“The truck! Get on the truck!” Jay shouted urgently.

  Li nodded; her face filled with intent.

  Yvette readied herself, as soon as she was exposed the troopers would start shooting at her, she would have to be faster than they were. Slinging her Milkor MGL over her shoulder, she adjusted her katana shoulder straps and silenced her mind. The Ramp overtook her, time slowed down, and she waited, still as stone for the right opportunity to move.

  The MRU was the first vehicle in the convoy. It drove between the two APC wrecks, its powerful bulk moving between them like a great white shark indifferent to anything else in its domain. The rig’s turbine engine rumbled, its metal flanks were armored and curved, an indomitable metal beast seemingly from another world, it passed her, towing the armored trailer behind it.

  Yvette wasn’t sure if what Anton had just done was bold or crazy - perhaps it was a bit of both. She accelerated forward along the road, leaping onto the side of the armored MRU trailer. There were multiple service handholds for maintenance staff, she grabbed hold of them. Bullets whined past her, striking sparks off the trailer. She scrambled to the flat top of the trailer as it accelerated past the ruins of the gatehouse.

  Anton was already there, hugging the top of the vehicle and looking like he’d been passed through a furnace. The left side of his face was raw, his hair was a burned mess, and a line of blood from the edge of his mouth had dried on his chin.

  His eyes were wild.

  Jay and Li both appeared on the other side of the roof at the same time, a fraction of a second behind her, bullets and tracers flying overhead. The height of the trailer created a sheltered area on the roof above the trooper’s angle of fire.

  The MRU approached the main road, its great horn blaring. It barely slowed to take the corner to the right. They straightened up; they were on the road heading north. A pair of blackwidows angled in to pace the convoy.

  They were heading back to the RAF airbase at Coningsby.

  Yvette looked around herself, her lips thinned. Frying pan, meet fire.

  Chapter Twenty One

  BREAKING: Explosions reported at UK MOD site

  There are reports of multiple explosions at a Ministry of Defense site in South Lincolnshire.

  Published 08/22 11:52

  Witnesses report a massive pall of smoke rising over the base of the recently formed Squadron F.

  - Breaking News article on the Internet.

  * * *

  North of the Facility, South Lincolnshire, August 22nd, 11:52

  The two charcoal-colored Range Rovers motored along at sixty miles an hour.

  Francis had positioned the remainder of his team ahead of the approaching convoy. There was no point being behind the convoy with half of Shadowstone UK between the rest of the team and himself. All he needed to do was stay in front and identify an opportunity to help the team escape.

  Scanning her laptop, Juliette stated, “Panopticon hazing has begun. That will hide our SUVs from their drones and any other cameras and sensors. We’ve got about fifteen minutes, twenty at best.” She nodded; her lips pursed. “Shadowstone cyberwarfare units out of Beijing, Saint Petersburg and Seattle have already begun counter attacks.”

  “Fifteen minutes will have to do,” Francis observed.

  Chiara spoke up from the second SUV, where Luther was driving, and she was keeping watch, “I don’t know if we’ll have fifteen minutes. They’re coming fast, eighty, ninety miles per hour, and the APCs and MRAPs are keeping pace.”

  Francis pushed down on the accelerator; the Range Rover’s supercharged engine responded with effortless power. The SUV surged forward, the speedometer climbing to eighty-five miles per hour.

  “The two blackwidows are flying top cover,” Chiara added.

  “How far back are they?” Francis asked.

  “About half a mile … and closing slowly.”

  Francis accelerated to ninety miles per hour, the SUV racing along the road. There was no traffic heading in either direction, had the roads been blocked off? He asked Juliette, “Sitrep, any police roadblocks activated in front of us?”

  “Got it,” Juliette said, her fingers flashing over her laptop. “Yes. Connecting roads are being blocked between the Shadowstone base and the RAF airbase at Coningsby. That’s the confirmation, they’re taking Peter back to the airbase.”

  “They’ll fly him out of the country.”

  “And half our team is on that truck.”

  “C'est un foutu bordel!” Francis swore. He didn’t need to wonder how the team had ended up in their current position - Anton Slayne. Despite Anton’s disobedience, the objectives remained clear. Get Peter back, break contact with Shadowstone and disappear back beneath the Panopticon’s radar - and do it all in the next fifteen to twenty minutes - while the Panopticon was hazed by Juliette’s cyberwarfare attacks.

  Then they could get back to the main mission, rescuing Ramin Kain, or more correctly, stopping him from leaking all the secret knowledge of the Order of Thoth to the Vampire Dominion.

  He broadcast to the team, “Anton, Jay, Yvette, Li. Report in.”

  Howling wind came over the earbuds, then the voices of the team members clinging to the MRU cutting through, enhanced by technology to pick out their words against any background noise. Jay shouted, “We’re on top of the truck.”

  Yvette and Li reported in, then Anton yelled urgently, “Guys, we’ve got to move!”

  What else was about to go wrong? Francis glanced into the rear-view mirror. A futile gesture, everyone was too far away for him to see what was happening.

  Chiara observed calmly, “The blackwidows are descending to flank the MRU on both sides.”

  They’re sitting ducks up there.

  Francis’ heart leaped. There was nothing he could do.

  * * *

  The mobile rendition unit raced along the road, a pair of armored personnel carriers and four MRAPs hot on its heels.

  Victoria Hansen, a flight officer for the aerial wing of Squadron F, lowered her blackwidow helicopter gunship to three hundred yards above the ground and about two hundred yards to the left of the MRU. Her wingman mirrored her position in the second blackwidow on the opposite side of the road. Four Order operatives clung to the roof of the trailer section, barely holding on as ninety-mile-per-hour winds lashed them. They were armed with a sniper rifle, some submachine guns, and a Milkor MGL. It was primarily the MGL she was concerned about. Without specialized ammunition, the other weapons wouldn’t be able to penetrate her gunship’s armor. She was at least three hundred and fifty yards away from the MGL; on the practical limits of its range.

  “Select your targets,” She ordered her gunner. The man was already staring at the four enemy operatives, the right-side minigun pointing directly at the roof of the MRU. With a squeeze of his trigger finger, he would scrape those vermin off the top of the trailer with an irresistible stream of 7.62mm depleted uranium penetrators.

  All she needed now was permission to fire. The fight had passed beyond the Facility and was now in open civilian territory, the rules of engagement had changed. She opened her comms link to Major Quiver and Director Heathmont, and reported, “Sir, the targets are lit up. Ready to take the shot.”

  Major Quiver ordered, “Weapons are cleared for -”

  “Belay that order,” Director Heathmont interrupted, cutting across his subordinate. “Widow dash Three, what munitions are loaded in your miniguns?”

  “Standard 7.62mm penetrators, Sir,” Victoria answered.

  “Major Quiver, what is the hull rating on the MRU trailer?”

  “Protection up to and including .50 caliber ball, Sir,” Major Quiver said.

  “The MRU is not rated against 7.62mm depleted uranium rounds, is it?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “A minigun with penetrators could cut that trailer in half, couldn’t it?”

  “Sir? Yes, Sir.”

  “You could kill my prisoner, couldn’t you?”

  “Sir?”

  “Widow dash Three, you and your wingman are cleared to fire warning shots only. I want that rig at Coningsby airbase as soon as possible with the prisoner alive. Make sure they stay on the road. Major Quiver, the .50 cal machine guns on the APCs, the M240s on the MRAPs and your trooper’s small arms are released for immediate use between here and the RAF airbase. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Then be about it. Clear those Order of Thoth scum off my truck.”

  “Roger that, Sir,” Major Quiver replied enthusiastically.

  The line muted. Victoria had her orders. She stared, steely-eyed, at the Order of Thoth operatives riding bold as brass on the MRU’s trailer. She tilted her helmeted head to the right, and then to the left. There was a soft cartilage click somewhere near the place her neck connected with her body. She would just have to wait and play nursemaid for the troops on the ground.

  She barked a short, dismissive laugh. A nursemaid; it wasn’t what she had signed up with the ‘Stateless Warfare Wing,’ more commonly known as Squadron F for. ‘F’ was another one of the squadrons comprising the Special Airborne Service, the famous SAS of the British army. The same, but different; more cutting edge, always outfitted with the very latest technology, and never short of funds. There was a mystery as well, sometimes late at night after a bottle of scotch, or two, had been shared with the other pilots a word would be spoken - Shadowstone.

  Shadowstone, a nebulous, super-secret outfit that seemed to be operating just out of sight at the highest echelons of government and the corporate world. That was her goal, she wanted into the game, and she wanted in bad.

  Being a gunship jockey was just a stepping stone to bigger things.

  * * *

  The pair of blackwidow gunships paced to either side of the mobile rendition unit. The thunder of their engines muted by the howling ninety-mile-per-hour winds rushing over the MRU.

  Anton crabbed his way along the top of the MRU’s trailer, moving from maintenance hand hold to hand hold to avoid being blown off the top of the trailer. He hugged the top of the vehicle, chancing a quick glance over the rear lip of the trailer to see what was chasing them.

  A bullet went straight through his hair above his right ear.

  He ducked back behind the lip, his earbud communicator broadcasting his voice despite the wind as he swore, “What the hell!”

  “Anton?” Li asked.

  “There are two armored personnel carriers, and four of those armored Humvee-style vehicles right behind us.”

  MRAPs, he remembered Peter saying, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, he’d talked about them back at the safe house. Modern, tough, and fast, typically armed with a machine gun or other weapons, and the natural successor to the ‘coffin on four wheels,’ Peter had called the Humvee.

  Yvette observed, “The helicopters haven’t tried shooting at us.”

  “Probably don’t want to hurt their prize,” Jay suggested, tapping the top of the trailer.

  Anton stared at his team mates. He was the only one facing forward. Li, Jay, and Yvette all faced him, more or less in a line across the top of the trailer on the other side of a hatch in the roof. The hatch had no visible means of opening from the outside. Damn it, they needed to get Peter out of the trailer as soon as possible. The top hatch was useless as a means to enter the trailer.

  Anton noted, “We have no strategy.”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Jay remarked, staring accusingly at Anton.

  Yvette smacked Jay on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” Jay objected. “Just being honest.”

  “It doesn’t matter how we got here - we’re here for Peter,” Li declared.

  They all looked at each other.

  “The rest of the team are in front of us,” Li explained. “We need to stay with this vehicle until it is opened up. Anything else leaves Peter trapped by Shadowstone.”

  The rest of the team nodded.

  Francis called out over the comms link, “We’re heading for Coningsby airbase. They’re planning to fly Peter out of the country.”

  Anton shook his head, that was never going to happen, not if he could do anything about it.

  Machine gun fire erupted simultaneously from both sides of the MRU, striking sparks off the top edges of the trailer. A moment later, a pair of fragmentation grenades looped into the air from either side, over the edge of the trailer, and began falling toward them.

  Anton ramped hard, one of the grenades was heading toward his head. Anchored with his left hand, he drew the Blue Dragon from the scabbard strapped behind his shoulders in a blur. His hand flashed up, the blade arcing around. He twisted his wrist at the very last moment, striking the grenade with the flat of his blade, sending it flying backward.

  It dropped out of sight, exploding with a loud crack, a hail of shrapnel rattling against the side of the MRU. The gray smoke of the explosion was immediately left behind. The second grenade was dealt with by Jay with the same result on the other side of the trailer.

  Machine guns fired again, coordinated bursts from left and right, and from behind the MRU. The only advantage they had, was the height of the MRU’s roof forced the Shadowstone troopers to fire up at them, leaving a strip down the middle of the roof that they couldn’t hit with their bullets.

  The very location they were throwing their grenades into.

  Chiara instructed through the comms link. “Right hand curve coming up in three, two, one -”

  Four grenades flew overhead as the MRU shifted to the right.

  Jay and Yvette both batted grenades away with their swords. Two of the grenades flew toward Anton, one from the left, and the other from the right. If he allowed himself to rise up too high, he would become an easy target for the gunners. He flipped over, his sword flashing left and right. The grenades flew away exploding mid-air but out of range to do any damage.

  Li scuttled over to take a position next to him.

  Chiara directed again. “Left-hand curve coming up in three, two, one, now.”

  The truck turned back to the left.

  Anton glanced at Li.

  She caught his gaze and frowned, her large, brown eyes flashing fiercely. “You broke your promise.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Anton objected, indignation rising in his voice.

  Li shook her head once, her eyes wide. “Don’t try and justify what you did … Oh, why do I bother?”

  A grenade sailed over the side of the MRU trailer. Anton blurred over Li, striking it away with the flat of his blade. It exploded harmlessly, well behind the trailer. He came back down as fresh machine gun fire flashed overhead. Li had moved to the other side of the trailer, a grenade falling toward her.

  Anton yelled, “Watch -”

  Li blurred, the Green Dragon flashing above her. The grenade vanished back the way it came. A thin scream of horrified despair wailed on the air as the grenade exploded over the MRAP it had come from.

  “- out,” Anton finished.

  Li glared at him. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”

  Anton shook his head. Li was disappointed with him. It was happening a lot lately. What did she really want from him? He made himself busy looking for fresh threats. What would happen next? Would the Shadowstone troopers run out of grenades, or would they get lucky?

  Bullets whizzed overhead, forcing the team to keep their heads down.

  Anton looked past Li, scanning the edges of the trailer.

  What attack would Shadowstone try next?

  * * *

  Peter cocked his head, a hail of metal fragments smashing against the MRU’s flank. Their sharp, sudden rattle adding to the muted cacophony of explosions, and almost constant ricochets of bullets hitting the trailer’s armored hull.

  “L109A2 high explosive grenade,” he whispered to himself distractedly, “Standard issue for British special forces.”

  He returned his attention to the task at hand. Unscrewing one of the handles of the ceiling hatch spinlock. It fell free in his hand. He stepped back from the hatch, comparing the threads of the short handle with another larger one he’d taken from the spinlock on the back door.

  The two threads matched, they were the same length and width. They were interchangeable. Peter started working as fast as he could to remove a second of the short handles opposite the first one on the ceiling spinlock and replace them with two of the longer, heavier handles from the lock on the main door.

  Soon he would have a second chance with the ceiling hatch, this time with double the leverage.

  The second short handle dropped to the floor with a sharp clank, before rolling away beneath a white enameled cabinet. Peter rushed back to the rear door for the replacement handle.

  He worked fast - tight and focused.

  In a couple of minutes, he would be ready to open the ceiling hatch.

  At least, that was the plan.

  * * *

  The Squadron F trooper tightened his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel of the MRU.

  A bead of perspiration slowly tracked its way from his short, salt and pepper hair down his left temple. He was beginning to wonder if being an MRU driver was such a great career choice, what with the constant shooting, explosions and navigating bends at ninety miles per hour when the speed limit was sixty. He glanced across at his colleague who was riding shotgun, armed to the teeth and grinning like a lunatic.

  His thin lips pressed tightly together.

  Adrenaline junkies; all the new blokes were hyped on ‘juice.’ As a driver, participation in the Day Guard program had been optional, and he’d opted out. In another two months, his twenty years of service with the squadron would be up, and he would be taking the package. He’d seen things to give a man nightmares, and enough was enough; it was time to get out.

  Director Heathmont’s voice came over the comms link, “MRU Driver?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Drive faster,” Director Heathmont ordered. “The wind will blow those scoundrels off the top of the truck.”

 

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