The Tomb of Eternity

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Joe Hawke watched the runway turn into a blur and then drop away beneath them as the small jet raced up into the Egyptian sky. Far to the west, he saw the massive city of Cairo sprawling either side of the Nile, and rising up behind Giza were the famous pyramids, lit bright yellow in the hot sun. He could still see the columns of smoke from the carnage he had left behind in the shape of a burning Apache, and he guessed by now it would be surrounded by emergency crews, army and police.

As they briefed him on what they had discovered about Osiris, he sensed more tension than was normal among his friends. Ryan was even quieter than usual and seated at the desk on the starboard side of the Gulfstream, buried in a laptop, and Alex was opposite him leafing through Mazzarro’s notebooks.

As for him, he watched Snowcat gently breathing on the couch, still unconscious from the shockwave of the explosion back at Giza. Lexi had tended and dressed the wounds on her arm and head and said they weren’t serious.

Hawke heard the Russian’s words again — what she had said about how his enemies were closer then he thought — and glanced at the faces of his friends for a few seconds. Could it be true that one of these people had ordered the hit on him in Cairo? Now, in their company, it seemed an even more unlikely possibility than it had done in the heat of the fire-fight down in the pyramids.

He watched Scarlet rise from her seat. She wasted no time in hitting the mini-bar, and cracked open a vodka miniature, downing it in one. “Better,” was all she said as she pulled a second one from the fridge.

She turned to Hawke. “Tough day at the office, darling?”

“You could say that,” he said. “We spent half the morning on a guided tour of Cairo courtesy of some kind of renegade British Special Forces. They even laid on a helicopter.”

“A helicopter?” Eden said, eyes narrowing.

“Apache,” Hawke replied. “Big black thing with more arms than an octopus. British, as well.”

Eden frowned. “I was afraid of this.”

“Afraid of what?” Hawke asked.

“I’ll explain later — our Russian friend is waking up.”

Hawke watched as Snowcat slowly came back to life after the shockwave, and he offered her some water as she sat up and rubbed her head. She mumbled some words in Russian and blinked a few times to regain her focus.

“How long was I out for?” she asked, looking down at her wristwatch.

“Less than half an hour,” Hawke said quietly. “We’re on a plane going to Luxor.”

“Woah — things move fast around you, Mr Hawke.”

“They seem to, yes,” he said, smiling.

He gave her more water and some time to regain her composure, but his compulsion to know the truth moved him to speak with her about his wife. He had waited long enough.

As he spoke, she unbuckled her seat belt and pulled a hair tie loose, shaking her long, blonde hair free.

“So you want to know what I have to say?”

He nodded. “First, I want your real name. I’m not calling you Snowcat for the rest of the mission.”

She smiled and dipped her head in agreement. “My name is Maria Kurikova.”

“Thanks, and pleased to meet you, Maria. I’m Joe, so you can leave the ‘Mr Hawke’ stuff at the door, all right?”

She smiled and nodded her head.

“So why are we going to Luxor?” she asked.

Hawke explained. “Apparently Ryan and Alex worked out that a French Egyptologist called… what was his name again?”

“Champollion,” Ryan called over.

“That guy, anyway,” Hawke continued, “he discovered a tablet in the desert with similar glyphs to those on our map, and tried to decode it but made very little progress before he died. Decades later some other guy…”

“Pernier.”

“Thanks, mate… well, that guy discovered something called the Phaistos Disc, an ancient Greek artefact…”

“Minoan,” Ryan said. “Do you want me to tell this story?”

“Thanks, but no thanks, mate. Anyway Pernier and Mazzarro used the information on the disc along with Champollion’s earlier work and began to create a sort of decoder…”

“A deciphering matrix.”

Hawke gave the younger man a look and Ryan shrugged his shoulders and walked off down the aisle to get a drink.

“Anyway, thanks to the deciphering matrix, Ryan and Alex here were able to make sense of the map.”

“But we only had half the map, remember,” Alex said. “Hi, I’m Alex Reeve, by the way.”

“Hello. Maria Kurikova.”

They shook hands.

“Like I say, we only had the Poseidon half. We knew from Mazzarro Senior’s work on the Phaistos Disc that there had been some kind of ancient war when Poseidon and Osiris fought over possession of the map, and that’s why it was torn in half.”

“And that’s when we realized the other half must be the Tomb of Osiris,” Ryan said, returning with a large neat whisky. He took a gulp. “The only problem was where exactly.”

“Abydos, surely,” Maria said. “The Great Osiris Temple is in Abydos.”

“The Great Temple is, sure,” Ryan said. “And there’s another smaller temple dedicated to him at Karnak, but we were looking for a tomb, don’t forget. His temple is well-known, and he has a temple because he was a god. But just like with Poseidon, now we know Osiris was really here on earth, we know he must have a tomb, and that’s different from a temple.”

“I understand…”

“Luckily for us, it looks like Poseidon’s trust for Osiris didn’t run very far, and he had the location of his rival’s tomb written on his half of the map, so now we know where the tomb of Osiris is.”

“And it’s in Karnak,” Alex said. “Just like the smaller temple dedicated to him.”

“But not in the same place. The tomb is deep underground, beneath the Temple of Amun, so that’s why we’re flying to Luxor.”

Scarlet got up from her chair and yawned. “Get all that?”

Maria laughed. “I think so…”

“All that matters,” Hawke said with quiet determination, “is that we get there before Maxim Vetrov, stop him getting into the tomb and acquiring the other half of the map, and rescue Lea and Brad.”

“Damn right,” Scarlet said.

“Then we can translate Osiris’s half and finally discover the location of the Tomb of Eternity,” Ryan said, finishing his whisky.

Hawke eyed the empty glass with concern, but said nothing. He’d been there.

“Because in that tomb,” Eden said quietly, “there exists knowledge that has been hidden from mankind for thousands, or perhaps millions of years…”

“And hopefully gold,” Scarlet said, causing a subdued ripple of laughter in the cabin.

Hawke waited until the others had returned to their seats and then he lowered his voice. “Now no one’s trying to kill us any more, and we’ve got the Indiana Jones stuff out the way, I have some questions for you.”

Maria smiled. “I thought you might, Joe.”

“Why were British agents trying to kill us back there?” He glanced at the display on the bulkhead wall to read the flight information. “I can see why they might want to take you out, but not me. At this speed we’ll be in Luxor in less than an hour, so you don’t have much time to tell me.”

Maria inhaled deeply and took her dusty, torn suit jacket off. She draped it over the seat beside her and fixed her eyes on Hawke.

“Joe…those men were ordered to kill us in order to silence me and to stop you.”

“Stop me?” he asked, incredulous. “Stop me from doing what? And what does this have to do with my wife?”

“They don’t want me to tell you what I am about to tell you, Joe.”

Hawke clenched his jaw and rubbed a hand over his tired face. “I’ve had just about enough of secrets. Tell me what you know, and tell me now.”

Without a pause, Maria started to speak, calm and quiet. “Elizabeth Compton was a Russian agent, Joe.”

Hawke narrowed his eyes in shock and disbelief. “What are you talking about? Liz worked for the Ministry of Defence as a translator. She was fluent in German and Spanish.”

“And Russian.”

“No! She didn’t speak a word of Russian.”

Maria offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, but she did speak Russian. I spoke with her myself in the language.”

Hawke was shell-shocked at the revelation and could barely control the thoughts of incredulity and despair that raced into his mind so fast he couldn’t begin to process them all. “You knew my wife?”

The Russian woman nodded respectfully. “Agent Swallowtail and I spoke on several occasions.”

“Agent Swallowtail?”

She nodded and Hawke recoiled in horror. Before she had died, Olivia Hart had used that word to describe the operation to murder Liz, and now the Russian agent was telling him it was his wife’s codename. He felt like the plane was falling apart all around him and he was tumbling to earth without a parachute.

“Your wife was half-Russian, Joe. I know she kept that secret from the Ministry in London, but she never told you either?”

Hawke clenched his jaw as he shook his head in reluctant confirmation of her question. “No, she never told me. In fact, I find it hard to believe. You could be spinning me a web of lies for any number of reasons.”

“I’m not. Please look at this.”

Maria handed Hawke a Russian identity card and passport from inside her suit jacket. The passport was an old one, now many years out of date, but like the card, it contained a picture of a woman who was very clearly his wife.

Subconsciously he shook his head as he stared at the documents. A shaft of sunlight shone through the window and illuminated the tiny images of his wife’s face as if to highlight the terrible deceit that was unfolding before him. “I just can’t accept this.”

Maria pointed at the Cyrillic letters: Eлизaвeтa Комптон. “This is her name — Elizaveta Compton.”

“Elizaveta?” Hawke asked. “Her name was Elizabeth… and for just one day it was Elizabeth Hawke.”

“Her English name was Elizabeth, but her Russian name was Elizaveta. Your wife’s mother was Russian, Joe. She was an architect from Kaluga.”

“That’s not right… Liz told me that before her mother died she’d spent her life in the south of England.”

“No. Her mother was part of a Soviet trade delegation that travelled to the West during the détente period. She spent many weeks in England, and that is when she met William Compton. She defected out of love for her boyfriend, later her husband, but her heart was always with the Soviet Union.”

Hawke looked into the Russian’s eyes but didn’t know what to say. He wanted her to say that all of this was an elaborate lie, some kind of terrible deceit designed to manipulate him and slow down the hunt for the map. He knew in his heart it wasn’t so.

“Elizaveta grew up and joined MI6, Joe, long after the Soviet Union had collapsed. They thought her background was ideal, but with the influence of her mother she was easily turned by FSB agents and she became a double-agent, working for both sides. All of this was long before she met you.”

Hawke’s heart began to pound in his chest. He’d tried to keep a lid on things while Maria was speaking, but now it was all getting too much. Here was a woman he had known for less than a few hours telling him more about his wife’s true life story than she herself had in all the years he’d known her.

He got out of the seat and walked to the drinks cabinet at the end of the plane. After a few seconds opening doors and drawers he located a bottle of vodka and some ice and made a pretty unhealthy drink. He knocked it back and felt it burn its way south. He didn’t flinch. What, after all, was pain like this compared with what he was going through in his mind?

He looked back up the slim jet and watched the Russian for a moment. She was sitting in her seat and staring forward, motionless. Perhaps her eyes were closed. Perhaps she was a liar. Sunlight poured through the tiny porthole and shone on her blonde hair.

He poured two more vodkas and shut his eyes tight. He didn’t like to close his eyes anymore. That world was where Liz lived, and now he realized he had never known her it tore him up to see her face in his mind’s eye. Right now she was laughing at a joke he had just made while they were rowing on the Serpentine… Now she was standing beside him on a balcony in Madrid as they clinked glasses to toast their decision to move in together.

Was it really all nothing but lies?

He walked the vodkas up the plane and handed Maria one of them. “Some people drink to remember, others drink to forget. What kind are you?”

She smiled and took the drink, but said nothing. Like other Russians and Poles he had known, she made short work of the vodka and set the glass down on the seat beside her. The smell of the spirit mingled with the scent of her perfume, and with the rush of the previous shot coursing through his veins and the shock of everything he suddenly saw her in another way — she was incredibly beautiful, for one thing, but she was smart, together, confident. A lot like Lea, except without the humor, maybe…

“What?” she said, half a smile crossing her red lips.

“Nothing. You just remind me of someone, that’s all. Listen, Maria. You told me that you knew about my wife’s murder, but all you’ve told me about is her background — that she was half-Russian, and her codename was Swallowtail.”

Another sympathetic nod, another bewitching smile. “I know.”

“Now I need you to tell me the rest.” He downed the vodka and swallowed hard. “I need to know about Operation Swallowtail.”

She looked at him for a long time before replying. He saw sadness in her eyes, and braced himself for what was coming.

“Joe, Operation Swallowtail was a highly covert mission to kill your wife, and I think you’ve already figured this much out.”

He nodded grimly. “Yes. A good friend of mine with senior contacts in the British military told me the kill order came from within the UK. Is this true?”

“Yes. The kill order was given by James Matheson.”

The words hit Hawke like a jackhammer and a stunned silence filled the cabin. His mind spun into dizzy chaos in his attempt to process the information he had just been given.

“James Matheson? Do you know what you’re saying, Maria?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“James Matheson is the British Foreign Secretary.”

“I know this.”

A raw, burning rage rose inside him like acid. He had personally met Matheson in a hotel room in Switzerland. He had shaken that son of a bitch’s hand and taken orders from him, and the whole time he had been the man who had ordered his wife’s execution. Now, thinking back to that day in Geneva, he recalled how Matheson had seemed anxious and on edge during their meeting, particularly when speaking with him personally.

He leaned closer to Maria. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”

“Yes, of course, I have evidence if you need it. Remember, she was a respected and valuable FSB asset. When the British killed her it upset many people in Russia with great influence. Her killers were identified within days.”

“Why did they kill her, Maria? And I want the truth.”

“Because she was getting too close to the truth, Joe.”

“The truth about what?”

“About Matheson and the Athanatoi.”

Hawke’s head began to spin. He felt almost drunk with confusion, dazed by the sheer amount of information he was supposed to digest and process and react to.

“Matheson knows about all this?”

She nodded. “We think so, yes. In fact…”

“What?”

“We think he might be a part of the Athanatoi.”

“This is… insanity.”

She moved closer to him and placed a hand gently on his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He pulled away from her and scowled. “No, I’m not okay. But I will be, in time.”

He walked to the window and watched the desert passing beneath them as they raced south to Luxor. For a moment he wondered if all this might be enough finally to bring him down, but then he remembered what his father had always told him — no matter what, never give in and never give up.

He turned back to Maria. “I was told the killer was a Cuban assassin called Alfredo Lazaro, and that he was killed in a raid in Thailand.”

Maria leaned back a little and narrowed her eyes in confusion. “The hit-man was Lazaro, yes, or the Spider as he calls himself, but he wasn’t killed in any ambush in Thailand. He’s not dead, Joe.”

“Not dead? Are you certain?”

“For sure. Because of what he did to Elizaveta, he’s on a lot of lists in Moscow. The sort of lists you don’t want to be on, you know? I can promise you he is not dead. He was last seen in Mexico about six weeks ago.”

Hawke nodded. He knew well enough that governments kept hit-lists of enemies of the state, but if Moscow thought it was going to get to the Spider before he did then there was going to be a lot of serious disappointment in the Kremlin. As for Matheson… that sort of treachery deserved the ultimate punishment.

He breathed out slowly and took another shot of the vodka. He had to calm himself, but it was tough when the problems kept mounting. Lea was gone, snatched by Vetrov, and now he had just discovered that the two men responsible for his wife’s brutal murder were both alive.

And that was a wrong that had to be righted.