The Secret of Atlantis

CHAPTER NINE

Aurora Soto was beginning to wish she had stayed in Mexico. Ever since she had arrived in Europe she’d had a very bad feeling about how things were going to turn out, and tonight the company of Dirk Kruger and his weird entourage of treasure hunters wasn’t helping the situation.

She didn’t know what that damned idol was, or what it meant. She was pretty sure Silvio had no idea either, but she didn’t like the way it seemed to captivate whoever held it in their hands… whoever glanced upon it. And she especially didn’t like the way it stared back at people, silent and inscrutable.

She walked across the room and pushed the curtains aside to watch the street for a few moments, and it was then that serendipity introduced her to the next chapter in her life. “We have company,” she said quietly.

Kruger’s head snapped up from the idol and he stared at her, his eyes widening with anger. “What did you say?”

“She said we have company,” Mendoza said, taking a protective step toward Aurora.

The South African leaped from his chair, the idol still gripped in his hands like a weapon. “And who might that be?”

“Looks like our friends from the jungle,” Aurora said. She and Mendoza exchanged a worried glance.

“What friends?” Kruger said as he padded to the window and looked at the force gathering in the street.

“They’re called the ECHO team,” Mendoza said, recalling the research he’d done on the flight to Austria. “They’re some kind of independent group loosely connected to the British Government but that’s all I could find out about them. The main man’s called Hawke and they had something to do with stopping the kidnap of President Grant.”

“Jesus,” Van Zyl said.

Mendoza continued. “No one knows anything about them — not where they’re based, or what their agenda is. All we know is they’re dangerous — they destroyed Morton Wade’s operation in a matter of hours.”

Kruger turned to face Mendoza his face suddenly all business. “These pricks out here are the people who brought Wade down?”

Mendoza nodded. “With some help from American and Mexican forces, and by the looks of things they’re with some heavily armed police as well.”

“And you led them right to me, you fucking idiot?”

“I…, well, I…”

Aurora wanted to run a knife across Kruger’s throat just to teach him not to speak to Silvio Mendoza like this, but now wasn’t the time. Perhaps that time would come later… perhaps not. She had learned to roll with the punches, but she had a hunch Dirk Kruger might not make it to the final curtain.

She stepped out of her daydream about cutting his throat only to see he was still ranting about ECHO. “You have any idea how many people want to sink their claws into me? You have any idea how many enemies I have made? There are hundreds of men who want Dirk Kruger’s head over their fireplaces and you bring this lot right into my life.”

Van Zyl stepped over to the window. “Looks like they mean business, boss.”

“Where are there?” Kruger asked.

“At the end of the street.”

Kruger contemplated for a moment. “If this idol has the attention of so many governments, then I’m not letting her out of my sight. This could be the hoard I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

“What about ECHO?” Mendoza asked.

“Forget those stupid bastards,” the South African snapped. “They have a big surprise coming to them.”

Hawke gave a quick nod as he smacked a new magazine into the housing of his Heckler & Koch MP5 and followed Holtz into the hotel lobby. ECHO and the local police worked well together as they fanned out and began to climb the service stairs to the top floor. Moments later they were gathered in the corridor outside Kruger’s room.

After a quick signal from Holtz, the police swiped a keycard in the lock and burst into the room with their submachine guns raised into the aim. Hawke and Maria were a step behind and quickly saw the suite was empty.

“Nothing!” called a police officer through the comms.

“Clear!” called another from the bathroom.

Hawke lowered his gun and sighed. “Damn it all!”

“So where the hell are they?” Maria said.

“We had good intel they were at this hotel,’ Holtz said, his voice rising with frustration and anger. “Good intel.”

“Obviously not good enough,” Hawke said. “Looks like they played you with the oldest trick in the book. Kruger must have hired out this room and then hired out another one under a false name.”

“But where?”

“Nearby, for sure.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’ll want to know if anyone’s rumbled him or not. That means keeping an eye on this place. He’ll already know we’re in here, and…everyone get out!”

Hawke screamed at the others to get out and he turned and pushed Holtz and the others through the door but at that second an RPG tore through the balcony door windows and exploded in the room. The savage detonation of the high-velocity warhead ripped through the plush hotel room and exploded a lethal fireball into every corner.

It blasted Hawke out of the room and into the corridor where he landed with a crash on top of Maria. Above them, the fireball ripped over their heads and ignited the paint on the ceiling. He covered her with his body to shield her from the blast and felt the searing pain on his back as the explosion burned out and turned to hot smoke.

The Russian looked up at Hawke, now on top of her, their lips no more than an inch apart. “You seem to have a habit of doing this.”

Hawke opened his mouth to reply but instead of speaking he rolled off her and helped her back to her feet. Further down the corridor Lea and the others were dusting themselves down, and Hawke was now scanning the area outside the window for any signs of the assassin.

The calm peace of the Munich evening was now a chaotic mess of screaming and smoke alarms. Outside the shockwave of the RPG explosion had set off half a dozen car alarms to add to the sense of manic turmoil and now they heard emergency service sirens wailing in the distance.

They got themselves together and retreated along the corridor. Hawke kicked open the panic bar on a fire exit and a second later they were outside in the cool night air.

“What the hell was that?” Holtz yelled.

“Rocket-propelled grenade,” Hawke said. “Fired from over there.” He pointed to another hotel on the other side of the street.

“So I guess we know where Kruger’s other room was,” Maria said, dusting herself down and sliding a round into the chamber of her gun.

“An old trick,” Lea said.

Scarlet cursed and kicked the kerb. “Sod it… how could that have happened?”

“The intel was good!” Holtz insisted, but the others weren’t so sure. Hawke thought it more than likely Kruger had an inside man at the hotel but that was small potatoes when measured up against the mission to retrieve the idol and something local police could deal with later. All that was bothering him was how they knew ECHO were going to be there.

“Any sign of the bastards?” Camacho said staring up at the hotel on the other side of the street.

A second of stillness until Reaper pointed to a side street adjacent to the second hotel. “There they go!”

Across the street Kruger, Mendoza and the other targets were fleeing from their hotel, using the carnage unfolding in the Hotel Sendling for cover. Hawke guessed they had clearly hoped to kill the Qatari with the RPG in what had been a carefully planned action and ECHO had gotten the sharp end instead, but they had failed. Now they turned on their heels and sprinted across the Theresienhohe toward the enormous beer festival in the fairground at the end of the street.

Some of Kruger’s men turned and fired blindly over their shoulders. Their shots rang out in the night but the haphazard and hurried aiming meant the bullets missed their targets and Hawke and the others used the cover of a line of parked cars for protection as they closed in on them.

Lexi took a shot, and her razor-sharp aim hit its target and picked off one of the goons at the rear, but then they were gone — scattering into the fairground and blending into the panicking festival goers, now rattled by the RPG explosion and fearful of a terrorist attack on their city.

“They’re getting away,” Holtz said. “Using the festival crowd for cover.”

Hawke peered into the crowd and saw Kruger and his thugs trying to blend into the crowd. Mendoza and Aurora were nearby with their arms around each other’s waists trying to look casual.

“All right, let’s make sure they don’t get away again.”

They fanned out, with Lea moving to the north. Soto sensed the danger and broke away from Mendoza, opening fire on her. In response, Lea sprinted for the cover of a cab parked up in the north entrance of the park, but it was further than she thought and a close-run thing. She just managed to dive behind the car and was still sliding along the muddy verge as the Mexican woman opened fire on her with the machine pistol for the second time. The rounds punctured the Merc’s front wing and door panel before blasting into the windshield and spraying the inside of the cab with shattered glass.

The terrified driver turned the key and fired up his car, skidding out of the Theresienwiese a moment later leaving Lea totally exposed once again. Aurora Soto grinned and fired at her again. Lea scrambled to her feet, slipping and sliding on the wet mud and fallen leaves in her bid to find more cover. That came in the form of one of the oak trees surrounding the Theresienwiese, and when she got behind the trunk she tried to slow her breathing before spinning around and returning fire. She was surprised to see Soto hadn’t retreated to safer cover but was now thundering toward her with her gun raised.

“She’s like the sodding Terminator!” Lea muttered, squinting into her sights as she prepared to take the kill shot. “And she just will not bloody die!”

“She needs a long kiss with a piece of two-by-four,” Scarlet said. “And I’m just the gal to make it happen.”

But then Soto broke away and retreated. It looked like they had decided to run.

“Look!” Camacho shouted. “They’re splitting up!”

The CIA man was right. Mendoza and Soto were branching off to the left and skipping down the steps to the Theresienwiese U-Bahn station while Kruger, the Van Zyl brothers and their remaining thugs were desperately trying to weave their way further into the Oktoberfest crowd.

“They’re trying to break us up!” Holtz said through the comms.

“Fine with me,” Hawke called back.

“Et moi,” Reaper said. “I’m closest to the Mexicans so I’ll go after them.”

“Right with you,” Hawke said as he and the former legionnaire took off after the fleeing Mexicans.

Hawke felt the cold air in his lungs as he and the French merc pounded along the street and pushed pedestrians out the way as they pursued Mendoza and the idol. In a full-on sprint now to close the gap, Hawke was aware of the dangers to the public if Mendoza felt cornered, but there was no option other than to follow him into the station and down the steps. He descended into the U-Bahn tunnel and readied his weapon for a shootout.

In the beer-soaked heart of the Oktoberfest, Lea, ECHO and the rest of the Munich police were struggling to contain the panic as thousands of people began to stampede to the exits of the festival, bundling out of the beer tents and falling over each other with Pilsner glasses still gripped in their hands.

“What a waste,” Scarlet said

Lea desperately scanned the crowd. The people had been happy — half-cut on the finest range of beers in Europe and a good time was being had by all… but now terror was spreading like floodwater and things were getting out of control. Somewhere among the chaos was Dirk Kruger and the rest of his gang of looters.

And then they saw them.

They rushed forward, weaving in and out of the fleeing crowd and never taking their eyes off Kruger’s gang as they moved deeper into the Theresienwiese fairground. In the lead now alongside Scarlet, Lea saw she had a clear shot and raised her gun into the aim.

Kruger was clear in her sights as he, his Yes Man Van Zyl and a couple of other goons punched their way aggressively through the crowd and headed for the main beer tent.

“He’s over there!” Camacho called out.

“I have him!” Lea cried back, focussing through her gun sights.

“Do try and get the aim right this time, darling,” Scarlet said, raising her own gun.

“Get stuffed, Cairo.”

Gripping the Heckler & Koch MP5 in her hands, Lea unleashed a salvo of bullets into the walkway between two lines of beer tents. She took out one of the men in the rear but the others split and vanished inside one of the giant tents. More screaming now and overhead a police chopper began searching the crowd with a spotlight while someone inside was barking orders to calm down and leave the area calmly.

Lea cursed. Kruger and the Van Zyl brothers were once again lost in the shadows.