“What is it you’re after, Kovalenko? What’s this all about?”
“What’s it all about? It’s about a lifelong quest. About me beating Cook. About how I learned and trained by killing a man every day for twenty years. I am not like other men. I stepped beyond that before I made my first billion.”
“You’ve already beaten Cook,” Drake pointed out evenly. “Why not come back down here? We’ll talk, you and I.”
“You want to kill me? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even my men want to kill me.”
“That’s probably because you’re a major bell-end.”
Kovalenko frowned, but was so far into his self-indulgent tirade now the insult didn’t even register properly. “I would kill thousands to achieve my goals. Maybe I already have. Who bothers keeping count? But mark this, Drake, and mark it well. You and your friends will be a part of that statistic. I will wipe your memories from the Earth.”
“Stop being so melodramatic,” Drake shouted back. “Get down here and prove you’ve got a set, old man.” He saw Karin and Ben consulting closely nearby, both starting to nod vigorously now as they figured something out.
“Do not think I will die so easily, even if we do happen to meet. I grew up on the hardest streets of the hardest city in Mother Russia. And I walked free on them. I owned them. The British and the Americans know nothing of real struggle.” The hard-looking man spat on the ground.
Drake’s eyes were deadly. “Oh, I sincerely hope you don’t die easily.”
“I will see you soon, British man. I will see you burn whilst I claim my treasure. I will see you scream whilst I take another of your women. I will see you rot whilst I become a god.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Komodo had had enough of listening to the tyrants bluster. He loosed a volley toward the stone ledge, sending the Blood King’s men into a panic. Even now, Drake saw, nine out of ten men still ran to assist him.
Immediately, shots were fired back. Bullets zinged off the nearby rock walls.
Ben shouted, “All we have to do is climb over the fat guy. Not too tough…”
Drake sensed a but coming. He raised an eyebrow as rock chips landed on his shoulder.
“But,” Karin chimed in, her similarities to Ben becoming more clear the longer Drake spent time with her. “The snag is the food. Some of it is hollow. And filled with a kind of gas.”
“I’m guessing it’s not laughing gas.” Drake eyed the misshapen corpse.
Komodo fired off a conservative volley to keep the Blood King’s men at bay. “If it is, then it’s really, really good stuff.”
“Prepared powders,” Karin said. “Released by pressure triggers. Possibly similar to the ones that killed most of the archaeologists who found Tutankhamen’s tomb. You know about the supposed curse, right? Well, most people believe certain potions or gases we’re left in the tomb by ancient Egyptian priests designed solely to kill grave robbers.”
“What’s the safe path?” Drake asked.
“We don’t know, but if we run quick, one at a time, if anyone does release some powder behind them, it should be a miniscule amount that will evaporate quickly. The trap is there primarily to stop anyone climbing the sculpture¸ not get across it.”
“According to Hawksworth,” Karin said with a tight smile.
Drake assessed the situation. To him, this looked to be the turning point. If there was an observation balcony up there then they had to be close to the end. He imagined it would be a straight run from there to the sixth and seventh chambers and then on to the fabled “treasure.” He took a moment to assess the team.
“This is where we go for it,” he said. “All or nothing. Up there”—he flicked an angry fist toward Kovalenko—“is a blind man shooting bullets at the world. And, Ben, for your information, that’s real Dinorock. But this is where we go for it. All or nothing. You up for it?”
He was met with a resounding roar.
Matt Drake took off at a sprint, leading his men into the lower levels of hell, on the last leg of his own quest to avenge the woman he loved and rid the world of the most evil man he had ever known.
Time to rock.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Drake leaped up onto the gigantic sculpture, scrambling for purchase and grabbing the carved food to pull himself up. The sculpture felt cold, rough and foreign beneath his fingers, like touching the egg of an alien. He held his breath as he pulled hard to maintain his balance, but the fruit and loaves and haunches of pork held.
Below him and to the right lay the body of a man who hadn’t been quite so lucky.
Bullets zinged around him. Komodo and another member of the Delta team laid down covering fire.
Without more than a wasted second, Drake leapt across the main body of the molded shape and scrambled down the other side. As his feet hit the rock floor, he turned and gave a thumbs-up to the next man in line.
And then he, too, opened fire, picking off one of the Blood King’s men with his first shot. The man tumbled down the cliff face, landing near the body of his already dead comrade with a horrible crunch.
The second man in line made it.
Ben came next.
Five minutes later and the entire team crouched safely in the shadow of Gluttony. Only one item of food had been crushed. Drake had watched as a puff of powder seeped into the air, spiraling like the body of a deadly, charmed snake, but it had evaporated after a few seconds not even touching the guilty man’s fleeing boots.
“The ledge.”
Drake led the way double-time to the short incline that formed the beginning of the ledge. From this vantage point, they saw it curved gracefully up the wall before giving out onto the rock plateau.
The Blood King’s men withdrew. It was a race against time.
Up they pounded, single file. The ledge was wide enough to forgive a few mistakes. Drake fired as he ran, picking off another of Kovalenko’s men as they vanished through the next exit archway. When they reached the top of the ledge and saw the vast expanse of the rocky shelf Drake saw something else too, lying in wait.
“Grenade!”
In full flight, he flung himself headlong to the floor, using his momentum to twist his body as it slid across the smooth rock and booted the grenade away.
It fell off the plateau, exploding a few seconds later. The blast rocked the chamber.
Komodo helped him up. “Could use you on our soccer team, dude.”
“Yanks can’t play soccer.” Drake started running toward the balcony, eager to see what lay beyond and get after Kovalenko. “No offense.”
“Hmm. I don’t see the English team bringing home many trophies.”
“We’ll bring home the gold.” Drake put the American right. “At the Olympics. Beckham will make the difference.”
Ben had caught them up. “He’s right. The team will play for him. The crowd will rise for him.”
Karin let out an exasperated cry from behind. “Is there nowhere where a man won’t talk about bloody football!”
Drake reached the balcony and placed his hand on the low, broken stone wall. The sight that greeted him made his legs turn weak, made him stagger, made him forget all his woes and wonder again just what manner of creature had actually built this awe-inspiring place.
The view they beheld struck both awe and fear into their hearts.
The balcony stood about a quarter of the way up a truly gargantuan cavern. Without doubt, the biggest any of them had ever seen. The light came from the countless deep amber flares the Blood King’s men had fired before they embarked on the sixth level. Even then much of the cavern and its dangers still lay in murk and shadow.