by Rob Jones
“Talk about the triumph of hope over experience,” said Scarlet.
Jazmin, who had been quiet since her abduction, now spoke up. “Who were the men that kidnapped me? I mean exactly.”
“They didn’t tell you?” Lea asked.
“They tied me up, gagged me and put a bag over my head for most of the time. I don’t think they were very interested in conversation.”
Hawke looked at the young Hungarian woman. She was scared and wanted answers, but up until now there had been no time. “They’re a mercenary force,” he explained. “A dangerous combination of former Belgian special forces and a splinter faction of the Congolese March 23 Movement. An explosive mix, and right now their favorite pastime is trying to kill us. They used you for your knowledge and as a human shield.”
Jazmin’s eyes widened. “They’re mercenaries?”
“Just relax,” Scarlet said. “With the exception of monkey boy here, we’re all more than capable of dealing with the Blood Crew.”
“I’m asleep,” Ryan said from behind his sunglasses. “I didn’t hear that and I don’t need to respond to it.”
“What was this March 23 Movement?”
“They were a group of military rebels working in the eastern districts of the Congo,” Hawke unlocked the windows and pushed them fully open. Warm air blew into the room and tugged at his hair. “They were part of the M23 rebellion which formed against the government. Some say they were funded by the Rwandans, but we’ll probably never know the truth. Either way, they were a ruthless band of hard fighters and when things came to an end one of their leaders, a man named Joseph Kashala, found himself unemployed. He did what anyone else would do and formed a private army of mercenaries.”
Jazmin nervously fiddled with the hem of her jacket. “Killers for hire?”
Hawke smiled at her. “We can look after ourselves, and you’ll be safe as long as you do what we say and don’t take any crazy risks.”
“Not too long ago I was in my office at work and organising an excavation in Romania, Mr Hawke. Now I’m sitting in a room full of ex-soldiers after being kidnapped by a group of Belgian commandos and Congolese mercenaries. What sort of risk could be crazier than just staying with you?”
“She makes a good point,” Ryan said.
Scarlet elbowed him in the ribs.
“Hey, that hurt!”
“I thought you were asleep?” she said.
“More of a nap, really.”
Jazmin raised her hands to heaven. “My God, you people are crazy! I’m a dead woman walking.”
Reaper pulled his tobacco tin out of his pocket and opened it up. The sweet smell filled the room before another breeze blew it away again. “We’re not so crazy. We live on the road and we see the world. We have had adventures that you would not believe. Maybe those who only dream of adventure are the crazy one, non?”
Jazmin had no response. She was scared, but she didn’t want to show it in front of these people. They might be as crazy as hell, but they were friendly. And if they really were all that stood between her and King Kashala, then she was sticking as close to them as she could get.
Jazmin handed Hawke the phone. “We need to go to the Prophet Elias Monastery. It’s on the summit on Mount Profitis. Orpheus says that is where a grotto he calls ‘the mouth of hell’ is located – somewhere on the summit.”
“It makes sense,” Ryan added. “If you were in the business of selling god and you wanted to build a monastery, you’d put it right over the top of something like that and hide it from the world forever.”
“Exactly,” Jazmin said.
Hawke gave her a reassuring smile. “All right, at least we know where we’re going. Dimitrov and Kashala might have the map but they haven’t got you or Ryan, so we have the advantage for once.”
Lea laughed. “Who’d have thunk it?”
“We might have the advantage,” Scarlet said coolly, “But can we win the match?”
Hawke’s face grew more serious. “Tomorrow, we find out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Santorini
Hawke pulled up in the parking lot opposite the Prophet Elias Monastery and killed the engine. The monastery was one of the oldest buildings on the island and situated high on the dry, sun-kissed summit of Mount Profitis Ilias. Two monks had built the towering outer walls at the start of the eighteenth century and the place looked more like a fort than a place of worship.
Now, in the fresh silence, the warm Aegean breeze blew in through the open windows and gently brushed their faces. Tourists parked up on the other side of the lot looked out across the sea to the east. It was an impressive vista, but Hawke had his mind on another kind of treasure. He studied the white painted stone walls surrounding the monastery, almost too bright to look at in the dazzling sun.
At least there was no sign of Sergei Dimitrov, King Kashala or the rest of the Blood Crew.
They emerged from the hire car and stepped into the bright day. Lea slipped on her sunglasses and viewed the monastery from below, hand on hips as the warm air blew through her hair. “Seems quiet enough,” she said. “Maybe this time it’s a quick in and out job.”
“Ryan,” Scarlet called out. “Lea needs you.”
He stepped over, hands in pockets. “What for?”
“She says she needs a quick in and out job and I hear on the grapevine that’s your speciality.”
“I’d like to point out that this is an outrageous slur on my good character,” Ryan said. “I’m just not that sort of man.”
“Boy.”
“Man.”
“All right,” Hawke said. “Let’s call time on the tit for tat and get inside.”
They made their way up to the famous monastery and pushed through the main door into the cool shade of the ancient building. An elderly couple gave vague smiles as they passed them in the nave and headed outside back to their car.
“Not many tourists around,” Ryan said.
Scarlet closed the door and stepped up to join the rest of the team. “Thank fuck for that.”
“Look over there,” Lexi said. “There’s a vicar.”
Ryan sighed. “Presbyter, not vicar. This is a Greek Orthodox monastery.”
Lexi narrowed her eyes and leaned into his face. “You want to continue this conversation in Mandarin?”
Ryan accepted the point. “As you were.”
“I thought that might be your answer.”
Zeke lowered his voice. “Whatever happens, no one is to tell him that we think his monastery might be built on top of the entrance to hell, yeah?”
Lea rolled her eyes. “Yeah, let’s not do that.”
After a short round of introductions, Lea started with her opening gambit. “We were wondering if the crypts were open to the public.” Her words echoed neatly in the old building.
“Not usually,” the presbyter replied. “Why do you ask?”
She paused and looked over to Hawke. The Englishman sensed her reluctance to tell the old man more, but there was no other way. Before he could speak, Ryan stepped forward.
“We think the entrance to hell might be under this monastery.”
“Goddam damn it,” Zeke said. “That’s exactly what you said not to say!”
As the old man gasped and took a step back, Lea rolled her eyes. “What my colleague means,” she said patiently, “is that we believe there may be some ancient catacombs underground here, catacombs that the ancients referred to as the entrance to Hades.”
Scarlet watched the old man’s face as it collapsed in horror. “Bet you weren’t expecting to hear that when you were having your cornflakes this morning.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he managed.
“And it gets even more serious,” Hawke said, noting something strange about the way the old man was looking at them. “The truth is we’re part of a Special Missions team hired by a famous treasure hunter named Guy Francken. He located an ancient relic that led us to this place but we’re not
the only ones searching for it. There is another team looking for this place, and they’re very dangerous men.”
The presbyter’s face began to pale. “This is all too much to comprehend. Who are these men?”
Lea said, “They’re a team of Congolese and Belgian mercenaries led by a general and failed politician called Joseph Kashala. He was heavily involved with the M23 rebellion in the DRC a few years ago. We believe he was hired by a Bulgarian mafia boss to locate these catacombs, but we don’t know why.”
He collapsed down on one of the pews in the front row, his paper-thin skin reaching out for the back crest of the smooth wooden seat for support. “What you tell me is almost impossible to accept. How do I know you are not simply thieves, here to steal from the monastery?”
As he spoke, he lifted his tired eyes to the famous old icon. Partially obscured from their view by a carved chancel screen, Lea already knew from Ryan’s briefing in the car that another precious icon just down the road in the famous blue-domed church of Agios Theodoros had already been stolen twice before, once in 1797 and again in 1811. She couldn’t blame this man for being suspicious.
“We’re not here to steal from the monastery, sir,” she said. “If we were, we wouldn’t be talking to you. We would have come in the night.”
“Listen,” Scarlet sighed. “You’re in danger, and so is this monastery. The men we’ve just told you about won’t sit around chatting to you like this.” She pointed to the main door and raised her voice. “They will burst through that door with more guns than the Greek Army, kill you and blow this place to pieces. Help us, or that will happen.”
Shocked to his core, the presbyter looked up at them and nodded. “But we must call the police, first.”
Hawke and Lea exchanged a glance. She said, “No, that’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
They all knew why not, but communicating their fugitive status to the old man would be difficult and time-consuming to explain and would only make him more suspicious of them.
“Because they’ll get hurt,” she said. “Even if they’re armed, they’re not going to be any match at all for a group of heavily-armed mercenaries.”
After some debate with himself, he accepted her argument and gave a reluctant nod. “Very well, then what do we do next?”
“We need you to let us into the crypt and then you need to get out of here,” Hawke said. “Your life is at risk every second you spend in this building, and so are the lives of everyone else here. You need to get everyone who works or lives here away and close the whole place to tourists. Once we have located the catacombs we’re looking for, we’ll investigate what we find down there. If we can secure whatever it is Kashala and his men are looking for, then we’ll take it with us and he’ll leave you alone.”
“I see…”
Sensing his support for them was starting to waver, Lea said, “It’s the only way, sir. They could be here any minute.”
“All right, I will show you the entrance to the crypt and then I will drive to the local police station. I will tell them to get a stronger force from the mainland.”
There was little point, Hawke thought. Kashala would be in and out by the time the Greek authorities could arrange a transport of more heavily armed police officers to the island, but at least it meant the presbyter would be away from the monastery. “That’s a very good idea,” he said. “Now, where is the entrance to the crypt?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
As they walked down the stone steps into the ancient crypt, they were all relieved the presbyter had not only agreed to play ball but that he and the rest of the religious community here had gotten away safely, too. They all knew what happened to civilians who got caught up in their missions and it usually ended with the spilling of innocent blood.
Entering the crypt, they began the search for anywhere that might give them access to the mountain’s interior. Dividing into smaller teams, each unit checked a different part of the chamber until Reaper and Kamala called out from the north end. They were standing beneath a low carved archway either side of a loose flagstone.
“Nous l’avons trouvé.” The Frenchman angled the beam of his flashlight at the stone and gave a crooked smile.
The team gathered around while he and Kamala pulled the stone tile free to reveal a hole in the floor the size of a manhole cover. Shining his flashlight down into the darkness, Reaper tutted as the beam illuminated a thick knot of cobwebs blocking much of the way.
“Looks like more steps,” Kamala said.
“Well, hot damn.” Zeke tapped Hawke on the shoulder and lowered his voice. “It’s been great working with you guys and if you’re ever in Texas you’re always welcome at my place.”
The Englishman regarded the tank commander and smiled. “You’d be giving up a hell of a journey.”
“I’m only yanking your chain, Hawke – ah, I see what you did there!”
Lea checked her watch. “We need to get going.”
Taking the lead, Hawke kicked the cobwebs out of the way and began his descent into the stairwell. “C’mon, everyone. Let’s get this done.”
Down the twisting stone steps and along narrow stone tunnels they walked, deeper and deeper into the mountain. The walk was damp and their footsteps echoed down into the blackness stretching out ahead of them.
Scarlet’s cut-glass accent broke the silence. “Another day, another cold, creepy tunnel.”
“Except this isn’t just any other cold, creepy tunnel,” Ryan said. “This could lead to Hades.”
Kamala spoke up. “Hey, newbie here… and she’s still pretty damned terrified when you say stuff like that.”
Hawke thought the former US Secret Service agent had responded well to Lea’s briefing about the true nature of the world. Finding out about the Oracle’s twisted cult had been a shock, and the truth about ancient gods and their technology and weapons had been an even harder pill to swallow.
They all thought it best to wait until she had settled in more before telling her about Ryan’s unsettling antediluvian theories surrounding the mysterious power that was lurking behind all this. Some things were just too hard to handle and for now, she didn’t need to know.
Kamala fanned herself with her hand. “Is it just me or is it getting hot in here?”
“Damn!” Zeke said. “Now you come to mention it, yeah.”
“So, Dante was right,” Ryan mumbled.
As she walked, Lea glanced up at him. “What did you say?”
“Dante,” he continued. “He really invented the modern conception of hell when he wrote Inferno. Before then people had a very different idea of what it would be like.”
“Hey,” Scarlet said. “Now we’re literally on the road to hell, why not scare us some more?”
Lea sighed. “Ignore it, Ry.”
An hour passed, and then another. At one point they got so tired they stopped in the tunnel and took some water and a brief rest. Hawke calculated they must be at least a mile under the surface of the earth.
“If it gets much deeper, we’ll have to stop and go back,” Ryan said. “The deepest mining operation in the world is in the TauTona Mine in South Africa, and that’s just under two and a half miles deep. They need air-conditioning equipment to make the mineshaft cool enough for people to use.”
“We could do with some of that right now.” Zeke wiped his brow and drank some more water. “Because this place is as hot as hell… shit, I didn’t mean that.”
“Let’s get back on track,” Hawke said, getting to his feet. “It’s not hot enough to stop us yet, and Orpheus made it down here and got back to the surface, right? If he can do it, then we can do it.”
The team seemed unpersuaded by his logic, but they got to their feet and followed him down the narrow tunnel. Further on, they reached an enormous cavern littered with boulders and other broken rocks. Hawke swept his flashlight along the ground and saw a number of rectangular stone blocks.
“Obviously manmade,” h
e muttered.
“And what’s over there?” Lea said, shining her flashlight even further ahead. “It looks like some sort of entrance carved into the side of the cavern.”
The others moved their beams to where she was pointing and saw a portico with an angled roof covered in symbols above a walkway. Leading up to it was a series of wide stone steps but inside was nothing but a gaping black void.
Stepping carefully around the boulders and broken rocks, the team gathered at the base of the steps and Ryan and Jazmin made a brief study of the symbols carved into the portico’s roof. A few low murmurs followed, then Ryan turned to face the others. “After a quick assessment, I have worked out that these symbols are in fact warning people to stay away from hell. When I say I have worked it out, I do of course mean Dr Benedek has worked it out, and now I’ll be going back up to the surface. Loved working with you guys.”
Lea rolled her eyes and grabbed Ryan by the t-shirt as he walked away from the entrance.
“Get your ass back here, Ry.”
Kamala frowned. “Is that really what it says?”
Jazmin nodded. “A loose translation would be All Who Enter the Gates of Hell Will Perish.”
“Race you back to the surface, Ryan!” Zeke said.
Lexi raised an eyebrow. “I thought you had more balls than that, Zeke.”
He swaggered over to her. “Why think when you can know, Snuggle Muffin?”
“You do not want to go there,” Ryan said, taking a step away from both of them.
Lexi cocked her head. “Snuggle Muffin?”
Kamala laughed. “It’s better than Cookie Pops.”
“Something tells me we might be ever so slightly drifting from the task at hand.” Hawke took the first step leading up to the portico, sweeping his flashlight beam over the symbols one more time before heading up to the black void. “Shall we get on? The sooner we’re finished the sooner we can get back to the hotel room and watch TV with a cold beer.”
“I’ll need more persuading than that!” Camacho said.
In the cold, blue glow of the flashlights, Hawke was now looking over their heads across to the far side of the cavern where they had entered. His eyes widened as he took in the terrible sight of Kashala emerging into the cavern, and this time he had even more men as well as Dimitrov and a small contingent of mafia thugs.