Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 4

by Rob Jones

  “That’s enough!”

  A gun went off in the semi-darkness and everyone froze where they were.

  Hawke twisted around and saw Kruger with a gun at Ryan’s head. The South African had captured him and was holding him hostage. “I said that is enough! Release my men!”

  “Men? I thought I was fighting fairies,” Scarlet said.

  “Shut up, bitch!” He cursed. “Get me the sword Venter.”

  Venter picked up the Sword of Fire and walked it back over to Kruger.

  Hawke climbed off the badly beaten soldier who joined Venter and the others with Kruger at the entrance to the tomb. “Just when I was having fun, too.”

  Kruger grinned. “Is it fun you want, boy?”

  Hawke bristled at the insult, but kept his emotions under tight control. “Nothing could be more fun that watching you die, Dirk. How are you going to beat that?”

  “You’ll find out. Venter! Get your men out of here and use up the rest of our C4 on the entrance tunnel.” He turned to Hawke. “That sound like fun to you – trapped in here under a hundred tons of granite?”

  “You bastard, Kruger,” Lea said.

  “Not even the mighty Joe Hawke can dig his way through a fucking mountain, I’ll bet. I bid you farewell, my friends and I thank God we’ll never meet again.”

  Kruger pushed Ryan away and stepped back into the tunnel, the shadows of the tomb slowly obscuring his grinning face and then he was gone.

  Seconds later they heard a tremendous explosion that made the entire mountain shake under their feet. Pieces of the carved walls fell to the floor and one of the bags of gold coins tipped over and spilled its precious cargo all over the dust of the mausoleum’s floor.

  “That’s torn it,” Lea said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Ryan. “Start searching for the other entrance.”

  “What other entrance, mate?” Hawke said.

  “The sarcophagus is marble, right?”

  Hawke looked at him, unable to resist grinning at how his friend’s mind worked. “If you say so, then yes.”

  “Well, it is. Does it look like this mountain is made of marble?”

  “To be honest,” Scarlet said. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Let me help then,” Ryan said. “It isn’t. As our good friend Dirk Kruger just said, it’s made mostly of granite. That’s because this part of Greece is in the Attico-Cycladic Massive region, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Lea said with a smile and a shake of her head.

  “Still not getting why this means we’re not suffocating to death tonight,” Lexi said.

  Ryan huffed and pointed at the sarcophagus. “How big is that thing, Lex?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll give you a clue, the side panels alone are wider than the tunnel we walked through to get down here.”

  “Ah…”

  “I get it, Ry,’ Lea said. “The sarcophagus is too big to have been brought down the entrance tunnel and it wasn’t carved down here because it’s made from the wrong stone.”

  “Give that girl a cigar,” Ryan said, resuming the search. “And there’s another thing, too – where’s the antechamber? A tomb for a man like Alexander the Great would have had an antechamber. In other words, we came in through the back door.”

  Hawke felt a wave of relief. “The lad’s a genius.”

  “And that is so, so annoying,” said Scarlet.

  “C’est ici, je pense,” Reaper said, heaving a small, square block of chiselled granite out of the wall. “On the north wall.”

  Kim crawled down and looked through the gap. “There’s a tunnel.”

  “That’ll be the connecting corridor to the antechamber,” Ryan said. “Built after the sarcophagus was placed in here.”

  They crawled through the corridor until they were in the antechamber and found themselves staring at a much wider entrance on the far wall. Ryan pointed at it. “And that is where the sodding sarcophagus was brought in.”

  Hawke turned to Ryan and gave him a heavy slap on the back. “You saved our arses again, mate.”

  “I believe in the modern vernacular, that’s because I’m a boss, is that right?”

  Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Don’t push it, neckbeard.”

  “Hey!”

  “All right, let’s move out.” Hawke led the way into the tunnel.

  They followed it up an incline but then it turned sharply back down again and they felt like they were walking to the center of the planet. Intrigued as to where it was going to break the surface, they soon found out when they heard running water.

  Turning a corner in the wide tunnel they found a pool.

  “My bet is we swim our way out through there,” Kim said.

  Scarlet looked at Ryan with a look of smug satisfaction on her face. “And how did they get the bloody sarcophagus through that pool, Poindexter?”

  “My best guess is that when we come to the surface we’ll find we’re in a river and that they diverted the river to fill this pool after they delivered the sarcophagus.” He returned the smug look with a raised middle finger. “How d’ya like them apples, Cairo?”

  She twisted her lips. “I’ll let you off, boy, but only if when we get to the other side we find ourselves in a fast-moving river!”

  “Wanna bet on it?”

  “I’m not afraid of wager.”

  “A hundred quid.”

  Camacho was impressed. “That’s a hundred and fifty bucks – he must be pretty damned sure.”

  Scarlet thrust out her hand. “Done. Let’s get on with it.”

  “No one’s going anywhere until I’ve checked it out for safety,” Hawke said.

  Specially trained for deep dives and long periods underwater by his SBS years, the Englishman slipped down into the water.

  They waited in the silence of the cavern for a few moments and then the Londoner broke the surface of the pool with a grin on his face. “Hope you’ve got some cash on you, Cairo. You own Ryan here one hundred smackers.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The ancient city of Pavlopetri is one of the world’s oldest submerged cities and a popular site for divers to hunt for ancient treasures and relics. Laying off the golden shores of the Laconian coast of southern Greece, its name means Paul’s Stone, a reference to the Christian saint. The settlement contains archaeological evidence dating back to Minoan culture, almost five thousand years old and today is a UNESCO site under the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

  As their boat speeded away from the coast, Hawke looked out across the sparkling turquoise water with a strange mix of excitement and anxiety. Frozen in time, the streets below the water were just as they were all those thousands of years ago when the ocean swallowed the city.

  For a team like ECHO the opportunity to visit such a site and explore for relics and treasure was a once in a lifetime event, but they all knew Kruger must already be here, at least an hour ahead of them. Ryan was certain a close reading of the codex would have revealed Pavlopetri to the South African, but at least they knew the exact location was theirs alone.

  He turned and looked at his team as they prepared for the battle ahead. They were tired. Bags under their eyes and sluggish movements. Adrenaline would get them over that, but he wondered for how much longer he could push these people. Now, sailing over the Mediterranean Sea, Hawke sensed for the first time that he might be nearing the end of this mission. Staring out over the vast expanse of water, he wondered what turmoil would be lurking beneath its calm surface.

  Beside him, Camacho and Scarlet were sharing a kiss. Devlin rolled his eyes and took the moment to check his equipment. Reaper and Kim were talking quietly at the end of the cabin. Lea was sitting separately from the rest, eyes closed but still awake and for some reason Lexi was tweaking Ryan’s ear and forcing him to apologize for something he had said. In other words, the team was acting as normal and all looked totally unfazed about the battle to come. That, at least, was something.


  But his mind was far from satisfied. When Eden had called about hiring the boat, he’d had nothing new to report on the location of Otmar Wolff. Hawke had hoped the team might have found him down with Kruger in Pretoria, but it was a hope too far. The immortal monster known as the Oracle had been evading them for so long now it felt like they were never going to hunt him down.

  Was it all worth it? A life on the road wasn’t a good life. Never having anywhere to call home, never being able to relax without wondering if someone was going to attack in the night. It felt like life had been like this forever, but there had been somewhere he could call home for a short time.

  He thought back to the first day he had seen the island. It seemed like Elysium was a totally different era now. The pristine white sandy beaches, the pure, clean warm ocean waters and the coconut palms. In the middle of it all nestling between two tropical extinct volcanoes was their former HQ, a sprawling complex of airconditioned glass and steel that had everything a team like ECHO could ever desire. And it was still in ruins after the Oracle’s brutal attack.

  Hawke guessed it would take millions of dollars and several months to bring it back together again, but there was no point doing it until the Oracle had been killed because otherwise there was nothing stopping him destroying their home all over again. Until then, they were nomads, wandering from hotel to military facility to friends’ apartments. It was a turbulent, exhausting life he thought he’d left behind when he quit the SBS.

  The captain’s voice crackled through the boat’s internal comms. A large ocean-going yacht had been spotted a kilometer or so away to the west. Hawke furrowed his brow and walked up to the bridge. He clamped a hand on the captain’s shoulder and he turned and gave a thumbs up in response.

  Peering through the windshield, the captain went on to describe the yacht as being over one hundred and sixty meters long with three decks and a helipad. Kruger was rich, but not in this league and that meant only one thing.

  The Oracle was in town.

  By the time he had made his way back from the wheelhouse, the ECHO team were already standing by on the aft in their diving gear, spearguns locked and loaded and ready for a fight. Lea was tying her hair back and the ocean breeze was blowing across the deck and whipping it around her face making her curse as she finished the job.

  “What gives?” she said, her teeth glinting in the sunlight.

  “The captain just got a call from a fishing boat on the other side of the peninsula about a very large yacht. No one recognizes it as coming from around here. Apparently, it’s over a hundred and sixty meters in length.”

  “Holy crap,” said Kim. “That’s a big boat.”

  Camacho agreed. “That ain’t Dirk’s.”

  “No,” Hawke said flatly. “I think it’s safe to assume his boss has turned up to claim the grand prize.”

  “The Oracle?” Lea said, her face dropping.

  “The very same, only thanks to Ryan’s quick thinking back in the King’s Tomb, he doesn’t have the specific location of the temple Alexander was searching for.”

  “Maybe we should just go home,” Devlin said, deadpan. “I mean, these guys are good. Better than us.”

  Now Scarlet was tying her hair back. “Hey, Danny?”

  “What?”

  “Fuck all the way off.”

  “Ouch,” Devlin clutched at his heart. “She got me again, boys! There goes any chance of a date.”

  “There was never any chance of that, Ranger.”

  “You love me really, right?”

  Scarlet couldn’t resist a devilish smile of her own. “You made Hawke flounce off like a girl, so you can’t be all bad.”

  Hawke opened his mouth to reply but Lea put her finger across his lips to stop him talking and then she kissed him. “I love that you flounced off like a girl.”

  “Not sure what to make of that,” Lexi said.

  “Anyway,” Hawke said, changing the subject. “The captain of the fishing boat said there’s a davit crane at the stern.”

  Ryan furrowed his brow. “Eh?”

  “It’s a device used for lowering heavy equipment off the back of boats, in this case my best guess is an underwater vehicle of some kind.”

  Lea’s shoulders sloped. “So the Oracle’s got a goddam minisub here?”

  “Great,” Lexi said. “We don’t stand a chance.”

  Devlin put an arm around their shoulders. “Stick with me and you’ll be all right.”

  They both gave him the same look and he removed his arms. “Just trying to be reassuring.”

  Hawke said, “All right everyone, listen up. This is our chance. We have to get down there and back up again before the Oracle works his way around the peninsula. I’m presuming he’s got the best sonar equipment available on board and it won’t take him long, so we have to work fast.”

  “What’s the plan?” Kim asked.

  “We do what we always do,” Hawke said. “Make it up as we go along.”

  “Oh crap,” she said. “Can’t you at least say something like we’ll improvise.”

  “Fine,” Hawke said, deadpan. “We’ll improvise.”

  Reaper flicked his cigarette off the deck. “Who’s going down?”

  Lea spoke without hesitation. “We’re all going down, right?”

  Hawke nodded. “We don’t know how much muscle we’re going to need down there and if our friends turn up we’ll need all the fight we can muster. The priority is securing the idols and then getting back up here as fast as we can.”

  In full diving gear, Reaper was first to sit on the side of the boat and push back off the edge. He crashed into the water backwards and was soon under the waves. Camacho was next. He winked as he fitted his diving mask and gave a two fingered salute before slipping out of view. Then Lea and Scarlet went, followed by Kim and then Ryan. Lexi and Devlin went over the edge next and then Hawke was last out.

  They dived to a safe depth to keep out of sight and then swam down to the famous sunken city. It was easy to see through the crystal-clear turquoise waters of the Med and they soon found themselves approaching what they all prayed would be the location of the last idols.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Hawke always felt at home under the waves and today was no exception. Even with the speargun he moved easily and quickly in the wetsuit as he dived down to the famous ruins on the ocean floor. He turned once and saw the rest of the diving team swimming behind him, each armed and prepared for battle.

  “These ruins are incredible!” Ryan said through the comms device. The small transceiver was attached to the retaining straps of his face mask and used bone conduction to transfer vibrations to a small microphone.

  “Just like old times!” said Lexi. It felt like she was gliding over the streets of a foreign city.

  “It’s very silty over to the west,” Lea said. “Evidence of Kruger?”

  “I can’t smell anything too foul,” Scarlet said.

  “Good one.”

  Hawke flipped around and stared over in the direction Lea had pointed out. He saw a bank of thick silt drifting in the water on the western edge of Pavlopetri, but no sign of any human activity. “Maybe, but that’s not where the map says the temple is.” He brought himself about and continued on his original trajectory. “I think I see the entrance up ahead. Some of the silt is drifting over it now, but it’s still visible. Anyone else seeing it?”

  “Got it,” Reaper said, his voice calm despite the growing excitement they all felt.

  They swam down further and approached the city on the ocean floor. Eerie didn’t begin to describe the sight of temples, homes, streets and alleys submerged in this watery grave just as they had been the day they slipped into the sea so many thousands of years ago.

  Hawke imagined what it must have looked like back on land, soaked in the Greek sun and bustling with people going about their business, trading, living, loving. One day, he wondered, will our cities look like this?

  They reached the coo
rdinates on the map and touched down gently on the street beside the small temple. As their diving fins landed on the cobblestones they kicked up wispy clouds of sediment into the water around them and partially obscured the clarity of the temple for a few moments before clearing again.

  “Who wants to be first?” Scarlet asked.

  “I’m going first,” Hawke said in reply. “There could be boobytraps.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” said Ryan, drifting back out of Hawke’s way.

  He swam up the steps and made his way inside the temple, leaving the sun-dappled underwater world behind him and emerging into a newer, darker place. He flicked on his light and scanned the place for any sign of traps. “I think we’re good to go, guys.”

  One by one, the team members headed for the temple, swimming up the steps and joining him inside. Jumbles of rocks and boulders lay on the floor alongside fallen marble support pillars and a few slabs of granite from the roof. A school of parrot fish flashed past them and burst out of the door and a large octopus drifted up from behind one of the granite slabs and pushed its way up out of a hole in the roof.

  “Plenty of sea life,” Lea said.

  “Yeah,” said Scarlet, “but where’s the pond life?”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Ryan said. “The Oracle’s yacht is somewhere on the surface, but where the hell are they all?”

  “Maybe they already got inside,” Devlin said. “But used another entrance.”

  “I think they’re still too far away,” said Hawke.

  Ryan swam over to a fallen pillar and gently swept aside a thick layer of silt and sediment. “Check out these carvings!”

  “What have you found?” Kim swam over to him and passed her flashlight over the broken pillar.

  Hawke turned in the water and joined them. He recognized what Ryan had found immediately – the carvings were almost identical to those they had seen all over the world, from the Aztec temple in Mexico to the ice caves of the Arctic to the strange jumble of ruins in Atlantis, not to mention the ones on the mysterious idols.