The King's Tomb

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The sprint from the fountain in the center of the villa compound out to the swimming pool took seconds. The Athanatoi left behind as a rear-guard sniped at them from hidden positions but they ran like devils toward the jetty.

“Almost there!” Hawke yelled, ducking as a bullet traced over his head and buried itself in the side of one of the huts.

“I beat my personal best for fleeing psychos!” Kim said, glancing at her watch.

“I see the boats!” Ryan said.

They sprinted along the side of the main swimming pool until they reached the end of the island and found what they were looking for. A long, sun-bleached jetty stretched out into the ocean and moored at the far end were a number of airboats.

“Just what the doctor ordered, no?” Reaper said with a grin.

Hawke looked around. “We need some cover fire guys, or we’ll get shot to pieces before we get fifty yards from the shore!”

The rest of the team moved into a defensive position and started firing on the Athanatoi as Hawke heaved the mooring line off the post and jumped down inside the boat. Ryan was looking at him expectantly.

“What?”

“I’m coming with you.”

Hawke’s hesitation said it all.

“Kruger’s up there, Joe!”

Hawke climbed into the seat, flicked a small switch to his right and pushed the ignition button. The propellers burst to life behind the prop cage and the entire boat started to vibrate in the water. “Are you girls going to stand there all day or shall we get going?”

Devlin looked at Ryan and then back to Hawke, shrugging. “What the hell — I renewed my life insurance just last week!”

They leaped down into the boat as Hawke steered it away from the jetty and increased speed. Pushing the stick forward turned the boat to the right and pulling back on it turned them to the left. Speed was controlled by an accelerator pedal on the floor in front of his seat and now he opened the throttle fully and the airboat’s bow pitched up as they zoomed across the water.

Devlin and Ryan were standing either side of the prop cage, hanging on with one hand while the rest of the team fired on the guards back on the jetty. “Evasive manoeuvre!” Devlin yelled.

“Hang on!” Hawke said and steered hard to starboard, almost sending both his friends into the alligator-infested water.

Thanks to the cover fire provided by their ECHO teammates, the Athanatoi’s bullets blasted off course to the left, plowing into the sea and kicking up little foamy splashes in the airboat’s wake. Devlin and Ryan returned fire from the boat, blasting one of the men off the jetty and sending the others scrambling for the cover of the Oracle’s yacht.

Up ahead over the water the Anshar was still low enough for him to grab hold of the tether line, but it was gaining altitude all the time and if they didn’t reach it soon they would lose their final chance to get on board. Then the tether line started to retract.

The Anshar gathered speed as it lifted away from Copperhead Key. The Oracle stood front and center in the bridge, directly beside the captain. Blankov was on his other side and Kruger was behind him, gripping Lea in his arms. An ashen-faced Athanatoi hurried through the cockpit door and approached the men on the bridge. “We’re being followed!”

“What do you mean, being followed?” said the Oracle.

“An airboat, sir.”

“Hawke!” The Oracle scowled at him and walked over to the portside window. “But I don’t see anything.”

“He’s almost directly behind us, Oracle, but he can be seen from the rear viewing deck.”

The Oracle looked at the pilot. “Is there any way he can get on board?”

The pilot shook his head. “No. The tether lines are fully retracted, sir.”

“Increase altitude at once!” he snapped. “This is Joe Hawke we’re talking about, after all.” He turned to Kruger and glared at him. “This is your fault, Kruger. Are you totally incompetent? I ordered you to kill that man!”

“Yes, sir.”

The Oracle pulled a Walther PPQ from his jacket pocket and lifted it until the muzzle was pointing at the South African’s right eye. He held it there for a second and watched the sweat break out on the arms dealer’s creased face. Just one bullet, through the eye… the man would be dead.

He spun it around in his hand and held it at arm’s reach. “Take this gun, Dirk and kill Joe Hawke. If he’s alive by the time we reach Miami Beach, I will personally execute you and throw you to the sharks — understand?”

Kruger extended a shaking hand and took the pistol. “He’s a dead man, sir. I swear it.”

Hawke stamped on the throttle pedal so hard he thought he might just push it right through the bottom of the boat. They raced forward sending giant arcs of seawater into the air either side of them, all the time inching closer to the Anshar.

“It’s gaining altitude!” Ryan yelled.

Devlin stared up into the sky. “We have to make a move now or it’s too late, Hawke!”

He was right. “Take over the controls, Ryan! We’re going up there.”

The young man stood fast. “No way!”

Hawke knew this was coming. He opened his equipment bag and rummaged around, pushing aside his Kukri knife and a butcher’s steel until he found what he was looking for — a compact rocket-propelled grappling hook. “We can’t mess about, Ryan. We don’t have time for an argument — I have to get the grappler prepared.”

Devlin stepped up. “I’ll take the controls while you two ladies decide what’s going on!”

“Kruger’s up there, Joe! This could be my last chance!”

Hawke made a split-second decision. His old friend was right about Kruger and the last chance, but did he have it in him to fight Kruger to the death? He recalled Ryan’s failure to kill the South African when he had the chance back in Rio de Janeiro after the Lost City of the Incas mission.

Was this a chance to redeem himself, or was he risking the mission by replacing a seasoned soldier like Devlin with a dope-smoking hacker with a chequered background? When he looked into Ryan’s eyes he knew what he had to do. “Fine, you go up after me and do as I say.”

“Thanks Joe.”

“Get us closer, Danny!” Hawke said, pulling the compressed air launcher from his bag. He turned to the young Londoner. How he had changed. The meek computer nerd was no more than a pale rasher of wind when he’d met him. He could have knocked him over with a feather, but he’d worked hard to prove himself. Tattoos on his toned arms, hair shaved down and a week’s stubble on his jaw. He felt a bit like a father watching his son leave home. “Don’t make me regret this, Ryan.”

“I won’t.”

Hawke hoped so from the bottom of his heart as he prepared the grappling hook and aimed it at the bottom of the airship’s gondola. Firing on a moving target was never easy, especially one that was not only moving to the side but also gaining elevation at the same time.

The range of the launcher was rapidly running out, but he stayed calm and aimed as Devlin kept the airboat smooth and steady. Taking the thing out of the sky would have been a simple matter of firing on the airship with their guns and blowing a few holes in the elevators and aft ballonet, but Lea was on board.

If an airship of that size crashed into water from this altitude she might survive, but she might not and that wasn’t something any of the ECHO team, least of all him, wanted to live with. The only solution was to fire the grappling hook onto one of the struts holding the engine motors to the gondola and then climb up the hard way and do the job by hand.

He fired the hook and they watched it spiral through the humid Floridian twilight until it collided with the airship. For a second, he thought he’d missed, but then he saw its metal claws wrap around one of the support struts. Instantly, the massive coil of rope attached to it started to unravel on the airboat’s tiny foredeck.

“It’s now or never, Ryan!” Hawke said, grabbing the end of the rope. “Which is it?”