Rogue (Alex King Book 9), page 20
The drone moved rapidly and was performing a hover above the apartment and approximately thirty feet out from the window. Rashid chose the position to look down on the open window. They could see into the first four feet of the room. Rashid drifted the drone up another few feet and out another ten. They saw twice as far inside. The room was empty. Rashid spun the drone around one hundred and eighty degrees and the White House was just about visible. Or at least, a white blur where they knew it to be. The camera was good, but not that good. He spun the drone around. He climbed another few feet and came out a few more from the building. Nothing.
“The window is open, I’ll take it inside,” he said.
“What about motion detectors?” Beam asked.
He shrugged. “This thing is tiny. I don’t think passive infrared will detect it.”
“You don’t think?” Caves asked irritably.
“I forgot to ask,” he replied. “It’s not something you can Google, either. Anyway, that window is the only one suitable for a shot. The others are either occupied and have been checked, or the elevation is simply too low for the distance.”
“And you know about such things?” Caves persisted.
“Yes. And I could make the bloody shot from here, too.”
Rashid took the drone down and eased it towards the window. It was an off-white in colour – designed to be next to invisible in the average British sky, which tended to be grey – and no bigger than a small matchbox, the drone hovered near-undetectable outside the window. Rashid steered it through the window, but he needn’t have bothered and halted its progress by initiating a hover. The Anzio 20mm rifle was fixed to a tripod that appeared to be bolted to the wooden floorboards.
“Nice,” said Rashid. “They’re not fucking about.”
“Neither am I,” said Caves, taking out his phone. “I’m calling it in!”
Rashid snatched the phone from the man’s hand and tossed it to Beam. “Have a word, will you?” He turned his attention back to the drone and pressed the recall icon on the app. The drone simply homed in on the signal and returned automatically. Before Caves could protest about his phone, the drone landed on the small docking charger next to the case. “If we leave the weapon in play, somebody may return.”
“And in the meantime, I’ll get President Standing to carry on at his desk with a twenty-millimetre cannon aimed at his window, shall I?”
“Well, obviously you move him, just to be safe.”
“And that needs to be done now,” Caves protested.
“There was no fancy remote fire system incorporated into the set-up,” Rashid replied. “They either haven’t set this up completely yet, or they are going to fire it manually. Either way, they are going to return.”
“Who the fuck are they?” Caves asked. “We’re dealing with one man here, aren’t we? Alex King.”
Rashid hesitated. He had omitted to tell them about Big Dave Lomu and Neil Ramsay. He strongly suspected that Caroline Darby was out here, too. He liked them, trusted them. And he had no problem with them, either. He had thought he could square something with them, but he hadn’t counted upon getting caught.
“The mortar attacks had to be a two-person job.” Beam paused. “There was no way that King could have fired on the cavalcade and been up at Camp David in time to fire on Marine One…” She stared at Rashid, then went for her pistol.
Rashid reacted out of survival more than common sense and did not wait to argue his case. He grabbed the Glock and pushed back on the slide, disengaging the firing pin. He already had a left hook scything through the air towards Caves, and as it struck, he wrenched the pistol over and jabbed it backwards, both twisting and wrenching Rachel Beam’s fingers. She howled and he snatched the weapon clear of her clasp.
Mike Caves had spun with the blow and struck Rashid in the ribs and head with a combination of punches. He reached for his own weapon, but Rashid smashed the butt of the pistol down on the man’s wrist and swiped it back upwards, clipping his chin. It was messy and he needed some distance, but not while Caves still had his weapon on him. Beam had forgotten about her fingers and gripped her arm around Rashid’s throat. She tried to link up with her other arm, but Rashid flung his head backwards and cracked her on the nose with the back of his head. He felt nothing, but she felt everything and dropped onto her knees cupping her face. Rashid donkey-kicked her and she fell onto her backside, giving him the distance and space that he needed to take on Caves. He had the pistol but wasn’t going to start shooting unless he had to. Instead, he kicked several times at the man’s shins, and on the third strike, Caves lurched forward and opened-up his chin enough for Rashid to send in a decent left hook, which he followed up with the butt of the pistol in his right hand. Caves went out like a light and he had barely bounced when Rashid bent down and retrieved his Glock 19 and a spare magazine from his belt.
Beam struggled to her feet. She snatched out her retractable baton from her belt and snapped it open, then rubbed the tears from her eyes. There was no sign of Rashid. She looked around her. They had parked the SUV rear-in to the kerb and although there were a few people about, nobody looked to have seen the struggle. She looked back at Caves, who was coming around slowly. She was back at square one and had no idea where she could find Alex King, and nor if he was working alone or as part of a team. Then she thought of President Standing. The man who had so many secrets. The man who had paid them off and would find their failure unacceptable.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Alaska
King drove the SUV, while Caroline rode alongside. She was snuggled in against him, her hand resting on his thigh and her head weighing heavily against his right shoulder. There was a warm glow to her, a contentment. King felt comfortable and relaxed with her. The tension had gone, and the tenderness of their relationship had returned, rekindled.
They had made two trips in the vehicles and ten trips in the skiff, each time weighed down dangerously close to the waterline. King had pinpointed the position using the GPS on his phone. He had tied one bar of gold to a length of rope to gauge the depth, and just so long as there were no precipitous drops on the seabed, he estimated the gold was now resting on the bottom some twenty-five feet deep at mid-tide. Not an easy recovery, but with the location’s remoteness, the water temperature as it was during the summer months barely getting above ten-degrees centigrade, the risk of attack from salmon sharks and the dark colour of the water from the tannin, nobody was simply going to happen upon it while out for a swim. To retrieve all of it now would mean a professional salvage concern being involved. King had looked at the spot, some twenty metres from shore and reflected it was as safe there as in Fort Knox.
King had driven the boat back along the shore to Juneau and left it tied at the dock where he had paid enough to buy it from the dockhand. He had thought about merely leaving it where it was so he could ride back with Caroline, but he did not want to draw attention to the spot, and he figured the dockhand would need it. There was another cruise ship in the channel and King supposed the passengers were getting set for their excursions whale watching, nature trailing, shopping or taking helicopter trips to the glacier, the sky rainforest or Nugget Falls. There was a lot to do. But none of those people would know how many million dollars in gold had just gone to the bottom of the bay, or that the man in the White House had got there through killing, cheating and stealing. Or lying about his combat service and the men he had so casually sent to their deaths.
Caroline had not wanted to return to the motel. She was in honeymoon mode once more. “Let’s see something while we’re here,” she had said. “Something normal, something those tourists get to see.”
They had the rest of the afternoon and had bought some food for a picnic from the Seven-Eleven. King suspected their pilot had already started in the tavern and he wasn’t going to make the call about Dave Grumman and his men until they were further south and getting into their airplane several hundred miles down the coast. King took the mountain road east and the traffic thinned after they passed the last of the mountain lodges and once they had passed the tourist information signs for the glacier and falls, they were on their own on a narrow logging pass. Several times the road afforded them a view of the sound and bay below and when they finally turned inland, the mountains and forests seemed to go on for miles.
“It’s quite beautiful,” Caroline commented, nuzzling her head even closer into him.
“There’s an old gold mine up here that I read about. From the goldrush days. The shack remains, and some of the mine entrances haven’t been blocked off. The old-timers just worked at the seams in the rock with picks and carried the gold and equipment and supplies by mules.” He shrugged. “Might be worth a look. The site was the scene of a shootout between miners, gold thieves and the sheriff and his deputies. Quite a bloodbath, or so the story goes…”
“Like a busman’s holiday.”
King laughed. “Maybe it’s a bit close to the bone.” His smile disappeared as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. “I think we have company,” he said. “Get that magnum out!”
Caroline reached under her seat and retrieved the .357 magnum. The two shotguns were wrapped in a blanket on the rear seat. She looked at the vehicle gaining on them and said, “You think that’s him?”
King nodded. “Same shape and colour. Can’t see the broken glass, but it looks about right. He’s gaining on us fast.”
Caroline checked the cylinder out of habit. Six brass primers looked back at her. She snapped the cylinder shut and cocked the hammer, then released it carefully, easing it forwards as she squeezed the trigger. She always cycled a chamber just once to make sure it was seated right and not locked between turns. She hadn’t used many revolvers before, but her range instructor had told her what to do once and she never ignored expert advice. The revolver was a double action, unlike the cowboy revolvers of old, so did not need cocking each time. Cocking the hammer lessened the trigger pull, so made for a sensitive first shot. She preferred all her shots to have the same feel, so as far as using the weapon was concerned it was not only ready to fire but also safe to carry.
“Where the hell did this guy get a military weapon from, anyway?”
King checked the mirror again and said, “If he had an Alaskan driver’s licence, then just about any gun shop. Only in most cases civilian AR-15s are better than military issue M4s, especially after the mods and parts upgrades,” King paused. “Okay, I’m not waiting for him to make the first move. I’m going to stand on the brakes, hit reverse and take out his radiator. When I stop the car, you go to the right, I’ll go to the left and we open fire.”
“And just hope it’s him, and not some poor bugger in a similar car…”
“It’s him,” King said. He was convinced of it. Especially when he saw the driver manoeuvring an assault rifle into a better position. That kind of confirmed it for him. “Now!” screamed King.
He slammed on the brakes enough for the SUV to lurch, then judder to a halt. He selected reverse and stamped on the accelerator, but the man was quick to react and as King raced backwards, the man swerved and passed them on the left. King had yet to get to the shotgun on the back seat, and Caroline aimed in front of King and fired as the man tried to aim the AR-15 with just his right hand. The pistol discharged and King shouted in both pain and surprise as his ear took the brunt of the noise and the muzzle flash scorched the side of his face. Silence engulfed him, only the ringing of his ears was audible. The man returned fire with the assault rifle, but King only heard muted pops of gunfire, no louder than somebody clapping. He was deaf, there was no sense in speaking or shouting commands to Caroline, because he would never hear the answers, or even his own voice.
The man’s SUV had slowed, and King heard the second magnum blast at about five percent volume as Caroline fired through their own windscreen at the moving vehicle. King swung his door wide open, stepped out and opened the rear door, leaving both doors open for cover as he picked up the shotgun. He fired and pumped until all five rounds had peppered the vehicle, then he tossed it back into the car and picked up the other shotgun. The vehicle lurched into the middle of the road, turning broadside.
“We’re in it now!” King shouted. He could barely hear his own voice, let alone knew whether Caroline replied or not. “Get some cover and give him the beans!”
The man seemed to have the same idea and returned almost a full thirty round magazine at them, tearing up the bonnet of their vehicle and tracing holes across the windscreen. Caroline emptied the magnum, ducked down and started to reload. King fired three shells at the vehicle, then darted across the road to create a wide arc of fire for the man to cover. It was almost impossible for him to do so, and once he had changed magazines, the man fired at Caroline, twisted over ninety degrees and searched for King. He could not find him, and while he was searching through his sights, Caroline fired single, steady shots at him and forced him to return fire. She ducked in time and heard King open-up with five rounds of double-oh-buck – each shell containing nine 8mm lead balls. The car was peppered with holes, each ball punching clean through the panels, but not penetrating much further.
King had reloaded the weapon as he went, simply feeding the shells into the underside of the weapon via a spring-loaded metal flap. He saw Caroline exchange gunfire and take cover, and he dropped onto his belly and fired from beside a bush on the side of the road. The man did not have the luxury of time to search for a target and as soon as he fired aimlessly towards King’s gunfire, Caroline started up again. King only had half a dozen rounds left in his pocket and three in the shotgun. He knew that Caroline would be running low – no more than another six after she used up what was in the pistol. He rolled onto his side and scrambled along the verge, slotting cartridges into the underside of the weapon as he went. He was now just a few metres from the vehicle, and he knelt into a tight stance and fired at the road underneath the vehicle. The change in tactics startled the man, who felt the lead far too near him for comfort. He moved to his left and fired at King, but Caroline gave him no comfort, sending three rounds into the side of the car just inches from his shoulder. He returned fire, but almost caught a blast from King from just a few paces away. The man held the weapon above his head with just one hand and fired successive shots at King as he made his way back to the driver’s seat. He had the vehicle in gear and powering down the road as King broke cover and fired the remainder of his shells at the rear of the vehicle. Caroline followed suit and sparks could be seen on the boot and rear pillars of the vehicle as it headed towards the bend and out of sight.
“Shit…” Caroline said quietly. “That was intense…”
“Yep.” King checked his pockets, but he did not have a single shell left and the shotgun was empty. “Ammo?”
“None,” she replied. She turned to the car, which was steaming and leaking different coloured fluids. “That’s shot. Pardon the pun…”
“That’s not good,” he said. “Let’s salvage what we can from the car and get the hell out of here before he comes back.”
“Christ, you don’t think he will, do you?”
“There’s no telling,” he replied. He chose the lighter of the two shotguns and propped it beside the vehicle.
“Well, that’s no use if it’s empty,” she said.
“There’s always the possibility of threatening him with it. Or clubbing his head in if I get the chance.”
“Fair play,” she said, and slipped the revolver into her belt. She frowned, turned in the direction the man had escaped.
King took out his daysack, then stopped. “What?”
“Can you hear that?”
“I can barely hear a thing, thanks to your sharp-shooting.”
“I think he’s coming back!”
“Get off the road! Now!” King picked up the daysack and the shotgun and darted across the road to his left. Theoretically it was the Juneau side, and they would get back to town without touching the road. But without the vehicle and going cross-country could take days. Caroline followed, looking behind herself as she went. King tugged at her and they thundered through the brush and into the forest. She slowed, but King pulled her again. “Don’t hesitate, run!” He snapped. “If we wait to see what he does, he may see us, and we’re unarmed. We need distance and cover!”
“And silence,” she said. “You’re shouting.” She could see by his reaction, or lack of it, that he had not heard. “I said; you’re shouting,” she said loudly.
King nodded. “Just keep going!” he said urgently, but this time he wasn’t yelling.
“This is crazy,” he said. “It could have been anybody. It could have been somebody who could have given us a lift back to town.”
King nodded. His ears weren’t ringing anymore, but everything sounded muffled. “And it could have been him, and we’re not in a position to take on a determined adversary armed with an assault rifle, while all we have is two empty guns and a pocketknife.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
He had chosen the diner because of its location. Off the main drag, the sort of place locals used. Basic food, an inexpensive menu and plenty of vacant booths. He had ordered a coffee and watched the street.
Rashid was blown. He had a job to do, but no longer thought it important. King was his friend. The man had made a mistake, but it wasn’t the fact that he had that had been the problem, it was the fact that Rashid had seen it coming for so long. Sooner or later King was going to take a risk and somebody would pay. And she had. Marnie was the least likely of them to die in the line of duty. She was an analyst, a techie. She knew her way around codes and firewalls and malware. She could hack into systems and carry out deep searches using the dark web. She had written layer-peeling software to get ever deeper into the dark web, her own version of Onion, and she had been close to breaking some of the largest terrorism communication channels leading to recruitment and financing, that the world would have seen. Marnie was comfortable behind a desk, not working in the field. King should have known that she lacked the experience and situational awareness to do what he had asked her to do.
