The room below became very crowded.
Dahl smashed down onto the shoulders of one of the four mercs, grinning, using his incredible strength and the descent to knock the main out cold. Not even a whisper escaped the merc’s lips as he fell.
Luther and Molokai hit next, the former able to bring an elbow crashing down on the back of another merc’s neck. The blow was staggering, devastating. The merc went instantly limp and crumpled without knowing what had killed him.
Molokai came down last, landing close to the center of the vault door itself, looking inside. Two mercs remained standing and both were in there.
Drake hit the floor just as Molokai ran at them.
The mercs were at a total disadvantage, not only because they faced this devastating, throwback, fighting machine clad in dusty scarves. The tallest held the Flail of Anubis; the shortest held the large metal container that had housed it.
Molokai attacked the shortest, striking whilst his arms were occupied, a blow to the stomach and the head. Drake darted around him, raising his gun.
“Don’t move.”
The merc hesitated. His gun rested on the floor between his legs. Molokai looked up from the merc he’d just destroyed.
“Make a move for it.” The feral growl was a death knell. “I dare you.”
Drake sensed the others behind him at the door. The merc let the head of the flail hang—it was a thick rod of iron, the black surface inlaid with archaic patterns, a chunky chain leading to the lethal metal head where a cluster of blunt spikes jutted.
“You gonna attack us all with that?” Smyth laughed. “Good luck.”
The merc sensibly relented and Drake made sure he lived, securing him in the vault. When the man protested Hayden crouched down before him.
“What did you expect? A ticket to the cinema? What can you tell us about the men that employ you?”
“Man called Tilt employs me,” the answer came grudgingly. “Twelve of us. I don’t know who employs him. He just calls ’em ‘the bosses.’”
Drake had expected standard practice among criminal enterprises. This merc’s “bosses” would be yet another shield of disassociation before they approached the layer that was Tempest.
“Is he here?” Alicia looked around at the dead bodies—some from the botched explosion, others at the hands of Dahl’s mad antics.
“Nah, he’s up top. Waiting for the artifact.”
Kinimaka leaned over the merc, his bulk the shadow of a mountain descending. “Why do they call him Tilt?”
“He got vertigo issues. Something wrong with his inner ear.”
“We should go.” Hayden turned away. “This goon can’t help us any further.”
They marched out of the vault, leaving the merc to his own devices, and climbed the stairs back to the first floor. A quick check through the front-facing windows showed the street outside still in chaos, the hotel opposite on fire, its brick fascia cracked and crumbling. Police and military dashed back and forth, and the roadway was full of vehicles. They could see blue flashing lights washing over the windows, and approaching ambulances.
“Go,” Hayden said before they could dwell. “Don’t stop.”
Quickly, they filed up out of the stairwell and through the bank’s rear doors. Mai carried the flail, wrapping it in her coat as she moved. Kenzie was the last to leave.
Outside, the Alexandrian night was dry and warm, with a light mist of sea spray in the air. They took a route leading away from the bank, mostly traveling in darkness. It would be a short run back to the waiting chopper and then . . .
Drake counted the weapons off in his head, surprised.
The last weapon was the Forge of Vulcan, which was next on their list. A sense of urgency crept among his thoughts—reminding him they hadn’t managed to contact the President yet, they were still fugitives, and Tempest were still busy creating a significant camp full of terrorists and seizing more ancient weapons.
For the material it was made of? Perhaps.
If that were the case, no single government should be allowed to possess it. He wondered for the first time if Cambridge and Whitehall were aware of its significance.
Cynical? Yeah, but that’s how we stay at the top of our game.
A mile-wide, tree-lined park, replete with skateboard ramps, swings, a climbing-frame and hard benches, marked the place where the chopper returned to. It was emblazoned with the crest of a local firm and would have clearance to fly—yet one more favor from Whitehall. As they approached the area, Hayden called the chopper pilot.
“No reply,” she said.
“Maybe he fell asleep,” Alicia suggested.
“Anything’s possible.” Mai wrapped the flail tighter and peered at the darkened windows all around, the empty pre-dawn street and the park that lay a hundred yards ahead. “Try again.”
They came closer, now able to make out the chopper’s bulk as it waited inside the park, shrouded by trees. The silence was eerie, and the presence of so many windows unsettling. Drake reached the gates, finding them wide open.
“I think we need to take this—”
He never finished. From out of the shadows came the rest of Tilt’s force. No shots were fired; there were too many houses and civilians behind darkened windows for that, but eight men rushed at them so suddenly it was all they could do to defend themselves.
Drake, unbalanced, staggered to one knee as a large merc shoulder-charged him. Dahl resisted a similar attack but still retreated. Mai rolled clear and Alicia backed into the metal railings that surrounded the park. The others were similarly beset, barely managing to dodge blows, knife thrusts and knuckle-duster attacks. Their own close-quarter weapons were tucked away or sheathed. Only Molokai managed to reach unerringly into the folds of his scarves and come out with a machete.
Kenzie stared as if he was the world’s greatest magician. “Oh, wow, so now I’m arou—”
Mercifully, the rest of her sentence was lost as a merc sideswiped her, sending her sprawling to the hard ground. The same merc jumped on top of her, trying to pin her down. Drake, off balance, fought his attacker hard. It had been a shocking rush of men; the team only surviving several knife attacks by experience and reactions alone. No words were spoken. Three of his friends were on the floor. Alicia was pinned against the fence. The mercs fought hard to keep their momentum going.
Drake pulled his knife and fenced an attack away, the blades striking fiercely. Turning, he managed to unbalance Alicia’s attacker even as he fended off one more strike from his own. Kenzie rolled her head as a knife flashed down. It missed by millimeters, the point sparking into hard concrete. It went back up and then down again, Kenzie saving herself by reaction alone. Now though, she was able to bring her arms up between their bodies and force the knife-wielder to reposition.
Luther met a second charge by stepping swiftly back then bringing his head down onto his opponent’s forehead. There was a sickening crack and the man fell comatose, a rag doll, possibly even dead.
The SPEAR team were recovering already, and less than a minute had passed since the initial attack. Sixty seconds was a long time in a fight, especially hand-to-hand combat. They weren’t unscathed. Kinimaka had taken a knife in the back, right where his spine met his tailbone. Saved by the stab vest, it had still hurt tremendously and it was all he could do to fend the merc off before a second blow to the vest made him roar like a cornered bear. Smyth had also taken a vest-blow, then grabbed his opponent’s wrist and tried to nullify the weapon.
Mai let the Flail of Anubis fall, waited for it to wrap itself from her jacket, and then swung it at the nearest head. The heavy steel ball flew up under a man’s chin, snapping his head back and breaking bones. It came around again, swung by an expert, smashing his jaw from the right and then his temple from the left. Mai moved on to the next. An overhand swing planted the spikes in a man’s scalp, and then became a sideways wipe into another’s cheek. The swinging flail put the SPEAR team back on top.
Then Drake’s opponent held out a hand and a cellphone. “Listen,” he hissed. “You have to listen to this.”
The mercs stopped their onslaught, panting. Drake started at the man and the phone. Hayden helped Kinimaka to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” a voice said. “They have me.”
Drake didn’t recognize the voice at first. Hayden frowned.
Mai spoke up. “It’s the chopper pilot.”
Drake stared into the darkness of the park. The chopper sat in a pool of solid darkness, thirty meters away, but as he watched, somebody shone a flashlight onto the face of the pilot. No other figures were visible but the threat was clear.
“We only want the flail,” the merc said. “Give me the flail and your pilot lives.”
Mai didn’t hesitate; just walked forward and handed it over. The mercs melted away, sliding back into the darkness.
Hayden started walking toward the chopper. “Not good,” she said quietly. “They planned this as a redundancy. If we didn’t know before, we can be damn sure that Tempest know we’re in the hunt for the weapons.”
“So what do we do next?” Kinimaka asked.
“We beat the bastards to the last one.”
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
The chopper dropped them in Port Said, at a location close to the military museum. El-Montazah Park was quiet in the early morning, enabling the team to slip away and find a hotel, before dressing in civilian clothes and heading out for a long-overdue breakfast. They couldn’t hide their bruises, but they did manage to pass for seasoned tourists.
Almost, Drake thought. In reality, soldiers weren’t hard to spot.
Seated at the back of a small eating house, they ordered pastries, hot drinks and bottled water. A decent amount of privacy was afforded them as the team sat back to relax and rejuvenate.
“We lost the flail,” Hayden told Cambridge over the phone. “Stand your Egypt team down.”
The SAS captain didn’t question them. “You can go straight to the final weapon. Lauren Fox and Secretary Crowe are making headway in DC. Their plan is sound—it’s just a matter of waiting for the right time to execute it now.”
“Great,” Drake said. “And on that other, personal, matter?”
“Yes. Your friend Yorgi touched down aboard a Boeing 747 last night, landing in Moscow. He rented a car and then found a hotel on the outskirts of the city. He’s safe, but we’ll keep watch.”
“No problems?”
“No . . .” Cambridge’s tone made Drake sit up.
“What is it?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. It’s nothing to do with Yorgi, but something massive is brewing. I hear it in the chatter we listen to. In cell communications. Through informants. Everywhere. It’s all unsubstantiated. Do you remember when the Blood King attacked the President in DC? Before that, the terrorist and merc chatter went through the roof. Well, it’s happening again. Right now.”
“Not connected to Tempest?” Hayden asked.
“No. The chatter there is immense, yes, but it’s relatively open channel, centered on just a couple of areas in the world. But this . . . this is so deep and dark, it’s scary.”
Scary? Drake didn’t like the sound of that.
“DC was a bad time for us,” Drake remembered. “For all of us. This only reconfirms that we need to get our names cleared fast and restart business as usual. We can’t be left in the dark for something like that.”
Mai sipped water. “Can I ask if there’s a reason you mentioned this in the same breath as Yorgi?”
Cambridge sighed down the line. “Yeah, yeah, it seems to be originating from Russia.”
Drake knew they had many enemies over there, but Kovalenko was dead. So were many others. “Let’s find the last weapon,” he said. “Before worrying about ghosts. And where are we with the Syrian terrorist camp and disavowed teams?”
“Ah, well there’s some good news. We have a plan for contacting all the teams and trying to get them to work together. We’re proposing a series of code words, and dispatching locals to meet up with each team. You guys were right—there are dozens. Hundreds of men and women. We’ve established our neutrality with extreme difficulty through already implanted code words—phrases recognized by each team and put in place at training level. We still have a few friends at places like Fort Jackson, Fort Knox, Benning, Sill; that kind of thing.”
“Good idea,” Dahl said. “A soldier’s mindset is established at training level. Throw a few old idioms at him—known only to the men that trained him and those that struggled with him—and he’ll sit up and take notice.”
“It worked,” Cambridge said. “We’re developing a strategy to bring them all together.”
“Where are they all?” Luther asked.
“Scattered,” Cambridge said. “Mostly across the Middle East. Egypt. Syria. Afghanistan. Iran. Iraq. Anywhere there’s conflict in Eastern Europe.”
“I know we lost it,” Alicia said. “But what’s the significance of the Flail of Anubis?”
“Sure, I had a whole speech prepared for when you handed it over. Anubis was the Egyptian god associated with mummification and the afterlife. Of course, he’s associated with the quintessential depictions of men with dog’s heads and the like. He was one of those that determined whether a soul would be allowed into the realm of the dead. He’s one of the most ancient of gods, and also one of the most famous—but plays practically no part in any Egyptian myths.”
“Didn’t they also depict him as a jackal?” Drake asked.
“Yes, he’s had many different roles through the ages. Highly revered though.”
“And do we have any idea where this flail might be taken?” Luther asked. “And, whilst we’re asking—where all the other weapons are being stored?”
“That is a good, fresh angle we’re trying,” Cambridge said. “Tracking the weapons, as you say. But the short-range devices we have are limiting. It’s difficult to keep track. At the moment, by backtracking events from all around the world, we’re pretty sure the weapons are being sent to the United States, and that there are over twenty of them.”
“Events?” Drake asked. “Not all terrorist, please?”
“No, not all,” Cambridge said to the team’s relief. “Nothing on the scale of the train episode either.”
“I really think you should start analyzing the weapons that you have,” Hayden told him. “The only way to beat Tempest is to get a step ahead of them. Lauren and Crowe are trying in DC. I believe you can do the same over there. What’s so special about these weapons?”
“Another good idea,” Cambridge acknowledged.
“It’s the coffee.” Alicia finished off her third cup. “Strong and black over here with a mega-caffeine rush.”
“Just what I need,” Cambridge said. “I’ll be in touch soon but, for now, I’ll send you details of the Forge of Vulcan.”
“Easy one?” Drake asked hopefully.
“No, it’s the toughest yet. I was half hoping Tempest might get to it first but, as you say, perhaps they’re leaving the hardest and most dangerous artifacts for last.”
“We’re on it,” Hayden assured him. “And will report back. Oh, and Cambridge?”
“Yes?”
“Use more resources to discover exactly what this ‘big thing’ emanating out if Russia is. Y’know, just in case we all survive and get back to America. I don’t wanna end up stuck in the middle of another blood vengeance battle again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
The Forge of Vulcan was not only dangerous to reach, it was going to be intensely dangerous to get close to. The area lay close to an IS stronghold. Cambridge didn’t add it to his report but Drake knew IS emerged from what had been al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was formed by Sunni militants after the Western invasion in 2003. In 2011 IS joined those fighting against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where it found comparative safety and hordes of weapons. Drake also knew that over eight hundred people had traveled from the UK to join the
conflict in Syria and Iraq, with just under half returning since.
But what would they return to?
He couldn’t know that, so locked the question away. Refugees was one of the main issues with this war, over five million fleeing Syria and three million fleeing Iraq. Even the battle for Mosul itself led to in excess of one million people fleeing their homes.
The Forge of Vulcan lay in Syria, within walking range of one of IS’s last bastions. The area was intensely guarded up to IS standard, which was to say incomprehensible to most. The cave system itself might even be in use.
“How did the forge end up in an IS fortress?” Alicia asked.
“The militant group discovered it whilst ransacking and destroying people’s homes,” Dahl read aloud, since not everyone could crowd around Hayden’s laptop. “An archaeologist’s perhaps. It may even have been stolen from Europeans working here—the land of Syria still lies at the heart of archaeology.”
“I don’t understand how we know it’s there,” Kenzie said. “If a team got close enough to use the tracking device why didn’t they just go in and get it?”
“That’s the interesting part,” Hayden explained. “Apparently, it’s being advertised for a huge sum of cash on the dark web.”
“Part of me wonders if it’s worth risking our lives for,” Alicia said. “But then the other part assures me that the forge will be the deciding element in Tempest’s plan. It’s Sod’s Law.”
“Agreed,” Drake said. “And the forge is bigger than the others—containing large amounts of material. Knowing Tempest, they’ll just buy this thing.”
“They wouldn’t trust IS,” Kinimaka said. “Don’t forget who Tempest are. CIA, bankers, businessmen, judges. They know how deals can fail.”
“And all we know is it’s inside that cave system?” Drake pointed at the screen.
“Deep inside,” Hayden said. “The device barely got a read.”
“We’ll need to be fully, utterly loaded,” Luther said with relish. “More weapons and ammo than Fort Bragg. We get among that army . . . our chances drop by the second.”
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