PRIMAL Reckoning (Book 1 in the Redemption Trilogy, the PRIMAL Series Book 5) (4 page)

The men
made their move as Christina jumped on the bike. One of them wrapped his arms
around her and the other wrenched open the door on the van. Her bike hit the
pavement with a crash.

Bishop
grabbed the hair of the man who held her and wrenched his head back. He slammed
his fist into his temple, dropping him with a single punch.

Christina
stumbled to her knees. The second man turned to face Bishop and was blasted
with a blinding light. He grunted, covering his eyes with his hands.

“Nighty
night!” Bishop said as he jabbed him in the temple with the stubby tube and shouldered
him through the open van door. The dazed thug collapsed onto a third man who’d
been waiting in the van.

Bishop
grabbed Christina’s hand and hauled her off the ground. “Run!” They sprinted
down the street and around the corner.

“Who are
they?” she asked between breaths.

“I was
going to ask you the same thing.”

They ran along
the sidewalk, weaving between the crowds until they hit a crossing. The
pedestrian light was red. “We need to get off the street.” Across the road Bishop
spotted one of the green signs to a subway entrance.

He glanced
back. Two of the thugs were in pursuit. He grabbed Christina by the hand and
dragged her into the busy morning traffic. Horns blared and tires screeched as
they dodged cars. A yellow cab missed Bishop by an inch. The driver hurled an insult
through his open window.

They
reached the other side as the crossing light changed, giving their pursuers a
clear run. “Into the subway.” He pulled Christina around the railing and down
the steps.

“Shit.” There
was a queue at the ticket booth and no way through the wall to ceiling
turnstiles. Behind them the two heavies shoved people out of the way as they
barreled down the stairs.

Bishop
looked for a transit cop. Aside from the geriatric manning the ticket booth
there was no one else in uniform.

“You
coming or what?” Christina was on the other side of the turnstile. She held a MetroCard
through the bars. He grabbed it, swiped the sensor, and pushed through the rotating
bars.

Someone grabbed
his shoulder. Twisting back, he looked directly into the face of one of the men
chasing him. He broke the man’s grip as the turnstile locked with a clunk. The
thug swore as he tried to shoulder the heavy gate. It didn’t budge. Bishop gave
him a wink and followed Christina down to the subway platform.

She led
him past the waiting crowd, all the way to the end. “It won’t take them long to
get a ticket.” She pointed at the screen that showed the arrival of the next
train. One minute and thirty seconds.

Bishop watched as the subway timer
counted down the final thirty seconds before the next train arrived. If the
guys chasing them made it onto the platform they would have to push their way
through the hundred-plus waiting people. He took off his Yankees cap and
stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

Twenty-five
seconds. He saw the two men charging down the steps that led to the platform.

Twenty seconds.
He dragged Christina down into a crouch. “They’re at the other end of the
platform.”

Ten seconds.
A rush of wind and noise was followed by the train screaming into the tunnel.
The doors opened. Bishop and Christina jostled their way in.

Seconds
passed, the doors hissed shut, and the train was away. He dragged Christina to
the end of the carriage.

“They’re
probably the same guys who beat up David,” she whispered.

“Who’s
David?”

“My
editor. He got warned not to publish my Mexican article.”

“You
didn’t say anything about that before.”

“Yeah,
well it didn’t seem relevant then.”

“Well, it
is now. The guys who tried to grab you arrived at the café before you did. That
means they knew exactly where to find you.”

The doors
at the end of the carriage slid open and a pair of metro cops walked in. She let
out a sigh of relief. “Should we tell them?”

He shook
his head and put his baseball cap back on. Their two pursuers had entered
directly behind the cops. They stood at the opposite end of the car glaring.
Bishop took out his phone and snapped a photo.

At the
next stop the doors opened and the metro cops stepped onto the platform. Bishop
led Christina out behind them. He maneuvered around the police, pushed through the
exit turnstile and ran through the tunnel up to the street.

Behind
them the two men gave chase.

“Damn.”
Bishop spotted the white van as it pulled to the curb in front of them. “In
here.” They burst into the foyer of a twenty-four hour gymnasium. Ignoring the protesting
attendant, they continued through a door marked STAFF ONLY.

“Where
are we going to go now?” Christina latched onto his arm.

“We’ll
head out the back. But not till I’ve slowed these bastards down.” He pulled a
fire extinguisher off the wall, yanked out the pin, and turned to face the
door.

As the
two men entered he sprayed them with the chemical extinguisher. The stream of
fine powder hit them in the face, blinding them. He threw the heavy canister.
It hit the lead man in the head with a thud, knocking him to the ground.

“Let’s
get the hell out of here.” He pushed open an emergency exit and stepped into a
back alley. They walked between bags of garbage and onto the street where he hailed
a cab.

“Where
are we going?”

“Not to
your place, that’s for sure. You need to get rid of your phone and stay low.”

Christina
took the phone from her bag, looked at it reluctantly, and tossed it down a
drain. “What else do I need to do?”

He guided
her into the cab. “We can lie low at my hotel.”

CHAPTER 4

Bishop opened the bottle of bourbon he had picked up at the
airport and splashed some into a tumbler of ice. “Drink this, it’ll calm your
nerves. You’ll be safe here.” They were in his modest hotel room,
not far from where they’d jumped into
the cab.

Christina’s
hands were shaking. “They were trying to kidnap me, weren’t they?”

“My guess
is they want to scare you into dropping your story on the mine.”

“David
was right. These people are serious. I need to go to the police.”

He poured
himself a drink. “And tell them what? You’ve got no evidence and these people
have some pretty serious assets if they’ve been targeting your emails. We need
to do a little digging before going to the authorities.”

She sat
on the edge of the bed and held the glass with both hands. “Do you think they
would’ve killed me?”

He shook
his head. “No. This is New York, not Mexico. They might have hurt you, but they
probably wouldn’t have murdered you.”

Tears welled
in her eyes. “I’m not so sure. When I was in Mexico, one of the narcos tried to
rape me. A farmer, my friend Roberto, he stopped it. They burned his farm to the
ground.” She sobbed and wiped her eyes. “Then I watched them torch a church
full of people, they killed them all. That’s why I have to go back. That’s why
this story needs to be told.”

He sat
next to her on the bed. “That’s some serious motivation.”

She tucked
a loose strand of hair behind her ear and wiped her cheek. “God, I’m so sorry.
You just saved my life, and I haven’t even thanked you.” She put her glass down
on the bedside table and hugged him.

There was
an awkward moment where Bishop didn’t know what do. Then he wrapped his arms
around her and returned the hug. “It’s OK, anyone would have done the same
thing.”

She sighed
and released him. “Most people would have panicked. You stayed calm.”

“Most
people don’t have training to fall back on.”

She gave
a weak smile. “Having you around would be pretty useful in Mexico.”

“Nice try.”
He laughed. “Alright, I’ve got a lunch meeting, and after that I’ll do a little
snooping around. I don’t want you going home till I get a little more info
about these RED guys. OK?”

She
nodded.

 
“I’ll come back here and we’ll do dinner
at seven.” He downed his drink and made for the door. “I’ll also sort you out a
room of your own.”

“Who’s
going to pay for the room?” Christina asked. “I can’t really afford to stay
here.”

“Compliments
of the UN. I’ll see you at seven.”

***

Bishop rode the elevator down to the hotel lobby and walked
into the bar. He spotted Mirza waiting at a table with his bag on the floor.
The former Indian Special Forces operative rose to meet him.

The pair
had been friends for years, ever since they had met on a UN operation in Sierra
Leone. It was Bishop who’d recruited Mirza into the covert vigilante
organization and they’d been partners ever since. Despite embodying the
fearsome fighting spirit of his Nepalese forefathers, Mirza was in fact the
more deliberate of the two. His cool-headed demeanor balanced Bishop’s hot-headedness
perfectly.

“Good to see
you with a beard again, mate.” Bishop embraced the smaller man in a bear hug.
“I didn’t want to tell you, but that moustache of yours was getting a little
creepy. How was Myanmar?”

Mirza had
just finished a preliminary operation in the military dictatorship. His mission
was focused on establishing contacts in the underground for a future operation.
These contacts would be cultivated into agents, or Blades as PRIMAL’s chief of
intelligence called them.

“It was hot
and sticky.”

“Well you’re
not going to get any of that here. New York in the spring is like heaven
compared to South East Asia.”

Mirza grinned.
“I’ve been looking forward to it. So many things I want to see.”

“And see
them you will. There’s just one small thing we need to take care of before we
hit the sights.”

Mirza’s
smile dropped. “What are you talking about?”

They sat
at the table and Bishop explained the task Chua had given him. He then outlined
the series of events that led to the attempted abduction of Christina.

“I’ve
never met anyone who attracts trouble like you do, Aden. It’s like I spend my
time running around with Dirk Pitt.” Mirza was an avid fan of Clive Cussler’s
early work.

“This one
isn’t my fault. Chua dumped me right in the middle of it.”

“But you
completed the mission. The girl’s problems are not yours.”

“Really,
is that how you feel?”

Mirza sighed.
“No. What’s the plan?”

Bishop pulled
out his iPRIMAL and showed him the photo he had taken on the train. “I flicked
this through to Flash. He ran it through the system and managed to track these bozos
down on the web.” Flash was PRIMAL’s digital intelligence specialist. The
former NSA analyst was a genius when it came to exploiting communications and
computer networks. He worked in the Bunker with the rest of the PRIMAL support
staff.

He tapped
the screen. “Both these guys work for a private security firm called Ground Effects
Services. What’s interesting is they have an office in the same building as a
private equity fund called Manhattan Ventures.”

“And how
do they fit in?”

“They’re
the ones bankrolling the mine Christina is investigating in Mexico.”

“It’s
obvious they’re trying to intimidate her. Stop her from investigating further.”

“That’s
exactly why we need to check them out.”

“Before
we go any further, Bish, I’ve got to ask one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Is this
journalist attractive?”

Bishop
laughed. “She’s not ugly, mate, but it’s not like that.”

“Just
wanted to make sure you hadn’t fallen in love in the six hours you’ve been in
New York.”

“That’s
not even funny.” He frowned. “Why does everyone think I run around with my
heart on my sleeve?”

“Because
you do, but that’s part of your charm. Now what’s your plan for getting inside?
Manhattan Ventures or the security guys?”

He shook
his head. “Too much risk. I want to go in through the guys running the mine.
They’re called Resources and Environmental Development, or RED. It’ll be much
easier. They’ll always be looking for new opportunities.” He ordered a gin and
tonic from a waiter along with a lemonade for Mirza.

“It’s
simple. We get Flash to build an online back story that makes me out to be an
investor with links to the PNG government. We make it look like I have access
to the rights for the Bougainville Copper mine.” Bishop referred to a massive copper
and gold deposit located on a Papua New Guinean island. Thought to be the
largest in the world, it had been shut down in the nineties due to civil
unrest.

“Good
plan, Bish, there’s only one problem.”

“What’s
that?”

Mirza
gestured to the photo on the screen. “The thugs you snapped might recognize you.
I’m going to have to be the one that visits RED.”

“Damn,
you’re right. That’ll work, there’s a lot of Indian money in PNG. You’ll have
to get a suit though and put on a few pounds.”

“A shiny
watch might be in order.”

“And a
hotel more suited to a man of your stature.” Bishop grinned. “Throw it on the company
plastic, that’s what it’s for.”

“Will do.”

“I’ll get
Flash onto it. In the meantime, I’m going to take Christina out for dinner.”

Mirza
rolled his eyes. “It’s not like that, mate,” he said mimicking Bishop’s
Australian accent.

“Bugger
off and find yourself a hotel.”