The Secret of Atlantis

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Joe Hawke and Scarlet Sloane fought their way inside the Seastead but then the resistance grew even greater. The Athanatoi keeping Lea and Camacho hostage burst into action, firing back at them and determined to keep them at bay.

“There she is!” Scarlet shouted. “They’re trying to get her in the elevator.”

“Not on my watch,” Hawke called back, aiming his weapon and taking out one of the men holding Lea. The man dropped to the floor and the other man spun around to see what had happened.

It was the only chance Hawke needed and he seized it. “Get down Lea!” he called out. She dropped and he took out the second man, but a third leaped forward to grab her. This time Lea was ready and she kneed the man in the groin and darted for cover.

“Another one!” Hawke yelled.

Yet another Athanatoi jumped over a nearby couch firing constantly from a handgun as he flew through the air. The muzzle-flash pulsed as the rounds fired out and then he stopped firing just in time to pull his arm around to execute a perfect parkour shoulder roll and disappear into the shadows.

“Jesus, these guys make Han’s Shaolin monks look like couch potatoes,” Scarlet said.

“That’s what worries me,” said Hawke.

Across the room Camacho was fighting his way to freedom via a savage knockout punch to his guard’s face. He dusted himself down and pulled the pistol from the unconscious man’s hands before running over and joining Hawke and Scarlet.

“Where did they take Lea?” the Englishman asked as they fired on some men defending the higher levels from a mezzanine.

“To the top level,” he said, wiping the sweat from his eyes. “That’s where they said their boss was.”

“Then let’s get after her.”

Hawke pounded up the steel steps beside the elevator, gun in hand and ready to fight but starting to feel his energy levels drop. He’d been going full-on since Munich and he wasn’t getting any younger. Much more of this and these bastards would get the better of him and Lea would be lost.

At the top of the stairs he saw another wave of Athanatoi rushing into position, and at his feet were the corpses of the fallen enemy they had taken out a moment ago on the mezzanine. He grabbed a machine pistol from a dead man and emptied the magazine at the enemy, blasting chunks off the walls and puncturing holes in the brushed chrome elevator doors.

Out of rounds, he moved forward to the next dead body and snatched another of the guns, raising it into the aim and loosing another angry flash of bullets into the enemy. He would tear a hole through every last one of them if that’s what it took to get Lea back.

But the response was equally as devastating, and whoever these men were they were shockingly well-trained in their tactics and gun control. They operated almost as if they had a hive mind, but the reality was they were coordinating their movements over a comms system… taking orders from strategic command over ear pieces and reporting back on concealed palm mics.

Scarlet winced as another burst of gunfire blasted the ceiling tiles above her head and the pieces rained down on her. “They look like they’re out of the bloody Matrix!”

“And they act like it too,” Hawke said, emptying the second mag and angrily tossing the gun behind him. He looked ahead and saw Lea just for a flash — the men who were holding her had dragged her to the front line.

“Drop your weapons or she’s dead.”

Hawke, Scarlet and Camacho exchanged a glance. The former SAS woman looked at Hawke for the next move, but she already knew what he was going to do. One look at the carbine jammed into Lea’s neck was enough.

Hawke got to his feet and raised his hands. He knew there was no way he could fight through this army. He was experienced enough as a soldier to know there were other ways to get what you wanted. The fact they had now decided to use Lea as leverage to force his hand sealed the deal.

“All right… I’m unarmed.”

“And the other two!”

Scarlet and Camacho followed his lead and stood up with their hands above their heads. “Easy darlings, don’t shoot what you can’t afford to replace.”

Two of the men padded over to them and raised their submachine guns into their faces. “The Oracle desires your company.”

“He wants to meet us before he kill us,” Lea said.

The man looked at her. “You’re already dead.”

Reaper’s mind was racing as he thundered along the top of the steel pipeline on his way back to the main platform. He was struggling to maintain his balance on the oily surface as he ducked and dodged incoming enemy fire, this time fired not by Korać or Kruger but by the men in black, the self-styled crazy cult who called themselves the Immortals.

He fired back, but thanks to his precarious position on the pipe his shots were all over the place. At least it would force them into cover, he thought. He reached the area where they had broken into two groups and made his way along the western perimeter. His plan was to catch up with Maria, help her finish Luk and Kamchatka if they hadn’t already done the job, and then regroup with Lexi and go topside to find Hawke and the others.

There were fewer Athanatoi on this stretch of the Seastead, and he was able to slow for a moment to reload and get his breath back. He watched his breath cloud out in front of him. Beyond was the startling dichotomy of two grays — paler in the sky and darker in the sea. He had almost forgotten they were in the middle of the ocean since the fighting started, and he had no idea how to win a battle like this.

His mind moved to Ryan, the youngest of the team and the least violent among them, who had leaped from the substructure’s scaffolding to stop that bastard Dirk Kruger from getting away and given his life in the process. It wasn’t right but he’d died a hero. How he would break the news to Maria, he didn’t know.

And then up ahead he heard a gunshot.

And then another.

He took a deep breath and began pounding toward the action as fast as he could.