The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER FORTY

Hawke led the way into the final tunnel. Gun raised and eyes sharp, he was weighed down with worries about how long the assault had taken and how soon the place would be crawling with Turkish police. Fake passports were one thing, but if they got arrested and had their fingerprints taken, Faulkner would know their location within minutes.

They continued along the tunnel until they reached a fork. One tunnel disappeared in darkness to the north and another to the south.

“So which way?” Camacho asked.

“Wait a minute,” Kamala said. “Can you hear music?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, pointing to the southern tunnel. “I think I can — it’s coming from down there. Is that Motley Crue?” Ryan asked.

“I would have no idea,” Scarlet said haughtily.

The eighties rock music was echoing eerily through the crypt tunnels as they stood in the damp darkness.

Kamala shrugged. “When in doubt, follow the hair rock.”

Ryan looked doubtful. “Megadeth maybe, or Metallica at a push, but Motley Crue? Do we have to?”

“Put your fingers in your ears, you big baby,” Lea said. “Still, you have a point. Who’d have put Kashala down as a fan of eighties hair metal?”

They filed rapidly down the tunnel, moving further into even blacker darkness with each step. And then they heard the last survivors of the Blood Crew as they were working in the crypt.

“Mukendi!” Kashala shouted at the big mercenary.

“King?” He had been monitoring the men’s work as they rigged booby traps around the crypt, but now he turned and padded over to his boss, Kalashnikov resting casually over his right shoulder.

“Progress report.”

“They’re just about done.” Mukendi spat a wad of dipping tobacco on the flagstone floor. “Then we’re good to go, boss. Tripwires and grenades all over the place. They come in here and they’re dead, just as soon as we set them.”

“Good.”

Mukendi looked over the boss’s shoulder where Zhivkov was feverishly working on the device. “What about that?”

“It’s done. He’s just activating the timer.”

Hawke stepped into the crypt and saw Kashala and Zhivkov, leaning over the antimatter device and mumbling to themselves as they made some last minute adjustments.

“Get away from the bomb, Kashala! You too Zhivkov!”

The Congolese mercenary leader didn’t waver, but continued to fit the casing back onto the device. “You’re too late, Hawke. The device is set. Detonation is locked in. Any attempt to stop it will have the opposite effect and trigger it to go off on the spot.”

In the corner, Crombez sat beside the stereo. He was tapping his military boot to the rock music and training a submachine gun on all of them.

“That explains it,” Ryan said.

Crombez looked at him confused. “Explains what?”

“Everything,” Ryan said with a sneer.

“You can’t get away with this,” Lea said. “Just give it up now and you’ll live.”

Kashala laughed with a cold, humourless chuckle. “What you say doesn’t matter at all.”

Zhivkov responded to the weak effort at humour with a vague smile. “We need to get going, General Kashala.”

“And what’s in it for you?” Lea asked. “What could drive a man to set a device like this and commit genocide?”

Zhivkov looked at her like she was an insect. “The general has a wonderful vision for the world. So does everyone in Project Eschaton.”

“Forget about it, Zhivkov,” Hawke said. “The King here is nothing but a dickhead with a serious ego problem. Now step away from the…”

And then the carnage exploded.

Viciously loud gunfire sounded inside the tunnels and they all heard men shouting, but it wasn’t the Blood Crew.

Lea watched as bloody chaos overtook all her plans. “What the fuck?”

Kashala was just as confused as he screamed at the Blood Crew. “Defend the device with your lives!”

The ECHO team scrambled for cover behind one of the sarcophagi as the Blood Crew divided into two. Kashala, Zhivkov and Mukendi set up a defensive position across the far side of the vast crypt and fired on the mysterious newcomers, while Crombez, Njuzi and two other mercs charged ECHO’s position.

Camacho looked at Scarlet and winked. “This is just as crazy as the Bravo Troop mission!”

“Sure is. Still want to come with me to Mexico when this is all over?”

“Anytime, babe.”

One of the mercs in Crombez’s unit ran toward the sarcophagi, drawing his weapon and aiming at Ryan. Zeke saw it and fired, blowing a hole out of the Belgian merc’s neck and putting him to the cold tiles on the floor with blood bursting from his neck.

Another of the Belgians broke cover and charged toward them with a SIG in each hand. Firing mercilessly with compensators fixed to each muzzle, the brave mercenary had emptied both magazines by the time he’d reached the ECHO position. Searching for cover to give him time to reload the mags, he dived to a stairwell to his right, but Reaper fired the lethal shot, hitting the man in the head and blasting out the back of his skull.

“Over there.” Hawke got their attention and jabbed a thumb at the archway behind him. “Kashala’s trying to pull out!”

Lea was already there, dust and dirt on her face and a pistol pointed at the crypt floor. Lexi, Ryan and Kamala ran over to her while Camacho and Nikolai maintained their positions covering Hawke until he had reloaded.

“Let’s go!” Zeke yelled. “If this is too crazy for me, it must hell for you guys.”

“Don’t count on it, darling. I’ve seen more crazy than you’ve had Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas.”

Zeke slammed up against the wall beside her, sweat beading on his forehead. “I find that sort of stereotyping both cheap and insulting.”

With ruthless accuracy, Scarlet broke cover and fired on the mercs, forcing them back behind the boulders. Pulling back beside him, she said, “Brisket tacos?”

“Can’t stand them.”

“Those dreadful chilli dog things?”

He shook his head. “Not me, not once.”

“Pecan pie?”

A bullet smashed into the bricks above their heads and showered them with dust. Zeke turned and fired on Mukendi, once again driving him back into cover. “Getting warmer.”

“Fried okra?”

“Did you even hear what I said about stereotyping?”

As Kamala brawled with a merc, the newcomers fought their way into the crypt and threw a grenade at Mukendi, who instantly kicked it away and dived for cover.

Inside the enclosed crypt, the explosion was terrific. A heavy piece of rock ricocheted off the wall and smacked Kamala’s opponent in the center of his face, breaking his nose and knocking him clean off his feet. Kamala hesitated for a second, waiting to see if that had done the trick, then he growled in rage and snatched up the iron bar down by his boots.

The former Secret Service agent reacted quickly and thrust the man’s assault rifle toward him. The bayonet attached to the weapon’s muzzle now tore through the muscle protecting his stomach and plunged down deep inside him. He cried out in agony, but it was too late — without a hospital, the wound was irreparable.

He staggered back, desperately clawing at the Kalashnikov hanging out of his stomach and not knowing what to do. Finally, he pulled it out with a shrill gasp and fell to the puddle of blood forming at his feet.

Kamala stepped back in disgust at what she had become, shielding her eyes from the man’s last few painful seconds on earth. She wished she hadn’t killed him in that way, but there was nothing else for it. She knew that, had she not reacted so fast, she would be the one now dying in the dirt instead of him.

Lexi didn’t seem to have a problem with it. She snatched up the Kalashnikov from the floor and used it on her opponent’s skull as he struggled to pull himself up off the floor. The heavy rifle crashed down on his head and Kamala winced when the sound of breaking bone cracked in the damp air. The merc crumpled back down to the floor without another word and Lexi put her boot on him and rolled his dead body over.

“Missing, presumed dead,” she said.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be flushed away with all the other turds,” said Ryan.

As Kashala and his crew sprinted away from the battle, another grenade tumbled through the air and crashed down a yard from Hawke.

“Joe!” Scarlet cried out.

Then it exploded with savage force.