Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 4

by Rob Jones

  “So what did he say?” Ryan asked. “Are we off the hook?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, but nowhere near. He’s still under house arrest and there’s still an international warrant out on all of us.”

  Lexi tied her hair back. “Just when I thought life couldn’t get any more exciting.”

  Lea took her place back at the table beside Hawke and greedily broke off a chunk of bread. “I’d be careful what you wish for, Lex.”

  “So what did he say?” Hawke asked.

  “Yeah,” Zeke said, his mouth full of bread. It hadn’t taken long for the amiable Texan tank commander to become part of the team, and when he talked to them it was as if he had been in ECHO since the very beginning. “What did he say?”

  At the far end of the table near Reaper, Nikolai, Kamala and Azra were now staring at Lea along with everyone else, praying it was good news.

  “He said there’s a job for us if we want it, but we’re going to have to work hard to keep a low profile.”

  “I think we can manage that,” Hawke said. “What is it and where is it?”

  “He was short of time – I think he was calling from the bathroom…”

  “I knew it!” Lexi said.

  Reaper growled with impatience. “But what did he say?”

  “Not a lot – like I said, he didn’t have much time. He was smuggled the phone by Agent Raynes and had to be quick.”

  “The guy we met in Hong Kong?” Hawke asked.

  She nodded. “He’s on our side, apparently.”

  Ryan drank some water. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

  “So what information did he give you?” Scarlet asked.

  Lea ate more bread. “The details are with a member of the Eden Consortium and if we meet with him, he’ll brief us.”

  Scarlet gave a tired sigh. “Christ, another stuffed suit with no sense of humor.”

  Hawke gave her a look then turned to Lea. “Who is this person?”

  She shrugged. “Someone named Orlando Sooke, ex-Royal Navy officer… and before you ask, no, I’ve never heard of him before.”

  Ryan laughed. “That’s reassuring.”

  Lea unscrewed the lid on her water bottle. “I trust Rich with my life.”

  “So where are we meeting him?” Hawke asked.

  “Being aware of our situation, Rich has arranged for this Sooke guy to meet us not too far from here, and inside Turkey. He’ll be in Izmir tomorrow evening.”

  Hawke finished his water and leaned back in his chair. “Looks like the ECHO team are back in business.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Izmir is the third largest city in Turkey and the country’s largest and busiest port. Built by the ancient Greeks and originally known as Smyrna, the city has seen more than its fair share of history and was ruled by Greeks, Romans and rebuilt by the armies of Alexander the Great before being absorbed into the Ottoman Empire and governed by the Turks.

  But today was more peaceful, and the team found themselves enjoying the gentle shade of a parasol on the terrace of an upmarket café near the city’s port. Ahead of them, beyond a small park full of palm trees, the Mediterranean Sea sparkled in the warm sunshine and people quietly walked along a promenade in front of the ferry terminal.

  “Heads up,” Hawke said. “Captain’s on the bridge.”

  Lea set her drink down and glanced over her shoulder. She saw a tall, thin man in a beige linen suit and a Panama hat crossing the road adjacent to the café. “That must be Sooke,” she said.

  Ryan sipped his beer. “He sticks out like a turd in a punchbowl… ouch!”

  Scarlet stopped pinching him and straightened up in her chair. “This turd is our only hope of saving our friends, so wind your neck in.”

  The English business magnate reached their table and without saying a word pulled a chair out and took a seat. “You must be the ECHO team.”

  “How did you know that?” Lexi asked.

  “You stick out like a sore thumb,” he said quietly. “Not many people dressed like you drink in a place like this.”

  “Rich might have mentioned we were on the run,” Lea said defensively. “Sorry if we didn’t have time to dress for dinner.”

  “You’re forgiven,” he said with a warm smile. “But don’t let it happen again. I’m Orlando Sooke.”

  “We’d worked that much out,” Hawke said. “Funnily enough, there aren’t too many people around here dressed like the Man from Del Monte either.”

  Sooke fixed his eyes on him and raised an eyebrow as he summoned a waiter. “Touché. Now, I understand lunch is on me.”

  Lea smiled. “Sorry, but yeah… We’re what you might call cash-strapped.”

  “I prefer in-between jobs,” Hawke said.

  “Not me,” Scarlet said. “I’m like an actor… I’m merely resting.”

  The stranger eyed the glasses on the table. “So how were you going to pay for these?”

  “We have our ways,” Scarlet said.

  “And what might they be?”

  “This and that, but don’t worry – we won’t compromise your ethics.”

  He smiled and they ordered lunch. Sharing some chit-chat until it arrived, Lea brought the conversation back to business. “If we can get to why we’re here, Mr Sooke?”

  “Of course.” Eyes shaded by his Panama hat, Orlando Sooke set the gin and tonic down and steepled his fingers. “Apparently, a cargo ship called the Electra was out in the Aegean yesterday. These ships get used by the highest bidder, and in this case, it was a Belgian treasure hunter named Guy Francken. He has spent most of his life searching for shipwrecks around the world and right now he’s working on an area around the Fournoi Archipelago.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Ryan said, mouth full of pizza. “That’s one of the most lucrative areas for shipwreck searches because its location used to be a major hub back in the ancient world. Marine archaeologists have found literally dozens of wrecks there in the last few years alone.”

  “So what does this Francken want?” Hawke asked. “For us to go swimming around with the fishes looking at shipwrecks?”

  “Is that really what you guys do?” Kamala asked.

  “Yes and no,” Ryan said.

  Nikolai held up his hands as if apologizing. “I have never scuba-dived in my life and I am not a strong swimmer, so…”

  While Zeke laughed, Orlando shook his head and sipped his G&T. “No, that’s not it at all. Francken had already found his treasure, but when he was pulling it out of the water, a group of masked men raided his ship and stole some of it. He’s willing to pay well upon its return.”

  Scarlet lit a cigarette, waved the match out and leaned back in her seat. “That’s more our cup of tea. I’m officially interested.”

  “And God knows we need the money!” Lea said.

  A ripple of grim laughter went around the table.

  “And while we’re on the subject,” Scarlet said. “How fat is the paycheck?”

  Sooke raised an eyebrow. “Mr Francken is a very rich man and he is prepared to pay handsomely for the return of the stolen item.”

  Reaper fixed his eyes on the cool, calm Englishman. “Exactly how handsome?”

  “One million dollars.”

  “Woah!” Ryan said.

  “There are eleven of us,” Scarlet said immediately. “That’s…”

  Ryan rolled his eyes and sighed. “Forget it – you haven’t got enough fingers. It’s $90,909 each.”

  “Doesn’t sound as amazing…” Scarlet’s words were muffled by the glass of vodka that she raised to her lips. “I’ll drown my sorrows right now, I think.”

  “It’s more than enough to get our arses out of the fire,” Hawke said. “And enough left over to track down the sniper and make a start on rescuing Alex, Jack Brooke and Brandon from this Tartarus place.”

  “Tartarus?” Sooke asked.

  Lexi, who had been mostly silent during the conversation, eyed him carefully and said, “T
hat’s what the man said.”

  “Why?” asked Reaper.

  “I’ve heard of it,” Sooke replied. “But only dimly and in the very darkest circles.”

  Hawke regarded the stranger for a moment, but decided he was trustworthy. “Sounds about right – what else can you tell us about this place?”

  Sooke paused a beat while he searched his memory. “The name came up a few years ago during an Eden Consortium briefing with the CIA. Only mentioned very briefly and all my subsequent attempts to find out more about it totally failed. The only thing we learned about the place was that it’s the most highly classified secret base in the entire US global network and next to no one knows its location. It’s Dulce Base to Guantanamo Bay’s Area 51, if you catch my drift.”

  Ryan drank some cold beer. “We catch it.”

  “Dulce Base?” Nikolai asked.

  “It’s a secret base under the Archuleta Mesa on the border between New Mexico and Colorado,” Ryan replied. “It’s where the seriously classified stuff happens while thousands of tourists and conspiracy theorists set up their cameras outside Area 51.”

  “Right,” Sooke said. “And if you think Dulce is classified then you need a whole new level of understanding to get where Tartarus is. There are even rumors it’s intergovernmental.”

  “That’s insane,” Lea said. “The US Government share the base with Russians and Chinese?”

  He shrugged. “Who said it’s run by the US Government? At this level things get seriously murky.”

  “All right,” Hawke said, “this is all very interesting but we’re not going to find the location of Tartarus unless we have the funds to do it and that means earning some serious cash.”

  Lea closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Tipping her head back and blowing out a long sigh of despair, she said, “And that only happens if we get this treasure back and return it to Francken.”

  Turning to Sooke, the former Texan tank commander Ezekiel Jones spoke for the first time. “So what exactly was taken during this raid?”

  Sooke shifted uneasily in his seat. “Mr Francken has thus far been somewhat reluctant to share too many details about what he was searching for off the Fournoi coast.”

  “Helpful,” Scarlet said.

  “But he wants to meet you at his apartment in Athens,” Sooke continued. “I’m sure he will brief you more fully when you are there.”

  “And how are we going to get there?” Kamala said. “We have no money and can’t travel under our own passports.”

  “She’s right,” Camacho said. “For at least fifty miles of eastern Turkey we drove in the back of a chicken truck.”

  Sooke had an answer for everything. “A good friend of mine who used to work in the Foreign Office has knocked up some false passports for you all.” He lifted his attaché case onto the table and clicked open the tiny brass locks. “I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun learning your new identities.”

  “This is all good and well, darling,” Scarlet said. “But how are we supposed to get to Athens? We haven’t got two lira to rub together.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Lexi said. “We don’t even have any weapons.”

  “I was coming to that.” Sooke reached into a compartment in the case’s lid and pulled out a slim wad of US bank notes. “Here is ten thousand dollars. It’s more than enough to get you to Athens and buy yourselves some kit. It’s all I have so don’t ask for more. When Sir Richard was put under house arrest, all of the Eden Consortium’s accounts were frozen, as you know. This money is from my personal bank account and I expect it to be paid back at the end of the mission.”

  “And what about the weapons?”

  “I know a man who knows a man who knows a man. When you need weapons, I can have them delivered anywhere in the world.”

  Lea slid the bills inside her jacket. “Thanks, Orlando.”

  “Don’t thank me now,” he said coolly. “You haven’t survived the mission yet.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Greece

  Guy Francken was a heavily built man in his sixties who walked with a cane. His square, tanned face reflected a lifetime of adventure and treasure-hunting in its lines, scars and crow’s feet but his slow and painful walk told the world his best days were behind him. In a casual but confident manner he showed his guests into his opulent home and closed the door with a gentle click.

  “This way,” he said in heavily accented English. “We can talk through here.”

  They followed him along a cool corridor. For a few moments the only sound was the brass ferule at the tip of his cane striking the smooth tiles. When they reached the main room, he waved his cane in the air vaguely in the direction of some soft chairs. “In here. We talk in here.”

  The main living space of the apartment was an enormous and luxuriously appointed lounge. Dual aspect, a long balcony stretched along the northern side and offered a breathtaking view of the entire city center. As the others settled into their seats, Lea took a few seconds to stare out over the Acropolis to her left. Mount Lycabettus was further away to her right, shimmering in the heat haze.

  Francken sighed and collapsed into his chair. Looking over the team, they could see he was counting them. “There are more of you than I thought there would be.”

  Lea turned. “Our number is our strength.”

  He weighed up her words. “I suppose so, but you’re nearly as big as the crew on board the Electra. They’re good men…” his face clouded over. “They were good men before they all got murdered by those thieving bastard criminals.”

  “How many men made the attack?” Hawke asked.

  “That I cannot tell you at the moment. But I can say that by all accounts, the raid was a savage display of brutality. The captain of the ship was a good friend of mine as well as a partner in our treasure hunting business. He was on the radio to me when they stormed the bridge. I heard them gun him down. The gunfire and the screams will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  “Who were the mercenaries you hired to protect the treasure?”

  “A team of British and American men based in London. They were expensive but very good, which only goes to show how dangerous these thieves really are. Captain Jagger and his men didn’t know what hit them and now they’re all dead to a man.”

  Hawke’s eyes darted across to Francken. “You mean Matt Jagger, former Grenadier Guards officer?”

  Francken nodded. “You knew him?”

  “Yes, but not well. We served together on some joint exercises a long time ago and met socially once or twice. He was a good man.”

  Lea touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  Hawke lowered his voice. “Left the army under a bit of cloud after an altercation with a senior officer. He tried to appeal but got fucked off at the high port.”

  “Eh?” Ryan said.

  “SBS expression,” Hawke said.

  Scarlet sighed. “SAS.”

  “SBS.”

  “SAS.”

  Hawke made a face and looked at Ryan. “Means he ran into a spot of bother. Anyway, I knew his wife Emily. They have two kids, two girls.”

  Francken gripped the arm of his chair. “I’m sorry, but they are without a father now. He was shot and killed along with the rest of his team while on board the Electra. He was simply following my orders to protect the treasure under any circumstances.”

  The smiling, happy faces of Emily Jagger and her two girls rose in Hawke’s mind and he felt a surge of anger rise within him. The last time he had seen them was during a barbecue in their Cornish garden. Now their lives were destroyed.

  Before he could speak, Francken coughed and sat up straighter in his chair. “I am very sorry for your loss, but if I hire you this cannot be a revenge mission. I need a team with clear heads to retrieve what was stolen from me.”

  “We understand, sir,” Lea said.

  “Good,” he growled. “Commander Sooke tells me you’re the best independent Special Ops team in t
he world and I expect you to live up to his words. This could very well be the most important mission you have ever done. I cannot begin to tell you how dangerous this treasure could turn out to be, or at least what it could lead to.”

  “And what is this treasure?” Lea asked.

  He paused, reluctant to tell them more.

  Lea kept her voice calm and level. “We need to know, Mr Francken. At least if we’re to stand a chance of getting it back for you, sir.”

  After another long, awkward pause, the Belgian treasure hunter finally spoke. “You have heard of Orpheus?”

  “The legendary Greek musician?” Lea said.

  He nodded once.

  “And prophet,” Ryan threw in.

  “Indeed,” Francken said. “And prophet. Along with his visit to the Greek Underworld, he is most well-known for possessing a golden lyre, and it is that small musical instrument which I raised from the seabed a few days ago.”

  Lea and Hawke exchanged a glance. “That’s what the men stole?” she asked.

  “Yes, and you are going to retrieve it for me.”

  “Wait,” Kamala said. “I know some pretty crazy shit happens around you guys, but Orpheus wasn’t real. You just said it yourself – he was a legend, right?”

  “You’ll get the full briefing later,” Lea said. “Just take our word for it right now. He was real.”

  “As real as those crazy dudes we fought in the Citadel?” Zeke asked.

  “As real as that,” Ryan said, and turned to Francken. “And so was his lyre, right?”

  “Very real,” the old man said. “The captain of the Electra sent a live feed to me as it was pulled from the surface of the Aegean. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “This is blowing my mind,” Kamala said. “I know I’ve only known you guys a few days but why haven’t you told me about this before?”

  “Trust,” Hawke said flatly. “Now we trust you.”

  She looked both hurt and honored at the same time. “All right, I can handle this. Let’s start with why this lyre is so important?”