“That’s not strictly true,” Drake said. “Right now we’re unclear as to who has apprehended who, to be honest. And we’re stuck in a mutually co-operative situation.”
“A what? Wait, it doesn’t matter. Luther was sent by Tempest which somewhat compromises me. Do you hear that, Luther?”
“I do,” Luther said stonily. “My orders came from . . . a five-star general, Madam Secretary. I know nothing of this Tempest.”
“Look here, son . . .” Luther’s eyes widened at the title. “I’ve been hoodwinked more times in the last few weeks than in my entire life. I’m facing down men with agendas upon agendas, schemes that would make your hair curl. Not many, mind you, but enough to develop a nasty, deep scourge within this good government. I’m fighting against it . . . carefully. Because these people—they go after you, your family and your friends. Now you hear my name, you keep your damn mouth shut. And you trust these good people. They’re trying to do right. Got it?”
Luther appeared a little chastised. “Ah, yeah, I guess. Madam.”
“Is this why you called?” Hayden was mindful of the time they were wasting.
“Partly, to reassure you that you have a friend in DC, yes.”
Drake was pleased nobody mentioned Lauren. At this point, they couldn’t properly trust anyone except their own team mates.
“But also . . . to urge you to get out of Egypt and meet me. There is a great and terrible danger to the world. Tempest have started it and they will not stop until they own every weapon, and the means to destroy or rule it all. They’re evil. Plain evil, in the old-fashioned way. I cannot stress enough how bad it will be if they get their hands on those weapons. Meet me. Soon.”
Drake saw that even worse things than those they had already endured were in their future. But if they didn’t stop it, who would? The entire FrameHub disaster was proof enough.
“How many teams were burned?” he asked. “How many good people?”
“Out there, now? At least a dozen. Probably more, all like you. Look, I can’t come clean. I can’t nip up to the White House and shout in Coburn’s ear. In some way, I was complicit. Nobody will believe that I didn’t know what the hell was going on. And . . . I have my family to worry about.”
“Are you thinking we might contact them?” Dahl asked Drake.
“Twelve to twenty teams like ours?” Drake’s eyes brightened. “That’d be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. An army to end all wars. I’m excited.”
“Me too,” Dahl agreed. “An incredible spectacle.”
Crowe went on: “I need to speak face to face and we need a plan. Tempest is moving ahead very quickly. The Sword of Mars is being sought as we speak. This doomsday machine in Egypt is also considered a weapon of the gods. Many others that were taken away from the tombs you all discovered. I need your help. Your countries need your help, and your loved ones too. Come to DC now.”
“All right,” Hayden said. “We can do that. We can talk. But right now . . . we have to go. This needs finishing first.”
“Yeah,” Drake said, watching the spiraling smoke as it drifted among the clouds and studying the ancient Great Pyramid where all the secrets and death quite possibly crouched, waiting.
“Yeah,” he said again. “Just . . . give us a minute.”
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Cairo has become one of the most famous cities in the world and has the largest metropolitan area in the Middle-East. It lies close to Giza, the ancient city of Memphis and the incredible Nile Delta. Pollution, traffic and overcrowding are just a few of its daily demands.
Drake viewed its environs as they closed in. All the way from the last tomb both he and Dahl had been working their magic on Luther and, at this stage, they’d almost given up.
“Even Secretary Crowe?” Dahl put real disbelief in his voice.
“If that was Secretary Crowe. And my orders come from the general. I can’t go committing treason.”
Drake pressed. “Do we act like evildoers to you?”
“Soldier like you should know they come in all forms and sizes, bud. You never drop your guard.”
“He’s right.” Dahl eyed Drake. “Did they teach you that in the SAS?”
“Piss off, Dancing Queen. I don’t know what to do with you, Luther. You’re a bloody brick wall.”
“I like you all. Even you, Drake. But I gotta say: ord—”
“Don’t say it.” Alicia held up a hand. “Orders are orders, right?”
Luther clicked his fingers at her. “You got it, sunshine.”
“Aww, cheers. Now I gotta think of a nice nickname for you.”
Dahl put their case as succinctly as possible. “Decision time. We’re entering Cairo right now and heading for those big, pointy rocks. No doubt, FrameHub’s mercs will be there. Tempest’s agents too. Who else? Maybe the Chinese, the Brits, the CIA. The question is: will you help us?”
Luther looked like he didn’t know whether to help or kill them. Drake kept an eye on the streets, already seeing the signs of a city in chaos. Sidewalks and roads were thronged with people, some running blindly toward danger and some away. Buses and cars were strewn everywhere, most abandoned. Shopfronts were boarded or barred. Screams and yells rang out constantly, like a plaintive chorus of those trapped in Hell. Drake saw men with half-face masks already strutting around.
“It’s gonna get ugly,” he said, “before they turn this around. How does a country recover from this?”
“Depends if it was a Denial of Service attack, or something more sinister,” Hayden said. “Egypt have a world-class IT section. They’ll turn it around pretty quick, but applying that to the real world?” She shook her head. “Months.”
“With FrameHub still out there,” Drake said. “Should we really be turning our attention to Tempest? Feels wrong.”
A rubble-strewn street showed signs of a missile attack, bricks lying in heaps, smoking, with mini-fires all around. Drake stopped the car and ran to help a nearby wandering man, his face so bloody he could not see, and shepherded him along the street to a medic. Dahl forcibly removed a family huddling close to the brick pile, explaining that there might be ruptured gas pipes and other dangers. Luther was quick to jump in too, helping to carry an older woman out of harm’s way.
The team drove on, stopping time and again to help the afflicted. Nobody, not even Crouch with his desperation to reach Giza, not even Smyth with his anger and fear for Lauren, could drive on without helping these uninformed innocents. Twice, Drake and Dahl faced down looters but it was all a mere drop in the ocean. They could not prevent coming atrocities over the next few days.
Another fail, right on the back of the first.
In the end, they could not reach the pyramids by car. They abandoned the vehicles and continued on foot, realizing the distance from outer Cairo to the pyramids was rather more than they’d expected as an hour passed by.
The flames receded and the running people thinned. Out here, groups rested or took stock, fearful of being inside the city now. Drake knew they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. For an authority figure, for information. He gave as much news as he could, translated by Kenzie, and moved on.
They ran and they walked, Luther at their side, and their rations and weapons were supplemented by the big man.
“Giza,” he’d said. “The last seal. Get to this weapon and then we’ll have our talk.”
Drake had sighed with relief whilst, at the same time, dreading the “talk.” Somehow he didn’t think it’d be a reprimand.
The bright yellow rolling desert surrounded the Giza pyramid complex, a trio of ancient structures the largest of which—the Pyramid Of Khufu—was the oldest of the seven ancient wonders of the world and remained the tallest manmade structure ever built for almost four thousand years. Not a bad final résumé, Drake thought, for a structure that took twenty years to build even if they moved eight hundred tons of stone a day.
To complete the task the builders would have had to move twe
lve blocks into place, every hour, through day and through night. For twenty years. The math was mesmerizing.
And it certainly looked impressive as they drew closer. Drake knew the outer cladding had been stripped away through the years—once a casing of highly polished white limestone wrapped the entire pyramid, only part of which remained today around the lowest courses.
Crouch shaded his eyes as they approached, the supply of sunglasses running out before they’d reached him. Drake was glad to see his wounds were not affecting him and appeared to be healing nicely. It was the same for them all, although the trauma of the arena would never fade.
“Wait,” Dahl said, gazing hard at the foot of the pyramid.
They paused almost beneath its great shadow. “I see it,” Kenzie said.
Guards lay around the side and at the entrance to the Great Pyramid, and the ground near them was saturated with blood.
“Somebody’s already here,” Mai said.
“Then we’d better be quick,” Crouch said. “Let’s move.”
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Outside the Great Pyramid of Giza they came under attack, in the bright light of day. Whoever had killed the guards had left sentries of their own behind who had been patrolling to the left, around the funerary chamber. Now, as SPEAR openly approached, they came running, shouting, threatening with guns.
Drake and Dahl ducked their heads, raised their rifles and fired. Bullets sped across the plateau, embedding in stones and structures and the scattered police cars. If the dead guards had called in a warning it hadn’t been heard.
Crouch ran to the entrance and covered Mai and Yorgi as they raced to join him. Drake and Dahl ducked and covered and ran from shelter to shelter, raising their heads and sights briefly to squeeze off bursts of ammunition. First one sentry and then another fell back, arms akimbo, blood bursting out of their chests. A third dug in, but Luther smoked him out with a flash-bang and Pine ended his life.
“This way.” Crouch waved them toward him.
Drake signaled and called that he was moving. Dahl, Smyth and Kinimaka remained to cover him, wary of more threats, leaving their posts one by one to join the rest of the team at the entrance to Khufu’s Pyramid.
Dahl joined them last. “Moving.”
Crouch ducked in, leading the way. The inner passage was narrow and led down an incline to start with, presently presenting them with two options.
“Upward, to the Queen’s and then the King’s Chamber, or continue down to the subterranean chamber. Input here would be good.”
“Where were the secret passages found?” Hayden asked.
“Heat anomalies saw passages at ground level, the first course of the pyramid and in the top half, above the King’s Chamber, leading to the apex. Nobody knows what was found or if they even looked.”
“Odd. All the other depictions were found low down,” Mai said. “I would say we try the subterranean chamber and passage.”
“Or the King’s?” Kenzie put in. “Him being important and all. Plus, I’d like to know if that secret passage goes all the way to the top.”
They hesitated. In the end the decision remained moot as soldiers began to fill the tunnel below them. The first pointed them out and then the bullets started flying. Crouch and Yorgi crowded into the upward tunnel and the rest jumped in after.
“No room to fight,” Drake said. “We got a problem here.”
Bullets whistled past the opening to their tunnel, non-stop.
Dahl waved an arm out, firing his weapon blindly. A scream paused the hail of gunfire for a while and Drake risked a peek out.
“I’m counting eight,” he said. “And they’re moving pretty fast.”
“We got more trouble,” Kinimaka said, looking up. “They’re coming from both directions.”
“Sounds like my prom night,” Alicia said. “This is gonna be a slaughter.”
It was indeed a kill box, Drake saw. Nowhere to go and two enemies coming at them. Kinimaka decided the way they would go. He was in front and charged at the descending men. A bullet flew past his head, dislodging rock, and then another displaced a large, jagged chunk that plummeted onto his temple stopping him like a rocket would stop a rhino, forcing him to his knees.
The oncoming mercs cheered, still coming. Kinimaka was down, head hanging, groaning and winded.
“Let ’em have it!” a voice rang out.
Then Mai was in action, running, planting a foot firmly on Mano’s back and using him as a springboard to launch her body among the mercs. She landed hard and true, scattering their weapons and unbalancing them. Instantly, she kicked out whilst they were already unstable, toppling one headlong into the griping Kinimaka and another in his wake. The one above her landed on his tailbone, yelping. She grabbed his gun, twisted it in his hand and shot him three times with it. The fourth bullet went past his head as another man sought to target her. The fifth made sure he collapsed back into the man above, head blown away.
Giving her clearer sight of the tunnel above. The mercs were bunched up, hampered beyond measure, and she added one more body to the mix, killing the next visible merc and making him fall among his comrades.
“Close quarter combat,” Luther breathed in an impressed tone. “Now there’s a specialist.”
Drake backed Dahl as they slowed the oncoming mercs in the other direction. Effectively, they were guarding the exit and the mercenaries were trapped. The dubious factor was that the mercs were leaving.
What had they found?
Overheard transmissions told him nothing except they had radioed in for heavy machinery, which could mean absolutely anything. It was clear though that the mercs were in a desperate hurry. They were sacrificing their number just to get close to the exit.
Kenzie jumped after Mai, looking to help. She dragged the first dead man away, let him slide past, then used the close-set walls as a fulcrum to jump over the next. She kicked him down until his body slithered into Kinimaka. The Hawaiian got the message, heaving upright and wincing even as he threw the dead men past him.
All the way to Drake, who rolled them out into the downward passage.
Communications flared between both mercenary groups. Drake could hear one team telling the other to fall back, to let them take the lead, to get the hell out of the way.
“We found it!”
His heart leapt as he heard those words. Crouch zeroed in on it too, coming to Drake’s shoulder and listening.
“No way we’re gonna lift that mother,” someone shouted into a walkie. “It’s almost thirty by thirty and weighs about six tons. We got a stallion en route, but someone gotta smoke these fuckers first.”
What’s he talking about? Drake mouthed at Crouch.
“Must admit I’m stumped. I thought all we were here for was a wall painting, a mural. Could he be talking about the weapon itself?”
Drake guessed it was possible. “These men are clearly FrameHub’s mercs. If Tempest and the others were ever here they’ve been dispatched. Maybe that’s why the mercs are in such a rush—to safeguard what they found.”
“Sounds likely,” Crouch said.
The incredible close-quarter battle continued inside the Great Pyramid. Drake saw a dead policeman thrown in front of the upcoming mercs, positioned as shields, and gritted his teeth in hatred. Another was thrown from above, striking Kenzie and knocking her to the floor. Mai resisted a concerted attack, breaking a man’s knees with her gun and watching him stagger past into the arms of Kinimaka.
Today, not kind arms.
Mai fired up at the next, using each man as a shield to reach around. Twice bullets ripped through clothes but passed her by.
Drake and Dahl braced as the mercs inched closer. They had lost eight of their number but still retained at least that many, uncompromising with their advance. The time was approaching when they would push past the upward passage and that was going to present some problems.
For all of them.
“Make sure you’re fully
loaded,” Drake shouted. “Here they come!”
CHAPTER FORTY
An unknown quandary faced them. Nobody had ever fought in such close quarters against so many armed men inside an ancient pyramid before. Alicia pointed it out, and the rest had to agree.
Luther was halfway up the incline, helping Mai, drawn to her courage and skill. Pine and Carey were at his back. That gave the rest of the SPEAR team chance to ponder the mercs coming from below.
They couldn’t step out into the line of fire. They could hardly let them pass. But they found they could not stop them either. At least eight mercs attacked in a line, carrying their dead and at least one man not-so-dead, with them and forcing them against the hole where Dahl and Drake crouched. Their bullets struck the dead bodies; the dead bodies fell upon them, their number weighing everyone down. A flapping skull struck Hayden, felling her. A lifeless, weighty frame came down on Drake, pinning him to the floor. A slim man pushed up at Dahl, rocking him back on his heels and then another was added to the weight and the makeshift barricade, forcing him back and allowing more mercs to slip past.
They did get some shots off, and through, heard cries of pain. Bullets found their mark. Some came through the other way too, one almost felling Kinimaka for a second time.
“Not again,” was heard as he went gasping to the floor, shocked at how close it had come.
Drake wriggled free of his obstruction. Another landed atop him, slithering across the man above and adding its weight. Drake was trapped. Perhaps the ascending mercs could have made more of that chance, but their heads were pointed in one direction only, their orders to escape as fast as they could.
Mai fought tirelessly, dragging down the last of the mercs and throwing him over her shoulders. Luther caught him in mid-air and slammed his head against the bedrock, only dropping him when all life had departed the body. When Mai had checked for stragglers she turned and caught Luther gazing at her.
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