Hayden and the rest of her team were thrown to the floor, landing in a tangle amidst the dead and dying mercenaries. Their weapons tumbled away. The force of the blast left them momentarily senseless.
Then, the worst happened. The last civilian car smashed back down onto the tracks but missed the rails. Instead, it hit the wooden sleepers, ballast, fasteners and subgrade with an almighty grinding sound and caused the entire train to slew to the side. Seen from afar, all the carriages tilted to one side and started a nightmarishly slow fall onto their sides. When it hit the ground, the train was still traveling fast, but the sudden impact with mercifully soft earth caused it to slow down fast. A bow wave of dirt caromed over the engine and the driver’s compartment and the first carriage. The last few carriages sprayed out, away from the body of the train, and even as Hayden raised her head, still stunned and reeling, her heart almost stopped at what she saw.
The last two cars skidded away from the train tracks and struck a bank of dirt, causing the last car to veer upwards and swing so that its rear end swayed out across the motorway that ran parallel. Vehicles swerved and skidded to a halt. Terrified motorists aimed their cars in any direction except forward.
A small smart car slammed into the rear of the train. A Land Rover swung sharply sideways, but still hit the smart car with its rear end. Another vehicle pranged the Land Rover.
Hayden willed her body to respond, but sensed a heavy blackness about to take over. The blast seemed not only to have disoriented her, but knocked out her sense of balance and reasoning. Even Dahl lay unmoving to her right.
And then, unbelievably, close to her ear she heard a voice crackle across one of the dead mercenaries mobile phones.
“This is Cayman. Train is compromised. We are on to plan B. Repeat plan B. Are you there?”
A response from a third party came immediately over the open line. “We have been tracking the train by road as instructed sir. The rear carriage is. . .well, it’s actually in front of us.”
“Get in there,” Cayman ordered. “Recover the pieces and. . .” He paused. “New orders from the Norseman. Bring the bastards who tried to stop us. Bring them to Prague.”
As the blackness claimed her, Hayden was left with only a single thought. Call Matt Drake. Bringing every ounce of her training, every contested second of her battle to match her father’s name to bear, she endeavored to make the call.
Cayman’s last words stayed with her. “Prague is a fortress. Not even an army could reach us there.”
PART 3
The Shadow Elite
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mai was in full flow and no one dared interrupt her. “This group.” She spat the word. “Targeted Wells so they could get an informer into the British army. They convinced him they were the ruling body of the world, that they controlled the British government. Not only that—it was Cayman who recruited him and convinced him that all governments did the Shadow Elite’s bidding. I think Wells took patriotism just a bit too far.”
“Weak men always have big secrets,” Alicia said with a knowing smile. “Cayman will have had dirt on Wells, be sure of that.”
Drake tried to stick to the facts they knew. “So Cayman is DIA, yes? Working undercover for the Shadow Elite. If that’s the case, then we have to assume the CIA and the White House have similar moles, as well as every other agency in the world.”
“Which is why Gates can’t take the risk and the time to vet everyone above and around him,” Mai said. “Which then leaves us out here, exposed and alone.”
“But it also puts us right in the middle of the game,” Drake said with a little smile, filling a little plate with chorizo sausage, patatas bravas, olive oil and bread. “We know where Cayman is. We know what the Shadow Elite want. Now all we have to do is find them.”
“Vienna,” Belmonte pointed out. “You were rather close to these bastards before. Do you recall anything pertaining to operation Doubledown?”
Drake took a few moments to think. Time tended to turn hazy around Alyson’s death. He shook his head. “Sam might remember something. I can’t.”
“We could travel there,” Mai suggested. “Call your pals and get them to meet us. We’re still well within the window they gave you.”
“It’s a plan. But it’s a bloody stretch, Mai. Especially with Hayden and the guys straining their bollocks off to acquire those eight pieces.”
Drake checked his mobile, despite knowing that every method of contact was cranked to the highest level. “Thought we’d have heard something by now.”
“Risky mission,” Belmonte said, a faraway look in his eye. “People die.”
“People die crossing the road or in car accidents,” Drake said savagely. “I wonder who this Coyote is.”
“That’s another mission,” Alicia said. “For another day.”
“Whatever happens,” Mai said, “the Shadow Elite cannot be allowed to continue. I work for one of the best intelligence teams in the world, and I’ve never heard of them. Yet they’re the puppet masters. If they held our best interests…” She shrugged. “Maybe watch them from afar. But men who covet such weapons of mass destruction should never be allowed to rule.”
“Fuckin’ right,” Alicia said. “At least me and the sprite agree on one thing.”
“The sprite and I.” Drake instantly corrected her.
“Don’t encourage the bitch,” Mai said pointedly. “She’s hard enough to tolerate. At the moment I only want to kill her once a day”
Belmonte looked between the three. “So I’m sensing some friendly history here?”
“Fuck off, Belmonte.” Alicia picked at the food. “A thief like you wouldn’t know the first thing about friendship, only liaisons.”
Belmonte banged the table with his glass. “Don’t presume to know me.”
Alicia turned her gaze on him. “But I do know you, Daniel, as you often point out. I know you so well.”
“I care for people. Cared.” The thief sighed and shook his head. “I think the only bad thing that’s ever happened in my life is going to be the worst thing that ever happens in my life. I don’t even know why I’m with you people any more. What good will revenge do me?”
Drake tried not to stare at the bar. “I’ll let you know. Soon.”
“I’m not like you, Drake. I’m a man of stealth and finesse, not of action and brawn. I’m no hero. Never will be.”
“A hero should be defined by their actions in a given moment.” Mai sounded as if she was reciting an old Japanese proverb. “Not by what they do normally, or don’t do.”
It was at that moment when Drake’s mobile started to ring. He reached out quickly and grabbed it, looking surprised.
“Karin?”
The young woman’s whisper conveyed tension, fear and urgency. “We’re captured. They’ve got us. All of us. I. . .” A pause. “I’m going to try to leave my phone on. . .”
Then silence. Drake looked up. “We need to move now. Hayden’s team has been captured. Let’s go.”
Without looking back, they raced into the unknown to help their friends.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hayden battled to focus her thoughts, as her exhausted body protested in every way. The concussion of the blast had knocked her momentarily unconscious, but it had done worse to her equilibrium. It had made her sick, made her have to grope through a sludgy mist to remember where she was. It had done the same to Dahl and Komodo, leaving Kinimaka, Ben and Karin slightly better off, but still with stability issues.
Now she lay bouncing around the hard metal floor of a van. The movement of the vehicle, being driven fast around bends and over bumps in the road, did nothing to hasten her slowly returning sense of balance. Her eyes were a few inches off the floor.
Her arms were tied behind her back, her ankles too. Dahl and Komodo rolled listlessly beside her as the journey went on. She was vaguely aware of Karin wrestling a hand free, then a brief conversation before the blond girl locked her phone a
nd thrust it deep into a pocket.
Some time later, as she drifted, the van slowed and began a stop-start motion. She heard curses from up front. They were stuck in traffic, maybe traveling through a city or around one. Her head was starting to regain some of its sharpness. She still had no idea how long it had been since the train crash that followed the shocking explosion. She could never have guessed that the Shadow Elite would plant explosives in one of its own train carriages, but it was a lesson she had now learned and would always remember. She hoped to God no civilians had been hurt.
Ben’s voice drifted through the thinning fog. “Hayden. Hayden, are you alright?” A dull monotone she’d been aware of for some time, but unable to process.
Her nose cracked against the rust-spotted metal floor, bringing tears to her eyes yet again. “Not. . .not really.” She managed to mumble.
She felt huge relief when the voice of Torsten Dahl spoke up. “Do we know where we are or where we’re going?”
Negative replies came back. Karin spoke softly. “I managed to call Drake and leave my phone on so he can track us. The battery should last a while. But the back window’s blacked out. They’d know if I scratched at it.”
“Untie us.” Hayden knew the fuzziness in her head explained why Karin hadn’t already tried.
“With what? We’re secured with plastic strip ties and the van’s empty. And—” she murmured, “they’ve been checking on us.”
The van lurched around a bend. Hayden rolled, crashing into Kinimaka. She was vaguely aware of the Hawaiian piling into Komodo and pinning the poor Delta man against the side of the van. Not a great position to be caught in.
“Sorry, bud.” Kinimaka said.
A panel in the front bulkhead suddenly slid back and a man appeared. He was bald, clean-shaven and mean-looking. A scar extended across his forehead. “I hear wagging tongues,” he said. “And I don’t want to. The Norseman wants to see you, but he didn’t say anything about your tongues. Keep it quiet. We’re almost there.”
The head vanished along with the East-European accent. Hayden felt a shockwave travel the length of her body. She turned to lock eyes with Dahl.
“The Norseman?” She breathed.
“End of the line,” Dahl said. “The leader of the Shadow Elite wants to punish us for ruining his plans. No prizes for guessing what happens after that.”
“Sure thing, but it’s what happens during it that bothers me more.” Hayden struggled to rip her hands free of the bonds, but got nowhere. She thought about the civilians, Ben, Karin and Gates behind her. She thought about what these terrible men might do to them.
Please, Drake, she thought. Come for us.
*****
At that moment, Matthew Holgate, the sixth and youngest member of the Shadow Elite, was being served a light lunch at an upscale restaurant inside Vienna’s Museum of Natural History. The menu was short and never varied, but that didn’t matter. They knew what he wanted. He spent a brief few minutes chatting with the amiable waitress and then turned to his waiting coffee.
Staring into its black depths, he saw a reflection of himself floating there, confined. A symbolic image. Not long ago, Holgate had been one of the world’s richest playboys, a man with a house, five cars and a dozen women in every major city around the globe, a setter of trends and even a philanthropist. Behind all that lurked the Shadow Elite, a group he had figuratively belonged to since the day he was born, his father’s son. Actively, he had belonged for decades, loving its limitless power, basking in its unaccountability, relishing the times when its leader—the melancholy Norseman—allowed them to play games with random people’s lives. Even in a jaded rich man’s world, there was nothing quite like picking a person or a family and subjecting them to endless indiscriminate torment.
It helped reinforce the group’s belief in their own power, the Norseman said. The end always justified the means. So if there was just another peasant family on the scrapheap who would notice?
But recently, a chance event of its own had transformed Holgate’s life. The world at large knew it as the recession. But Holgate knew what it really was—the big decision-makers had decided that the world was advancing too fast and needed to slow down, that progress was moving too quickly, that common men were simply becoming too affluent, their lives too painless. A decision had been made at the top, a level below the Shadow Elite, who had discussed its meager worth to the group but decided to allow the period of austerity to happen. It wouldn’t affect them. It would actually help to reinforce their positions and extend the scope of their powers and their games.
But then, in his blind arrogance, Holgate had been caught in one of the big bank crashes. After that he’d lost much more in property value slumps. He’d invested heavily in hedge funds and start-up businesses that simply vanished.
All so quick. All that virtual wealth wiped away. When he realized the extent of his actual paper wealth, he almost threw himself off the top of his exterior Italian-carpeted marble staircase and onto the roof of his gleaming black Maserati MC12 supercar. But deliberation saved him. He’d thought about his fellow Elite members and believed they’d help him. It was only later, when broaching a few carefully crafted questions, he realized they would certainly crucify him, their lifelong colleague, if they ever found out.
And then the whole Odin thing happened. The Shadow Elite had convened more times in the last two months than in the previous two years. Holgate sat and listened, and gave his input without really getting too involved, constantly aware that his five brothers might, at any time, find out about his bankruptcies.
But, like the predator that lies in wait ready to strike, the answer had come to Holgate in the form of the eight pieces of Odin. So crucial. The heart of everything.
Holgate smiled as the waitress placed his warm food on the table. Then he picked up an untraceable mobile phone he’d recently been given by one of the most dangerous men in the world.
When the call was answered with a curt, “Ya?” Matthew Holgate took the first steps down the diabolical road that was his master plan.
“I can get them. It’s all in readiness. Now, how many of the world’s richest, craziest terrorists can you actually gather together in one place?”
He paused for a beat.
“That many? Good. Now sit back and listen.”
*****
Hayden braced herself as the van skidded to a sudden stop. Laughter, deep and coarse, came from the front and then two doors banged. Shouts echoed outside the van. Then the back door was pulled open and a man started laughing.
“Trussed up like turkeys. And here it is, not yet even Christmas.”
She heard yells and guessed her colleagues were being pulled out of the van by their feet and allowed to crash to the ground. Again, she wrenched at her bonds and helplessness washed over her as she felt her own ankles grabbed and her body slid roughly over the van floor. There was a moment of weightlessness and then the hard earth rushed up to meet her, face-first. More laughter rang out. The laughter of many men.
Quickly, she rolled over. The harsh sunshine beat down at her face, making her eyes water. After a moment a shadow blocked out the light. “Up.”
Strong arms looped underneath her armpits and dragged her to her feet. She stood there for a moment, swaying, unused to the new position and trying to let the queasiness subside. Dahl stood next to her, casting around furtively, Kinimaka and Komodo beside him. Beyond them she picked out Gates, Ben and Karin before dropping her eyes again, feigning shakiness.
A boot kicked her in the spine, making her stagger and cry out in surprise. Dahl turned in anger, but found himself facing the business end of a shiny Heckler and Koch. Hayden pushed past him, nudging him as she went. Time for that later.
They had been brought through a gate into an inner courtyard. The Norseman’s mansion surrounded them on all four sides, built of old brick and stone, studded with bespoke windows and doors. The gate itself was a sturdy structure flanked on either side
by massive stone pillars and a guardhouse. The surface beneath their feet was bits of tiny white gravel; the sky above their heads was cloudless and bright blue. Men stood around in easy poses, every one toting some kind of automatic weapon.
No way out, she thought, then berated herself. There was always a plan. And a plan B. The only obstacle was her fear.
A boot again connected with her spine. This time she stood her ground, turned, and stared hard at the wizened mercenary doing the kicking. “Untie me,” she said evenly, “then try it again.”
All the while hoping he didn’t know about her knife wound. . .
. . .but the older hard-case just grinned, showing a mouth full of black teeth and gaps and a tongue missing an inch-square chunk. He motioned her onward, bringing his rifle to bear.
Hayden used the interlude to analyze their surroundings some more. The Norseman’s mansion not only surrounded them on four sides, but rose three stories high. Wherever this place was, no doubt it resided among similar dwellings in an affluent area. From her vantage point, Hayden could ascertain no clues to their location.
She turned back again, walking toward a long brick wall. Her comrades had already been lined up against it, facing the courtyard. She too took her position at the end of the line.
Twelve men stepped forward and raised their weapons.
No! Her mind screamed. It was too soon. They hadn’t even met the Norseman yet. Why bring them all this way just to shoot them on arrival?
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