The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

The Indian didn’t smile, but he gave her a satisfied nod. The other men whooped in excitement at becoming multimillionaires.

“What about me?” Antonovich pleaded.

“What about you?” Ivana shot back.

“Do I go free now?”

“Not until we get to Rotterdam. Let’s go.”

She wanted to make sure they were in the air before any other Control Hub security guards realized something was wrong. As she shoved the visibly dispirited Antonovich toward the emergency exit, she called the helicopter pilot.

“Spin up the engine,” she said. “We’re leaving.”

SIXTY-ONE

Eddie cupped the phone in his hand. “Murph says there’s no answer from Beatrix Dräger,” he said to Linc, who was driving their rented SUV.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s not because her phone battery died,” Linc said as he followed Gustaaf Dijkstra’s Mercedes sedan through the front gate of the Continental Control Hub. By breaking every speed limit in the Netherlands and weaving through traffic like they were on an obstacle course, the two-vehicle convoy made it to the facility in record time.

“There’s no way she’d ignore a call from Gustaaf Dijkstra.” He took his hand off the phone and spoke to Murph, who was in the Mercedes’s backseat with Gustaaf. “Go through the front entrance with Dijkstra to the command center. Make sure you take plenty of armed security guards with you, just in case.”

The throb of rotor blades picking up speed vibrated the windows.

“It sounds like the helicopter is getting ready to take off,” Murph said.

“We hear it. We’ll circle around the building and make sure they don’t leave.”

“Roger that.”

Eddie drew his pistol and now wished he’d brought a more substantial weapon.

They rounded the point of the building’s lightning bolt shape and saw the Eurocopter’s rotors spinning at full speed.

A door at the back of the building opened and two athletic men sprinted toward the helicopter. They were followed by a tall Indian, a young woman, and Maxim Antonovich, who was practically being dragged by the woman. She had to be Ivana Semova. They weaved their way through the cars in the parking lot.

“There they are,” Eddie said.

“Timing is everything,” Linc said.

“We also have three men by the helicopter. They’ve got automatic weapons.”

Antonovich was the first one to spot their approaching SUV. He wrested himself away from Ivana and dived behind a car. Eddie was amazed to see her shoot at the billionaire. If he was in charge of this whole operation, why was one of his underlings trying to kill him?

He popped off three quick shots at Ivana. None of them hit, but the sudden shots made her rethink going after Antonovich. She turned and ran for the helicopter with the Indian.

The three men guarding the helicopter sprayed the front of the SUV with fire, splattering the windshield with holes, as Eddie and Linc ducked. Eddie popped up to take down one of the guards, but the other two retreated into the helicopter as soon as Ivana and the Indian arrived.

The pitch of the chopper engine increased.

“They’re about to take off!”

Linc tightened his grip on the steering wheel and spun the SUV one hundred and eighty degrees. “Feel like doing something crazy?” He mashed the accelerator down as he kept his eye on the backup camera.

They were pointed directly at the helicopter and picking up speed.

“Let’s go nuts,” Eddie said, cinching up his seat belt.

They roared through the parking lot as bullets punched into the SUV’s rear, exploding the back window. The helicopter’s wheels rose off the asphalt as the SUV’s back roof smashed into the tail section.