The Sword of Fire

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Scarlet was up front in the Lexus LX. They had hired it after landing at London Heathrow Airport and even kept a straight face when they had signed the form promising to bring it back in one piece.

Following a round of jokes about Hawke’s driving back in Snowdonia, Vincent Reno was at the wheel, and now they were turning off the M4 and heading into the Berkshire countryside. If the Google Earth images were anything to go by, Woodrow House was a large Georgian mansion nestled in around twelve acres of prime Home Counties real estate and a just stone’s throw from Windsor Castle.

For Scarlet this was as close to home as she could get. Not only was Richard Eden’s country house close by, but so was her own family home. She closed her eyes and the darkness took her back there once again. The sunlight shining on the bricks on the side of their sixteenth century manor house, her father’s smile as he walked a tray of drinks out to the shade of an ash tree, her mother cursing as she dropped one of her beloved books and lost the page. Her brother Spencer playing with his toys on the croquet lawn.

All of that rubbed out in less than a minute by unknown gunmen.

They had stormed into the peace of their house and cut Sir Roger and Lady Phillipa Sloane dead like stray dogs while Scarlet hid in the wardrobe like the terrified little girl she was at the time. Now her parents were in their graves and her brother was Sir Spencer Sloane after inheriting his father’s title and the manor.

She realized her eyes were squeezed shut so hard they nearly hurt and she opened them to relieve the tension. She felt a tear running from her left eye and turned to look out at the countryside as she dried it away. She didn’t want anyone else to see it. She would kill the bastards who murdered her parents if it took her entire life to find out who did it and why, but she would do it alone. The bloodlust she felt coursing through her heart could only be slaked if she kept this personal and avenged her parents herself.

“Everything okay, Cairo?”

It was Hawke. She felt his hand on her shoulder. Relegated to the back seat after the mountain fiasco, he was sitting directly behind her. She knew he had seen the tear, but he had kept it vague. Just between them.

“I’m righter than rain, darling — et toi?”

Hawke smiled. “Keen to get on, you know how it is.”

“What about you, Donovan?” Scarlet asked.

“Just about ready to ram that Sword of Fire right up Dirk Kruger’s arse, to be honest.”

“Amen to that,” Ryan said. “I still owe that bastard for kidnapping me.”

She gazed out the window as Reaper raced the Lexus SUV along the narrow country lanes. It was the same unspoiled countryside she remembered from her childhood — chestnut trees, shire ponies, gentle hills.

She was knocked from her memories by the gruff nicotine-streaked voice of Vincent Reno. “We’re here.”

Ahead of them, parked in the entrance to a field was a battered Land Rover with dried mud caked over the wheel arches and up the doors. As they pulled up in front of it, a lean, tanned man with his arms covered in tattoos casually slid out of the four-wheel-drive and tossed the stub of a roll-up cigarette into a puddle.

“Bugger me,” Hawke said. “If it ain’t Eddie Donald!”

“Who’s he?” Ryan asked.

“He’s our back-up,” Scarlet said. “And an old friend of mine.”

Hawke laughed. “And mine. Good call, Cairo.”

“Anything we should know about him?” Kim said.

“Call him Mack and don’t get on the wrong side of him,” Scarlet said. “He’s the most experienced soldier I’ve ever known. I met him on Operation Dagger Strike a long time ago. He’s solid gold, darling — but you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.”

Hawke pushed down the window as Mack sidled over to the Lexus. The Scotsman leaned his head inside and gave them all a toothy grin. The stink of stale tobacco wafted into the SUV on his breath as he spoke. “Was wondering when you big Jessies was gonnae turn up.”

Hawke shook his hand and Scarlet blew him a kiss. “You presence is appreciated, Mack,” she said.

“Ah, fuck off,” he said. “Anything for an old friend.”

Hawke made the introductions, and then got straight to business. “Anything to report, Mack?”

The tough Glaswegian shrugged his shoulders as he rolled up another cigarette. “No traffic in or out since the chopper landed. They’re all up at the big house having a high-old time.”

“Let’s get in there then,” Hawke said. “Word is there’s increased chatter about a terror attack and my money’s on this Horak.”

“We’re pretty close to Windsor Castle as well,” Lea said.

Mack stepped up on the running board on Hawke’s side of the Lexus and banged the roof. “Come on then, bawbags — let’s do this.”

Unable to translate the Glaswegian, Reaper gave Hawke and Scarlet a confused look, but hit the throttle all the same, and moments later they were driving along another narrow country lane which formed the estate’s western perimeter. It was marked by an old six-foot high stone wall with trespass warning signs pinned here and there along the way. Approaching the gatehouse, Reaper slowed the vehicle while Scarlet pulled out her gun and lowered it out of sight down by the handbrake.

Reaper pulled up at the gatehouse and a rotund man with mousy hair and a loosened tie around his neck strolled over to the Lexus. In his right hand was a two-way radio, and he didn’t seem to like the look of the tattooed man hanging on to the side of the vehicle.

“Can I help?” he said. He was looking at Mack, but then Scarlet pushed down her window, winked at him and pulled the gun into his face. “Drop the radio and put your hands up, darling.”

Lexi Zhang’s flight landed at Beijing Capital Airport just before dusk. She had watched the mountains north of the city melt into the sprawling capital with total disinterest as the aircraft banked and prepared to land. She dealt with the customs officials with the same detached attitude and when she climbed into the cab she was just about ready to fly away again.

Tonight her heart was like the setting sun. It knew day had passed and night was beginning, but for the sun a new dawn was just hours away. Lexi had a feeling her own night would last much longer. The dying rays lit the busy freeways in rosy reds and glowing ambers, and above it all the stark steel and glass skyscrapers of her home city stretched up into the purple twilight.

Black and white. Yin and yang. Darkness and light. Her mind was built to see the world this way, and it tortured her. Her father was good. He had never harmed anyone, working hard his whole life for a pittance. He had gone without any comfort to send her to Oxford — but what had she done with it?

An assassin for the Chinese Government. A hired killer who lied to her parents every day about her true nature. A woman who seemed to betray everyone she ever loved and who ever loved her. Even Hawke… perhaps that betrayal had been the worst of all. She shook it from her mind. A problem like that wouldn’t be resolved while crawling in a cab through Wangjing Park. That would require some special attention in the future.

But she could settle things with her parents right now. Before the sun rose again she could make things right with both of them. Come clean; start again with a blank slate. These thoughts did not come easily after so many years of deceit, but she had always known it was something she had to do while there was still time. When her mother told her that her father was dying she knew what she had to do.

The cab crawled on. She looked at her watch and sighed. She was tired, and she wanted to rest. Her mind wandered to the ECHO team again. She had said goodbye to them in the Netherlands just a few hours ago but it seemed like an eternity.

At least she would be home soon, she thought.

Home and safe.

When President Jack Brooke turned to the crowd gathered outside Westminster Hall and waved goodbye, everyone knew he had pulled off a successful state visit. Alex watched him as he ducked his head and climbed inside the Presidential limo, took off his jacket and loosened his tie.

“You did a great job, Dad.”

“Thanks, Darling, but the people will be the judge of that. We still have a whole bucket of crap to sort out in North Korea.”

Todd sat down opposite him, followed by Agent McGee and the other agent. “Wheels up in less than an hour.”

“Thanks, Todd,” Brooke said and turned to his daughter. “We’ll be home before you know it.”

But Alex knew that Washington DC was no longer her home, and that she had to break the news to her father that she wanted to rejoin ECHO. She knew that meant a Category Five Shitstorm heading her way, but there was nothing she could do about it.

As soon as they got back, she would tell him she wanted to leave DC and go back to the life she had started to carve out for herself with her friends.

Brooke scratched his jaw and yawned. “What’s the flight time, Todd?”

“A little of over eight hours, Mr President, and if we’re lucky…”

Todd stopped talking to take an urgent call. Alex and her father both saw the young man’s face visibly pale. When he cut the call he spoke in a rapid but measured way. “That was my contact in the CIA. She just heard from MI5 that there’s new chatter pointing to a terror target somewhere in London, sir. The Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are all named as potential targets and on lock-down. We’re on full alert and the British authorities have increased our protection as well.”

“All right,” the senior Secret Service man said bluntly. “We’re out of here.” Without discussing anything with the President, he leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “Get us to Cowpuncher as fast as possible.” Cowpuncher was their codename for Air Force Once.

“Dammit all,” Brooke said. “Any idea who’s behind it?”

“No, sir, Mr President.”

“All right, let’s go.”

The motorcade pulled away from the ancient building and made its way back to the airport, flanked either side by a host of British police officers on motorbikes.