Warlord: An Alex Hawke Novel

by Ted Bell

  Ugg was first to exit the gold vault and looked both ways, the radioactivity sensor beeping noticeably louder now. A second later, Sahira, studying her monitor for hostiles, called out to the team stacked up at the door, “Clear! Go!”

  NEAR THE END OF THIS NEW TUNNEL they came to a barrier. Not a physical barrier, but an ever-shifting spiderweb of red laser beams, constantly in motion. There was simply no way a human being could penetrate this barrier without causing every alarm inside the mountain to start screaming.

  Sahira touched Alex’s forearm. “Look all the way through the web. The beams are emanating from some kind of device mounted on the wall at the end of this tunnel. Take the device out, and we’re clear.”

  “Right. But we can’t get to it to disarm it.”

  “No, we can’t. But Ugg can.”

  “Ugg can’t get under the lowest beam. The turrets are too high.”

  “Maybe not. Watch this.”

  Sahira pressed a toggle switch on the controller and the bot instantly lowered itself until its underside was less than a half inch off the ground.

  “How the hell?” Hawke said.

  “Air suspension. I designed him with bladders that raise or lower him twelve inches.”

  “Wizard.”

  “Heartbreaker.”

  “Let’s see what your little Ugg can do, shall we?”

  “As you wish,” she replied and pushed the joystick forward. The bot moved swiftly and silently beneath the lowest of the brilliant red beams, clearing by perhaps half an inch. Hawke and Sahira peered at the screen as the wall-mounted device came into view. “Now what?” Hawke said.

  “Two options. I can use his robotic arm to open the device and sever the laser’s power supply. Or I can fire a quick burst of automatic fire and destroy the whole thing.”

  “The former. The less noise we make, the better.”

  Hawke watched Ugg’s mechanical arm extend, pry open the metal lid exposing the inner workings of the laser device, and use its finely articulated claw to carefully separate and disconnect the tangled myriad of wires. It clipped several with its wire cutters. Then it reconnected one red-coated wire to a new terminal before cutting one final connection.

  “What’s it doing now?” Hawke asked. “I mean you. What are you doing now?”

  “Preventing any disruption of the status alert signal from going to the alarm systems when the power is cut off. Watch.”

  Ugg’s pincers found the power cable and cut it cleanly. The laser beams disappeared instantaneously. The tunnel was clear. And there were no alarms.

  “Good work. Let’s go,” Hawke said, moving rapidly to catch up with Ugg, the machine already disappearing around the next bend. Sahira suddenly clutched his arm.

  “Alex! Stop!”

  “What?”

  “Look.” She held up the controller. On the screen was another unmanned robot coming rapidly toward Ugg.

  “That looks identical to the one you designed!” Hawke said.

  “It is one of the ones I designed,” Sahira said in utter disbelief.

  “How many were manufactured?”

  “Only a handful.”

  “So how the hell does this Sheik of Araby end up with one of our highly classified British robots in his personal arsenal?”

  “I have absolutely no idea. Only someone who has access to the highest—”

  She was interrupted by the resounding rattle of machine-gun fire.

  “The other one is shooting at Ugg! Shoot back!” Hawke said.

  Sahira’s fingers flew all over the controls, blindingly fast, sending Ugg careening all over the tunnel while managing to keep both barrels of the machine guns pouring lead into its twin. The enemy bot tried to reverse away but Ugg accelerated, chasing down the evil twin and giving it both barrels, blasting it to pieces until almost nothing but the tracks remained, grinding to a smoking, sparking, frazzled halt.

  Hawke smiled at the ridiculous sensation he was experiencing. He suddenly found himself wanting to cheer for a bloody machine!

  FIFTY-NINE

  THE SMILE DIDN’T LAST LONG. After an hour of climbing, always upward in the dark, the team entered a new stretch of tunnel, trailing along behind the wounded but victorious Ugg. Ugg’s radioactive warning beeps had become much louder now, especially when it had passed the opening of a fresh tunnel leading off to the left. Sahira desperately wanted to explore it, but Hawke insisted they keep moving until they engaged the enemy.

  He knew his men were tired and hungry. They’d been inside this bloody beehive for almost five hours without a break. But he knew better than to pause; he’d learned that the hard way once in Cuba. It had cost lives and he’d never forgiven himself.

  This was the first lighted stretch of tunnel they’d encountered, and Hawke was proceeding with extreme caution. After the robotic battle, there was no chance the enemy was still unaware of their presence inside the mountain stronghold. It was only a matter of time before they would run up against some form of armed resistance. And, lacking any intel at all about the number and quality of troops guarding al-Rashad, he simply had no idea of what magnitude of force he was up against.

  Just then Hawke caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Above and to the right. He looked up and saw a small security camera pivoting back and forth. He could even see the iris of the lens closing and opening as it paused and stared at him and his small assault force. This tunnel section was illuminated, and the rock walls appeared to be weeping water, two small ditches to either side carrying the water downward. Hawke was trying to figure out where all this water was coming from. It had to be snowmelt, runoff caused by the sun as it rose in the sky.

  It was now only a matter of minutes before they’d meet the enemy, whoever the devil they were.

  Hawke raised a hand and halted the team as Sahira sent the machine out for a peek around another blind corner. She stared at the small screen in shock.

  “Oh my God, Alex, look.”

  It was a large phalanx of guards, Imperial Guards by the look of their splendid gold-braided epaulets and uniforms. Gold braid and scarlet sashes, turbans of silk the same shade of red. There had to be at least fifty of them. Quite possibly more. They were marching in tight formation toward Hawke’s position, so many men that they were filling the tunnel, advancing shoulder to shoulder toward where Hawke’s men were holding, awaiting orders.

  Hawke turned toward his men, speaking quickly and clearly.

  “Enemy soldiers coming down the tunnel. Roughly fifty. We’ve got maybe four minutes until they reach us. Sahira, you and Abdul, go back and check the tunnel we passed where Ugg got excited. But Ugg has to stay with us, I need him. Can you manage without his detection capabilities?”

  “No problem. I brought a backup handheld device in case he was destroyed. Here’s his primary controller. Are you comfortable operating it?”

  “Yes. Go back to that tunnel, Sahira. Now. Find that bloody nuke. Stoke, I know your great god of war, Sun Tzu, would disapprove, but I say we attack, not stand and defend. They now know how small a force we are and will not be expecting aggression from us.”

  “Agree.”

  “We send Ugg out first, open fire with his twin guns to slow them down, create panic and disorder in the front ranks. The second his ammo’s completely expended, I’ll step out and throw three smoke grenades into the main body, blinding them, filling the space with smoke. Then we round the corner and enter the tunnel as one unit, moving as fast as we can right into them, simply firing ahead, covering quads, side to side, knowing we’ll hit them because inside a tunnel they’ve nowhere else to go. With me?”

  “All the way.”

  “Each man fires two weapons simultaneously, doubling our firepower. Rifle in one hand, sidearm in the other. Don’t stop. Just roll right into and over them until we break through at the rear of their formation. Then turn and fire at them as we retreat to find our true target. Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  Hawk
e toggled the fire control, opening up on the advancing phalanx with both barrels, swinging Ugg’s turrets from side to side with murderous fire at this range. As men went down, troops surging forward from behind stepped over their dead and wounded only to be killed themselves. There were screams and shouts of confusion from the enemy. Hawke stepped out into the tunnel and heaved three cooked-off grenades into the midst of the enemy, instantly filling the space with thick white smoke.

  “Good,” Hawke said to his men. “We bunch up, stay glued to each other, move as a single unit and only fire outward at chest high level, got it?”

  Every man looked at him, grim but determined, and nodded yes. “Good. Let’s knife through these troops and go find that child-killing bastard and do what we came here for. Go! Go! Go!”

  Hawke, his men tightly gathered behind him, rounded the bend and waded as one into the swirling smoke, firing into it with everything they had, knowing their rounds were finding targets because the enemy had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  There was withering return fire, and Hawke sensed they were taking heavy casualties. But the enemy was surprised and completely disoriented at the sudden and vicious attack. They were firing wildly, killing more of their own than the invaders. Still, his militiamen were dying, falling around him. For every five feet he advanced, Hawke sensed losing two men.

  Hawke felt like he was moving against a human tide of agony, mowing down whatever was in front of him, his boots slipping and sliding in the endless blood and gore that lay before him. It was as if time itself was paused, and this horrific journey through the tunnel of death would never end—but he finally broke free of the writhing mass of dead and dying bodies—and emerged, grateful to be alive, into clear air.

  He looked over his shoulder at the swirling smoke. The most terrifying thing in combat is to be a leader who glances behind him and finds no one there. Then he saw Stoke emerge, saw him slap in a fresh mag, then whirl around and fire into the few enemy who remained on their feet. Hawke waited for more of his own men to emerge, fearful that all but Stoke had died in the firestorm.

  But here came two, stumbling, one supporting the other. They looked shell-shocked from the carnage in such a confined space. He waited another minute. Only one more member of his militia came out of the smoke and blood. His team now numbered five. Ragged, reeking men, eyes blood red with smoke, now drenched in blood from head to toe. Five would have to do.

  And Stokely Jones? Stoke was at least three more men all by himself, Hawke told himself.

  So, counting Stoke, make it eight.

  THE TUNNEL TURNED FROM ROUGH stone to smooth white marble. There were classical pillars and pilasters and pediments. There were heavily carved doors of solid bronze, and niches in the polished stone walls, each one with a bust or torso of great antiquity. Soft recessed lighting now illuminated hidden coves and architectural features, and Persian tapestries hung in great profusion.

  It was like a dream after the nightmare they’d just come through, like coming up from the dark stygian underworld and into the Kingdom of the Sun.

  Massive bronze double doors, a rampant lion carved into each one, stood at the far end of this brilliant passageway. Beyond them, he had no doubt, waited the master of this brilliant domain. The Lion of the Punjab, Sheik Abu al-Rashad.

  Hawke held the keys to the Kingdom in his hand, a weapon capable of penetrating virtually any door ever conceived and now he’d get a chance to use it. He pulled the rocket-propelled slug from his web belt and affixed it to the muzzle of his M4. Unlike a grenade designed to effect a maximum kill radius, this explosive round was designed to punch a hole one foot across in three feet of steel-reinforced concrete. As far as he knew, it had never been used against doors like these but what the hell.

  “You know the drill,” he said to his four-man squad, and they stacked up behind him, weapons reloaded, and prepared to face whatever they found on the other side. Stoke took one look at the size of the grenade on the end of Hawke’s gun, put a finger to his lips, and waved everybody back.

  “As Adam said to Eve, ‘Step back, baby, I got no idea just how big this damn thing is gonna get.’”

  Hawke laughed out loud. It was just what they all needed. Hawke held the weapon six feet from the great locks where the double doors joined and pulled the trigger. The resulting shock wave buffeted him back, almost knocking him off his feet. The two doors blew inward with tremendous force. Had they not weighed so much, they would surely have been blown off their hinges.

  As it was, the great doors simply smashed into the walls to either side of the entrance, causing, Hawke saw, massive damage to a portion of the Sheik’s exquisite art collection.

  “Picasso?” Hawke said to the man who had to be the Sheik as he entered, his .45 automatic pistol leveled in the middle of al-Rashad’s chest. The man was seated and wisely had both of his hands on the desk in front of him. The room was exquisite, high white walls reaching up to a barrel-vaulted ceiling, floors of Persian marble inlaid with semi-precious stones, and tapestries woven in silver and gold thread hung from many of the walls.

  “Dubuffet, to be precise.”

  “What the hell, they all look the same to me,” Alex said, wiping somebody’s blood out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Lord Hawke,” al-Rashad said, smiling at him above the great expanse of his ebony and ivory desk. Stoke had swung inside the great room on Alex’s heels, pivoting left and right with his weapon, covering Hawke and ensuring that the room was clear and that the target was all alone. He was. Stoke signaled, and the three remaining militiamen entered, taking up positions that covered both the entrance and egress, and the target himself.

  “Sheik Abu al-Rashad,” Hawke said, “so sorry to drop in unexpectedly.”

  “You come highly recommended, your lordship. And I must admit I’m impressed with your grand entrance. Nothing like it has ever been even remotely attempted.”

  “Really? Recommended by whom, may I ask?”

  “Our mutual friend, of course. Mr. Smith.”

  “Ah, the ubiquitous Mr. Smith. Odd, we’ve never met. After all these years. Pity.”

  “He certainly knows you.”

  “Then I’m afraid Mr. Smith has me at a disadvantage.”

  “He does indeed.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he is about to change the course of British history. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

  “Hardly merits discussion then, does it?”

  “I suppose not. You are here looking for the missing device? Or simply to kill me?”

  “Both.”

  “Good. In that case we shall mount on golden wings and fly to the gates of paradise together.”

  “I think not.”

  “I think so,” the man said, raising his right hand and revealing something cradled in his palm. It was a shiny black metal object the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes.

  “This is the detonator for the one-kiloton device. I have just depressed the button. It’s now armed. If you care to shoot me, which I’m sure you do, my finger will obviously release the trigger. I will accept my martyrdom with joy. You, and everyone remaining alive inside this mountain, will die instantly. Why, my God, it will be spectacular. We’ll blow the whole top of Wazizabad to the skies. Glorious.”

  “And if I don’t shoot?”

  “Your life will go on. You will bear witness. We stand here at the threshold of a new world order, Lord Hawke. A caliphate. A world where Sharia law is the rule of all nations. The new Golden Age of Islam. Do you believe in God, Lord Hawke?”

  “I believe this moment in time is no accident.”

  “I honor you in this belief.”

  “Stoke?” Hawke said, looking his old friend in the eye. “What do you think?”

  “Tough call, boss.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think we do our duty and that’s the end of it. We’ve always known we’d have to go sometime. At least this
way, we go out in a blaze of glory, knowing we did what we had to do.”

  “You remember Admiral Lord Nelson’s last words, as he lay dying on Victory’s deck in supreme triumph, having defeated the French at Trafalgar?”

  “Tell me, boss.”

  “Thank God I have done my duty.”

  “Yeah. That’s what it’s all about.”

  “Ever since I was a child I’ve always thought that is how I would like to go out. A fine way to die, doing your duty.”

  Hawke raised the pistol, aiming it at the man’s head.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, boss. One last thing. I love you like a brother. Always have. Always will.”

  “I return it tenfold, Stoke.”

  Hawke said a brief silent prayer and squeezed the trigger.

  Abu al-Rashad, who’d never once believed this man Hawke would willingly commit suicide, died with that thought still firing in his perforated brain.

  Alex Hawke, who, a split second earlier, was prepared to lay down his life for his country, was staggered to find himself still alive. Al-Rashad’s brains were spattered on the wall behind him. The little black controller fell from his hand and clattered harmlessly across the marble floor.

  Hawke, dumbstruck, heard a voice behind him.

  “All right then, you two lovebirds. Abdul and I found that dirty nuke,” Sahira said from the doorway.

  “You found it?” Hawke said. It seemed like he’d sent her off to look for it a lifetime ago.

  “At the end of that tunnel back where Ugg lit up. We disabled it about five minutes ago.”

  “Only five minutes?” Stoke said, incredulous.

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  “Could have been a little bit, yeah.”

  Hawke and Stoke stared at Sahira in utter disbelief at how precisely they’d cheated death. And then the two men started smiling, grinning at her, lunging toward each other and embracing, pounding on each other’s backs, convulsed with joyous laughter.