CHAPTER FORTY
“To the death then,” Bodie said.
“The event is expected!” Heidi cried. “You can’t risk this. You—”
“Jemma. Jeff,” Bodie said. “You’ve got three minutes to decide where we’re looking. Cassidy, we have no weapons. You’re in charge of handing them out after you take them away from the guards. Cross, you’re the best trained. Stay on watch. Gunn — you’re the cannon fodder. You’re in first.”
The team made ready, preparing minds and bodies for a fast assault. Gunn shook his head, resigned to the ribbing. The truth was, of course, that if there was no tech work to do, he was essentially a loose end.
Jeff appeared even more frightened than Gunn. Bodie considered cutting him loose, or at least leaving him behind, but decided they stood a better chance taking him along. Besides, none of them intended to die this day.
“No blueprints. No history. No information,” Jeff said. “I could find it eventually perhaps, but not in three minutes.”
Gunn was furiously jabbing at his iPad. “Local council,” he said. “The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, have plans and they have archives.” He dropped down to his heels on a patch of grass. “One second…”
Hacking was Gunn’s specialty. “There’s not much,” he said in a deflated voice. “Buildings are built on a curve, two stories, big basements. At least fifteen to twenty rooms, not including toilets, closets, cupboards, etcetera. Only two front doors, not even a yard at the back. Damn, it’s secure.”
“Secure ain’t even on the table when we’re here,” Cassidy said. “We ready?”
“Smooth and sweet,” Bodie said, sighing down at the cellphone still held in his right hand. “Heidi? Wish us luck.”
“I said—”
He ended the call, pocketed the phone, and joined his fast-moving crew. He wondered for a second what the hell he was doing, heading into a hostile environment without a real plan and any equipment, knowing they could die at any minute, but then remembered all who had died and suffered in the Athens Museum, at the bus station, and so many more before that. A group that planned mass-casualty events to subdue the world was a group that needed to find extinction.
Cassidy was their asteroid. She jogged at the head of the group, entering the mews and wasting no time going around the slightly curved building until she reached one of the two doors. Nobody appeared to be around. The entire street was empty, quiet. Three cars were parked along its length and one bicycle. Between these narrow buildings London and Knightsbridge seemed far, far away.
“Get ready,” she said without turning. “This ain’t gonna be quiet and it ain’t gonna be painless. Time to get bloody.”
She picked up a decorative bike stop — a lump of iron where a cyclist inserted their front tire — and hefted it. Then she launched it through the door’s top window. Glass shattered, the noise alarming in the drowsy street. She knocked persistent shards out with an elbow and reached inside for the lock.
“Yale, done,” she said. “Key… done.”
She withdrew her arm, turned the handle, opened the door, and retrieved the bike stop. The team fell in behind her. They came first to a vestibule, and two men rushing straight for them. The men wore suits and white ties; they were clean-shaven and wide. Security guards. Muscle. But nobody did muscle like Cassidy Coleman. She launched the bike stop at the first; solid iron hurled through the air, smashing not only the man’s teeth but his jaw as well. Cassidy didn’t stop to check as he crumpled to the floor.
Guard number two was reaching for a holster. Cassidy let him get a hand inside his jacket before rushing in, elbow first. The blow broke his nose and sent blood washing over a nearby wall, but he didn’t flinch. Fingers gripped around the gun he pulled them out, only to have them covered by Cassidy’s powerful hand and crushed until either they broke or he dropped the weapon. He struggled, she clamped him hard, using legs and body too. Bodie was upon them by that time and helped by picking up the felled guard’s gun and striking the second across the temple.
“Nice,” he said as the man subsided.
“You’re welcome,” Cassidy replied. “Enjoyed it.”
Across the vestibule lay a wide, high hallway. Wooden floors and expensively decorated walls met their eyes, and a wide staircase leading to the second floor. Gunn had already identified the second floor as the most likely to yield clues, but that still gave them a dozen rooms to cover.
More guards rushed from the right; three this time, guns already drawn. Cassidy didn’t stand on ceremony, pumping two rounds into the first. Bodie shot the second, and the third stumbled over his comrades, rolling and coming to a stop by their feet. Cassidy knelt down and rendered him unconscious as Cross scooped up all their weapons.
He distributed them to the team.
Everyone except Jeff received one with varying reactions. Gunn looked a little aghast until Jeff caught his attention.
“If you don’t want it hand it to me.”
“Really? Have you ever shot a gun before?”
“Have you?”
“I’ve seen people shot,” Gunn said defensively.
“So have I.” Jeff motioned to the dead guards.
“Shut the hell up,” Cassidy said, moving on. “Fucking battle of the geeks.”
Ignoring the right-hand offshoot, they headed for the stairs. A plush carpet helped muffle their footsteps, not that it would help. The Illuminati had known they were coming, but any chance of secrecy had vanished now. They pounded up the stairs. Cassidy met a guard at the top, bent so that he flipped over her shoulders and hurled him into space down their long length. Bodie watched the fall, tracking him with the pistol, but he landed with a loud crack and stayed still, barely breathing.
The corridor at the top was empty, for now. Bodie imagined Illuminati bosses searching for ways out like rats running away from an explosion. Cassidy chose left at random, used Cross’s help to enter it safely, and scanned it quickly.
“Clear. Do your thing, people.”
She watched the corridor from a covert angle as the rest of the team scanned walls and desks, taking pictures. It felt arbitrary, unsystematic. It felt somewhat desperate. But what choice did they have?
“Just a thought,” she said. “They don’t know where we are.”
Gunn snapped a finger up at the room’s CCTV camera.
“No. The security team know where we are, but the Illuminati big-wigs don’t.”
“And the point?” Bodie asked, watching over everything and everyone as per usual.
“We grab one and beat the testosterone out of him.”
“You think he’ll know?”
“Well, he’ll know where the statue is.”
Bodie pursed his lips. “Wouldn’t bank on it, love.”
“Well, how about we put it to the test? ’Cause one just flew out of a room down the corridor and is headed this way with his Hood guard.”
Bodie nodded grimly. “On your word.” He backed her up.
Cassidy waited, then flung the door open as the Hood rushed past, right into his face. The man hit hard and fell back, stunned. Cassidy stepped out, right in front of the running Illuminati chief. The man pulled up sharp, suit and coat flapping about him, polished shoes skidding on the floor.
“This is not—” the man began.
Then his Hood attacked, no longer dazed. Cassidy saw the leap and blocked it, but a busy fist managed to smash into her kidneys. She gasped, blocked some more, fell back. The Hood stepped past the door and Bodie hit him from the side, shoulder-barging at speed, and sent him crashing into the opposite wall.
The Illuminati chief backed off.