by Rob Jones
“Thanks!” she said. “It would be a shame to bring any mud into such a beautiful car...”
“Are you okay, Lea?” Hawke asked.
She nodded – she looked shaken but not stirred.
“Then hit it!” screamed Hawke, and Lexi floored the accelerator.
The SUV’s wheels spun and the car lurched forward in a cloud of stinking black rubber smoke. Behind them, Hawke saw Sheng’s men jump into the second SUV.
“Yeah, they’re not going anywhere,” Lea said with that distinctive smile of hers.
“Alternator?” Hawke said.
“No time for all that,” the Irishwoman said. “Blew their bastard tires out. All four of them.”
Hawke smiled and nodded in appreciation of her work, but as Lexi steered the SUV roughly around the corner he saw Sheng’s men climbing back out of the disabled Nissan X-Trail and kick the tires. One of them crossed the street and fired a shot through the window of a silver Nissan GTR.
“Don’t celebrate too soon,” said Hawke, “but I think Sheng’s goons are more resourceful than we gave them credit for.”
“Oh, what now?” sighed Lea.
“They’ve decided to take a nice, shiny roadster for a joyride, and I think we’re the target.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sophie ordered some coffee while Ryan set up his laptop and started to research the missing portrait. If anyone had ever told her that she would end up falling for a man like Ryan Bale she would have tiger-punched them in the throat, but there was just something about him that she was attracted to.
It started when they were in the engine room of the Thalassa, but when he saved Joe Hawke’s life that really sealed the deal. She saw then that he was a just a regular guy trapped in a nerd’s body. And then there was his intellect. Her father had been a university lecturer and her childhood was filled with learning and knowledge. Perhaps Ryan was just another extension of that. She didn’t know, but she knew she had to protect him in an environment like this. This was her kind of world, not his.
Ryan spoke, his voice full of childish excitement. “Hey, look at this!”
“What have you found?” she said, setting down her coffee cup beside the laptop.
“I decided to start at the beginning – it’s only logical, after all.”
“Oui, c’est vrai...”
“Hawke’s just all over the place sometimes and he needs a man like me to organize him and make sense of things.”
Behind his back, Sophie smiled warmly at his words and gently shook her head.
“So where did you start?” she asked.
“It turns out this Felix Hoffmann guy was seriously into ancient China and its folklore and mythology. His main interest was the Thunder God, Lei Gong, although technically that really translates as Lord of Thunder if you’re using the Wade-Giles transcription system but in other systems it’s Léi Shén, the God of Thunder, which is fascinating because...”
“Ryan?”
“Yeah, Soph?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry, Soph. Anyway, I’ve just taken a look through Hoffmann’s research – hacked a couple of his email accounts and so on – you know what they say – walk a mile in a man’s shoes if you want to understand him, but read all his emails if you really want to actually know him.”
“Ah, that old classic.”
“Exactly, so he spent a lot of time on some pretty dusty internet forums, and...”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t that be fora?”
“Well, yes, technically but... and you’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”
“It’s so easy, that’s all.” Sophie kissed him on the temple and asked him to continue.
“Hoffmann was certain that Lei Gong was real.”
“Where have I heard that before...”
“Right – but, Lei Gong was actually born a normal mortal human being thousands of years ago. At some point in his life he discovered a divine peach tree, and unfortunately he decided the best course of action was to eat one of the peaches and whammo – the next thing he knew he’d been turned into a god with all the bells and whistles – omnipotence, omniscience, the works. They even gave him a hammer that created thunder.”
“A peach tree? Whatever will they think of next?”
“Actually, in Chinese mythology the peach was strongly associated with – and you’re not going to like this – immortality.”
“I don’t like where all of this is going, Ryan. I thought we’d left this madness behind us in Switzerland.”
“My feelings exactly, but it looks like we’re not getting off the hook that easily. In this Chinese system of mythology the gods ate peaches because they conferred immortality upon them and this is an image which occurs again and again in ancient Chinese art and poetry. The Peach of Immortality was a sacred fruit.”
“And this is what happened to Lei Gong – he was a man who ate one of these peaches and became a god?”
“Yup – the God of Thunder, as I say. Lots of ancient cultures developed the concept of thunder gods and they were always very important in polytheistic systems. The thunder god usually was the top man, so to speak, so Zeus was a thunder god, and Thor in Norse mythology. Whoever is leaving Lei Gong’s name sprayed on the side of ships clearly thinks a lot of himself.”
“He sounds like a total maniac to me,” Sophie said.
“A total maniac with a god-complex and a top secret earthquake machine. Not exactly a match made in heaven.”
“But what was Hoffmann really looking for – the Tesla machine?”
“No – at least I don't think so,” Ryan said. “There is no mention in any of his papers about classified military projects or anything like that, neither did he ever talk about anything like it in his many trips to fora.”
Sophie smiled and playfully slapped his shoulder. “So what, then?”
“That’s what I'm here for,” he said, puffing his chest out. “But I haven’t had much luck in that department yet. The only thing I can find is that aside from Hoffmann’s obsession with Lei Gong and the thunder gods, he also spent a great deal of time looking into the concept of divine immortality.”
“And I thought earthquake machines were going to be trouble...”
“Felix Hoffmann’s fascination with Lei Gong seems to have led him to something called the Reichardt Papers.”
“The what?”
“Good question. I can find next to nothing about them on the internet except for the most cursory of references, usually tied into Hoffmann’s own research and enquiries. All I can gather is that they have something to do with the search for immortality.”
Sophie was starting to hate that word. A few weeks ago it had meant nothing more to her than any other word. It simply described an unobtainable fantasy that had gripped men and women for millennia, but now it brought a new, terrible meaning to her mind whenever she heard it.
Now it conjured horrific images of her adventures in Greece, being trapped in an underwater cave system and nearly blown into a thousand pieces in a boat explosion. To Ryan, it all seemed like a game, but she knew better. Back when she had worked for the French Secret Service her life was full of violence and deceit, so she knew better than anyone what people were capable of – the lengths they would go to take what they desired. And things had gotten even worse after she left the DGSE and started in her new job, the one she had told no one about, but this was no time to contemplate the path her life had taken.
“What is it with all these men and immortality?” she asked. “It always seems to be men – have you noticed that?”
“What do you mean?” Ryan continued tapping information into the computer as he spoke.
“I mean, why can’t men accept their fate in the way a woman can?”
“Ah!” Ryan exclaimed, not even hearing her last sentence. “Now this is interesting.”
Sophie leaned closer to the computer screen and place
d her hand gently on his shoulder. “What have you found?”
“Some cracking stuff about Lei Gong. According to this, there was some kind of prophecy attributed to the Thunder God.”
Sophie watched Ryan as he flicked through page after page of text. He’d been on the case for several hours now but was still as alert and interested as the minute he’d turned on the computer. He’d been all over Chinese myths and legends, starting at Wikipedia and the occasional hacked document and digging his way down from there until hitting gold nearly every time.
Sophie looked at the latest screen he had found and started reading. There was very little about this prophecy Ryan had talked about – just a few references on the periphery of various texts in the form of endnotes, vague yet enticing. All she could gather was that there was some kind of prophecy attached to the Thunder God, largely unknown by modern academia, that referred in some way to immortality, the end of the world and some kind of glorious rebirth of humanity.
“It’s not very specific,” she said at last, and shrugged her shoulders.
“But it’s a start!” Ryan said. He sipped his coffee, his eyes ablaze with excitement and anticipation. “And if you have a start, it’s only a matter of time before you have an ending.”
Sophie smirked and kissed him on the head. “So what now?”
“We carry on cutting our way through all this and keep on with the research – there’s a reference to a missing manuscript I’m keen on looking into, for one thing. I’m going to need some more coffee.”
Sophie stretched her arms and agreed. More coffee was always a good idea, especially at times like this. That was what her father always said, at any rate. She missed him, but his words were always with her.
She watched Ryan open a new window on the laptop and start his search for the Thunder God prophecy, then she crossed the room and picked up the phone to order some more coffee.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lea turned in her seat and saw what Hawke was talking about – several of Sheng’s men had piled into a stolen Nissan GTR and were accelerating after them, hard and fast. In the front, Lexi Zhang floored the F-Pace and it raced forward, every one of them feeling its 3 liter supercharged V6 kick in with a startling lack of modesty.
“So this is nice,” Lea said. “You finally got your arses into gear, then?”
Scarlet gave her a cool but relieved look. “Glad you could make it, darling.”
Lea smiled and looked at Hawke. “What about you, Joe Hawke? Are you glad I could make it?”
Scarlet rolled her eyes and took a cigarette from her packet as Lexi accelerated the SUV.
Hawke smiled. “I was starting to think you’d gone AWOL,” he said, turning on the back seat and kissing her. “What the hell happened?”
“I was trailing Hoffmann but lost him on his way to the airport when those goons back there ambushed the cab. Don’t know much about why – they kept me blindfolded and never said much, but I do know I was being delivered as a kind of payment for something.”
“It was for a stolen portrait,” Hawke said. He couldn’t stop looking at her – the shape of her lips, the way her hair blew in the open window. He hadn’t felt this way about a woman since the day he stood on that windy platform in London and met the love of his life. The girl they murdered in Vietnam when they were trying to kill him instead. But this time he wouldn’t let that happen. This time he was going to make sure no one hurt the woman he loved. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Me too...”
“You could be a little more grateful,” Scarlet said.
“I’m sorry?”
“For us rescuing you. You haven’t even said thank you.”
“You never rescued me! I had the situation completely under control. I was going to play it like a lamb for that Chan guy and then after lulling him into a false sense of security I was going to blow his head off and fly back to London. Simples. All you did was expedite the situation, as Richard might say.”
Scarlet snorted. “Should have left you there.”
Hawke smiled.
Lexi pushed the SUV faster and harder.
“Maybe you should have,” Lea said. “At least there were no megalomaniacs, cold-hearted bitches, no SBS sergeants with an attitude problem, no nerds and absolutely no ancient Doomsday weapons.”
“Ah, about that...” Hawke said.
“What?”
“As far as Doomsday weapons and megalomaniacs go we might have another situation developing,” he said.
“Oh, you’re kidding! And here I was coming to China for the restaurants.”
Hawke looked at her for a second, still excited she was back in his life. “I forgot, you already had this briefing from Richard, of course.”
She nodded and smiled. “Why the hell do you think I’d come all the way over here? I want to get me some shooting and hunting!”
“Then you’re in the right place,” Lexi said. “Because they’re gaining.” She checked the rearview mirror. “Almost on top of us, in fact.”
Lea turned again and this time saw the smooth, cat-like grille of the silver GTR almost upon them now. Either side of them the suburbs of Shanghai were growing into much higher skyscrapers and commercial buildings, and the traffic was getting denser as a result. “Damn thing’s much faster than this,” she said.
“But you can make it slow down with your gun, right?” Lexi said, her words dripping with sarcasm.
“I could make you slow down with my gun, I know that,” Lea mumbled under breath.
“What?” Lexi said.
“I said steady this car so I can take a shot.”
Lea fired several shots but they all missed.
Hawke sighed and pulled out the Sig he had retrieved from one of Chan’s bodyguards. “If you want a job doing...”
“I’d slap him if I were you,” Scarlet said, and turned in the front passenger seat. She put the window down and began to fire some shots at the GTR.
Lea glared at Hawke. “If you even think about finishing that sentence then you can book another hotel room for tonight, you got that Action Man?”
“Hey – I was just joking!”
“Well I wasn’t.”
Hawke took the point, and began to fire a series of carefully aimed shots from the rear side window, just behind Lexi, while Lea covered the other side. For a few moments they were making headway, blowing out the GTR’s headlights and cracking its windshield, but then Sheng’s men took evasive action and began to swerve the powerful Nissan violently from side to side, ending any chance of another successful hit, especially on the tires.
Then, the man in the passenger seat opened fire with what looked like a pretty old submachine gun. Hawke ducked behind the seat, and the rear window of the F-Pace was blown out in seconds. Then, the bullets struck the release mechanism on the tailgate and sent the rear door flying open.
“Oh, that is just arsing fantastic!” Lea said.
Seconds later another line of bullets ripped through the rear seat and thudded into the F-Pace’s dashboard.
“Holy crap that was close!” Lexi screamed. “You gotta close that back door, Joe!”
“The thought had crossed my mind, thank you Lexi!”
Hawke knew he had to act fast. With the rear door open they were totally vulnerable to attack from the GTR and the next shots could easily kill them. He clambered over the back seat and gripped on to the handle inside the trunk as he leaned out, stretching his arm up to the handle on the rear door.
Then, the GTR roared to life and weaved through a short stretch of traffic until it was once again right behind them. Hawke could see the grinning faces of the men inside as the man in the passenger seat casually leaned out the window again and aimed his gun dead-straight at Hawke’s chest. To add insult to injury, the man waved a sarcastic goodbye to him as he squeezed the trigger.
Hawke screamed. “Lexi, evasive action!”
Without asking why, Lexi Zhang skidded the SUV heavily to the right a
nd pulled in tight behind a white van. With the violence of the maneuver she got them away from the GTR – for now – but also sent Joe Hawke flying out the back of the F-Pace.
*
Sophie Durand was watching the traffic far below in the busy streets of Shanghai, and contemplating what Hawke and the others were doing when she heard Ryan sigh loudly. She turned to see him leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head.
“You’ve given up?” she said, surprised,
“Hardly, Soph. Ryan Bale doesn’t give up.”
“You know, only real jerks refer to themselves in the third person.”
“Point taken. I never give up, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It does.”
“Good, take a look at his – my brilliance lives and breathes before us.”
She rolled her eyes and returned to the computer, shifting some of the coffee cups out of the way so she could slide up onto the desk. “What am I looking at, genius – more about this prophecy?”
“No, unfortunately – there’s basically nothing about it at all on the internet. It seems to exist only in the work of these Reichardt and Hoffman guys. We’ll have to keep researching that one. The only thing I could find was a translation of some ancient Chinese poetry that referred to the prophecy being about the return of the Thunder God and the rebirth of humanity, but no specifics.”
“But that sounds pretty bad, no?”
“Yeah, you could say that. After watching Hugo Zaugg trying to bury an entire town in millions of tons of snow and what he wanted to do with Poseidon’s trident, any talk of a rebirth of humanity doesn’t exactly have positive connotations in my mind.”
Sophie nodded. She knew what he meant and she agreed. They knew so little, but the facts they had gotten hold of so far weren’t looking good – the return of this Thunder God, a missing earthquake machine of unknown power and now a vague prophecy about a new start for humanity. All of this was starting to make her very nervous.