The Swords of Babylon

CHAPTER THREE

It was Wednesday 30 January when Matt Drake woke. He was aware of lying on his back on a rock hard surface; of the pitted concrete ceiling above him; of the piercing chill in the air; of the stone walls that surrounded him; and of the headache that pounded his brain. He was aware of a distant commotion. His last memory was of running from the Russians, Mai at his side.

Mai!

He sat up too quickly. Lightning bolts of pain struck like blazing chaff inside his head. A sense of nausea made him sit stock still for long minutes, struggling to repress the urge to throw up. As he sat there, he studied the metal toilet bowl and adjacent sink that had been bolted to the far wall. When he managed to swivel his head more than an inch he saw the heavy bars that lined the front wall.

Jail cell. He was in some kind of prison. And now the distant commotion swam into better focus. It was the sound of many men together. A prison population.

Fear gnawed at his heart. Men had been known to disappear forever in the world’s worst prisons. Back in his SAS days, he had put several there himself. More recently, Dmitry Kovalenko had vanished into an American one.

How long had he been here? Where was he? Questions lined up like captives led in front of a firing squad. Tentatively, he jumped down off his bare bunk, little more than a long concrete block, and padded toward the bars. Gradual illumination stung his eyes, reviving the headache. He still wore the same clothes he had been abducted with, but his pockets had been emptied. No cell phone. No receipts. No wallet. When he approached the bars he slowed, inching his way onward until he could touch them.

Directly outside his cell ran a walkway, bordered by a thick iron railing. A great space lay beyond that, so deep that he saw nothing but air. Across stood a row of cells, no doubt a mirror to his own row. Over there, though, all the doors stood open.

The noise of an angry crowd echoed up from below.

Drake looked around. There was nothing he could drag over here, nothing he could use as a platform. The bunk was one big concrete slab, the toilet and sink were firmly bolted to the wall. He knew there were men who could actually extract those bolts and use them to dig an escape tunnel, but they were paid $10 million a movie in Hollywood.

He turned back to the bars and gave them a shake. Nothing rattled. Then a figure crossed his field of vision and blocked out all the light.

Drake backed away.

Zanko!

The cell door rattled. The giant squeezed inside, closely followed by another man. Drake recognized him as the starey-eyed individual he had briefly seen sitting in the back office when Romero and he had assaulted the timber yard.

“Little man!” Zanko greeted him with open arms. “I have brought the armpits! As promised, yes? And,” Zanko sniffed the air. “They have not been washed.” The Russian, as before, was bare-chested, the thick black hairs hanging limp.

“Where am I?”

“What? The famous Matt Drake doesn’t know? James Bond would know.” Zanko turned to his compatriot. “Wouldn’t James Bond know, Nikolai?”

The eyes remained wide and staring but the mouth spoke at last. “Welcome to our… concrete jungle, my English friend.” His voice was soft, menacing. “We reserved the five star suite just for you. In gratitude — for killing my men.”

“They attacked me,” Drake said evenly, watching the giant’s every move. “And Mai. Where is she?”

The other man showed no signs of recognition. He stepped forward, holding out a veiny hand. “I am Nikolai Razin.”

Drake studied him up close. The man was past his best years, probably in his early sixties, but still looked fit and healthy. His unnerving gaze was both severe and searching, the eyes as emotionless as a corpse’s. The knuckles of the hand he held out were twisted and badly callused, as if he’d spent a lifetime hitting things. But the suit he wore and the watch that dangled from his wrist both spoke of wealth.

Drake ignored the gesture. “So what happens next?”

Razin stepped past him and went to sit on the bunk. Zanko stayed by the door, still grinning.

“I run this jail,” Razin said. “I own it and the guards who work here. I own the government official who oversees it. I own the official who oversees him. You see?”

“So I guess I’m in Russia.”

Zanko again spread his arms wide. “Welcome home.”

“Now I own you.” Razin studied him. “What do you think about that?”

Drake shrugged. “It’s been said before. Yet,” he smiled a little, “here I am.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Well, if you answer some questions, I’ll make your stay less unpleasant before your inevitable death.”

“I thought I was here because I killed your men,” Drake said. “After hitting your timber yard.”

“Not exactly.”

Drake thought back to that day. “Babylon then. You think I saw your operation, is that it?”

Razin pursed his lips. “Babylon is only part of the puzzle.”

“The Tower of Babel?”

Razin watched him closely. “How about the Tomb of the Gods?”

Drake didn’t feign the surprise that swept across his face. “What?”

“The third tomb, to be exact. I want you to tell me all about the third tomb, Mr Drake, and about the device inside it.”

Drake thought for a moment. He could buy time if he explained a few meaningless details. “The device was Odin’s path to Armageddon. He could resurrect Ragnarok any time the thing was set off, survive it, and return. The thing with Odin’s shield is what set it all in motion. This time.”

“But how does the device work? What energy does it feed off?”

Drake frowned. “No idea.”

“Was it ever turned on?”

“Are you crazy? Why would anyone ever switch the bloody thing on?”

“To harness its power. To switch if off again. To see if it works. To have their finger on the trigger. The Americans weren’t interested in this?”

Drake flicked his mind back over Jonathan Gates’ actions. He didn’t think the Secretary of Defense wanted any further investigation of the device, but Gates wasn’t the only big dog out there. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But why would someone turn it on if they weren’t sure how to turn it off?”

“Men with too much power sometimes believe they themselves are gods.”

Drake started to feel disconcerted. He sat in Razin’s jail, a prisoner, with the monster Zanko beside him, and was starting to think that the Russian actually made sense.

“The Shadow Elite,” Drake said. “They would switch it on in their arrogance.”

Razin motioned rapidly. “As would the Chinese. The French. The English. Perhaps even the Russians. Do not think our governments are any better.”

“Still,” Drake said. “It’s all conjecture.”

“Conjecture, yes. You said it, Mr Drake. Did you see the device or the place where it stands?”

“No. But I was in the tomb.”

“Did you feel… an energy… to the place?”

At first, Drake pulled a face, sure Razin had blown a fuse, but then he remembered. “Actually, yes,” he said, surprised. “The whole place felt charged. We thought it was because it was filled with evil gods. We felt chills. Unaccountable fear. We put it down to some kind of evil resonance.” He shrugged. “Too many vampire movies, I guess.”

“Earth energy,” Razin said, almost to himself. “So our professor knows what he talks about, dah.”

“What?”

“It seems there may be another way to turn the device on.”

Drake’s body went cold as if he’d been drenched in ice water. “Are you joking?”

Razin met his eyes. “The gods had a failsafe. They must have. Because if everything ever written about the seven swords tells us that they can always stop the device, then there must be more than one way to turn it on.”

“Wait.” Drake shook his head. “Swords? What swords?”

Razin blinked, as if realizing he’d said too much. “Oh, I’m a rambling old man.” He sneered, clearly not believing his own statement enough to back it up. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, Mr Drake. That is… if you are still alive.”

He nodded at Zanko.

“Let him join the population. Then leave him. We’ll watch on the monitors.”

“There’s lots more to tell about the tomb,” Drake tried.

“Ah, I’m sure. But the prisoners are waiting for you. They’re looking forward to welcoming you to the Motherland. I am sure a few broken bones will not faze a man like you, dah? Now, Zanko.”

The monster Russian grabbed Drake’s arm and thrust him through the cell door. “Don’t die too soon, little man. I want my time with you.”