by Rob Jones
“I thought it was,” Lea said.
“You’d laugh at anything. You married Ryan after all.”
Lea ignored her and joined Hawke as he leaned over the edge of the sarcophagus with a flashlight in his hand. There was certainly a mummified corpse inside but more interesting than that was the unmistakable shape of what could only be a hammer, a heavy, square anvil of a thing on a thick wooden handle. Beside it was a rolled-up scroll of parchment which Hawke gently picked up and looked at under the bright beam of the flashlight.
“Bloody hell!” Hawke said. “Check this out.”
With the greatest of care, he broke open the wax seal with a gentle snap and unfurled the scroll. “Lea – take a picture of this thing right now. We don’t want a repeat of the castillo.”
Lea snapped an image of the unfurled scroll. It was covered in spidery letters that made zero sense to her, but she recognized some of them from what she had seen on the axe handle so she was confident Alex and Ryan could get something out of it.
She slipped her phone back inside her pocket and peered inside the sarcophagus, looking once again at the hammer. She’d read about the Mighty Hammer of Thor many times since flying out of Elysium, and could hardly believe she was actually looking at it. It looked small just like any regular war hammer, but some said it could level mountains. She glanced up at the cavern roof and hoped nothing like that was going to happen today.
Hawke smiled. “I think this might be just what we’re looking for!”
“But unfortunately it is also what I am looking for.”
Lea spun around and saw a silhouette looming in the entrance to the tunnel. A flickering torch was backlighting the mystery figure, and then to her right she saw another silhouette emerge from the damp gloom. Then a third, a fourth and a fifth as armed gunmen scrambled into the tomb.
Álvaro Sala stepped into the gleam of the glow sticks. He was wearing a black roll neck, dark blue navy camo trousers and a pair of chunky black boots and had one hand casually in a pocket as if he were perusing antiques.
“Sala!”
“We meet again” he said.
“Oh, please,” Scarlet muttered.
Sala moved into the center of the tomb, a crazed sparkle in his eyes. “You managed to make more trouble for me in Stockholm after extricating yourselves from the snake pit back at my château. I’m impressed. Even the great Viking chieftain Ragnar Lodbrok lost his life when he was thrown into a snake pit, and yet you survived.”
Lea took a step forward. “Go to hell!”
“Many would say I am already in hell. But I digress – I have been waiting for this moment a long time. Drop your weapons.”
Lea looked at the man. His long hair was tied back in a tight pony tail and he looked drawn and sick. A few paces behind him was Leon Smets, the man they had fought back in Andorra, the man who had pulled the trap door and sent them falling into Sala’s vile snake pit.
Sala looked at each one of them, his eyes lingering on Victoria Hamilton-Talbot for just a second too long, Lea thought. He started to speak to her but was stopped when Hawke broke the silence.
“What do you want, Sala?” he asked with palpable disgust.
Lea glanced once more at the hammer.
Sala’s response was wordless but clear to everyone. He held out his arm, pointed at the old scroll and made the “give me” gesture with his right hand.
Lea frowned. “You don’t want the hammer?”
“A hammer is a hammer. Give me the scroll.”
Hawke looked at him with hatred and Lea hoped he wasn’t about to do anything stupid. They were outnumbered and trapped in a mountain’s cave complex high up in the Arctic Circle. To say no one would hear them scream was an understatement.
But he didn’t. Instead, the Englishman reluctantly lowered the scroll to the dusty floor and kicked it across the tiles. It came to a stop at Sala’s steel toecap boots, and without taking his eyes off Hawke, the Andorran stooped down to pick it up.
His eyes sparkled with delight and he nodded his head with self-importance as his eyes crawled all over the ancient text. “This is the final piece of the puzzle. You have no idea how long I have been seeking the treasures this poem will lead me to!”
“I thought you were trying to find Thor’s Hammer, Sala?” Lea said. “It’s right here!”
Sala stepped closer and turned slowly to face Lea. “Yes, I see the resemblance at once… you are certainly Henry’s daughter.”
Lea looked shocked at the casual, first name reference to her father. “What are you talking about? What did you mean when you talked about killing him back in Andorra?”
Sala grinned. “It’s true I never knew him, but in a way… I knew of him, and for a very long time indeed. We had certain things in common.”
“My father would have nothing in common with a snake like you, Sala!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really! My father was a healer – he spent his life helping people. He wasn’t like you. I’ve seen your idea of helping people.”
Sala’s hand held the rolled-up parchment tighter, like a baton. “Your father was a fool. He wanted the treasures of the healing goddesses so he could use them to save humankind. This is why he sought the Hammer so tirelessly, and this is why he was killed. I, however seek a different kind of treasure – every weapon ever used by the gods!”
Now Lea understood what all this was about. Weapons and war. “And that’s what your little scroll is for?”
“The scroll will lead me to my destiny, yes!”
Scarlet snorted. “I’m starting to wonder if madness is contagious.”
Sala ignored her, but ordered Smets and some men forward.
“Get your hands up. It’s time to prove your mortality – especially you, Donovan. You led me quite the merry dance all over Ireland… and yet you still brought me here to my destiny. A shame you will not be alive to see me fulfil it.” He turned to Smets. “Take them down that tunnel and shoot them dead.”
The Belgian mercenary laughed as he marched them to their execution. Lea turned to look over her shoulder as they left the tomb, and saw Sala mumbling to himself as he stared at the scroll once more, totally ignoring the hammer in the sarcophagus.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At the head of the group with his hands raised, Joe Hawke searched the narrow tunnel for anything he could use as a weapon. He knew the others were counting on him – Lea, Scarlet, Ryan and now Victoria. For one reason or another, he felt responsible for all of them and the idea of leading them to their deaths in Thor’s tomb complex, of all places, was just unthinkable.
If it came down to the wire, they could turn on Smets and attack him mob-handed but it would have to be soon while they were still in an enclosed area, and… he knew not all of them would make it. Smets would mow some of them down with that machine pistol before the survivors could take him out. It wasn’t much of a plan.
He looked at Ryan, who was beside him. Judging from his facial expression he was also beside himself – with fear. With Thor’s tomb rapidly receding behind them, Hawke looked down and saw Ryan had the answer around his waist.
“Hey!” Hawke whispered.
“What?”
“You’re still wearing it.”
“Wearing what?”
“Thor’s jock strap or whatever the hell you said it was.”
Ryan looked at him, confused. “Sorry – I’m wearing Thor’s jock strap?”
Hawke nodded his head at Ryan’s waist. “That thing!”
A glorious epiphany seemed to spread across the young hacker’s face. “Ah! You mean the megingjörð – Thor’s power-belt!”
“That’s the one, mate. What does it do, exactly?”
“According to Norse legend, it increased Thor’s godly power many times.”
“But you don’t have any godly power,” Scarlet whispered over his shoulder. “What if all it does when you wear it is increase how annoying you are?”
“Thanks for your input, Cairo,” Hawke said, “but we’re out of options. This is our only chance now.”
Ryan frowned. “Sorry, but what exactly do you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to slam our host into the middle of next week.”
“Me? I can’t fight!”
“He’s right, Joe,” Scarlet said. “I’ve seen toddlers punch with more anger and determination.”
“What?” Ryan replied, raising his voice. “After you stole their sweets?”
“Hey! Shut up and keep moving!” It was Smets. He cocked his gun and shoulder-barged his way past Lea and Victoria. He leaned into Ryan and lowered his voice to a gravelly whisper. “I hear anyone else say a word I’ll shoot you in the stomach and let you bleed out for hours. That includes you, Batman,” he said, tugging disrespectfully on Ryan’s t-shirt.
Ryan saw his moment and lashed out with his right hand, striking Smets’s arm out of the way and hitting his chest. Ordinarily Hawke would expect a man like Smets to take the punch and return fire in a second, but instead he flew through the air like a paper plane and crashed into the rock-face wall with a mighty thud.
Ryan looked at his hand in wonder. “Wow.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Scarlet said. “It’s the magic jock-strap, not you… Batman.”
Smets shook his head from side to side in a bid to regain his composure, and raised the MP7 shakily in front of him, firing off a wild burst wherever the muzzle pointed. Bullets raked all over the far wall of the cave, bursting ancient plaster into clouds and sending chips of stone fragments flying all over the place.
“We have to get out of here!” Lea shouted.
Victoria frowned as she looked at Smets. “But the only way out is back through the main tomb with Sala and his goons.”
“Then that’s where we’re going – run!” Hawke shouted.
The wounded Smets fired blindly at them as they raced from the cavern, but he quickly got to his feet and gave chase. Now they were caught between Smets behind them and Sala and his other goons in Thor’s tomb.
“Good plan,” Scarlet said.
Ahead of them, they saw the tomb, and with it Sala and his men who were in the process of moving out. He obviously had what he’d come for and now the place was worthless to him.
“Kill them!” Sala screamed, and his men opened fire.
“What now?” Lea asked.
Before Hawke could reply, Smets fired at them again from behind. Everyone dived for cover and Smets scrambled closer, firing more shots until the magazine was empty. He hurried to reload with a new magazine but the few seconds it took was enough for Hawke to make his move.
In the chaos, he sprinted through the arch which formed the boundary between the tomb and the tunnel and grabbed a sword from the floor. Swinging it into Smets’s stomach, the Belgian doubled over in agony and Hawke brought up his boot and smashed it into his face. Smets flew back with the force of the kick and stumbling over a pile of old pottery he lost his footing and crashed into the side of the sarcophagus.
With Sala’s other men still firing on them, Lea grabbed Smets by the belt and using his own momentum against him she finished his journey by spinning him around to use as a human shield. Hawke watched as she crouched behind the Belgian’s body as it was filled full of holes by Sala’s men.
With Smets dead, Hawke made a bid for the sarcophagus, but Sala and his men fought back hard, spraying the room with lead and making everyone dive for cover once again. The Andorran maniacally laughed with the submachine gun chattering away in his hands, empty jackets spitting out of the extractor.
Chaos now reigned in the chamber as the fighting increased, then Sala ordered a retreat and his men fired flash-bangs into the tomb. The noise of their detonation was deafening, but things got worse when they deployed the smoke grenades. Not only were they disoriented by the flash-bangs, but now the room began to fill with a noxious zinc chloride smoke composition.
“Cover your mouths!” Hawke yelled.
Victoria screamed as the room began to fill with the thick smoke and everyone lost each other in the pandemonium.
*
As the smoke cleared in the freezing air of the chamber, Lea strained in the gloom to try and find her friends. She snatched up a flashlight and shone it hurriedly around the room, its bright beam shining in the smoke like a car’s headlight lighting up a heavy fog. All around her she could hear the sound of screams, gunshots and fighting. It was total chaos and she knew one mistake would mean spending the rest of her life here in the caves.
She felt what she presumed was a bullet trace past her head and her thoughts were confirmed a millisecond later when she heard it smash into the wall behind her. A shower of shattered tile exploded behind her ear and she felt some of the shards strike the back of her head. That was too close, she thought, and ran for the cover of the sarcophagus.
With the smoke much thinner now, she was able to see Hawke across the other side of the chamber. He was fighting with one of the goons in hand-to-hand combat and it looked like the former SBS man was getting the better of him.
Nearer the entrance, she saw Scarlet fighting with another man but it looked like another unfair fight as the former SAS officer disarmed him and spun the folding stock of his submachine gun up into his groin with eye-watering speed and accuracy.
The man’s screams were cut short by Scarlet firing a burst of bullets into his chest which exploded and knocked him back into the rocky wall.
Another flash-bang exploded close to Ryan and blasted him back against the rock, blowing Thor’s belt clean off him. He clambered to his feet uneasily and tried to make his way back to the safety of the others but as he staggered backwards, he was met by a shadow looming out of the darkness. Lea and the others stared in horror as they saw who it was.
Leon Smets had risen from the dead.
“How the hell..?” Hawke mumbled, numb with disbelief.
“Sala must have given him something to bring him back,” Lea said. “Like you did for me.”
“Ryan, look out!” Hawke shouted, but it was too late. Smets knocked Ryan out with the butt of his machine pistol and the young man’s limp body fell to the dusty floor.
“I’ll kill you for that!” Lea screamed.
“Not unless you can get to him before me,” Hawke said.
Smets, whose tanned face was now a pale, greasy white complexion, hauled Ryan to his feet and waggled a knife blade haphazardly in front of his throat. “Get back or you know what happens next.”
Sala laughed as they made their way to the rappel lines, this time using Ryan as the human shield.
Smets secured Ryan to the harness on the end of the rappel lines and when the job was done he tugged on them, giving the signal to winch the unconscious cargo to the upper level of the cave complex.
Lea looked on in disbelief as she watched Ryan disappear up into the vertical shaft alongside Sala, Smets and the handful of surviving gunmen, but there was nothing they could do while they held a knife to his throat.
Hawke punched the wall. “Damn it!”
“No time for that,” Scarlet said. “Let’s get after them!”
But before they reached the rappel lines, Sala cut them and they tumbled into useless pools of black nylon at the base of the shaft.
“What now?” Victoria asked. “I can’t climb!”
Hawke sighed and looked at Scarlet. “Race you to the top?”
“Fifty quid.”
The two of them free-climbed up the rock-face, hauling the rappel lines behind them in their wake, and when they reached the top they secured them and tossed them back down for Lea and Victoria to climb up.
Then they made their way along the tunnel they had used earlier until finally seeing the faint shimmer of natural daylight up ahead once again, even if it was weakened by the Scandinavian dusk.
Lea reached the opening fissure in the base of the mountain just in time to see Smets fire an RPG into their Hilux. It exploded in an enorm
ous fireball and lit the otherwise silent twilight in a surreal white and orange after-glow. Seconds later various parts of their vehicle – doors, wing mirrors and the tailgate, clattered back to the damp gorse with muffled thuds.
On the road behind the burning wreck of their truck, Sala’s crew were moving out. They watched, stranded and helpless as the three black vehicles snaked their way toward the main road with their special cargo of Thor’s mysterious scroll and Ryan Bale.
Things had looked better for the ECHO team.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It didn’t take Lexi Zhang long to clear the electric fence. Anticipating such a security device she pulled out a simple rubber mat from her bag and draped it over the top rung of the electrified razorwire. Totally avoiding the nine thousand volt shock she slipped effortlessly over the top and, leaving the mat in place for a potential egress, she sprinted toward her target.
As she approached some of the outbuildings, her mind turned to the specifics of the operation she was about to execute. She supposed this place would be impossible to infiltrate if the full compliment of security were here, but she knew that was not the case.
The intel she had gathered after her meeting with Arocha had cost a lot of money, but reliable stuff always came at a premium. Her source, a Cuban double-agent-turned-car salesman named Raoul, had told her that most of the ECHO team had left the island. He didn’t know to where or why. He said only that they had boarded a private jet and flown north.
According to Raoul, there were sometimes as many ten or twelve people on the small island, but tonight that number was reduced to three or four. He couldn’t be sure – no one could. Elysium was as private as it got and information like his was expensive for a reason.
Lexi had paid Raoul handsomely for his information and given the matter a great deal of thought. Who were the four? Eden, certainly, and she presumed the American woman whose father was currently rumored to be considering a run for the American Presidency – Alex Reeve. But who were the other two? She had no way of knowing, but a part of her hoped neither of them was Hawke. Ryan Bale on the other hand… not only would that be easy, but so much fun.
