Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 4

by Rob Jones

  At the top of the steps a man in a roll neck jumper met them and waved them on board. A thick carpet of silver stubble carpeted his jaw like an expensive rug and his pale blue eyes had a hint of mischief about them.

  “I’m Captain Kampmann,” he said, nervously glancing behind them down at the docks. “Were you followed?”

  “They tried,” Hawke said, “but they failed. Listen, thanks for taking this risk, Captain. Smuggling a fugitive out of China is a big deal. We all have a lot to thank you for.”

  The man finished his anxious scan of the port over their shoulders. “Let’s just say your organization was very generous when it came to paying me for my troubles. We’re due to leave in a few moments, so please, Ulrik here will show you to your quarters. There you can freshen up before dinner and then we will rendezvous with the US Navy helicopter as soon as we are out of Bohai Bay.”

  As they walked deep inside the safety of the goliath container ship, Devlin turned to Scarlet and said, “Thing I want to know is why Humpty would take a dump behind the wall anyway? Has he no fuckin’ manners?”

  Lexi looked at him in confusion, “What the fuck?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Davis Faulkner was in the back of Air Force Two when the call came. They were flying thirty-seven thousand feet over the Midwest on the way back from a Vice Presidential trip to Seattle. Below, storm clouds were forming above the cornfields of Minnesota, but it was the storm on the end of this phone call that unnerved him.

  “Sir.”

  “Mr Vice President, how good of you to take my call.”

  Faulkner leaned forward in his seat and fiddled with the end of his tie. “That’s no problem at all, sir.”

  “Let’s get straight to business, Davis.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We both want you in the Oval Office, am I right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, good.”

  Faulkner heard the creature wheezing. He sounded like he was getting weaker.

  “The problem I have, Davis, is that our attempt to blow your President out of the sky in England failed and so as you know, I have been working on something much more certain to do the job.”

  “Sounds promising, Oracle.”

  “I will of course need the assistance you can provide in your capacity as Vice President of the United States.”

  “What do you need, sir?”

  “My people will need unfettered access to a certain American coastal city, land sea and air.”

  “I probably can swing that, sir.” A smile spread on his lips. This really was going to happen. He really was going to become President.

  “Probably?”

  Faulkner’s smile dropped. “It’ll be done, sir. Whatever you want.”

  “Better.”

  “What’s the plan, sir?”

  The Vice President listened carefully as the Oracle briefed him on the plan to kill the President. It was brutal. It was treason. It was going to put him in the Oval Office in less than two days.

  When the Oracle hung up, Faulkner realized his hands were shaking. His Chief of Staff, Joshua Muston stepped over to him with two coffees in his hands. “Captain says more turbulence is on the way, sir.”

  Faulkner accepted the coffee. “There certainly is, Josh. There certainly is.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That was Wolff.”

  Muston paled and took a seat opposite his boss. “Oh, God.”

  Faulkner’s eyebrows lifted half an inch. “Pretty much, yes.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to tell me I’m going to be President in a few hours’ time.”

  Muston seemed to have forgotten about his coffee. “What’s going to happen?”

  For a long while Faulkner was silent as he took in the storm clouds so far below, swirling, bubbling. “Let’s just say this country’s going to have a very bad day tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The savage heat of the Transvaal veld beat down on them as they watched the horror unfold in front of their eyes. They had driven a short distance from the complex to an area of caged animals and now Lea studied Kruger’s face for any sign that he might be bluffing. Out here in the bleak isolation of his home turf he looked bigger than usual, more powerful. More in control. Out here he was god and he knew it.

  He turned away from where his men were struggling with Julius and looked over at her, staring into her eyes. Not a flicker of emotion was on his face, not the vaguest hint that he was playing games. Turned black in the shade of the bush hat’s broad, battered rim, his eyes were as cold as ever, almost defying her to challenge him, to try and save the traitor’s life.

  “I can tell you’re impressed,” he said at last.

  He’s right beside you, dammit! Why don’t you do something to stop this?

  Because her hands were handcuffed behind her back and she was surrounded by men with automatic rifles. That’s why and she hated it. She felt powerless because she was powerless. The frustration burned inside her, hotter than the African sun, but it wasn’t enough to save this man’s life and she knew it.

  But did she really want to save his life? He was Athanatoi after all. But then, he had also decided to turn away from the Oracle and had refused to help him in his quest to take over the world. That was enough, she thought. Bad people could become good and when she watched Julius struggling in the arms of his captors, she knew he had genuinely turned.

  The captive called out over his shoulder. “Blankov, I don’t understand! I never did anything to you. I even translated the symbols!”

  “Only because I had your son killed and no – you never did anything to me, that’s true.” He sounded almost sympathetic. “But you did something against our glorious leader.”

  “But can’t you see, he’s insane?”

  “Hush, Julius, hush. After so many centuries, your time has come.”

  Julius struggled in Kruger’s arms. “Please, come with me! Together we can beat the Oracle, Ivan!”

  Blankov wasn’t listening. Neither was Kruger. Lea knew he wouldn’t. She knew him well enough to know that nothing would drive a man like him to show pity. To Dirk Kruger pity was weakness and there was nothing worse than showing your enemy you had any weaknesses, any break in the armor. She guessed if anything, Blankov was even worse.

  “Sadly, Julius, I cannot on this occasion accommodate your pleas.”

  “This is madness!” Julius looked like he was about to throw up.

  Lea watched helplessly as Venter and his men lashed the ropes around him and dragged him to the enclosure. Kruger was standing the other side of the enormous cage. He was tapping the mesh and calling out to the lion as it paced up and down in the heat. Now, it turned and padded over to him. Approaching the arms dealer, it growled and reared up on its hind legs, bringing its powerful front paws crashing down on the steel mesh. Its claws scraped down the metal and produced a tinny, grating noise.

  “They’re very intelligent,” Kruger said, waving a fly from his face and scanning the empty savannah beyond the cage. “The most intelligent beast out here and that’s for damned sure.”

  “It’s got fifty IQ points on you, Dirk,” Lea said.

  Kruger smiled, then he brushed away another fly. When he turned, she saw his back was covered in the tiny bush flies. He ambled through the baking dry heat, dust kicked up by his boots. “I’m glad you can make jokes, Donovan. I wonder if you’ll find it so funny when you see what I have in store for you and Mr Bean here.”

  Ryan bristled at the mockery. Since Maria’s death he’d worked hard to turn himself around and make himself stronger. To be tough enough to stop anything like that from ever happening again and not having to rely on people like Hawke, Scarlet and Lea to pull his arse out of the fire when things got nasty.

  To hear the man he hated more than anyone laughing at him nearly pushed him over the edge. He fought it back down and held his tongue. The next time he spoke to Kru
ger it would be the last words the bastard would ever hear.

  The South African leaned into the back of the flatbed and pulled out a bottle of ice-cold lager. He cracked it open and downed half the bottle in one. The heat had instantly created a sheen of condensation on the brown glass. “Gotta sink these babies fast before the sun warms them up, don’t you agree?” He handed her another bottle.

  Lea looked at him with contempt. “I don’t drink with murderers.”

  “Suit yourself.” He turned the bottle upside down and let the lager run out into the hot sand. Tossing the bottle into the back of the truck, he finished his own drink and belched loudly. “It’s time, Venter.”

  Lea watched his men hauling Julius over to the cage. He was still kicking and screaming, but some of his energy had been sucked away by the sheer terror of his situation. She knew from Kruger’s earlier bragging that this wasn’t the first time these lions had eaten human flesh and she guessed in his long life that Julius had seen them feasting on victims more than once. Knowing what was about to come must have made it ten times worse for him.

  “The Zulus call them ingonyame,” Kruger said happily. “It means the ‘master of all flesh’ and I guess I don’t have to tell a couple fucking smartarses like you two why that is.”

  Lea struggled against her bonds. “In the name of everything that is holy, Kruger, please.”

  “You mean like the ukweshwama ceremony when the Zulus sacrifice a bull to their gods? That kind of holy?” He watched Venter give Julius a hard, backhand slap to stop his struggling. Blankov oversaw the proceedings in silence. “Wait till you see this.” He casually cracked the lid off another lager on the tailgate of the truck and sank a few more gulps. “There’s nothing like it on earth.”

  Ryan shook his head. “My God, you’re sick.”

  “Maybe, Mr Bale, but if I am, there’s no cure.” He walked around the cage until the sun was at his back and then clicked his fingers and pointed at Julius. His men opened the cage and pushed the Athanatoi man inside, making sure to keep their hunting rifles trained on the lion for the few seconds the door was open.

  The lion eyed up the man in the cage. Julius was hurriedly untying the last of the ropes from his arms and legs and kicked himself free of them. He was hyperventilating as he picked up a thick piece of rope and tried to make it crack like a whip. Kruger and his men laughed as the rope thumped down into the ground and kicked up a cloud of red dust.

  “Don’t try and run,” Ryan said calmly. “That thing can run fifty miles an hour, which is twice as fast as the fastest human. If you run you’re dead.”

  Julius stared at the beast. “Great advice, my friend.”

  “And stay calm,” he continued. “Right now it feels threatened.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” Lea asked.

  “It’s moving its tail. When it’s trying to hunt it stays totally still so not to alert its prey of its presence. If it’s moving its tail then that means it feels threatened in some way.”

  “Maybe by your freakish level of general knowledge,” Lea said. “I know I am.”

  Julius called out, “What about that tree?”

  “Forget that too. Any lion can climb any tree twice as fast as you can and will only enjoy dragging you out of it.”

  The animal roared loudly and started to charge at the man. It was ferocious. It quickly hit its maximum speed of fifty miles per hour and was on the man in seconds. Julius made the mistake of giving into his instinct and turning on his heel.

  It was easy to say stand still in the face of a charging lion, but the reality of the situation was different. Even knowing he was inside the cage, he ran as fast as he could toward the truck, but the lion leaped and sank its claws into his back, bringing him down hard to the sandy floor like any other of its prey.

  Lea turned away, unable to watch the slaughter. Ryan gritted his teeth and curled his hands into two tight fists as Julius desperately tried to fight the two hundred kilo beast. It was slapping him around with its paws, but not going for the kill. Not yet.

  “They’re not like tigers,” Kruger said casually. “Your tiger is much more aggressive. Your average tiger is a heavier animal and goes straight for the kill, straight for the throat.” He dragged his fingernails over the soft flesh of his throat to underline the point. “Rip it straight open, but not these beauties.” He looked at the lion with admiration and respect. “The lion has a whole pride of other animals surrounding it so when it decides to kill it can afford to play games with its prey for a while, like now.”

  The King of the Jungle was now batting Julius about from side to side, but keeping him alive. Lea cringed at the sound of the man’s terrified screams, but Ryan felt nothing but rage.

  “The tiger is a lone hunter so doesn’t mess about with games,” Kruger said. “Evidence from ancient Rome shows when tigers fought lions the tiger usually won.”

  Blankov’s lips twisted into a smile. “This is true. I watched many of these fights at the Coliseum, but the tigers didn’t always win.”

  His words made everyone but the lion freeze in disbelief. Kruger looked especially nervous. Something told Lea he was distinctly uncomfortable around his immortal masters.

  Kruger winced when he saw Julius slapping at the animal’s muzzle. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Professor Cronje.”

  The lion’s jaw muscles flexed as it opened its mouth and moved in for the kill, easily taking most of Julius’s head into its mouth. The jaw closed, its claws plunging into the man’s shoulder and torso. Hot blood spilled out of the gouge marks and ran over the animal’s fur. The sun flashed on the beast’s teeth as they sank deeper into the man’s neck.

  Julius’s screaming was drowned out by the lion roaring loud and deep and then the thunderous sound of cheering as Kruger and his men celebrated the savagery. Thanks to the demands and perils of life in the ECHO team, Lea and Ryan had seen a lot, but never before had either witnessed this level of barbarity. They felt like they’d just witnessed a new low on the bar of human evil.

  Blood pumped from his jugular and splashed up onto the lion’s gums. Its hot breath blasted over its prey’s face. They all heard a grinding, crunching noise as the beast ripped his throat open and hit some bone. Julius was slowing now, delirious with fear and losing blood pressure. Instinct and adrenaline drove him to fight back, but his slaps were weak and pathetic, mistimed and almost comical.

  Kruger laughed, but Venter took a step back and found something else to look at.

  Blankov offered no reaction at all as the beast jerked its head back and tore a chunk from Julius’s throat. Bloody sinew hung from the lion’s mouth and Julius finally collapsed dead, sinking back into the hot sandy dirt. With no more resistance, the lion relaxed as it started its work of tearing, ripping and shredding. Ryan heard a tinny shattering sound as more bones were broken but finally turned away when the animal started licking the horrible mess with a wet, bloody tongue.

  Lea wretched. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Not as sick as that fucker,” Ryan said, gesturing at Kruger.

  “You!” Ryan realized Kruger was pointing his finger at him. “You’re next.”

  “This can’t be happening!” Lea said.

  “Hurry up,” he snapped. “Mr Blankov here hasn’t got all fucking day.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “You can’t do this, Kruger!” Lea yelled. “You’ve already killed two innocent men today, isn’t that enough for you?”

  “Nowhere near enough.”

  Lea and Ryan looked at one another, both understanding that there was nothing they could do while they were trapped here by Kruger’s men. They had zero chance of getting away from their captors and for now they had little choice but to sit in the stifling heat and sweat with the stink of lions all around them.

  Worse, they’d seen the Athanatoi man meet his maker in the most vile and inhumane way possible and now it looked like Ryan was the follow-up act. Kruger, after all, had a long
score to settle with the young hacker and they all knew he wasn’t the sort of villain to keep dead wood hanging around.

  “There’s really nothing you can do, Lea,” Kruger said, almost like he cared, like he wasn’t in control of this madness. “Besides, don’t you want to see how much Khufu likes the latest flavor of Kit-E-Kat, Chicken and Dork?”

  Lea tightened her jaw to stop from crying in front of Ryan. She had been in situations like this before and she knew from experience that you only survived if you fought dirtier and harder than your enemy. They were ruthless and wanted her dead. They would kill her without batting an eyelid. You had to think like them if you were to get through this and come out the other side.

  “Get them in the bakkie!” Kruger yelled.

  Lea was confused and for a moment hope flooded her heart. The bakkie meant the pick-up. Had Kruger changed his mind? “What’s going on?”

  The arms dealer looked at her like she was a child. “Can’t do it here – this lion’s had its fill on that bastard Julius. We need to drive out a way until we find Khufu.”

  “Khufu?”

  “The pride male.”

  “I thought…”

  “That the animal you just saw kill Julius was the pride male?” Kruger let out a deep belly laugh. “That was Huruma. He’s not even a fully-grown adult yet. Just a pup. Name means compassion. If you thought that was something, wait till you see how Khufu does it.”

  You sick son of a bitch.

  “You men over there, grab the boy and bring him over to the bakkie right away! It’s not a long drive. I want to see him torn apart right in front of my eyes and yours.” He looked at Lea with narrowing eyes and a greasy smile.

  Venter grabbed Ryan by his shoulders and bundled him out of the observation area and toward a Hilux pick-up. They paused while Kruger and Blankov exchanged a few words. “It’s just over there,” Kruger said, pointing out across the savannah. “He’s been resting somewhere under the shade of that mopane tree over there. Don’t worry, when we turn up he’ll soon stir back to life. He’s very hungry.”