by Rob Jones
A warm subtropical breeze blew in through the open door and brought her attention back to the moment. Opposite her, Bradley Karlsson was joking with one of Lao’s soldiers, but most of the humor seemed to be lost in translation. Times like these had a way of bringing people together, no matter what languages they spoke – they all knew the way missions like these panned out. They all knew not everyone would be coming home after the battle.
At the front of the chopper Lexi was sharpening her combat knife. Something told Scarlet that Lexi and the Lotus had met before, and that Lexi Zhang had decided this time would be the last. Opposite her, Hart was sitting silently with her eyes closed.
Ryan and Sophie were sitting to her left at the rear of the helicopter, talking quietly with one another while Sophie checked her gun was fully loaded and ready for action. Ryan looked at the weapon in her hands with cautious eyes. Perhaps he should have stayed back in Shanghai at their makeshift headquarters, but he’d insisted on joining Sophie, probably just to impress her. Whether Ryan Bale really wanted to be there or not, it was too late to change his mind.
Now, the chopper raced away from the Chinese mainland, followed by several more behind it, and trailed further back by the RIBs as they crossed the choppy waters that separated Dragon Island from the rest of China.
Then the pilot communicated to them from the cockpit. “Two minutes!”
Scarlet checked her watch and made sure her HK subcompact was ready to go. She was also carrying her old SAS-issue combat knife and several grenades. This was going to be her last hurrah, she thought. She was getting too old for this lark. She needed to retire while she was still young enough to enjoy it.
Retirement, she had decided, was definitely wasted on the old. The only problem was she needed a lot more money that she had. For a moment her thoughts turned to all the gold and treasure she had seen in the vault of Poseidon in Kefalonia and now the enormous stash in Khan’s tomb, hidden from the world in the Mongolian mountains. Why, she asked herself, was she still so poor when she seemed to have such a natural talent for tracking down stupid amounts of gold? Then, the sound of the blades whirring fast above her brought her back to reality once again.
Her own personal stash of treasure would have to wait, for now at least. She had an old friend’s arse to pull out of the fire and she was looking forward to the challenge.
*
It didn’t take long for Hawke and Lea to devise a plan to rescue Han and neutralize Sheng’s island defenses. From the surveillance he had done on the roof of the boatshed, it was clear the island was not well protected, presumably because Sheng wasn’t expecting a full-scale military assault any time soon.
There were two outposts on the wall surrounding the northwest part of the island – the part facing the Chinese mainland – but only one seemed to be manned. In that one he had counted two or three men acting in the capacity of guards. Sheng’s paranoia seemed to run as far as a couple of general purpose machine guns but that was about it. It might not look like much but it was enough to cripple an advancing helicopter or rigid inflatable that wasn’t expecting it.
Taking Luk’s knife, Hawke climbed the wall of the outpost and when he was on the roof he gave Lea the signal. She moved forward and threw some stones at the door, and then ducked back down in the long grass.
A man opened the door and poked his head outside.
Hawke leaned over the edge of the roof and grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him a few inches off the ground until he passed out. Another man inside saw what was happening and began firing indiscriminately through the open doorway, but Hawke dropped down through the skylight behind him and struck him on the back of the head with the handle end of Luk’s knife.
“All done!” he shouted, picking up the man’s weapon.
“Less than a minute, Joe,” Lea said. “I’m impressed, but I hope you’re not so fast in bed tonight.”
“That’s rather presumptuous, Donovan.”
“Hey, all I meant was...”
She was stopped by the sound of two small jet engines whining from somewhere behind the complex.
“What the hell is that?”
“Sounds like Sheng’s private jet,” Hawke said. “They must have got the information out of Han quicker than we thought...”
Hawke and Lea climbed onto the roof of the outpost and looked over the complex wall to the eastern side of the island where the runway was located. There, on the tarmac, they saw the same shiny white jet they were brought to the island on, only this time Sheng was striding back out to it with Luk a few yards behind him.
“Any sign of Han?” Lea asked.
Hawke frowned. “Not at all, and that’s what worries me. If Han told... wait – look there!” He pointed into the western sky where several helicopters were now rapidly approaching the island.
“Scarlet Sloane, if I’m not very much mistaken,” Lea said.
“Yeah – that explains why Sheng’s making a break for it as well. We have to get closer to the action.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Scarlet Sloane was certainly back in her element as the chopper she was in dropped out of the sky and hovered just over the tree line on the far side of the island from Sheng’s palace. Immediately someone began firing on them with an assault rifle, but she fast-roped from the helicopter along with the rest of the unit in seconds and ran to some cover as the chopper flew the others across the island.
Her Heckler & Koch gripped tightly in her hands, she raced through the long grass, keeping low to avoid the tracer bullets which occasionally zipped over her head with a terrifying whistle. The sound of death, she thought. Behind her was Lexi Zhang and several of Lao’s men. She heard through her headset that Hart, Ryan, Sophie and Karlsson were landing on the other side of the island and were now moving forward toward the main complex from the southeast creating a pincer movement.
A series of bullets slammed into the tree trunk she was hiding behind and two more flew past her at head height before whistling into some palm tree leaves just behind her. “Just like my honeymoon!” she said, and wished she had a CornerShot to take out whatever bastard was pinning her down. That was her idea of accessorizing.
Without warning, Lexi spun out from behind her tree and fired three shots in rapid succession. A second later a man in black fell from one of the watchtowers and crunched into the foliage below.
“That’s fifteen love to me, Sloane.”
“If that’s the way you want to play it, then fine darling,” Scarlet said coolly. “I happen to be an ace at tennis.”
She flicked the H&K around her tree and fired a couple of rounds into the same watchtower. They struck the second man in the chest and sent him flying back into the compound behind the wall.
“Fifteen all, I think.”
They now swept forward through the jungle with the rest of the assault team, taking out the occasional target as they presented themselves. The thought of fish in a barrel flashed through her mind but then she stopped herself being so smug when she realized they weren’t even inside yet. Cockiness was a dangerous trait in wartime. She knew that from experience too.
Now, closer to the compound, Sheng’s men were fighting more fiercely in an attempt to slow down the assault and give their boss time to retreat. One of Lao’s men placed a simple charge on a service entrance but got killed running back for some cover before he could detonate it.
Lexi sprinted into the clearing and took the radio transmitter from him before being chased back into the jungle by at least two machine guns fired from somewhere high above her. Scarlet heard her screech with insane laughter for a second and then watched as she hit the button, blasting the heavy door off the front of the compound and sending a thick shower of wooden splinters and plaster out into the hot jungle air.
Scarlet sprinted forward now, with Lexi and the others right behind her. To the east she heard the sound of more machine gun fighting and two or three grenades. Clearly Hart and her unit were rattling som
e cages on the other side of the compound.
Scarlet’s orders were officially to neutralize Sheng and find and secure the device, but as she ran forward and kicked her way through a small door into an internal courtyard, she knew she was really searching for Hawke and Lea. The rest she could finish later. She knew what Eden would say about that, but he wasn't here.
She scanned the courtyard and saw another small door on the other side of an ornamental bridge. Lexi was running up some stairs to her left and telling her over the headset that she was going forward to the upper levels.
Scarlet decided she wanted to try that door.
*
Hawke and Lea could still hear the sound of machine gun fire and grenades as they made their way to far side of the complex. It was about five hundred yards from their current location and they were desperate to get in on the action.
“Good job we knocked out that gun nest,” Hawke said. “Sounds like Cairo’s having a great time.”
“Sure sounds like it,” added Lea, “But what do we do now?”
“There’s not much we can do – not while we’re here. We have to get to the others, see if Han’s still alive and somehow get after Sheng. We also have to inform Lao about the yacht and Tokyo.”
“You really think Tokyo was the target?”
Hawke nodded. “I know we didn’t hear much, but they said Tokyo several times and something tells me they weren’t talking about their favourite baseball team. They’ll be well on their way by now – and did you see the chopper on the helipad?”
Lea nodded.
“The smart money’s got to be on them using that as soon as they’re in range of Tokyo.”
They waited a few moments, and then made the final few yards of their journey to meet up with Scarlet and the others. The gunfire at the main house was heavy, and it sounded like the fighting had quickly become a ferocious, no-holds barred war for supremacy of the island and the airfield, at least until Sheng was safely airborne.
They were almost at their destination when just inside the main courtyard a man saw them approaching and raised his weapon, but the noise of a grenade explosion startled him. Hawke saw his chance and fired, hitting the man in the throat and bursting it open with savage accuracy. He fell back in a crumpled heap, and Lea snatched up some of his grenades. With the way now clear, they smashed their way into the compound’s outer section and got one step closer to the rest of their team.
Now, inside the main yard, Hawke finally saw Scarlet Sloane and Lexi Zhang fighting a rear-guard action in the face of overwhelming force, delivered courtesy of some of Sheng’s most determined fighters – what looked to Hawke like a team of heavily-trained mercs.
Hawke unleashed a burst of fire from a submachine gun in a bid to provide some cover and distract the men from closing in on Scarlet and Lexi.
Lea threw a grenade and five seconds later a terrific explosion ripped through their offensive position and blasted two of the men back through the air like dolls, killing them instantly.
Hawke and Lea leaped up and made their way across the yard to Scarlet before the enemy had a chance to regroup. A second later they crashed behind a wall beside Scarlet and her team. A round of friendly nods went around as the bullets traced over their heads, but now, at least, they were together again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“I am so pleased you finally decided to show up,” Lea said.
Scarlet smiled. “I knew you’d miss me, darling. You can thank me for rescuing you later. That’s two nil, I believe...”
“It’s so nice to see you, too,” Lea said through clenched teeth.
Scarlet snorted. “I’m just grateful you never tried to hug me.”
Hawke smiled. Same old wisecracking Cairo – that meant she was up for the fight.
“Hey...” Lea said in response to Scarlet’s jibe, but Hawke hushed her to point out Hart’s team who were joining them from the southeast. They took cover with them behind the wall and began a consolidated fight back. A few minutes later and most of Sheng’s men had either been killed or were retreating.
With a lull in the fighting, and everyone grouped together at last, Hawke spoke up. “Okay, listen up everyone! This is the situation – Sheng and Luk are retreating from the island and almost certainly on their way to Xian to raid Qin’s tomb – it looks like he got the final location by torturing Han.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “The map’s in Qin’s tomb?”
“Yeah.”
“How do we know that?” Ryan asked excitedly. “I know archaeologists recently found some kind of new annex there – it must be to do with that!”
“Before Sheng’s goons killed Jenny Tsao, she told us all she knew, and the rest came from the tattoo on Han’s back.”
“Tattoo?”
“We’ll fill you in later. According to Tsao, the Emperor Qin couldn’t translate the map and so it was useless to him. So enraged was he at his failure to crack the code that when he found out he was dying from the mercury poisoning he ordered that the map be buried with him in his tomb so that no other man could ever hope to use it to gain immortality for himself.”
“And that’s why he built the famous Terracotta Army...’ Ryan said, his voice trailing away in wonder. “What a bastard.”
“Exactly,” Hawke said. “According to Tsao, Qin surrounded his tomb with thousands of soldiers with the basic idea of protecting him in the next world. It took over seventy thousand men to create the necropolis, and the whole place was booby-trapped with crossbows hidden in the walls. If that weren’t enough, his son, Qin Er Shi, the second emperor, dictated that all his father’s wives who had failed to bear any children for their husband should be buried alive with the dead emperor.”
“Sounds like they were all crackers to me,” Hart said.
“Not so crazy. Tsao told us it was probably to stop rival claims for the throne. To top it all off, it was decreed that all the men who had built the tomb and who knew what treasures it concealed – like the map, for example – couldn’t be trusted to keep it secret, so they were sealed inside the tomb just before it was shut off for ever.”
“Imagine what it was like if you were one of those men sealed inside, just after the last stone had blocked you in,” said Ryan, his imagination running riot. “They probably ate each other.”
“Thanks for that, Ryan,” Lea said.
“That is the story of the first emperor’s death,” Hawke said, proudly.
“Now that’s what I call a state funeral!” Scarlet said.
“But where does Khan tie into all of this?” asked Ryan.
“Genghis Khan found out about Qin’s search for the map, and in his quest he managed to uncover the truth about the emperor’s success in finding it in the west, and his failure in not being able to translate it. Khan obviously knew Qin had hidden the map in the tomb when he was buried, and set out to retrieve it, but according to the last few verses in the chapter he too died before he reached the tomb.”
“So now we know that the map Zaugg was after...” Lea said.
“And Genghis Khan,” Hawke said.
“And Qin Shi Huang,” said Ryan.
“And don’t forget Sheng Fang,” Lexi said, scowling.
“What they were all after,” Lea said, “was raided from Poseidon’s vault by Qin and was in his tomb here in China the whole time.”
“Where it’s been for the last two thousand two hundred years,” Ryan said.
Hawke nodded. “So our job is to get that map back and that means we have a date with a few thousand terracotta soldiers and one of the world’s most famous tombs, but first we have the little problem of getting off this insane island – and you,” he said, turning to Scarlet, “have a little date in Tokyo.”
“Why’s that, darling?”
“Because that’s where the Lotus and her mysterious Russian friend are going to activate the Tesla machine.”
As he spoke, Bradley Karlsson pulled a phone from his pocket and moved a few
yards away to make a call, fast and quiet.
“Tokyo?” Ryan said, almost in a whisper. “That’s one of the most geologically unstable cities in the world.”
“And one of the most densely populated,” said Scarlet.
“How do you know this?” Reaper asked Hawke.
“We overheard some of the Russians as they loaded the device onto the tender before going back to the yacht. They were speaking Russian but we clearly heard them mention Tokyo several times, and then laugh.”
“That could mean nothing,” Reaper again, casually pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it with his Zippo as a bullet traced over his head. “It could be where one of them is going on his honeymoon, no? Or maybe even they knew you were there and were playing you like a violin, is that how you say it?”
“Playing him for a fool is more appropriate in this case,” Scarlet said.
Hawke frowned. “No, I don’t think so. The yacht is sailing at top speed towards Japan as we speak. It’s pretty clear to me that Tokyo is Sheng’s target destination for the Tesla device. That’s my call and I’m making it.”
“In which case, this is no problem,” Reaper said, shrugging his shoulders. “A yacht like that would not go faster than seventy knots, so...”
“And what’s that in English?” Scarlet asked.
Hawke rolled his eyes. “SAS... it’s eighty miles an hour. You’d know that if you didn't let us to all the hard work at sea.”
“Don’t get me started, Joe.”
“Either way,” Reaper interrupted, “Tokyo is over a thousand miles from Shanghai so sailing at top speed it’s going to take them twelve hours to get there. We have plenty of time to organize an assault force to take them down. Nothing could be easier, and we will be enjoying a cold beer before sundown, no?”
