Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 4

by Rob Jones

  Hawke spun the wheel but they were too close to the upturned SUV. “Bloody hell! Brace for impact everyone.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Never,” Scarlet said, glaring at Hawke, “ever, take up chauffeuring.”

  He spun the wheel and tried to turn into the skid. “You have my word, Cairo.”

  “We’re not going to make it!” Ryan said.

  They sailed past the Yukon with inches to spare but their troubles had only just begun.

  Hawke saw it first. “Incoming!”

  Up ahead, Kashala’s SUV had spun around in the lane and was now emerging from a thick cloud of burned rubber smoke. It crossed the central barrier and was now heading straight for them.

  “They’re coming for the rest of the Blood Crew!” Zeke yelled.

  “Nope,” said Lea. “They’re coming for us.”

  “Maybe we should just turn around and run away?” Ryan asked. “I like that idea.”

  “Not an option,” said Lea. “Jazmin Benedek is the key to Hades.

  “I was joking, Lea.”

  Kashala’s SUV zoomed toward them, armed mercs hanging out the window and taking aim on them.

  Zeke leaned out of the rear window and opened fire.

  “Hey!” Lea said. “Jazmin’s in there! Without her we’re going nowhere!”

  Hawke swerved to the right. “And Kashala is walking right through the gates of the Underworld and getting whatever the hell he thinks is down there.”

  “Some pretty bad karma, if you ask me,” Scarlet said, turning to Lea. “And by the way, just how the fucking hell did I end up in a job where I have to stop failed African dictators from discovering Hades?”

  Lea shrugged and gave an innocent smile. “You’d be bored in a nine-to-five.”

  “And you have to admit it,” Ryan said. “This is going to look shit hot on your CV.”

  Scarlet looked daggers at him. “Stick a dick in it, Bale.”

  Kamala laughed as Scarlet leaned out her window and took aim at the approaching Yukon.

  Lea rolled her eyes, but before Ryan could reply, the shot hit Kashala’s front tire and blasted it to pieces. Hawke swerved again to avoid the worst of the fallout, but as they zoomed past the Yukon, several large fist-sized chunks of tire rubber thumped into the shattered windshield and bounced up over the roof.

  “They’re stopping!”

  The Yukon skidded to a halt at the side of the road and the mercs streamed out, dragging a still-unconscious Jazmin as they went. Now, Block heaved her up on his shoulder as the Blood Crew laid down some seriously heavy cover fire.

  Hawke hit the brakes and swerved away from the incoming fire. As bullets ricocheted off the back and sides of the Escalade, Kashala’s men sprinted through a grand entrance of smoked glass and bright neon signs.

  “Not good,” Lea said.

  Hawke flicked a quick glance at her as he brought the smoking Escalade to a stop. “What is it?”

  “The Corvin Plaza,” she said. “According to my phone, it’s one of the biggest malls in the city.”

  “So what the hell is he going in there for?”

  “Maybe he needs some new shoes?” Ryan said.

  Scarlet snorted. “He definitely needs a new vehicle.”

  “That’s it!” Hawke said. “He doesn’t want what’s in the mall, he wants what’s on it!”

  “The roof!” Zeke said. “Dude’s got a chopper on the way.”

  Hawke unbuckled his belt and without a word to anyone he swung open his door and sprinted after them. Drawing his Glock, shoppers all around him screamed and scrambled for cover wherever they could find it. He ignored them, and hearing gunshots from upstairs, he pushed a man roughly out of the way and headed for the escalators.

  Taking the steps two at a time he quickly made the top and scanned the upper level for any sign of Kashala and his men. Already on alert after hearing the gunfire, the people shopping up here now saw the gun in his hand and reacted fast, tripping over each other to reach the emergency exits before this lunatic could start picking them off one by one.

  Except he was no lunatic and his targets were nowhere in sight. Where General Kashala and a unit of Congolese and Belgian mercs would go from here was obvious, and it had to involve an airlift retreat and that meant the roof. He desperately searched for a way to get behind the shopfronts that didn’t involve one of the fire exits. They would all lead to the ground and they were all packed with screaming tourists.

  More gunfire, this time coming from below. He looked down over the mezzanine and realised he’d come up one level too many. Kashala wasn’t heading for the roof but the top level of the parking lot. He was leading the Blood Crew around a mocked-up display of a bedroom in the center of the second level.

  Running along the upper level, Hawke vaulted over the glass wall running around the edge of the mezzanine and tumbled down the fifty feet to the ground. Hitting the tiled floor from this height would mean two smashed legs and six months of traction but he wasn’t aiming for the floor. Landing on the bed, he tucked into a parkour roll and bounced back into the air before touching down neatly beside the bedroom display.

  Kashala could barely believe his eyes, and lifted his trusty bespoke HK USP into the air. Fitted with an elephant ivory handle, it was his signature weapon, the one he had boasted about personally killing over ten thousand men with. Now he aimed it at Hawke with a cool, hate-filled look in his eyes and squeezed off a dozen rounds on burst mode.

  The bullets raked through the smoked glass dividers surrounding the coffee shop and blasted shards of razor-sharp splinters all over the Englishman’s head and shoulders. He kept on running and returned fire, sweeping his gun hand across his body and firing under his left arm before diving into the cover of another shop.

  Kashala cursed when he missed the shot, turned and disappeared from sight into a service corridor between some of the other shops. Mukendi was screaming for the other mercs to pull back, waving a submachine gun haphazardly in the air to emphasize the command. Seeing the general had gone, they obeyed him and with a parting shot of wild, random submachine gun fire over anything in sight, they fled into the corridor.

  Hawke gave chase until he reached the parking lot’s highest level. Dozens of cars sparkled in the sunshine and behind them at the far end of the lot, a black chopper came into land. The roar of the rotors battered Hawke’s ears as he charged forward, vaulting a low dividing wall and reaching the action only to find himself being used as target practice by Mukendi and some of the mercs.

  They were forming a defensive semi-circle around the chopper to give Kashala time to get on board and their rounds were ripping and pinging all over the concrete around him. He heard some of his team calling out behind him but there was no time to wait. He had to get closer to the helicopter to get a clean shot at the pilot, but the only way with any cover was behind a row of cars parked up at the edge of the lot.

  He got to his feet and sprinted along the wall at the edge of the parking lot, crazed, armed mercs and parked cars on one side and a two hundred foot drop on the other. He’d had better moments but it was his only play. Increasing speed until he was flat out and with bullets nipping at his heels puffing up little clouds of concrete dust, he looked ahead and realised he was running out of road. He’d hit the end of the car park.

  “Into the chopper!” Mukendi called out.

  The mercs obeyed, ceasing fire and climbing up into the massive NH90. The rotors gained more speed and the heavy transport helicopter’s tires lifted off the parking lot’s asphalt surface. Hawke knew what came next, and it wasn’t a goodbye kiss.

  Reaching the end of the parking lot wall, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the chopper rise into the air, a black silhouette against a bright blue Hungarian sky and turn like a bird of prey until it was pointing right at him.

  Here we go.

  The chopper was rapidly over his head, its mighty Turbomeca powerplant roaring above him as Mukendi leaned out of the side doo
r. Holding onto the inside of the chopper with one hand, his other recklessly gripped his submachine gun as he fired on him. Sweeping the gun back and forth, bullets chewed into the concrete all around Hawke as he took his life into his hand, climbing out over the edge of the roof and making his way down a cast-iron downpipe.

  The chopper continued its relentless assault on him, firing on the wall as it spun around in a tight arc until he was back in its sights again. Bullets sprayed all over the wall and raced toward Hawke’s position like wildfire. With no choice but to let go, he tumbled through the air and crashed down into the roof of a passing truck.

  Landing with a heavy thud, he scrambled to the edge of the truck. Above him, the chopper spun around and closed in as Mukendi unleashed another savage volley of fire. Hawke leaped off the roof of the truck, arms reaching out to grab the horizontal pole of a streetlamp. He had planned to swing on the pole and give himself some forward motion to execute a complex parkour move. Instead, he slipped and tumbled to the ground, crashing into a pile of garbage bags stacked up against the parking lot’s wall.

  The chopper’s chin-mounted carbine opened fire and ripped a line of destruction into the top of the wall above his head. Just managing to hold onto consciousness, he opened his eyes in time to see a lethal shower of debris and dust raining down from the parking lot high above him.

  He rolled away and missed the worst of it but a handful of fist-sized chunks of concrete pelted him on his back and legs. Pain stung him all over as he finally managed to roll clear and stagger to his feet. When he looked up at the chopper, he saw Mukendi laughing at him and taking aim once again with his submachine gun.

  The chopper swerved even lower now, almost close enough for Hawke to reach out and grab the undercarriage, but instead he scanned the ground for his gun. Seeing it half-buried in a pile of dusty rubble from the carbine attack moments earlier, he snatched it off the ground and aimed it at Mukendi.

  The two men fired simultaneously.

  Hawke had gambled on the chopper’s movement making it much harder for the Congolese merc to get an accurate shot than he could on the ground and he was right. Mukendi’s rounds were wide of the mark, streaking inches away from Hawke’s body as the former SBS man gently squeezed the trigger.

  Mukendi’s face fell into a grimace of fear and shock as the chopper began to spin wildly out of control and plummet to the ground. Hawke hadn’t aimed at him, but had saved his final few rounds for the two Belgian pilots in the cockpit.

  Too low to cause any fatalities, the chopper crashed into the buildings above, clipping the side of the parking lot with its tail boom and then pivoting forward until it was pointing nose-down. As it screeched and scraped its way down into the alley, a coruscating shower of sparks and burning metal fell from the sky like comets. Hawke cradled his head in his arms and ducked down behind the garbage bags to protect himself, all the while desperately praying Lea and the others had survived the onslaught at the top of the parking lot. Up ahead, he saw Kashala lead his crew away from the smoking wreckage. Dazed and confused, they fired on a passing van and killed the driver. They dumped his body on the ground and skidded off in a squeal of tires and rubber smoke.

  Hawke cursed again, but his prayers were answered when he heard a scooter pull up behind him.

  “Get on your feet, Josiah!”

  “Lea! Where are the others?”

  She revved the machine – a MonsteRoller e-scooter. “Trying to find a vehicle. For now it’s just us.”

  “Kashala and his men just took Jazmin off in a stolen truck – we have to get going or they’ll be long gone!”

  “Then hang on tight!”

  Hawke slipped one arm around her waist while his other remained gripped firmly on the Glock at his side as she revved the fat-tire electric scooter once again. “You make it sound like such a chore.”

  “Are you maybe trying to get on my good side?”

  “Maybe… but – look out! A drone!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The superdrone zipped around above them, flitting from side to side and destroying any chance of Hawke being able to get an accurate shot at Kashala’s fleeing van. “Some evasive manoeuvres please!”

  “All right,” she said. “But don’t say you didn’t ask for it, Josiah!”

  Without another word, she swung the e-scooter to the right. Tires squealed on tarmac and Hawke felt his stomach turn as they almost tipped over. They each put their right leg out instinctively but Lea knew what she was doing, and sped around the north end of a small park. Straightening up again, she increased power and maintained her pursuit of the Mercedes Sprinter but the drone easily flew over the top of the trees in the park and resumed its position behind them.

  “It’s still on our arses, Lea!”

  The superdrone swung down like an eagle moving in for the kill. Level with them now and no more than three car-lengths on their tail, the machine gun swivelled around until it was aiming straight at them and opened fire.

  Rounds peppered the asphalt directly behind them, racing in a perfectly straight line up the road on their way to the scooter.

  Hawke squeezed Lea’s waist. “Turn!”

  “If we turn off now we’ll lose the Merc!”

  “If we don’t we’ll lose me!”

  She took the hint and made a sharp turn to the right, pulling off into some community gardens. Speeding up, she weaved the scooter in and out of some trees before bursting out into a skate park full of sombre-looking teenagers. They started shouting at them to slow down and get out of the park.

  Lea ignored them, revved the scooter and ploughed it down one of the massive concrete half-pipes. They sped down the pipe and then raced back up the other side, launching off the top of it and flying for a few seconds in the air. The denim and leather-clad teenagers gave them more abuse but dropped the attitude when Hawke twisted on the rear seat and fired on the drone. As the kids sprinted for cover, hands clamped over ears, his rounds went high, missing the airborne killer.

  “Damn it!”

  The scooter crashed back to earth as the teenagers made themselves scarce. Above in the sky, the superdrone zipped to the left and gained altitude to avoid some trees but quickly returned to its original vector right behind them. The machinegun spun around and fired again, its heavy calibre rounds chewing into the asphalt footpath and then blasting the concrete rim of the halfpipe.

  Lea flicked her head to the left and saw the Sprinter on the main road at the east end of the park. Rapidly moving out of sight, they both knew if they lost it they also lost Jazmin and the location of Hades.

  She spun the scooter to the left and raced down a quarter-pipe before shooting up into the air on the other side and smashing back down on the asphalt in a cloud of burned rubber smoke and exhaust fumes. Behind her, Hawke desperately clung on to her to stop himself falling off the back of the scooter. “Oh yeah, sorry – hang on!”

  “Next time, maybe tell me that before we go flying through the air?”

  “You got it.”

  She swerved the scooter back onto the main road and revved the throttle, dropping a gear and speeding up to close the distance between them and the Sprinter. With the eye of a hawk focussing on a running rabbit, she weaved the e-scooter in and out of the busy traffic cruising along Andrássy út, never once taking her eye off the Mercedes van.

  Behind them, the superdrone closed in and fired on them again. Rounds ripped into the concrete and sprayed up the side of a car driving behind them. The bullets ate into the steel panels like a hot knife cutting through butter. The car swerved off the road and in a hail of diesel and smoke, smashed into the front of another car passing on the other side of the road.

  Both vehicles now spun around in a cloud of smoke with the impact of the crash and skidded to a smouldering heap in the center of the road, blocking all other traffic. The sound of emergency vehicles’ sirens filled the air as the municipal authorities struggled to respond to what was unfolding in their city.

/>   “Time’s running out, Lea.”

  “Tell me about it! Can’t you hit that frigging drone and take some of the heat off?”

  Reaching the end of the road, the Sprinter cut across six lanes, rammed a kerb and smashed back down on the city’s famous Heroes’ Square. A UNESCO world-heritage site featuring the iconic statue complex Seven Chieftains of the Magyars, the square always drew a lot of natives and tourists alike and today was no exception.

  “Holy crap!” Lea said. “They’re just driving right through anyone who gets in their way!”

  Hawke peered over her shoulder and was sickened by the sight of people bouncing off the hood of the Sprinter. He took aim at one of the rear tires but before he could squeeze the trigger, he was suddenly aware of more machinegun rounds raking the ground a few inches to his right.

  “So you got the drone then?” Lea said with a sigh.

  “Take it easy for a few seconds.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Hawke took his hand away from her waist and spun around on the seat one-eighty degrees until they were back to back and his legs were dangling over the back of the scooter. Raising the gun into the aim, he slowed his breathing and fired on the drone one more time. He winged it, smashing the landing gear to smithereens, but it wasn’t enough.

  Wherever he was hiding, the drone’s unknown operator reacted fast, banking to the left and gaining some altitude to make the next shot harder.

  He’s good, Hawke muttered, I’ll give him that.

  The scooter lurched to the left, nearly throwing him off the vinyl seat and tumbling onto the square.

  “Easy!”

  “I’m doing my best!” came the reply. “And by the way, we’re going down a kerb now!”

  He turned his head. “Down a wha….”

  The scooter smashed down a kerb as Lea followed the Sprinter out of the square and into a massive, sprawling park.

  “I said we’re going down a kerb, ya eejit!”

  He clung on for his life and fired on the drone once again, this time with more success as his rounds blasted the camera and then the main case. The drone exploded in a shower of plastic and screws and fell from the sky like a dead kite.