Thinking about that instead of the mission was fruitless and dangerous. He had to focus to have any hope of getting her back alive.
Hunter moved around to the left, lifting his binoculars to study the quiet cocktail mixer going on. All activity appeared to be contained on the third level of the seven-thousand-square-foot vacation home belonging to British friends of the prime minister.
The UK leader came into view among a group of men, allowing no clear shot… yet. Hunter’s radio clicked once.
Mako had detected someone on the grounds.
Hunter lowered his binoculars, searching for… there. A tall man with a thick build moved carefully from the building to vehicles strewn across rutted, snow-covered ground to…
Hunter focused in on the man’s right cheek… a scar.
Fuck a duck. There was the guy who had been in Brugmann’s compound in Kauai and at the Wentworth party.
Need a location, Gotthard,” Joe said, striding across the research analyst’s area in BAD’s underground operation center.
Gotthard hit the refresh button on the chat board where he and Linette left posts on Saturdays. They used a different site for every day of the week and the seven chat boards changed monthly. “Everyone set?”
Joe paused. “Yes. Twenty teams spread across the country, ready to contact bomb squads and emergency warning systems in every city. Plus our five best bomb specialists. If the detonation time for the bomb was twenty-two hundred Eastern Standard Time it would have happened already. Must be tied to the Colorado event if it’s really going down tonight.”
“Too bad we don’t have twenty demolition experts as good as Korbin.”
“No shit.”
Gotthard hit the refresh button and Linette’s message appeared. “Got something.” He decoded as he copied her text. “She sent coordinates. Strike is in Chicago in twenty-three minutes.”
Joe stabbed the air with his fist. “Fucking A! Retter and Korbin are in Chicago. Get the coordinates to Retter and I’ll contact local authorities for emergency management in Chicago.”
Gotthard picked up his phone, hoping Linette had covered her ass with the Fratelli. She was obviously involved up to her neck.
Retter straddled a Suzuki GSX-R motorcycle, studying the traffic rolling past Chicago’s courthouse. Citizens unaware their city might be scheduled in some terrorist’s Day-Timer for tonight. He glanced around at his team, who were on identical black Jixers.
Korbin, their demolitions expert, had a backpack full of any tools he needed. He was armed with a 9mm in a shoulder holster, but Rae, Jeremy Sunn, Nathan Drake, and Retter would cover his ass if Korbin had to disarm a bomb.
Drake’s beefed-up body dwarfed the bike. His weathered look had been earned in the big house when he took his twin brother’s place in prison after his sibling was conned by a drug lord. That had been on the heels of Drake’s tour of duty as a Special Forces soldier. Sunn had spent his share of time in lockup, but mostly under orders, though he’d come to BAD with his own rap sheet. His blond hair stuck out haphazardly when he removed his helmet that was now hooked on a handlebar.
Rae hadn’t twitched a muscle in a while, her helmet on and latched, backpack slung across her shoulders. Tall, toned, and tough, she wore a thin all-weather suit in black like the other agents.
Retter’s phone beeped through his Bluetooth. He pressed the button. “Go ahead.”
Gotthard said, “Got a location. Chicago. Clark Street Bridge and Lower Wacker. Bomb detonates in twenty-one minutes.”
Ending the call, Retter spoke into his transmitter, passing the information to his team. “Take off, Korbin. We’re right behind you.”
Korbin flipped his face shield down and rolled on his throttle, squealing rubber in a streak as he left.
Retter took off right behind him. Korbin wove between cars then cut over after a truck to take a fast right turn. Retter followed around the same curve, pressing hard and leaning close to knee dragging the pavement. He straightened up quickly before plowing between traffic cluttering every lane ahead.
Korbin sliced over to the sidewalk, which had little foot traffic. Some guy jogging in sweats flew up a set of steps. Korbin zigged and zagged, blaring his horn and missing anyone in the way. The pedestrians he passed had vacated the sidewalk by the time Retter and the other three bikes roared down.
Retter slid around the corner when Wacker Drive turned right. He faced a wall of people running away from the Clark Street Bridge. Gotthard and Joe had contacted local police by now, under the guise of being with the FBI, ordering the police to put out announcements for evacuation of vehicle traffic and pedestrians anywhere near that bridge. Joe would have informed Chicago PD an FBI bomb squad was heading to the scene on motorcycles, which gave Retter and his team a half hour before the PD showed up. Maybe.
If the time for the detonation was accurate a half hour would be plenty of time. Unless they didn’t disarm the bomb.
Retter slammed on his brakes, his back tire coming off the ground, then dropping down. He kicked the stand down and climbed off the bike, pulling out his FBI windbreaker. Rae parked and pulled her matching jacket on, then shouldered a high-powered LaRue Tactical OBR rifle. All four of them plowed through the crowd.
“I’m at the base of the bridge,” Korbin’s voice said calmly in Retter’s earpiece.
He hated f**king bombs.
“Got it,” Korbin muttered, indicating he’d found the bomb. “Still scanning… shit… see a second one.”
Retter stopped at the top of the bridge on the south side, sending Sunn and Drake across to cover the north bank of the river. Rae didn’t slow until she reached the park area below and to the southeast side of the bridge. She had the best vantage point to keep an eye on Korbin’s movement and any unexpected activity beneath the bridge.
“Goddammit,” Korbin said.
Retter said, “What’s wrong?” He leaned over to see Korbin swinging under the bridge, using his hands to carry his weight and the backpack.
“Five, repeat, five bombs.” He was breathing faster with the exertion. “Let me get a look.” Silence for a few seconds, then, “Material appears possibly uranium based, but not a large amount.”
Retter had seen Korbin teaching Rae how to disarm minimally complex bombs in seconds. Let this be quick and simple. “How much time will each one take to disarm?”
“First one might take five minutes. Next ones will be faster.” But Korbin didn’t say how much faster.
Not encouraging.
Retter scanned the mass of panicked people moving away from the bridge and flooding out of the buildings, adding to the chaos. Korbin was one of the very best. Since the bombs didn’t contain much uranium, maybe the team would get lucky and the bombs would turn out to be duds. But amateurs didn’t normally use uranium.
His phone buzzed again. When Gotthard’s voice came through, Retter jumped to the point. “We got five bombs—”
“I know,” Gotthard said. “Our contact sent additional information. Five bombs, and the sniper in Colorado controls the detonation somehow.”
Hunter better find that bastard, and quick. “You have anything else?”
“Yes. Unusual uranium in bombs. Destruction estimate for simultaneous detonation of all five bombs will result in leveling nine square blocks.”
Tens of thousands would die.
Hunter sent a set of confirmation clicks on his radio to let Mako know he’d located the man prowling the grounds around the lodge. The mystery guy with the scar was connected to too many events not to be playing a role in the shooting tonight. When the guy hiked up the mountain ridge on the west side, Hunter sent another message through clicks to let Mako know he was following.
The mystery guy was headed right where Hunter expected Jackson to set up a sniper rifle to shoot the prime minister.
From now on, he’d have to trust that Mako would keep up and shadow Hunter since any radio contact was out.
The mystery guy had no sniper rifle with him, but he moved like he was on the hunt. Was he watching the shooter’s back, searching for Hunter since Jackson was expecting him? By the time Hunter closed in on him two hundred feet up the ridge, he had to make a choice.
He was running out of time.
Nineteen minutes until the hit, and he had no idea where Abbie or the sniper was.
He couldn’t covertly follow this mystery guy any longer. Hunter palmed his 9mm and moved in fast.
The mystery guy swung around a step before Hunter attacked. They went down, hitting rocks and snow. Neither made a sound beyond grunts and the thud of fists hitting bodies. Hunter took a blow to the jaw, ducked, and flipped his weapon in his hand, slamming the guy in the head, sending him to the ground.
He jumped on him before the guy caught his wind and bent a knee into his back. Hunter shoved his weapon inside his waistband and wrenched the guy’s hands behind to bind them with plastic cuffs. He bound his legs next, then flipped him over. “Who are you?”
The guy groaned. “You just f**ked up royally.”
“Guess it’s all a matter of perspective. I’m the one with the gun. You’re the one tied up.”
“We’re after the same sniper. You’re letting him take the kill shot.”
What the hell? “Start talking.”
“You’ve got maybe ten minutes to find his location. I scoped the property earlier. The Jackson Chameleon has to be up this ridge another twenty yards. There’s a perfect spot to take his shot when the prime minister starts playing the piano. He’ll be sitting with his back to the windows. The guests were told he’d play at ten o’clock.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Don’t. Blood’ll be on your hands.”
“Who’re you working with?”
“No one. I’m on my own team.”
Hunter had used that line with teammates from BAD. No wonder they looked at him with the same disgust he fumed with as he looked down at this worthless speck of humanity. He didn’t have time to find Mako. If this guy was telling the truth, the killer would take that shot soon. “Why would you tell me any of this?”
“Because you stopped me from getting to him before he makes the hit. He’s the trigger for a bombing tonight.”
Who the f**k was this scar-faced guy?
“Longer you talk to me the less time you have to find him.”
Hunter had no time to deal with him. He yanked off the guy’s tie and used it as a gag, then shoved him over to the side of the path and raced up the incline.
When he reached the high spot, he used a small handheld infrared device Gotthard had given him to search the area for a heat signature in a prone position… and found it. He couldn’t even send a click to Mako at this point without alerting Jackson too soon. When Hunter got within twenty feet of the shooter he’d lost any chance of approaching silently with so little time. Besides, Jackson was expecting him.
Hunter walked up with his 9mm in hand.
“Got here sooner than I anticipated.” Covered in a white ghillie suit and white knit skullcap, Jackson turned on his side to face Hunter. His index finger remained curled around the trigger of an Accuracy International .300 Win Mag sniper rifle.
“Where’s Abbie?”
“Close. And alive for now.” Jackson looked more ghost than man with his pale face inside all that white clothing. The only color visible was the tip of a blood-birthmark that dripped down the right side of his forehead as if he’d been shot.
I should be so lucky. “What do you want?”
“Aren’t you interested in who’s in my crosshairs?” Jackson asked in the tenor voice of a school bully.
“Prime minister.” Hunter had never wanted to kill anyone as much as he did now. His fingers tensed with the need to choke the life from this one.
“Ah, you did figure out something on your own. I can see the effort it’s taking to restrain yourself, but if you kill me, Abbie dies. You have to know by now that I’m a hemophiliac. Wound me and you lose her, plus anything else you hope to gain from me.”
Hunter had to think like the BAD agent he’d been trained to be and not a man ready to kill this psycho who dared to harm Abbie. “We have agents all over this place. You won’t get out alive. You want to show some good faith, my people will work with you if you have something on the Fratelli to trade and give me the coordinates on the bombing.”
“I didn’t mean I’d surrender to you.” He snorted at that. “And if another agent shows up, I’ll pull this trigger immediately. Besides, your people couldn’t keep me alive long enough to get any information.”
“Yes, we can.”
The sniper checked his watch, then looked back at Hunter. “Like Josephine Silversteen? You must be part of the group that captured her last year. She didn’t even make it to jail before her head exploded like a smashed pumpkin.”
“Wouldn’t take you to jail.” Hunter would enjoy handing this prick over to Joe and Tee. Tee was a tiny, frighteningly beautiful demon when it came to getting information out of a captive. “What Fratelli group are you with?”
“Should be obvious. The UK. That’s not why you’re here.”
“Why am I here?”
“To make a choice, of course.” Jackson pulled his thin lips up to one side, not resembling Abbie in the smallest way. “I’m curious how you’ll negotiate your way out of this tangle.”
“We don’t negotiate, so there are no choices.”
That made Jackson grin. “You should hear me out before you decide. If I kill the prime minister and send confirmation of that in the next twelve minutes then only one city in the United States will suffer, keeping the loss of life down to maybe a few thousand. That would be considered an encore after killing the prime minister, both events of which will result in destroying the fragile communication in progress between the U.S. and UK right now. Your president needs the UK prime minister to vote with the U.S. at the upcoming UN meeting.”