Once back through the archway, Cook’s Gates of Hell, they hoofed it back through the lava tube and out onto the surface.
Drake broke a long silence. “Wow, that’s the best smell in the world, right now. Fresh air at last.”
Mano Kinimaka’s voice came out of the surrounding dark. “Make that Hawaiian fresh air, man, and you’d be nearer the mark.”
People and faces drifted out of the semi-dark. A generator was fired up, lighting a hastily-erected set of string lights. A field-table was being erected. Komodo had called in their position as soon as they started up the lava tube. Ben’s signal returned and his mobile bleeped on four separate occasions with voicemail. Karin’s did the same. The parents had been allowed to call.
“Only four times?” Drake asked with a grin. “They must have forgotten you.”
Now Hayden came up to them, a battered, weary-looking Hayden. But she was smiling and she gave Ben a tentative hug. She was followed by Alicia, glaring with killer-eyes behind Drake. And in the shadows, Drake saw Mai, an awful tension stretched across her face.
It was almost time for their reckoning. The Japanese woman, rather than the English woman, seemed the most ill at ease about it.
Drake shrugged the dark cloud of depression away. He topped it all by flinging the trussed and gagged figure of the Blood King onto the rough ground at their feet.
“Dmitry Kovalenko.” He growled. “The Bell-end King. The most depraved of his kind. Anyone fancy a few kicks?”
At that moment, the figure of Jonathan Gates materialized from the growing hubbub around the makeshift camp. Drake narrowed his eyes. He knew Kovalenko had personally murdered Gates’s wife. Gates had more reason to hurt the Russian than even Drake and Alicia.
“Take a shot.” Drake hissed. “Fucker won’t need all his arms and legs in prison anyway.”
He saw Ben and Karin flinch and turn away. In that moment he caught a glimpse of the man he had become. He saw the bitterness, the vengeful anger, the spiral of hate and resentment that would lead to him becoming something not unlike Kovalenko himself, and knew all these emotions would eat away at him and eventually change him, make him over into a different man. It was an end that neither of them would want…
…Alyson or Kennedy that is.
He turned away too and put an arm around each of the Blakes’ shoulders. They were staring eastward, past a set of swaying palm trees toward distant glittering lights and the rolling ocean.
“Such a sight might change a man,” Drake said. “Might give him a renewed hope. Given time.”
Ben spoke without turning. “I know you want a Dinorock quote right now, but I ain’t gonna give you one. Instead, I could quote several relevant lines from Haunted. How about that?”
“You’re quoting Taylor Swift now? What went wrong there?”
“That track is as good as any of your Dinorock. And you know it.”
But Drake would never admit it. Instead, he listened into the chatter shooting back and forth behind them. The terror plots had been foiled competently and quickly, but there had still been some loss of life. An inevitable consequence when dealing with fanatics and madmen. The country was in mourning. The president was on his way and already promising another complete overhaul of the U.S. intelligence system, though it was still unclear how anyone could have prevented Kovalenko from hatching a plan twenty years in the making when, during all that time, he had been considered a mere figure of myth.
Much like the gods and their remains they were finding now.
Still, lessons had been learned and the U.S. and other countries were determined to take it all on board.
The question of charges being brought against those people in authority who had acted under coercion and out fear for the wellbeing of their loved ones was going to tie up the judicial system for years.
But the Blood King’s captives had been freed and were being reunited with their loved ones. Gates was promising that Kovalenko would be made to retract the blood vendetta, one way or another. Harrison had been reunited with his daughter, albeit briefly, and the news only made Drake sad.
If his own daughter had been born and loved and then kidnapped, would he have done the same as Harrison?
Of course he would. Any father would move heaven and Earth and everything in between to save his child.
Hayden, Gates and Kinimaka drifted away from the hubbub until they stood near Drake and his group. He was pleased to see Komodo and the surviving Delta soldier, Merlin, with them too. Bonds forged in comradeship and action were everlasting.
Hayden was quizzing Gates about some guy called Russell Cayman. It seemed the man had replaced Torsten Dahl as head of the Icelandic operation, his orders coming from the very top… and maybe even from a foggy and distant place above that. Cayman was a hard man, it seemed, and ruthless. He usually ran black-ops and, it was rumored, even more secretive and select operations both at home and abroad.
“Cayman is a troubleshooter,” Gates was saying. “But more than that. You see, no one seems to know whose troubleshooter he is. His clearance is beyond top-level. His access is immediate and unreserved. But, when pushed, nobody knows who the hell he actually works for.”
Drake’s mobile rang and he tuned out. He checked the screen and was pleased to see the caller was Torsten Dahl.
“Hey, it’s the mad Swede! How’s it going, mate? Still talking like an arsehole?”
“It would seem so. I’ve been trying to contact someone for hours and I get you. Fate is not being kind to me.”
“You’re lucky to get any of us,” Drake said. “It’s been a rough few days.”
“Well, it’s about to get rougher.” Dahl came back.
“I doubt that—”
“Listen. We found a drawing. A map to be more accurate. We managed to decipher most of it before that wanker Cayman classified it a top-level security issue. By the way, did Hayden or Gates find anything out about him?”
Drake blinked with confusion. “Cayman? Who the hell is this Cayman? And what do Hayden and Gates know?”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t have a lot of time.” For the first time Drake, realized his friend was whispering and in a rush. “Look. The map we found, at the very least, points to the locations of three tombs. Did you get that? There are three tombs of the gods.”
“We just found a second.” Drake felt the wind knocked out of him. “It’s huge.”
“I thought so. The map appears to be accurate then. But Drake, you have to hear this, the third tomb is the biggest of all and it’s the worst.”
“Worst?”
“Filled with the most terrible gods. The real nasty ones. The evil ones. Tomb three was kind of like a prison, where death was forced rather than accepted. And Drake…”
“What?”
“If we’re right, I think it holds the key to some kind of doomsday weapon.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
By the time another darkness descended over Hawaii and the next stages of some ancient mega-plan were being instigated, Drake, Alicia and Mai left it all behind to bring an end to their own crisis once and for all.
By chance, they chose the most dramatic setting of all. Waikiki Beach, with the warm pacific, starkly lit by the full moon, rolling in to one side, and the rows of tourist hotels blazing out to the other.
But tonight, it was a place for dangerous people and harsh revelations. Three forces of nature came together in a meeting that would forever change the course of their lives.