"Options?" he asked Harvish.
"I need to check the egress..." their supposed point man wavered.
Davidson pointed to the wall to their right. "The stairwell to the garage is just on the other side."
Brandt looked to Rebecca for confirmation. You knew your point man sucked if you were looking to a former traitor and a civilian for your exit strategy.
"Yes," she said, nodding. "The stairwell is there."
He nodded to Lopez. "Make the blast directional and discreet." While the corporal strategically placed the C-4, Brandt turned to Talli. "Move that cabinet over. I want our exit covered if at all possible."
Even a few seconds could mean a successful retreat versus...well, versus a bunch of dead bodies.
"Fire in the hole," Lopez announced.
Talli shoved the cabinet over to catch any shrapnel before Lopez lit up the C-4. The blast was exactly as ordered. Directional and discreet. But discreet enough to not be heard over the alarms and screams ten doors down? That was still a question to be answered.
"Move out," Brandt ordered.
Harvish was the first to crawl through the hole at the base of the wall. It was a tight fit for the broad-shouldered Irishman, yet he disappeared quickly.
"All clear," Harvish announced.
Lopez followed. Then Talli. Brandt nodded to Davidson, whose lean frame shimmied right through. Rebecca grabbed her laptop, clutching it to her chest before making her way out of the laboratory. That thing was like her security blanket. A security blanket that had gotten them out of more jams than Brandt liked to consider.
Then it was his turn to squeeze himself through the narrow hole. Once on the other side, Brandt reached through and grabbed the legs to the cabinet, pulling the object flush with the wall.
"Move it," he ordered.
Instantly Harvish and the rest were surging ahead.
Only Rebecca hesitated. She looked up at him. Those blue eyes brimming with unshed tears. The months washed away. His marriage a dim memory as she blinked, biting her lip.
"Brandt...if this isn't the Knot," Rebecca asked, "then who is it?"
Even after everything they'd been through, Brandt still couldn't lie to her.
"Hell if I know."
Aunush stood upon the roof of the Lionel Robbins Building, the wind tousling her dark, close-cropped hair. The mission was perfection incarnate. The destruction of the researcher's laboratory now complete. Time for a little sport.
Her sniper lay stomach down on the roof, his eye pressed against his sight. He fired again as the crack of the gun was whisked away by the wind. The slamming back of the bolt, resetting the sights then another round. Each action jarred her bone marrow.
She brought the digital binoculars up and watched the sniper's handiwork. The next shot pierced a woman's heart then continued through to land in another man's belly. Aunush brushed her calf gently against the sniper's shoulder as a reward. If he kept shooting like this they might have to get a room.
Smoke billowed out of the London Research Institute, the ruined husk of Monroe's laboratory. She hoped the woman was caught in the periphery of the blast so that she suffered now. Her men were only seconds away from confirming the whole group had been killed in the strike.
It pleased her no end that her target was a bastion of science. They thought themselves insulated by logic and reason. Thinking themselves better than God and His Word. Playing with God's melody, thinking they could somehow force it to sing their own tune.
Another crack of the gun. Aunush watched as a woman's head exploded before she dropped to the ground. Funny how even with her starched laboratory coat, the scientist's gray matter looked no different than any other Aunush had seen.
Tiring of waiting on word of Monroe's demise, Aunush scanned the city's horizon from her lofty perch. From the top of the building that housed the London School of Economics, she could see nearly every bit of the famed city. Big Ben and Buckingham Palace to the west. Lincoln's Inn Fields to the north, and of course the wide, slow River Thames to the south. She could make out the tip of the tall, white London Eye across the banks. So odd for London, a hub of culture steeped in a great and long history, to have their most visited landmark now be a silly Ferris wheel. A large, impressive feat of machinery no doubt, but a Ferris wheel nonetheless.
She scanned back to the research building as her sniper fired three shots in rapid succession, taking down five people with his efforts. Oh yes. Tonight should be very interesting.
Aunush breathed in the thick London air. To be so blessed. To have her passion and her job be one and the same.
A crackling in her ear disturbed her musing.
"Come again?" Aunush asked.
"No joy. I repeat, no joy," her team captain stated between bursts of static.
No joy? Aunush took in another deep breath. Not to savor it but to keep herself from giving the kill order for her own men. "What exactly do you mean by no joy? Over."
"This is not Dr. Monroe's office. All killed are the Institute's staff. Over."
"Where is she then?" Aunush demanded.
"She is in the wind. Over."
The firecracker-like shots next to her ceased. The sniper ended his reign of terror and began searching the grounds for their elusive researcher. If anyone could spot a fleeing paleo-DNA-archeologist with her American military escort it was her sniper.
CHAPTER 2.
London, England 7:14 p.m. GMT (Daylight Savings) Rebecca tried to get comfortable in the backseat of the SUV, then realized it was no use. The thing was made of cracked vinyl with the stuffing protruding in all the wrong places.
"Seriously, we couldn't have stolen a Mercedes or something?" Who'd ever heard of a Vauxhall Frontera anyway?
"Sorry, darling, I had to pick a beater," Lopez said as he glanced into the rearview mirror. Once they bounced their way out of the parking garage and onto Lincoln Inn Fields Drive heading toward she could only assume the Kingsway, the corporal continued, "Didn't have time to deal with a complicated alarm or GPS system."
"Sorry," she said, realizing he had picked a car that could not be easily traced. "Never should have doubted you."
Lopez threw a wink to her as horns blared when he gunned the Frontera into the London traffic. "No, you shouldn't have."
His wide smile faded as his eyes scanned to her right, taking in Davidson's distorted face. The spark to his voice faded as Lopez asked Brandt, "Where to, boss?"
"Heathrow is too obvious," Brandt answered. "Still head north, we'll go to Croughton."
Rebecca frowned. "Isn't that a Royal Air Force base?"
When Brandt ignored her question and went back to studying the map in his hands, Davidson answered. "Yeah, but it's leased by the US Air Force. We can hitch a ride back to the States under the radar there."
"We might be a bit generous," Harvish snarked.
Rebecca had never really cared one way or another about the redheaded point man. But now? Now she kind of agreed with Brandt. He was a jerk who, after his performance back at her lab, didn't really have the skill set to back up his snotty attitude.
"We are going to let the brass figure this out," Brandt answered. His tone seeming equally annoyed with Harvish as she was.
Rebecca guessed that was the best she could hope for from Brandt under the circumstances. It was far better than the "shoot on sight" talk of a few minutes ago.
"Croughton? Is that the RAF with the really good mess hall?" Talli asked from the seat in front of her.
"No," Harvish answered, still glaring at poor Davidson. "You're thinking of Lakenheath."
Just how often were US Special Forces in and out of England? Until becoming involved with Brandt, Rebecca didn't even know the US had a presence in England. Guess the remnants of War World II hung on for a while.
She glanced up to find Brandt watching her in the rearview mirror, and then his eyes flickered away. Was this as hard for him as it was for her? Not the whole escaping death by a hair in a speeding car thing. That they were both pretty much used to.
Or was she being stupid? Why would sharing the same car, feeling the heat of each other's bodies be difficult for Brandt? He was married to a gorgeous wife with a baby on the way.
Brandt had the American dream right there on his ring finger.
Before tears could threaten again, Rebecca turned to Lopez. Her go-to guy when things got tense. "How long until we get to Croughton, Ricky?"
Harvish answered first though, seeming to want to make up for his performance at the lab. "It's sixty miles, so about an hour."
Lopez snorted. "Riigghhttt...make that thirty minutes tops."
"But with traffic and-"
The back window shattered, sending glass shards whizzing past her. Before she could register what had just happened, Davidson threw himself over her as another bullet zinged past them, this time shattering the front windshield. Lopez swerved across two lanes of traffic and gunned them down an alley.
Grabbing the door handle, trying futilely to keep from slamming into Davidson, Rebecca noticed her hand was covered in blood. It wasn't her blood though. It was Davidson's.
"You've been hit."
The younger man shrugged. "That second one grazed my ear."
Okay, the bullet hadn't just grazed it, the shot had taken off the tip of his ear. His good ear.
"So?" Davidson asked as she put pressure on the wound. "Think it'll scar?"
This, exactly this attitude, had been why Rebecca had forgiven Davidson for all of his trespasses. Since her last run-in with the Knot she'd sworn to get a Special Forces assistant. Now she had one.
The only question being if they could survive the day.
Brandt didn't even bother cursing as the SUV narrowly avoided running into a stack of crates.
"We need to get back into the street," Davidson said in that weird slurred voice of his. "Take a right at the next street. A right."
"So we can get shot at?" Talli retorted, still brushing off broken glass from his jacket.
"No," Davidson stated. "So I can take a shot."
Harvish snorted. "Yeah right. That sniper is holed up three blocks away."
Brandt however didn't snort, laugh, or otherwise demean Davidson's skill. His moral fiber? Yes, denigrate that all you wanted, but the kid's accuracy with a rifle? Never. Traitor he may be, but damn if Davidson's training by the Knot did have its perks. But was Brandt really going to go off the kid's advice?
Lopez looked to Brandt. The questions obvious. Do we trust the traitor?
"You are sure you can hit him?" Brandt asked.
Davidson shook his head. "No. But I can back him off, which is nearly as good."
The kid was right, all to hell. A hesitant sniper had about the same accuracy as a dead sniper.
"Can't we just keep the buildings between us and the shooter?" Harvish asked.
Lopez shook his head. "The only way to do that would be to keep to these tight streets, giving them time to get their ground forces to surround the neighborhood."
As they raced toward the next intersection, Brandt glared at Davidson. It was hard to believe the scarred face in front of him was the same as the one who had betrayed them in Rome. Even though Davidson had been a Knot mole from the get-go, he showed absolutely no hesitation to kill members of the sect. It was how the kid had kept his cover intact for so long. Davidson was the all-American poster boy. Even if the kid was working some treacherous angle here it would still behoove him to get the team out of this jam.
And Brandt would take it.
"Talli, give him your rifle."
"Sarge!"
"Now!" Brandt barked, not used to having to give a direct order twice.
The dark-haired man bit his tongue and hauled out what looked like a large gym bag except the fact it held the parts to one of the most deadly rifles in the world.
Davidson whistled as Harvish assembled the gun. "Nice. An M107 LRSR. Fifty caliber, right?"
The Arab only grunted his answer as he handed the loaded rifle over to Davidson.
As the kid checked the sights he continued. "Lopez, once back out into the street, you're going to have to make it look like we really are trying to make a run for it."
"Done."
Davidson looked to Brandt. "And I'm going to have to wait until he takes a shot before I fire."
Great, Brandt thought. You kind of buried the lede there.
"Everyone down then," Brandt ordered as the car swerved right, fishtailing back onto the main thoroughfare. There was no way the sniper could miss them now.