The Tomb of the Gods

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Among the deserted houses the team crept, just waiting for that moment — the step that proved to be the one too far. It came quickly. They managed to quietly despatch another three of the terrorists’ perimeter guards before it happened, but the fourth’s finger squeezed reflexively on the trigger as he died.

Shots rang out, horrendously loud among the grim concrete walls. In that moment every man and woman sprang to life. Guns up, the teams darted between the buildings, spreading out to ensure nobody flanked them. Gunshots rang out as more terrorist guards began to converge. Drake saw a bobbing figure up ahead, fired, and blew a corner of the wall away in a hard, sharp spray. One of the SAS teams had climbed to the rooftops and were keeping pace up there. Every corner posed a new problem, every turn of the street threw shadows and potential hiding places in their faces.

Drake advanced steadily, Mai and Alicia — the two people he would most want at his side in this situation — keeping pace. Every few seconds, more shots rang out. He could only imagine the panic in the plaza, the arms being packed away and the choppers being warmed up. With a quick jab he keyed his chest mic. “Make sure the Norseman’s kept handy. If anyone knows who has the pieces, it’s him.”

The chance was slim, he knew, but they couldn’t afford to miss even the slimmest opportunity here today.

“I miss this,” Alicia said happily at his side. “Late nights, days of battle and rough sex. My kind of living.” She opened fire as a man peered around a corner ahead, blowing a small part of his head away.

More streets, and the attackers spread out even more until their line grew dangerously thin. Drake saw the final few houses ahead where the ground sloped away towards the plaza and hurried forward.

His mic buzzed. “Problem.”

“What?”

But then he reached the summit of the hill himself and flashed a glance down. A large amount of terrorist guards and what looked like hired mercenaries were running toward them, staying low and firing in sequence so that never a second passed without a bullet in flight. A well-organized force.

Drake cast quickly about. The containers were a few hundred yards to their right, offering advancement and cover. He keyed the mic. “Move right.”

They side-stepped quickly, backs to the houses, firing tenaciously and throwing dozens of grenades. Bullets flashed in both directions, hammering against the house walls like thunder, showering those around with mortar, digging up dirt around the advancing terrorists, spinning some around and sending others hurtling back down the bloody slope. Explosions tore up rock and soil, flesh and bone. A desperate melee of death and destruction saw Drake’s whole team dodging to the right and digging into positions among the high, steel containers. Drake threw himself to the hard earth, kicking up dust and stones, wasting no time as he sighted on those below and blasted out another barrage of lead.

Then the attackers crested the hill, still firing, and were suddenly among them. Drake fired twice, still prone, taking two men out, then rose and met a head-on assault. He smashed the butt of his rifle into the man’s teeth, felt a spray of blood, lifted the weapon and brought it hard down on the top of his head. The man fell to his knees. Drake drew the knife with his other hand and finished it. Another man flung himself at the Englishman. Drake simply stood, unbendable, and met the man’s flight with a powerful head-butt to the face. Without sound or movement, his attacker collapsed in a heap.

Gunfire, grunting and screaming, shouts of mercy and cries of bloodlust pierced the day. Mai took a surprise elbow to the face and stumbled back against a metal siding, weapon falling. Drake was almost too stunned to react, to help her, but before he could even move, Alicia drew her pistol, spun and shot the adversary in the time it took him to draw a single breath.

Mai blinked at her. “Thanks.”

Alicia just winked before turning her attention back to the man she had by the throat.

Drake shook his head. “This is all just a delay tactic.” He could see beyond the edge now, down into the plaza. The terrorist leaders were just finishing up their business as if it were a steady day at the local meat market. They didn’t hurry. Barely a single one cast even a glance up the hill to the place where men fought and died on their behalf.

“Damn their arrogance,” he whispered furiously. “But it’ll cost them.”

As the onslaught began to thin out, Drake advanced. He took a quick look around, taking stock. He couldn’t see everyone, but saw no fatalities on their side.

“To me,” he said into the mic. “To the plaza.”

Men emerged from between the containers, weapons ready, steadfastly determined to make the next advance. With high and constant vigilance, they swept down the hill, shooting everything that moved ahead. Now, to Drake’s satisfaction, the terrorist leaders and arms dealers were fleeing with abandon, leaving personal bodyguards and crates and boxes of armaments and missiles in their wake.

Beyond the plaza he saw choppers with rotors already whirling and many of the terrorist’s security personnel digging into strategic positions. Some of the weapons he saw being readied were more than daunting. The huge tent sat serene, its sides flapping in the breeze, an oasis of calm amidst the storm.

To Drake’s left, Hayden appeared in his sight, bounding alongside with the ever-present Kinimaka watching her back. The Hawaiian seemed even more concerned than usual with keeping his boss safe. Probably due to the painkillers, Hayden would be thinking she was invincible. Drake fired at movement ahead, wishing he felt the same way. More gunfire and a stray shot slammed into a box of missiles, sending the lot up in a humongous explosion that rivaled the best New Years Eve firework display.

But these were deadly missiles, exploding fragments and small, deadly warheads. Drake and his team, to a man, threw themselves headlong into the dirt and kept their heads down. When he looked up, Drake saw a fireball whooshing to the sky. Trails of thick, black smoke streamed all around it. He scrambled up. Members of the enemy force, twisted hunks of metal and smoldering timbers now littered the plaza.

Drake advanced onto the square, roughly paved surface, cracking off a shot every now and then when something moved. A man ran at him from behind a fiery hunk of destroyed timbers, but Dahl was quick to meet and stop him dead in his tracks. Literally.

The team hiked across the square, surrounded by flames and destruction, sweeping for any signs of life or enemy snipers. Dahl found an untouched box of RPG launchers and their missiles, which he quickly doled out. Drake saw Ben and Karin and Gates now running down the hill behind them. Belmonte, to his surprise, was already part of the attack team, holding a light machine pistol and a handgun.

So far so good. He wondered again about the eight pieces and experienced a surge of fear. What if Holgate lied even under extreme regret and duress? What if the pieces were already gone or even on their way to Singen by now?

God help them all.

Then he crested the final rise and got a first real look at the valley below. A valley of death¸ he thought. On the flatlands, more than a dozen choppers were waiting or being boarded. One lifted off as he watched. The slope down into the valley was heavily covered on both sides of the road by small knots of men holding every weapon imaginable.

They were dug in, and they were waiting, knowing that if Drake’s team wanted to advance any more, they’d have to go past them.

Drake’s entire team lined up in a staggered formation, two deep along the rim of the valley. At that moment, the big tent’s door-flaps were pushed back and out came a small troop of rugged men all wearing thawbs—or robes — and Keffiyeh—headdress. Behind them came soldiers carrying machine guns, dressed in jeans and jackets and behind them came a final group — a scurrying band of European men — probably mercenaries — hefting all eight pieces of Odin between them.

The sale had been completed. The choppers were already warmed up and itching to fly.

Drake saw no other way. He looked across at Dahl and Sam and their men, and thought of the future of their world, of their children, nothing else. For our children, he thought. “For our future!” he cried aloud.

The charge was on.

Hard down the grueling slope they flew, feet tugged at by bloodied clumps of dead grass, guns tight against their shoulders, meeting bullet with bullet, battle cry with war cry. And death filled the air. Choppers rose ahead like black birds of prey only to be blown out of the sky by expertly aimed RPG launchers. Fire rained down from the skies. A creeping column of explosions and a deadly wall of lead marched before and among the sixty, the unsung heroes, men eaten by fear but forging ahead despite it all. And even as they fell, they kept firing, even as their dying bodies hit the ground they threw a last grenade or took another bullet for those who still lived and still ran headlong into the face of death.

All across the hill, they were ranged, sweeping down toward the guns. Not one among them wavered, but fought fire with fire and stormed through the deadly onslaught like a wave surging across a reef.

Drake felt more than one bullet sear past his face. A great fiery explosion lit up the hill before him, but he forged through it. Something nicked his ear, probably shrapnel, but he barely felt it. Every stride brought the enemy within reach. Every stride brought the pieces of Odin closer to safety. With precise fire and expert magazine changes, he pounded round after round into their assailants. Bullets, grenades and rockets fired high into the air as men cartwheeled backward, struck at the very moment they pressed their triggers. At one point, a chopper smashed down into the very heart of the terrorists’ defense, bursting apart on impact and blasting metal shards, men and terrible tongues of fire outward in a horrific display of absolute mayhem.

That same blast destroyed more enemy fortifications from the rear. Drake’s team fell among them, up for blood and battle, offering no quarter. Drake jumped over a high mound, landing amidst a tangle of men and fired three times, three directions, into the chests of his enemy. They fell back with heavy thuds. Mai landed beside him. Belmonte came down on the other side. The thief shot at a masked man emerging from the smoke downslope. Drake lifted his head.

“Keep going.” He keyed his mic. “We have the momentum. Don’t stop now!”

But at that moment, there was the horrendous sound of heavy gunfire, the kind of sound made by a big caliber weapon that seems to shoot right up from the bowels of hell. They hit the deck as gigantic chunks of earth blasted into the air, chewed up by the huge shells.

“Fuck me!” Mai yelled. “What is that?”

“Some kind of heavy machine gun,” Drake shouted back. “Bollocks! They have our position. We’re pinned.”

“No time!” Mai cried, but at that moment the big gun coughed again and a shell exploded beside her, sending her body slamming across the shallow depression.

“Mai!” Drake screamed.

Belmonte scrambled over to her. Suddenly a shadow blocked out the sun and Drake looked up to see four enemy soldiers leaping towards him.

The big gun had been used as distraction.

Now Drake, alone, rolled and came up to his knees, blasting one of the men away. But the others were in too close. One knocked his gun away. Another reached for his throat, but too slow. Drake gripped the arm and twisted it down, breaking it at the elbow, then slammed it back up so that the man’s body smashed into one of his brethren. Another came at him from the side. Drake fell back, watched an arm holding a wicked knife scythe through the air a millimetre above his nose, and rolled into the body and around until he was behind the man. Then he drew his own blade and buried it into the nape of his neck.

A bullet slammed through the gap between his legs. He looked up. A truly enormous soldier stood before him, grinning, weapon steady, the blood of good men already dripping from his face.

Drake had no way out. He felt a second of regret…

…the gun fired, but shot wide. An SAS soldier had launched a desperate attack, hitting the giant around the waist. The soldier bounced off. The giant, seven feet of bulging muscle and pure fury, didn’t even wobble. He simply re-aimed the gun and ended the other man’s life. But now Drake was up and Mai was shaking her head, instantly alert, and diving in from the other side.

Drake struck from the front, three punches and a kick in lightning time. The giant took them all without flinching as he concentrated on Mai, recoiling from her deadly strikes but batting them aside anyway.

Drake struck again. “You’ll feel this, you bastard!”

The giant grunted. “I fink you need bigger hands, small man.” He kicked Drake in the chest with the force of an elephant, sending him flying back, stunned and winded. Mai dove in again, breaking her enemy’s arm but, still dazed, found herself being crushed at the giant’s feet.

Then a brief respite came as he stared in confusion at his dangling arm. “It’s no bovver.” He growled, not even wincing as he prodded the jagged bone back through torn flesh. “I’ll mend later.”

The enormous man still held a pistol in one oversized hand. His cackle of madness and delight stung even the death-laden afternoon air with frenzied malice.

For the second time in as many minutes, Drake faced death down the sights of a barrel. With no hope he struggled to thrust his body upright. But the giant fired immediately. No speech, no more chatter, just a spark of ignition lighting his eyes firing the thought that he could finish up here and lumber over to his next target.

With the quickness of a bullet, a shadow dove between Drake and Mai and instant death. Then the shattered body of Daniel Belmonte landed beside them, bleeding badly where the neck met the collarbone, eyes hopeful.

“Did I save the day?”

Still running on adrenalin… he didn’t know quite yet that his wound was fatal.

But the giant just shook his big, shaggy head and raised his gun again. Belmonte noticed and then, against all odds, pushed himself up and grabbed the big man in a hug. Bullets punched through Belmonte’s frame, jerking the body terribly with every impact. As Drake watched, he saw the thief’s last act in this life — to bring his arm around and bury the knife he had taken from Drake right through the giant’s thick neck.

Both men fell in a heap. It still took both Drake and Mai nearly a minute to stand. They both heard Belmonte’s final words, no more than a whisper of breath. “Now I will meet her again.”

By then the battle had moved on. Drake and Mai checked their wounds, scooped up lost weapons, and continued with a nod to Belmonte’s already cooling body.

Hayden obliterated an enemy defense post with Kinimaka, Dahl and several of his Swedish compatriots before looking ahead. Toward the bottom of the slope, the men escaping with the eight pieces had cleared the tent and were heading for an area crowded with helicopters. Hayden cast about. Smoke and fire fogged the area around them. She couldn’t rely on anyone else coming to help, so she set off at a run, now starting to feel the return of fire in her side as the painkillers wore off.

“Let me take the lead,” Kinimaka urged.

But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Kinimaka had her side, as he always did, and Dahl paced her too. She picked her way down the rest of the slope, stopping briefly as they encountered stiff opposition from behind several stacked barrels ahead. Dahl fired his RPG at the barrels and the opposition went up in flames. Then, with a regretful shake of the head, he threw the weapon away, out of grenades.

Their clothes were torn, their flesh bloody, and their faces set hard with determination and the loss of colleagues along the way, but Hayden and her small contingent forged onward, finally reaching the flat of the valley and facing the field of choppers. The enemy had dug in and some were already shooting.

“See there,” Dahl shouted. He pointed out the large group trying to spirit away the pieces. “Hurry. We have no time.”

The Norseman welcomed the drifting, cloying smoke with its thick stench of spilled blood and death. When the SAS team that guarded him met harsh opposition and fought hard to survive, he managed to crawl and slither his way through the muck and the mud, a venomous snake slipping through slime, until he managed to outflank the battle. Then, still staying low, he slunk to the base of the hill. Along the way, he even managed to collect a discarded weapon, a fully loaded machine-pistol, which brought a thin smile to those bloodless, melancholy lips. Fortune always landed on the side of the privileged, and none were more privileged than he. He glanced back up the hill and saw the thief, Belmonte, dying. He turned away without a flicker of concern. The pieces of Odin were still within reach, and although the plan had changed, there was still a plan.

The only plan that guaranteed the continued dominance of what remained of the Shadow Elite.

Make Cayman place the blasted things in the right holes and send out a warning to the world. If some small destruction ensued, it mattered little to him. After a few minutes they would stop the process by removing a piece.

But, his mind questioned him, it might not be that easy. What if you can’t stop the process?

Then so be it. In the true order of things, the death of the Shadow Elite really should spell death for the world. It would be an appropriate and fitting end for this planet.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

As a single unit they attacked the choppers. Dahl ran, firing at a Bell 205 painted jet black, as its occupants desperately tried to slam its doors close and take off. Within seconds, he hit the skids at full pelt and launched his body forward so that he flew into the cockpit, still firing. The windshield and side windows were already shattered. Bloodied men screamed and fell back as he landed among them. Fists and legs thumped against him to no effect. A bullet blasted past his cheek. Dahl wedged himself firmly on the fat stomach of a man’s twitching body and sprayed the rest of the cockpit with lead. Within seconds, the interior grew quiet and still.

Dahl peered out of a side window, finding his next target.

Mai and Alicia zigzagged toward another chopper, this one equipped with weapons and looking much like an Apache, but with several modifications. As they neared the chopper, it rose off the ground, skids twitching into the air, rotors at full speed and generating the thrust required to take off. Mai slung her rifle across her shoulder without slowing down and leapt at the rising skid, grabbing hold and twisting her body acrobatically through the air so that she landed on her feet, facing the still-open door of the cockpit.

Alicia landed next to her a second later. Half a dozen shocked and terrified faces greeted them.

“Flight’s over, boys.”

Alicia shot a guard as he struggled to bring his rifle to bear in the small space. Mai drew her knife and leapt onto the lap of the nearest terrorist, burying the blade in his neck and scurrying across to the next. The chopper lost momentum as the pilot screamed for his life and leapt out of the far door, the machine plunging back down to earth with an almighty crash.

Luckily, it had only had time to rise about ten feet in the air. Alicia leapt clear as it came down, rolling head over heels, then coming up with her rifle sighted on the fleeing pilot. One shot sent him spinning headfirst into a drainage ditch.

Mai jumped from the cockpit a few seconds later. “Nice shot.”

“Nice knifework. Now, shall we?”

Their next target, a big black Sikorsky, was already twenty feet in the air and about to swoop into flight.

Both Mai and Alicia lined up the rotors in their sights.

Drake watched as Mai and Alicia played nice and took out the terrorists better than any team in the world. An escaping helicopter they targeted suddenly whirled and plummeted from the skies, crashing to the ground before a massive fireball consumed it. He had to wonder how the hell Mai did it. The Japanese agent was already back in the front line whilst he massaged his back and tried to ignore the tears and bruises that had been inflicted by the giant Belmonte had killed.

Belmonte. The master thief had bowed out with honor and was now somewhere he preferred to be. Drake knew he would never know the full story behind Belmonte and Emma, but thought he owed it to the thief to at least try to find the girl’s father and explain. Without Belmonte’s expertise and funding, they would never have gotten this far.

If he survived today.

All around, choppers lifted off, four-wheel-drives, and faster, heavier vehicles slewed through the churned grass and blasted toward the road. Drake’s team fell to their knees, lining up targets and taking shots. Helicopters lurched a few feet and crash landed. Large Mercedes and Audis flipped onto their roofs or smashed into each other, occupants spilling out and holding wounds or shouting crazily. It was utter mayhem. A military truck bounced and jounced its way to the tarmac and began to pick up speed. In another moment, the loud hiss and searing passage of an RPG foretold the explosion that happened a split-second later. Mangled wreckage and burning rubber blocked the roadway.

With anxious eyes Drake searched among the choppers. It took seconds to spot the running band of terrorists trying to smuggle out the pieces. They were a large group, heading for one of the few military helicopters. He set off at a crazy sprint, signaling the others as best he could. To his right a small chopper roared as it lifted off, its occupants leaning out of the open door, screaming abuse as they loosed a few rounds at his feet. Drake didn’t break stride or fire back. The recovery of the pieces was everything now.

With the SAS, Delta and ragtag teams made up of Dahl’s and Gates’s men covering and mopping up the rear guard, Drake’s principal team raced to intercept the eight pieces of Odin. This was it. The whole purpose of their crazy battles over the last few months. Save the artefacts, save the world.

Hayden loped along as best she could, one hand pressed hard to her old wound. The other held a light machine pistol but, like Drake, she was doing her best to save ammo. Kinimaka jogged at her side, face dirty and bloody, hair plastered with sweat, but eyes as hard and determined as granite. They rushed past an empty chopper, and the Hawaiian tossed a grenade inside and yelled a warning to all. A fortified Range Rover roared ahead, its blacked-out windows hiding its occupants. Kinimaka paused to send a spray of bullets through its engine bay, only moving on when he saw the first lick of flame. The less transport these bastards had available, the less chance they had of leaving this place in one piece.

Hayden met with Drake as they slowed, moving parallel to the fleeing terrorists along an avenue created by an assortment of trucks, four-wheel drives and choppers. She dared a glance behind toward the hill but saw no sign of Ben, his sister or Jonathan Gates.

Eyes to the front she saw the terrorists had reached their transport and were loading Odin’s artifacts on board whilst others fanned out to create a protective perimeter.

And with perfect recklessness, Drake cut through a gap between the rear end of a Land Rover and the front of a Dodge RAM and fell among the bad guys. Hayden chased as best she could. The Englishman must have been in contact with Alicia and Mai for they now appeared, wraith-like assassins, tearing through the enemy like a blade through flesh.

As the sun set behind the nearby mountains, fire and hate and determination, fervor and heroism lit up the encroaching dark with all the glory of a colossal firework display.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Drake fired twice, then slid beneath a man’s return fire and swept his legs. Before that man hit the dirt, Drake shot another and was back on his feet, jabbing stiffened fingers into someone’s neck and then leaping feet first toward the next, connecting hard, knocking the man’s weapon aside as it bucked and sprayed bullets into the air. Ahead, the pieces were being hastily thrown aboard, the pilot already shuffling the collective. Men leaned out of every available space, rifles poised.

Drake stopped in despair. They were about to spray indiscriminately, killing everything that moved just to safeguard their getaway.

They’re terrorists, he thought, as he screamed “Down!” and threw himself headlong just as they opened fire.

Hayden heard Drake’s warning, but half a second too late. Her knife wound screamed as she tried to twist violently in a new direction, slowing her movements just enough. That bastard Boudreau would be the death of her yet. The nightmare sound ruptured the air and scything death sped towards her but, in the blink of an eye, something like a mountain stepped between her and obliteration.

Kinimaka! Her partner of three years jerked and spasmed as bullets took him in the chest, knocking him backward into her. His blood sprayed back into her face in a terrible cloud. Hayden collapsed with Kinimaka on top of her and began to scream.

Drake stayed prone, aimed his rifle and potted a couple of terrorist guards. Then he saw the rest being slammed from behind — Torsten Dahl had arrived, hitting hard from the back, throwing them out of the open doors face-first or into the bulkheads with a bone-cracking smash. Soon, the chopper was empty except for the pilot, and Dahl gestured severely at him to close the machine down.

Drake turned immediately to check out the screams he knew were coming from Hayden. At first, he couldn’t see her, but then saw Mai and Alicia drop beside a huge bulk and felt his heart sink.

Oh no. It was Mano. Was Gates’ CIA liaison underneath him? Had he taken a bullet for Hayden?

He dashed to help, momentarily putting the pieces behind his friends’ welfare. Dead terrorist bodies lay all around them. He took hold of Kinimaka with Mai and Alicia and heaved the dead weight to one side. Drake glimpsed the Hawaiian’s bloodied face and shredded field-jacket before his eyes fell on Hayden.

The CIA agent held her side in agony, but her eyes were filled with tears of grief and red streaks lined her cheeks.

“He saved me…” she blubbered. “M…Mano saved…”

Alicia was the first to sink to her knees in the muck around Hayden and place a hand of sympathy and support on her shoulder. “He loved you,” she said. “He told me. That man would’ve done anything for you.”

Drake wondered why he’d never seen it. Most likely because he’d been preoccupied with his own terrors of late and not given much thought to the wellbeing of everyone else. Now, across the body of Mano Kinimaka, he locked eyes with Mai and tried to communicate that he wanted to give their connection a chance.

The Japanese girl smiled tiredly, eyes drifting away across the battlefield.

Drake looked too. Plumes of black smoke belched toward the sky to mark downed choppers and demolished cars. A few helicopters managed to escape and hammered toward the last red gold vestiges of the dying sun. The dark shapes of many men lay scattered and heaped across the grass, the nearby road, and the blood-soaked hillside down which he had led the charge. Friend and foe were indistinguishable in the half-light. He saw the distinct figure of Sam and two of the man’s SAS comrades trudging toward them, guns resting across their shoulders. The battle, it seemed, was won.

The eight pieces had been captured by the good guys. The world was safe.

It was all over. Two months of blood and hell and it had come to this — the loneliness of a battlefield, the horror and loss of its aftermath, the bittersweet happiness that most of his friends had survived.

Where was Ben? Where were Karin and Gates?

He couldn’t see them. But then their familiar shapes emerged from the mist drifting about Sam and his boys, along with at least another half-dozen men.

A deep cough came from nearby, so harsh it sounded to his ears like the cocking of a rifle. He twisted quickly, saw only Dahl still shouting at the pilot to shut down, and frowned. What had made that coughing sound?

And then the body of Mano Kinimaka shuddered, and the big man opened his eyes, staring into the skies and spitting blood from his mouth. “Shit, man.” He coughed. “Felt like a Kalua pig hit me at full force.”

Drake’s mouth dropped open in shock. Alicia was at his side in a heartbeat, ripping the Hawaiian’s jacket off.

“The Kevlar took it all.” She said in a matter-of-fact way. “He’s bleeding from a few small nicks around his arms.” She grabbed Kinimaka’s face between her small but deadly hands. “You big, lucky, beautiful bastard, you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a jacket take so many shots.”

Drake grinned and rushed to help Hayden — broken and delirious at the sound of her friend’s voice — crawl to his side. It felt good to see them embrace and he sat for a moment, spirits rising as the moon emerged from behind a cloud.

It was almost Christmas day, 2012.

Ben and Karin finally arrived, the young man staring down at his girlfriend with a look that said he hadn’t the slightest notion of what to do. “I didn’t want to mention this before,” he said at last, “but today is the twenty-first which, according to the Mayans and some other cultures, was supposed to be the end of the world.” He shrugged. “But what did they know?”

Silence followed his words, a silence broken only by Hayden’s low chatter with Kinimaka and Alicia’s insatiable chatting with the SAS guys.

And then the terrible clatter of a machine pistol on full-auto shattered the stillness, bullets pinging off metal and whizzing through the air. Drake turned in time to see Dahl take a dive off the helicopter, landing alive but dazed, and then saw a figure pull itself up through the far door, still firing at random whilst shouting at the pilot to take off.

“Lift off or I’ll blow your fucking head to bits!”

For the second time in five minutes, Drake’s mouth literally dropped open. The chopper lifted quickly, the SAS men fastest to react, but unable to shoot it down as it swooped low and flew off rapidly into the clouds.

“The Norseman!” Dahl cried. “I thought you were watching him!”

No one replied. Drake closed his eyes for a brief moment and then dragged his tired body once more to its feet.

“I know exactly where he’s going.” He ran quickly towards a discarded RPG launcher, but Dahl stopped him with a hard look.

“What?” Drake said. “He needs stopping fast. He’s got the pieces of Odin aboard.”

“What he needs.” Dahl strode past them all, a resolute hatred etched into his features. “Is an Apache Attack Helicopter driven right up his arse.”

The mad Swede stopped to open the door of said machine before boosting himself up. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to give him.”

The Norseman tried to calm his racing heart. The pounding adrenalin made him want to blast the pilot to bits, but he comforted himself with the reality that he could do that later anyway. For now, the man would take him wherever he wanted to go — and that was straight to Singen, where Cayman was waiting.

“Is there a radio in here?” he asked, gesturing with the machine-pistol. His finger jerked reflexively, almost depressing the trigger. The arm of a dead terrorist flopped against his back, making his flesh crawl. One of the pieces of Odin — the carving of the Spear — toppled onto the floor with a thud. The others shifted raggedly, as if testing his resolve. A quiver of fear raced the length of his spine.

The pilot passed him a sat-phone. “Unexpected,” the Norseman said in surprise, “but welcome.” He quickly keyed in Cayman’s number and waited.

Russell Cayman, on any other mission, would long since have tried every avenue to contact his unusually absent bosses. But on this assignment, he had embraced something wholly unfamiliar. A weird feeling had taken hold — the previously unknown emotion of homecoming. Never had he felt so happy, so welcome, or experienced such a sense of belonging.

To the other men, of course, it was just a tomb, a lonely place filled with creepy noises and old bones and dusty coffins. But loneliness had always been his best friend, his happy place, and to know he now shared it with the bodies of the most depraved and powerful beings that had ever existed — much like himself — filled Cayman’s empty heart with the nearest thing he would ever know to love and belonging.

As was his habit lately, he had cleared all his men out of the tomb and then climbed eagerly into the crypt of the Goddess, Kali, found his spot among her hard, outsize bones and settled his head. Eyes open he would lie there, imagining her hand creeping around his waist in the dark, her claw-like fingers rubbing the nape of his neck, and those rotted lips whispering into his ear.

“Sleep now,” she would whisper. “Sleep, my boy.”

His chest would fill with love and he would whisper to the eternal darkness just two words. “Yes, Momma.”

The breeze blowing past his face was her glorious, fetid breath. The rustling in the darkness was her bones rearranging and adjusting. The faint tickle of spidery feet on his upraised cheek was the fall of her lustrous hair. The distant chatter of rats and other things was the jealous arguments of Gods, begging for their turn with her.

Which they never got. Cayman was Kali’s own, her favorite, her best boy.

But Cayman was not so crazy as to think his real-life bosses would leave him to his great dream, no — they would want to shatter it with their expensive hobnailed boots. So he left his mobile phone outside the niche, and when it started to ring just as Kali’s soft whisperings were lulling him to sleep, Cayman’s head jerked up in guilt and shock and defiance.

Bastards! They would pay for this.

Hurriedly, he exited the crypt and snatched it up. “Yes?”

“This is the Norseman. Where on earth were you?”

So now they rebuked him even when he forced himself out of the perfect dream to take their call. “Tied up.”

“Excuse me?”

“I answered as soon as I was able.”

“Look, never mind that now. Much has happened. The Shadow Elite are no more.”

Cayman was momentarily surprised, his interest piqued. “And what of the tomb?”

“You are allowed to sound a bit despondent about it, Cayman. It’s fine to show your feelings. We made you what you are today. I imagine that makes us some sort of parent figure to you?”

“Yes, sir, it does.” Cayman imagined slicing the Norseman’s face off with some ancient bits of metal he had found in Kali’s tomb.

“Well, I’m sorry to say I’m the only one left. Our friends have perished.”

Cayman emitted what he thought amounted to a regretful sigh. “Where are you now? Should we seal the tomb forever?” Joy snared his heart.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m on my way to you now with the pieces beside me. We’ll show the world that we still mean business. That is what we will do.”

Cayman sensed more. “And?”

“And that tenacious bastard Drake is but a few minutes behind me with some of his cohorts. You must be ready for me, Cayman. Men at arms. Guns prepped. Tomb organized. We won’t have long to implement our plan.”

Cayman smiled down the phone. “Oh, I’ll be ready, sir.”

Drake was happy to be behind Dahl as he piloted the big Apache through the oily air. The thudding of the heavy rotors was like music to his ears, Dinorock to the power of ten. The instrument array gleamed and flashed with the promise of unlimited weaponry. Dahl handed him a pair of ear mufflers.

“Fuck that,” Drake said. “I’m savoring the sound and every second of being inside this machine.”

Dahl laughed and clicked something on the side of his own headphones. He had pondered for a few moments before deciding to contact Olle Akerman.

“Ja?”

“It’s me again, Olle.”

“Ah. You again. Still not dead? I have my eye on your wife, you know. Such a pretty lady.”

“Not quite dead, no. We’re chasing the pieces of Odin, my friend. Do you have anything that might help us?”

“I’d say — go faster. Does that help?”

“Olle—”

“Ja. Ja. I know. Well, do you see now? Do you remember the words that I spoke? ‘The sequence of events will reveal all of the God’s secrets and mankind’s decision to save or destroy itself.’ Odin’s much vaunted Day of Reckoning has arrived.”

“Ragnarok?”

“Yes. Odin avoided his own Ragnarok to fight in a future which he may have seen using the time-travel devices. Now it’s up to you to see us through this one.”

“Anything about the pieces?” Drake asked.

“I know this,” Akerman said. “The pieces are key. Not just ‘the key.’ But key. See the difference?”

“Meaning?”

“Whilst trying to translate some of the old Akkadian, the so-called God language, I began to wonder why some of the logograms referring to the word ‘key’ were represented not only by pictures of the eight pieces, but also by diagrams showing the center of a great city. I now believe it means the pieces are the most important part. Steal, destroy or even break just one piece and the rest won’t work. The device itself will never work without them.”

Dahl pushed the four-bladed twin-engine attack chopper a little faster. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Akerman’s last words were lost in static. “Unless we discover another way to start the weapon…”

Drake watched the war-machine in motion, studied the flashing keypads, spinning dials, toggles surrounded by red and black plastic. Dahl flicked several switches to prime the laser-guided Hellfire missiles, but essentially, these were back-up. The black shark had more armaments than you could shake an enormous stick at. What Dahl really wanted to use was the IHADSS — the Integrated Helmet and Display Sighting System — the system that could slave the helicopters 30mm chain gun to his helmet display, making the gun track and fire in accord with its wearer’s head movements.

Right now Dahl’s sights were on the helicopter that held the Norseman.

“Ready to end this?” The Swede brought the Apache swooping nearer, engine roaring, seeming to hover like a giant deadly fly, its “eyes” the weapon pods, its “feet” Stinger and Sidewinder missiles.

Drake sighed. “So, so ready.”

Dahl let loose all hell and the Norseman’s helicopter exploded in an immense fireball, bits of metal and fragments of ancient artifact and pieces of the Norseman spearing the air in every direction. The boom echoed through the mountains and chased the recently vanished sun below the silver-lit horizon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Russell Cayman heard the loud static crackle as he prepared to end the call. A second before that, he thought he might have heard the Norseman scream.

An interesting sound.

Carefully, he replaced the phone to his ear. He spoke a few words. He waited. Tried again. After ten minutes, he killed the call and redialed.

Nothing but an empty void. Almost as if there was nothing there. Cayman’s lips twitched into a smile. The Norseman was dead. Drake, or someone else, had taken the old bastard out. It was over.

Cayman was free!

For now, he thought. If Drake had indeed won the day, then he would send in the wolves to raid the tomb — and soon. It took Cayman just a few moments to realize there was nothing he could do about that. Not even if he kept the Shadow Elite’s demise to himself and told the men to keep fighting. The authorities possessed the might to eventually prevail.

Excitement galvanized him. Quickly, he cast about, saw a discarded holdall lying in the middle of the floor below and hurried down to collect it. Within minutes he had hastened back up the stairs to Kali’s tomb and was struggling to open the great lid, employing as much force as possible. The heavy concrete slab grinded like the cracking of the earth, but before his strength gave out, he managed to widen the gap a little more.

Within minutes he had filled the holdall with Kali’s bones. The larger ones, he had to snap, but he was sure the Goddess wouldn’t mind — she’d been dead a long time. With the job done, he stood back from the tomb, taking it all in one last time, and felt the sharp sting of tears at the corners of his eyes.

The home he’d never had.

But he was used to moving on. All his life he’d being shipped from home to home, school to school, agency to agency — just a matter of exchanging one battlefield for the next. And he’d always been ready to kill to protect his temporary sanctuary. He hefted the bones of Kali now and walked out of the tomb of the gods without looking back again. It was time to disappear for a while.

A new chapter in his life had just opened up.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mano Kinimaka had already proposed a Hawaiian Christmas, so when the big man decided to spend his recovery time over there, the entire team followed. Only a few days after beating the terrorists and the Norseman in battle, they found themselves put up by a grateful American government at a fancy hotel overlooking Waikiki Beach.

In real life, there were still many tough questions to be asked, traitors to be wheedled out worldwide, and crossed paths to be smoothed over anew, but for one night at least, the hard trials of reality vanished and celebration reigned.

With the festivities slated to begin at five, Drake took a few hours to reflect in his hotel room. With utmost luxury at his fingertips, he walked barefoot across a floor so thickly carpeted it almost felt like walking on feathers. The drapes opened by remote, the air-con operated by voice control. He went to the slightly cracked-open window and watched the waves, the sparkling blue sea and the golden beach for a while, trying to banish all thoughts from his mind.

It didn’t work. His life was at a crossroads. Where did he go from here? He certainly couldn’t stay living with a lodger and following a career in photography. If Kennedy had survived, then he might’ve built something with her. If Ben hadn’t found Hayden, then maybe they could have worked something out. If Wells hadn’t ordered his wife’s death, then maybe he could have gotten some fucking peace…

His immediate thought was to run, to get as far away from the army and all things associated with it as soon as he could. But he’d tried that already — it didn’t work. The army, the SAS — the regiment — was in his blood, as much a part of him as his wife and his unborn baby — Emily Drake.

A light knock sounded at the door. He knew who it would be and walked over to let her in. “Still here?” he asked, intending the double-meaning.

“For now. For tonight.”

“And then what? You’re gone forever? Back to Japan and undercover work? Can you do that after all this? Will you always be the soldier?”

Mai shrugged. “What choice do I have? To smooth it over with my superiors, I’ll probably have to volunteer for the toughest assignment going. But you? Can you let go now?”

“If I have something to fight for…I think so.”

“And what would you fight for?” Her eyes locked on to his like heat-seeking missiles.

“We just saved the world,” Drake told her. “More than once.”

“Ach, that was yesterday.” Mai kicked off her shoes and ran across the carpet, following unconsciously in Drake’s earlier footsteps. “Today — we’re ancient history, like Odin.”

Drake caught up and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You can’t just leave,” he told her. “Or we’ll never know. Can’t you give it a little time?”

“My government demanded I return by tomorrow,” Mai said with sadness in her voice. “I’m still their agent. Unless you give me good enough reason to deny them, or—” She spun quickly. “They mentioned something about Gates — his ‘pitch.’ Know anything about it?”

Drake blinked in confusion. “Nope.”

When Ben Blake let himself into Hayden’s room, he heard the noise of the shower running at full-force. His thoughts drifted from the horrors and terrors of warfare and the disappointment of being sacked by the band he had created — the Wall of Sleep — and being replaced by an inferior front-man on the day they performed their biggest gig, as back-up to American rock band Halestorm at the O2 Apollo in Manchester.

He’d missed out on everything. This Odin thing had destroyed all his dreams and now even made him seek out his girlfriend by way of her boss to try to make things up to her. But there was still hope. The shower presented a nice place for him to do that.

The bed squealed as he bounced off it into the bathroom. Steam and droplets of water covered every surface. Hayden had been in here for a long time. When his eyes adjusted, he saw that Hayden knelt in the shower room, naked, facing the far corner. Ben stopped in the doorway, at first admiring the curved, tanned body glistening all over with droplets of water and the fall of her hair down the middle of her back. A smile stretched the corners of his mouth, but then another noise came to his ears, loud even above the rushing water of the shower.

Hayden was sobbing terribly, uncontrollably. Her entire body shook with the force of it. Ben ran to her and received an elbow to the ear for his efforts. Hayden swung around, standing over him, fists poised to strike.

“Oh, it’s you. Ben…there’s things we should talk about.”

But they didn’t need to. Ben could see it all in her face. It would mean facing up to her, facing up to failure, and required more growing up than he was prepared to do right now. He saw their future. He saw their life as it was. They weren’t even on the same wavelength. Hayden lifted him to his feet.

“Ben, I’m sorry.” She wasn’t talking about the elbow and he knew it. His clothes were soaked but he didn’t care. He pulled his girlfriend close for the last time. He moved his lips close to her ear.

“I’m sorry too, Hayden. Good luck.”

And Ben turned and, even though he stayed on his feet, felt like he crawled out of the shower room, trying hard to block out the sounds of her distress. He put the blame on the shower itself for the water that dripped uncontrollably from his eyes as well as his clothes.

Alicia listened as Dahl called his family, switching instantly from soldier to daddy to loving husband. It reminded her of something she’d seen on the internet, a picture of a rough biker overwritten with the maxim—doesn’t matter how big or bad-ass you are, when a toddler passes you a toy phone, you answer it.

Dahl was that kind of guy. A loving family man without equal on the field of battle. She admired him, though she’d never say so out loud. For her, feeling respect was a rare and alien occurrence. She could count the number of people she admired in this world on the fingers of one hand.

And, including Dahl, three of them resided in this very hotel. The third, Mai Kitano, had won her over despite a great internal struggle. Alicia still tried to fight it, but had conceded this was one battle she was going to lose.

To her other side, Jonathan Gates was caught in a series of endless phone calls. His smooth talking seemed to win the day more often than not. When he caught her looking curiously at him, he smiled and leaned over conspiratorially. “I have to make the most of this while I can,” he said. “As of now, this minute, I have more power than the president. My team saved everyone. Not only that — we unearthed the Shadow Elite and put an end to their machinations. No one will deny me anything for the next few weeks, believe me.”

Alicia nodded. “Got it. So what’s this ‘pitch’ I keep hearing you mention? Sounds mysterious.”

“Oh, it is.” Gates gave her a wide, boyish smile. “I got that passed without any trouble at all after everything that has happened recently. The rest is up to you. All of you.”

Karin and Komodo surfaced with barely minutes to go before the party started, literally throwing on a few items of clothing and rushing for the elevators. Karin was breathing heavily, still flushed as she smoothed her skirt down.

“To be continued?” She arched an eyebrow saucily.

“Just try and stop me.” Komodo grinned.

Karin draped a Hawaiian lei around her neck. “Look okay?”

“Any hotter and they’d have to put out the fire.”

Karin swatted him. “Dickhead.”

The lift arrived and whooshed open. Karin entered first and waited for the doors to close, ensuring that they were alone.

She turned to Komodo. His eyes went wide, but she shook her head. “No. Not here. Well.. maybe later. But—”

“I know what you’re gonna say.” The Delta team-leader hung his head. “What happens to us next? I know that look.”

“So what does happen next, Trevor?”

“We find a way. Worst case? You could live near the barracks. It’s a garrison town.”

“That’s not what I want.”

“I got that. Got it loud and clear. I don’t have the answer yet, baby. I just don’t.”

Karin frowned. “Baby?”

“It’s American for sweetheart. Or love. Is that how they say it where you come from? I dun’t ‘ave th’ answer yet, luv.”

Karin punched him on the shoulder. “You’re a right tit, you know that? Look, we’re here now. Better scrub up, soldier boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Little by little the team drifted out into the night. Hawaiian music backed hula dancers as they swayed on stage. Flickering, smoking torches lined the walls that circled their private courtyard. Everyone either took a seat or stood grazing around the buffet, content in each other’s company, bonded by shared experiences of action and blood. A girl wearing a grass skirt threaded flowers through each guest’s hair or placed them behind ears as each person stepped out. A long table bore the best of a “mainstream” Hawaiian buffet: fresh pineapple, coconut, seafood, pork and spam. Tropical cocktails were placed into every eager hand except Drake’s. Pineapple cake, fresh fruit slices and a sweet dipping sauce made dessert.

Hula girls swayed their hips. A fire-knife dance took even Mai’s breath away, the men gaining appreciative whistles from Alicia. It was the longest any of them had relaxed with no operation looming that they could remember.

Drake sat alone for a time, drinking in the ambience and watching each and every one of his colleagues in turn. Ben Blake, the rock-singing computer geek, who had started this journey with nothing, gained so much along the way and then ended it with even less than he started. Karin, his sister, who had somehow acquired a purpose and no longer wished to waste her life away. Komodo, the rough-looking Delta team leader who talked to Karin in such a respectful, loving way it made Drake double-take every time he heard the man’s voice. Mano Kinimaka, sitting comfortably astride a makeshift bed, so happy that everyone had joined him for his Hawaiian party, now surrounded by Hula dancers, but still making sure Hayden noticed he wasn’t interested in even the prettiest of them. And Hayden herself, so worn and wounded, so weary. She had fought the greatest battles of her life and had lived to fight another day. Her eyes might be red-rimmed, but her face was a determined mix of expectation and hope. He passed over Jonathan Gates, not knowing how the politician worked his clever magic, but finding his faith a little restored in the elective system. If someone like Gates could emerge as a future potential presidential candidate, then the world was not lost.

And then to Mai and Alicia — two of the most complex, crazy and ultimately capable people he had ever known. Mai was still a mystery to him, and he had known her the longest. There was no doubt she might hold the key to his future, but he could not hope to commit in one night. No way could he make that decision now. Too many variables were still juggling in the air.

Then he glimpsed Alicia, the girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, never at a loss for words, her harsh tongue her defense mechanism, but still a loyal, if misled, friend.

Finally, he glanced at Torsten Dahl and saw the Swede staring right back at him. Dahl was solid gold in every way. No more needed to be said.

Dahl wandered over. “When I first met you, Drake, back in that cavern where the World Tree grows, I thought at best you were a major prick.”

“Likewise.”

“I may have been a little off the mark.”

Drake smiled, sweeping aside the few unresolved issues and old memories that threatened to spoil the rest of his night. “Likewise.”

Dahl held a hand out. “Thanks for the help.”

Drake shook it firmly. “Anytime, mate.”

The evening wore on. Beyond the low torch-lit walls, the surf pounded against the beach where revelers walked, dipping their toes in the warm, foamy surf. The luau ended and the sound-system began to crank out a few old, mellow tunes as Gates clinked a spoon against a glass and asked for everyone’s attention.

“Your countries thank you,” he said once everyone acknowledged him. “Though they might never show it. That’s my official spiel, and the only time you will ever hear it.” He paused. “We’re all friends here, right? So fuck that.”

Drake’s eyebrows arched. Gates was becoming more popular by the minute.

“I’m here to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn’t for you — all of you — I’d be dead right now. Never mind the state of the rest of the world. So here’s to you. For all our sins — we still won.” He raised a glass. Everyone drank.

Then he turned to Ben Blake. “Do you remember where all this started?”

Ben nodded. “For you? Yeah, back at the Library of Congress.”

“You got it. And it was there, right then, that I first saw the potential for a great team. I watched you all work together and smoothed the road to see how far you could take it.”

“You paved the way to keep us in the operational loop.” Drake nodded. “We could never have trailed the Blood King without your help.”

“I did what was required,” Gates said with steel in his voice. “And, thank God, it all paid off. My decisions back then have helped my career now.” He paused. “And now the time has come to try something different.”

“Never a problem for me,” Alicia assured him, sounding more than a little inebriated.

“I want to pitch an idea to you. But of course it’s not something you aren’t already doing.”

“Pitch away,” Mai said quietly. “Anything’s better than my tomorrow.”

Gates spread his arms. “Just this — I’ve been given the go ahead to assemble a team of specialists — that is military and IT specialists, and foreign, local agency and governmental liaisons, all of which we have assembled here tonight. I’m planning to head up an unmatched new covert agency, a first-class, extreme-team, and I’m offering you all a job.”

For a moment there was utter silence, then the questions started firing off.

Drake was first. “A job doing what exactly?”

“Did you not hear the words extreme team?” Alicia slurred.

“We write our own charter,” Gates told him. “That’s just one of the beauties of it. We will choose our own assignments.”

“All of us?” Komodo was asking with unrestrained excitement. “Me too? And Karin?”

“Count me in.” Hayden was already nodding at her boss. “If Mano will join me?”

Kinimaka’s head nodded so vigorously it threatened to roll off. “Sure.”

Drake paused only to study Mai’s reaction. He could tell immediately that she liked this idea more than the thought of returning to Japan and being put through the wringer once again by her superiors. For him it was a no brainer, with or without her. The difference between action and inaction for him was much more than two letters; it was a good life or a slow death.

That left just a few stragglers. Gates spoke up when he noticed Dahl’s deep hesitation. “For you, Dahl, and for anyone else in the future, I propose a working package far better than the one you currently enjoy, which in English means that you’ll get to see your family more often.”

“How?” The Swede was no pushover.

“Look around you.” Gates grinned. “At the caliber of these people and others you could recommend. Everyone will get time off to recuperate or be with their families because we will take fewer jobs than other agencies. We won’t overstretch ourselves. I want my people at the top of their game. And one way to ensure that is to extend their happy time.”

Dahl visibly wavered.

“But think on it,” Gates said forcibly. “I’ll take only those who wish to play a major role in this new initiative. I want only the best, for I will have to fight tooth and nail with some of your bosses to retain you. But know this — the funding is already in place.”

“Fast mover,” Alicia said. “I like it. Oh, and I’m in.”

Drake saw Gates’s statement a different way. To him it meant the sharks and the snakes would already be gathering at the door — the sharks to feed off the group’s successes, the snakes to infiltrate its ranks.

Then Ben was at his side, a human Bassett Hound with his eyes drooping and his face all sad. “What do you think?” Almost as if he was asking permission.

Drake clapped him on the back. “I think it’s a damn sight better than singing in a band and shagging groupies, mate.”

“Working for the government?”

“Saving lives. Taking down evil. Hey, maybe you could ask Taylor to come and join us. Or that new group you’re in to. Halestorm, is it?”

“Nah. Not any more. Lizzy won’t respond to me on Twitter.”

“No?” Drake tried to sound shocked. “So misguided.”

“I like the sound of working with this team,” Ben said. “And Karin’s in.”

“Don’t join for Karin, mate. And certainly not for Hayden.” Drake had taken off the kid gloves with Ben the moment Kennedy died. He wasn’t about to put them back on now. “It won’t all be a bed of roses, you know. We could get our arses kicked. If you do join, make sure it’s for the team.”

“What’s our first assignment?” Ben asked eagerly.

Gates eyed him. “You think I’d move that fast?”

Hayden laughed. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

“Well…there is something.”

“Let’s see what kind of major shit we can get ourselves into.” Alicia joined them. “And hey, what’s the HQ like? More importantly, what’s the armory like? Do we have our own jet? Oh, and that surveillance system that can see through walls? Now, that would be cool…”

Gates was laughing. “Well, I’m not too sure about the jet, but within reason, we should be rather well-equipped.”

Alicia grinned back. “That’s my kind of talk. Let’s drink to it.”

Drake grinned and nodded without paying too much attention. He’d already made up his mind and zoned out for a few moments. Memories of Belmonte and Emma spun out of the fog of memory to remind him of their sacrifices. One thing Drake promised himself was that he would seek out Emma’s father and explain what had really happened to his daughter. No parent should ever be in the dark about the fate of their child — no worse a torment existed.

And one vile name remained seared into his brain like a loathsome brand, like a wide-open, festering wound. The name Coyote—man or woman, near or far, assassin or official…

…one day, Drake would be there to claim much more than his mere pound of flesh from that person. And if the madness of vengeance claimed him afterward — then so be it.