The Secret of Atlantis

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Hawke seized the muzzle of the carbine and forced it down so it was pointing at the platform. The man’s reaction was fast, squeezing the trigger and loosing a savage burst of rapid fire into the deck where the bullets pinged off the riveted steel sheeting in all directions. The Englishman heaved the weapon up into the air and directed an arc of bullets at the welcoming committee and made everyone run for cover. The noise of the gunfire was deafening but the magazine was empty in seconds and left only smoke and the smell of gunpowder, soon whipped away by the howling wind.

Hawke wrenched the carbine from the man’s hands and whirled around in an arc to bring the stock of the heavy weapon smashing down on the back of his head. His collapse onto the platform ignited a chain reaction and within seconds chaos had spread around the Helipad. The ECHO team darted behind the chopper for cover while the men in black retreated to the relative safety of what looked like some kind of heating installation unit. The man they had called Lazarus was gone, into the shadows like a frightened lizard with one chance to save its life and Kruger, Korać, Luk and Kamchatka slipped down a ladder leading to the substructure.

The men returned with an M2 machine gun, a serious piece of kit requiring a two-man crew, just as they had faced in their assault on the Temple of Huitzilipochtli. It started firing at them and seconds later its crew was backed up by another man holding an M203 grenade launcher. The breech-loaded, single-shot launcher was a lightweight piece of kit attached to an M4 carbine and fired standard low velocity forty mil grenades from the handheld weapon.

Its operator was solemnly loading and firing the grenades on them and one of the rounds landed inside the Mil which the ECHO team were using for cover.

“Run!” Hawke yelled, and they scattered away from the helicopter before the round detonated. It exploded inside the chopper causing an enormous fireball to engulf the area. The fuel tank ignited and then the whole machine was blasted into dozens of pieces and black smoke belched up into the sky above the platform.

Hawke was now using a hangar behind the helipad for cover, and everyone was with him except for Lea and Camacho. He scanned the helipad zone but there was no sign of them. The thought of the explosion getting them and blasting them off the Seastead into the ocean crossed his mind for a bleak second but then he saw them.

In the chaos, Lea and Camacho were trying to get up after a grenade blast on the far side of the helipad. Athanatoi swarmed like ants and soon overwhelmed them. One man grabbed Lea roughly and yanked her down to her knees. In a heartbeat he had the muzzle of a Browning pushed into her throat and was dragging her back into the shadows.

Hawke’s eyes flicked from the terrible image of her getting snatched to the scene a few yards away where Camacho was struggling to his feet after the blast, but the Athanatoi man got to him first, planting a heavy boot in his ribs. The kick was so hard it propelled the heavy American into a half roll, forcing him onto his back and leaving him stranded like a turtle on its back.

Camacho was fast, but the Athanatoi was faster, pulling his gun and bringing it into the aim right in the CIA man’s face. “Up.”

A crestfallen Camacho wiped the grease and soot from his face and moved slowly to his feet, raising his arms above his hands. “Take it easy with that thing, would ya? I got kids.”

The man waved the pistol toward the door and Camacho heaved a sigh of disappointment as he knew he was out of the fight. Then they were both gone, in the same direction as the man who had dragged Lea out of sight.

Hawke’s attention was brought back to his own struggle when the crew on the M2 and their grenade-launching support amped things up another notch, working the weapons with terrific efficiency, and seconds later grenades were exploding all around them. Hawke knew this was one fight they had no chance of winning. They were outmanned, outgunned and playing on the enemy’s home turf. There was only one play, and he had to give the order.

“Jump!”

And with that, the ECHO team leaped from the platform and tumbled through the howling storm toward the icy, black ocean a hundred feet below.

Smashing through the surface from this distance was almost like hitting concrete and the experience was made ten times worse by the freezing temperature of the water which enveloped him as he plunged deep into the sea. Every time he did this he got the memory of basic Commando training in Devon when they seemed to spend a lot of their time in freezing cold water and mud. The SBS selection process was even less merciful when it came to sorting the wheat from the chaff, and he knew many of his team had no such training or experience.

The storm meant almost zero visibility so he gave up any notions of looking for the others and made his way to the surface as fast as possible. He broke through moments later and was greeted by a sharp smack of sea spray on his face. He gasped for air as he struggled to find his buoyancy and after sweeping his hair out of his face he scanned the horizon for the others.

It was a vision of hell — a dark, freezing cold sea heaving up and down in response to the storm swirling around the Seastead — and for a few seconds he was totally alone. He couldn’t see or hear any of his friends. The storm had scattered them like dead leaves across the raging ocean and staring up at the Seastead’s grim, industrial substructure so high above him he wondered how the hell they would ever get back up there.

He refocussed his attention on the surface of the sea. Somewhere out here his friends needed his help, and in conditions like this time was of the essence. Not only was the icy temperature a serious consideration, but the prospect of getting sucked out to sea by the powerful currents was all too real. It would be a lonely, painful and terrifying death.

He saw Maria first, trying to orientate herself in the storm while the waves sucked her up and down like a toy boat. Behind her, Ryan emerged from the water and gasped for air. He turned to see Lexi Zhang clambering up the first few rungs of a scaffolding ladder running up the eastern edge of one of the stabilizer columns, but a second later a wave swept her away as if she weighed nothing and pushed her further under the immense substructure.

As he desperately searched for the others, Hawke now realized they were coming under fire. All around him he saw the telltale splashed of bullets as they ripped through the surface of the water and drilled into the black ocean.