Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2) Read online

Howard exhaled. “Sarah. Pretty hard to hide with wounds like hers.”

  “If they got through with diplomatic bags they could be in possession of anything. Be careful. We’ve been getting more Intel that tells us Major Stone has been behind several recent attacks against UK assets abroad. I’m not sure he’s simply gone rogue. I think he’s turned against us entirely.”

  “Is there anyway Sarah doesn’t know what her father is doing?”

  Palu breathed down the phone again. “I don’t see how. She engaged in a firefight with Mattock’s men and helped Dr Krenshaw escape. We both know that Sarah has a grudge against this country. Her father might have convinced her to join his cause under the mutual flag of disenchantment.”

  “I still don’t know what Major Stone’s cause even is.”

  “I think it has something to do with Syria,” said Palu. “I still have analysts working the angles, but Major Stone went rogue during a mission in Syria to take out an ISIS arms cache. He successfully found the site and lased it for an airstrike but never returned radio communication after the bombs dropped. Command assumed he and his team were lost, but they popped up a month later and assassinated that ISIS leader. Just be careful, Howard. Major Stone is one of the deadliest men this country has ever had at its disposal, and somehow we pissed him off.”

  “His daughter, too,” said Howard. “I’ll call in when I have something.”

  “Roger that.”

  Howard got moving again. He was approaching an eating area, surrounded by cafes and fast food chains on both sides. It was then that he saw Sarah sitting and drinking coffee. He had to suppress the urge to draw his gun right then and there, but it would have been the wrong move. With Krenshaw, Major Stone, and the other men, Sarah’s group equalled six — all of them deadly.

  Howard grabbed the radio Tariq had given him and called it in. “All targets located in,” he looked around for a landmark, “area between Lorraine’s Bistro and Lanier’s Italian Cafe.”

  “Sending a team to you now,” came Tariq’s reply. “Over.”

  “Roger that.” Howard moved into the doorway of a small amusement arcade and peered around the edge of the wall next to a fruit machine. There were people all around and the last thing he wanted to do was test the theory that Major Stone was carrying a weapon. The targets were all finishing their drinks and preparing to get up, though. The call had been made for their flight and they were able to board. That could not happen. If Major Stone made it onto the plane, he had the option of taking the pilot hostage and forcing a take-off. A man of Major Stone’s abilities could drop himself down in the middle of the Sahara and disappear with the winds.

  While Howard was still deciding what to do, Sarah broke off from the departing group and travelled back towards the cafe. For a moment, Howard thought she had spotted him, but he soon realised that she had forgotten something. Sarah bent down to pick up a briefcase from beneath one of the tables but recoiled when he farther shouted at her.

  Howard heard the words exactly as Major Stone said them: “It’s set to go off.”

  Howard had no choice anymore. He stepped out from cover and pointed his gun. “MCU, freeze!”

  19

  “MCU, freeze!”

  Sarah dove down behind the coffee counter while her father and his men dropped down into cover behind various upturned tables. Meanwhile, several hundred innocent travellers started a stampede at the sight of Howard’s gun. Like frightened antelope they ran and leapt for cover and filled the air with their terrified screams. Sarah stood amongst the flowing river of people and felt lost, confused. The fact that Howard had managed to relocate her and her father was a shock, but it was probably inevitable since they’d been forced to flee so suddenly from the warehouse. Carefully laid plans were the ones that left most clues when gone awry.

  “Sarah, get down on the floor,” shouted Howard. “There’s only two ways out of this airport, dead or alive, and unlike you I don’t enjoy shooting former colleagues.”

  Sarah scurried from her hiding place over to where her father was hiding behind a table. Howard could probably have drawn a bead on her then, but she had counted on him not wanting to pull the trigger just yet and she was right. He didn’t fire and she made it over to her father in one piece. Major Stone was unzipping the diplomatic pouch he’d been carrying in his coat pocket. Sarah was flabbergasted when he pulled out two pieces of a handgun, as well as a loaded magazine. He slid the detached barrel onto the handgun’s frame and slapped the magazine into the bottom of the grip. It was a small gun, a bright silver Ruger.

  “This is madness,” Sarah told her father.

  “This is war,” he said. “There’s no distinction between madness and sanity, only what’s necessary. We need to get that briefcase.”

  “Why, what’s in it?”

  “Krenshaw’s lifework, and it’s going to go off right in our faces if we don’t get it and reset the timer.”

  Howard shouted at them again. “Major Stone, Sarah, give yourselves up. None of you are getting away.”

  Sarah glanced around between the upturned tables and spotted Ollie — her Uncle — crouching next to Rat and Spots. Ollie gave her a sad look that suggested he regretted the situation as much as she did. They had crossed a line and neither could see a way back.

  Krenshaw made a break for it. The skinny doctor raced across the cafe floor, heading for his briefcase, but stopped short and spun as a bullet struck his chest. He collapsed onto one of the tables and lay still.

  There was more panic as the innocent bystanders abandoned their hiding places and broke for greater safety. The gun shot had been like a starting pistol and now they were all off their lines and running for their lives.

  “This is the final warning,” Howard bellowed in a voice more commanding than Sarah remembered. “Come out, hands up and empty. This ends now.”

  Major Stone leapt up and took a shot at Howard, missing the target by a hairsbreadth. The bullet lodged in the concrete of the wall and sent Howard leaping back into cover.

  It was then that Airport security guards surrounded the area. Each carried a Heckler & Koch MP5s. Enough firepower to rip a man to confetti.

  Sarah went to put her hands in the air and surrender, but her father grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back down. “Don’t disappoint me,” he said to her, with a pulsing rage in his emerald eyes.

  “We’re done for,” she said. “This is a colossal screw-up. I don’t know what I’m even doing here with you. You never gave a damn about me and I followed you into Hell anyway. I’m an idiot.”

  “You are my daughter,” he said. “And we will make it out of this, I promise you. You’re one of my men now and I don’t intend on seeing you die until you’re ready.”

  Sarah shook her head. “You never made a single promise to me that you kept. You’ve been helping Krenshaw all along, haven’t you? We didn’t capture him, we rescued him.”

  “Krenshaw is a means to an end. His work is what matters. My mission is to make sure that what is inside that briefcase serves its purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  There was more gunfire and Sarah flinched, before carefully peering over an upturned table. To her utter surprise, Rat had managed to get the jump on one of the airport security guards and had taken his weapon, which he quickly turned on the rightful owner and two of his colleagues. Spots was quick to scurry over and grab one of the dead men’s fallen MP5s and join the firefight.

  The air filled with the sound of a dozen jackhammers.

  Sarah’s father beamed, the first time she’d ever seen such an expression from him. “See?” he said. “There is no situation my men can’t handle.”

  “We’re outnumbered five to one,” she said.

  “Exactly, they won’t know what hit them.”

  Sarah’s father leapt up and expended what was left of his handgun’s ammo and sent a handful of guards into cover. It bought enough time for Spots to pick up another fallen MP5 and toss it to him. He ca
ught the weapon easily and fired off a stream of rounds in one smooth motion, taking out another guard. The rest of the airport’s vanguard visibly shrank as they realised they were losing men fast. Rat’s assault had been quick and brutal, rocking their confidence and keeping them from advancing. Now, barely a single one of them dared to break cover.

  Sarah stayed where she was. Things had got completely out of hand. She had just wanted to flee the country, start again. She had never wanted this, never wanted to fight her own country. As much as she hated what her government represented, she bore no malice to the people who fought under its banner. They were innocent cogs, like she had once been.

  Finally, she broke cover, but not to fight. Instead, she hurried towards the briefcase, intending to stop whatever was inside of it from getting out. Was it Ebola, or something worse? The thought of something invisible yet deadly made her skin crawl. She wasn’t trained to fight something she couldn’t see. Put a man in front of her and she could pull the trigger, but a virus…

  Whistling, snapping gunfire continued overhead as Sarah crawled along on her belly. She heard wounded men cry out in pain but was sure none of them were her father’s men. Rat, Spots, and Major Stone were ex-SAS and could eat airport security guards for breakfast, as they were doing now — but they couldn’t fight forever. This was a suicide mission. How had her father changed so much? What had happened to him to make him disregard his life?

  She was just about to grab the briefcase, and could even hear something inside ticking, when a hefty boot caught her in the ribs.

  “What are you doing, sweetheart?” Rat appeared in her view and kicked her hard again in the stomach. He fired off a few rounds from the two MP5s he was now holding akimbo, before ducking down into cover beside Sarah and grinning in her face.

  Sarah tried to catch her breath but Rat punched her in the mouth and sent her into a daze.

  “Told you I was going to get some payback, you ugly bitch,” he said in the raspy tones of a predator.

  “My…my father will kill you.”

  “Maybe, or maybe he won’t give two shits. Way I see it, we’re all dead anyway. The only thing that makes our lives mean anything is what’s inside that briefcase. What do you plan on doing with it?”

  Sarah winced and tried to catch her breath. “I plan on stopping it going off.”

  Rat laughed. “Good luck with that. I don’t think it has an ‘off’ switch. You do, though.” He prodded her mouth with the muzzle of one of the MP5s. The hot metal burned her lips, and then her tongue as Rat forced it between her teeth. “Say goodnight, sweetheart.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Rat’s head exploded and Sarah yelled out in horror as his body toppled sideways.

  Ollie looked down at Sarah with that same regretful smile he’d had on his face earlier. “I told you he’d stab you in the back as soon as he was supposed to be watching it. Come on, we have to give ourselves u-”

  Ollie flew backwards and landed hard on his back. The colour red immediately began to bloom on his chest.

  Sarah slid over to him on her belly. “Shit! Ollie. Ollie, no.”

  Ollie shook his head, gasped, then managed to talk in a groan. Blood appeared at the corners of his slowly moving mouth. “I knew about…the briefcase. I know and it’s…wrong. You need to stop your father, Sarah. Darla, she would be…s-s-so ashamed.”

  “Shush,” said Sarah, but Ollie was already dead. She didn’t kiss him or weep, she had barely known the man; perhaps that was the biggest tragedy of all. There was still time to make it right, though. If Sarah had never got involved in any of this, then her father and Krenshaw would have carried out their plan without a hiccup. Her involvement, however, had screwed everything up, and there was still time for her to put a stop to her father’s mission.

  Sarah turned away from Ollie and went to go back and grab the briefcase. She had to stop this.

  But her father reached it first. Major Stone held the briefcase to his chest and stood up. “Everybody, cease your fire.”

  His voice was so booming that all of the remaining guards stopped firing immediately. They had lost so many men that they were probably eager for the bullets to stop flying.

  Major Stone continued speaking. “I hold in my hands the most deadly disease known to man, engineered by the man responsible for this country’s recent Ebola epidemic. My hand is on the release button. If I fall or sleep or get bored, this briefcase will open and the world’s most deadly disease will escape. It will kill everybody here, as well as anyone who takes a breath of whatever air escapes into the vents above our heads. It has been engineered to survive almost indefinitely and to multiply quickly within its host. It has been set on a timer, which I have just extended and will continue to do so as long as I am alive. My men-” he looked around and saw Spots was the only one still standing, but he was bleeding badly from a wound in his stomach. His face was pale from massive blood loss. Major Stone exhaled, threw up an arm and casually shot Spots between the eyes with machine gun fire. His body slumped to the floor and Major Stone turned back to his audience. “Correction: my daughter and I are going to leave this airport through whatever back door is closest. Then we will enter a car and drive to safety. Once there, I will arrange for safe disposal of this virus. Do not doubt me, gentlemen, for I am entirely willing to watch this wretched world burn.”

  Howard stepped out from behind a cracked and crumbling pillar with his gun held up and ready. He was sweating badly. “We can’t let you walk out of here, Major Stone. Not going to happen.”

  Major Stone nodded. “Of course. I understand. Then I suppose none of us will be walking out of here.” He raised his MP5 and aimed it at Howard. It should have been enough to provoke a shot from one of the airport’s security guards, but they obviously feared the virus too much to pull the trigger. “Would you prefer a bullet, Agent? Or would you like to lose your skin once the virus takes you? I offer you the courtesy of choice because you were once a friend of my daughter.”

  Howard put a hand up, just to reassert that no one should pull the trigger. “All flights have been grounded, Major. This airport is very easy to contain once it’s on lockdown, which it now is. Your super-virus will wither and die right here where we stand.”

  Major Stone grunted. “Enough deaths to make the news, I assure you — and that is the point, after all. There are powerful men in this world who wish to send a message; and I am their messenger. The death of you and a handful of upstanding airport personnel will suffice, as Pyrrhic a victory as it may be. I am not a man who fails, upon my honour.”

  Howard lowered his gun and sighed. “What happened, Major? I saw what Krenshaw did to the people at Whiteknight hospital. Why do you want to follow a coward? Why do you want to be associated with a man like him?”

  “He and I are not the same, Agent. Count the dead around you. Do I look like a coward?”

  Howard looked around at all the dead bodies, men from both sides. “That’s how people will remember you if you do this, Major.”

  “I’m SAS. Men in the SAS don’t get to leave legacies. Make of me what you will once I am dead. I couldn’t care less.”

  Sarah saw her father’s finger twitch on the trigger, the MP5 still pointed at Howard. If he fired, Howard would die and the security guards would open fire. Then Major Stone’s hand would fall from the briefcase and God-knows-what would be released into the confined atmosphere of the airport. She had to do something.

  “Stop this, daddy. You’re not going to achieve anything, don’t you see? I don’t want to die.”

  Her father looked down at her with sadness. “You are pitiful, daughter. Don’t you want to die for something important?”

  “No,” she said. “I want to live for something important.”

  Major Stone shook his head. He scooped his foot around one of the MP5s that Rat had dropped when he died and kicked it towards her. “Shoot me, then,” he said. “You want this to end, then be a man and finish it. Show me you have a
cock.”

  Sarah looked down at the weapon by her leg and went to grab it but couldn’t. She couldn’t make her hand move towards the MP5, even though she knew that she could end this right now. She had killed men before, but she couldn’t kill this one. She couldn’t shoot her father.

  Major Stone rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to spit on her. “I wish I’d had a son. To think that Ollie lost a boy of four while you continue to live.”

  Sarah growled. “I’m not a fucking man, daddy; get over it already. But you’re right, I can’t shoot you.” She leapt up and tackled her father around the legs, lifting him up and throwing him backwards. He fell onto his shoulders, the briefcase flailing in his hand, his MP5 firing at the ceiling. They hit the ground together and Sarah immediately started pummelling her father in the face, smashing his stern cheeks and grizzled chin, glaring into his emerald eyes that matched her own. She beamed and cackled as the blood began to escape Major Stone’s mouth. “Doesn’t mean I won’t kick your arse, though,” she screamed at him.

  But it was a triumph all too short.

  Her father shoved both thumbs into her eyes so hard that Sarah thought he’d blinded her. Then, he brought his legs up and kicked her so hard in the stomach that she felt a rib crack. She fell onto her face, struggling desperately for a breath. Men shouted all around her, but no shots were fired. Though she could barely see, she made out the shape of her father snatching up the briefcase and his MP5 before running away unmolested.

  The next thing Sarah knew, men all around her were dragging her harshly to her feet. When her vision finally came back to her in full, she realised that the roughest hands of all belonged to her former partner, Howard. He looked at her like a hated enemy and it made her want to cry.

  20

  Sarah didn’t fight back as she was manhandled. Her arms were wrenched behind her back and she was dragged unceremoniously away from the bullet-ridden seating area to a place inside a small amusement arcade. Half of the remaining guards had chased after her father, but the rest stayed behind to clear up the mess Major Stone and his men had left behind.