The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Less than a day later, the ECHO team were on board the Málaga Maersk.

The two hundred-thousand-ton container ship cut through the Mediterranean night like a monster creeping away from the sunrise. The plan was to stay on board until Spain and then regroup in a safehouse.

Below decks at the base of the bridge house, some of the team were seated around a table. Others were lounging on a tattered vinyl sofa. Kamala and Ryan were operating a coffee machine beside the heavy steel door. Reaper leaned against the bulkhead and rolled a cigarette. Scarlet cuddled a bottle of spiced rum like a hot water bottle.

Hawke looked through a small porthole smeared with grease and studied the long, black line, where the sky met the sea and the stars finally ran out. “Okay, I know Kashala got away, but the mission was a success.”

Turning, he saw the team looked less than convinced.

“Problems?” he asked.

“For one thing,” Lexi said. “We don’t know if King Kashala got away with any more antimatter devices. Just because we deactivated the one in the Hagia Sophia, does not mean he’s not got a few more hidden away somewhere. Maybe Zhivkov filled more than one cannister.”

“Now that’s a sobering thought,” Zeke said. “Anyone checked the news lately? Maybe Paris just went up in smoke.”

Hawke calmed the chatter. “Joseph Kashala was last seen sprinting from the Hagia Sophia with his tail well and truly between his legs. He wasn’t even carrying a bag over his shoulder, and the devices are too big for him to have concealed one in his pockets. Not only that, but the most of the Blood Crew were killed. My money is on that being the end of the antimatter threat.”

“The Blood Crew is whoever he says it is,” Reaper said. “And they weren’t all killed. We know Crombez and Njuzi got away. Don’t forget, I know Crombez, and he will not accept defeat as easily as that. He will want revenge. He threatened my family. Whether or not he teams back up with Kashala to get it, I cannot say.”

“If he does, fifty bucks on me taking him out first,” Ryan said.

Scarlet spit the rum out in a fine spray. “You’ve got to be having a laugh?”

Ryan shrugged. “Why not put your money where your mouth is?”

She leaned into his ear, close enough to kiss, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Because, boy, I haven’t got any fucking money.”

“Point taken.”

“And we’re still on the Most Wanted,” Camacho threw in casually.

Reaper gave a grim laugh. “And the sniper’s still out there, mes amis.”

“In other words,” Scarlet purred. “Things are turning to shit again!”

“Just like always,” said Lea. “Rich should get that engraved over the entrance at Elysium.”

“I’d forgotten about that place,” Ryan returned. “Think it’s still there?”

Lea shrugged. “I hope so. Think it’s going to need a fair amount of TLC though.”

“If we ever get back there,” Ryan said.

Hawke paused a beat, thinking about the right thing to say. Mindless optimism wouldn’t fool anyone on this team, but a note of confidence from a leader could go a long way. “We’ll get back there,” he said at last. “It’s our home.”

“I wish I had your optimism.” Lea rested her head on her hand and stared into the middle distance. “It just feels like we’re going round in circles.”

“Look,” Ryan’s voice became quiet and sincere. “It’s times like these, you learn to live again.”

“Thanks, Ry,” she took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I knew I could rely… wait a minute, isn’t that lyrics from the Foo Fighters?”

“The point,” Ryan said, moving quickly along, “is that we have what it takes to get our lives back.”

Lea’s phone rang. Startled, she took it her from her pocket. It was Sooke. Taking the call, she flicked it onto speaker and his smooth voice rang out tinny and shrill as it bounced off the steel bulkheads.

“You’ll be pleased to hear that Dr Jazmin Benedek has safely delivered Orpheus’s Lyre to Guy Francken, and the one million dollars has been deposited in one of my accounts.”

The team exploded in a rousing chorus of whoops and high-fives, until he spoke again.

“Unfortunately, I’m taking the money and you’ll never hear from me again.”

Time seemed to stop. Hawke stared at Lea. Knowing that her worst fear was Francken not paying, this seemed a hundred times worse. Then, in the shocked silence, Sooke spoke again.

“Just kidding.”

Lea breathed out hard. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Orlando!”

“My little idea of a gag. Would have loved to see your faces.”

“And you don’t want to know what I want to do yours, darling.” Scarlet said coldly.

“And there’s more good news,” he continued. “I have the name and details of a man in possession of the location of Tartarus, courtesy of our friend Ezra Haven, once again.”

“I think we owe him a pint,” Ryan said.

Hawke stepped nearer the phone, his voice hardening. “Who is this man?”

“Jackson Moran. He’s a senior CIA officer and he’s going to be in the Amazon basin for the next week or so.”

“He likes fishing for piranhas?” Lexi asked.

“Maybe. We don’t know why. It’s not relevant, anyway. If you want to get the location of Tartarus, this is your best chance. I’ll set up new accounts under the same names in your passports and send you the money. That way, you can access the cash and get to Brazil.”

“Thanks Orlando.” Lea felt her heart rising with hope. “Any word about Rich?”

“Not a dickie bird.”

“We’re going to need weapons,” Hawke said.

“That’s your problem.”

“I can help with that.” Reaper slipped his own phone from his pocket and got up to make a call. Pacing along the bulkhead, he spoke in rapid French with lots of sighs and heaves and hand movements.

“Anyway, good luck,” Sooke said.

He cut the call and the team shared some cautious words of confidence as they started to plan their next move. With Moran’s name in his pocket, Hawke was confident. It wasn’t much, but if anyone could track the senior CIA agent and extract the location of Tartarus from him, then ECHO could. He was certain that was enough to motivate the team at such a low time for them.

As for him, he needed nothing more than he already had for him to rescue their friends and put Jack Brooke back in power. Looking silently around the room, he saw Lea and Kamala laughing at a joke Zeke had just made. Nikolai was playing solitaire now, and smoking like a cement factory.

Ryan had enlisted Camacho’s help in his long-running struggle with the coffee machine, while Scarlet watched them with amusement. On the bunk at the end of the room, Lexi was staring at her steel prosthetic fingernails, her eyes tense with thoughts of revenge, no doubt. Tiger was, after all, still alive and kicking.

Reaper ended his call and smiled. “I have a friend, Youssef. He lives in Tunis. He is — how do you say… un marchand d’armes.”

“An arms dealer?” Scarlet said, beating Ryan to it with a smirk.

“Oui, an arms dealer. He will help us get weapons and passage to Brazil, but it will be expensive.”

“We just got a million bucks!” Zeke said.

Nikolai nodded appreciatively at the thought, and Kamala’s eyebrows raised an inch.

“He is prepared to meet us,” Reaper said. “I know him from way back and he owes me a big favour. I saved his life on Operation Serval.”

“What was that?” Ryan asked.

“A French military operation against Islamic insurgents in northern Mali. Youssef and I were there as part of the Foreign Legion contingency. It was a very brutal conflict and many died, including paratroopers and other legionnaires. Youssef was very nearly one of them, but I talked his potential killers out of it.”

“Talked them out of it?” Ryan asked.

The Frenchman pulled his combat knife out and held it in the air between them. “In fact, this blade did the talking.”

“Ah.”

“Now, we are like brothers.” Reaper put the knife away, lit a cigarette and waved his match out, wincing slightly as the tobacco smoke rushed through him. “Now, Youssef is an arms dealer based in Tunis. Strictly illegal, of course. Not only will he arm us ready for our mission to locate Moran within the Amazon, but he has already tasked his network to try and locate him for us, too. He says he has some strong leads and he’s confident he can supply us with a way to reach him.”

“Solid progress,” Hawke said. “I like it.” He felt the tension in his neck and shoulders ease for the first time in days. Unscrewing a second bottle of spiced rum, he poured out equal double measures into the various tin mugs on the table.

“To absent friends,” he said. “And their rescue.”

They repeated the toast and chinked their mugs together before each took a long, deep swig.

“Good to be on the road again,” Lea said.

Reaper nodded approvingly. “Marche ou crève,” he muttered.

Ryan said, “March or die.”

Kamala watched Reaper suck on his cigarette. “It sounds better in the original French.”

The former Legionnaire looked down at her. “You think so?”

“Sure do.”

Zeke said, “I can’t speak French, but I like the sound of this Youssef guy. If he really can rustle up some firepower and an address for that old spy, then that sounds like we’re cooking with gas.”

Nikolai laughed. “Cooking with gas… I like this.”

“So, it goes like this,” Hawke said. “We get to Tunis and speak with Youssef. With luck, he’s got the CIA guy’s location and can supply us with some weapons. Then, we go in tooled up, and snatch Moran, get the location of Tartarus and rescue our friends. Who’s with me?”

He knew the response before he’d asked the question, and felt a wave of pride when everyone responded with a nod and a smile. Once again, old friends risking their lives to help one another.

“All right, then get some rest,” he said. “Our plans just changed again. Forget Spain and the safehouse. Now we go to Tunis. We can be there in two days. It’s slow, but it’s safe.”

He returned to the porthole. Outside, the night had grown blacker. A bank of cloud moving north from Libya had covered the stars like a Gothic shroud, blurring the line between sea and sky.

The giant ship rolled slightly on its axis and reminded him just how fragile they really were. Always at the mercy of a greater power. He had asked the team to follow him into their most dangerous mission, and they had stepped up without hesitation. While every adventure they undertook carried the extreme risk of death, something told him the next chapter in their lives together was going to be the bloodiest and most challenging they would ever know.