The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Hart and the others were directed to a private stand and met by Sir Richard Eden himself, and they were quickly shown to an idling Eurocopter Super Cougar, a five-bladed beast of a chopper that was going to take them up the mountain to Zaugg’s compound.

“How did you get all this sorted?” Hawke asked Eden.

“Let’s just say we have the blessing of certain sympathetic elements in the Swiss Government.”

As they loaded their kit and weapons into the back of the Cougar, Eden once again stressed the necessity of keeping the operation as quiet as possible. It was nearing nightfall now and the temperature was slipping below zero. A light snow blew in the air from the east and promised to make the night harder than it had to be.

Hawke took the moment to write a text to Nightingale. He told her was going in to rescue Lea and take Zaugg out. He hoped Lea was still alive and asked Nightingale for any help she could offer. He sent the message. He hoped she’d received it, and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

With a handful of soldiers from the Swiss Army and a couple of men Reaper had organized in the back of the helicopter, it was seriously less cosy than Gorokhov’s Flying Circus, and the earlier atmosphere of contemplation and quiet conversation he had shared with the others was replaced with the usual one found on covert ops — a weird blend of tense anticipation, nerves and crude humor.

Hawke was also feeling jittery, but the sight of Ryan squashed in between two former Foreign Legion mercs, trying — and failing miserably — to make them laugh with his unique blend of wit and observational humor was enough to bring a smile to anyone’s face.

As they flew up the mountain, Eden was still furiously trying to make contact with Matheson to update him on the operation and receive any new information. Hawke wondered just how far up all of this went.

But he refocussed his mind on the task at hand: “This is one hell of a mission,” he said.

A peal of grim laughter rippled through the small group. Reaper lit another Gauloise and leaned against the side of the chopper to smoke his cigarette. Hart and Scarlet were arguing about the relative merits of their branches of the military.

Then a voice spoke next to Hawke.

“She doesn’t love me, you know.”

It was Ryan. He had joined him at the back of the Cougar.

“What?”

“Lea. She doesn’t love me anymore. I know that — I’m not stupid.”

“What are you telling me for?”

Ryan simply looked at him.

“Ah. Is it that obvious?”

“Not to Lea, no. She’s pretty focused on her career right now.”

“I had noticed.”

“She’s not the sort of woman to take a hint, Joe. I’ve known her a long time, so trust me on this one. She’s the kind of woman you just have to grab hold of and tell her how you feel.”

The Cougar flew low along an elevated valley before ascending into the snow clouds on its way up to Zaugg’s compound and their final approach with destiny.

They emerged through the clouds to see the last few rays of sunlight on the western horizon as they streaked across the tops of the alps. Ahead of them a razorback ridge of mountain peaks loomed silent in the frozen dusk. Concealed into the crevices of one was the sprawling compound of Hugo Zaugg.

They flew closer and then Hawke saw it for the first time.

From his vantage point of twelve thousand feet altitude, Hawke examined the compound which now nestled below the chopper in the western crags of one of the mountain peaks.

Zaugg’s lair.

It was to this place that he had brought Lea Donovan, not to mention the looted contents of Poseidon’s tomb.

“So,” Ryan asked more perkily than the situation would have suggested was appropriate, “where’s the helicopter going to land?”

Hawke glanced at Reaper and both men burst out laughing.

“The helicopter is going to turn around now and land in Sion,” Reaper said.

“Yes, sure, but where is it going to drop us off first?”

“Drop us is the right word…” Reaper said, his words trailing as he swung open the side door and flicked his cigarette out. Moments later he hoisted a parachute on his back and tightened the harness’s adjuster straps.

Ryan turned to ask Hawke what was happening, but Hawke was also putting a parachute on, securing the leg straps and clipping the v-rings into their snap fasteners.

“Joe, you’re not seriously expecting me to jump out of this thing?”

“You can if you want.” Hawke put on his helmet and tightened the chin-strap. “Or you can go back to Sion and wait with Eden. I thought I’d let you make the decision, mate. You saved my arse back in Greece and now I’ve got your back. I think you can do it, but if you want to go back I’ll understand.”

“Storming a mountain stronghold? What do you think this is, For Your Eyes Only?”

Hawke smiled. “I’m impressed you’ve seen the film. I was thinking more of Where Eagles Dare though, to be honest. Me being Burton, of course.”

“Yeah, right.”

“So, are you coming or not?”

He looked at Ryan. Ryan looked back, then peered over Hawke’s shoulder as he watched Hart, Scarlet, Sophie and the handful of soldiers and mercs hoisting their parachutes on, checking weapons and preparing to jump. The freezing wind from the dark night outside scratched at his face and whipped his hair around as his mind raced.

“Ten seconds to make up your mind, Ryan.”

“I’m just not that sort of person, Joe!” Ryan said.

“This isn’t about what sort of person you are now, Ryan. This is about what kind of person you’re going to be from now on.”

Ryan looked outside the chopper into the winter night. It was now hovering a few thousand feet above the peaks of the alps, and somewhere below he could see the faint twinkling of Zaugg’s compound lights in the frozen darkness.

Joe Hawke steered the parachute strongly to the right and made landfall in a flat snowfield a few hundred meters below Zaugg’s compound. He released his chute and counted the others down one by one.

Reaper was next to land, then Sophie followed by Scarlet. After that came the mercs and Swiss soldiers. Hawke watched with pride as he saw the figure of Olivia Hart emerge from the clouds and brake as she steered towards the landing ground.

She had executed a perfect tandem jump, and Ryan Bale, secured to her front, was smiling like the cat that got the cream as they came to a stop in the snowy field, even if there was a light green hue to his face as he took off his helmet.

The others freed themselves from their chutes and readied their weapons. Above the clouds they heard the sound of the Cougar’s rotors recede into the night as it flew back to Sion with Eden. Now they were truly alone.

“Okay, are we all ready?” Hawke said.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Sophie said.

“You sound nervous,” said Hawke. “Don’t be. Whatever they’ve got up there, down here we’ve got more.”

“How could we fail?” Scarlet said. “We have him.” She turned to Ryan who grinned sheepishly in return.

“But I’m a genius, don't forget!” he said, his voice barely audible in the laughter. “We’re generally too sensitive for this sort of thing.”

“I understand,” Reaper said, half-seriously. “By being too sensitive I have wasted my life.”

“Seriously?” Ryan said,

Reaper arched an eyebrow and then burst into more laughter. “Of course not — what do you take me for? I was quoting Rimbaud. A great French poet! You’d think a genius like yourself would have recognized it, no?”

More laughter, and Ryan blushed heavily.

Reaper brought a heavy hand down on Ryan’s shoulder, almost knocking him over into the snow. “Come on, kid… I only make the jokes. I know we’re all different, and we must all accept those differences.”

“Thanks, Reaper,” Ryan said.

Reaper gave a gallic shrug. “Hey, no problem. If we didn’t accept those different from us, people like you would be truly fucked.”

Yet more laughter and Ryan stomped off into the snow.

“Ryan — forget about it!” Hawke flicked a disapproving glance at Reaper. “He’s just French — forget about it, mate.”

Hawke had started to feel protective towards Ryan now — he had saved his life on the Thalassa after all, but it was more than that. There was the way he had tried to tell him that he wouldn’t get in the way if he wanted to pursue Lea, and then the tremendous effort it took to jump out the chopper. As far as Hawke was concerned Ryan Bale was all right.

They hiked the last few hundred meters until they were at the compound’s perimeter fence which they cut through with bolt-cutters in seconds and marched on the main building. Ahead of them, the Swiss Special Forces guys and Foreign Legion mercs had already taken out a large bay window and fought their way inside on the ground level. Hawke’s job was to secure the upper level.

They stopped against the back wall of a garage block to regroup, and he looked at his watch — time was getting short. He heard a crackling through his headset. It was Reaper. “Okay everyone this is it. Any man here kills less than five he buys the beer afterwards.”

“Less than five?” Scarlet said “Why are you making it so easy for us?”

Hawke heard Hart laugh through the headset.

“We go in through the top as usual,” Scarlet said. “Let’s do our thing.”

Reaper ran to the back of the house and placed charges on the rear doors. This would make another distraction when they entered on the upper level.

Hawke readied the Heckler & Koch HK416, a gas-operated submachine gun designed and built with startling German efficiency, and waited for the signal to go, which came a second later from Hart.

They skirted around the back of the garage block and along the low line of the stables until reaching the west wing of the house. Here they fired rifle-launched grapnels from their crossbows and rappelled up the side of the mansion. Moments later they were on the roof, an enormous maze of gray slate slopes and turrets.

Hawke could see out across the valley from here. It formed an enormous v-shape leading away from the mansion, with snow-capped mountains on either side, illuminated by a bright, full moon which shone intermittently through breaks in the clouds. They found the correct locations for their abseil down the back of the house to the third floor windows, where they positioned small explosive charges on the panes of glass.

Below they could hear a terrific gunfight as the other team fought its way inside on the lower levels of the house.

“Okay, everyone,” Hart said, her tone as calm as if she were giving someone directions to the local church. “We go in twenty seconds.”

“Roger.”

“Reaper, fire your door charges in three, two, one…”

Hawke heard two massive explosions emanating from the rear of the house. Reaper had successfully blown the doors in and caused the mother of all explosions. They fired their charges and the four windows on the third floor exploded inwards in balls of hot white flame. Seconds later they were inside the mansion and cutting their lines.

Hawke and the others entered the upper level, covering all angles with their submachine guns.

Inside, they fought their way through a hail of bullets to a locked door.

“Stand back!” Hawke said, and took a few steps away from the door. He ran back toward it and shoulder-barged it with all his might, smashing it away from its hinges and spraying splinters of wood into the room. A bullet fired from inside the room and whistled past Scarlet’s head, almost killing her.

“Now, that’s just not cricket!” she said.

“And that cat’s on her ninth life,” Hawke muttered to himself as they entered and cleared the room. They exited the room at the far end and found themselves in the main hall. An enormous sweeping staircase twisted away to the next floor below them. Faced with the enormity of searching a compound of this size, he knew it was time for help.

Moments later he was talking to Nightingale through his headset.

“Which way to Zaugg’s private quarters?” he asked her. “Use my cell phone signal to place me in the schematic.”

Her voice was distant, and emotionless. “Like I need you to tell me that. This is how I saved your ass in Serbia all those years ago, remember?”

He did remember. “Sorry.”

“You need to go straight ahead for around twenty yards and then there should be a staircase. You need to go up that staircase and then hang a left.”

Hawke followed her instructions, trusting her implicitly. Behind him, the others followed with the same unquestioning degree of trust.

At the top of the stairs they turned left and found themselves in another large room.

“You should be in another reception room right now.”

“Looks like it.”

“According to these schematics, his private section of the compound is up on the next level. Can you see a mezzanine or balcony?”

“Sure.”

“So go up to it. His quarters are up there.”

An instant after her last words several waves of Zaugg’s men launched an attack at them from concealed defensive positions on the upper level. Machine gun muzzles flashed orange and white as they spat their lethal fire at them.

One of the mercs ran forward halfway up the stairs. He screamed in pain and Hawke turned to see his chest exploding with the terrible force of dozens of bullets as they tore into him and blasted him off his feet. He fell to the lower level and landed with a sickening smash on the parquet tiles below.

Then, before they could regroup, another wave of soldiers approached them — but this time on foot and running directly toward them from a door beneath the mezzanine.

Hawke spun his HK around and struck one of the men in the face with the butt of the weapon. A terrible crunching sound came from inside the guy’s mouth, but before he could react Hawke punched him on the nose, breaking it and knocking the man into instant unconsciousness. He reached for the man’s weapons, leaving the submachine gun but taking a Sig Sauer and some ammo.

Hawke looked up just in time to see another man aiming an assault rifle at him. He dived to the floor and rolled to his left where he reached the cover of an antique chest at the side of the hall.

He raised the Sig Sauer and squeezed off a few rounds in the man’s direction, planting a line of hollow-points across his chest and exploding his throat. The man slumped dead to the floor.

Then, Zaugg’s forces decided the battle had turned against them and began a tactical retreat.

“I have to get to Zaugg!” Hawke screamed in the roar of gunfire. “He still has Lea.”

Reaper and Hart made an effort to run after the fleeing soldiers, going deeper into the compound and diverting their attention away from Hawke’s assault on the private quarters.

Hawke charged up the stairs and prepared for the end game.