Shit, they were wrecking the place. Demolishing it.
Alicia rose from the wrecked desk. “A phoenix from the ashes,” she said as she tried to maintain her dignity.
Mai eyed the vast desk she’d destroyed. “A dumb blonde from Essex,” she returned.
Alicia held out a hand. “Just… wait. Wait until I get myself untangled from this shit.” She picked her way carefully out of the mass of splintered and cracked wood, avoiding sharp edges, then gave an imperious flick of her hair.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
Mai didn’t waste time, painfully aware of Coyote’s eyes and SaBo’s careful monitoring system. She propelled Alicia into the warren of Egyptian artefacts, not only keeping up the onslaught but purposely giving the other woman more obstructions than she could handle. Sphinxes tumbled and crashed to the floor, their heads rolling across the Turkish rug. Alicia threw a display but Mai ducked under it. A short row of pillars, topped by objects, fell in unison like a tumbling row of dominos. Alicia caught Mai’s lashing foot and twisted, making the other woman perform a three-hundred-and-sixty degree spin just to keep her attack at the correct pace. Mai executed the spin and came back around for good measure, slapping Alicia across the face with the sole of her other foot in mid-flight.
Alicia dropped the foot, shocked. “Shit. You’re a goddamn Power Ranger. That’s what you are.”
Dust and falling shavings and other particles swirled all around them. Drake rose and staggered out of the remains of the table, almost falling, but used Alicia’s back as a leaning post. As he eyed Dahl he saw the electrical fire that had started under the stairs.
“Ah, guys. That can’t be good.”
Flickering flames ran along wires and into circuit boards, spreading fast. Dahl ran at Drake, but the Yorkshireman slipped under his grasp, loping out of reach. To his left Mai, close enough to touch, grabbed Alicia and spun her around, then kicked her away.
Dahl delivered a weighty blow to Drake’s ribs that left him gasping, stunned.
Mai sent the Swede a hard look, then jumped at him, instinct urging her to protect Drake. Her thighs grasped the Swede around the head, her arms balanced on the floor by his feet, and then she yanked him over. The Swede gave a yell of surprise and fell hard.
Alicia, losing her opponent, came at Drake, feinting before slipping around his body and grabbing his throat in a choke hold. Drake felt no slack in the powerful grip, corroborated by the fact that his face started to turn red.
He couldn’t breathe.
Mai landed hard on Dahl’s chest, driving her knees in. Her next strike landed on his right ear, rocking his senses. Her next was to his nose, making him see black spots. The final blow would come from stiffened fingers to the larynx; a strike that would hit like a knife.
Drake fell to his knees, almost blacking out.
The dust hung heavy in the lobby. Smoke from the fire began to billow. An explosion boomed out from below, the blast taking part of the floor with it. Still more wreckage plumed into the lobby, now licked with flames. Part of an upper floor collapsed, showering the lobby with debris, dust and bits of carpet; even bedside cabinets, a small TV, and a chair came crashing down.
Amidst the chaos the four fought. Drake recovered quickly, in time to reverse head-butt Alicia, breaking the choke hold, then used what little strength he had left to send a powerful punch at her cheekbone. The Englishwoman cried out. Drake fell back as she threw herself at him and caught her by her own throat just as she regained her hold on his own.
Eye-to-eye, they fought to survive. To be the last man standing.
Mai sent her throat jab but Dahl diverted it at the last second. His large hand struck her temple. Mai wavered. The Swede bucked, trying to throw her off, but the Japanese woman jabbed at his nervous system, making him fold with agony.
The fires burned all around them. The hotel’s innards collapsed. In the intensity and the terrible heart-wrenching destiny and the heat of the moment, the final blows were struck.
SaBo couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared at his computer screen, checking three times before he dared relate his finding to Coyote.
“My God, you will not believe this.”
“Tell me.” Sugary and confident.
SaBo checked again, trying to evaluate every circuit, keep that bitch Karin at bay, and assess his findings. The screens didn’t lie.
“The damn place is a mess, but you can obviously see that. The monitors that show their life signs, the ones we clipped to them. Well, they’ve actually changed. Not as though they’ve been removed, which I installed a trip alert for, but genuinely. Authentically. Shit, I just didn’t think they’d go that far.”
SaBo watched in dumb amazement as, one by one, the red pulsing life signs that indicated the SPEAR team slowly winked out.
Until only one remained.
“They’re dead,” he said. “Monitors prove it. Life signs have flatlined.”
Coyote sounded angry. “All of them?”
“No. No. There’s one left. Only one left alive.”
“Tell me.” The anticipation was sickly.
“Drake,” SaBo said. “Matt Drake.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Michael Crouch was having his best workout of the last ten years. Once, he’d been above the best — at first the young rookie trying to fit in and impress his peers, moving on to acceptance and respect. In the Army, the man that carried his load and looked out for his men was a man to admire, and Crouch had those qualities in abundance. Leadership values elevated him to the top, yes, but he knew the support of his team, his men, was the real backbone that kept him strong.
Now, having being chained to an office for more years than he could count, having allowed himself to lose that knife edge, he found himself back in the field. Trying to avoid young and seasoned mercs. Trying to save a small town and a great many civilians from those forms of terror the British intelligence and military services saved them from every day.
And now they were at the crux of it all. He wondered if Drake had found Shelly yet. Coyote! He berated himself. Stop thinking of her as… something personal.
Dark fields spread out to left and right. Crouch tried to retrace the route he’d used previously and soon found himself near the outskirts of town. There was no mistaking the British presence. Great floodlights revealed their HQ, unlit now, and choppers hovered nearby. Crouch hoped he wouldn’t come up against some upstart of a sentry that might find it amusing to throw him into some makeshift prison. But he wasn’t too worried. He possessed enough high-level, code-red passwords to wake the entire war cabinet.
The carnival lay ahead, with its big circus tent at the far end. Crouch decided to cut through, thus saving himself precious minutes. He doubted that many workers remained after last night, but imagined more than a few would have slept through the ruckus. As he moved, he kept an eye on the British contingent. The more he saw, the odder it seemed.
Helicopters whirring at speed. But no men, save for the odd figure standing around. Obviously he couldn’t see through hastily erected tents, but…
It hit him.
The assault had begun. The British were on their way. Damn, he was only ten minutes away. If Karin hadn’t taken SaBo’s surveillance grid down, half these men were going to die for nothing. Crouch doubled his speed, feeling the burn in his lungs, the strain in places he’d never felt it before. As he moved he began to see shadows ahead; tall, thin shadows that existed in places they shouldn’t be.
Coyote’s mercs. Lying in wait inside and around the edges of the carnival. Lying in wait for the approaching liberators.