Blood Moon Rising (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 2) (16 page)

The prison was a hellhole. It was badly constructed, and even though it was new, corners had been cut and it was already falling to pieces. There was a reception area and then a series of corridors that led away like the threads of a spider’s web. One of the gates was standing open, and she saw the flash of Faik’s orange jumpsuit as he rushed through it.

“Faik!” she called. “Stop!”

He didn’t stop.

Not good.

“I’m here to help you.”

She heard his bare feet slapping away on the concrete floor.

Not good at all.

She cradled the F2000 and sprinted after him. There were no windows, and the light soon faded away, leaving her to make her way through a crepuscular gloom that was ameliorated only by a handful of overhead striplights, many of them flickering unhealthily. The occasional overhead light well admitted slanting shafts of daylight that served no useful purpose, save, perhaps, as cruel reminders of the world outside.

Faik hadn’t gotten very far. She found him cowering against the wall in a long corridor that ended with a locked metal gate. The corridor beyond the gate had cells on both sides.

She let the F2000 hang on its sling and approached him
cautiously
. His hair was matted, clotted with dried blood, and his face bore the unmistakeable signs of a heavy beating. There was a bruise across his cheekbone that was striated with the markings from the sole of a boot.

He spoke in Arabic. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m here to get you out.”

“Leave me!”

“You’re Faik al-Kaysi?”

He shrunk away.

“I met your sister. She told me what had happened to you.”

“But what . . .” He was pitifully confused. “Who are you?”

“I’m a friend. And we need to get out of here.”

“Why do you do this? What do you want from me?”

“Just to take you home. Mysha would like to see you again.”

The mention of her name seemed to penetrate the fear clouding his mind. “Mysha?”

“Yes,” she said. She held out a hand. Every second made it less likely they would be able to leave in one piece. She had to fight the temptation to yank him upright.

He took her hand and got to his feet.

“Stay behind me,” she commanded.

This might get a little hot.

Michael Pope moved to the edge of the building and took a quick glimpse down onto the prison yard fifty yards below. He had watched as Rose and Faulkner had commenced their operation. It was an unsophisticated plan, reliant on the fear that would be wrought by an accurate sniper against a crowd of easy targets and then the shock of a frontal assault. A blunt cudgel of a plan, but as Faulkner had explained to him last night, there was no time to arrange anything more subtle.

It might have worked, too, for all its flaws.

Faulkner had taken a well-scouted firing position, and for a soldier with aim as good as his, hitting the guards from that kind of range was like shooting fish in a barrel. Pope had counted eight accurate shots before Faulkner’s position had been exposed.

Beatrix had cut through the confused guards with ease. She would have been able to escape again, too, if the prisoner she was so determined to release had not turned tail and disappeared back into the building again.

Now, though, Beatrix was in a very dangerous position.

Faulkner had abandoned his eyrie and was no longer able to provide covering fire. The surviving guards were beginning to pull themselves together. And the police reinforcements were well
organised
. They had sealed the breached entrance with two cars and then had fallen back into cover where they could safely concentrate their fire.

Pope heard the rumble of the big engine through the radio and then from the street below. He looked back over the edge of the roof at the big Manage Risk APC and watched grimly as it rolled up to the two police cars. It had its forward searchlights lit, powerful beams that traced blinding streaks through the gloom.

Shit.

Rose was trapped inside a prison.

A dangerous position? No, he corrected himself. It wasn’t
dangerous
.

It was hopeless.

Or it
would
have been hopeless.

Pope had followed Beatrix to Iraq. It was in direct contravention of Stone’s explicit orders, but he wanted to be on the ground. He had been a soldier for all of his adult life, and he had always known that he would find the transition to riding a desk difficult.

It had been impossible in this instance.

Rose was a brilliant operative, even now, even after all this time, but she was impulsive. She was bordering on rash. He had guessed, correctly as it turned out, that she was liable to go off the reservation, and when that happened, he wanted the added flexibility that being on the ground would afford him.

He needed Mackenzie West taken out of the country in one piece. He had only just assumed his new role. This should have been an easy enough job, even given the fact that he had been asked to use an agent who was no longer on the books of the Group. Go in, get the target, exfiltrate him. The business with Duffy should have been simple enough, too. Duffy must have guessed that he was on Rose’s shit list, but he wouldn’t have expected her to find him so quickly after she had taken out Joshua Joyce.

But Rose had complicated things. He didn’t know her well, but he knew her well enough to know that there would have been no point in trying change her mind about this excursion. Faulkner could have tried, but he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Pope could have tried, too, but he would have had no greater success, and he would have had to reveal his presence to speak to her properly. There was no point.

No.

This farrago was a complication, but it shouldn’t have been insurmountable.

But now this.

He glanced down at the Grizzly and the blocked gateway and the confidence that was flooding back into the routed guards.

This.

He couldn’t have a failure on his résumé.

And he wanted to help Rose, too.

He had meant everything that he had said to Stone.

It was the least that he could do.

Beatrix pushed Faik behind her and held him back with one arm. She had fallen back to just inside the entrance to the main
building
. The lobby was behind them, the Plexiglas-fronted
counter
that
visitors
would pass through before being admitted into the guts of the building. She didn’t want to go deeper inside again. It would have been safer, for a short while, but they would have been trapped. There would be nowhere to go once they were back there again, and it would just be a matter of time before they were hunted down and shot.

Their chances in the other direction were better, but not by very much.

The guards were still in disarray, but that wouldn’t last.

“One, Twelve. Report.”

“I’m in the car.”

“Can you see anything?”

“Trouble. An APC just went by. Heading to the front gate.”

Wonderful.

“Can you get to me?”

“Not easily. They’ve blocked the gates.”

She gripped the rifle tightly.

Faik took her shoulder. “What is happening?”

“Stay there,” she said.

“Why are we waiting here?”

“Stay back,” she said sharply. “Wait. If you don’t, you’ll get shot. Understand?”

“Yes,” he said timidly.

She lowered the rifle and, crouching low, slid around the corner of the building.

She saw the Grizzly just as the 12.7mm machine gun started to fire. The big rounds pulverised the building, a cloud of concrete chips exploded into the air and blooms of dust were thrown out with every fresh impact. The noise was tremendous: the
thunderous
clatter of the machine gun and the heavy thumps as the rounds slammed into the brick and stone.

Beatrix dropped to her belly and scrabbled back behind the corner.

This was very bad.

“Twelve, One. Come in.”

“Copy. What?”

“Hold position, One.”

“For what?”

“You’re about to get a chance to make a move. Be ready.
Twelve out.”

Pope reached back to the large canvas bag that he had brought onto the roof with him. He dragged it closer, and working quickly, he unzipped it. He thumbed the radio.

“Pope, Twelve.”

“Copy that, Pope. What do you want me to do?”

“Sitrep?”

“I’m still here. Heavy activity. Another APC has just gone by.”

“I hear it. Are you still hidden?”

“Affirmative.”

“And ready to go?”

“Affirmative.”

“On my mark.”

Pope reached into the bag and took out an RPG-2. It was an anti-tank grenade launcher, a long tube open at both ends. It was a little higher than his waist when he laid it out on the roof next to him. The launcher was Russian and old. There were hundreds of them swilling around the black economy, and it had been easy for the quartermaster to source. It was much less sophisticated than the LAWs that Pope had been trained to use in the Regiment, but he was close to his target, and all he had to do was aim and fire. It would suit his purposes well enough.

He raised himself to his haunches, hefted the launcher onto his
shoulder and held on to both grips. Taking a breath to steady
his nerves, he stood up and stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down onto the street below.

The Grizzly was firing into the prison yard, concentrating its destructive attention on a corner of the main building. The wall had been chewed all the way back to its steel columns, a ragged tear as if something monstrous had taken a bite out of it.

He sighted the APC.

“Pope, Twelve. Ready?”

“Twelve, Pope. Copy that.”

“Now!”

He pulled the trigger.

Beatrix knew the sound that an RPG’s propellant made as it ignited: the quick, sibilant whoosh. She pressed herself back against the wall, knowing that it would offer scant protection, and readied herself to die.

The impact didn’t come, at least not the way that she had expected.

The explosion was farther away and much, much louder.