by Rob Jones
“I love it when you talk dirty, Joe.”
He gave the Chinese assassin a lingering look, studying her eyes and lips for a fleeting moment. They had once been lovers, but Zambia was a long time ago – and yet… sometimes the way she looked at him made him wonder. He said nothing but laughed and pushed on up the slope. Behind them, Ryan and Camacho were straggling at the back and arguing over the best poker hand.
Time marched on, each minute full of thoughts of Kruger and where he and his army were. There was no sign of them yet – the air was still and silent and no one could hear any helicopters or Jeeps, but they all knew he was out there somewhere and would never give up until he was dead.
Hawke puffed out a sigh and paused to take another drink of water from his canteen. The dry, scrubby grassland had given way to trees and thick coniferous woodland now dominated the landscape. Pine-covered mountains stretched to every horizon as far as they could see in any direction. Here, among the trunks and undergrowth of the Pangaion Hills, they joined together again and took a short break.
Kim pulled open her backpack and started dishing out supplies. “I got cookies, I got nuts, I got chocolate…”
“Gimme everything,” Devlin said. “I’m so hungry I could eat the fleas off a dead dog’s arse.”
“Mmm, yummy!” Scarlet said. “Thanks for that image, Danny.”
“You’re welcome.”
They tucked in, drinking plenty of water and replenishing their energy reserves before the final push. There would be no time to reenergize and rehydrate if they stumbled on the enemy in a place like this.
One more punishing hour and they found themselves approaching the coordinates Ryan had extrapolated from the shield. Hawke felt the sweat trickling down his back and took in the sky once again. Clouds had blown in from the east and now the pure, blazing blue was mottled with gray and the humidity was increasing.
“Holy crap,” Kim said as she reached the rise and scanned the slope. “We made it!”
With a stormy-looking sky stretching to every horizon, they worked as a team to clear the scrub and scree away from the entrance until they were left with a single boulder blocking their way.
Hawke looked at it with satisfaction. “What time is, everyone?”
They called back in unison. “C4 time!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
When the dust had settled and the earth had stopped shaking, they picked up their equipment bags and headed inside the tunnel. Somewhere ahead of them was the tomb of King Alexander the Great, one of the most hunted archaeological sites on the planet and they were on the verge of its discovery.
“I hate to break it to you, guys,” Camacho said. “But it looks like we have company.”
They all turned and watched as the CIA man pointed through the trees to a gentle rise in the south. “If I’m not very much mistaken that’s Dirk Kruger, with Blankov and Venter walking a little way behind him.”
“We knew it was just a matter of time,” Kim said.
“Sure, but this is cutting it rather too close,” said Devlin.
Scarlet watched the small army of Athanatoi marching behind their leader. “They’ve regrouped as well. That’s at least a thirty-strong force.”
“We can’t fight a force like that,” Hawke said as they walked into the tunnel. “That means we have to work fast.”
They entered the gloomy tunnel and switched on their flashlights as the daylight slipped away. It looked like it had originally been a natural passage in the rock that Alexander the Great’s men had widened at significant time and expense. The chisel marks were still visible in the rock as they walked down the incline toward the end of the tunnel.
Here, deep inside the mountain they soon found what they were looking for – a cavern not much higher than the height of a man. Elaborate carvings decorated the walls and an impressive mural of the night sky stretched over the ceiling. They had never seen a mausoleum of such exquisite beauty before, but it wasn’t the star of the show.
An intricately carved marble sarcophagus dominated the center of the space and now they slowly wandered over to it, none of them really believing they had found the final resting place of King Alexander the Great.
“Bloody hell,” Hawke said as he tried to take it all in. “We actually did it.”
On top of the sarcophagus were two tiny sphinxes carved in smooth marble, facing each other as they had done for thousands of years in the darkness of the mausoleum.
Ryan instantly knew this meant they had been successful. “I’m speechless.” His voice was a whisper in the dark.
Scarlet looked at him sincerely. “It finally happened.”
“But don’t you understand the significance?” he asked.
“Sure, you’ve finally stopped speaking. That’s a miracle.”
He gave her a sarcastic look. “I mean this tomb.”
“She knows what you mean,” Lea said. “And yes, we all get the significance.”
They started their search of the tomb but found only bags of treasure – coins, statues, gems. Leaning against the base of the sarcophagus were three bronze discuses sporting inscriptions which Ryan told everyone were votive offerings to the gods, but what they were seeking was much more ancient and valuable than any of this.
“It’s time to go into the sarcophagus,” Lea said. “That’s the only place left.”
They tried to prise the lid off the sarcophagus, but it wouldn’t budge an inch. “I don’t understand,” Hawke said. “We’ve opened heavier lids than this.”
“Wait!” Ryan said. “The sword – the carvings on the sword say that it has the power to open the tomb!”
“Do your He-Man thing, Joe,” Lea said.
A muted ripple of laughter went around the tomb as Ryan handed Hawke the Sword of Fire. He held it in his hands and weighed it, got the feel of it. “Now what?”
“Well, it seems to be glowing blue already,” Ryan said.
“Fuck!” Devlin said. “Orcs!”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “God, I really want to slap you sometimes.”
Hawke raised the sword in both hands and a deep, rumble filled the tomb and shook the ground beneath their feet. They all felt a wave of crackling static electricity swirl in the small mausoleum and leap onto the sword’s blade. The steel glowed brighter and then when enough energy had been converted from the static into a live current, a bolt of blue lightning flashed out the tip of the sword and wrapped around the sarcophagus.
The bright blue sparks and bolts leaped and flickered all over the ancient marble and they all felt the heat the electricity produced as it worked its magic on the final resting place of Alexander the Great. Deep down in their souls, they all knew they were witnessing an ancient technology. Something far deeper and more complex than any of them really understood.
And then they heard a loud cracking noise and the blue electrical bolts sucked back down into the top of the sword and instantly stopped.
The room fell dark. Hawke swore and dropped the sword. “Bugger me, that’s hot!”
“Looks like it worked though,” Lea said, approaching the sarcophagus.
The marble lid was cracked in two, with a deep fissure running down the length of it. The rest of them joined her and now they prised the lid off the ancient coffin. There, in the dark of the sarcophagus, they found the king, resting in peace exactly as his family had left him thousands of years earlier. Each of them stood in respectful silence for a few moments, almost unable to comprehend what they had achieved.
“Oh, crap,” Ryan said. “It’s another idol!”
He reached into the sarcophagus and pulled out a small golden idol, similar to the ones they had seen in Valhalla and Mexico. “It’s Chronos, without a doubt.”
“It’s the guy your aftershave was named after!” Scarlet said.
Hawke lifted an eyebrow. “I think someone already made that joke.”
Ryan handed the idol to Lea who held it with a mix of achievement and fear.
&nb
sp; “But there are supposed to be more,” Lea said anxiously.
“I see something else,” Ryan said at last. “There’s a ring on his finger.”
He reached inside and gently took the ring, handing it to Lea. She gasped. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“And there’s more,” Ryan said. He lifted a dust-covered tome from the skeletal arms of Alexander the Great with trembling hands and turned to the rest of the team. Turning its fragile pages with care, he turned to face them with a goofy smile on his face. “It’s all the research his priests and historians put together. It’s really quite astonishing. It seems he spent most of his life obsessed with searching for eight rings and eight idols.”
“I like what I’m hearing so far, mate,” Hawke said. “What else is there?”
Ryan was running his finger along the lines of faded ancient Greek script. “Tons. If my ancient Greek is good enough and it is, then he was searching for the same idols we’ve been finding on some of our missions.”
“What’s their purpose, Ry?” Lea felt her heart quicken.
Ryan’s face visibly paled as he lifted his eyes from the yellowed manuscript. As he turned to face his friends, his breathing grew faster and shallower. “He says there are eight idols in total… that he found only one – this one.” He read on. “According to this, Alexander the Great dedicated his life to finding them but only found Chronos. It says he has no idea where four of them are, but the other three are in a temple in Pavlopetri, the famous sunken city! He died before he could get to them and took their location to his grave!”
“Well, we’ve got two of them now,” Hawke said. “What else is there?”
Ryan’s hands started to tremble again. “It says these idols are the key to the gateway.”
“A gateway?” Scarlet said.
“No, the gateway.”
Lea felt goosebumps flash over her body. “The gateway? The gateway to what?”
“Yes, to what?” Kim said.
“Even I’m starting to give a shit now, Ryan,” Camacho said. “Spit it out.”
Reaper laughed and shared a high-five with Camacho.
“The gateway to somewhere called the Citadel.”
Hawke stepped closer to Ryan and the codex and looked the young man in the eyes. “I presume you can get more out of this book than the Citadel, right?”
“Oh my God!” Lea said. “Remember what Blankov said to us back in South Africa about his little gateway and the Citadel? This is what he was talking about.”
“But what does it mean?” Scarlet asked.
Ryan said, “According to this, the Citadel is what Alexander called the capital city of an ancient civilization based in what we call Sumer.”
“A Sumerian city?” Reaper asked.
“No, not at all.” Ryan said, words trailing off into the darkness of the tomb. “It says this civilization they’re talking about predated Sumer by thousands of generations. He calls it the Land of the Gods.”
“Impossible,” Devlin said. “Sumer is the oldest civilization in the world.”
Everyone turned to stare at him with the obvious question on their faces.
“So I watch the Discovery Channel from time to time? Sue me!”
“But he’s right, isn’t he?” Kim said.
“Not anymore,” said Ryan. “I think we just made the greatest discovery in world history. If Alexander and his priests were right, human civilization started hundreds of thousands of years before anyone alive today thinks is possible.”
“Wow,” Lexi said. “That’s about as heavy as it gets!”
Ryan looked at her, a smile spreading on his unshaven face. “You’d think, yes…”
“What does that mean?” Hawke asked, starting to feel anxious. He took the ring from Lea and started to study it.
“It means that the antediluvian civilization described in this codex was an advanced culture with knowledge, technology and weapons superior even to those we have today.”
Even Reaper looked impressed. “C’est pas possible!”
“So we thought until a few minutes ago,” Hawke said.
“He’s even sketched some sort of a map here – looks a mural of a bull, maybe. It could be some sort of identifying feature. This is gold dust! We need to protect this.” With trembling fingers he carefully ripped out the page with the reference to the sunken temple in Pavlopetri. “We can’t let them know where it is.” He folded it carefully and slipped it in his back pocket.
“Good idea, mate.” Hawke took the ring and looked for somewhere to hide it, then saw Lea’s hand. “Put this on your finger,” he said. “No one will ever know.”
“You’re so romantic, Josiah.”
Ryan sighed. “I’m going to need some time to translate this. The chances of me making a correct translation under pressure are slim to zero.”
“Especially when you’re dead!”
They spun around, shaken from their awed state by a familiar South African accent. Kruger was in the tomb now and behind him they saw the first few faces of what they knew was a small army of Athanatoi.
“You just won’t go away, will you?” Lea said.
“This is our property, not yours.” Blankov pushed past Kruger. “The things in this tomb belong to the Athanatoi.”
“Hand it over,” Kruger said. “Like the man just said, it doesn’t belong to you.”
“Nor you, you son of a bitch!” Lea said.
“It doesn’t matter what you think you know, Donovan. You can never know what the Oracle knows. You can never understand the gravity of what you found here today.” He turned to Ryan. “Now, I’m getting tired of saying this you little squirt, but hand over the goods.”
Ryan’s heart was torn in two. To hand the manuscript over to Kruger meant they might lose the mission, but to refuse meant instant death. Not wanting to give the South African any satisfaction, and reassured by the map page in his pocket, he controlled a sigh of frustration and walked it over to him.
“There’s a good boy, now fuck off back to mum and dad over there.”
Ryan returned to the other side of the tomb and Kruger handed the codex to Blankov. The Athanatoi general never even looked at it, but held it like it was no more than a briefcase. He casually turned to Kruger. “We have what we need. You can kill them now.”
“But I thought the Oracle wanted to kill them?”
“He has changed his mind. You are to terminate all of them immediately.”
Blankov left without a glance at them, followed by his contingent of Athanatoi bodyguards.
In the new silence, a fiendish grin spread on Kruger’s face. “By the time I’ve finished with you this time, you’ll be a nothing more than a pile of bleached bones strewn out in the sun.”
“Oh la vache!” Reaper said. “That’s not nice, Dirk.”
“You’re nothing more than their lapdog, Kruger,” Lea said.
Hawke stepped forward, but was instantly forced back by Venter’s submachine gun. “A dog with no teeth.”
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” he said with a curled lip. “But names will never hurt me.”
“I’ll fucking hurt you,” Ryan said. “Just give me half a chance and stop hiding behind your goons.”
“I’ll have you know these are fine fighting men, not like your little ragtag bunch of amateur misfits. We caught you, after all.”
Ryan stuffed his hands in his pockets, a frown on his face. He looked more beaten than angry. It had been a tough few hours since the initial raid on Kruger’s Pretoria mansion and he was tired of running and fighting. Maybe Kruger really did have the edge. Maybe he really would beat them in the end.
“You won’t get away with this, Kruger!” Hawke yelled.
His response was laughter. “You’re making threats against me? You’re in no place to do that. I’m going to execute you now, here. Say your goodbyes!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kruger ordered Venter and his men to step forwa
rd. Without a further command they slid the bolts on their weapons and aimed them at the ECHO team. If they fired in here it would be a bloodbath beyond description and no one would ever find their bodies.
Kruger took one last look around the mausoleum and that was the only chance Hawke needed. Grabbing one of the bronze discuses, he threw it at full speed like a Frisbee. It raced across the tomb and struck Kruger in the center of his face. He cursed and kicked and swore and when he looked back up his nose looked badly broken by the force of the discus smashing into it.
Hawke knew what came next, so before the arms dealer gave the execution order, he threw another of the Frisbees at Venter, causing him to duck to avoid the same fate. The discus smashed into the carved wall behind him and the ECHO team needed no order from Hawke to tell them what to do.
They charged Venter and the other men in the gloomy light of the mausoleum, piling into them and forcing their guns up to the ceiling. A few of the weapons fired off, blasting holes in the night-sky mural, but now they had a chance.
Reaper’s opponent went down first. The Frenchman easily disarmed him and kicked his gun away. He punched him in the face but the man drew a combat knife from his belt. The former Legionnaire fought like a bull, strong and agile and cunning. Twisting the knife out of his hand, he drove the serrated blade up into the soft flesh beneath the man’s ribcage and silenced his screams with his hand until he was dead. The man’s corpse slipped to the floor of the cave and Reaper turned to help Ryan who was fighting with Kruger.
Hawke and another soldier were rolling in the dust over by the sarcophagus. The South African mercenary knew some moves but he was no match for the former commando. Hawke got the better of him and was soon pinning him down and pounding him in the face.
Camacho and Venter were taking swipes at one another nearer the door and Lea, Scarlet and Lexi were deconstructing a merc’s ego on the other side of the sarcophagus, taking it in turns to hit him and then push him over to the next in the group for a go.
