Chapter 13 #4
Stanislav laughed, but it never reached his eyes.
Jamie pressed his hand to the tablet and let it access his RealIdent and the identity the MDF had painstakingly created for him.
Stanislav didn’t offer to provide his own contact information, but Jamie knew he wouldn’t.
If Jamie survived the night, then it would be more than obvious to Stanislav that Jamie would be someone he’d want to do business with.
Stanislav moved away from Jamie to say his goodbyes to the handful of people who merited it in the tent. Jamie ignored his departure in a way only someone of his wealth and status could. Emmet looked like he’d swallowed something sour, glowering at Jamie with unconcealed anger in his eyes.
“That,” Jamie said, gesturing with his champagne glass, “is how you do business.”
Emmet stabbed his finger in Jamie’s direction, taking a step forward. “All I saw was you begging for scraps from the table.”
“I see you haven’t witnessed any actual business deals. What did you say you did again?”
“I didn’t.”
“So nothing of note, then.”
“Emmet is well-known within our circles,” Niko interjected hastily before Emmet could start a fight. “We appreciate his contributions immensely.”
Before Jamie could respond, Kyle’s voice ripped through Katie’s telepathic links, his warning burning straight through Jamie’s mind.
Splice bombs are being worn by suicide bombers. They’re on attendees. Don’t know how many, but I’m guessing enough to do a lot of damage.
Jamie fought against the urge to immediately start checking out the people nearest him for any hidden threats. Of fucking course Cillian would change up his MO to impress someone of Stanislav’s reputation.
“I’m sure you do,” Jamie said, returning to the conversation at hand. “But I only work with people I know are on my level. You’ll forgive me if I take the wait-and-see approach with Emmet here.”
“With an attitude like that, I don’t think you’ll last the night among everyone else,” Emmet replied, mouth twisted in a half sneer.
“You’d be surprised at what I’m capable of surviving. I’d bet good money I’m far more resilient than you are.”
“I doubt that.”
“As much as I find this dick-measuring contest amusing, I have better things to do with my time. If you think you have something to offer me, I will gladly take your contact information. Otherwise, we have nothing more to discuss.”
“You can take your contact information and—”
Kyle’s mental warning cut through Jamie’s mind again, drowning out whatever else Emmet said, even as the familiar sound of gunfire erupted from inside the museum.
Gear up! We got hostiles, and they’re coming up from the tunnel entrance! I’m going after Pavluhkin!
Jamie took the initiative to handle the insult in a manner most well-bred people would consider impolite, but which he’d been itching to do all night.
Jamie punched Emmet in the face hard enough to knock the man out before cutting the follow-through short and ramming his elbow backward into the side of Niko’s head, catching him in the temple. Both men collapsed to the ground, unconscious, because Jamie hadn’t bothered to pull either blow.
Jansen is taken care of, Jamie announced to his team even as he yelled loudly, “Everyone might want to take cover. It doesn’t sound like this is a party anymore.”
Even the thick walls couldn’t muffle the sound of automatic gunfire. Jamie pulled the nanotech strips out of his tuxedo pocket and applied them to his face as he approached the bar while everyone else ran for the nearest exit.
Tariq Hameed was the Royal Legion’s third most longest-serving member, a metahuman whose power over blood could permanently stop a person’s heart or burst a blood vessel in their brain.
It didn’t take much effort for Tariq to kill a man, and Jamie wanted to get him on the front line as soon as possible.
“Long or short?” Tariq asked as he hauled two heavy cases from beneath the portable bar he’d been manning in the corner.
“Long.”
Tariq opened a case and slid it over to him.
Jamie took less than thirty seconds to assemble the AKR-75 assault rifle inside, feeling a little calmer now that he had a weapon in hand.
Shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket, he pulled on the tactical vest Tariq handed him, strapping it into place.
Spare magazines were clipped to the tactical vest as well.
He wished they’d been able to sneak in more armor, but there wouldn’t have been any place out of the way to gear up in.
Even out here in the garden courtyard, people were looking their way.
Katie? Could use some mental cover, Jamie asked as he and Tariq sprinted toward the door he’d come through earlier.
I’m scrambling as many minds as I can near you, but I need to separate the suicide bombers from everyone else first. There’s only so far I can stretch myself, she replied.
Understood. Alpha Team, switch to comms. Call in.
“They’re Irish, Reborn IRA probably. And they got a few metahumans in their ranks,” Donovan said.
“Cillian’s or Emmet’s?”
“Does it fucking matter?”
“Am with Icarus and Wraith. He’s off comms. Have disarmed five suicide bombers,” Alexei reported.
“How long will Jansen be out?” Madison asked. “These bombs are more like chemical IEDs, Apollo. The blast can do some damage outside of the Splice chemical. It’ll be real messy if they blow.”
“I can go back and shoot him,” Tariq offered as they reached the set of doors that would lead them back into the museum.
Jamie thought about it for half a second—he was tempted, very tempted—but shook his head. “Viper, see if you can’t keep Jansen under.”
Copy that, she said.
The doors wouldn’t budge; either someone was holding them closed, or they had locked it.
Jamie waved Tariq aside and braced himself.
With one hard kick, he broke the doors open, knocking one completely off its hinges from the strength of the blow.
It hit the floor with a loud clatter, catching someone’s bodyguard on the shoulder on the way down.
The man yelled out in pain, his arm hanging oddly as he staggered away.
Jamie edged through the now-open doorway, pausing only long enough to ram the butt of his weapon into the face of a guy who thought he could sucker punch them, knocking him out.
All the artwork around them was now encased in protective energy shielding. Either someone had manually triggered the alarm, or some of the earlier gunshots had hit an exhibit and the museum’s smart building AI had triggered the shields. Jamie would put good money on the latter.
A gun going off had them both ducking out of instinct.
Jamie signaled Tariq the direction he wanted to go and got a thumbs-up in response.
Jamie counted down from three using his fingers before swinging his weapon around, holding down the trigger for a fully automatic spray as they sprinted across the way for the museum store.
Some of the rounds hit several enemy combatants while the rest ricocheted off the artwork shields.
What few his aim didn’t take down, Tariq took care of.
Tariq’s power wasn’t flashy, but it was formidable. The group of enemy advancing went down as one, having no time to clutch their chests before their hearts exploded. Manipulating the iron in people’s blood at a micro level might not look impressive, but it sure was deadly.
So was the counterattack.
What looked like a horizontal pillar of fire exploded down the length of the sculpture gallery, burning past exhibit shields.
Jamie and Tariq retreated deeper into the museum store as fire ripped through the air, licking madly at the walls and ceiling.
It lasted only seconds before the main force of the fire faded away, leaving only the flames crawling up the wall.
Jamie shielded his face with his arm, heat making sweat drip into his eyes.
“They’ve got a pyrokinetic,” Jamie snarled over the comms.
“I’m on it,” Samaira replied, her crisp, accented voice barely sounding ruffled. “Take out the windows and get clear.”
Jamie pointed at the open entrance between two pillars connecting the main store to the long gallery. “Handle the windows. I’ll head to the next gallery for recon.”
“Copy that,” Tariq replied.
“Knight?” Jamie snapped. “What the hell happened?”
“Looks like the police on duty at the South Kensington Station are either dead, or they weren’t ours. They aren’t responding to our hails. The Reborn IRA got through the underground tunnel and into the museum,” Liam replied in a flatly furious voice.
“Fuck.”
Jamie spun on his feet and sprinted through the museum store, taking a sharp right through a connecting entrance.
Seconds later, he heard Tariq shoot out the windows facing the courtyard.
Glass shattered and fell to the floor, the sound of it setting Jamie’s teeth on edge as he cased the side gallery he’d entered.
It didn’t open up into the sculpture gallery, so he kept moving, crossing its length into the next gallery after making sure no hostiles occupied it.
Two entrances looked out onto the sculpture gallery and the still-burning fire.
Grimacing, Jamie headed for the one closest to the Exhibition Road museum entrance, hoping he wasn’t cutting off his own escape.
Not being in tactical body armor meant he couldn’t be as aggressive as he wanted to in this fight.
Unfortunately, the enemy didn’t care about his caution.
He was almost to the far entrance when a wave of water appeared out of nowhere in the sculpture gallery, slamming into the fire and putting it out.
Water poured into the gallery Jamie was in, slicking the floor and soaking his feet.
The resulting explosion of hot steam sent a trio of Reborn IRA fighters running for cover right toward him.