The King's Tomb

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Unlike in the movies, the explosion did not instantly destroy the entire vehicle, but was instead limited to the tank and now flames spilled out of it and covered the rear of the Maxus.

Hawke quickly scanned the interior of the car to check his team. Reaper was good to go. He was still struggling with his belt as he finished smashing the shattered windshield out. Devlin was still out like a light and Scarlet was woozy and continuing her struggle with the door. Lexi was unconscious and bleeding from the mouth and nose. Her window had cracked with the force of the roll down the slope and exploded in her face. She was lucky to be alive.

Reaper immediately produced a combat knife and slashed his belt in two. He crawled out through the windshield and ran around to the back. He opened Devlin’s door, crawled inside and slashed open his belt before dragging the Irishman out behind him, away from the smoke and flames.

Smoke filled the interior of the Maxus as Scarlet crawled out through Reaper’s open window and joined him as he tried to resuscitate the former Ranger.

Hawke was next out, crawling out through the shattered windshield and working hard to clear his lungs of the toxic smoke. He got to his feet and turned in the night to see Lexi still trapped in the back seat, strapped in by her belt and hanging upside down in the burning vehicle.

With cold sweat running down the back of his neck and over his back, Hawke didn’t hesitate to run into the fire. The sight of Lexi inside a burning car slowly filling with noxious smoke shocked him but his training banished all emotion as he worked out the best way to get her out.

The door was jammed. The gas vapor burned like a storm from hell. He shielded his face from the intense heat of the fire as he lifted his boot and smashed the remaining glass in the rear window. He kicked it three more times until it broke out of the frame completely and then he was able to lean in and hack Lexi’s belt in two with his knife.

The flames roared in the night, engulfing the entire rear section of the car now, burning the seats and carpet and roofing felt. Black smoke poured from the interior of the destroyed Maxus as Hawke dragged Lexi from the back and hoisted her into a fireman’s lift.

Pounding away from the vehicle, he just reached the safety of the concrete traffic barrier when Tiger swerved the Kawasaki to a halt at the top of the embankment. Monkey jumped off and slid the bolt on his gun with a howl of insane laughter. Tiger killed the engine and pulled his own weapon.

Devlin regained consciousness and got to his feet. “What the hell?”

“You got knocked out,” Reaper said.

“You never said a word the entire time,” said Scarlet. “I preferred you that way.”

Behind them, the highway flashed with the blue lights of countless emergency vehicles. A PLA jeep skidded up behind the Zodiac’s motorbike and a dozen soldiers leaped out the back and started running down the embankment.

Over Hawke’s shoulder, Lexi started to come to, coughing and moaning incoherently. “Where am I?”

“What sort of food do you get in Chinese gulags, Lex?” he asked.

“What the fuck?”

“Humor me.”

“Pork broth, without the pork,” she said woozily. “Why?”

“No reason, just hang on tight!”

They started sprinting away from the devastation of the crash site with the soldiers at their heels. Tiger and Monkey stayed higher up the embankment and fired off a few pot shots. Their rounds pinged off the hot asphalt around Hawke’s boots as he ran with Lexi over his shoulders.

Scarlet and Devlin pounded the pavement beside him while Reaper spun around and let off a few rounds from his gun. Tiger and Monkey ducked down behind the traffic barrier at the top of the embankment and the soldiers scattered and sought cover wherever they could find it before returning fire.

The rounds from the more powerful rifles chewed into the concrete and snaked their way closer to the ECHO team. “Over there!” Hawke yelled.

They jogged down a second shallower embankment and found themselves back in civilization. Neon signs hung from shabby buildings and steam poured from vents in the sides of restaurants.

They burst through the door of the closest building. A small room with yellow-painted walls and a number of greasy tables around the outside. A man with a meat cleaver looked up with confused eyes from his work of parting a chicken. He lifted the heavy blade over his head and started shouting in Mandarin.

Still over Hawke’s shoulder, Lexi called back and an argument began. The man lifted what was left of the bloody chicken up with his other hand and started screaming some more. Lexi laughed and hurled back more abuse.

The Englishman considered the situation and wondered if he’d run into an episode of the Outer Limits.

Devlin scratched his head. “What the holy fuck is going on?”

“I take it he’s not going to serve us then?” Hawke said.

Lexi laughed. “You don’t want to know what he’s saying.”

Reaper turned from the front door. “Tell him the People’s Liberation Army want to see his menu.”

They ran past the screaming man through a door into the rear. In the kitchen now, steam and smoke filled the air again, but this time the flash of woks and the smell of ginger and chili replaced the smell of burning car seat stuffing.

“Which way?”

A chef snatched a knife-sharpening steel and held it up as a weapon.

“Hang on,” Hawke said. “Why am I still carrying you, Lex?”

She shrugged. “I thought you were just being an English gentleman.”

Hawke twisted his mouth and dropped her from his shoulders. “Your ride is over.”

“If I knew it was a ride I’d have dressed for the occasion.”

He looked at her. “Really? Here and now?”

The soldiers teemed in through the door and flooded into the kitchen. Still no sign of Tiger and Monkey, Hawke noted, but this was plenty enough trouble as it was. The fight kicked off when Reaper snatched up a wok and piled into three men beside one of the industrial-size stoves.

Smashing the cooking pan into one of their heads, he swung it back in the opposite direction and panned another of the soldiers a second later. Both men fell back onto the stove, plunging their hands into the gas flames and screaming in pain as Reaper headbutted the third man and finished him with a bone-crunching haymaker.

The man fell back and crashed into more soldiers like a bowling ball colliding into a dozen pins. One of them scrambled to stop himself going over and reached out to grab something to stop his fall. He hit the handle of another wok and flicked it up into the air, spraying himself and his colleagues with hot oyster sauce and Sichuan peppercorns.

Lexi and Scarlet were taking out their frustrations on some soldiers closer to the man with the sharpening steel who was now running from the kitchen with fear on his face. Devlin was pounding another soldier in the corner, holding him up with one hand while landing punches on his jaw with the other.

Hawke scanned the room for another way out when he saw a door behind some industrial refrigerators. It was at the other end of the enormous island that ran down the center of the kitchen. It seemed to lead to a downward staircase and he thought it looked good as a possible escape route, but then Tiger and Monkey burst through it with their guns and started firing on him.

He slammed himself up against the wall behind the refrigerator and called out to his teammates, alerting them to the arrival of the Zodiacs. Searching the enormous kitchen for their locations, he saw Reaper first, deep in the brawling mob. Catching sight of his skull and crossbones bandana, he called out to him.

“Zodiacs, Reap!”

The Frenchman spun around. “And just as I was getting bored, too!”