Raiders

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As the aircraft raced toward England, Mason allocated jobs and checked everyone was up to speed with the plan: Caleb looked into the Spiders and their back stories; Virgil tried to look into the Hidden Hand; Ella and Milo helped Eva look into the sarcophagus in more detail while Mason made the painful decision to start looking into Kat’s past a little more closely. Zara spent her time checking the weapons inventory and chatting to the Titanfort pilots.

The fruits of their collective labor weren’t promising. Caleb found nothing more on the Spiders than they had already learned at Ezra’s initial briefing. They were a dangerous group of highly trained individuals, mostly former military and all criminals and thieves of one kind or another.

Virgil drew a total blank on the Hidden Hand, just as everyone had suspected he might. After a good deal of time trawling through every internet forum and conspiracy site he could find he was left with almost no more than when he started.

Occulta Manu was nothing more than a rumor, and not a very convincing one at that. Just about no one had ever heard of them and those who recognized the name remained convinced the organization was nothing more than a myth fabricated by trolls in the darker corners of the internet. If Ezra was right and the Hidden Hand was real, then the Raiders were going to be chasing phantoms.

Ella, Milo and Eva made much better progress. The sarcophagus was still in the British Museum, where it had been since the day the British seized it from Napoleon and his army. They quickly found its location inside the museum and even managed to speak with the museum’s director, a woman called Dr Iris Hamilton.

After a short conference call between Ezra Haven, the US Embassy and the British Home Office, Dr Hamilton agreed to meet them at the museum. She would show them inside so they could see the sarcophagus even though the entire building would be shut by the time they landed in London. They were all relieved to hear that there were no problems at the museum and no one had attempted to break in or access the sarcophagus even though OM now had the information they wanted.

As for Mason, he was almost too frightened to dig into Kat’s past for fear of what he might find hiding there. Katherine Addington was born on her aristocratic father’s vast estate in Norfolk less than five years after Mason was born in London. She excelled at school and went to the London School of Economics before joining the Metropolitan Police Force. From there she transferred into the Counter Terrorism Command. Recruiting her into the Raiders had been a coup, and shortly after they became a couple.

He knew all this. They had been together for several years. They had shared good times and bad; traveled the world together and even discussed getting married, although she had always killed the idea of having kids with him stone dead whenever the subject arose.

Why would she just turn on him like this? Even after what had happened in Istanbul he still found it impossible to believe that she would betray him without a reason. Maybe someone was blackmailing her? Maybe she was in trouble. He didn’t know anymore — seeing her flying away from the Sapphire made his stomach turn over and he forced himself not to think about it.

They landed at London City Airport and Ella watched silently as their aircraft parked up beside a brand-new Gulfstream with ECHO written along the side of it in large black letters. The pilots opened the door and they stepped out onto the tarmac as the engines were shutting down.

“ECHO,” she said, casually pointing up at the Gulfstream. “You think they’re trying to get in on this mission, too?”

Mason shrugged. “Doubt it. This stuff is pretty hush-hush.”

Ella Makepeace recalled a story she read in the newspaper about the Texan billionaire Ezra had mentioned — Morton Wade, and how the notorious ECHO team had ended his insane human sacrifice cult in the Mexican jungle a year or so earlier. She thought of Ezra Haven and his warning about the Hidden Hand’s rumored penchant for the same terrifying rituals, and for a passing moment, she wondered if the Raiders might collide with Joe Hawke and the rest of his team while on the mission.

“We could use their help on this though,” she said. “Joe Hawke, Lea Donovan, Cairo Sloane…”

“Cairo Sloane?” Zara scoffed. “I could kick her ass up one side of her bad attitude and right down the other.”

“Josiah Hawke,” Caleb said with respect. “I heard a lot about that guy.”

“Josiah and Jedediah?” Zara said. “It’s starting to sound like the Old Testament around here.”

Mason gave a weary sigh. “How many more times? My mother was from New York and I was named after Jedediah Smith — the American frontiersman and hunter.”

“I’m just yanking your chain, Holmes,” Zara said with a friendly smile.

“And this is our mission, not ECHO’s or anyone else’s,” Mason said. “So let’s get on with it.”

Emerging from the arrivals lounge they climbed into an SUV and hit the road. They crossed the river and exploited the late hour to make good time getting across the city. Exiting the SUV they jogged up the stone steps to the British Museum.

Everyone recognized the building’s famous Greek Revival façade as they made their way up the steps beneath the temple-style portico that housed the entrance. The weathered Portland stone had faced the elements for nearly two hundred years, and high above it all the Union flag flapped in the Bloomsbury breeze.

They saw a small group of people at the top of the steps — a woman in a smart, charcoal-colored suit stood beside a smartly-dressed man, two security guards and two policemen were armed with Heckler & Koch submachine guns. Taking note of the weapons, Mason focussed on the mission at hand and aimed for the woman in the suit.

Dr Iris Hamilton met them at the entrance with the two armed police officers. Ezra approached the man in the suit and they spoke for a few seconds. It turned out his name was Dunford and he was an old friend of Ezra’s from the US Embassy. Telephone calls had been made, and people were getting nervous.

“This your team?” Dunford asked Ezra.

The man in the black suit nodded once. “Best asset recovery team in the world.”

Dunford turned to Eva. “You have the ankh, Dr Starling?”

“We do, and I’ve translated it.”

Dunford looked anxious. “All right. Let’s get on with it. This stuff creeps me out.”

Iris Hamilton cleared her throat and craned her neck toward Mason. “We don’t usually open the museum after hours.”

“But needs must when the devil drives, right?” he said with a smile.

Zara scanned the street for any sign of trouble, but there was nothing. “Looks like the Spiders had enough and went home,” she said.

“Don’t count on it,” said Caleb.

Mason checked his watch. “Milo, you’re going to the museum’s CCTV station. You’re my eyes in the sky and I want to know if anyone comes anywhere near us, all right?”

“Got it, boss.”

Dr Hamilton looked confused. “The Spiders?”

“Don’t mind us,” Ella said. “Shall we go inside?”