Burning fragments rained down on Chase. He weathered the pain, waiting until the heat of the fireball had faded before opening his eyes … to see a fat tire bounding along the trail after him, engulfed in flames.
“Shit!” he gasped, rolling aside just as the blazing wheel careered past and bounced off the partition wall, spinning back at him. He yelped and hurled himself onto the burning mattress as the flaming tire flew over his head into the desert night.
Rubbing frantically at his arms where hairs had caught light, Chase leapt through the hole in the wall, running past Sophia to the kitchen area. “Ow, ow, fuck! Water, I need water!” He reached the sink and turned on both taps, splashing water over himself.
Nina looked back. “Eddie, are you okay? What happened?”
“Wheel,” he gasped. “On fire.”
“Was it rolling down the road?” Sophia asked.
Chase gave her a less-than-amused glare, shaking off the water. His forearms were covered with mottled red blotches, but none of the burns seemed serious. “Got the guy behind you.”
“There’s another one in front,” Nina told him.
“Yeah, I know.” He turned, his gaze darting over the debris strewn over the floor. “I had a gun …”
“This gun?” asked Sophia. Chase froze as he saw the automatic in her cuffed hands, aimed at his chest. She looked him in the eye, smiled slightly … then flipped it around and held it out to him.
He snatched it from her. “You’re welcome,” she said sarcastically. “I just wanted to prove that you can trust me.”
“I wouldn’t trust you any more than I could cough up a dog.”
She sniffed. “Charming as ever, I see.”
He ignored her, quickly checking how many bullets remained in the magazine before joining Nina. “How far ahead is he?”
She pointed down the track. The last quad bike had now gained a lead of over a hundred yards, a dust trail glowing like a nebula in its rear lights.
Chase checked the speedometer. For all the noise coming from the RV’s transmission, it was barely managing thirty miles an hour over the rough terrain. The rider would have just enough time to slam his ATV to a stop, take aim at the driver, and fire before the Winnebago reached him …
“Keep driving,” he told Nina, hunching down in the passenger-side footwell. “The moment he stops, tell me.”
“What’re you going to do?”
He waggled the gun. “What do you think? Just don’t slow down.”
Sophia returned to the couch, bracing herself. “Can I remind you both that we’re still on fire?”
“Feel free to bail out whenever you like,” Nina shot back. The quad bike was still pulling away, but now drifting over to one side of the trail …
Brake lights flared.
“He’s stopping, he’s stopping!” she yelled.
“Drive straight at him!” Chase ordered.
Nina pushed the accelerator down harder, each bump pounding the wallowing RV. The quad bike slewed to a stop, its rider swinging his rifle from his back. “Eddie, he’s got a gun—”
“I know! Keep going!”
The rifle rose …
Chase sprang up and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger, shattering the rest of windshield. Bullets kicked up dirt around the Kawasaki, the Winnebago juddering too much for him to get a proper fix—but that wasn’t why he was shooting.
It was to distract the other man, forcing him to switch to a more dangerous target.
Chase.
Click. Empty magazine.
The rider changed his aim—
Chase dived to the floor as a burst of rifle fire ripped through the passenger sear. “Hit him!” he roared.
The gunman saw that he’d missed, switched back to his original target—and realized that she was driving the massive RV right at him.
Nina cringed in her seat, shutting her eyes—
The gunman hurled himself aside as the Winnebago’s flat nose slammed into the quad bike like an express train, smashing it apart. There was a jolt as the front wheel ran over something, followed a moment later by another as the rear wheel did the same.
“Oh God, oh my God!” Nina shrieked, flapping her hands in near panic. “I ran him over!”
“No, he got out of the way,” said Sophia, looking back. “Although I don’t know why you care. He was trying to kill you.”
“Maybe because I’m not a psycho?” Nina took the wheel again and checked the mirrors. More lights, some distance behind—but closing. Full-size 4×4s racing after them. “Eddie! How much farther to our jeep?”
Chase looked ahead. “Not far.” He jumped up. “Nina, let me drive!”
“What’re you doing?” she asked as they traded places.
“I’m gonna find out if you can drift a Winnebago!” The ground ahead was littered with large rocks, the track dropping into the gully. “Hang on!”
Chase kept his foot down hard on the accelerator as the Winnebago reached the gulch—then sharply raised it. The RV’s front end dipped heavily with the sudden loss of power … as he turned hard and yanked on the hand brake.
With a shuddering crunch of gravel and sand beneath the tires, the Winnebago skidded around in a hand brake turn, moving practically sideways as he dropped into the gully. The burning RV’s rear end clipped the steep wall. It stopped abruptly, almost throwing Chase and Nina from their seats. Chase looked up to see the other wall of the gulch barely a foot beyond the windshield. “All right!” he crowed. “Thank you, action movies!”
He kicked open the driver’s door, waving for Nina and Sophia to follow. “Okay, so you’re fast and furious,” said Nina, confused, as they ran through the gulch. “But how does that help us?”
“’Cause that thing’s going to blow up—”
There was a bright orange flash and a loud whump of igniting fuel, followed a second later by a much more violent explosion as the Winnebago’s propane tanks detonated, knocking them to the ground.
“Any second,” Chase finished. Behind them, the huge RV was engulfed in flames, completely blocking the gully. “They’ll have a job getting through that—and they’ll have to go a long way round to get past those rocks.”
“Where’s your truck?” Sophia asked.
“Just up here.” The Land Rover was parked off one side of the track. They ran to it and piled in, Chase quickly swinging the 4×4 around to race back toward the distant highway. He checked the mirror. The pursuing vehicles had indeed been stymied by the blazing hulk of the Winnebago, and it would take several minutes for them to skirt the field of boulders. “Don’t think they’ll catch up.”
Sophia held up her cuffed hands. “In that case, perhaps you could take these off?”
Nina toyed with the key. “Once we’re out of here. And once we find out what the hell’s going on.”
“I’ll tell you everything I know. When we’re safe.”
“How often does that happen?” said Chase, driving the Land Rover off into the night.
Zamal’s seething rage came to a boil as he limped back to the camp, his jaw aching from Chase’s punch. He had been opposed to bringing Sophia Blackwood along from the very beginning, but to his disgust Vogler and Hammerstein had caved in to Ribbsley’s lust-driven demand, arguing that without him they would be unable to take advantage of the chart Nina Wilde had discovered.
Pathetic! Considering how much money Ribbsley had taken from the Covenant over the years he had been translating Veteres texts for them, he should have been grateful not to have been dragged from his Cambridge home and forced to do the work at gunpoint.
And now the decision had backfired horribly: Blackwood had escaped. With Nina Wilde!
Zamal blamed Vogler; he might not have always agreed with his predecessor, Jonas di Bonaventura, but he respected the man—and knew he would not have given in to Ribbsley. The protégé did not match up to his mentor.
He reached the encampment and found the others waiting for him. “I don’t care w
hat deals you made,” he snarled at Ribbsley. “When I catch your woman, I’ll kill her.”
“She’s got to be found,” said Callum. “If anyone realizes she’s still alive—”
“Blackwood is your problem,” said Vogler dismissively. “Not ours. Dr. Wilde is our biggest threat. We can assume she saw the inscription.”
“Then we have to eliminate her before she translates it.” Hammerstein shot Vogler a cold look. “If those pirates you hired had actually done their job and killed everyone on the Pianosa—”
“Blaming each other isn’t helping us find them,” said Callum, stepping into the center of the group. “We need to get organized, right now—”
Zamal grabbed him by the collar. “Do not tell us what to do, American,” he snarled before pushing him back. “You are only here because we allow you to be. Do not forget who is in charge.” Callum said nothing, regarding him with an expressionless gaze.
“He’s right, though,” said Vogler. “We have to find them. And we’ll have to destroy this site, tonight. Professor, have you got all the information you need from the chamber?” Ribbsley nodded. “Good. Then keep working on it. And Professor …” An almost apologetic look. “I’m afraid that Ms. Blackwood is now a threat to the Covenant. She can’t be trusted.”
“I’m glad we agree on something,” Zamal hissed. The three Covenant leaders walked away, Callum following.
Ribbsley remained still, however, looking down at the object in his hands—the briefcase. “Oh, I wouldn’t say she can’t be trusted,” he said to himself with a hint of a smile, opening it. Inside was his laptop.
Containing all his research.
Sophia had known full well what was in the case—and had deliberately kept it from Nina and Chase. The smile became a full one. “I wouldn’t say that at all …”
SEVENTEEN
So,” said Nina to Sophia, “what’s your story?”
“Yeah,” Chase added. “And what the hell did you do to your hair?”
After reaching the highway, they had driven toward Perth for some distance before turning off the main road and back toward the coast. It was a slower, less direct route south but also one with—they hoped—less chance of anyone looking for them.
Now, not long after sunrise, they were the morning’s first patrons of a small truck-stop diner. The only other person in the ramshackle building was the middle-aged waitress, who, after serving coffee to the new arrivals, retreated behind the counter to read a romance novel to the scratchy accompaniment of an old jukebox in one corner.
“Not my idea, I can assure you,” Sophia said, running her hands through her spiky hair. Both handcuff bracelets were now fastened around one wrist so as not to attract attention. “Blond really isn’t my color. Though it could have been worse.” She glanced at Nina’s red hair. “But Callum insisted, on the off chance that some random outback passerby might see my real hair and go, ‘Wait a minute, that’s the sheila who tried to blow up New York! I thought she was dead!’”
“But, unfortunately, you’re not,” said Nina.
“Ooh, your repartee cuts like paper,” Sophia sneered, giving Nina a disdainful look—then spotting her engagement ring. For a moment she seemed both shocked and angry before her contemptuous mask came back down. “Please don’t tell me you’re getting married.”
“We’re getting married,” Nina told her with an icy smile.
“We did think about inviting you,” Chase added, “but then you died.”
“Speaking of which,” said Nina, “how about you tell us why the Covenant arranged for you to be snuck out of Guantánamo.”
Sophia sat back. “Part of that comes down to why I was put in there in the first place.”
“Because you’d’ve been killed before you ever got to trial in a regular prison,” said Chase.
She sniffed. “Hardly. Do you really think anybody would have cared if Large Marge had shanked me in the shower? That way, they would have avoided an incredibly long, costly, and complex trial that would have exposed America’s border security as a hopeless pork-barrel shambles. After all, despite all the billions of dollars they’ve spent on Homeland Security, the only thing that stopped a nuclear explosion was a balding Yorkshireman sticking his hand in the mechanism.” She glanced at Chase’s left forearm and the long X-shaped scar running along it.
“And it still hurts,” Chase rumbled.
Nina made a disgusted sound. “I can’t believe this. You tried to be the biggest mass murderer in history, but you’re talking about it like … like it was nothing.”
Sophia shrugged. “What do you want me to do, cackle maniacally and proclaim that the world has not seen the last of Sophia Blackwood? I had a plan. It failed. I was caught. By you. Obviously I was … rather angry about that at the time.” She gave them a dark look that made it clear embers of resentment still burned within her. “But that was then—and there are other people I’ve had more reason to be angry at since. Specifically … Victor Dalton.”
“The president?” asked Nina, puzzled. “Why him?”
“He put me in Guantánamo—even though I’d already been kept in a regular high-security prison for months. Hardly the nicest surroundings … but it was like a stay at the Dorchester compared to Camp 7. And it was practically the first thing he did after his inauguration. Do you know why?”
“He thought you needed to work on your tan?” Chase suggested.
“Ah, that rapier wit. So there is something you and Nina have in common,” said Sophia. “No, Eddie. The reason he sent me to Guantánamo is that I was a threat to him. I could destroy his presidency, just like that.”
Nina eyed her dubiously. “Oh, yeah? How?”
“Do you remember the night we first met?”
“Sure. René Corvus’s yacht.”
“Yes. I was with Richard Yuen. And Victor—Senator Dalton, as he was at the time—was there as well.”
Nina nodded, remembering the evening. “Yeah. And?”
“And later that evening, he and I had a … private meeting in one of the cabins.”
Chase choked on his coffee. “You shagged the president?” he blurted. The waitress glanced up from her book.
“Eddie!” Nina cried, batting his arm.
“Eloquently put, as ever,” Sophia said. “But yes, I did.”
Chase shook his head. “Bloody hell. And you did it with your ex-husband, current husband, and future husband all on the boat at the same time. Just can’t get enough, can you?”
“Oh, Richard knew about it. And so did René. They just didn’t know about each other knowing.”
Nina’s head was spinning. “Why? Why did you do it?”
“Business, of course. He hadn’t won the party’s nomination yet, but he was by far the leader in the polls. So both Richard and René thought—once I put the idea into their heads—that having a little, ah, influence over the next president of the United States would be very useful.”
“You recorded it,” Chase realized. “You hid a camera somewhere and taped the whole thing.” He made a face. “That’s really, really … gross. I mean, I’ve met the man. He’s not exactly George Clooney.”
Sophia smirked. “It’s funny, Eddie—a lot of my friends said exactly the same thing when I married you.”
Nina shook her head. “No, this is insane. There is no way that you enticed Victor Dalton into bed and recorded the whole thing. He had the Secret Service with him, for God’s sake!”
“The Secret Service doesn’t just protect the presidential candidates,” said Sophia. “It protects their secrets. Why do you think it’s called that? All men of power have their lusts, their addictions, their perversions—they come with the kind of personality that craves power in the first place.”
“Perfect match for you, then,” said Chase.
“Can we stop talking about—about lusty addicted perverts?” Nina demanded. “So you made a recording. Then what?”
“Then I kept it very close to me,” Sophia cont
inued. “Do you remember in Shanghai, Eddie, that I took us to Richard’s office to open his safe?”
“He had your passport in there,” Chase recalled.
“Yes, but I could have got it at any time. I really went to pick up a memory stick with a list of all Richard’s less-than-legal campaign contributions, not just to Dalton but to several other politicians as well—and also the digital recording. I had it with me in New York and Botswana, and then when I went to Switzerland with Richard I put it in a safe-deposit box.”
“And it’s still there, I bet,” said Nina.
“Yes. Which is why Dalton wanted me as far out of sight as possible. If I were in the normal system, I’d have visitation rights, access to counsel, lawyers—people I could conceivably tell about the recording and use to arrange its release to the media.”
“Which would kill Dalton’s career stone dead. The president, having an affair with the terrorist who tried to nuke New York …”
“Exactly. But since Dalton declared me an enemy combatant as soon as he took office, he could ship me off to Cuba, where I was denied all those things. Which was why when Gabriel got the Covenant to demand my release, Callum came as well—as my executioner. I have knowledge that can bring down the president, so I can’t be allowed to live.” She flashed a broad, mocking grin. “Oh, by the way, now that you know about the recording, the same applies to you. You’ve just become enemies of the most powerful man in the world. Congratulations!” She took in their stunned expressions with smug satisfaction. “Although from what I picked up from Callum, I gather that you already were.”
“What?” Nina gasped.
“I don’t know the details—he didn’t exactly confide in me. Something to do with you sabotaging a black operation.”
Nina and Chase exchanged worried looks, thinking back to the events of four months earlier. “Dalton knew about it?” Chase asked.
“Of course he knew,” said Sophia with a hint of impatience. “Presidents always know—otherwise, why bother having them? The man at the top gives the orders.”