The Edge of Armageddon by David Leadbeater Read Free Book Online Page A

E. The fissionable material. Boring stuff, really. The next clue will be even more telling.”
    At that moment Beau entered the room. Drake was hoping he would be dragging Punchbag Man along with him but Beau drew an imaginary line across his carotid. “He killed himself,” the Frenchman said in a bemused voice. “Suicide pill.”
    Shit.
    “You see?” Marsh said. “We are very serious.”
    “Please, Marsh,” Drake tried. “Just tell us what you want. We’ll do it right bloody now.”
    “Oh, I’m sure you would. But we’ll save that for later, eh? How about this? Get running for clue number two. This chase is getting better and more difficult. You have twenty minutes to reach the Marea restaurant. It’s Italian, by the way and they make a mighty mean Nduju calzone, believe me. But no stopping for that, my friends, because this clue you will find placed under a toilet bowl. Enjoy.”
    “Marsh—”
    “Twenty minutes.”
    The line went dead.
    Drake cursed, turned, and ran like hell.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    With no other option, Torsten Dahl and his team decided to dump the car and hoof it. He’d have liked nothing better than to hang on tight as Smyth threw a powerful SUV around half a dozen corners, tires squealing, objects shifting, but New York at this time was nothing but an angry snarl of yellow cabs, buses and hire cars. Gridlock was the word that entered Dahl’s mind, but it happened every day, most of the day, and still the horns blared and men shouted out of lowered windows. They ran hard, following directions. Lauren and Yorgi had shrugged into flak jackets. Kenzie jogged alongside Dahl, face turned down into a pout.
    “I’d be of much more use to you,” she said to Dahl.
    “No.”
    “Oh, come on, how can it hurt?”
    “Not a chance.”
    “Oh, Torsty—”
    “Kenzie, you are not getting your bloody katana back. And don’t call me that. Having one crazy woman assigning me nicknames is bad enough.”
    “Oh, yeah? So did you and Alicia ever . . . you know?”
    Smyth growled as they crossed another intersection, seeing pedestrians and bikes cramming the road at a green light, all taking their lives in their hands, but confident it wouldn’t be them who got hurt today. Quickly, they raced down the next street, soldiers barely feeling the burn of the sprint as they whipped around two slow-moving Prius’s, smashing wing mirrors. The GPS bleeped.
    “Four minutes to the docks,” Yorgi estimated. “We should slow down.”
    “I’ll slow down in three,” Smyth snapped. “Don’t tell me my job.”
    Dahl handed Kenzie a Glock and a HK, not an easy task to perform covertly in New York. He winced as he did so. Against his better judgment they had practically been forced to accept the rogue agent’s help. This was no ordinary day and all measures, even desperate ones, were required. And truth be told, he still felt they might share a kinship, something of parallel military souls, which increased his level of trust.
    He believed they might be able to save Bridget McKenzie no matter how hard she resisted.
    Now Smyth veered across two lanes of traffic, shoulder-swiping a stalled F150 but continuing without a glance back. With no time they could afford no courtesies, and the terrible cloud hanging over them meant they were being forced to go all in, all of the time.
    Dahl cocked his weapons. “Warehouse is less than a minute away,” he said. “And why the hell don’t they sort all these potholes?”
    Smyth sympathized with him. The roads were an unending, pockmarked, hazardous tract where cars inched around jagged holes and roadworks were thrown up at any moment, seemingly uncaring of the time of day or density of traffic. It really was dog eat dog out there, with no man looking to help any other.
    Quickly, they took their bearings from the GPS and aimed for the tip of the arrow. Early morning crispness threw pins and needles at their exposed skin, reminding them all it was still early. Sunlight