The Edge of Armageddon

by David Leadbeater

  They made their way to the elevator, and then Drake turned, surprised to see the entire team at his back. “What?” he said. “I have no money.”

  Alicia grinned tiredly. Even Beau cracked a smile. The SPEAR team had been through so much themselves today, but still stood strong, ready for more. Drake saw bruises aplenty and other wounds that were well-hidden.

  “Why don’t you guys reload? And pack extra ammo. When we do finally go in to end this, we’re going in hard.”

  “I’ll handle all that,” Kinimaka said. “It’ll provide a distraction.”

  “And I will help,” Yorgi said. “I find it hard to follow even Drake’s accent, so will be lost with the American ones.”

  Dahl laughed as he joined Drake at the elevator. “My Russian friend, you have that completely back to front.”

  Drake punched the Swede, adding to the bruise count, and took the elevator to the ground floor. The SPEAR team then jumped in where they could, answering fresh calls and jotting down information, talking to residents and asking questions, directing calls that had nothing to do with the emergency to other designated stations. And although they knew they were needed, and helping, it sat well with none of them simply because Hayden was still unaccounted for and Ramses remained at large. So far, he had bested them.

  What other tricks did he have up his sleeve?

  Drake diverted a call about a missing relative and fielded another regarding uneven paving. The switchboard remained active and Moore still held out for his tip, his ticket to paradise. But it soon became clear to Drake that time was ticking away faster than milk spilling from a split container. The one thing that kept him going was that he expected Ramses to call at least once. The man had showboated so far. Drake doubted he would press the button without at least attempting a bit more theatre.

  Cops ran the station, but the team helped, seated at desks and passing messages. Dahl went off to make coffees. Drake joined him before the kettle, feeling intensely helpless and out of place as they waited for information.

  “Talk about a first,” Drake said. “This ever happen to you before?”

  “Nope. I see how Ramses managed to stay hidden all these years though. And I guess the device is giving no radiation signature, since they haven’t located it yet. The man who repackaged that bomb sure knew what he was doing. My guess—ex US military.”

  “Well . . . why? There are many people capable of shielding radiation.”

  “It’s the other things too. The local knowledge. The secret team he’s assembled. Mark my words, Drake old boy, they are ex-SEALS. Special Ops.”

  Drake poured the water as Dahl spooned in the granules. “Make it strong. Actually, do you even know what this is? Did instant make it to the North Pole yet?”

  Dahl sighed. “Instant coffee is the work of the Devil. And I have never been to the North Pole.”

  Alicia slipped through the room’s open door. “What was that? Heard something about a pole and just knew it had my name on it.”

  Drake couldn’t hide a smile. “How you doing, Alicia?”

  “Feet hurt. Head hurts. Heart hurts. Other than that I’m just fine.”

  “I meant—”

  The call of X-Ambassadors drowned out his next words, thumping through the speaker of his cellphone. Still holding the kettle, he tucked the device under his chin.

  “Hello?”

  “Do you remember me?”

  Drake slammed down the kettle so hard recently boiled water splashed out and across his hand. He never noticed.

  “Where are you, motherfucker?”

  “Now, now. Shouldn’t your first question be—‘where is the nuclear weapon’ or ‘how long until I explode’?” Deeply amused bellows blasted down the line.

  “Ramses,” Drake said as he remembered to switch on the speakerphone. “Why not come straight to the point?”

  “Oh, where is the fun in that? And you don’t tell me what to do. I am a prince, an owner of kingdoms. I have ruled for many years and will do so for many more. Long after you are crispy. Think on that.”

  “So you have more hoops for us to jump through?”

  “That wasn’t me. That was Julian Marsh. The man’s freaky, to say the least, so I tied him to your Agent Jaye.”

  Drake winced, snapping a glance at Dahl. “She’s okay?”

  “For now. Though looking a little bound and achy. She’s trying oh so hard to remain perfectly still.”

  Foreboding crawled through Drake’s stomach. “And why’s that?”

  “So she doesn’t upset the motion sensor of course.”

  My God, Drake thought. “You bastard. You tied her to the bomb?”

  “She is the bomb, my friend.”

  “Where is it?”

  “We’ll get to that. But since you and your friends enjoy a good run, and since you’re already warmed up, I decided why not give you a chance? I hope you like riddles.”

  “This is crazy. You are crazy, toying with so many lives. Riddles? Riddle me this, asshole. Who’s gonna piss on your body when I set it on fire?”

  Ramses was silent for a moment, reflecting it seemed. “So the gloves are well and truly off. That is good. I do have places to go, meetings to attend, nations to sway. So listen—”

  “I really hope you’re there waiting,” Drake interrupted, fishing quickly “When we get there.”

  “Sadly, no. This is where we say goodbye. As you probably know I am using you to make my escape. So, as you people say—thanks for that.”

  “Fu—”

  “Yes, yes. Fuck me, my parents and all of my brothers. But it is you and this city that will end up fucked. And I who will continue. So time is now becoming an issue. Are you ready to beg for your chance, little Englishman?”

  Drake found his professionalism, knowing this was their single option. “Tell me.”

  “My antiseptic will cleanse the world of the infection in the West. From rainforest to rainforest, it is part of the floor under the canopy. That is all.”

  Drake made a face. “That’s it?”

  “Yes, and since everything you do in the so-called civilized world is measured by the minute, the hour, I will set the timer at sixty minutes. A good, famous round number for you.”

  “How do we disarm it?” Drake hoped Marsh hadn’t mentioned the deactivation codes.

  “Oh shit, you don’t know? Just remember this then—a nuclear bomb, particularly a suitcase nuke, is a precise, accurate and perfectly balanced mechanism. Everything is miniaturized and more accurate, as I am sure you appreciate. It will take . . . finesse.”

  “Finesse?”

  “Finesse. Look it up.”

  With that Ramses killed the call, leaving the line dead. Drake bolted back to the office and shouted for the entire station to stop. His words, his tone of voice, sent heads and eyes and bodies swiveling towards him. Phones were replaced in cradles, calls ignored and conversations stopped.

  Moore gauged Drakes’ face, then said, “Turn off the phones.”

  “I have it,” Drake shouted. “But we have to make some sense . . .” He reeled off the riddle word for word. “Be quick,” he said. “Ramses gave us sixty minutes.”

  Moore leaned over the unsteady balcony, joined by Kinimaka and Yorgi. Everyone else faced him. As his words began to sink in people started to yell.

  “Well, the antiseptic is the bomb. That’s obvious.”

  “And he intends to detonate it,” someone whispered. “This is no bluff.”

  “Rainforest to rainforest?” Mai said. “I do not understand.”

  Drake wound it around his head. “It’s a message to us,” he said. “All this began in the Amazon rainforest. We first saw him at the bazaar. But I don’t see how it works for New York.”

  “And the rest?” Smyth said. “Part of the floor under the canopy? I don’t—”

  “It’s another rainforest reference,” Moore shouted down. “Isn’t the canopy what they call the unbroken tree cover? The floor is undergrowt
h.”

  Drake was already there. “It is. But if you accept that then he’s telling us that the bomb is hidden inside a rainforest. In New York,” He grimaced. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  Silence fell over the station, the kind of silence that can petrify a person to helplessness or electrify them to brilliance.

  Drake had never been more aware of the passing time, each second a doom-filled toll of the Judgment Day bell.

  “But New York does have a rainforest,” Moore finally said. “At the Central Park Zoo. It’s small, called the Tropical Zone, but it’s a mini version of the real thing.”

  “Under the canopy?” Dahl pushed.

  “Yeah, there’re trees in there.”

  Drake hesitated one more second, painfully aware that even that might cost them many lives. “Anything else? Any other suggestions?”

  Only silence and blank looks greeted his question.

  “Then we’re all in,” he said. “No compromise. No larking about. Time to take this mythical motherfucker down. Just like we did the last one.”

  Kinimaka and Yorgi sprinted for the stairs.

  Drake led the entire team into the fear-filled streets of New York.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Following Moore’s instructions the ten strong team wasted even more precious minutes diverting down a side street to commandeer a pair of police cars. The call was made by the time they got there and the cops were waiting, their efforts at clearing the streets starting to show reward. Smyth climbed behind one wheel, Dahl another, and the vehicles flicked on their sirens and flashers and tore around the corner of 3rd Avenue, burning rubber straight toward the zoo. Buildings and scared faces flashed past at forty, then fifty, miles an hour. Smyth smashed an abandoned cab aside by slamming its front end, shunting it straight. Only one police cordon stood in their way and they had already received orders to let them pass. They shot through the hastily cleared intersection approaching sixty.

  Drake almost ignored a new call on his cell, thinking it might be Ramses ringing back to gloat. But then he thought: even that could give us some clues.

  “What?” he barked tersely.

  “Drake? This is President Coburn. Do you have a moment?”

  The Yorkshireman started in surprise, then checked the GPS. “Four minutes, sir.”

  “Then listen. I know I don’t have to tell you how bad this will be if that bomb is allowed to go off. Retaliations are inevitable. And we don’t even know the true nationality or political penchants of this Ramses character. One of the larger emerging problems is that this other character—Gator—has visited Russia four times this year.”

  Drake’s mouth turned to sand. “Russia?”

  “Yes. It’s not decisive, but . . .”

  Drake knew exactly what the pause meant. Nothing needed to be decisive in a world manipulated by news channels and social media. “If this information gets out—”

  “Yes. We’re looking at a high-level event.”

  Drake certainly didn’t want to know what that meant. He did know that, presently, there were men out in the wider world, vastly powerful men, who had the means to survive a nuclear war and often imagined what it would be like if they could live in a brand new, barely populated world. Some of these men were already leaders.

  “Disarm the bomb if you have to, Drake. I’m told NEST are en route but will arrive after you. And so is everyone else. Everyone. This is our new darkest hour.”

  “We will stop it, sir. This city will survive to see tomorrow.”

  As Drake ended the call, Alicia put a hand on his shoulder. “So,” she said. “When Moore said this was the Tropical Zone and a mini rainforest, did he mean there would be snakes too?”

  Drake covered her hand with his own. “There are always snakes, Alicia.”

  Mai coughed. “Some larger than others.”

  Smyth swung their car around a blockage, sped by a flashing ambulance with all its doors open and paramedics working on people involved in the incident, and jammed his foot on the gas pedal once more.

  “Did you find what you were looking for, Mai?” Alicia said evenly and politely. “When you left the team behind?”

  It had all happened so long ago now, but Drake vividly remembered Mai Kitano walking away, her head brimming with guilt at the deaths she had inadvertently caused. Out of that single incident during the search for her parents—the killing of a Yakuza money launderer—much had changed.

  “My parents are now safe,” Mai said. “As is Grace. I beat the clan. Chika. Dai. I found much of what I sought.”

  “So why did you come back?”

  Drake found his eyes fixed firmly to the road, and his ears pinned firmly toward the back seat. It was an unusual time to be debating consequences and questioning decisions, but it was quite typical for Alicia, and might be their last chance to set at least something straight.

  “Why did I come back?” Mai repeated lightly. “Because I care. I care for this team.”

  Alicia whistled. “Good answer. Is that the only reason?”

  “You’re asking if I came back for Drake. If I anticipated that you two would build some kind of new rapport. If I thought for one second that he’d have moved on. Even, if he might give me a second chance. Well, the answer is simple—I don’t know.”

  “Third chance,” Alicia pointed out. “If he was dumb enough to take you back again it would be your third chance.”

  Drake saw the approaching entrance to the zoo as he felt the rising tension in the back seat, the poignant and precarious emotions bristling. They needed a room for all this, preferably a padded one.

  “Wrap it up, guys,” he said. “We’re here.”

  “This ain’t done, Sprite. This Alicia is the new model. She’s decided not to run into the sunset anymore. Now, we stand, we learn, and we deal with it.”

  “I see that and admire it,” Mai said. “I do like the new you, Alicia, despite what you might think.”

  Drake turned away, filled with mutual respect, and at a total loss as to how this scenario might eventually play out. But it was time to file it all away now, place it on the shelf, because they were heading fast towards the new Armageddon, soldiers and saviors and heroes to the very end.

  And if they were watching, perhaps playing chess, even God and the Devil would have caught their breath.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  Smyth squealed the tires around a final corner and then crushed down on the brake pedal with a heavy foot. Drake was opening the door before the vehicle stopped, and swung his legs out. Mai was already free of the back door, Alicia a step behind. Smyth nodded at the waiting cops.

  “They said you needed to know the fastest way to the Tropical Zone?” One of the uniforms asked. “Well, follow that path straight down.” He pointed. “It’ll be on the left.”

  “Thanks.” Smyth took a guide map and showed it to the others. Dahl came jogging up.

  “We ready?”

  “As we can be,” Alicia said. “Aw, look,” she pointed at the map. “They call the on-site gift shop a Zootique.”

  “Then let’s roll.”

  Drake entered the zoo, senses attuned, expecting the worst and knowing Ramses would have more than one nasty trick up his unaffiliated sleeve. The group spread out and thinned out, already moving faster than they should and without due care, but knowing every second that passed was a new death knell. Drake took note of the signs and soon saw the Tropical Zone up ahead. As they approached, the scenery all around them started to move.

  Eight men burst from cover, knives drawn as they had been ordered, bidden to make the rescuers’ last battle painful and extremely bloody. Drake ducked under a swing and hurled its wielder over his back, then met the next attack head-on. Beau and Mai stepped to the fore, their combat skills essential today.

  The eight attackers all wore stab vests and face masks and they fought with skill, as Drake had known they would. Ramses never picked from lower down the pile. Mai redirected a swift jab,
tried to break the arm but found it wrenched away, her own balance upset. The next stab glanced off her shoulder, absorbed by her own vest, but giving her a moment’s pause. Beau passed among them all, the veritable shadow of death. Ramses’ legionnaires fell away or skipped aside to avoid the Frenchman.

  Drake fell back against a barrier, arms upraised. The fence cracked behind him as his opponent struck with both feet off the ground. Both men tumbled away to another path, struggling as they rolled. The Englishman slammed fist after fist against the legionnaire’s head, but succeeded in only hitting an arm raised up for protection. He heaved the body to where he wanted it, rose to his knees and pounded down. A knife slunk up and jabbed at his ribs, still painful despite the protection. Drake doubled down on the attack.

  The melee near to the entrance of the Tropical Zone intensified. Mai and Beau found their opponents’ faces. Blood splashed across the group. Legionnaires fell with broken limbs and concussions, and the main offender was Mano Kinimaka. The huge Hawaiian bulldozed his attackers as if he was trying to challenge the very waves, smash them apart. If a legionnaire came into his path Kinimaka struck without mercy, a superhuman linebacker, an indestructible plow. His path was entirely errant, so both Alicia and Smyth found themselves diving out of his way. Legionnaires landed beside them, groaning, but were easy to finish.

  Dahl traded hand-to-hand blows with something of an expert. Knife thrusts came in hard and fast, low then high, then to the chest and face; the Swede blocking them all with lightning reflexes and hard-earned skill. His opponent didn’t let up, clinical in his execution, quickly sensing he had met an equal and needed to change it up.

  Dahl sidestepped as the legionnaire introduced feet and elbows as follow ups to the knife attacks. The first elbow caught him across the temple, raising his awareness and helping to anticipate the myriad assaults. He fell to one knee, punching under an arm straight to the pit and the nerve cluster there, making the legionnaire drop his blade in agony. In the end though it was the brawling Kinimaka who smashed the fighter off his feet, pure charging muscle breaking bone and tearing tendons. Mano sported blackening bruises along his jawline and cheekbones and ran with a limp, but nothing could stop him. Dahl imagined he’d smash right through the wall of the building like a Hawaiian Hulk if the door was locked.