The Tomb of the Gods

CHAPTER TWELVE

The industrial city of Singen in Southern Germany had no idea of the storm that was set to strike. Sitting pretty and picturesque under a clear, blue sky, surrounded by forests, lakes and mountains, and overlooked by the landmark it was made famous for — the volcanic stub on which was built a fortress, now ruined — it basked in dangerous ignorance.

Some of the world’s most ruthless men and women approached. Some were already there.

They made the trip in less than an hour. During that time Drake, Alicia, Mai and Dahl swapped stories and jokes to help alleviate the tension. Drake kept half an ear on the conversation, but concentrated mainly on checking the gear he’d been issued back at the safe house. Of course, as always, Dahl had chosen that particular place for a major reason. Not only was it an SSG facility, it was also a military bunker and stored enough weaponry to outfit a small army. SIG and Glock pistols, American M16’s, and M4 Carbines. Pump-action shotguns, rocket launchers, grenades and flares.

Alicia and even Mai had approached the stash eagerly, like kids at Christmas, but Drake had grabbed the bare minimum, while making sure both Ben and Karin were outfitted with easy-to-use “point and click” handguns. At first, he had tried persuading them to stay behind, or at least stay hidden.

Ben had shaken his head immediately. Karin, in the way of a close sister, had put his thoughts into words. “We’ve come this far. We might be scared, but we’re doing it anyway.”

Drake looked at them, looked at them all. “That’s what makes a hero.”

“My life,” Karin said, “hadn’t been worth living, until I chased a madman down a black hole in a tropical paradise. Until then…I purposely destroyed my life.”

“Why would you do that?” Drake had asked.

Karin had shaken her head. “I lost my faith in people. Even now, I can’t find it. I just…can’t.”

“We’ll try to help.” Drake said to her, painfully aware that two months ago his words would have been trust me. I’ll save you. But not now. Not ever again.

“Like I said, we’re coming with you.”

Now Drake began to prepare himself mentally for what was to come. Their toughest battle yet. The streets of Singen streamed past, the stump of Hohentwiel now commanding the horizon. Lush fields, stands of green trees and a few houses encircled the volcanic stub and its old castle and, as they drew closer, something else.

Something completely out of place.

The chatter began to fire up the airwaves almost immediately. “I see three choppers, sir. All military.” A voice from the lead car.

Dahl’s voice. “Markings?”

“Sir, I think you should know this first. They’re just landing. Men are e-vaccing as I speak. I think we should consider an immediate strike.”

A stunned silence followed. Drake’s adrenalin spiked and he caught a look that flashed between Alicia and Mai. They were up for it too. They all nodded at Dahl.

“We hit them before they can set up,” Drake said. “Before they can prepare, settle, or plan. That way, even though we came second, we still have the element of surprise.”

“Strike through their lines.” Mai joined in. “Break through, outflank them, and decimate. We’ll come upon those already inside the tomb without warning.”

Alicia scowled. “In an ideal world, little sprite.”

Dahl was already speaking into the walkie. “Plan is a go. We do this now. No delay.”

“Lock and load.” Hayden’s voice came over the walkie. “Nothing changes. We hit them harder, that’s all. Remember, this is one of the most important military strikes in living memory. We’re talking about a third tomb of the gods and a possible doomsday device being acquired by an unknown group. We simply cannot afford to fail. ”

The military convoy picked up speed as it left the city and approached the old volcano. They made final weapons checks, clicked live ammo into place and tried to attain the mental focus it was going to take to win the day.

At the base of the steep hill, they abandoned the vehicles and took to the trees. Beneath the priceless cover, the special multinational force hotfooted its way to the volcano’s summit.

“We aim for the choppers.” Dahl breathed into the throat-mics. “Cayman and his men either found the entrance or made one. It wouldn’t be too risky with the proper GPRS systems.”

Drake remembered that ground-penetrating radar was the Swede’s specialty. He listened to the chatter but eyeballed every inch of the surrounding hostile territory as he ran. The competence of the people around him gave him confidence. He was used to venturing into the unknown and striking a supposedly superior target. Though Kennedy’s death had been avenged and even now the Blood King, Dmitry Kovalenko, was suffering in prison for all his terrible sins, Drake couldn’t help but look forward to the dark violence that was to come. He had been forced to embrace it for Kennedy.

It would always be a part of him.

A deep rumble came from up above. The ground shook for a few seconds and in between small gaps in the trees, he strained to see a plume of spreading smoke. Cayman and his men had made their entrance, maybe even destroying part of the ancient castle. Nothing would get in the way of their arrogance and their progress.

Except us. Drake saw the four SAS men at point, Sam and his colleagues. All four had once worked with Drake and with Wells. He trusted their judgment with his life. Next came the two Japanese, Mai’s friends, and Gates’s four secret service agents. Komodo and his three Delta soldiers had volunteered to watch their backs and allowed Belmonte, Ben and Karin to join them.

Hayden, Kinimaka, Gates, and the rest of them formed a formidable central column. Up they went, eyes peeled for trouble, but it was their ears that easily pinpointed Cayman’s position. Loud shouts and curses rang around the hillside. The mercs who worked for Cayman were in a hurry, making no effort to keep their presence under wraps. The DIA operative would know that Gates followed and had no doubt left orders to quickly enforce the perimeter.

They were soon among a set of old ruins, now closing in on the castle. The signal went up for absolute silence and readiness. A whisper rattled down the throat-mics, asking for half a dozen men to circle around the staging area. Drake crouched behind a rough free-standing concrete archway that might once have been a window. A cursory glance ahead and he saw the staging area. Cayman’s men rushed around, setting up a communications array and a makeshift HQ. They lugged equipment from three stationary choppers as their rotors whirled gently. The old castle’s tumbledown walls made a crazy backdrop to the proceedings, its gaping doorway emitting clouds of smoke that drifted up from somewhere deep inside.

Drake heard the Bluetooth squawk that signaled the flanking team’s readiness. Mai, Alicia and Dahl knelt in readiness alongside him. In the stand of trees behind them lay Komodo and his team with Ben and Karin among them.

Hayden took them all in with an enigmatic expression. “The doomsday device and Cayman,” she whispered, a ghost in their ears. “That’s what we’re here for.”

They broke cover with devastating force, coming at Cayman’s men from three sides, dozens of professional soldiers firing in short, accurate bursts. The screaming began immediately, bodies and equipment struck and sent smashing to the ground. Even then, Cayman had had the foresight to conceal a few sharpshooters in the castle itself. Shots rang out, and the grass around Drake’s feet was peppered with gunfire, sods of earth kicking up as if they’d jumped out of the ground. Immediately, one of Mai’s men fell and the rogue Japanese agent dropped to one knee, squeezing off shot after shot, each one at a different window to keep the shooters neutralized.

But the mercs were hardened fighters. Showing no sign of panic at the onrushing force, they located weapons and held their ground. Drake smashed his rifle into the face of the first he came to, aware that Cayman would already know the enemy had arrived and would be hatching a plan.

When the man went down, Drake shot him and moved onto the next. Hayden was struggling beside him. Nowhere near healed yet, she had no choice but to fight until they could find someone to help them, someone they could trust. Drake felled his man and looked around. A few dozen mercs were down. The chopper pilots were dead or tagged and gagged. Alicia was already tailing the SAS soldiers as they ran for the wide castle entrance. Mai fired without pause, and had now been joined by more men. It seemed a couple of sharpshooters still remained, but the SAS would soon take care of that.

Dahl kicked a man’s knee out. When the man fell and let out a shriek, the Swede hesitated. But Daniel Belmonte didn’t. Coming up with the rear guard, he stepped around Dahl and shot the man point-blank in the head.

When Dahl turned a confused expression on him, Belmonte’s cultured tones were frayed with pain. “One of them killed Emma. That tars them all. None of them deserve to live, not here and certainly not among civilized people.”

Drake caught hold of Dahl’s shoulder. “No time to argue. Go.”

They ran along the path and passed under the castle walls into a suffused dimness. Alicia was just descending a stairwell to the left, hissing with distaste.

“Bloody regimentals got to ‘em first. That leaves me with a zero body count so far.” The Englishwoman looked glum.

Mai caught up. “So take point and stop your whining.”

“My pleasure.”

“Alright.” Drake spotted two exits. He was about to follow Hayden and Kinimaka as they stalked toward the farthest when a stream of enemy soldiers suddenly burst from both doors. Drake rolled as gunfire erupted. Everyone evaded as best they could, leaping sideways or even falling backward. A hail of bullets was not something to confront standing up. But when Drake hit the deck, he was already aiming and squeezing the trigger of his M16. His skull struck concrete, but his aim didn’t waver. Bullets strafed the room, whizzing and zipping from wall to wall. Boots came toward his face. With his hands full of rifle, he had little chance of defending himself.

He braced for the impact and hoped not to lose too many teeth.

Then the boots skipped sideways and folded. A second later, a body landed beside him. He found himself staring into the newly dead eyes of a pock-marked mercenary.

A hand appeared. A voice. “You owe me. Saved your looks.” Then a sigh. “Such as they are.”

Alicia had gotten her first kill. Drake jumped up, saw a man wearing leather leaping at him, pounding hard, gun drifting up. Drake moved faster than his opponent’s eye could follow. Hand strikes to the body and the head, all purposely aimed and weighted to rupture organs and snap bones. Another enemy body came at him, but his focus was solely on the parts of the body where he could cause maximum damage in minimum time. He didn’t even see the face of the man he killed.

He finally earned some breathing space. Hayden and Kinimaka fought at the front of a pack, which included the four SAS soldiers. Dahl battled over on the other side of the room, helping Komodo and his Delta team while also protecting the non-fighters. Alicia fought on her own. The joint prowess of his team members impressed him, and they swiftly overtook their opponents.

But it was Mai Kitano who cut them down. Wherever she went, men lay convulsing in her wake. Fear spread among their enemies as the Japanese woman inched toward them. When a man tried to spray the room with automatic fire, Mai grabbed his arm and shoved it down so the first burst fired into the floor. With superhuman speed, she twisted his wrist, snapping it, but keeping the barrel steady so that the second burst ravaged his nearby colleagues. When he fell to his knees, Mai made sure the third burst ended up in his skull.

Between them, Mai and Alicia mopped up the remainder of their assailants. When they had finished, the two women stared at each other.

Alicia said, “Maybe we should start keeping a head count. The winner gets to—” Her eyes swiveled toward Drake as Hayden’s shout drowned everything out.

“Let’s go!”

Mai ran to the hole in the wall, peering through and then signaling the all clear. They jogged after her, leaving their dead and dying enemies behind. The castle was a warren of rooms, some partly furnished and some left barren and bare. Modern displays and cabinets clashed with ancient austerity. The empty rooms felt haunted and lonely, things that could not quite be seen shifted among the dirt and the dust, befitting for a structure built atop a tomb of the most wicked gods ever known. The wind whistled through gaps in the windows and through hidden loopholes among the battlements. More than one empty shadow made the group turn their heads as they ran past.

Mai led the way, following footsteps and wisps of smoke and damage left by the modern-day invaders. Bluetooth chatting kept them organized and highly alert. Drake swapped his mag for a fresh one. A head count confirmed what they all already knew — three of their number had fallen. Both of Mai’s agents and one of Gates’s. Sam was still human and frosty enough to give Drake a look as Mai led the SAS team forward. The regiment leader seemed in awe. Oh no, Drake thought. Not another.

Through another room where tapestries and paintings had been torn off the walls and flung to the floor. Cayman must have been looking for something. Maybe something explained by the whorls — the ancient language they had found in the other tombs. Drake wondered if Dahl’s language expert had been trying to contact them.

At last, they tore through the open doorway of a grand state room, throwing flash-bangs before them. Mai had heard the voices of whispering guards from two rooms away. Once the guards were taken out, they finally arrived at the blasted hole in the wall — a wide, ragged void through which a frigid, keening breath of wind blasted in intermittent gusts.

Drake paused for a moment and looked at Dahl. “One more time, mate?”

“Let’s hope so.” The Swede’s serious face spoke pessimistic volumes.

Ben’s small voice spoke up from the back of the group. “Can you tell why they chose this place to break through? Any clues are good right about now.”

Drake lifted his eyes to the demolished wall for the first time. The far edges and some of the top blocks were intact. A picture of some kind had been carved into the wall. Hard to decipher at first, but then Torsten Dahl’s eagle eyes figured it out. “Look at both edges of the wall, and the base, where part of the wall remains. You have the base and far side of a triangle. This—” he said.

“Was a carving of Odin’s symbol, the Valknott.” Ben finished. “A symbol of death.”

“And there.” Karin moved closer to the wall. “The whorls again. The language of the gods. Odin, it seems, really was the father of the gods.”

“He sacrificed his eyes for wisdom.” Ben recalled their search for the first tomb. “For future knowledge. He knew what was going to happen.”

“In that case,” Hayden said, “his eight pieces — the ones that seemed redundant after we found the first tomb — might be more important than we thought.”

Mai and Alicia were itching to move forward. “We’ll learn nothing stood around up here,” Mai said softly and Alicia grunted.

Drake and the other soldiers agreed. The enemy shouldn’t be allowed any more time to prepare.

Mano Kinimaka eyed the hole and the narrowing passageway beyond. “I’m not even sure I can fit down there.”

“But the gods are waiting,” Hayden said carefully. “And so is Cayman. Sir—” She half turned toward Gates.

“Screw it, Jaye. I’m coming.”

The darkness beckoned them, a darkness that crawled with the presence of evil gods, evil contraptions and evil men.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The four-man SAS squad took point with Mai Kitano, closely followed by Hayden and Kinimaka. Drake shadowed the big Hawaiian closely, impressed by the big man’s agile moves as the passage started to descend quite steeply. The walls turned from smooth clad stone to ragged earth and then to roughhewn rock as they moved down. The breeze died for a while and then began to sweep past them again, carrying with it the stench of ages, the reek of old things gone bad.

They heard whisperings on the wind. Faint voices that tugged at their ears, that caught their attention like the suggestions of a malicious temptress. Down and down the passage ran. Their feet crunched through ancient debris, their heads brushing against bruising rock and stone. The way was already lit, but the SAS team left nothing to chance, stopping the team regularly whilst they scouted ahead.

Everyone knew they were heading into a trap. There could be no other outcome. It was simply a matter of when and if they could identify and counteract it.

Time slipped by. The real world fell away. There were no traps they could see. The malevolent air would be enough to warn most people away. They passed a high gothic archway with supreme care. A foul miasma drifted up and began to swirl around their bodies as if sniffing, testing, and touching, and even the Special Forces soldiers shivered.

“I.Don’t.Like.This.” Alicia was the one who spoke up, enunciating her words like bullet shots, probably trying to chase away her own feelings of dread with her form of ammunition.

Farther down and underneath another gothic arch, they still couldn’t hear their enemies. Drake began to wonder if this passage was a false lead, and that Cayman was somewhere else. The backs of his calves burned. Several times something dropped on his head, something that skittered or squirmed quickly away, making him swallow hard to conceal the revulsion.

Then, from a distance, they heard faint voices — many men shouting. The team halted for an agonizing five minutes and then began to proceed even more cautiously. Drake knew even the shouting could be a ruse. Where Russell Cayman was concerned, nothing could be taken at face value. Behind him, he heard Komodo whispering at Ben and Karin that they should now prepare for absolutely anything, even running back the way they had just come.

At length, and after interminable minutes of sneaking slowly through the awful creeping dark, an enormous archway could be seen ahead. Still some way to go, but Drake, craning his head around Kinimaka and Hayden, could make out the floor of a well-lit cavern. He could hear men shouting back and forth. He could hear heavy gear being dragged.

But he saw no one.

He whispered to Hayden. “They can’t risk a firefight in the tunnel. It might cause a cave-in and trap them. They’ll wait until we emerge.”

“Agreed.”

Kinimaka grunted. “So get ready. I got a Christmas luau to get to soon. Time off and everything. Nothing like Christmas in Hawaii, man.”

Drake got a glimpse of how lonely his Christmas might be, when only a few weeks ago it had held such promise. Whoever said “life can turn in a dime” sure knew what they were talking about. He thought about the dynamics going on in their little group and couldn’t think of anyone who might look forward to cast-iron Christmas happiness. Except Kinimaka.

“We’ll do our best, Mano.” No guarantees.

A whisper came back up the line as they approached the light. “We’re going to punch it. Fast and hard. Keep moving.”

There was one more moment of pause and then the SAS team broke cover with extreme prejudice. But they didn’t just run and shoot, they threw flash bangs and smoke grenades all while staying in perfect fighting formation, covering each other as they ran. Mai fitted in perfectly with them as she would any specialized team. Hayden and Kinimaka burst out next, staying calm, then Drake, Alicia and Dahl, ready for the fight of their lives.

Mayhem and violence confronted them. Heavy lifting gear and abseiling equipment was piled in the center of the huge cavern. Cayman’s men were arrayed around it and around the far walls, weapons spouting fire as they discharged their weapons. Drake and Alicia veered sharply to the right, firing into the central mass of the enemy. The SAS team advanced at pace. Komodo and his men burst out a second later, adding to the firepower. For several moments, the cavern floor was a warzone, a lethal free-for-all where skill was outmatched ten to one by pure luck.

Drake skidded to one knee, rifle to shoulder, squeezing off a shot every second after a minor adjustment. His bullets struck bone and flesh, his aim only thrown off when sizzling lumps of hot lead zinged too close for comfort. He was immensely aware of the stunning tomb architecture all around him but didn’t have even a millisecond to appreciate it. His team had no cover, but they more than made up for that in sheer ferocity and perfect aim. Within a few minutes, the men Cayman had situated in the center of the room were falling back, intimidated, decimated and abandoning their only cover. The mercs around the walls had sustained fewer injuries, but even they were trying to inch away.

Then the SAS team took a hit, a young soldier falling backward with a shot to the head and one of Komodo’s Delta team collapsed clutching his throat. Gates’s secret service detail was thinned to just one when the third member of his guard took a stunning round to the vest and then, as he gasped for breath, another to the face.

Drake looked up for the first time. Of course this tomb was a multi-level affair. Still unable to take it in, but fully aware it was one of the wonders of the world, Drake ignored the tomb and pinpointed the places where Cayman’s men were sniping down at them. He nodded at Alicia and Dahl and the three of them fired continuously at the hidden men as the mysterious gale blew and raged around them again.

“Whatever you do,” Alicia cried, “don’t hit one of those fucking coffins!”

Hayden had fanned out to the left, spying a spectacular staircase. Wide at the bottom, it narrowed drastically all the way to the top of the vast cavern, ending in a point where it touched the very heights. The staircase offered a way up to the several ledges and tiers that ran around this circular tomb, and the many niches beyond. Kinimaka followed her, picking off mercs stationed near the stairs.

As she neared the first step, a merc pounded toward her. Hayden shot him point-blank, desperate not to get into hand-to-hand. Her knife wound hurt like a bitch. It would only take one hard, precise punch to incapacitate her.

But she fought anyway. She fought to win the day for her country, for her father, but most of all, for her friends. As the bullets flew, she prayed for them all. As she stepped foot on the high staircase and saw a dozen mercs suddenly jump from the first level up and come screaming toward her, she began to pray for herself.

Ben Blake stood directly behind the Delta soldier who collapsed. He fell with the soldier, aware that Karin and Gates were at his side, and tried to see the wound. But the man’s hands were holding onto his own throat with a death grip. His eyes were wide, full of pain, focused on nothing. Ben touched the man’s wrist gently, feeling the blood running slickly like dark oil. Within seconds, the man had died, his hands falling apart to reveal a fatal wound.

Ben stared, choking back tears and bile. This was about as up close and bloody as war got. There were more terrible aspects of it, Ben was sure, but this soldier, lying still and dead where seconds ago a virile, young man had stood, shook him to his core. It showed him how his daily worries and struggles were irrelevant. How every second of life should be savored. How horrifying death could be.

He rose to his feet, temporarily alone. The remaining Delta man inched forward, covering their international teammates with precision-placed shots. Karin stood next to him, saying nothing. They knew how each other felt. Gates was still on his knees, holding the dead soldier’s hand and whispering something about sorrow.

Ben’s eyes were drawn to the cavern itself. The enormous structure rose hundreds of feet and was as wide as it was tall. It was a huge bowl, comprising of three different levels, not including the floor. Around each level ran a wide ledge. Beyond the ledge, hewn into the rock of the ancient volcano, were hundreds and hundreds of niches. Tombs.

Tombs of the Gods.

The floor level was also ringed with tombs. Ben squinted at several opposite, but unlike the niches in the first two tombs, these were sparsely appointed, containing little except the oversize coffin itself and a few austere carvings. Of course this place had been where the gods had imprisoned the worst of their kind. No tribute necessary.

Komodo glanced back at them. “Stay close!” He gestured for them to join him before turning back to the battle. Ben saw Hayden stuck on one of the two staircases with Kinimaka at her side, beset by the enemy, holding her side in agony.

Komodo veered his team toward her.

Drake kept the snipers pinned down as best he could. When it became clear even their sharpshooting wasn’t going to pin down the enemy for long, Dahl took off toward the cavern’s second staircase with a crazy, weaving run. Drake shouted a warning, but the mad Swede was already up to full speed. He hit the staircase at a dead run, leaping up two steps at a time. Drake saw no option but to follow. The Swede was reckless, but their team really needed to get up higher.

A bullet zinged by, whistling as it parted the air in front of his nose and then Alicia’s. One handed, Drake fired blindly into the enemy as he ran. He hit the staircase six steps behind Dahl and one behind Alicia. Even among the mayhem, his pride took a hit. Then, a man flew over from the side and collided with him, knocking him off his feet. The rough stairs scraped his face. Drake struck toward his opponent’s eyes and throat and brought his knees up to protect his stomach. A knife flashed. Drake palmed it aside. It came again, but Drake shifted inside it, caught the man’s wrist and snapped it. Even then, the assault didn’t stop, but Drake hadn’t expected it to. The knife clattered away. The mercenary brought his bulk to bear, trying to pin Drake to the staircase and smashed his large forehead downward.

Drake slipped aside again. The merc’s forehead connected solidly with the stone edge of the staircase, temporarily stunning him. Drake flipped him over, finished him with a stiff-fingered jab and looked up.

Dahl and Alicia were already partway along the first level. Fierce opposition had forced them to take cover in one of the niches, next to a bullet-pocked coffin.

Drake grimaced. Alicia wouldn’t be happy.

Hayden staggered as the pain ripped through her side. Oddly, it hadn’t been an enemy blow that had hurt her, but a misstep on the stairs, sending both her and her weapons crashing to the ground. Instantly, the mercenaries were among them. Hayden forced herself up, gritting her teeth to hold in the pain, and swiped the first one off the step with a swing of her rifle. The second she clubbed right on the nose. A bullet fired from a handgun pinged off the concrete between her legs and zipped on through. Kinimaka was a giant at her side. Men actually collided with him and rebounded right off the staircase, landing heavily in the dust below. But Kinimaka’s real strength was his surprising speed. Three assailants fell before they even knew the man had grabbed hold of them.

Then, Komodo and his men were with them. They advanced up the stairs. Hayden stayed in place for a while and used her elevated position to fire down upon the disorderly mercenaries.

Then Ben was at her side. “Are you ok?”

“No. Are you?” The lad’s face was deathly white.

“Death is everywhere.” His eyes darted from the fallen soldiers to the tombs of the gods.

“This place was built for death.” Hayden squeezed off another shot, sending another mercenary folding in a wheezing heap.

“Look at the floor,” Ben said quietly. “Just look.”

Hayden paused for a moment and removed her eye from the gun’s sights. What she saw made the hairs on her arms rise. The floor of the tomb, dusty and strewn with debris was slowly being covered in blood. Thick, red pools were spreading from the many dead and dying men across the wide expanse, making it slick and slippery for men’s boots. Even the SAS down there were losing their balance, drenching their fatigues and turning red themselves.

“And look.”

Ben pointed out something that, amidst the chaos, Hayden had so far failed to see. Arranged around the outside of the cavern, in a circle, were a number of small altars, each one with a different shape carved into its surface.

Hayden looked down on them, momentarily at a loss for words.

“There are eight of them,” Ben said as if in explanation. “And the whorls.” He gestured toward all the ground floor walls. “Are everywhere.”

Hayden’s eyes traveled from the ground floor up, past three levels of niches, and it was then that her eyes fell on a figure she partly recognized.

She patted Ben’s hand. “That’s Russell Cayman,” she said. “He’s up there, watching how this whole thing goes down.”

Drake scurried up the stairs double-time, pausing at the ledge as his two teammates laid down covering fire and then leapt into the niche. Instantly, it seemed a clammy hand took hold of his skull and gripped it with ice-cold fingers. He shivered.

“Not exactly Starbucks.”

“Shut it,” Alicia whispered. “This place gives me the creeps.”

The niche was long and narrow, cut back into the rock about forty feet. The overall impression was that it had been constructed quickly and with little thought. The walls and ceiling were irregular and jagged, as if cleaved by a mighty weapon or hand.

Alicia shook her head at something down below. “Your baby boy’s causing us trouble, Drakey.”

Drake glanced over and saw Ben distracting Hayden as she tried to pick off bad guys. “I’ll talk to the little fool.”

Dahl appeared at that moment, coming from the rear of the cave. Drake eyed him “Bit of a risky place to take a piss, mate.”

“For you, maybe.” Dahl flashed a brief smile, then turned serious again. “I discovered several relatively crude carvings back there. And a statue. I think this is the tomb of Amatsu, literally the god of evil. This is a very bad place, my friends.”

“Well, for now,” Drake said, “let’s deal with the evil we can see.”

He refrained from lobbing a grenade toward the enemy, but leaned out and let loose a burst of automatic fire. The mag ran dry. He dropped it and clicked another into place. “One-two combination?”

“Do it.” Dahl fell in behind him. Alicia took rearguard. Firing together they hopped out of the niche and rushed to the next one along, felling startled enemy soldiers and then taking cover behind the next big coffin.

As they ran briefly along the ledge, the entire cavern opened up for them. Drake saw the SAS team and Mai directly below, crawling among the heavy equipment as they took cover whilst peppering bullets at the few remaining mercs. He saw the great staircase to his right. A contingent of Cayman’s men were being beaten back by Komodo’s Delta team and Mano Kinimaka. Hayden was sniping the snipers, her eagle eyes seeking out every niche.

Back near the arched entrance, Gates and Belmonte had taken cover, armed but holding their fire for fear of harming a member of their own team.

And two levels up, standing rigidly still, he saw a figure watching them. A figure he guessed could be only one man.

The figure observed until the last of its men on the ground floor was killed and the group on the stairs beaten back. Only then did it raise a hand.

“Stop this,” it cried. “Your efforts, though noteworthy, are trivial. You cannot win this battle.”

Then, hundreds of men suddenly appeared around the third tier, silent, weapons carefully aimed. Cayman began to laugh.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Drake took a deep breath. Cayman had them hopelessly outnumbered. It was do or die, or run like hell. Behind him another coffin sat in ancient stillness.

“We stand a virgin’s chance in hell,” Alicia commented. “That means fu—”

“We know what it means.” Dahl and the Englishwoman still hadn’t had chance to become properly acquainted yet. Of course, for each of them, the idea had totally different meanings. Dahl pointed out the stairs, and a wicked grin twisted the corner of his mouth. “There’s our play.”

Drake stared and understood. “No way. You’re fucking crazy, Dahl.”

“Yeah, but good crazy.” The Swede scanned the cavern, and tapped his Bluetooth mic. “Let the bastard talk whilst you figure out a move. Then go on my signal.”

Squawks of static conveyed understanding. Cayman, the DIA ghost, the wetwork specialist, the business end of the Shadow Elite, shouted in a voice that dripped with disdain.

“I was a child of the system,” he said. “A child in time, nothing more. Now I rank above presidents. You should feel honored, being allowed to die by my word.” He spread his arms. “I am the voice of the Shadow Elite. No common man could achieve more.”

Drake stared hard at this individual. There was a chance he might soon hold the fate of the world in his hands. Cayman looked like an ordinary man, slightly built, average height, not outstanding in any way. But an aura of menace surrounded him. A sense that this man had never known compassion, love, nor forgiveness. That all his days were filled with ice-cold fantasies.

Cayman laughed once more, the sound strained and foreign. Drake knew then that Russell Cayman had never had a good hour in his life.

“You would be too late anyway. I have sent for the eight pieces of Odin. They are already on their way here, and once they arrive — the doomsday device will be ours.”

“The eight pieces are important?” Alicia grumbled. “What a twat. Dahl, you should really have hung on to those bad boys.”

“The advice is duly noted. I’ll file it where I think it belongs.”

“Don’t get testy, Torsten. They’re in Stuttgart, right?”

“They were.”

“Well, he can’t have gotten ‘em that far. Maybe we can intercept them.”

Drake shushed them. “We have bigger problems.” He pointed out the eight altars arrayed about the floor below. “Ben just Bluetoothed me. His guess is the pieces fit in there.”

“And that activates the device?” Dahl shook his head in disbelief. “So the nastiest tomb holds the nastiest weapon. And it all seems to revolve somehow around Odin and Norse mythology. We really need to learn more, you know, and talk to my language guy back in Iceland’s tomb.”

“We will,” Drake said. “As soon as we get out of here.”

And then he stepped forward. “Hey! Cayman!” He stared up at the emotionless man. “Do you know me?”

Silenced stretched as taut as a tripwire, then Cayman shrugged. “I know all of your names. But the names of dead men mean nothing to me.”

“Ah, but I’m not dead yet,” Drake said. “You’ll find that I’m pretty hard to kill. Maybe one of the hardest you’ve ever known. Do you know why?”

Cayman said nothing.

“Because I’m looking for the man who ordered my wife’s murder. And for the man who murdered her. And I think you know something about that, Cayman. You and Wells. What is it that you know?”

Cayman licked his lips. “You’re about to die, Drake. Do it with honor and stop whining.”

“Did it involve the Shadow Elite?” Drake asked. “Are they connected to her death? Who is the Norseman?”

With that one word, Drake got a reaction he’d never imagined. Cayman’s body literally lurched in shock. His face and his clenched fists turned bone white and he opened his mouth to scream an order.

Dahl was quicker. “Move!”

All hell broke loose. Dahl burst from cover and sprinted for the stairs, Drake and Alicia right behind him. Drake and even the daredevil Alicia were gritting their teeth in anticipation of Dahl’s next move…

…at the same time Mai and the SAS force leapt toward the tomb walls and the weapons of the soldiers who stood above them, reaching for the abseil ropes that Cayman’s men had been attaching earlier to help move heavy equipment. They were attacking the enemy…

…as Hayden and her team stood their ground and focused all their firepower on the superior force!

Dahl rushed to the top of the stone staircase and then jumped into space. Anyone watching would have stopped in shock, wondering what on earth the Swede was up to. Was he committing suicide? But then he landed, gun aimed and firing, on the stone railing that ran down the side of the stairs and slid, gathering speed, loosing bullets, screaming and with hair flying all around him, at high speed toward the ground floor.

Drake came next and then Alicia, also screaming to help dull their anxiety. The trio slid down the stone railing, their weapons firing on full auto.

Mai and a single SAS soldier grabbed ropes and scurried up the walls as fast they could whilst Sam and the remaining men unleashed a devastating salvo of covering fire. Up they flew, just twenty feet, and then threw timed grenades into the air. It seemed a random, hopeful move, but in fact was carefully calculated to disorganize and disorient the enemy.

Then they let go, jumping to the ground…

…and Hayden’s team made a break for the exit, using the mayhem as cover. A Delta soldier took a round that killed him instantly, but for a second his legs kept going under their own momentum and he took another round meant for Komodo, the man saving his commander’s life even after he was dead. Hayden bounded to the floor and then Gates and his last remaining agent and Belmonte slipped from cover and added their own firepower to the lead-filled fray.

Mai and the SAS soldier landed together, rolled, and came up just as the grenades they’d thrown detonated in the air at the center of the cavern. Fragments exploded outward in every direction, striking enemy bodies on all sides of the tomb.

Dahl, Drake and Alicia descended speedily down the stone rail, but even at that speed, their aims proved accurate. Enemy soldiers twisted and fell from the third level, plummeting over the edge and down to the ground. More danced like puppets as shots riddled them, falling back amongst their brethren and pulling them down. Dahl flew off the end of the railing and, with nothing to stop him, crashed into the ground at speed, his graceful flight turning into a wipeout landing. Drake and Alicia couldn’t help but follow suit.

“Fuck me.” Alicia mumbled into the ground. “That’s one way of showing a girl a good time.”

Drake pulled his aching body up. Most of their enemy, in shock at being assailed by a weaker force from three angles, stood in temporary disarray. Those that weren’t readied their weapons. Drake spied the exit.

It was now or never. No choice

“Hurry.”

He led the way toward the exit. A few bullets slammed into the stone around their feet, but not nearly as many as it might have been. Even the superior soldiers among their enemy were thrown off by their screaming accomplices. Drake knew that no soldier, no matter who he worked for or what agenda he followed, could stay fully focused whilst his comrades screamed and died around him. Then Drake saw that Hayden and her team were already there and laying down some first-rate covering fire. As he passed one of the eight altars, he slowed to take a better look.

A rectangle of stone sat, fused into the rock floor of the cavern, with the oval altar set on top. Within the body of the altar, a precise shape had been carved. Cayman, it appeared, was right. The eight pieces of Odin were meant to be fixed into the eight altars to, presumably, activate the doomsday device.

And the eight pieces were already en route.

Game and set to Cayman, it seemed. But not yet match. Not by a long way. And if Cayman’s reaction was anything to go by, then the Shadow Elite and its leader, the Norseman, were not only fully invested in the terrible events unfolding around the tombs of the gods, but also responsible for the horrors of Drake’s past.

As was Cayman himself.

Drake needed to get to that SAS facility and find Wells’s research. The way this thing was panning out — everything was connected.

Hayden met him with a pained grin. “Survived again, huh?”

“At least until she’s avenged,” he said with a grimace. “How many didn’t?”

“Too many,” Hayden said, and Drake saw Ben standing behind her. The young lad’s face was drip white, his hands bloody. Just then, bullets began to pepper the sides of the archway behind Drake.

He pointed the way back up the long passage they had followed down here. “We should get moving.”

The team retraced its steps. At first, they proceeded quickly, but without haste. Then Hayden voiced her concerns about the eight pieces of Odin.

“They can’t be that far away. It all depends how Cayman transports them. My guess is he’ll have to do it covertly and quietly, since that’s how his masters work. So it will take a bit longer. But even then—” She left the obvious unspoken.

“They must be intercepted,” Dahl said. “It’s imperative that we get to them before Cayman takes delivery. And, as soon as we get out of here…” He glanced ahead through the deep gloom. “I need to talk to my man in Iceland. He’s had time to decipher at least something by now.”

“What is the doomsday device?” Belmonte spoke up now. “And how does it work? Does anyone know?”

“Not yet.” Dahl breathed as he started to pick up the pace. “That’s part of what my language expert in Iceland is looking into.”

“I bet it relates to Odin in some way,” Karin said. “The Norse gods are all over this. It all seems preordained, as if we’re following a path set down in ancient history…” She paused. “But to what end?”

“If, like you say, it has anything to do with Norse mythology — Odin and Ragnarok — it’ll be pretty earth-shattering,” Dahl told her. “Ragnarok was the last stand of the gods. If they all laid down to die before it happened, then—”

“It hasn’t happened yet.” Belmonte finished for him.

Karin nodded. “I bet it was Odin who first saw the future and realized that the gods died in a different manner. At first, he would’ve laughed and ridiculed it, but maybe…seeing that it had happened made it happen.”

“Whoa.” Ben was struggling to keep up. Drake half-grinned as Komodo half-dragged the lad along. “That’s some very deep shit, sis.”

“Very, very deep,” Karin replied. “But probably true.”

“And the shield started it all?” Hayden wondered. “Your brother and Parnevik were always rambling on about it being the principal piece.”

“The finding of the shield started a chain of events—” Karin told her. “That led to the finding of tomb three. That, I’m sure of.”

“And as for the Shadow Elite.” Jonathan Gates was being helped along by his last agent and Komodo’s last remaining Delta soldier. “We still don’t know who to trust.”

“Speaking of the pieces,” Hayden said, grimacing as she held her wounded side. “Let’s move.”

They began to really pick up the pace, lights bobbing as they ran. The going was strenuous and, at times, painful, but they all knew now what was at stake.

Every minute counted.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Daylight greeted their eyes as they emerged from the eerie tunnel. The dead and the dying still lay all around. One enemy soldier had managed to crawl all the way to the edge of the tunnel shaft, gun in hand. He looked startled when the entire team emerged in front of him.

Hayden pointed. “Grab that guy. His reward for perseverance will be telling us all he knows about Cayman’s plan for the eight pieces.” She nodded toward the other rooms. “Gather any other survivors too. Check outside.”

Kinimaka, Komodo and the other Delta soldier took off. Sam and his SAS colleagues followed after a brief consultation. Drake took a moment to bask in the sunlight, enjoying its soft, mellow beams flickering through the many windows and the disturbed dust motes drifting through the still air. Beyond these old castle walls lay a busy city, jam-packed with men and women who had no idea of the immense conflict going on around them.

Torsten Dahl walked toward one of the windows, taking out his mobile phone and jabbing at several buttons. Drake, Ben and Karin joined him and they were soon joined by Belmonte. Alicia and Mai stayed to cover the tunnel.

Dahl looked dubious as the phone rang and rang. After a minute, he glanced at his own screen and switched it to speakerphone. “Bloody hell. Does he not have voicemail?”

“He might not know how to use it.” Ben smiled. “These crustys don’t have much of a grasp on modern technology, do they, Matt?”

Dahl heard a click. “Hello?”

“Ja?”

“It’s me — Dahl. Are you alright, Olle?”

“Ja. I am good. Where are you? I thought you were dead.”

“It will take more than a few gorillas with guns to kill me, Olle.”

“I have something for you. Actually, more than something. I have many things.”

Dahl pulled a face at the others. “He’s an odd sort of guy.”

Drake nodded. “You don’t say.”

“Akerman.” Dahl added some weight to his voice. “If you can talk freely, now would be the time.”

“Talk freely? Bah. I’m lucky I can talk at all. No, you’re lucky. Because if they killed me, Torsten, you would be the one I came for.” He paused. “To haunt. As a ghost.”

Dahl frowned in concern. “Do they know you’re working for me?”

“They might do. They never trusted me since they caught me with all the pictures.”

“What pictures?”

“The ones of your wife. Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha.”

“Akerman…”

“Ja, ja. Okay, I get the hint. The tomb language is very tricky. You know that. I had to take pictures and work on it back in my room. It was the only way.”

Dahl shook his head. “Go on.”

“It’s a mix of old Akkadian and Sumerian. Maybe some old Babylonian, just for fun. My findings are very preliminary right now, but I can say that much at least. It’s possible that ancient languages actually first began when some enterprising soul discovered this so-called god language. As you know old Akkadian was written on clay tablets using a Cuneiform script — adopted from early Sumerian. Once I translated the frequent logograms, I was away.”

“Logogram?” Drake wondered.

Karin whispered. “Pictures that represent words.”

“Fill in the gaps?” Dahl said with a fond smile.

“It’s a little bit more complex than that, Torsten. I know most of what you soldiers do is point and click, but translating an unknown language — well, that takes a little skill.”

Dahl waited.

“Anyway. Once I discounted the logograms as a somewhat secondary script and realized the rest of the language was, in fact, a complete syllabary, I began to make some headway.”

Drake glanced at Karin. The blond-haired Blake girl said, “A syllabary is a set of symbols that represent all the syllables of a language. A complete writing system.”

“Admittedly, there’s a bit of ancient Greek, some Nu Shu of ancient China and even some Mayan, but it seems to blend in quite well.”

“That makes sense,” Dahl said. “The tombs are full of gods from every land.”

“After trawling through some dross, I started to piece it together. To make it easier for you, Torsten, I’ll stick to the simple stuff.”

“Kind of you, Akerman.”

“I know. It was pre-ordained that the unearthing of Odin’s shield would start in motion a series of events that would lead to the discovery of all three tombs. That includes the portal devices found in Blackbeard’s ship and the gate you found in Hawaii. You see? They were not discovered at this time by accident.”

“It had occurred to us,” Drake murmured.

“But—” Akerman shouted the word. “It goes on to say that the sequence of events will reveal all of the god’s secrets and ‘mankind’s decision to save or destroy itself’”

Belmonte whistled. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Mankind’s decision?” Dahl said wonderingly.

Karin gave a weary sigh. “To use or not to use the doomsday device,” she said. “It’s all in our hands.”

“Of course. Odin’s poem—forever shall thou fear this, hear me sons of men, for to defile the Tomb of Gods is to start the Day of Reckoning. Akerman, go on.”

“As for the gods themselves? Odin was the one who saw the future — then literally traveled through time. It so happened one day that he traveled to a time when no gods existed. They were dead. When he took his findings back to his Council and his sons, they laughed at him. They would not believe him. It was then that he crafted the teleportation devices and allowed several of the more trusted ones to see the future. What had come to pass would come to pass. You see? Before that moment, the gods saw themselves as perpetual, an undying breed. But a hard truth can reveal one’s true mortality, and so it was with the gods.”

Karin smiled at her brother. She had been right.

“It is said that no god is truly evil,” Akerman went on. “But some are definitely nastier than others. It was these few, of course, who wished to use the teleportation devices for their own ends — imagine the chaos they could cause — and so progressed Odin’s plans apace. The great gods and he built tomb three first to negate the threat. Then the one in Iceland. And then the one in Hawaii. Apparently, there is some kind of throne there?”

Drake nodded to Dahl’s questioning look. “Yes. A huge, dark throne overlooking the biggest cavern you ever saw.”

“It’s where Odin sat,” Akerman told them. “Before he died. The last of the gods contemplating his momentous decisions. And then he returned to his own country to die.”

It’s where Odin sat. Drake’s heart pounded in disbelief. I climbed over the throne where Odin sat. For a moment, his vision blurred.

“Odin created fate,” Akerman continued. “He created the fate of the gods and of mankind, and I have no doubt, planted many turning points in the course of our history. Not just this one.”

“Do the texts explain anything about the device itself or how it may relate to Norse mythology?” Karin asked impatiently.

“Who said that?” Akerman blustered. “Never mind. The female is aggressive, but I suppose I may have been getting a bit carried away. And yes — it does. My main focus was, of course, on this part of the text.” Akerman coughed uncomfortably.

“Go on, old friend,” Dahl said gently.

“The doomsday device is a weapon designed to cause an overload of the elements. The earth will quake. The air will be split apart by megastorms of unbelievable ferocity. Chains of volcanoes will erupt. And the oceans shall rise.”

“The worst scenario we can imagine.” Ben nodded. “Naturally.”

“Thor was the god of thunder and lightning. Poseidon — of the seas. Loki — of fire. And both Loki and Poseidon are also known as the gods of earthquakes. You have found them all, have you not?”

“Among thousands of others.” Dahl’s eyes were bleak.

Drake wanted to reassure him, but the words dried to ash in his throat. Assurance was beyond him now.

“That’s the point. The device will use the natural elements to rip the planet apart. But it’s based around the Norse version of the apocalypse — Ragnarok. Ever heard of it?”

Hayden had no wish to hurt the man, but her obligations ran far deeper than his pitiful wish to cling to life. A right he’d given up the moment he chose to become a mercenary.

If he chose it, Hayden thought, remembering the plight of many of the Blood King’s men.

She searched his eyes. “What do you know of the eight pieces, huh? Where are they?”

His expression didn’t change. Hayden tapped his skull with the barrel of her handgun. “Tell me. Now.”

“Cayman sent for them.” The man spit out at last. “He… They were at Stuttgart. Not far.”

“Sure thing, I know all that. But how is he transporting them to Singen?”

As she said it, the answer popped into her brain. There was only one way to do it quickly, safely and quietly. But she needed confirmation.

The man shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Hayden scowled. She looked around. Kinimaka labored over another man a few feet away. He came up with a similar expression.

Then Sam, the SAS Commander, appeared a nearby decrepit doorway. “We found their communications array and worked one of the operators until he came up with the answer. Cayman went for secrecy and stealth, probably at the insistence of his masters. The pieces are being transported overland, by civilian train.”

Hayden jumped to her feet. “Get ready for another battle, guys. We need to stop that train — at all costs.”

At Dahl’s urging, Akerman explained as quickly as he could. “Ragnarok is the great battle of battles. The one that ends it all. It is, basically, the last stand of the gods. The last stand of all the heroes. Heimdall blows his great horn. The midguard serpent thrashes, causing immense tidal waves. Cliff faces are sundered. People walk the road to hell and the heavens split apart. The great World Tree, Yggdrasil, shudders. The gods do battle with the invaders. Odin dies at the jaws of Fenrir. Freyr fights Surtr and loses. Odin’s other son, Vioarr, avenges his father and spears the enormous wolf. Thor, the Protector of the Earth, desperately fights the great serpent and defeats it, but is only able to take nine steps afterward before falling to his death, poisoned. People flee their homes. The sun turns black, great storms batter the earth and it sinks into the sea. Stars vanish. Fire and steam rises and flames touch the heavens.”

“But it never happened,” Dahl said.

“Maybe not. Maybe not yet. Odin was always considered the wisest of all beings. He may have found a way — this way — to postpone the inevitable. In any case, your battle, our battle, is real. As real as can be. This is our Ragnarok, my friend.”

“Interpreted how?”

“Heroes must rise to save the day or villains will end it. Whatever you believe in doesn’t matter. A last stand is coming. A battle of battles. You must make this stand together and you must win.”

Drake suddenly felt the presence of Mai and Alicia. They had heard and were looking suitably shocked. “The Shadow Elite are behind all this,” he said aloud. “They want the eight pieces to hold the world to ransom. We’ll stop them.”

“So why bring the pieces here?” Dahl momentarily turned away from his call.

“To prove the worth of what they have,” Karin said in a sickened voice. “They mean to give the world a little taster.”

Drake thought it a little ironic — that the eight pieces they had thought at one time irrelevant were now turning about to be crucial. He watched, lost in thought, as Karin broke away from the conversation to talk to the approaching Komodo.

Hayden joined them. “It’s time to move.”

Dahl thanked Akerman, told the Swedish language expert to leave Iceland immediately, and ended the call. “So,” he said. “Who wants to catch a train?”

Karin intercepted Komodo as he walked to join the group and took the big soldier to one side. They passed through a narrow, crumbling doorway and into a quiet alcove with more windows and collapsed masonry than walls.

“I missed you, Trevor.”

The big man blanched a little at the use of his real name. It was Karin’s way of teasing him. They hadn’t known each other for long, but they had known each other long enough.

“And I you, Kazmat.” His nickname for her was based around the abbreviation for Hazardous Materials — the family, he said, to which she belonged.

Karin kissed him hard on the lips. The soldier had to bend down to reach her. By the time they broke away, they were both breathless.

“You’re the first thing I’ve believed in since Rebecca died.” Karin said the words again as she’d said them to him many times. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“Not a chance.”

“I threw my life away all those years.” She buried her head into his shoulders, not caring about the dust and grime.

“When this is over,” Komodo said quietly, “we’ll work something out.”

“I tried to help. I tried. But I was so young…” Karin blocked out the memories, brought to the surface now, she thought, in reaction to the danger they had just escaped and her feelings for Komodo.

“It wasn’t your fault. It was the others. The grown-ups who ignored you.”

“I do know that.” Karin breathed. “But—”

“It was their fault.” Komodo reiterated, trying to make her believe.

“We need time to make this work.”

The soldier pulled away a little. “We will have time. I promise you.”

“Your work—”

“All that bullshit will not get in the way. There are other jobs.”

Karin looked dubious. “For a six foot six, tattooed, beefy Delta commando who looks like a biker and has the name Trevor? Unlikely.”

“I’ll guard your body.” He moved closer.

Karin choked back a laugh. “And sometimes talks like a nine-year-old. Ugh.”

“You wanna fight me?” Komodo pulled away with a laugh. “You really wanna tussle with this shit?” He puffed out his chest

Karin glanced toward the foliage outside the window. “Just grab my ass and drag me over to those trees. Then, we’ll see who wants to fight.”

But at that moment they heard the unmistakable sounds of their team breaking up and moving out. Ben’s voice shouted over the hubbub. “Sis?”

Komodo shrugged. “So? First, we’ll go save the world.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The team negotiated their way out of the castle and headed back down the hill toward the waiting cars. Hayden believed that Cayman, since he had remained below with his men and showed no signs of pursuit, had called in reinforcements. But that wasn’t the main reason they were moving out double-time.

As they ran, she dry swallowed painkillers. Every movement sent a bolt of fire through her wounded side. So far today, she’d taken enough painkillers to poleaxe a horse, but the adrenalin spurred her on. Twisted brush underfoot and thorny shrubbery to the side attempted to send her into a headlong tumble. As she emerged from cover, the entire city of Singen opened up before her, sprawling to the horizons.

Kinimaka steadied her with a huge arm. “If you’d let me carry you, boss, I’d do it.”

“I know, Mano, but not today.”

Jonathan Gates thoughtfully tapped his phone against the side of his leg. “So I stand here, a US Secretary of Defense, trying to decide who to call upon for help.” He gave them all a cheerless smile. “But I can’t think of a single person — with the right connections — who I trust.”

Hayden took a moment to steady herself. Over the last few weeks and months, she felt like she’d lived an entire lifetime. Her hopes, her dreams, her future — everything had changed. She kept imagining that one day she’d wake up to find it had all been a crazy dream. That Matt Drake and Ben Blake and Alicia Myles didn’t really exist — they were nothing more than the warped and fevered ghosts of her imagination.

But here she stood on the tree-dotted hillside of an ancient castle, above what had once been a volcano, long ago. Her boss and her colleagues were with her. The world was at stake.

A train ran between Stuttgart and Singen, bringing with it a cargo of civilians, mercenaries and death. One way or another, she had to get aboard that train.

She turned to Ben and Karin. “Get me the train’s details. I need exact times. I need all changes. The works.”

“On it,” Karin said immediately. Ben gave her a dull look before fishing out his iPhone. She didn’t smile at him. It was as if he knew her thoughts. Knew that they were as good as over.

Time to grow up, Ben.

Drake had been conversing quietly with his SAS buddies. Now he caught her eye and drifted over. “You grab those pieces,” he said in his Yorkshire accent. “Or destroy ’em. Or hide them somewhere. Just fuck those bastards up. Whatever it takes.”

“You’re not coming?”

“Alicia, Mai and I will be hitting Luxembourg. Wells was spying on Cayman and this Shadow Elite crowd for a decade. He worked for them. Knew their moves. I see a point coming in the very near future where that knowledge might be helpful.”

“And you’ll find your wife’s killer too?”

“I hope to get his identity. I won’t go after him until this thing with the tomb of the gods is over.”

“Make sure you keep in touch.”

“Every hour.”

Drake gave her a look, something full of respect and admiration and more than a little love. She knew right then, in a post-Ben world, that Matt Drake would remain her friend. She watched him walk away.

She turned toward Kinimaka, hoping to get a little heart-warming camaraderie, but Daniel Belmonte planted himself between them.

“You haven’t had need of my services so far,” he said with an impish smile. “But there goes a man who just might.” He nodded after Drake. “Do you mind?”

“Sure. Why would I mind?” Hayden sighed. “You’re here because you got caught up in the flow. You’re useless to me.”

“I’m the best at what I do.”

“Stop with the double-entendre’s, Belmonte. We had sex. Just the once. It was…” She met his eye. “Not bad, to be fair. But first and foremost, you’re a thief.” She looked at Drake. “So go be one.”

“My pleasure.”

“But, Belmonte,” she warned, “I know you think you’re god’s gift and all that, but take a piece of advice?”

“Try me.”

“Stay clear of Alicia Myles. She’s…blue-eyed disaster.”

As Belmonte walked away, deep speculation on his face, both Ben and Karin came walking over to her. Kinimaka shot her a “chin up” look. Gates put a gentle arm around her shoulder.

Ben said, “Stuttgart to Singen is over a four-hour journey. We have the time to drive to Zurich train station, where it stops for forty-five minutes, and board there. The trip from Zurich to Singen takes one hour…”

“Giving us sixty minutes to search the train, find the pieces and neutralize them.” Karin finished in classic sisterly fashion. “One way or another.”

Dahl had finished up on the phone to his Statsminister and caught the last part. He too stared after Drake. “Do not repeat this, but I’d give my career to have that man with us.”

“This is a team,” Hayden said firmly and felt Gates grip her shoulder hard. “Not a one-man effort. Between us, we’ll board the train, find the pieces and unmask the assholes behind all this. Now”—she started walking toward the cars, the throbbing wound in her side temporarily forgotten—“mount up.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Drake hurried over to bid farewell to Sam and his SAS pals. The man they’d left behind, Rob Ingles, was being quietly mourned in the way of soldiers. Mai had also lost loyal friends and was standing silently to one side. Drake waited for the somber moment to pass.

“We’re heading out,” he said at length. “How’s your standby situation, Sam?”

“As of now, mate, we’re good. We’re able to remain in Europe for at least a few more days. But within the week…” Sam made a face. “Some shiny arse is gonna catch on and this thing’s gonna have to be explained.”

“It will be,” Drake said, thinking of Jonathan Gates’s influence and Wells’s hidden research. An uneasy memory of his time in the SRT resurfaced then, like a bone-white hand rises from beneath the bed in the dead of night, to clasp its cold, clammy fingers around a man’s ankle. It was the time when his unit had been ordered not to interfere in the interrogation of the village. Orders from on high. Orders from who though? Maybe he’d find more than one answer among Wells’s papers.

“We’ll wait as long as we can,” Sam told him. “There’s three more teams currently operating in Europe. Just so you know.” He winked.

Drake thanked his friend and jumped into one of the cars, along with Mai, Alicia and Belmonte. Within seconds, they were leaving Hohentwiel and their friends in the rear-view and driving quickly to a private airstrip on the outskirts of Singen. Dahl’s people had secured Drake and his friends a special charter for their trip to Luxembourg — the general feeling being that the quicker he got there, the quicker he’d get back.

Silence reigned in the car. Belmonte tried a few quips to engage some kind of conversation but, for the other three, this was their down time. The drive afforded them the chance to unwind and recoup a small part of their tattered reserves.

As he drove, Drake found his brain dipping into waters so murky, he’d rather leave them undisturbed. Old fears had been raised, and with them, the non-resolution of newer fears. Mai Kitano, by his side, had given the teleportation device to the Blood King in return for her sister’s safety. An understandable act sure, but one she still needed to answer for. She had also kept the secret of his wife’s death from him for years.

And then there was Alicia Myles, lounging in the back seat, head back, blue eyes aimed toward the window, staring sightlessly at the fields and trees rolling by. She had not only kept the same secret, but she had been a part of Abel Frey’s murdering gang, and he was sure she was still highly motivated by hard cash. What she’d done for it in the past, he didn’t want to know.

But what might she do for it in the future?

His thoughts switched toward Ben Blake. They’d started this adventure together, only a couple of months ago. Now they were poles apart, separated by love, loss and necessity. Drake hadn’t even asked Ben to accompany them to Luxembourg. He’d known what the answer would be and, quite frankly, he judged they’d be better off without him.

A soldier’s judgment, not the decision of the civilian he thought he’d become. Life had turned again. As it often did.

But now was not the time to process any of it. If Dahl’s man in Iceland was right, then some kind of battle was coming, a battle to end all battles, and its outcome would decide who ran the world. The factors were already fighting in a narrowing theater of war. It was only a matter of time before they would all meet. The Shadow Elite had already shown their hand for the first time in an age, and were maneuvering toward a terrible end game. Drake and his friends were being isolated, cut down and impeded. Their window of opportunity was shrinking.

Hence Hayden’s crazy plan to board a passenger train.

“You give any thought as to how we’re going to do this?” Alicia spoke up without moving her position.

“It’s a suck-it-and-see scenario,” Drake told her.

“My favorite.”

“All I know is that the facility is near the airport. It’s nothing special, just a way-station of sorts. Only problem — it’ll be guarded by the best soldiers in the world.”

“Time for Mr. Belmonte to show his mettle.” Alicia watched the scenery flash by.

Drake pulled up outside the airfield. “You ready?”

The flight lasted only thirty minutes. All Drake could think about was Hayden, Dahl, Ben and the others who were currently speeding toward a crazy encounter. He wanted to be with them. But the fact that Wells had researched the Shadow Elite and taken the time to hide his findings in such an obscure place told Drake he would be better prepared by having it. And Alyson’s ghost had more than a chance of being laid to rest.

The plane dipped and then landed smoothly. Even though the airport was the expected eyesore of concrete and steel, the countryside that surrounded it looked picturesque and agreeable. Within minutes of leaving the plane, they were shown to a waiting vehicle. Then they were on their own.

Drake programmed the sat-nav with figures he’d taken from Wells’s recording and drove out of the airport. The secret facility was only a twenty-minute drive. About ten minutes before they got there, they passed a dingy-looking pub. Battered cars and gleaming bikes littered the car park. Even as they drove by, Drake saw a man crash through one of the windows to land headfirst in the dirt. A big bruiser filled the new gap, grinning and pouring half of the man’s pint on top of him. The other half he drank with gusto.

“My kinda place.” Alicia gave a grin.

“Aye up, Belmonte,” Drake said. “Do you wanna drive by now and have a little reccy, or stop and come up with a rough plan?”

“The reccy,” Belmonte said immediately. “Better to see what we’re dealing with.”

“Well, don’t get your hopes up,” Mai said. “This secret facility won’t come with its own guidebook.”

Drake slowed as the sat-nav announced they had reached their destination. The car skirted the back of the airport, where an industrial area had sprouted up. Warehouses and fast food shops, car showrooms and walled-in businesses. The one to their immediate right was a long, low warehouse surrounded by an iron gate with spikes and a high wall topped with razor wire. Nondescript signs had been fixed to the wall and the top of the warehouse itself. Horne Manufacturing.

“Good area for me.” Belmonte started a commentary. “Plenty of places to hide around here. Plenty of places to use as a staging area and a fallback point. Three ingress points are available, the fourth hard up against another unit. See there? A flat roof. Another plus. The warehouse isn’t too high, either. Razor wire everywhere, but that won’t be a problem. I spotted a discreet guardhouse inside the main gate, behind the posts. The extra security there rules it out for our use.”

Drake nodded. “Discount anything that will take time.”

“The best don’t need much time. In any case, we’re left with the walls, the air, or the other unit. Do you have any idea what that other unit might be?”

Drake shook his head. “My guess? Part of the same facility. From what Wells said, there are some storage rooms against the back wall of the big warehouse. Nothing fancy. We are talking army here, after all. He stashed his research there.”

“Why here?” Mai asked.

“Opportunity,” Drake said. “His status brought him here often. It’s chiefly a way-station, meaning it can be used for literally anything. Wells would’ve been called out here a lot.”

“But it’s still just a warehouse,” Belmonte said. “The men guarding it are good, yes, but chiefly it’s a brick, block and metal structure with the same basic design as any other. They wouldn’t have beefed the construction up.”

“No. But they wouldn’t have been complacent about the internal security, either.”

“One problem at a time,” Belmonte said. “Trust me. I’m the world’s greatest thief, after all.” A grin. “The weak point is where the walls of the first and second unit meet. There’s a return on the wall there — see — that runs back to the building and could give a good man access to the grounds and the roof.” Belmonte traced an imaginary tick in the air. “First problem — overcome.”

Alicia groaned. “And I let this clown into my pants. In my defense I was pissed at the time.”

Belmonte didn’t even look at her. “There are no windows. The door we can see is off-limits. This leaves us with only one play. The roof. But I’ll need a special tool. And it’ll be noisy.”

“Then come up with another plan.” Drake let his impatience show in his voice.

“There is no other plan. It’s a warehouse, not Buckingham Palace. There are only a finite few places of ingress. Besides, the roof plan will work. We just need a distraction.”

His eyes roved over Mai and Alicia. “And what better distractions could we possibly hope for?”

“You’re not seriously thinking of sending us in to…woo the guards?” Mai asked with a touch of incredulity.

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. What I have in mind is far more dangerous.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

If chasing the Blood King through the Gates of Hell had been the most dangerous moment of Matt Drake’s life, then walking into a bar full of truckers, junkies, cutthroats and thieves didn’t lag too far behind. Belmonte, the prissy Brit, went first. Then came Drake, and last of all came Mai and Alicia. Drake drifted through the smoky bar like a wisp trailed by a forest fire. Hard men with big arms and tattoos craned their shaggy heads around to check out the girls, their pints still poised at their lips. Scantily clad cage-dancers stopped their jaded gyrations, gripping the bars and poking their heads through to get a better look. Burly bouncers wearing tank tops and imitation Levis, patted their exposed Tasers and stood to attention, sensing the mood swing. Men propping up the bar halted their conversation and swung around as if they, too, sensed something different. Behind the bar itself, both barmen reached slowly underneath the wide length of chipped, scarred wood.

A hush fell over the place. After the men had checked out the girls, their cruel eyes sought out any opposition they might find — Belmonte and Drake.

Drake didn’t even have to scout the place. Knives were on tables. Lines of coke and heroin laid out in plain sight. A man with long hair and a Metallica T-shirt sat in the corner, kissing one of the girls deeply whilst twirling a pistol around a finger.

A gang bar. A serious one. He was surprised. On the whole, Luxembourg was a safe country, a prudent place to live, except for a few areas around the train station and the airport. Like this.

Smoke and harsh intentions thickened the air. The click of safety switches being slackened off made a sound like a startled rattlesnake. Drake imagined that any outsider who even tried to order a drink here would be lucky to leave the place alive.

Then Drake took out a wad of one-hundred euro notes almost too thick to hold in his hand. Slowly he flapped them in the direction of the hardest table in the room.

A bullet slipped through the stunned fingers of one of the bikers and the man’s mouth fell open faster than a spring-loaded trapdoor.

“So,” Drake said, “We’re looking to make you an offer you can’t refuse. Who do we need to speak to?”

They were going for a three-pronged operation. It had been deemed too dangerous for Drake to take part. The repercussions for getting caught would be bad for any of them, but for Drake, it would be infinitely worse. Belmonte had used his connections and skills to find the nearest location that could source them a laser cutter and a few choice tools with which to splice an operations board into an electronic panel. At first, Drake had doubted such tools could be so easily found, but when he saw their everyday nature and the ways Belmonte could adapt them for his own use, he soon found his confidence in the thief beginning to grow. Even the laser cutter itself was not a special tool. Most merchant tool outlets sold them.

So, Alicia had joined force with the bar gang — an experience she seemed to relish. Drake, hanging at the back of the crowd, had already winced several times in anticipation after some of her finer insults, but unsurprisingly they served only to make the bikers grow fonder of her. Already he’d noticed an exchange of numbers and a Bluetooth sharing of mobile data — photos or videos. He shook his head.

Alicia thrived on danger, got drunk with it. Tonight, she was in her element as the crowd of bikers and thieves approached the secret SAS facility.

At first, Belmonte and Mai stuck together. Staying to the shadows, they skirted the warehouse until they reached the point where its two buildings came together. Here they crouched for a while, impatiently waiting for the signal.

Now Belmonte, in addition to thievery, had one other delectation. The appreciation of beautiful women. Getting close to Mai had been the other reason he opted to join this operation and now seemed as good a time as any to get the ball rolling.

“You did the right thing,” he said. “You got your sister out. Then you got Kovalenko.”

“Drake got him, actually,” Mai said lightly. “I got Boudreau. And Chika will always be my first choice.”

“And what does your agency say to that?”

“My agency,” Mai repeated, “affords me some slack. Because they know what I can do.”

Belmonte wondered briefly if that was a veiled threat. But he was a confident man, and the more he talked, planned, and used his wits, then the less he would dwell on Emma and what had happened to her. “I hear you’re one of the best. I imagine you’ve heard the same about me…” He paused.

When Mai didn’t answer, he went on. “People like us, we should make the most of our time. Who knows how long we have left?”

Mai didn’t even look at him. “Which movie did that come from?”

“I’m good at what I do. Everything I do.”

“That’s so original. Save it for the next time you get drunk with someone like Myles.”

Belmonte peered around at the dark shapes of hedges swaying and ugly brick walls blocking out the faint stars. “I do believe you’re right. This isn’t quite the best setting.”

“You sound desperate, Belmonte,” Mai said evenly. “And I think we both know why. Get it straight in your head and then have another go.” She flashed him an unexpected grin. “Now a girl can’t be fairer than that, can she?”

Belmonte was about to answer, his own face creasing into a smile, when a loud explosion shattered the air.

Alicia’s signal.

Mai nodded up at the wall. “Mask on and move.”

Drake watched from the shadows, an act that now struck him as purely alien after the last few months of being called constantly into action. He couldn’t even listen to proceedings on an earpiece for fear of interfering with the facility’s or Belmonte’s delicate communications frequencies. The facility was an unknown quantity, thus they had had to base their plan on several informed assumptions. It had never been broken into or even challenged before, therefore it was assumed that, when a mob targeted it, most of the personnel inside would be sent to investigate and resolve the issue.

Most, but not all.

The warehouse would not have dedicated guards. The trained men inside would be considered enough, especially since no sensitive material was housed there. Drake watched as Alicia ran with the pack, flirting with drug dealers and gunrunners, and reminded himself not to get too comfortable with her presence. Or with her loyalty.

She was a woman apart. One who lived, worked and played only for herself.

His mind flickered backward in time, to Kennedy Moore, and the brief months they had shared. Her loss was a scorched and ragged hole in his heart, one he’d tried to fill with forgetting, but now was trying to overcome. God, it was hard. Even in the midst of all this, with barely a second to think, the grief and the loneliness threatened to overwhelm him. And now, Alyson’s memories had also swirled up from the bottom of the deep abyss he’d buried them in, clutching for purchase in his already scarred and battered brain.

And Ben Blake. Poor old Ben had been on his own since the moment his hands were literally stained with Kennedy’s blood. Drake couldn’t help that. It was a harsh way to grow up. But at least it was growing up. At least it was life.

Ben still has a chance with Hayden, Drake thought, and he needs her. He needed every good, stable and combative thing about her. Hayden was a woman who knew how to fight for the good things in her life. A true warrior. But Ben’s chance with her was quickly diminishing.

At that moment, one of the lead bikers launched his petrol bomb against the wall of the compound. There was a smash of glass and a brief flame, then belching smoke and an aggressive cheer. Even Alicia joined in. Drake shook his head and secreted himself in the shadows.

Men of the British elite forces were rushing to the gate.

Belmonte climbed first, Mai a foot behind. When he reached the horizontal wall, he flattened his frame and scurried across like a rat through a narrow drain. His balance and technique were perfect. He paused on the edge of the warehouse roof, hugging the curve, just one more shadow against the black. Mai slithered next to him.

Belmonte unhooked the device he’d fashioned and lowered his body precariously until he was level with a junction box, legs and feet hooked around the eaves of the building and the brick wall. Mai scampered over him and quickly found the position they had pinpointed from the ground earlier. If she gained entry here, she’d be able to lower herself into the warehouse, into the section containing the box files. Now she took out a laser cutter and, without waiting for Belmonte, started to quickly cut through the sheet steel roof decking. Belmonte had said it would be made up of 1mm metal lying atop Rockwool sandwich panels with a polyurethane backing. The laser cutter made short work of the metal, slicing through in seconds, and then allowed her to take away the Rockwool in one thick chunk, granting her the option of replacing the roof elements if they made good their escape without drawing attention.

“Wait,” Mai whispered, seeing more men heading toward the burning fires at the gates. “Give them all a chance to get out there.”

Then she signaled him, and it was suddenly do or die. Belmonte had told them early on that, as this short notice and without specialized equipment, he couldn’t possibly circumvent the alarm system, but he could rig something that would be able to splice into the electronics. Not a major problem.

He flicked a switch and the facilities main door came crashing down. Now most of the soldiers were locked out.

Mai had already rigged her descender, the hardest and most expensive of the items they had had to source. Now she threw herself through the hole and toward the warehouse floor. As she fell, she hurled half a dozen of the gang’s improvised smoke bombs in all directions, her sharp eyes clocking the positions of six men. There would be others.

She landed softly, bouncing on the soles of her feet. Despite the restrictions of the mask, she could clearly see the ordered rows of box files that stretched to her left and right. The box immediately before her was lettered C.

Then she heard the sound of choking men and thumping boots. Of course someone had seen her. Even amidst the smoke, they would know how to search and track and corner her. She had to move fast.

Dashing to her right she followed the letters to F and a box junction. She could either move down it and search for W or keep moving. At that moment, a figure emerged out of the billowing gloom. With the advantage of surprise, Mai made sure her first blow was effective, staggering the man to his knees. Even then, he somehow blocked the second, but Mai was no lightweight and her third rendered him unconscious.

Down the junction she rushed. Another aisle opened up. She glimpsed the letter S. She ran that way and soon came to W. She was lost among the box aisles. She thumbed her way until she found the small box marked “Wells,” an unassuming cardboard drawer that might hold the secrets to unlocking a shadowy organization and a killer. Mai emptied out the contents, replaced the box carefully, and stuffed Wells’s research into her backpack.

Then she crouched and waited, letting her senses stream in every direction. It was always best to hold your nerve and wait, to scout out your aggressors rather than rush in headlong, hoping for the best.

They were advancing up the main aisle. They couldn’t stop the smoke from getting into their throats, even with their training. It was just too thick, too acrid. Mai backed away in a crouch, hugging the floor, staying low as she exited her aisle and began to swing back around in a wide arc toward her original position.

She wasn’t a woman who usually relied on hope. But this was a fast, fluid and high- risk operation. Her hope was that the descender wire hadn’t been found. An image of the building’s floor plan was firmly fixed in her mind, seen as she descended only minutes ago. Now she deftly negotiated her way around a long wooden table littered with cups, plates and utensils and surrounded by dozens of abandoned chairs. One of the guards, a man with red cheeks and streaming eyes, passed within a few feet of her, but her crouching, rigidly immobile figure never registered on his radar. To help her cause, there suddenly came the banging of many fists on the main warehouse door and then some shouting to get back.

The SAS would be through in seconds. No doubt they had weapons, but even if they hadn’t, they would quickly jury-rig some kind of device that would open the door. And then the smoke would quickly dissipate.

But Mai was fleet of foot and reached the stationary black line of the descender in seconds. With a quick movement, she hooked it to her harness and pressed the button. The machine took her up toward the rafters, now above the heads of the searchers below.

And out into the cold night. Smoke filtered through the gap behind her. Mai spent twenty seconds replacing the roof components and wedging them tight, then slid back onto the brick wall.

Belmonte was crouched at the far end, waiting. “Poetry in motion.”

They quickly dropped to the pavement, draping themselves in the deep shadows. Drake and Alicia were already waiting up ahead.

Mai nodded in answer to Drake’s questioning glance. “I took everything. If Wells had anything on this Shadow Elite group or your wife’s killer, it’s right here. All that’s left is to read it.”

The Englishman almost smiled.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

In the dark and haunted places below our chaotic world, there are evil men who contemplate diabolical deeds. It’s not that there is no light in their lives; it’s that they feel great joy in bringing darkness to others. The more limitless their power, the more it consumes them, eating through their heart and soul until only an icy, uncaring shell remains.

Russell Cayman had been a child once, a blank slate. But not even being left to die in a ditch by his junkie parents had turned him into the man he had become today. Nature or nurture might have molded him differently, but he had had neither. Instead, the system swallowed him whole and churned him out, a child forgotten, a child alone. A vulnerable adult who the government could manipulate with deceit and trickery.

Now he was a machine, but ironically, a machine working for the people who owned the very government that had beguiled him. Down here, in the dark pits of the earth, he felt at home. The lone reminder of his life were the men tramping around the tombs. If they were to depart, he might very well lay down in one of the coffins, in the arms of Kali or Callisto, finding a comfort and a solace amongst the long-dead, evil gods that he had never experienced in life.

He directed his men. He supervised the clearing of the floor areas around the eight altars so they could receive the eight pieces without obstruction. He reviewed the points that might come up in his forthcoming call to the Norseman — the boss of bosses.

But his eyes lingered on the tombs. On their Spartan, uncluttered perfection. He needed that lack of disorder to calm his mind. He had been told that the tomb of Amatsu lay at his back, a deity literally called the God of Evil. In a quiet moment, Cayman ventured inside and used all of his strength to crowbar open the lid. It didn’t move far, but an ancient dust blew out straight up Cayman’s nostrils.

The protector of the Shadow Elite breathed deeply. A soft susurration rustled around the roughhewn room. Cayman could quite happily die here. He bent over the edge and reached blindly inside. Something clunked over in a dark corner. His sharp eyes saw nothing. A tiny whirlwind skipped across the floor, stirring dust and debris, originating from nothing and imploding a moment later as if it had never existed.

Cayman’s fingers closed over hard bone. It was cold and rough. The edges were sharp and might have cut him had he been given time to press his wrist to them.

But an alien beeping noise tore him back to the present. The sound of his watch alarm.

It was time to return to the surface and call the Norseman.

Cayman withdrew his arm with a depressed sigh. The feel of the old bones still stayed with him as he headed back out of the darkness and into the sunlight. The perfect tomb clutched at his heart, but the Shadow Elite’s clutches were far tighter and went much deeper. Once he had followed an old protocol and checked his perimeter, then locked himself inside one of the military choppers and switched on its frequency blocking system, he finally used an untraceable sat-phone to contact the Norseman.

“Where are we?” No greeting, no compromise, just the deep melancholic tones demanding a status report.

“The pieces are on their way here,” Cayman said, equally blunt. “There have been no problems to date. The tomb is prepared.”

“What of the escapees?”

“Dispersed. Undoubtedly trying to thwart us again. Their kind will never leave well enough alone. But our discipline will win the day.”

“Your discipline,” the Norseman said after a pause. “That is why you are our disciple and our word. It is your discipline that will hold your unruly men together and win this day.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not a compliment, Cayman.” The Norseman sighed. “It’s a threat. Do you see?”

“Yes.” Cayman kicked himself for not remaining focused. With half a brain still consorting with Amatsu in his tomb, the ex-DIA man was no match for someone as formidable as the Norseman. Claiming to be a descendant of the great exploring Viking Eric the Red — and who was there to refute him? — the Norseman was a larger-than-life figure who had inherited untold wealth and the senior position in the Shadow Elite council upon his father’s death. Since that time, decades ago, the Shadow Elite had not stagnated or regressed. They had taken great strides forward in securing their already redoubtable position.

“They may know about the train.” The Norseman was always pragmatic. “They may even try to stop us. It is always their way, to flounder and thwart. The Elite are gathering in Vienna right now. You know where.”

“Where they have always gathered.” Cayman was used to the Norseman’s chatter. He believed the great leader liked to hear his own thoughts spoken aloud and used Cayman as a sounding board.

“The old place. Grey. Aldridge. Thomas. Leng. And young Holgate — always the upstart. But his deportment has changed of late. It is something I will be addressing once I reach Vienna.”

“You’re not there?” Cayman immediately kicked himself for the stupidity of the question. If one of his own men had asked that kind of question, Cayman would be tempted to shoot him on the spot.

But the Norseman was seemingly lost in expressing his thoughts. “I’m at home. The Prague fortress is impregnable. Not even an army could get in here. Once I know the pieces have been activated, I will depart for Vienna. Now tell me, Cayman, has the Wells thing been cleaned up?”

“Yes, sir. All checked and clean. No leaks there.”

“Good. And Drake?”

Cayman hesitated. “Drake?”

“We know him of old. You know that. If he were ever to find us—”

Cayman was truly stunned. He had never heard even the slightest expression of fear in the Norseman’s voice before. The ex-DIA man thought back to Drake’s prowess in the tomb and quickly revised his opinions.

“If he shows his face again, sir, I will obliterate it.”

“We cannot fail then.” The Norseman’s voice came as close to happiness as was possible for one such as him. “Short of a miracle, the pieces can’t be stopped. The entire world will cower before us. Our rule, already absolute, will be preserved forever.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Hayden and her team made Zurich train station by the skin of their teeth. Once inside, even as she ran and scanned the big blue boards for their platform number, Hayden was struck by the polished cleanliness of the station. The vast floor seemed to shine, the arched alcoves that led to retail outlets looked cozy, warm and inviting, quite the opposite of most train stations she’d ever visited. Bizarre and colorful balloons hung from the ceiling. Tourists dressed in all manner of clothing drifted and bumped past each other, focused on their own schedules. The noise level swelled and decreased as groups marched past them.

Karin was first to spot it. “Singen!” She raced off in the direction of the platforms and Hayden and the rest rushed after her, painfully aware they had only minutes to make the train. When they found the big engine burbling loudly, the CIA agent heaved a sigh of relief.

Karin sent a questioning glance.

“Just get on,” Hayden shouted. “We’ll worry about the ‘where’ later.”

A red and white stripe ran for a few carriages at the point she jumped on to the train. She noticed a huge green Starbucks logo as she leapt through the door. The craving for a double-strong Caramel Macchiato hit her like a bullet, but at that moment, there was the sound of the doors locking and the engine’s note strengthening. They were on their way.

Dahl spoke up immediately. “We have one hour,” he said, “to find the pieces and stop them reaching Singen. Let’s move.”

Hayden stepped up. She led the way through the first carriage and then, as if in odd answer to her prayers, the Starbucks logo appeared once again and she was suddenly walking through a coffee shop right there on the train. A fully functioning outlet.

Ben’s voice could be heard from the back. “I never heard of a Starbucks on a train before.”

The Barista popped up from behind the counter with startling efficiency, making both Dahl and Kinimaka flinch and reach for weapons they had decided not to risk carrying through the busy station.

“It’s a trial train,” she said, blond hair tied fiercely back. “Built here in Zurich.” The lilt in her voice betrayed her pride. “If it works— it could go global.”

“Smart idea,” Ben said. “Do trial trains offer free drinks?”

The Barista’s eyes twinkled. “We stop at waitress service, I’m afraid. And that’s only at trial.”

Hayden paused as she reached the next carriage, studying the passengers. Every seat was taken. But all she could see were women and children, students and tourists. Big backpacks stacked everywhere. A thumping musical beat heard through tiny earphones. A youth talking loudly into his mobile phone.

She walked on, clearing the carriage in seconds. The next proved to be a mirror image of the first. When they reached the third and it too was jam-packed with a mixed bunch of happy-go-lucky tourists and blithe locals, Dahl called for a halt in the corridor between cars. Quickly he tugged down the window and stuck his head out.

“Three more standard carriages,” he said after securing the window. “Then two extra cars at the back of the train…” He paused. “With blacked out windows.”

Kinimaka grunted. “Could they be any more obvious?”

“They’re the type of people who can pull the right strings to get two extra cars put on a civilian passenger train at short notice,” Hayden said grimly. “They don’t care, Mano. They believe they’re all-powerful.”

Dahl nodded. “Hayden’s right. These people expect — they don’t ask. Let’s go.”

“So we’re gonna simply walk up to their carriage and charge inside?” Karin asked, her quick brain trying to come up with alternatives. “It’s a big risk to take.”

“We’re soldiers, miss,” Dahl told her. “That’s what we do.”

“And into the valley of death…” Karin recited, then to the blank looks she said, “It’s a poem. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. Remember?”

Dahl nodded. “It’s a poem about great heroism.”

Karin nodded. “Charge for the guns…don’t forget these guys were on horses and wielding only sabers. Cannon to the left of them, cannon to the right of them, cannon in front of them. While horse and hero fell.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Hayden turned an eye toward the next carriage and what lay beyond. “Let’s go.”

In silence they threaded through the next three cars. The tension rose among them. They had no weapons and no plan. All they had was the courage in their hearts and the knowledge that the eight pieces could either hold millions of innocents to ransom, or destroy them. Nothing else mattered right now. As they entered the last carriage, Hayden felt Dahl shoulder past her and, for a moment, felt a little begrudged, but then she realized — the Swede had taken point, not because he doubted her, but because he was, simply, the man who would always step up. He knew no other way.

Toward the rear of the last civilian carriage, Dahl slowed. Hayden peered around his big shoulders. The next car was accessible through a sliding door, but all the glass was tinted. Not even the vaguest of shapes could be seen in the compartment beyond.

Hayden put a hand on the Swede’s shoulder. “Just wait a moment.” She cast around, desperately seeking inspiration. Anything that meant they would not have to walk blindly into the dragon’s den.

At that moment she heard a voice behind them.

“Excuse me. Can I get through? I have coffee for the rear carriage.”

She turned. The voice belonged to the Barista they had passed a few minutes ago. Hayden smiled. “I sure hope that coffee’s good and hot.”

A few seconds later, Hayden had donned the green tunic and balanced a tray full of paper cups in one hand. The Barista was sitting in a window seat, staring at them with pleading eyes and intimating that her district manager was going to be super pissed, this being the maiden voyage and all.

Kinimaka held her wrist. “Uh, boss. You sure ‘bout this? They have male Baristas too, ya know.”

“Mano, I’m fine. What the hell’s wrong with you? You didn’t care this much before I got stabbed. Twice.”

Kinimaka turned away. Hayden stared after him for a second, then met the eyes of Ben Blake over the huge Hawaiian’s shoulder.

He nodded at her, no expression on his face, but a shimmer of love in his eyes. Hayden didn’t have time for it. She breathed deeply, faced down her fear, and stepped forward.

Straight into the dragon’s den.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Matt Drake could barely contain his feelings of anxiety and dread as he walked into a restaurant near Luxembourg airport and headed straight for the bar. It was all he could do not to rip the rucksack off Mai’s back and start leafing through its contents.

Alicia pulled him back. “Wrong way, Drakey. You’re s’posed to be trying to give up the good stuff, remember?”

He let her lead him to a dimly lit booth, eyes locked onto the amber nectar the whole way. It took a huge inner effort, and some as yet unresolved arguments about the depths both Mai and Alicia had already stopped to over the last few years, to steady his resolve.

Mai had exchanged a time travel device for her sister. Not only that, she had given it to a madman, a crazy billionaire. She had also killed Wells, Drake’s ex-commander and a man Drake even now believed would be exonerated by his research.

Alicia had been part of Abel Frey’s plot to steal the bones of Odin. She had kept too many secrets for far, far too long. Drake had yet to fathom her true motives, and still couldn’t decide whether she would stay loyal or sell him out to the highest bidder.

But all that was light entertainment compared to the secrets they were about to unearth.

Mai unstrapped the bag and sat down in the corner. Drake took the seat opposite. Alicia squeezed in next to her. Belmonte took a look and then drifted off to the bar to order some food.

“He took Emma’s death really hard,” Mai said. “It’s the only reason he’s helping us.”

“He’s good,” Drake admitted. “The way he located those parts out of nothing. The hack. And, not forgetting the money he gave us to pay off the bikers.”

“That’s partly what worries me,” Mai said as she unfastened the rucksack. “Belmonte’s a thief. He takes what he wants and gives nothing away.”

“Perhaps Emma’s death brought him some perspective.” Drake restrained himself from reaching for the sheaf of papers that fell on to the table. Mai took a moment to divide them into thirds.

Belmonte returned with four glasses of water and a round of black coffees. “Ordered a load of tapas,” he said with a shrug. “Seemed like a plan.”

Drake barely heard him. Wells’s writing was small and spidery and difficult to decipher. After a while he realized he was reading about Wells’s secret investigation into the Shadow Elite’s headquarters. Reading it like this, all at once, diminished the danger and skill that Wells had employed. Almost every paragraph was written in a different pen. Drake remembered that Wells had been digging for a decade.

One paragraph spoke of a journey to Vienna. Another of a man called Russell Cayman being admitted to the “inner circle”—an achievement only afforded to one outsider every lifetime. That outsider would fight all his days to further the organization’s aims and to keep their identities concealed. After the initiation it would be all he lived for.

“If there was ever any doubt,” Drake said aloud, “this confirms that Cayman’s our way in to the Shadow Elite. Maybe we should have grabbed him back at Singen.”

“Not even sure we could have handled that.” Alicia snorted.

“No. But Dahl’s a machine.” Drake smiled. “Just point and command.”

Mai spoke up. “I don’t like what I’m reading here.” She looked up at Drake. “It’s about Operation Doubledown.”

“What?”

The tapas arrived. Belmonte cleared a space, allowing the waitress to carefully place the small bowls around the table. As she walked away, Mai started to read aloud.

“The op was running smoothly, but then took an unfortunate turn. Unexpectedly, the roads started to lead toward home and Drake wasn’t letting go.”

“Doubledown was my last op,” Drake said to the table. “Everything was perfect and then we received orders to walk away.” He paused. “We were about to investigate someone who we thought might be a covert terrorist. A man who lived in Vienna.”

Mai had been reading to herself. “Oh, Matt. This gets worse. The operation would have led, ultimately, straight to the Shadow Elite. Wells was under deadly pressure to terminate it. One way or another. The interrogation you witnessed…”

Drake flashed back to that dreadful day as part of the SRT team when he had witnessed a bunch of soldiers interrogating some villagers. Worse, when he had immediately called up Wells, his field commander, he’d been told to leave it alone. Leave it well alone. It had been the beginning of his disillusion with the army and had turned his priorities severely around.

“I remember.” He was aware of Alicia’s nod. She’d been there too.

“That day also had something to do with the Shadow Elite. They were looking for someone, seeking information. ‘Their arrogance,’ Wells has written. ‘Their righteous, self-serving, disgusting arrogance.’ These people”—Mai looked up—“they do whatever they want to whoever they want.”

“I get that,” Drake said. “What else?”

Mai read on and then suddenly stopped. Her eyes widened. The color drained from her cheeks and she looked up at Drake, open-mouthed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Drake closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Go on.”

“I…I will read it word for word. ‘Drake was just too headstrong. Doubledown was his baby and he was loving it. It needed to stop, and stop quickly. The council gave me the ultimatum. I compromised by offering up a new idea. I proposed the ‘accidental’ death of his wife. In the middle of the op, I ordered a brief break, sent everyone home and gave the order. I procured Coyote and gave him the go. It happened on the night of an argument, which was perfect…’” Mai stopped talking. “There’s more. But—”

Drake opened his eyes to stare at her in horror. “Wells ordered Alyson’s murder? Wells?”

“To divert you — us — away from the Shadow Elite,” Alicia said in an undertone, even her hard resolve fractured by the revelation.

Drake’s throat was rasping as he said, “So Wells knew about Doubledown and where it was going. Which was Vienna. He knew about the murdered villagers. He ordered Alyson’s death. Wells was a fucking snake.”

“Who gave his life to the Shadow Elite,” Belmonte said. “But what did they give him in return?”

“Wells was a patriot,” Drake said. “A true English patriot. It would have taken a lot of convincing for him to betray his country.”

“I don’t believe he thought he was betraying his country,” Mai said now as she read on. “There’s something else.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Hayden pushed through into the blacked-out carriage, smiling as a dozen suspicious glances nailed her. But then she saw the true power of the Starbucks logo as every one of those stern-faced bad guys sat back and relaxed upon seeing her, like toddlers all lined up in a row awaiting their party drinks.

“Venti misto, two extra shots, with whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce.” She stepped forward into their midst, taking advantage of their uncertainty as the train thrummed and swayed along the tracks.

Most of Cayman’s men turned to stare at each other, confusion written clearly on their faces. Hayden saw skepticism in only two pairs of eyes and it was toward these that she quickly stepped.

And hurled two paper cups of boiling hot coffee. She had already loosened the lids and the steaming liquid flew out in a scalding stream. The men screamed, hands flying toward their faces. Hayden leapt on one man’s lap, wrestled his handgun out of its holster and spun, firing across the carriage.

At the same time, making lots of noise, Dahl, Kinimaka and Komodo burst through the door, a fearsome sight on any day, and threw themselves at the mercenaries. Cayman’s men were experienced and recovered quickly. Dahl destroyed the first’s face with a haymaker, but when he turned to a second opponent, he was already jabbing with an elbow. Dahl took it in the eye, growled, and grabbed the man’s neck. With no time to pause and throttle the life out of him, he simply threw him across the car to fall among his compatriots.

Green trees and fields flashed by the two-way windows. A gun thumped to the floor, right at Kinimaka’s feet. The Hawaiian had been clubbed on the head and was falling, but scooped the gun up and fired in a single movement before crashing to the carpeted floor. A mercenary fell, one knee shattered. Kinimaka lay prone, eyes switching to the front and toward his boss.

Hayden had taken out two of the mercenaries before they even had a chance to move, but two more had used those precious seconds to drag weapons free from concealed holsters. Now, as Hayden stared down those cold barrels, she saw the men who held them wrenched to the side as bullets passed through their skulls. Kinimaka had saved her life, firing from the floor.

Hayden rolled onto the floor a split second before another man fired, coming up level with his knee, so close she could have taken a bite. Then, she felt a huge presence above her and watched in awe as Komodo, having launched himself at full speed, took out the remaining row of mercenaries like bowling balls. He landed at the rear of the carriage in a heap, groaning. Injured mercenaries smashed their heads against the windows or tumbled to the floor in his wake. Hayden wasted no time in picking them off, shooting each one through the head in cold-blooded detachment. They all knew what they were doing when they signed up for this shindig.

The first private car cleared, they ran directly for the second one. Hayden heard a hubbub behind her. Passengers had obviously heard the shooting and were beginning to raise the alarm. One saving grace of this op was that no civilians were in the firing line. She saw Ben and Karin enter the first car and start collecting weapons.

Then she was inside the second car. But the reception this time was not as befuddled. She found herself facing half a dozen men with weapons raised. Another half dozen sat on seats at the rear of the carriage with the eight pieces of Odin arranged around them.

One of them men frowned. “You’re on your own?”

Dahl had paused in the corridor that separated the carriages and again lifted one of the windows. In the space of three seconds, he slithered out, gripped a tiny ledge that ran along the top of the speeding train, and hauled himself outside. Instantly, a heavy wind began to buffet his body, making him sway precariously. A tree flashed past close to the track, one of its branches whipping his back, tearing through his clothes and drawing a line of blood. With a quick lunge, he threw himself atop the train, staying low for balance.

A short gap separated him from the rear car. Ignoring the wind that slammed at him like Thor’s hammer, he leapt over the gap and, even as he jumped, scouted out his options through the nearest skylight in the car below.

Komodo landed behind him. The two big men crab-walked forward, guns in hand.

The train suddenly emerged from a mountain pass into a long sweeping bend. A motorway ran alongside. Dahl saw cars and a coach traveling alongside them, their occupants going bug-eyed when they saw the men on top of the clattering train.

Dahl trod as lightly as he could, eyes locked firmly on his forthcoming victims. He moved to the second skylight, sighting on the group of mercs at the rear of the car, leaving the first group for Komodo to take care of.

A moment of extreme tension stretched on a hair-trigger.

Hayden took a second to gain their attention. “It’s just me now.”

She saw them visibly relax. Even a few smiles appeared. None of them looked up. She deliberately let her gaze wander over to the window where the motorway had just appeared, knowing that most of them would follow her lead. She stared.

Silence fell over the carriage like a lead curtain. Hayden allowed her gun to dangle between two fingers.

The sound of gunfire and shattering Perspex tore the silence apart. Men were hit high in the chest and around the head. Blood and bone leapt into the air, painting patterns like random hieroglyphs. A cloud of red almost obliterated the front group of men. Hayden recovered her gun grip in a millisecond but found she had nowhere to aim. She couldn’t even see the rear group of men.

A second’s delay as first Dahl and then Komodo jumped down through the shattered skylights, landing like cats — on their feet but with guns ready. Dahl, in his distinctive way, calmly reloaded his weapon in free-fall, thinking nothing of it.

Another silence reigned. This one filled with the relief of being alive. Hayden flicked her gaze over all the slumped men. Kinimaka filed in behind her, closely followed by Ben and Karin.

The smell of blood and death laid a cloying stench like a shroud over the carriage. Hayden moved forward, glancing at the eight pieces of Odin. All seemed in order, though the Valkyries had taken a couple of stray rounds. Men were sprawled all around them.

And then Hayden saw one of the men snake his arm out to grab hold of a mobile phone. Within a split second he held it in his hand and his black eyes, crawling with malice, met hers…

Mai looked up from what she was reading and locked eyes with Drake. The look she sent him was one of disbelief, of outrage, of incomprehension, that said even the best and most experienced Japanese agent alive could barely believe.

“These people.” She breathed. “They will stop…at nothing.”

“No!” Hayden screamed.

But the man’s finger hit the call button, sending the signal flying away into the atmosphere. The bomb exploded almost instantaneously. It erupted in a great, scything cloud of metal and fire, totally destroying the underside of the first private carriage where it had been positioned. The blast tore through the bottom of the carriages, making the rear end of the last civilian car lift entirely clear of the tracks. People were sent sprawling across the aisle and crashing into the seat in front of them. Bags and laptops, bottles of water and mobiles, Kindles and magazines all went skimming through the air. Screams of panic and yells of pain grew in volume like a hellish chorus.

Hayden and the rest of her team were thrown to the floor, landing in a tangle amidst the dead and dying mercenaries. Their weapons tumbled away. The force of the blast left them momentarily senseless.

Then, the worst happened. The last civilian car smashed back down onto the tracks but missed the rails. Instead, it hit the wooden sleepers, ballast, fasteners and subgrade with an almighty grinding sound and caused the entire train to slew to the side. Seen from afar, all the carriages tilted to one side and started a nightmarishly slow fall onto their sides. When it hit the ground, the train was still traveling fast, but the sudden impact with mercifully soft earth caused it to slow down fast. A bow wave of dirt caromed over the engine and the driver’s compartment and the first carriage. The last few carriages sprayed out, away from the body of the train, and even as Hayden raised her head, still stunned and reeling, her heart almost stopped at what she saw.

The last two cars skidded away from the train tracks and struck a bank of dirt, causing the last car to veer upwards and swing so that its rear end swayed out across the motorway that ran parallel. Vehicles swerved and skidded to a halt. Terrified motorists aimed their cars in any direction except forward.

A small smart car slammed into the rear of the train. A Land Rover swung sharply sideways, but still hit the smart car with its rear end. Another vehicle pranged the Land Rover.

Hayden willed her body to respond, but sensed a heavy blackness about to take over. The blast seemed not only to have disoriented her, but knocked out her sense of balance and reasoning. Even Dahl lay unmoving to her right.

And then, unbelievably, close to her ear she heard a voice crackle across one of the dead mercenaries mobile phones.

“This is Cayman. Train is compromised. We are on to plan B. Repeat plan B. Are you there?”

A response from a third party came immediately over the open line. “We have been tracking the train by road as instructed sir. The rear carriage is…well, it’s actually in front of us.”

“Get in there,” Cayman ordered. “Recover the pieces and…” He paused. “New orders from the Norseman. Bring the bastards who tried to stop us. Bring them to Prague.”

As the blackness claimed her, Hayden was left with only a single thought. Call Matt Drake. Bringing every ounce of her training, every contested second of her battle to match her father’s name to bear, she endeavored to make the call.

Cayman’s last words stayed with her. “Prague is a fortress. Not even an army could reach us there.”