“Judging by this—” Drake barely moved as a chunk of concrete shattered at his back “—not long.”
The crowd thinned; the exit must have been flung open, maybe all the windows too. Drake hit ground level last of all his colleagues and saw them in action; making split decisions and taking impossible burdens. The weight of the hospital bore down upon them. What would it take to bring the place down? Why was depraved and detached horror the core principal of so many wealthy men?
Drake came to a room inhabited by four patients and two desperate nurses. The patients were children. He moved in, grabbed two and lifted. Couldn’t quite manage the balance. There was only one thing for it. Against the instincts of a soldier but running with personal compulsions, he dropped his weapons to the floor. No need for them here. If he ended up weaponless, facing mercs outside then so be it. He could only carry the utterly essential.
Freed from extra burdens now, he managed to juggle three children, wrapped them tight in his arms and moved out into the hallways, approaching a wide window. Here, the more able patients were climbing to safety.
Drake deposited the kids into the arms of waiting people—made up of doctors, nurses, civilians and even patients already ferried to safety, and ran back for the others. All else had already faded from his mind. There was no Webb, no Amari, no Beau or Sabrina or even any other mission. The innocents about to be crushed under the weight of another’s madness were all that mattered.
The team rallied. Partitioned walls collapsed: bending, shattering and crumbling, sending plumes of dust billowing forward. Critical walls and pillars held for now, but everyone could sense something vital was shifting. The hallways widened, flowed together into the lobby, once a confluence of seating, desks, a pharmacy and a coffee shop and filled with lots of light, but now transformed by all the elements of a battle zone.
Drake spilled into it with many others, saw a man lying prone on the floor, arms flapping, and hoisted him to his feet. He saw now why the crush had eased so quickly. The whole glass frontage had burst out, either by the weight of the building or explosives, but a wide hole had been breached. A stroke of luck. He scanned the lobby.
Kenzie and Alicia worked together to free a man from the remains of a false wall, his skull and shoulders bleeding. The two antagonists did good work, their differences forgotten for now. Mai helped a paramedic trying to resuscitate a man on the spot, shoulders not flinching as mortar rained down upon them. Kinimaka pulled rubble away from a doorway behind which people were trapped. Some of the chunks he hurled aside would have broken Drake’s back. A gray dust settled over everyone, and helped form complex footprints on the floor. Time screamed by. Another shift in the building’s edifice elevated the panic.
Drake rarely prayed, but he threw one out for the people now. A vital wall had weakened. Still, the patients streamed out and away. Still, doctors and nurses and more patients leapt in to help. Smyth came running through with an unconscious older woman in his arms. Lauren deposited a child with a paramedic. At least two doctors were being forced to attend to patients actually inside the lobby that was crumbling all around them. Then, the far side of the lobby collapsed. Debris plumed toward them, a thick cloud. The area had been previously emptied, but that said nothing for where they were now.
Drake scooped up two limping young men and ran them outside, charged back in. A scream brought him around, let him catch a girl before she tumbled onto a jagged pile of plaster. Yorgi bounded and leapt between wreckage, clearing out passages and openings where some imagined they might be safe.
The alarm bells stopped, leaving a torturous, resounding silence in their wake. Then a deep roar and thunder like nothing he’d ever heard sent Drake into overdrive.
The lobby, a later addition to the front of the hospital and not integral, was coming down.
But he’d just seen Dahl plunging back in.
Drake didn’t hesitate, just stormed the sagging door that fronted the main body of the hospital, ducking a rain of wreckage. A lone doctor staggered past him, bleeding from the ear and scooped up by Smyth. A nurse, clothing smudged and stained, rested with her head against the door jamb. Drake eased her through and pointed her in the right direction. Few words were spoken as the selfless helped the needy to safety. Drake stopped dead in a frozen heart-rending torment as a handful of doctors and nurses hurried past, carrying and shielding babies between them. Drake felt agony, fury and a stirring sadness. He waited and then moved on, deeper into the hallways.
“Dahl!”
Then it came; the collapse of something, possibly everything. Without chance to gauge how destructive this latest shockwave would be, Drake watched the ceiling slump down to within an inch of his head. Metal fittings swung to and fro, one catching him across the skull.
Drake merely ducked and forged on.
Alicia shouted as she emerged at his back. “What’s going on?”
“Dahl,” Drake answered as if that explained everything.
It did.
The Mad Swede exploded into view, bellowing for adrenalin and pushing a hospital bed complete with terrified patient at full speed. He took the corner like a pro, ducked under debris and then clapped eyes on Drake.
“Run!” he cried.
Drake turned to Alicia. “Leg it!” he yelled.
Alicia spun to a newly appeared Hayden. “Fuck!” she screamed.
Masses of rubble slammed down all around them. Drake’s shin shrieked agony as a brick ricocheted off the bone. Dahl clattered along at his back, jolting through the piles, brute force keeping him straight. A wheel stuck, but then came free, a metal spear parted the sheets between the patient’s knees. As Drake turned back he purposely slowed, catching hold of the front of the bed.
Together.
He hauled, Dahl pushed. They hit the lobby and turned, found the front exit blocked by people and rubble. Debris surged down behind them. Hayden leapt for a window, cut and bleeding, leapt out and flapped her hands. Drake heaved on the bed and aimed for it. Alicia grabbed a fallen paramedic and threw him over her shoulder. Dahl pushed with every sinew, every ounce of will, and the last portions of his strength.
Drake stumbled as an entire glass pane fell from the windowed roof and shattered by his left leg. Shards made him wince. Dahl was going too fast. They were going to . . .
From the corner of his eyes, he saw the rest of the team. Kinimaka and Kenzie, Mai and Smyth, Yorgi and Lauren, all still inside and rushing to help. His heart leapt. Together, they heaved the bed and the patient over the last hurdle, and managed to feed everything through the window. Doctors were already at Hayden’s side even as wreckage poured over their legs.
Drake turned. The world was going black.
They raced for windows. Without pause they leapt head-first into an unknown fate with sheer hope and the greatest optimism. Drake landed and rolled, scraped and cut by brick and concrete and a dozen other materials. He came back up with eyes to left and right, counting his friends, looking back at the great, fragile edifice.
Kinimaka stood at a window, face staring out. The opening was too small.
Above him the entire building wilted.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
As fates balanced on a razor’s edge, as life’s patina slipped between shiny and dull, as a million unfulfilled moments and dreams passed through countless imaginations, the lofty face of the hospital building ceased its gradual slippage. Maybe a load-bearing wall held up, or a critical beam took extra weight, but the destructive process halted.
Already, ten pairs of legs were sprinting toward it.
Dahl was last, exhausted, but Hayden was at the front, stretching every sinew as she reached out for the Hawaiian. Together, they hauled him through a larger gap, Drake and Alicia and Kenzie still peering within to triple-check no one was still inside. In moments they retreated to the parking lot and then a grass bank that rose up around the boundary. Everyone collapsed onto their backs.
“We good?” Drake panted. “Anything se
rious?”
“Nothing a shower and a bag of painkillers won’t cure.” Dahl was already sitting up and surveying the chaotic scene. “It looks like a battle zone down there. Surgeons operating between crashed cars.” He hung his head. “I do hope we didn’t help this occur.”
“Not a chance,” Drake said. “Webb brought Amari out and with that came the insanity.”
Lauren sat up. “And we don’t know the outcome of it all.”
“Nor will we for some time,” Dahl responded.
“On the far worse, unimaginable side of all that, stands another possibility,” Hayden said. “That Webb escaped, Amari knows it, and they’re now headed for the final showdown. After this—” she looked at the wreckage “—I can’t imagine what’s next.”
The team worked on restoring their depleted reserves as they watched swarms of medics, doctors and nurses arriving to assist. Police cars motored up and filled the highways. Ambulances sped along and helicopters began to arrive. The spectacle was both uplifting at the sight of human strength and kindness, and depressing that so much effort—if not needed at the whim of a lunatic—could move mountains elsewhere.
Hayden made calls to Argento and DC. Though they knew of the catastrophe they knew little else. Eckernförde, whilst not exactly secluded, was small enough to lack a CCTV network and other security mechanisms. Drake believed Amari would not let it end there. Most likely he’d assume Webb had survived, especially since they were at the end of the quest now. The very last clue led directly to the Philosopher’s Stone, the secret of eternal life, invisibility and teleportation. Webb and Amari were both convinced it was real, and that made it real for the SPEAR team. More than anything, it was the individuals they were chasing. The rest of it was just a flame in a hurricane.
Of course, the Arab needed tracking down. Their job was far from over, even if Webb did lie beneath the rubble.
“Amari?” Dahl said.
Hayden dipped her head. “More than anything,” she said. “But the penultimate clue was here. Now we don’t know anything. I wonder if even he does.”
“Bastard has to turn up somewhere,” Smyth growled. “We’ll grind him to meat.”
Drake watched as a policeman broke away from a knot of doctors and started racing toward them. A look of urgency creased the man’s face.
“Ey up,” he said. “Here comes a cupful of trouble.”
“Aww.” Alicia seemed back to normal. “Sounds like a description of the Little Sprite.”
Mai watched the cop’s approach.
Hayden rose to meet him, Dahl too. Drake was close enough to tilt his head up and listen to what the man had to say.
“Somebody down there,” he panted, “says they know you. They want to talk.”
Drake assumed it was someone they’d helped. “Not necessary. We—”
“The woman is dying.”
The team quieted. Drake closed his eyes. “Of course.”
“She also said you’d respond quicker if I told you her name. Sabrina Balboni.”
Drake felt a catch in his throat. It was their team who had put the Italian master thief in this situation before Beau had betrayed them all. Now . . .
As one, they raced back down the hill on the heels of the cop. Together, they threaded carefully through the throng.
Apart, at least mentally, they surrounded a stretcher where Sabrina lay. The Italian was barely moving and showed no signs of rubble dust. Drake turned to a medic. “How?”
“A knife to the abdomen,” the man said heavily. “As if the explosion was not enough.”
Drake tried to ignore the twist in his soul and leaned over the stretcher. “Sabrina? Can you hear me, love?”
Eyelids fluttered. The black eyes were filled with pain. He could tell that Sabrina recognized him instantly though.
“Hi.”
Her lips quivered. “He . . . he is gone. Beau . . . Beau did this to me.”
Drake’s fists clenched but he beat down the rising anger and put aside Alicia’s terrible muttered curse. He had no right to ask this woman to help them again, but if Webb was loose and the Amari cult in pursuit then nowhere in the world was safe.
“Do you know where?” he asked.
“He has gone . . .” Sabrina broke into a fit of coughing, the wracking gasps making her grimace and starting a fresh blood flow that stained her covering. The medic stepped in. “She needs to go to a hospital.”
“How far?” Dahl asked.
The medic shrugged. “Ten minutes.”
They couldn’t take the risk. Drake leaned so close his lips almost brushed Sabrina’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry, but we need to know everything.”
“He has gone . . .” Sabrina said suddenly, voice strong and startling Drake. “To where Saint Germain still lives. It’s obvious really. The greatest treasure still resides with him to this very day.”
Drake drew away. “Still . . . still lives? What the he—?”
Hayden came in from the other side. “Where?” she pressed. “It doesn’t matter what Webb believes. Where has he gone?”
“Believes . . . believes he lives in the French Quarter. New Orleans. Germain has a house.”
“And the treasure?”
“Says Germain chose . . . French Quarter because of . . . diversity. Ingredients he needs. A peculiar variety, he said.” Sabrina held up a hand and Drake took it.
“Get Beau,” she breathed. “Pay him back for me.”
Alicia shouldered her way to Sabrina’s side. “That will be my job and, girl, I’m gonna earn a commendation for it.”
“Than . . . thank you.”
“Hey, no need to thank us,” Drake said quickly. “We’ll come to visit when we’re done.”
“Grapes.” Sabrina tried to crack a smile but all Drake saw was the paramedic’s anxious frown. “No. Wine.”
“I’ll bring an entire rack,” Drake said.
“My—” more coughing “—hero.”
“We should go.” Hayden pulled away.
“One more thing,” Sabrina said as the medic rushed to her side. “One more.” She clasped Drake’s wrist.
“Webb is at his endgame. All finishes now. His life. His vision. Everything for this. He told Beau . . . told him to call in and cash in all and every resource. That’s what he said.”
Drake shared a glance with Hayden. A sentence with utterly terrible connotations.
They allowed the medics to take care of Sabrina and gathered together. Hayden made the call.
“We need a fast flight to Louis Armstrong Airport,” she said. “And a fully loaded team to meet us there. All threats possible. Just put the damn city on alert.”
She headed for a police vehicle. “Finally,” she said. “Tyler Webb’s finished.”
Drake knew most people were at their most vulnerable when approaching victory.
All and every resource?
Wait until he got a taste of what the SPEAR team brought.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
New Orleans smoldered beside the great snake of the Mississippi River, a city rebuilt and rebuilt again and still thriving not the least from the great community spirit. The French Quarter was New Orleans’ oldest neighborhood, a tourist hotspot and home to almost every vice, amusement and entertainment a person could imagine. Mostly pronounced new oar-linz, and seemingly unaware of compass directions—neighborhoods were uptown, downtown, river or lake—it appeared subject to its own rules and regulations . . . one of the few places in the United States where you could drink liquor outside, where people rode streetcars not trams, and where the dead were always buried above ground in raised mausoleums.
A good place then for procuring odd constituents and mixing old elements, a good place to find the impossible and attempt the incredible. The hard part? Almost nothing is pronounced as it’s spelled.
Drake exited the car first as they stepped out onto Bourbon Street, the center of the vibrant hive. The area was busy, noisy and incredibly al
ive. He felt exposed, atypical, though nobody noticed. The big van was unmarked as were the two that came after, the weapons kept concealed for now. No threats had been issued, no uncommon activity registered. The authorities were subtly heightening their presence and drafting in help. Drake wanted to bag Webb before larger contingents arrived.
But where’s the madman? he wondered. Where do the loonies congregate around the Quarter?
Their research aboard the plane, whilst not of Karin Blake quality, had yielded some results. The legend was that Saint Germain had reinvented himself some time ago, moved to New Orleans and passed into obscurity. No questions were posited as to why or how, not even the simple ones, but Drake found that was usually the way with legends that endured. Webb himself believed in it and was on the final hunt for the elixir of life right here. The gloves were well and truly off.
The team spread out around and behind him, Alicia at his side. As a bunch, they had been rather subdued since leaving Sabrina, and had received no updates since. Alicia saw that as a good sign. During the long flight they had either slept or feigned it; nobody wanted to deal head-on with the issues Webb had raised.
Drake caught Alicia looking at him and gave her a wink. Then he saw Mai also watching and was reminded of the last time they were together. In bed. The sudden recollection dried his mouth out.
Hayden led the way up onto the sidewalk. “So rather than aimless wandering we do have a plan.” She spoke into the comms for benefit of the other teams present. “Do not forget that Amari will be here, and potentially even more of a destructive threat than Webb. Do not forget Webb has bet his whole deviant life on this very day and night. They both have resources—Amari’s as far-reaching as Webb’s used to be. And Beauregard Alain? Do not underestimate him. Lethal force may be required. I think that’s about it. Shall we move out?”
The question was rhetorical, but then a voice spoke out. “Umm, not quite yet.”
A new vehicle pulled up. Drake dropped his hand and moved closer to cover. Dahl and Kinimaka stepped to the front; Smyth and Lauren to the back. The doors opened and three serious looking bodyguards stepped out, surveying the area. Black sunglasses and suits spoke of government, and the busy surveillance shouted Secret Service. Drake attempted to keep his jaw stuck together.
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