‘Now! Now!’ Cavill called.
The grenades sailed out at the same time as the enemy stopped moving to look up at the sight of the oncoming containers. Cavill caught one openly in his sights and dropped him. He caught sight of his men running north and looked desperately for the last two enemies. The two grenades went off; one near the man Cavill had already taken out. The second highlighted the rough position of the last two enemies. He saw two figures sprawl onto the ground near the explosion; one was close enough to have been taken out by the blast. He fired with automatic bursts to take them out while his men got away.
The containers bounced off the bottom of the pyramid and landed nearby with an almighty boom that flattened the surrounding structures, burying the enemy in rubble and kicking up a huge dust cloud.
‘Cornell, you guys okay?’ Cavill said.
‘Still here,’ Cornell replied.
‘Same for Rolleston and Fabrice,’ Rolleston said. ‘We’ll just be beating the dust out of ourselves for a while.’
‘Good. Check those guys are dead and then regroup at the base. Two of you get up here ASAP. We’re taking the pyramid back.’
Chapter 21
The enemy soldier in the pyramid entry room looked visibly shaken. The huge explosion had happened close to the doorway where he was standing. He’d had a front-row seat to the devastation. He didn’t know if his partner was alive. He only knew their plan was shot to hell. He had two doors on either side of the container to cover and didn’t know what to do next. He kept his guns trained on the open door and the sheared-off gangway as though he still expected Cavill to come barrelling around the corner.
Across the room, Matt Hayden slowly started rising to his feet by sliding his back up the wall.
The soldier turned and fired wildly in Matt’s direction. The bullets ricocheted off the wall around him, missing their target, and Matt dived back down to the floor with a yelp.
The soldier glared at him across the distance. He was running out of ammunition and needed to keep what he had for when real threats turned up. He walked over to Schalk’s body and pulled out his combat knife.
‘Come here,’ he said, pointing the gun and knife at Matt Hayden. ‘Come and sit at this door with me.’
***
On the roof of the armoury container, Cavill surveyed the carnage on the ground and what remained of the container and scaffolding structure. The metal gangway was still jutting out of the pyramid entry room. It had been sheared off at the corner where it turned and connected to the generator units that were no longer there. Cavill motioned to Evron to come over and join him.
‘I’ve got a plan to take the guy holding the hostages in the pyramid entry room,’ he said.
‘Let’s do it quickly,’ Evron said. ‘We don’t know if his mate, the grenade thrower, was killed when those containers exploded. If he tossed it in from the second storage container and shut the door, he may have survived.’
‘Right,’ Cavill said. ‘We know the guy below probably heard us firing from outside the containers, so he knows we’re out here, possibly on the roof. When I give the signal, I want you to go to the edge and stamp around, making enough noise up there so he can hear you.’
Evron nodded. Leading with his pistol, he carefully made his way to the northern edge of the container until he could see the destroyed gangway.
Cavill put his rifle to one side and lowered himself onto his stomach. He slowly crawled to the corner closest to the destroyed generator and fuel containers. Once at the edge, he carefully levered his body over the side and lowered himself so he was hanging onto the edge of the container, with the drop to the ground below him. He released his left hand and pulled out his pistol, taking aim so he had a clear line of sight to both metal gangways coming out of the armoury and pyramid entry containers. He looked up at Evron and nodded.
Evron banged his feet heavily, stomping in a circle and doing small jumps.
Matt Hayden came stumbling forward out of the pyramid entry room. Cavill had him in his sights. He quickly pulled his aim to the right, recognising the decoy. The enemy came out, walking backwards while firing his gun upwards at the top of the armoury container, where he expected Cavill to be.
Cavill calmly fired two shots into his chest and one into his head. He watched the body crumple to the floor as he holstered his pistol. Then he easily pulled himself back up onto the container roof.
‘That worked well,’ Evron said with a smile.
‘Yes. Let’s pull everyone together. Patch up the wounded and see who these bastards are,’ Cavill said.
Chapter 22
‘Oh, thank God,’ Rebecca Grainger said, rushing forward as Cavill and Evron entered the pyramid entry room.
‘Here, help him,’ Cavill said, unhooking Evron’s arm from around his shoulder and handing it to Grainger.
‘Just take me to those medikits,’ Evron said.
Cavill went to the pyramid entry door and turned the huge handles to swing it open again.
‘It’s Cavill,’ he called out as the door started to open, aware his men would have their weapons ready for whoever was coming in. The light slowly revealed Harcourt and Sansom. They squinted to adjust to the brightness.
‘You okay?’ Cavill said.
‘Yes,’ Harcourt said. ‘Sorry we couldn’t get out in time.’
‘You might still get some of the action,’ Cavill said. ‘We’ve taken out one of them. Do a full sweep of the containers again and confirm the second enemy is killed.’
He looked around the room again.
‘Looks like we also have some civilians missing. I don’t know why. Round them up. Put them back under guard in here.’
Both men nodded and charged off into the container complex.
Cavill’s radio crackled in his ear. ‘Cornell here. Confirm bad guys below all dead. There’s no ID on them. They have a mix of gear and weapons. Look like a private team to me.’
‘Okay,’ Cavill said. ‘Find their radio. They must have a way of getting back to their main team. It may be hidden in the truck. We need to know who they are.’
‘Will do,’ Cornell said.
Cavill walked over to Grainger and Evron, who was working on his shoulder. He crouched down and took over the medical duties, opening up Evron’s shirt to assess the wound.
Evron grimaced as Cavill poked around the area.
‘Your lucky day,’ Cavill said. ‘Went straight through, just below the collarbone. Patched up in no time.’
‘Good,’ Evron said.
As Cavill worked away with antiseptics and patches, he motioned with his head at the wounded archaeologists behind him to Rebecca Grainger. ‘What’s the situation with these guys? We lose anyone?’
‘No,’ Rebecca said. ‘That thug threatened us but didn’t touch any of them. They’re still out of it with whatever your man gave them.’
‘Good. We’ll have to think soon about how to get them out of here. I don’t want anyone else dying in this place.’
He applied the last piece of tape to Evron’s back. ‘There you go. Operational again,’ he said. He gave him a new pack of morphine injections. ‘Here, in case it kicks off again. We need everybody in the fight.’
‘Never out of it,’ Evron said. He got up and walked back to the command table in the science offices to get his laptop and equipment back online.
Rebecca Grainger looked on with incredulity. ‘You guys are bona fide nuts,’ she said.
‘No ma’am, just very professional soldiers,’ Cavill said.
‘Hey,’ Cornell called from the science offices.
They quickly walked through to see him emerging out of the hatch. He handed over a small portable radio.
‘Hidden in the truck, like you said,’ Cornell said, putting it on the table next to Evron.
‘Anything coming out of it yet?’ Cavill said.
‘Yup, “TN1, this is TN2. Report, over.” Every fifteen minutes,’ Cornell said.
‘TN1…got to
be Titan,’ Evron said.
‘Yup,’ Cornell said. ‘My guess too. Matches with the kit the boys below had. We’ve seen that mix before.’
‘Great. Lockyer and his band of murderous cowboys,’ Cavill said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rebecca Grainger said. ‘Who?’
‘Another private team,’ Evron said. ‘We have history with them.’ He pointed at Cavill.
‘Typical private security asshole who recruits similar assholes and special-forces wannabes,’ Cornell said. ‘Meatheads with all the gear and no idea. They don’t care who they shoot as long as they get to shoot. Hey, I wonder if they got their pimped-out, blacked-out Humvees dropped into the middle of the fricking desert?’
‘Least we know who we’re dealing with,’ Cavill said.
‘Yes, and Lockyer probably took this job for free just for the opportunity to kill you,’ Evron said.
‘What…why?’ Grainger cut in.
‘Cavill got him kicked out the regular forces—absolutely hates his guts.’
‘Never mind that now,’ Cavill said, sliding the radio right next to Evron. ‘Keep patched into this thing. I want to know when exactly we can expect more from these pricks.’
Their radios crackled. ‘Harcourt here.’
‘What is it?’ Cavill said.
‘We’re in the workshop, outside the entrance to storage unit one, on the west side. The door to storage unit one has been barricaded from the inside. So we still have an enemy holed up in there.’
‘You sure? It’s not that the door shifted and wedged when the structure moved?’ Cavill asked.
‘Yes, we’ve been listening for a while. There are noises in there from someone.’
‘What about my civilians?’
‘We found them separately on the second level. They’ve had a good old look around. Sansom is bringing them back while I cover this door.’
‘Stand by,’ Cavill said.
He looked at Cornell and Evron.
‘We don’t have time to flush him out. We’re too far off mission already,’ he said.
‘But we can’t leave him there,’ Cornell said. ‘God knows what he’ll get up to or when his ugly mug would appear again.’
‘Suggestions?’ Cavill asked.
All three men thought about it for a few seconds.
Evron and Cavill looked at each other at the same time.
‘The attack drones on the south side still operational?’ Cavill asked.
Evron typed furiously at his laptop. ‘Yes…let me fire one up,’ he said.
They watched the laptop screen as the forward-mounted camera on the drone activated and produced a view of the landscape dropping and then disappearing into blue as the propeller-driven drone flew off the edge of the container and into the sky. It circled around the container structure until they could see the northern side of the first storage container.
‘It’s sheared off, just like on our side,’ Evron said. ‘He must have made it back in there before the collapse - the door’s still open. If he got a look at the ground, he’d know he’s outnumbered and outgunned. Probably thinks it’s safer to stay there till his asshole buddies get here. Thinks we can’t get at him through that open door.’
‘Well, they got the drop on us with their Red Cross routine,’ Cavill said. ‘But this time, I’m pleased that Cavill Risk Management is one step ahead of the tattoo-and-wraparound-shades brigade that is Titan International. Harcourt…’
‘Yes,’ Harcourt said on the radio.
‘Get out of there.’
‘Roger. Moving.’
Cavill pointed at the laptop screen.
‘You said the explosive charge was the same as a grenade, right?’
‘Yes,’ Evron said. ‘The container structure on the other three sides is holding fine. It certainly took grenades going off internally before.’
‘Agreed,’ Cavill said. ‘Send it in.’
Evron nimbly manipulated the drone, and they watched as the door grew ever larger until the drone went through it. They caught the shape of the enemy in the middle of the container and a face registering shock and surprise. Evron slammed his finger down on the keyboard. The effect was instantaneous. The camera screen blacked out as the same time they heard a dull thud. They felt their container vibrate slightly as the force of the blast was transmitted through the metal structure.
‘Confirm killed,’ Evron said.
Chapter 23
05:58:00 to Endgame
Christian Bramwell was flicking intermittently between the walls of screens surrounding him in his GCHQ analyst bay. He was checking the progress of Cavill’s team and monitoring intelligence ‘chatter’ for anything else that could relate to the mission. An alert from one screen drew his attention. It was a transmission on one of the military frequencies he was tracking. He took a closer look at the screen and was confused. The transmission didn’t make sense. It was wrapped up in a code that he hadn’t seen before. Suddenly, the screen showed a spike of activity on that frequency.
‘Whoa,’ he said to the screen. ‘Who are you?’
He looked again at the frequency alerts he had primed into his searches and the keywords underpinning them. They were words such as Sahara, Niger, and pyramid. These were the keywords picked up in the transmission frequency before it switched to code. He triangulated the source and could only narrow it down to Northern Africa.
‘Well, something’s up,’ he said to himself.
***
On the pyramid site, Cavill was directing his team to clean up as much as possible, account for their dead, and take care of the wounded. Once this was done, he called all of his team members together in the science offices to brief them on the next phase.
‘Here is our new defensive plan,’ he said. ‘We’ll split into three teams. Rolleston, Lampack, and Fabrice will take charge to defend ground level from incoming. From now on, I want you to fire on anything incoming. We’re a much lighter force and further losses are unacceptable, clear?’
The three men nodded in agreement.
‘Then we have the away team, who’ll prep immediately to go into the pyramid and find out what the hell this place is all about. On that team, we have Cornell as leader, backed up by Harcourt and Sansom. You guys will also be taking and directing Rebecca Grainger and the scientists, Kate Edwards and Chris Watkins. Evron and I will stay here at command with the wounded and be ready to assist either team where required. Clear who’s going and who’s staying?’
Everybody nodded.
‘Good. Now, we’ve already had a lot of contact and no doubt, there is more inbound. So we need to get that energy source and get the hell out of here. Everybody go.’
They all dispersed, and Cornell called the away team into the pyramid entry room to start kitting up. He waved Kate Edwards towards him and started helping her into her backpack. She stopped and turned to face him.
‘I need to know,’ she said. ‘When Cavill had that gun on me before, would he have pulled the trigger?’
Cornell gave her a cryptic smile. ‘Why do you need to know?’
‘I can see you guys really respect him, but all I see is him bossing everybody about like a little dictator. My only interactions with him so far were when he publicly put me in my place on the plane and then threaten to kill me…twice. Yet, I see the way you men look at him when he’s giving orders. You’d clearly do anything for him. And yet he doesn’t seem upset that many of his men are dead.’
Cornell’s face darkened. ‘That will be tearing him up inside. These guys are like brothers. Most of us have saved each other’s lives more than once. He feels every death of someone on his team beyond measure. But he needs to keep the situation screwed down to get the rest of us out of what seems like a cursed mission.’
‘So you’re saying my first impressions of him being a complete asshole are incorrect?’ she said.
Cornell smiled. ‘Most people fall into the military for one reason or another. He’s one of the few who joined pur
ely to do good. When that wasn’t happening fast enough, he set our unit up. We can all tell you stories of all the families that exist today because of the things he’s done…the sacrifices he’s personally made. So yes, you are in the minority here,’ he said. ‘We’re not here to make friends. We’re here to do a job.’
‘And the gun incident? Would he have pulled the trigger?’
Cornell smiled and spun her around again. He yanked tightly on her backpack strap. He felt her shudder slightly under the weight.
‘If you threatened his team or mission, yes, he would’ve pulled the trigger. Yes, he’s a gent and sounds like one, but he’s also an ex-SAS captain. Who do you really think we are, lady?’
Kate turned around again, confused. ‘This is what I’m trying to understand,’ she said.
‘Yes, we’re the good guys,’ he said. ‘But we’re also the most highly trained killers on the planet. So get on board and move over there to form up with the rest of the away team before I kill you.’
He gave Kate a slight push, and she stumbled into Watkins and the others lining up outside the pyramid entry door now that they were all fully kitted up. Kate moved to the back of the crowd and did a quick check of the large pocket of her cargo trousers. The 9mm pistol she had hidden there was still in place. It had belonged to Schalk van der Westhuizen. She had picked it up in the confusion after Cavill’s men had retaken the pyramid entry room. It was still secure. She smiled out over the rest of the people, who were still organising themselves.
Cavill walked into the room, and everybody fell silent.
‘We’re ready,’ Cornell said.
‘Good,’ Cavill said. ‘Last thing is to share out the lead containers. There are six of them that will fit inside your oversized backpacks. So that’s one for each of you.’
Cavill walked to the pile of containers and began parcelling them out. Each member of his team made a mental note of who got the containers with thumbnails of yellow tape on the bottom. These contained the booby trap of radioactive material. The civilians were also clearly watching carefully to see who got which container, but to the casual observer, it looked like they were all getting the same. Once it was all done, Cavill called them all to attention.
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