Drake saw police cars converging. “Relay a message to the cops, Hayden. Tell them to check the men in the cab. We’re about to hit the facility.”
Hayden’s affirmation came back instantly. “And we’re right with you.”
Two cars shot by. Drake picked up Dahl. The second facility was one minute away.
Crouch employed great skill in making his helicopter take flight. It had been many years — so many he didn’t like to calculate — since he’d taken a bird into the air and especially under such pressure. Not that his passengers, Caitlyn, Healey and Yorgi noticed, they were too busy gearing up and certainly didn’t need to be made aware of their extra peril. With the cyclic stick and collective gripped hard, his feet operated the foot pedals and worked each component simultaneously. He opened the throttle, increasing the speed of the tail rotor, realizing just how rusty he was as the chopper juddered a little. He pulled on the collective and pressed the left foot pedal, painfully aware of the mercs’ own choppers now within shooting range. Luckily, to his right Russo was already in the air.
Shoulda kept up my fieldwork instead of sitting in cafes drinking Frappuccinos all day.
At last he felt the cyclic become sensitive and nudged the chopper forward. Healey had stationed himself at the right door, Yorgi the left. Crouch felt his heart lurch as he saw them.
“Strap yourselves in, for God’s sake. This ain’t no scenic flight.”
Russo banked to the right, drawing two enemy helos. Leaning out of his nearest door was Adam Silk, already drawing a bead on their assailants. Crouch pitched in the opposite direction, turning underneath the other two. Over the top of the hotel he gained altitude, bringing his bird around in a wide arc.
Healey opened fire, aiming broadside and sliding forward at the same time, adjusting his aim.
Below, Crouch saw a midnight-black bike racing around a corner followed by a speeding Alfa Romeo. That could only be Drake and his pals, heading for the secret facility at breakneck speed, desperate to find the antidote. His mind flicked momentarily to Smyth — the tough, snappish solider laid low by a fellow team member’s struggle against death. Before he could think again he saw an enemy helicopter swerve after them. Instantly, he blocked its path, inclining the helo and turning so Healey grabbed its attention.
Bullet holes stitched across its side.
Crouch used a deft touch to lift them higher into the sky, thankful that the old skills were returning. The second merc chopper blasted straight at them. Behind it he saw Russo taking on two more, swerving and pitching out of the skies as Silk and Radford loosed automatic firepower from its open doors. Bullets trailed through the air. Crouch flinched as he felt impact, a line of lead travelling across his own hull, and sent the chopper into a dive. Healey moved superbly with the maneuver, twisting so he could stay focused on their attacker. His own fusillade smashed a side window and sent their attacker tilting away, sideways through the skies.
“Go!” Caitlyn cried at his side. “They drove down Ailanthus. Let’s lead the mercs in another direction.”
Crouch allowed Healey and Yorgi to loose another barrage before lining the chopper’s nose up with the Tower Hotel and darting forward. Caitlyn’s advice was justified as both enemy ‘copters swung around in pursuit. Russo, listening closely to the comms, performed a similar maneuver. Dunn Street fell behind and a clear blue sky momentarily opened up ahead. The chase was on.
Six civilian choppers loaded with mercenaries and soldiers, guns and grenades, flew over the tops of some of the most famous hotels in Niagara Falls — the Fallsview Marriott, the Oakes and the Hilton — before banking right, each blasted by bullets and veering from side to side in evasive maneuvers, to come up against a sight that shocked even them.
“Jesus Christ!” Crouch exclaimed. “We’re heading straight into the falls!”
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Drake roared the black Augusta up the curb, taking flight over the sidewalk, touching down inside the warehouse’s grounds and almost clipping the back of the braking Alfa Romeo. Before the car stopped Alicia was out of the driver’s seat and already in her stride, Mai doing the same from the passenger side. Drake let the Augusta fall, jumping to the side. Trent swung out of the rear of the Alfa.
The second car dispersed the rest of their team as engines roared from the rear of the lengthy, blue-panel corrugated structure. Drake headed toward a half-open roller-shutter front door, then hesitated.
“Shit, if the truck was a diversion that could be—”
“The real thing?” Smyth was white with worry, standing over Lauren who rested in the back of the second car.
Hayden paused, caught between two impossible choices. “Damn!” Her gaze snapped to Lauren, then the warehouse. “I don’t… I don’t…”
It was the first time Drake had ever seen her stumble.
Kinimaka placed an enormous hand on her shoulder. “We have the manpower for both.”
Hayden nodded, snapping back to routine. “Drake’s team, since you’re already practically inside, take the warehouse. We’ll stop whatever comes around this goddamn corner!”
“Hope it’s not a tank,” Alicia wisecracked from near the roller-shutter door.
“Doesn’t matter what comes around,” Smyth snarled. “Party’s over for these motherfuckers.”
Drake urged his team into the dim innards of the warehouse. Instantly, they were beset. The place itself was outfitted much the same way as the first facility back in Greece, half a dozen tables stretched down the middle of the space, each one equipped with laboratory supplies and computers. No chairs were in evidence. Glass phials and test tubes, jugs and juice containers, deep freezers and lighted display cabinets were everywhere. Drake came to a sudden halt when he was faced by a dozen men in white lab coats.
To a man they looked terrified.
Somewhere, a gun was cocked.
And a voice roared out, “Yer again, may the devil choke yer and yer feckin’ mother’s offspring. This time yer feckin’ dead, yer hear? Dead!”
The blood-crazed mercenary, Callan Dudley, opened fire, blasting apart the laboratory workers who, moments ago, had been helping him with the Pandora’s Box plague samples. The first thing Drake knew was the red spots appearing on the white coats, then the stumbling figures and shattered midriffs.
“Down!” he screamed. “Get down!”
Hayden raced to the side of the warehouse just as three black Jaguar XFs came into sight. Engines roaring, windows totally blacked out so that they appeared to be low-slung monsters, enormous grilles like bared teeth, they were speeding down the narrow driveway toward her.
She jerked back, Kinimaka at her side. “They mean business, guys! I’d be guessing if I said this was the antidote on its way to the Pythians but, either way, they need stopping.”
“Any news from the white truck?” Karin asked.
“Yes. The police are there now, examining the dead mercenaries. Nothing has been found either on them or inside the truck.”
“So it was a diversion.”
“Who knows? We can only deal with what’s in front of us.”
Her words became immediately prophetic as the three powerful black cars shot past toward the road, the last in line slewing across the gravel before its driver managed to get it under control. Hayden jumped into the discarded Alfa with Kinimaka and Karin and urged Collins, Smyth and Komodo back into the vehicle they’d arrived in — a bright red, four-door Lexus.
Together, they peeled out in pursuit.
“Get up close!” Smyth had strapped Lauren in as tightly as he could and was leaning across the back seat now, rifle in hand. “Give me a terrorist to shoot.”