Collateral

Dempsey dropped into a crouch and spun on the balls of his feet. raised overhead and primed to split open Dempsey's skull. to send him flying into tough guy number two, Both men crashed to the ground in a tangled heap of arms and legs amid a pile of overturned wooden chairs. Dempsey did a quick scan for the next threat, but there was nobody left standing in the tiny pub. For an instant, he locked eyes with the woman behind the bar. Thank God this was London and not Houston, or else he would be staring down the barrel of a Remington 870. As it was, the only targeting lasers fixed on him at the moment were the invisible ones streaming from her angry eyes. Sorry about your bulldog, he said with an Irish brogue as he turned to leave. Get the fuck out, she screamed as he barreled out the pub's doors and onto the street, and never come back. Which way did he go, Dempsey asked, to the ether, scanning right then left for his target. North on East Ferry Road, Grimes answered. Check, he said, and took off after the Russian spy. After one block, the ancient and uneven brick pavers underfoot transitioned to asphalt, improving Dempsey's footing and letting him push to a full tilt. How are your eyes, Omega? he asked, noting the misty, overcast night sky. We have the target on satellite thermal, Baldwin said. He has a two-block lead on you and is headed toward Mud Chute Park. Is that the giant fucking goat farm? Yes, John, Baldwin said, breaking opsec as usual. Mud Chute Park and farm is the largest working farm in London. It's heavily wooded and spans twelve hectares, so I suggest you hurry before you lose him. I know. I know. I'm running. I know you can see that, Dempsey puffed. Oh, we see you. Is that all you got, old man? Mun chimed in. Dempsey didn't answer, preferring to conserve precious oxygen. He hated this shit. Lately it seemed like every op ended in a foot race, either with him chasing down some fleet-footed asshole, or with him running for his life while being shot at by Russians. Ember didn't need operators. What he needed was Olympic middle-distance runners. I'm too old for this shit, he thought as his quads began to burn. Alpha, this is Bravo, Grimes said in his ear. I'm coming down, gonna bring the car around to the east side and reposition on Stebendale Street. If our tango crosses Millwall Park playing fields, I'll plink him with the long gun. I said, no sniper action. Baldwin's voice had an uncharacteristic hard edge. Accidental death or poison, that was the op-ord. We tried poison, and that didn't work out so well, Mun said. So now it's time to try accidental death. Enlighten me, Dan, if you will. How does a sniper round to the head qualify as accidental death? Baldwin said. It qualifies when the target accidentally walks into Lizzie's bullet while it happens to be flying in the vicinity of his head, the former SEAL doc said, oozing with sarcasm. Opsec, people, opsec, snapped an acerbic fourth voice on the line. I'm good, but so is British intelligence. GCHQ is listening. The rebuke from Richard Wang, Ember's cyber and IT expert, was as out of character as truth was from a politician. To Dempsey's surprise, everybody shut up and locked it down. Thank God. He pulled up a mental image of the nearby green space complex consisting of Millwall Park and Mudshoot Farm. He didn't have an eidetic memory, but he'd always had a knack for remembering topography and details from satellite imagery. As a SEAL with the Tier One back in the day, it had been his responsibility to plan the ops and know the terrain cold. Yes, they'd had GPS, suntow watches, slick tablet computers, and eyes in the sky to monitor their position, but Dempsey knew better than to put all his faith in technology. Because unlike his teammates, technology seemed to have an annoying habit of letting him down when he needed it most. Mudshoot Farm was a genuine anomaly. Nothing of the sort existed in American cities. At 32 acres, it was huge and situated on the Isle of Dogs, a peninsula inside a button-hook bow of the Thames in central London, where real estate was going at a premium.