The King's Tomb

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The ancient city of Pavlopetri is one of the world’s oldest submerged cities and a popular site for divers to hunt for ancient treasures and relics. Laying off the golden shores of the Laconian coast of southern Greece, its name means Paul’s Stone, a reference to the Christian saint. The settlement contains archaeological evidence dating back to Minoan culture, almost five thousand years old and today is a UNESCO site under the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

As their boat speeded away from the coast, Hawke looked out across the sparkling turquoise water with a strange mix of excitement and anxiety. Frozen in time, the streets below the water were just as they were all those thousands of years ago when the ocean swallowed the city.

For a team like ECHO the opportunity to visit such a site and explore for relics and treasure was a once in a lifetime event, but they all knew Kruger must already be here, at least an hour ahead of them. Ryan was certain a close reading of the codex would have revealed Pavlopetri to the South African, but at least they knew the exact location was theirs alone.

He turned and looked at his team as they prepared for the battle ahead. They were tired. Bags under their eyes and sluggish movements. Adrenaline would get them over that, but he wondered for how much longer he could push these people. Now, sailing over the Mediterranean Sea, Hawke sensed for the first time that he might be nearing the end of this mission. Staring out over the vast expanse of water, he wondered what turmoil would be lurking beneath its calm surface.

Beside him, Camacho and Scarlet were sharing a kiss. Devlin rolled his eyes and took the moment to check his equipment. Reaper and Kim were talking quietly at the end of the cabin. Lea was sitting separately from the rest, eyes closed but still awake and for some reason Lexi was tweaking Ryan’s ear and forcing him to apologize for something he had said. In other words, the team was acting as normal and all looked totally unfazed about the battle to come. That, at least, was something.

But his mind was far from satisfied. When Eden had called about hiring the boat, he’d had nothing new to report on the location of Otmar Wolff. Hawke had hoped the team might have found him down with Kruger in Pretoria, but it was a hope too far. The immortal monster known as the Oracle had been evading them for so long now it felt like they were never going to hunt him down.

Was it all worth it? A life on the road wasn’t a good life. Never having anywhere to call home, never being able to relax without wondering if someone was going to attack in the night. It felt like life had been like this forever, but there had been somewhere he could call home for a short time.

He thought back to the first day he had seen the island. It seemed like Elysium was a totally different era now. The pristine white sandy beaches, the pure, clean warm ocean waters and the coconut palms. In the middle of it all nestling between two tropical extinct volcanoes was their former HQ, a sprawling complex of airconditioned glass and steel that had everything a team like ECHO could ever desire. And it was still in ruins after the Oracle’s brutal attack.

Hawke guessed it would take millions of dollars and several months to bring it back together again, but there was no point doing it until the Oracle had been killed because otherwise there was nothing stopping him destroying their home all over again. Until then, they were nomads, wandering from hotel to military facility to friends’ apartments. It was a turbulent, exhausting life he thought he’d left behind when he quit the SBS.

The captain’s voice crackled through the boat’s internal comms. A large ocean-going yacht had been spotted a kilometer or so away to the west. Hawke furrowed his brow and walked up to the bridge. He clamped a hand on the captain’s shoulder and he turned and gave a thumbs up in response.

Peering through the windshield, the captain went on to describe the yacht as being over one hundred and sixty meters long with three decks and a helipad. Kruger was rich, but not in this league and that meant only one thing.

The Oracle was in town.

By the time he had made his way back from the wheelhouse, the ECHO team were already standing by on the aft in their diving gear, spearguns locked and loaded and ready for a fight. Lea was tying her hair back and the ocean breeze was blowing across the deck and whipping it around her face making her curse as she finished the job.

“What gives?” she said, her teeth glinting in the sunlight.

“The captain just got a call from a fishing boat on the other side of the peninsula about a very large yacht. No one recognizes it as coming from around here. Apparently, it’s over a hundred and sixty meters in length.”

“Holy crap,” said Kim. “That’s a big boat.”

Camacho agreed. “That ain’t Dirk’s.”

“No,” Hawke said flatly. “I think it’s safe to assume his boss has turned up to claim the grand prize.”

“The Oracle?” Lea said, her face dropping.

“The very same, only thanks to Ryan’s quick thinking back in the King’s Tomb, he doesn’t have the specific location of the temple Alexander was searching for.”

“Maybe we should just go home,” Devlin said, deadpan. “I mean, these guys are good. Better than us.”

Now Scarlet was tying her hair back. “Hey, Danny?”

“What?”

“Fuck all the way off.”

“Ouch,” Devlin clutched at his heart. “She got me again, boys! There goes any chance of a date.”

“There was never any chance of that, Ranger.”

“You love me really, right?”

Scarlet couldn’t resist a devilish smile of her own. “You made Hawke flounce off like a girl, so you can’t be all bad.”

Hawke opened his mouth to reply but Lea put her finger across his lips to stop him talking and then she kissed him. “I love that you flounced off like a girl.”

“Not sure what to make of that,” Lexi said.

“Anyway,” Hawke said, changing the subject. “The captain of the fishing boat said there’s a davit crane at the stern.”

Ryan furrowed his brow. “Eh?”

“It’s a device used for lowering heavy equipment off the back of boats, in this case my best guess is an underwater vehicle of some kind.”

Lea’s shoulders sloped. “So the Oracle’s got a goddam minisub here?”

“Great,” Lexi said. “We don’t stand a chance.”

Devlin put an arm around their shoulders. “Stick with me and you’ll be all right.”

They both gave him the same look and he removed his arms. “Just trying to be reassuring.”

Hawke said, “All right everyone, listen up. This is our chance. We have to get down there and back up again before the Oracle works his way around the peninsula. I’m presuming he’s got the best sonar equipment available on board and it won’t take him long, so we have to work fast.”

“What’s the plan?” Kim asked.

“We do what we always do,” Hawke said. “Make it up as we go along.”

“Oh crap,” she said. “Can’t you at least say something like we’ll improvise.”

“Fine,” Hawke said, deadpan. “We’ll improvise.”

Reaper flicked his cigarette off the deck. “Who’s going down?”

Lea spoke without hesitation. “We’re all going down, right?”

Hawke nodded. “We don’t know how much muscle we’re going to need down there and if our friends turn up we’ll need all the fight we can muster. The priority is securing the idols and then getting back up here as fast as we can.”

In full diving gear, Reaper was first to sit on the side of the boat and push back off the edge. He crashed into the water backwards and was soon under the waves. Camacho was next. He winked as he fitted his diving mask and gave a two fingered salute before slipping out of view. Then Scarlet went, followed by Kim and then Ryan. Lexi and Devlin went over the edge next and then Hawke was last out.

They dived to a safe depth to keep out of sight and then swam down to the famous sunken city. It was easy to see through the crystal-clear turquoise waters of the Med and they soon found themselves approaching what they all prayed would be the location of the last idols.