by Rob Jones
“No,” replied Hawke grimly. “There was a Sikorsky S-98 Scout on board. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Never heard of it,” said the Frenchman dismissively.
“It’s a gyrodyne.”
“A what?” said Ryan.
“A very high-speed compound helicopter with an extra propeller at the rear to provide extra forward thrust. As far as the world is concerned it’s still under development back at Sikorsky HQ, but somehow our mysterious Russian friend seems to have got hold of one, and it looked like it might have been modified.”
“And how fast does this thing go?” Reaper asked, interested enough now to move his eyes from the tip of the cigarette to Hawke.
“It can go well over two hundred and fifty miles an hour, and has a range of over seven hundred and fifty miles. If the Russian takes his yacht out a couple of hundred miles – three hours’ sailing – then they can launch the S-98 and be in Tokyo in less than four hours, and the water here is packed with similar vessels. They could easily hide out in busy water and it would take us all day to find them.”
“So in other words Tokyo could have less than seven or eight hours until it’s totally destroyed,” Scarlet said. “Even less depending on how that gyrodyne has been modified, right?”
“Exactly,” Hawke said. “But sadly for Sheng and the Russian, that’s not going to happen because we’re on it.”
As he spoke, he saw the familiar outline of Sir Richard Eden’s private Gulfstream as it descended onto the airfield. It had come to collect them now the fighting was under control.
“So what’s the plan?” Reaper asked, flicking his cigarette over the wall.
“I’ll take Lea, Lexi, Reaper and the Commodore and finish this here. Cairo, you lead Karlsson, Sophie and Ryan to Tokyo and take out the Russian and our old friend the Lotus. We’ll take Sheng down in Xian, secure the map and meet up with you later.”
“Excellent,” Scarlet said. “More shooting! But...”
“You need him, so don’t even ask.”
“Seriously, no one needs Ryan Bale, Joe.”
“Hey!” Ryan protested.
“As it stands at this moment, Cairo, he knows more than any of us about the Tesla device and its capabilities. It could come down to your life in his hands as much as the other way round on this one, all right?”
“My life in his hands? That’s the sort of traumatic thought you never forget, Joe.”
“Ryan saved my life in Greece. I’ll never forget that and neither should you. If you mess him about you’ll have me to answer to.”
“Easy tiger, I’m sure I can babysit Ryan Bale for a few hours in Tokyo.”
“If that thing goes off in Tokyo it’s going to be total carnage on an unprecedented scale,” Ryan said.
“Right,” Hawke said. “Which is why you’re going to stop them before they do anything naughty, all right?”
Scarlet smiled at the prospect. “Ooh, this is exciting! I’ve never been to Japan before.”
“It's not a bloody sightseeing trip, you fool,” Lea said.
Hawke stopped Scarlet from replying and turned to face the group. “This is it, everyone. Right now it’s up to us to save the world...”
“And that’s a worrying thought,” Scarlet said. “A very worrying thought.”
With the Lotus and her team sailing off to the east in the super yacht and Sheng flying his team west to Xian and the temple, it was now time to kill two birds with one stone, and that mean breaking everyone up into two teams and finalizing their plans.
All around them Sheng’s men were deserting the island, and now in the midst of the clearing smoke of the battle, they stood and listened to Hawke as he finished detailing the plans and gave everyone their final orders. These people had become his friends over the last few weeks, and in some of the toughest circumstances he had ever known.
Scarlet would lead the team going to Japan, backed up by Ryan, Sophie and Karlsson. Meanwhile, Hawke would lead Lea, Lexi, Hart and Reaper into the battle at Qin’s tomb in Xian. But around twenty minutes later, as he was finishing the briefing, he suddenly stopped talking and pointed at the sky. “What the hell are they?”
The others turned to look at several F-15s racing toward the island from the northern horizon, armed to the teeth and ready for action.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Bradley Karlsson spoke first. “Look like Eagles to me. Must have come over from the new deployment on Okinawa.”
“The Yanks have sent three F-15 Eagles to attack Dragon Island?” Lea said. “That’s just plain arsing brilliant.”
“Pretty much,” Hawke said, shaking his head in disbelief. “It could start world war three! Must be McShain, but how did he find out?”
All of them turned to look at Bradley Karlsson.
“What?” Karlsson said. “Okay, I might have just told Eddie about your Tokyo discovery.”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. You tell Kosinski and now there’s three bloody tactical bombers launching an attack on the People’s Republic of China.”
“The ambassadors are going to be busy tonight,” Ryan said. “How the hell did they get here so fast?”
Above their heads the powerful jets screamed and roared and strafed the remaining soldiers of Sheng Fang as they scattered all over the island.
Karlsson shrugged. “Sixteen hundred miles per hour, Ryan, and only four hundred miles from Okinawa – you do the math.”
“We can’t waste time talking about this – we still have work to do!” Hawke shouted over the roar of the jets. As he spoke, a series of massive explosions from the main complex indicated the Eagles were already at work. “Let’s move out!”
The groups split up and Hawke watched as Scarlet and her crew moved down to the airfield and climbed into Eden’s jet.
“What about us?” said Lea.
“We’re not going anywhere until we rescue Han!”
They watched Eden’s Gulfstream and after a few moments trundling along the runway it turned and roared up into the eastern sky. If they failed, Hawke knew the Lotus and her thugs would kill them in a heartbeat, or they would die in the earthquake. Either way he would never see any of them again. Thoughts like that could cripple a man, he knew. Thoughts like that projected images of ghosts into your mind. The ghost of Liz, dying in Vietnam was enough. He didn't want to add any more to that particular horror show.
He cleared his head and focused on the mission. It was true they hadn’t stopped Sheng yet, but they had slowed him down, and now they had destroyed his headquarters and were only a few minutes behind both of his teams.
Now, Lea strained to see the compound through the smoke. The F-15 Eagles had unloaded a series of devastating ordnance on the island and surrounding outbuildings, including a GBU-15, a two thousand pound guided bomb which sailed down and landed smack on the main roof, destroying most of the palace.
The resulting explosion had started fierce fires which were now spreading all over the north part of the compound. White-hot flames flicked like devil-tongues from any remaining structures and the smoke grew thicker and billowed out of the broken building into the hot air outside. The Eagles turned to the east, presumably on a mission to track down the super yacht.
“Okay, it’s time to stop Sheng,” Hawke said. “We can’t let them get to the tomb at Xian. One mistake there by us and the map’s his.” He checked his weapon and began to move out.
Hart moved closer to Hawke and held him by the arm to stop him moving forward. “Joe, I have something to tell you.”
“What is it, Olivia? We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I know, but it’s just that if I don’t make it...”
“Sounds ominous, but you will make it. Tell me later, all right?”
Hart nodded, but didn’t look very happy about it. “You need to know this, Joe, believe me.”
“I need to know a lot of things,” Hawke said, his honest face breaking into an almost childish smile. “But now
we have to stop Sheng, yeah? Get on the blower and have Lao send some air transport down to us pronto, and in the meantime, you take Lea, Lexi and Reaper down to the airfield.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve got a monk to save.”
“I want to come with you!” Lea said, looking into his eyes.
“No, it’s too dangerous.” Hawke’s face hardened. “I’m going to find Han alone. If he’s still alive we can't leave him in a place like this, and if what he told me about Sheng’s human trafficking activities is true then there might just be more people here to liberate. You go with Olivia and Lexi and make sure the airfield’s safe and me and Han will be there before you know it.”
Reluctant to leave him, Lea kissed Hawke and they held each other as the flames rose around them.
Hawke sprinted back into the complex and began a measured room-by-room clearance and search for Han and anyone else who might have fallen foul of Sheng Fang.
In the east wing of the complex he heard cries behind a large door.
He fired at the double doors and they splintered into thousands of pieces in a few seconds. A second later he was across the hall and kicking the remaining parts of the door down with his boot. He saw a stone staircase leading into darkness below, and began to make his way forward, gun raised.
Behind him a terrific explosion filled the air and he turned his head to see an enormous fireball out in the courtyard. Screams of pain and terror filled the air a second later, and for a moment he wondered if he’d heard any familiar voices, but shook the thought from his head. He knew better than anyone that you couldn’t take doubt or fear into the front line or you’d be the next casualty.
He moved into the dark room and instantly heard Han crying out for help. He stepped forward and lowered himself to a crouching position, and could hardly believe what he saw. Han was there, in the dirt on the floor, doubled in agony, the tattoo on his back made unreadable by what had to be at least a hundred savage lashes, and worse, he was gripping his torn shirt around a stump where his left hand should have been.
“I told them... I’m sorry... I told them what Tsao told us. I told them where the map is buried.” He broke down in a wave of desperate sobs. “They said they would bring my parents here and do the same to them, they said they would kill my whole family, Joe... and now Lynn died for nothing!”
“We’ll balance our account with those scumbags, Han, don’t worry about that. But you need emergency care on that arm or you’re not going to make it, especially in this heat, and another thing, if we...” he stopped talking for a moment. “What was that?”
“What?” Han asked, confused.
“I thought I heard something – there, behind that wall.”
Both men listened again, more attentively.
There it was again – a scratching noise, and a thumping sound – and was that people wailing? Hawke went to the wall and searched but found nothing, then he heard it again. “No – it’s coming from below us! Look for a trap door!”
They searched for a few moments, kicking the mats and straw aside, and then Hawke found what he was looking for – a simple wooden trap door held in place by a bronze bolt. He slid the bolt open and aimed the gun at the door.
“Stand back, Han.”
He flicked the trap door open with his boot and took a step back. “Whoever’s in there, come out slowly with your hands raised.”
For a moment nothing happened. It was quieter than when the trap door was shut. Then there was a shuffling sound followed by moaning and then Hawke heard the desperate pleas of broken people.
They both watched in horror and amazement as dozens of pale, emaciated people crawled through the trap door in the floor and emerged dazed and blinking in the low light of Sheng’s dungeon.
Hawke shook his head in disbelief. “What the hell?! Are they Sheng’s prisoners?”
“No,” Han said grimly, gripping the bloody shirt over his arm. “They are Sheng’s slaves. We’re looking at the real victims of Sheng’s sick trade – the people he trafficks around Asia and the world as slaves.”
Less than five minutes later Hawke and Han were running toward the Chinese transport plane organized by Hart and Lao. Han saw the chance he had been looking for when he saw a line of burning grass alongside the runway.
Without pausing for thought he ripped the shirt from his arm and plunged the bleeding stump into the white hot embers. His screams could be heard all over the island.
When he was finished sealing the wound, they sprinted over and jogged up the rear cargo door to see the rest of their team, plus Lao and a dozen more men in full military kit looking back at them. Lea was looking at Han, horrified at what she had just witnessed. As they strapped themselves in, at least a dozen other soldiers exited the aircraft.
“They’re going to help the people you saved,” Lao told Hawke. “Then we’ll get them off the island and to a hospital on the mainland.”
With everyone safely on board, the Shaanxi Y-8 whined as its four ageing turboprops pulled it up into the air. For a few seconds Hawke watched the smoke and flames engulfing Sheng’s complex down on the annihilated Dragon Island, his former luxury retreat, and was pleased with his work, but the job was only half done.
Hawke took a deep breath and closed his eyes. They were finally on Sheng’s tail, and almost close enough to stop him once and for all. He thought about Scarlet and the others who were racing towards Japan in Eden’s Gulfstream IV, and the thought of her and the Lotus in a final face-off somewhere in Tokyo made him nervous. Cairo was the best, but her fatal flaw was how unpredictable she was, and it ran through her like a black thread in a complicated tapestry. The lives of twenty million people were in her hands now.
*
Scarlet Sloane tapped her cigarette gently against the solid silver case and raised it to her lips. Packing the tobacco down in the end of the cigarette in this way made it easier to light and burn faster. Smoking was not allowed on Sir Richard Eden’s forty million dollar Gulfstream, but there wasn’t a man or woman aboard who was going to object to Cairo Sloane lighting up, and she knew it.
Now, her mind wandered between the mission in Tokyo and the uncontrollable mess that was her life. But she had little problem living with all the lies and deceit the present circumstances had forced upon her, especially with Joe Hawke. Would he ever learn the truth? Maybe, she thought. That wasn’t her decision.
All she really cared about was achieving her long-held dream of an early retirement somewhere warm. She had her eye on a small private island in the Caribbean but to say it was out of her price range was a gross understatement. To buy that little baby she would need millions of dollars, and she spent a lot of time thinking about how to get it.
But now, she turned her attention to Tokyo, and started to check her weapons for the imminent battle.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
As the ancient transport aircraft cruised at twenty-eight thousand feet on its way to Xian, Hawke tried to get some sleep but he was kept awake by the same persistent thoughts that had been torturing his mind for so long. His final attempt to get some sleep was stopped when Olivia Hart sat beside him. She was holding half a bottle of baijiu.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“They call it Chinese vodka.” She unscrewed the cap. “Do you regret leaving the service, Joe?” Hart asked. Good old Olivia, straight to business.
Hawke thought about how to answer for a few moments. “No,” he said at last.
Hart laughed. “I waited a minute and half for that answer! Typical Joe Hawke.”
“What?” he asked, smiling.
“Nothing.... but why don’t you ever want to talk about yourself?”
“Just the way I am. I like to keep my thoughts to myself. That’s why I make the jokes.”
“You make jokes?” she said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Very droll, Commodore,” he replied. “But no, I don’t regret it. I did, when I was contemplating working in
Civvy Street, but then I met Lea Donovan and Sir Richard Eden and my whole life changed.”
“But that wasn’t so long ago, Joe. It could all end in a heartbeat. What then?”
He shrugged his shoulders and sipped the vodka. He hated neat vodka. “I’ll find something. I always do.”
“Joe Hawke the eternal optimist,” Hart said. “You think you’re in love with Lea?”
“I don’t like to talk about myself,” he said, smirking. “Did I not just say that thirty seconds ago?”
“You did... you did, yes. Just be careful, Joe. She works a tough, dangerous job. She could get hurt, or worse. You have to remember about how you felt when Liz was murdered. You can’t go through that again.”
Hawke looked across the aircraft and watched Lea Donovan for a moment, sleeping peacefully as the plane cut through the air. “I won’t let anything happen to Lea,” he said, clenching his jaw. He gripped the vodka bottle hard. Hart had put the image of Liz back into his mind – her terrible death, the inability to avenge her, the permanent absence of closure that tore at his heart and mind every minute of every day.
“Believe it or not, Joe, there are some things in this world that are outside of your control.”
“I know that!” he snapped. “I’m... sorry. It’s just that I learned that lesson back in Vietnam.”
For a long time Hart was silent. Then she spoke quietly: “I’m sorry, Joe. I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re right. I’ll shut up now.”
“I wish you would, thanks.” He smiled. He’d known Olivia Hart for nearly twenty years. In many ways she was like a second sister – but unlike his younger sister, Emma, Olivia would definitely be of the older, more maternal variety. She was a friend, either way.
“Actually...” She started to speak again, but stopped herself.
“What now, Olivia?” Hawke said, trying to conceal a smile.
“Someone told me something a few days ago, Joe, and I didn't know how to react to it.”
“Doesn’t sound like the intrepid Commodore Hart we’ve all come to know and slightly like.”
