“It predates all known histories,” Hayden went on. “Within its makeup are certain elements and minerals that haven’t existed since times unknown. So long before the dawn of civilisation it makes the mind boggle.”
Drake wondered about that. Hadn’t Odin’s Shield contained something similar?
Harrison interrupted his thoughts. “It has some of the oldest known constituents ever recorded. We’re talking way over 500 million years.”
“A lost civilisation?” Kennedy tugged at the waistband of her hipsters, still conscious of her figure, despite herself. “Like Atlantis?”
Hayden suddenly looked tired. “Who knows? And, frankly, who cares? Where it came from is not the issue here.”
“Well said,” said Drake nodding. He then looked the SOG commander dead in the eyes. “How good are you and your men, Bradey?”
“We have two full units here, Drake. Plus two hundred marines, Delta Force and other select companies. God couldn’t get into this room.”
“It’s not God I’m worried about. It’s a man who’s managed to convince the entire world for about thirty years that he’s just a myth,” he said, grimacing at Hayden. “And I’m sorry to say, that includes your super-geeks and your ‘chatter-monitors’ and all the rest of it.”
“A goddamn Transformer couldn’t get in here.” Bradey was starting to sound annoyed, but smoothed it over with a little grin. “Though I daresay Megan Fox might sneak through.”
There were a few moments while all the men considered the scenario before conversation caught up again.
“Time travel,” said Kennedy, who was again tugging up her jeans whilst contemplating the box on the table. “Has anyone given this thing a shake?”
Harrison gawped. “Are you kidding?”
Kinimaka looked sick. “Didn’t you see Terra Nova?”
Drake’s mind was still trying to get into sync with his enemies’. “Ok, so the logical next step is to search for the second device. To hold either piece will negate the effect of the other device. To hold both-” he left that hanging, aware that the U.S. government was strongly represented in the room.
“That’s the dilemma. No one knows where to start.” Hayden’s smile was tired and drawn. Nightmares of the last few days still moved in her eyes.
Drake said, “You start with the last place they were seen together. And then you follow whatever trail you can.”
“Been there,” Ben smiled. “Done that.”
Hayden gave him a forlorn look. “Is that another Dinorock tune. Don’t tell me they’ve got you doing it too.”
“No!” Ben’s shout was loud enough to make the marines stationed by the door glance around. “I will never join the Dinorock crew, Hey! You know that.”
“Look,” said Bradey as he started to walk away, his motion designed to break up their little party, “you’re not the only people working on this. Gut feeling? Someone’s gonna get lucky. I hope it’s you guys.”
Harrison took the unspoken hint. Quickly he lifted his huge briefcase and, despite its awkward bulk, took off at a fast pace.
Drake blinked at Ben. “I know what I said, mate, but I’m just the muscle here. Where the hell do we start?”
Ben opened his mouth to speak, but before he could express himself there was an explosion so loud they all looked up to see if the roof was caving in on them.
The entire ship shuddered.
Bradey was already on his wrist mic. He looked dumbfounded. “This ship is under attack,” he said in utter disbelief. “Under attack.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
For a long moment Drake and his friends stared at each other. Bradey took his marines and raced off, the shock of it all still apparent in his voice as he barked out orders.
Drake regarded the box. “Last place we wanna be.”
He moved into the passageway. The fading footsteps of the racing marines still echoed from the bland walls.
“Remember the way out?” Kennedy asked.
Drake shot her a ‘don’t be silly’ look and set off. Moving blindly like this and with limited cover and escape routes, he felt extremely uncomfortable. Bradey needed his bollocks tweaking for not leaving them a gun. Harrison was blethering on, only further confusing the ex-SAS man’s radar.
“Let’s keep it down,” he rasped along the line. “We have no idea what we’re dealing with here.”
“I do.” Hayden said softly. “Boudreau.”
Drake paused and looked along the line. At the back stood the man-mountain, Kinimaka. His steely eyes met Drakes’ and expressed just one word.
Revenge.
Drake moved off. “I’ll tell you this, Hayden. Boudreau ain’t the hardest man on this vessel.”
The passageway ran straight for twenty feet before hitting a ninety degree junction. Signage was noticeably absent. Drake felt a moment of frustration and then turned right, almost sure it led to their cabins from which he could easily find the deck.
The odd thing was they walked in utter silence. On board a ship of hundreds he heard not a single voice. Creepy thoughts of the Bermuda Triangle entered his head.
At last they reached their cabins. As Drake paused to have a quick look a second intense explosion shook the U.S. cruiser, making the walls and the floor shiver and shake.
“Above decks could be worse,” Kennedy said.
“Now, maybe,” Drake told her. “But if those guys made it down here we’d be gravy.”
“Down here?” Hayden looked shocked. “How could they ever get down here? There’s a boatful of U.S. marines to get through.”
“But they already knew that,” Drake said. “And yet still… they’re attacking this ship.”
The ex-soldier led them on, trying to exercise speed and caution and, at last, they were standing before a set of stairs that led up to the deck. Now, the sounds of combat were more apparent.
“Seriously,” Kennedy reiterated, “wouldn’t it be easier to hold them off down here.”
Drake felt a moment’s frustration. He was trying to save their lives. Questions weren’t helping. “Stop thinking a step ahead,” he said shortly, “and try thinking four or five steps ahead. They will have planned for that contingency. Now follow!”
Boots hammering the steps, he pounded upwards, cracked open the door and glanced out. One… two… three. Five seconds, then he ducked back in.
“Ship’s clean,” he said. “No bad guys. The marines are holding them off.”
He cracked the door again and they filed out. The big five-inch gun mounted on the bow was before them. Behind them bristled the various radar arrays towers and illuminators. The deck was jammed with hard-faced marines. Alarms and sensors were going off everywhere.
But Drake read the confusion behind their eyes and saw the panic they were concealing at the shrieking warning bells and stopped dead. “Don’t like the look of this.”
He started towards the big gun and then something happened that made the British seen-it-all SAS soldier stand and gawp like a three-year-old on a visit to Disneyland.
Above the bow, above the massive gun, above the port and starboard side, and rising like prehistoric moths appeared at least a dozen choppers. In less than a second they all opened fire. The sound of metallic hell filled the air so loudly that Drake found himself unable to think.
He fell to the deck and crawled. As his senses returned he glanced underneath his own body. His friends were in a similar state, stunned into immobility. Bullets clanged and whined and ricocheted off every metal surface — a category-five hurricane of lead that tore through skin and bone and left men screaming in its wake.