Alicia stared up at the indomitable figure. “Beau,” she said. “Why?”
He paused then, blood coating his face and the gleam of bone showing through, his brow matted with sweat. “Ask Michael Crouch,” he said. “He is the key.”
Alicia stared. Crouch was Drake’s old boss and her new one; the well-loved, well-respected, ex-leader of the British Ninth Division. No man stood higher in her opinion. “What does that mean?”
Beau didn’t answer. He threw Kenzie’s katana twirling into the air and caught its pommel on the way down. Then he struck left and right at her, diagonal slashes that almost shaved the hairs from her arms. Alicia jumped up with a surge of adrenalin.
Mai screamed as she ripped the shuriken from her wrist. Blood spurted forth in fountains, splashing the ground. But she ran for Beau then, ducked under his katana thrust, and buried the metal star through the meat of his throat. Beau dropped the sword and then all three women fell too; exhausted, bloodied and beaten.
But winners.
Alicia’s eyes finally refocused and found the final battle. “What the fuck is that? Hey girls, there’s a movie title right there.”
Kenzie shielded her eyes. “What?”
“Drake’s on a plane.”
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE
Drake inched his way steadily toward the hull, feet slipping beneath him. He was down to one minute thirty left. The jet rushed along at breakneck speed. Drake held onto the window mountings, then envisioned sliding down the wind to grab hold of the door. A tricky maneuver when the plane was stationary, let alone zooming toward take-off speed.
“Fifty seconds.” Dahl’s voice.
“Crap, I need more time.”
A face moved in the window, catching sight of him, and the arm moved around the door, pointing the gun in his direction. The window face belonged to Tyler Webb and was huge and grinning. The red satchel appeared, held up like a trophy. A steaming goblet came into view, smoke trailing from the rim. Webb opened his mouth into the widest of crazy grins. Drake read the flapping lips.
“I told you! I told you I would kill one of you today!”
The gun discharged. The bullet whipped past.
“To me and my everlasting future!” Webb quaffed the mixture.
Drake flung his body backwards. A second shot flew overhead.
“Blow it!” Drake cried. “Blow the goddamn plane. We can’t let this maniac get free again.”
Dahl came back: “On three. But what about you?”
“Just bring me that bloody chopper.”
The helicopter spun a quarter circle in mid-air. The jet thundered down the runway, its wheels pounding the ground and its engines roaring like trapped monsters. The shooter fired again. Drake ran hell for leather along the wing of the plane.
He had no intention of stopping.
The helicopter fired its arsenal, three missiles together screaming into the front of the plane. The area of impact disintegrated in less than a second, replaced by fire. A flaming plume of red and black billowed down the length of the plane, smashing out windows and melting the substructure, obliterating everything in its path. The entire body was engulfed, many parts flying and fragmenting off.
Drake’s headlong sprint came to an end as the plane blew up. Metal drooped beneath him as the wing collapsed. A split instant past the very last moment he leapt high, the flames chasing his back. The lowest part of the chopper was its skid. Drake’s hands wrapped around the smooth metal, gripping hard and arresting the momentum in his body. Fire chased him — flickering tongues of flame licking his back, setting his jacket alight and singeing the back of his head. Drake screamed as the fire caressed his skin. The pilot swing the chopper away from the blast but it was already receding, its energy spent. Drake hung on grimly, eyes closed against the agony, fingers holding on until they could clasp no longer.
Then he fell. Hit the ground and folded. The devastated airplane drifted to the right, off the runway, a shattered shell engulfed in fire. Webb was inside that and forever gone now, his twisted schemes all destroyed with him. Drake tried to look up as footsteps pounded toward him.
Dahl.
“You fucking knobhead! What were you thinking? Hey, you’re still on bloody fire!”
Something flapped at his back. Drake felt the heat subside but the agony lived on. Was he drifting away? Was it all too much? Truth be told, it didn’t matter. He trusted his team, his family, more than he had ever trusted any soul in the world. They would take the best care of him.
More bodies surrounded him and he heard the voices of Alicia and Mai, strangely difficult to tear them apart. He felt deep hope that Kinimaka wouldn’t stumble over him. He heard Dahl’s voice again.
“Get up, dickhead. The vest saved you. It’s just the hair on your thick skull that got a little scorched. Drake?”
Touched by the clear concern hidden beneath the usual insensitive veneer, Drake pushed his hands underneath his body and pushed hard. Reality set back in. He lay at the center of a circle, shielded by his team, choppers landing all around and cops and medics rushing up. Everyone had injuries. Mai dripped blood in streams but still stood shoulder to shoulder with Alicia, being supported by the Englishwoman and Kenzie. Drake wished that it could always be so.
Today. Not tomorrow.
The whole team were together. Webb had not fulfilled his own prophecy after all. He thought again of Kinimaka’s song.
I see my loved ones again. All of them. Drake felt truly blessed.
He turned to Dahl. “Are we done?”
Hayden answered for the Swede. “There’s just one more bit of intrigue and mystery we have to solve. Then, we all get a day off.”
“And where’s that?”
“The house of Saint Germain.”
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
Rested, re-clothed to some degree and recuperated to another, the SPEAR team headed back to New Orleans’ French Quarter. With all the unfriendly parties either leaderless or captured, the resistance had been stamped out. The cultists were gone forever; the surviving mercenaries in custody. Another threat removed from the world. The entire team had been patched and bandaged, fed painkillers and even stitched. And, on an uplifting note, they had learned that Sabrina Balboni had survived her operations and would make a full recovery, given time.
Everyone moved gingerly as they walked up the middle of Bourbon Street, giving groups of tourists a wide berth.
Hayden looked tired. “A reverse trace of Webb’s movements through New Orleans showed him first visiting this area,” she said. “And in particular — that house.”
Drake stared at an unassuming structure, two-story with white shutters and a small parking garage nearby. Plant pots lined the windows. Even the door locks shone like new. Alicia tapped Hayden’s shoulder.
“Why are we here?”
“Webb came to this house for a reason. Don’t you want to know what it was?”
Lauren stepped forward. “We know from our research that the fanatics thought Saint Germain was still alive and living in New Orleans. Are you saying this is his house?”
“Again—” Hayden smiled “—why else would Webb come here?”
“The final clue,” Mai said.
“From Germain himself?” Drake laughed.
“If not the man,” Hayden spread her hands, “then maybe from the place he lived.” She shrugged. “There is often a nugget of truth in legend. If Germain did come here then maybe he left a clue behind.”
They searched high and low; they ransacked the modern, pristine furniture and the unmarked walls and pictures. They checked for hidden passages and false walls, a basement and an attic. If Tyler Webb had indeed visited these premises then he’d done so with the utmost respect, another oddity. They gathered as a team in the sitting room.