The Tomb of Eternity

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They ran along two more streets until Snowcat began to slow down. He could see that she didn’t want to admit it, but she was flat out knackered. He looked around for another way and saw what he was looking for just a few yards ahead outside a small shop selling oranges and other fruit out of wooden crates.

“Hey! There!” Hawke pointed at a motorbike chained to a rank outside the shop.

“This is a joke, yes?” said Snowcat, staring at Hawke in wonder.

“Eh? What’s wrong with it?”

Snowcat sighed and shook her head. “Fine, but don’t complain to me if falls apart and we get killed on it.” Without even glancing around, she pulled out her Makarov and blasted the chain off the forty year-old Kreidler Florett.

As the bullet echoed around the street, passers-by screamed and ran for cover, while Hawke nodded with casual appreciation. “Good shot.”

“Is it safe?” she asked. “There’s rust all over the fuel tank and the tires looked like they’ve seen better days.”

“Yeah, like back when Reagan was president. Now give me some of that gum you’re chewing and leave the rest to me.”

“My chewing gum?”

“Just hand it over — it’s a filthy habit anyway.”

“Hey!” Snowcat said as she handed him a piece of the gum.

Hawke slung the gum and kept the wrapper, rolling it into a thin tube like a wire and holding it in his lips as he traced the bike’s ignition wires back to a small plastic connector. He decoupled the connector and placed the foil wrapper into the connector and bridged two of the open ports. A second later a low clicking noise told him it was ready to start up, which he did with a smug nod of his head. “Not bad even if I do say so myself.”

“Not a lot of room on this thing, is there?” Snowcat said as she straddled the bike. “Coming?”

They climbed aboard. Hawke sat on the front and Snowcat sat behind him, her hands around his waist. Moments later they were skidding out into the traffic. The tinny rasping of the fifty cc engine filled the street as they sped away from the armed men, and Hawke watched with undisguised alarm as their pursuers clambered into a jet black Cadillac Escalade which had skidded to a halt a few yards behind them.

“These blokes are good…” Hawke said. “And they’ve already got back-up from somewhere!”

Snowcat turned to see. “How are we supposed to get away from them on this? I’ve got a hair dryer with more power.”

“You need a little faith, Agent Snowcat,” Hawke said, and revved the Kreidler.

“People have faith in God, Hawke. With you I’m beginning to think it’s more like despair.”

Hawke laughed and revved the ancient German motorbike for a few more seconds before accelerating faster down the street.

Snowcat turned and tried to aim at the approaching Escalade but Hawke was weaving the Kreidler in and out of the traffic in an attempt to put some distance between them and the goons behind.

He jumped a red light and speeded west along the broad El Tahrir boulevard.

The driver of the Escalade floored the throttle and sent a plume of burned rubber smoke into the air. The giant Caddy lurched forward even faster and began to close in on them.

“Time to speed up, Englishman!”

“Hold on!” he shouted, and then turned a sharp right. He almost tipped the bike over and had to use his right boot to maintain some stability.

Snowcat grasped him tighter and screamed as they flew around a street corner in a hail of dust and more burning rubber.

“Thanks for the warning…” she screamed in his ear.

Hawke shrugged his shoulder. “Sorry… I did say hold on!”

On the straight now, Snowcat spun around and aimed the Makarov once more at the windshield of the enormous Escalade. She fired two shots, the first missing and the second pinging off the front driver’s side wing and ricocheting up into the air.

“They’re gaining on us, Hawke!”

Hawke already knew. He’d checked the mirror and seen how close the Cadillac was getting — its Vortec V8 easily overpowering the Kreidler’s ageing 50 cc which was now smoking like a destroyer as it screamed in and out of the dense Cairo traffic.

“We have to get off the road!” Hawke said, and steered the bike into the Cairo University Gardens. “They won’t be able to get that bollocking thing through here.”

He revved the bike to keep the dying engine alive and drove at speed along the central pathway which was an ornate water feature surrounded by star flower plants and date palms. Students dived for cover as the foreigners raced along the walkway, but all that mattered to Hawke was that they were getting away from the Escalade.

They emerged the other side of the gardens and jumped the kerb into King Faisal Street. They landed with a barely controlled skid and a puff of smoke and Hawke powered the bike toward the western edge of the city.

“Any sign of them?” he called over his shoulder.

“No, I don’t think so…” Snowcat searched behind them. “Yes — sorry, and they’re closing on us again!”

Hawke cursed and headed toward the busy ring road, hoping to lose them in the dense traffic. “How could they have known where we are?” he said, confused. “There’s no way they could have known which way we were going to drive through the university gardens.”

“We’ll worry about that later, yes?” Snowcat said. “For now we have to stay alive!”

Eyes focussed ahead as the ring road rapidly approached them, Hawke checked his mirror and saw the Escalade was once again closing in on them, and this time one of the goons was emerging from the rear sunroof and assembling what looked like a bazooka.

“Um… we might have a slight problem, Agent Snowcat.”

“Like what?” As she spoke, the Russian instinctively turned to look at the Escalade. “Holy fucking shit! Drive faster, Englishman!”

“Yes, thanks… I had mulled the thought over…”

Hawke increased speed and at the same time weaved dangerously through the traffic on the ring road, almost clipping a taxi which would have sent them both flying over the handlebars, but it was their only chance. The Caddy had more power and they were clearly better armed, but they had the advantage over them as long as they kept in dense traffic.

Then Snowcat screamed. “Incoming!”

Or not, Hawke thought, as the goon fired the bazooka and sent a rocket speeding through the air toward them. At over three hundred meters per second, it took less than three seconds for the rocket to reach them, but in those three seconds Hawke hung a sharp left, almost sending themselves flying off the bike once again.

The rocket slammed into the side of a falafel truck and exploded into a massive fireball. Seconds later the ring road traffic was in chaos as panic gripped the drivers and sent them in all directions.

“That should slow them down a bit,” Hawke said.

Snowcat shook her head. “A perfectly good day in Cairo totally ruined. Is it like this wherever you go, Mr Hawke?”

“Pretty much.”

Behind them the Escalade was trapped in the carnage of its own making. One of the men inside tried to fire an automatic rifle into the air to scare the drivers out of the way, but this was Cairo and the passengers inside a nearby police van tumbled out and returned fire with submachine guns and carbines and merely increased the disarray.

“I think we did it,” Hawke said reluctantly as he skidded off the ring road and into a side street.

“Then think again,” Snowcat said. “Look over there.”

She pointed the muzzle of the Makarov to his right at another Escalade — this time a white one.

“This can’t be real,” he said. “Are these guys telepathic or something?”

“Just get us out of here, Englishman!”

Hawke looked at the almost-empty gas tank. “Sure thing.”

He revved the 50 cc engine and took off in the opposite direction of the white Escalade, which now gave chase. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew something was very wrong with this situation — these guys knew where he was at all times, and no way was anyone that lucky.

They accelerated away from the white Escalade but then the engine began to sputter.

“What’s going on?” Snowcat asked. She looked over his shoulder at the bike’s instrument panel.

“Slight issue with the fuel situation, I’m afraid.”

Snowcat screamed and kicked the side of the bike with her heel. “Damn it!”

“It’s not a horse, Snowcat… that’s not going to help us go any faster.”

As the engine began to lose power, the men in the Escalade fired at them, one round hitting Snowcat in her upper arm, and a second bullet striking the rear tire and blowing it into shreds. Hawke fought to maintain control of the bike but with no power it spun out from under him and crashed into the gutter, sending the two of them crashing into the dirt.

Behind them the Escalade rapidly approached.

Lea peered through the window as the A380 lined up for final approach at Luxor Airport. They were flying in from the north and through the window she could see the endless Sahara desert as the plane descended toward the runway. Her ordeal outside the aircraft had left her shocked and battered, but she consoled herself with the thought that Vetrov made a big mistake in letting her live.

When she had told him, Karlsson had found it hard to believe what they had done to her — and he’d seen some torture techniques in his time, for sure. He too had vowed bloody revenge on Vetrov, but now was not the time. They were still bound with cable-ties and helpless as the plane screeched onto the runway and rapidly decreased speed.

Before the plane had come to a stop, the door opened and Kosma was looming over them once again, Makarov in hand. He forced them along the corridor to the door where they descended a flight of steps pushed up against the side of the aircraft. Lea felt the hot air blowing around her neck — it was hard to believe she was watching snow fall just a few hours ago.

Kosma pushed Karlsson hard between the shoulder blades and almost knocked him over. Karlsson turned to hit him out of instinct, but with his hands secured behind his back he had to make do with a snarl and a mumbled threat, neither of which seemed to concern the enormous Russian. He simply waved the gun toward a black Humvee idling on the apron a few hundred yards from Vetrov’s flying palace and shouted at them to get moving.