The Sword of Fire

by Rob Jones

  Hawke shook his hand and Scarlet blew him a kiss. “You presence is appreciated, Mack,” she said.

  “Ah, fuck off,” he said. “Anything for an old friend.”

  Hawke made the introductions, and then got straight to business. “Anything to report, Mack?”

  The tough Glaswegian shrugged his shoulders as he rolled up another cigarette. “No traffic in or out since the chopper landed. They’re all up at the big house having a high-old time.”

  “Let’s get in there then,” Hawke said. “Word is there’s increased chatter about a terror attack and my money’s on this Horak.”

  “We’re pretty close to Windsor Castle as well,” Lea said.

  Mack stepped up on the running board on Hawke’s side of the Lexus and banged the roof. “Come on then, bawbags – let’s do this.”

  Unable to translate the Glaswegian, Reaper gave Hawke and Scarlet a confused look, but hit the throttle all the same, and moments later they were driving along another narrow country lane which formed the estate’s western perimeter. It was marked by an old six-foot high stone wall with trespass warning signs pinned here and there along the way. Approaching the gatehouse, Reaper slowed the vehicle while Scarlet pulled out her gun and lowered it out of sight down by the handbrake.

  Reaper pulled up at the gatehouse and a rotund man with mousy hair and a loosened tie around his neck strolled over to the Lexus. In his right hand was a two-way radio, and he didn’t seem to like the look of the tattooed man hanging on to the side of the vehicle.

  “Can I help?” he said. He was looking at Mack, but then Scarlet pushed down her window, winked at him and pulled the gun into his face. “Drop the radio and put your hands up, darling.”

  *

  Lexi Zhang’s flight landed at Beijing Capital Airport just before dusk. She had watched the mountains north of the city melt into the sprawling capital with total disinterest as the aircraft banked and prepared to land. She dealt with the customs officials with the same detached attitude and when she climbed into the cab she was just about ready to fly away again.

  Tonight her heart was like the setting sun. It knew day had passed and night was beginning, but for the sun a new dawn was just hours away. Lexi had a feeling her own night would last much longer. The dying rays lit the busy freeways in rosy reds and glowing ambers, and above it all the stark steel and glass skyscrapers of her home city stretched up into the purple twilight.

  Black and white. Yin and yang. Darkness and light. Her mind was built to see the world this way, and it tortured her. Her father was good. He had never harmed anyone, working hard his whole life for a pittance. He had gone without any comfort to send her to Oxford – but what had she done with it?

  An assassin for the Chinese Government. A hired killer who lied to her parents every day about her true nature. A woman who seemed to betray everyone she ever loved and who ever loved her. Even Hawke... perhaps that betrayal had been the worst of all. She shook it from her mind. A problem like that wouldn’t be resolved while crawling in a cab through Wangjing Park. That would require some special attention in the future.

  But she could settle things with her parents right now. Before the sun rose again she could make things right with both of them. Come clean; start again with a blank slate. These thoughts did not come easily after so many years of deceit, but she had always known it was something she had to do while there was still time. When her mother told her that her father was dying she knew what she had to do.

  The cab crawled on. She looked at her watch and sighed. She was tired, and she wanted to rest. Her mind wandered to the ECHO team again. She had said goodbye to them in the Netherlands just a few hours ago but it seemed like an eternity.

  At least she would be home soon, she thought.

  Home and safe.

  *

  When President Jack Brooke turned to the crowd gathered outside Westminster Hall and waved goodbye, everyone knew he had pulled off a successful state visit. Alex watched him as he ducked his head and climbed inside the Presidential limo, took off his jacket and loosened his tie.

  “You did a great job, Dad.”

  “Thanks, Darling, but the people will be the judge of that. We still have a whole bucket of crap to sort out in North Korea.”

  Todd sat down opposite him, followed by Agent McGee and the other agent. “Wheels up in less than an hour.”

  “Thanks, Todd,” Brooke said and turned to his daughter. “We’ll be home before you know it.”

  But Alex knew that Washington DC was no longer her home, and that she had to break the news to her father that she wanted to rejoin ECHO. She knew that meant a Category Five Shitstorm heading her way, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  As soon as they got back, she would tell him she wanted to leave DC and go back to the life she had started to carve out for herself with her friends.

  Brooke scratched his jaw and yawned. “What’s the flight time, Todd?”

  “A little of over eight hours, Mr President, and if we’re lucky...”

  Todd stopped talking to take an urgent call. Alex and her father both saw the young man’s face visibly pale. When he cut the call he spoke in a rapid but measured way. “That was my contact in the CIA. She just heard from MI5 that there’s new chatter pointing to a terror target somewhere in London, sir. The Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are all named as potential targets and on lock-down. We’re on full alert and the British authorities have increased our protection as well.”

  “All right,” the senior Secret Service man said bluntly. “We’re out of here.” Without discussing anything with the President, he leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “Get us to Cowpuncher as fast as possible.” Cowpuncher was their codename for Air Force Once.

  “Dammit all,” Brooke said. “Any idea who’s behind it?”

  “No, sir, Mr President.”

  “All right, let’s go.”

  The motorcade pulled away from the ancient building and made its way back to the airport, flanked either side by a host of British police officers on motorbikes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  With Mack still hanging onto the side, Reaper cruised the Lexus up the winding drive and slowly the mansion came into view. It was a large honey-colored stone building covered in ivy and flanked by various outbuldings and what looked like stables.

  “All right, earpieces in everyone,” Hawke said. “If we get split up we need to stay in contact.” He pulled his out of his pocket and set it up under his shirt and the others followed suit.

  “Are you sure you sorted the security guard?” Kim asked Scarlet.

  “I know how to incapacitate a man, darling.”

  Ryan turned and looked at Kim. “True story. Just ask Jack Camacho – his dick’s still in a sling as we.... ow!”

  Scarlet tweaked Ryan’s ear and pulled his head down so she could whisper in her ear, but she did it loud enough for all to hear. “I already told you, Jackie Boy’s on a covert CIA mission. Now be a good boy and stop being so silly before I put your dick in a sling, and in the nastiest possible way.”

  The car erupted into howls of laughter, but then Reaper brought everyone around with a sobering observation. “We have company.”

  Hawke looked up and saw several off-road bikes were now racing across the airfield in their direction.

  Kim sighed. “I thought you said you handled the guard?”

  “And I thought I told you that I did?”

  “It’s just a protocol failure,” Hawke said. “I’m guessing the gatehouse guard has to radio through all approaching vehicles to on-site security, so now they want to know just who the hell we are. Let’s keep this under control.”

  “I think that ship has sailed,” Lea said. “They’ve got guns.”

  “Looks like Kruger’s not taking any chances,” said Devlin.

  Ryan nodded sagely. “Either that or this Horak dude doesn’t pay his TV licence and thinks we’re BBC inspectors.”<
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  Lea rolled her eyes, but it was good to hear Ryan relaxing and making his usual idiotic comments. Camacho’s absence had given him plenty of room to make gags at Scarlet’s expense, and now this let her see that there was still some light in there.

  “You need pump-action shotguns for those licence guys?” Kim said with a smirk.

  “Here they come,” Reaper said.

  Hawke frowned and reached into his bag for his handgun. “And the guy in the lead has just chambered a cartridge on that pump-action.”

  The first rider fired at the Lexus and Reaper swerved to dodge the impact but part of the shot sprayed up the front-left side of the windshield and instantly shattered half of it.

  He spun the SUV off the drive and ploughed across the lavish lawns to the south of the house while the bike turned back in a wide circle, chewing up chunks of mud and spitting it out in a high arc in its wake.

  “One o’ you tadgers give me a gun?” Mack yelled.

  Hawke pushed his window down, handed a gun to the Scotsman and returned fire, but the rider took evasive action and dodged the incoming fire.

  “Would you like me to do that?” Scarlet said.

  Before Hawke could reply, Cairo Sloane climbed halfway out of her window and loosed a savage volley of sidearm fire from her weapon.

  “No, thank you,” Hawke muttered. “I’ve got it covered.”

  Swerving to avoid Scarlet’s rounds, the rider slid another cartridge in the pump-action with a one-handed slide while still deftly steering the bike back to them.

  Hawke was impressed by it, so too bad he’d probably have to kill him to stop him. He raised his gun and fired again, and again he missed and so did Scarlet. As he cursed another two bikes zoomed into view, ridden by more armed men. They raced ahead of the SUV and flanked the leading rider.

  “Bloody fantastic,” Hawke said. “Now there’s three of them.”

  Reaper was in hot pursuit, and they were racing toward what looked like a giant hedgerow. “Look out for the hedge, Reap!” Lea yelled.

  “It’s not a hedge,” Ryan said.

  “Damn fuckin’ right, it ain’t!” yelled Mack, and peeled off another few rounds.

  “Well it sure ain’t no goddam wall, Ryan!” Kim said.

  “It’s a maze,” he said casually. “In fact it’s the biggest maze in Europe.”

  “Goodness me, isn’t that something?” The sarcasm in Scarlet’s voice was heavy.

  “Yes, it is. The central part of the maze is hundreds of years old,” Ryan said. “It was built in the late seventeenth century. Over the years various owners added to it but it was Horak who bloated it up to the current monster when he bought the place in the mid-eighties.”

  “You really are a mine of totally useless information,” Scarlet said, turning to look over her shoulders at the riders. “Where do you get all this crap?”

  “It’s called reading,” he said, stretching the last word out as long as he could. “Ever heard of it?”

  “Sorry, did you say something Ryan?” she said. “It’s just that all I could hear was the whine of a wasp. Or was that your voice?”

  “Man,” Kim said. “To think you guys saved the United States...”

  “It’s worrying, no?” Reaper said with a broad, toothy grin.

  “Oh yeah,” Kim said. “Especially if you’re a sane person who’s trapped in some freaking English manor with them.”

  “Don’t be like that, darling,” Scarlet said. “Not everyone was born with a pole up their arse.”

  Kim turned on Scarlet. “I’m sorry?”

  “Let’s face it,” the former SAS captain continued, “you are rather serious.”

  “How is that a problem?” Kim said, astonished.

  “No problem,” Scarlet said. “Just that the only serious thing about all the Special Forces I’ve ever known has been their sense of humor.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t get your humor,” Kim said.

  “You’re forgiven,” said Scarlet.

  “There is one funny British joke,” Kim said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “Your navy. What was it now – one aircraft carrier without any aircraft. Oh my.”

  Scarlet smirked, determined not to be baited. “You’re quite right, we’re not in the same league as you Yanks. I especially admire your writers. What was it Mark Twain said – God invented war so Americans could learn geography?”

  Ryan laughed out loud and confirmed the quotation.

  “This is true,” Reaper said.

  “All right,” Hawke said. “Enough of the nationalist dick-waving.”

  Scarlet and Kim turned on him. “Kinda hard for either of us to do that, wouldn’t you say, Hawke?”

  “You know what I mean, ladies. We’re all on the same side here, remember that.”

  The riders broke away like a fighter jet display team and came back around the Lexus in three giant arcs.

  “They’re coming in again, Joe,” Lea said.

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

  Devlin grinned. “We’re going to lose them.”

  “In the middle of the world’s most expansive croquet lawn?” Ryan said.

  “Nope,” the Irishman drawled. “In the middle of the world’s biggest maze, right, Mr Reaper?”

  “We draw them in, and then we hunt them down,” the Frenchman said.

  “You could have told me!” Mack said, and leaped off the Lexus with seconds to spare.

  Reaper smashed the massive Lexus through the outer hedge of the maze. The weight and momentum of the heavy-duty SUV was enough to easily rip through the outer wall, but then the next few hedges gave too much resistance and they ground to a halt halfway to the center of the maze.

  “Everyone out!” Hawke yelled.

  Behind them, the riders were now racing over to the hole in the maze wall as fast as they could go. The sun flashed on their helmets and shotgun barrels as they drew closer.

  Mack jogged over to them and laughed. “Not had this much fun in years.”

  “Into the maze!” Hawke said.

  The maze was billed as the country’s biggest, but no one ever got to enjoy it because it was closed to the general public. The entire thing was nothing more than a monumental folly maintained by the eccentric Horak to entertain his high-powered friends when they visited the house. The only way it could be viewed was by looking on Google Earth, which is what Lea was trying to access right now as they sprinted through the crazy labyrinth.

  They turned left and cut down a winding passageway that took them ever deeper into the maze. “I hope this ends better than it did for Jack Nicholson in The Shining,” Ryan said.

  “At least it’s not snowing,” Kim said. “But yeah...”

  “Maybe,” Hawke said. Like the others, the high summer sun was making him sweat through his shirt as he pounded his way along the path. “If we had snow we could follow their tracks.”

  Kim frowned as she loaded her gun. “Or they could follow ours.”

  They heard the bikes’ engines a few meters to the right, but there was no way through. The hedge was a meter thick and full of dense thorns. “Maybe we should leave them,” Ryan said. “Just go up to the house.”

  To Hawke, this was the worse thing they could do. “No – never let the enemy get behind you. We don’t want them on our tail when we go up to the house. We’ll just end up fighting on two fronts. We’re on these guys now and we don’t stop till we take them down.”

  The passageway arrived at a central junction where several other paths came together. “We’re at a vortex,” Ryan said. “This is where the spiral we were following was leading. This damned place must have been created by Daedalus himself!”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Scarlet said.

  “Piss off, Cairo.”

  “By the way, is there going to be any loot coming our way for doing this?” Scarlet asked, totally ignoring Ryan. “I mean, how much is this sword worth on the black market?”
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  “You and your bank account,” Kim said.

  “Hey, I like a bit of OA as much as the next gal,” Scarlet said. “I’m not doing this bollocks for shits and grins, baby.”

  “OA?” Ryan said.

  “Offensive action,” Mack said.

  “Keep it down,” Hawke said. “I hear something.”

  “Me too,” said Devlin. The Irishman silently raised his arm and pointed to the hedge right behind him.

  Hawke nodded. “They’re backtracking.”

  “This way,” Lea said, staring at her phone. “This leads to the center of the maze.”

  They walked along another long pathway and then they turned a corner to arrive in the heart of the maze.

  “Oh, you have to be kidding me,” Scarlet said.

  She had her hands on her hips and now raised an arm to point at the vast array of statues of various Greek and Roman goddesses that populated the center of the maze. “Are these guys trying to tell us something or what?”

  Mack frowned. “What’s the big joke?”

  “And there’s Poseidon,” Hawke said with a grin. The tall marble statue was in the dead center of the display beside a giant coy pond, and his metal trident shone in he sun. Hawke sprinted over and stood next to it.

  “I’m sorry, Joe Hawke,” Lea said. “But if you think this is the right time for a photo then you’re crazier than I thought.”

  “No,” Hawke said patiently. “I don’t want a photo of me and old Poseidon here, I want his trident.”

  Hawke pulled the trident out of the statue’s grip and weighed it in his hands. “Poor old Zaugg,” he muttered to himself.

  “What the buggering fuck are you pissing about with that thing for?” Scarlet said.

  Kim gave her a look and rolled her eyes. “Language, dear.”

  Scarlet slowly raised her middle finger and waved it in the American’s face. “Bite me.”

  “Hey!”

  “I know what he wants it for,” Ryan said.

  “Moi aussi,” Reaper said.

  The bikes were closer now. It sounded like two were to the south and a lone rider was to the north but closer. Hawke carefully tracked the progress of the lone rider and then jogged over to the hedge wall that corresponded closest with the sound of the bike’s raspy engine. He got down on his knees and stared through the base of the hedge and then climbed back up to his feet. “He’s coming along here.”