Land of the Gods

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Honolulu International Airport is the biggest airport on Oahu and one of the busiest in the entire United States. The first properly built airport in the whole state of Hawaii, travellers to the island had to use landing strips or cleared fields before its construction in 1927, but when the ECHO team arrived it was a small city of runways and shops and departure lounges powering up for another busy day.

They approached from the north, cruising through Pearl Harbor on the Kamehameha Highway. Reaper was at the wheel and Lea and Nikolai were sleeping in the back. Hawke looked out across the harbor and saw the monuments on the east coast of Ford Island.

As a former military man with serious combat experience he felt a deep sense of loss and respect as the USS Arizona Memorial came into view, and then the USS Missouri Memorial where the Japanese surrendered, ending the bloodiest war in history. It loomed out of the darkness almost as distant as 1945 itself, but it was there, all the same, and Hawke gave a silent salute before turning back to face the road.

“We’re here,” Reaper said, gently turning McKenna’s stolen pickup truck off the highway and into the airport. “Let’s just hope the Athanatoi are still here, too.”

Hawke looked at his watch. “Should be. Lea checked what McKenna said about the flights and the first ones aren’t until just after five. Must be some noise abatement law like they have in London Heathrow.”

“You think anyone found Cobb and McKenna tied up on their boat yet?”

“I’ll check the news,” Lea said. “Much later.” She yawned and stretched her arms. “I don’t know about you guys, but I could sleep for a hundred years.”

“I hear you loud and clear,” Hawke said. “But they never sleep, or so it seems.”

“Et ça, c’est le problème,” the former legionnaire followed the signs to the short stay parking lot. “We must win before we sleep.”

Lea glanced at Nikolai who was snoring quietly beside her. “Well, this one sleeps, that’s for sure.”

They cruised past various car rental companies until finally pulling into the parking lot and killing the engine. The new silence woke Nikolai in the back. He yawned, checked his watch and peered out the window. “At last,” he growled. “We get closer to the prize.”

Hawke watched the former Athanatoi man carefully in the mirror. The seed of doubt was still in his mind. Could he trust this weird monk? This man whose early life in Moscow had been a baptism of fire? The man who had been closer to the Oracle than anyone else they knew — the man who had come closer than anyone to the holy grail of immortality?

Maybe he had made a mistake by letting him join them. Maybe saving Lea’s life was nothing more than a piece of theater aimed at hooking them and reeling them in. Had Nikolai been honest with them, or was it all nothing more than a piece of bait designed to lull them into a false sense of security before the Oracle made his last, devastating move against them?

Hawke felt the suspension rock as Reaper shifted his not inconsiderate bulk out of the truck and slammed the door. The sun was nearing the horizon now, and the temperature was already over twenty degrees Celsius. The airport parking lot lights shone down on them like LED stage lights, turning everything a ghostly arctic blue color.

“Let’s get this over with,” Hawke said, popping his belt buckle. “Where are the gates for private planes?”

Lea was already on it, phone in hand as she climbed out of the back of the truck. “Looks like it’s just over there. Quickest way is through the main terminal and then hang a right.”

They walked into the bright lights of the terminal and followed Lea’s directions, heading into the west where the private aprons were situated. En route, Reaper had to be pulled away from the welcoming mint and chocolate brown glow of the Honolulu Cookie Company store.

“Never come between a Frenchman and his stomach,” he growled.

“We’re sort of pressed for time, Reap,” Lea said with a smile.

“Oui, mais…” He rubbed his stomach and sighed. “All right, but later.”

“Yes, later,” Lea said.

Walking through the air-conditioned calm of the airport they started scanning for any sign of the men who had raided the plantation and snatched the ring. To their right, three men dressed in black were walking into the mall section of the airport where vendors were opening up their stores for the day.

“There!” Nikolai raised his arm and pointed across the vast airport mall. “I know that man. His name is Benedict. He is a senior acolyte. The men either side of him are his students. The man with one eye is Stefanus, and the man with the ponytail is Boaz.”

“Not the sort of chaps you want to meet on a dark night,” Lea said.

Hawke led the way, speeding up his walk while being careful not to draw any attention to himself as he moved closer to the Athanatoi warriors.

But then things changed fast. Walking with her parents, a child dropped a cookie and screamed. Benedict and the other cultists turned instinctively and instantly saw Hawke and the rest of the team closing in on them.

There was no hesitation. In one fluid movement, Benedict drew a Marlin BFR from his shoulder holster and spun around as he lifted it into the aim.

Hawke immediately recognized the powerful handgun. Chambered in .450 and capable of firing colossal 350 grain rounds at nearly two thousand feet per second, a direct hit would mean losing a massive percentage of your bodyweight followed by instant death. “Get down!” he yelled.

“Buggering fuck!” Lea said. “That’s a handheld cannon!”

He fired and the round struck the façade of a water vending machine, blasting the front window to pieces and exploding most of the bottles inside it.

Hawke slammed down behind the counter of a nearby KFC and told the workers to get out the back to safety as fast as possible. Lea and Reaper piled in after him as the fast food restaurant emptied in a hurry but Nikolai was still running for cover.

Then the lead flew. The Russian’s heart pounded in his chest and his mouth was as dry as sandpaper. Making it behind the cover with seconds to spare, he made his arms into a cradle and tucked his head in them to avoid eye damage from the flying splinters and pulverized plastic and smoke. The airport was now a battlefield and the cult he had sworn allegiance to but betrayed were winning the fight.

They threw grenades and raked security guards with automatic fire.

Hell was unleashing all around them.

Peering back over the bullet-shredded frontage of the cookie store he saw something that made his skin crawl. Benedict had grabbed a small, lost child of no more than ten and was dragging her back into the cover of the escalator with a gun to her head. Her terrified face was obscured in his black clothes as he pulled her away from her mother and father with a warning to stay away. Behind him, Stefanus and Boaz were giving the motherload of all cover fires as their compatriot finally reached the safety of the escalator with a final warning: let us leave this place or the child will die.

CCTV cameras swiveled and security guards broke off from their attack and Nikolai knew that all hell wouldn’t stop the cultists now they had the child.

Hawke wiped the sweat from his forehead and blew out a sharp, controlled breath. “Will they hurt her, Kolya?”

Nikolai knew from the Englishman’s face that he already knew the answer, but he answered out of respect. “Yes, my new friend. They will kill her if we don’t do as they say.”

The child’s parents were inconsolable with grief. The father’s face an unforgettable twisted rictus that only a once-in-a-lifetime terror could inflict; the mother a sobbing mess of red eyes and tears streaking down her burning cheeks.

Instantly shepherded behind an improvised security barricade by security guards, they called out to their girl not to worry — that they wouldn’t let anything hurt her — but everyone who heard it knew it was just raw instinct.

Everyone but the child, who believed every word she heard her desperate parents call out.

Nikolai felt an unquenchable rage burning inside him like lava. He thought of his own childhood and the hideous scars seared into his mind by the slaying of his own family — his mother’s screams as the bullets tore through his heart, the look on his sister’s dead, sightless eyes as her body lay out in the blood-soaked snow.

Never again.

Like a volcano, his own turmoil reached the point of no return and then burst through the surface at the weakest point. Leaping to his feet, he screamed at his former associate with anger burned on his face. “Put the child down, Benedict!”