Rebel Elite: Sam Driver #1, page 20
‘Stop or we’ll shoot,’ the police yelled in Italian, their weapons drawn.
It was clear Driver didn’t stand a chance. Midway along the cut-through, she came to a stop, only agonising yards from Tom.
‘Drop the weapon,’ a male officer said.
Driver looked down at her pistol. Damn it. She dropped the gun, but close to her feet.
‘Down on the ground,’ the officer commanded.
Driver hesitated, eyes locked on Tom.
‘Down on the ground!’
The police closed in around her. Driver dropped to her knees. She could still go for her gun. Take the officers down. Non-fatal shots. But what were the chances they’d roll over and take it? No, she’d have to kill them. Three men and one woman, doing their jobs.
Yet, there was Tom. And the billions of lives at stake. It had to be done.
Driver eyed her weapon. But a police boot kicked the gun out of reach. A strong hand on her shoulder pushed her down. She could disarm the officer and turn the weapon on him. But in the end, she was an ex-field agent. Not a terrorist, nor an assassin. There had to be a line.
Driver put her hands behind her head. She watched as Tom staggered towards the main street behind the churches. She screamed in frustration as a cuff snapped onto her wrist.
29
The Rome police ordered Driver not to move. The arresting officer forced her free arm behind her back. Yet hearing rolling rubber over stone, she turned to see a flash of turtle blue as Pope sped into view.
‘Look out, mate!’ he yelled as he careered into the gathered police.
Driver commando-rolled out of the way. Pope flew over the handlebars, one officer knocked for six and another caught under the weight of the big Australian.
While the bike lay with its wheels still spinning, Driver scrambled for her lost pistol. A male officer told her to freeze, his female colleague moving in to continue the arrest.
‘Sorry about that,’ Pope said, getting up, ‘hard to see in these sunnies.’ He pulled one of the floored officers to his feet and delivered an ‘accidental’ headbutt to the bridge of the man’s nose. ‘Aw no, sorry again, mate.’
As another officer pulled his weapon, Pope elbow-smashed him on the turn. ‘Shit, my coordination’s all fucked. Must be the shock.’
Driver took her chance and knocked the weapon from the squat female officer’s hand. The woman pulled a can of mace from her belt, but Driver punched her in the kidney under her stab vest. The officer lost her grip on the mace and sank to her knees. Driver chopped her on the back of her neck, enough to knock the woman senseless.
When she looked up, Pope had a foot on the chest of the remaining officer, relieving him of his weapon. ‘Go get the prick,’ he said.
Driver turned and sprinted, scooping up her pistol on the run. Her hard-soled work shoes echoed off the walls as she bore down on a woozy Tom. He stumbled towards the street, busy with traffic. She had to intercept him before he got there.
But out on the main street, a small girl no more than four pulled free of her mother’s hand. With jet-black hair up in pigtails, a powder-blue school dress and white socks up to the knees, she ran towards the action, giddy and gleeful as a springtime lamb.
‘Ma-ma, ma-ma!’ she cried. ‘Look at all the police!’
No, Driver thought. No, no, no.
Tom snatched the girl off her feet and held her close to his chest. Swaying on the spot, he held the Glock to her temple.
Driver came to a dead stop in front of him.
Meanwhile, the girl’s mother screamed and pleaded for him to release her daughter.
The colour drained from the girl’s cheeks. ‘Mama?’ she whimpered.
Driver trained her weapon on Tom and softened her voice. ‘Put the girl down.’
‘Put the gun down first,’ Tom replied, backing up towards the main street.
She advanced one slow step at a time, unable to get a clear shot. The girl was frightened stiff enough not to dare move, yet still, Driver couldn’t guarantee a clean kill.
In truth, she had no intention of killing Tom. So she blocked out the babble over the comms and the screaming, pleading mother, trying to think of alternatives.
A kneecap shot might do it. She could make the shot – but Tom might react and pull the trigger on the girl. Was he capable? Driver couldn’t take the chance.
‘Put the girl down and we can talk this out,’ she said, inching forward.
‘I told you to… ditch… the weapon,’ Tom replied, slurring his words.
‘This isn’t you,’ Driver continued. ‘I know you.’
Tom cracked a lopsided smile. ‘You don’t have the faintest idea.’
Driver hurried herself towards a decision. It was now or never. She had to take a shot.
But a silver van skidded to a stop on the street, only yards behind Tom. The rear door rolled open and an athletic man and woman in dark clothing jumped out, weapons at the ready.
Tom back-pedalled towards them, noticing their weapons drawn. ‘Don’t engage, just get me out of here,’ he snapped, throwing his young hostage into the street.
He fell into the arms of his people as the girl rolled off the kerb. The girl picked herself up, but seemed to lose her bearings, wandering into the path of traffic.
‘Lucia!’ the mother screamed as the kid burst into tears.
A red Mini swerved clear of the girl at the last, but a white box truck came the other way – horn blasting, tyres squealing and nowhere near stopping.
Driver was already on the move. She scooped up the girl and dove forward, twisting in mid-air, The truck skidded past, an inch from killing them both.
Flat on her back with the girl in her arms, Driver raised her head off the road and saw the silver backup van speeding away. Tom was inside, alive and free.
She handed the child to the distraught mother and heard police car sirens closing in.
‘I need an exit,’ Driver said, getting to her feet.
‘Three o’clock,’ Baptiste replied in her ear.
She turned to her left and saw the ambulance coming her way with Baptiste and Rios sat up front. The vehicle slowed, but kept on rolling with the rear doors open. Wells hung out of the back, a hand outstretched. Driver telegraphed the move and broke fast into a run. Wells grabbed her hand and lifted her clean off her feet into the back of the ambulance.
‘Where’s Pope?’ she asked.
‘Dunno,’ Wells shrugged, about to close the doors.
‘Wait for me, you scumbags,’ came the breathless plea over the comms.
Pope shot into view, catching airtime off the kerb. He hit the road and pedalled hard to make up the ground. With piston-like calves pumped for all they were worth, Pope made up the ground in seconds and caught hold of a grab handle inside the doorway. He pushed off the frame and booted the mountain bike to one side. As Pope hung off the back of the ambulance, Wells hauled him in by the waist, the bike tumbling away down the street.
The Brit slammed the closed the doors. ‘Hit it.’
Rios punched a button on the dash. The siren kicked in and Baptiste quick-changed through the gears, accelerating clear of the scene. The ambulance swerved left and right as Baptiste carved through heavy Roman traffic. Driver punched the side of the ambulance in anger and flopped onto the gurney, her mind spinning fast like a top. She bounced right up again, realising there was a body on the bed, with Lim in attendance, feeling the man’s pulse.
‘Who the hell’s this?’ Driver asked.
‘Merlin’s chauffeur,’ Lim said, examining the groaning man’s injuries. ‘Wounded, but coming round.’
‘Can someone please update me on what in shit’s shithole is going on?’ Gilmore shouted in Driver’s ear. ‘After all, I’m only your fucking chief of ops.’
‘Merlin got away,’ she replied.
‘Fuck!’ Gilmore yelled. ‘McNeil… What the hell, Sam?’
‘It’s not all bad,’ Driver said, changing the subject. ‘We’ve got one of Merlin’s guys.’
‘Dead or alive?’ Gilmore asked.
‘Alive, for now,’ she confirmed.
‘Get what you can,’ Gilmore ordered. ‘Then dump him.’
As Driver worked on refocusing her mind, Wells felt the lump on his head and Pope tugged at the crotch of his cycling gear.
‘Strewth, I’m sweating,’ he said. ‘Is anyone else sweating?’
30
As the ambulance swerved around traffic, Driver steadied herself and joined Lim in looking over the captured man. Wearing a white shirt soaked through with blood, he came to his senses, eyes roaming his surroundings.
‘Hi,’ Driver said. ‘I think we need to have a chat.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t,’ the man coughed, blood bubbling up out of the bullet wound in his neck.
Driver accepted a syringe from Lim. ‘I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,’ she said, pulling the cap off with her teeth and spitting it out.
The man was lucid now. An eye on the needle. He gurned as if contorting in pain, his tongue rolling around the back of his teeth.
‘Move,’ Wells said, barging Driver and Lim out of the way. He prised the man’s jaw open and forced in a hand as the man bit down. Wells grimaced and removed his hand, a bite mark deep in the skin. He held a small white pill between thumb and forefinger.
Driver didn’t need Wells to explain, yet he did anyway. ‘Cyanide,’ he said, dropping the capsule to the floor.
Wells crushed it under his boot. Like the others, Driver held her breath while the gas from the pill escaped, Pope opening a rear door an inch as the cyanide dispersed.
‘What kind of merc chews on a suicide pill?’ Rios asked, over Driver’s shoulder.
‘No kind of merc,’ Pope said, jostling for a better look.
Driver found a vein in the man’s wrist and inserted the syringe. Serik’s capture had come before Gilmore could source the serum. And she felt relieved she didn’t have to resort to a cigarette in the eye.
Within seconds, his expression changed to that of a dreamy, glazed look.
‘What’s your name?’ Driver asked, retrieving the order pad and pen from her apron pocket.
‘Trent… Trent Fuller.’
‘Where were you born, Trent Fuller?’
‘Michigan.’
Driver scribbled down Fuller’s answers. ‘Who do you work for?’
‘Tom McNeil.’
‘And who else?’ Lim asked.
Fuller seemed confused. ‘Huh?’
‘Who does McNeil work for?’ Driver clarified, Fuller on the verge of unconsciousness. As Lim slapped him awake, she repeated the question.
‘McNeil works for McNeil,’ Fuller slurred. ‘The rest I don’t remember.’
Lim dug a thumb in his neck wound. ‘Let me focus your mind.’
Fuller cried out and bucked against the gurney restraints. ‘Middleman,’ he murmured, eyes halfway to closing.
‘Middleman? Who’s the middleman?’ Driver asked.
Fuller’s head lolled to one side and the other. ‘We’re all middlemen.’
‘He’s delirious,’ Wells said. ‘He’s lost too much blood.’
‘Or he’s lying,’ Pope said.
Driver turned in his direction. ‘On amobarbital?’
The Australian seemed confused.
‘It’s a truth drug,’ Lim explained.
‘I knew that,’ Pope huffed, backing out of the conversation.
Lim slapped the man once more. ‘What are you doing in Rome?’
‘Something,’ he said.
‘Something big or something small?’ Driver asked.
‘Something big, I dunno.’
‘When?’ Lim asked, working her thumb in Fuller’s wound.
‘Soon. Tomorrow. The day after, maybe.’
‘Be more specific,’ Driver said.
‘I fly home in a coupla days,’ Fuller continued. ‘McNeil doesn’t say. And I don’t ask.’
Wells stepped forward. ‘You don’t ask what the mission is?’
‘That’s the deal,’ Fuller replied. ‘You don’t like it, you don’t get the gig.’
‘Where can we find McNeil?’ Driver asked. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘I don’t know, lady. None of the guys do.’
‘You must know something,’ Wells said. ‘Who hired you in the first place? An employer, organisation, operation… Give us a name.’
Fuller coughed up a mouthful of blood. ‘Vesuvius.’
Driver held an ear to his mouth. ‘What was that?’
‘Vesuvius…’ Fuller slipped away, eyes frozen open, blood and drool seeping out of his cold blue lips.
Driver tossed the pad aside. ‘Fuck!’
‘Did you get something?’ Gilmore asked.
‘We got jack,’ Driver replied, seething with frustration. Every time they seemed to be getting somewhere… wham. Another brick wall.
But Lim had a hand inside Fuller’s jacket. ‘Wait a second,’ she said, pulling his phone from his pocket. ‘We’ve got this.’
31
The ambulance burned with Fuller’s body inside. A black Volkswagen minivan drove away from the wasteland on the outskirts of Rome. It cruised through a suburban district, where narrow apartment blocks rubbed shoulders among congested streets lined with city cars, cafés, shops and a rainbow of Vespas.
The heavyset Italian behind the wheel was with the UN. He wore a red and black check shirt with a holstered firearm on his belt. Contractor or peacekeeper, Driver couldn’t say. But like the men in the Libyan safe house, they had their instructions. Don’t question. Don’t comment. Just do. Not that the man seemed like the questioning kind, his eyes fixed solely on the road.
Driver rode in silence in the back, staring into space through the window. It had been a draining day. High-intensity missions always ended this way, whether successful or not. It was the post-mission comedown. Adrenalin was like a sugar rush. It picked you up and dropped you off a ten-storey building. From flying missions in the US Navy, to going after high-value CIA targets, Driver was well versed in the comedown. You spent hours, days, weeks, even months and years planning for an operation. Then in an instant, it was over. All that remained was the void – until the start of the next mission.
Yet nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Tom. Driver still had so many questions, perhaps her biggest fear being that he would be in the wind, and she wouldn’t get the answers she so desperately craved.
For now, Driver was tired enough to let go for a moment. In the back of the Volkswagen, the others seemed to be feeling it too. Even Pope had gone quiet. Or rather, gone to sleep. He let out a gentle, steady snore, his head resting on the back of the seat, stinking the van out with a potent assault of stale body odour. The rest of the team sat in silence like Driver, except for Rios, who favoured the isolation of music through her earphones.
The ride was smooth but slow through the cramped, humid confines of the city. The radio chattered low with talk of impending war. All sides were issuing warnings, with breaking news of Driver’s own country moving to DEFCON 2, its highest state of readiness prior to war. Quite whether she regarded the US as ‘her country’ anymore was up for debate. Yes, Driver knew when she signed up for clandestine CIA operations that disavowal was a possibility. But no one ever thought it would happen to them. Somehow, Driver never expected her government would be quite so quick to abandon her.
Meanwhile, in further news, rumours abounded of a next-gen Russian sub positioned off the East Coast of the USA, to which the British had responded by deploying two of its own Trident submarines.
According to the radio, business was booming for defence contractors. The French were thought to be placing huge orders for jets, tanks and combat equipment. There was also talk of the US Air Force flying weaponised Predators out of Sardinia. This all left the Italians calling emergency meetings of their own. And Romans asking themselves a barrage of questions; from which country was at fault and whose side they were on, to what their own government should do, whether conscription would come into force and what one should wear during an ongoing apocalypse.
‘With around sixteen thousand nuclear missiles in the world and close to two thousand on high alert, the prognosis is grave and the window for a peaceful resolution shrinking by the hour.’ So said the military analyst the radio anchor had welcomed onto the show. Driver rested her head against the neck restraint.
With her body relaxing, she returned to her own litany of questions. There were so many emotions, she didn’t know which to focus on first. The sheer shock that Tom was alive? Relief he wasn’t dead? The sense of rejection? The feeling of betrayal, that everything she thought they had was a lie? Confusion as to why the man she loved could do such a thing? Or anger at herself, that she’d wasted so much energy mourning his loss over the past two years.
Driver looked at the still-healing wounds from her failed suicide attempt. Laughter burst out of her like untapped oil from a well. It shocked Pope awake. Baptiste raised an eyebrow. Rios turned in her seat, but went back to her music.
Driver settled down, too. It was the brain’s natural response to confusion. An overabundance of conflicting stimuli.
Lim removed her sunglasses and held Driver’s eye. ‘Are you going to tell us how you know McNeil?’
Driver shrugged. ‘An old colleague, that’s all.’
‘CIA?’ Lim asked.
Driver shook her head, acting casual. ‘We worked together on a few missions.’
Wells turned in the front passenger seat. ‘Did I miss something back there?’
‘You mean while you were taking a nap?’ Driver asked.
Wells touched the bump on his head. ‘Ha ha. Seriously, something happen I should know about?’
