by Rob Jones
The word echoed in the chamber and the men laughed.
“Hey, ECHO!”
It echoed again and more laughter.
“You down there, ECHO?” Kashala’s voice. “Because I think you’re down there.”
Sensing the end of their enemy and the discovery of the map, his mercs whooped with joy and high-fived one another.
“Ryan, the secret escape route please,” Lea said. “And now.”
“ECHO! King Kashala is here to smoke you out. He wants his treasure and he wants it now! You have one minute to surrender it to me, or I will kill you all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“You heard the man,” Ryan said. “He wants his treasure. If we hand it over, I’m sure he’ll let us live. He seems like a very nice man, after all.”
“Yeah,” Kamala said. “He’s a real gent.’
Lea gave Ryan a mischievous grin. “You know, that’s not such a crazy idea.”
“Eh?” Ryan, along with everyone else stared at her.
Camacho checked the shocked reactions in the room and was first to speak. “Have you lost your mind?”
Lexi stepped forward and confronted her. “We can’t just hand the map over!”
“We’re not going to hand the map over,” Lea continued. “We hand him something else to buy us time while we search for a way out of here.”
Hawke thought about what she was proposing. “Lea’s right. If we can take something else out to him and keep him busy, that gives us time to get busy and make an escape through that wall.”
“Excellent idea,” Scarlet said. “What are you going to take up to him, Bale?”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “Me? Why?”
“You’re the only one who can convince him it’s authentic.”
“I’ll do it.” Hawke reached into the sarcophagus and pulled out a bunch of the papyrus leaves. “This ought to float his boat for a few minutes. How long is it going to take to get through that wall?”
Reaper ran his hand over the sandstone and sighed. “Ten more minutes. It’s very thin in certain places because of the design of the waterpipes.”
Lea turned to Hawke and raised an eyebrow. “Think you can hold out for five minutes?”
“Well…” Scarlet began.
“Don’t go there, Cairo,” Lea said.
Hawke gave the SAS woman a look and shook his head. “Wish me luck.”
He made his way back down the tunnel until he reached the small patch of light shining on the dusty floor from the hole above where the altar had stood. Looking up, he was greeted by the grinning faces of the Blood Crew.
He climbed up the rope and reached the floor of the upper tomb. “You don’t happen to know if there’s anywhere good to eat around here, do you?”
Their reply was to grab him around the head, haul him out of the hole and kick him in the stomach. He doubled over, grimacing in pain. Pretending to be in much more agony than he truly was, he took a few seconds to count their guns and mark their positions in the tomb. He also noted a pile of tactical waterproof rifle bags which explained the dry condition of their weapons. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”
Mukendi and Crombez heaved him up off the floor and brought him to his feet. “And stay there, you piece of shit!” The Belgian said.
“So, this is the mighty Joe Hawke.” Kashala curled his lip into a sneer as he padded across the upper section of the tomb.
“Yes, but that’s not what’s on my business card.”
“You think you are a funny man, Hawke? You think you can make jokes when you have a ten inch blade sliding into your stomach?”
“Never really thought about that exact scenario, to be honest, but on reflection I’d say no.”
Mukendi howled with insane laughter. “Let me stick him, King.” The giggling merc drew his combat knife and sauntered across the tomb toward Hawke.
*
Nikolai Petrov crouched low behind the stone wall running around the parking lot and pulled his hood over his head to shield his eyes from the low glare of the moon. It hadn’t taken the Blood Crew long to find them in the cave and make a deadly assault. In seconds, the two men had decided to split up. Camacho had dived into the rock pool to warn the rest of team and he had scrambled down the slope and taken cover at the base of the mountain.
After a brief search, Hendrik Block had padded back over to the vehicles and was now leaning up against the hood with a cigarette in his mouth. It was far too late and dark for tourists now, but he was still on the lookout. Behind him, bound and gagged and stuffed in the back seat of one of the trucks, Nikolai saw Jazmin Benedek, scared out of her wits.
This was his chance and he had to act. The rest of the team was deep underground, and by now heavily engaged in a firefight with Kashala and his men. Only he could save Jazmin and sabotage the Blood Crew’s transport.
Crouching down on all fours to keep his body below the top of the dry-stone wall, he crawled along the parking lot. He grunted in pain as his hands were scuffed by the gravel chips and he felt a piercing pain as the rocks pushed into his knees. No stranger to agony thanks to the gruelling punishments he had endured in the Athanatoi to prove his loyalty to the Oracle, he pushed on to the end.
He was behind the trucks now, and when he peered over the wall, he saw Block’s boots under the vehicle at the front. The Belgian merc was still smoking and keeping an eye out for any vehicles approaching up the mountain road. His facial scars reflected the cool, silver light of the moon rising over the mountain.
Nikolai left his position and crept toward the trucks, crouch-walking to stay out of the merc’s sight. Reaching the vehicle where Block was smoking, he moved around to the opposite side from the merc and then flew into action.
When Block heard him, the Russian monk was already in the air, pivoting over the hood of the pickup truck on his right hand. He brought his right boot up and smashed it into Block’s face. The merc fell away from the truck and crashed down into the gravel, letting go of his gun which smacked to the ground a few feet from him.
Wordlessly, Hendrik Block got to his feet and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of a filthy, gnarled hand. He moved to snatch the weapon, but Nikolai read his mind. The Russian monk dived for the gun, tumbling into a barrel-roll as he picked it up from the ground.
Block cursed and stormed forward, but Nikolai was already on his feet, gun in hand. The merc pulled up fast and raised his hands. Grinning, he took a step away from the monk and gave a mock laugh. “You wouldn’t shoot an innocent, unarmed man?”
“You might be unarmed, but you’re not innocent.”
Inside the truck, Jazmin jumped in her seat and squeezed her eyes shut when the gun went off. Three sharp, cold reports echoed across the western slopes of the mountain as Block crumpled to the dry, sandy ground and died.
Nikolai uttered an Athanatoi prayer, long-since drilled into him, and stuffed the gun into his belt. He swung open the rear door and tore the gag from Jazmin’s mouth.
“My God!” she said. “You killed him in cold blood.”
“We must get you out of here,” he growled in his Russian accent. “They will be back and we have to find the others.”
He pulled her from the truck and untied her hands, then selected some weapons from the back of the pickup truck. “Did they hurt you?”
She nodded. “But not badly. I’m sorry, but I broke easily and told them how to find this place. They showed me photos of the lyre and forced me to translate them.”
“They’re bastards. Don’t worry about it.”
Behind him, Jazmin looked down at Block’s dead body. “I can’t believe you killed him.”
“I’ve done much worse – now, come on!”
*
The giant Congolese general raised his broad, scarred hand and pushed Mukendi away from Hawke. “No! Get back!”
The younger merc’s eyes flicked from Hawke to Kashala, and then back to the Englishman. “I will gut you like a wild pig.”
Kashala approached Hawke. “I thought you were a military man.”
“You thought right.”
“Then why do you not salute? I am a military officer, a general.” His lip curled. “You show me great disrespect by not saluting me.”
“I’m a civilian now, Kashala, but even if I weren’t, I’d never salute slime like you.”
Mukendi gasped, his eyes crawling from the prisoner over to his boss. Crombez gave a low whistle and shook his head, mumbling something in quiet, whispered French.
“You salute the rank, not the man,” Demotte called out.
“True,” Hawke said. “Still, in this case I’ll make an exception.”
After a tense silence, Kashala ripped the papyrus bundle from his hands and turned his back on Hawke as he quickly leafed through them. Returning his attention to the English prisoner, he said, “And this is the map?”
“Yes, in return for the safe release of my team.”
Kashala raised a hand to stop his team laughing. “You are in no position to make any deals with me, Hawke. If this map is authentic, I may consider letting you live. Then again, I may cut your throat with the bullnose skinning knife hanging off my belt. I have not decided yet.”
“Ah, the agony of choice.”
“Bring me the woman!” Kashala yelled at Demotte. “Only she can tell us if this is what this fool says it is.”
Demotte gave a casual salute, slung his rifle over his shoulder and began to climb back up the mercs’ telescopic ladder.
“If you are lying to me, Hawke, you have until my man brings Dr Benedek down here, and then you are a dead man.”
Hawke glanced at his watch and saw he was halfway through the ten minutes. With any luck, the team had broken through the false wall behind the sarcophagus and found a way out. In terms of numbers, the Blood Crew were easily beatable by ECHO, but what pushed things their way was the weapons. He didn’t fancy going up against Mukendi’s Kalashnikov armed with nothing more than some papyrus and a pick mattock.
“It’s no lie, Kashala. That’s the map to Hades, but what I don’t understand is what a man like Dimitrov wants with it.”
“That is not for you to understand.”
“And where is Dimitrov, anyway?”
“Mr Dimitrov is on his way. Perhaps he will want to kill you himself.”
A few long minutes passed until Demotte rushed back down the ladder, a look of panic on his face. “She’s gone!”
Kashala turned his broad, sweaty face to the Belgian merc. “What do you mean, gone?”
“Benedek!” he said. “She’s gone and Block is dead!”
Kashala’s face crumpled. “Block is dead?”
A nod, and the mercs shared a look of rage.
Hawke laughed. “Looks like your date has run out on you, Joseph.”
Kashala returned the laugh. “Then there is no reason to keep you alive.”
“And there’s no reason to stay here talking bollocks with you, either.”
Before Kashala could respond, Hawke aimed himself in Chumbu’s direction and threw himself into a parkour roll. A split second passed, and he was on his feet rugby-tackling the merc to the floor. He piled a hard fist into the shocked man’s face and snatched his sidearm and a glow stick.
Kashala screamed at his men to kill him, but it was too late.
Hawke fired on the men and forced them to take cover as he rolled into the marble shaft and disappeared from sight.
“Kill him!” Kashala’s enraged voice boomed from above. “Kill him now!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hawke sprinted through the tunnel’s debris with the glowstick in one hand and his Glock in the other. It seemed narrower now he was pounding through it at full speed, and he had to duck his head here and there to stop from smashing into the rocky ceiling.
Reaching his friends, he was relieved to see they had opened the cavity behind the sarcophagus. “Might be time to leave the party,” he yelled.
“Eh?”
Suddenly, the tunnel behind Hawke was filled with submachine gunfire and muzzle flashes. “Like, now! And please tell me this new tunnel goes somewhere!”
“It goes up is all we can say,” Lea said. Seeing the look in his face, she added. “Hey, we were pressed for time!”
For a few explosive seconds, the fusillade of gunfire violently strobed the darkness of the tomb and the ear-splitting crack of the rounds tearing into the ancient gypsum plaster cut into them like razors. In the chaos, dust and smoke, Kashala called out to his men. “They’re over there behind the sarcophagus!”
They climbed into the cavity and began to run for their lives.
Scarlet turned and fired.
“Come on, Cairo!” Lea yelled. “You’re too far back.”
“She’s going as fast as she can,” Ryan called out in the darkness. “Considering she smokes like a freight train smokestack.”
“Give it a rest, you tit,” Scarlet said.
“Yeah, shut it, Ryan,” said Lea. “Your gags are weighing us down right now.”
Just to make the point, Scarlet speeded up and overtook Ryan. Pushing him roughly out of the way, she turned around so she was now running backwards and slowly raised her middle finger in the air. “What’s the matter, Nancy?” she said. “Forget your running shoes?”
With Orpheus’s codex clutched in his hand, Ryan’s lungs burned as he ran. “Funny.”
Zeke called out, “Not funny! They’re right behind us!”
Another volley of gunfire roared in the darkness behind them, followed by the sound of the Blood Crew baying for their blood.
Lea glanced at Hawke as they sprinted up the slope. “I hope you’ve got a plan when we make the surface!”
He gave her a sideways glance and restrained his grin. “Er… not so much – you?”
“We need to get to the surface first,” Scarlet said. “And up ahead looks like a dead end.”
Raising the glowstick in front of him, Hawke lit the passage. The soft amber glow cast their shadows up against the stone wall as they each registered what Scarlet had already seen. Reaching a wall of sandstone blocks, Hawke cursed as he searched for another escape route.
“What now?” Kamala said. “I see the Blood Crew!”
Lexi’s voice was close to Hawke in the low light of the glow sticks. “I see light!”
“Moi aussi,” Reaper said. “There – but only a tiny slit.”
Hawke saw it now. The faintest line of light creeping over the rough-hewn surface of one of the sandstone blocks. Jamming the sharp cutter of one of the mattocks into the slit, he heaved back with all his might, using the tool like a crowbar.
Reaper took another of the tools and hammered it into the same gap at the other end of the block and the two men worked together to force the block out of the wall.
“Here they come!” Camacho yelled. “Looks like only half of them. They must have split up and the others went back to the other way.”
“Why would they do that?” Lea asked. “They know we still have the map.”
“Take over, Jack,” Hawke said. “I’ll slow them down.”
Zeke gave him a look. “And just how the hell are you going to do that? They’ve got Kalashnikovs!”
“Here.” Lea threw Hawke her mattock. “You’re going to need this.”
“Gee,” he said, making a face. “Thanks.”
Spinning around, he threw the mattock. The tool spun through the air like a knife-thrower’s blade, impaling the razor-sharp adze into the front of Chumbu’s skull and killing him instantly.
Zeke shook his head and gave Hawke a look of respect. “Well, hot damn if that ain’t a direct hit, man!”
As the merc’s heavy solid body collapsed in the tunnel and began juddering in his death throes, the rest of the Blood Crew grabbed him by his legs and pulled him back through the dirt until they were out of sight. Screams of rage and ange
r echoed along the ancient tunnel as they tried to help him and work out what to do next.
“That’s one less problem to worry about, I guess,” the Texan said.
“It’s bought us no more than a minute,” Hawke said. “How’s the fire exit going?”
The answer came in the form of silver Cretan moonlight flooding into the chamber and proud smiles on the exhausted faces of Reaper and Camacho.
Behind in the tunnel, the Blood Crew was on the move, motivated into action by the deep, visceral growl of an enraged King Kashala. “Ils ont tué Chumbu! Tuez-les tous!”
Kamala looked into Reaper’s tired, squinting eyes. “Is that good?”
A simple shake of the head. “Non.”
“Out, out, out!” Hawke yelled, and watched as the team dropped to their knees and crawled through the gap. With the last of them safe, he made his way through the hole and emerged into a small, rocky gully on the western slope of the mountain bathed in the cold light of the moon.
“Someone’s coming!” Zeke pointed down the slope.
“It’s Kolya!” Lea said. “And he’s with Jazmin.”
The Russian had a bag over his shoulder as he pulled Jazmin up the slope. The two of them crashed down into the gully beside their friends. “She’s safe now,” he muttered. “And I killed Block.”
“Woah,” Lexi said. “If you’re trying to impress me, it worked.”
“Boy did good,” Camacho said as he and Reaper heaved the block back into place and closed the gap in the wall.
“That’s not going to hold them for long,” Scarlet said. “They’re armed with a fuck of a lot more than some toy pick-axes.”
“They’re not toys,” Ryan said. “They’re mattocks.”
“Please stop saying that,” she said. “Every time you say it, I hear the word buttocks.”
Ryan shrugged, but then behind them inside the mountain, they heard the sound of gunfire as the mercs blasted the sandstone blocks with their weapons.
Hawke said, “When they work out they need a grenade, they’ll be out here in seconds.”
