Dying Breath (Cobra Book 2) Page 12

  There were three saloon cars in the parking lot, plus two Range Rovers and a soft-top Jeep Wrangler. For a couple of seconds I could see people through the plate-glass walls and windows, staring at me. Three men came out the front door into the lot to gaze up at me. One was in a suit, the other two in lab coats.

  I rocketed over the building and tore across the desert, kicking up a storm of sand and dust. I climbed to three hundred feet and did a circuit of the grounds, searching for men and dogs. There was nothing, just desert, dunes and a few scattered shrubs.

  To the north the ground sank slightly toward a shallow valley, and I figured that area would be out of sight to the lab complex. So, in the dying sun, as it sank toward the horizon, I did another low flyover, kicking up as much dust as I could, and then came in for a slow, bumpy landing close to the north perimeter fence.

  There I killed the engine and swung down from the cockpit. I slung the HK416 over my shoulder, stuffed the EPX 1 in the rucksack and hoisted that on my back. I grabbed the bow and the pack of twelve arrows and set off at a steady run directly south toward a position which I had fixed in my mind, two hundred and fifty yards east of the lab.

  Running through sand is exhausting, but if you keep your mind focused on only the next step, you can keep going for a surprisingly long time. Either way, after a couple of minutes I heard the grind and whine of a Jeep, and I saw the glow of headlamps through the quickening dusk. I dropped to my belly, lay flat and motionless and watched the headlamps move past in the direction of the plane.

  The plane was my plan A for getting out of there. Plan B was stealing one of their vehicles, but I really didn’t want to do that. So I got on one knee, nocked an arrow and stuck the fingers of my right hand in my mouth, to emit a piercing whistle.

  I saw the red taillights stop. I figured they were fifty yards away. Then there was the distinctive whine of reverse and the taillights moved momentarily toward me, then swung to my right and the headlamps glowed bright, obscuring everything around and behind them. Next thing there was a shout and they were charging at me, jerking, bouncing and wobbling. I knew they couldn’t shoot me, not moving the way they were. And I could not aim. This shot would not be down to aim. This had to be calculation. My arrow would be the fixed point, and they would come to meet it.

  It took all of two seconds. I drew, estimated their distance and the height above the left headlamp, and loosed. And the Jeep drove the driver’s chest right into the barb. The Wrangler wobbled and swerved, there was a shout and the vehicle careened off to my right. By that time I was already running, with another arrow nocked on the string, toward the bounding vehicle.

  It struck a couple of rocks violently, swerved again and came to a halt. Darkness was closing in fast and it was hard to see clearly. I had the night-vision goggles in my rucksack, but no time to get them. I saw the silhouette of a man, partially backlit by the headlamps, stagger to his feet from the passenger side and stumble down from the vehicle. He was about twenty yards away, dazed and probably in pain. He stopped, paused and looked around. It was the last thing he ever did.

  I drew and loosed in one fluid movement, and the razor-sharp hunting broadhead punched through his ribcage and sliced deep through his heart and out his back.

  Another few steps took me to the vehicle. I killed the engine and the lights, hunkered down and waited, listening, smelling the air. Far to my left a light appeared. It seemed to waver in the dark, swell and shrink. Then, like an amoeba, it stretched and broke into two and became a pair of headlamps. Outside the compound. Maybe a mile away, but closing.

  Heilong Li.

  I closed my eyes, listening hard, focusing on the lab, then on all the darkness around me. Nothing. Nothing but the growing sound of the approaching car.

  I ran. I ran fast, disregarding the risk of loose rocks and potholes. I had to get to the lab before the car, and I had to get there unseen and unheard. My boot landed on a rock. The rock gave and rolled, my foot twisted and I went down with a wrenching pain in my ankle. I bit back the shout as I hit the ground, rolled and scrambled to my feet, ignoring the piercing, stabbing pain in my joint. I could not allow myself to hobble. I could not allow myself to limp. I had to run, and I had to run hard and fast.

  At fifty yards I dropped on my belly, pulled the goggles from my rucksack and fitted them over my eyes. I scanned the side of the building, looking for CCTV cameras. I found one on each corner of the building, coupled with a spotlight, at about fifteen feet, angled down toward the ground, and in toward the wall. The one on my right was my problem. If I flattened against the wall it would see me.

  There was a concrete path along the wall, bordered on the inside by flowerbeds and on the outside by a row of azaleas set among a strip of lawn. I crawled another ten paces closer to the flowering shrubs, got on one knee and took careful aim at the lens. The shaft whispered, arched through the air and the hardened steel tip bit deep into the concrete three inches from the camera, then dropped silently to the ground.

  I took another arrow, nocked it, adjusted my aim and loosed. Again I watched it arch through the black and green darkness, but this time it smashed into the lens, tearing it from its housing.

  Then I was on my feet, sprinting hard, my ankle screaming with the throbbing agony. In a few seconds I was flattened against the wall, inching toward the corner of the building.

  I peered around the corner and swore softly. I was too late. The black SUV swung through the gate a hundred and fifty yards away to the southeast, flooding the area with its lamps. Then it was speeding toward the building, slowing, pulling into the parking lot, skidding to a halt in front of the door.

  The doors opened almost instantly and the driver and his pal climbed out to open the back doors. Heilong Li climbed out the near side. Across the roof I just about recognized Yang Dizhou, who slammed the door behind him. And then, after a couple of seconds, somebody else climbed out, somebody tall and graceful in jeans and a silk blouse, somebody with a wild head of Afro hair.

  Rachida.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For a fraction of a second I considered it. I could probably take all four of them with the P226. I had the element of surprise. Heilong first, then his driver, Yang Dizhou over the roof and the bodyguard would make a run, take him down as he went. Tie Rachida to the steering wheel. Lay the charges and get the hell out of there. Take Rachida back for interrogation.

  It went through my mind in the time it takes to blink, and I discarded it. It was not a thought, it was an instinct. If what they were doing here was so valuable, worth so much on the international market, there was no way security could be this lax.

  So I didn’t move, and, as they went inside, two armed guards in uniform came out and turned the corner toward where I was standing in the shadows. One of them was carrying a telescopic ladder. I knew they were coming to fix the camera. I picked up the broken arrow and stepped back behind the azaleas.

  A few seconds later the two guys in uniform appeared, staring up at the shattered camera. They were muttering to each other in Arabic, gesturing and shrugging a lot. They set up the ladder, rested it against the wall and after a moment’s debate, one of them started to climb. I nocked another arrow, stood silently and in one, fluid movement I drew, aimed and loosed.

  The guy at the foot of the ladder frowned as he watched the feathered, wooden arrow whisper above his head and bury itself in the back of his pal’s neck, severing his brain from his heart and his lungs. Death was almost instant, and the last thing he saw as he fell back from the steps must have been a very dark sky peppered with brilliant, cold stars.

  By that time I had kicked his friend’s feet from under him and slammed his back on the hard concrete, partially winding him. I had knelt on his solar plexus and placed the razor tip of the Fairbairn and Sykes against his throat. In Arabic I said, “Taharuk watamut!” Which roughly translates as “move and die.” I followed that up with, “Do you speak English?”

  He swallowed and said, �
�Quoi?” and then, “Je ne veux pas mourir!”

  He didn’t want to die. That was fine. I put my finger to my lips and whispered, “OK, combien?” Which as far as I remembered meant either how much or how many. I jabbed my thumb at the building and assumed he’d get what I was asking. “Combien soldats?”

  He flapped his hands a bit, shaking his head. “Douze, non! Non! Quatorze! Deux dans la Jeep!”

  He held up two fingers and made a driving motions with his hands to tell me there were fourteen soldiers, and two of them were in the Jeep.

  In a swift motion I cut his carotid artery and his jugular. Death was quick and painless, and pumped copiously into the flowerbeds. I ran to the corner. I had to move fast. If I delayed or thought too much I would be trapped. I still had the element of surprise and I had to use it.

  I peered around the corner. There was no one there. Another sprint took me to the next corner where I had a clear view of the main door. Through it I could see Heilong Li, Yang Dizhou, Rachida and the two guards in a broad lobby. They were talking to the man I had seen earlier in the suit and another man in a white coat. The smart thing would have been to take them all out, including Rachida, right there and then. But that’s not my style. Call me sentimental, but I don’t kill women.

  The guard had said fourteen men. But there was no damned sign of them. Where were they? There was a paid assassin slipping into their damned facility and they had no idea. It was wrong. My heart was pounding and my belly was on fire because it was wrong and I felt I was sinking into a trap, but I had no reason but fear to pull back.

  There are only two things you can do with a trap. Retreat, or act unpredictably. I opted for the latter.

  I moved back silently to where I had left the guard’s body. I took a cake of EXP 1 from the rucksack and tore it in half. I molded it, pressed it against the glass side of the building, inserted the detonator and returned to the corner from where I could see the main door. I peered around. They were still talking, but they had moved farther inside. I dropped the bow and the arrows, pressed number nine on my phone and all hell broke loose.

  The explosion rocked the ground. The glass in the windows above me cracked and shattered. At the side of the building, where I had laid the charge, a billion tiny shards of glass showered into the night, illuminated by the spots. Inside the building I saw the small group stagger and drop to the floor, covering their heads with their arms.

  I sprinted, covering the distance to the door in a couple of seconds with the 416 in my hands. I burst through the door with the weapon at my shoulder. Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou were lying facedown, still in shock. Beside them was Rachida. The chauffeur and the bodyguard were struggling to their feet. I took them both out with a couple of double taps. Heilong Li began to stir, Yang Dizhou was struggling to his knees and Rachida was on all fours. There was too much movement and if I fired now I might hit her. I bellowed, “Rachida! On your feet! Move!”

  She turned and stared at me. Heilong Li’s eyes were wild. Yang Dizhou screamed, a horrible, inarticulate noise, and next thing the whole damned group were clinging to each other and running toward the stairs and the elevators. I went after them, still shouting at Rachida to move away. But my words were lost among the hysterical screams and shouts.

  They hammered at the elevator buttons. The door would not budge. I tried to get a bead on Heilong Li, but Rachida would not stand still. They ran as a group for the stairs. I went after them. The doors of the elevators hissed open and they turned, again as a screaming bunch, and made back for the elevators. It was almost comical in a grotesque way. I bellowed at Rachida, “Drop to the floor! Move!”

  They bundled inside and the doors started to close. And then behind me, for the second time, all hell broke loose. But this time it was not an explosion. This time it was the storming of boots, the rattle of automatic fire and the screaming of military voices.

  I turned and saw the double doors flung open, four men in uniform holding assault rifles at their shoulders, trained on me, and behind and beyond them, at least two dozen men also in uniform and all armed with automatic rifles. Thirty men. Double what that son of a bitch had told me. All armed to the teeth and all after me.

  In that moment I knew with cold certitude that I was going to die. And if I was going to die, I knew with equal certitude that I was going to take each and every one of those sons of bitches with me.

  I roared, a horrible, unnatural sound, and sprayed the door and the plate-glass walls with fire. I saw their guns spit maybe five or six times. Around me I was aware of plaster and concrete erupting as the hot lead smashed into the walls and spun whining past me. And at the same instant I was aware of the vast spider web of cracks racing through the huge sheets of glass that stood poised above the soldiers.

  Their faces were no longer looking at me. They were upturned into the cruel, lethal shower of glass that was exploding from the walls and plunging down on them. I took two seconds to let off three short bursts of fire into their midst, and then I was sprinting up the stairs after the elevator, leaving the screams of pain and terror behind me.

  I came to a landing that made a dogleg to the right ahead of me and realized absently that I was on a staircase that spiraled up around the elevator shaft. Before I could give it any thought I heard enraged shouting and fifty or sixty furious boots storming across the lobby after me. I ran, crashed around two corners, passed the elevator doors and heard the elevator clunk past on its way up.

  A plate-glass door ahead of me gave onto offices. To the right the stairs climbed higher. I took them three at a time. Behind me I could hear the soldiers tramping after me. The rucksack was growing heavy on my back. I dragged at the banisters with my hands as I pounded the steps with my feet.

  Another landing and I knew I was one floor from the top. I scrambled around to the elevator doors. Above me I heard the elevator stop and the doors hiss and rattle open. A shout behind me told me the soldiers were gaining on me. I had feared getting trapped, and now I was at the top of a four-story building with thirty fully armed soldiers closing in on me from below and no way out above.

  A final burst of energy, fueled by the close proximity of death, drove me up the last flight with the 416 at my shoulder. My heart was pounding hard high up in my chest and I was fighting to ignore the voice in my head that was telling me I had screwed up bad.

  Real bad.

  By the time I got to the top Heilong Li, Yang Dizhou and Rachida had gone and the elevator doors were standing open. Without thinking I stepped in, pressed the button for the ground floor and stepped out again as the doors began to close. There were boots already tramping up the final flight of stairs. I hurled myself at the plate-glass door and barreled through into a maze of corridors and offices. The lights were dim, barely enough to see, but straight ahead I could see an illuminated room, like a boardroom, with three tangled, black silhouettes scrambling through the door.

  I sprinted, but as I did so I heard the doors behind me burst open and a voice bellow. There was a passage on my left and another on my right. I didn’t think. Ten or fifteen assault rifles opened up and tore the walls to shreds; I hurled myself to the floor and rolled into the passage.

  I lay on the floor. Screaming men were storming down the corridor toward me, no more than ten paces away. There was a door on my right, maybe an office. I blew out the lock and crashed through it. It had been a forlorn hope, but it had paid off. There was a second door in the far wall. I gave it the same treatment and barged through to the passage where I had seen Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou moments before. And six or seven paces from where I stood, there was the door, still illuminated, through which they had pushed. Either side of it the walls were plate glass, but concertina blinds had been drawn across them. Behind them, light glowed.

  I didn’t hesitate. I let off a burst of fire at the wall. The slugs ricocheted dangerously down the hall. Bulletproof glass. Only a couple of seconds had passed, but now soldiers swarmed into the passage ahead of me. Fi
ve men across, four deep. More of them were crowded into the corridor from which they had emerged, blocking off my exit to the stairs and the elevator.

  They took aim and I threw myself back against the open door of the office. A hail of bullets tore through plaster and wood and I scrambled back to take cover behind the steel desk. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating as the wall through the door seemed to dance and wobble. Then I realized the concertina blinds were being drawn back. Heilong Li wanted to be in on the kill, behind three inches of bulletproof glass.

  I worked feverishly and wrenched open the rucksack. I heard orders being shouted in French. Men dispatched to come and kill me, drag me out. The fingers of my left hand found a pack of EPX 1 and fumbled it from the sack while my right kept the 416 trained on the door. My breathing was harsh and shallow. I pulled another four packs out as three uniforms charged through the door. But I had already started firing when I’d seen the toe of the first guy’s boot. A shower of hot lead tore through the wooden jamb, plaster and brick, flesh organs and bone.

  I wrenched the magazine free and slammed in another. Voices were shouting. They were preparing to come through the other door. I jammed the detonator into the cake of plastic, stuffed the cake back in the rucksack and scrambled on my hands and knees to the devastated door. Boots scrabbled outside the other door, the one I had come in through. I riddled it with automatic fire, heard screams of pain. I knew I could not hold out. Once they decided to storm both doors I would die.

  I stood, leaned out the door and lobbed the rucksack as hard as I could. Twenty-one pounds of high explosive sailed through the air in a deadly arc. I ducked back in the room as a hail of fire shattered the wall, whined and pinged around me. But my right hand was already pressing nine on my cell phone.

  One pound of C4 will tear a bus to pieces. What twenty-one pounds did to almost thirty men in a confined corridor was ugly. It was nightmarish. But I didn’t hang about to meditate on the existential aspects of what I had done. I charged out the far door with the 416 at my shoulder.