The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake 6) (17 page)

“Of course.”

Drake saw Alicia approaching. The expression on her face made him bite his tongue in order to stop the insult that was about to fly out. “Don’t say it.”

Alicia tried to grin but didn
’t make it. “I only came back to help get you outta jail, Drake. Lomas needs me.”

“We need you. The world needs you.”

Now Alicia did laugh. “Don’t be a dickhead. You’ll be fine.” Her gaze turned to Mai. “Both of you.”

Drake took her in his arms, surprised at how soft her body felt in his embrace. You fought alongside someone so long, you watched them kill
, bleed and struggle, you occasionally tended to forget they were just a girl.

Maybe that was part of why she was leaving.

“I hate saying goodbye to you,” he whispered into her ear. “Twice in two weeks is two times too many.”

Alicia grunted. “Bet you can
’t say that again when you’re drunk.”

“I don
’t get drunk anymore.”

She pulled away. Drake held on. “Don
’t worry. It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. We’re family now, Alicia. You, Mai, me. Those idiots over there.” He pointed out Dahl, Hayden and Kinimaka. “You ever need us. Just say the word.”

Alicia
’s lips moved against his throat. “My family ripped apart when I was eight. My dad started beating up my mum, and me when I stood up for her. I was too weak to do anything about it, so when I got older the first thing I did was join the Amy. I got out of there. My dad forged my fire, but the Army molded it into an art. All these years, Matt, I’ve just been fighting my dad.”

Drake swallowed hard. He couldn
’t believe that here, in Iraq, atop the ancient Tower of Babel, Alicia Myles was finally opening up to someone. “Is your dad still alive?”

“He died of alcohol poisoning four months after my mum died of an overdose. Believe me, he was the lucky one.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you for my new family, Matt. I will try to visit.”

“Make sure you do.” Drake cleared his throat, averting his eyes until he felt he had some control. Alicia would join the crew on the chopper and head back to Camp Babylon, and from there back to Lomas and his biker crew. The rest of the SPEAR team would depart soon in the two vehicles that remained intact.

He sat down hard in the dust. Goddamn, he needed a rest.

****

The first thing Mai did in the aftermath of the battle was to check her phone. Sure enough, a message had been left. It was from Dai Hibiki, and the contents could not be good.
She cast around first to make sure she was alone, walked closer to the edge of the mound, then ignored the message and hit the call-back button.

Hibiki picked up so fast he might have been sat on the receiver.
“Mai? Where are you? Are you alright?”

“What is it?”

Her friend’s voice quavered half a world away. “The name of the man searching for you. It’s . . . it’s—”

“
Gyuki?”

Hibiki
’s silence affirmed her worst fear.

The man known only as
Gyuki was her old clan’s personal wetwork expert, a fact that alone substantiated his skills. Every member of her old clan were all experienced ninja assassins on a par with Mai’s own skillset – but Gyuki was the man they turned to when the shit really hit the fan.

Hence, Hibiki
’s trepidation. “No fiercer opponent exists in this world.”

“And what does he want?”

“According to my source,” Hibiki swallowed drily. “Blood vengeance.”

Jonathan Gates
leaned back, letting his recliner do all the work. His door was open, but the office was quiet. He had sent the staff home early today. He needed some quiet, uninterrupted time to reaffirm his decision.

If he went ahead with his plan
, he would be breaking the law. More importantly, he would gain himself and his employee a very powerful enemy. Was it worth it? Did General Stone have the resources and the smarts to activate the doomsday device?

Of course
, even that scenario depended on Hayden’s team successfully translating the inscriptions on the swords. But if that did happen, Gates didn’t then want to be in a position of defense or even conflict. The time to take steps was now, when his action would be a deterrent. He imagined the lengths to which Stone must have gone to secure the approval of not only the VP, the Joint Chiefs and their advisors, but the President himself. A man Gates greatly respected, although his decision-making hands had become tied somewhat since he took office. The old Coburn was the one Gates wanted to see again – the military strategist, the fighter, the vigorous contender. A risk taker – like himself.

One thing Gates knew, if General Stone ever possesse
d the means to activate the device, visions of greatness and glory would blind him to the obvious dangers. It was that simple. Stone was a hard line militarist, and gung-ho enough to believe a team of NASA techs would save the day if anything went wrong.

Decision made. He punched out her number.

She answered impatiently. “Who the hell is this?”

“Jonathan Gates.”

“Shit! Sorry, Mr Gates, sir, I didn’t know.”

“It
’s fine. I don’t have much time, Miss Fox, but I may have a highly sensitive job for you.”

“Just lay it out on the table, sir, and, um, that wasn
’t meant to be suggestive.”

“
Never crossed my mind.” Gates went on to explain what he needed, all the while questioning its merits, its morals and what he imagined would be a low key, violent backlash.

Lauren Fox, to her credit, grasped the entire situation immediately and asked the most telling question of all. “If I
do this, who will protect me?”

“
Assuming he goes for it, Lauren, there’s a good chance we can keep your true identity out of it all together. If not, you’d be under my protection and SPEAR’s. There would be no reprisal.”

“You
’re asking me to potentially give up my life.”

“And it
’s only your first job. How long would it take?”

“Damn.” The line went silent for some time. Gates didn
’t rush her. When she spoke again, Lauren’s voice was firm.

“I
’m good enough to get this done in two days.”

Russell Cayman arrived in Singen on Thursday morning, German time, around the same time as his boss, Zak Block, was finding it increasingly hard to get the idea of sitting on Odin’s throne out of his head.

Cayman had returned from Hawaii, collected the remainder of the bones of Kali, and driven them
just over four hundred miles west, almost in a straight line, bypassing Munich, and finally heightening his vigilance as he entered the industrial city. The mountain of Hohentwiel, with its ancient fortress ruins and extinct volcano, reared majestically to the west of the city, the ruined castle itself no stranger to violence – it had resisted five imperial sieges in its time.

Cayman parked the car carefully well before the foot of the mountain, hearing the two oversized holdalls shift in the back, their weight giving them their own inertia or, as Cayman liked to believe, Kali reminding him of her presence.

With difficulty, he wrenched his thoughts away from the goddess and surveyed the mountain. Again, he was a little early. Block’s men were only hours away, but Cayman had never been one to mix with or wait for others. Besides, he was hungry.

Making sure the
tiny part of Kali’s finger bone still nestled in his pocket, Cayman exited the car and began to make his way up the mountain on foot. The archaeological exploration was being conducted all the way at the top and, out of respect for the locals, was minimized to that area. So the tourists and Cayman, and Block’s men, would be able to get all the way to the perimeter without immediate detection.

No doubt the pesky Americans would have secreted a few hidden cameras among
st the trees, but by the time their contents were properly scrutinized, it would be way too late. So Cayman walked contentedly but warily, the sunlight dappling his face, the patchy shadows calling his name. He had time to kill.

Not to mention tourists.

****

Zak Block
allowed the fantasy to take him over. He was already a god – a secret, shadowy god, but when he took that throne – when he took his rightful place upon the very seat of Odin – the destiny that was rightfully his would come to wondrous fruition. When three like minds came together, wishes boosted by the latent power and energies inherent inside tombs literally built and occupied by the gods, then Odin’s power would truly be his.

It stood to reason that the three tombs would be connected in some way, perhaps through earth energy. Block had read about
many such phenomena before. Places where the natural electromagnetic energy of the Earth vitalizes an area and enables the existence of power. Energy could move vertically or horizontally. If the tombs had been built atop vortexes and along lines of vital, natural energy then it was clear that they were linked in the same way.

He was not unaware of the fact that Jakob
Hult’s translation of the ancient text had gone on to state where each ‘like mind’ should stand. Probably an ancient trigger for the device. But it was all speculation, and not something he cared too much about anyway.

For now
his efforts should be concentrated solely on the third man. Cayman and he were not enough. They needed a third individual. The Shadow Elite always had a kind of waiting list, a small group of people desperate to join what they thought were the world’s decision-makers. Among the men on this list was one Dmitry Kovalenko, the Blood King, but he was unavailable due to secret incarceration in a godforsaken prison even Block couldn’t locate. Truth be told, Kovalenko was too crazy and unpredictable anyway. He’d probably want to kidnap the U.S. President or something. Block had heard of his blood vendettas and blood vengeance. Not quite the Shadow Elite’s way.

Another name on the brief list was that of Nicolas Denney.
The aging European had made respectable money through dot-com businesses in the early days of the Internet and had consolidated with sensible land and financial purchases over the last two decades. In addition, he was a thrill junkie. Block didn’t know anything this man hadn’t tried for kicks and, even at sixty, he had recently completed another round of Himalayan trekking. Add these qualities to the common trait of a rich man always wanting more, and Block had found the perfect fool.

Partner,
he amended rapidly in his head. Best not to get ahead of himself. One of his secure lines rang, and he answered quickly, listening without comment to the vital information being eagerly spilled on the other end.

When the man had finished, Block simply said, “You will be rewarded.”
And hung up.
Interesting.
The U.S. and their local allies were moving to secure all three tombs, perhaps somehow aware of an evolving threat. He wondered if Cayman had showed himself. That psycho and his damn prize. What made a man fall in love with the bones of an old god? Far better the tangible power they had once commanded.

Block thought back over the killers he had employed through the years.
Cayman was probably the oddest, but there was one other he knew of – a woman, deeply embedded even now inside the British . . .

He paused
with his line of thought. The critical call was coming in. He stared at the satellite phone, unable to believe the time had finally come.

From now on, it was the Shadow Elite versus the rest of the world.
The battle of all battles.

“Yes?”

“Sir. All four cells are in position. One at Singen, one in Iceland, and two in Honolulu. We’re ready.”

Block
’s heart started to pound with excitement, fear and anticipation. This was everything he had been waiting for. “Go to war.”

****

Cayman ignored the vibration of his cell phone as he peered through a canopy of overhanging branches into the heart of a clearing. Dangling from his left hand was the corpse of a rabbit he’d used a makeshift snare to trap within an hour of getting here. Blood dripped from the rabbit’s neck, the same blood Cayman had coated his lips and chin with. He just hadn’t been able to resist. Ah, the sweet, thick nectar of life. Spilled blood being the consummation of death.

But
now, literally laid out before him, was quite a different prospect.

A young couple, hikers, enjoying the silence
, the solitude and, perhaps, the unspoken thrill of being caught, to enjoy a different kind of consummation. Cayman watched intently. Once the couple had clearly lost all awareness of their surroundings, he crept silently forward until he stood directly behind the male, unseen, in their blind spot. He waited another minute and then simply bent over, jabbing the man several times in the ribs with his knife. Cayman leaned in and covered the man’s screaming mouth, then flung the writhing body aside. The woman’s shocked eyes stared into his own, glazed with ignorance, terror and denial until he fell upon her, ending her life with a single slice.

Her life
force pumped into the ground, drawing Cayman’s eyes and attention. In another moment there was movement behind him and a man wearing camouflage fatigues stepped out of the underbrush, closely followed by many others, state-of-the-art weapons at the ready.

“The boss says answer your damn phone, Cayman
,” the man hissed, holding out his own device. “Good job that phone he gave you holds a tracking chip.” He glared pointedly. “For
your
sake. Here, take this. Wipe off your damn hands and talk to the boss.”

Cayman sat back and pushed to his feet. The time for play had ended. It was time to go to work.