Matt Drake 14 - The Treasures of Saint Germain (33 page)

And Webb himself, crouched low, was already mixing together the first component of the alchemical mixture that the Scroll of Leopold and Saint Germain’s strict roster of clues revealed was the only true way to prepare the greatest treasure ever imagined—the elixir of life.

CHAPTER FIFTY

The great swell of the Mississippi River had never seen nor heard the like of it. As soldiers, Drake and the SPEAR team stood often at death’s door. Most of the time they cheated it. But there were no illusions in Drake’s mind. Nobody cheated death forever.

Nobody.

A final chapter was coming, maybe not this year but soon enough, when they would all stand and die together. He did not fear it. A man or woman couldn’t live this life forever and he just couldn’t see himself willingly resigning. So what was the alternative?

Skipping now from swell to swell, he counted off the boats. Webb’s, and then six of Amari’s and four of their own. All battered. The waters were vicious and deadly. Amari’s mercenaries swept wide every now and then to squeeze off several submachine gun rounds, spiking the air with lead. Kinimaka and Dahl swept with them, picking off the odd body but making very little headway.

The mighty river curved gracefully to the right and then the left, a vast curvature of undulating water bordered by grass banks and levees, docks and busy yards. Its enormous width spanned their horizons, its murk growing only darker as the sun passed its zenith. Drake studied the skylines ahead and to the sides, always conscious that Webb had a plan and potential reinforcements.

How does he intend to escape?

Rotors chopped above and motorboats raced behind, all loaded with different versions of law enforcement. One of the mercs tried lobbing a grenade at Dahl’s boat but it fell short and succeeded only in soaking the Swede and the Israeli. Dahl shot the man through the shoulder and nobody tried it again.

“Can’t you make this thing go any faster?” Alicia complained. “We’ll be on here all day at this rate.”

“Oh sure,” Drake said. “I’ll just flip the switch on the nitrous.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Shit, one day we’re gonna have to get you down for a Fast and Furious fest.”

“Isn’t that what we do every night? Sometimes twice?”

Drake shook his head slowly. Alicia gripped his shoulder tight. To their right the boat containing Hayden, Mai and the Secretary of Defense skimmed the surface of the Mississippi. Drake saw Kimberly Crowe crouched down low, her two bodyguards around her. Yes, she had somehow managed to insert herself into the midst of all this mess, but he couldn’t knock her courage.

“Can you transfer the Secretary out?” he asked Hayden through the comms.

“Maybe,” came the reply. “But I’m loathe to start the maneuver when we’re blind as to what comes next.”

“Send the choppers in,” Dahl said. “Blast ’em all out of the water.”

Drake saw Hayden nod. “I think it’s coming to that.”

Another one of Amari’s boats broke away, this one bowing to the left and coming right around. It sped hard at Drake’s boat, its arrow-shaped prow aiming to cut him in half, but at an order from Hayden one of the SWAT choppers swooped low and opened fire. The boat exploded into detonating fragments, still coasting forward as it shattered. A plume of fire and smoke marked its death.

Drake didn’t give it a second glance. Webb was turning.

“Wait. What’s he doing?”

Beyond Amari, the lead boat appeared to have left it extremely late to turn, so sharp was the angle Beau made it achieve. The whole vessel canted sideways, the spray curling out from underneath.

The SPEAR team reacted instantaneously, following Beau’s maneuver, then Amari began shouting orders across the rolling swells. The movements put Drake’s boat alongside one of the mercs’. Alicia fired her gun twice, sending two mercs into the Mississippi before return fire was made. Bullets slammed into their hull and glanced across the windshield. Drake swerved to the side. Alicia held on and wounded another merc. The boats came together hard, slamming hulls with a crash that left widening cracks and a flood of water.

“We’re going down,” Drake said.

Alicia stared at the foam filling the boat and her boots. “Now I have wet feet. Fucksake, Drake, get a grip.”

The Yorkshireman swore. He was skimming along at full speed as the water poured in, not only into the boat but into the engine too, aiming for a sandbar that bordered the place where Beau was headed. A merc leaned out, handgun raised, but Alicia knocked it aside as they closed up once more, smashing him in the face for good measure. Drake flicked a glance off the horizon and spotted exactly what Beau was speeding toward.

“We need to get ashore anyway, guys. The water is killing the engine.”

Kinimaka’s voice hit the comms at exactly the same time. “Guys, is that a private airport?”

“Has to be,” Smyth growled. “It sure as hell ain’t public. Lauren can barely see it on the map.”

Makes sense,
Drake thought. In a perfect world Webb’s short hop over the Mississippi from the French Quarter couldn’t have been easier. And then . . . airborne. Private flights meant questionable flight plans and the potential for disappearing completely, depending where you landed.

Alicia fired again. Water covered Drake’s boots, and the boat wallowed. He flicked at the throat mic.

“We’re about to crash. Or sink. Or both.”

Dahl replied. “Stop whining. Just send us a bloody postcard.”

Drake wrestled hard with the wheel, steering them straight at the sandbar. The hull struck hard, the momentum sending them airborne. Water streamed off the boat as it cleared the raised finger of sand, many meters higher than the pursuing merc boat. Drake saw a SWAT guy leaning over the skids of his helicopter, sighting on the merc boat, and firing as he flew past. The bullet took out the pilot and sent the boat veering madly. Drake’s came down hard.

“Now there’s a copper who can use his chopper . . .” Alicia said, then grunted and huffed as the hull grinded and bounced. The boat’s momentum sent it skidding into the bank and, as it hit, Drake and Alicia jumped ashore. They tucked and rolled but still landed heavily, bruised and bleeding around the face. Drake rose and looked around.

The speedboats were racing toward a makeshift dock. Beau and Webb were already there, the American jumping ashore and clutching a heavy leather satchel in one hand. Webb looked both haggard and ecstatic, a man reaching the end of a long quest. Coming up to the dock now was Amari and his boats full of mercs and acolytes.

Drake and Alicia ran hard along the muddy bank, trying to cut their enemies off. Two choppers blasted overhead, reconnoitering the airport, but Drake had no link to their comms. The area was screened by a row of trees.

Shots were already being fired. Hopeful attempts to bring down Webb or Beau before they reached their plane. Surely they realized that the game was up. No way would they be allowed to get airborne.

Hayden came over the comms. “I see Webb running through a gate and into some kind of compound at the rear of the airport. Locking it. Amari’s closing in. Shooting the lock off. Drake, be careful, you’re just a few feet away.”

Screened by the treeline, Drake and Alicia crept around the last of the thick reaching branches. He counted roughly twenty mercs and four acolytes, dressed in white, and Amari. The airport’s rear security gate had been destroyed and now the mercs were filing through, spreading out into the compound. Drake saw grounded helicopters and the wings of planes and two large hangars. He slipped around the corner.

Hayden called for them to wait then, eight seconds later, pounded up with the entire team. She turned to Kimberly Crowe.

“Please. Wait here.”

The Secretary remained still. “Not a problem.”

It would have to suffice. The SPEAR team rushed toward the rear gate and the backs of the sprinting mercs. Webb was already crossing the center of the compound toward a large contingent of men. Activity was everywhere ahead of him, men jumping in and out of choppers, ground teams rushing to help, rotors warming up. Even a small jet was roaring its twin engines.

All and every resource.

Drake looked from Webb’s army to Amari’s mercs, the police and SWAT helicopters hovering overhead, and the firepower all around. To jump right into the center of this madness would be like leaping into an active volcano.

Nevertheless, the SPEAR team did it with gusto.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

“If I die today I hope that I do it well. If I survive this day I hope that I see my loved ones once more. If my friends and colleagues stand over my lifeless body at the end of all this I hope that they stand strong. And remember me, my family. Remember my vital heart, my sense of excitement, my glittering eyes. I am now only a memory but still, in you, I live on. I can live forever.”

Kinimaka chanted the words softly as they ran toward the great battlefield.

Drake blinked what could only be river water from his eyes. “Seems a bit long for a proverb, mate.”

“I wrote it when my mother died,” he said. “And think it through whenever our friends have died. Today seems like a good day for great songs.”

Before anyone could respond, all hell broke loose. Not one event was limited to a single lifespan though. Through Drake’s eyes the amalgamation of violence and intense action was a non-stop, severely lethal rollercoaster ride. Webb ran for his waiting choppers, which were lined up four in a row. His own ranks of mercenaries thundered past, firing into Amari’s troops. The Arab dived for cover. SWAT choppers swooped down from above, men hanging out of doors and sending volleys of lead into the pitch battle. Oil cans, vehicles and crates were scattered everywhere, enabling soldiers and mercenaries to scramble for cover.

Drake saw Beau urging Webb toward the first helicopter in line, its rotors already sending out a huge wash. That was fine. When Webb had boarded and it started to lift, Drake shot the pilot.

The black beast crashed back down, landing hard on both skids. Beau dived inside and manhandled Webb out. Drake saw Hayden loose another shot in their direction. A guard went down. The SWAT chopper plunged in again, raking a trail through the mercenaries, but now another contingent were lining up an RPG, forcing the chopper to veer away. Smyth managed to clip the missile launcher before it fired.

Other choppers were also ready to fly, three more at the far side of the airfield and two nearby. The sleek gray jet was taxiing slowly to line up its nose with the runway. Webb could break in any direction, but Drake still couldn’t see how he could escape.

Then three more RPGs appeared and the skies were laced with white smoke and death.

Amari’s mercs fought hand to hand with Webb’s; punched, kicked and knifed in the back. Shots were fired around containers, bullets crisscrossing the compound. Drake, Alicia and Dahl drove into the back of Amari’s mercs. Drake bruised a neck and then ribs, spun his enemies around and knocked one unconscious. The other wouldn’t give in, produced a knife and looked shocked when it ended up stuck in his own abdomen.

Dahl threw his man against a crate, smashing it to bits and then had to duck fast behind another. Alicia used the bits of sharpened wood he’d just made to fend off her own attacker. Her H&K then whipped left and right, lining up mercs and taking them down. Two she dispatched just as they drew a bead on her and then ducked behind an oil drum, tempting fate no further. Kinimaka was watching Amari as the cult leader scuttled toward the jet plane. Hayden had eyes only for Webb.

“Second bird,” she said. “He’s on board.”

Drake couldn’t see the man or Beau, but let loose a salvo that damaged the rotors. Webb emerged shouting a moment later, and pointed at their hiding places. Immediately, two RPGs were trained upon them. Warning shouts came and the team were running by the time the drums and crates erupted in walls of smoke and flame.

Lauren hit the ground, toppled by the shockwave. Yorgi staggered head-first until coming up against Kinimaka’s bulk, which stopped him. A SWAT helicopter ventured closer now, its men firing on the RPG launchers. Drake waved for it to retreat but it was already too late. The first missile hit its underside and brought it down, mercifully intact, its occupants shaken but alive. The chopper bounced and juddered, scraping against the concrete.

Smyth rose and shot the man holding the rocket launcher, then shook his head. “Always another stupid enough to take it up.”

“Then shoot ’em all,” Kenzie said.

A swell of struggling mercenaries surged into their group. Drake found himself pushing away two fighting men whilst trying to watch Webb and Beau. Dahl and Alicia stayed beside him. Hayden pushed forward, tracking Amari and his acolytes, tailed by Kinimaka, Smyth and Yorgi. A knot of mercs came between the two parties.

Drake shot a merc up close then felled another. One of Webb’s and one of Amari’s. The third chopper was lifting off, but Drake had already seen it was a ruse. Webb and Beau sprinted amid a crowd, straight for the plane.

The jet itself was closing the gap too, angling for the apex of the runway. Fore and aft doors were wide open, currently filled by two big bulks toting RPGs. SWAT helicopters shied away.

The noise was tremendous. Rotor roar combined with gunfire and the screams of men, punctuated with occasional crashing thunder from the jet and the low grunts of men locked in deadly combat. Drake saw a gap and ran for it, angling for Webb, only thirty meters separating them now. Webb carried his precious satchel. Dahl was there, and Alicia too, running interference to left and right.

Beau, part of the shield around Webb, saw them coming and shouted at his guards. As one, eight men broke off and stood against the three. Drake didn’t slow, just hit them head on, firing and taking a round in the chest that sent him sideways. Always fast to recover from injury, taking a bullet to the vest was nevertheless a stunning blow, leaving him on his knees and gasping. Two mercs stood over him, faces grim.