Cassidy looked up. “What?”
“You didn’t realize you fell off the building?”
A pile of rubble undulated toward them like a wave. Bodie and Cassidy scrambled out of the way, heels struck as metal and concrete tumbled over the edge. By now, as he looked up, Bodie could see the attack choppers assembling overhead and a thick rope tumbling down from one.
The Hood was alert, watching for his chance.
Heidi removed her gun. The answer was the Gatling-gun crescendo of multiple weapons, churning up the roof all around her. The only reason they missed was the shifting pile of rubble that still constituted the downed chopper, and the leaping flames that covered its wreckage.
The Hood ran, chasing the slowly shifting rope. Cassidy was closest and fittest and took off like an unleashed hell hound. Snarling, bloodied, she chased the Hood down, risking it all and coming at him with everything she had. At the last moment, as they came together, he leaped and caught hold of the rope. The chopper was already moving and the swing took him away from her. Cassidy leapt past, hit the ground, rolled and turned on one knee, scowling with purpose. The rope swung faster, gaining momentum, the Hood climbing so fast he defied gravity, already halfway up to the chopper’s doors.
Cassidy ran again. The other choppers started to drift away, but tracked her and Heidi in case weapons were drawn. No more shots were fired. This was a hastily planned evacuation then, rather than an event. A favor called in. A reluctant service perhaps by somebody that wanted to be owed something. That would explain the choppers without markings and their unwillingness to cause havoc.
Bodie watched Cassidy. She mounted the wreckage and used it as a springboard, launching her body through the air and catching hold of the rope. The chopper was rising now, veering away, taking her with it. Cassidy clung on, dragged wildly by the rope, swinging across the rooftop. The Hood reached the doors and was dragged inside. Cassidy hung on tight, swept in a wide arc, her feet three meters above the roof. At the same time the other choppers started to move away, heading back the way they came. A man leaned out and aimed a weapon down. The shot missed Cassidy by a wide margin. He tried again, but then Heidi whipped her Glock out and sent a bullet clanging off the metal beside his head. The man flinched and vanished back inside.
Bodie sprinted for the base of the rope. If he could steady it at least, maybe Cassidy could climb up or down or wherever she planned to go. By now though the chopper was in full voice, powered to the max. It swooped up and away, Cassidy still in tow, and then the rope was severed, cut away from the chopper as it flew.
The rope collapsed. Its momentum made the bottom flick up and away. Cassidy let go in mid-air, propelled off the roof, across the gap between buildings and hard onto the next roof. Rolling, she kept her arms and legs together, stopping about midway, bruised and battered but still alive.
Weakly, she raised a hand.
Heidi came up to Bodie’s shoulder. “The asshole escaped. For now.”
“For now?” Bodie echoed. “He has helicopters now. He’s gone.”
Heidi shook her head. “No. Helos are traceable. They’re big. Brash. Noisy. Everything our friend and the Illuminati don’t want. I also think they’re not a part of the secret society, but loners perhaps, so their owner will not wish them compromised. They won’t want to attract any more attention.”
“So you’re saying they’ll — what? Drop him off?” Bodie kept a careful eye on Cassidy as the redhead pulled herself upright. All seemed in good working order.
“One thing I can’t knock you for,” Heidi said. “Trying. Man, you guys got a lot of heart, I’ll give you that.”
“Want to know our secret?” Bodie smiled at Cassidy and knew instinctively that Cross would be waiting in the street below, Jemma and Gunn probably on their way up.
Heidi nodded and returned the smile.
“We belong. Together. Our team has a sense of belonging, of togetherness.”
“Even Gunn?”
Bodie shook his head with a touch of sadness. “Yeah, even that asshole. Even bloody Gunn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Reunited with Cross, Jemma and Gunn, the team took their original seats and rested as the older man drove them north out of the city. Jeff was buckled into his seat right where he’d been when they left him.
“ ’Kinell, Jeffo,” Cassidy said. “Move much?”
“I’m not a fighter,” the young archaeologist said.
“That makes two of you.” Bodie nodded at Gunn. “But Gunn did jump in when needed.”
“To get help in life you have to show willing,” Cross said from the front seat.
“Ancient proverb of the day.” Cassidy grinned with mischief. “But true.”
“You okay, Miss Movie Star?” Cross looked at her in the rearview. “Any more cuts like that and Hollywood will be saving you for the slasher flicks.”
“A past life.” Cassidy waved it away. “And probably one better not spoken of in front of the CIA.”
“Apologies, that’s my bad.”
Heidi looked hurt. “Am I not a member of the team? Not proven myself yet?”
“No,” Cassidy said.
“Well…” Bodie tried.
Cassidy rolled her eyes. “He’s always like this. Pretty chick comes along, bats her… frizzbomb and he’s all Lady Gaga.”
“My frizzbomb?”
“Yeah. What do you call it?”
“We’re degenerating here,” Bodie said. “The Hood is out there, wherever he’s going, and still with the map—” he turned to Jeff “—and you’re our next best thing, so make yourself useful. What did you say was the first waypoint?”
Jeff sipped at a can of Pepsi Max. “We returned something new to Spartacus, and 1776.”
“Ah, yes, the movie reference. Any ideas?”
“It’s not a movie reference. It’s actually an easy first clue if you know your Illuminati history. 1776 is the year they were founded.”
Jemma shook her dark hair left and right. “No. Someone said Adam was the first Illuminati.”
“Well, yes, the ancients may have had a similar form of secret society, where events were manipulated for the sake of a greater power that believed it had the right to rule over all. Perhaps the Illuminati used it as their role model, but officially they began in 1776.”
“Officially?” Heidi asked. “Now I’m stumped. I thought they were secret. Shadows behind the scenes, manipulating the puppets.”
“They are now, but I think that you are testing me. You, Agent Moneymaker, are on their trail so you must know their history.”
“Ah, ya got me. Go on, kid.”
“The Bavarian Illuminati were the first of their kind, the first of their order. Formed by a man named Adam Weishaupt. Weishaupt was deeply non-clerical, made that way by Jesuits who frustrated and discredited any manner of work that they regarded as liberal or protestant. Weishaupt resolved to spread the word of enlightenment through a secret society but considered the Freemasons of the time too expensive and actually too narrow-minded. So they formed the Perfectibilists and decided on the Owl of Minerva as their emblem.”
“Perfecti-what?” Cassidy asked.
“Yes, yes, that’s what Weishaupt thought after a time. He contemplated naming them the Bee Order and then decided upon Illuminatenorden, or Order of Illuminati.”
“In 1776?” Bodie confirmed.
“Yes. And each member of the order used a codename.”
“You’re kidding. For real?” Bodie never would have imagined the TV sometimes got it right. “Let me guess…”
“Weishaupt’s codename was Spartacus.”
“Right,” Bodie said. “So you’re saying the first waypoint is to return to Spartacus in 1776. Then that’s gonna lead us to the next.” He put his head down in thought. “We need to return to the place where this Weishaupt guy created the Illuminati in 1776. Yes?”