Chapter 6 #4
For his part, Kyle said nothing, merely looked at Jamie with such a blatant, sexually charged expression on his face that everyone around the table knew exactly what he’d rather be doing right then, and it definitely wasn’t continuing an impromptu business meeting.
Oksana set her shot glass down on the table with a quiet clink. “You are a very interesting man, Mr. Callahan. I’ll let Niko give you my information. He’ll be in touch within the week. Da svidanya.”
Oksana stood up. The two men with her, very obviously her bodyguards and not anything else, rose to escort her away from their area and toward the stairs.
Jamie didn’t watch her leave. The only people left around the table were those who’d come with him and Niko, who seemed far less friendly and more focused than when they’d first been introduced.
“Interesting is one way of putting it,” Niko finally said, forcing a smile as he slipped his tablet out of his inner suit jacket pocket. “Let me know how to reach you. I’ll handle communications between you and Oksana if she contacts me.”
Katie moved to swipe her wrist over the screen, letting his system read the manufactured identity the MDF had authorized and uploaded into her RealIdent chip.
“We’re leaving,” Jamie said, getting to his feet.
Niko never took his eyes off Jamie. “So soon? Really, you should stay. I’m sure Vesuvius can accommodate the discerning tastes of a man such as yourself.”
Katie’s quiet fury never left his mind as Kyle stood up and slipped his hand into Jamie’s, rising on the balls of his feet.
He pressed his mouth to Jamie’s and kissed Jamie so thoroughly, with such promise in his lips, it nearly left him breathless.
Kyle finally broke the kiss and smirked lazily over his shoulder at Niko as Jamie slid a hand down his back to grope his ass.
“I don’t share,” Jamie said before taking Kyle by the hand and leading him away.
Trevor and Madison immediately joined them, escorting the group all back down to the ground level and out the front door of the club.
The cool winter air hit like a smack to the face, and Jamie breathed it in sharply, letting it clear his head.
Donovan and Annabelle had the SUVs already at the curb, engines running hot.
They split up, with Jamie gladly slamming the door shut on the prying cameras of the paparazzi.
“Drive,” he ordered as they all buckled up.
“What happened?” Donovan asked as he pulled into the street and drove off at a speed slightly above legal.
“I’m not sure. It was a mess in the beginning, but I think we hooked their interest,” Jamie said.
“That did not go remotely how I thought it would,” Liam said from up front. “Didn’t think you lot had any interest in the Reborn IRA.”
“We don’t. Seems like Sean did in his old position.”
“Would’ve been helpful to know that before the mission started,” Kyle said.
“Can you get your superiors to send me a file on the Reborn IRA tonight?” Jamie asked Liam.
Liam nodded. “Can do.”
“Debriefing sounds like it’s going to be a headache,” Donovan replied as he sped up a little to catch the green light ahead.
“I hope there’s still coffee left,” Kyle said.
“We should probably let Annabelle at it first. You know she’s still pissed about—brace!”
The warning, barked out with battlefield loudness, barely came in time.
The car speeding through the intersection at the cross street rammed into the side of the SUV with a crunch of metal and glass.
The force of the impact sent the SUV skidding through the intersection in a sharp spin and into the path of other cars that swerved desperately out of the way.
Jamie felt it in his stomach when the SUV started to tilt, the top-heavy design incapable of fighting against gravity.
The horizon through the front windshield did a sickening 180 as they rolled, the world turning upside down.
Sparks streaked through the air as the SUV scraped over the asphalt to a body-jerking halt that had less to do with hitting something else than it did from something grabbing hold of the entire vehicle.
As sudden as the hit was, the impact did less damage than if they’d been in a civilian vehicle.
The SUVs the UMG had loaned them for this mission were military grade and built to withstand hits like the one they’d just survived.
The doors on the impact side were warped and punched inward, the shatter-resistant plas-glass holding together through a spiderweb of cracks.
“Status!” Jamie barked out as he ripped his seat belt off the wall and seat, bracing himself against the roof below him with his other hand to control his fall onto it.
“Clear!” Liam responded immediately.
“Clear!” Kyle said, already cutting himself out of his seat belt with a ceramic knife that looked like Alexei’s twin.
“Fucking—” Donovan coughed harshly. “How many airbags does one of these goddamn vehicles need? Clear, goddamn it!”
Donovan was covered in fine white dust that stood out starkly against his dark skin.
Two airbags had deployed upon impact: one in the steering wheel and another in the doorframe itself.
Jamie would’ve responded, except the thunderous sound of fully automatic rifles going off had almost everyone reflexively ducking.
Donovan was still stuck behind the steering wheel and swearing up a storm.
Bones has you covered in a telekinetic shield, Katie said into their minds to forestall any further panic.
“That doesn’t stop them from shooting,” Liam snapped as he tried to get his front passenger side door to open. It took a couple of hard kicks, but he finally got it open and started to crawl out. “Get Nova to lob one of her specialties at the bloody bastards.”
“We’re supposed to be human, remember, Knight?” Jamie said.
“Sod that! I’m going to fry the fuckers!”
“I can see now how he’s related to the royal family,” Kyle said as he twisted around in the small space to feel underneath the seat.
He came up with two handguns stashed away in hidden holsters and handed one to Jamie.
“Gives a royal decree, expects everyone to bow to his obviously superior field expertise.”
“You get used to him,” Jamie grunted as he reached past Kyle to punch open the car door on that side. The force of his blow sent the door flying until it slammed into the invisible barrier of Trevor’s telekinetic shield.
“I hope not. One idiotic team captain is enough for me.”
“So I don’t think your spy made any friends when he was in Northern Ireland,” Liam said from his crouched position as they crawled out, weapons in hand.
Jamie rolled his eyes and knelt down next to the SUV to better grab the front passenger seat and wrench it backward, shielding his effort from any prying eyes with his body. The extra space enabled Donovan to twist free from behind the steering wheel and crawl out.
“Spies don’t make friends.”
Liam made an impatient grabbing motion at Jamie, taking a quick look between the wheels of the upside-down SUV. “Give me a gun.”
Kyle ducked back into the SUV and scrambled to get his hands on any other weapons stashed in the vehicle.
He came up with one more handgun, which he passed to Jamie before lying down flat inside the vehicle, ignoring the glass and metal edges ripping up his skin and clothes in favor of taking a prone shooting position.
“Bones, I need a firing hole,” Kyle snapped over the comms.
Jamie crouched down and put his back to the SUV, keeping his focus behind them.
He could see their second SUV in the opposite lane where they were, Annabelle having braked to a hard halt halfway into the intersection.
The rest of Alpha Team was outside their vehicle and crouched behind it for cover, weapons in hand as they exchanged fire with the enemy.
Cars had been abandoned in the streets around them once the Reborn IRA members started firing, most people running for cover and safety, hoping to all hell a Splice chemical bomb wouldn’t be detonated.
Jamie caught sight of several unmoving bodies and could hear someone sobbing for help.
He spied a couple crouched out of the way behind a trash bin, the guy fumbling with what looked like a tablet while his girlfriend frantically tugged at his arm with a pleading look on her face.
“Viper, we need a blackout,” Jamie ordered. “Tank, give Reaper your eyes.”
“Copy that, Apollo,” Katie said.
It took less than thirty seconds for Katie to dig her portable EMP out of the SUV’s center console, set the radius, and prime the device.
Jamie winced as his embedded nanotech comms went dead in his ears, along with the rest of the bioware in his body.
The reset would take a minute, tops, before they came back online, helped along by the kinetic energy his body powered them with.
The half-mile radius Katie had set the EMP for wasn’t so lucky.
Lights cut out on the streets and buildings around them, plunging the area into darkness.
London had some of the toughest aerial traffic laws in Europe—the megacity loathed flying vehicles—which meant the skies above were thankfully clear of any potentially deadly hazards raining down on them.
In the distance, the lights of London glowed like a beacon of safety beyond the dark circle they stood in.
Jamie blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his vision to the sudden darkness. Behind him, he heard the distinctive sound of a 9mm handgun going off, Donovan’s voice a low rumble as he used the night-vision aspect of his sight power to spot for Kyle. Less than a minute later, the shooting stopped.
“Hostiles eliminated,” Kyle called out.
“Leave the vehicles. The UMG will handle cleanup. We’ll get a pickup somewhere else,” Liam said.
“Underground?” Jamie said as Kyle crawled backward out of the wrecked SUV.
“Like any proper Londoner will tell you, it’s the only way to travel.”
“Then lead the way.”