She caught up to Rook and Mulamba on the stairs leading up to the rooftop. “Our ride is on the way,” she said.
“I heard. Three minutes, huh? You think we can last that long?”
“I guess we’d better.”
There was a sloped trapdoor, secured with another padlock blocking the way, but a decisive kick from Rook splintered the hasp and removed that impediment. Queen ushered Mulamba through and ventured out onto the roof of the Stanley Pavilion.
The night was deceptively quiet and peaceful. Queen knew that wasn’t going to last long. “Find some cover.”
Rook guided Mulamba toward a blocky protrusion that looked like an old disused chimney, one of several that sprouted from the irregular roof. There was no shortage of places to hide, at least temporarily. Unfortunately, as Queen turned to face the trapdoor, she realized that the virtual environment was no longer updating.
“Aleman. Where did they go?”
“Sorry, Queen. There aren’t enough cameras inside that building to track their movements.”
“Wonderful.” She crouched and took aim at the black opening, waiting for the surprise moment when someone would pop out like a jack-in-the-box.
She didn’t have to wait long.
A head broke the plane and she pulled the trigger, but in the nanosecond it took for thought to become action, the mercenary ducked back down. Her bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the sloping roof above the opening. A moment later, a hand holding a pistol appeared and fired off several shots in a blind spread. Most of the rounds sailed harmlessly out into the night, but a few smacked into the chimney behind which she was concealed, spraying her with dust and stone chips. Knowing that this was just cover fire to allow another shooter onto the roof, she braved the barrage and lined up another shot.
A figure erupted through the doorway, rolling to the side and scrambling for cover as the bullets continued to fly. Queen squeezed off another shot, but couldn’t tell if she scored a hit. The man crabbed away from her and sought the refuge of another chimney.
Queen breathed a curse and drew back. The gun she’d taken was a beat-up looking Browning Hi-Power 9 mm. It was a military surplus gun, old school and not as sexy as a Glock or FN, but reliable and easy to find with the right connections. It had a thirteen round magazine, and she’d fired five times, which left eight shots, or possibly nine if the mercenary had kept one round in the chamber. She had to make every one of them count.
The volley from the doorway ceased, but the man behind the chimney took up the slack, providing cover fire for the other man to emerge. Queen didn’t allow herself to be distracted by the noise and fury, and when the mercenary made his move, she fired once and saw the man topple back through the opening.
That one counted, she thought. But there was no telling how many more shooters were lined up and waiting their turn.
“Queen,” Aleman said. “Crescent is thirty seconds out. You should see them coming in—”
The roar of a jet turbine drowned out the rest of his comment, and Queen saw the black shape of the stealth transport plane sliding across the sky above the museum grounds.
“Yes!”
The aircraft moved like something from a science-fiction movie, changing speed and direction without banking, in defiance of gravity. She knew that VTOL maneuvering was just about the most stressful activity in aviation, requiring constant and precise control of a dozen different systems, but the pilots made it look easy. The plane spun around and descended toward the rooftop, practically right on top of Rook and Mulamba, and as it did, a section of its belly lowered to form an access ramp.
The turbofans stirred up a tempest of grit, and amid the din, Queen thought she heard the sound of windows breaking.
In the corner of her eye, she saw the open ramp, its edge wavering slightly a few feet above the rooftop. Rook hoisted Mulamba up onto the ramp, who then turned and offered his hand. Rook frantically waved him back.
More shots rang out. Queen returned fire: a shot at the chimney where the gunman was hiding, another round into the open doorway and then she repeated the process to keep the mercenaries at bay until the others were aboard.
“Queen! Move!”
She did. Firing out the last of the magazine, she broke cover and sprinted for the ramp, diving up and onto it like an Olympic high jumper. She felt the hard metal beneath her and kept rolling deeper into the interior of the plane.
“I’m in!” she shouted. “Go!”
She could feel the aircraft moving beneath her, and she spread-eagled to avoid being tossed around the cabin by the acceleration. There was a loud whine of hydraulic motors as the ramp drew back into the fuselage, and then abruptly, the noise diminished to a low roar.
Queen lay panting on the deck for several seconds, letting the adrenaline drain away. She knew there would be hell to pay for bringing the stealth plane into a populated area, but that was a worry for another day. It was also the beauty of being an off-the-books operation. There would be an uproar about it, but it wouldn’t be directed at Chess Team or the Endgame organization, since they didn’t technically exist.
She rolled over to look for the others. “What’s our next—?”
What she saw hit her like a physical blow. Rook had his back to her and was hunched over an unmoving form, his arms bowed and trembling. She looked around for Mulamba, her brain not quite processing that she had already seen him.
Rook had both hands pressed against Mulamba’s chest, as if by so doing he might keep the man’s life from escaping through the hole there, but too much of it had already poured out. The deck was awash in blood, most of it oozing from the ragged exit wound.
“Stupid son of…” Rook was almost incoherent. “Damn it, Joe. Why the fuck didn’t you…? Damnit!”
Mulamba’s eyes were wide with pain or panic, but somehow his gaze found Queen. His lips moved, trying to form words even though there wasn’t enough breath left in him to make a sound.
He managed two words.
“Find it.”
Then he was gone.
29
King lifted his head out of the dark water and surveyed the shoreline. It was nearly midnight. Behind him, on the northern shore of the Congo, the city lights of Brazzaville glittered like jewels, but Brazzaville was in another country. Few lights were visible in Kinshasa.
At King’s direction, General Mabuki’s forces had shut down the power grid, plunging whole sections of Kinshasa into darkness. The army and many of the government buildings had gasoline powered generators, so the blackout was only a minor inconvenience, but King was counting on the darkness to conceal his approach to the Palais de la Nation.
He crept forward, feeling the marshy river bottom beneath this hands and knees, and crawled up onto the grassy bank, immediately seeking cover in the trees that overlooked the river. He gently shook the water from his borrowed AKS-74, and waited for Asya and the rest of the strike team to join him.
The six Republican Guardsmen had been hand-picked by General Mabuki, and all boasted that they had received special commando training. King was suspicious of the claim, but he didn’t have the luxury of being choosy. For their sake, he hoped they weren’t exaggerating their prowess.
“Stay close to me,” he whispered to his sister, reiterating what he had already told her several times.