggled a small button that would turn Moore mute. He wanted at least a few seconds to pay his respects in silence. Like all the men and women down there, he survived only because of one man’s enormous sacrifice. This man would never see the light of day again nor the setting sun, or feel a warm breeze play upon on his face. Dahl would experience that for him.
For as long as he lived.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Seventeen minutes.
Drake followed Beau’s lead, cutting left down 59th and heading straight into the chaos that was Columbus Circle. Flags fluttered from buildings to his left, a green swathe lay to his right, sprinkled with trees. A mostly glass apartment building sat up ahead, its windows glinting in welcome to the still rising sun. A yellow cab slowed at the curb, its driver expectant on seeing four heavily clothed sprinters hightailing it along the sidewalk, but Beau didn’t give the man a second glance. The circle was a wide, concrete expanse with waterfalls and statues and places to sit. Tourists wandered to and fro, repacking rucksacks and drinking water. Drake drilled through the middle of a group of sweating athletes, then ran under a stretch of trees that offered at least a little shadow.
Out of sight of prying eyes.
The contrast of the austere, hectic streets with their many extremes — the majestic, cluttered skyscrapers vying for space among traditional churches along a uniform grid system — and the utter peace and calm that inhabited the greenery off to his right filled Drake with a sense of unreality. How crazy was this place? How dreamlike? The distinctions were unimaginably extreme.
He wondered just how closely Marsh was watching them, but didn’t mind too much. It could be the undoing of the man. Homeland were even now trying to find the feed so they could trace it back to a source.
A flamboyant globe spun slowly to the left as the group sped on. Alicia and Mai ran close behind, keeping watch but unable to use their full abilities at this kind of pace. The enemy could be anywhere, anyone. A passing sedan with blacked out windows warranted a closer inspection, but vanished into the distance.
Drake checked the time. Eleven minutes left.
And still the moments ticked away, second after second. Beau slowed as a light gray building appeared over the road, one Drake instantly recognized. Still running, he turned to Alicia and Mai. “Same building we fought in during the Odin thing. Shit, seems like a lifetime ago now.”
“Didn’t a helicopter hit the side?” Alicia asked.
“Oh yeah, and a T. Rex attacked us.”
The Natural History Museum appeared comparatively small from this angle, a misconception if ever there was one. Steps rose from the sidewalk to the front doors, currently thronged by a group of tourists. The combined smells of diesel and petrol assaulted them as they stopped at the curb. The noise of engines, honking horns and random shouting still tattered their senses, but at least the traffic was moving past here.
“Don’t stop now,” Alicia said. “We have no idea where the guard will be.”
Drake attempted to stop the traffic and allow them to cross. “Let’s hope he didn’t call in sick.”
Luckily, the vehicle flow was light and the group managed to thread their way across the road quite easily. Once at the base of the museum’s steps they started up, all coming to a sudden halt as they heard the loud screech of tires behind them.
Drake thought: Seven minutes.
They turned to a scene of unreserved madness. Four men jumped out of a car, rifles held in the air. Drake scrambled to evade, leaping away from the museum’s doors and straggling visitors. Beau swiftly withdrew his own weapon and took a bead on the enemy. Shots were fired. Screams tore the morning to shreds.
Drake leapt high and hit low, rolling as he struck the sidewalk and ignoring the pain where his shoulder took the full force of his body. An assailant had leapt onto the hood of a sedan and was already lining Mai up in his sights. Drake rolled against the vehicle and then rose, fortunate to find himself within grabbing distance of the rifle. He reached up, becoming the clearer threat and demanding attention.