by Rob Jones
With time running out, they charged the last few men guarding the trapdoor, racing past the green Thessalian pillars and streaming into the Imperial Loge. A savage exchange of fire illuminated the grand space with muzzle flashes and filled it with gun smoke and clouds of marble dust.
Scarlet led the right flank, gun raised and gripped with both hands as she closed in on the Blood Crew. Seeing them pinned down and busily engaged fighting Reaper on the left flank, she stormed their position. Halfway to them now, Reaper threw a grenade at them.
There was a scream, then a dead body was propelled through the archway, arms hanging half-off and blood pumping from arteries. It landed in her path, but she was too close to change direction. Leaping into the air, she glided over the mangled corpse, landed, swerved around the corner and slammed her body flat up against the cold marble wall.
In the shadows to her right, she sensed something move. Flicking her head toward the movement, she saw a figure crouching in the dusty havoc behind a marble sarcophagus. Reaching down to her belt, she grabbed one of the grenades, pulled the pin and rolled it over to the merc. Ducking back behind the column, she clasped her eyes shut and brought her arm up to shield her face.
The grenade exploded behind the tomb with savage ferocity, ripping the marble sculpture around the lid into a thousand pieces and blasting it all over the Imperial Loge in a cloud of smoke, fire and twisted shrapnel. She felt the thud of the explosion deep in her chest and then a second later, a wall of stained-glass windows on the far side of the nave exploded into a million colourful fragments.
The shockwave… she thought, instinctively shielding her face once again, even though the force of the shockwave blew the glass outside, away from her.
“Looks like Kashala is another man down,” she muttered, and jumped over what was left of the man behind the sarcophagus. Sprinting across into the Imperial Loge, she had finally reached what he had been protecting – the trapdoor. Looking down inside it, she saw a grate in the floor with the top rungs of a Rolatube tactical ladder sticking out of the top of it.
Gotcha.
She raised her palm mic to her hand and spoke into it. “I’ve secured the ingress point into the labyrinths. I repeat, we have an ingress.”
With the others racing over to her position, she cut the call and readied her gun. Shining the flashlight down into the hole, she saw the ladder’s rungs receding into the darkness of the crypts. “No time like the present, darling.”
And with that, she lowered herself into the hole and began climbing down the ladder. Above her, Hawke and the rest of the team were seconds away, and when he climbed down the ladder and stood beside her, he said, “Anything?”
Scarlet shone her flashlight on the floor and frowned at him. The mercs left in the Loge to defend the tunnel into the crypts were all dead, but now they faced another hurdle. Staring down through the grate in the floor, Hawke, Lea and Ryan all spoke at the same time.
“Shit.”
Scarlet peered down too, and watched the sewage racing along the tunnel. Taking a step back with her hand covering her mouth and nose, she said, “You know what really gets to me about this life on the road?”
“What?”
“The romance of it all.”
Hawke frowned. “Think we might have to find another way through.”
“No shit, Sherlock!” Zeke said.
“Actually, lots of shit,” Ryan said, finally bringing himself to peer down through the iron grate on the floor. “Way, way too much shit.”
Zeke scratched his head. “But Kashala came down this exact place. I don’t get it, brother.”
Lexi put her hands on her hips and sighed. “This is what happens when we don’t have Alex hacking schematics and blueprints for us.”
“No,” Scarlet said. “We have the boy doing it instead.”
“And just as well,” Ryan said, checking the blueprints on his phone. “Because this isn’t the entrance to the crypts.”
Zeke sighed. “Did I not just say that Kashala used this exact way in?”
“He did,” Ryan continued. “But he didn’t go down there. The clue is that it’s full of shit.”
“So where did he go?”
“That way.”
They all followed his pointing hand, but saw nothing but a wall.
“Eh?” Hawke said. “I think you have to explain yourself.”
Ryan stepped forward and pushed the wall. A low, ear-bending, grinding noise filled the dingy space as a section of the wall slowly revolved to reveal a long, dimly lit tunnel. Ryan bowed and gestured toward it with his hand in a sweeping motion. “Et voila.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Hawke led the way into the final tunnel. Gun raised and eyes sharp, he was weighed down with worries about how long the assault had taken and how soon the place would be crawling with Turkish police. Fake passports were one thing, but if they got arrested and had their fingerprints taken, Faulkner would know their location within minutes.
They continued along the tunnel until they reached a fork. One tunnel disappeared in darkness to the north and another to the south.
“So which way?” Camacho asked.
“Wait a minute,” Kamala said. “Can you hear music?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, pointing to the southern tunnel. “I think I can – it’s coming from down there. Is that Motley Crue?” Ryan asked.
“I would have no idea,” Scarlet said haughtily.
The eighties rock music was echoing eerily through the crypt tunnels as they stood in the damp darkness.
Kamala shrugged. “When in doubt, follow the hair rock.”
Ryan looked doubtful. “Megadeth maybe, or Metallica at a push, but Motley Crue? Do we have to?”
“Put your fingers in your ears, you big baby,” Lea said. “Still, you have a point. Who’d have put Kashala down as a fan of eighties hair metal?”
They filed rapidly down the tunnel, moving further into even blacker darkness with each step. And then they heard the last survivors of the Blood Crew as they were working in the crypt.
“Mukendi!” Kashala shouted at the big mercenary.
“King?” He had been monitoring the men’s work as they rigged booby traps around the crypt, but now he turned and padded over to his boss, Kalashnikov resting casually over his right shoulder.
“Progress report.”
“They’re just about done.” Mukendi spat a wad of dipping tobacco on the flagstone floor. “Then we’re good to go, boss. Tripwires and grenades all over the place. They come in here and they’re dead, just as soon as we set them.”
“Good.”
Mukendi looked over the boss’s shoulder where Zhivkov was feverishly working on the device. “What about that?”
“It’s done. He’s just activating the timer.”
Hawke stepped into the crypt and saw Kashala and Zhivkov, leaning over the antimatter device and mumbling to themselves as they made some last minute adjustments.
“Get away from the bomb, Kashala! You too Zhivkov!”
The Congolese mercenary leader didn’t waver, but continued to fit the casing back onto the device. “You’re too late, Hawke. The device is set. Detonation is locked in. Any attempt to stop it will have the opposite effect and trigger it to go off on the spot.”
In the corner, Crombez sat beside the stereo. He was tapping his military boot to the rock music and training a submachine gun on all of them.
“That explains it,” Ryan said.
Crombez looked at him confused. “Explains what?”
“Everything,” Ryan said with a sneer.
“You can’t get away with this,” Lea said. “Just give it up now and you’ll live.”
Kashala laughed with a cold, humourless chuckle. “What you say doesn’t matter at all.”
Zhivkov responded to the weak effort at humour with a vague smile. “We need to get going, General Kashala.”
“And what’s in it for you?” Lea asked. “What could drive a man to se
t a device like this and commit genocide?”
Zhivkov looked at her like she was an insect. “The general has a wonderful vision for the world. So does everyone in Project Eschaton.”
“Forget about it, Zhivkov,” Hawke said. “The King here is nothing but a dickhead with a serious ego problem. Now step away from the…”
And then the carnage exploded.
Viciously loud gunfire sounded inside the tunnels and they all heard men shouting, but it wasn’t the Blood Crew.
Lea watched as bloody chaos overtook all her plans. “What the fuck?”
Kashala was just as confused as he screamed at the Blood Crew. “Defend the device with your lives!”
The ECHO team scrambled for cover behind one of the sarcophagi as the Blood Crew divided into two. Kashala, Zhivkov and Mukendi set up a defensive position across the far side of the vast crypt and fired on the mysterious newcomers, while Crombez, Njuzi and two other mercs charged ECHO’s position.
Camacho looked at Scarlet and winked. “This is just as crazy as the Bravo Troop mission!”
“Sure is. Still want to come with me to Mexico when this is all over?”
“Anytime, babe.”
One of the mercs in Crombez’s unit ran toward the sarcophagi, drawing his weapon and aiming at Ryan. Zeke saw it and fired, blowing a hole out of the Belgian merc’s neck and putting him to the cold tiles on the floor with blood bursting from his neck.
Another of the Belgians broke cover and charged toward them with a SIG in each hand. Firing mercilessly with compensators fixed to each muzzle, the brave mercenary had emptied both magazines by the time he’d reached the ECHO position. Searching for cover to give him time to reload the mags, he dived to a stairwell to his right, but Reaper fired the lethal shot, hitting the man in the head and blasting out the back of his skull.
“Over there.” Hawke got their attention and jabbed a thumb at the archway behind him. “Kashala’s trying to pull out!”
Lea was already there, dust and dirt on her face and a pistol pointed at the crypt floor. Lexi, Ryan and Kamala ran over to her while Camacho and Nikolai maintained their positions covering Hawke until he had reloaded.
“Let’s go!” Zeke yelled. “If this is too crazy for me, it must hell for you guys.”
“Don’t count on it, darling. I’ve seen more crazy than you’ve had Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas.”
Zeke slammed up against the wall beside her, sweat beading on his forehead. “I find that sort of stereotyping both cheap and insulting.”
With ruthless accuracy, Scarlet broke cover and fired on the mercs, forcing them back behind the boulders. Pulling back beside him, she said, “Brisket tacos?”
“Can’t stand them.”
“Those dreadful chilli dog things?”
He shook his head. “Not me, not once.”
“Pecan pie?”
A bullet smashed into the bricks above their heads and showered them with dust. Zeke turned and fired on Mukendi, once again driving him back into cover. “Getting warmer.”
“Fried okra?”
“Did you even hear what I said about stereotyping?”
As Kamala brawled with a merc, the newcomers fought their way into the crypt and threw a grenade at Mukendi, who instantly kicked it away and dived for cover.
Inside the enclosed crypt, the explosion was terrific. A heavy piece of rock ricocheted off the wall and smacked Kamala’s opponent in the center of his face, breaking his nose and knocking him clean off his feet. Kamala hesitated for a second, waiting to see if that had done the trick, then he growled in rage and snatched up the iron bar down by his boots.
The former Secret Service agent reacted quickly and thrust the man’s assault rifle toward him. The bayonet attached to the weapon’s muzzle now tore through the muscle protecting his stomach and plunged down deep inside him. He cried out in agony, but it was too late – without a hospital, the wound was irreparable.
He staggered back, desperately clawing at the Kalashnikov hanging out of his stomach and not knowing what to do. Finally, he pulled it out with a shrill gasp and fell to the puddle of blood forming at his feet.
Kamala stepped back in disgust at what she had become, shielding her eyes from the man’s last few painful seconds on earth. She wished she hadn’t killed him in that way, but there was nothing else for it. She knew that, had she not reacted so fast, she would be the one now dying in the dirt instead of him.
Lexi didn’t seem to have a problem with it. She snatched up the Kalashnikov from the floor and used it on her opponent’s skull as he struggled to pull himself up off the floor. The heavy rifle crashed down on his head and Kamala winced when the sound of breaking bone cracked in the damp air. The merc crumpled back down to the floor without another word and Lexi put her boot on him and rolled his dead body over.
“Missing, presumed dead,” she said.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be flushed away with all the other turds,” said Ryan.
As Kashala and his crew sprinted away from the battle, another grenade tumbled through the air and crashed down a yard from Hawke.
“Joe!” Scarlet cried out.
Then it exploded with savage force.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Hawke was blown off his feet and when he staggered back up again, he realized he’d momentarily lost his balance. Reaching out to the wall for something to hang onto while he got his bearings back, he was only dimly aware of a merc charging towards him from behind the sarcophagus.
He tried to lean into the attack, but it was too late. The chunky Belgian SFG man shoulder-barged him off his feet again and he slammed down into the dusty floor with a bone-cracking smack. Only just keeping his head raised enough to stop his skull smashing down and losing consciousness, he thrust a meaty fist up into the merc’s face, but he dodged it and returned fire, brutally pistol whipping the Englishman.
All around the crypt, the rest of the team were now engaged in their own fights for survival. As most of the team were engaged in a fire fight with the strange new force, Lea was brawling with Njuzi, Ryan was engaged with Kashala, and Reaper and Mukendi were going a few rounds nearer an arch at the rear of the crypt.
Lea’s training and experience melded into one now. Battle-hardened and shaper than ever, the enemy’s moves seemed almost predictable, almost slow-motion. Njuzi’s long blade sliced through the air inches from her head, each one carrying the grim promise to take her life, but she was one step ahead of the female merc. She dived behind the sarcophagus and took cover while Camacho fired on Njuzi and drove her back.
Hawke recovered from the pistol whipping just in time to stop a second helping. This time, his reactions were quicker, and he was able to grab the man’s wrist as he brought the gun down into his face once again. Squeezing the man’s own finger on the trigger, he pumped half a dozen rounds into his face at point blank range and blew the back of his skull off.
Pushing the corpse away, he spun around and fired on Mukendi. The Congolese merc was still engaged in a fist fight with Reaper, but the three bullets Hawke put in his head ended the brawl substantially in his old friend’s favor.
Seeing his best man dead, Kashala ordered Zhivkov to grab the device and retreat, but Hawke fired on them, emptying his magazine on Zhivkov as he reached out for the device.
“That’s for Matt Jagger, you bastard.”
Kashala paused, greedy eyes still dancing over the device and then Hawke’s gun.
“Go on, Kashala!” Hawke bluffed. “Make my millennium.”
The Congolese general looked at the device and then the gun. He licked his lips as fear and indecision tortured his mind. Then he turned tail and fled into the darkness of one of the archways. Crombez and Njuzi sprayed the room with automatic fire and sprinted after their boss.
“I’m on them!” Lea said. “Lex, you’re with me!”
On the other side of the crypt, the newcomers gained in number, muzzles fitted with flash suppressors. Wearing black riot helmets and c
overed in tactical vests, they were impossible to identify, but something told him he wasn’t looking at the Turkish police. As they streamed into the crypt, the man in the lead saw Hawke and ordered his men out of the tomb. As they streamed back out, a new, strange silence fell over the cold, damp crypt and the man began to remove his helmet.
Hawke got to his feet and the rest of the ECHO team gathered around him. Without taking his eyes off the man, Hawke turned to Reaper. “Go and help Lea and Lex, Reap. Kashala’s unarmed, but you never know.”
“Got it.”
Then the helmet came off, and Hawke could barely believe what he was seeing. Eddie Kosinski, the CIA man who had snatched so many of their treasures in the past, was standing right in front of him with a Glock in his right hand. Wearing a tactical vest and an open-collar shirt, he was as dishevelled and unshaven as ever.
“Fuck me.”
“That’s not tempting at all,” Kosinski said. “Besides, what would my wife say?”
“You’re a bastard, Kosinski.”
“I could say the same about you. In fact, I will. You’re a bastard, Hawke.”
“It’s like you’ve got a walk-on part in a novel,” Hawke said. “You’re the proverbial bad penny.”
Before Reaper could make the archway in the rear of the crypt, Lea and Lexi sprinted back through it. The two women were breathing hard and their faces red with anger.
“What happened?” Hawke asked.
Lexi holstered her weapon. “Kashala’s gone. So have Crombez and Njuzi.”
Lea cursed. “There was like a frigging portcullis in the tunnel and he slammed the damned thing down between us, blocking our way. He planned the shit out of this mission. Damn it all to hell! And another… Eddie Kosinski?”
“The one and only – hey, I heard you let Joseph Kashala escape. Great work.”
“Take a hike,” Lexi said.
Zeke crossed his arms and leaned up against a sarcophagus. “You know this asshole?”
“You could say that,” Ryan said. “We find relics, then he steals them from us.”
Kosinski ignored it. “Like I said, too bad Kashala got away.”
