The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake 4) (25 page)

“Let me take the lead,” Kinimaka urged.

But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Kinimaka had her side, as he always did, and Dahl paced her too. She picked her way down the rest of the slope, stopping briefly as they encountered stiff opposition from behind several stacked barrels ahead. Dahl fired his RPG at the barrels and the opposition went up in flames. Then, with a regretful shake of the head, he threw the weapon away, out of grenades.

Their clothes were torn, their flesh bloody, and their faces set hard with determination and the loss of colleagues along the way, but Hayden and her small contingent forged onward, finally reaching the flat of the valley and facing the field of choppers. The enemy had dug in and some were already shooting.

“See there,” Dahl shouted. He pointed out the large group trying to spirit away the pieces. “Hurry. We have no time.”

*****

The Norseman welcomed the drifting, cloying smoke with its thick stench of spilled blood and death. When the SAS team that guarded him met harsh opposition and fought hard to survive, he managed to crawl and slither his way through the muck and the mud, a venomous snake slipping through slime, until he managed to outflank the battle. Then, still staying low, he slunk to the base of the hill. Along the way, he even managed to collect a discarded weapon, a fully loaded machine-pistol, which brought a thin smile to those bloodless, melancholy lips. Fortune always landed on the side of the privileged, and none were more privileged than he. He glanced back up the hill and saw the thief, Belmonte, dying. He turned away without a flicker of concern. The pieces of Odin were still within reach, and although the plan had changed, there was still a plan.

The only plan that guaranteed the continued dominance of what remained of the Shadow Elite.

Make Cayman place the blasted things in the right holes and send out a warning to the world. If some small destruction ensued, it mattered little to him. After a few minutes they would stop the process by removing a piece.

But,
his mind questioned him,
it might not be that easy. What if you can’t stop the process?

Then so be it. In the true order of things, the death of the Shadow Elite really should spell death for the world. It would be an appropriate and fitting end for this planet.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

As a single unit they attacked the choppers. Dahl ran, firing at a Bell 205 painted jet black, as its occupants desperately tried to slam its doors close and take off. Within seconds, he hit the skids at full pelt and launched his body forward so that he flew into the cockpit, still firing. The windshield and side windows were already shattered. Bloodied men screamed and fell back as he landed among them. Fists and legs thumped against him to no effect. A bullet blasted past his cheek. Dahl wedged himself firmly on the fat stomach of a man’s twitching body and sprayed the rest of the cockpit with lead. Within seconds, the interior grew quiet and still.

Dahl peered out of a side window, finding his next target.

Mai and Alicia zigzagged toward another chopper, this one equipped with weapons and looking much like an Apache, but with several modifications. As they neared the chopper, it rose off the ground, skids twitching into the air, rotors at full speed and generating the thrust required to take off. Mai slung her rifle across her shoulder without slowing down and leapt at the rising skid, grabbing hold and twisting her body acrobatically through the air so that she landed on her feet, facing the still-open door of the cockpit.

Alicia landed next to her a second later. Half a dozen shocked and terrified faces greeted them.

“Flight’s over, boys.”

Alicia shot a guard as he struggled to bring his rifle to bear in the small space. Mai drew her knife and leapt onto the lap of the nearest terrorist, burying the blade in his neck and scurrying across to the next. The chopper lost momentum as the pilot screamed for his life and leapt out of the far door, the machine plunging back down to earth with an almighty crash.

Luckily, it had only had time to rise about ten feet in the air. Alicia leapt clear as it came down, rolling head over heels, then coming up with her rifle sighted on the fleeing pilot. One shot sent him spinning headfirst into a drainage ditch.

Mai jumped from the cockpit a few seconds later. “Nice shot.”

“Nice knifework. Now, shall we?”

Their next target, a big black Sikorsky, was already twenty feet in the air and about to swoop into flight.

Both Mai and Alicia lined up the rotors in their sights.

*****

Drake watched as Mai and Alicia played nice and took out the terrorists better than any team in the world. An escaping helicopter they targeted suddenly whirled and plummeted from the skies, crashing to the ground before a massive fireball consumed it. He had to wonder how the hell Mai did it. The Japanese agent was already back in the front line whilst he massaged his back and tried to ignore the tears and bruises that had been inflicted by the giant Belmonte had killed.

Belmonte. The master thief had bowed out with honor and was now somewhere he preferred to be. Drake knew he would never know the full story behind Belmonte and Emma, but thought he owed it to the thief to at least try to find the girl’s father and explain. Without Belmonte’s expertise and funding, they would never have gotten this far.

If he survived today.

All around, choppers lifted off, four-wheel-drives, and faster, heavier vehicles slewed through the churned grass and blasted toward the road. Drake’s team fell to their knees, lining up targets and taking shots. Helicopters lurched a few feet and crash landed. Large Mercedes and Audis flipped onto their roofs or smashed into each other, occupants spilling out and holding wounds or shouting crazily. It was utter mayhem. A military truck bounced and jounced its way to the tarmac and began to pick up speed. In another moment, the loud hiss and searing passage of an RPG foretold the explosion that happened a split-second later. Mangled wreckage and burning rubber blocked the roadway.

With anxious eyes Drake searched among the choppers. It took seconds to spot the running band of terrorists trying to smuggle out the pieces. They were a large group, heading for one of the few military helicopters. He set off at a crazy sprint, signaling the others as best he could. To his right a small chopper roared as it lifted off, its occupants leaning out of the open door, screaming abuse as they loosed a few rounds at his feet. Drake didn’t break stride or fire back. The recovery of the pieces was everything now.

With the SAS, Delta and ragtag teams made up of Dahl’s and Gates’s men covering and mopping up the rear guard, Drake’s principal team raced to intercept the eight pieces of Odin. This was it. The whole purpose of their crazy battles over the last few months. Save the artefacts, save the world.

Hayden loped along as best she could, one hand pressed hard to her old wound. The other held a light machine pistol but, like Drake, she was doing her best to save ammo. Kinimaka jogged at her side, face dirty and bloody, hair plastered with sweat, but eyes as hard and determined as granite. They rushed past an empty chopper, and the Hawaiian tossed a grenade inside and yelled a warning to all. A fortified Range Rover roared ahead, its blacked-out windows hiding its occupants. Kinimaka paused to send a spray of bullets through its engine bay, only moving on when he saw the first lick of flame. The less transport these bastards had available, the less chance they had of leaving this place in one piece.

Hayden met with Drake as they slowed, moving parallel to the fleeing terrorists along an avenue created by an assortment of trucks, four-wheel drives and choppers. She dared a glance behind toward the hill but saw no sign of Ben, his sister or Jonathan Gates.

Eyes to the front she saw the terrorists had reached their transport and were loading Odin’s artifacts on board whilst others fanned out to create a protective perimeter.

And with perfect recklessness, Drake cut through a gap between the rear end of a Land Rover and the front of a Dodge RAM and fell among the bad guys. Hayden chased as best she could. The Englishman must have been in contact with Alicia and Mai for they now appeared, wraith-like assassins, tearing through the enemy like a blade through flesh.

As the sun set behind the nearby mountains, fire and hate and determination, fervor and heroism lit up the encroaching dark with all the glory of a colossal firework display.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Drake fired twice, then slid beneath a man’s return fire and swept his legs. Before that man hit the dirt, Drake shot another and was back on his feet, jabbing stiffened fingers into someone’s neck and then leaping feet first toward the next, connecting hard, knocking the man’s weapon aside as it bucked and sprayed bullets into the air. Ahead, the pieces were being hastily thrown aboard, the pilot already shuffling the collective. Men leaned out of every available space, rifles poised.

Drake stopped in despair. They were about to spray indiscriminately, killing everything that moved just to safeguard their getaway.

They’re terrorists,
he thought, as he screamed “Down!” and threw himself headlong just as they opened fire.

Hayden heard Drake’s warning, but half a second too late. Her knife wound screamed as she tried to twist violently in a new direction, slowing her movements just enough. That bastard Boudreau would be the death of her yet. The nightmare sound ruptured the air and scything death sped towards her but, in the blink of an eye, something like a mountain stepped between her and obliteration.

Kinimaka! Her partner of three years jerked and spasmed as bullets took him in the chest, knocking him backward into her. His blood sprayed back into her face in a terrible cloud. Hayden collapsed with Kinimaka on top of her and began to scream.

Drake stayed prone, aimed his rifle and potted a couple of terrorist guards. Then he saw the rest being slammed from behind—Torsten Dahl had arrived, hitting hard from the back, throwing them out of the open doors face-first or into the bulkheads with a bone-cracking smash. Soon, the chopper was empty except for the pilot, and Dahl gestured severely at him to close the machine down.

Drake turned immediately to check out the screams he knew were coming from Hayden. At first, he couldn’t see her, but then saw Mai and Alicia drop beside a huge bulk and felt his heart sink.

Oh no. It was Mano. Was Gates’ CIA liaison underneath him? Had he taken a bullet for Hayden?

He dashed to help, momentarily putting the pieces behind his friends’ welfare. Dead terrorist bodies lay all around them. He took hold of Kinimaka with Mai and Alicia and heaved the dead weight to one side. Drake glimpsed the Hawaiian’s bloodied face and shredded field-jacket before his eyes fell on Hayden.

The CIA agent held her side in agony, but her eyes were filled with tears of grief and red streaks lined her cheeks.

“He saved me. . .” she blubbered. “M...Mano saved. . .”

Alicia was the first to sink to her knees in the muck around Hayden and place a hand of sympathy and support on her shoulder. “He loved you,” she said. “He told me. That man would’ve done anything for you.”

Drake wondered why he’d never seen it. Most likely because he’d been preoccupied with his own terrors of late and not given much thought to the wellbeing of everyone else. Now, across the body of Mano Kinimaka, he locked eyes with Mai and tried to communicate that he wanted to give their connection a chance.

The Japanese girl smiled tiredly, eyes drifting away across the battlefield.

Drake looked too. Plumes of black smoke belched toward the sky to mark downed choppers and demolished cars. A few helicopters managed to escape and hammered toward the last red gold vestiges of the dying sun. The dark shapes of many men lay scattered and heaped across the grass, the nearby road, and the blood-soaked hillside down which he had led the charge. Friend and foe were indistinguishable in the half-light. He saw the distinct figure of Sam and two of the man’s SAS comrades trudging toward them, guns resting across their shoulders. The battle, it seemed, was won.

The eight pieces had been captured by the good guys. The world was safe.

It was all over. Two months of blood and hell and it had come to this—the loneliness of a battlefield, the horror and loss of its aftermath, the bittersweet happiness that most of his friends had survived.

Where was Ben? Where were Karin and Gates?

He couldn’t see them. But then their familiar shapes emerged from the mist drifting about Sam and his boys, along with at least another half-dozen men.

A deep cough came from nearby, so harsh it sounded to his ears like the cocking of a rifle. He twisted quickly, saw only Dahl still shouting at the pilot to shut down, and frowned.
What had made that coughing sound?

And then the body of Mano Kinimaka shuddered, and the big man opened his eyes, staring into the skies and spitting blood from his mouth. “Shit, man.” He coughed. “Felt like a Kalua pig hit me at full force.”

Drake’s mouth dropped open in shock. Alicia was at his side in a heartbeat, ripping the Hawaiian’s jacket off.

“The Kevlar took it all.” She said in a matter-of-fact way. “He’s bleeding from a few small nicks around his arms.” She grabbed Kinimaka’s face between her small but deadly hands. “You big, lucky, beautiful bastard, you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a jacket take so many shots.”

Drake grinned and rushed to help Hayden—broken and delirious at the sound of her friend’s voice—crawl to his side. It felt good to see them embrace and he sat for a moment, spirits rising as the moon emerged from behind a cloud.

It was almost Christmas day, 2012.

Ben and Karin finally arrived, the young man staring down at his girlfriend with a look that said he hadn’t the slightest notion of what to do. “I didn’t want to mention this before,” he said at last, “but today is the twenty-first which, according to the Mayans and some other cultures, was supposed to be the end of the world.” He shrugged. “But what did they know?”