The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke Book 3)

by Rob Jones

  “We have no choice whether he’s right or wrong,” Hawke said, looking at her dying body in his arms. “She was shot very close to her heart. She’s losing a lot of blood and she’s about to die. I thought I’d lost her in Russia in the fire and that was enough for me, thanks. We have to do whatever it takes.”

  “But Joe, what if the same thing that happened to the Crocodile King in there happens again, to Lea?” Scarlet said again.

  “Like I said… no choice.”

  He finished pouring the water and watched as the strange white-gold liquid ran over her dry, cracked lips, wetting them slightly. For a few seconds nothing happened, but then the water sparkled slightly and seeped inside her mouth. It looked almost like it was being controlled to flow inside her.

  She coughed and opened her eyes with a terrific gasp as she struggled to reinflate her lungs.

  Then he watched the bullet hole slowly grow pale and heal right before his eyes. The blood dried and flaked away and the color of the wound changed from scarlet to crimson and then to paler skin tones. Finally, the skin puckered and a faint glow appeared before the wound was gone and the skin was smooth again.

  Lea coughed more violently and blinked several times as she tried to focus on her surroundings.

  “Where…”

  More coughing.

  Hawke put his hand to her lips.

  “Shhh, it’s okay. You’re going be all right now.”

  “Yeah, so get up you lazy cow,” Scarlet said. She looked at the shocked faces of those around her. “It was just a joke… bloody hell.”

  “SAS humor,” Hawke said. “Best ignore it.”

  Lea tried to smile, but was too weak to hold it for long. “Did you save my life twice on this mission?”

  “Who’s counting?” Hawke said.

  “I am, Josiah…” she said with a smirk.

  Then a single gunshot slammed into the tree trunk an inch above Hawke’s head. He looked up, stunned, and saw Kodiak standing on the ridge. Vetrov’s Grach was in his hands.

  “It’s that bloody Russian!” Scarlet said, automatically returning fire. “Oh… sorry Snowcat.”

  “Forget about it,” Maria replied, also returning fire at the assassin. “We can be very bloody.”

  Lexi cursed. “He must have been right behind us in the tunnel and got out just before it collapsed.”

  With Scarlet, Lexi and Maria returning a savage wave of fire at the Russian hit-man, Hawke and Ryan moved Lea down the hill toward the chopper.

  Kodiak maintained the attack, using his sniper skills to pin them down, but he was outgunned three to one, and gradually they were able to turn the tables on him, moving back to the clearing.

  When they returned, one of the choppers was already fired up, and the rotors were whirring fast ready for take off.

  They climbed inside and Hawke raised the collective, lifting the helicopter off the ground and above the trees.

  “How do you fancy some target practice, Cairo?” Hawke said through the headset.

  “You know me so well, Josiah,” Scarlet said.

  Hawke rolled his eyes, already regretting letting his full name out of the bag. “You know what to do.”

  Cairo swung open the side door and loaded the rapid-fire heavy-machine gun bolted to the chopper floor.

  “I know she’s good,” Ryan said. “But surely not even Cairo Sloane can find that psycho down in all that jungle?”

  “Correct,” she said. “But I’m not aiming for the psycho.”

  Hawke made a low pass and she opened fire on the remaining choppers, exploding them all one by one, including the three Vetrov’s team had arrived in. Great plumes of burning oil smoke and fire twisted into the sky as the wrecked flying machines now burned themselves out in the rainforest.

  “Let’s see the little bastard get out of this place without one of those,” Scarlet said through the headset. “And no one calls me Cairo anymore, boy.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Scarlet Sloane tried for the third and final time to get Sir Richard Eden drunk, and then gave up and turned up the stereo, cigarette hanging from her lower lip. She’d been on the bottle since she’d got back to base, but denied it had anything to do with Karlsson’s death. Eden’s toast to Bradley Karlsson had caused a few tears, but not in Scarlet’s eyes.

  A day had passed since they’d dispatched Maxim Vetrov and watched a mysterious earthquake come out of nowhere and bury the Tomb of Eternity under thousands of tons of Ethiopian mountain.

  Lea had made a full and startling recovery. What surprised everyone was how fast it had been – within a few short hours of getting shot and almost dying she was up and running in full health without a sign of the bullet wound. That raised a lot of questions in everyone’s minds, most of all Hawke’s. When he asked her if she remembered anything after being shot, she shook her head and smiled.

  Hawke himself still had battles to fight, even with Vetrov dead and buried and the source located – even if it was lost to humanity forever. For one thing, he had to arrange a meeting with James Matheson, the British Foreign Secretary. The two of them had a few things to discuss, and Matheson wasn’t going to like the subject of conversation.

  He escaped the throbbing bass of the music coming from inside the suite and moved to the balcony for some peace and quiet. Looking up at the sun as it started to sink in the western horizon, he knew he was also owed an explanation from his new friends about why they had been lying to him, and it was to come sooner than he thought.

  His mind turned to his family back in England. He hadn’t talked to them for a very long time, and some would say with good reason, but maybe now it was time to lay some ghosts to rest and talk again. Maybe he should introduce them all to Lea – or then again, maybe not…

  Before he could consider the matter any further, Sir Richard Eden appeared on the balcony and stood beside him.

  “Good work, Hawke,” he said in his usual business tone. “HMG is pleased Vetrov was taken out, even if it did mean destroying the tomb.”

  Hawke sighed and shook his head.

  “What’s the problem?” Eden asked.

  “First, I don’t care what HMG thinks because I don’t work for them and I didn’t do it for them, and second, as I told you before, we didn’t destroy the tomb. I don’t know how it happened – maybe we triggered some self-destruct device like Indiana Bloody Jones or something – I don’t know, but we did not destroy that tomb.” He paused for a second. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about what you said on the flight out of Cairo when you found out about my attackers being British.”

  “That’s easy. It pains me to say it but I think we have a leak at the British Embassy. When we got to Cairo, as you know, I went straight to my old friend Pete Henderson, the ambassador. I apprised him of our situation and asked him to make things as easy as he could for us during our stay in the country. He said he’d help out. He was the only person I spoke to, Hawke.”

  “You trust him?”

  “I did, but not any more. I strongly suspect he leaked your presence in Cairo to Matheson – they were old friends in the Foreign Office for many years. After what you told me about Matheson being behind your wife’s murder, it all seems to fit together. Certainly that would explain the Apache and how the men in the Escalades were able to track you all over the city – working for Matheson they would have had access to real-time sat surveillance data. I also suspect he was the reason Maria was locked out of the Russian Embassy. He must have spoken to a contact inside the Russian Government and pulled some strings.”

  Hawke listened carefully to the words as the old man spoke. It all made sense, he decided, and it all led back to Matheson. Inwardly he was ashamed he had doubted some of his closest friends, and he was grateful he hadn’t accused them of anything to their faces. Only Maria knew of his doubt, however fleeting it had been.

  “All right, I accept that,” Hawke said. “It just makes me more determined to make Matheson pay for his crime
s.” With lightning reactions he swatted a mosquito on his neck and its mangled body fell silently to the decking.

  Eden sighed. “He’s the Foreign Secretary, Hawke. He has some of the toughest security on the planet. You’re not going to get anywhere near him.”

  Hawke frowned. “We’ll see about that. Besides, he won’t be the Foreign Secretary forever, Richard, will he now? I know how to play the long game… but there’s more you’ve been keeping from me, am I right?”

  Eden nodded but said nothing for a long time. Like Hawke, he was momentarily mesmerised by the sunset over the Sahara desert. Hawke, for his part, fought hard to control his curiosity and not look too keen in front of the other man. He had waited a long time to hear the truth, but he knew that the truth usually hurt more than lies.

  “I’ll come straight out with it, Hawke, so listen up.”

  Hawke leaned over the balcony and watched a boat moving up the Nile. As it passed north it broke the reflection of the setting sun in the water into a thousand ripples. Here it comes, he thought.

  “You’re right about Scarlet never having been in MI5, and the same goes for poor Sophie Durand who we lost in Tokyo. She was never in the French DGSE either. Both of them worked for me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hawke said, turning to face Eden. “I was there in Geneva when Sophie burst in on us. It was obvious no one knew her.”

  “An act I’m afraid. Sophie worked for me for many years. I was the one who told her to join you in Geneva as back-up when it looked like things were getting out of control in the Zaugg case.”

  Hawke frowned, and felt the anger rising inside him. An act? They had deceived him right in front of his face and now Eden dismissed it as a simple act. “And Lea? She works for you – that much is true, right?”

  “Yes and no. She works for me, but not, as you believe, as my personal security.”

  “Excuse my French, Rich, but just what the fuck is going on here?”

  “You have to remember we didn’t know anything about you back then and we couldn’t take any risks.” He sighed and sounded like he meant it. “Lea, Scarlet and formerly Sophie all worked for something called ECHO. There have been others but…”

  Hawke shook his head. He couldn’t believe the level of deceit they had subjected him to. “And what the bloody hell is ECHO?”

  “Eden Counter-Hostile Organization. I established it some time ago as a semi-autonomous unit to deal with threats like the ones you have been handling over the past few weeks. It is, as you will appreciate, extremely covert, and not even the British Government knows about it.”

  “And not one of you trusted me enough just to tell me?”

  Eden sighed. “It wasn’t like that, Hawke. People do not simply join something like ECHO. They are proposed by members and then tested. This is what happened when you gave chase to Zaugg’s men on that day at the British Museum.”

  “I don’t believe this…”

  “And don’t think about taking this out on Lea Donovan. She wanted to tell you from the start, but she was under my instructions not to say anything.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so, Hawke. It’s nothing personal, but after the loss of Sophie Durand I felt the last thing the team needed was a new member to adjust to, and that is why I told Lea to keep it to herself. As it happens, everyone in the team, myself included, is highly impressed with you and we want you on the team.”

  “Do you now?” He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Yes, we do. Our headquarters are based on a private island in the Caribbean – it’s called Elysium, but we are a very fluid, and very rich, organization with safe-houses all over the world. You will be given these locations if you become one of us. If you do, you can expect to be up against the likes of Vetrov all the time. It won’t be easy, but I know you’re up to it.”

  Hawke knew Eden was still talking but could no longer hear the words. Instead, his mind was full of anger and betrayal over the way they had kept him in the dark – all of them knowing they were a team and not telling him… and not an apology in sight.

  “I will of course give you time to think it over.”

  “That’s very kind, Rich, but I don’t need any time. You can stick your job up your arse and fuck off round the corner while you’re doing it.”

  Eden looked shocked, but before he had a chance to reply, Hawke put his drink down, stormed inside and picked up his kit bag.

  Lea saw the look on his face and knew what had happened.

  “Please, Joe – don’t be like this.”

  “I can understand her not saying anything,” he jabbed his thumb at Scarlet who was currently fighting Lexi for the last shot of vodka, “but you?”

  “I just couldn’t say anything, Joe!”

  “So you put me on fucking probation like an office gopher?”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “What’s going on?” Ryan said, confused. Hawke looked at him and saw he was now squashed under Maria and had her lipstick all over his face.

  Lea saw the glance. “And before you say anything don’t you dare say anything to Ryan – he never knew anything about it, either, and another thing – wait… where are you going?”

  Hawke flicked her hand from his arm and walked over to Alex Reeve.

  “Just calm down there, cowboy,” she said, pushing her wheel chair back a foot or two from the red-faced Englishman. “Whatever you’re pissed at don’t make it me because I don’t know what the hell is going on here.”

  “I know you don’t,” he said calmly. He fished around in his bag and pulled a tiny vial of sparkling water from it.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  “Here,” he said. “This is the only remaining water from the source. I didn’t use it all on Lea. I want you to try and use it to repair your legs. It brought Lea back to life, so maybe it can help you to walk again. Obviously, just a drop of the stuff because we saw what too much did to Vetrov. It’s all that’s left of the elixir, Alex, so make it count.”

  “I’ll give it a go, Joe. Thanks.” She held his hands firmly as Eden walked back into the room.

  “Please, Hawke – why don’t you reconsider joining the Echo Team on Elysium? We could really use a man like you. No one can say you haven’t proved yourself a thousand times to all of us, and the island really has to be seen to be believed. We have all kinds of natural and manmade training facilities and everything you could wish for.”

  Hawke saw they were all staring at him, waiting for his response. He knew what they wanted him to say, but he felt betrayed. He felt like a fool who’d been taken for a ride and dumped in the middle of nowhere. Part of him wanted to forgive them and say yes, but another part, the angry part, wanted never to see them again. Especially Lea – her betrayal had been the worst. He had told her his most private thoughts about his wife and her murder, but she had kept this to herself. Maybe he was being unfair, maybe it was just the shock of almost losing Lea not once but twice on the same mission – he didn’t know and at the moment he just didn’t care, not anymore.

  “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t think so, not now. I need time to think. Time to myself.”

  He slung the canvas sack over his shoulder and walked back out to the patio, leaping the balcony railing with a simple side vault and landing on the soft irrigated grass outside the suite. The air was still hot, and a little sweat trickled down into his eyes. He glanced up at the first stars of the new night for a few moments and then stepped out toward the desert, leaving the others behind him and walking toward nothing but the sunset.

  THE END

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Tomb of Eternity is the final part of the arc concerning the hunt for immortality which started with The Vault of Poseidon and followed on with Thunder God. These books were a lot of fun to write and I hope you enjoyed reading them just as much. I have left a few points unresolved, so who knows what Hawke might have to face in the future…

  I’d like
to take this moment to thank everyone who has read the series so far, and also to say to those who have enjoyed the stories that more Rob Jones books are planned for 2016, including, among others, a brand new rip-roaringly fast and furious standalone adventure for the increasingly beleaguered Joe Hawke. I will post new information relating to Hawke and the ECHO series on my website www.robjonesnovels.com and also on my Twitter and Facebook pages.

  So, Mystery Reader, my sincere thanks to you once again, and as I’m writing this note in early January, here’s wishing you a Happy New Year for 2016!

  Rob.

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  Other Books by Rob Jones

  The Joe Hawke Series

  The Vault of Poseidon (Joe Hawke #1)

  Thunder God (Joe Hawke #2)

  The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke #3)

  The Curse of Medusa (Joe Hawke #4)

  Valhalla Gold (Joe Hawke #5)

  The Aztec Prophecy (Joe Hawke #6)

  The Secret of Atlantis (Joe Hawke #7)

  The Lost City (Joe Hawke #8)

  You can find updates, information and all other news about my novels, including new book releases on my Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/RobJonesNovels/