Ethan turned his back on Huck and made for the door, discreetly reaching out for the corner of Lopez’s jacket to tug her along with him. She almost stumbled as she was pulled towards the door, and Ethan could feel the exasperation radiating out from her like a force field as he opened the door.
Ethan barely had time to react as Amber Ryan blasted past them, evidently having listened to the entire conversation from the other side of the door.
‘Bastard!’ she screamed.
Ethan managed to catch hold of Amber’s collar. She fought to break free as Huck approached them.
‘I haven’t done anything to your father!’ he snapped.
Amber yanked herself free from Ethan’s grip, took a single stride and swung a punch that connected with the coal man’s jaw with a sharp crack that made even Lopez wince. Huck Seavers span to one side and crashed down onto the long table, one hand flying instinctively to his injured jaw.
‘You’re a murderer!’ Amber screeched, loudly enough for her voice to carry through the open door and into the building beyond. ‘You’re paying people off and killing those who don’t agree to a deal!’
Assim Khan and his men rushed into the room and grabbed hold of Amber before she could strike Seavers again. She writhed in their grip as they manhandled her away from the CEO, who regained his feet and rubbed his jaw.
‘Show these people out of the building,’ he growled, his skin reddening.
Assim and his men obeyed and turned, in time to see an attractive woman with long auburn hair hurry into the room and stare at Huck in amazement.
‘What’s going on here? Who are these people?’
Before Huck could reply, Amber spat in her direction.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself, marrying a black–hearted murderer like him!’
Lopez took Amber’s shoulder and directed her out of the door. ‘Let’s just get out of here, okay?’
As Lopez led Amber outside, Ethan cast Huck a last glance.
‘You’re playing a dangerous game Huck, and the only winners are the people you’re answering to. They’ll crush you, believe me.’
Huck did not reply as Ethan turned and left the room.
***
XIV
‘I told you to stay in the car!’
Amber shrugged Ethan off as they walked through the foyer. ‘Gee I’m sorry, dad.’
‘Huck knows you’re here,’ Lopez warned her. ‘He knows who you are.’
‘We need to get out of here, fast,’ Ethan agreed.
‘What’s he going to do?’ Amber challenged them. ‘Shoot me?’
‘You’re the one accusing him of murder,’ Lopez shot back. ‘Maybe you should have thought of that before you hit him?’
As they stepped out of the foyer, a chaotic melody of shouting drifted to them on the hot desert wind.
‘What’s going on?’
Ethan scanned the road and saw ranks of demonstrators waving placards and shouting in an Arabic dialect he could not understand. Many were chanting and punching the air as they marched, dark eyes above dark beards blazing with outrage, pink mouths agape as they vented their anger.
‘Islamists,’ Assim Khan suggested. They will be crushed, as they always are. Stay close to us.’
The phalanx of guards moved closer around Ethan, Lopez and Amber as they moved down the steps of the building toward the main street. Ethan noted that the guards were now walking with their hands on the butts of their side–arms, not drawing the weapons but ensuring that they could be used at a moment’s notice.
Ethan saw Assim push a finger to his ear, listening intently to a series of instructions and then nod as he replied, but the noise of the protesters meant that Ethan could not tell what he was saying.
‘This way,’ Assim said finally.
Hordes of Saudis surged and swayed en masse before them, banners flying in the hot wind, deep voices soaring in a communion of protest, eyes bright and fierce. Ethan stopped just outside the main entrance of the compound and stared at the vast and imposing sea of faces before him.
Police armed with masks, riot shields and short, hard looking sticks loitered in loose formations around the fringes of the crowd, eyes flicking nervously across their renegade charges. Riot vehicles were idling nearby armed with water cannon, watching as the crowd chanted and pointed and accused, and already they had started to notice the foreigners amid the protective ring of Saudi guards as they approached the vehicles alongside the gates.
‘Stay tight,’ Ethan whispered harshly to Lopez. ‘This could get rough.’
From the centre of the crowd rose a terrifying sight, one that sent a spasm of concern lurching through Ethan’s bowels. A crude effigy of the American flag drenched with gasoline and oil was hoisted into the air and in an instant engulfed within a writhing coil of flame. A gust of bellowed cheers erupted from the crowd as the burning flag sent a billowing pall of smoke into the blue sky.
‘They hate the House of Saud,’ Assim rumbled darkly beside Ethan.
Ethan saw the two dusty tan sedans still nearby, their occupants nowhere to be seen, but now they were parked alongside the compound fence. He watched as the crowd surged against the security fences around the compound, and then a sharp crack split the air as a cloud of acrid grey smoke spiralled up from the hood of one of the sedans.
‘Bomb!’ he yelled.
Assim Khan’s men reacted instantly and grabbed Amber Ryan as they formed a protective huddle around her and rushed toward the 4x4 nearby.
The sedan exploded with an ear–shattering roar, the trunk engulfed in an expanding fireball as the vehicle was lifted off its wheels and flipped over onto its back. A cloud of shrapnel from the blast sliced through the fences, and as a billowing cloud of smoke dissipated on the hot wind Ethan saw the fences lacerated and weakened by the blast.
In an instant, the crowd cheered and surged toward the damaged fences.
Assim gave Ethan a gentle shove toward the escort vehicle parked nearby, further down the road from the chaotic mass of humanity plunging into the fence.
‘Go, get to your vehicle!’
Even as Ethan moved, a phalanx of armed soldiers broke away from the guard post at the main gates and rushed between their charges and the chanting crowd.
‘This is going to get ugly!’ Lopez shouted with clairvoyant certainty as the crowd surged against the fences. Ethan was half way to the car when the fence failed and crashed down onto the desert floor. A protester broke out from the crowd and rushed toward him, eyes filled with the fury or the desperation of the insane, one finger jabbing accusingly at him.
‘American, American thieves!’
Before the man could impart any further gems of information the guards broke ranks and swarmed upon him, flicking open combat sticks from their belts to cut the Saudi down in a frenzied cloud of blows. The crowd turned to watch as their comrade was beaten to the ground.
‘Belay there!’ Ethan shouted above the chanting.
Lopez instantly recognized the seriousness of the situation and dashed toward their car as the deep and melodious chanting of the crowd underwent a sudden and grotesque mutation, a bellowed roar of indignation and rage. Retreating from the beaten man, the guards had drawn their firearms, holding them at port arms as they fell back. Confronting them was the advancing mob, a turbulent milieu from which flew a sudden and brutal cloud of rocks and bottles.
Ethan ducked as the projectiles showered down around him, and to his disbelief Assim’s guards broke their defensive line and fled for the safety of their vehicle. Assim Khan grabbed hold of Amber, one forearm wrapping around her neck as he jammed a pistol against her side and hauled her away toward the 4x4.
‘Wait!’ Lopez yelled.
One of Assim’s men aimed his pistol at Lopez, who froze in horror. Assim bundled the writhing Amber into the rear of the vehicle as strong hands hauled her inside, and then Assim jumped into the passenger seat in the front. The 4x4’s doors slammed shut and Ethan watched the vehicl
e accelerate past them toward the main gate, Assim Khan watching him through the partially tinted windows with a sneer on his face. Behind the 4x4, their sedan also accelerated away from the impending crisis, its driver’s eyes wide with fear.
‘We’ve been set up!’ Ethan yelled above the din of the crowd.
The 4x4 raced through the gates and disappeared around a far corner of the street in a cloud of dusty haze as Lopez backed away from the crowd toward Ethan.
Ethan looked up at the riot vehicles arrayed further down the street, and to his dismay he realised they were not moving forward to confront the growing mob. The soldiers atop the vehicles were holding the water cannons pointing at the ground, a clear sign that they were not yet prepared to take on the crowd.
‘We’re on our own!’ Ethan yelled. ‘Run, now!’
The burning American flag tumbled onto the dark asphalt amid the crowd as dozens of them swarmed upon it, stamping on it with cries of mindless hate. Lopez dashed across the street even as an enraged preacher lunged for Ethan with fury writ large across his features. Ethan saw a long, narrow blade clasped in his hand flash in the sunlight as the preacher tried to conceal it with his robes while at the same time lashing out towards Ethan with the weapon.
Ethan whirled and bought his right arm crashing down upon the preacher’s wrist, blocking the weapon and pushing it to one side as he instinctively swung his left fist across the preacher’s face. The preacher staggered backwards in shock and collapsed onto his back amid the crowd, his fury gone and replaced with an expression of shocked indignity. Ethan did not wait to see what the reaction of the crowd would be. He whirled and dashed in pursuit of Lopez as she sprinted away through the open gates and across the street and then vaulted over a low wall.
A shower of broken bottles and other debris crashed down around Ethan as he ran, pursued by the roar of the crowd as they launched themselves after him. He vaulted over the low wall and saw Lopez reach a battered truck parked in a lot that was caked in dust. Lopez lifted one boot and drove it into the passenger door window, shattering the glass.
‘There’s no time!’ Ethan yelled as he joined her.
Lopez yanked open the door, used her boot once more to smash the plastic guard from the driving column.
‘Get in!’ she yelled as she yanked a handful of wires from the column and began re–wiring them together.
Ethan hurled himself across the hood as he heard dozens of heavy footfalls thundering across the parking lot behind him. He turned to see countless men flooding over the wall, some of them waving bats and other threatening objects in his direction as they screamed and yelled.
Ethan jumped into the passenger seat of the truck and slammed the door shut.
‘Hurry up!’
‘Thanks for the hot tip!’ Lopez snapped back as she focused on the mass of wires.
Ethan leaned across her and grabbed her door, slamming it shut just as the crowd rushed upon the vehicle. The truck rocked violently as the angry mob slammed against it and a man’s hands reached in for Lopez.
Ethan reached out and grabbed one of the man’s arms and hauled him into the vehicle straight over Lopez’s lap, instantly blocking the window and preventing further attackers from reaching inside. He saw others moving around the vehicle, tyre irons in their hands as they prepared to smash the windscreen out.
‘Any time now would be good!’
An iron bar smashed into the screen and Ethan saw a spider’s web of cracks blossom around the impact point as a Saudi with features ablaze with righteous fury smashed the bar across the glass again and again.
Lopez, reaching now over the back of the captive man’s waist as she attempted to start the truck, finally found the correct wires and wound them together. The truck’s engine spluttered into life and Ethan reached down and yanked off the handbrake as Lopez slammed the automatic drive into reverse. The truck lurched backwards to the sound of panicked yelps as the crowd attempted to get out of the way.
A deafening rattle of tire irons and cricket bats slammed down across the vehicle like hail on a tin roof as the angry crowd fought to get inside and stop the vehicle from moving. The man across Lopez’s lap screamed as his legs were pulled violently by the bodies outside the truck, and Ethan immediately let him go. Lopez jerked her head back and her hands out the way as the man’s body was ripped from the truck and she grabbed the wheel as she slammed one boot down on the throttle.
The tires squealed as the truck accelerated backwards and swung around, enraged Saudis hurling themselves clear as Ethan shoved the transmission into drive and Lopez once again accelerated. A hail of debris crashed down across the shattered windscreen from the Saudis in front of the vehicle as they threw what they held in their hands at the vehicle and then hurled themselves clear.
The truck blasted through the compound gates and swung hard left as Lopez aimed the vehicle away from the crowd. Ethan got himself a brief glimpse through the rear view window of streams of high pressure water blasting into the crowd and sending civilians reeling aside in the bright sunshine as the Saudi troops finally began moving in.
‘That bastard Assim set us up,’ Lopez snarled as she drove. ‘Those guards made sure that we were a target before they took off.’
‘We’ve got to assume Majestic Twelve are already on to us,’ Ethan agreed. ‘Huck Seavers must be in their pocket in one way or another, maybe over those mining rights.’
‘Seavers isn’t going to let us anywhere near him now,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘Our best bet is to get the hell out of Saudi Arabia before somebody torches our asses.’
Ethan looked over his shoulder and saw in the distance against the desert skyline a faint smear of dirty brown smoke against the perfect blue sky.
‘They’ve got Amber.’
‘Huck will offer her a deal!’ Lopez snapped. ‘Just like he did with us, except I hope that she has the brains to take it and run.’
‘I think we both know that she won’t do that.’
‘Then she’s as insane as her father and … ’
Ethan saw the sedan at the same time as Lopez did, just as it smashed into the front fender of their truck and sent it spinning to one side. Ethan’s head smacked into the window beside him with a deep thump and he saw Lopez’s hair flying under the impact as the truck’s tires screeched and it span across the road.
A second vehicle hit them from behind, impact cushions bursting into Ethan’s face from the dashboard to absorb the blows as the engine cut out amid a cloud of dirty smoke that spilled across the windscreen as the truck hit the sidewalk and came to a halt.
Ethan fumbled for the door handle but he could not focus, his head swimming and his fingers numb. A twist of nausea poisoned his innards as he tried to get out of the truck. He reached out again for the handle but it was suddenly pulled from of his sight.
The door swung open and hands grabbed for Ethan. He pushed out and tried to swing a punch at the masked man looming before him, but his arm felt like rubber and he almost fell out of the car. The smell of burning oil stung his nostrils and he heard shouts in Arabic, sharp and staccato like gunfire as he was dragged out into the heat.
He squinted in the brilliant sunlight and just had time to see the dusty canvass sack that was rammed down onto his head as something hard clubbed across his face and everything went black.
***
XV
Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
Tyson’s Corner, Washington DC
Lieutenant General Nellis strode down the fifth floor corridor to his office and hoped that the meeting he was due to attend would not end his career. A former Chair of the Military Intelligence Board and a much respected figure at the Pentagon, Nellis was one of the US military’s most powerful figures. Yet today Nellis knew that he was heading for a serious grilling.
He walked into his office and closed the door as two men awaiting him stood from their seats. One was a former Navy SEAL by the name of Miller, who as a soldier was a man w
ith whom Nellis could identify. The other was a tall man with a formidable physique, an African–American with slightly graying hair who despite his age looked capable of causing severe physical damage to anybody who stood in his way. The name Nellis had been given for him was Mister Mitchell, and that in itself was enough to send alarm bells ringing in Nellis’s mind: a man supposedly a civilian sitting in on a classified meeting in the headquarters of the DIA.
‘Gentlemen,’ Nellis greeted them without preamble. ‘What can I do for you?’
Miller and Mitchell sat down opposite Nellis as he eased himself into his chair. Miller spoke with a gravelly voice.
‘We’ve been sent up here regarding a breach of security by one of your team.’
Nellis raised an eyebrow. ‘Whom?’
‘Douglas Jarvis,’ Miller replied. ‘Former United States Marine, works under your watch. Homeland sent us because they have no access to files.’
Nellis remained motionless for a moment. Miller was maintaining a formal bearing but he was clearly trying to project a reasonable persona. Mitchell, on the other hand, simply watched Nellis with an unblinking gaze utterly devoid of any emotion he could recognize.
‘Jarvis is responsible for the oversight of a classified research program for the agency,’ Nellis replied. ‘It’s an autonomous program, so neither Homeland nor the Pentagon would have access to it.’
The Fusion Cage (Warner & Lopez Book 2) Page 11
