The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,149
it was still a good thirty feet high.
‘What about it?’
‘That’s what we’re aiming for. It’ll break our fall.’
‘It’ll probably break a lot more than that!’
Adam put down the open umbrella, taking the medical case from Bianca and squeezing it into his bag. ‘We can’t drop straight to the sidewalk,’ he said, as he slung the holdall over one shoulder. ‘The Mary Poppins won’t slow us down enough from this height.’
‘The what? Oh, never mind, I get it. But you can’t seriously—’
‘The guys with guns will be here any time now.’ Holding the umbrella in one hand, he hefted the heavier of the two PERSONA cases in the other. ‘And they’ve been told they can shoot us. You want to wait for them?’ Her expression made her opinion clear. ‘Then grab the other case and hang on to me as tight as you can.’ He hunched down a little, gesturing for her to move in front of him.
Bianca put both arms over his shoulders, gripping the case’s handle as hard as she could. The forced intimacy of being nose-to-nose with Adam was the least uncomfortable thing about her situation. ‘Are you ready?’ he said.
She licked her suddenly dry lips, trying to cover her rising fear. ‘It’s a bit late to back out now, isn’t it?’
A crash of metal. The access door had been kicked open. Uniformed men, their clothing darkened by water, burst out on to the roof. ‘Over there!’ one shouted, seeing the fugitives. His gun came up. ‘Freeze!’
Adam looked into Bianca’s eyes, giving her unspoken reassurance – then he swept her with him over the edge.
Gravity caught them. Bianca screamed as they plunged. The umbrella’s carbon-fibre spokes creaked alarmingly, the tough nylon straining as wind resistance tried to rip it free.
The floors of the STS building flashed past. Even with the umbrella’s air-braking effect, it wasn’t slowing them enough . . .
‘Close your eyes!’ Adam shouted.
An order, not fatalism—
Bianca did as she was told – as they hit the top of the tree with a huge crackle of snapping twigs. Leaves burst around them like confetti, broken wood clawing at their clothes and skin.
They kept falling, the topmost branches too slender to resist their weight. The fabric and spokes were ripped from the umbrella’s shaft. Bianca felt a slashing pain in her thigh as a wooden shard tore through her trouser leg. She cried out – then the breath was knocked from her as she slammed down on a more solid bough.
She lost her grip on Adam. The case was jarred from her hands, bouncing through the foliage. She tumbled, hitting another branch side-on. It cleaved from the trunk with an earsplitting snap. More leaves lashed at her hair and face as she dropped—
A hard impact, this time on something cool and flat and solid. She was on the ground.
Head spinning, pain messages from different parts of her body competing for attention, she blearily opened her eyes . . .
And saw a car coming straight for her.
She screamed—
The sound was drowned out by the screech of tyres. The car juddered to a halt, the front wheel less than a foot from Bianca’s head.
A thump nearby told her that Adam had landed. He pulled her up. The bag was still slung from his shoulder, and he had somehow kept hold of the case. Its twin lay on the sidewalk, leaves dropping around it like green snowflakes. ‘Get the PERSONA!’
She limped to pick it up. Adam ran around the car, an ageing Hyundai Elantra station wagon, and yanked open the door. ‘Out!’ he roared, pulling the startled driver from her vehicle. ‘Bianca, come on!’
Bianca collected the case and hobbled to the passenger door. ‘Sorry,’ she called to the driver as she climbed in. Adam had already tossed his case on to the back seat, putting the car in drive. The Hyundai peeled away with as much power as it could muster, leaving shocked onlookers in its wake.
‘Take this,’ said Adam, passing the bag to her.
With the case in her lap, she had to perch the extra baggage on top of it – making it all but impossible for her to fasten her seat belt. She struggled to brace her legs in the footwell as Adam took a corner at speed, the station wagon’s roll making her slither sideways in her seat. ‘Where are we going?’
‘We need to get underground.’
‘Why?’
‘To block the tracker. If we stay in the open, they’ll box us in.’