“Talk about British hospitality.” Alicia sniffed. “It’s not quite Kensington Gardens.”
“It is the SAS,” Drake reminded her. “Remember?”
“Puts me in mind of real spy stuff,” Kinimaka said happily, not even bothered about his wet shoes. “Y’know, authentic, real-deal occurrences.”
“We are spies, dude,” Hayden told him. “The real deal.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Hay.”
Luther was a very large presence in the enclosed space. “How long we waiting around here, boys? I’ve never been comfortable underground.”
“I can see why.” Alicia turned and admired the muscles bulging out of the tight T-shirt. “A man with assets like those should always be seen in the full light of day.” She paused. “Or by bedside lighting.”
Luther glared. “You’re not feeling them again, girl, so don’t even ask.”
Alicia pouted. “You gotta know that just makes me more determined.”
Drake nudged her. “Really? You felt his arms?”
“I felt more than his arms, Drakey.” Alicia laughed loudly. “But don’t worry, you’re still my man.”
“Oh, thanks.” Drake knew it would do no good questioning her. Alicia was quite simply Alicia and she would never change. God help the man that tried to tame her.
Luther leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “If it helps, when she touched me, I only got half wood.”
Drake pushed him away, laughing. “Are you kidding me? I don’t need to know that. Crap, now I’m wishing we’d beaten you down and left you in the desert.”
“You beat me down?” Luther looked surprised, the enormous head rearing back. “I seem to remember saving and capturing you in that desert, boy.”
They heard footsteps rattling along a tunnel, saving Drake the indignity of replying. He focused on the opening and the team spread out to make ready for surprises.
None came. Instead, Captain Cambridge and another man exited, both standing there and looking a little bemused.
“Wow,” Cambridge said in a deep baritone. “I didn’t realize there were so many of you.”
“We’re a big crew,” Drake admitted. “It’s good to see you again, Cambridge. Thanks for your help with the nukes back in the Ukraine. We were close to wiping out there for a while.”
“Not again,” Luther barked. “Sounds like you guys need child minders.”
Cambridge held out a calloused hand. “My pleasure. And may I introduce you to Major Bennett, Secretary Crowe’s contact over here.”
Drake shook and then Hayden stepped forward, perhaps feeling a little left out. “And what do you have for us, Major?”
“Just Bennett,” the man said. “I’m no Major down here. And I don’t feel like a Major up there at present.” His blue eyes shot up toward the ceiling. “Having to tread lightly. We don’t know who’s involved with this Tempest group and who isn’t, I’m afraid. It’s all very . . . underhand. It’s so clandestine . . .” He glanced at Hayden and Drake. “If Kimberley hadn’t put her full weight and reputation behind this I’d say you were wasting our time.”
“Well thank God for the Americans,” Alicia breathed. “At least they have sense.”
Bennett blinked at her. “I doubt there’s any British in the higher echelons of Tempest,” he said. “But there may well be a few lackeys over here. We’re still rooting around. Now, Kimberley tells me a wild story about seven weapons?”
Drake nodded. “Seven that we know of. I doubt there’s any particular order to them but the first—the Sword of Mars—is in your possession.”
“I’m only privy to so much,” Bennett admitted. “I run the DSF out of Whitehall which, as I’m sure you know, is the entity that oversees all British Special Forces operations. Yes, I have contacts, but I still have to take great care.”
“Understood. Where is the sword?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute. I understand you can track these weapons?”
“That we can,” Dahl spoke up, nodding his blonde head. “We recalibrated a GPS device to search for the still unnamed material that is part of their structure. It worked.”
Drake looked across at him. “That’s Dumb Swede for ‘yes.’”
Dahl gave him the sly finger.
“Well, good,” Bennett said. “Then you can track all seven down.”
Drake thought he’d misheard. “All . . . seven?”
Cambridge jumped in. “The Sword of Mars is missing, I’m afraid.”
“For how long?” Hayden asked.
“A couple of hours,” Bennett said defensively. “We’re all over it.”
“All over it?” Drake repeated. “That sword was our biggest hope. We don’t know what they’ll do if they find all seven.”
“We have to recover it,” Dahl said. “Tempest already proved they care nothing about military and civilian life. They have to be stopped.”
“Swords must never fall into the wrong hands,” Kenzie said from across the other side of the chamber where she stood apart, leaning against the damp wall. “They should be in mine.”
Bennett nodded hesitantly at the Israeli and then addressed everyone. “The op is ongoing. London city and airports have the heaviest surveillance in the world. We will find the perpetrator by backtracking from the moment of the theft of the sword. Then, we’ll have facial match.” He glanced at his phone. “It’s already been narrowed down. It’s nothing more than a matter of time.”
Drake found it hard to accept the major’s word in light of recent information. Still, the British hadn’t known the significance of the weapon until this very moment. “It’s partly our fault,” he said. “We should have contacted you sooner.”
“Thank you, but I will take it on the chin,” Bennett said. “Kimberley only just broke away from Tempest and is living with a sense of not knowing what they’ll do to her next. To anyone. There’s a lot going on here, gents and ladies.”
Alicia made a point of glaring. “You realize you’ve just excluded poor old Yorgi, right?”
Bennett opened his mouth to question her but then his phone started to ring. Cambridge watched him closely as he checked the screen before answering. Drake watched them both.
“What do you think?” he mouthed at Hayden.
“It all feels laborious,” she said. “We need to shift it up a gear. Tempest clearly has an agenda and Luther here was not their only attack dog.”
“Dog?” Luther frowned.
“Yeah,” Alicia nodded at him. “Rhino would be more precise.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, any time.”
Drake interrupted their flirting which, he knew, stemmed from Alicia’s suspicion that Mai was attracted to him. Surprisingly, the Japanese warrior had remained silent and calm this entire time.
“Fact is,” he said. “We can’t touch Tempest yet. They’re too well insulated which, I hope, Major Bennett here and Secretary of Defense Crowe will soon change. We’re at the sharp end, as usual, but this time we have everything to fight for.”
Hayden nodded. “Couldn’t be bigger.”
“Yeah,” Dahl agreed. “Our freedom. Our todays and tomorrows. Tempest must be destroyed.”
“We’re fighting for men and women that don’t even know they’ve been disconnected,” Drake said. “For soldiers out there, risking everything, thinking there’s a real support system at their backs where, instead, there’s a kill order.” He paused. “And that’s another thing. Somehow, some way, we have to pull these teams together. United, we will be stronger.”
“Agreed,” Hayden said, looking around. “Karin would have been perfect for that. I still don’t agree with her decision . . . but she is her own tour de force now, I guess.”
“FrameHub do need taking down.” Drake shrugged. “And I guess she’s being hunted too, by the US Military. Send a geek to catch a geek. That’s what I say.”
Luther shifted his feet. “Molokai has some experience with military communications.
Nothing fantastic,” he acknowledged, “but I think he could try.”
Drake looked to the side of the chamber where the mysterious man lurked, face covered to the nose by a desert scarf, body bulked out by innumerable layers of clothes, protected by the flak jacket he never removed, and a big coat.
“We need a base,” Hayden told Bennett, but by then the man was answering a call. When he finished he stared expectantly at the SPEAR team.
“How about that?” he said. “We’ve found the wankers that stole the sword. Are you ready?”
“Lead on, Major,” Drake said. “This isn’t business anymore. It’s fucking personal.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The old, abandoned hospital sat amid several overgrown acres near Muswell Hill. It was a timeworn Victorian villa that had once been used as a home for disturbed psychiatric patients and people with a high drug dependency. Today it sat in decay, similar to many old buildings in London, with no clear signs as to the owner and nobody paid to maintain it.
Alicia viewed it from the street, a military scope in her hand. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Looks creepy.”
“The team’s resident scaredy cat,” Mai told Luther and Molokai in the back of the transit van. “I once saw her jump into a pit to escape a spider.”
“In my defense,” Alicia said, still observing, “it had legs the size of my arms.”
Hayden’s voice crackled over the comms system, coming from the van parked in front of theirs. “You guys see anything?”
“Rundown asylum,” Alicia said. “Abandoned. You say the power’s back on?”
“According to Bennett, yes. Nothing official, it’s not like they applied to the electric company. But there’s a power surge coming from that house and all utilities are working. It’s a big ass house.”
“Correct. A dozen people could get lost in there.”
“Are we sure this is the right place?” Dahl asked from the seat beside Drake.
“You heard Bennett. CCTV cameras reverse-imaged two of these guys, from the moment they killed the soldiers guarding the sword, through London, to here. Arrived ninety minutes ago. Haven’t a clue what they’ve been doing since.”
“Playing chess?” Kinimaka suggested.
“I doubt it dude. They’re mercs.”
“Good point. I Spy, then?”
Alicia chose that moment to comment. “Well, I spy a whopper in the front window. Could be ex-military.”
Luther leaned forward. “A whopper?”
Mai grunted. “With Alicia? That could mean a number of things.”
“A goon,” Alicia confirmed. “I guess that’s enough corroboration.” She threw the scope on the dashboard in front of her. “Can we go in and talk to them now?”
“I thought you said it was creepy,” Dahl said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep my eyes closed.”
Drake cracked open the door. “Dahl, she’s with you. The rest—let’s go.”
Silently, the team exited their vans under a leaden gray sky, smelling rain on the mid-afternoon air. Bennett had provided weapons and other military trappings, so Drake found himself outfitted with an HK MP5 sub machine gun, a 9mm Sig Sauer, stun grenades and tear gas canisters. They wore assault suits, fireproof knee and elbow pads and a bullet-proof armored waistcoat designed not only to stop a bullet but also to absorb its kinetic energy.
Kinimaka and Smyth carried the breaching gear. A sledgehammer and battering ram, pneumatic tools and explosives. Others carried ladders and ropes.
They were all out, ready to strike the old asylum like a bolt of thunder. Drake leapt the short wall, landed in overgrowth and ran with his head low, gun aimed carefully ahead. The team were with him, their boots swishing through shrubbery the only sound. Trees were positioned here and there, providing brief shelter, and then they resumed, running for the wall of the house.
Drake arrived in seconds, putting his back to the brick. Half the team would go around back; half around the side. Drake gave it a minute and then crept under the nearest window, heading for the side of the large house. Another window loomed and then they grouped, preparing to breach. Drake waited for the “go” from the other team before giving the signal. Instantly, Mai and Dahl raced around him, taking point. He went third and knew Alicia was at his back.
A dozen targets stood between them and the sword.
A narrow path ran down the side of the house, covered by a triangular, tiled roof. It ended at the side door. Drake signaled Smyth to come around, who then breached the entrance with a battering ram. Dahl jumped in first, backed by Mai as the thick door swung back against its hinges. They were going in loud and hard, hoping to surprise their enemy into mistakes. Drake found himself inside a narrow kitchen, consisting mostly of shelves, cupboards and sinks, and then turned left along another narrow passage and through a much larger kitchen. To the left a staircase with a red threadbare carpet led to the first floor. To the right more rotting archways ran deeper into the house.
“Split,” Dahl called.
Alicia chose the house, followed by Kenzie, Yorgi and Molokai, the last man looking beastly, clad not only in his own clothes but in the SAS get-up too. Alicia couldn’t think of a time when she’d run with anyone more imposing. They cleared one room and then another, each a small sitting room still furnished with old sofas and spiderweb-coated bookcases that reached up to the ceiling. Old paintings, covered in dust, hung on the walls.
“It’s as though someone fled very quickly,” Kenzie breathed. “Spooky.”
“If this were a horror movie the original patients would still be here,” Molokai intoned. “Not that I watch horror movies much.”
Yorgi couldn’t take his eyes off the many potential treasures, though none of them sparkled any more. The Russian thief appeared to be cataloguing an inventory for later.
Gunfire sounded somewhere in the house. Alicia didn’t waver, just swept as fast as caution allowed around the eastern wall. They were nearing the back of the old hospital now; she could see overgrown garden through the windows ahead. Alert as she’d ever been, she saw a patch of shadow spreading across the floor from the doorway in front and fired instantly through the wooden paneling that protected it. There was a grunt, followed by a thump as a body fell into her path, chest pouring blood. She hurdled the dead mass, came down and saw another figure sheltering behind an overturned refrigerator to the right.
No fucking about today, asshole.
She hurled a grenade, then ran in the opposite direction, now following a corridor that ran parallel to the back of the house. The grenade exploded behind her, shrapnel flying everywhere, flames licking at the ceiling. A window smashed to their right, a frame buckled, but the refrigerator itself had stopped most of the blast—well, the refrigerator and the merc, to be fair.
Alicia sped along, stopping to clear rooms along the way, working in concert with Molokai and Kenzie as Yorgi searched for signs of the sword. By necessity, this was a rapid shock attack, but it would help to take at least a couple of the mercs alive.
Up ahead, there stood another closed door. Alicia saw vapor seeping through the gap along the bottom and pulled up sharply.
“Fire?”
“Doesn’t smell like fire.” Kenzie sniffed the air. “And it looks more like steam.”
Alicia readied herself, feeling a little bemused, then grabbed the brass doorknob. It turned easily, allowing her to crack it open a little. The spectacle beyond caused the corners of her mouth to curl up.
“Interesting,” she murmured. “It’s the men’s shower room.”
Kenzie shifted from foot to foot. “Is it occupied?”
“I’ll say.”
Alicia opened the door wider, an inch at a time. The noise of the three running showers and the banging rock music from someone’s phone boomed out, masking any noise they might have made. Alicia slipped in first, then Kenzie, Molokai and Yorgi. Before them lay a makeshift, open shower area—just six shower heads in a row and a sloped wet flo
or that led to a drain. Three naked, muscular mercs were soaping and rinsing, completely engrossed. Alicia paused for a moment at the edge of the wet area.
“Yogi, cover your eyes. You’re too young to see this.”
“I believe we should attack right away,” Molokai said, still giving Alicia the creeps in his voluminous robe-like clothes. “Whilst they are preoccupied.”
Alicia nodded. “I agree.”
“Then why are we waiting?”
“Welllll . . . I’m feeling quite relaxed right now.”
Yorgi approached the edge of the dry floor. “Do you see any weapons?”
Alicia glanced at him and choked. “Are you kidding me?”
Kenzie crouched. “Best show I’ve seen in a while.”
“I’m still worried about weapons,” Yorgi said, casting his eyes all around the room.
“Believe me,” Alicia still hadn’t taken her eyes away from the showers, “there’s nothing here that should worry you.”
Molokai leveled his gun. “Less talk,” he said. “More death.”
“Whoa,” Alicia reached out a hand and grabbed his cloth-covered wrist, noting the puff of dust that rose. “You can’t just shoot ’em. They’re naked.”
“You think they wouldn’t shoot us, given the same circumstances? They’re mercs—led only by money and power. They have no morals. You know this.”
“I guess.” Alicia nodded. “But don’t join them, Molokai. Rise above and be better.”
Kenzie rose now. “I’m all for killing the fuckers to be honest.”
Alicia regarded her. “And I thought you’d changed.”
“That was yesterday,” she said. “Today . . . I really don’t care.”
Alicia knew she was smarting badly from Dahl’s rejection. “He has a wife and children. You can’t ask him to give that up.”
“I won’t,” Kenzie said. “Soon, I won’t even be around.”
Alicia didn’t push it. She’d never liked the Israeli but grudgingly admitted she was a powerful asset to their team. Molokai moved again and Alicia strengthened her grip on his arm.
“Wait,” she said. “The guy on the right just dropped his soap.”
Weapons of the Gods Page 2
