by Rob Jones
“I’m serious, Joe. It was about Hanoi.”
Hawke sat up in his chair and was suddenly all business. His eyes widened and he fixed them on Hart. She looked strangely nervous, and worse than that, hesitant.
“What is it, Olivia?” he asked. “Don't play around with me on this.”
“First of all, it was nothing official. You understand what I mean by that, right?”
Hawke nodded. “Of course. Get on with it. Who was the contact?”
“No one you know.”
“British or foreign?”
“British services, Joe. Army man, very senior and an old friend. He knew John before he died.”
Hawke saw the look of pain in Hart’s eyes when she referred to her former husband. “What’s his name?”
Hart shook her head. “No way. If what he said has even the slightest grain of truth in it then this needs to be kept as tight as possible. If I tell you his name then his life could be at risk in the future. You can handle yourself, Joe, but my friend is retiring this year and has a life of sailing and hill-walking ahead of him. He can do without the particular brand of hell you seem to spend so much time fighting your way out of.”
“Fair enough, all I need to know is if you consider him to be reliable.”
“Absolutely reliable. As straight as they get. That’s why he never got past brigadier.”
“And what did the mysterious Brigadier X tell you about Hanoi, Olivia?”
Hart swallowed and for a long time kept her silence. She closed her eyes for a while, as if she were rehearsing what she was about to say, or maybe even reconsidering saying it at all.
Hawke spoke again. “If this is has anything to do with why they tried to kill me in Hanoi, then I need to know, and right now.”
Hart was looking into his eyes now, and he could see something was troubling her a great deal. “That’s just it, Joe, back on that terrible day in Hanoi it wasn’t you they were trying to kill.”
Hawke felt confusion wash over him like a tidal wave. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. You mean it was just a bungled robbery or something?”
“No, Joe. My contact told me that it was your wife, Liz, who was the target, not you.”
Hawke’s world came to a stop. It felt like everything had slowed to a standstill, from the jet racing across the sky to the very act of drawing his own breath. Liz was the target? He could hardly believe he’d even heard such a thing, and if those mad words hadn’t come from the mouth of Olivia Hart he wouldn’t have believed them at all.
“What the hell are you saying?” he asked.
“My contact told me that Liz was the target, and not you. He was very clear about this and told me the information was one hundred percent reliable. I’m so sorry, Joe, I really am. I don't know what to say.”
His mind raced with the craziest of thoughts. He tried anything he could do to make sense of it, to try and think a way out of it that made sense to him, but nothing came. It felt like something was crushing his head.
“I still don’t get it. It was easy for me to understand that I was the target. Back then I was a Special Forces operative in the most covert unit in the world. We’d been involved in some pretty dodgy stuff in North Korea and I presumed it was a professional government-sponsored hit on me in revenge for that, but...”
“But what?”
“Its just that one thing that always bothered me was how I was the only member of the unit who was targeted.”
Hart nodded slowly. It looked as if she had more to say. Finally, she spoke. “So you had doubts?”
“Yes – but never that Liz was the target! She was just a translator in the MOD, Olivia! Why would anyone want to kill her? What possible reason could anyone in Hanoi have to put a professional hit on her?” He stared once again at Lea, snuggling into her seat beside the far window. Outside the morning sun was lighting the tops of the clouds purple and pink. It would have been beautiful except for the bombshell that had just been dropped on his life.
“Joe, I want you to promise me you’re not going to go crazy when I tell you this.”
He felt the crushing feeling once again, and gripped the armrest of his seat with all his strength. “What?”
“It had nothing to do with Hanoi. The kill order came from the UK.”
Hawke almost felt dizzy. Now he had heard it all.
“From the UK?”
She nodded grimly. “The Brigadier told me that Liz was the target, that the order came out of London, and...”
“And what? Is there a name?”
“No, but... he told me that it was called Operation Swallowtail.”
“It was an actual operation?” Hawke couldn’t take it all in. A codenamed operation meant premeditation, planning, organization and money. It meant authority and reach. It meant trouble.
“Yes, but forget about researching Swallowtail. I’ve looked into it as far as you can go, and so did my army friend, and there’s just nothing out there. We have no idea who was behind Swallowtail.”
“You mean who was behind the murder of my wife.”
“Yes... I'm sorry, I...”
“Forget it. If it wasn't for you I wouldn’t know any of this. I’d still be in the dark, like the proverbial mushroom, being fed bullshit from above.”
“Joe...”
“Swallowtail...” his voice seemed far away now. His mind was awash with fresh images of Liz – how they met, the jokes they shared, their wedding day on the coast and how excited they were when they boarded the plane to Vietnam. The way she looked at him when she first saw Vietnam. “Swallowtail... some bastard plotted my wife’s death and had her gunned down right in front of me.” He was silent for a long time.
“It was a long time ago, Joe.”
“It was, but you know what the funny thing is?”
“No. Tell me the funny thing.”
“That the piece of shit who ordered the kill thinks he got away with it.”
“I know what you’re going through – you know I do. But your mind has to be focused on Sheng now, Joe. You know that. Remember your training. I only told you now I case I don’t make it. If there’s revenge to be had over what happened to Liz then you’ll have it, but now’s not the time.”
Hawke frowned and stared out the tiny porthole. He knocked back another swig of the baijiu. Yes, he thought, the Commodore was right as usual, and on both counts.
Yes, it was time to focus on Sheng.
And yes, he would get his revenge.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Xian
Sheng felt a wave of nervous energy cut through him as Mr. Luk led a small army of mercs into the lobby of the Mausoleum. A moment earlier they had invited themselves into the massive building with some plastic explosives and a Type 67 general purpose machine gun. Now he was closer than ever to the map and his loyal Lotus was waiting to annihilate Tokyo on his command. This was the meaning of the word fate.
“We are so close!” he said to Luk as they marched through the lobby toward the main part of the mausoleum. All around them were the dead bodies of the mausoleum’s security detail.
Now, he and his men were surveying the vast aircraft-hangar sized enclosure that housed the terracotta soldiers. From where they had stood their silent vigil for so many centuries, thousands of them now stared back at Sheng but all he saw when he returned their gaze was his destiny.
“The main tomb is over there!” Luk pointed his submachine gun across the heads of some of the soldiers to their right.
Sheng didn’t need Luk to tell him where the main tomb of the Emperor Qin had stood for the last two thousand years. No one had studied the great leader more than he had, and no one had more right to take what had been hidden from mankind within that tomb since antiquity.
Sheng turned to his men and gave them their next orders. “Move forward!” Soon the mausoleum would be crawling with police and PLA officials.
They moved forward through the ranks of silent terracotta statues un
til they reached the tomb, and it didn’t take them long to find the sealed-up entrance so recently discovered by archaeologists. It was in the floor at the base of Qin’s tomb, and they lifted it to find steps descending into darkness beneath the sarcophagus.
“This must be it,” Luk said, kicking the Do Not Enter sign over with his foot. “Bring me the glow-sticks!”
Sheng looked on as Luk ordered some men into the darkness under the strictest instructions not to lose their nerve. They lit their way with the glow-sticks, which now cast a gentle amber light inside the narrow stone tunnel.
A moment later one of the men returned and told them the way looked clear. With a look of incipient triumph on his face, Sheng gently pushed Luk to one side and began his descent into the hidden tomb.
*
Hawke tried to focus his mind. This wasn't the kind of mission where you let your thoughts wander. If you did that not only would you get yourself killed, but you’d get those around you killed too – those who depended on you for leadership and guidance.
And yet his mind buzzed with everything Hart had told him about Liz.
Operation Swallowtail.
It was almost impossible for him to believe. It wasn’t hard for him to accept that there existed in the world people who wanted him dead. He left a trail of embittered, defeated people behind him like a line of stale breadcrumbs, but the thought of anyone hiring a professional hit man to assassinate Liz was beyond comprehension.
Now, not only did he have to face the fact that the person who ordered her murder was still alive, but that she had been killed for a reason, and that the hit that day had nothing to do with him. The thought almost tore him in half.
It meant she had been lying to him.
She had told him she was a simple translator working in the Ministry of Defence, and that story had never evolved into anything else in all the time they shared together. Not like the day he decided to tell her the truth about his career – that he wasn't a simple sailor in the navy but in fact a former Royal Marines Commando and an elite Special Forces operative in the Special Boat Service.
She had never heard of it – or so she said. He explained they were like the SAS only more clandestine and tougher. He couldn’t help saying this – it was part of the rivalry between the SAS and the SBS. But now he began to question everything that had passed between them, including when she told him she had never heard of them.
If she somehow merited a professional hit, hired from within the British Government, then she must have known about the SBS – it was one of the two most elite forces in the British Armed Forces.
So she had lied again.
And what else had she lied to him about?
He fought hard to push the thought away. The thought that his entire existence with her had been a lie, that she had been holding the truth back from him, in the way he knew Cairo Sloane and even Lea were doing to him right now.
What was her true story? He didn't know, but he was damned sure he was going to find out, and he didn't care how many dirty stones he had turn over to get to the truth.
“Wake up, dreamer.”
It was Lexi. She smiled at him, and in a flash his mind was with her back in Zambia that night when they had first met. Like everyone else in his life, she seemed different now too.
He pushed the dark thoughts away and smiled back. “We’re there?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.” He watched Lea and Hart checking their weapons, and sharing a laugh with Reaper.
The rickety transport plane thundered to a stop on the runway on Xian Airport and moments later they were all crossing the tarmac to an ageing Aérospatiale Super Frelon. They climbed aboard the chopper and strapped themselves in, in preparation for the short flight to the mausoleum.
He chatted with some of Lao’s men for the duration of the flight, and then Lexi walked over to him once again, a Sig Sauer casually stuffed into the front of her jeans.
“That little bastard Sheng and his lapdog Luk are about to meet their makers. Wanna help me send them on their way?”
Hawke laughed and rose from his seat as the pilot reduced power to the engine and the chopper descended to the grounds at the front of the mausoleum.
They disembarked from the helicopter and jogged toward the building. They walked up the front steps and entered through the main doors, now hanging off their hinges after the devastation of Sheng’s frontal assault on the mausoleum.
“Definitely Sheng’s handiwork,” Lea said.
“It’s time to go to work!” Hawke shouted.
Lexi scoffed. “Work? This is what I call fun, not work.”
Lea rolled her eyes and pulled her pistol from the holster. “Sure it is, and one screw-up and it’s ten years in a Chinese gulag.”
“You’re not wrong,” Hawke said. “This is one war we really have to win.”
Then the sound of gunfire.
“Over there!” Hawke alerted the others to several men who had taken up defensive positions in the lobby.
“Looks like Sheng’s serious about keeping us out,” Lea said.
Hawke nodded. “Too bad we’re just as serious about getting in. Olivia, you lead a group to the north and we’ll go over here.”
And with that the fight began.
*
Olivia Hart watched Hawke’s unit as he advanced in the middle of an intense firefight, and ordered her team forward into the fray. She knew the dangers involved – this was not her first time in lethal combat. She cleared her mind of all doubt and pressed on, more determined than ever to crush Sheng and secure the map.
She moved forward too far in an act of over-confident bravado, and knew immediately that she had made a mistake. One of Sheng’s goons saw her exposed position and raised his gun.
She raised her weapon, one of the old Chinese carbines Lao had supplied her with on the chopper, and took aim, but then her worst nightmare happened.
The gun jammed.
She looked down at the weapon, struggled with the cocking handle for a second but no luck. She tried to find cover but it was too late.
She heard Sheng’s man firing his weapon.
She saw the muzzle flashing as it fired the bullets at her, and then she felt them searing into her stomach and chest.
As the hot, burning pain raced through her body she collapsed on her knees and felt her blood rising inside of her and causing her to cough violently.
She began to feel dizzy and knew her blood pressure was dropping.
She saw Hawke and Reaper pushing forward with their unit, but they never saw her. She hoped with everything she had that he would survive and bring Sheng to account.
And then it was over.
*
Scarlet Sloane peered through the porthole of the Gulfstream IV as Tokyo loomed into view. It was vast, stretching out to the horizon but obscured by a thin layer of mist that made the whole mission seem even more sinister.
Today, a few thousand feet beneath her, millions of people were going about their daily business without the slightest thought that this could be the end of the city they called home, and the end of their lives.
Somewhere far below them she knew the Lotus and her crew were assembling the stolen Tesla machine and waiting for Sheng’s orders to annihilate the entire city.
The jet banked hard to starboard and descended sharply as it made its final approach to Haneda International Airport. Minutes later two government officials whisked them through customs and drove them to a Japanese Air Force Black Hawke Sikorsky. Inside half a dozen men in black commando uniforms and face paint looked back in silence at Scarlet as she boarded the chopper and took her seat. They were from the Japanese Special Forces Group, an anti-terrorist unit.
“Can I help any of you?” she said coldly.
“We know who you are,” said one of the men. “So I doubt it.”
They shared a brief, low laugh and after Karlsson, Ryan and Sophie were aboard the chopper lifted off the tarmac. Seconds later the airport w
as behind them as they headed out into the city, then the man introduced himself as Sergeant Yakamoto.
“Who’s the nerd?” said Yakamoto, nodding his head in the direction of Ryan Bale.
“He’s about to change your world,” Scarlet said. “We know your team was put together at the last minute, and you know next to nothing about this mission. There wasn’t time for a proper briefing. So the nerd, as you put it, is going to tell you all what’s what, so listen up.”
“Thanks,” Ryan said, and faced the men with surprising confidence. “Several years ago the US Department of Defense initiated a Top Secret program called Operation Poseidon. Ordinarily, none of us would ever be given knowledge of this, but desperate situations call for desperate measures, and you have been cleared by both the American and Japanese Governments to know this information.”
The men looked unfazed. Typical Special Forces, thought Scarlet with respect.
Ryan continued. “Operation Poseidon involved the invention and construction of a radiant energy generator, or what is more commonly known as a Tesla Device. After many failed attempts, the program was finally successful and the device became a reality.”
The sergeant scratched his stubble and nodded his head sagely. “Go on.”
Ryan glanced back at Sophie and then to Scarlet, and then carried on with the makeshift briefing.
“In tests on an island in a secret location in the Western Pacific, the creators of the device were able to demonstrate to DoD officials that they could generate an earthquake of any magnitude between two and nine on the Richter Scale.”
“But nine is a major earthquake!” the sergeant said.
“It is,” Ryan said.
One of the others leaned forward, a mix of skepticism and anxiety on his young face. “They can artificially generate earthquakes?”
Ryan nodded. “Yes.”
Yakamoto rubbed his eyes for a moment. “This is unbelievable. An earthquake of nine on the Richter Scale causes total destruction, and they only happen once in decades. If the Americans can cause such devastation at will then...”
