Beau, part of the shield around Webb, saw them coming and shouted at his guards. As one, eight men broke off and stood against the three. Drake didn’t slow, just hit them head on, firing and taking a round in the chest that sent him sideways. Always fast to recover from injury, taking a bullet to the vest was nevertheless a stunning blow, leaving him on his knees and gasping. Two mercs stood over him, faces grim.
“Do not hesitate!” Beau screamed at them.
They squeezed their triggers but at that moment Kenzie was upon them. The Israeli was a vision of death in artistry, her katana falling and slicing this way and that, and her body rotating twice. When the mercs lay dead she held out a hand.
“Cheers,” Drake said.
“Cold-blooded killers deserve a violent end,” she said. “And I am happy to oblige.”
Mai stood nearby, throwing off another guard. “Are you hurt?”
“Well, my nipples do smart a bit.”
“He’s fine,” Alicia said. “We eat bullets for breakfast.”
Before anyone could respond, Dahl threw two mercs toward them. “Stop gibbering and finish these two boys off, would you? I have my hands full.” The Swede punched two more, breaking bones, a nose and a kneecap. One huge forearm knocked a man’s jaw out of line in a spray of incisors. When they all looked up, Webb was climbing the hastily lowered steps of the plane.
Beau was waiting on the tarmac, staring at the SPEAR team as the plane swallowed his boss and then started to taxi away again.
Hayden was closing in on Amari.
The final RPG-toting man had been taken out and now two more SWAT choppers were swooping toward the bunch of struggling mercs. Angry voices shouted down through loudspeakers, warning the fighters to stand down, instructing them to lower their weapons.
Drake couldn’t shake off Kinimaka’s words: If I die today I hope…
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
Hayden fought in the burning pit.
With the raging sunlight beating down from above, the melting asphalt radiating it from below and the glaring brightness all around, she battled her way close to Amari. The Arab and his remaining four acolytes were weak but crazed, untrained but desperate, which made them as dangerous as their mercs in her eyes. No telling what they might do.
She leapt at a man with a facial scar and goatee beard, fired first and sensed him fall away. Her vision filled with another jacket, another merc, always another. Kinimaka moved between crates and drums to her right and Smyth to her left. Lauren and Yorgi were paces behind. Hayden came around another metal barrel, ducked a blow and fell backwards.
Kinimaka took the merc out as he strode after her. She picked herself up, moved forward. A chopper skimmed low overhead. A bullet zipped right through an oil drum, ricocheting past both her and Smyth before either could blink, spilling out viscous liquid in a thick stream. They reached the end of the barrels and Amari was right before them, facing away, facing the jet that carried Tyler Webb.
“Stop it! Stop that plane!”
His acolytes screamed and surged forward, a cluster of grenades held in their hands.
“The Ascended Master must not be disturbed!”
Four acolytes, four men loyal to Amari and his madness, held the grenades aloft.
“Master of Alchemy! Mystic Adventurer! Masonic Guide! I implore your forgiveness for I have failed you!”
Pins were pulled. One grenade in each man’s hand to make eight in total. They would either hurl them or run onto the plane with them. Their dice were cast long ago.
Smyth was on one knee. “All we need is the front runner.”
He breathed, let it escape, and then fired. His bullet took off the top of the lead man’s head, sending his body sprawling and his primed grenade bouncing. Anyone close by scattered except for the other acolytes. Their mission was divine… and blind.
Two grenades exploded, shrapnel shredding the remaining three acolytes in their steps and sending their own bombs into the air. Then came explosion after explosion, flames gouting and fragments flying. Amari watched it all with an open mouth and a face awash with tears. Whether for his friends or for the Count Saint Germain, Hayden knew not.
Amari turned to her, shrieking.
Hayden trained her weapon and stepped forward.
Amari ripped open the front of his shirt to reveal wires, dynamite, and duct tape.
“No! We can—”
Kinimaka flung his entire bulk over her as Amari detonated both the bomb, and himself.
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
Hayden felt Kinimaka’s body buffeted by shrapnel. She could barely breathe as his full weight pressed down upon her. Not a sliver of that glaring light shone through; she lay in a safe cocoon of darkness amid the mayhem. Time went by, and then the bulk was pulled off her. Hayden looked up into the dying day.
“Mano?”
Lauren fell to her knees. “He’s… he’s…”
“I’m okay,” came the rumble of his voice. “Battered, but okay.”
Hayden swallowed in relief, then sat up. The scene all around them was gory, the crates and oil drums devastated. Liquid leaked along the ground in streams and all manner of objects spilled from the crates. Smyth fell beside Lauren.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
Kinimaka crawled up to Hayden. “Good to be alive.”
But then Hayden reached out, grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him close. Their eyes were inches apart, their noses brushing. She could feel the beat of his heart, the warmth of his skin, and the blood that trickled from his wounds straight onto hers.
“Stop saving me, Mano.”
“I don’t… I… I…”
“Get it through your head. We’re done. Stop hovering, following and shielding. It’s why I went to Dubai without you. To get some damn space.”
“I saved your life. I…”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Hayden knew then that there would never be a time as meaningful, as piercing as this. If she wanted clear of the Hawaiian then she would have to use this moment, this event which he’d clearly hoped would reunite their affections, to take it well beyond the point of no return.
“I don’t fuck rule followers, Mano. I only fuck the winners who break ’em.”
The Hawaiian stared in shock, in horror. Smyth and Lauren turned quickly away and Yorgi pretended he hadn’t heard a thing. Hayden dusted herself off and stood alone. Her eyes, misted with tears, surveyed the battleground.
“Get your asses into gear, guys. We ain’t done yet.”
CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR
Drake and Dahl struck the remnants of Webb’s mercs hard as Alicia, Mai and Kenzie raced past. The jet was moving a little faster now, still trying to taxi to the right position for the runway. Beau hadn’t moved, and was clearly the last line of defense as Webb no doubt continued to mix his potions.
So Beau would die for Webb’s cause? Drake couldn’t comprehend it.
Dahl ducked behind a girder fixed into the ground at the end of a hangar. Bullets ricocheted past, sending sparks into his exposed cheeks. He fired around the girder, blindly. Drake peered out low, almost prone. The angle confused the mercs and he took two out.
“Last one,” Dahl said.
Help came from the skies as a chopper descended fast, men firing on the mercs’ hiding place. A scream and a thud and someone yelled “all clear” and Drake emerged at pace. The chopper disgorged its SWAT contingent.
Drake saw the women converging on Beau and took only one second to consider the volatile three-way melting pot seething around that confrontation, before noting a change in the jet’s engine note.
“Now that can’t be good,” Dahl muttered.
“Summat’s not reet,” Drake intoned a little broad Yorkshire.