The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hawke sprinted through the tunnel’s debris with the glowstick in one hand and his Glock in the other. It seemed narrower now he was pounding through it at full speed, and he had to duck his head here and there to stop from smashing into the rocky ceiling.

Reaching his friends, he was relieved to see they had opened the cavity behind the sarcophagus. “Might be time to leave the party,” he yelled.

“Eh?”

Suddenly, the tunnel behind Hawke was filled with submachine gunfire and muzzle flashes. “Like, now! And please tell me this new tunnel goes somewhere!”

“It goes up is all we can say,” Lea said. Seeing the look in his face, she added. “Hey, we were pressed for time!”

For a few explosive seconds, the fusillade of gunfire violently strobed the darkness of the tomb and the ear-splitting crack of the rounds tearing into the ancient gypsum plaster cut into them like razors. In the chaos, dust and smoke, Kashala called out to his men. “They’re over there behind the sarcophagus!”

They climbed into the cavity and began to run for their lives.

Scarlet turned and fired.

“Come on, Cairo!” Lea yelled. “You’re too far back.”

“She’s going as fast as she can,” Ryan called out in the darkness. “Considering she smokes like a freight train smokestack.”

“Give it a rest, you tit,” Scarlet said.

“Yeah, shut it, Ryan,” said Lea. “Your gags are weighing us down right now.”

Just to make the point, Scarlet speeded up and overtook Ryan. Pushing him roughly out of the way, she turned around so she was now running backwards and slowly raised her middle finger in the air. “What’s the matter, Nancy?” she said. “Forget your running shoes?”

With Orpheus’s codex clutched in his hand, Ryan’s lungs burned as he ran. “Funny.”

Zeke called out, “Not funny! They’re right behind us!”

Another volley of gunfire roared in the darkness behind them, followed by the sound of the Blood Crew baying for their blood.

Lea glanced at Hawke as they sprinted up the slope. “I hope you’ve got a plan when we make the surface!”

He gave her a sideways glance and restrained his grin. “Er… not so much — you?”

“We need to get to the surface first,” Scarlet said. “And up ahead looks like a dead end.”

Raising the glowstick in front of him, Hawke lit the passage. The soft amber glow cast their shadows up against the stone wall as they each registered what Scarlet had already seen. Reaching a wall of sandstone blocks, Hawke cursed as he searched for another escape route.

“What now?” Kamala said. “I see the Blood Crew!”

Lexi’s voice was close to Hawke in the low light of the glow sticks. “I see light!”

“Moi aussi,” Reaper said. “There — but only a tiny slit.”

Hawke saw it now. The faintest line of light creeping over the rough-hewn surface of one of the sandstone blocks. Jamming the sharp cutter of one of the mattocks into the slit, he heaved back with all his might, using the tool like a crowbar.

Reaper took another of the tools and hammered it into the same gap at the other end of the block and the two men worked together to force the block out of the wall.

“Here they come!” Camacho yelled. “Looks like only half of them. They must have split up and the others went back to the other way.”

“Why would they do that?” Lea asked. “They know we still have the map.”

“Take over, Jack,” Hawke said. “I’ll slow them down.”

Zeke gave him a look. “And just how the hell are you going to do that? They’ve got Kalashnikovs!”

“Here.” Lea threw Hawke her mattock. “You’re going to need this.”

“Gee,” he said, making a face. “Thanks.”

Spinning around, he threw the mattock. The tool spun through the air like a knife-thrower’s blade, impaling the razor-sharp adze into the front of Chumbu’s skull and killing him instantly.

Zeke shook his head and gave Hawke a look of respect. “Well, hot damn if that ain’t a direct hit, man!”

As the merc’s heavy solid body collapsed in the tunnel and began juddering in his death throes, the rest of the Blood Crew grabbed him by his legs and pulled him back through the dirt until they were out of sight. Screams of rage and anger echoed along the ancient tunnel as they tried to help him and work out what to do next.

“That’s one less problem to worry about, I guess,” the Texan said.

“It’s bought us no more than a minute,” Hawke said. “How’s the fire exit going?”

The answer came in the form of silver Cretan moonlight flooding into the chamber and proud smiles on the exhausted faces of Reaper and Camacho.

Behind in the tunnel, the Blood Crew was on the move, motivated into action by the deep, visceral growl of an enraged King Kashala. “Ils ont tué Chumbu! Tuez-les tous!”

Kamala looked into Reaper’s tired, squinting eyes. “Is that good?”

A simple shake of the head. “Non.”

“Out, out, out!” Hawke yelled, and watched as the team dropped to their knees and crawled through the gap. With the last of them safe, he made his way through the hole and emerged into a small, rocky gully on the western slope of the mountain bathed in the cold light of the moon.

“Someone’s coming!” Zeke pointed down the slope.

“It’s Kolya!” Lea said. “And he’s with Jazmin.”

The Russian had a bag over his shoulder as he pulled Jazmin up the slope. The two of them crashed down into the gully beside their friends. “She’s safe now,” he muttered. “And I killed Block.”

“Woah,” Lexi said. “If you’re trying to impress me, it worked.”

“Boy did good,” Camacho said as he and Reaper heaved the block back into place and closed the gap in the wall.

“That’s not going to hold them for long,” Scarlet said. “They’re armed with a fuck of a lot more than some toy pick-axes.”

“They’re not toys,” Ryan said. “They’re mattocks.”

“Please stop saying that,” she said. “Every time you say it, I hear the word buttocks.”

Ryan shrugged, but then behind them inside the mountain, they heard the sound of gunfire as the mercs blasted the sandstone blocks with their weapons.

Hawke said, “When they work out they need a grenade, they’ll be out here in seconds.”

“And we’re armed with nothing but buttocks,” Lea said.

“Exactly.”

“No, we’re not.” Nikolai took the bag from his shoulder and unzipped it. “I stole these guns from their trucks.”

“A break at last,” Ryan said.

“I’ll see your break and raise you a major setback,” Camacho said. “Look down there at the main entrance to the cave.”

Hawke scanned the other half of the Blood Crew as they emerged into the night from the Cave of Zeus. All dripping wet, Kashala was in the lead, Kalashnikov casually shouldered and a pistol gripped by his right hand. Behind him, Demotte stepped out into the moonlight and stared up at the slope.

“Looks like only half of the Groovy Gang’s all present and correct,” Ryan said. “Mukendi and Crombez must be in the tunnel behind us.”

“What are Kashala and Demotte doing?” Lea asked.

Hawke watched carefully. “Looking for something in one of the trailers.”

“Like what?” Ryan asked.

Scarlet shook her head. “Why not go down and ask them?”

Hawke blinked but kept the binoculars fixed on the Congolese and Belgian mercs as they pulled a canvas tarp off the trailer. “I can’t make it out, but they want it really bad.”

“Demotte’s walking over to the other trailer,” Zeke said.

Lea sighed. “What the hell are they doing?”

Jazmin shuddered with fear. “This is madness.”

Hawke turned to the Russian. “Did you see anything when you got the guns?”

Nikolai shook his head apologetically. “No time, sorry.”

“We need to get out of here,” Kamala said. “They’re going to get through this wall any second and then…”

Her words were drowned out by the deep, heavy roar of a grenade explosion and half a ton of splintered sandstone blasting up into the air behind them.

Hawke looked her in the eye. “Too late,” he said with a grin. Throwing her one of the guns Nikolai stole, he said. “At least this time the fight’s a bit fairer.”

Out of the giant cloud of rock dust they saw the outlines of Mukendi and Crombez, each armed with a Kalashnikov. The mercs opened fire and began indiscriminately raking the slope with bullets.

The terrific force of the grenade explosion and the sudden onslaught had galvanized their resistance. The chaos of the dust and grenade smoke gave the ECHO team enough time to take cover behind the north ridge of the gully. Armed only with the handful of sidearms Nikolai had managed to steal from the trucks, they laid down some tactical fire and forced the mercs to take cover on the far side of the gully.

“We need to get down to those trucks,” Hawke called out. “And find out just what the hell Kashala’s up to.”

“I will go!” the Russian monk shouted.

Leaping to his feet, he began to climb up over the top of the rocks.

“No!” Hawke cried out. “It’s too dangerous.”

Mukendi saw his silhouette through the smoky moonlight and opened fire with his rifle.

Nikolai heard the crackle of the gunshots and tried to dive for cover, but it was too late.

The bullet ripped into his body and knocked him to the rocky ground.