The Sword of Fire

by Rob Jones

  Hawke was stunned. He looked at the man’s face and saw he meant business, and more than that, he now gently lifted the magazine to reveal a semi-automatic Colt beneath it. With calm, steady hands he was pointing it into the girl’s back.

  Hawke’s mind raced. When Maroni had told him that they’d identified Kloos as being able to translate the document he knew Kruger would send men after him, but not this way. From what he had seen so far of Zito’s men he’d expected an all-out attack, not something as depraved as using a kidnapped child as a bargaining chip.

  “Make a fuss and she’s dead,” the man repeated.

  The others caught on to what was happening, and Devlin fronted up to the man, but Hawke pulled him away and pointed at the magazine. “M1911,” he said. “Aimed at the kid.”

  “Toscano,” Lea said. “I recognize him from the island.”

  Before anyone said another word, a second man slipped out of the crowd behind them and dragged Kloos away from the ECHO team, and then they were gone, both men, Kloos and the crying girl. “The other one’s called Bruno,” Lea said. “I think maybe they’re brothers but I’m not sure.”

  Hawke watched them as they pulled Kloos and the girl deep into the crowd and headed toward the station.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Kim said.

  “They’re using the crowd for cover,” said Scarlet.

  Hawke pulled the Glock from his pocket. “Not for long they’re not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Tiger turned the cards and revealed Four of a Kind. He raised his eyes to Pig to see his reaction but the older man was a veteran of poker and simply folded his hand with a weary sigh. “That’s the third hand in a row that I have won,” he said. “Perhaps you should consider retiring not only from the Ministry but also from the poker circuit.”

  “Maybe you are right,” Pig said, and then looked over Tiger’s shoulder, causing the younger man to twist in his chair. He saw Monkey sitting beside Mrs Zhang. He was running the tip of his switchblade up her inner thigh, but the duct tape over her mouth kept her screams silent to the rest of the world. Mr Zhang was sitting on the floor with a bag over his head and his hands tied behind his back.

  “Stop that,” Tiger said. His words were mild, but his tone was sharp and left no room for misunderstanding.

  Monkey held the knife in place for a moment, staring into the eyes of his leader as if to judge the man’s mettle. Without taking his eyes off Tiger, Monkey pushed the button on the ivory handle and the blade snapped back inside with a metallic click. Mrs Zhang jump with fear.

  Rat strolled back into the room with a tray full of food from the Zhangs’ kitchen cupboards. He glanced at Monkey with disgust. “She’s old enough to be your grandmother. This is not professional. Why did Zhou call you Monkey? You’re the Pig.”

  Monkey leaped from the saggy sofa and flicked the knife open again. “What was that?”

  “Is there a probem with your ears as well as your mind?” Rat said, lowering the tray of food onto the table and reaching into his jacket.

  Tiger grabbed his arm and stopped him from pulling his weapon. He sighed heavily and pushed back from the table. “No fighting in here,” he said, and moved his eyes over to the terrified Mrs Zhang. “And no more of that.”

  “I was bored,” Monkey said. A fiendish smirk crept over his lean face.

  “That’s part of the job,” Pig said, collecting the cards up. “We wait.”

  “And this brawling stops now.” Tiger closed his eyes and started to count to ten. “The next time I see any of you, you will be minding your own business in silence.”

  He heard a sigh. A shuffle of feet. The tension eased away like sesame oil sliding off a warm spoon. When he opened his eyes, the others had obeyed him and backed down. Pig was shuffling the deck of cards, Rat had moved into the kitchen and was searching through the refrigerator, and Monkey had stripped down to his waist. He had twisted the Zhang’s anglepoise lamp around so it shone on the wall and now he was fighting his own shadow to practice a series of razor-sharp roundhouse kicks.

  With this new scene unfolding around him, Tiger breathed out and took his seat once again. This was a familiar moment for the Chinese government man: the tension of a half-completed mission heavy in the air, the smell of fear floating like incense. Not for the first time he wondered if he would miss all this when he finally turned his back on it.

  But he was a professional and there was work to do. He glanced at his watch: not long now until Agent Dragonfly fluttered into his trap.

  *

  The Boeing 747 rumbled along the tarmac on its way to Runway 24 and Lexi Zhang’s eyes watched the clouds gather over Schiphol Airport. Her mind was elsewhere – she couldn’t stop thinking about her father. She had always been close to him. He was the one who had made her laugh, and comforted her tears away. Memories of her childhood rose in her mind like blossoming orchids – the time they walked around the park; when he taught her to ride a bicycle; helping him in their tiny garden.

  Could he really be dying? The sound of her mother’s voice told her it was true. She sounded scared, weak and alone.

  As the plane roared up into the sky, she pulled the shutter a little to block the sun and cast two uncaring eyes across the Dutch landscape below. Clouds flashed past her window and the wing bent up and down as they ploughed through some turbulence. Glancing at her watch she sighed and closed her eyes. The flight from Amsterdam to Beijing was scheduled to take a little under ten hours.

  She was certain it was going to feel a lot longer than that.

  *

  The last few hours had lived up to Alex Brooke’s greatest expectations and wildest fears. Travelling alongside her father, who was still riding high in the polls back home and even more popular abroad, she had been whisked from one meeting to another and met more dignitaries than she could remember. She was also totally exhausted, and missing her friends more than she thought possible.

  The Presidential limo was making its way toward Downing Street now, and she was sitting in the back with her father, an advisor named Todd Williams, and two US Secret Service men, including Brandon McGee. Brooke had been on the phone since the journey began and now he ended the call and sighed.

  “A problem, sir?” said Todd.

  “We’re getting some chatter about a terror attack in the UK,” her father said with his usual calm tone.

  “What’s the target?” Alex said.

  “Unknown. Our boys and MI5 are just picking up some talk. It happens. Don’t worry about it, darling.” He tried one of his famous crooked smiles, but it didn’t help to calm her nerves.

  Under heavy police escort, the Presidential motorcade cruised past the Cenotaph and turned off Whitehall into Downing Street. Up ahead she could see a crowd of international press gathering outside the famous address. “Oh, God...”

  “You’re doing great,” Brooke said. “We’re going home tomorrow morning, Alex. Hang in there, kid. I’m proud of you.”

  Alex said nothing. Her thoughts turned inward again, back to Hawke and the team. She hadn’t heard from them since she’d said goodbye to Hawke and Kim in the Oval Office, and now she was starting to worry something had gone wrong.

  The limo pulled up right outside the world’s most famous front door, and as if by magic it swished open to reveal the British Prime Minister.

  Brooke clapped his hands together and took a deep breath. “All right, everyone. It’s showtime.” He leaned over to the advisor. “And Todd, while I’m talking with the PM I want you to get more on this security threat.”

  “Yes sir, Mr President.”

  “We don’t want any nasty surprises,” Brooke said, and then climbed out of the limousine.

  As he turned and waved to the press pool, Alex shut her eyes to dodge the thousands of high-speed sync flashes now lighting up her father as he greeted the world yet again. He made a casual joke and they all laughed, and then he turned and walked over to the British Prime Minster.
When they were shaking hands, McGee leaned over to her. “Time to go, Alex. Only Westminster Hall left on the schedule and then we’re done.”

  “Sure thing, Brandon,” she said.

  “Problems?”

  “Just thinking that I can't stand four years of this.”

  Todd leaned into the car. “Of course you can. And it’s eight years, you defeatist.”

  Eight years, she thought, shaking her head. “I’ve got to get back to ECHO,” she mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  “I said let’s get that damned wheelchair, Brandon...”

  She returned his smile, but she knew now where her heart lay and that was with ECHO.

  And Joe Hawke.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Hawke fired into the air to disperse the crowd. With the sound of the gunshot still echoing off the buildings around Stationsplein, hundreds of people scattered in all directions and a flock of fat pigeons took to the air.

  The men holding the girl now released her and hauled Kloos away to the station as fast as they could go. Hawke gave a sigh of relief as the girl ran screaming back to her mother.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled at them. “Get as far away as you can!”

  Scarlet and Reaper opened fire on Zito and his men, and Zito fired back. Reaper was the target but the bullet found its way into the neck of a man trying to flee while dragging his wheeled luggage behind him. He spun around in the street as a cloud of blood-mist burst from his jugular and he collapsed like a bar of lead over the tramlines.

  His violent death triggered more screaming and hysteria but most people had now scattered, with some going to the sides of the station and others hiding behind the trams. Others were lucky enough to make it down into one of the entrances to the Metro. Their howls of terror boomed up from the tiled steps as they descended underground to escape the madness.

  Hawke had taken cover with the rest of the team inside the lobby of the Amsterdam Visitor Centre, but now he stepped out behind one of the entance pillars and brought his Glock into the aim. He fired – this time not a single shot but a controlled burst of five rounds. The bullets struck Toscano in the chest and abdomen, puncturing his lungs and tearing into his stomach. The Italian gunman staggered backwards a few paces and crumpled to the stony ground outside the station’s main entrance.

  Lea, Ryan and Scarlet joined Hawke outside the Visitor Centre, and across the square, Reaper led Kim and Devlin forward from the trams to the cover of a Renault van parked closer to the entrance.

  “I do hope your man Devlin isn’t going to do anything stupid again,” Hawke said.

  “He’s not my man,” she protested. “And I’m not responsible for what he does.”

  Hawke reloaded the Glock as Zito and his men continued to make their way to the train station’s entrance. They were going slower because two of them had stopped to drag Toscano to safety, but when he died in their arms they lowered him to the ground. His corpse now lay cooling at the head of a long trail of blood where they had hauled his fatally wounded body. Driven by a sense of mad revenge, Bruno fired an entire magazine indiscriminately across the square, wildly swinging his weapon from Hawke’s team in the Visitor Centre to Reaper and the others behind the Renault.

  The vicious fusillade echoed around the empty square but was drowned out by the sound of approaching sirens. It sounded like they were coming from the east – probably Prins Hendrikkade which was now bereft of all traffic and Hawke presumed sealed off by anti-terror police. It wouldn’t be long before the Dutch authorities took control of the situation, and he knew they had to move fast if they were to rescue Kloos; the former SBS man was confident that Zito would use the professor as a human shield if M-Squadron backed him into a corner.

  A VW Beetle with police markings skidded into the scene. The men inside tried to get out and fire on Zito but he and his men overwhelmed them with their firepower and they tried to reverse. Bullets shredded the glass and killed the men inside in seconds as the Beetle spun out of control and veered to the right.

  “They’re not slowing down,” Ryan said.

  Hawke knew what was coming next and frowned. “Foot must be wedged on the throttle.”

  Gaining speed the dead driver slumped forward and pulled the wheel down hard to the right. This caused the car to turn sharply and tip over on its side in a cloud of sparks and burned rubber smoke.

  Devlin made a move. Breaking free of the group, he darted across ten meters of open ground. He was heading for the cover of the crashed police car but Bruno chased him down with a spray of gunfire from his machine pistol. Devlin dived for the cover of the upturned Beetle with a second to spare but Bruno continued to pepper the bottom of the car.

  Hawke cursed but reacted in a split-second: he put Bruno under heavy fire, emptying his entire magazine at the Italian with the idea of driving him back into cover.

  But it was too late: Bruno’s rounds had hit the VW’s exposed gas tank and caused the battered police car to explode in a monumental fireball. Chunks of contorted, deformed car parts hurtled through the air, transforming the Beetle into a colossal fragmentation grenade. A twisted car door slammed down into the ground a few meters from Reaper and his sub-unit. It was still on fire from the blast and left a trail of black smoke arcing through the sky behind it.

  “Where’s Danny?” Lea said. “Do you see him?”

  Hawke strained to see through the smoke and detritus of the burning Beetle wreckage. Devlin was undoubtedly brave, but he was starting to become too unpredictable. He guessed too many years at Flynn’s had taken a toll on the former Commandant and now he was just a shadow of his former self. “I see him,” he said. “He’s over there behind the wall to the left of the main entrance.”

  “He must have made a break for it when you were firing on Bruno.”

  “He’s causing more bloody problems than he’s solving right now,” Hawke said.

  “He just risked his life, Joe!”

  Hawke said nothing, but reloaded his Glock and swung the gun up for a second go at Bruno. The Italians were now well inside the station and receding into the shadows beneath the Amsterdam Centraal sign hanging above the main entrance.

  Hawke heard Reaper’s voice in his earpiece. “Are we chasing the rabbits down the hole?”

  “We have no choice,” the Englishman said. “They still have Kloos.”

  Thanks to the gun battle outside, the vast station interior was now as empty and silent as the square out the front. With the rest of the team fanning out behind him and taking up an offensive formation, Hawke crossed the beautiful Main Hallway, gun raised into the aim and sweeping it from side to side to cover all angles. Somewhere in here Zito and his men were getting away with Kloos.

  “Any sign of them?” Scarlet said through her palm mic.

  “Not yet,” Hawke said.

  A flock of pigeons flew up from the end of the platform and disappeared into the vast roof of the station above their heads. Hawke spun around and aimed the gun in their original location, certain the other men had startled the birds, and he was right.

  Zito and his men were at the far end of the southern platform now. He was leading them off the platform and along the rails leading out to the station’s eastern exit. Hawke watched the small group of men through the sights of his Glock as he fired on them once again. The sound of bullets roared in the cavernous space and Zito’s response was to dash behind a filthy blue and yellow commuter diesel.

  Seconds later they were all hidden by the train except for one straggler. Hawke fired again and struck the man. He collapsed onto the rails while a grisly bloom of brain matter and blood was illuminated by the light flooding into the opening at the eastern end of the station.

  Hawke lowered his gun. Zito and his men still had Kloos and now they had cover as well. He heard them as they ran along the rails behind the stationary diesel train. “Sounds like they’re trying to get out along the rails.”

  They hopped off the platform and us
ed the parked train for cover as they closed in on Zito’s snatch squad. Approaching the engine at the front of the train, they heard the sound of another kind of engine – a speedboat was roaring into life somewhere to their left.

  A look of confusion crossed Hawke’s face. “What the hell?”

  “The IJ,” Ryan said.

  “Explain in two seconds, dorkmeister,” Scarlet said.

  “It’s the main body of water in Amstersdam and it runs just north of this station.”

  They sprinted to the end of the rails and emerged into the daylight to see Zito and his men hauling Dr Kloos into a speedboat parked up on the south bank of the IJ.

  “Where does it go, mate?” Hawke said, squeezing the grip of his Glock out of frustration.

  “Right out into the North Sea.”

  The boat ripped away from the bank, and Zito waved at them cheerily with his gun hand as they pushed out into the middle of the massive river.

  Knowing the chase was over, Ryan fired up a cigarette. “They could rendezvous with anyone at any number of locations in the city or the plan might be to go straight out to sea and hook up with a boat or something.”

  “This day is just turning into a massive pile of fuckery,” Scarlet said, snatching the cigarette from the young man’s lips and taking a long drag.

  “Hey!” Ryan said.

  Hawke sighed as he watched the boat slip away. “You can say that again, Cairo.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Hawke got into the Suburban, slammed the door shut after him and brought his fist down on the dashboard with a hefty smack. Losing Kloos like this was a major tactical error. Not only had he allowed the professor’s life to be put at severe risk but Giancarlo Zito now had the opportunity to get the missing information he needed in order to track down the sword. Kruger would be beaming at his success, and there was only one antidote to that: take that success away from him and kill him with it.