by Alex Archer
When she emerged from the shower, she found a clean set of clothes laid out on the bed for her along with a note from Henshaw saying that he hoped he’d gotten her size right.
It was meant as a joke; he’d replaced her torn and bloodied clothing enough times that he probably knew her size better than she did.
She didn’t want to think about what that said about her so-called social life.
She was standing beside the bed, pulling on the new pair of sweatpants she’d taken from the pile of clothes Henshaw had supplied, when Garin Braden suddenly strode into her hospital room.
As was typical, he didn’t bother to knock.
“No need to get dressed on my account,” he told her with a laugh as she stared at him in surprise. “In fact, I think I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
The thought of being undressed around Garin made her unexpectedly blush, which simply ticked her off. Thankfully the towel she was wearing covered the vast majority of her body.
“And I’d prefer that you learned to knock, you ass,” she told him. “Turn around while I finish getting dressed.”
Smiling a boyish grin, he did so.
She dropped the towel, glaring at the back of his head and mentally daring him to turn around as she pulled on a dark blue t-shirt. She’d clobber him if he did.
The truth was that she found Garin Braden far too interesting for her own good. That he was devilishly handsome wasn’t justification enough, particularly since she was well aware that a devil’s heart beat in his breast. His black hair and perfectly groomed goatee gave him a suave, debonair appearance, but she knew he’d kill without a second thought if it served his purposes.
Garin was tied to her life in much the same way Roux was and she had the sword to thank for it. Like Roux, Garin had been there at Joan’s death, apprenticed to the older man by his own father years before. Somehow he had been bound up along with Roux in whatever mystical force the sword had spawned when it had been shattered before them by the English who held Joan captive.
For centuries the two men had alternated between trying to kill each other and being grudging friends and occasional partners. Annja had somehow adopted them when the sword adopted her.
“You can turn around now,” she said, wincing as she straightened again.
He must have seen her reaction, but he gave no sign of having done so, which she appreciated. He was a warrior and hated to show weakness, so by extension he thought she wouldn’t want to, either. It was a thoughtful gesture, in its own, unique way, and it was those little things that made her wonder what else he hid beneath that decidedly deadly exterior.
“Can you walk or do I need to get a wheelchair?” he asked. His teasing tone was gone; he was back to being all business.
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Unless you’d prefer to spend the rest of your days in the hospital,” he replied. He opened the door, checked to be sure the hallway was clear and then gestured that she follow him.
Crazy as it seemed, Annja did so.
She knew Garin wouldn’t be here unless Roux had called him, she just didn’t know why. She assumed it had something to do with getting them all out of France; as the head of a multi-million-dollar empire, Garin could call up all kinds of resources at a moment’s notice, resources that neither Annja nor Roux had access to.
Her hunch was confirmed when Garin led her to the nearest stairwell and followed her slow but steady progress up to the roof.
A helicopter was waiting there for them, a sleek-looking thing painted black, with the logo of a golden dragon in flight emblazoned on the tail. The helicopter door stood open and inside Annja could see Roux and Beresford waiting for her.
Garin caught her arm gently in his and helped her across the rooftop. It was a good thing he did, for the four flights of stairs they’d climbed to get there played havoc on her energy levels.
They were met at the door by a medium-size black man with a shaved head and wraparound shades who greeted her with a smile. “A pleasure to see you again, Miss Creed,” he said, in that lilting accent that always made Annja think of Jamaica.
She nodded. “And you, too, Griggs.”
His full name, she knew, was Matthew Griggs, though whether that was the one he had been born with or one he’d acquired over the years, she didn’t know. Griggs was a senior commander in Garin’s high-tech security firm, Dragontech Security, and had shown himself to be extremely capable whenever she’d encountered him.
She wasn’t just being polite. It felt good to have a team of competent people around after being alone and on the run for the past few days.
She climbed into helicopter and got settled while Garin had a few words with Griggs and the pilot. Once Garin was aboard, the pilot fired up the rotors and took them up over the city, heading toward the English Channel.
42
They landed at a private airfield south of London. Beresford presented his ID to the customs official who came out to greet the helicopter. They had a short, whispered conversation, and then were all waved through without delay.
Two SUVs were waiting outside the terminal, courtesy of Dragontech. Garin got behind the wheel of the first, with Annja, Roux and Beresford joining him. Griggs and the other men from the helicopter got into the second. Once on the road, they headed for the security firm’s London office.
They had just settled into the conference room on the third floor when Beresford took a call on his cell phone. It turned out to be Clements alerting them that Shaw and some of his men had just been observed walking into the Vanguard headquarters. Thirty seconds later, with the help of a computer loaned to them by Garin, they were watching the footage the police observers had captured at the scene.
The video showed Shaw and three other men arriving in a dark-colored Mercedes. Shaw headed for the steps, with one of the men in tow, while the other two took a large metal case out of the trunk before following.
“Him!” Annja exclaimed, pointing to the man with Shaw. “That’s the bastard who shot Craig Stevens and Paolo Novick!”
Beresford froze the video for a closer look. “You’re sure?” he asked.
Annja nodded. There was no way she was going to forget that face.
“His name’s Trevor Jackson,” Beresford told her. “He’s Shaw’s right-hand man and bodyguard. As a former member of the SAS, he’s not a man to be trifled with.”
Oh, I intend to do far more than trifle with him when I see him again, she thought.
“And is that the device?” the detective inspector asked Roux.
The Frenchman studied it for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes, that’s it,” he said, then turned to Garin. “How soon can your men be ready to go?”
His former apprentice smiled. “Would now suffice?”
Roux’s answering smile was more than a bit wolfish.
Garin moved to his desk and tapped a few keys on his keyboard, activating the flat-screen monitor that hung on the wall nearby. A building schematic appeared on the screen.
“These are the latest blueprints I was able to obtain for the Vanguard building.” He moved the trackball on the mouse, flipping through pages until he reached the one he wanted. “This is the eleventh floor, where Shaw has his office. It’s the most likely place for him to take the device. There are three points of ingress, here, here and here…”
“Wait a minute!” Beresford said, his voice rising above Garin’s. “What do you think you’re doing? And where did you get those blueprints?”
Garin frowned, then turned to Annja. “Is he for real?”
Annja opened her mouth to say something to calm the situation, but Roux beat her to it.
“Inspector Beresford,” he said politely, holding up a hand in Garin’s direction in an unvoiced request for patience. “By your own admission you do not think you could mobilize a law enforcement response quickly enough to keep the device contained where it is. Is that still correct?”
“Yes, it’s correct, but that doesn’t
mean I can allow you—”
He got no further.
“I’m afraid that’s actually what it means,” Roux said. “Right now we know where the device is. That might not be the case an hour from now, never mind tomorrow. We do not have time to wait for the bureaucratic red tape to untangle itself. If we are going to stop him, we have to strike and we have to do it now.”
It was clear to Annja that Beresford didn’t know what to say. He was frustrated by his official inability to do anything and yet the idea of having a private security force assault a public place of business must have been making his toes curl.
“You asked for an alternate plan,” Roux said, not unkindly. “This is it.” His speech over, Roux turned back to Garin. “Go on.”
Annja was still watching Beresford as Garin began laying out the tactical plan for invading the Vanguard offices. At first it looked like the detective wanted to continue protesting, his law-and-order view of reality not really having room for this kind of thing. Then Annja saw his shoulders droop and knew he had come to the same conclusion that she had.
Someone had to do something. Why not them?
Why not indeed?
After that, it was just a matter of deciding who would do what.
In the end, the plan was a simple one. Griggs would lead the first team through the front door as a diversion. If they could get to the eleventh floor, great, but if they tied up the Vanguard security forces somewhere lower, that was fine, too. Meanwhile, Garin would lead the second team out of the helicopter and in from the rooftop, coming down to the eleventh floor from above.
If possible, the two teams would meet and take Shaw’s offices together. Once the device was located, it would be hustled up to the rooftop where the helicopter would be used to take it to safety.
As plans went, it was a good one. It was simple, with limited chance of confusion over what to do causing something to go wrong unexpectedly. As far as they knew, Shaw was unaware that he was being watched—never mind that anyone knew he had access to a potentially operable nuclear device. His success thus far would make him overconfident. They would use that to their advantage.
Garin had informed his men about the pending action while en route from France, anticipating that using his team would be the only real option at their disposal, and so it didn’t take long for Griggs to brief them on the exact target and get them ready to roll.
While he did that, Garin armed himself from a selection of weapons from the safe in his office. Annja took the handgun he offered her, making certain that it was loaded properly and then stowing it at the small of her back.
Beresford had remained quiet throughout the planning and team briefing but spoke up, saying, “You realize we could all be arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of our lives for this?”
Roux laughed. “Trust me, Inspector, that’s the least of our worries right now. Unless you missed it, there’s a madman with a nuclear weapon hiding out in that building. Stopping him is far more important than worrying about getting arrested.”
To Annja’s surprise, Beresford laughed along with him. “I understand that completely, Roux. I just wanted to be sure everyone knew what they were getting themselves into.”
He turned to Garin and pointed at a dark shadowed object inside the safe. “I’ll take that Benelli, if you don’t mind, Mr. Braden. Something with a little kick sounds rather good right about now.”
Garin grinned, withdrew the combat shotgun and tossed it over.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER they were airborne in the same model helicopter they’d used to make the trip from France, but this time it was minus the logo and other identifying marks that might help the authorities track them down after the fact.
Below them, Annja could see the three black SUVs containing Griggs’s men pull out of the parking lot and head east, toward the target. She silently wished them luck, then turned to watch their passage through London’s night skies.
It didn’t take the chopper long to reach their target. They made one flyover of the building and in doing so discovered their first problem.
Initial reports had shown an empty helipad on the rooftop. Now, however, a helicopter occupied the space. The large white V of the Vanguard logo could be seen on its side.
There was no talk of aborting the mission, for they all knew they couldn’t take the chance of losing track of the device if it was taken out of the building.
“Looks like we’re going to have to use the ropes and rappel onto the roof,” Garin said through the headset.
No one objected.
They made a great curving arc back toward the building and took up a position several hundred yards away and at an altitude where they wouldn’t be noticed by the casual observer on the street.
Once there, they slipped into the rappelling harnesses they would need to make the descent and waited for Griggs’s signal.
It didn’t take long. About fifteen minutes after they had gotten into place, Griggs’s voice came over the channel.
“We’re inside,” he said, shouting to be heard over the noise around him, “and taking fire. Mostly handguns, nothing heavy yet. We should be able to break through and reach the elevators in a few more minutes.”
“Roger that,” Garin said. “We’re starting our run.”
There was no need for Garin to signal the pilot; he’d been on the same radio channel as the rest of them. Before Garin had even finished his last sentence, the pilot dipped the bird to the left and was taking them in sharply toward the Vanguard building.
As soon as the pilot had taken up position hovering over the rooftop, the door in back was thrown open by one of the Dragontech security team. Ropes were secured to the bar above the door and one by one they clipped the ropes into their harnesses and disappeared out the door, descending to the roof below.
By the time Annja reached the roof, the team leader had the door to the stairwell open and the group quickly descended into the building’s interior.
They made their way down two flights of stairs and through a variety of corridors without difficulty, only to stumble directly into a group of Vanguard security men headed for the confrontation on the lower floors. The resulting firefight was short but deadly. When it was over, four of the Vanguard team were dead, with two wounded. Garin and his men stripped them of their weapons and radios, bound the wounded with quick ties and then continued on their way.
The clock was ticking now; there seemed little chance that Shaw wouldn’t figure out that something was amiss and try to make his escape, so they had to get to him before he had the chance to do so.
After cutting down a short corridor, they emerged into the sales bullpen. Chin-high cubicles filled the area, turning it into a labyrinth of sorts, leading to the executive conference area on the other side.
Just beyond that was Shaw’s office, where they hoped to find both him and the torc.
They were halfway across the room, intent on their destination, when the door on the far side of the bullpen suddenly opened and a group consisting of Shaw, Jackson and a half dozen armed men stepped through the door.
For a split second, everyone froze.
Then chaos ensued as both sides opened fire.
Not being as skilled with a firearm as the Dragontech personnel, Annja kept to the middle of the pack, close to Garin, which was how she ended up crouched behind a cubicle wall with him as bullets whipped through the air around them and chewed up everything they hit.
The noise was incredible, the snap of handgun fire punctuated by the snarl of the enemy’s machine pistols and the booming voice of Beresford’s combat shotgun. The cubicles proved to be poor protection, not being thick enough to stop a bullet entirely, and within minutes men on both sides were down and bleeding.
Annja did what she could for her side, popping up and around corners to fire at any moving targets before ducking back down and shifting to one side or the other, trying to keep them guessing.
Their opponents were doing the same, a
nd it might have gone on like that a lot longer if Shaw hadn’t decided to make a break for it.
43
“Look!”
Annja followed Garin’s pointing finger. On the far side of the room she could see a red Exit sign. The door beneath it was sliding closed, but through the gap she caught a quick glimpse of Jackson and Shaw, and a metal case being carried by one of them, though she wasn’t quite sure who.
Garin moved closer, so she could hear him over the noise of all the gunfire. “If we circle around,” he said, “we should be able reach the stairs.”
It was either that or let Shaw get away while they were pinned down by his security team. Nowhere near ready to admit defeat, Annja nodded in agreement.
She fired several shots at the other side, forcing them to keep their heads down. When she did, Garin slid out of position and disappeared amid the maze of cubicles behind them.
She waited a moment, joined the others in firing off another blast and then followed suit, slipping into the cubicle behind her, then into the one after that, moving in a wide circle around the edge of the firefight until she could see the door.
Garin was about ten feet in front of her, peering out from beneath a nearby desk. In the cubicle just beyond him, Annja could see a Vanguard security officer standing and looking around, as if he’d heard something.
Annja watched the other man, and when he turned the opposite way she waved a hand signal at Garin.
Right on cue, he popped out from beneath the desk and put a bullet into the man from just a few feet away.
With the way clear, the two of them dashed the last few feet to the exit door and slipped through.
They found themselves in a stairwell identical to the one they’d used to gain access to their current floor, with the steps going both up and down.
“Which way?” Annja asked.
As if in answer, bullets came flying down at them from somewhere up above. The shots missed, though one bullet ricocheted off the nearby wall and carved a furrow in Garin’s calf.
