by Rob Jones
Kruger’s archaeological genius was no longer enough to lead the mission, and a split second after Chabat’s assault, Dragan Korać took charge, ordering his army of mercenaries to take cover and return fire. They all knew what was at stake here, and no one was playing games.
“They have to get through us to escape back to the boats,” Maria said.
“Apparently not,” Reaper said as he fired on Van Zyl. “Look!”
Dirk Kruger was now climbing inside the sarcophagus and calling the others over to join him.
“I read about how they got fourteen people in a phone box but this is just ridiculous,” Scarlet said. “You wouldn’t think they had the time for world records.”
Ryan sighed. “Duh! It’s an escape tunnel…”
Scarlet looked at him and pursed her lips. “You think?”
Van Zyl was the last man to climb into the sarcophagus and before he vanished he turned to give a final burst of submachine gunfire at the ECHO team. Ten seconds later a deep roar emanated from below their feet and then the sarcophagus lurched heavily to one side and sunk into the floor.
“They blew the sodding tunnel up,’ Hawke said. “They’re going back to the boats so I’ll lead a team back the way we came and cut them off.” He turned to Ryan. “I need you to stay here and go through this place looking for anything that can help us. Kruger has the key but there has to be something else.”
Ryan and the others began the laborious process of sifting through the rubble in their search for anything that might help them work out what the South African had looted, while Hawke, Lea, Reaper and Lexi sprinted back along the tunnel in a bid to head Kruger off before he got to the river.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Clambering back up the vertical shaft took longer than Hawke had allowed for, and when they reached the fresh air of the outside world Kruger and the others were already emerging from a pile of scrub-covered rubble at the bottom of the mesa’s northwest slope.
“They took a hell of a risk going into that second tunnel,” Reaper said.
Hawke nodded sharply, exhilarated by the hunt. “Eden said he was the luckiest bastard alive, and I’m starting to believe him.”
They jogged down the hot, rocky mesa, occasionally slipping on loose scree but making good progress until they reached the bottom of the slope and took cover behind a number of juniper trees growing around a small oasis. They were now on the same level as Kruger, who was totally exposed as he and Korać ordered their men into the boats.
“We can’t let them get away,” Lea said.
“She’s right,” Reaper added. “If they get into the boats they’ll be out of sight in seconds, and it’s a half hour hike up to Chabat’s Eurocopter.”
Hawke’s response was to bring his Glock into the aim. For a second he heard nothing but the gentle desert breeze as it whistled through the thick leaves of the date palms and juniper canopies above his head. In the distance was the splashing sound of the river as it moved west though the deep gorge.
Softly, he squeezed the trigger…
Gunshot crack, puff of smoke… one of the mercs clutched his throat and dropped into the muddy bank beside the boat.
Korać and the mercs reacted with speedy professionalism, moving into defensive positions while Kruger and Van Zyl fired up the front two boats.
Hawke fired again, and the second shot gave away their destination tucked away in the oasis. A second later another gun battle revved up to full speed as the Serbs defended their position and prepared to retreat with the column-shaped stone key.
With the superior cover afforded by the shady oasis, Hawke and the rest of the ECHO team made short work of the exposed Serbian mercenaries, so the second Kruger and the key were secured, Korać ordered his men into the boats and they pulled out into the center of the coffee-colored river, guns blazing off the sterns the whole time.
Thanks to the ECHO team’s assault, they had taken out a good handful of the mercs available to Kruger and forced them to leave one of the jet boats behind.
“Looks like we’re going white-water rafting!” Hawke said. “Anyone up for a splash with me?”
*
As the smoke began to clear, Ryan was able to get a better look at the detail inside the inner chamber. He spent a few moments shining his Maglite on various parts of the tomb and was amazed by what he was seeing. “Some of this stuff is unbelievable. Problem is that the cylinder Kruger and the others got was obviously the main attraction and without that there’s much less to go on.”
“We’re going to need more than that,” Camacho said gruffly, and turned to Chabat. “Call for back-up and get what’s left of this place secured. This location is now a major archaeological site and potential international security risk and I want it quarantined.”
“Yes, sir,” Chabat said, and walked along the tunnel to get a signal on his radio.
Maria sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “So we don’t have the cylinder, but what have we got?”
Ryan shone his flashlight along the walls. “It’s hard to know where to start, but considering the sarcophagus and shrine have been destroyed I think these pictograms on the wall are our best bet.”
“What pictograms?” Scarlet said, staring hard at the wall now illuminated by Ryan’s flashlight. “Are you sure they’re not just scratches?”
Ryan sighed and shook his head. “It’s me we’re talking about. Of course I’m sure they’re not scratches.”
“I hope your knowledge of ancient symbols is as half as good as your sense of self-regard, kid,” Camacho said.
“It is,” Ryan replied seriously, and took a step closer to the wall. “This confirms it – I think the grand prize was definitely a key.”
“You sure?”
He nodded. “This symbol here is for a key, without any doubt, and if my translation is correct it looks to me like Tanit was supposed to be guarding it. I guess that’s why old Dirk had to use the idol to open her tomb.”
“So the obvious question,” Scarlet said, “besides why so many beautiful spies find you attractive, is a key to what?”
“I don’t even know if there is an answer to that.”
“None of us do.”
“I meant an answer to the question of the key… but if there is an answer to it then the only place we’re going to find it is in this inscription above the shrine.” He paused a beat. “And what’s intriguing about it is the similarity between these symbols and those on the idol, and the ones I saw back in Mictlan. There’s a real connection here.”
Camacho turned to him and passed a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “You mentioned something about that before.”
“So someone listens to me,” he said, turning to Scarlet.
“But what’s the connection?” Maria asked.
“Hard to say, but Atlantis is lurking in the middle of all this somewhere.”
Camacho let out a long frustrated sigh. “I don’t know what the hell I know anymore. When I was a kid Atlantis was a mythical place, but apparently now I’m searching for it so I guess anything can happen from this point.”
Ryan moved closer to the wall. “We’re going to need pictures of all these and then send them over to Elysium. We need Alex and some computer power on the case. This one here of Tanit is bothering me.” He started to snap pictures of everything in sight.
“You mean the figure in the skirt?” Maria said.
“It’s deliberately ambiguous. Because it’s a triangle with a circle on top of it and the two lines stretching out either side just beneath the circle, or head, it does indeed look like a woman in a skirt – so it could be a simple symbol representation of Tanit.”
“But there’s another way of interpreting it?” Camacho said.
“I don’t know… I know I’m missing something. I’m going to email this stuff to Alex and see what she comes up with,” Ryan said.
Camacho nodded. “With Kim and Alex working together they’ll be all over this like a dog on a bon
e, I’ll bet!”
“All we need now is for Joe to get that sodding stone key from Kruger and we’re away,” Ryan said.
“What do you think his chances are?” Maria said.
Scarlet smiled. “Better than average, darling.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hawke turned the key and fired up the jet boat. Seconds later he was pulling onto the Dadès River and racing north in pursuit of the fleeing men. The sun was higher now and reflected brightly off the water, dazzling him as he tried to steer the boat out into the deeper part of the river and increase speed to close the gap.
Korać was still in the lead and almost out of sight now, but Kruger’s boat was closer. At its stern, Kamchatka now ordered the men to fire on the ECHO team and moments later they heard the familiar chatter of submachine guns.
The river was wide now, and starting to get dangerous. This was a favorite location for tourists to go white-water rafting and Hawke was beginning to see why as he struggled to navigate the boat between piles of lethal hull-smashing rocks and the gunfire of Kruger and the rest of his hired thugs. Ekel Kvashnin was particularly enjoying firing on Lexi, but the violence of the boats racing over the wild river disrupted his otherwise lethal aim.
“Damn Kamchatka! He wants to kill me,” Lexi said as she ducked another shot.
“He wants to kill all of us,” Hawke said.
“No… it’s me he wants,” she replied coolly. “It’s the only way he can redeem himself in his own eyes after his failure to kill me in Berlin.”
The engine roared and water sprayed up over the sides as Hawke spun the wheel hard to the right to dodge more bullets but then hung a hard left to correct the course before hitting the southern bank of the river.
“I see your river boatin’ skills haven’t improved since the day we met,” Lea said.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something useful?” he said, throttling down for a sharp bend coming up fast.
Her response was drowned out by the sound of Lexi Zhang’s pistol as she fired off a series of rounds. Her aim was as true as ever and struck two of Kruger’s men who were standing beside Luk. One crashed forward into the river while the other collapsed onto the deck of the jet boat, frantically trying to stop his throat wound from bleeding. Luk settled matters by kicking him out the back of the boat where he landed with a bloody splash in the rushing torrent.
Hawke had no time to swerve and ploughed right over the top of the injured man. A nasty growling sound and a drop in revs for a few seconds indicated the blades at the back of their boat had not done the man any favours, but there was no time to consider it as up ahead both the fleeing boats were turning another bend in the river.
“Is it wrong that I’m totally loving this?” Reaper said, reloading his gun and standing close to Lexi as he took aim. He loosed some rounds, the crackling of the shots echoing off the rocky canyon rising up either side of the river.
“You missed,” Lexi said coolly.
“It’s your perfume,” the Frenchman said casually. “It put me off – what is it – Eau d’Assassin?”
“You know, you’re very pretty for a legionnaire.”
Reaper laughed. “Are you trying to put me off my game?”
“No, I just love tattoos,” she said, circling his grenade tattoo with her fingernail. “How are things with Monique these days?”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Christ almighty – now, really?”
“He has a point,” Lea said. “And if neither o’ you gowls can get a decent shot off then let me get past and have a go.”
“Oh yeah,” Hawke said, ducking to dodge a bullet and powering up out of the next bend. “Because your aim is even more legendary than Atlantis.”
“Get stuffed, Josiah!”
She fired over the windshield, the ejector port spitting out the nine mil jackets into the water rushing past in a blur.
“You missed,” Hawke said.
“Not my fault,” Lea said, cursing. “Damned sights are totally bloody banjaxed.”
“I do wish you’d speak in English,” Lexi said.
“I was speaking in English, you silly cow!”
“Hey!”
“What the hell is that thing?” Lexi said, staring at a silver weapon in the hands of one of Korać’s goons. It shone wildly in the bright sun, its reflection blinding them for a moment.
“Oh shit,” Hawke said.
“What is it, Joe?” Lea said.
“I might be wrong, but I think it’s a Raytheon Pike.”
“A what now?”
“It’s a hand-held laser-guided missile launcher.”
“Sounds like trouble to me,” Lexi said.
“He’s right,” Reaper said, swiping his monocular away from his eye and sliding it back inside his shirt pocket. “It’s a Pike, all right. I read about it a few weeks ago, but I’m sure they’re still in the testing phase so how they got their sweaty little hands on it – I don’t know.”
“What’s it capable of?” Lexi said.
“It’s a laser-guided munition that flies through the air without leaving a smoke trail so it’s very hard to dodge after it’s fired,” Hawke said.
“But it’s going to be a hard job for that asshat to get a fix on us with his laser in the middle of a bloody river chase, right?” Lea said.
Hawke frowned. “Sadly no. He fires it in our vague direction and then he can take his time fixing the laser on us and the missile comes home to daddy, so to speak.”
“No need for further explanations,” Lexi said. “He just fired it.”
Hawke saw the tiny flash as Kamchatka launched the missile grenade and then aimed the laser on their jet boat.
“It’s going to be one of those days,” Hawke said.
“Where’s the damned thing gone?” Lea said, shielding her eyes as she strained to see the incoming missile.
“Holy crap!” Lexi said. “It’s right in front of us!”
Hawke saw it a second after Lexi – a small rocket-propelled grenade racing through the air to hit the laser beam Kamchatka was keeping firmly fixed on their boat. With half a second to spare Hawke spun the wheel to the right and the jet boat swerved violently to starboard.
Kamchatka raced to get the laser beam back on the jet boat’s bow, but it happened too fast and the grenade slammed into the surface of the river beside them. A massive explosion detonated in the water a second later and sent a fireball shooting up into the air.
Hawke and the others were close enough to feel the shockwave but that was the worst of it except a heavy shower of river water that was blasted over their boat by the explosion. The former SBS man turned for a second to see if their stern was damaged by the blast.
“Joe – look out!”
He spun around to see the correction he had made to evade Kamchatka’s Pike grenade had put them on course with the south side of the canyon – a flat wall of sandstone towering hundreds of feet above them.
“Oh, shit!”
He hurriedly spun the wheel back to port and the jet boat turned just in time to avoid a devastating impact. They heard a deep grinding sound as the starboard of the boat collided with the sandstone rock face but a small shower of sparks later they were pointing back to the middle of the river.
“It’s better if the driver looks where he’s going,” Lea said.
“I was totally in control,” he said, giving her a quick sideways glance to see if his outrageous lie had done the trick. The look on the former Irish Ranger’s face told him it hadn’t.
With the enemy slowing for another narrow bend, Hawke seized the moment to reduce the throttle and slow the boat for the narrow stretch ahead. He took the opportunity to check the mag in his weapon and slide a round into the chamber ready to take a shot.
He raised the gun to take a shot while steering the boat with his other hand when he saw the men in the boats ahead strapping strange circular cages to their backs.
“What the hell are they up to now?” Lea said.
Reaper shielded the sun from his eyes and absent-mindedly stroked his handlebar moustache “Exactement… what are they doing?”
“I know what they’re doing,” Lexi said.
“Me too,” added Hawke. “Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any more dangerous.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The former Commando and SBS man had seen many insane things in his life, but this was new even to him, and now he watched with an overwhelming sense of rage and frustration as a red and white canopy burst into view and blossomed into fully formed airwings above Kruger’s jet boat. “I don’t believe it.”
“What the hell is going on?” Lea asked again.
“I see Korać is a professional after all,” Hawke said. “Our enemy is going airborne.”
“Now I understand,” Reaper said, nodding his head with admiration for the idea.
“That’s a sodding paraglider wing,” Hawke said.
“And that’s another one,” Lexi added, jutting her chin at Kruger’s boat. “And those things on their backs are paramotors. They use them to provide power to take off and steer.”
Hawke pushed the throttles forward but they were already at max and he knew he wasn’t going to make it on time. Now he watched helplessly as first Korać took off from the back of the jet boat, with Kruger following a few seconds later. Van Zyl, Luk and Kamchatka soon joined them, flying up into the narrow canyon after the others. The last two remaining Serbian mercs on the team jumped off the boat and flew up behind the others.
Hawke shook his head in disbelief and began to scan the area for cover. A boat-to-boat fight was one thing but being attacked by an airborne force while they were stuck down on this river made them the proverbial sitting ducks. “Do we have any in the back of this thing?” he yelled.
Lexi looked in the rear of the boat. “Yes! But only one.”
“If one of us can get airborne we stand a better chance of getting out of this,” Hawke shouted over the roar of the engine. The enemy’s boats were now out of control, and raced wildly toward the rocks at the canyon’s southern wall. Korać’s was first to hit, exploding in a savage fireball and spitting twisted shrapnel all over the surface of the river.
