Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 4

by Rob Jones

  Hands still bound behind their backs with cable-ties, Scarface pushed them toward the trucks, a submachine gun in his hand. “Give me any trouble and I’ll tear you in half with this thing before you’ve taken two steps toward me.”

  “Fair enough,” Ryan said. “But your body odor precludes any normal human from getting that close anyway, so why waste the ammo?”

  The guard’s response was savage, pistol-whipping him with the stock of his weapon and breaking open the skin on his cheek and temple. Ryan plunged to the ground and collapsed in the dust.

  “You’ll pay for that,” Lea said.

  “Shut up and get moving,” Venter said. “You too, Superman.” He kicked Ryan hard in the ribs and sent him tumbling over in the dirt. “For the last time, get moving.”

  Ryan dragged himself to his feet and winked at Venter. “Thanks for that. Now I can kill you without bothering my conscience.”

  Venter laughed. “You? Kill someone? You couldn’t kill a catfish if your life depended on it, you domkop. Now get moving! You have an appointment with a lion and he’s very hungry.”

  Lea’s mind was busy planning their escape as Venter and his guards force-marched them through the scrub toward the Hilux. Memories of Joe Hawke drifted into her mind, each one a reminder of how they had escaped with their lives from a hundred dead-ends. Rather than give her ideas they simply brought back how much she felt for him and how hard it had been since their bust-up in London.

  Had she reconsidered her feelings for him during their break? Yes and no. She knew in her heart there was no way she wanted to live without him, but the way he had reacted when he saw her with Danny had surprised her.

  “I said move!” She was brought back to reality by Venter. He pushed Scarface out of the way and did the job himself, bringing the stock of his MP5 down hard between her shoulder blades and knocking her to the ground.

  It was a shocking display of raw, animal violence that she hadn’t expected, not even from him. She cried out, her pain heard by everyone as she crawled in the dirt with an acute, electric stabbing sensation radiating across her back and up her neck.

  For a moment, she thought she might pass out from the pain and she was dimly aware of Ryan struggling forward to help her. With his hands tied behind his back he was easy to push back and silence.

  Venter dragged her back to her feet and shook her like a knitted doll. “Are you going to behave yourself now, bitch? Or do you want some real man stuff?”

  Her head was still spinning with the pain, but she managed to glance at his groin and raise an eyebrow. “Not sure you’re up to real man stuff, Venter. You couldn’t catch a fish with what’s in your pants.”

  Venter’s face turned red with rage.

  “You hear about that, Ry? Last time Venter here went into a fishing tackle shop they mistook his dick for a bait worm.”

  “You bitch!”

  “I will bet,” she said, leaning into his face, her Irish accent hardening, “that your dates need to bring an air pump with them.”

  Ryan laughed. “Certainly not enough down there to hang a hat on, that’s for sure.”

  “I don’t think Barbie could hang her hat on yours, do you, Venter?”

  He finally snapped and belted her, knocking her off her feet again.

  She crawled back up and he dared her to go another round, but this time she kept quiet. Her plan to delay them had only bought a few seconds and she was no use to Ryan if this bastard knocked her out.

  They continued through the pitiless sunshine of the veld until they reached the bakkie’s tailgate. Ryan was also searching for a way to escape, but Lea already knew a man like Kruger would leave them no escape route. Flashing in the sun out on the perimeter was another ten-foot high electrified razor-wire fence running the length of the enclosure. The mopane tree was clearer now and so was Khufu.

  Kruger smirked. “The only way out is if you kill your way out.”

  The first bullet hit Scarface. He had been standing next to Venter and now a high velocity round blew a fist-sized chunk of his shoulder into mush. Blood pumped out of the wound as he passed out and crashed to the floor.

  Everyone hit the deck in a hurry and Kruger and his men pulled their weapons as they desperately started scanning for any sign of the shooter. Out on the veld, Khufu bolted and ran into the long grass behind the mopane tree.

  “What the hell is this, Kruger?” Blankov yelled. “I thought you said this place was secure?”

  More incoming fire forced them deeper into cover, away from the bakkie and back across the scrub into the doorway of the safari lodge’s main building.

  “Over there!” Venter said. “But I don’t know how many.”

  Lea looked up and squinted in the sun.

  Camacho.

  “Thank God,” she muttered.

  Ryan gave her a look and winked. “Looks like the cavalry has arrived.”

  And about time too, she thought.

  Kruger wanted to fight, but Blankov ordered a retreat back inside the complex. Venter dragged Lea to her feet and one of his men grabbed Ryan and hauled him along too. “We’re going inside, hurry up!” he yelled.

  More gunfire struck one of the Athanatoi and blew half his skull off. He died before he hit the dirt, but the effect was to send everyone running in different directions as they desperately tried to protect themselves.

  The every-man-for-himself strategy had left Lea and Ryan without a guard and they peeled off back around behind the Hilux.

  Camacho and Kim sprinted down from the bluff behind the complex and skidded to a halt beside them, a cloud of dust billowing up in their wake.

  “You two okay?” Camacho said, hurriedly cutting the cable ties.

  “Oh yeah,” Lea said. “I’m loving my safari vacation just great, thanks.”

  “Hey,” Kim said sharply. “We did our best but it took a long time to find who had taken you, never mind where! These guys weren’t exactly advertising this place online, you know!”

  “Sorry,” Lea said. “You wouldn’t believe what we’ve just seen, it just shook me up.”

  “It’s going to be great when it opens to the public though,” Ryan said with a wink.

  “You can tell us later,” Camacho said flatly. “We’ve got to get in there and take them out before they get away. They still have the sword, right?”

  Lea nodded. “And they had its symbols translated as well.”

  The sprint from the bakkie to the entrance was a hair-raising hundred meters as the Athanatoi and some of Kruger’s former commandos fired on them from an upper level of the complex. Bullets ripped into the sand at their feet as they sprinted over the distance as fast as they could.

  They reached the entrance and immediately headed for a circular staircase that led up to the mezzanine level. This was where Kruger and his men had been firing on them moments earlier, but when they arrived it was empty.

  “They already moved out!” Kim said.

  “No, wait!” Camacho pointed to the far end of the mezzanine. “There’s someone there!”

  “They’re firing!”

  “Get down!”

  They hit the deck as the bullets traced over them.

  “There’s more downstairs on the lower level too!” Kim yelled.

  “We need to split up,” Lea said. “Me and Ryan will go downstairs and you two stay up here.”

  “Got it.”

  *

  Camacho and Kim gave some cover fire as Lea and Ryan ran down the circular staircase and disappeared beneath them. Kim was already moving forward, gun raised and firing in controlled bursts at Venter. For a second, the CIA man thought she’d gotten the guy but then another Athanatoi joined him and an intense firefight ensued.

  Taking cover in a doorway, Kim quickly emptied her magazine.

  “I need help, Jack!”

  “I’m on my way!” Camacho shouted over at her and crouch-walked along the mezzanine, carefully avoiding the spent cartridge casings. He reached the co
rner section and pulled his MP5 up over the wall, firing on the men below as he prepared to make the final dash to where Kim was holding her empty gun to her chest.

  Venter then surprised him by making a break from his cover and running up the spiral staircase leading to where Kim was hiding out.

  He knows she’s out of ammo!

  “Hurry up, Jack!”

  “I’m almost there!” Behind him he heard Lea and Ryan engaging in what sounded like a heavy fire fight down by a waterfall in the lobby.

  It was a race now, between him and Venter, to see who reached Kim first. They were both closing in on her at the same rate but Camacho had an advantage – all he needed to do was get close enough to throw a fresh magazine to his friend. When he reached that point, he pulled a new mag from his jacket pocket and threw it over to her. “Kim!”

  She saw what he had done and leaped into the air to catch it. Instantly, Venter fired on her. In a hail of flying lead she grabbed the magazine and crashed back down onto the riveted floor of the deck. She smacked the mag into the grip of the SIG and sighed heavily with relief. Another five seconds and Venter would have peppered her with bullets and killed her right here.

  Camacho had taken up a new position much closer to her now and joined her in firing on Venter. Kruger yelled at his man and Venter heard the warning and backed off. Kim watched him as he retreated back down the spiral staircase and then she crawled along the deck until she was beside Camacho. “You saved my life.”

  “You’ve saved mine enough times,” he said with a smile. “Thought it was about time I repaid the favor.”

  The moment was cut short by a volley of automatic fire ripping into the wall behind the deck. From such a low angle, Kruger and his men were unable to hit them direct and had decided to keep them pinned down while they made another assault on them. Chunks of plaster burst and split and rained down on them. They covered their eyes with their forearms and waited it out.

  “Shit! This is getting real, Jack!”

  The stream of automatic rounds raked into the wall at their backs and snaked up the spiral staircase, spitting sparks and ricocheting bullets all over the place. One traced past Camacho’s face and buried itself in the rubber plant at his side. “I’ll say it is,” he said, peering over the top of the wall. “Uh-oh…”

  “What?”

  “GPMG.”

  “Oh, fuck!”

  “Looks like a Vektor,” he said, starting to look worried. “We can expect a lot of fifty mil bottlenecked rounds heading our way in three, two, one…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The large-calibre rounds tore holes in the bottom of the mezzanine’s stainless-steel deck as if it were made of aluminum foil. A speechless Camacho and Kim watched the holes rapidly approaching where they were taking cover. “We’re outta here!”

  They leaped to their feet and sprinted away from the carnage created by the Vektor, taking pot shots at the gunner behind the GPMG as they went. “Keep going!” Camacho yelled and leaned over the top of the wall to get a better shot at the gunner. He fired and hit him, ripping part of his skull away and spraying brain matter and blood all over the man feeding the ammo belt into the gun.

  “Get on that weapon, man!” Venter yelled.

  The man now covered in blood slipped behind the Vektor and immediately pulled the muzzle around until it was pointing directly at Jack Camacho. With a fury the American had rarely seen before, he started firing the powerful GPMG at him.

  The bullets traced and whistled all around him as he and Kim sprinted for cover like the devil was on their tails. One of the rounds blew through the wooden handrail and blasted a cloud of splinters into his path. He felt several embed themselves in his face as he threw himself into a dive and rolled down into the other corner dropping down beside his old friend.

  Kim looked at his face. “Cut yourself shaving?”

  “Funny.”

  “Seriously, you okay?”

  He nodded. “Just a graze, but it was close.”

  Peering through the gap between the wall and the handrail, they saw another man feeding a fresh ammo belt into the Vektor and the blood-soaked goon operating it looked angrier than ever. Another volley of automatic fire came from the far end of the deck. “Looks like they’re trying a pincer movement,” Kim said.

  Camacho felt his jaw tighten with rage and fear. He’d been in a few scrapes in his time, both in the CIA and with ECHO, but things around here were hotting up much more than usual. They’d been fighting for nearly ten minutes now and they’d only advanced the length of the mezzanine. He had no idea if Lea and Ryan were still alive and no way of contacting them to find out. Venter was fighting as brutally as he had ever seen anyone fight before. He guessed that was what twenty years in the 4 Special Forces Regiment did to a man.

  “Down the stairs!” he yelled. “I see Lea and Ryan!”

  They sprinted down the spiral staircase and met up with their friends in the lobby. “Way too hot back there,” Kim said. “What about you guys?”

  “See for yourself,” Lea said.

  Tucked down behind the wall at the base of the artificial waterfall, Ryan grinned and opened his bag.

  “Holy shit!” Kim said. “The Sword of Fire!”

  Lea smiled. “We found it in Kruger’s study after a ten minute fire fight. We got the translation too.”

  “Guess they’re not too happy about us having it, right?” Camacho said.

  “See for yourself,” Lea said.

  Men carrying MP5s and Milkor BXPs burst into the giant lobby and immediately took up position behind the rocks at the base of the waterfall. Lea and Ryan moved toward them while Camacho and Kim provided cover. Lea ran toward their position and fired on them with her weapon.

  The closest of them turned and aimed his gun, a look of terror on his young face. He moved to fire but Lea struck first, landing two in his chest and one in his forehead. “Maybe you can hunt defenseless animals, laddo, but I’m a different story.”

  “Woah.” Ryan slammed down beside her. “You get out the wrong side of bed this morning or something?”

  “Yes.”

  Camacho fired on a man at the top of the waterfall, striking him in the head. He tumbled down over the edge of the falls and crashed down into the lake at the base, disappearing in the swirling foam. Ryan was closest and ran over to the dead man, snatching a belt of grenades from him.

  The four of them ran from the lobby, pausing only for Ryan to hurl one of the grenades into the base of the waterfall. The explosion filled the space with smoke and flames and blew out the containing wall around the raised lake at the base of the waterfall. Thousands of gallons of water burst out through the broken brick and started to flood the lobby.

  “That way!” Lea said.

  A fire door behind the reception desk led to a service corridor, at the end of which was a staff elevator. Kim opened the doors and they bundled inside with the sound of Kruger’s men screaming and shouting back in the lobby. One of them reached the other end of the service corridor and lifted an automatic rifle into the aim.

  “Doors!” Camacho shouted.

  Kim hit the button while Ryan and Lea opened fire on the man through the ever-narrowing gap. He returned fire, his bullets pinging off the elevator’s stainless-steel doors and some entering inside and raking up the inside wall.

  When the doors slammed shut, Kim blew out a deep breath. “That was too close.”

  The doors opened at the subterranean level where the facility’s vehicles were parked. Lea turned and fired on the control panel, disabling the elevator, then turned and saw a sprawling parking lot. Due to the park’s extremely remote location, most of the staff and guests flew in and out but there was still a good handful of vehicles to choose from, mostly used for moving around the enormous compound or even the main park itself.

  Camacho’s eyes soon alighted on a white Mercedes AMG G63 with black stripes designed to resemble a zebra’s markings. The luxury super-SUV would norma
lly be filled with rich men in big hats being chauffeured out to hunt big game, but today the former CIA man had another use for it.

  They ran closer. Printed on the side in a red rectangle were the words KRUGER WILDLIFE & GAME RESERVE. Camacho ran to the driver’s door and punched the air when he saw the keys in the ignition.

  “This is our baby.”

  “Everyone in!” Lea yelled. Her ploy to disable the elevator had worked, but Kruger’s men had simply diverted to the service stairs beside the elevator shaft. They poured out of the double doors with guns blazing, shooting up anything that moved in the parking lot.

  “John McClane wouldn’t take any of this shit in Die Hard,” Camacho said with a sigh.

  “I love his Homefries,” Ryan said.

  Kim was confused. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”

  Ryan said nothing, but blew out the rear window of the Merc SUV with his handgun before picking off two of Kruger’s men. He saw Venter now, reaching the bottom of the concrete steps and emerging into the parking level’s yellow strip lights.

  Lea climbed into the back and slammed down into the seat beside Ryan. The luxury interior of the G63 included a chunky console between the two rear seats and she was able to raise one knee onto it to get a better view out of the shattered back window.

  “Venter!” she said.

  Ryan was aiming at him. “The one and only and he’s mine.”

  She watched him gently squeeze the trigger but the bullet went high as they tumbled forward. Camacho had stamped on the accelerator and flung him off his balance. The Merc lurched forward in a cloud of burnt rubber smoke and spinning wheels that filled the entire garage with an ear-piercing squealing noise.

  “Dammit, Jack!” Lea said. “Ry nearly had Venter.”

  “Company employees are welcome to use the suggestion box,” he shouted from the front, ducking quickly to the right as a bullet punctured his window and traced past his head. It blew another perfect hole in the opposite window beside Kim Taylor who screamed loudly before spinning around and scanning for the gunman.