by Rob Jones
“You…” Korać struggled to get the words out through the laughter. “You’re not serious, Dirk?”
“I bloody am serious,” Kruger snapped. “And I don’t like being laughed at, man!”
In a heartbeat, Korać pulled a srbosjek blade from his belt and thrust it into the wooden tabletop before sweeping the brandy and bowls of fruit aside with his arm.
“Watch your tongue, Professor Kruger! I do not take kindly to people talking to me like this.”
Not expecting such a reaction, Kruger recoiled awkwardly in his seat and almost fell backwards on his chair. He saved himself from going back and landing with a smack on the flagstone floor, but he was clearly rattled. Across the table from him, Korać wrenched the knife from the table and studied the blade for a few moments.
“I’m sorry…” Kruger said reluctantly.
Korać slipped the knife back into his belt and offered a smile to the South African. “Let’s try and get along from now on. I’m sure we can be friends, but friends don’t lie to each other.”
“I’m not lying. I have spent many years looking for Atlantis and finally I have evidence it exists.”
This time, Korać didn’t laugh. “You better not be playing games with me, Dirk. My army has a very solid reputation from fighting in wars all over the world from Chechnya to the Congo. If you make me look like a fool chasing after mermaids you will pay for it with your life and the lives of your family.”
“No one’s talking about mermaids,” Kruger said regaining some of his cool after the unforeseen outburst a few moments ago. “I already said I’m looking for diamonds. All my life is about diamonds, Dragan. The legend of Atlantis was written by Plato, and he was very clear about it being an island full of gold and silver not to mention endless other precious stones and metals – including diamonds.”
“But you already said the word – legend. It’s nothing more than a legend.”
“I thought that until a few hours ago when I saw this.” Kruger pulled the golden idol from his bag and gently set it down on the table. The smooth golden edges sparkled in the dim light of Korać’s pretentious candelabra.
The Serbian’s eyes were glued to the idol. “What is that thing?” he said, nudging his chin at the ancient statuette.
Hawke saw it now up close for the first time. It was beguiling, beautiful, and yet flawed – covered in strange carvings as if someone had tried to tattoo her, and it was in a much poorer condition than he’d imagined too – with chips and gouges cut into her here and there. It was in a much worse condition than the Valhalla idol, but he noticed that the base she stood on had the same peculiar seven-pointed star configuration.
“You seem very interested in it…”
Hawke looked up to see Korać staring at him grimly. He hadn’t realized that he’d been so fixated by the idol. He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“It belonged to an associate of mine,” Kruger said, moving it away from Hawke and closer to Korać. “He gave it to me for the purposes of getting you and your army on board our project. He was very reluctant to let it out of his sight, I can promise you.”
Korać picked it up and gave it a contemptuous look. “But what is it?”
“It’s a likeness of a Phoenician goddess named Tanit who was worshipped in North Africa three thousand years ago. She’s made of gold and there are diamonds embedded in her as well.”
“How do you know this?” Korać asked Kruger, still not lifting his eyes from the idol.
“I’m a leading archaeologist in the field,” Kruger replied haughtily. “I’ve dedicated my life to uncovering some of the greatest archaeological sites of the ancient world.”
Yeah, Hawke thought. And looting them for your own benefit.
Korać was equally as unimpressed with the South African’s grandstanding. “So, what is special about her? There is not that much gold on her.”
“She was found in a temple in Mexico which was sealed long before the Spanish or any other Europeans arrived – ah – I see now I have your interest.”
Korać had finally raised his eyes off the idol and was now burning two holes in Dirk Kruger. “You may continue.”
Hawke saw a flash of hatred in Kruger’s eyes, and guessed not many people spoke to him like this, but he and Van Zyl were clearly playing the long game as far as Dragan Korać was concerned.
“No one knows how the hell this thing ended up in Mexico, but it is my opinion that this little idol is identical to a statue in Madrid that many believe is an Atlantean goddess who was worshipped in Tartessos, a colony of Atlantis. For me the possibility of a link is too great to ignore. She was found in Mexico, but she came from Atlantis originally.”
Korać gave a long evaluating nod and leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table. He shovelled more of the lamb in his face and released another violent belch into the room. “It is true you have intrigued me, but my army is not cheap. Where will we be deployed?”
“Morocco.”
Hawke and Reaper shared a silent glance.
Korać whistled. “This is not an easy thing to do, as I am sure you will appreciate. It takes a great deal of logistics to move my men around the world, although we are more than a little familiar with Africa.”
Kruger shrugged. Hawke could see he was relishing having the upper hand again. “You tell me your men are the best private army in the world, so I came to you with this. My expertise tells me that the signs are pointing to the Atlas Mountains, so that is where I need your army. Either you can do it or you can’t.”
“The Atlas Mountains?” Korać was shocked. “You think there is some kind of link between the Atlas Mountains and Atlantis?”
“Yes. They have a strong connection to the legend, but to find the truth we will have to go there.”
“Where exactly?” Korać asked.
Kruger looked around the room at the other men and lowered his voice. “There’s a gorge near the Valley of Roses. The symbols refer to it. I think that’s our location.”
“You say she is from Atlantis originally – how do you know this?”
“This inscription starts with the symbol for the ancient Persian god Apam Napat – the god of the sea – and ends with the Valley of the Roses. It reads: from Apam Napat’s Kingdom to the Valley of the Roses. A beginning and an end. It’s written almost like an obituary.”
“An obituary? I thought you said Tanit was a goddess?”
“I’m just telling you my opinion.”
Another long silence and slow nod from Dragan Korać before he turned to Hawke and Reaper. “What do you two think?”
“We follow the money,” Reaper said.
The Serb nodded once. “A good plan, I’m sure… and now my men will take you to the courtyard.” He gestured for Hawke and Reaper to join him, and then standing between them he placed a paternal arm over each of their shoulders. “We have business there.”
Hawke met his gaze, and pulled his arm off. He didn’t want to let the idol out of his sight but there was nothing he could do without giving himself away. “Business?”
“Yes, business! Come... join me. You won’t be disappointed.”
“Lead the way, boss,” Reaper said.
They moved through the lower floors of the fort until reaching a set of large timber doors reinforced with heavy iron bolts and hinges. A merc moved ahead and respectfully opened one of the doors, quickly moving out of Korać’s way, and a second later they stepped out into a broad cobblestone yard.
The low autumn sun was coming down at a strange angle through a slit in the clouds and an ominous, crimson light was filling the yard. When his eyes had adjusted to this, Hawke saw another group of men in fake leather jackets and black jeans standing around in a huddle in the corner a few yards from a Mighty Bucky bull-riding machine. This was an unexpected sight to see inside a fortress run by a Serbian warlord, but he kept his surprise concealed and focussed on the men. They were smoking and grumbling, and one of
them flicked a cigarette to the ground. Another coughed loudly and stared up at the sky with his hands jammed in his pockets. He looked bored.
When another of the men saw Korać approach, he flicked the other around the shoulder and pointed. With tangible terror on his young face, the first man reached down for his cigarette butt and crushed it in his hand before putting in his pocket and scuffing the soot mark off the cobblestones.
A second later the group broke up to reveal two older men on their knees in the corner of the yard with their hands on their heads. One had a full beard and the other had a thick moustache. The one with the moustache was visibly shaking but trying to control it. Hawke didn’t like the look of it one little bit.
“What is this?” Hawke said.
Korać pointed to the bearded man. “His name is Čanak. He attacked my daughter and she barely got away with her life.” With a flourish, he now pointed to the other man. “And his name is Dačić. He lied to me to give his friend an alibi and get him off. Today, Čanak and Dačić are being executed for their crimes against my family.”
Reaper glanced at the Englishman. “So give them to the police…” he said.
Korać and the other men fell about laughing. “I know two things about you now,” Korać said though the chuckling. “You do not know the Serbian police, and you do not have daughters.”
Hawke and Reaper remained silent while the former Serbian commander settled his men down and approached the prisoners. “Old Serbian proverb – God gave himself a beard first, my friends,” he said, slapping the bearded man around the back of his head.
“What does that mean?” Reaper said.
“You help yourself before you help others, no?”
“What are you saying?” said Hawke.
“Yes,” Reaper said. “What has this got to do with us?”
Korać turned to Hawke and gave him a ghoulish smile as one of his men handed him a heavy antique Ottoman sword. In turn, Korać gave it to Hawke. “You are their executioners and if you don’t kill them, then my men will kill you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Richard Eden was in Elysium’s Memorial Garden with his eyes closed and his mind whirring. Situated in a quiet part of the island to the south of the complex it was a serene place guarded by a ring of palm trees and the name plaques of their fallen colleagues rested peacefully in the sun-dappled shade. From behind the safety of his sunglasses, his eyes settled momentarily on the latest three additions – Ben Ridgeley, Alfie Mills and Sasha Harding. It was hard to believe they were gone and now rested alongside Olivia Hart and Sophie Durand.
He came here from time to time to contemplate things when life grew too painful, or when ECHO business started to climb all over the top of him and make him feel like it was crushing him. Now was one of those times. The Mexican affair had proved costly – three of their own brutally murdered in the jungle and two more – Maria and Ryan – coming perilously close to being sacrificed in Mictlan by the lunatic Morton Wade.
Everyone in the team knew the risks but it still made him uneasy. He had come a long way since his army days – working hard to climb the ladder from senior officer to Member of Parliament and then finally his work in MI5. He had meticulously ticked boxes, crossed Ts and dotted Is all the way along and it hadn’t been easy.
With the exception of a few quiet chats with Lea Donovan, he never spoke about his personal life to any of the team members. It was need-to-know as far as he was concerned and they didn’t need to know. They didn’t need to know about his wife who had died, mercilessly taken from him by illness after so many years together. They didn’t need to know about his children – adults now and living their own lives. They didn’t need to know about his private life and who he was dating.
And they certainly didn’t need to know about the Consortium which had bought Elysium and set up the ECHO team. That was such a long time ago, he thought with a fading smile. He wished the years didn’t pass so quickly. They seemed to be piling up behind him faster than he could count them and the stockpile of future years ahead of him was growing ever smaller. He knew he had to make them count.
His eyes drifted from the tropical ocean horizon back to the plaques. He sighed, removed his sunglasses and gently rubbed his eyes. Maybe – just maybe, he considered – he was getting too old for all this. Right now, his mind was split in too many different ways and it was starting to get stressful. A desperate, clawing stress he hadn’t felt since his exam to get into Sandhurst and was trying to prove to his father he could make it as an officer in the Parachute Regiment.
As of right now, the team was heavily engaged in the search for the idol. At least they had a chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Mexican authorities by retrieving the idol, but the mission was a dangerous one and had just got a whole lot more unpredictable with the sudden deaths of Silvio Mendoza and Aurora Soto in the Munich U-Bahn.
The local German news was already reporting it as a failed mugging gone horribly wrong and maybe the public would buy that. But now the idol they’d stolen from Mictlan was in the hands of Dirk Kruger and that worried him more than anything. Eden had known Kruger decades ago when they were both young students. He’d always shown more interest in archaeology’s potential to make him rich than bringing light to world history.
Dirk Kruger. Hidden in the shadows while he learned his trade, and then exploded onto the scene in grand style when he looted the golden Dacian bracelets unearthed at Sarmizegetusa Regia in Romania. He followed the starter up with a very rich main course when he flew into Iraq after the war and looted dozens of valuable artifacts from sites like Umma and Aqarib.
Dirk Kruger, the man who told Eden to his face that he was luckier than a dog with two dicks and he meant it too – he was the luckiest bastard Eden had ever known, except for the night his luck nearly ran out in Iraq when a team of Dutch soldiers caught him raiding trenches in a site at Babylon and nearly blew his head off.
Dirk Kruger, a man entirely without ethics and a lethal triple obsession – wealth, power and diamonds.
And now he had the idol. The idol everyone wanted… he closed his eyes and turned his mind back to Mexico.
Deep beneath the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, Mictlan had been sealed since long before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico and that idol simply should not have been there. Ryan Bale and Alex Reeve had both assured him that it was impossible for it to be in Mictlantecuhtli’s sacrificial chamber and that meant questions he wanted answered.
That the Consortium wanted answered as well.
At least the team were on it, and he was confident that thanks to his contacts in the SIS, Hawke’s infiltration into Korać’s army should hopefully result in the return of the idol and the arrests of Dirk Kruger and the Serbian, but it was still early days.
He sighed and replaced his sunglasses, rising from the bench and slipping his hands in his pockets. For a few moments he wandered along the secret island’s South Beach as he tried to gather his thoughts, and then Alex called his cell phone.
“Anything new on Kruger?” he asked.
“Lea just called. They’re in.”
“Good, I think.”
“I don’t think it’s good,” Alex said. “I think it’s a stupid idea. Korać is a former commander in the Yugoslav People’s Army and after that the Serbian Army. He used to serve under Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military commander. He’s dangerous.”
“I know all this, Alex. Hawke knows how to look after himself.”
“I’m not so sure, Rich. Korać is unpredictable. When he’s not drunk on Rakia in Belgrade strip clubs he spends his time coordinating one of the biggest private military companies in the world! Joe and Vincent could be in deep shit.”
“Let them do their job.”
Eden cut the call and let out a deep, long sigh. Maybe he really was getting too old for this. Maybe it was time to step aside and let someone else lead ECHO. He turned into the breeze and closed his eyes. At least the w
arm wind was stopping the mosquitoes from wreaking their usual havoc on his elbows and ankles.
Thank the heavens for small mercies, he thought, and headed back toward the ECHO compound.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hawke weighed the sword in his hand and looked at the desperation on the old men’s faces. No, there was no way he could kill either of these men in cold blood – not even to prove his loyalty as a mercenary, but an unemployed mercenary seriously asking Dragan Korać for work wouldn’t hesitate, so if he failed to do as Korać asked then his cover would be blown and they would both be killed on the spot.
He looked around the yard and time seemed to slow down. The odd, crimson light was fading to a regular gray and a cold wind was whipping fallen leaves around the cobblestones. Behind Korać, Dirk Kruger and Willem Van Zyl were eagerly waiting for the show to start. Kruger even checked his watch, a chunky Omega Seamaster in burnished titanium.
A quick headcount of Korać’s men and Kruger’s goons only made him even surer that death would be certain if he failed to execute the men.
“What are you waiting for, man?” Kruger boomed as he strutted forward and kicked the old man in the stomach. “You want him to send you a bloody invitation?”
The men laughed, including Reaper who knew that if Hawke got caught out and killed then the mission would be down to him. It was a cold thought, but that was the nature of his work.
Hawke lifted the sword, his mind still racing with options when he was stopped by the sound of a man entering the courtyard and speaking with Korać. They spoke for several minutes before the Serbian commander nodded and dismissed his underling.
He turned to the others. “The execution will have to wait – my guests are here. From what I hear they would want to see this.”
Hawke breathed an inward sigh of relief as Korać and some of his men turned to greet his guests in the hall. Moments later they returned, and that was when he realized the game was up.