Silk stared across the pools of shadow and silvery light that hunched and merged between gravestones, trees and mausoleums. “If they have a backup plan,” he said, “knowing the Pythians as we do, it ain’t gonna be dancing in the moonlight.”
Collins turned a wistful eye on him. “If only.”
Trent frowned at the ground. “Later, maybe. What the hell are we missing?”
Although ex-CIA and FBI, although trained to be observant and notice the things everyday civilians didn’t; although crammed with many years’ experience, it still took the team several minutes to pick through their memories and find an answer.
Collins got there first. Maybe it was the sudden roar, the growling clank of heavy metal, but the bulb going off in her brain lit her eyes. “Damn! The dumper trucks!”
Trent spun. Like angry, newly resurrected monsters, four brightly lit trucks roared down the wide road that fronted the cemetery. End to end, engines screaming; Trent was put in mind of the four horsemen of the apocalypse come to devour the living.
“We passed them on the freeway,” Collins said. “And if they’re here now it can only be for one thing.”
“Diversion.” Trent ran back toward the road as if he was trying to cut the trucks off. To the left, some of the security forces had finally taken notice and were starting to shout. Trent cried out, sensing Silk, Radford and Collins at his back, trying to attract all the attention. Guns materialized through the trucks’ open windows.
Trent dived and rolled, reaching for a weapon. Bullets crisscrossed the air above his head. Coming up on one knee he opened fire.
“Just another friggin’ day with the Disavowed,” Collins said in his left ear, already pulling her trigger.
“We sure aren’t a hop-on, hop-off kinda ride,” Silk said. “We’re more of a twenty-four-hour endurance race.”
“With a twist,” Radford added.
“I think you mean twisted,” Collins said with a devilish grin.
The dumper trucks barreled past, breaking formation as they approached the SWAT vans and cop cars. Trent found himself left in their wake. His sober, analytical mind saw exactly where this was going.
“God help them.”
One truck veered off the road, smashed up across the curb and over the sidewalk, entering the cemetery. Roaring, it proceeded to bounce and crash its way through gravestones, shattering each one to pieces as it climbed the slope. The remaining three trucks charged on, at last taking fire, but way too close to their target to make a difference.
Three hundred tons travelling at forty miles an hour is more than a daunting sight — especially when it’s bearing down on you. Cops and flak-jacketed special units broke before the onslaught like waves before an enormous prow. The first truck rammed a cop car, destroying the front end and sending it spinning into the next. The truck then collided with the side of a SWAT van, lifting it off the ground with an almighty crunch and tipping it over to the side. Behind it the remaining two dump trucks smashed more cars and vans, and aimed deliberately for the running men.
“It’s a fucking war zone.” Trent watched the first truck as it crashed through the cemetery. “Come on!”
The four of them dashed from tree to tree, headstone to headstone, sprinting up the slope in pursuit of the speeding truck. It wasn’t hard to follow. The sheer size and noise, the damage it left in its wake, the concentrated purpose of its route, left them in no doubt as to its destination.
Over the crest of the hill they ran. The truck was already hurtling down, gaining speed and jouncing from bump to bump so harshly Trent wondered if its occupants might end up with broken spines. One look behind told him they had no backup; the authorities had their hands full with their own pitched battle. He charged down the hill and saw their destination before they were halfway there.
An open pit by a fallen grave marker; the dark shapes of men standing around the rim.
“Waiting,” he said. “They’re just waiting for the truck. We have to hurry.”
At that moment there was a fiery flash from the gravesite. Trent recognized the sign immediately but Collins spoke faster.
“RPG!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The team threw themselves left and right. The rocket scorched the air as it passed through, exploding against a nearby tree. Trent turned his face away from the sudden heat. A creak and a rustling of branches signaled the next threat — the falling tree itself. Radford squealed and Collins cried a warning as they both scrambled away. Trent half rose and crabbed his way clear, whipped by branches and twigs as the tree’s extremities still beat down on him. Silk didn’t manage to escape the felling, ending up prone beneath a rough layer of tree limbs. Trent and the others struggled over to help.
“Go,” Silk said as he pushed his way clear. “Just go.”
Trent broke into the open. Ahead, the truck had stopped and men were swarming around it. Trent knew that this cemetery opened out north and south onto other roads, no doubt a fact the mercenaries were counting on. Already exposed, he wasted no time in firing off shots, hoping to slow the mercs down. Men dropped to their knees and fired back, bullets whizzing far and wide through the darkness.
And then another dreadful noise. The howling approach of one of the other three trucks, storming through the graveyard behind them. Headlights chopped at the night behind him like demonic light-sabers, and then the truck was bearing down. Again Trent found himself rolling to the side, coming up hard against a grave with Collins rolling across his feet.
“Christ,” she swore. “Found myself on my bloody back more times in the last fifteen minutes than in the past week.” She grinned up at him. “And that’s saying something.”
Trent stayed attentive, ignoring her. Collins had always been about the job when she was working, saving the play for later. Since they’d got together though, her outlook had started to change.
Silk and Radford joined them. The second truck swerved in to join the first, carving great furrows through the grass. Trent could already see flashing lights approaching the scene, but with such an extensive, unfenced cemetery to cover they might as well try to stem the Pacific tide.
Forward again, the team ate up the ground between themselves and their enemies.
Trent was able to use the huge trucks’ blind sides as extra cover, bringing him right into the enemy camp. Trained to kill by the CIA, he was not a man prone to leaving anything but bodies behind before the Razor’s Edge were disavowed, but this scenario suited him just fine. Mercs rose and fell before him. He ducked behind an outsize tire as gunfire erupted. Silk took the man out. Radford, always the team member most likely to break something in combat, ran for the first truck with Collins at his side.
Trent saw logic in that. The samples these mercenaries had collected would surely already have been loaded by now.
He took off in pursuit, climbing onto the side of the truck by way of the wheels. As his fingers found their grip the truck started to move. Silk, alongside him, emitted a knowing grunt.
“Shit, this is gonna be bad.”
The truck roared. Trent clung on as best he could. Most of the mercenaries were on the other side, largely unaware of their presence. Any passenger with more than half a brain would see them immediately, but they still had a chance.
Trent climbed, finding hand and footholds protruding from the vehicle’s uneven bodywork. Within a minute he slipped over the top, staying low. Bullets strafed the truck’s side, aimed at Silk, but the wiry man made it just in time. Collins, still below, took out the shooter with a single shot.
Trent shuffled forward as the vehicle gained speed. Only now did an unhappy memory return of its frantic, destructive journey through the first part of the graveyard. He swiveled to left and right, searching for a place to hold on to, then felt his body sliding backwards as the behemoth picked up speed.