by Rob Jones
Medinsky laughed. It sounded like someone unblocking a drain. “Very well. You were a soldier once, like me.” He raised a trembling bloody hand. “Shake on it.”
Hunter shook his hand. “Who are they?”
“The Brotherhood of the Falling Star.”
Hunter frowned. “Never heard of them.”
“I would think not. They are extremely secretive.”
“Then how do you know about them?”
Another gravelly laugh. “My commanding officer, Colonel Neverov. He has spent thirty years in search of what you seek. On that long, winding road, he has crossed paths with the Brotherhood many times. He was surprised it took them so long to react to the threat this time.”
“The threat?”
“We are the threat, Hunter, at least to the Brotherhood. What you and I seek so badly, they already possess and they are determined to stop us, or anyone else, from getting our hands on it.”
“On what?” Hunter asked. “What is it they’re hiding from the world?”
“First, you should know they have rigged this whole cave to blow up. We found explosives all over the place. They’re connected to a tamper-proof timer via a wifi link.”
Hunter wiped sweat from his eyes. “I guess I owe you for that.”
“No, you tried to save my life. Now we are even.”
“Now, tell me what this Brotherhood are so desperate to hide from the world.”
But Medinsky was dead. His blank, glazed eyes turned upward and rolled back into his head and Hunter knew it was over. “Damn it.”
Lowering his body to the ground, he relieved the dead Russian of all his ammo and weapons and then saw Lewis sprinting across the cave toward him. He weaved in and out of the stalagmites with the speed and agility of a gazelle and then threw himself down behind the boulder next to Hunter.
“All good, Max?”
“Not really,” he said.
Lewis glanced down at Medinsky. “You kill the bastard?”
“No, I did not. We have a sniper.” Another shot rang out. “He’s been keeping me pinned down in this position for a while because I ran out of lead. I only just got re-armed.” He waved the Russian’s Makarov in the air.
“Good work.”
Lewis ducked down lower under the boulder as another man opened fire on him with a carbine. Bullets ripped out of the muzzle and its flashes strobed the cave’s gloomy darkness. Calm and measured, the former marine took it in his stride, easily reloading his pistol and wiping the dust from his eyes.
Tracked by the sniper, the two men crawled out of the line of fire and bunched up in the shadows behind one of the pillars. Safely out of danger, he returned fire on the Russians. There seemed to be even more of them now than when he had counted them earlier on, but this time they were following the lead of Neverov and firing in controlled bursts instead of raking rounds everywhere. And since the other team turned up, they were now fighting on two fronts.
“Where is everyone?’ Hunter said.
“Don’t know. I lost Amy and Sal ages ago but I think Quinn is with them. She came around.”
“And Jodie?”
Lewis pointed to their left. “Check it out.”
He turned and saw Jodie was fighting with one of the tattooed men. Raising his gun, he moved to fire but Lewis stopped him. “She can handle it, Hunter. Besides, they’re too close. You could hit her. Look – Sal’s closer and he’s already on his way!”
“But…”
“We move again and the sniper gets us. We have our job to do, let them do theirs, Max.”
Jodie struck the man away with a roundhouse kick and sent him tumbling down into the dirt, but he sprung back up onto his feet like a panther. Reaching for his belt, Hunter saw a flashlight glint on the polished ivory handle of a Damascus pocket knife which the man now grabbed and threw at Jodie.
She had already seen it and leaped into the air, cresting the flying blade. She watched below her as it flew through the air and smacked against the rockface. The man attacked again, and she lifted her right leg and kicked out, swirling in the glowstick-lit dust and knocking him over into the dirt.
Blanco reached her now and saw she was okay. Sensing movement behind her old friend, Jodie cried out and he turned to see a man climbing up the rocks behind them. He was trying to get up on the ledge. Was it a Russian or one of the tattooed men? He couldn’t be sure in the darkness but it didn’t matter. He raised his gun and levelled it at the man, squeezing the trigger gently and barely moving the weapon’s barrel a millimeter as he buried a round in his back. He fell in grim silence and hit the cave floor with a meaty squelch.
“They usually make more noise than that,” Jodie said.
Blanco turned serious eyes on her. “Not when I shoot them, they don’t. Let’s get moving.”
The team gathered together again behind one of the columns. Amy was in shock. “What the hell is going on here?”
“It was a trap!” Hunter called out. “An ambush! The Brotherhood got here first and rigged the entire place to explode. It’s supposed to kill Neverov and the Wolf Pack and us, too.”
“The who got here first?” Amy asked.
“They’re called the Brotherhood of the Falling Star,” Hunter said. “And before he died, Medinsky told me they already possess what we’re trying to find.”
“Which explains why Neverov has taken after them in such a hurry,” Amy said. “They’re all leaving the cave!”
“Brotherhood of the Falling Star,” Quinn said. “Finally something that sounds both mysterious and dangerous in equal measure.”
Amy said, “You said they rigged this place to explode. Can we defuse the timer?”
“Medinsky said it’s tamper-proof.”
“It is,” Blanco said. “It’s over here on these rocks. “I could do it if I had more time, but not in thirty seconds and with no proper equipment. Eight minutes to blast off, by the way.”
“Does that answer your question?” Hunter asked Amy.
“Yes,” Amy said. “Which means we need to get out of here right now!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
They climbed up the rope and navigated their way through the rift cave as fast as they could, aware of every second ticking away. They were halfway along the first tunnel when the explosives detonated. The blast was savage. A blinding white flash was followed by a deep bass thump and then they all heard Blanco calling out from the back of the tunnel. “Cloud of dust and smoke racing up behind us!”
“Then keep going!” Amy yelled.
They scrambled out of the tunnel, reaching the chapel just before the smoke and dust overtook them and spewed out into the hot day. Throwing themselves to the hard, rocky ground, the team members rolled down the slope as the smoke and detritus from the cave blasted out into the sky and then rained down on them like ash.
Hunter clawed at the scree and brought himself to a stop. Around him, the rest of the team did the same. When they were all still and getting their breath back, Blanco called out in the dusty air. “Neverov! He’s getting away!”
“Where?” Amy asked.
“Over to the southeast,” he called back, coughing and wiping soot and filth from his face.
“I see them, too,” said Hunter. “Looks like five of them – Gubenko and Lugovoy and a couple Spetsnaz guys, I guess. Medinsky is dead. I watched him die.”
“They’re going after the Brotherhood,” Amy said. “And so should we.”
They got to their feet and gave chase, but halfway along the path the Russians moved out of sight. Seconds later, a chopper rose into the air, turned and flew quickly away from them toward the bay. When they arrived on the cliffs and looked down they saw the biggest superyacht any of them had ever seen. Written on its stern, one single word gave them the magnificent vessel’s name.
Tiamat.
“What’s Tiamat?” Jodie asked.
“Babylonian primordial goddess of the sea,” said Hunter.
“That clears that up.”<
br />
The superyacht was at least one hundred and fifty meters in length with a twenty meter beam, a swimming pool and two helipads. On each one, a helicopter with blades still whirring from having recently landed. One of them was Neverov’s.
“The Brotherhood must have flown back to the yacht after snatching the statue,” Amy said, desperately watching the Tiamat. It was berthed in the turquoise water between Petra Beach and Tragonisi Island and thanks to their elevation, Hunter had a clear view of the entire top deck. Hell was being unleashed all over it as Neverov’s men poured out of the helicopter and attacked in pursuit of the statue the Brotherhood had removed from the altar.
“What’s going on?” Amy asked.
“Looks bad,” Hunter said. “They’re at each other’s throats.”
Blanco peered down at the chaos, his calloused hands gripping the rocks in front of them at the edge of the cliff. “This Brotherhood must want to keep John’s codex hidden away pretty damn bad.”
“Not as bad as we want it,” Lewis said.
“And we can’t let either of them get their hands on it,” Amy said. “We all heard Jim’s briefing about Neverov and his men. They’re dangerous.”
“And the Brotherhood don’t seem too touchy feely, either,” Jodie said.
“But they seem pretty rich,” added Quinn. “Check that yacht out.”
Amy agreed. “A vessel like that has to be funded by serious capital, even if it’s just hired.”
“How much do they cost to hire?” Lewis asked.
“A million bucks a week, minimum.”
Hunter looked at her. “Who knows that?”
“Blue bloods,” Quinn said. “That’s who.”
Amy sighed. “It’s just a case of being informed and briefed, Quinn. You might not have worked it out, but I spend my life dealing with smugglers. I know a thing or two about superyachts.”
Quinn shrugged. “Meh.”
Jodie looked at the young goth. “Maybe instead of being such an asshole you could use your little laptop and find out where it’s registered? That way we can be sure who owns it.”
“Could be tricky.”
“You mean you might get confused by all the other five hundred million dollar superyachts called the Tiamat out there?”
“Funny, but not funny,” Quinn said. “I meant whoever registered that yacht might..,” she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “just might not have used their real name.”
“Whoever owns it, we have to get on that yacht and find the statue before Neverov,” said Hunter. “And I think we can use their firefight to our advantage.”
“Agreed,” Blanco said, pushing himself off the rocks and dusting his hands off. “Those guys busy shooting the crap out of each other is the perfect distraction. We can get in there, grab the statue and be on our way before they know what’s happened.”
“Risky,” Amy said. “There’s a lot of guns down there. I don’t like it. I see a lot of different ways one of my team ends up taking a bullet. It’s a big risk.”
“That’s kind of what we do,” Blanco said. “At least, it is these days.”
“So how do we get on board?” Quinn asked. “It has some helipads.”
“Except we don’t have a helicopter,” Lewis said.
“So how the hell are we going to get over there?” Jodie asked.
“Not swim,” Quinn said. “No way is anyone getting me in that water.”
Hunter turned back to the yacht. Bobbing about at its starboard stern was an old, battered twin-engine cruiser lashed to the support gantry of the Tiamat’s davit crane. He guessed that Neverov and his unit had arrived on Patmos in a Sikorsky helicopter – the same Sikorsky that was now idling on the rear helipad. He guessed he had split his team into two sub-units, with one landing on the deck in the chopper while the other stole the boat from one of the many moored up in Grikos Bay so they could attack the Brotherhood on two fronts.
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Amy glanced at him, bright sunlight brushing her cheek. “What are you trying to say?”
“Take a look at the rear of the yacht. No way does a ship like the Tiamat have a heap like that cruiser as its tender. Some of our Russian friends must have stolen it from the bay and sailed it out there. Maybe even while the Brotherhood were still in the cave.”
“A pincer movement?” Lewis said. “I like it.”
“And surely think we’re dead after what happened back in the Cave of the Apocalypse,” Quinn said. “That gives us another advantage.”
Hunter surveyed the mayhem unfolding on the Tiamat’s top deck one more time. Because of their distance from the yacht, it was hard to distinguish one side from the other, plus they were all wearing similar black fatigues. Going from the position on the deck, he figured out where Neverov’s two units were and watched as they engaged in more ferocious firefights.
The party who had boarded via the cruiser were fighting their way along the quarterdeck. Those who had landed in the Sikorsky were engaging in a skirmish on the sundeck. It looked like Neverov’s strategy was to divide the Brotherhood’s forces in two and then create a distraction with one unit while getting the other inside the vessel to retrieve the statue. Submachine gunfire crackled in the hot day. Men screamed and yelled orders as they jostled for the superior position.
“So when do we go?” Jodie asked.
Blanco checked his gun. “There is no time like the present, friends.”
“C’mon,” Hunter said. “We’re wasting time. Anyone like a ride in a nice fishing boat?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The crossing was smooth and thanks to Blanco’s careful navigation and the firefight up on the bow deck, they were almost at the Tiamat’s stern before anyone in the Brotherhood saw them and opened fire. Amy, Hunter and Lewis fired back and drove the men into the protection of a covered promenade deck.
Blanco pulled up to the stern and Jodie hopped on board the yacht. Amy and the others provided plenty of cover fire as she lashed a mooring rope to the support gantry of the davit crane and drew her gun.
HARPA were at the party.
Hunter leapt on board and shot at the men on the deck above them. After a short exchange, he struck one in the throat and sent him tumbling over the rail into the sea. The other men peeled away from the main group and retreated to the superyacht’s bow.
“Let’s get going,” Amy said. “I don’t want to be around when Neverov and the Brotherhood get bored of shooting at each other and turn on us instead.”
“Which way?” Quinn asked.
“Head to the top deck first,” Hunter said. “We can access the bridge or most personal quarters from there.”
When they reached the top of the stairs and climbed onto the top deck, the skirmishes they had watched from the top of the cliffs had turned into a full-scale battle for control of the superyacht. Blanco ran over to where half a dozen dead men were sprawled on the deck and took their weapons. Throwing submachine guns and pistols to the rest of the team, he checked his magazine was full.
“Check yours, too,” he told Jodie and Quinn. Amy, Hunter and Lewis were already checking theirs. “Good to have some backup weapons.”
Hunter heard more screams and peered down the starboard deck toward the bow. Several black-clad figures were crouch-walking along the bridge deck, submachine guns held tight to their bodies. He guessed this was more of Neverov’s men, probably those who had boarded at the stern, making their way toward the yacht’s nerve center. Maybe Yahontov and Turgenev.
When Amy peered down at the foredeck, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Even before the words left her lips, she already knew the answer. “Wait a minute, Max. Is that Alexios Kandarian?”
He finished loading his gun and slid the weapon back into his holster. “Huh?”
“Alexios Kandarian,” she said again. “As in, the man I arrested back in New York City on a long list of smuggling charges?”
T
he former army major looked where Amy was pointing. “Bloody hell, talk about bad pennies turning up everywhere.”
“But how?” Blanco asked. “It was a ten million dollar bail.”
Jodie said, “Small change for a man like Kandarian.”
“Except you’re not allowed to put up your own bail,” Amy said.
Jodie shrugged, and didn’t even try to look like she cared about it. “So, he must know lots of people who could put up that sort of money.”
“She’s right,” Lewis said. “I bet his lawyer had a list of people ready to pay up before he even got to the prison.”
“We can worry about that later,” Hunter said. “Let’s get inside the bridge and start looking for the statue. It has to be on board because Neverov chased the Brotherhood straight back here after escaping from the cave.”
“So where do we start?” Lewis said. “Bridge or quarters?”
“Jodie?” Amy asked.
“Ah, I get it,” she said. “Ask a thief to think like a thief.”
“Well… yeah, except you’re not a thief!”
“Then we try his personal quarters first,” she said. “If there’s a safe or any kind of secure environment, most likely it’s going to be somewhere close to where he sleeps.”
A deep thud shook the deck and then a fireball exploded out of the bridge, blasting glass out across the smooth surface of the water.
“And that rules the bridge out…” said Hunter.
“Just what the hell was that?” Quinn said.
“Sounded like a mortar to me.” Hunter peered along the starboard deck toward the bow.
“Me too,” Blanco said. “Neverov’s getting serious about getting that statue.”
“But we’re more serious,” said Amy. “So let’s get on it.”
They followed her inside the yacht’s top deck and Lewis paused by a door to study a fire escape plan. “Kandarian’s quarters are this way,” he said, pointing down a long narrow corridor. They made their way along the carpeted passageway, passing several bulkhead doors before reaching their destination.