The Edge of Armageddon (10 page)

Drake rushed into the road as Beau called up the coordinates for Grand Central on his GPS. Alicia and Mai ran a step behind. This time however, Drake wasn’t planning on making the journey on the hoof. Despite the impossibly crushing schedule Marsh had set the attempt had to be made. Three cars had been abandoned outside the museum, two Corollas and a Civic. The Yorkshireman didn’t give them a second glance. What he wanted was something . . .

“Get in!” Alicia was standing by the open door of the Civic.

“Not nippy enough,” he said.

“We can’t waste time standing here waiting for—”

“That’ll do,” Drake saw beyond a slow-moving horse and carriage ride that had just exited Central Park to where a powerful F150 pickup idled away at the curb.

He sprinted toward it.

Alicia and Mai took off behind. “Is he fucking kidding?” Alicia ranted at Mai. “No way am I riding a horse. No way!”

They slipped past the animal and made short work of requesting the driver lend them his vehicle. Drake jumped on the gas pedal, burning rubber as he shot away from the curb. Beau pointed to the right.

“Take that through Central Park. It’s the 79
th
Street Transverse and leads to Madison Avenue.”

“Love that song,” Alicia barked. “And where’s Tiffany’s? I’m hungry.”

Beau gave her an odd look. “It isn’t a restaurant, Myles.”

“And Madison Avenue was a pop group,” Drake said. “Led by Cheyne Coates. As if anyone would ever forget her.” He swallowed with a flash of memory.

Alicia grunted. “Bollocks. I’m just gonna stop trying to lighten the mood. Any why is that, Drakey? Was she a tart?”

“Hey, steady on!” He swung the speeding vehicle onto 79
th
, which was a single wide lane and lined by a high wall with trees overhanging. “A pinup maybe. And a remarkable front woman.”

“Look out!”

Mai’s warning saved their vehicle as a Silverado swerved over the inch-high central reserve and tried to ram them. Drake caught sight of the face behind the wheel—the last member of the third cell. He tramped on the gas pedal, jerking everyone back into their seats as the other vehicle spun and set off in pursuit. All of a sudden their race through Central Park took on a far deadlier aspect.

The driver of the Silverado drove with reckless abandonment. Drake slowed to ease past a scattering of cabs, but their pursuer used the opportunity to slam their rear end. The F150 jolted and swerved but then righted itself without issue. The Silverado side-swiped a cab, sending it spinning over into the other roadway where it smashed into the retaining wall. Drake turned sharply left and then right to pass a dog-leg of cabs and then accelerated along an open stretch of road.

The terrorist behind them leaned out of his window, gun in hand.

“Down!” Drake yelled.

Bullets hammered every surface—the car, the road, the walls and the trees. The man was wild with anger and excitement and probably hatred too, uncaring as to the damage he caused. Beau, in the back seat of the F150, pulled a Glock and shot the back window out. Cold air rushed into the cab.

A row of buildings appeared to the left and then several pedestrians sauntering along the sidewalk up ahead. Drake saw only the Devil’s choice now—the chance death of a passerby or be late to Grand Central and face the consequences.

Eight minutes left.

Tearing down 79
th
, Drake spied a short tunnel ahead, overhung by hanging green branches. As they entered the brief darkness he hit the brake pedal, hoping their pursuer would swerve into the wall or at least lose his gun in the chaos. Instead, he veered around them, driving hard, shooting out of the side window as he went past.

They all ducked as their own window blew in, the whine of a bullet almost gone before they heard it. Alicia hung her own head out now, gun aimed, and fired at the Silverado. Ahead, it sped up and then slowed. Drake closed the gap fast. Another bridge appeared and now traffic was steady on both sides of the double yellow lines. Drake closed the gap until their own fender was almost touching the rear of the other car.

The terrorist twisted his frame around and pointed the gun over his shoulder.

Alicia fired first, the bullet pulverizing the Silverado’s rear window. The driver must have flinched, for his vehicle swerved, narrowly missing oncoming traffic and inspiring a tuneful burst of horns. Alicia leaned further out.

“That bit of blond hair whipping about,” Mai said. “Just reminds me of something. What do they call them now? A . . . collie?”

More shots. The terrorist fired back. Drake used evasive driving techniques as safely as he could. The traffic ahead was thinning out again and he used the chance to power past the Silverado, snaking over to the wrong side of the road. At his back, Mai powered down a window and emptied a clip into the other vehicle. Drake swung back in and studied the rear view.

“He’s still coming.”

Unexpectedly, Central Park ended and the busy crossroads at Fifth Avenue seemed to jump out at them. Cars were slowing, stopped, and pedestrians sauntered along at the crossings and lined the sidewalks. Drake grabbed a quick glimpse of the yellow-painted stoplights currently at green.

Super-long white buses lined both sides of Fifth Avenue. Drake braked hard, but the terrorist again slammed into their taillights. Through the wheel he felt the back end twitching around, saw the potential for disaster, and wrenched against the spin to regain control. The vehicle righted as it shot through the intersection, the Silverado only an inch behind.

A bus tried to pull out in front of them, giving Drake no choice but to scrape down its entire left-hand side and chance the center of the road. Metal screeched and glass scattered across his lap. The Silverado crashed along in his wake.

“Five minutes,” Beau said quietly.

With no time he piled on the speed. Soon, Madison Avenue hove into view, the gray-fronted Chase bank and black-canvased J.Crew’s filling his field of vision ahead.

“Two more yet,” Beau said.

Together, the racing vehicles sped from small gap to small gap, smashing vehicles aside and swerving around slower obstacles. Drake leaned constantly on the horn, wishing he had a siren of some sort and Alicia fired into the air to make pedestrians and drivers move quickly aside. NYPD cars were already screaming in their devastating wake. He’d already noticed the only vehicles that seemed to be treated with respect were the big red fire trucks.

“Up ahead,” Beau said.

“Got it,” Drake saw a gap opening up onto Lexington Avenue and went for it. Gunning the engine he drifted the vehicle hard around the corner. Smoke flew from the tires, making people scream all along the sidewalk. Here, on the new road, vehicles were parked end to end on both sides and a chaos of flat-beds, vans and one-way streets kept even the best drivers guessing.

“Not far now,” Beau said.

Drake saw his chance ahead as the traffic thinned. “Mai,” he said. “Do you remember Bangkok?”

As seamless as a supercar gear-change, Mai slammed a new mag into her Glock and unfastened her seatbelt, shuffling around in her seat. Alicia stared at Drake and Drake stared into the rearview. The Silverado was coming hard, trying to ram them as they approached Grand Central and a swarming crowd.

Mai rose in her seat, angling her body out of the already smashed rear window and starting to push.

Alicia nudged Drake. “Bangkok?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, it never is. You’ll be telling me what happened in Thailand stays in Thailand next.”

Mai slithered through the small gap, ripping her clothes but forcing her body on. Drake saw the moment when the wind hit her, when the grit stung her eyes. He saw the moment when the chasing terrorist blinked in shock.

The Silverado came on, shockingly close.

Mai jumped down to the bed of the truck, legs apart, and raised her weapon. She took a sighting and then started firing from the back of the truck, bullets smashing through the other car’s windows. Buildings and buses and lampposts passed leisurely by. Mai pulled her trigger again and again, ignoring the wind and the car’s motion, focusing only on the man who would otherwise kill them.

Drake kept the wheel as steady as possible, the speed constant. For once no cars rolled before them, something he’d prayed for. Mai’s feet were planted and her concentration necessarily absorbed by one thing only. Drake was her guide.

“Now!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

Alicia twisted around like a child who’d lost a candy down the seatback. “What’s she gonna do?”

Drake applied the brakes very softly, a millimeter at a time. Mai rammed in a second mag and then started running up the bed of the truck, straight for the tailgate. The Silverado’s driver’s eyes widened even further as he saw the wild ninja running straight at his speeding vehicle from another!

Mai reached the tailgate and leapt into the air, legs pumping, arms windmilling. There was a moment before gravity tugged her down when she arced gracefully though thin air, a vision of stealth and skill and beauty, but then she came down hard onto the hood of the other man’s car. Instantly, she buckled, allowing her legs and knees to take the impact and help steady her. Ungiving metal was a tough place to land, and Mai fell forward fast toward the jagged windshield.

The Silverado driver was braking hard, but still managed to bring his gun toward her face.

Mai spread her knees as the sudden impact passed through her, strengthening her spine and shoulders. Her weapon remained in her hands, already pointing at the terrorist. Two shots and he grunted, his foot still on the brake pedal, blood soaking through the front of his shirt and slumping forward.

Mai crawled up the hood of the car, reached inside the windshield and dragged the driver through. No way was she allowing him the courtesy of recuperation. His pain-filled eyes met hers and tried to lock on.

“How . . . how did you—”

Mai punched him in the face. Then she held on as the car coasted into the back of Drake’s. The Englishman had deliberately slowed in order to ‘catch’ the driverless car before it slewed in some dangerous, random direction.

“So that’s what you did in Bangkok?” Alicia asked.

“Something like that.”

“And what happened next?”

Drake looked away. “Not a clue, love.”

They flung open the doors, double-parking alongside a cab, as close to Grand Central as they could possibly get. Civilians backed away, gawping at them. The sensible ones turned to run. Dozens more took out cellphones and started to take pictures. Drake jumped to the sidewalk and broke instantly into a sprint.

“Time’s up,” Beauregard muttered at his side.

Drake charged though into the main hall of Grand Central station. The vast space yawned to left and right and high above. Shiny surfaces and polished floors were a shock to the system, departure and arrivals boards flickered all around and the rush of humanity seemed incessant. Beau reminded them of the name of the café and showed them a floor plan of the terminal.

“Main concourse,” Mai said. “Turn right, past the escalators.”

Rushing, twisting, performing amazing acrobatic feats just to avoid a collision, the team tore through the station. Minutes passed. Coffee shops, Belgian chocolate stores and bagel stalls whipped by, their combined aromas making Drake’s head spin. They entered what was known as Lexington Passage and started to slow.

“There!”

Alicia sprinted now, squeezing through a narrow entry into one of the smallest cafés Drake had ever seen. Almost unconsciously his mind ticked off the tables. Not hard, there were only three.

Alicia pushed a man wearing a gray overcoat aside, then fell to her knees beside the black surface. The top was littered with a discarded clutter, the chairs set back slapdash style. Alicia felt around underneath and soon came up holding a white envelope, her gaze hopeful.

Drake had been watching from several spaces away, but not the Englishwoman. Instead, he had been surveying the staff and the customers, those who passed outside—and one other place in particular.

The door to the back office.

It opened now, an inquisitive female figure poking her head out. Almost immediately she locked eyes with the only man staring right at her—Matt Drake.

No . . .

She held up a portable phone.
I think this is for you
, she mouthed.

Drake nodded, still watching the entire area. Alicia ripped open the envelope and then frowned.

“This can’t be right.”

Mai stared. “What? Why not?”

“It says—boom!”

Drake raced to the phone and snatched it away from the woman. “What are you playing at?”

Marsh giggled down the line. “Have you checked under the other two tables?”

Then the line went dead. Drake felt everything inside him collapse as his soul and his heart froze, but he didn’t stop moving. “The tables!” he cried out and broke into a sprint, dropping and sliding on his knees under the closest one.

Alicia screamed at the staff and the patrons to get out, to evacuate. Beau collapsed under the other table. Drake no doubt saw an exact copy of what the Frenchman locked eyes upon, a small explosive device stuck to the underside of the table with duct tape. About the size and shape of a water bottle, it was crudely covered in old Christmas wrapping paper. The message
Ho Ho Ho!
was not lost on Drake.

Alicia fell in beside him. “How do we defuse the sucker? And more importantly,
can
we defuse the sucker?”

“You know what I know, Myles. In the Army we usually blew one bomb up with another. It’s the safest way, mostly. But this guy knew what he was doing. Wrapped well in an innocuous package. See the wires? They’re all the same color. Blasting cap. Remote detonator. Not sophisticated but dammed dangerous.”

“So grow a set and stop the bloody blasting cap from going off.”

“Grow a set? Shit, we’re totally winging it here.” Drake looked up, and saw with unbelieving eyes a crowd of people with their faces pressed to the café windows. Some were even trying to get through the open door. The customary android phones were recording what might be their owners’ own deaths in only a few minutes time.

“Get out!” he shouted, and Alicia joined him. “Evacuate this building now!”

At last, scared faces turned away and started to get the message. Drake remembered the size and scale of the main hall and the mass of people inside and gritted his teeth until the roots hurt.

“How long do you think?” Alicia hunkered down beside him again.

“Minutes, if that.”

Drake stared at the device. Truth be told it didn’t look sophisticated, just a simple bomb designed to scare rather than maim. He’d seen firework bombs of this size and probably with the same rudimentary detonation device. His army experience might be a little rusty, but faced with a red-wire-blue-wire situation it soon came flooding back.

Except all the wires are the same color.

Mayhem washed all around his self-imposed cocoon. Like a tell-tale whisper, word of a bomb swept through the great halls, and one man’s flight to freedom infected the next and the next until all except the hardiest—or stupidest—of commuters were heading for the exit. The noise was tremendous, washing up to the high rafters and right back down the walls. Men and women fell in the rush and were helped up by passersby. Some panicked and others stayed calm. Bosses tried to keep their staff in place but were justifiably fighting a losing battle. Crowds streamed out of the exits and began to fill up 42
nd
Street.

Drake hesitated, sweat beginning to pool along his brow. One wrong move here might lead to the loss of a limb, or more. And worse, it would put him out of the battle to take Marsh down. If the Pythian succeeded in thinning them out then he had a far better chance of achieving his ultimate goal—whatever the twisted hell that might be.

Then Beauregard squatted at his side. “Are you okay?”

Drake stared. “What the hell . . . I mean, aren’t you sorting out the other—”

Beau held out the other device he’d already disarmed. “It is a simple mechanism and took but a few seconds. Would you like some help?”

Drake stared at the inner workings dangling before him, the slight smugness of the Frenchman’s face, and said, “Shit. Nobody better tell the Swede this happened.”

Then he pulled out the blasting cap.

Everything remained the same. A sense of relief flooded through him and he took a moment to pause and breathe. Another crisis diverted, one more small victory for the good guys. Then Alicia, her eyes on the café’s counter, spoke five very distinct words.

“The fucking phone’s ringing again.”

And all around Grand Central, all around New York, in trash cans and under trees—even strapped to railings and finally thrown by motorcyclists—the bombs began to explode.