The Edge of Armageddon

by David Leadbeater

  “I’d be of much more use to you,” she said to Dahl.

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on, how can it hurt?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Oh, Torsty—”

  “Kenzie, you are not getting your bloody katana back. And don’t call me that. Having one crazy woman assigning me nicknames is bad enough.”

  “Oh, yeah? So did you and Alicia ever . . . you know?”

  Smyth growled as they crossed another intersection, seeing pedestrians and bikes cramming the road at a green light, all taking their lives in their hands, but confident it wouldn’t be them who got hurt today. Quickly, they raced down the next street, soldiers barely feeling the burn of the sprint as they whipped around two slow-moving Prius’s, smashing wing mirrors. The GPS bleeped.

  “Four minutes to the docks,” Yorgi estimated. “We should slow down.”

  “I’ll slow down in three,” Smyth snapped. “Don’t tell me my job.”

  Dahl handed Kenzie a Glock and a HK, not an easy task to perform covertly in New York. He winced as he did so. Against his better judgment they had practically been forced to accept the rogue agent’s help. This was no ordinary day and all measures, even desperate ones, were required. And truth be told, he still felt they might share a kinship, something of parallel military souls, which increased his level of trust.

  He believed they might be able to save Bridget McKenzie no matter how hard she resisted.

  Now Smyth veered across two lanes of traffic, shoulder-swiping a stalled F150 but continuing without a glance back. With no time they could afford no courtesies, and the terrible cloud hanging over them meant they were being forced to go all in, all of the time.

  Dahl cocked his weapons. “Warehouse is less than a minute away,” he said. “And why the hell don’t they sort all these potholes?”

  Smyth sympathized with him. The roads were an unending, pockmarked, hazardous tract where cars inched around jagged holes and roadworks were thrown up at any moment, seemingly uncaring of the time of day or density of traffic. It really was dog eat dog out there, with no man looking to help any other.

  Quickly, they took their bearings from the GPS and aimed for the tip of the arrow. Early morning crispness threw pins and needles at their exposed skin, reminding them all it was still early. Sunlight filtered through breaks in the clouds, bathing the docks and the nearby river in pale gold. Those men that Dahl could see went about their business as usual. He’d imagined the dock area to be dark and dingy but apart from the warehouses the area was clean, and not particularly crowded. Nor was it busy, as the major shipping areas were across the bay in New Jersey. Still, Dahl saw large, battered containers and a long wide vessel stationary on the waters and enormous blue-painted container cranes that could traverse the length of the quay on rail tracks and collect their containers with spreaders.

  Warehouses sat to the left, along with a yard full of more brightly colored containers. Dahl pointed to a building one hundred and fifty feet away.

  “That’s our boy. Smyth, Kenzie, come forward. I want Lauren and Yorgi behind us.”

  He moved off, focused now, concentrating on getting one assault behind them before they moved on to the next . . . and then the next until this nightmare was over and he could return to his family. Newly painted doors were dotted along the side of the building, and Dahl raised his head at the first window.

  “Empty office. Let’s try the next.”

  Minutes passed as the group crept along the side of the building, guns drawn, trying window after window, door after door. Dahl noticed with frustration that they were beginning to attract attention from the local workers. He didn’t want to spook their quarry.

  “C’mon.”

  They hurried along, finally reaching the fifth window along and taking a quick look. Dahl saw a wide space cluttered by cardboard boxes and wooden crates, but close to the window he also saw a rectangular table. Around the table sat four men, heads down as if they were talking, planning and thinking. Dahl dropped down and crouched with his back to the wall.

  “We good?” Smyth asked.

  “Possible,” Dahl said. “Could be nothing . . . but—”

  “I trust you,” Kenzie said with a modicum of sarcasm. “You lead, I’ll follow,” Then she shook her head. “You people are really that mad? Just burst in there and start the shooting first?”

  A man was approaching, squinting at them. Dahl raised his HK and the man froze, hands shooting up into the air. The decision was made mostly because the guy stood in the direct eye line of anyone inside the warehouse. Less than a second passed before Dahl rose, spun, and smashed a shoulder against the outer door. Smyth and Kenzie were with him, reading his thoughts.

  As Dahl entered the spacious warehouse, four men jumped up from the table. Guns rested by their sides, and they withdrew them now, firing indiscriminately at the incoming strangers. Bullets flew everywhere, shattering the window and smashing through the swinging door. Dahl dived headlong, rolling, coming up firing. The men from the table scrambled away as they shot back, shooting over shoulders and even between their legs as they ran. Nowhere was safe. Errant gunfire filled the cavernous space. Dahl scrabbled on both elbows until he reached the table and upended it, using it as a shield. One end shattered as a high-caliber round passed straight through.

  “Shit.”

  “Are you trying to get me killed?” Kenzie muttered.

  The big Swede changed tactics, picked up the huge table, and then launched it through the air. The tumbling edges caught one man around the ankles, sending him flying and his gun scudding away. As Dahl approached fast, Kenzie’s voice made him slow down.

  “Careful with these little fuckers. I’ve worked all over the Middle East and seen a thousand of ’em wearing vests.”

  Dahl hesitated. “I don’t think you can just—”

  The explosion rocked the warehouse walls. The Swede flew off his feet, airborne, and smashed into the already devastated window. White noise filled his head, the overwhelming buzz of tinnitus, and for a second he couldn’t see. By the time his vision started to clear he was aware of Kenzie crouched before him, patting his cheeks.

  “Wake up, man. It wasn’t the entire body, just a grenade.”

  “Oh. Well that makes me feel better.”

  “This is our chance,” she said. “The concussion knocked his idiot comrades down too.”

  Dahl struggled to his feet. Smyth was up, but Lauren and Yorgi sat on their knees, fingers pressed to their temples. Dahl saw the terrorists starting to recover. Urgency pricked at him like a prong poking a piece of tenderized meat. Raising his gun he came under fire again but managed to wound one of the rising terrorists, and watched the man twist and fall.

  Smyth raced past. “Got him.”

  Dahl forged ahead. Kenzie squeezed off shots beside him. The two remaining terrorists turned a corner and Dahl realized they were headed outside. He slowed momentarily, then turned the same corner, firing carefully, but his bullets hit only empty air and concrete. The door was wide open.

  A grenade bounced back inside.

  The explosion was a matter of course now, the SPEAR team taking cover and waiting for the shrapnel to pass them by. Walls shuddered and cracked under an intense impact. Then they were up, squeezing out the door in cover formation and into the brightening day.

  “One o clock,” Smyth said.

  Dahl stared in the direction indicated, saw two running figures and, beyond them, the Hudson leading to the Upper Bay. “Bollocks, they may have speedboats.”

  Kenzie dropped to one knee, sighting carefully. “Then we take—”

  “No,” Dahl pushed her weapon’s barrel downward. “Can’t you see the civilians over there?”

  “Zubi,” she cursed in Hebrew, a language Dahl had no understanding of. Together, Smyth, Kenzie and the Swede started a pursuit. The terrorists were quick, almost at the dockside already. Kenzie compromised by firing her HK into the air, expecting the civilians t
o either scatter or take cover.

  “You can thank me after we save the day,” she barked.

  Dahl saw an avenue of opportunity open up. Both terrorists were standing tall against a watery background, great targets, and Kenzie’s opportunistic fire had cleared the way. He slowed and fitted the stock to his shoulder, taking careful aim. Smyth followed suit at his side.

  The terrorists turned as if practicing telepathy, already shooting. Dahl kept his focus as lead whizzed between the SPEAR team. His second bullet took his target in the chest, his third in the forehead, dead-center. The man toppled backwards, already dead.

  “Keep one alive,” Lauren’s voice came through his earpiece.

  Smyth fired. The last terrorist had already jumped aside, the bullet tugging at his jacket as Smyth adjusted. A swift movement saw the terrorist hurl another grenade—this one along the dockside itself.

  “No!” Dahl fired fruitlessly, his heart leaping up into his throat.

  The small bomb exploded with a loud report, the blast wave echoing across the docks. Dahl leapt behind a container for a moment and then sprang back out—but his momentum faltered as he saw there was now more than the remaining terrorist to worry about.

  One of the container cranes had been damaged by the blast at its base, and was listing dangerously above the riverside. The sounds of screeching, tearing metal heralded an inevitable collapse. Men stared up and started running away from the high framework.

  The terrorist took out another grenade.

  “Not this time, asswipe.” Smyth was already poised on one knee, squinting along his sights. He squeezed the trigger, watching the last terrorist fall before he could pull the pin on the grenade.

  But there was no stopping the crane. Leaning, slanting, and collapsing all along its frame, the heavy iron scaffold crashed down upon the dockside, destroying the skeleton and pulverizing the small hut it fell upon. Containers were damaged and moved backward several feet. Bars and spars of metal bounced down, rebounding off the ground like deadly matchsticks. A bright blue pole the size of a street light careened between Smyth and Dahl—something that could have broken them in half had it hit—and came to a halt only feet away from where Lauren and Yorgi stood with their backs to the warehouse.

  “No go.” Kenzie sighted on the terrorist, double-checking. “He’s very dead.”

  Dahl gathered his wits and surveyed the docks. A quick check showed that mercifully nobody had been hurt by the container crane. He placed a finger to his throat mic.

  “Cell down,” he said. “But they’re all dead.”

  Lauren came back. “All right, I’ll pass it on.”

  Kenzie’s hand fell across Dahl’s shoulder. “You should have let me take the shot. I would have taken the bastard’s knees out; then we would have made him talk, one way or another.”

  “Too risky.” Dahl understood why she didn’t get it. “And it’s doubtful we could have made him talk in the short time we have.”

  Kenzie huffed. “You speak for Europe and America. I am Israeli.”

  Lauren came back over the comms. “We have to go. There’s been a cell sighting. Not good.”

  Dahl, Smyth and Kenzie hijacked the nearest vehicle, figuring if it only took them five minutes further than walking, the time-saving could be more than crucial.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Drake struck the concrete of 47th Street, running flat out with only eighteen minutes left on the clock. Immediately they were presented with a problem.

  “Seventh, Eighth or Broadway?” Mai shouted.

  Beau waved the GPS at her. “Marea is close to Central Park.”

  “Yes, but which street leads us right past it?”

  They hovered at the sidewalk whilst the seconds ticked away, knowing Marsh was readying not only the nuke, but also the teams who would take two civilian lives for every minute they were late to the next rendezvous.

  “Broadway’s always busy,” Drake said. “Let’s do Eighth.”

  Alicia stared at him. “How the hell would you know?”

  “I’ve heard of Broadway. Never heard of Eighth.”

  “Oh, fair enough. Where—”

  “No! It is Broadway!” Beau abruptly cried in his almost musical accent. “Restaurant is at the top . . . almost.”

  “Almost?”

  “With me!”

  Beau set off like a hundred meter sprinter, vaulting a parked car almost as if it wasn’t there. Drake, Alicia and Mai stayed hot on his heels, turning east towards Broadway and the intersection where Times Square shimmered and shone and flouted its flickering displays.

  Again the crowds were difficult to part and again, Beau led them along the side of the road. Even here, tourists congregated, leaning back to scrutinize lofty buildings and billboards or trying to decide whether to play chicken with their lives and dash across the busy road. Touts worked the crowds, offering cheap tickets to various Broadway shows. Languages of every color filled the air, an almost overwhelming, complicated medley. The homeless weren’t many, but those who advocated for them campaigned very loudly and forcefully for donations.

  Ahead, Broadway thronged with New York’s citizens and visitors, dotted by crosswalks, bordered by colorful shops and restaurants with their hanging, illuminated signs and A-board displays. Passersby were a blur as Drake and his section of the SPEAR team raced on.

  Fifteen minutes.

  Beau stared back at him. “Nav says it’s a twenty two minute walk, but the sidewalks are so packed everyone’s walking at the same pace.”

  “Then run,” Alicia urged him. “Waggle that enormous tail of yours. Maybe it will make you go faster.”

  Before Beau could say anything, Drake felt his already plummeting heart sink even further. The road ahead was entirely blocked, both ways, and mostly by yellow cabs. A fender bender had occurred and those who weren’t trying to drive around it were inching their vehicles out for a better look. The sidewalk to either side was a crush of humanity.

  “Bloody hell.”

  But Beau didn’t even break stride. An easy leap took him onto the trunk of the nearest cab and then he was running across its roof, jumping down to the hood and taking a running leap onto the next in line. Mai followed fast, and then Alicia, leaving Drake at the back to be shouted at and targeted by the vehicles’ owners.

  Drake was forced to concentrate beyond the norm. These cars weren’t all the same, and their metals shifted, some were even rolling slowly forward. The race was hairy, but they leapt from vehicle to vehicle, using the long line to make headway. Crowds stared from either side. The good thing was they were unobstructed up here, and able to see the approaching intersection of Broadway and 54th, then 57th. As the crush of cars eased out, Beau rolled off the last car and resumed his sprint along the road itself, Mai at his side. Alicia glanced back at Drake.

  “Just checking you didn’t fall through that open sunroof back there.”

  “Yeah, dicey one that. I’m just thankful there were no convertibles.”

  Past another crossroads and 57th was lined with concrete mixer trucks, delivery vans and red and white barriers. If the team had thought they’d gained ground, or that this run would be as straight forward as the last, their illusions were abruptly shattered.

  Two men appeared around the side of a delivery truck, handguns pointed straight at the runners. Drake didn’t miss a beat. Constant battle, years of combat, had honed his senses to the max and kept them there—twenty four hours a day. The threatening forms registered immediately and, without hesitation, he flung himself headlong on top of them, right in front of the oncoming cement truck. One of the guns rattled away and the other became stuck under one of the men’s bodies. Drake reeled back as a punch battered the side of his skull. Behind them, he heard the screech of the cement truck’s wheels as it braked hard, the cursing of its driver . . .

  Saw the enormous gray body swinging around towards him . . .

  And heard Alicia’s terrified scream.

  “Matt
!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Drake could only watch as the out-of-control truck veered toward him. His attackers didn’t even let up for a second, raining blows down because their own safety wasn’t a concern to them. He took a fist to the throat, the chest and the solar plexus. He watched the swinging body, and kicked out as it swung right over his head.

  The first terrorist fell backward, stumbling away, and was struck by one of the wheels, the impact breaking his back and ending his threat. The second blinked as if stunned by Drake’s effrontery, then turned his head toward the approaching body of the truck.

  The wet slapping sound was enough. Drake knew he was out of it, and then saw the first terrorist’s skull chewed beneath the sliding wheels as the truck’s body slewed around above him. Frame flattened, he could only hope. Darkness blotted out everything, even sound for a split second. The underside of the truck moved over him, slowing, slowing, and then came to an abrupt stop.

  Alicia’s hand reached underneath. “You okay?”

  Drake rolled towards her. “Better than those guys.”

  Beau was waiting, almost hopping from foot to foot as he checked his own watch. “Four minutes left!”

  Aching, bruised, scraped and battered, Drake forced his body into action. Alicia stayed with him this time, as if sensing he might be a little distracted after the near miss. They weaved around the tourist gangs, finding Central Park South and the Marea among a host of other restaurants.

  Mai pointed it out, the signage comparatively discreet for New York City.

  Beau ran ahead. Drake and the others caught him up at the door. A waitress stared at them and their disheveled appearance, their heavy jackets, and backed away. Her eyes showed that she’d seen damage and suffering before.