"I know," Gotthard said. "Our contact sent additional information. Five bombs, and the sniper in Colorado controls the detonation somehow."
Hunter better find that bastard, and quick. "You have anything else?"
"Yes. Unusual uranium in bombs. Destruction estimate for simultaneous detonation of all five bombs will result in leveling nine square blocks."
Tens of thousands would die.
Hunter sent a set of confirmation clicks on his radio to let Mako know he'd located the man prowling the grounds around the lodge. The mystery guy with the scar was connected to too many events not to be playing a role in the shooting tonight. When the guy hiked up the mountain ridge on the west side, Hunter sent another message through clicks to let Mako know he was following.
The mystery guy was headed right where Hunter expected Jackson to set up a sniper rifle to shoot the prime minister.
From now on, he'd have to trust that Mako would keep up and shadow Hunter since any radio contact was out.
The mystery guy had no sniper rifle with him, but he moved like he was on the hunt. Was he watching the shooter's back, searching for Hunter since Jackson was expecting him? By the time Hunter closed in on him two hundred feet up the ridge, he had to make a choice.
He was running out of time.
Nineteen minutes until the hit, and he had no idea where Abbie or the sniper was.
He couldn't covertly follow this mystery guy any longer. Hunter palmed his 9mm and moved in fast.
The mystery guy swung around a step before Hunter attacked. They went down, hitting rocks and snow. Neither made a sound beyond grunts and the thud of fists hitting bodies. Hunter took a blow to the jaw, ducked, and flipped his weapon in his hand, slamming the guy in the head, sending him to the ground.
He jumped on him before the guy caught his wind and bent a knee into his back. Hunter shoved his weapon inside his waistband and wrenched the guy's hands behind to bind them with plastic cuffs. He bound his legs next, then flipped him over. "Who are you?"
The guy groaned. "You just fucked up royally."
"Guess it's all a matter of perspective. I'm the one with the gun. You're the one tied up."
"We're after the same sniper. You're letting him take the kill shot."
What the hell? "Start talking."
"You've got maybe ten minutes to find his location. I scoped the property earlier. The Jackson Chameleon has to be up this ridge another twenty yards. There's a perfect spot to take his shot when the prime minister starts playing the piano. He'll be sitting with his back to the windows. The guests were told he'd play at ten o'clock."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Don't. Blood'll be on your hands."
"Who're you working with?"
"No one. I'm on my own team."
Hunter had used that line with teammates from BAD. No wonder they looked at him with the same disgust he fumed with as he looked down at this worthless speck of humanity. He didn't have time to find Mako. If this guy was telling the truth, the killer would take that shot soon. "Why would you tell me any of this?"
"Because you stopped me from getting to him before he makes the hit. He's the trigger for a bombing tonight."
Who the fuck was this scar-faced guy?
"Longer you talk to me the less time you have to find him."
Hunter had no time to deal with him. He yanked off the guy's tie and used it as a gag, then shoved him over to the side of the path and raced up the incline.
When he reached the high spot, he used a small handheld infrared device Gotthard had given him to search the area for a heat signature in a prone position... and found it. He couldn't even send a click to Mako at this point without alerting Jackson too soon. When Hunter got within twenty feet of the shooter he'd lost any chance of approaching silently with so little time. Besides, Jackson was expecting him.
Hunter walked up with his 9mm in hand.
"Got here sooner than I anticipated." Covered in a white ghillie suit and white knit skullcap, Jackson turned on his side to face Hunter. His index finger remained curled around the trigger of an Accuracy International .300 Win Mag sniper rifle.
"Where's Abbie?"
"Close. And alive for now." Jackson looked more ghost than man with his pale face inside all that white clothing. The only color visible was the tip of a blood-birthmark that dripped down the right side of his forehead as if he'd been shot.
I should be so lucky. "What do you want?"
"Aren't you interested in who's in my crosshairs?" Jackson asked in the tenor voice of a school bully.
"Prime minister." Hunter had never wanted to kill anyone as much as he did now. His fingers tensed with the need to choke the life from this one.
"Ah, you did figure out something on your own. I can see the effort it's taking to restrain yourself, but if you kill me, Abbie dies. You have to know by now that I'm a hemophiliac. Wound me and you lose her, plus anything else you hope to gain from me."
Hunter had to think like the BAD agent he'd been trained to be and not a man ready to kill this psycho who dared to harm Abbie. "We have agents all over this place. You won't get out alive. You want to show some good faith, my people will work with you if you have something on the Fratelli to trade and give me the coordinates on the bombing."
"I didn't mean I'd surrender to you." He snorted at that. "And if another agent shows up, I'll pull this trigger immediately. Besides, your people couldn't keep me alive long enough to get any information."
"Yes, we can."
The sniper checked his watch, then looked back at Hunter. "Like Josephine Silversteen? You must be part of the group that captured her last year. She didn't even make it to jail before her head exploded like a smashed pumpkin."
"Wouldn't take you to jail." Hunter would enjoy handing this prick over to Joe and Tee. Tee was a tiny, frighteningly beautiful demon when it came to getting information out of a captive. "What Fratelli group are you with?"
"Should be obvious. The UK. That's not why you're here."
"Why am I here?"
"To make a choice, of course." Jackson pulled his thin lips up to one side, not resembling Abbie in the smallest way. "I'm curious how you'll negotiate your way out of this tangle."
"We don't negotiate, so there are no choices."
That made Jackson grin. "You should hear me out before you decide. If I kill the prime minister and send confirmation of that in the next twelve minutes then only one city in the United States will suffer, keeping the loss of life down to maybe a few thousand. That would be considered an encore after killing the prime minister, both events of which will result in destroying the fragile communication in progress between the U.S. and UK right now. Your president needs the UK prime minister to vote with the U.S. at the upcoming UN meeting."
When the shooter paused to check his watch again, Hunter's skin tightened. He wondered what Jackson was planning besides the shooting. If the sniper's finger hadn't been locked around the trigger and the rifle pointed at a room full of innocent people, Hunter would attack. The longer he kept Jackson talking the more time BAD had to get to the bomb if Linette managed to send location coordinates. This prick was sharing nothing.
"If I don't kill the prime minister," Jackson continued, looking up again, "then three American cities will be hit, each with more severity than the last, bringing the death toll up over a hundred thousand. Subsequent bombings would come with a message that any other countries willing to support the U.S. would do so at risk of the same fate."
"Why are you willing to put our country into political and possibly armed conflict with your country?"
"I don't actually have a country. I just perform a duty."
"You want me to choose between killing an innocent man and destroying three cities? How about maiming you as an option?"
"There is that, but if you so much as cut me I'll bleed out. I'm a type-B hemophiliac, the most prolific of free bleeders." Jackson enjoyed showing off his perfectly white teeth again.
"Speaking of blood, if you win our game without killing me, you'll be able to save Abbie and her mother."
"Your mother, too."
"Genetic semantics."
Hunter wanted to hurt this Jackson for so many reasons, Eliot and Abbie topping the list. But unsuspecting civilians would die by the thousands if he made a wrong decision. He had to find out why the shooter had brought him to this spot. "Are you through laying out the rules?"
The killer consulted his watch again, then cocked his head at Hunter. "Wait, it only gets better. You can go save Abbie or you can stop me from killing the prime minister, at which point only one city will be sacrificed when five compact bombs with a new strain of uranium detonate. Bombs capable of taking down nine square blocks in... Chicago, Chicago." He sang the name of the city like the words from the musical. "The explosion will detonate at the Clark Street Bridge and shake the foundation of your ex-sister-in-law's condominium building on Wacker. Now, who are you willing to save and who do you sacrifice?"
Todd, Pia, and baby Barrett would be home at Pia's place.
Hunter struggled to breathe. His heart hammered his chest, threatening to burst from the blood surging through his body.
He had to get word on the bomb location to BAD.
"Abbie," Jackson said, drawing Hunter back to him, "is hanging off a cliff exactly one hundred feet from here, but you don't know the direction yet, so don't get excited. And if you don't leave in"--the killer glanced at his watch again and looked up--"twenty-six seconds you won't reach her before the small bomb attached to the tension anchor snaps her connection to the wall. What's it going to be?"
"You fucking bastard!"
"If you read the hidden files, you know I'm not a bastard. Twenty-one seconds."
"Where is she?"
"Not yet... fifteen, fourteen, thirteen." He looked up. "There's a path six feet above you. At that point go twenty-two yards, then veer directly left and keep going until you reach the ridge." He grinned at Hunter and counted down. "Six, five."
Jackson's finger relaxed from the trigger.
Time for a leap of faith that Mako was now in position.
A gunshot exploded from behind Hunter. The bullet hit the backside of the trigger guard and shattered Jackson's fingers.
The killer howled in pain. He jerked his hand up in horror, blood spewing out of his ragged fingers.
Hunter kicked Jackson backward, away from the rifle.
Mako burst out of the dark and dove on Jackson, yelling, "We know about Chicago. More agents on the way. Get Abbie."
Hunter had already taken off running. Joe had sent extra agents. Not that much of a surprise since Hunter hadn't expected to get out of this clean. Mako had explained during the helicopter flight that if they had to wound Jackson, he'd use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Mako would inject a clotting agent into Jackson and had no problem tightening the tourniquet to the point of the sniper losing a limb.
Mako had shot "Expert" in the Marine Corps, and was capable of blowing a hole in the enemy with skill that equalled his ability to sew one up in someone he wanted to save.
He'd do whatever it took to keep Jackson alive.
That miserable piece of shit had better survive.
After counting twenty-two yards with running strides, Hunter swung left. He shoved branches out of his way and stumbled over rocks and burst into a clearing at a cliff.
A rope was tied to a tree six feet back from the edge of a cliff. The face fell off for days. He hurried to grab the rope that was slack, which meant the killer had climbed back up from wherever he'd left Abbie hanging.
Hunter looked over the edge into a black abyss.
His heart dropped faster than the blood pressure of a dying man at the sight of her body in a snowsuit dangling in the wind.
Her sobs echoed against the stone.
"Hang on, baby, I'm coming!"
All Hunter had was Eliot's beat-up karabiner. He hooked the rope through it and looped the tail of the rope around his back in a makeshift rappelling tension, then swung over the side, easing himself down.
"Don't come down," she cried. "There's a... a bomb... it's--"
"Stay still."
"Hunter, stop!" she screamed. "You'll die. Go back."
He dropped fast, sick with fear he'd reach her too late. When he reached the tension anchor holding her rope sling he spotted the bomb device. It had enough C-4 to start an avalanche. And there was no way to remove the bomb without removing the anchor.
The timer ticked down. Sixty-four seconds, sixty-three...
She begged him between sobs. "Please go back."
He lowered himself. "I'm not losing you." When he dropped down beside her he only had another six feet of rope trailing from his waist. Her hands had been tied in front of her.
"We don't both have to die."
"We're not going to." He hoped. He looped a quick knot at the karabiner, not even sure if the battered piece would still hold, then used his knife to free her wrists. Pulling up the tail of his rope, he threaded it under the rope tied around her waist and made two quick figure-eight knots.
Waves of tremors shook off her, but he couldn't comfort her yet with seconds flying away. "Hold this rope. Brace your feet apart and keep them against the wall," he ordered and climbed back up, hand over hand, feeding the rope through his karabiner.
"He told me you'd die trying to save me," she yelled in a stronger voice, determined to negotiate. "He said--"
"Forget him. Do what I say." Keeping her alive was not negotiable. He walked his feet against the wall, stopping next to the bomb, and tied off with what slack rope he could pull up. "Look straight ahead," he ordered.
Twelve... eleven seconds. Disarming the device would be easy. If he had tools.
He reached for his knife. "Abbie, get ready."
"For what?"
Ten... nine.
"To fall." He cut the rope sling holding her and grabbed the anchor attached to the bomb as her weight yanked him back.
She screamed when she fell.
His hand slipped off the anchor.
Six seconds... five.
Lunging up against the dead weight towing him down, his fingers hooked on metal. He released the tension clip and yanked the bomb and anchor free, flinging the deadly pair away. "Cover your ears!"
The bomb detonated. Compression and heat boiled off the explosion, but far away from Abbie. "Baby, you okay?"
He didn't hear anything. "Abbie, goddammit, talk to me."
"I'm okay," she yelled.
He started breathing again and almost laughed at her angry tone until she got quiet again.
"But... you can't get back up with me," she said in a small voice. Her terror traveled easily in the empty night air, but it didn't stop her. "He told me... how your friend died. That I had to--"
"Abbie, stop."
"--untie my rope..."
"Don't you fucking do that!" Hunter couldn't live through this again. "Don't... baby, please, oh, God, please trust me. I can get us both out of here."
She was wheezing, close to hyperventilating. "How?"
"Just give me a minute. Don't quit on me now." His voice shook, the words coming out in a rough croak. Something sure and strong blazed in his mind. She needed to know why she could trust him. "I love you. I can't lose you."
But had the bastard jury-rigged the rope sling so that the loops around her waist would come loose? Hunter couldn't think that way.
"Hunter--"
"Please... don't leave me."
"I don't want to lose you either."
He dropped his head against the rope, getting his breath back. "Then hold on. My team will get us out of here."
Reaching around, he got his hands on the trailing rope and pulled with everything he had, lifting her slowly to him.
When she got closer, he called out in a voice thick with worry, "Give me your hand."
He pulled up another foot of rope, and another.
Her fingertips touched his
arm. He grabbed her arm, hauling her up to him with a burst of adrenaline. She was sobbing and terrified and alive.
He had her wrapped in his arms and wasn't letting go.
Mako and the other two agents weren't really his team, but Joe and Tee expected--no, demanded--all their agents to work as a unit of one in any situation. Hunter could now see how much space Joe and Retter had allowed him to prove he could be a team player for the past four years.
He'd failed miserably. And going rogue to find the killer had sealed his fate.
Joe wouldn't suffer that with any agent.
Once Hunter got off this mountain, he'd find out the extent of his penalties and pay them without a word of complaint.
"It's okay, baby. They're coming," Hunter assured her, even though Mako's first duty was to secure the prisoner. Might be another half hour, but he'd talk her through this.
"Ready to come up, asshole?" someone shouted from the top. Lights appeared overhead and Mako peered down at him, his big grin in place. He had extra rope looped over his arm.
Being called asshole had never sounded so good.
But what about Todd and his family in Chicago?
Chapter Forty-four
Retter kept checking his watch, willing it to slow down and help Korbin, who had gained a slight edge from the learning curve after disarming the first bomb. He'd just called an all-clear on the third bomb in less than two minutes, but the first one had cost nine.
People had scattered faster than ants from a disturbed anthill from the Clark Street Bridge, but thousands were clogging downtown Chicago in a mad dash to exit. The roar of voices competed with sirens coming from all directions.
Korbin could do this. Had to come through.
When Joe had brought the cocky demolitions expert into BAD two years back, Retter withheld his opinion of the former stunt professional until he'd had a chance to observe Korbin in action during a mission in Chechnya.
Korbin ran so cool when he worked he could freeze lava.
Gotthard had joked that Korbin lived on a diet of ice water and available women.
One female might be too available. Retter hadn't determined if Korbin and Rae had hooked up or not. Something he'd deal with later.
The ping of a bullet striking metal sounded clearly at the same time as Korbin's yell. "Incoming fire."
A second shot rang out.
"Shooter low on the north side," Rae called, already racing along the parking area below the south side of the bridge. She wheeled and shot out lights along the bridge to give Korbin the cover of darkness first, then she took out the lights above her.