The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER EIGHT

High in the Vitosha Mountains and in the darkness of night, Hawke skilfully slipped his trusty monocular from his pocket and raised it to his eye. Lit in the eerie phosphor-green of the night-vision technology, the rugged slopes of the nation’s biggest park stretched away into the night in an endless vista of pine forests, canyons, caves and waterfalls.

In a smooth sweeping motion he followed the line of a ridge in the middle distance until he found what he was looking for — the private castle of Sergei Dimitrov. It was nestling deep in a narrow valley of myrtle and heath and much larger than he had expected.

Built inside the grounds to the west of the castle, he counted three smaller villas dotted about here and there, all connected by wooden footbridges and floating staircases. Besides the castle itself, the center attraction was an enormous sparkling swimming pool the shape of an electric guitar.

“So where’s the lyre?” Camacho asked. “In the villas or in Castle Grayskull?”

Hawke felt the cool night air on his cheek. “My money is on the castle.”

“Mine too,” Lea said. “But we should split up.”

“Bagsy the villas,” Ryan said. “That castle looks like the kind of place you don’t come out of. There’s probably vampires in there.”

Lea rolled her eyes. “This is Bulgaria, Ry, not Romania.”

“Vampires don’t respect borders, Lea.”

“For fuck’s sake stop being such a fool.”

“Just making conversation.” He smacked a mag into his gun and stuffed it in his belt, silently giving thanks to Orlando Sooke. Their new friend had been as good as his word. When they told him where Dimitrov was located, he quickly arranged for an SUV loaded with weapons to be delivered to a parking lot in Sofia. When they arrived a man who introduced himself only as Krasimir gave them the keys and wandered off to the nearest Metro station.

A low growling noise emanated from somewhere in the darkness and Kamala spun around to scan the trees. “What the hell was that?”

“Maybe a bear,” Camacho said. “I read they have them in Bulgaria.”

Her eyes widened like saucers. “No shit?”

The former CIA man swept his flashlight across the tree trunks. “Not that long ago they still used to go to dancing bear shows here. People would transport the bears from town to town across the country on chains. I guess when they cracked down on that shit they just let ’em go.”

“But not here,” Nikolai said. “There are no bears in these ranges as far as I know. Too many tourists. But they can be found wild further south in the Rila ranges, or maybe in the Pirin Mountains.”

“Must have been Vincent’s stomach then,” Kamala said with a nervous smile.

“Maybe,” the Frenchman said. “And it’s…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the rest of the team answered simultaneously: “It’s Reaper, I’m on a mission.”

The former Legionnaire gave a disarming shrug. “Mais, c’est vrai.”

Checking his watch, Hawke said, “Listen up everyone, as we all know there’s a lot riding on this one. If we’re going to have even half a chance of saving Alex and her father then we’re going to need some real money and the only way we get hold of that sort of cash is by getting this job done for Francken. We go in, get the business done and get out. We deliver the goods, get paid and then we start looking for our friends.”

“So let’s get on with it,” Lea said.

They adjusted their backpacks, picked up their weapons and followed Hawke as he walked into the trees. A few short moments later they were walking along a narrow, winding forest path, lit from above by a half-moon and a blanket of stars. Hawke and Scarlet took the lead and as the low murmur of their friends’ chatter died away, they stopped at a break in the trees and stared out across a wide, moonlit valley.

“What’s the matter?” she asked with a sideways glance. “That big tum-tum got you out of breath?” To add insult to injury, she now leaned across and patted his stomach like a dog.

Hawke said nothing. Maybe his stomach could be a tad tighter, not that he would admit such a thing to Scarlet Sloane. They continued along the track until reaching a ridge. Here, he told the rest of the team to hold back while he and Scarlet took up a covert surveillance position down in some undergrowth and began to monitor the castle’s inner courtyard.

“That’s Kashala there,” Hawke said.

Cairo zoomed in on the group of men. “The one that looks like a 1983 Action Man doll?”

“Yes, and they were figures, not dolls.”

“You’re too easy, Joe. Way, way too easy.”

“If you say so.” He tracked Kashala on the monocular as he approached the other men. As usual, Scarlet’s cutting description of the former Congolese Army general had been very close to the mark; Joseph Kashala really did remind him of an Action Man. The beret was original, he could tell that just from looking at it, but the rest of the kit had been purchased online, including the olive green Chatham roll neck and the DPM combat trousers.

“Looks like he’s taking his new career as CEO of Mercs R Us very seriously indeed.”

Cairo pulled the monocular away and rubbed her eye before replacing it. “Action Man had a scar though, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“That’s one thing Kashala is lacking.”

“For now.”

“Who’s that coming out into the yard?”

Hawke tracked across to the east and saw a walking man-mountain emerging into the cool twilight from one of the castle’s exterior doors. “Must be Mukendi, his 2iC.”

“Looks like trouble.”

“If what Ryan said is anything to go by, then he’s trouble with a capital T. Around five years in the Congolese Army until found guilty of stabbing another soldier to death. Court martial, demoted to private, kicked out of the army and after a spell in the Ndolo Military Prison he was transferred to a civilian prison for a twenty year sentence. Gets out and hooks up with Kashala to be a full-time merc.”

“The great thing about my job is how I get to meet the crème de la crème of society.”

Hawke gave her a quick glance. “I’m sure you’ll get along just fine with him. Here comes another one — Crombez by the looks of it.”

Scarlet lowered her voice to a confidential tone. “And what about that?”

He looked at her again. “What about what?”

“The Crombez thing?”

“Not with you.”

“Reaper said they were good friends back in the day.”

“What of it?”

“You think there’s a potential problem there?”

“Not at all. Do you?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Then why bring it up, Cairo?”

“Just putting it out there.”

“You don’t get much more trustworthy than Vincent Reno. I’d stake my life on that.”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to, darling, or things might get messy.”

Her words echoed in his head for longer than he’d expected them to, but when the rest of Kashala’s team appeared in the yard it quickly refocussed his mind. “And then there were six.”

“Plus Dimitrov’s goons,” she said. “Although they don’t look like they could fight their way out of a Chinese lantern.”

“Don’t write them off too soon. Untrained men with guns can be just as dangerous in my experience. What are they doing now?”

Below, the mercs and mafia thugs were working together to load a number of crates into the back of some trucks parked up around the perimeter of the yard.

“Looks like they’re loading a lot of kit into the trucks,” Cairo said. “Maybe Kashala’s about to pull out. Maybe we wait till he’s gone and then attack.”

“Or maybe he double-crossed Dimitrov and he’s about to drive away with the lyre.”

“Maybe we should wait and attack the trucks when they move out.”

She fixed her eyes on him, both their faces obscured by the same black camo cream. “Maybe we should stop saying maybe?”

“Where did I get you from?” he said with a sigh.

“We got you, as I recall. You were just a homeless waif when ECHO pulled you out of the gutter.”

He let it slide. “We can’t wait for the trucks to pull out, and those walls are too high for our grapple hooks. The only way we can get into the place is by smashing right through the front door. That’s going to raise some eyebrows.”

“But we still get to storm a castle. With turrets and everything.”

He sighed. “I can see how excited you are about that.”

She lowered her voice to a sexy velvet tone. “That’s just the usual erotic frisson of being so close to you.” As she spoke, she gently brushed the top of his hand with hers and winked at him. “Darling.”

“Pack it in, Cairo.”

She wasn’t listening to him. “And it has a moat, too!”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Natch.”

Hawke turned quietly and pulled the monocular away from her eye. In all his long years of experience and travelling around the world he had never in his life met anyone even vaguely in the same ballpark as Scarlet Sloane. He was proud to call her a friend but she sure knew how to irritate him. “Then what did I just say, Cairo?”

“That we can’t wait for the trucks and we have to go in through the front door.”

“Top marks.” He raised the monocular and whistled. “And there’s Dimitrov himself.”

“Where?”

“On the top floor,” he muttered. “In the window by the eastern turret.”

“I see him.”

“That’s the best bet for the lyre,” he said. “We need to get everyone over here and get this show on the road.”

They gathered the rest of the team and briefed them on the plan to blow the gates and seize the lyre. Hawke would lead a core team into the battle while Kamala and Nikolai would maintain their position on the ridge. Here, they could monitor the enemy’s movements and stay in radio contact.

Without wasting any more time, they walked down the final slope and approached the ancient castle walls. When everyone was in position, Hawke slipped out from behind the trees and crouch-walked through the darkness with one aim in mind: blowing the front gates and creating an ingress point.

The wrought iron gates had once been black, but were now covered in a turquoise patina of rust. He worked silently and quickly in the dark, drawing on years of experience. After rapidly securing the charges on the gates, he slipped back over to the team.

“All done. Everyone ready for party time?”

“Let’s do it.”

“Get ready then,” he said. “Because when these babies go off it’s going to be like sticking your hand in a wasps’ nest.”

Gripping the remote in his hand, he pushed the button and detonated the explosives he had just fitted on the gates. The charge blew them clean off their posts and sent bent, twisted iron bars, screw, nuts and bolts flying in all directions.

The car-sized explosion lit the black night in a short orange flash and then everything went dark. A few seconds later, a series of searchlights switched on and Reaper heard the screams of shocked, terrified men scrambling to see what had happened.

“Looks like it’s on,” Hawke said.