Land of the Gods

CHAPTER FOUR

“Today we fight.”

Hawke scanned the faces of his team. They had fought many battles together, and many good friends had fallen on the way. The war against the Oracle and his Athanatoi cult had ground them down, stripping them of everything except their hope. Their team had been shattered, their home had been destroyed and any innocence they had left was crushed out of existence.

“And we fight hard,” he turned from the team to the enormous rock formation looming over his shoulder. The Monastery that the Oracle and the Athanatoi high command had appropriated was nestled at the very top of this place. On the center of this island in the Aegean Sea he had built his inner sanctum atop a towering column of rock nearly two thousand feet high.

“Do we fight any other way?” Scarlet dragged on the last of her cigarette and flicked the butt into the shore’s shallow waters. “I mean, Ryan fights like a girl, but it’s unwise to fuck with the rest of us, right?”

Ryan slowly extended his middle finger. “Spin baby, spin.”

“You know what, boy?”

“What?”

“Since your balls dropped I’m starting to like you.”

He blew her a kiss. “Maybe one day I can say the same of you.”

“Ouch,” Lexi said. “With an ego like yours, Cairo, that’s gotta hurt.”

Scarlet smirked. “At least since they dropped I finally have something to kick.”

“Fifteen all,” Hawke said. “Now back to business.”

Scarlet smacked a magazine into her machine pistol. “Forty-thirty actually… to me.”

Hawke gave her a weary look and shook his head. “Right, gather round. We all know what’s at stake here. At the top of this cliff is the ancient monastery which Wolff has converted into his latest headquarters. He’s using it because of the inaccessibility, but that’s not going to stop us. We go up silent and we then we go in hard.”

“Stop it, Joe,” Lexi said. “No one wants to hear about our night in Zambia together.”

Hawke opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, speechless.

Lea said, “You can look, hun, buy you can’t touch.” She waved the engagement ring in the air and the sun caught the diamonds, making them sparkle. “He’s mine now.” She walked over to the Chinese assassin and leaned into her ear, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Mine all mine, got it?”

As she and Lexi exchanged a glance, Scarlet broke the tension. “We do this for Danny, and Magnus.”

Hearing the names out loud stopped Hawke in his tracks. None of them had really known Magnus, and while Danny Devlin had never been a full member of the team, he’d risked his life on countless occasions to save theirs and died making sure Hawke and Ryan could board the Oracle’s airship over Biscayne Bay.

When Lund had told him that their friend had been killed by a marked bullet his blood ran cold. When he told him there was a threat to kill other members of his team engraved on the other side, it had almost frozen in his veins. Somewhere out there, trailing them… maybe monitoring them right now was one of the world’s sharpest shooters. Knowing any of them could get shot dead at any minute by a silent, invisible killer was not an easy burden to bear at the best of times, but on a mission like this it took a lot to hold things together. And that wasn’t easy with a sniper on your tail. It was the one thing that could strike fear into any soldier.

And things were getting more dangerous by the day. With the murder of Magnus Lund, brutally cut down right in front of them in the heart of Athens, they all knew their new enemy was getting bolder. Each of them had started looking over their shoulders in search of the phantom killer and it was starting to spook them all out, but Hawke knew the only way forward was to go without fear.

Lexi slung her weapon over her shoulder and winked at Lea. “We ready to go?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” the Irishwoman said with confidence, staring up at the monastery.

The ancient rock formation twisted up into the sky. A sheer rockface towered above them, but they were spared the problem of trying to scale it with ropes. The ancient monastery at the top had been inhabited for centuries, and in that time goat tracks had formed various winding approaches to the top.

The climb was not easy. The towering rockface was almost vertical in places and required all the climbing skills and strength they could muster. For what seemed like an eternity, life was nothing but climbing anchors, carabiners and chalk bags while the ancient Aegean Sea churned far below them, crashing into the rocks at the base of the cliffs.

At the top, they tucked down beside a low wall of juniper growing among some craggy boulders and got their breath back while they prepared the guns and got ready to make their move.

Today there would be no playing games. With murdered teammates in their graves and the idols in their possession, the only thing that stood between them and the Citadel were the eight rings, and finding them meant taking back the Alexander Codex. They had the element of surprise on their side. No one knew they were here and it was dusk. The light was low and visibility was poor.

And they were angry.

It started when Hawke gave the sign to attack. He kicked things off and leapt over the boulders, submachine gun held tight to his body. Leading from the front, he executed a superfast crouch run and reached the monastery’s western wall unseen and unheard.

The rest of his team were seconds behind him, armed and ready to fight as they moved through the half-light with the setting sun at their backs. When Ryan slammed up against the honey-colored stone wall, the team were all in place and ready to go inside the monastery.

The next move was clear. A winding goat track at the base of the building led around to a shady cloister. From there, access to the interior of the monastery would be simple. They crouch ran along the track in stony silence, the only sound being the crunch of gravel chips as they headed toward the cloister with their deadly cargo gripped in their hands.

Inside the shelter of the cloister now, Hawke signaled to the team that it was time to go inside. He led the way, vaulting over a low internal wall and then slipping through a stone archway. Gathered in a narrow corridor, it was time to divide the team. Hawke, Lea and Lexi were going to the Oracle’s quarters on the top floor and Scarlet, Ryan and Reaper were going down to the vaults. The Codex could be in either place and it was essential they hit both at the same time.

Scarlet and Ryan stood aside as Reaper took his pump-action shotgun to the door that led down to the vaults. The rounds obliterated the old wood to sawdust and when the air cleared all that was left were three rusty hinges hanging off the door jamb.

Scarlet was the first to breach the gloomy darkness, gun raised into the aim as she moved down the cold, stone steps toward the monastery vaults far below. At her back, Ryan also held his weapon ready for action, and behind him, Reaper took up the rear, checking no one followed them down.

“This place is not nice, Cairo,” Ryan said.

“Put it on Trip Advisor if you feel that strongly about it, boy.”

Reaper suppressed a chuckle. He was too apprehensive to relax at a time like this, but it was good to know Scarlet’s notorious sense of humor was impossible to kill.

They reached the bottom of the steps and cast their flashlights around the small, grimy place. It was cold and damp, and a foul musty smell filled the air. Ahead of them were several wooden doors.

Then they heard it.

“What the hell was that?” Ryan said.

“Sounded like a ghost,” said Reaper.

Scarlet raised her gun and stepped toward one of the doors. “It was no ghost. There’s someone behind this door.”

Closer now, they all heard the sound of a man calling out but Scarlet couldn’t recognize the language. “What’s he saying?”

“It’s Greek,” Ryan said. “He’s calling out for help, but it’s not good Greek.”

“We need to get in there,” she said.

“Are you crazy?” Ryan said. “We can’t rescue him!”

“Why not, because his grammar’s wrong?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, because it could be a trap.”

“They don’t even know we’re here, Sherlock,” Scarlet said. “How could they be planning a trap?”

“Elle a raison,” Reaper said, and smashed the door in with his boot.

In one of the corners, a monster of a man was chained to the wall. A torn shirt revealed a chest like an iron barrel, and the muscles on his arms would have made most professional wrestlers tremble in fear.

He looked up at them and spoke in Greek.

“He wants to know who we are,” Ryan said.

“You speak English?” the man said.

“Sure do, I’m from the States.”

Scarlet took a step closer to the man, her gun still firmly gripped in her hands. “And what the fuck are you doing in here?”

Without batting an eyelid, he said deadpan, “I just like the feel of the chains.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “All right, Mr Funny Cuts, it was a stupid question.”

“I was rock climbing here a few days ago when these crazies burst out of nowhere with a bunch of guns and took me prisoner. They shot my buddy, Mark, when he tried to escape.”

“Jesus,” Ryan said. “Why didn’t they shoot you, too?”

The Texan gave a wry smile. “I never tried to escape, but what the hell they plan to do with me… I have no idea, man. Judging from the screams I hear at night, let’s just say I’m glad you guys turned up.”

The gnarled former Foreign Legionnaire crouched beside him, his silver stubble shining in Scarlet’s flashlight beam. “You know how to shoot a gun, mon ami?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m a tank commander! Ex 7th Cavalry out of Fort Hood, Texas. Give me a gun and watch me go, man.”

Reaper stood back up and looked at Scarlet. “Your call.”

Scarlet stared down at the man. Yes, it could be a trap, but that was unlikely. It was true that no one knew they were coming and if it was a trap it was ridiculously elaborate. No, he was telling the truth, and there were always those arms to think about. Plus the hands, she thought as her eyes crawled down his arms. Bigger than boxing gloves and great muscle tone.

She snapped out of it and thought about Jack Camacho. “All right, get the chains off him.”

Reaper gave a Gallic shrug. “Turn your head, mon ami.”

He blasted the chains with the shotgun and ripped them to pieces, instantly freeing the man who now picked up an old battered cowboy hat and sunglasses and got to his feet. Standing at his full height he was even bigger than he had looked when chained to the wall.

“Thanks, guys. You saved my life. They were only feeding me once a day. I’d have been dead inside a week.”

Ryan said, “They’re not known for their hospitality.”

“So who the hell are they?”

“It’s a long story,” Scarlet said. “More pertinent, darling — who the hell are you?”

“Ezekiel Jones,” he said, holding out one of those hands. “Great to meet you, ma’am.”

“It’s Cairo to my friends,” she said, taking the hand.

Golly, that’s a firm grip.

Think of Jack Camacho, idiot.

“Friends call me Zeke.”

“And this is Reaper and the Boy.”

“Hey guys.”

“Actually my name’s Ry—”

“Listen,” Scarlet said, butting into Ryan. “Any idea where someone could hide a very valuable book around here?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. They had a bag over my head when they brought me down here, but maybe there’s one thing that could help. It’s pretty quiet down here and when you’re waiting for food or the shit bucket to be emptied…”

“Oh, let’s not go there, please,” Ryan said.

“Sorry,” Zeke said, grinning. “Anyway, locked in here you get to notice every little sound, and I can tell you guys that there’s a lot of coming and going past this cell down to the end of the corridor outside. My best guess would be if there’s anything valuable, then maybe try down there. If you need an extra pair of hands, count me on board. No one wants to blow their asses off more than I do. They killed my buddy.”

Reaper pulled a pistol from his belt and threw it at him.

Zeke grabbed the gun with one hand, popped the catch and slid the magazine out. “Empty.”

“Just wanted to see if you knew how to use a gun,” the Frenchman said, tossing him a magazine.

The Texan smacked the mag into the grip and gave them a big, broad smile full of strong white teeth. “Let’s go kick some ass.” On cue, the deep thump of an explosion boomed out high above them. “You guys didn’t come alone, did you?”

“No,” Scarlet said. “And it sounds like the other half of our team could use our help.”