The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake 6) (24 page)

Hayden ran like the wind, noticing the chasm ahead, gauging its width and leaping across without hesitation.
A tall man, who looked to be in his early fifties, stood above her, laughing as he paced around the black granite throne of Odin, finally spotting her and bellowing out a command.

“Kill her. She is too late anyway. The Shadow Elite will soon once again control fate itself!”

A man stepped into view beneath the throne, aiming a pistol. Hayden flinched, totally exposed, but then a Glock cracked behind her head and the man’s pistol flew out of his hand, struck dead-on by a bullet. Kinimaka had fired first, seemingly his last shot as the next one clicked on an empty chamber. Hayden ran at their attacker as a knife appeared in his other hand. She body-swerved as he lashed out and dug her stiffened fingers into his larynx.

He choked, but didn
’t go down. He thrashed at her again. She caught the wrist and broke it, but the man was tough and he was trained. He too stepped in and delivered a blow to her abdomen that doubled her over. She went down to one knee. She sensed an elbow being raised above her in preparation for the final blow that would break her neck.

“Hey! Look up!”

The scream made her look sideways in time to see the spinning blade of the sword arcing toward her. The man above hesitated, half-backing off, and that was his downfall. Hayden caught the sword’s hilt and spun in a single calculated move, feeling the blade slice through the gristle of his neck.

Kinimaka made for the ladder that led to Odin
’s throne.

Hayden started to follow, but at that moment she felt the onset of something huge beginning to build all around her. The sudden crackle of unseen energy made the air smell of static electricity, like ozone created by thunderclouds. When she looked up she saw a bolt of lightning strike the rock near Odin
’s chair.

Crap, what had Akerman said about the doomsday device being a weapon that could harness the elements?

It was already too late.

****

Dahl saw the greater threat immediately and shouldered his weapon. The suited individual was at the center of all this and his capture would surely end it. He grabbed the ladder, hands and feet to each side and, within seconds, had slid down its full length. Reaching the bottom, he exploded into a fast run, seeing one of the mercs turn his way and rolling to upset the man’s aim. The bullet whizzed by. Bengtsson put an end to the threat with a head shot. It had been the last of the merc resistance.

The man in the suit had seen Dahl
’s intent, but didn’t bat an eyelid, just continued to glare up at the roof of the volcano toward the starlit skies beyond. In his right hand he held what looked to be a long, thick bone. Could it be one of the gods’?

“We are joined,” Dahl heard him say, and then gawped.

A squall began to gust inside the mountain, whipping through the man’s jacket. The very air crackled. The bedrock began to tremble and shake. Lightning bolts struck before his eyes, fizzling and flickering, charging the air with electricity, swarming around the man’s body and shooting off up into the air and, beyond that, into the skies.

The storm to end all storms was coming.

****

Alicia ran straight at Russell Cayman, but then a storm of elements erupted around him and a discharge of energy flung her back.
Was this earth energy?
The vortex was erupting, the failsafes and conditions of the gods met at last.

“Are you crazy?” she screamed at Cayman. “You
’ve switched on the fucking doomsday device.”

Cayman
’s face was bathed in sweat and glory, and starkly lit by lightning. He clasped a giant skull in one hand, undoubtedly the head of Kali. Alicia saw bright energy bolts shooting through the eye and mouth sockets.

Cayman
’s terrible visage turned upon her. “Now,” he said. “Now I have come home.”

The flickering tree of lightning climbed higher and higher, gusts of wind scoured the chamber. Alicia scrambled on her knees, for once helpless to do anything about it. The niches above trembled and quivered before her eyes, starting to shake in the throes of an impending earthquake.

****

At every tomb, a towering column of light
shot up from the bowels of the Earth. The three vortexes erupted together, unleashing their potent earth energy in one almighty blast. Energized by the tombs, charged and activated by the bones of the gods, crackling bolts of incandescent energy blew the tops off every tomb and fired up into the clouds and skies. The core sizzled around the three men; Block, Cayman and Denney, enveloping them in a cocoon of white fire.

Hayden lost her grip on the ladder, fell backwards, and hit the rock plateau hard. Kinimaka made a tough choice, and jumped down to help her, cradling her head.

“Oh, Mano,” she whispered. “You keep saving my life.”

He bowed his head until their noses touched. “Without you there is no life worth living.”

****

Dahl struggled toward the bright glow, raging through the lightning, cursing when his gun was wrenched out of his fingers as he neared the suited man. His thumb brushed the man
’s wrist a second before he was thrust backwards on his knees, pushed by the force of the gale, his slide only arrested by Bengtsson and the other two SGG soldiers.

Heads bent, they struggled to stand upright in the screaming vortex . . .

All three tombs started to collapse. First the cliff faces around them gave way, blocks of rock and stone shearing off and sliding down to crash and burst against the floor below. Then the niches themselves started to crumble, a cascade of smaller stones dropping like a devastating waterfall. Extensive cracks ran from niche to niche. Bigger blocks began to shift and rumble, the ominous shattering of enduring rock striking terror into the heart of everyone who heard.

Hayden
’s eyes bored into Kinimaka’s. “We have to get the hell out of here.”

“Not yet.”

Kinimaka left her and started to climb the ladder, sword slung over his back. Hayden took a breath and followed, reaching the seat of Odin’s throne a second after he did. Kinimaka strode ahead and literally barged through the power that coursed around Zak Block, shoving forward until he stood face to face with the Shadow Elite maniac.

“Stop it,” he yelled. “Shut it off!”

The fanatics eyes flew wide as if just realizing he had forgotten to do that very thing. “It works,” Kinimaka heard him say. “I have the power.”

“Then prove it. Turn it off!”

The leader of the Shadow Elite dropped the finger bone he was holding, and at first appeared to try and concentrate and clear his mind. Then he closed his eyes and walked away. Finally, he slapped himself.

“I can
’t.”

The earth energy, unleashed and unfettered at last, twisted like an electrically charged whirlwind high into the sky.

Unstoppable.

All of a sudden, Kinimaka saw the branches of the towering, crackling tree of lightning stretching towards him.
He was instantly reminded of Nikola Tesla’s
tree of energy
description. He flung the Shadow Elite man aside, thinking he was the source, and backed away fast. But the blazing tendrils continued to test for his presence, as if sensing something. Then one of the stalks shot towards him like a spitting arrow, striking his back. Kinimaka squealed, not ashamed to do so.

“What the fuck!”

Hayden fell in beside him. “Oh crap. Now we’re in trouble.”

“Why?”

“That lightning bolt just struck your sword.”

Kinimaka stared in horror as the whole soaring column leaned toward him.

****

Dahl stood transfixed as the lightning tree bent over toward the swinging cable car. He screamed for Olle, and when the Swedish translator stood up, he was grasping both of Alexander
’s swords in his hands.

“Thought they might come in useful,” he started
, and then saw the astonishing display of earth energy. “Ah,” he mumbled. “Ah . . . Torsten . . .”

****

Alicia scooted across the rock-strewn floor as the energy tower, containing all the Earth’s elements, bowed down to the ground, a dazzling supplicant. Lomas brandished one of the swords. She picked up the other. Fear and wonder kept her rooted to the spot. Here was a primeval force that could tear the world apart. Here was real power, real might. The kind of display that might persuade a man to worship the gods.

Then the earth energy gathered its white fire and flashed straight at the swords held by Alicia, Lomas, Hayden, Kinimaka and Akerman, surrounding their blades in a writhing wreath of flickering flame before exploding and firing upward in a shining column straight through the top of the tombs, now channeled from their original purpose by the earth energy inherent in the swords and re-tasked toward something new.

Alicia watched in awe as the column of light reached its apex and then
veered away.

*
***

Drake held the sword aloft and felt the energy exploding. Above him, beyond the rim of the pit where Mai and Yorgi
’s faces peered down anxiously, he saw fires illuminating the skies. The dark night was sunstruck. A wondrous array of crackling and sparkling lights swept the black curtain aside, a spectacular aurora borealis. Was it the end of the world? He didn’t know, but had foresight enough to thrust the sword higher, its tip now clearing the top of the pit.

Instantly, the world ignited. Vivid bolts of lightning blazed b
rightly and blasted toward the Earth with the sound of a thunderclap. Vital energy struck and channeled through the entire length of the sword, then flashed down from the hilt to be totally consumed by the bottomless pit of Babylon. A stunning symmetry of shining energy surrounded Drake and the sword, mini bolts of lightning crackled in his hair, between his fingers, across the tops of his boots, but he remained unharmed.

“It
’s a goddamn lightning rod,” he said, amazed. The other six swords were the same, but infused with less power. They attracted the energy and sent it to their more powerful cousin.

The pit of Babylon devoured every spark of power like a hungry black hole. Nothing stirred down there. Nothing existed. Drake remembered Patterson saying that even the pit itself might be an earth energy vortex. But now he knew better.

It was a
negative
energy vortex, consuming everything and anything that was thrown at it.

Except for Matt Drake.
With the help of his friends, he climbed and pulled himself up over the edge of the pit. The sword still flickered, expending the last of its force below, so Drake held it out over the black hole until the lights chasing along its blade finally diminished and the skies were reclaimed by the night.

Together they sat for a while, mourning the death of Professor Patterson and rejoicing that the world was now safe, but, most of all, worrying about the fates of their friends and team mates.

Dahl bounded over to the suited man as the last crackles of energy subsided. He smashed a fist into the side of his head, sending his entire frame slithering to the ground.

“Questioning can wait.”

He balanced on the spot, listening. At least the dissipation of the energy tree had temporarily slowed the crumbling of the old tombs.

Bengtsson stepped up. “What on E
arth happened here, sir?”

Dahl eyed Olle Akerman, still swinging in the cable car. “We won. And now we need to go.”

Akerman stared forlornly through the empty windows. “Any chance you can get me down now?”

Dahl jumped for the ladder. “Just
be a moment.”

****

Alicia saw the last vestiges of earth energy fade away, then cringed as a high-pitched mewling started up. Her eyes sought and found Russell Cayman, bent double with his nose to the ground, the shattered skull of Kali clenched between his bleeding fingers.

The tombs still crumbled around them. She thought it really was time to get the fuck outta here, but could they risk leaving Cayman alive?

Not a chance. Alicia had no intentions of bringing the psycho back to the real world. She stepped among the statues, now at the center of the tomb, and raised her gun.

“You can
’t kill me,” he hissed.

“Just putting down a rabid dog.
And this is you getting lucky, Cayman, believe me.”

Cayman looked up at her, eyes wretched and lost. “I don
’t want to be taken from my home again. I don’t want to be left by the side of the road. Do it. Do it now.”

Alicia hesitated for a second, wondering what his story was, but the sound of a Desert Eagle booming put an end to any second thoughts. Cayman
’s head exploded, his body falling backwards, fingers still not relinquishing their grip on the skull of Kali, even in death.

Alicia turned. Lomas shrugged at her, pretending to blow smoke from the end of his barrel. “We have to get away from here,
Taz. Place is falling to pieces.”

The Englishwoman fell in as the bikers and German special ops troops jogged their way back up the shaking passageways. Behind them, the tomb started to steadily cave in. Alicia ignored it and, surrounded by her gang, repeated the words one last time to reinforce the gravity of her message.

“Never, ever, mention that name to anyone beyond this gang. You hear me? If you understand me right, your balls should be starting to shrink.”

A few
‘ayes’ went up, even from the women.

Alicia ran with her new family toward the light.

****

Kinimaka forced the Shadow Elite boss down the vertical ladder, throwing him the last four feet. All around them, rock faces were crumbling. Even the throne of Odin was starting to develop a myriad of tiny cracks.

Hayden met his eyes. Kinimaka nodded.
“Run!”

Dragging their captive, the two SPEAR operatives chased their own footsteps back through the redundant trap system. Mini earthquakes threatened to upend them at any moment, but thankfully the major damage seemed to be confined to the tombs. It was the spectacular end of the gods, the final destruction of their resting places now adding to the insolent disrespect of their deaths. By the time Hayden and Kinimaka neared ground level, the rumblings had stopped, making the Hawaiian pause at the entrance to the gates of Hell.

“I guess that’s the last of the gods then.”

Hayden cast her eyes over the archway, the so-called portal, and wondered about the two devices that complimented it. Whatever had happened to them?

“I guess so. And in truth, Mano, despite what we may have learned, it’s not a bad thing.”

“Damn right.”

“I just hope it’s the same at every tomb. I wonder how the others fared.” Hayden stared at her cell until the green bars flickered into life.

Kinimaka strode out into the open air first, throwing the Shadow Elite boss to the floor at the feet of the gathered military forces. “Last guy we walked out of here,” he said, “is still wallowing in some top secret prison. No one knows where. I expect nothing less but the same for you, asshole.”

Then the day became a blur for Kinimaka. Hayden called Karin and confirmed events at the other two tomb sites and Babylon. Jonathan Gates came on the line and thanked them publicly, along with half the military and cops in Honolulu. A Japanese family somehow managed to wander into the facility and started to take pictures. His sister, Kono, called and said that she needed to see him. She was sure she was being watched. She knew he was in Hawaii, and maybe he could stop on the way back to D.C. And finally, ultimately, Hayden pulled him to the side and led him over to the low rim of the crater.

Beyond, the glittering Pacific lapped at Waikiki
’s golden shore.

“We should call a hotel,” Hayden said after a while. “Get cleaned up.”

Kinimaka grunted. “Are you kidding, makamae
?
My home’s a short drive away.”

Hayden pulled a face. “You want me to go meet your mom?”

“Doesn’t every man want to take home his beautiful girlfriend?”

Hayden still hesitated uncertainly. “Ah, the Hard Rock
’s in the other direction you know.”

“I know. We can go there tomorrow.”