SKELETON GOLD: Dark Tide (James Pace Book 4)

by Andy Lucas

  ‘We’ll be just outside. Miss Chambers will be along to see you soon. Make yourself at home.’

  This time, there was no delicious meal to greet him. The large, polished table was still there, as were the red leather chairs and the breathtaking views out to sea. He settled himself in a chair and waited, wondering idly where the coming meeting would go, and if he would get the chance to retrieve his gun and make good an escape.

  A few minutes later, soft footfalls outside announced the arrival of his host. Sure enough, Fiona appeared in the doorway, breezing into the room with her annoyingly superior air. Josephine Roche was not with her.

  ‘Am I not important enough to meet with the big boss this time?’ he quipped. ‘I’ve seen you enough to last a lifetime.’

  Fiona knew that Josephine was actually being transferred, by jeep, to hastily prepared, sand airfield where a private jet, was waiting to whisk her, and her pet surgeon, away to a secret recuperation clinic. She had only just come out of surgery and was still unconscious, as was Deborah Miles, who had been returned to her guest room. Within ten minutes, the plane would be in the air.

  The smash of her fist against Pace’s temple was jarring, sending an explosion of agony through his head and causing him to see stars for a moment. He had half expected her reaction and was braced but he was still shaken off his chair by the force of her punch, driven angrily by powerful arms and shoulder muscles.

  ‘Ms Roche is unavailable at the moment,’ she snarled, veins throbbing on her own temple. ‘She is fully aware of this breach of our security and is very sad that such a tragedy has taken place at her show-piece facility,’ she lied.

  ‘Tragedy?’ grinned Pace, fixing her with a murderous look. Common sense told him that the guards outside were just waiting for an excuse to batter him but anger was alight in his heart now, shifting to sheer rage within a heartbeat. ‘I forgot you like to kill people. You make me sick, do you know that? To my stomach,’ he added, inviting another blow.

  Predictable now that she was back in her own domain, with guards outside, Fiona stepped in and swung another powerful punch at his head, swinging down at her white-gowned prisoner, totally misreading the situation.

  If she’d been thinking straight, she would have had him tied up, or had the guards inside with her. But she was arrogant and over-confident in her own strength and power. Viewing him as seriously weakened, she completely overlooked how he had managed to overcome every obstacle, cheating death time and again. That did not happen by chance.

  What came next was a very painful realisation of this underestimation.

  The clenched fist was a couple of inches from connecting when Pace stood smartly up out of the chair, stepping sideways with the agility of a startled cat. Fiona still wore her superior expression as her fist flashed down into thin air, overbalancing her and forcing her to step forward on one foot.

  Exactly as Pace expected, he was now at the side of her and at a distinct advantage. Already overbalanced, he could have given her a soft shove and it would have been enough to send her crashing into the chair. Furious and committed to action now, he followed through ruthlessly, forcing an image of the murdered Scott Base scientist, Dr Hansol, into his mind.

  Despite days of trial and exhaustion, Pace had strength, fitness and determination on his side. His own fist flew out as accurately as if it was drawn to the back of her head by a magnet. Pouring every ounce of fury that he could muster into his punch, which was not difficult, the fist smacked home with a satisfying thump. Fiona crashed onto the chair, which upended and skittered across the room, leaving her heavy body to fall to the floor, immediately unconscious.

  Pace was across the room fast, moving behind the door so that it concealed him when the guards inevitably flung it open from the other side and rushed in to investigate the noise.

  But they didn’t. Over the pounding of his own blood, Pace actually caught the sound of laughter from the other side of the door, followed by a blur of faint conversation that he could not make out. More laughter followed.

  They had been expecting to hear the sounds of a beating, after all, and saw no need to interrupt Fiona’s handiwork. They weren’t even watching the security screens, so complete was their faith in her.

  Surprised that he did not immediately have to tangle with the guards, Pace allowed the ruse a little extra reality by faking a loud groan that he knew the guards would hear. Then he stole quietly back across to where Fiona was laid out on the floor and hoped she had not put away the snub-nosed nickel-plated .38 calibre revolver that she had pulled from her shoulder holster to shoot Hansol with.

  She was already flat on her face and a quick rummage under her clothing turned up the gun immediately, filling his hand with a reassuring presence. It was a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Special; a very simple, single action handgun. Popping out the chambers, he noted that she had not replaced the spent .38 cartridge yet; it was still chambered, alongside five live shells.

  ‘Two guards, five bullets,’ he smiled grimly. ‘I like those odds.’ Purposefully, he looked around with the cold eyes of the necessity killer; the soldier.

  A couple of soft armchairs added decoration to the far corners of the conference room, near to the wide window. Each had a large, soft pillow sitting on it, in multiple stripes of red and green.

  Pace grabbed one and held it up in front of the gun. It would not work as well as a silencer but it would definitely dull the sound of the shots that were about to be fired.

  Striding across to the door, sucking in a calming breath as he did so, Pace pushed himself back into the same survival mode that had kept him alive in his darkest moments in the jungle, a few months before. Not giving himself time to think, he reached out a hand and jerked the door open, throwing the pillow back up in front of the gun in time to see the two guards turn to look at him from their posts; one either side of the doorway.

  Surprised, stupid expressions were quickly replaced by glazing eyes of the dead as Pace squeezed his trigger four times, pumping two bullets into each guard, the powerful shells throwing them backwards against the far walls of the corridor; each man sliding into an ugly jumble and leaving a vile, red streak down the wall.

  The shots seemed loud to Pace so he wasted no time dragging the bodies into the room and relieving each corpse of its handgun. With two Glock G30S automatic pistols, each loaded with a ten round magazine of .45 calibre bullets, he felt ready to take on the world. The guards did not seem to carry additional clips but he did not want to spend too long looking. He needed to get away fast.

  Pushing aside the faint desire to finish Fiona off with the last bullet from her own gun, he tossed it across the room before trotting out into the corridor, holding a Glock in each hand, heading for the elevator.

  ‘Now what are you going to do?’ he wondered to himself as the doors slid open obediently and he stepped inside. His skimpy attire decided for him and he pushed the button that took him quickly down to the floor where his cell had been very briefly located. Finding the passageways empty, he easily traced his steps back to the room, where he ditched the gown and put his own filthy clothes back on.

  Ignoring the smell, he still felt a lot more ready to run the gauntlet of guards now that he was dressed in normal clothing. Despite the heat that he knew would face, if he ever managed to get out of the building alive, he then put on his survival suit again, zipping all the stink back up inside. It also meant that the old Webley was coming with him. Checking that the safety catches were off his pistols, he returned to the elevator and punched the underground level. Maybe it would be poorly guarded, he hoped? It hummed into action and stopped smoothly at the destination floor a few seconds later, with a very gentle shudder.

  The doors slid open and Pace stepped out, guns ready. His eyes drank in the surroundings within a split second and his fingers twitched on the triggers, sending bullets scorching through the air at the same time that he was throwing himself bodily to the ground.

  Maybe this flo
or had not been such a great idea, after all?

  28

  ‘So where the hell is he?’ It was a simple question but nobody around the table had any answers.

  Doyle McEntire was seated around a weathered, wooden table, in an old RAF hut that he had managed to scrounge up from the military masters on the Falklands. Isolated, high on a wind-swept bluff, north of Port Stanley, he was not the only occupant.

  Baker, Hammond, Thatcher and Stacey were all seated around the old table, sipping at fresh coffee, while a heavy rain drummed angrily at the window panes all around them. The daylight was so gloomy that the internal lights were on, which did not help much to lift the mood.

  ‘He is probably dead, I’m very sorry to say,’ stated Baker flatly, his heart heavy at having to articulate the most likely outcome. ‘We found no trace of his body in the surrounding sea but he could easily have been washed out, or even dragged beneath one of the large ice floes. Likelihood is that we will never retrieve his body.’

  McEntire had been around death, especially the death involved with running Britain’s most secret service, all of his adult life. He had seen far too many brave, wonderful souls sent to an early grave in the name of protecting the national interest. He nodded gravely. ‘I agree. James was a tenacious operator. If he had somehow survived the ice break up, we would have found him by now.’

  ‘Isn’t there still a chance that he managed to get aboard that plane?’ asked Stacey, not prepared to give up on such an amazing man so fast. ‘That’s obviously where he was trying to get to.’

  ‘I agree that there is still a possibility,’ said Hammond. ‘Believe me, I want nothing more than to believe that my friend is still alive out there somewhere but I don’t see how it can be. How can he have got aboard, and why haven’t we heard about it?’

  ‘ARC would not want to publicise his involvement, not if they have captured him,’ argued Stacey, her cheeks flushing as she hoped nobody around the table would see her passion as anything more than a desire to find the truth. ‘He could still be alive.’

  The other faces around the table dropped, unwilling to feed her any false hope.

  ‘Okay, so we don’t give up on him yet,’ agreed McEntire. ‘My dear, I will do everything I can to find him. If ARC has him, we will find him.’

  ‘What are your orders?’ asked Baker, sensing that McEntire was simply appeasing the young scientist.

  ‘Get some satellites re-tasked to the ARC facility,’ McEntire said. ‘We know the plane was tracked back to their base on the Skeleton Coast. On the off chance that James managed to get on board that aircraft, let’s see if we can find any sign of him.’

  ‘With respect, sir, telephone and radio traffic is being monitored and we have heard nothing to indicate that James is there.’

  ‘Then look again,’ snapped Hammond tiredly. He agreed that it was a long shot but Baker’s reluctance to try immediately irritated him. ‘We owe him that much, even if it is more likely that he is stuck somewhere beneath the ice sheet.’

  Baker nodded. ‘I am just trying to be realistic, Max. I don’t mean to offend anyone. I want James to be found alive as much as anyone. He is an asset that we can ill afford to lose.’

  ‘Asset?’ asked Stacey incredulously. ‘Are you for real?’

  ‘Maybe I should just go and re-task those satellites,’ Baker decided, withdrawing graciously before he upset anyone else. As an experienced, some would say grizzled, ex-SAS operative, he did not like to waste time pretending that lost men would somehow turn up miraculously alive. As the head of McEntire’s vast security operation, he personally took part in operations when most men in his position would sit back and let others risk the bullets and blades. He had nothing to apologise for.

  Just before he left the room, Baker paused and turned back to the table. ‘Just so you all know. If there is even the hint that James is in the hands of ARC, I will personally lead the rescue team.’ He added vehemently. ‘If he is alive, I will get him back but I think we all need to be realistic, sorry.’

  Then he was gone, out into the wind and rain, leaving the table in an even more sombre, subdued humour.

  ‘Have you spoken with your daughter yet?’ Hammond asked. ‘She’ll need to know.’

  Stacey’s ears pricked up. Why would his daughter need to know? Pointless jealously flared inside her breast for a man she wanted but was probably already long dead.

  ‘Yes,’ said McEntire. ‘She took Charlene away from the habitat, in complete defiance of my instructions,’ he explained further. ‘A team had to knock off a tail and then keep an eye on them. They ended up at Charlene’s old family home in Bournemouth.’

  ‘What is there that would make her take such a risk?’ wondered Hammond. ‘She must think it’s important.’

  ‘Whatever it is, my daughter ended up ringing me, saying something about some important letters they had found. That are somehow linked to Scorpion. The team went in and picked them up. They were driven back to London a few hours ago, so at least I know they’re safe.’ He was growing very tired and a niggling pain in his chest had been troubling him more every minute since he’d stepped off his Falcon jet in these damp, damnably chilly islands. Despite having an annual physical, he sensed that something was wrong but knew it was not something he could give any time to until this whole saga was finished.

  ‘I think we could all do with getting home,’ suggested Hammond brightly. ‘Is the plane ready?’

  ‘Of course,’ McEntire said. ‘The pilot is ready to go whenever we want to go.’

  ‘Can I suggest we go straight to the airfield? We can still chew over these issues in the air and I, for one, would prefer to be back in London where we have direct access to all out assets, and technology. Satellite uplinks and phones are fine,’ he smiled, ‘but they don’t match the capabilities we have back at base.’

  McEntire saw the sense in the argument; in fact it mirrored his own thoughts. They had taken a comfortable suite at a local inn but the thought of being back in his huge London office, directing events from the McEntire HQ, was very appealing. And, when Sarah was ready to speak to him again, at least they would be in the same country.

  After the decision was made, events moved swiftly. Barely twenty minutes later, McEntire, Hammond and their two New Zealand guests were safely aboard the leather-trimmed luxury of Doyle McEntire’s personal Falcon jet. His two pilots; Ramsey and Norton, on permanent loan from the RAF, whipped the powerful jet up into a squally sky but soon broke in a cloudless blue vista as they rose to a cruising altitude of forty thousand feet. Baker was also aboard, choosing to sit up front with the pilots.

  Without drawing attention to himself, McEntire had taken a couple of strong painkillers which had eased the discomfort in his shoulder. The twinges in his chest remained present but were also greatly eased. Pushing aside his condition, he settled himself deeper into his grey leather sleeper seat.

  It was a long flight and very soon Thatcher and Stacey were also fast asleep in their own chairs, leaving Hammond alone in the luxurious, leather and walnut-panelled cabin.

  Baker joined him a short time later, carrying two mugs of fresh coffee and an interesting brown paper bag, clearly marked with some grease spots from whatever goodies lay inside.

  Dropping down into a spare seat next to him, Baker handed him a drink and then opened the bag, pulling out a couple of delicious, sugared jam doughnuts that he had bought from the local bakery before they’d boarded.

  ‘Now that looks good,’ Hammond smiled, swallowing some coffee and happily taking a big bite out of the doughnut. Jam oozed inside his mouth and the crunchiness of the sugar coating lifted his flagging spirits.

  ‘Everything is sorted,’ Baker said. ‘If James is at the ARC facility, maybe we’ll get a clue. The satellites will be relaying in real time and I’ve managed to get our newest spy satellite on the case too. We can zoom right in if there is anything of interest.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Hammond, munching the
last bite of his sweet treat. ‘I’d love to find him alive as much as you,’ he added. ‘It seems hardly possible that he hasn’t even been working with us for a year yet. It seems like he’s always been around.’

  ‘Useful people have a way of doing that,’ said Baker.

  ‘Yes. He is one of the good ones.’ Hammond deliberately used the present tense.

  The two men sat, drinking their coffee together as they waited for news. Baker flicked on his tablet computer, not rushing, and tapped in the security code that would patch him through to the two satellites that he had sent on the job.

  He connected with no problem to the first one, which was the new satellite, but he was unable to link with the other one. Some kind of problem with the signal prevented him from joining with the second satellite. Not that it mattered because the high resolution image that flickered into focus had both of them sitting bolt upright in their chairs, stunned and thrilled simultaneously.

  ‘Wake up Doyle,’ directed Hammond, amazed at the images. ‘He needs to see this.’

  29

  Pace was amazed that he was still breathing, and without any holes in him. He had stepped out of the elevator and walked straight in to a large group of guards engaged in some bawdy banter as they prepared to change shifts over. At least three of the fifteen in the group spotted Pace immediately, shouting out a warning to their colleagues as they hurriedly brought their automatic rifles to bear on him.

  Hitting the deck and rolling, firing as he dropped, Pace saw a couple of the guards twitch as his heavy bullets slammed home but then a hail of lethal fire was all around him as he came up on to his legs in a fluid movement and raced blindly across the underground car park that he found himself in, dodging nimbly between several parked jeeps.

  The guards overcame their shock and rallied quickly, organising a sweeping movement in an attempt to drive Pace across towards the far wall. All professionals; most ex-military or police, they stayed low and stopped shooting wildly. Purposefully, they hunted their target.