Helix Nexus by Chris Lofts (read e books online free .TXT) 📕

the lift?’ Ethan said, pausing in front of the drinks cabinet. ‘If I’ve got my bearings correct, the lift was to the left of the stairwell.’

Helix stepped around him, running his fingers down the right edge of the cabinet. He paused, his fingers coming up against an unseen ridge. ‘Got something.’ He applied more pressure. A loud click released the front of the cabinet. It swung outwards on heavy hinges revealing the open doors of a red-carpeted lift. ‘That solves that mystery.’

‘Yep, but where’s Lytkin?’

Helix went back to the bedroom. ‘In here,’ he called, crossing to the pile of blood-soaked clothes. The red-smeared basin in the ensuite showed more evidence of a hasty clean up. A wardrobe door hung open, clothes tossed onto the bed. ‘She changed. Not surprising. I doubt even she could explain her way out of being drenched in gore,’ he said, turning to Ethan. ‘Can you get access to all your shit from her desk? We could get Sofi to track her.’

‘All my shit?’ Ethan replied, feigning indignance as he pulled himself into Lytkin’s office chair. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Let me see.’

36

A handprint scanner pulsed in the middle of the Home Secretary’s glass desktop. Ethan flexed his fingers and flattened his hand inside the boundaries of the rectangular reader and waited. The red-edged halo around his palm and fingers throbbed.

Helix wandered to the window. ‘Any luck?’ he said, looking out over the moonlit London nightscape. ‘Come on, I’d have thought you would have been in by now,’ he added, looking over his shoulder. ‘Whassup?’

‘Bollocks!’ Ethan’s hand shifted to the MP5 on the desk at his side. ‘Houston, we—’

The problem manifested itself in a series of audible clicks as the office doors locked automatically. Helix drew one of his guns and rushed at the main door. He tugged the handle and shook his head at his brother.

Ethan made for the hidden lift. ‘The lift’s locked out too.’ He shifted to the left. ‘And the stairwell.’

The doors were armoured and a charge sufficient to breach them would take them out in the process if they were in the same room. Rummaging through the rucksack Helix pulled out a grenade. ‘Get in the bedroom, Ethan.’ He checked the timer on the device, activated it and balanced it on the door handle.

Ethan followed Helix into the en suite bathroom, throwing the door closed behind him. With two doors and the bedroom between, the odds were in their favour. Dust cascaded from the bathroom ceiling with the detonation. The wall mirrors shattered. Helix leaned back against the bathroom door, holding it closed against the shock wave. ‘You ready?’ he said, P226 in hand.

Ethan nodded and selected auto on the MP5.

Choking dust filled the bathroom as Helix threw open the door, grimacing at the ear-splitting fire alarm.

Ethan covered the angles in the bedroom. ‘Clear,’ he called.

The bedroom door hung by a single hinge. Helix scanned the devastated office dropping to his knee as the beams of two laser sights pierced the dust and smoke. Blinking through the fog he took aim at the hole where the office door used to be and paused, his temples pounding. The first shadow approached cautiously. Helix took aim at centre mass. In the absence of smart-ammo he had to be sure. The shadow paused. Helix fired. The man jerked back from the door, a muffled grunt confirming a hit. Automatic shots poured into the room from a second shooter. Ethan unleashed three short bursts from the MP5. The second man fell, the laser sight pointing lazily at the buckled ceiling of the office. Helix sprinted forward, firing two rapid taps into each man on the floor.

Turning back to check on Ethan, Helix glanced out of the window. A pair of bright navigation lights moved amongst the stars. ‘Aircraft inbound,’ he shouted over the alarm.

‘She’s going for the roof,’ Ethan yelled, his thumb jabbing upwards.

Helix edged over to the fallen door and into the debris-filled hallway. The evacuation strobes throbbed through the dust in concert with the klaxon. With the lifts disabled by the fire alarm, he made for the stairs. Ducking back inside, he abandoned the idea as panicking residents from the apartments above filed down the stairs. Time was limited. Armed security details would have been deployed following the explosion. They would be elbowing their way up the stairs amongst the evacuees. Helix smashed his elbow into a fire cabinet on the stairwell wall and pulled an axe from its retaining clip. ‘We’ll never make it through that lot,’ he said, pointing back over his shoulder. ‘We’ll use hers.’

Helix located the edge of the door leading to Lytkin’s private staircase. He holstered his P226 and swung the axe at the door. ‘We’ll take the stairs to the roof, cut her off,’ he said, levering the axe free. Polished wood splintered under the blows. Sparks flew from the metal lock as he ripped the door apart. The axe jammed. Stepping aside, he twisted it. The door gave. A further blow finished the lock, freeing the door. ‘Come on.’

‘Would she really have gone up rather than down?’ Ethan asked.

‘She won’t join the great unwashed on the stairs if she can fly from the roof.’

Five flights further up, they paused at the door to the roof. ‘What’s up,’ Ethan said, looking at his brother.

‘Where’s the quad? It’s too quiet,’ Helix replied. ‘Anyway, here we go.’

They executed the same door exit routine, Helix covering the left, Ethan the right. The only turbulence on the roof was from the wind but it wasn’t enough to mask the rapid burst of automatic fire that greeted their entrance onto the roof. ‘Fuck!’ Helix cursed, taking a shot in his right calf, grateful it wasn’t the left. More shots ripped and ricocheted into the paved roof as Helix rolled behind a satellite array. He came up in a crouch as Ethan returned fire from inside the doorway with the