Was this SPEAR’s last stand?
Drake pushed off one man to regain his balance. The arena was a total melee, just a chaos of men and women all trying to fight or defend or die. Guards had been stationed around the steps, just in case anyone tried to escape. Drake saw only death here.
But it wasn’t his way to give up.
Yelling to fire even more adrenalin, he front-kicked a man into his partner, sending both to their knees. The first he kicked in the throat, the second he landed on with an elbow to the spine. Rolling off, he came up and headbutted another attacker under the chin with the top of his head. The guy never knew what happened: instant lights out. A blow came in from the left; Drake took it and jabbed at another nerve cluster, but the man evaded, coming in strongly again. Drake took more punishment.
Dahl started throwing mercs around, but found even his incredible strength was sapped to a dangerous level. With the first three bowled over, he made sure they wouldn’t get up. A crushing blow took even more of his energy, stopping him in his tracks, but that man was useful in defending against another. Dahl ensured both ended up with broken bones and writhing on the floor.
Alicia and Mai fought as one, moving forward slowly and protecting each other. Hayden and Kinimaka did the same. Kenzie helped protect Crouch and Yorgi with Smyth, but the duo were fighting a losing battle.
As were they all.
The attack flow was unrelenting. The merc weapons were inviting, but everyone knew with the first shot the guards would take no chances. They would pick the SPEAR team off one by one. So guns littered the floor, a temptation gleaming wickedly.
Drake and Kenzie found knives, and it aided them a little, but the bodies coming at them were still too many. It felt like they’d been fighting for an age, or at least until sundown, but Drake knew it was probably less than twenty minutes. The exertion was killing them as much as the telling blows.
Yorgi and Crouch were at the center as the SPEAR team instinctively came together in the middle of the ring. Smyth and Kenzie, Kinimaka and Hayden protected them. Dahl, Drake and Alicia moved around them. They held the attack back for longer than they could have imagined. The minutes ticked by.
Then someone stumbled. A merc struck a crippling blow, putting Alicia to the floor. Drake found his punches weren’t filled with venom anymore. A headbutt to the face sent him falling back, landing in the grit, head spinning.
He crawled over to Alicia.
“Get up,” he gasped. “Get up, get up.”
She protected her body from blows, still recovering from the potent attack.
“I’m guessing no takeaway tonight after all,” she said softly.
Drake reached out to her, touched her shoulder and held her gaze even as someone’s boot rocked his ribs.
“We never could agree anyway.”
Dahl dealt with Drake’s aggressor, reached down and pulled the Yorkshireman up. Drake held on to Alicia, dragging her up too.
“Not the time for a bloody shag,” the Swede growled.
“There’s always time for a shag.” Alicia palmed off a smaller, greasy man. “Just ask Kenzie. She knows what’s important.”
Dahl knuckled a twisted face, glanced over at the Israeli. “You know,” he said. “The most important thing in life? Family. Or friends. Or both.”
They held fast as a knot of four men hit at once. The impact rattled Drake’s brain inside his skull. He blocked a punch, took another to the face, stopped a man getting past them. Kenzie threw her knife at Alicia, or so it seemed. The blade whickered past, embedding itself into the face of a man she hadn’t noticed — a man that was about to smash a fist-size jagged rock into her skull.
“Helluva throw,” Dahl said.
“And now she’s defenseless,” Alicia grunted. “Dumb as a bedpost.”
But the nod she gave Kenzie was resolute.
Drake saw the mercs still lining up, over two dozen, all fresh, all desperate for a chance to get into the fray. A dozen more surrounded him. They were behind and to the side; they had put up the best fight they could muster.
“Guys…” he said, knowing he was battling with his very last reserves of strength.
“Don’t say it,” Dahl breathed, right there at his shoulder. “Team SPEAR will not go out this way.”
“Cool.” Alicia staggered under another strike. “What’s the last-minute plan?”
The Swede knocked a man into unconsciousness with a single blow. “Last chance,” he said. “We’re done. Pick up the weapons and start shooting the fuckers.”
“Good plan.”
Drake spied a SIG Pro semi-auto and dived for it. Before he got there a random leg slammed into his right ear, sending him off-balance. The world turned. He landed, rolled and tried to push up.
The SIG was gone, kicked away.
Despair fought to take control of his mind. In that moment a shot rang out and he dived away, thinking it came from the guards. The arena floor scraped his flesh once more, or rather scraped the wounds where flesh had once been.
A merc fell nearby, shot through the head.
Who got the gun? Alicia?
With the mercs distracted, he rose, swaying in place. The scene was chaotic but also unbelievable. Men dressed in black, wearing jackets, helmets and carrying serious weapons were entering through the cave entrance. Fanning out, they raced down the steps and the channel, pumping bullets into every merc that turned to face them. Drake could tell from the way they held their HKs and fired with an economy of movement, from the way they moved, the way they signaled, that they were professionals at the top of their game.
Another team?
What the…?
Smyth had found a handgun and fired three bullets into three mercs. Those still around looked around and took note. They saw their colleagues being killed in the stands, enemies pouring through the only exit.
Drake pulled Alicia back. Dahl followed. Together, the SPEAR team stood or sat in the center of the ring, watching proceedings with wary and unsure eyes.
The black-clad soldiers moved with deadly efficiency, picking off mercs even as they assessed their own danger. Some quicker ones engaged in the gunfight, but they were not allowed to leave. A few scattered standoffs emerged, but Smyth and Hayden helped by putting down those mercs they could reach from their vantage point. No bullets came flying their way, but only because the mercs were intensely focused on the newcomers.
Then Drake saw a familiar figure. “Oh, bollocks. That’s not good.”
He brought the thunder. The muscle-bound man they knew as Luther leapt down the arena stands throwing grenades left and right. They exploded at his back, framing him with fire and smoke but he never flinched nor lost momentum. Mercs cringed, fell away. The grenades were replaced with machine guns that smashed attackers aside like they were reeds in the wind. He cut a path right through the mercenaries, his men mopping up, and to the very front of the SPEAR team’s new circle.
“You’re coming with me, Drake. You and your team. Now move.”
Desperate for anything but this, for shade, for water, for food, for a chance to recover, Drake and the others complied without even the slightest hint of reluctance. Luther herded them along as his men cleared the arena.
“Get these soldiers some refreshment,” Luther ordered his men as they were approaching the cave entrance. “They’ve been through agony today.”
Grateful though he was, Drake wondered if they’d just left the blazing furnace and fallen right into the raging gates of hell.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The battle raged.
Luther and his men, twelve in total, may have had the element of surprise back at the arena, but Vladimir’s men had regrouped by the time Luther broke back out and gave immediate chase.