by Rob Jones
“Why?” Reaper said.
Hawke frowned “They must have the….oh no!” He ran over to where he had left Luis and then he saw it. The young man was dead, murdered by Ziad Saqqal and the stone map wrenched out of his hands.
Lea ran over to him, panting with the effort of the fight. “What is it, Joe? Oh God!”
“They killed him,” Hawke said, his voice a low whisper. “He was trying to keep the map from them, and Saqqal murdered him for it.” He took off his jacket and gently rested it over Luis’s body.
They were broken from their shock by the sound of submachine gunfire. Hawke squinted to protect his eyes as wave after wave of bullets blasted the hell out of their corner of the tomb. Behind them from the safety of the entrance tunnel, the Syrian commander had ordered the rebels to stay and finish them off.
In the tunnel behind the men, Hawke could see the heads of Ziad Saqqal, Dirk Kruger, Jawad, Rajavi and Corzo as they bobbed up and down on their way out of the underground complex.
In the new front line created by the rebels, one of the men was now walking toward them with an M60 in his hands and preparing to fire on them.
“We have to get that map back!” he yelled.
“You might have noticed we’re sort of occupied right now,” Scarlet said. She held her handgun at arm’s length and rested the weapon on the edge of the pyramid as she took aim. Moments later three sharp shots found their way home, dropping the rebel playing Platoon with the M60. He hit the dirt like a snake and crawled for cover, badly wounded, but he still had the weapon.
And then someone yelled from above. “Drop it like it’s hot, motherfucker!”
Hawke looked up to see Lexi Zhang. She was still on the ridge above the entrance, and having disposed of her opponent she was now aiming her gun at the man with the M60 below her.
The man’s eyes flicked nervously from Lexi to Hawke. Drop the gun or not drop the gun… He moved forward to put the gun on the floor, but hesitated for a second before starting to rise again.
And he was dead a second later, slamming face first into the dirt. Above him on the ridge Lexi’s smoking pistol was the only clue as to what had happened.
They all turned to look at her. “He was going to shoot,” she said. “I saw it in his eyes. Easier to read than a Mr Man book.”
“I’m glad you’re on my side,” Reaper said.
“And who says I’m on your side, Reap?”
He laughed. “You never give anything away and you never have done.”
“You really do know me, Vincent!” she said, blowing him a kiss.
She turned to walk back down to the main chamber when a rebel leaped from the shadows behind her and drew his gun.
She tried to turn her gun on him but there was no room on the narrow ledge.
He raised his weapon and prepared to fire.
She knew she had only one chance, and so she seized it.
Leaping from the ridge she tumbled over the edge and began to fall to the rocky floor far below.
The rebel was now aiming his gun at her, determined to kill her with a bullet before she hit the dirt.
Hawke aimed and threw the kukri as fast as he could. It spun through the air in a series of flashes until striking the man. The chunky blade buried itself in the man’s throat and sent him staggering off the ledge a second after Lexi.
Hawke put his hands out to catch her, taking a step forward as she fell toward him. She landed with a crash in his arms and looked up at him. “My hero.”
“You, my friend,” Hawke said, taking a step back again so the man crashed into the dirt at his boots, “…are welcome anytime.”
He lowered her to the ground and pulled the kukri from the man’s neck, wiping the blade clean on his jacket.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said with a wink.
“Not that sort of welcome, Lexi.”
“Oh…”
They looked up to see Reaper running over to them. “They’re lining the tunnel with explosives!”
Before anyone could react, a tremendous explosion roared out in the tunnel and in the chamber. They watched in horror as the water from the aquifer flooded down into the tunnel and began to fill it up.
Scarlet sighed. “Oh, happy, joyful day…”
“Saqqal’s an idiot,” Hawke said.
Lea looked at him. “Eh?”
“The tunnel leading up from the hole in the mountain to this chamber was uphill. All the water from that aquifer is going to flow down to the outside of the tunnel.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s called gravity,” Ryan said sullenly.
“Anyone here ever enjoy going on water slides?”
They all turned to look at him, but only Reaper grinned.
Hawke led them into the tunnel to the location of the explosion. The noise of the rushing water was deafening, but he was right. The water from the citadel’s aquifer was flowing at great pressure through the hole created by Saqqal’s detonation, but gravity was redirecting it straight down the incline toward the hole they had discovered under the rock on the surface.
“Deep breath everyone,” Hawke said. “And arms crossed over the body.”
With that he leaped into the jet and disappeared into the high-pressure white water.
Lea leaped next, and immediately regretted her decision. That lying, bullshitting, sneaky, good-for-nothing, optimistic son-of-a-bitch had definitely not been on any of the water slides she’d been on and that was for keeps. The water was freezing cold for one thing, and next it was moving about ten times faster than any sodding slide.
It spat her out at the other end like a champagne cork and after siding all over the now soaked grass of the clearing she came to a stop and gasped for air as she pulled her hair out of her face. “You bastard!” she said, and scrambled clear of the water jet.
The torrent now spat Reaper out.
“What?” Hawke was standing on the granite slab they’d blown up to make the entrance. He was shielding his eyes and watching Saqqal and Kruger as they were jogging back to their choppers. “They’re nearly at the top… damn it.”
Lexi now fired out and skidded to a halt a second before Ryan.
“What do you mean, what?”
Now Scarlet came through, screaming with excitement.
Hawke turned to Lea. “Eh? You’re really wet by the way.”
She felt the fury rising. “I’m really wet? Of course I’m really freaking wet, you fool!” She walked up to him and got in his face. “That wasn’t anything like a pissing waterslide! That was a freaking torpedo tube!”
“Ah yes,” he said with a grin. “But if I’d told you that none of you would have followed me.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “You crazy, mad bastard.”
Breathless and exhausted, they gathered together and began to jog up the hill toward the citadel. Moments later they heard a chopper’s engine starting up.
“We have to hurry,” Lea said. “Or they’re gone – and they’ve got the sodding map stone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At the top of the hill, the first thing Hawke saw was smoke billowing from their Eurocopter. Saqqal or Kruger had ordered their men to destroy it and they had obeyed. There was no way they were flying anywhere in that thing.
Then they caught sight of the enemy. Kruger was in the pilot’s seat and increasing power to the chopper while Saqqal, Jawad, Rajavi, Corzo and a couple of surviving rebels were clambering inside and belting up. To the east a Mi-171 chopper with Peruvian Army markings was landing in the ancient cultivation terraces and armed soldiers were jumping out. Behind it, a small two-seater Bell 47 was landing beyond the House of the Guardians. Inside were a pilot and a man with a news camera.
“That’s all we need,” Lea said. “Bloody news crew.”
Hawke frowned. “They’re the least of our worries.”
The surviving rebels took up a defensive position behind the city gate and opened fire on th
e soldiers. The Peruvians tried to scatter for cover but the surprise attack was too deadly and they were all wiped out in seconds. The pilot began to lift the chopper but a rebel fired through the windshield and took him out before the machine was ten inches above the ground. The helicopter crashed back down to earth, its rotors still whirring.
The ECHO team sprinted forward but couldn’t stop the rebels who were now piling inside the Venom and lifting up into the air behind Kruger.
Hawke turned to Reaper. “You still know how to fly a chopper?”
The Frenchman peered over at the Mi-171 and nodded. “Mais, oui…”
“Right, then let’s do this. I’ll take the journos’ Bell and go after the rebels, you take the army chopper and get Kruger.”
They divided into two teams, with Hawke and Scarlet running to the Bell while Reaper led the rest of the team to the Mi-171.
Hawke and Scarlet approached the Bell. The pilot was still inside, but the engine was off and the rotors now perfectly still. The man with the news camera was trying to zoom in on the burning Eurocopter in the Main Square, but Scarlet kept getting in his way.
“Move!” he said in English, and then in Spanish: “Damned tourists!”
The boot was fast, and as accurate as ever. A second later Scarlet was removing the camera from the hands of the howling newsman and hurling it over the sheer drop beyond the City Gate.
The former SBS man opened the chopper’s door, unbuckled the pilot’s belt and dragged him out of the machine in less than ten seconds. He told the pilot to stay down as he clambered in, but while Scarlet was joining him and buckling up both the pilot and the newsman scuttled away and started yelling for someone to call the police.
The former SBS man had piloted many choppers in his time, the last time being when he had evacuated the team from the missing Temple of Huitzilopochtli in the Lacandon Jungle, but this thing barely looked airworthy.
He consoled himself with the fact the news crew had gotten it up here in the first place and immediately began the starting procedures while Scarlet checked the weapons were ready to go and slung an ammo belt over her shoulder.
“Are you dressing up for me?” he asked with a grin.
“Shut up and fly, Josiah.”
A great idea, he thought, and glanced out the window to make sure the main rotor was untied. He knew it was, because it had just landed here but it was a habit drilled into him years ago and now unshakeable, like checking the fuel caps were secured.
He scanned the panel: avionics off, strobe on and then he reached down and pushed the fuel shut-off in before checking the hydraulic boost switch was off.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“Cairo, this isn’t the Sweeney and we’re not in a Ford Granada. You don’t just jump in one of these things and magic it into the air. It’s not Hollywood.”
She looked him up and down. “You don’t have to tell me that, darling. You’d look more like Matt Damon if this was Hollywood.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“When was the last time you went to the gym?”
“How the hell should… listen, I’ve got work to do so put your seatbelt on and can it.”
Hawke turned away from Scarlet with a look of incredulity before loosening the friction on the cyclic and the collective and made sure the anti-torque pedals and cyclic were all free and unrestricted.
“They’re getting away, Joe!” she said, the frustration rising in her voice. “They’ll be in shagging Paititi before you get this thing off the ground.”
Hawke wiped the sweat from his face and sighed as if he were dealing with a child. “Again… if you would just kindly shut your mouth I’ll be much quicker.”
Hawke checked the friction was set on the throttle and then replaced the friction and returned the controls to neutral, set carb heat to cold and made sure the comms were on. Then he turned the magnetos on and primed the engine by twisting the throttle and then set it for start.
“They’re almost out of sight! Christ almighty!”
“It’s such a shame I won’t be able to hear a word you say when the engine’s on.”
With that he turned the ignition key and watched carefully as the rotor engine’s RPMs began to rise. The ageing chopper began to vibrate as the engine picked up speed and the rotors started whirring faster and faster until they were a blur.
Hawke switched on the radio and waited until the revs passed thirty and then the familiar whomp whomp whomp sound of the rotors began. A final check on the magnetos and the carb temp and then he raised the collective. Scarlet made a big deal about things with fake applause when the Bell finally lifted off the ground but she piped down when a strong westerly blew the small chopper hard to the starboard and Hawke had to fight to bring her level again as they ascended.
He smirked as she settled down in her seat, and they couldn’t help but marvel as they looked down at the incredible view of Machu Picchu afforded to them by the plexiglass bubble cockpit on the Bell 47. Looking past his feet on the rudders, the amazing fifteenth century citadel of the Incas stretched out in a blaze of gold and green as the sun lit its intricate terraces and walls.
A second later it was gone as he increased power on the collective and gently pushed the cyclic forward. Ahead of them, the rebels were making good progress along the Sacred Valley. They tore over the Urubamba River and then pulled up sharply to fly over the top of the next range.
Hawke gave chase, and his superior piloting skills allowed him to close the gap before they too crossed the next range and saw the Andes fading into the jungles of northern Cusco Province.
Scarlet peered through her side of the bubble. “Get lost out here and you’re more fucked than the ship’s cat.”
“Oh, really,” he said in disgust. “I thought you were supposed to be a bloody aristocrat or something?”
“Me? Hardly, darling. Common as muck.”
But she had a point. Ahead of them, the rebels’ chopper looked ridiculously small as it hung in the air above the unimaginably vast landscape, but Hawke powered forward without fear.
The rebels suddenly lunged down toward the valley and began turning sharply to the right.
“Looks like the bastards don’t like being chased,” Scarlet said.
Hawked lowered the collective, pushing the Bell into the same diving pattern and making the same turn. “Have to stay on their tail or they get the advantage.”
“Shouldn’t you be levelling off around now?” Scarlet said, nervously eyeing the Urubamba River as it rushed up towards them.
“You’re not scared are you, Cairo?” he said.
“Of course not,” she said not too convincingly.
Just as he heard her gasp through his headphones he gently raised the collective and levelled off, also completing the turn at the same time. The rebels’ more powerful helicopter was still in front of them.
Ahead of them they watched as a goon in black began to climb halfway out the rear window.
“They’re firing!” Scarlet yelled.
“Yes, thank you, Cairo,” Hawke said. “For a moment I wondered if he was leaning out to invite us to Kruger’s next birthday bash, but now I can see I was wrong.”
“Tit,” she said in a whisper, but it was clear enough through the headphones.
He looked at her.
“What?” she said.
“Well, are you going to shoot back, or what?”
“Oh, yeah. Natch.”
She slid back her window and they were instantly buffeted by the wind, but she didn’t flinch as she pulled out a Glock and smacked a fresh round into the grip. “Always a pleasure to give back what you receive.”
And with that she began firing, but so did the other guy. Hawke swerved the chopper from port to starboard and back again to avoid being hit, but he knew he was also reducing Scarlet’s chance of hitting the rebels.
The other chopper slowed and pulled alongside them and the rear portside door slid open
to reveal a rebel staring back at them. In his hands was a handheld M320 grenade launcher. He fired a round at their Bell and it shot through the air toward them. He had timed it wrong, and it exploded twenty yards short, blasting the Bell over to port but no more pain than a small correction on the cyclic which Hawke made with a gentle touch, and then he raised the collective to gain elevation.
The Venom followed suit, pulling up and maintaining the same altitude as their much smaller Bell 47. The rebel fired another round, and it tore through the mountain air en route to the Bell. Hawke pulled hard to port and descended but this time the rebel had improved his aim and the explosion was much closer, blasting the Bell much harder to port and almost tipping her over.
The Venom pulled around and followed them down as they raced toward the bottom of the ravine.
Hawke saw the rocks racing up toward them but didn’t raise the collective. “When I was leaving the SBS I thought about working as a pilot doing helicopter tourist rides.”
“I think security guard was a better choice,” Scarlet said, eyes widening as the rocks raced closer. The Urubamba River was now so close she could make out the reeds being pulled along by the current. “And now might be the time to get us out of this dive.”
“Not yet.”
She made no reply but gripped the sides of the seat.
And then Hawke lifted the collective and scooped the tiny Bell out of the dive before levelling her off less than twenty feet above the Urubamba. “A spot of low-level flying is in order.”
“You trained for that, right?”
He glanced at her. “Er, yeah…”
“What does that mean?”
“It means no.”
She shook her head as she reloaded her Glock. “Bloody fantastic, Hawke.”
“There has to be a first time for everything,” he replied. “You’ll know that when you make your first funny joke.”
She flicked her eyes at him but said nothing. She loosened her belt and turned in her seat. She opened the small window and leaned her head out. “Bastards right on our six o’clock, Josiah.”
Hawke lowered the Bell to ten feet. They were so low now the rotorwash was flicking up spray from the Urubamba as they flashed over the top of it, following its meanders with the mountains high on either side of them.