Behind him, Reaper and Devlin were engaged in a heavy fist fight with a number of other soldiers who had entered the room from the courtyard. Scarlet was moving ahead and opening the door that led to the cells.
The Frenchman and Irish Ranger took out their opponents just as Hawke drove a heavy fist into the man’s stomach and blasted the wind out of him. As he bent double in pain Hawke brought his knee up into his face and smashed his nose into a pulp. Working fast now, he grabbed the man’s hair in his fist and yanked his head back before powering a final punch into his face and knocking him clean out.
Reaper slammed the door shut and Devlin slid the bolt.
Ahead, Scarlet yelled out to them. “This is it! I see the steps.”
They ran down a dark stone staircase until they reached a small space that looked like a dungeon. Three doors on either side and only one of them lit from the inside.
“That’s it.” Hawke charged forward and tried the door.
Locked.
He shoulder barged it. It shook in its frame but stayed put. A second one and more progress.
Now he heard screaming from inside the room.
Lexi’s voice.
The third charge broke the door down to reveal the horrifying sight of Lexi Zhang tied to a bed, but no sign of anyone else.
“Lexi!”
“Joe! Am I glad to see you!”
“Are you okay?”
“Just about.”
He stared down at the blood pouring from her left hand and saw at once that she was missing several fingernails. “Who did this to you?”
“Pig, under the orders of Zhou.”
“Where the hell are they?”
“They left me here when they heard the alarm.”
Hawke hurriedly untied her, staring in horror at the damage to her fingers. He ripped away a section of his shirt and wrapped it around the bloody mess. “You’ll be okay, Lex. We’ll make sure of it.”
“And now let’s get out of here,” Scarlet said.
They raced up the steps and reached the corridor, but this time it was teeming with soldiers.
Devlin said, “Looks like we’re in deep shit.”
“You think?” said Scarlet.
“If you think getting out of the Torture House is hard,” Lexi said, still breathing hard from the torture and gripping the cloth around her hand. “Imagine how hard it will be to get out of China.”
“Thanks for that, Lex,” Hawke said. “You always know how to cheer me up.”
The soldiers streamed down the staircase and raced down the long corridor toward them.
Scarlet cracked her knuckles. “This is it, ladies.”
“Just the five of us versus fifty PLA soldiers,” said Reaper with his famous shrug.
“They don’t stand a frigging chance!” Devlin said.
Hawke shook his head. “Where to start?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Driven by a fierce loyalty, the wall of muscle and bone that was Vincent Reno stormed forward into the swarm. Charging into the enemy ranks, he lashed out with one hand curled into a heavy, deadly fist and the other gripping a dagger drawn from his belt. Spinning, kicking, crushing and then hurling those who dared to attack him out of his way, the man they called Reaper proved once more his indispensable position in the team.
Scarlet was next into the fray, body-slamming a soldier away from the Frenchman and taking him out with a razor-sharp scissor kick. Armed with a combat knife in each hand, she slashed at the enemy and forced them back. Vermillion arcs of blood sprayed through the air around the two ECHO team members as they fought their way through the men. Nothing could stop them from rescuing their old friend, not even here in the heart of the Chinese homeland.
Armed with handguns, Hawke and Devlin fired on the soldiers further along the corridor, taking out two of them before the third and final man freed his gun from the holster and took cover behind a stairwell wall. Supercharged with adrenaline from the unexpected assault, Lexi lifted the gun Hawke had given her into the aim and unloaded the magazine in a ferocious fusillade directed at some of the crowd closing in around Reaper and Scarlet. Men screamed as their chests bursts open and sprayed blood up the walls behind them. Others scattered for cover.
Working as one now, the Frenchman and former SAS officer took advantage of the few soldiers brave enough to continue engaging them under Lexi’s fire. Reaper fought hard, with the power of a pro MMA wrestler and the speed of a ninja. Ducking and diving, dodging and blocking and then returning fire with a barrage of rib-cracking power punches and crippling elbow strikes. He grunted and he sweated, but he never flinched and he never slowed. Fighting Reaper was like fighting a mountain.
Hawke and Devlin worked their way up the corridor with a Buddy System, or bounding overwatch tactic. The Englishman went first, charging down the corridor as Devlin backed him up with suppressive fire. Hawke slammed into a shallow doorway and now provided the cover while Devlin sprinted forward, all the time closing in on the soldier defending the distant stairwell. Now Devlin took cover and fired on the man while Hawke took his turn in the offensive forward position. Reaching the stairwell, Hawke reloaded his gun and prepared to spin into the void and take out the soldier.
Behind them, Lexi tossed her empty gun aside. It clattered to the tiled floor as she leaped into the brawl with Reaper and Scarlet. Filled with hate and loathing at how she had been treated in this place she relished the chance to take some back for herself, to prove to herself that she wasn’t a spent force and that they had failed to break her. The first soldier was a man who was trying to attack Scarlet from behind.
She grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, smacking the heel of her hand into the dead-center of his surprised face and crushing his nose to pulp. She finished the job by swinging her elbow around full-force and smashing it into his mouth, knocking his front teeth out and nearly making him swallow his tongue.
He staggered back, raising his hands to feel the damage she had inflicted on him and she delivered a devastating Wushu butterfly kick, instantly knocking him out.
The second man lunged at her but slipped on his comrade’s blood. Flailing in the air for a few seconds, Lexi drew on her terrifying knowledge of martial arts and put him down hard with a merciless Krav Maga eye-strike. Illegal in professional competitions, ramming rigid fingers into your enemy’s eyes was a certain method of taking him out of the fight.
As he doubled over and screamed in pain, Lexi ended their date by landing a couple of hard slaps around his face before driving a spinning crescent kick into his head. Out cold before he hit the floor, she kicked him in the balls for good measure and then turned back to the fight.
Reaper was gripping two wriggling men by the backs of their heads. He brought their skulls together with a toe-curling cracking sound and they slumped to the floor at his boots. Scarlet was running the blade of her knife across the chest of another. Blood burst out through his fatigues and he yelled out in terror. More soldiers now came from every angle, running down the stairs behind them and emerging from a fire exit beside it.
“Something tells me they don’t want to let you go, Lexi,” Scarlet said.
Lexi winked. “I have that effect on people.”
Up ahead, Hawke spun around into the void and emptied his magazine into the soldier defending the stairwell. The bullets tore into his chest and blasted out the other side, ricocheting off the steel banister rail and burying themselves in the green and white painted plaster walls.
Devlin joined him at the stairs, gun raised into the aim and ready to fire. “All done?”
Hawke nodded and raised the palm mic to his mouth. “Northern stairwell cleared. We’re good to go.”