Lea was right behind him and she heard it too. “IED!”
The explosion was savage, blasting each of them backwards through the smoky air like so many rag dolls. Lea and Ryan collided mid-air and crashed to the floor outside Kruger’s room. Camacho was blown straight through the study door and Kim flew over the mezzanine rail, tumbling through the air toward the parquet floor.
“Kim!” Camacho yelled. He crawled out of the study and scrambled down the stairs with his gun raised.
Ryan and Lea were right behind him, each taking the steps two at a time.
“Is she okay?”
“I’m fine…”
She had been saved from a broken neck by a table. It had snapped under her weight but arrested her fall enough to ensure she survived with nothing more than some bruises. She snatched up her gun and dragged herself to her feet. “Let’s get going!”
They ran over to the door, coughing the smoke from their lungs. Ryan was first, emerging from the chaos and jogging out onto the expansive bull-grass lawn.
The others ran over to him.
“We have to get after them!” Kim said.
“It’s too late.” Ryan swore and kicked a wad of turf into the air. “They’re long gone and they were generous enough to destroy our SUV before they went. If anyone wants a challenge it’s in a thousand pieces all over the yard.”
Each member of the team felt the same crushing sense of defeat as Kruger’s Maserati Levante made the corner at high-speed and vanished from sight.
Lea stared at the fleeing vehicle and knew she had failed. “Fuck it sideways!” She turned in a circle and screamed out loud. “Shit, you’re wounded, Ry!”
“It’s nothing, really.” He was playing it cool, but he was already feeling a little dizzy from the blood loss.
“Get your vest off.”
He removed the tactical vest and dropped it to the floor.
Lea gasped when she saw the thick matted blood caked over his t-shirt. “Jesus, Ry!”
“It’s nothing…”
And then he went down onto his knees, his head spinning.
Camacho and Kim grabbed hold of him while Lea lifted the t-shirt and checked the wound. “You need medical attention.”
And next on their radar were the flashing blue lights of the South African Police Service hurriedly swerving around the bend with sirens wailing. They skidded to a halt outside the burning house and police leaped from their vehicles with guns raised.
“Drop your weapons now!” the lead officer yelled. “You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The ECHO Gulfstream cruised thousands of feet over the rice paddies of Guangdong Province. The moon broke the horizon over the South China Sea and the fading dusk of another tiring day gave way to the night.
Hawke had just woken after the long flight from London. Scarlet Sloane was sitting at a table with Vincent Reno and Danny Devlin playing Texas Hold’em. By the looks on the two men’s faces she was winning big style and as he walked across the cabin and joined them it was just in time to see her slide another pile of fifty-dollar bills onto her side of the table.
“There’s no escaping fate, boys,” she said with a wink. “I’ll enjoy spending this.”
Hawke pulled up a chair and looked at Reaper and Devlin with sympathy. “I’d fold before it turns into strip poker.”
“Fold?” Devlin furrowed his brow with fake confusion. “That’s what I’m waiting for!”
Hawke said nothing. Tension had been high in the ECHO team since his bust-up with Lea and for a time he’d blamed the Irishman, but a few texts from Scarlet had set him straight on who was really to blame and it turned out wasn’t Devlin but him. Sure, the former Irish Ranger had pushed his luck on their last mission to locate the Sword of Fire, but he knew in his heart his old friend was right.
He ran his hands over the box in his jacket pocket. The engagement ring was still there, next to his heart but now cold and redundant. It needed the heat from Lea’s hand to come alive, but he was starting to think asking her would be a mistake and that marriage for him was some kind of a curse.
His first wife was brutally murdered on their honeymoon and he’d delayed asking Lea for a long time. When he had finally decided to take the step, they’d argued and broken up within hours. Maybe the smartest thing he could do was toss the ring in the garbage and forget all about it. That had to be the best thing for both of them.
“I’m out.” Reaper folded his hand over onto the table and yawned.
“Smart but boring,” Scarlet said. “I’d have the shirt off your back in the next round.”
“Now you’re talking!” Devlin said.
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “I won’t stop there, Danny. You’ll be down to your underwear in three rounds and I’m not sure how that benefits any of us, darling.”
Reaper clapped a heavy hand on her shoulder. “C’est vrai. The only way you win when playing strip poker with a man with Danny’s body is to lose and go naked yourself. It saves the eyes.”
“You guys shoot straight from the hip,” Devlin said, and turned his cards down to the table beside the Frenchman’s. “I’ll quit while I’m behind.”
Hawke watched Scarlet smirk as Devlin and Reaper moped down to the end of the plane with empty pockets. She cleared the cash off the table and swept it into her jacket pocket with the single fluid motion of a seasoned Vegas pro swiping her winnings into a chip rack before taking them to the cage.
He opened his mouth to speak but she won that fight too and spoke before he got a word to his lips.
“Someone needs to make the first move, Joe.”
Hawke looked down the cabin at Devlin and frowned. “Maybe I over-reacted when I saw him hugging her.”
“You think?”
“I presume you’re being sarcastic.”
“Clever you. I gave Lea a hug once,” Scarlet said. “Does that mean I’m in love with her?”
Hawke took a deep breath, puffed his cheeks and blew it out again. “I was going to ask her to marry me, Cairo.”
“So get on with it and stop being such a bell-end.”
Hawke contemplated the friendly advice, delivered as ever with Scarlet’s usual panache.
Dammit all, he had known he was wrong the second Lea had walked away with Devlin back in London, but now wasn’t the time for regrets. Lea had gone to Pretoria to bring Kruger down, secure the sword and get a lead on the Oracle and he was leading a team to Hong Kong to rescue Lexi. He had to focus, not stress about the rocky road of his private life.
“Bell-end, eh?”
“You said it.”
Hawke narrowed his eyes. “No, you said it.”
“What are you, a lawyer?”
“You think we could make it work?”
“What makes you ask the question?”
He shrugged. “Just wondered.”
“I don’t think so, darling. I’m not one for settling down. You know that — I’d eat you for breakfast.”
“I’m being serious.”
They watched the progress of their flight on the little screen. Still over Guangdong Province, and with their journey almost at an end, they now turned into their final vector. She let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I know you’re only a man so I’ll explain it in simple terms. You were a bell-end. We established that, right?”
“Right.”
“Exactly right, but you’re a bell-end that wants to make things right.”
“I’m not sure I like bell-end being used in anything but the past tense. A one-off sort of thing rather than a permanent condition.”
“Bear with me.”
“Fine.”
“So the way you make things right is to grovel profusely and then go ahead and do your wedding ring thing.”