“This is chaos!” he shouted.
The sound of fighter jets.
Devlin looked into the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. In the sky to the north, flying through the dazzling blue sky were two F-16 Fighting Falcons.
Ryan and Lexi had regrouped and were running around the length of the perimeter wall until they slammed into the cover of the Erectheion beside Scarlet and Devlin.
“You see the planes?” Devlin said.
“It’s the Hellenic Air Force!” said Ryan.
“Stupid bastard could have gotten away,” Lexi said. “But his obsession with killing us has cost him this time.”
Hawke and Reaper were still firing on the chopper, but then Kruger fired the RPG again. The grenade ripped away from the launcher and sliced through the air on its way toward Camacho, Lea and Kim.
“Incoming!” Reaper yelled.
They made the Parthenon’s eastern side and scrambled up the stone steps. Hawke and Reaper continued firing as Camacho and Lea ran into the interior of the ancient temple. The CIA man slipped Kim from his shoulders as the grenade piled into the outer layer of pillars and detonated.
They watched in disbelief as the Parthenon’s entire eastern section exploded in a giant fireball and filled the sky with a terrifying mushroom cloud of flames and black smoke. One of the F-16s screeched overhead as the pilot made a recce of the situation and counted the guns.
Chunks of two and a half thousand-year-old masonry smashed down all around them, crumbling on impact and rolling away down the steps back to ground level. Camacho shielded the unconscious Kim with his body as the rocks and debris rained down from the fiery sky above their heads.
Kruger’s chopper gained some more elevation and swooped away from the carnage, partially obscured now by the enormous mushroom cloud rising from the ashes of the Parthenon.
The F-16 was long-gone now, flying back into an attack formation with the other jet out on the horizon. Below, Devlin was suddenly aware for the first time of the screams of citizens and tourists panicking in the streets. Sirens filled the air and the red and blue lights of the emergency services flashed on the buildings far below as they raced toward the Acropolis.
“This situation is getting distinctly out of control,” Ryan said.
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Not going to let it get the better of you, are you boy?”
“Me? Never!”
“We need to get to the Parthenon,” Devlin said. “Better cover.”
They used the smoke for cover and made their way across to Hawke and the others who had tucked themselves down behind the northern side of the ancient temple. The carnage was even worse close up and they were forced to climb over the fallen pillars and blasted stonework of what had once been the world-famous Parthenon in order to reach the rest of the team.
“Kruger’s not screwing around anymore,” Camacho said. He was cradling Kim’s head in his arms and she was slowly coming back to life. “He’s going to pay for this.”
“He already is,” Lexi said. “Look!”
She pointed at the southern horizon where the AW101 was hovering above the city. One of the F-16s fired a surface-to-air missile which tore through the sky toward the chopper. The pilot spun around in a defensive manoeuvre which silently impressed the ECHO team and the missile blew past the side of it with a few feet to spare.
Two things happened at once. The missile slammed into the southern side of the Acropolis’s escarpment and blew a substantial quantity of sandstone and marl out of the side of the famous outcrop. It disappeared up into a cloud of filthy dust before coming back down to earth all over the streets of Plaka.
Then Kruger used the chopper’s new position sideways to the F-16 and fired the RPG-7 at it. The grenade scorched its way toward the fighter, its three hundred meters per second muzzle velocity making the short distance of one K in just three seconds flat and plowing into the bird’s starboard wing.
The explosion was savage, igniting the jet’s JP8 kerosene and blasting the fighter into a thousand pieces over the streets below. Kruger fired again and hit the second jet. It blew up into a fireball even bigger than the first. Both pilots had ejected with half a second to spare and were now drifting down to earth beneath the canopies of their escape chutes.
The merciless Kruger ordered the chopper to spin around and Venter filled the air force officers full of lead, killing them before they hit the ground. Then the chopper turned into the sun and disappeared into a mirage over the hills to the city’s east.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Dozing on the rear seat of the Suburban, Hawke tipped his head back and closed his eyes but stayed tuned to the conversation going on around him. It felt good to have the team working together like this, but they still had problems. Elysium had to be restored if they were going to have a proper center of operations again, but while the Oracle was alive there was little point in spending time and money on something he could so easily destroy.
And then there was his private life. Lea had forgiven him, but their break up had made him rethink the marriage proposal. He was still carrying the engagement ring in his gear bag, but he was no longer sure it was the best for the two of them. Still haunted by the memories of his wife’s murder and getting along so well with her without a ring on her finger, he started to think it was best to leave things as they were.
Lexi yawned. “How long till we get to Amphipolis?”
“One hour forty,” Ryan said without hesitation. “Just checked it out on the satnav.”
“Bummer the place doesn’t have an airport,” Scarlet sighed.
“Yes,” Ryan replied. “How ignorant the ancient Greeks were, not providing an airport for you to land your private jet in.”
She raised her middle finger. “Spin on it, Jemima.”
Hawke said, “Pull it together everyone. Thanks to Ryan deciphering the shield back in the tunnel we know where the tomb is located, but the Oracle knows too. We have the sword but he has the shield. All bets are off as to how this thing ends.”
Lea tied her hair back and blew out a deep breath. “And this is the Oracle we’re talking about. Remember that. This is a man who controls presidents and prime ministers. For all we know he’s already tracking us or something. Probably has an army of Athanatoi cultists waiting for us at the tomb.”
Kim gave a heavy sigh. “This is starting to feel like I don’t have a life anymore,” she said. “Before all this my life had structure. I had a career — the CIA and US Secret Service. I knew where I was from and where I was heading, but this is different. Maybe you Special Forces guys are used to all these crazy deployments and fights without rules, but I’m not sure I can handle it anymore and I miss my friends back in the States like crazy.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Lea smiled, but then concern and sympathy twisted her lips. “But it’s not so great out there either.” She nodded with her head toward the car window. “We’re a family here and that’s something most of us just don’t have anywhere else in the world.”
“I get that, but don’t you ever get tired of this life?”
“Sure, but I can’t stop until I know what happened to my father and I’ve punished those responsible for his death. Until that day comes, I’ll never give up.”
A long silence passed and then Hawke spoke up. “So where are we on this tomb, Ryan?”
“Since we got the location of the tomb off the shield, I’ve been looking into the area in a lot of detail. It’s near a site called the Kasta Tomb. This was first discovered back in 2014 by archaeologists and it immediately raised eyebrows all over the world because of the hype surrounding the possibility of it being the location of Alexander the Great’s tomb. Since its initial discovery much more evidence has been found suggesting strong links between the tomb site and Alexander.”