“I wouldn’t-” he stopped short. Had he? He covered his shame with manly bluster. “Nothing like watching a woman with a gun.”
“Never mind.” Kennedy crept behind a totem-pole, another of the mansion’s incongruous features, and surveyed the scene.
“We’re splitting up,” she told him. “You’re going to find the vault room. I’m going round back.”
He made a reasonable job of hiding his hesitation. “You sure?”
“Hey, bucko, I’m the cop here remember? You’re the civilian. Do as you’re told.”
Drake watched Kennedy creep off to the right, heading towards the rear of the mansion where satellite surveillance had shown a Helipad and several low-slung buildings. The SAS team had been deployed there already, and would be infiltrating it at that very moment.
He found his eyes lingering on her form, his brain suddenly wishing that the clothes she wore showed her ass off.
Shock jarred him. Humility and uncertainty joined forces in his head, causing a maelstrom of self-doubt. Two years since Alyson left, over seven hundred days of instability. Unfamiliar depths of constant inebriation, followed by bankruptcy, and then the slow, slow rise back to normality.
Not even there yet. Nowhere near.
Was it his vulnerability talking?
Plan B.
The job at hand. Try to regain that military focus and leave the damn civilian stuff behind for a while. He relieved both guards of their weapons, and sneaked through the statues until he stood at the edge of the gravel driveway. He noted three targets at three different windows, and fired off three bursts in quick succession.
Two screams and a yell. Not bad. When the surviving head popped back out, searching for his position, Drake reduced it to a red haze.
Then he ran, only skidding on his knees to a halt right up against the mansion’s exterior, his head against the rough stonework. He glanced back towards the Delta team as it rushed to catch up with him. Nodded at their leader.
“Straight through.” Drake nodded at the door, then to the right. “Vault room.”
They filed inside, Drake last, hugging the curve of the wall. A wide, wrought-iron staircase spiralled up before them to the mansion’s second level.
As they crept along the wall, more Serbs emerged along the upstairs balcony, right above them. In an instant, the Delta team had made themselves sitting ducks.
With nowhere to go, Drake fell to his knees and opened fire.
Kennedy sprinted to the tree-line that bordered the mansion’s exterior wall and started to move faster. In no time she had reached the back of the house, whereupon a faceless SAS soldier fell on his belly before her.
Like a rabbit she stood still, mesmerized by the barrel of the rifle. For the first time in months all thoughts of Thomas Kaleb deserted her.
“Shit!”
“It’s okay,” a voice said next to her right ear. She sensed the cold blade only millimetres away. “It’s Drake’s bird.”
The comment swept away her fear. “Drake’s bird? I am not!”
A man moved in front of her, smiling. “Well then, in the words of your President, Miss Moore — whatever. I would prefer to properly introduce myself, but this is not the time or place. Call me Wells.”
Kennedy recognised the name, but said no more as a large team of British soldiers materialised around her and began to make tracks. The rear of Babic’s property comprised an immense patio lined with Indian stone, an Olympic-size swimming pool surrounded by sun-loungers and white pavilions, and several squat, ugly buildings out-of-keeping with the rest of the decor. Situated next to the largest building was a round Helipad, complete with civilian chopper.
After years of walking the New York beat, Kennedy had to question then whether crime did, in fact, pay. It paid for these guys, and Kaleb. It would have paid for Chuck Walker if Kennedy hadn’t seen him pocketing that wad.
The sun-loungers had been occupied. Several half-naked men and women now stood around in shock, clutching clothes and trying to cover excess flesh. Kennedy noted that some of the older men couldn’t have managed it with a hippopotamus hide, whilst most of the younger women took care of it with just two hands and a twist to the left.
“Those people… let’s call them guests… are probably not a part of the Serbian group,” Wells said softly into a throat mic. “Move them away,” he nodded to the three lead men. “The rest of you head for the seaward side of those buildings.”
As the group began to split, several things happened at once. The chopper’s rotor blades started rotating; the sounds of its engines immediately overpowered the shouts of those nearby. Then, a deep rumbling, like the sound of a roller-shutter door preceded the sudden scream of a powerful automobile. From around the seaward side of the ugly buildings came a white streak of metal, an Audi R8 accelerating at top speed.
By the time it reached the patio area it was a lethal ton bullet. It ploughed into the stunned SAS men, sending them sprawling and tumbling through the air. Behind it came another car, this one black and larger.
The chopper’s blades began to rotate faster, its engines screaming. The whole machine shook as it prepared to take off.
Kennedy, dazed, could only listen as Wells barked orders. She winced as the remaining SAS soldiers opened fire.
All hell broke loose in the garden.
Soldiers fired on the speeding Audi R8, bullets struck through its metal casing, penetrating the wing and door skins. The car raced for the corner of the house, slewing at the last minute to make the tight turn.
Gravel shot from under its tyres like tiny missiles.
A bullet smashed the windshield, obliterating it. The car literally died in mid-flight, its engine quieting as the driver slumped behind the wheel.
Kennedy ran forward, gun up. “Don’t move!”
Before she reached the car it was obvious that the driver was its lone occupant.
Decoy.
The helicopter was two feet off the ground, spinning slowly. An SAS soldier shouted, but without any real venom in his voice. The second car, a black four-door Cadillac, was now barrelling alongside the huge pool, its tyres spewing tidal waves of water in all directions. The windows were blacked out. No way to tell who was inside.
A third motor started up, this one currently out of sight.
Soldiers fired on the Caddy, taking out its tyres and the driver with three shots. The car skidded, its rear end crashing into the pool. Wells and three other soldiers ran towards it, shouting. Kennedy kept an eye on the chopper, but, like the Caddy, its windows were opaque.
This was all part of some elaborate escape plan, Kennedy guessed. But where was the real Davor Babic?
The chopper started to rise higher. The SAS finally got tired of warnings and shot out its rear rotary propeller. The monstrous machine started to spin, and then a man knelt underneath it with a grenade-launcher steadied.
Wells reached the Caddy. Two shots were fired. Kennedy heard on the mic that Babic was still at large. Now the third car shot around the corner, engine screaming like a Formula 1 racer, but this thing was a Bentley, big and brash, its presence screaming get the hell outta my way!
Kennedy leapt into the trees. Several soldiers followed her. Wells spun and fired three quick shots that bounced right off the side-windows.
Bullet-proof glass!
“That’s the wanker!”
The words were uttered a split-second too late to save the chopper — the grenade had been fired — its explosive charge detonating against the chopper’s underbelly. The chopper burst apart, sending shards of metal blasting everywhere. The mangled chunk of wrecked steel crashed straight down into the pool, displacing thousands of gallons of water with immense force.