by Mark Henwick
“But…” I looked back at the faces as he pushed Alex, Yelena and me out the door.
You’re just about to lose the presidency of the Assembly!
“Attend to your battle,” he said. “This one is mine.”
Chapter 66
Twenty minutes. Halfway to getting a plan together.
Split the forty Altau into two teams. Pick leaders for the teams.
Review the information Huang provided. Agree on tasks.
Not enough. A lot of bidders, and all of them with armed bodyguards. Too many innocents.
Call the Pasadena Were and beg for their help. Wait for the return call.
Ignore the pain of loss and the fear of all of Emergence coming apart under Correia.
And then Prowser was sprinting down the steps toward us.
“Farrell! A message just came in from Huang’s spy. You have to go now.”
“What’s happened?”
Prowser’s face twisted. “It’s the second girl. Dante.” She paused before rushing on. “He says Forsythe plans to have her raped and murdered as…as entertainment in the middle of the auction.”
Focus. Breathe. Going crazy will not help.
“How long have we got?”
“I don’t know. The spy said it depends on the bidding.”
No time for the Pasadena. No time for last minute reviews and summaries.
“Load up,” I yelled. “Go, go, go.”
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Crazy woman. Crazy woman. Victor was muttering it like a mantra.
I was strapped into his Gazelle, fifteen hundred feet up, between Van Nuys and Burbank airfields, flying at well over a hundred knots through the night sky.
Except for a center console jammed with the soft LED glow of instruments, the cockpit was a study in how sparse you could make it. It felt like we were in a glass bubble rushing through the night. It was cold and noisy.
And my gut was telling me it wasn’t fast enough. Every second mattered and it’d taken too long to work out a plan, and the Pasadena hadn’t gotten back to me.
It was in their territory. Billie was too far away. Everyone else was too far away; the auction was being held on a ranch up against the San Gabriel Mountains.
I’d spoken to the Pasadena lieutenant I’d met at the concert. He wouldn’t commit, but he’d given me an email address where I’d sent the information we had about the ranch and an outline of my plan. Such as it was.
No call back from the alpha.
Too late now.
Yelena and Alex, Julie and Keith were with me in the Gazelle. The Altau had found us all Kevlar vests, helmets with milspec comms and the ugly P90 submachine guns that they favored.
Victor reached out to the console. His finger stabbed the GPS and the screen scale jumped up a level.
Real close now.
“Empire Flight, waypoint Zulu, confirm,” he said over the RT.
“Empire One, roger.”
“Empire Two, roger.”
The two Sikorsky helicopters were a hundred yards behind us, thundering along with their lights blazing, lit up like a pair of Sci-Fi spaceships. The two Empire of Heaven pilots had convinced Victor they knew what they were doing, and that was good enough for me. They’d come up with their part of the plan once I’d told them what I needed.
Victor settled himself down into his seat, took a moment to quickly wipe his hand down his pant leg.
“Approaching Skyfall. On my mark,” he said over the comm. “Three, two, one, mark.”
Victor flipped a row of buttons and our console and navigation lights went out. He pushed the collective control down and eased the cyclic forward. The Gazelle began to fall. The engine noise that had been a constant hammering on my ears died quickly away.
Below us, and not that far below us, the ground was still racing past. The Foothill Freeway peppered with the headlights of vehicles. The last few loops of residential streets with houses, some lit up. And then the looming darkness that was the San Gabriel Mountains, which we were rushing toward.
And a last crop of bright arc lights.
A ranch tucked into the protection of Milagro Canyon.
A ranch that was no ranch at all.
There was a blank spot in the arc lights. A two-story, rectangular building the size of a football field: the livestock auction center. It had an expansive parking lot, big enough for livestock rigs to turn, with raised loading bays to collect stock in trailers. It was full tonight with massive SUVs and sleek limousines for the bidders and their guards.
But we weren’t just rushing toward the ranch; we were hurtling toward it. I sucked my breath in.
Too fast. Too fast.
I braced.
“Showtime,” Victor called.
The first of the Sikorskys came thundering past, barely fifty feet above us, all lights on and engine at full throttle.
Just as the auction center seemed to completely fill the view in front of me.
Victor hauled up the collective control and the Gazelle bucked. It felt like I’d hit the end of a bungee rope. My stomach tried to get out through my eye sockets. But we didn’t go back up. Instead, we sank, gently, down to the roof of the building.
The second Sikorsky was overhead, even closer. At this distance, it was so loud my ears gave up and I felt it rather than heard it. The noise entirely masked the sound of our Gazelle landing. That was good. On the other hand, the noise from the Sikorsky was trying to turn my bones into mush and push my brain out of my nose.
But old training took over and I was already out of the Gazelle, crawling to the edge of the roof.
The auction hall was shaped like a huge E, with the flat-roofed double-story section we’d landed on forming the backbone and the three pitched roofs of the auction sheds stretching out between us and the main parking area.
As it had shown in the plans Huang had provided, all the sheds had skylights. Only the one in the middle showed lights inside.
The Sikorskys had lifted over a ridge at the far end of the ranch and climbed away up into the mountains. The violence of their passing faded and was replaced by confused shouting from below, car alarms going off, doors opening and closing as guards craned their necks looking towards where the Sikorskys had gone. Good—the more commotion, the better.
No one looked back up into the darkness on the top of the roof where we’d landed, and we weren’t about to shine any lights.
The only problem was there were no trapdoors to get down, and we only had five minutes before the Sikorskys came back, when we planned for all hell to break loose.
There was no time for anything spectacular. Alex and I could jump down from this height, but we couldn’t guarantee that we wouldn’t be hurt.
Keep it simple.
Julie reported from her lookout position. A group of nine guards had come out the front door to look around and see what all the noise was about. All of them armed. Assault rifles. They were wandering around the south side of the building to look down toward the parking lot, in the direction the Sikorskys had taken.
Alex and I sprinted to the north end of the roof.
He held me over the side and I broke a window.
If an alarm went off, they’d think it was caused by the helicopters.
I hope.
I pulled the window open and braced myself against the frame.
Julie, Yelena and Keith climbed down, using Alex and me as a bridge. Victor was under my instructions to remain with the Gazelle. We might need to leave quickly.
As she swarmed over me, Julie reported that she’d seen the eight guards going back inside the front of the building.
She couldn’t see the back of the sheds and the parking lot, but any guards there couldn’t see us either.
Keith pulled me inside and then we both reached out of the window and grabbed Alex’s arms. He swung down and bounced against the wall lightly on his feet before we dragged him inside after us.
There was an alarm going off inside
the building.
The office we’d dropped into was bare, functional. Single florescent light. Plain desks and chairs. A couple of old metal filing cabinets. No carpets.
A light showed at the bottom of the door. And we could hear the sound of two men coming down the corridor, feet scuffing lazily and voices unconcerned.
“…probably some search and rescue shit out in the mountains. Not our circus.”
Keith flattened himself against the wall next to the door.
The rest of us waited in the darkness.
The first guy walked through and reached for the light switch.
Keith shoved him at us and hauled the guy behind him inside.
The first guy stumbled. His assault rifle was still slung over his back and his hands were stretched out to break his fall. Julie slammed her knife into his throat and I caught the body, lowering him quietly to the floor and getting soaked in his blood.
The second guy managed to get his hand on his weapon. Yelena ripped it away before he touched the trigger.
Keith snapped his neck and let his body slump to one side.
Given what was happening here, which they had to know about, I felt no sorrow at their deaths.
We waited, listening.
Other voices floated down the corridor. No particular tension.
Yelena used her flashlight to look at the window alarm system and shook her head.
“Sensor embedded in the glass,” she murmured. “Can’t fix this.”
The rest of the guards would soon realize something had happened when these two didn’t return.
We edged down the corridor.
The building was symmetrical, arranged around a central stairwell. The corridor opposite us was dark. Downstairs, all the lights in the hall looked to be on.
“What the fuck are they doing?” one of the remaining guards said.
“I’m guessing that helicopter bust a window. Melvin, turn the alarm off. Jed, you go check what they’re trying to do. If the glass is broken, there’s no point doing anything. Maintenance’ll fix it come morning.”
Jed complained, but he moved.
Julie caught my eye and nodded. The guy who just gave those orders would die first. But we wanted that alarm turned off before we made a move.
There were two doors off the corridor where we were.
One was locked. The other was an empty office.
Keith went back to the first office. We wanted Jed to die quietly, as far away from the others as possible.
The rest of us crowded into the empty office.
Jed went by.
The alarm suddenly stopped.
I waited through the muffled quiet sounds of Jed dying, and then motioned Julie out through the door.
I got to the other side of the stairwell and checked my P90. Silencer fitted, single shot selected, safety off.
Melvin came back from the utility room. I had a clear shot out of the darkness down the stairwell. Julie and I nodded at each other. We fired. Melvin and the boss died.
That left four of them, if Julie’s count was good, and no time.
It was a huge risk, but we were down to two minutes away from the Sikorskys returning. This place was more complex and better guarded than I’d thought when I set up the timings.
Julie fired again.
Three left.
I leaped over the railings, down to the landing.
There was a reception desk on one side and a man scrambling to get behind it, yelling.
I shot him, hitting him in the shoulder and spinning him around. I fired again, twice. He stopped yelling.
The others joined me on the landing.
Yelena and Julie shot.
Silence.
We had a little over one minute left of our maximum allotted time.
Alex was trying the Pasadena cellphone number. It wasn’t answering.
What the hell? Not even a ‘no’?
It was going to be hard without them.
I triggered the comms. “Empire Flight, Sky Three: objective alpha complete. Status?”
“Empire One and Two at Rendezvous Yankee, Sky Three.” The pilot might have been reciting his grocery list.
The two Altau commanders called out:
“Sky One, green.”
“Sky Two, green.”
The voice of the pilot in Empire One came back on, only a slight increase in his Chinese accent showing his excitement.
“Moving it up. Going dark and coming in hot, in…mark…forty seconds and counting,” he said. “Selecting Ride of the Valkyries now.”
They watched the same damn movies in China as the rest of the world.
Chapter 67
The back of the building had three sets of double doors which led to the three auction halls.
The middle doors, the ones to the hall in use, were locked from the other side.
Through a small window in the right-hand door I could see the layout, which I relayed as quickly as I could to the Altau teams inbound in the helicopters.
Bidders on my left, sitting in comfortable chairs, drinking and smoking. Waiters attending them. Bodyguards behind, some leaning against the wall, most gathered down at the far end. Some of them with assault rifles. That was bad news.
All of the guards and bidders were legitimate targets, even if I could almost feel Ingram tapping my shoulder: he would want them delivered to him alive.
“Thirty seconds,” the pilot’s voice interrupted me.
At the far end of the auction hall, the huge metal doors had been rolled open a few feet. A group had collected around it, looking alert. Some of them were watching the parking lot. Not good.
And on the right of the hall…
I swallowed.
Cattle pens. Boys, girls, young women, cowering, crying. Each wearing nothing but chains and a large purple disk with a number on it.
In the middle of the hall, a stage. The auction block.
Video equipment. Lighting.
Sickness twisted in the pit of my stomach.
“Twenty seconds.”
Movement at the far end. A pair of guards were dragging a screaming Dante to the auction block.
Hold! Twenty seconds more. Twenty seconds. Focus.
Sweat on my palms. My legs were shaking.
Dante kicked one of the guards in the groin and he doubled over.
It earned her a punch in the stomach and a moment’s delay.
Twenty seconds and we’re coming for you, scum.
Yelena was beside me.
“Boss, make way,” she said.
She pulled me around.
Alex had decided to use the sole ornament in the lobby, a massive metal vase. He’d pulled the ornamental tree out of it. The thing was still full of earth. It must have weighed half a ton.
He’d picked it up.
Huh?
“Ten seconds.” The pilot’s voice had gone monotone again as he concentrated on flying precisely.
There was more noise and movement from the hall. I snapped back to peer through the window.
Guards at the far end could hear the returning helicopters. They were opening the doors wider to see what was going on.
Forsythe was there!
He was surrounded by a group, and they were bundling him out of the building. They had to be the bodyguards that Billie had identified as professionals.
Shit! Shit!
“Five seconds.”
Alex had walked as far as the front doors and turned.
I understood what he was doing now, but inside the auction hall, there was still too much abrupt movement. Half the people were distracted by Dante’s struggles, but the other half were becoming aware that something was happening. Not panicked, but urgent. They’d seen Forsythe’s hasty exit with his bodyguards.
People came out of their seats, looking to see what the problem was. Handguns and assault rifles appeared in bodyguards’ hands.
Shit again.
“Four.”
Alex st
arted to run, his feet hitting the floor like hammers, the metal vase held in front of him like the prow of an icebreaker.
I got out of the way.
“Sky One, Sky Two, Fox 1 and bodyguards exiting building,” I said into the commset. “Targets inside alerted.”
“Three.” The pilot’s voice overrode me.
“Two.”
Alex got it slightly wrong. At a flat-out sprint, the metal vase struck the middle of the locked doors before the pilot finished his countdown. The doors splintered off their hinges. The loose earth inside the vase was hurled forward in a cloud.
And Altau security started firing down into the packed SUVs and limousines as the Sikorskys came thundering back over the ridge and swooped in toward the parking lot.
I sprinted into the hall right behind Alex.
I fired blindly through the dust cloud. It was easy. Everyone on my left side was a target.
Alex had dropped the buckled vase, but he didn’t stop running.
In the time it took the guards to turn, he’d reached the stage.
Yelena and I were right behind. She tossed all our smoke grenades at the guards.
Those who saw them scrambled away from the grenades—there was nothing on the casing to say they weren’t the lethal variant.
But the group down near the doors were firing at us. Loud cracks of assault rifles. The vicious wheep of a ricochet that passed so close it tugged at my hair. That familiar nitro smell from the bullets. And the smell of blood.
Screams from all sides.
Alex hurled away the dead bodies of the guards who’d been holding Dante, swept her up and passed her to Yelena.
Julie and Keith were back near the door Alex had broken. They knelt and fired down the length of the hall on the left: accurate, rapid shots. Devastating against an unprepared, untrained opponent.
But someone down at the far end had been well trained and the warning sound of inbound helicopters had given them a moment to prepare.
And worse, we were outnumbered inside the hall: the guards at the far end were closing the main doors and turning around to concentrate fire on us. They had no problem with hiding behind captives or hitting them with stray fire.
