The Bones Of Odin (Matt Drake 1) (18 page)

Decoy.

The helicopter was two feet off the ground, spinning slowly. An SAS soldier shouted, but without any real venom in his voice. The second car, a black four-door Cadillac, was now barrelling alongside the huge pool, its tyres spewing tidal waves of water in all directions. The windows were blacked out. No way to tell who was inside.

A third motor started up, this one currently out of sight.

Soldiers fired on the Caddy, taking out its tyres and the driver with three shots. The car skidded, its rear end crashing into the pool. Wells and three other soldiers ran towards it, shouting. Kennedy kept an eye on the chopper, but, like the Caddy, its windows were opaque.

This was all part of some elaborate escape plan, Kennedy guessed. But where was the real Davor Babic?

The chopper started to rise higher. The SAS finally got tired of warnings and shot out its rear rotary propeller. The monstrous machine started to spin, and then a man knelt underneath it with a grenade-launcher steadied.

Wells reached the Caddy. Two shots were fired. Kennedy heard on the mic that Babic was still at large. Now the third car shot around the corner, engine screaming like a Formula 1 racer, but this thing was a Bentley, big and brash, its presence screaming
get the hell outta my way!

Kennedy leapt into the trees. Several soldiers followed her. Wells spun and fired three quick shots that bounced right off the side-windows.

Bullet-proof glass!

“That’s the wanker!”

The words were uttered a split-second too late to save the chopper - the grenade had been fired - its explosive charge detonating against the chopper’s underbelly. The chopper burst apart, sending shards of metal blasting everywhere. The mangled chunk of wrecked steel crashed straight down into the pool, displacing thousands of gallons of water with immense force.

Kennedy waited until the monster Bentley shot past her, then took off in pursuit. Swift deduction told her there was but a single chance to catch the fleeing Serb.

Wells saw it at the same time, and leapt into action. The R8 was totalled, but the Caddy was still serviceable, its wheels resting only an inch underwater on the pool’s marble steps.

Wells and two of his soldiers ran for the Caddy. Kennedy took off in hot pursuit, determined to get a seat. At that moment there was an uncanny fizz of air as if a whirlwind had blown by and suddenly the corner of Babic’s house exploded.

“
Christ!”
Wells hit the dirt as even his calm was destroyed. Rubble burst in all directions, raining down into the pool and on the patio. Kennedy staggered. She turned her head towards the cliffs.

A black helicopter hovered there, a figure waving through its open door.

“Did you like that?”

Wells raised his head. “Alicia Myles? What in God’s name are you doing?”

“Could’ve taken even your tiny bollocks off with that shot you old fuckhead. You owe me.”
Alicia laughed as the chopper rose for a moment before swinging around in pursuit of the Bentley.

The Canadians were here.

*****

Drake rolled forward an instant before the wall behind him turned into Swiss-cheese. At least one bullet passed so close he heard its sonic whine. He somersaulted forward to gain the ground underneath the balcony at the same time as most of the Delta team. Once there, he aimed upwards and opened fire.

As expected, the balcony floor was relatively weak. The firing stopped up there and the screams began.

The Delta commander signalled to his left in the direction of the vault. They ran quickly through two grandly furnished but empty rooms. The commander motioned a halt outside one that satellite surveillance had forewarned them sported something a little special - a hidden, underground room.

Flash-bangs were thrown inside, followed by the American soldiers, crazy-shouting to enhance the disorientation effect. Immediately though, there were half-a-dozen Serb guards grappling at close quarters with them. Drake took a breath and stepped inside. Chaos and confusion filled the room from end to end. He blinked to find himself confronted by a huge guard who grinned and belched, and then lunged forward for a bear hug.

Drake sidestepped hurriedly, delivered a blow to the kidneys and a stiff dagger-hand to the solar-plexus. The man-beast didn’t even flinch.

An old bar-fighting adage came back to him then -
if
your opponent takes a hit to the plexus without wincing then you’d better start running dude, cos you’re in deep fucking shit. . ..

Drake backed off, warily circling his unmoving enemy. The Serb was huge, lazy fat over solid muscle, with a forehead big enough to break six-inch concrete blocks. The man lumbered forward, arms wide. One slip up and Drake would be crushed to death, squeezed and popped like a grape. He quickstepped away, feinted right, and came forward with three instant jabs.

Eye. Ear. Throat.

All three connected. When the Serb squeezed his eyes shut in pain, Drake executed a risky dummy roll into a flying kick that generated enough momentum to knock even this brontosaurus off its wide feet.

The man crashed to the floor with a sound like a mountain collapsing. Pictures fell off the wall. The force he generated with his own backwards plunge knocked him unconscious when his head hit the deck.

Drake ventured further into the room. Two Delta guys were down, but all the Serbs had been neutralised. A section of the eastern wall had swung open and most of the Americans had been standing around the opening, but were now backing slowly away, cursing in fear.

Drake hurried to join them, unable to imagine what could make a Delta soldier panic. The first thing he saw was a set of stone steps descending into a well-lit underground chamber.

The second was the black Panther stalking slowly up the steps, its wide snarl showing a razor-sharp set of fangs.

“Fuuuuuuck . . .”
one of the Americans drawled. Drake couldn’t agree more.

The Panther hissed as it crouched to strike. Drake backed off as the beast leapt through the air, 100 pounds of lethal muscle in a rage. It landed on the top step and scrabbled for purchase, all the time pinning its hypnotic green eyes on the retreating soldiers.

“Hate to do this,” the Delta commander said, as he sighted down his rifle.

“Wait!” Drake saw something glinting under the lights. “Just wait. Don’t move.”

The Panther prowled forward. The Delta team kept it in their sights as it passed between them and sniffed disdainfully at the incapacitated Serb guards on its way out of the room.

“What the - ?” one of the Americans frowned at Drake.

“Didn’t you see? It was wearing a diamond-studded necklace. Cat like that, living in a house such as this, I’m
guessing,
is trained to attack only when it hears its master’s voice.”

“Nice call. I would’ve hated to kill an animal like that.” The Delta commander waved at the Serbs. “These fuckers I’d waste all day for fun.”

They started to descend the steps, leaving two men on guard. Drake was third to reach the vault floor and what he saw made him shake his head in amazement.

“How twisted are these crazy bastards?”

The room was jam-packed with what he could only describe as ‘trophies’. Items Davor Babic considered valuable because – in his perversions – they were valuable to
other people.
Cabinets stood everywhere, large and small, haphazardly arrayed.

A jawbone from a T-Rex. An inscription beside it read
‘From the collection of Edgar Fillion – Life reward’.
Beyond that, a revealing photographic sequence of a famous actress, inscribed ‘
She wanted to live’.
Next to that, and resting in a grisly manner atop a bronze pedestal - a mummified hand, identified as ‘
District Attorney No. 3’.

And many more. As Drake skirted the display cases, trying to reel in his morbid fascination and focus, he finally spotted the fantastic items they were looking for.

The Valkyries: A pair of pure white statues mounted on a thick circular block. Both sculptures were about five feet in height but it was the striking detail in them that took Drake’s breath away. Two buxom women, nude and like the mighty amazons of old, both with legs apart as if sitting astride something. Probably a winged horse, Drake mused. Ben would know more, but he recalled that the Valkyries used them to fly from battle to battle. He took in the muscled limbs, the classically-boned features and the bewildering horned helmets.

“Sheeyit!” a Delta guy exclaimed. “Wish I had me a set of six-packs like that.”

More revealingly, both Valkyries were pointing upwards at something unknown with their left hands. Pointing, Drake thought now, straight at the Tomb of the Gods.

If only they could find Ragnarok.

At that moment one of the soldiers tried to remove an item from its display case. A loud buzzer sounded and a set of steel gates came crashing down at the base of the steps, blocking their exit.

The Americans reached immediately for gas-masks. Drake shook his head. “Don’t worry. Something tells me Babic is the kind of scum who’d prefer a thief caught live and kicking.”

The Delta commander eyed the still-vibrating bars. “Blast those sticks apart.”

*****

Kennedy stared after the chopper and the fleeing Bentley in amazement. Wells, it seemed, was also at a loss as he gaped at the sky.

“Bitch,” Kennedy heard him breath. “I damn well trained her. How
dare
she turn into a traitor?”

“It’s a good thing she’s gone,” Kennedy made sure her hair was still tied back after all the diving around, and looked away when she noticed a couple of SAS men assessing her. “She had the elevated ground. Now, if Drake and the Delta team have secured the Valkyries we might be able to slip away while Alicia’s occupied by Babic.”

Wells looked like he was torn between two meaningful choices, but said nothing as they raced around the house to the front entrance. They saw the chopper spin around to confront the Bentley head on. Shots were fired that bounced off the fleeing car. Then the car suddenly braked hard and stopped in a cloud of gravel.

An object was poked out of a window.

The chopper plummeted out of the sky, its operator possessed of almost supernatural instinct, as the RPG whistled overhead. As its skids touched the ground, Canadian mercenaries spewed out of the doors. A fire-fight erupted.

Kennedy thought she saw Alicia Myles - a lithe figure clad in skin-tight body-armour -jump into the fray like the proverbial lion. A beast made for the fight, lost in the violence and fury of it all. Despite herself, Kennedy felt her blood running cold.

Was that
fear
she was feeling?

Before she could brood over it, a thin figure
collapsed
out of the opposite side of the chopper. A figure she recognised in an instant.

Professor Parnevik!

He limped along, at first faltering, but then showing renewed determination and finally crawling, as bullets laced the air above his head, one of them passing within a hands-width of his skull.

Parnevik at last inched close enough for the SAS and Kennedy to pull him to safety, the Canadians ignorant, fully engaged in battle

“Right,” said Wells motioning to the house. “Let’s get this done.”

*****

Drake helped haul the Valkyries forward as a couple of guys fixed a small amount of explosives to the bars. They threaded a narrow path through the appalling exhibits, trying not to look too closely. One of the Delta guys had come back from a morbid inspection a few minutes ago to report a black coffin sitting at the rear of the room.

An air of expectation had lasted an entire ten seconds. It took a soldier’s logic to shut it down. The less you know . . .

Not Drake’s logic anymore. But he seriously didn’t want to know. He even flinched like a regular civilian as the bars were blown apart.

Gunfire erupted from the room above. The Delta guards clattered down the steps, dead, full of bloody holes. In another second, a dozen men armed with sub-machine-guns appeared at the top of the steps.

Outflanked and out-gunned, covered from a higher vantage point, the Delta team had had the tables turned on them, and were now vulnerable. Drake inched towards a cabinet and its relative safety, trying not to think about the stupidity of getting caught like this and that it
wouldn’t
have happened to the SAS, and trusting to luck that these new enemies wouldn’t be foolish enough to shoot at the Valkyries.

There were a few moments of unrelieved tension suffered in a stifling silence until a figure came down the steps. A figure dressed in white and wearing a white mask.

Drake recognised him instantly. The same man who had received the Shield on the cat-walk in York. The man he’d seen in Upsalla.

“I
know
you,” he breathed to himself, then louder. “The bloody
Germans
are here.”

The man raised a .45 and waved it around. “Drop your weapons. All of you.
Now!”

An arrogant voice. A voice that belonged to smooth hands, its owner possessed of real-world power, the kind that’s written on paper and granted in member-only clubs. The kind of man who had no clue what real world toil and drudgery was all about. A banker, maybe, born into banking, or a politician, son of politicians.

The Delta men held their weapons steady. No one spoke. The stand-off was menacing.

Again the man shouted, his breeding keeping him ignorant of the danger.

“Are you deaf? I said
now!”

A Texan voice drawled: “Not happening, motherfucker.”

“But . . . but . . .’
the man stammered in astonishment, then abruptly ripped his mask off. “You
will
!”

Drake almost collapsed.
I know you!
Abel Frey, the German fashion designer. Shock swept through Drake in a poisonous tide. It wasn’t possible. It was like seeing Taylor and Miley up there, cackling about taking over the world.