Land of the Gods

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“There’s nowhere to go!” Lexi said.

Reaper pointed at the sky. “I see another chopper.”

“I can take it out!” Ryan said, raising his gun and walking to the door.

“Bugger me, Ryan, get back inside!” Hawke said sharply. “You couldn’t hit the floor if you fell on it!”

Ryan did as he was told and came back inside where Hawke now watched its progress. “Looks like a Kasatka, and he’s slowing up.”

“Kasatka?” Ryan asked.

“Russian-built military transport.”

The chopper pulled into a hover above the top deck. Rappel lines tumbled out of the doors and then things got interesting fast. Smoke grenades provided instant cover as half a dozen men in black combat fatigues and gas masks slid down the ropes and hit the deck.

Scarlet loaded her gun. “The gunship’s not here to destroy us but to provide a diversion while the Kasatka dumps its crap on us.”

“Russians?” Lea asked.

“Not necessarily,” said Hawke. “Looks like another Oracle purchase to me.”

Reaper watched the men fan out, submachine guns gripped in their leather gloved hands. “Kolya, are they Russians?”

“Hard to know, but I think not. They are better.”

“If it really is Athanatoi,” said Ryan, “how the hell did they know we were here?”

Hawke knew what they were all thinking. Someone was leaking information and all eyes swiveled to Nikolai. “We have no evidence.”

“I would never do such a thing,” Nikolai said. “And why would I put my own life at risk?”

Lexi frowned. “Kind of convenient that since you’re on the team these guys know where to find us, though.”

“We have no evidence,” Hawke repeated. “And no time to think about it. Our new friends are cutting through Mokrani’s security like a blowtorch through warm butter.”

“Where the hell is Hafez?” Lea said. “He has the ring!”

“He went inside,” Ryan said. “Once we have the ring we can try and get off this thing, but how?”

“The tender,” Hawke said. “If we can get down to the davit without getting our heads blown off.”

“So what do we do?” Scarlet asked. High above their heads on the top deck the fighting between Mokrani’s men and the invaders was intensifying.

“We get Hafez and the ring before they do!” Hawke said.

With sheer mayhem exploding all around them, they split into teams and started to search the boat for Hafez and the ring.

Leading the charge, Lea shot her way through the stern doors and was first inside the rear of the yacht’s main deck. Safely behind the thick marine windows, the chaos unfolding on the outside decks was muffled to her now. Hawke jumped in behind her, gun drawn and eyes dilated wide as the adrenaline pumped through his body.

“You see him?”

“Nope.”

“Hafez! Where are you?”

No reply.

The fighting increased. The men in combat fatigues had quickly eliminated Mokrani’s yacht security and were now charging down the stairs on both sides of the bridge as they headed toward the lower decks, also in search of the ring.

“Where is everyone?” Hawke said into his palm mic. “Report.”

Everyone called their locations in except Ryan.

“Ryan? Where are you mate?”

Silence.

Athantoi burst through an internal door at the other end of the galley and charged toward them with handguns raised. Behind them, Lea now caught sight of Ryan being bundled into what she guessed was an escape route, but the view was blocked when the men opened fire and she and Hawke dived for cover behind some of the galley cabinets.

“I have Ryan, Joe!” Lea yelled. “They’re taking him away, and they Hafez too!”

Hawke spoke rapidly into his palm mic once again. “All teams, be advised they have Ryan and Hafez and the ring and they’re on the run back to the helipad.”

“Me and Reap are on it, Joe,” Scarlet said.

Hawke and Lea were still pinned down.

“These guys are good,” he said.

“Well, we sure as shite didn’t come this far to give up, Josiah!”

“No, we didn’t,” he called back, bobbing his head back down to protect his eyes from more flying splinters. The fruit bowl on the side exploded in a shower of glass crystal and shredded bananas and mangos flew into the air, raining down over their heads. “Umm, yummy!”

She rolled her eyes. “Still a total eejit, I see.”

“Always and forever.”

She blew him a kiss as she reloaded her gun. “It’s good to know some things in life don’t change.”

They both fired on the men again, this time with more success. Lea took out the man on the portside and Hawke killed the other man, blasting him out of the starboard door where he crashed over the rail and tumbled down to the deck below.

Two more charged them, but Hawke fired on them and killed them both, emptying his magazine into them without mercy and covering the galley wall with blood as the rounds tore through their bodies and ripped out of their backs.

But it wasn’t over yet.

A second later, Lea’s worst fears came into sharp focus in a hurry. Another squall of violence ignited like a tinderbox with more Athanatoi streaming out of every door and hatch in sight.

“We have to get out of here!” Hawke yelled. “Follow me!”

They crawled out of the galley and got outside. Hawke slammed his body against the starboard gunwale and got busy warning Reaper’s team about a number of men sprinting down the stainless steel staircase toward the foredeck. Beside him Lea reloaded her gun, her mind fixed on Ryan’s kidnapping.

The mercs stopped playing and the real fighting started. A man operating a pintle-mounted machine gun spun the weapon’s muzzle around and began laying serious fire down on Scarlet and Zeke as they attacked the starboard companionway toward the stern. Another team of mercs now bedded down near the starboard console battered them with a brutal fusillade and forced a retreat.

Zeke tripped in one of the scuppers and fell down flat on his face. His gun spun away along the deck, well out of reach. A sitting duck, Scarlet sprinted down the deck, raising her gun into the aim and firing on the men above them as she kicked the Texan’s weapon back down to him.

“Thanks, hun.”

“Less of the hun, Tex.”

“Got it!”

He grabbed the gun, flipped over onto his back and joined her in firing on the men on the top deck. With deadly accuracy in their aims they killed two of the mercs and forced the rest of them back inside the yacht, giving them just enough time to run for the cover of the saloon a few yards to their right.

Hawke and Lea took advantage of the break in firing and moved from their position towards the saloon. Scarlet and Zeke had cleared the room and were running up a series of carpeted steps on the far side of the room. Broken glass and blood and dead mercs were scattered behind the Englishwoman and the Texan, shocking evidence of how savage the fighting had been in this part of the yacht.

Then, solemn words delivered in the chaos by a thick southern French accent brought everyone to a standstill.

“It’s over, everyone.”

Reaper’s voice on the comms.

“Say again,” Lea said.

“It’s over, they killed Hafez, took the ring… and they have Ryan on board the transport chopper.”

Hawke and Lea stared at each other in disbelief. For a moment there was no movement or sound, just the two ECHO friends surrounded by the cooling corpses of Mokrani’s men and some of the snatch squad.

“I don’t believe it,” Lea said. “Not Ryan…”

Then they both saw movement and each spun around, guns raised.

One of the men in back combat fatigues was still alive, but barely. They moved over to him and took off his gas mask and riot helmet to reveal a man in his twenties. Hawke dragged him away from the dead bodied and out on to the deck where Reaper, Scarlet and Lexi had gathered with grim expressions on their faces.

“We have one still alive, hein?” Reaper said.

Lea frowned. “Only just.”

“What is your name?” Scarlet said.

No reply.

“Your friends are long gone, matey lad,” Hawke said.

As the Kasatka flew away with his comrades and Ryan and with the gunship nowhere in sight, the mysterious mercenary knew the game was up, and crashed back onto the deck visibly deflated. “Who do you work for?” Reaper said. “Is it the Oracle?”

The man tried to laugh, but his cackling quickly turned into a long coughing fit, and then he died right before their eyes.

“Dammit all to hell!” Lea said.

Then several of the team had the same thought at once. “Wait, didn’t Ryan have the rings?”

“No, thank God,” Lea said. “He gave them to me before we got on the tender.”

A sigh of partial, qualified relief. They had Ryan but not the rings.

“They took him for a reason,” Lea said. “They’re not going to kill him… yet.”

“When we find the Athanatoi, we find Ryan,” Hawke said. “And we all know that means getting to the Citadel as fast as possible… hang in there, mate.”

“So what now?” Zeke asked.

Hawke’s jaw tightened. “We need to get out of here and back to the hotel,” he said at last. “We’re no good to Ryan standing around a burning bloody boat.”