She dug her fingernails under the edge of the panel and tried to pry it open. No luck. She needed something to open the panel. Maybe if she activated the shipping restraints, the missile couldn’t take off.
Adriana spun around in a circle, unable to find anything that might help. There weren’t even any large rocks lying on the ground.
Then she realized what she had to do.
She sprinted back through the building and caught a short glimpse of the computer as she passed it.
The screen displayed 1:07 on the clock and counting.
This was going to be close.
She burst through the door and hurried over to the car, hopped in, and revved the engine. She spun the wheel around and backed the vehicle up twenty feet. Then she changed direction, shifted gears, and spun the tires on the loose gravel.
The clock in her head was running. She turned the car around the corner. The back end fishtailed around to the right. Adriana corrected the steering and straightened the vehicle again. The engine roared as she pressed the gas pedal hard toward the floor.
She swerved around a pile of steel beams and nearly lost control on the loose gravel. Once more, her driving skills were tested as she pulled the wheel one direction then the other to keep the car on course.
At the end of the building, she accelerated through the apex of the turn. The headlights lined up with the mobile missile launcher. Her foot stomped the pedal again. The engine groaned louder. Adriana reached for the door handle and pulled it. The wind noise grew inside the cabin.
She was going fast enough for a jump to be potentially dangerous, but it was that or stay inside and ram an armed missile. Both options came with harrowing consequences. She chose to be clear of the crash.
At the last moment, Adriana flung herself onto the gravel and away from the car.
The sedan rumbled away as she rolled to a painful stop.
She scrambled to her feet and staggered toward the building.
The car hit the launcher in a violent collision. The vehicle bounced hard to the right and kept rolling another fifty feet until it struck the wall of another brick building. The launcher flipped over onto its side.
Adriana couldn’t put much weight on her right leg, but she managed to limp around the corner just as the rocket’s motor ignited.
She watched as the nozzle lit up with a bright orange fire. It was so bright that she winced and pulled her head back around the wall. A second later, the missile released from its housing and launched.
It sprayed fire from its nozzle and sailed through the air, but the journey was short. The weapon smashed into the wall of the same building the sedan had struck a moment before. A huge section of the brick wall crumbled and caved in. The roof partially collapsed over a twenty-foot cross section, but the building remained mostly intact.
Adriana waited for the big explosion.
It never came.
She swallowed and let out a long breath as she leaned against the wall and slid to the ground.
15
London
Mere minutes after the missile plunged into the empty warehouse across the way, the police started showing up on the scene. June arrived in a black sedan. Two men in suits accompanied her to where Adriana was receiving medical attention at the back of an ambulance.
June approached with a wry grin on her face.
“I see you didn’t leave any survivors for us to interrogate,” she said.
Adriana shrugged as the paramedic applied a stinging ointment to one of the several cuts on her leg. “They didn’t seem like they wanted to talk.”
“It’s a shame,” June said, looking out across the foundry property. “Now I don’t know if we’ll be able to find another link to the rest of their organization. However, you did stop a dangerous missile from killing a lot of people, so I’ll call this one a success.”
“Thanks,” Adriana snorted. “How come the weapon didn’t go off? I did my research on that missile. It’s got a massive blast radius.”
“Indeed,” June said. “I’d guess that when you redirected it into that building over there, it didn’t have time to arm itself. Some of those things don’t arm until they’re on their way to the target. Of course, given your tactics, you may have just knocked a wire loose. Our people will take a look at the remains when they get a chance. Our main concern now is finding the rest of the missiles. There are still dozens at large. There could be many lives at stake, just like today.”
Adriana waved off the paramedic and stood up. She put most of her weight on her good leg, still favoring the other. “So, let’s go find them.”
June smiled and shook her head. “You need to rest. Besides, we don’t have any leads right now. And there’s no quick way we can track down the rest of the missiles anytime soon. I’m afraid we won’t know where they are until someone launches one.”
Adriana dug her hand into her pocket and fished out a phone. She held it out to June.
“What’s this?” June asked. “Other than a phone.” She added the second part quickly to cut off any wisecracks from her counterpart.
“After I knocked the rocket off course, I went back in and checked the dead guy.”
“The one in the building with his brains on the wall?”
“That’s the one. I found that in his pocket.”
“Were you able to access the contents?”
Adriana scowled. “Access the contents? You sound so official. No, I wasn’t able to hack into it. But I know someone who can—in case you don’t have anyone up to the task.”
June raised an eyebrow. “You’re not talking about taking evidence and turning it over to someone without security clearance, are you?”
“Me? I didn’t say that.”
June’s lips creased. “I’m messing with you. Hey, whatever it takes to stop these guys. That’s one of the perks of being with this agency. We don’t have all the rules and regulations others are required to follow.” June held the device out to give it back to Adriana.
She took it and looked at it for a moment, contemplating what might be inside.
“I’ll be careful with it, I promise.”
“I know you will. For now, you need to get some rest. Maybe take some meds to help you recover.”
Adriana’s head twisted back and forth. “No time. Like you said, those missiles are still out there. I need to find them.”
“You need to get some sleep.”
“Don’t worry about me. I will. You’ll have your people check out the laptop inside?”
“They’re analyzing it right now. Had to get the all-clear from the bomb squad. Last thing we want to do is send someone in there with a booby-trapped computer. If we find anything, you’ll be one of the first to know.”
“Think you will?”
“Hard to say without even having a glance at it, but if I was a betting woman I’d wager we’re more likely to find something useful on that phone than the computer. The phone will have recent contacts, calls, messages, that sort of thing. If you can get it unlocked like you say you can, we’ll be in business.”
“My connection is good,” Adriana said. “He’ll figure it out.”
June paused. “Do I want to know where you’re taking that?”
Adriana started limping away. “Probably not.”
“Can we trust him?”
“Probably not,” she repeated with a shake of the head. “But he helped me find these guys. So, reason would suggest he will help me again.”
Adriana stopped walking. She realized her car was a mangled wreck being scooped up by a tow truck.
She spun around and faced June. “I don’t know where I was going. My car is trashed.”
“I noticed. I’ll give you a ride back to your place. We’ll get you a new car tomorrow.”
16
Uzbekistan
The mood in the room was as dark as the lighting. Only a few candles flickered atop makeshift sconces.
“What happened?” a shadow
y figure asked from the head of the table. He was dressed in black, like the others. His scarf hung loose around his neck. There was no need to hide his face here. There was a bond of trust between him and the other men in the room, but he was their leader, the one who organized their operation. And he was the one who’d given them their holy purpose.
The chamber was set up like a conference room, except it wasn’t made for business. The Red Ring rarely called a meeting of their leaders. It was too dangerous. With Western agencies constantly scouring the earth for anyone remotely connected to the organization, getting everyone under one roof had catastrophic potential.
In this case, it was necessary.
“Someone intervened,” another man said from the left of the original speaker.
“I know that much. I want to know how they knew our plan. And I want to know who did it.”
“We’re just as much in the dark as you, sir,” a younger man across the table said. He had a thin mustache over his lips that wrapped around into a goatee. “It had to be one of the agencies from the West.”
“Americans?”
“There’s no way to know yet. The only report we have is regarding a woman.”
“A woman?” The old leader’s eyes perked up.
“Yes. A woman with brown hair. That’s all we know so far.”
“We must find her,” another man thundered from the corner of the table across from the leader.
“And make her suffer,” someone else added.
The room erupted in a series of roaring agreement.
The leader sat silent, hands folded on the table’s surface. The noise died down as everyone realized he was considering their next move. They waited for him to speak.
“And how do you propose we do that?” he asked. “We’re looking for a brown-haired woman somewhere in Europe or maybe in America? We may as well try to find a pebble in the desert.”
Most of the men grumbled for a moment, their righteous anger tempered by the sobering fact.
When the room fell silent again, the leader spoke once more. “It would appear we are dealing with a ghost. If she can find a way to foil our plans this time, she can do it again.”
“That won’t happen,” a new voice said. “Proceed as planned. This woman is a rodent, nothing more than a nuisance.”
Every set of eyes at the table turned to the other end where a man wrapped in layers of black cloth sat purposefully separated from the others. He stared at the table and didn’t look up until he was certain he had everyone’s attention.
A scar ran from the corner of his right eye down to the edge of his jaw.
“How can you be so certain?” the leader asked.
The new speaker raised his eyes and stared straight ahead at the older man. “How does one kill a rat?”
The rest of the men glanced at each other with uncertainty and waited for the answer.
“You set a trap. Once the rat is caught, you kill it.”
THANK YOU
I do this at the back of all my books, but my appreciation is always sincere. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for choosing to spend your time reading my work. I put one of these little notes at the end of all my books because I know that you could have spent your money and time on something else, but you chose this book.
I am honored and hope you enjoyed it.
Please swing by one of your favorite online retailers and leave an honest review. Those reviews help authors because they let other readers know if the book is something they might enjoy. Plus, reviews help readers decide on what to read next. It's a win-win.
So thank you once more for reading me. I appreciate it and look forward to entertaining you again.
Oh, and if you’d like to find out where the Sean Wyatt series began, visit ernestdempsey.net/vip-swag-page to get some of my earlier books for free.
Ernest
OTHER BOOKS BY ERNEST DEMPSEY
The Secret of the Stones
The Cleric's Vault
The Last Chamber
The Grecian Manifesto
The Norse Directive
Game of Shadows
The Jerusalem Creed
The Samurai Cipher
The Cairo Vendetta
The Uluru Code
The Excalibur Key
The Denali Deception
The Sahara Legacy
The Fourth Prophecy
War of Thieves Box Set
(An Adriana Villa Adventure)
DEDICATION
For my friend Mandy, who is just as strong and determined as any character I write.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
None of my stories would be possible without the great input I get from incredible readers all over the globe. My advance reader group is such an incredibly unselfish and supportive team. I couldn't do any of this without them.
My editors, Anne Storer and Jason Whited, must also be thanked for their amazing work and guidance in crafting these stories. They make everything so much better for the reader.
Last but not least, I need to give a big thank you to Elena at L1 Graphics for the incredible cover art she always delivers, along with beautiful social media artwork.
Oh, and thanks to my stylist, Monica, for always being such a good sounding board while cutting my hair.
COPYRIGHT
When Shadows Call is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, and places are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©2017 Ernest Dempsey
Ernestdempsey.net
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States of America by Enclave Publishing.
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