Chapter 26
The train station in Geneva was smaller than the one in Paris, and part of it was blocked off by construction paper as workers milled around it, entering and exiting the other parts of the similarly-built underground HQ through a flap in the material.
Caradoc was the first to step onto the platform, making a beeline for the suited man standing next to the shiny new chrome-plated ladders which led up to a manhole. "How long until we get there?" he demanded.
"Five to ten minutes." The man with the halting accent held out a gloved hand. "I'm Ector, in charge of training in Berlin."
"Appreciate the work you're doing, but we've got to move. Are we taking a van?"
"Standard issue, nothing new." He pointed to the manhole cover above them, and took one of the rungs of a ladder in one hand, climbing it.
Caradoc grabbed the first rung available after Ector had cleared it, and pulled himself up, reaching out with another hand to grab the one Ector had just passed. A blinding beam of light pierced down through the gap in the ceiling as the German agent pushed the manhole out, and disappeared into the glare.
Caradoc put both hands on the asphalt outside, and lifted himself out of the hole in the ground, swinging his legs sideways as not to obstruct Gawain. He quickly got to his feet and scanned his surroundings.
They were in a small, fenced-off courtyard, with one way out: a narrow alley that was currently being blocked by a red news van, of a French news network.
Ector threw the back doors open, and Caradoc climbed into the passenger's seat, slamming the belt tongue into its latch. "Where's Charlemagne."
"He's not picking up," Ector said, closing the doors and sliding into the passenger. "Everybody, hold on."
The car took off like a speeding bullet, Ector's foot mashing the accelerator. He weaved through traffic, ignoring the blares of the horns on the cars of angry drivers as he turned off the road, and into a massive parking lot.
Caradoc the the door beside him open at the first instant the car stopped, and sprinted across the seemingly empty grounds of the CERN facility, umbrella in hand.
Something flashed just above the roof.
He opened up the umbrella just in time for a large hole to appear in it, the sniper's bullet going through the resistant material. Caradoc tossed the damaged shield away and ducked behind a small monument. "Val, I'm pinned!"
"Working on i- shit! Mines all over the way up. This is going to take some time."
"Distract him at least!" He drew his pistol.
"Okay, flashbang in three, two, one!"
Caradoc heard a massive bang, and dug his shoes into the grass and launching himself out of cover and into a sprint towards the doors to the building.
At the doors, a maelstrom of bullets blew the glass to pieces. Caradoc aimed his pistol in the general direction of the gunfire, and pulled the second trigger.
The shotgun shell underneath the barrel of the TT-30 exploded outwards, the pellets it produced slicing through the flesh of the soldiers firing at him.
Caradoc jumped through the window, pulling the pistol trigger once and putting a hole into the forehead of the only living man left, who was clutching his arm, which had almost been sheared off by the shotgun blast. "Where to next?" he asked Gawain.
"I'm sending over a map," Ector replied instead. "You're on your own for now, at least until we get rid of this fucker."
"Can't you just climb up there and shoot him?"
"There's like, five guys up there. Scattered, too. They were waiting for us."
"Got the map. Try not to die."
"Thanks for the advice," Jonas said dryly. "No go and do whatever the fuck you have to do."
Caradoc gave his acknowledgement, and threw open the door to the staircase. He descended into a tunnel-like passage lit by flashing yellow lights, and turned another corner, using the map in the lens of his glasses to navigate.
He fired his pistol once into the electronic lock of a door and opened it to an oblong room where several men and women were tied up on the ground, and a trio of soldiers patrolled. Caradoc shot the nearest Legionnaire in the chest, and ran towards one of the tables. He put one foot on it and launched himself into the air, then pulled the trigger twice, dropping the other two before landing on one shoulder.
The knob on one of the other doors turned.
He whipped out one of the three lighters he had packed, activated it and slid it into the gap that it opened.
The door exploded into splinters. An arm poked out of the doorway, lifeless and not attached to a body at all, as Caradoc discovered when he looked down the corridor he had just blown up.
Instead, he saw a black octagon at the end of a long corridor, and then he was on the floor, fifty-thousand volts running through his system.
Through the massive veil of pain and blurriness that clouded his vision, he flicked another lighter open and tossed it through the doorway. The distant-sounding explosion didn't feel like it had any impact as Caradoc rolled to the side and yanked the electrified bolas off his neck.
He kept the gun aimed at the broken door as he took a moment to catch his breath. Reaching behind him, he scooped up a TAR21, holstered his pistol and stood up. He fired before he rounded the corner down the corridor.
Antoine's umbrella was gone, leaving only the charred and shredded corpses of the soldiers on the floor.
"Antoine's here," he said into the spectacles.
"Is Garth there too?" Gawain asked.
"Probably. I haven't seen him."
"I'm through," Ector said. "Coming down to you. Is it clear?"
"For now, yes," Caradoc said. "Any idea on how to deal with Antoine?"
"That's my part," Jonas said. "Just wait till I get there - my gun can get through that umbrella he has."
"I'm going after him." He turned to the bound and gagged scientists on the floor. "Stay where you are." Holding his rifle at shoulder height and aiming down the sights, Caradoc made his way down the corridor. At the T-junction at the end, he swung the gun left, and seeing nothing, right.
There were doors on both sides, each with its own electronic lock. He pulled the trigger and blew the lock on the left door apart, kicking it in...to a dark storage room.
Caradoc switched on the infrared in his glasses, and stalked between the rows of crates.
A soldier with night-vision goggles leaned out from behind a box and his rifle spat fire.
Caradoc sidestepped the burst and returned with one of his own, catching the soldier in the shoulder and causing him to fall back.
Footsteps, behind him.
Caradoc ran to the end of his aisle, and just as an arm holding a pistol poked out from behind a shelf, ducked and jammed the signet ring into the soft flesh below the wrist of the person holding the gun. He slammed the barrel of the TAR21 into the soldier's abdomen, knocking the wind out of...her.
He wrapped his arm around the Asian woman's neck - propping his rifle in the process - and jammed his pistol to the side of her skull. "Where's Antoine?"
She said nothing.
"You must be Jade."
"Oh, you you know my name," she gloated. "And torture me all you like; Antoine's gone by now."
"To where?"
"He didn't tell me. That was part of the plan. I make a good distraction, don't I?"
"What are you planning?"
"I'm sorry, am I in one of your stupid James Bond movies? Because this is starting to sound exactly like that."
"You can either tell us now or one of my friends is going to make you say it later."
"Is it the cute one? Like I said, you can torture me all you like because I don't know."
Caradoc pushed Jade against a box, raised his pistol at her head and pulled the trigger. She slumped to the ground, a neat red hole in the side of her head. "Val, I just killed Jade. Antoine's operating independently of her so she's no use."
"Yeah, a truck just pulled out of the parking lot with a lot of boxes. Must be the antimatter. We're clear up here."
"Did you get the license plate?"
"It didn't have one. The sniper was a fucking distraction. I've already told Esclados what it looks like, so he can track it."
Ector poked his head into the storage room. "You coming?"
Caradoc ran after him, back through the room with the scientists, through the corridors and up the stairs. He jumped back out through the broken window, to where Urien was frisking a dead soldier on the grass.
"No IDs of any kind, just like in Paris," he said, standing up.
The back of their van shot up the path and stopped next to them. Jonas poked his head out the driver's window. "Get the fuck in!"
Caradoc opened the doors and reassumed his position in the passenger seat.
Gawain was already inside, speaking rapidly to Esclados over the intercom. "Yes, do it. Okay, Jonas, the GPS should track the truck now."
"Go go go!" Urien shouted, slapping the headrest of Jonas' seat.
The van took off even faster than before, through the chaos that was traffic. On the GPS device screen, the white dot that represented their van was getting closer to the red dot, which had stopped in the middle of a long bridge.
Caradoc rolled down the window on his side, and poked his head out a little. The truck was right next to the railing, and soldiers were tossing wooden boxes over the side and into the Rhone. Seconds later, Antoine jumped off the bridge.
He pulled his pistol and fired on the soldiers as Jonas stopped the car and jumped out.
Jonas set the bipod of his rifle on the railing, took aim at a small grey patrol boat speeding down the river. The rifle roared, and Caradoc saw one of the Legionnaires flop into the water, sinking out of view.
"Jump!" Gawain said, swinging herself over the railing.
Caradoc did the same, and suddenly found himself sprawled on the seat of a speedboat, right next to a young woman. His buttocks hurt.
Gawain popped up and grabbed the woman by the shoulders. "Can you swim?"
She nodded.
Gawain pushed her over the side of the boat and took the steering wheel. "Get ready to shoot!"
Caradoc propped himself up on the side of the boat, pistol ready.
Another one of Antoine's men fell into the water from the back of the patrol boat, turning the water around him red.
Caradoc lowered his gun and held up his last lighter grenade. "Get me closer and I'll fling it into the bridge!"
As Gawain accelerated to get close to the patrol boat, he could see the river widening, opening its mouth into some large body of water he didn't know the name of. He pulled his arm back and flung the lighter onto the aft deck of the patrol boat.
It bounced off one of the crates, and fell into the water, detonating and creating a water spout.
"That was my last one," he said.
"Switch with me." Gawain took out her own lighter and stood up from her seat.
Caradoc grabbed the steering wheel and directed their boat alongside the patrol vessel. "Get it right!"
Before she could throw it, the water beside their speedboat erupted into a large geyser.
Caradoc twisted the steering wheel to the left, the boat turning quickly with the help of the eruption. He squinted in the distance, and saw an even larger patrol boat equipped with a cannon in the front.
"Holy fuck…"
"I'm going to ram us onto the shore, okay?"
"It'll get us way before that!"
For a moment, Caradoc stared at the concrete embankment ahead. He could make it if he sped up.
"Dirk!"
"Fuck this!" He grabbed Gawain's hand and jumped off the side of the boat just as the cannon of the larger boat flashed in the distance.
The speedboat exploded.
Garth paced in back and forth on the marble floor of the penthouse, his hands clasped behind his back. His gaze drifted from his feet to the fruit bowl, then to the refrigerator, then to plush sofa in front of the massive flatscreen TV.
His earpiece crackled.
"How did it go?"
"We made it," Antoine said. "Damn that ship is useful."
"How many?"
"Didn't count. Just stuffed it and scrammed. But we got most of them, from what I've seen. We had to leave Jade behind, though."
A smile played across Garth's lips. "That's fine. Did it feel like an action movie?"
"Everything with me feels like an action movie. The boxes are being lifted out as I speak. I still can't believe we brought a boat this far."
"He's really that powerful. Come back and i'll show you around the penthouse. It's like a fuxking palace."
"Yeah, yeah. Anything else?"
"No, I'll see you soon." Garth removed the earpiece and put it in his pocket. He finally stopped in front of the couch and sunk down on it, grabbing the remote and switching to a random channel. It was a cooking show.
The penthouse elevator opened, and a man in traditional white garb stepped out, holding a sandwich. "Has he called you yet?"
"Yes. It went smoothly."
"Kudos to you," the Arab said. "Are you ready for the next phase?"
"Tahal, you know I'm always ready. Hit me."