Viper Nine Read online

  If Pope didn’t know better, he’d say he was unpopular.

  ‘Yeah, you’re bloody welcome,’ he grumbled, turning to see the mess they’d left him with. The vans were gone and so was the SUV. Not only was he out of the chase, he was stuck in the arse-end of nowhere with a carpet of bodies.

  It wouldn’t be long until some kind of armed response. There had to have been a distress call of some kind put out.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ Pope continued, dropping the RPG launcher. He trudged back towards the storehouse, wondering if there was a jeep or a military police car he could steal and at least make the flight home.

  Or where they going to leave him stranded in Belgium too?

  He wouldn’t put it past the bastards, even if he could understand the importance of staying on Viper Nine’s trail.

  Sure, the future of the modern world was at stake. But if it meant leaving your mates up shit creek, what kind of world were they fighting for?

  As Pope surveyed the human casualties, he glanced to his right. Something caught his eye. He clapped his hands together and smiled. ‘You beauty.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘Who the hell are these guys?’ Wells asked, catching his breath in the backseat of the SUV. ‘Vesuvius?’

  ‘I was thinking the same,’ replied Baptiste, as he moved through the gears, overtaking two cars and a truck. ‘Any ideas what they were there for?’

  ‘I saw them loading something onto one of those vans,’ Driver said. ‘A box with a model number.’

  ‘You remember it?’ Baptiste asked.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Driver replied.

  ‘Run it by Anna,’ Wells said. ‘She might be able to track something down.’

  Driver turned to him with a smile. ‘Good idea.’

  Wells nodded, as if he wanted to engage with her, but wouldn’t allow himself to do it. What the hell was eating him?

  It was no time for a discussion. Her sole focus was stopping the two vans up ahead in the distance.

  Baptiste pulled into the inside of the two-lane highway cutting a long path back out through the surrounding forests.

  ‘There,’ Driver said, pointing out the first van as it appeared on the horizon.

  Both vehicles were moving fast. But the Russian had his foot to the floor, the speedometer reading 120 miles per hour.

  Driver glanced in the passenger mirror. Lim and Rios were close behind in the second SUV. Recalling the model number on the box, she typed it out in a text and hit send to Anna.

  Driver paired her phone with the Bluetooth system built into the car.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Anna responded, answering her call.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Driver. ‘You get my text?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got it. Searching now.’

  ‘Stay on the line,’ Driver replied, reloading her rifle with a clip snatched from the glovebox. She wound down her window on the passenger side of the SUV, Wells doing the same from the rear left of the car.

  ‘Okay, we’ve got matches for the number,’ Anna said, as they ate up the ground on the two vans. ‘It’s either a hairdryer, a spiralizer or a – oh crap…’

  * * *

  As the roads opened up and Graf steered the van towards civilisation, Kovac slipped into the rear alongside Jana. He crouched next to the large army-green box they’d lifted from the vault at the military base. It was built from titanium and carbon and insulated against impact and shock.

  Jana gave him the code, hacked from the onsite databanks. He punched it into the keypad on the box. The lid unlocked and as he opened it up, Kovac couldn’t help but stare in awe of the white, torpedo-shaped device.

  ‘I thought it would be bigger,’ Jana said, peering over his shoulder at the shell, adorned with the stars-and-stripe logo of the US military.

  ‘This is just the warhead,’ Kovac replied, running a hand over the cool metal of the B61 nuclear bomb. ‘What were you expecting, a cruise missile?’

  ‘I don’t know, it just seems a bit…’ Jana shrugged, unimpressed.

  Kovac shot her a withering look, her lack of knowledge indicative of the times they lived in. ‘This is a fourth generation thermonuclear device,’ he replied. ‘It carries three-hundred-and-forty kilotons of power.’

  Jana leaned away from the warhead, no longer so blasé.

  ‘Sir, we’ve got a problem,’ Graf said from behind the wheel of the van.

  ‘What is it?’ Kovac snapped.

  ‘The force we encountered at the base. They’re in pursuit.’

  Kovac hit Jana with an accusing stare. ‘I thought you locked the security gate.’

  ‘I did,’ she insisted. ‘They must have overridden it somehow.’

  Kovac punched the wall of the van. ‘This can’t be happening.’

  ‘You want me to engage?’ Graf asked.

  ‘Just the Beta Team,’ Kovac replied.

  ‘But there are two vehicles in pursuit,’ Graf replied, clearly itching to muscle in on the fight.

  Kovac glanced at the two men along for the ride in the rear of the van, their weapons at the ready. ‘With a B61 in the back? I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ He replaced the lid on the box and re-entered the code to lock it in place. As he made his way to the front of the van, one of his men pulled his rifle over his head and set it down on the box.

  Kovac paused and stared at the man, a mercenary called Viktor.

  The idiot shrugged in reply. ‘What?’

  Kovac growled through his teeth. ‘Mind the nuclear fuck-ing weapon.’

  * * *

  As they caught up to the rear of the two vans, Baptiste slowed the SUV to a steady eighty, weaving through light traffic.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Wells yelled.

  Driver heard him over comms rather than the rooftop of the SUV, as they both leaned out of their respective windows.

  ‘Stop the vans without blowing up Belgium,’ Driver shouted back.

  ‘Which van has the weapon in it?’ Wells asked.

  Driver paused. Damn, that was a good question. She glanced across the roof as Lim pulled alongside in the second SUV.

  Rios appeared out of the passenger window, jamming a fresh clip in her M4.

  As they got within range, the doors on the rear van flew open at the back. In a flash, Driver counted only two masked men and no sign of a warhead.

  The pair of masked invaders opened fire. Baptiste pulled left onto the hard shoulder, with Lim swerving in behind. As the Russian turned back onto the road, Driver returned fire.

  She couldn’t get a clean hit. And had to withdraw as the vans overtook a white saloon car pulling a caravan.

  Wells fired from the left side of the SUV, but only grazed one of the masked men in the arm. At this speed and with this much wind and movement, it was hard to score a clean kill.

  ‘Let me in,’ Rios said over comms.

  Driver ducked back inside the SUV and nodded at Baptiste. ‘Give Rios a shot.’

  Baptiste swerved onto the hard shoulder and dabbed the brakes. Lim moved into position ahead, the Latina firing three-round clusters from the front passenger window.

  ‘One down,’ she confirmed, as Baptiste stuck close to Lim’s tail.

  ‘Get us up ahead,’ Driver said. ‘We’ll work on the lead van.’

  ‘You mean the one with the nuclear weapon in it?’ Baptiste asked.

  Driver shrugged. The Russian pulled out from behind Lim and powered forward in the outside lane. They clawed the lead van in and drew up alongside without resistance.

  Doubtless the occupants were as wary of the warhead as they were. Yet Driver had no idea how they would actually stop them escaping.

  Ram them off the road? Shoot out one of the tyres? All scenarios were high-risk and her knowledge of WMDs was vague at best. Would it be stable enough to sustain a shunt?

  Technically-speaking, they didn’t detonate based on impact, but on a timed or triggered explosion. But it wasn’t a theory Driver was willing to test.
r />   Yet as they drew alongside the van, she saw a different opportunity. Snatching her phone from the dash, Driver tapped on the camera app. Both the big man behind the wheel and the front passenger had removed their ski masks.

  She lined up a shot and took a photo of the younger of the two, with his shock of white-blonde hair. As the passenger turned and scowled in her direction, she made eye contact and smiled. ‘Say cheese you piece of shit.’

  Driver took a photo. It was a good one. The man into his early fifties with a face hewn of jagged rock and eyes like burning coals. Call it a hunch. Call it years pursuing people just like him. But he had that look. And in that moment, Driver knew they’d found the leader of Viper Nine.

  Better still, they had a picture.

  * * *

  Kovac didn’t know what made him more furious. The fact that the mystery woman had a photograph of him, or that he’d allowed it to happen.

  They should have kept their masks on, both he and Graf the same. The Serb kicked himself for being so complacent. He didn’t tolerate it with his men, and it certainly wouldn’t be tolerated in himself. But the time for self-flagellation would come later. Now they had more pressing concerns. Like shaking their pursuers off their tail.

  He turned to the men in the rear of the van. ‘Permission to engage.’

  ‘But the weapon…’ Viktor said, with a nervous glance to the warhead.

  Kovac pulled a pistol from his hip and aimed it at Viktor. ‘Do your fucking job.’

  ‘Wait, I’m working on something,’ Jana said, hunched over her laptop.

  ‘Working on what?’ Kovac snarled.

  ‘I can make them go away,’ she continued. ‘just give me a few minutes.’

  A few minutes? They’d all be dead by then. Or captured. ‘You’ve got one,’ he replied, as Graf took evasive action around a truck plodding up the rising highway.

  Jana typed furiously on her keyboard. ‘Give me the registration number on one of those SUVs.’

  Kovac looked in the passenger mirror and read out the number plate on the SUV engaging the rear van.

  Jana rattled in the number. Kovac watched her eyes dart left and right across the screen as she clicked on the mousepad.

  Her dainty, pale fingers flew through another burst of code before hitting the enter button. Her youthful features lit up with mischief. Whatever her latest miracle, it was a success.

  ‘All right,’ she said to herself. ‘I have control.’

  ‘Control over what?’ Kovac asked.

  * * *

  Rios steadied herself as Lim swerved left and right behind the trailing van. Enemy fire whistled inches by, narrowly missing the SUV.

  A shot tore the black jacket-sleeve of her left arm. Nothing more than a gentle kiss, but enough to sting. ‘Son of a bitch,’ she snarled as Lim brought her back in to fire.

  Rios ignored the pain and narrowed an eye, tearing from the wind, behind her rifle sight. She let off a round. Scored a direct hit. The unlucky man fell from the rear of the van and bounced up off the tarmac.

  To her annoyance, a third man appeared. He pulled a door shut on the van as Rios fired. A round of bullets plugged the steel of the van door, but not the man behind it.

  Just give me one shot, Rios thought. One little peep around the corner. ‘Come on, baby. Come on, baby.’

  There.

  Rios pulled the trigger. The man’s head snapped back. Now they could go about clearing the second van out of the picture. Yet rather than accelerate, the SUV seemed to be slowing down.

  Rios slid back into the front passenger seat, catching her breath. ‘What are you doing? Speed up, speed up!’

  ‘I am,’ Lim replied, stomping on the pedal and wrestling with the steering. ‘Nothing’s responding.’

  Suddenly, the lights on the dash went dead, the engine cut and they were coasting to the side of the road, the high-speed pursuit leaving them for dust.

  An onrushing truck flashed its lights and blared its horn as it pulled into the outside lane around them.

  ‘Hold on,’ Lim said, powerless behind the wheel.

  Rios pulled her seatbelt fast across her chest. She clicked with a half-second to spare before the SUV nosedived into a ditch by the side of the carriageway.

  The ditch was steep. The SUV tipped and rolled onto its roof, sliding to a stop in the muddy grass, still wet from the earlier rain. Rios looked across at Lim, the pair of them suspended upside-down.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ she muttered as they detached their belts and fell into the roof of the car.

  ‘You’re asking me?’ Lim replied as they crawled out of Rios’ open window.

  With the chase disappearing over the horizon, the pair scrambled up the ditch to the side of the road.

  ‘What now?’ Rios asked. ‘Show some leg? Thumb a ride?

  ‘That might not be necessary,’ Lim replied, staring back along the road.

  Rios turned and watched a camouflage-green Humvee appear in the distance. It was moving fast and loud, heavy-duty tyres chewing up the tarmac.

  It pulled sharp to the side of the road and braked hard to a stop, engine chugging deep like a hard-breathing beast.

  Pope leaned out of the driver-side window. ‘Either of you lovely Sheilas need a lift?’

  Chapter 18

  Even by Jana’s high standards, this was impressive. As they escaped the confines of the forest and the road widened out into three lanes, Kovac checked in the passenger mirror.

  He watched as the trailing SUV slowed and crashed in the far distance.

  ‘One down, one to go,’ Kovac said. ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘Going as fast as I can,’ Jana replied, her face a picture of concentration.

  ‘You can go faster,’ Kovac insisted, as the remaining SUV dropped behind them.

  They were in a strange stand-off, neither side wanting to engage in the presence of the warhead. But the Serb couldn’t pass up such an opportunity.

  ‘Wind down your window,’ Kovac ordered Graf.

  His right-hand man obliged and the Serb raised his pistol, aiming for the woman who’d destroyed his Berlin cell and now had his image on her phone.

  As expected, the man behind the wheel took fast evasive action, falling back a safe distance behind the van.

  Kovac gave the command to Viktor, who wasn’t of a mind or constitution to argue.

  Opening one of the doors no more than a foot, Viktor aimed through the gap and shot at the chasing SUV, only to take a bullet to the head.

  Kovac cursed his luck. Whoever they were up against, they were good. No run­of­the­mill agents, that was for sure.

  Jurgen, Viktor’s fellow mercenary, took the fallen man’s place and repelled the pursuers. All he had to do was not die for the next couple of minutes.

  ‘Come on, Jana,’ Kovac said, the van speeding towards a suspension bridge over a yawning stretch of dark-blue water.

  ‘Almost got it,’ Jana replied. ‘Almost there.’

  * * *

  The Humvee was fast over the open road. Far quicker than the desert scrub and mine-infested highways Pope had driven one on before. Yet they were still catching slower than he would have liked. As he gripped the wheel of the stripped-down, combat-ready vehicle, the Australian continued to fume over the girls’ lack of apology.

  At first, he’d been glad to see them. And had to confess, had been more than happy to see them stood helpless by the side of the road. It was welcome proof they needed him. That they couldn’t cope without his presence on the team. But now the moment had faded, the sweet taste of victory was turning sour.

  ‘Can’t believe you ditched me like that,’ he grumbled to Rios and Lim, riding in the front alongside him.

  ‘We’re in a high-speed chase and you’re bringing this up now?’ Lim asked, wedged up next to him.

  ‘First Rome, now here,’ Pope continued, unable to let it go. ‘I’m starting to think you don’t like me.’

  ‘What gave you that
impression?’ Lim replied, drier than a dead dingo’s donger.

  ‘Quit bitching,’ Rios snapped. ‘Get us back in the chase.’

  ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a bad passenger?’ Pope asked the young Latina.

  ‘It’s only ’cause no one lets me drive,’ Rios complained, drawing a 9mm Glock from her holster.

  * * *

  The fact they were being fired on said it all to Driver. Viper Nine’s desperation to escape was increasing. That made the chase all the more dangerous, and the need for accuracy all the more important considering the payload on-board the van.

  The first man went down easy. The stars aligning in her sights and the man falling away into the rear of the van. Yet his replacement was stubborn, dug in like a tick in the narrow gap between the van doors. The only sight of him was the bright flash of his assault rifle as he replied with interest.

  Emptying another clip, Driver dropped inside the SUV and let Wells take over.

  She glanced over a shoulder to find the second SUV was gone. ‘What happened to Rios and Lim?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear over comms?’ Baptiste replied.

  ‘Can’t hear shit out there,’ Driver complained, dumping the spent rifle on the backseat.

  ‘Problem with the car,’ Baptiste continued. ‘The engine went dead.’

  Driver pulled a backup pistol from the glovebox and checked the chamber. ‘Of all the times.’ She pointed towards the far end of the bridge. ‘What about getting ahead of them? Cut them off on the other side.’

  ‘And then what?’ Baptiste asked.

  ‘We’ve got to do something.’

  ‘What if I can get in front and slow them down,’ Baptiste continued, as they arced around a sweeping bend on the approach to the bridge.

  ‘Enough for me to take a shot?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘A slow-speed crash at most.’

  Driver visualised the scene in her mind. Baptiste forcing the van to a steady thirty. A well-aimed kill-shot to the temple of the man behind the wheel. The van bumping into the barrier and rolling to a stop. ‘Could work,’ Driver said, only allowing the best-case scenario to occupy space in her head. ‘Okay,’ she confirmed. ‘Let’s do it.’