Dudley came at Dahl, snarling. The box landed hard beside them, thudding into the street but resilient enough to endure without a scratch. Dudley punched hard and true, a boxer through and through. Blows to Dahl’s ribs and arms made the Swede only flinch, rather than let his guard down. Dudley kept coming, snorting and puffing, drawling it up a storm.
Drake hefted his attacker by the shoulders and slammed him sideways into the wall. Still holding his pistol he used it to shoot another man about to take a potshot. Four were left around him; they grabbed the box and made a break for it. Drake watched them sprint up the road in the direction of the many shops and plush apartments that fronted Knightsbridge.
A nasty thought occurred to him. These guys didn’t even need to escape the area. If the Pythians owned a piece of property around here — anything from a One Hyde Park hundred-million-pound apartment to a basement beneath the local Nero’s — then the authorities were never going to find it.
Even a vehicle in a parking garage…
The more he thought about it the more realistic the idea sounded.
He clicked the comms. “Follow the guys with the box. Now!”
Hayden’s voice came back instantly, crackling. “We’re pinned down.”
Drake glanced over as he ran with Mai, seeing the ex-FBI agents taking cover behind a Range Rover as assailants fired on them. The good news was that the wail of sirens was coming inexorably closer, now almost on top of the street battle.
The bad news: He was almost a man alone, chasing down the current most precious prize on the planet.
From behind he heard Dahl grunt and then Dudley cry out. But still the Irishman raged. Drake leaped aside as one of the men he was chasing peeled off and turned around, on one knee, gun drawn.
Drake dived as the weapon fired, hearing the shot but not seeing even a flash as the bullet fizzed past. Rolling, he came up feet first and planted them in the shooter’s chest, breaking ribs and taking him out of the fight. Up and running he was even further behind now as another man broke away from the pack.
Another shot.
Drake dived behind a van, heard the bullet ricochet away, popped his head out and came close to getting it blown off by a second shot. The van’s front headlight disappeared in a plastic blizzard. Flashing blue lights painted the surrounding walls. Drake sneaked a peek through the van’s rear window, saw the remaining two men escaping with the box. It was critical, deadly serious if they escaped, but what could he do?
Getting his head shot to pieces was not the answer.
In that instant, for reasons he could not begin to fathom, Mai stepped out into the open. The gunman’s aim swiveled toward her. Mai didn’t move; just stood there as a distraction waiting for the bullet that may or may not end her life. Drake yelled at the top of his lungs and rose too, shooting through his entire clip. In that moment Mai breathed again.
“Damn.”
Drake knew not what the curse meant, nor whether it was for a good or bad outcome, but he finished the shooter off and didn’t hang around to ask. Head down, sprinting at top speed, he reached the dark corner ahead and slipped around it as carefully as possible.
Empty. The road was empty.
The men were gone. The box was gone. The plague had escaped.
Drake shouted with frustration.
In the aftermath, as Hayden fought to establish the team’s credentials with an overenthusiastic inspector, Drake sought Torsten Dahl. The Swede was sitting with his back to a low wall, staring up at the skies. Drake threw himself down alongside him.
“How ya doin’, mate?”
“Could be better.” Dahl winced a little as he moved. “Little fucker packs a punch.”
“He get away?”
“Yeah.” Dahl sounded as gloomy as a man who’d married for money only to find out his wife’s real name was Colin. “Took off across the gardens like a stabbed rat.”
“Is that supposed to be topically funny?”
“Not especially.”
“Did he at least come out worse?”
Dahl gave him a stare. “Don’t be a dick. What do you think?”
Drake grinned. At that moment Mai came up to them, standing next to Drake’s outstretched legs. Her cell was ringing. “It’s Dai Hibiki,” she said. “Maybe he’s learned something more about Grace or her parents.”
As she spoke, Drake studied her with hooded eyes. Hooded because they were anxious. Hooded because they were terrified.
What the hell was going on with Mai Kitano?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Los Angeles simmered at 8 p.m., basking in the heat amassed from another glorious day. Beaches and parks still echoed to the sounds of the spirited and the sprightly, all the more lonely now for losing the greatest gifts humanity could bestow — life, liveliness, energy. And innocence. Innocence existed here only in the young. Parents struggled to keep the real world from their children beyond the very last moment — and to help do that they took them to the beach. The park.
Let them run in the sun, luxuriate in the warmth, play to their hearts’ content, live out their very real dreams before life intervened.
Los Angeles, the city of angels, savored the night. The Santa Anas gusted through the mountains, but at least the forest fires weren’t burning tonight. More than two million people were living their lives in the great basin, day to day, night to night, meal to meal, TV show to TV show.
Aaron Trent was known by his friends and colleagues as the “serious” one. He was the leader, the one with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Every decision, every op and its outcome, was down to him. For many years the gods had seen fit to reward him, earning his three-man team a reputation as the best in the business. The Razor’s Edge, they had been called, and every agency in the world sought their input. Their skills were legendary.
And then one night it had all shattered to dust. By then his marriage was over, his boy — Mikey — living with his mother and her new boyfriend minutes from Rodeo. Trent and his team had become known as the Disavowed — three agents who took the fall for a country’s failings. Later, they discovered the real truth — that they had been used, framed by a Serbian madman who found aid in one of the world’s largest corporations. By then it was too late. The Disavowed had found a new purpose — helping those who could not help themselves, working for the weak who struggled to fight against the powerful.
Now, as the omniscient stars glittered knowingly and the warm air absolved the sins of yet another day in paradise, Trent knew there was something else in his life that had well and truly begun to matter. Her name was Claire Collins, and she was the Disavowed’s FBI liaison, helping them work off the books now that their old friend, Doug the Trout, was dead. Collins was the new light in his life, the ballbuster with a soft edge, the midnight dancer with a fragile heart; she had all the complexities of a motherboard, all the sharpness of a samurai sword, and all the energy and sparkle of a six-year-old.
She sat to his right, enjoying the barbecue his colleague, Dan Radford, dished out.
Thoughts of Doug the Trout only sent his mind back toward Mikey. Doug had saved the boy’s life very recently, dying in the process, taking the brunt of the explosion that was meant for Mikey. The perpetrator of that act, a terrible contract killer known as the Moose, had supposedly escaped into retirement and obscurity. Now, Trent suddenly felt the need to hold both his son and his girlfriend; he slipped an arm around their waists.
Mikey, eight going on eighteen, squirmed in protest but didn’t pull away. This barbecue was a major step forward for the young boy — his mother had been kidnapped and murdered during the recent terrorist attack on LA, when everything had gone Threat Level Red; this was the first time Mikey had seen his dad with another woman.