The End Game (A Brit in the FBI 3)

Nicholas held up three fingers. Three. Two. One.

They came in hard and fast, one on each side. Nicholas shouted, his voice echoing hard and low off the walls, “Stop, right there. FBI. Hands where I can see them.”

The man’s hands shot up. “Hey, hey, relax.”

Mike was looking in the back of the truck.

“Holy crap! Nicholas, he has an arsenal in here—weapons, grenades, radios. All right, buddy, what are you planning, some sort of siege?”

“Listen, let me explain—”

Nicholas said, “Turn around, slowly, right now, and put your hands on the car. Now!”

The guy did have long hair, looked bleached, like an L.A. surfer. He was still wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Nicholas couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t see what he was thinking. He said, ?

??What are you, some kind of surfer-dude terrorist?”

“Hey, it’s her majesty’s secret service, talking right to me. No, mate, I’m no terrorist. Trust me, this is all a big misunderstanding. If you’d give me a chance to put down my hands and explain—”

“Hands, mate. On the truck. Do it. Now.”

Surfer Dude didn’t move.

Nicholas aimed his Glock right at his face. “Are you deaf? I told you to put your hands on the roof.”

Mike kept her distance, blocking Surfer Dude if he made the poor decision to make a run for it. She kept one eye on the elevator, a good fifty feet away; they should have backup here any minute. Surfer Dude turned, raised his hands, palms up, to plant them on the roof. Then, at the last instant, he whipped around, dove at Nicholas, sent his fist hard into his jaw, and was off and running.

Nicholas whipped around and grabbed his shoulder before he’d taken two steps, threw him backward. Surfer Dude landed hard against the Suburban’s bumper, bounced off, and went down to the concrete floor. Amazingly, he rolled, came up in a crouch.

“So you want to play, do you?” Nicholas said, and Mike would swear she saw joy in his eyes. She realized soon enough that Surfer Dude was a seasoned fighter. She could see his eyes assessing for weak spots since his sunglasses had gone flying. Good luck to you, sir, she thought, and called out, “Take the moron down, Nicholas.”

Nicholas feinted to the left, turned fast, and kicked out at Surfer Dude’s knee. He got only the side of his leg, barely grazed him, Surfer Dude was that fast.

He narrowed his eyes, came at Nicholas, punches no longer wild but now fast and controlled, arms moving in a blur, all of it textbook moves, lethal, designed for maximum impact.

Trained, Mike thought. He’s been trained. She smiled. No matter, he wasn’t Nicholas. In fact, she saw herself taking the clown down and sitting on his back, maybe smacking his head as she cuffed him.

Nicholas had a height advantage and he used it, punching Surfer Dude’s neck, landing a hard kidney shot, stomping his arch. It was a relief Surfer Dude didn’t have a knife. Both Mike and Nicholas hated knives, far too dangerous. She watched Nicholas kick Surfer Dude’s belly.

Surfer Dude backed up fast, wheezing. He spat out blood. “Hey, mate, you aren’t all that bad, for an FBI pussy,” and he sprang to the side, whirled around, and came at Nicholas with a flurry of kicks and punches.

“And you’re a right pain in the arse,” Nicholas said, and landed a massive uppercut that sent Surfer Dude stumbling backward, still grinning, even with a line of blood coming from a cut above his left eye. Who is he? What’s going on here?

Mike didn’t interfere. All the lethal weapons were in the Suburban, and Nicholas was the better fighter. And the big plus? He was having fun. Why deny him? Mike only wished she could be the one doing the pounding, relieve some of her frustration. She checked her watch. “Sorry, Nicholas, time’s a passin’, finish him off. If you do it within the next ten seconds, I’ll take you to the gym myself, let you go a round with me.”

Nicholas hit him hard in the nose and blood spurted out. She saw visions of the media claiming brutality, and called out, “Okay, that’s enough.”

Nicholas reined in immediately, gave her a quick grin, started to put him in a half nelson, but Surfer Dude managed to break free and took off running.

Mike rolled her eyes. The idiot. “My turn,” she said, and bolted after him. She caught him quickly, tackled him from behind, drove him down into the concrete floor as the elevator doors opened and Ben Houston ran out with five agents on his heels.

Nicholas lifted Mike off his back and hauled Surfer Dude to his feet one-handed, threw him back against a car, got into his face. He jerked off his baseball cap, then grabbed his shirt and shook him like a dog.

Mike yelled, “Nicholas, hold him still. Good grief, does he look familiar to you?”

Nicholas hauled him up close. “Bloody hell, even with the bloody face, you’re that guy in the photo, Melody Finder’s boyfriend. You’re supposed to be in Paris, studying how to chop onions and debone chickens.”

Surfer Dude was panting hard, but he still managed a grin, even with the dribble of blood coming out of his nose. “I tried to tell you before you started pounding my face in. I know who you are, too, you big bastard.” He stuck out a hand sporting bloody knuckles. “Craig Swanson, CIA.”