by Rob Jones
He navigated the Highlander along the ridge of the mountain, but a few minutes into their journey a low rumbling sound started to come from the back of the SUV.
“You hear that?” Kim said.
Hawke checked the rear view. “I hear it.”
“What is it?” Ryan asked.
“Is it something wrong with the SUV?” Kim asked.
Reaper shook his head. “It’s a chopper.”
Devlin turned and looked over his shoulder. “Nothing this side.”
“I see it,” Kim said. “But don’t ask me what it is. They all look the same to me.”
Reaper leaned over her and stared into the sky. The wrinkles around his eyes creased up as he squinted into the sun. “Sikorsky Super Stallion.”
Hawke glanced over his shoulder to Reaper. “A Super Sta... what the hell?”
“What’s one of those?” Kim asked.
“It’s usually a military chopper. Heavy cargo lifter.”
“Not the sort of hardware you’d think Kruger would pack on his vacation then?” Kim said.
“No,” Hawke said with a scowl. “It has kevlar armor plating and the engines are so powerful it can fly nearly two hundred miles per hour despite its colossal size and weight. I’m starting to think Dirk Kruger has a very powerful employer.”
“I guess now we know what Kruger was so miffed about back in the field,” Scarlet said. “He was expecting the chopper to be there when he came off the mountain.”
“So we’re in trouble?” Kim asked.
“Oui,” Reaper said, but with his usual air of nonchalant indifference. “The Super Stallion has window-mounted fifty cal machine guns and a Gau-21 machine gun on the cargo ramp, and looking at this one...” he leaned over Kim again and looked up. “Oui... c’est exactement ce que je pensais... il y a – sorry – there are some missiles on this bird also.”
“What you seeing, Reap?” Scarlet said.
“Maybe Stingers, mais...”
“Looks like we’re about to find out, friends,” Devlin said. “She’s moved over to my side and she’s coming down. Looks like she means business.”
The Stallion swooped down behind the Highlander as they raced along the ridge of the mountain. Hawke dropped down from fourth to third to increase torque but even over the chunky roar of the Highlander’s 3.3 litre V6 the cab of the SUV was now filled with the chilling growl of the Super Stallion’s General Electric three free-turbine turboshaft engines.
“Anyone still see Krugs?” Ryan said.
“Krugs?” Scarlet said.
“It’s my new name for him.”
“He’s past the town and heading out to the fields beside the river over there. Looks like a rendez-vous to meet the chopper after we’ve been dealt with.”
“They’re firing!” Scarlet yelled.
Hawke said nothing, but spun the wheel hard to the right and sent the Highander swerving down the slope. The Stinger screeched past them at the head of a grim, billowing smoke trail. Lea watched with fear as the missile ripped into the ridge and exploded in a massive fireball, blasting chunks of mud and rock in all directions. One fist-sized rock slammed into the Highlander’s windshield and left a thick spider-web fracture in the middle of the glass.
Lea gasped and shielded her eyes.
Hawke turned his head but kept his eyes on the slope. The slope’s incline was too steep here and was sucking them down into the valley again. He doubted he could keep them safe if the SUV started to head straight down the slope. As they gathered speed he would be unable to brake or turn without flipping them over. That would make them easier for the Stallion to hunt, so he made the decision to turn the Highlander to the left and head back up to the ridge.
He slammed down into third again and the engine roared. “Some cover fire would be nice.”
“You think this Glock is going to take down a Super Stallion?” Scarlet said.
“I think the pilot is human and your firing on him will force a reaction.”
Scarlet sighed and pushed down her window. She pulled the gun from her holster and climbed out of the rear window of the SUV until her entire upper body was outside and the wind was whipping her hair across her face. She cursed Hawke and started to fire at the cargo chopper.
Reaper pushed down Kim’s window and followed suit, firing his weapon up at the chopper. Kim jumped and lifted her hands to her hears as the Frenchman discharged the firearm right next to her face.
Hawke was right, and the Super Stallion took evasive action, flying up and to the left. Swinging out over the valley now it went full circle and prepared to make another run on the Highlander.
Lea leaned her head to look past the smashed windshield. “We’re running out of ridge, Joe!”
“I’m on it!”
The Stallion was behind them again, but this time keeping its distance. “They’re staying out of the range of the handguns, Joe!” Scarlet said.
“Incoming!” Reaper yelled. He pulled his head back in the window.
Scarlet climbed back inside. “Five seconds, Josiah and we’re a thousand pieces!”
Hawke checked the mirror and saw this time they were firing the missile to their right to stop them taking cover down on the slope.
But the left was a steep drop all the way down to the bottom of the mountain.
And then the Stinger was on them.
Hawke spun the wheel to the left to avoid a direct hit and sent the Highlander scrambling over to the edge of the ridge. His plan was to try and keep the SUV from tumbling over by constantly steering the vehicle to the right and fighting gravity until the danger was past, but it struck much closer than he’d anticipated and he had underestimated the awesome power of the Stinger.
The Highlander tipped onto its two left wheels and they all knew that their lives were now in the hands of the gods.
“Put your windows down!” Hawke yelled.
As they tipped over onto their side, Lea screamed and held onto the sides of her seat. In the rear seats the rest of the team clung on for their lives, and up front Hawke struggled against hope to get the steering wheel lined up in the right place for when the Highlander finally crashed back down on its wheels.
It turned over and over, partially crumpling the reinforced roof in over their heads and throwing them about as if they were in an industrial washing machine. The glass in the windshield exploded into their faces like a grenade as the roof collapsed, but thanks to Hawke’s quick-thinking the other windows were open, and the glass safely inside the doors. After what seemed like forever the wrecked Toyota came to a stop on the shores of the lake.
The ECHO team immediately crawled from the smoking wreckage of the trashed Highlander and checked for injuries. They had gotten away lightly, with only a few bruises and cuts among them. Worse was the damage to their professional pride as they watched Kruger’s Jeep Cherokee screech to a halt in an open field down by the Mawddach River. The Super Stallion swooped down and landed a few dozen yards further west, its powerful rotors blasting the surrounding grass totally flat as the South African ran to it and disappeared inside its side door with Zito and the other men following a few paces behind. This time none of them looked back.
“So now they have the Sword of Fire,” Ryan said.
“And they murdered Kloos in cold blood,” said Kim.
Lea sighed. “We’re going to need Lund again. We need to trace that chopper in a hurry.” She pulled her phone out and made a call to the enigmatic Dane.
Scarlet leaned against the wrecked Highlander and lit a cigarette. “Look on the bright side,” she said.
“And what would that be?” Hawke asked.
“You’ve broken a new record, Joe.”
“Have I?”
She nodded and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Not even Jeremy Clarkson could inflict this much carnage on a Toyota.”
“Funny,” he said.
“So what now, Batman?” Kim said, looking at Hawke.
“We wait for this,” he s
aid, pointing his chin over at Lea, who was still on the phone. She ended the call and walked over to them.
“What’s the deal?” Hawke said.
“The Stallion is owned by a man named Pavel Horak, and the scheduled flight path takes it back to a mansion he owns just outside of London.”
“So that’s who’s pulling Krugsie’s strings,” Ryan said.
“A mansion?” said Kim.
Lea nodded. “Uh-huh. Apparently, it’s called Woodrow House. This Horak guy has owned it for years. Lund says he’s an eccentric Czech billionaire. He also says there’s some kind of terror threat going on in London. This has to be linked.”
“Wait a minute – you mean the Pavel Horak?” Ryan said. “As in Sir Pavel Horak?”
Lea shrugged her shoulders. “I never heard of him so he’s just like any other Pavel Horak to me.”
Ryan sighed. “Pavel Horak is one of the country’s leading software magnates and to say he’s eccentric is the understatement of the century. He’s totally crazy.”
Another shrug from Lea. “I don’t care if he’s the Easter buggering Bunny. Looks like Dirk Kruger is staying at his place before he flies out of the UK so that makes him a legitimate target.”
“What the hell does a man like Pavel Horak want with the idol?” Reaper said.
Hawke said, “That’s just what I was thinking.”
“Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “I remember now – Pavel Horak was in the news recently because they’re about to take his knighthood away over some kind of financial scandal.”
Kim frowned. “You think that’s enough to drive him to commit some kind of terrorist atrocity in London?”
“That’s a strategic concern,” Hawke said. “We’re in the field and focussing on the tactical. Lea, is Lund going to get us some back-up?”
Lea shook her head and sighed. “As far as getting the authorities involved, Lund says it’s a big no. He says there’s no way he can run security checks before we get there. If we alert the police or anti-terror units we might be alerting the enemy. Horak has deep pockets and long arms.”
“Fuck that,” Scarlet said. She whipped out her phone and punched some numbers into the pad. “We need back-up and I know just the man to call.” She walked away from the group as she started to speak into the phone.
“Does Lund know how Horak and Kruger are planning on getting the sword out of the country?” Hawke asked.
“Horak does a lot of business in London and his preferred method of travel is helicopter. He has a hangar at the property with a small collection of choppers there. Lund says there’s only one flight scheduled for today and that’s an AgustaWestland belonging to Horak himself.”
“Sounds like that’s the escape plan then,” Ryan said.
“When?” Hawke asked.
“Just after midday,” Lea said.
Scarlet returned and slipped her phone into her pocket. “Sorted. An old mate of mine from the Regiment has agreed to join our madness. Hope he doesn’t make you feel like some sort of big girl, Joe.”
Hawke opened his mouth to reply, but Scarlet cut him off: “So what’s the plan?”
“We think our arms dealer friend is going to try and leave the country with this Horak bloke. They have an AgustaWestland,” Lea said.
“When?”
“Midday.”
Reaper glanced at his watch and gave a shrug. “We can do it if we hurry.”
Kim laughed. “When do you crazies ever do anything that isn't in a hurry?”
“True,” Scarlet said. “And that includes Ryan in bed... so Lea says,” she added hastily.
Hawke rolled his eyes and looked at the Toyota. “Looks like we’re going to need some new wheels to get back to the airport though.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Berkshire
Scarlet was up front in the Lexus LX. They had hired it after landing at London Heathrow Airport and even kept a straight face when they had signed the form promising to bring it back in one piece.
Following a round of jokes about Hawke’s driving back in Snowdonia, Vincent Reno was at the wheel, and now they were turning off the M4 and heading into the Berkshire countryside. If the Google Earth images were anything to go by, Woodrow House was a large Georgian mansion nestled in around twelve acres of prime Home Counties real estate and a just stone’s throw from Windsor Castle.
For Scarlet this was as close to home as she could get. Not only was Richard Eden’s country house close by, but so was her own family home. She closed her eyes and the darkness took her back there once again. The sunlight shining on the bricks on the side of their sixteenth century manor house, her father’s smile as he walked a tray of drinks out to the shade of an ash tree, her mother cursing as she dropped one of her beloved books and lost the page. Her brother Spencer playing with his toys on the croquet lawn.
All of that rubbed out in less than a minute by unknown gunmen.
They had stormed into the peace of their house and cut Sir Roger and Lady Phillipa Sloane dead like stray dogs while Scarlet hid in the wardrobe like the terrified little girl she was at the time. Now her parents were in their graves and her brother was Sir Spencer Sloane after inheriting his father’s title and the manor.
She realized her eyes were squeezed shut so hard they nearly hurt and she opened them to relieve the tension. She felt a tear running from her left eye and turned to look out at the countryside as she dried it away. She didn’t want anyone else to see it. She would kill the bastards who murdered her parents if it took her entire life to find out who did it and why, but she would do it alone. The bloodlust she felt coursing through her heart could only be slaked if she kept this personal and avenged her parents herself.
“Everything okay, Cairo?”
It was Hawke. She felt his hand on her shoulder. Relegated to the back seat after the mountain fiasco, he was sitting directly behind her. She knew he had seen the tear, but he had kept it vague. Just between them.
“I’m righter than rain, darling – et toi?”
Hawke smiled. “Keen to get on, you know how it is.”
“What about you, Donovan?” Scarlet asked.
“Just about ready to ram that Sword of Fire right up Dirk Kruger’s arse, to be honest.”
“Amen to that,” Ryan said. “I still owe that bastard for kidnapping me.”
She gazed out the window as Reaper raced the Lexus SUV along the narrow country lanes. It was the same unspoiled countryside she remembered from her childhood – chestnut trees, shire ponies, gentle hills.
She was knocked from her memories by the gruff nicotine-streaked voice of Vincent Reno. “We’re here.”
Ahead of them, parked in the entrance to a field was a battered Land Rover with dried mud caked over the wheel arches and up the doors. As they pulled up in front of it, a lean, tanned man with his arms covered in tattoos casually slid out of the four-wheel-drive and tossed the stub of a roll-up cigarette into a puddle.
“Bugger me,” Hawke said. “If it ain’t Eddie Donald!”
“Who’s he?” Ryan asked.
“He’s our back-up,” Scarlet said. “And an old friend of mine.”
Hawke laughed. “And mine. Good call, Cairo.”
“Anything we should know about him?” Kim said.
“Call him Mack and don’t get on the wrong side of him,” Scarlet said. “He’s the most experienced soldier I’ve ever known. I met him on Operation Dagger Strike a long time ago. He’s solid gold, darling – but you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.”
Hawke pushed down the window as Mack sidled over to the Lexus. The Scotsman leaned his head inside and gave them all a toothy grin. The stink of stale tobacco wafted into the SUV on his breath as he spoke. “Was wondering when you big Jessies was gonnae turn up.”
Hawke shook his hand and Scarlet blew him a kiss. “You presence is appreciated, Mack,” she said.
“Ah, fuck off,” he said. “Anything for an old friend.”
Hawke made the
introductions, and then got straight to business. “Anything to report, Mack?”
The tough Glaswegian shrugged his shoulders as he rolled up another cigarette. “No traffic in or out since the chopper landed. They’re all up at the big house having a high-old time.”
“Let’s get in there then,” Hawke said. “Word is there’s increased chatter about a terror attack and my money’s on this Horak.”
“We’re pretty close to Windsor Castle as well,” Lea said.
Mack stepped up on the running board on Hawke’s side of the Lexus and banged the roof. “Come on then, bawbags – let’s do this.”
Unable to translate the Glaswegian, Reaper gave Hawke and Scarlet a confused look, but hit the throttle all the same, and moments later they were driving along another narrow country lane which formed the estate’s western perimeter. It was marked by an old six-foot high stone wall with trespass warning signs pinned here and there along the way. Approaching the gatehouse, Reaper slowed the vehicle while Scarlet pulled out her gun and lowered it out of sight down by the handbrake.
Reaper pulled up at the gatehouse and a rotund man with mousy hair and a loosened tie around his neck strolled over to the Lexus. In his right hand was a two-way radio, and he didn’t seem to like the look of the tattooed man hanging on to the side of the vehicle.
“Can I help?” he said. He was looking at Mack, but then Scarlet pushed down her window, winked at him and pulled the gun into his face. “Drop the radio and put your hands up, darling.”
*
Lexi Zhang’s flight landed at Beijing Capital Airport just before dusk. She had watched the mountains north of the city melt into the sprawling capital with total disinterest as the aircraft banked and prepared to land. She dealt with the customs officials with the same detached attitude and when she climbed into the cab she was just about ready to fly away again.
Tonight her heart was like the setting sun. It knew day had passed and night was beginning, but for the sun a new dawn was just hours away. Lexi had a feeling her own night would last much longer. The dying rays lit the busy freeways in rosy reds and glowing ambers, and above it all the stark steel and glass skyscrapers of her home city stretched up into the purple twilight.
