“So now they have another agenda?” Crouch realized. “It has to be the Pythians! What else could it be? Who else could turn this chopper around? Listen everyone, I’m guessing that the Pythians have a pretty much foolproof evacuation plan and a whole army of men to execute it. They’ve called in the reinforcements now. Follow our lead.”
Affirmations snapped in through the comms, most of them implying grim relief. The Pythians were on the run. At last. It was a capture or kill mission now.
Hayden felt like she’d been sidelined for years. Truth be told, since she’d been shot, she hadn’t really missed the field. The break had given her time to think, to adjust, to recuperate whilst reflecting on her life. From FBI agent and then liaison to Secretary Gates to leader of SPEAR in so short a time; through her chaotic relationships until she finally let Mano Kinimaka be the person he’d always wanted to be. For most of her life she’d felt as if she’d been waiting for something to happen.
Treading water.
Always the person on the fringes, looking in. But since she met Matt Drake the adventure, the whirlwind, had never stopped.
She hoped to God it would never end.
Fired up, she let Kinimaka drive whilst she took the Alfa’s passenger seat. The Hawaiian, big behind the small wheel, nevertheless drove with dexterity and brilliance, shooting the mid-size, lime-green car to within a hair’s breadth of the third Jag’s black rear fender. With all the windows open the snarl emitting from the car’s twin tailpipe was a noisy, powerful, mechanical howl.
Kinimaka held the Alfa at top speed, seeing a clear stretch ahead.
Karin shook her head. “They’re gonna pull away from us.”
“Not if I can help it.” Hayden watched as all the Jag’s windows came down and black barrels were poked out. The other car, the red Lexus, powered past to her left, its own windows down and Smyth’s head sticking out: a pissed-off, vengeful Alsatian. The Jaguar slowed slightly, and came up alongside.
Hayden threw her door open, clung with one hand to the top side of the door frame and leaned across the roof, steadying her gun by lying on the smooth metal. Gusts of wind ripped at her. Tiny motes of debris blasted her clothing. She took aim on the array of gun barrels and didn’t waste a moment.
She opened fire. One… two… three shots pumped into the back seat and then the front. Blood splashed the side of the car, red against pitch black. A gun slithered out, bounced against the asphalt. Shots were fired wildly into the air. The last Jaguar veered and then righted itself as Smyth’s Lexus swerved in on the second in line. Hayden fired more shots in the driver’s direction. A bout of return fire sent her ducking behind the frame, knowing how futile the gesture was but accepting it as a normal reaction. Her own window shattered but no bullet struck her.
Kinimaka’s face was distorted by worry and anger. “Get in!”
Hayden fired one more time, sighting carefully and taking a deep breath. Her bullet took out the driver. The black Jag bumped across a concrete verge, spun a one-eighty and then motored up the first hill of a verdant golf course, chewing grass and snapping off a lonely flag. Men in white T-shirts and checkered pants ran screaming.
Hayden climbed back inside. “One down.”
“I hate it when you do that!” Kinimaka nevertheless floored the gas pedal to come up behind Smyth’s Lexus.
“Been a while,” Hayden said. “Missed it.”
She watched ahead as the second Jag in line suddenly spouted an excess of gun barrels through its side windows. Smyth, being the closest, flung his own door open and stepped onto the door sill, hanging with one hand on the frame. Unlike Hayden, he was on the right side of the car, next to the Jag. Screaming at the top of his voice he reached out and wrenched a gun away from its owner, then another. As his driver inched even closer Smyth reached inside the other car’s window and grabbed a man’s throat, pulling him half out the window.
Stuck as they were outside the window, the gun barrels couldn’t properly reposition to fire at him. Then the Lexus swerved, striking a pothole, and Smyth lost his grip. Thinking fast he pushed off the side of the Jag and landed back inside his own car, almost sprawling onto Lauren.
The New Yorker’s eyes were open, lackluster, almost lifeless, but she still managed a wan smile. “Still playing the clown, huh?”
Smyth had never played the clown and both of them knew it. Even now she was teasing him. He held out a calloused, bloody hand and placed it so gently on her knee she could barely feel the pressure.
“Hang in there, beautiful. We’re close.”
Through his comms he heard Hayden explaining that the third Jaguar had been seized and searched by following police and nothing resembling an antidote had been found. She also confirmed that the road ahead was relatively clear. The authorities, using police choppers and commandeering others, had sealed off most of the off and on ramps.
He sat up. Bullets pinged through the car, smashing windows. In a moment he realized Agent Collins had been far from idle; seated in the front passenger seat she had replicated Hayden’s earlier movements and was holding the door frame and leaning away from their car, out over the asphalt at ninety miles an hour, to evade enemy fire.
Smyth growled, jumped back onto the door sill and wrestled another gun away from its owner. Then, without a split second’s pause, he launched his torso across the deadly gap and through the Jag’s open window.
Inside the rear, it was an instant melee. Two bodies already crowded the footwell. Smyth punched hard into the chest of the man he’d landed upon, the one he’d disarmed a second ago. As he did that a final merc, shuffling around in the far seat, took a bead on his face with a handgun.
“Say bye bye, soldier boy.”
The finger pressed. Smyth couldn’t get out of the way, but continued punching his own adversary right into the last instant of his life. Anything… anything to save Lauren and take these mercs and their evil bosses all the way down to a place where they could only drink brimstone.
The merc fired.
Smyth jerked his head back, expecting pain and death. Instead he saw the merc lurch sideways as a bullet took him in the side of the face. His shot twitched wide.
Smyth, still punching, glanced back. Collins lay prone on the top of the Lexus, entire body outside the car, sighting along her outstretched arms.
Smyth stared. “Jesus Christ.” Is she for real?
Her business-like grin said that she was.
Turning back he realized that the merc he was punching had succumbed long ago. Now only the man in the driver’s seat was still moving.
“Get out! Get out!” Smyth heard Collins’ scream barely through the ringing in his ears. What the…?
Looking ahead he saw that the Jag was out of control, the driver now slumped, the car veering slowly toward a Shell gas station and a dozen empty pumps. Faster than he could think he scissored his body around and opened the rear door, letting it swing wide.
Komodo guided the Lexus to within a foot of the speeding, drifting Jag.
Smyth leaped over as Collins rolled off the roof and distorted her body to fit back through the open window. The movement took its toll, wrenching her handgun away, scraping her spine and elbows and making her scream, but the result was worth it.
Panting, she rolled toward Smyth.
“You okay, buddy?”
His vision was momentarily blinded as the second Jaguar careened into the gas station, smashing through upstanding pumps and rebounding off a metal stanchion, then spinning several revolutions before hurtling into the kiosk. Bricks and mortar rained down on it.