Eden Relics (A Zac Woods novel #1): Author royalties for Cancer Research

by N Williams

  The look on Gates’ face left no doubt in Sally’s mind that he would indeed get Zac. Sally only hoped that Zac would still be alive. She had this flash of a horrible premonition, a vision of Gates climbing back out of the hole, hand extended for help, with Zac slung lifeless over his shoulders.

  Sally shook off the feeling and crossed herself. Gates had already dropped down out of sight through the smoke. She could hear his coughs and could see the glow of light from his helmet as he shone the light around the bottom of the boulder choke.

  More shots – Sally counted six- then silence. The smoke began to dissipate, lost on the breeze. After what seemed like minutes of silence there was another loud explosion from below and another thick cloud of smoke mushroomed out of the hole.

  CHAPTER 76

  Sally felt the tears well up in her eyes, peering into the hole for a glimpse of her friends. No sound. Nothing.

  ‘Zac, Bill, you okay?’

  Moments passed before a hand cut through the dusty gloom, a re-run of Sally’s premonition. Sally closed her eyes tightly. ‘Oh no, God, no!’

  ‘Better help me up, mate, before those tossers realise I’m out of ammo.’

  Sally beamed as she saw Zac pulling Gates up from the stairwell. ‘He comes back to save me and I end up saving his arse again,’ he grinned.

  Gates coughed as he laughed. ‘Save my arse? If it wasn’t for me bringing you that grenade you’d have been chewed up by half a ton of nine-millimetre lead.’

  Zac grinned and dusted himself off. ‘I’ve still got one of my own left.’ He patted the lethal pineapple attached to his webbing. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’ Holding Sally’s hand, he grabbed the holdall and ran towards the car.

  ‘Where are we going?’ shouted Sally as she was dragged behind Zac.

  ‘As far from here as possible,’ replied Zac as he ran for the car.

  ‘Not that way you won’t,’ shouted Gates. ‘Can’t find Mac. He’s pissed off somewhere with the keys.’

  ‘If my memory serves me correctly then there’s a bloody whopping big quarry set overlooking the valley with a steep drop from the top of the mountain. If we can get to that, we might have a chance.’

  Zac started off over a gate and ran along an old track past some derelict cottages. The entrance to the old limestone quarry was just ahead. A large boulder had been set at the narrow mouth to stop joyriders from using the old quarry as a racing track.

  Sally shook her head as she began to falter. Gates strode past her, effortlessly eating up the slope with his long and powerful strides. She couldn’t see how a quarry and a bloody steep drop could be anything other than another major problem. What they needed was a helicopter or an exceptionally fast four-wheel drive vehicle.

  The mossy ground on the floor of the vast oval was difficult to cover quickly whilst carrying weapons and the holdall. Zac’s back began to ache. Shit! he thought, if he hadn’t finished off the thugs he’d be lucky to make it. He pulled up at the narrow gully between the large boulder and the wall. He knew that if his back went into spasms now he’d be finished and so would his friends. He tried to ignore the shooting stabs of pain pulsing through his buttock and down the back of his leg. He threw the holdall onto his shoulder and grimaced.

  Gates had made it through to the quarry when he stopped to find Zac clearly suffering and holding his lower back.

  Gates ran back towards his friend. ‘You okay, pal?’

  ‘I’ll be okay. Need to relax. Muscles are screwed.’

  Gates pulled the holdall off Zac’s shoulder and threw it onto his own.

  ‘Ta, mate,’ said Zac through gritted teeth. ‘I think we need to get going.’

  ‘Do you think you can make it?’

  ‘I’ll make it. I don’t intend to let those bastards ruin a date.’

  CHAPTER 77

  It was clear to them all that they didn’t have much time. There would be others backing up baldy-bastard and his mate.

  They got to the top of the grass bowl and set off towards the ridge. Gates had the holdall over his shoulder, and the weight of the relics was slowing him down. Zac offered to take turns to heave the bag, but Gates would have none of it.

  ‘You’re in a worse state than me,’ Gates jibed. ‘Where are we going, Zac? The scenery is genuinely impressive you know, but I’d like to get out of the open soon.’

  ‘I think I finished them with that last grenade, but if they’re still coming after us, Bill, I think we need to have an ace up our sleeve, in case we can’t get away. I know of a small cave entrance hidden in the trees just ahead, over that ridge. If we get there, we can buy time to call in support and hold out until they get to us.’

  Zac could hear the thumping of a helicopter gradually growing louder. He could see Sally searching the sky for the aircraft, but they still couldn’t see it.

  ‘Is it one of our friends or our foes?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Can’t think of anyone we know who’s got a chopper,’ Gates said grimly. ‘I think we’ve had it, mate. Can’t go any further.’

  Zac nodded. ‘We’ll stop at the ridge and make our stand there. At least we still have some sort of option.’

  ‘Some option,’ Sally said flatly.

  At the top of the ridge, they stopped and stared at the sheer drop down to the river and the man-made lake of the castle below. It was a spectacular sight. Over three hundred feet straight down. Madame Patti had diverted the river during her early years at the castle to form the lake. The steep slope of the ridge was punctuated with a scattering of various trees, becoming denser as the ground curved towards horizontal through the last hundred metres to the bottom of the valley. Memories came flooding back as Zac felt the up-draughts of warm air.

  ‘Wow,’ said Sally, ‘That’s one hell of a drop.’

  ‘That’s what I’m banking on. Had some super fun as a kid, throwing cans off the edge and watching them fly back over our heads on the up-draughts. It was like magic,’ said Zac.

  The sound of the approaching helicopter was now so loud Zac expected it to drop down on them, appearing from behind some sort of Klingon invisibility cloaking device. At the top of the mountain, Zac could see the undulating plains of grass leading off for miles in all directions behind them. It looked surprisingly flat, but Zac knew that it was an optical illusion. Troughs and gullies of different sizes cut the whole vista and the depth of many of them was more than capable of hiding the flight path of an approaching helicopter.

  The noise level left them all in no doubt that the chopper was close. Finally, two white helicopters, in the livery of the Stockwell Pharmaceutical Company rose up from ground level behind them, two hundred metres away.

  The pilots had kept the craft low to the ground, probably to avoid being picked up on radar, Zac thought.

  One of the choppers circled high above, but Zac could still make out the face of Sir Eddison Stockwell grinning down at him from the rear passenger seat. Stockwell’s helicopter banked and stayed away, hovering some distance from them. Typical, thought Zac, won’t get his own hands dirty.

  The other chopper put down close to them on the top of the ridge. A side door slid open, and the two goons from the cave with MP 5 automatic weapons stepped out onto the skids.

  Those two certainly are resilient, Zac thought. Blown them up twice and yet they still come back for more.

  A smartly dressed man pushed Mac, bound and gagged, out of the helicopter. Handel Fenwick put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a comb to reset his hairstyle. ‘Look what I found on the way here,’ he grinned, pointing to the goons and Mac. ‘Amazing isn’t it? I realise that this must be something of a surprise for you Zac, if not a shock, but I have no time for pleasantries. I want the relics.’

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘You were never the sharpest chisel in the toolbox, Zac. You were good at your job, and very loyal, but you’ve always been a little dim.’

  The events of the past few days now began to make sense. Za
c now knew how the goons had always managed to keep one step ahead.

  ‘Let Mac go, and we’ll work something out. I don’t even know what this is all about. Not worth being killed for.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Handel smiled. ‘I don’t want to kill you and your friends. I’ve always been fond of you; you’re a good man. But good men never get anywhere in life, Zac. Look at what happened to me.’

  ‘Why, Handel?’

  Fenwick nodded to his men to cut the binding from Mac. ‘I gave over thirty years to Queen and country, Zac. I worked hard, well, for twenty of those years. But I was screwed over by them all.’

  ‘I never believed you were guilty of the fraud they tried to pin on you.’

  Laughing, Fenwick took a step closer. ‘Me guilty? Of course I was guilty. By that time, I was losing my wife to cancer and had nothing to show for my honourable service. Everything we ever wanted to do - planned to do - was disappearing by the day…’

  Zac had the Glock hidden down the waistband of his trousers, tucked neatly in the middle of his back. He knew there was no chance to outgun Fenwick’s goons but felt reassured that the weapon was there to be used if the opportunity arose. He nodded and smiled weakly to Mac as he joined Sally and Gates.

  ‘…I gave my life to the job, and all the job ever wanted was more,’ Fenwick continued. ‘All my wife ever wanted was a comfortable life, but I knew she deserved more. I DESERVED MORE,’ he shouted.

  The last of the grenades was on open display in Zac’s hand. As the helicopter approached he had taken the holdall back from Gates and slung it over his shoulder. He held the grenade firmly in his hand. The pin was lying discarded at his feet, clearly visible to Fenwick and his goons.

  Gates stood behind Zac who had made the handgrip of the Glock clearly visible. If Zac didn’t get the chance to use it he knew Gates could slide up behind him and take the gun without the bad guys noticing.

  The light breeze on the edge of the mountain ruffled Fenwick’s hair. Fenwick had a comb-over and Zac had never noticed - not even in the Triumph Stag. The wonders of Brylcreem. Zac thought it looked comical - might even have laughed but for the shock of seeing his mentor standing in front of him with a .45 police service revolver aimed at his head.

  ‘What? Cat got your tongue, Zac?’ shouted Fenwick.

  ‘I don’t understand, Handel. You working for Sir Eddie?’ said Zac.

  Fenwick laughed. ‘He thinks so. I have my fingers in lots of pies - so did Farrell. He was a slippery fucker. Have you any idea what that thing you’re holding is worth, Zac? Lots and lots of spondulicks to the right client and I have the right client. It’ll be more than enough to keep me in a lifestyle I’m not accustomed to.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’d do this for money. What would Stella think of you now?’

  ‘Shut up, Zac. Don’t push your luck. Since she died I’ve been left with nothing. No reason for the thirty-three fucking years I gave of my life for those bastards. We should be enjoying the little time we’ve got left now. Instead, I visit her grave and wish I’d spent more time with her when she was alive. A wasted life, Zac. But with this money I can try and make the most of the time left to me. Try and go somewhere I’ll feel less guilty about the way I treated her.’

  ‘What a shit excuse! And you think this will make you feel better?’ Zac sneered.

  Fenwick shrugged his shoulders, ‘Perhaps not, but at least I can cry myself to sleep on champagne and strawberries somewhere hot and very exclusive.’

  Gates shuffled forwards, moving very slowly towards Zac. He was nearly within arm’s reach of the hidden Glock.

  Fenwick saw the slight movement, ‘Not a step further, Bill. Unless you want me to put a hole through your head.’

  Gates stopped still and raised his arms.

  Sally shook her head. ‘But I don’t understand. Why would you do this to your friends?’

  Fenwick shrugged again. ‘I didn’t want it all to come to this. It wasn’t supposed to. All you were supposed to do was to work out the puzzle and let me pick up the relics. Instead, you get sentimental over someone you haven’t seen in God knows how long and refuse to step back. I should have known you’d be a pain in the ass Zac, you always were. Never knew when to leave things well alone, did you?’

  Bourse walked up alongside Fenwick. ‘Let me finish them now, Mr Holder.’

  ‘Mr Holder?’ Zac asked.

  ‘Didn’t think I was going to use my real name, did you? That would be fucking stupid. Get the bag,’ he shouted at Bourse as he waved the revolver at Zac.

  The thug moved slowly forward, not wanting to get too close, and held out his empty hand.

  Zac held up the grenade. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I had noticed. I suppose you think that by threatening to blow yourself up, along with the bag, I’ll allow you to walk away? Sorry to disappoint you, Zac. You forget that I know everything there is to know about you. I have lost count of the times I read your psychological profile over the years. I know you are a dedicated and driven man, Zac, but I also know that you would never commit suicide, not if there’s a chance of taking your friends with you.’ He began to laugh. ‘You even save cats on the ledge of the tower block, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘It was always climbing out there.’ Zac shrugged as he unhooked the pack from his shoulder and let the action draw him closer to Gates. He was now well within reach of his friend.

  Zac could hear the sound of the other helicopter somewhere off in the distance.

  He held the heavy bag out in front of him.

  ‘Toss it over here,’ said Fenwick.

  ‘Don’t you think I’d better get rid of this grenade first?’

  Fenwick paused, weighing up the options. ‘Go ahead… over the edge there.’ He indicated the drop to the river. ‘Just make sure you don’t drop it onto some poor unfortunate fisherman. We wouldn’t want any more collateral damage now, would we?’

  ‘You make my heart glow,’ Zac spat as he slowly turned towards the drop.

  ‘Slowly does it, Zac, Wouldn’t want to shoot you by mistake.’

  Zac looked back over his shoulder at Fenwick who was about halfway between his friends and the helicopter. The blades of the chopper were still spinning, ready for takeoff in the middle of the quarry basin.

  He stepped towards the edge, still with the holdall hanging from his left shoulder, the grenade held out at arms length. Zac knew he had about four or five seconds before the grenade would explode as soon as the spring-loaded clip was released.

  It had to be done. He had no other cards to play. He had to get the trajectory just right. Zac lobbed the grenade out over the edge of the cliff and heard the clip snap free. The timer was now running. He began to grin as he watched the explosive drop and then rise on the thermals, like magic, and sail over his head towards the helicopter.

  *

  Fenwick had two trained killers at his disposal and they were chaffing at the bit to be let loose on Zac and his pals, but Fenwick didn’t want his former friend and colleague killed, not if there was another way. For everything he’d said about Zac, he still liked and admired him - envied him even. He was everything Fenwick had once been, and there was still a tinge of regret deep inside him, a regret he had to suppress. Killing them would only add to the regret and there was no reason to kill them. The police would know who they wanted in relation to the murders now, and Stockwell would only add to the mix. But kill them he would - if he had to.

  He turned to nod at his goons and noticed the head of both men seemingly following the flight path of something behind him. Fenwick looked back quickly. Above him, rising lazily on a draught of warm air, was the grenade.

  Fenwick dropped to the ground; hands over his head as the grenade dropped into the turning blades of the chopper and exploded.

  Zac grabbed Sally and pulled her over the edge of the cliff. Sally screamed as she saw Gates pull Mac and follow them.

  The grenade destroyed the chopper
. A firestorm filled the quarry as the super-heated pieces of the fuselage hammered into anything and everything within their deadly reach.

  A blade fragment, propelled at supersonic speed, caught Bourse and Tourrain. Both heads were swiped cleanly off their shoulders before they realised what had happened. They had lived and fought together, and they died together in the same instant.

  *

  As Zac hit the ledge, ten feet down below the ridge, he felt his back take the impact of the landing. He let out a grunt of pain as the wind was knocked out of his lungs. Sally fell on top of him, bounced off his chest and over the edge of the narrow ledge. Zac still had hold of her hand as she disappeared into the abyss.

  The force of Sally’s weight pulling Zac over the ledge jerked his back once more. This time he screamed in pain. He could feel muscles tear in his lower back. This wasn’t good. Sally was hanging below him, and he didn’t have the strength to pull her up. It hurt too much to move.

  Gates had landed cleanly on his feet, landing like a big, black cat, and was now reaching over Zac to pull Sally up to the ledge. The big muscles of his arms easily lifted Sally to safety. Mac lay back against the cliff, staring bug-eyed at the drop below.

  ‘Shit! You bastard! You scared the life out of me,’ said Sally, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. She could see Zac was in pain. He struggled to get to his feet. ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  Zac smiled. ‘Been better.’

  ‘We need to get up that cliff and get out of here before that other chopper picks us off,’ said Zac.

  A strained voice croaked from above them, ‘Don’t move a muscle.’

  Zac looked up in the direction of the voice.

  Fenwick was kneeling over the edge with the MP5 in hand, pointing directly at Zac.

  ‘Throw up the bag, Zac and I’ll be out of here.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that, after everything you’ve done, Handel?’

  ‘You don’t have much choice, Zac. You either throw the bag up to me, or I shoot you now.’

  ‘Shoot me and you’ll have to come down to get the bag. Fancy a bit of climbing, do you? You don’t look like you’re up to it.’ Zac could see the blood covering Fenwick’s face. His immaculate appearance had disintegrated along with his jacket and shirt. Strips of blood soaked white cloth were left hanging around his neck. Zac had a flashback to a televised version of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.