Land of the Gods

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“I see them,” Scarlet said. “Just as Lea said — they’re marching them across the airfield now.”

“How many guns?” Lexi asked.

“Three soldiers,” she replied coolly. “Two with subs and an officer with a pistol in a belt holster. They’re ordering them up into the back of the plane now.”

Zeke whistled. “Not good.”

“If they take off we’re never going to see them again,” Nikolai said.

“They’re not taking off with them on board,” Scarlet said. “Lea, still receiving, darling?”

Nothing.

“Lea?”

Some crackling, and then Lea’s Irish accent weakly crackling through the comms. “I’m here, but I won’t be for long. We’re taking off in seconds.”

“I know, I’m watching you from outside the airfield. When you’re on the take off roll, it would be mighty handy if someone accidentally opened the rear cargo door.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Your ride will be waiting for you at the back of the plane.”

“Yes,” Lea said. “You really are crazy.”

“It’s your only hope. Do we have a date?”

“We’ll be there, Cairo,” Lea whispered. “Just make sure you are!”

“Hold on tight, darling.”

Scarlet cut the comms and turned to Zeke. “You were a tank commander, right?”

“Hell yeah.”

“So you’ll have no problem driving this Toyota along the runway under heavy fire and chasing that plane on its take off roll?”

“Hell no.”

“Smashing. Let’s get on with it — they’re powering up for take-off!”

Nikolai shook his head. “No wonder we always lost to you.”

They climbed into the Land Cruiser and Zeke stamped on the gas. With nothing to lose, they piled through the perimeter fence and bounced along the scrub surrounding the airport. Hitting the runway, the Texan spun the wheel to the right and pulled up straight behind the C130 in a squeal of burning rubber.

“Faster, Zeke! I need more power!”

The laconic Texan turned to meet Nikolai’s eyes. “I bet she talks like this to all the boys.”

The Russian’s lips never moved a millimeter, but Lexi rolled her eyes. “Boys.”

Zeke stamped on the throttle and increased power.

“We’re in place, Lea,” Scarlet said. “I know you can’t respond, but if you’re going to open that cargo door then it’s now or never!”

Lea hadn’t even had the chance to tell Hawke or Reaper about Scarlet’s communication, and now it was time act. He was going to think she was insane, leaping out of her seat and trying to open the rear cargo door while the plane was rattling down the runway, but that was exactly what she did.

Jumping from her seat, she reached the lever before Benning and his soldiers had a chance to react, and by the time they’d pulled their weapons and aimed at them the door was already halfway down.

“Holy crap!” Benning said, shocked by the sight of a Toyota Landcruiser right out the back of the transport aircraft. Scarlet Sloane was standing on the hood with her legs apart and a Heckler & Koch MP7 in her hands. On her face, a devilish grin appeared as the wind whipped her black hair around like a wild banshee.

“Sir?” one of the soldiers screamed. “Do we fire?”

It was too late. Reaper heaved his shackled hands up and elbowed the soldier in the face while Hawke reached down and disarmed him. With his hands also shackled, he held the gun at Benning’s head. “Tell your men to lower their weapons, captain!”

Benning reluctantly complied, still taken aback by the sight of the woman in black on the hood of the Land Cruiser.

“The ring, captain!”

Benning handed the ring over to Hawke, who now turned to Lea and Reaper. “Go!”

“Not without you!”

“I’ll go first and catch you when you jump over!” Reaper said.

He dived out of the back of the transport plane, crashing down on the hood of the Land Cruiser. Scrambling to his feet, he stood beside Scarlet and called out to Lea. “Your turn!”

The C130 reached V2 and its nose lifted into the air as it started to take off. Lea tumbled backwards and slid down the cargo ramp.

Hawke reached out to grab her, missing by inches. “Lea!”

She clutched onto one of the hydraulic actuators to stop herself smashing into the tarmac and getting chewed up in the Land Cruiser’s front wheel. “Shit!”

Benning took the moment to edge closer to Hawke, but the Englishman raised his gun higher into his face. “Don’t even think about it!”

Lea scrambled to her feet and leaped across to the Toyota, almost slipping off the side of the hood. Reaper grabbed her and hauled her back to her feet, and then the two of them climbed inside the cab through the front passenger window. At the wheel, Zeke swerved and fought to keep the vehicle steady.

The C130 took off, rapidly climbing into the air. Twenty feet up and Hawke knew it was now or never. He leaped out of the back of the cargo door and crashed onto the Toyota’s wide roof, leaving a shallow dent as he smacked down into the aluminum.

He flipped over onto his back to see a scowling Cairo, and behind her, the monstrous sight of the C130 roaring up into the air. “You get to have all the fun, Hawke.”

“The sun shines on the righteous.”

Scarlet and Hawke climbed into the SUV as Zeke spun the wheel and plowed the heavy vehicle into the sandy scrub at the side of the runway. The airport’s perimeter fence approached rapidly, but Zeke never flinched as he smashed through it and thundered away from the airport.

“Anyone in pursuit?” Hawke said, hurriedly loading his gun.

Zeke checked his mirror. “Nothing. Some flashing lights but they’re way over the other side of the airport. We’ll be outta here before they get anywhere near us.” He killed the lights and steered them off the road and out into the desert to the north. “They ain’t gonna get their hands on us, no way baby.”

Far to the north of Baghdad, the reunited team cut across the desert for an hour until they were certain Tucker and his men were out of their lives. When they were sure they were alone, Hawke ordered Zeke to pull up on the side of the road and kill the engine.

The silence of the desert is a unique experience. Anyone who has ventured out into these desolate parts of the world understands the deep sense of peace that washes over these endless stretches of sand and dunes.

Hawke had walked away from the vehicle for a few moments to contemplate the scale of what they were attempting in their bid to discover the Land of the Gods. He also considered the raft of new enemies the mission had thrown their way: Razak, Yakuza, McKenna, Kozlov, and now the entire United States military. They sure were in a big barrel of shit, and right at this moment he had no idea how to get out of it.

When he returned to the Toyota, the rest of the team were gathered around desperately trying to configure the seven rings into an understandable map. It didn’t look like they were getting very far.

“Any luck?”

Lea frowned. “Nope. “How the hell are we going to work this out without Ryan?”

“We send them to Washington,” Hawke said. “Only Alex can do this.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that Mokrani’s ring is in the hands of the Athanatoi?” Lea said. “I bet the bastard Oracle has already got it on his withered little finger.”

“I’m not forgetting it,” Hawke said. “I’m banking on Alex being able to do something with the seven rings that might be enough to give us the location, or at least close enough for us to extrapolate the Citadel’s location without it.”

Hawke laid the rings out on the Land Cruiser’s hot hood and Lea took photos of them from every angle.

“There,” she said. “I’ll email these to Alex. Fingers crossed she’s still safe enough to do something with them.”

“Then get onto Rich and update him.” Hawke turned and stared out over the desert. “Wherever Alex says we need to go, we’re going to need to get there as fast as we can so he needs to organize a transport chopper for us.”

“On it.”

“So now we wait,” he said. “And we rotate sleep shifts with lookout duty.”

“Fingers crossed indeed,” Scarlet said, repeating Lea’s words. Hot dry air rushed over the dunes and ruffled her hair. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out into the night. “After all, Life is an adventure, right? An adventure that has to be grabbed with both hands.”

Alex Reeve looked at the HD images of the rings with a frown on her face. Seven golden rings, each one predating all current evidence of human civilization by countless millennia, and each one a piece of a puzzle that would reveal the Citadel. Strange carvings on smooth faces. Were these lines important or just scratches made by the passing of so many centuries?

“Looks like the team has been pretty damned busy,” Kim said.

“I’ll say,” said Camacho. “But the question is, can you do anything with this information?”

Alex nodded. “Sure, but I have to work fast.”

“Very fast,” Camacho said.

“Beats sitting around here doing nothing waiting for Faulkner to get us,” Kim said, agitated. She looked at her watch. “Where the hell is Brandon? He’s been gone nearly fifteen minutes. He said he was going to talk to Frank about what was happening. Maybe he should have gone in a bit heavier.”

“You catch more flies with molasses,” Camacho said.

“I think I have it,” Alex said, turning in her wheelchair. “It’s actually not that difficult to work out. It’s a variation of a very old way of X.” She fired up Google Earth and then referred back to her notes. “If I’m right, it looks like the Citadel is somewhere in the Zagros Mountains on the Iraq-Iran border. On the southwestern side of them… somewhere around here.” She pointed to the screen.

Kim frowned. “Doesn’t look like anything’s there.”

“What did you expect?” Alex said. “A giant neon sign?”

“I guess not. Are you sure this is right?”

“It’s not exactly right because I only have seven of the rings. The eighth would give us the exact location, but this is as close as we’re going to get. From there on, it’s all down to the guys in the field.”

Camacho patted her on the back. “Great work, Alex.”

“Just give me a second to write down these coordinates and I’ll email them over to Lea.”

Brandon burst in through the door, a terrified Kamala Banks at his side. “It’s happened.”

She looked at him with fear shading her face. “What do you mean?”

“Faulkner’s stormed the Oval Office and removed your father from power. They arrested Suzie Matsumoto and took her to away someplace else, and there’s a team of soldiers on their way here right now to arrest me and you.”

He crossed the room and stared down at the images on the phone. “Are they the rings?”

“Yeah.”

“Woah,” he said. “Any luck?”

“Yeah,” she said hurriedly. “I’m just emailing Lea the coordinates.” She hit send and dropped her phone. “We have to get out of here, Brandon!”

“We sure do,” Kim said.

Brandon picked up the phone and slipped it in his jacket pocket.

“What about the panic room?” Camacho said.

Brandon shook his head. “I know it seems safe, but they’ll have a dozen ways of overriding the system and getting you out.”

Alex wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”

She looked longingly at the panic room and felt immediately safe when she saw its heavy eight hundred-pound steel door with its fifteen deadbolts. Specially designed ballistic walls and floors meant no one could fire bullets at them and a high-tech self-defense system consisting of knock-out gas and a direct line to the outside world. There was even a CCTV system and a small bank of monitors from which she could monitor the world, including anyone trying to get into the panic room.

“Trust me,” he said. “We have to get out of this place completely, not lock ourselves up inside it.”

“Okay,” Alex said nervously. “I’m in your hands.”

Brandon jumped in behind her and started pushing. “We need to split up.”

“Agreed,” Camacho said.

“Is your spare wheelchair in here, Alex?”

She nodded. “Sure, why?”

Brandon checked over his shoulder as he wheeled Alex to the door. “Kim, you get into Alex’s spare chair and have Kamala and Camacho wheel you to the north exit. Make plenty of noise and get their attention. Meanwhile, I’ll take Alex to the south. I know a way out of here. We’ll coordinate a rendezvous later.

“Sounds like a plan,” Kim said, climbing into the other wheelchair.

Camacho grabbed the push handles while Kamala drew her gun. “Let’s go!”

Brandon gave a proud nod of his head. “Good luck, everyone.”