by Rob Jones
“And by the sounds of it, if he works out who you really are you’ll be inside out,” Camacho said.
“Non… it could work,” Reaper said with an evaluating nod. “I’ve worked as a mercenary for a long time. I know these people. I know how they think. Our story will be convincing enough, and better if there are two of us.”
“So let’s get going,” Hawke said, cheerily rubbing his hands together. “But everyone else stays in back-up.”
Lea sighed. “Jet’s in Zurich,” she said flatly. “So an hour till it’s here.”
“A whole bloody hour?” Scarlet whined, turning to Jack Camacho and opening the top button of his shirt. “Whatever are we going to do in that time?”
Before he had a chance to reply, she hooked her finger through his belt and led him out of the room.
“Where the hell are they going?” Lexi asked.
“His choice – maybe another room,” Ryan said. “Her choice – the janitor’s cupboard will suffice, and may even be preferable.”
A chuckle went around the room.
‘Don’t laugh,” Hawke said without thinking of Lea. “I’ve been there and that’s the sad truth.”
Lea gave him a look and he immediately wished he hadn’t said it. “Sorry.”
“Forget it… unless doing it in cupboards is something you want to talk about.”
“It was all her,” Hawke said, relieved she had taken it as a joke.
“I bet she’s done it everywhere,” Ryan said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Scarlet had left the room. “In fact I think I heard a rumor about her and a Dunkin’ Donuts car park in California.”
“Really?” Lexi said.
“Yeah, just Scarlet, a Dunkin’ Donuts car park and half the US Pacific Fleet.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” Lexi said. “Scarlet would never settle for just half the fleet.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hawke hadn’t opened his eyes since the Gulfstream had roared off the runway back in Munich. His mind was busy enough without adding more sensory input to it, and even the sound of his friends talking among themselves was distracting enough. Reaper was the loudest – his gravelly laugh filling any silence in between the moments of silence.
Half asleep now, he heard Lexi speaking Mandarin – or was it a dream? Maybe she was on the phone, or talking in her sleep. The gentle sing-song words leaped from her lips like exotic birds, and he started thinking about Han, the Shaolin monk he had fought alongside against Sheng Fang in China. Han and his secrets – Khan’s secret treasures, Qin’s immortality quest, and maybe even some missing idols…
Lea and Camacho were talking about Dublin. The American was describing a vacation he’d taken there with a girlfriend who wanted to visit because her grandparents had been born there. Camacho had a solid, deep laugh that projected his honesty to the world.
Ryan was nowhere to be heard, and he guessed he was busily engaged in his laptop as usual… earbuds keeping the wild world at bay and some kind of crazy ancient conundrum keeping his polymath mind whirring all the time.
Closer to him, at the table, Maria was sitting opposite and now he sensed Lexi join her. He was sure they thought he was asleep as neither had spoken to him since takeoff.
“We know you’re not asleep,” said the Russian voice.
Hawke didn’t move. Kept his eyes shut. He tried to focus on getting to sleep but with every passing second he knew it would be impossible. Under the table, one of them gently kicked his shin, but he was ready for it and pretended not to feel it.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” said a second voice – this time it was Lexi, backing up Maria’s initial salvo.
He heard Maria sigh. “So open your eyes, Joe.”
“And stop pissing about it,” Lexi said flatly.
Despite the effort not to, his lips cracked into a smile and he relented, opening his eyes and focusing on his two friends. “Did someone say something? It’s just that I was asleep.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “The world of comedy missed out big when you joined the army.”
“Marines.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not to idiots.”
Lexi also tried to suppress a smile but failed.
“Anyone want a drink?” Maria said.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Lexi said. “That phone call was me arguing with my mother.”
“It sounded ferocious,” Scarlet said yawning and turning over on the couch. “At one point you almost raised your voice to a whisper.”
“Go back to sleep, honey,” Lexi said.
She turned to Hawke and smiled warmly. It was true he and Lexi had slept together, and it had been good. It was also true that he found her attractive, not that he would ever tell her that. Giving her information like that would be like giving your worst enemy your most secret attack plans. But despite all that he loved Lea. He wondered if he had ever told the Irishwoman that. He didn’t know. Maybe he had and maybe not. Did it matter? It would matter to Lea, but she would never let on. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She was too independent.
Did she feel the same? He thought so, but couldn’t be sure. In their quiet moments she talked about a man called Danny Devlin a little too often and with maybe a dash too much admiration. Maybe it was nothing. He didn’t know exactly who this Devlin was, but he sounded like he might like him. As long as he didn’t get too close to Lea Donovan.
Hawke looked toward Maria in the galley. “Where’s that drink?”
Maria returned with three beers and they relaxed into their seats once again. Outside, forty-thousand feet below, the Austrian Alps gave way to the more gentle hills of Slovenia and northern Croatia as they raced closer to their destination. Hawke looked at the flight display on the partition wall and read the names as they slipped by: Ptuj, Varaždin, Zagreb.
He sipped his beer and started to put together a plan for the attack on Korać when he was interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing.
Alex.
He picked up the call. “Hello, the Regent Cocktail Club. How may I help?”
Without hesitation Alex said: “How do you make a Jungle Bird?”
“I really don’t know.”
“In that case it looks like your little joke fell flat on its ass.”
Hawke smiled. “You could say that.”
“For future reference, it’s Bacardi superior, Campari, lime juice, pineapple juice and sugar.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Or just answer your phone like a normal human being.”
“Or that, yes. How can I help, Agent Nightingale?”
“I’ll get right to it. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“If you mean Reaper and me going off the grid and infiltrating Korać’s private army to get closer to Kruger, then yes. It’s the only way we can be sure the idol doesn’t vanish into the night.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Out with it.”
“You need me to say it?”
“Well, I’m not going to.”
“Come on, Joe. Serbia was a big deal for us both. It was the first time I’d ever had to save someone’s life and you nearly died in there.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’ve nearly died lots of times.” He winced as soon as he said it. Bravado bullshit like that wasn’t something real Special Forces operatives talked about, at least not any of the ones he knew.
“Fine, if that’s your attitude.”
He softened his tone. Alex Reeve was one of his oldest friends, and it was true that she had saved his life. In fact that was how they met. He cared about her, and he felt responsible for the fact she was back in her wheelchair. He had supplied her with the elixir in the hope she would walk again, and instead it had done nothing but give her a taste of freedom. Now, its absence mocked her, and he had failed to secure her another source of the precious liquid.
“I know you’re concerned, Alex, but we have no choice. Korać has
powerful connections and as soon as he gets his army together we will be massively outgunned. If we’re going to stand a chance of getting close then it’s now, before he can organize his forces.”
“I’m not convinced, Joe. This could be dangerous.”
He resisted the urge once again to tell her that nearly everything he did was dangerous. “We’re not going to get close enough unless we get on the inside and this is the only way to do it. It makes perfect sense and I’ve got Vincent to hold my hand if that makes you feel any better.”
But he knew it wouldn’t. He knew what she was going through, confined once again to the wheelchair and trapped on Elysium when everyone else was in the chase. Now she’d just found out he was going into the monster’s lair with the minimum of backup, and they would both be forced to relive that day in Serbia all those years ago.
“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”
He smiled again. “You take care of yourself over there Agent Nightingale.”
“Me? I’m on Elysium. What could possibly happen to me?”
*
Minutes after touching down in Nikola Tesla Airport they were escorted to an ancient Serbian Army FAP 2026 transport truck and a round of quick, professional introductions was made. Eden and his contacts had called ahead and deals were struck. Elements of the Serbian authorities were keen to terminate Dragan Korać’s mercenary business and now they had the pressure of Eden’s contacts in the British Government to push them along.
The ECHO team hurried through the frozen air and climbed into the back of the truck and moments later they were crossing the Sava into the old part of the city.
Following behind them was an original, battered, mustard yellow 1983 Lada Riva driven by one of the soldiers. Korać’s compound was built on the site of a medieval fort in a village eight kilometres southeast of Belgrade, nestled in the wooden hills near Kaluđerica. When they reached the woods Hawke and Reaper would take the Riva into Korać’s compound.
Hawke peered out the back of the FAP at the 1.3 litre Lada with more than a dash of scepticism. “Is that really the best they could find?”
“At such short notice, yes.”
He turned to see Captain Jelena Karapandža scowling at him. She was the ranking officer of the small army contingent the local authorities had offered to escort them to Korać’s compound. She was beautiful, with sparkling brown eyes and blonde hair discretely tied up and tucked away beneath her beret, but the Englishman guessed cracking a smile on those red lips would be like climbing K2.
“It’s just that if we have to make a break for it and Korać and his men give chase, they could catch us with a ride-on mower.”
“Then you’d better hope they have very long grass at the compound,” Jelena said with no trace of a smile.
“That’s of great reassurance to me,” Hawke said. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now, what is all this about? My colonel told me only that we were to take you to the Korać compound at Kaluđerica.”
“Korać is meeting with a South African archaeology looter and diamond smuggler named Dirk Kruger. We think Kruger’s going shopping for some mercs and if you know Korać then you’ll know he only does business face to face.”
“Korać is a very dangerous man,” Jelena said. “Anyone in the army here knows all about him. He was an incompetent army officer who turned to brandy after the war and then after that he degenerated into a ruthless warlord. Not a man to play with. This Kruger I have never heard of, though.”
Hawke shook his head. “Me neither – not until the last few hours anyway. He was contacted by a third party, a Mexican cartel boss called Silvio Mendoza who’s now out of the picture. Now Kruger is looking for some muscle to take on a treasure-hunting expedition. I can’t say much more, sorry.”
She shrugged. “I understand, naturally. We all have our secrets.”
And there it was – the first hint of a smile, but then she turned away to cadge a cigarette off one of her soldiers and Hawke drifted away as they made their way through the southern reaches of Belgrade. It was somewhere here, in this labyrinth of broken-down streets and former Soviet housing projects that he’d almost died all those years ago. It was here where he had gone dark and infiltrated a small band of Serbian radicals and their assorted Mafia cronies.
Beside him, Lea felt her fate looming ahead of her as the truck raced through the busy streets of the Serbian capital. From here, in the safety of the speeding vehicle, she watched the traffic and pedestrians as they flowed through Senjak like blood in one of the city’s most important arteries.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t know what it was, but life was starting to feel heavier these days. It felt like every day she was dragging more and more baggage around behind her and it was just slowing her down and stopping her from getting where she wanted to go. She sighed and opened her eyes again to see a different street, but the same faces and cars… the usual blur her life had become.
Less than half an hour later they left the city behind and entered the wooded hills south of Kaluđerica. They were getting closer to Korać and his hidey-hole now, so Jelena banged on the back of the truck’s cabin and the driver pulled over to the side of the road. Behind them the little Lada Riva followed suit and parked up on a muddy verge.
“This is it then,” Maria said, uncertainty coloring her voice.
Using a pair of powerful army field binoculars they monitored the compound for anything unusual. They saw only the regular comings and goings of a few vehicles and a handful of bored-looking men who were clearly supposed to be on guard duty but seemed to spend most of their time smoking cigarettes and joking.
No sign of Kruger yet.
Hawke watched the scene with care as he pieced together the final parts of his strategy for the operation. It was true, the place reminded him of the location in Zemun where he had almost died, but he shook it off. Memories could only bother you if you dragged them up to the surface. Nevertheless he double-checked his comms signal to Alex back on Elysium.
“You reading me, Agent Nightingale?”
“Gotcha safe and sound, Joe.”
“Good stuff, Alex. We’re going in soon, so I’m signing off.”
“You’re keeping the comms, right?”
“No can do, Alex. If we’re searched and they find earpieces we’re dead on the spot.”
Hawke popped out the earpiece and handed it to Maria. Then he gave Jelena the word and she ordered her soldiers to take up their positions around the compound’s outer perimeter but to keep well back and out of sight.
It was up to Hawke and Reaper now, and they handed over their side-arms before climbing into the Riva and firing the tiny engine up.
“Monique’s hair dryer has more power than this,” Reaper said, casually flicking his tattooed hand toward the engine compartment. “It would be quicker if we got out and pushed it.”
“Our mission is simple, Vincent,” Hawke said. “Get in the compound and infiltrate Korać’s private party. Then we can get close to Kruger, secure the idol and take him out before things get out of control. All we need the hair dryer for is to drive us into the compound.”
“If you say so,” Reaper said, his voice heavy with doubt. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply as he tossed the match out the window and wound it up against the cold air. “How many did Jelena say were in here?”
“Korać has a regular force of around a dozen or so men here usually, so now Kruger’s here with Van Zyl we’re looking at no more than maybe fifteen, absolute max.”
“Us two versus fifteen?” the Frenchman said with an evaluating nod. “Doesn’t seem fair – on them.”
Hawke smiled but said nothing. Even though he had distrusted him at first, he liked Vincent Reno. He respected the French Foreign Legion but Reno’s work as a mercenary, especially in Fallujah and Sierra Leone had made him wary when he’d first met him. But that was a long time ago – they’d done so much that it felt like
forever – and because of all the battles they’d fought together he now trusted him with his life. Whether or not the feeling was mutual was hard to tell. Reno wasn't the kind of man to share his feelings.
They drove along a series of winding lanes, flanked either side by heavy Serbian spruces until eventually turning onto the main approach to the compound. Up ahead they saw the main gates and seconds later two men with rifles swung over their shoulders ambled casually toward them and gave them a hand signal to stop. Something about the way they moved told Hawke they would make pretty slovenly soldiers, and he hoped all of Korać’s men would be the same.
As Hawke gently pressed the brake, a powerful spotlight from the top of the wall over the gates swung around and shone into the Riva, blinding both of them and forcing them to cover their eyes.
One of the men pulled his weapon from his shoulder and tapped the driver’s window with the muzzle. He spoke in Serbian, the incomprehensible words tumbling from his mouth like crumbs.
Hawke spoke to the man in his own language, the words carefully rehearsed on the flight. “We’re here to see Korać.”
The man nodded but narrowed his eyes with suspicion as he peered inside the car at Reaper. The Frenchman raised his hand and pretended to rub his face, but Hawke knew the intended purpose was to show the burning grenade tattoo of the Foreign Legion to the guard.
The man gave an appreciative nod and shouted a command at the other soldiers. Up ahead Hawke and Reaper watched the main gates swing open to reveal the inside of the Serbian warlord’s fortress.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dragan Korać took a long look at the two unemployed mercenaries standing before him and drummed his fingers on the edge of a table laden with meat and fruit. His eyes shone dully in the low light as he pronged a piece of rare lamb with the point of his knife and raised it to his mouth. As he chewed he revealed a missing canine tooth from the left side of his upper jaw. There was a dark, evaluating glint lurking in his eyes.