by Rob Jones
Scarlet leaned in. “A letter?”
“Nothing wrong with your hearing, that’s for sure,” Kim said.
Lea pulled a cream envelope out of the pile of Maggie’s knick knacks and stared at it for a few moments. “It’s addressed to me – look.”
She held the envelope up and written on the front in blue ink were the words: For Lea Donovan.
Now Ryan leaned in for a closer look. “Are you sure? The handwriting is so weak and trembly I can hardly read it.”
“It says her name clear enough,” Hawke said. He was looking at her now, and she saw a flash of uncertainty in his eyes.
“So get the thing open!” Lexi said. “The letter inside that envelope could tell us where the Mona Lisa is!”
“Sorry, but am I missing something here?” Kim asked. “I thought the Mona Lisa was in the Louvre.”
“It is in the Louvre,” Lea said. “This is Lexi’s way of trying to be funny.”
“But you know what I mean, right guys?” Lexi protested. “The contents of that letter could be truly mind-blowing. She had one of the idols!”
“Remember, these people are Lea’s family, Lexi,” Hawke said. “This isn’t just another treasure hunt, all right?”
“It’s fine, Joe,” Lea said, stuffing the cream envelope inside her jacket pocket. “I’ll read it later. I need time to process this.” She pointed at the idol. “And the truth is I’m terrified about what might be in the letter.”
“Whatever’s going on, we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Hawke said. “Did you speak with Lund about finding out who was behind the Boston raid?”
She nodded. “He’s looking into it.” Her phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket to see a short text message.
“Who is it?” Hawke said. “Lund?”
“No. It’s Danny. Danny Devlin.”
“Ah.” He knew who Devlin was. He had heard plenty of good and bad stories about him – the good ones mostly from Lea and the bad ones from Richard Eden. Lea had contacted him when they found out Camacho was unavailable for the mission with the hope he could provide another pair of hands. “What does he say?”
Ryan smirked. “He says that if the guy he’s replacing has got third degree carpet burns on his arse he’s not teaming up with Cairo Sloane under any circumstances.”
“Stop talking bullshit,” Scarlet said. “They weren’t on his arse.”
“I don’t even want to think about that,” Kim said.
Lea sighed. “He says he’s ready to go as soon as we pick him up.”
“And where is he?”
“Flynn’s on Harry Street.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Scarlet said.
CHAPTER NINE
Flynn’s Bar on Harry Street was in a shroud of drizzle, and the intricate graphics on its front window shone in the lights of their hired Ford Explorer as Hawke parked up outside. When Lea emerged from the SUV she pulled up her jacket collars and tried to keep the Irish weather at bay.
“Good job Camacho isn’t here,” Scarlet said. “He hates shitty weather like this.”
“Why isn’t he here again?” Ryan said as he pushed inside the pub. “Something about a serious penile fracture sustained in an attempt to reproduce the Kama Sutra’s notoriously demanding Overpass position?”
Scarlet stared at him. “To say I worry about you would suggest I give a damn, but let’s just say I have my concerns.”
“We all have our concerns about him,” Lea said, turning to Ryan. “And where was the friggin’ Kama Sutra when we were married, you big gobdaw?”
“Still can’t believe you two were married,” Kim said. “Talk about opposites attracting.”
“We don't like to talk about it,” Lea said. She glared at her ex-husband. “Do we, Ry?”
“No,” he said meekishly. “Apparently not.”
The chit-chat was interrupted by the booming voice of Danny Devlin as he crossed over from the bar to the door. “Well, if it isn’t Lea Donovan!” He gave her a squeeze and kissed her on the cheek. Taking a step back he looked at the rest of the team. “And this time she’s brought the cavalry! So this is the famous ECHO team?”
“It is, Danny,” Lea said.
“And you’re the famous Josiah Hawke?”
Hawke saw a flash of concern in Lea’s eyes at the use of his full name, but he didn’t mind, and fixed Devlin in the eye as he shook his hand. He was a few years older than the Englishman, and looked slightly the worse for wear. Lea had told him that her former Commandant liked a few drinks and a good time and it looked like it, but the hand grip was strong. Devlin wanted to show him he was no pushover, and both men knew a handshake like a wet fish would certainly give that impression.
“Lea’s told me a lot about you,” Hawke said.
“Not all bad, I hope.”
“No,” Hawke said, ending the world’s most awkward handshake. “Not all.”
“So, a former Royal Marines Commando, huh?” Devlin said. “The real thing or a rubber dagger?”
“Rubber what?” Ryan said.
“Reserve commando,” Hawke said, turning from the young man to Devlin. “I was in the regulars.”
“I heard that because a woman passed the All Arms Commando Course the Paras started calling you guys the Royal Maureens.”
Hawke paused a beat before replying, not sure how Lea expected him to behave around her old boss and former lover. “Not to my face they haven’t.”
“And after that he was in the SBS,” Lea said.
Hawke sighed inwardly. He could see what she was doing, but he hated it when people made a big show of his Special Forces background.
“Was that you guys who raided the Iranian Embassy?” Devlin said with a devilish grin on his face.
“You know damn well it was the SAS, Danny,” Lea said. “Stop being a fool.”
“It was the SAS,” Hawke said. “Tell me, when was the last time you guys got a mission in the Irish Rangers? Wasn’t it when a cat got stuck up a tree in Cork?”
Devlin’s grin grew wider and he nodded his head. “This man of yours isn’t just an ugly face, Lea!”
She slapped his shoulder. “I told you that!”
Hawke wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or not, and didn’t have time to consider it, either. He knew Lea and Danny Devlin were old friends but he could already see they had their own little dynamic going on. Truth was, he wasn’t sure where to file Danny Devlin, but Lea said he was a good man and he knew he’d helped save her life in Ireland. He respected Lea, and so he decided to give Devlin the benefit of the doubt.
Lexi stepped up and jabbed Devlin in the chest with her forefinger. “And what the hell,” she said, “is wrong with a woman passing the commando course?”
Devlin looked surprised but then laughed. “Nothing at all.”
“Good. I could pass it with you on my back, Mr Devlin,” she said.
“From what I heard,” Hawke said, “the only woman to pass the AACC did it in different sessions, not in one go.”
“Don’t you start,” Lexi said, putting her hands on her hips. “Have I got to do this damned course carrying both of you on my back?”
They laughed and it was over, but then Devlin said, “No woman ever passed P Company.”
Hawke’s patience was wearing thin. Devlin was an army man and knew the rivalary between the Paras and the Marines. He was deliberately trying to get a rise out of him but he wasn’t going to let it happen.
“We need drinks,” Scarlet said. “And then we talk business.”
Devlin introduced them to Jake O’Hara, the publican. “Finally got the place fixed up,” Jake said, polishing a pint glass. He looked briefly at Devlin and then back to Lea. “The last time you came in here I ended up spending thousands of euros getting the place back together. I hope nothing like that’s gonna happen again?”
“Don’t be silly,” Lea said. “What do you think – that I spend my whole life getting shot at?”
Haw
ke and the rest of the team produced a fake laugh and Jake put the pint glass under the Guinness tap.
“Good,” Jake said as the glass slowly filled up. He pushed it over to Devlin who paid for it and they all walked back over to a table in the corner.
“So what’s this all about?” the Irishman said. He glanced at each of them in turn before his eyes settled on his former lover. “I don’t hear from you for months and then you send a text saying you need me.”
“We’re a man down,” Hawke said.
“Dead?” Devlin asked.
“Worse,” said Ryan, pausing a beat for effect. “He’s in traction after a debauched weekend in Vegas with Cairo.”
Scarlet’s elbow swiftly connected with the young man’s ribs and he spat out a mouthful of Guinness in response. “He’s engaged on a CIA mission,” she said over the top of his gasps.
“And since we were in Ireland,” Lea said. “I thought – why not?”
“I did save your backside when those French nutjobs came over to trash your father’s cottage. Anyway – you look prettier than ever,” he said. “You’re a lucky man, Joe Hawke.”
Before he could reply, Devlin said, “So, is anyone going to tell me what’s going on or not?”
Lea said, “I came here to collect some things from a relative of mine who I never even knew existed. Judging from the pictures we found in her box I guess she was a great aunt or something. We also found some other things.”
Lea pulled the canvas bag off her shoulder and opened the top a few inches to reveal the section of the mansucript they had saved and the golden idol. “And yes, before you ask – it’s real gold.”
“Jesus! That thing must be worth a bomb!”
“Keep your voice down,” Hawke said firmly.
“It’s priceless,” Ryan said. “And its value is not in the gold. We don’t know what the deal with these idols is yet, but that’s where the real fireworks are – not a few thousand quid in gold.”
Devlin reached in to touch the idol but Lea pulled the bag shut and shouldered it once more. It felt safe there, on her back – somewhere it would stay safe if she ever had to run for her life. “We also found a manuscript that might help us, but some of it was stolen in a raid in Boston.”
“And we need the whole thing to make sense of it,” Ryan said. “The section we have only has a few references to a god called Arianrhod, which is great as far it goes, but it’s incomplete.”
Devlin took a sip of his beer. “So that means the bastards that took the rest of the thing in the raid need this one, right?”
“Correct,” Ryan said.
“Has this got something to do with your father’s research?” Devlin asked.
Lea was silent for a moment. She wasn’t sure how to answer the question, but then she decided on pure, old-fashioned honesty. “It just has to be connected, Danny. Especially now this whole thing with Maggie has come up.”
“So what’s our next move?” Devlin said.
“We have another idol,” Scarlet said. “But we need to get the manuscript back. Ryan’s convinced it holds more answers to this whole nightmare, and there’s a reason why those guys went to such an effort to get hold of it.”
“And where is this manuscript?”
Lea said, “On the way to meet you, Danny, I talked to a man who works with Richard Eden. His name’s Lund. He told me the men who stole the manuscript and slipped away into the Boston fog eventually ended up in a private airfield north of Salem. They took off in a Citation aimed for Naples.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Devlin said, slurping the last of his pint down. “Let’s get moving! You’ve got wheels, I take it?”
“We do,” Hawke said, “but there’s a problem. We’re in an Explorer – a six seater. Now you’re with us we’re seven.”
“So we get a cab and meet at the airport.” Devlin said.
When the cab arrived, Lea decided to keep Devlin company and ride with him while the rest of the team took the Ford, and they pulled away into the Irish rain on their way to the airport.
She sat in the back and closed her eyes as Devlin and the driver shared the usual smalltalk. In the background, behind their voices, she could hear the wipers beating slowly against the rain. It was nice to be home – to hear the familiar accent and listen to the rain. It never rained enough on Elysium.
She opened her eyes and watched the brake lights of the Explorer in front through the rain as they approached some traffic lights. She saw the lights flick to red but Scarlet piled through all the same. The cab driver tutted and moaned about dangerous driving and pulled up safely behind the line.
“It’s tossers like that who cause pile-ups,” he said with a shake of his head.
Lea made a mental note to pass his views along to the former SAS officer when they were safely on board the Gulfstream.
The lights changed and they pulled over the line, and then it hit them. Hard.
A Range Rover had been parked up on the road to their right and when the lights changed it swerved forward and piled into the cab, crushing the right side and killing the cab driver instantly in a storm of crumpled door panels and shattered safety glass.
Lea screamed.
Devlin turned his head and cradled it in his arms to protect himself from the flying glass. “What the fuck?” the Irishman yelled. “He must be more pissed than I am!”
“It’s not that Danny... we’re under attack!”
Looking ahead, the Explorer and her friends were long gone, and there was no time to call them on her phone: armed men were already piling out of the Range Rover and forcing the cab’s doors open.
Lea struggled to pop her belt open and reached out for her bag. She knew what they wanted – the other section to the manuscript, and now they were going to get Maggie’s idol as well.
One of the men wrenched open Devlin’s door and the Irishman twisted around to get a punch in but his movement was restricted by the dead taxi driver now slumped over the handbrake.
“Shit!” Lea said, freeing herself from the seatbelt at last and trying to shift forward in her seat to help her old friend. “Danny, look out!”
Devlin turned but the other man landed the first blow. He knocked him out with a clean, hard punch, but Lea had no time to feel concern: someone was opening her door and pulling her out of the car.
She fought against it but then her masked assailant pointed the barrel of a gun in her face and hushed her with his finger. “Into the Range Rover. Don’t make me kill you – and bring your bag, please.”
“You son of a bitch!” Lea said. “You killed this cab driver and knocked out my friend!”
The man ignored her and shouted a string of commands in Italian to the other men who were standing around in the rain. Somewhere in the distance she heard the sound of sirens. The Garda were on their way to attend the carnage, but she knew they would be long gone by the time they arrived.
“Why are you doing this?”
The man pulled the hammer back on the pistol and stared at her with the cold, dead eyes of a professional killer. “Because I am paid to do it. Now get into the Range Rover. You have a meeting with a very important man and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
CHAPTER TEN
Isola Pacifica
Hidden from public view in a deep cove on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, the Isola Pacifica sparkled like an emerald in the bright blue water. Here in this paradise anyone with five million dollars could buy their very own private island, but the Isola Pacifica was definitely not on the market. Men like Giancarlo Zito didn’t trade on the open market.
“Did you know,” Zito told the man cowering before him, “that the roman writer Lucius describes how a favorite torture method of those glorious days involved sewing people inside dead donkeys, with only their heads remaining outside the animal? The whole sorry business was dragged into the hot sun and left their until the maggots inside the donkey finally dispatched the victim.”
“Please... Signo
r Zito!” Stefano Marchesi was panting with fear.
“This pleases me, but of course where am I going to find a donkey on this island?”
“I only took a few grams, signore! I will pay it back in full!”
“Another method involved nothing more than a cauldron and a simple fire. The torturer would drop some rats inside the cauldron, strap the open end of the cauldron to the victim’s stomach and then light a fire at the closed end. As the cauldron got hotter and hotter, the rats were driven by instinct to survive and that meant getting away from the rising heat. Naturally the rats were unable to gnaw and claw their way through the metal cauldron so they dug their way out through the victim’s stomach. His flesh was so much easier to gnaw away and claw through than the metal.”
“I needed the money for my son’s medical treatment, Signor Zito! It was nothing to you! Nothing... just a few thousand euros. You’ll have the money by sunset, I swear, signore.”
Zito tapped his fingers on the tabletop and then rose to his feet as he took in the view across the Tyrrhenian Sea. He breathed in the salt air deeply and exhaled with a satisfied sigh. “I do not think we have a cauldron on the island either, and certainly if I found rats on the island I would shoot the man responsible for allowing them to breed here – such filthy creatures. Just like heroin thieves.”
“I’m not a thief, sir. I was desperate.”
“The ancient Greeks used the wonderful Brazen Bull – a simple bronze bull with a hollow interior in which was placed the victim.” Here, Zito paused to pull a cigarette from a solid gold case and light it up. He exhaled the smoke and flicked some ash over the side of the balcony. “They lit a fire under the bull and cooked the victim. Do you know why they shaped the vessel like a bull, Stefano?”
“No...” Stefano sobbed. “I do not.”
“Because when the men inside screamed for their lives, the acoustics of the bronze vessel made their screams sound like the bellowing of a terrified bull. The victim inside was roasted until he, or she, was dead. We have such a bull here on the island, but it is so messy. Don’t you think the ancients were so much more inventive when it comes to methods of torture and execution?”
