The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake 4)

by David Leadbeater

  Beyond the plaza he saw choppers with rotors already whirling and many of the terrorist’s security personnel digging into strategic positions. Some of the weapons he saw being readied were more than daunting. The huge tent sat serene, its sides flapping in the breeze, an oasis of calm amidst the storm.

  To Drake’s left, Hayden appeared in his sight, bounding alongside with the ever-present Kinimaka watching her back. The Hawaiian seemed even more concerned than usual with keeping his boss safe. Probably due to the painkillers, Hayden would be thinking she was invincible. Drake fired at movement ahead, wishing he felt the same way. More gunfire and a stray shot slammed into a box of missiles, sending the lot up in a humongous explosion that rivaled the best New Years Eve firework display.

  But these were deadly missiles, exploding fragments and small, deadly warheads. Drake and his team, to a man, threw themselves headlong into the dirt and kept their heads down. When he looked up, Drake saw a fireball whooshing to the sky. Trails of thick, black smoke streamed all around it. He scrambled up. Members of the enemy force, twisted hunks of metal and smoldering timbers now littered the plaza.

  Drake advanced onto the square, roughly paved surface, cracking off a shot every now and then when something moved. A man ran at him from behind a fiery hunk of destroyed timbers, but Dahl was quick to meet and stop him dead in his tracks. Literally.

  The team hiked across the square, surrounded by flames and destruction, sweeping for any signs of life or enemy snipers. Dahl found an untouched box of RPG launchers and their missiles, which he quickly doled out. Drake saw Ben and Karin and Gates now running down the hill behind them. Belmonte, to his surprise, was already part of the attack team, holding a light machine pistol and a handgun.

  So far so good. He wondered again about the eight pieces and experienced a surge of fear. What if Holgate lied even under extreme regret and duress? What if the pieces were already gone or even on their way to Singen by now?

  God help them all.

  Then he crested the final rise and got a first real look at the valley below. A valley of death¸ he thought. On the flatlands, more than a dozen choppers were waiting or being boarded. One lifted off as he watched. The slope down into the valley was heavily covered on both sides of the road by small knots of men holding every weapon imaginable.

  They were dug in, and they were waiting, knowing that if Drake’s team wanted to advance any more, they’d have to go past them.

  Drake’s entire team lined up in a staggered formation, two deep along the rim of the valley. At that moment, the big tent’s door-flaps were pushed back and out came a small troop of rugged men all wearing thawbs—or robes—and Keffiyeh—headdress. Behind them came soldiers carrying machine guns, dressed in jeans and jackets and behind them came a final group—a scurrying band of European men—probably mercenaries—hefting all eight pieces of Odin between them.

  The sale had been completed. The choppers were already warmed up and itching to fly.

  Drake saw no other way. He looked across at Dahl and Sam and their men, and thought of the future of their world, of their children, nothing else. For our children, he thought. “For our future!” he cried aloud.

  The charge was on.

  *****

  Hard down the grueling slope they flew, feet tugged at by bloodied clumps of dead grass, guns tight against their shoulders, meeting bullet with bullet, battle cry with war cry. And death filled the air. Choppers rose ahead like black birds of prey only to be blown out of the sky by expertly aimed RPG launchers. Fire rained down from the skies. A creeping column of explosions and a deadly wall of lead marched before and among the sixty, the unsung heroes, men eaten by fear but forging ahead despite it all. And even as they fell, they kept firing, even as their dying bodies hit the ground they threw a last grenade or took another bullet for those who still lived and still ran headlong into the face of death.

  All across the hill, they were ranged, sweeping down toward the guns. Not one among them wavered, but fought fire with fire and stormed through the deadly onslaught like a wave surging across a reef.

  Drake felt more than one bullet sear past his face. A great fiery explosion lit up the hill before him, but he forged through it. Something nicked his ear, probably shrapnel, but he barely felt it. Every stride brought the enemy within reach. Every stride brought the pieces of Odin closer to safety. With precise fire and expert magazine changes, he pounded round after round into their assailants. Bullets, grenades and rockets fired high into the air as men cartwheeled backward, struck at the very moment they pressed their triggers. At one point, a chopper smashed down into the very heart of the terrorists’ defense, bursting apart on impact and blasting metal shards, men and terrible tongues of fire outward in a horrific display of absolute mayhem.

  That same blast destroyed more enemy fortifications from the rear. Drake’s team fell among them, up for blood and battle, offering no quarter. Drake jumped over a high mound, landing amidst a tangle of men and fired three times, three directions, into the chests of his enemy. They fell back with heavy thuds. Mai landed beside him. Belmonte came down on the other side. The thief shot at a masked man emerging from the smoke downslope. Drake lifted his head.

  “Keep going.” He keyed his mic. “We have the momentum. Don’t stop now!”

  But at that moment, there was the horrendous sound of heavy gunfire, the kind of sound made by a big caliber weapon that seems to shoot right up from the bowels of hell. They hit the deck as gigantic chunks of earth blasted into the air, chewed up by the huge shells.

  “Fuck me!” Mai yelled. “What is that?”

  “Some kind of heavy machine gun,” Drake shouted back. “Bollocks! They have our position. We’re pinned.”

  “No time!” Mai cried, but at that moment the big gun coughed again and a shell exploded beside her, sending her body slamming across the shallow depression.

  “Mai!” Drake screamed.

  Belmonte scrambled over to her. Suddenly a shadow blocked out the sun and Drake looked up to see four enemy soldiers leaping towards him.

  The big gun had been used as distraction.

  Now Drake, alone, rolled and came up to his knees, blasting one of the men away. But the others were in too close. One knocked his gun away. Another reached for his throat, but too slow. Drake gripped the arm and twisted it down, breaking it at the elbow, then slammed it back up so that the man’s body smashed into one of his brethren. Another came at him from the side. Drake fell back, watched an arm holding a wicked knife scythe through the air a millimetre above his nose, and rolled into the body and around until he was behind the man. Then he drew his own blade and buried it into the nape of his neck.

  A bullet slammed through the gap between his legs. He looked up. A truly enormous soldier stood before him, grinning, weapon steady, the blood of good men already dripping from his face.

  Drake had no way out. He felt a second of regret. . .

  . . .the gun fired, but shot wide. An SAS soldier had launched a desperate attack, hitting the giant around the waist. The soldier bounced off. The giant, seven feet of bulging muscle and pure fury, didn’t even wobble. He simply re-aimed the gun and ended the other man’s life. But now Drake was up and Mai was shaking her head, instantly alert, and diving in from the other side.

  Drake struck from the front, three punches and a kick in lightning time. The giant took them all without flinching as he concentrated on Mai, recoiling from her deadly strikes but batting them aside anyway.

  Drake struck again. “You’ll feel this, you bastard!”

  The giant grunted. “I fink you need bigger hands, small man.” He kicked Drake in the chest with the force of an elephant, sending him flying back, stunned and winded. Mai dove in again, breaking her enemy’s arm but, still dazed, found herself being crushed at the giant’s feet.

  Then a brief respite came as he stared in confusion at his dangling arm. “It’s no bovver.” He growled, not even wincing as he prodded the jagged bone back th
rough torn flesh. “I’ll mend later.”

  The enormous man still held a pistol in one oversized hand. His cackle of madness and delight stung even the death-laden afternoon air with frenzied malice.

  For the second time in as many minutes, Drake faced death down the sights of a barrel. With no hope he struggled to thrust his body upright. But the giant fired immediately. No speech, no more chatter, just a spark of ignition lighting his eyes firing the thought that he could finish up here and lumber over to his next target.

  With the quickness of a bullet, a shadow dove between Drake and Mai and instant death. Then the shattered body of Daniel Belmonte landed beside them, bleeding badly where the neck met the collarbone, eyes hopeful.

  “Did I save the day?”

  Still running on adrenalin. . . he didn’t know quite yet that his wound was fatal.

  But the giant just shook his big, shaggy head and raised his gun again. Belmonte noticed and then, against all odds, pushed himself up and grabbed the big man in a hug. Bullets punched through Belmonte’s frame, jerking the body terribly with every impact. As Drake watched, he saw the thief’s last act in this life—to bring his arm around and bury the knife he had taken from Drake right through the giant’s thick neck.

  Both men fell in a heap. It still took both Drake and Mai nearly a minute to stand. They both heard Belmonte’s final words, no more than a whisper of breath. “Now I will meet her again.”

  By then the battle had moved on. Drake and Mai checked their wounds, scooped up lost weapons, and continued with a nod to Belmonte’s already cooling body.

  *****

  Hayden obliterated an enemy defense post with Kinimaka, Dahl and several of his Swedish compatriots before looking ahead. Toward the bottom of the slope, the men escaping with the eight pieces had cleared the tent and were heading for an area crowded with helicopters. Hayden cast about. Smoke and fire fogged the area around them. She couldn’t rely on anyone else coming to help, so she set off at a run, now starting to feel the return of fire in her side as the painkillers wore off.

  “Let me take the lead,” Kinimaka urged.

  But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Kinimaka had her side, as he always did, and Dahl paced her too. She picked her way down the rest of the slope, stopping briefly as they encountered stiff opposition from behind several stacked barrels ahead. Dahl fired his RPG at the barrels and the opposition went up in flames. Then, with a regretful shake of the head, he threw the weapon away, out of grenades.

  Their clothes were torn, their flesh bloody, and their faces set hard with determination and the loss of colleagues along the way, but Hayden and her small contingent forged onward, finally reaching the flat of the valley and facing the field of choppers. The enemy had dug in and some were already shooting.

  “See there,” Dahl shouted. He pointed out the large group trying to spirit away the pieces. “Hurry. We have no time.”

  *****

  The Norseman welcomed the drifting, cloying smoke with its thick stench of spilled blood and death. When the SAS team that guarded him met harsh opposition and fought hard to survive, he managed to crawl and slither his way through the muck and the mud, a venomous snake slipping through slime, until he managed to outflank the battle. Then, still staying low, he slunk to the base of the hill. Along the way, he even managed to collect a discarded weapon, a fully loaded machine-pistol, which brought a thin smile to those bloodless, melancholy lips. Fortune always landed on the side of the privileged, and none were more privileged than he. He glanced back up the hill and saw the thief, Belmonte, dying. He turned away without a flicker of concern. The pieces of Odin were still within reach, and although the plan had changed, there was still a plan.

  The only plan that guaranteed the continued dominance of what remained of the Shadow Elite.

  Make Cayman place the blasted things in the right holes and send out a warning to the world. If some small destruction ensued, it mattered little to him. After a few minutes they would stop the process by removing a piece.

  But, his mind questioned him, it might not be that easy. What if you can’t stop the process?

  Then so be it. In the true order of things, the death of the Shadow Elite really should spell death for the world. It would be an appropriate and fitting end for this planet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  As a single unit they attacked the choppers. Dahl ran, firing at a Bell 205 painted jet black, as its occupants desperately tried to slam its doors close and take off. Within seconds, he hit the skids at full pelt and launched his body forward so that he flew into the cockpit, still firing. The windshield and side windows were already shattered. Bloodied men screamed and fell back as he landed among them. Fists and legs thumped against him to no effect. A bullet blasted past his cheek. Dahl wedged himself firmly on the fat stomach of a man’s twitching body and sprayed the rest of the cockpit with lead. Within seconds, the interior grew quiet and still.

  Dahl peered out of a side window, finding his next target.

  Mai and Alicia zigzagged toward another chopper, this one equipped with weapons and looking much like an Apache, but with several modifications. As they neared the chopper, it rose off the ground, skids twitching into the air, rotors at full speed and generating the thrust required to take off. Mai slung her rifle across her shoulder without slowing down and leapt at the rising skid, grabbing hold and twisting her body acrobatically through the air so that she landed on her feet, facing the still-open door of the cockpit.

  Alicia landed next to her a second later. Half a dozen shocked and terrified faces greeted them.

  “Flight’s over, boys.”

  Alicia shot a guard as he struggled to bring his rifle to bear in the small space. Mai drew her knife and leapt onto the lap of the nearest terrorist, burying the blade in his neck and scurrying across to the next. The chopper lost momentum as the pilot screamed for his life and leapt out of the far door, the machine plunging back down to earth with an almighty crash.

  Luckily, it had only had time to rise about ten feet in the air. Alicia leapt clear as it came down, rolling head over heels, then coming up with her rifle sighted on the fleeing pilot. One shot sent him spinning headfirst into a drainage ditch.

  Mai jumped from the cockpit a few seconds later. “Nice shot.”

  “Nice knifework. Now, shall we?”

  Their next target, a big black Sikorsky, was already twenty feet in the air and about to swoop into flight.

  Both Mai and Alicia lined up the rotors in their sights.

  *****

  Drake watched as Mai and Alicia played nice and took out the terrorists better than any team in the world. An escaping helicopter they targeted suddenly whirled and plummeted from the skies, crashing to the ground before a massive fireball consumed it. He had to wonder how the hell Mai did it. The Japanese agent was already back in the front line whilst he massaged his back and tried to ignore the tears and bruises that had been inflicted by the giant Belmonte had killed.

  Belmonte. The master thief had bowed out with honor and was now somewhere he preferred to be. Drake knew he would never know the full story behind Belmonte and Emma, but thought he owed it to the thief to at least try to find the girl’s father and explain. Without Belmonte’s expertise and funding, they would never have gotten this far.

  If he survived today.

  All around, choppers lifted off, four-wheel-drives, and faster, heavier vehicles slewed through the churned grass and blasted toward the road. Drake’s team fell to their knees, lining up targets and taking shots. Helicopters lurched a few feet and crash landed. Large Mercedes and Audis flipped onto their roofs or smashed into each other, occupants spilling out and holding wounds or shouting crazily. It was utter mayhem. A military truck bounced and jounced its way to the tarmac and began to pick up speed. In another moment, the loud hiss and searing passage of an RPG foretold the explosion that happened a split-second later. Mangled wreckage and burning rubber blocked the roadway.

>   With anxious eyes Drake searched among the choppers. It took seconds to spot the running band of terrorists trying to smuggle out the pieces. They were a large group, heading for one of the few military helicopters. He set off at a crazy sprint, signaling the others as best he could. To his right a small chopper roared as it lifted off, its occupants leaning out of the open door, screaming abuse as they loosed a few rounds at his feet. Drake didn’t break stride or fire back. The recovery of the pieces was everything now.

  With the SAS, Delta and ragtag teams made up of Dahl’s and Gates’s men covering and mopping up the rear guard, Drake’s principal team raced to intercept the eight pieces of Odin. This was it. The whole purpose of their crazy battles over the last few months. Save the artefacts, save the world.

  Hayden loped along as best she could, one hand pressed hard to her old wound. The other held a light machine pistol but, like Drake, she was doing her best to save ammo. Kinimaka jogged at her side, face dirty and bloody, hair plastered with sweat, but eyes as hard and determined as granite. They rushed past an empty chopper, and the Hawaiian tossed a grenade inside and yelled a warning to all. A fortified Range Rover roared ahead, its blacked-out windows hiding its occupants. Kinimaka paused to send a spray of bullets through its engine bay, only moving on when he saw the first lick of flame. The less transport these bastards had available, the less chance they had of leaving this place in one piece.

  Hayden met with Drake as they slowed, moving parallel to the fleeing terrorists along an avenue created by an assortment of trucks, four-wheel drives and choppers. She dared a glance behind toward the hill but saw no sign of Ben, his sister or Jonathan Gates.

  Eyes to the front she saw the terrorists had reached their transport and were loading Odin’s artifacts on board whilst others fanned out to create a protective perimeter.