Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 3

by Rob Jones

  She wandered back to the bridge and joined Hawke. He was speaking quietly with Jack Camacho and Scarlet while Captain Bekri and his first officer were studying a nautical chart of the area. For now at least, it was a scene of organized calm, but she knew how fast scenes like this fell apart. She sighed. Silvio Mendoza and Aurora Soto were dead – their mangled bodies stretched out on a mortuary slab in Munich – but somewhere out here in all this nothingness was that bastard Dirk Kruger and his hired gorilla Dragan Korać.

  Not to mention Luk and Kamchatka.

  “Coffee?” Hawke said.

  She shook her head. “I can barely stand up in this bloody boat, never mind drink a sodding coffee.”

  Hawke smiled and nodded. “It can take some practice, I admit.”

  “So how we doing?” she asked, keen to get back to dry land as soon as possible.

  “We’re getting there,” Bekri said with a broad smile. “Although I have to tell you I’ve sailed these waters many times before and I can guarantee you there’s nothing at the Dacia Seamount except saltwater and seasickness.”

  “But we’re diving there, don’t forget,” Reaper said.

  Bekri gave a sceptical nod of his head and raised his palms in the air. “That’s why we’ll do the sonar scanning of the ocean floor. If there really is something out there then we’ll find it – I promise.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Hawke said with more confidence. “We’re not the only ones searching for it and let’s face it – Atlantis is a pretty big prize… not to mention the other half of the ten million bucks for getting the idol back from Kruger.”

  “As long as your coordinates are right then we have as a good a chance as anyone,” Bekri said with a warm smile.

  “The coordinates are right,” Hawke said, glancing out the rain-lashed porthole at Ryan Bale as he was dry-heaving over the rail with Maria’s hand on his back. “Ryan hasn’t let us down yet.”

  The hours went by, tedious and frustrating. Being a former Marine Commando and SBS operative, Hawke had spent more than his fair share on board boats and submarines, but since joining ECHO he had moved around the world much faster thanks to Sir Richard Eden’s fleet of Gulfstreams. Going back to life on the ocean wave might have been relaxing as a pastime but it just felt like a hindrance when he was in pursuit of Dirk Kruger. From the look on her face, it seemed Lea felt the same way.

  She sighed. “I can’t believe how long this is taking.”

  “That’s sea travel,” Hawke said. “The fastest corvettes in the world struggle to go faster than sixty knots, besides, Kruger’s on a ship as well, so he’s not going any faster than us. He just had a bit of head start, that’s all.”

  “Must you see the silver lining in every cloud, Joe Hawke?”

  “Sorry – is it annoying?”

  “A little.”

  “When life gives you lemons…”

  “Yeah, yeah – make lemonade, I know.”

  “I was going to say throw them back and get some apples.”

  She laughed. “All right, you and your damned optimism win again.”

  “All I’m saying is look for the advantage to every situation.”

  “In every disaster, there is opportunity,” Lexi said. She walked over to them in the cabin and leaned against the wall. “Old Chinese proverb.”

  “So what’s the opportunity for us being stuck out here for so long?”

  “Simple,” Hawke said. “We have longer to plan our attack.”

  “You always have an answer…”

  “Plus, we have other things we could do to pass the time.” He moved to her and put his arms around her waist.

  “Oh God,” Lexi said, and walked back outside the boat.

  Lea smiled. “I like where this is going.”

  Another long hour passed until they reached their destination – two hundred and thirty miles off the coast of southern Morocco – and then Bekri began a systematic sonar survey of the ocean floor, following Khatibi’s coordinates precisely. For a long time, it was just two men speaking in Arabic as the sea slowly grew less peaceful with the gathering storm.

  “There’s nothing here!” Bekri said. “Just as I told you.”

  “But the coordinates must be right!” Lea said. “They have to be.”

  “They are right,” Ryan said. “I’ve just been a total idiot.”

  “Hallelujah!” Scarlet said.

  “So why can’t we see anything?” Lea asked.

  “Plate tectonics,” Ryan said. “The Mid-Atlantic ridge moves at around two and half centimetres a year and the coordinates are derived from the constellations!”

  “But the entrance is hundreds of metres out of place,” Lea said.

  “Which means it sank to the ocean floor a very long time ago indeed,” Hawke said, nodding with satisfaction at yet more proof of their theories.

  They moved the ship in line with Ryan’s theory and a few moments later things changed fast.

  “My God…” Bekri said. “This can’t be real. There must be a problem with the survey instruments.”

  Hawke took a step forward and frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  “This part of the seabed here,” Bekri said, pointing at the screen. “It’s registering as less than seventy feet deep in some places.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Maria said.

  “The ocean floor has been mapped here many times and the Dacia Seamount is at least two hundred feet below the surface of the sea according to all previous oceanographic surveys.”

  “So what’s going on then?” Scarlet said.

  “There are three options,” Hawke said. “First, the Dacia Seamount has got a hundred and thirty feet higher since the last survey, second, there has been some kind of cover-up concerning the true depth of this part of the ocean floor, or third, the instruments are wrong.”

  Bekri shook his head vehemently. “They’re not wrong. They’re properly calibrated – I checked them before we left, before we started and I’m doing it a third time now.”

  “And something tells me the Dacia Seamount hasn’t grown by a hundred feet since the last survey,” Lea said.

  “Which leaves the Nixon Option,” said Ryan.

  “We can’t get caught up in who’s covering this up, or why,” Hawke said. “That’s strategic stuff for later. Right now the mission is to locate Atlantis, and I think this means we’re getting closer.”

  “There!” Khatibi said. “Those look like concentric circles.”

  “It can’t be,” Ryan said, peering into the screen at the survey information. “My God – you’re right! There is no way they are natural formations.”

  “So what are they then?” Hawke asked.

  Ryan and Khatibi shrugged simultaneously. “Could be anything,” Ryan said. “The remnants of some kind of temple or public space… anything. And this here looks like a wall – and is that some stairs?”

  “So this means we found Atlantis?” Lea said, looking at the others. They all heard the excitement in her voice.

  “I guess we made it,” Scarlet said, turning to hug Camacho. She looked up into his eyes.

  “I guess we did,” he said.

  Without saying another word, Scarlet laced her arms around Camacho’s waist and kissed him hard on the mouth. The American didn’t resist, but moved his hands up to the small of her back and squeezed.

  “Oh God,” Ryan said, and lowered his voice to an Attenborough whisper. “And here we see the female Mantis as she cannibalizes her mate…”

  Without breaking from the kiss, Scarlet reached out and slapped the back of Ryan’s head.

  “I can’t believe we discovered Atlantis!” Maria said.

  “And about time too,” said Lexi, and the two women high-fived each other.

  Khatibi tutted and shook his head. “It’s far too soon to tell. We must launch an exploration of the ocean floor. That is the only way we can be sure.”

  Hawke sighed. “We don’t need a full sub at this depth, just
regular wetsuits and then dive down.”

  “We have some scooters,” Bekri said.

  Hawke faced him. “Scooters?”

  Bekri nodded. “Yes – underwater scooters. They are used for scientific purposes along the coast. They go a little over three miles per hour so will be much faster than diving.”

  “It’s not just Dirk Kruger who has all the luck,” Hawke said. “How many have you got?”

  “Three.”

  “Fine, I only want two or three of us going down at first anyway. We can’t be sure what we’re going to find down there and if there are any booby-traps we don’t want the whole team getting wiped out. I’ll take Lea and Ryan, unless you’re desperate to go, Cairo?”

  “Me?” Scarlet shrugged her shoulders. “Absolutely no fucks given over here, darling. If I’d wanted to piss about underwater I’d have joined you and the other girls with the white polo-necks back at SBS HQ.”

  “That’s good then.”

  “Very good,” Ryan said. “Much better if just the three of us get wiped out.”

  “Exactly,” Hawke said, getting the sarcasm but not taking the bait. “We need to make sure we keep a good force on deck for when our friends show up. We know they have the coordinates and they left before us so they must be around here somewhere.”

  “Too late,” Reaper said, lowering his binoculars. “Kruger’s already here – looks like an old tuna boat but fishermen don’t usually walk around the deck with submachine guns… and it looks like Kruger’s already dived – no sign of any minisub.”

  Hawke looked through the binoculars and immediately saw what he was talking about. Somewhere approaching the horizon around three miles away was a stationary tuna boat. “He must have deployed a drift anchor,” Hawke said. “Or that thing would be all over the place in this weather.”

  “How deep is it here again? Lexi asked.

  Bekri answered. “According to the radar, the ocean floor beneath that tuna boat is around five hundred meters down.”

  “Anchor chains are that long?” Lexi looked amazed.

  Hawke suppressed a laugh and hid his smile. “No they’re not. A drift anchor doesn’t attach the ship to the seabed with a chain like a regular anchor. It’s designed to stabilize boats in rough weather like this by creating a lot of drag. It works a bit like a brake and slows the boat down.”

  “Are you sure you’re not making that up?” Lexi asked with a sideways glance.

  “Absolutely positive,” he said.

  “Sounds plausible,” she said.

  “I don’t suppose we have any APS rifles on board?” Hawke asked.

  Bekri shook his head. “What are they?”

  “They’re Russian rifles designed for underwater penetration.”

  Ryan raised his head. “Did someone say something about Scarlet in a bath with a Russian sailor?”

  “Drop dead, boy.”

  Ryan laughed. “Is it true you think about sex every five seconds?”

  “Yes,” she replied coolly. “But never with you.”

  A howl of laughter went up and Lea high-fived Scarlet.

  “We should have left you in that Serbian fort,” Ryan said grumpily.

  “All right,” Hawke said, suddenly all business. “This is serious. Kruger’s here and now his crew know we’re here, so we need to get on. They will have radioed down to Kruger and alerted him of our position.”

  “Then to the Batscooters!” Ryan said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Hawke peered over the edge of the VCSM and stared down into the dark gray sea as it heaved up and down in the building storm. SBS frogman training was the most extensive in the world and even though it had been a while, a raging, black ocean didn’t unnerve him in the least.

  “If you think you’re going down there without me you can forget it, boyo.”

  He turned to see Lea standing by his side. She had wandered down from the bridge and was zipping up a heavy duty waterproof jacket.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

  The ship rose with a violent swell and tipped several degrees to port as a new wave of rain lashed over the deck. They grabbed on to the rail and waited for the vessel to stabilize for a few seconds before making their way back inside.

  Hawke, Lea and Ryan put on foamed neoprene wetsuits and prepared to make the journey to Atlantis. The bubbles in the neoprene helped its wearer float but at lower depths the increased pressure squashed them, allowing a neutral buoyancy for underwater swimming. Hawke didn’t know what to expect down there, but he didn’t want to waste time coming all the way back up to the surface for wetsuits, weapons or explosives if he didn’t have to.

  “What if we have to go deeper?” Ryan asked as he zipped up his suit.

  “The scooters are only designed for the depth we’re going to, and you’re designed that way too,” Hawke replied. “So unless you want collapsed lungs, nitrogen narcosis and to be suffocated while simultaneously getting crushed to death, then no, I wouldn’t recommend going any deeper, however…”

  “There’s just no way a sentence like you just said can end in the word however,” Lea said.

  “However,” he repeated slower, “if we find an actual complex down there – a citadel, or whatever – we can always come back up and use the minisub to investigate further.”

  “Christ almighty,” Lea said, shaking her head as she watched Ryan complete the task of putting on the suit. “You had to ask, didn’t you?”

  “There’s no such thing as a stupid question,” Ryan said. “Only stupid…”

  “Wankers,” Lea replied instantly. “I know, yeah – thanks, Ry.”

  Once in their wetsuits the crew lowered the scooters into the water off the back of the ship and the three ECHO members climbed aboard.

  “So what do we do now?” Ryan asked.

  “Pretty much the same as any expedition to an underwater site,” Hawke said. “We dive down, check it out, and then come back again.”

  They sank beneath the violent waves and seconds later the calmness under the storm-lashed surface fell upon them.

  “What’s it like down there?” Scarlet asked over the comms. “Has Ryan’s personality reached crush depth yet?”

  “What does that even mean?” Ryan asked. “It makes no sense.”

  “Much like you, boy.”

  “It’s just fine, Cairo,” Hawke replied over the comms. “We’re passing twenty feet.”

  Hawke checked the depth gauge as he steered his scooter toward Khatibi’s coordinates. “You still have us on radar?” he muttered.

  “Why? You’re not thinking of running out on us, are you darling?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Hawke said, enjoying the banter, “there’s a great little bar down here I wanted to try.”

  The three of them continued to push down into the depths, turning on their headlights. Now, a trio of white arcs shone into the darkness of the ocean and lit their way as they cruised down to the sea floor.

  Hawke took a few moments to search around for Kruger and his men but saw no one. According to the latest report from Bekri, Kruger’s ship was now half a kilometre to the north but they had clearly not found the place with their sonar yet or they would already be here. Peering into the gloomy water from behind the safety of his scooter’s windshield, he thought he saw an arc of light that might indicate a headlamp belonging to Kruger’s crew, but it was nothing, so he returned his attention to their mission and pushed onwards.

  Unrestrained by his lack of fitness thanks to the scooter, and motivated by sheer enthusiasm, Ryan was now in the lead and so far ahead he was almost out of sight. If it weren’t for his headlight Hawke would never have been able to make out in the gloom.

  “Slow down, mate,” He said over the comms.

  “Yeah, take it easy, Ry,” Lea added. She was in between the two men and slightly higher in elevation.

  “I’m fine,” the young man replied. “But I can’t see a thing yet – not even those sodding ci
rcles. There’s nothing here!”

  Lea shook her head with frustration. “What a waste of frigging time!”

  “No, wait,” Hawke said, steering his scooter to the right and heading toward a ridgeline running north-south. “I see something over there!”

  They made their way north for a few seconds, and he got the feeling they were being watched and turned to check over his shoulder once again. Kruger and the rest of his monkeys hadn’t come all the way out here for the swimming, and it was only a matter of time before their survey led them to this exact spot.

  But for now, they were still alone.

  “Holy crap in a bucket,” Lea said. “Check that out!”

  Another hundred yards ahead of them was a long fissure in the seabed. At first it looked like one of the countless splits and cracks in the ocean floor, but as they got closer they recognized the same oddly shaped features the sonar had picked up earlier back on the ship.

  “That’s it!” Ryan said, increasing the power to his scooter and speeding up in a bid to get there first.

  “You’re not trying to be the first man to set foot on Atlantis, are you, mate?”

  “Of course I bloody am!” came the reply.

  Hawke and Lea accepted the challenge and also increased their revs. Both scooters shot forward, their headlamps shining three pale white arcs onto the ocean floor ahead of them. As they headed for what was looking more and more like the steps the sonar had revealed, Hawke thought he saw a flash of light in his peripheral vision but dismissed it so he could focus on the more important task ahead of him.

  He was no archaeologist, and neither were Lea or Ryan, but he thought there had to be some kind of rules about maintaining the integrity of a newly discovered site, especially one as incredible as Atlantis. This had to be the greatest discovery of all time, after all.

  “It’s the steps all right,” Ryan said. “And I’m going in!”