“Happy to.” Alicia squeezed her trigger.
But Webb held up a hand. Sabrina backed away, still playing her part for as long as she was able.
“Really,” Webb said. “I have enjoyed letting you follow me.”
“Nobody followed anyone,” Dahl said. “We found you out and you got lucky. If not luck then it was absolute recklessness and your disrespect for human life. In chaos, you thrive.”
“Ooh, good one. I’ll write that down, commission a T-shirt. But really — everything you have done has been at my whim.”
“But how?”
“Because that is as it should be. I am better, of godly stock. I am a master of the human race. And you shall all bow down before me.”
“Really?” Alicia grunted sarcastically. “And how will you make us do that?”
Drake couldn’t believe the audacity, the utter belief of this man. Truly, completely, he knew that he was born to be superior. Webb glanced back at Sabrina and said, “Get ready.”
And then whipped his head around.
“Don’t kill them, Beau,” he said. “But hurt them just enough.”
He started to run.
CHAPTER FORTY
The whirlwind started inside his head — a horrifying mix of incredulity and doubt — quickly becoming a physical presence as Beauregard Alain finally showed his true colors and betrayed them. The man of smoke and shadow flitted among them like a wraith, taking every advantage of their shock and reluctance to believe.
First he felled Lauren, the New Yorker at his side and totally unprepared, going down clutching her throat. Then he took out Smyth, the soldier totally focused on Webb and collapsing in agony from a blow to a nerve cluster behind the neck. Next, he went for Mai, probably realizing her reactions were the quickest, and won on the trust factor. Even as she whirled to see him coming at her she just didn’t believe what she was seeing. Then, Yorgi and Hayden and Kinimaka with single blows, whirling like a genie released after a thousand years of captivity, darting and striking among them, every punch a blow of devastation.
Hayden was incapacitated, lying on her back and able only to claw feebly at the air, trying to catch her breath. Kinimaka fell hard on his face, blood splashing into his eyes. Then Beau was spinning at Drake, Dahl and Alicia, and still only seconds had passed since he acted. The latter two still hadn’t turned around, still processing, but the Mad Swede was swiveling, reddening, and inclined to trust his own gut.
The punch came around, a fraction of a moment too late to impact against Beau’s skull. The Frenchman was inside, feeling relieved, and dealt out a painful flurry. Even then Dahl manned it beyond Beau’s expectation, catching him with a sharp jab as he went down and then kicking out. Beau’s feet tangled for a moment, but he was fleet and fit enough to skip free.
Right into Alicia. Her eyes were wildfire, pits of magma, her features firm with disbelief. Beau wiped it away from her with two fists, unfeeling, uncaring it seemed. The perfect, emotionless weapon of death.
“You live or die by my will alone,” Webb shrieked back. “Remember that.”
Drake faced Beau.
“Why?” the Yorkshireman managed. “We trusted you. And what about Michael Crouch? Is he—?”
Beau assailed him like a bullet and a battering ram, making him feel little like a Special Forces soldier and very much the backstreet kid. Pain erupted from several nerve masses and his legs went to jelly. Still, he barely believed.
“Why?”
The Frenchman was already leaving, following his master, but glanced back with a snarl of disdain.
“The thing Webb seeks. The thing he will find. It will make me live forever. When you people lie old surrounded by your deathbed memories, I will still look like this.” He preened.
Alicia, on her knees, somehow managed to look up and croak: “A big cock?”
Then Beau turned and was quickly gone. Footsteps could be heard behind as the cops came along to investigate and the SPEAR team tried to recover. A long, heavy minute passed.
Drake contemplated all that Webb had told them.
Then came the explosion, deep and terribly dark, so powerful it shook the entire British Museum to its foundations.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Dahl dragged himself to his knees, ignoring several rivulets of fire streaming through his system. Even with their protection Beau had struck unerringly at their weak spots. Part of the problem this time was shock; it wouldn’t happen again. He crawled among the others, encouraging and helping where he could even as the walls and ceiling rocked and rained plaster all around him.
Images of Johanna and his children darted before his eyes. Dahl staggered upright, pulling Hayden with him. The cops swayed and shouted into their radios. A high stack of shelves began to crumble, showering timber and paper confetti upon their shoulders. He watched Drake help Alicia to her feet and then moved over to aid Kinimaka.
“Up you get, pal. Was this you? I mean, what on earth did you knock over now?”
The Hawaiian managed a weak smile. Hayden came to his side and asked if all was well and Dahl thought that a kind act. Smyth was cradling Lauren, whose eyes were open but swimming with agony. The woman could barely croak.
“Fucking Frenchie’s gonna pay for this,” Alicia gasped first. “How’d he do it?”
“Well, you certainly didn’t help,” Mai said, rubbing her shoulders and neck.
“Bitch, explain yourself.”
“Everyone here lowered their guard as soon as you started… shagging him. Shame on us all.”
“Who I pole bounce is my own concern. Not yours.”
“Wrong.” Mai narrowed her gaze. “It used to be.”
“Look,” Drake said. “Can we stop blaming and get running? This room ain’t gonna repair itself in a bloody hurry.”
The cops bolted, one of them shouting that the explosion was localized and bore no threat to the actual building. Probably extra insurance to aid the escape. Drake dragged Alicia away from Mai and bolted in the midst of his team, racing the collapsing ceiling, the crumbling shelves and the disintegrating crates stacked thirteen-high as the cave-in came down all around them.
Staggering, falling headlong, he grasped Alicia’s arm in one hand and reached out to pull at the shadow on his other side, who had slipped in deadly wreckage and stumbled to her knees.
It was Mai.
Grimly, he heaved them both along.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Tyler Webb was ecstatic, proud, practically orgasmic. The fruits of long years, the labors of his lifetime had finally come to fruition.
So to speak. He cackled aloud.
London was a crackling hub of movement and motion. Webb melted among the crowds, slipped through the comings and goings, wondering when the locals might employ their much-vaunted CCTV facial recognition software on him.
On them.
The two mortals he currently allowed to share his air: Beauregard Alain, his magnificent triple agent; and Sabrina Balboni, the master thief come major betrayer. French and Italian. Cunning and fire. The hardest part was treating them like the human beings they clearly were. Webb was above all that now — in his mind already ascending. The trail of Saint Germain had been tough so far and fraught with danger, but someone worthy — like him — took one more step toward immortality with each passing day.
And now he had the great composition that Germain had gifted to the British. And what had they done to it? Thrust it into some deep, dark and grimy hole in the ground beneath a thousand lesser treasures. Later, he would visit a special kind of retribution down upon them.