The Sword of Fire

by Rob Jones

  “So now we’ve got to track the safe down,” Hawke said.

  “It’s not in the damned safe,” Lea said, squeezing her eyes shut as she struggled to remember something. “Wait a minute – he mentioned something about reading it in his observatory. It means nothing to him, anyway – he was hired to take it by someone else, like I said.”

  “Who by?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “He wouldn’t let that particular cat out of the bag. He said I’d find out tomorrow.”

  “Too bad neither you nor the manuscript are going to be in his possession tomorrow then, isn’t it?” Hawke said. “We need to get out of here and in a hurry, but we need the manuscript first. Danny – can you arrange some transport while we go to the observatory?”

  Devlin chuckled. “Leave it to me, Joe.”

  They watched Devlin vanish into the darkness of the corridor and then Hawke turned to Lea. “So, which way to this observatory?”

  “I think it’s at the far end of the corridor outside this room,” Lea said.

  They checked the corridor was clear and then made their way hurriedly toward the observatory.

  “It’s definitely down here, right?” Lexi said.

  “I already said that I think so,” Lea said, “but only from overhearing snatches of their conversation.”

  They made their way down the final stretch of the corridor and turned a corner to find themselves faced with large double doors. Osservatorio was written on one of them in polished gold letters.

  “Bingo!” Lexi said.

  They entered and found a large, low-lit room with the largest telescope any of them had ever seen in the center of it. It was mounted on a turntable and pointing toward a retracting roof.

  “So this is what old Zito spends his time on when he’s not giving people the cement shoes?” Lexi said, mesmerised by the enormous telescope.

  “There!” Lea shouted. “That’s it – on the chair next to the telescope.”

  Hawke jogged over to the chair and snatched up the manuscript. “All right – we’re set. Let’s just hope we can get out of here as easily as we got in.”

  “So what’s the plan, Joe Hawke?” Lea asked.

  Hawke stuffed the manuscript into his shirt and winked at her. “Just like usual – we wing it.”

  They left the room and jogged down the stairs toward the lower part of the villa. “So this winging it...” Lexi said. “Is that an SBS thing?”

  “If you mean improvising, then yes,” Hawke said with a grin.

  They were near the smashed patio doors now, and heard raised voices from a room on the other side of the house. “That’s Zito,” Lea said.

  “Sounds pretty pissed off to me,” Lexi said with a chuckle.

  “Time for us to go,” Hawke said. “And pray your Commandant has got us some of those bikes we saw earlier.”

  Lea gave him an odd look. “Former Commandant, Joe.”

  Outside in the hot night, it wasn’t long before Zito’s men located them and opened fire, but they ran from the lethal fusillade with everything they had. Hawke navigated them across the lawns and into the shrubs which formed the border between the villa and the small forest, and they scanned the trees for Devlin.

  “Over here, you silly bastards!”

  Looking deeper into the trees they saw Danny Devlin half obscured behind a trunk of a large stone pine. He was waving them over and they ran to him in the relative safety of the small forest.

  “I got two of the bikes.” Devlin straddled one of them and started it up. “Back to the Aurora, and quick as you like!”

  Lexi was giving them cover now, firing at Zito’s men as they tried to cross the lawn and reach the forest. Above them they heard the sound of rotor blades whirring and then a Robinson R44 helicopter rose over the villa. After swooping over the forest it turned hard to port and made for the coast.

  “Looks like Zito’s out of here,” Lea said.

  “He must have got what he wanted from the manuscript,” said Hawke.

  Lexi frowned. “So someone’s given his strings a tug.”

  Hawke thrust the manuscript into Lea’s hands. “We’ll worry about that later. Right now get this thing out of here!” he yelled. “We’re right behind you!”

  Lea jumped on the back of Devlin’s dirt bike and clung on tight as he raced away into the night.

  Hawke kick-started the other dirt bike and Lexi continued to spray hot lead all over the men. “Time to go, Lex!”

  She leaped on the back of the bike and wrapped her arms around Hawke’s waist.

  “Go!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hawke revved the bike and took off down the narrow forest path. Behind them, Zito’s men fired into the darkness of the trees but they were firing blind.

  “We did it!” Lexi screamed.

  “Not yet we didn’t,” said Hawke.

  His eyes were focussing hard on the brake light of Devlin’s dirt bike a few hundred meters up ahead. He could see Lea on the back of it, her arms clinging to the Irish soldier for safety as they ripped through the forest.

  Then Lexi interrupted his thoughts. “Company!”

  Hawke turned and glanced over his shoulder. He saw the bright headlight of another dirt bike bobbing about on the path behind them. “Damn it all!”

  They were racing through the heaviest part of the forest now, with the path narrowing every second.

  “We have to get them off our tail, Joe!”

  “Easier said than done.”

  Lexi laughed. “Did you never watch Star Wars?”

  “Eh?”

  “Return of the Jedi? Speeder bikes?”

  Hawke zoomed the dirt bike along the track, his headlight flashing on the trunks of the stone pines. “And your point?”

  “My point is, you have to take us off the path! They’ll follow us and that lets Lea get the manuscript off the island.”

  Hawke sighed. “I absolutely knew you were going to say something as insane as that.”

  “So, do we have a date, or not?”

  With no mirrors on a dirt bike, Hawke twisted in the seat and looked over Lexi’s shoulder at the enemy rider behind them. Getting closer now, and then the unmistakable muzzle flash of an automatic weapon. “Fine,” he called back. “Star Wars it is!”

  He turned the handlebars and raced the bike off the path. They crashed down in a carpet of pine needles and swerved for a few seconds before he brought the bike back under control.

  “I know I talk about having a spirit of adventure,” he yelled over his shoulder, “but this is pushing it even for me.”

  They were racing east now, zooming through the pitch-black forest with only their puny headlamp to light their way. Trunks flashed either side of them and they both knew an impact with one would mean a violent and painful death.

  The other dirt bike was still behind them and closing fast. The man on their tail fired again and missed by millimeters. The bullets ripped into the bark of one of the stone pines and blasted a cloud of wood splinters and pine sap into their faces.

  They burst through it, and then Hawke saw a ditch ahead of them. It approached them rapidly and he slowed the bike to drive down into it. At the bottom he speeded up and raced up the other bank at an angle to decrease the gradient. The next thing they knew they were launching off the top of the other side of the ditch and flying through the air.

  They crashed back down to earth in a raging storm of pine needles, dust and two-stroke fumes but there was no possibility of stopping. Just a few meters behind them the other bike was driving down into the ditch, still hot on their tail.

  “We need to head west again,” Hawke said. “Get back to the Aurora before they decide to leave without us.”

  He revved the bike and skidded away once again just as the enemy behind them was flying up out of the ditch. He raced into the night, his tired eyes squinting now as the trunks flashed passed them at an insane speed. As he was weaving the dirt bike through a dense patch of pin
es, he realized they were fast approaching a deep gorge, at the bottom of which was a river they had seen on the map back in Positano.

  There was no way they could jump it and he struggled to see a way across. Turning back wasn’t an option, and if they decided to drive along the eastern bank they would be pinned down between the river and the enemy gunman.

  “What now?” Lexi said.

  “There!”

  Up ahead he spied a fallen tree trunk that was spanning the river.

  “Can we get across it on this?” Lexi said, sounding mildly anxious.

  “Only one way to find out, Agent Dragonfly!”

  He turned the bike toward the fallen trunk and sprayed another pile of needles and cones up in a massive arc behind them. Racing toward it, he launched the bike up on the fallen trunk and zoomed over the narrow wooden bridge it formed.

  “We’re almost there!” Lexi shouted, but then a grenade exploded a few meters to their right.

  Hawke, Lexi and the bike were blasted off the fallen trunk and crashed down into the water below.

  The explosion threw Hawke clear but the bike’s front wheel had fallen on Lexi’s leg. Hawke scrambled through the water and pulled it away from her and then the two of them waded over to the bank.

  “They’re getting closer – at least two,” Lexi said, rubbing her leg. “I can hear them.”

  She was right, and when the gunmen opened fire again it was even more ferocious than before. They split up to create two fronts, with Hawke tucking down beneath the fallen trunk spanning the river while Lexi went in the opposite direction and crouched down behind a large cork oak.

  Calmly and quickly, Hawke hit the magazine release button, dumped the empty mag and smacked the last one in the grip. Lexi was still backed up against the tree trunk, using it for cover now as the automatic gunfire ripped the surrounding undergrowth to ribbons. She was holding a sidearm in her right hand but the enemy had her pinned down so tight behind the tree she was unable to return fire.

  Hawke knew there was a shooter somewhere east of their current position, but he could hear at least two weapons, so where was the other gunman? Another burst of fire gave away the second gunman’s position. To the south of Lexi he saw the telltale flash of a submachine gun’s muzzle as the man opened fire on them once again.

  He fired back, but missed. He heard something fly through the air and crash into the undergrowth to his left.

  Grenade.

  Knowing there was no way he could locate it in all the vegetation in time to throw it back, he turned on his heel and dived away as fast and far as he could along the south bank of the river.

  The grenade detonated.

  He dived into the river for cover as the explosion blasted tiny, lethal fragments of shrapnel out at hundreds of miles per hour. Safe under the water he spun around onto his back and watched the fireball light up the pine trees stretching high above the river as the grenade burned out.

  He had missed the shockwave by a fraction of a second but the river offered only a temporary sanctuary, and while the smoke from the grenade blast was still drifting in the air he saw the silhuoette of the gunman as he approached his hiding place.

  Running out of air, he pulled the slider back on his weapon and hoped the waterlogged gun would still fire but he wasn’t hopeful. Just as he twisted in the water to fire the gun he watched as the man crashed over in a heap.

  Emerging from the surface of the rushing river, he saw Lexi Zhang standing over the dying man. She fired two more shots into him and killed him stone dead before stuffing the gun into her belt. “I know you frogmen like water, Joe, but do you really think this is an appropriate time to go swimming?”

  Hawke waded out of the water and joined her on the river bank. “Funny, Lex. The other shooter?”

  “Right between the eyes, baby.”

  “Good job. Let’s catch up with Lea and Danny and get out of here.”

  *

  They met up with the others on the tree line dividing the forest from the beach and decided the sub was the only way they could get back without Zito’s men finding them again.

  Leaving the warzone back in the forest and hitting the beach, they saw the Aurora glinting in the moonlight down on the waterline. The only problem was the sight of a man climbing into it. “Can’t be Zito,” Hawke said. “He took off in the chopper.”

  “No,” Lea shook her head “Plus Zito’s much bigger than that.”

  Hawke sighed. “In that case he must have ordered one of his men to submerge the Aurora to trap us on the island.”

  “We better get a move on, in that case,” Lexi said.

  They ran across the beach but as they drew closer to the sub the man heard them and jumped inside. He started to close the bubble cockpit down ready for diving, and Hawke knew if he closed it there was no way to get to him. The glass dome on the sub was designed to withstand tremendous pressure, and he doubted even shooting at it would be enough to stop the man before he dived and took it out of range.

  He threw himself inside the submarine just as the man was bringing the bubble down. The heavy dome caught on his back but at least he was inside. He grabbed the man around the throat and pinned him against the seat. Pulling his fist back he powered a hefty lunch into his face and knocked his head back into the bulkhead.

  The man’s skull struck the metal hard and his eyes rolled up inside his head as he tumbled over in his seat. He came to a rest, supine and motionless and with cold, blank eyes staring up at the stars above the open bubble.

  “Come on – he’s out cold!”

  The others stepped off the jetty and climbed inside the Seamagine Aurora as Hawke stuffed the man down in front of the three front passenger seats and then climbed back into the pilot’s seat at the back.

  Lea leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “What else was I going to do?”

  “You’re lucky we made it,” Lexi said, looking at Devlin. “Thanks to the Lone Ranger here who went rogue and nearly got us all killed.”

  “Is this true, Danny?” Lea said.

  “I was just using my initiative.”

  “Don’t get me hepped up again, Danny,” Lea said. “You should have waited for Hawke to give the order to go. He’s in charge of this operation, not you. Ya got that?”

  Devlin was contrite, and offered his most charming Apology Smile. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you saying sorry to me for, ya eejit? You owe Joe the apology, not me!”

  Devlin glanced at Hawke and offered his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  A quick handshake and then they all strapped themselves into their seats as Hawke closed the cockpit and fired up the engines.

  “This guy makes a handy footrest,” Lexi said. “Perhaps they should build an asshole into their next model as standard?”

  Hawke turned the Aurora around and piloted it out into deeper water. They all heard the gunfire back on the beach, but now the former commando was diving them under the waves and taking them deep underwater.

  After a long silence, Devlin turned to Lexi and said, “So what was that you were saying earlier about the size of Joe’s...” he paused a beat. “Cock, was it?”

  Lea turned sharply. “What’s this?”

  “I was going to say the size of your cocky attitude,” Lexi said with a weary sigh.

  “See?” Hawke said with a smile.

  “So don’t get any ideas,” Lexi added.

  “I thought you were reminiscing about our little romance in Zambia,” Hawke said with a wink.

  Lexi nudged Hawke in the ribs and laughed. “Yeah... right.”

  *

  Sitting in the back of Zito’s drug trafficking truck, Scarlet lit up a cigarette and watched as Hawke and Devlin dragged the unconcsious man up over the tailgate and tied him up with some old rope they’d found.

  “Is that what you call a knot?” Scarlet scoffed as she looked at Devlin’s work.

  “I suppose t
he SAS do better knots than everyone as well?” Devlin said.

  “It wasn’t the SAS that taught her knots,” Ryan said. “It was her formidable sex life.”

  Scarlet sighed and exhaled the smoke, unmoved by the attempt to wind her up. “So I take it you got the manuscript, darlings?”

  “Indeed we did,” Hawke said. “But the idol is long gone.”

  Scarlet sighed. “Simply fucktastic.”

  “Who’s this?” Reaper asked.

  “Submarine pilot,” Hawke said.

  “Any word from Lund?” asked Lexi.

  Scarlet nodded. “He wants us to go to Europol HQ in The Hague. Apparently he has some contacts there who have been monitoring Zito’s European drug empire for some time now and they can help us fill in the dots.”

  “I’ll call the airport and have them refuel the jet,” Lea said.

  “Already done,” Kim said with a wink. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Hague, Amsterdam

  Hawke looked through the one-way mirror and watched the man they had caught back in the Aurora. He was now in an interrogation room deep inside Europol HQ, and had been identified as a low-level scumbag named Marco Maroni. Not so tough now, he was sitting handcuffed to the chair and sweat was beading on his forehead.

  Beside the former commando, his old friend Vincent Reno was looking at the ‘No Smoking’ sign above the door with a cigarette on his lips and a frown on his face.

  “For me, the world ended when they banned indoor smoking,” he said glumly.

  Before Hawke could respond, Lea and Danny Devlin joined them with steaming coffees in their hands. Lexi and Ryan were a few steps behind them, carrying more coffees.

  “Cairo and Kim?” Hawke said.

  “Arguing in the canteen,” said Lexi.

  “Could get interesting,” Ryan said, handing Hawke a coffee. “Want to come down and watch?”

  “Not a lot,” he said.

  Lea gestured toward Maroni. “Got anything out of the bastard?”

  “Some, but not much,” Hawke said. “Jansen’s good but I think Marco needs a little more encouragement to speak than a Europol official is prepared to give.”