The food Lea had ordered arrived at their table — flame-grilled picanha steaks with black beans and rice, and another round of chilled Brahmas on the side. He took a slow sip of the cold beer and glanced out across Copacabana Beach and the South Atlantic Ocean beyond. Down here in the southern hemisphere it was summer, and the tropical heat of the bay enveloped him like a blanket.
Above him, the stars struggled to be seen through the incredible light pollution of the behemoth city at his back, but he could still see a few in the far eastern sky. He ate some of the steak and tried to relax, but what would have been a perfect evening was destroyed by the absence of Maria, Rich and Alex and he knew everyone here tonight felt the same way. The only consolation was Scarlet hadn’t made any crappy Barry Manilow jokes since they’d arrived at the restaurant.
He tried to shake the thought of their missing friends from his mind, but it lingered like cannon smoke on a battlefield. He lifted his first bottle and finished the beer before picking up the second and taking the top third off in a couple of seconds. He set it down and looked around the small, beleaguered group.
“I think we won today,” Reaper said, but without conviction.
“How’d you work that out?” Lea said.
He gave his usual shrug. “We discovered the Lost City of the Incas for one thing, and we stopped Kruger getting the treasure,” he said matter-of-factly. He took a long drag on his roll-up cigarette and winced as he sucked the smoke down. When he spoke next, the smoke tumbled out with his words. “And we ended the threat of Saqqal and Jawad,” he said, tapping his forefinger on the table to underline the point.
“I guess, but it still feels like a failure,” Lea said.
“And we all know why,” Ryan said.
“Nevertheless,” Scarlet threw in. “We won the battle we set out to win.”
Hawke shook his head. “We might have won the battle, but we’re losing the war. Our team is in shreds and Elysium is smouldering ruins.”
“We will win, Joe,” Lea said.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, Lea,” he said.
The others nodded in agreement. They all knew what was expected of them. With Eden out of the game and no way to know when or even if he would be back, they all had to give more to the cause, but they all knew how hard it would be.
Hawke unbuttoned the top of his shirt and Scarlet wolf-whistled loudly causing a few of the diners to turn and gawp.
“Weyhay!” she said. “Undo another couple of buttons just for me will you, darling?”
He gave her a sarcastic smirk.
“And if you pop open the top of your shorts you can let that gut out for a few minutes.”
Hawke stared at her and after a long period of silence a thin, uncertain smile broke out on his face. They had a lot of work to do — hunting down Dirk Kruger for a start, not to mention smashing the Oracle and his sinister cult — but he had the camaraderie of the people sitting around this table… the camaraderie of his closest friends, and nothing could beat that. He raised his bottle over the center of the table.
“To revenge?” Scarlet said with a dark sparkle in her eyes.
“No,” Hawke said with a solemn shake of his head. “To old friends and new adventures.”
EPILOGUE
Maggie Donovan liked to watch the weather coming in. It was one of the few things she could do at her age that didn’t make her bones ache and her eyelids heavy. Today was not disappointing. Everyone at the Haven Bay Nursing Home had been following the storm out in the Atlantic these last few days. It looked like a nasty one, and she pitied anyone caught out in it.
Now, the water in the bay was churning under a leaden sky and the coast guard had warned the trawlermen to come in, but it was warm and cosy in Maggie’s soft chair, and she celebrated the fact with a small glass of whiskey. She liked it without fuss, which the staff knew meant neat and at least three fingers high or it got sent back. She liked Tyrconnell, or maybe even Connemara peated malt, but that only happened if family brought it in. Usually she had to live with a blend.
“How are you this afternoon, Maggie?”
Maggie turned to see Grace enter the room. She liked Grace because she always plumped her cushions when she talked to her and today was no exception.
“I’m fine dear.”
“Are all your family coming in, Maggie? It’s not every day you turn ninety, after all.”
“Most but not all,” Maggie said with a hint of sadness. “My sister won’t be visiting.”
“Ah — your sister,” Grace said sympathetically. They’d all heard about the sister. Many of the staff thought it meant Maggie’s mind was finally going, but ninety was a good innings so it didn’t raise too much concern. “And how is Lea?”
“I haven’t seen her for a long time. It’s very sad.”
Maggie opened the drawer and pulled out the picture. She bumped her wrist on the wood on the way out and cursed with the pain. Her skin was like cigarette paper these days and she was lucky it hadn’t broken open again. “Here she is.”
Grace took the picture and smiled. “She sure is beautiful, Maggie. I’ll give you that.”
“Isn’t she just?” she said, beaming with pride.
“But she can’t be older than thirty.”
“I’d say about that yes, but my memory’s not what it was when I was eighty, you know.”
“Are you sure she’s not your granddaughter?” Grace asked quietly as she put the cushion back behind Maggie. “She must be sixty years younger than you.”
“Of course I’m sure!”
Grace gave another sympathetic smile and handed the picture back to Maggie, who looked at it long enough for a tear to appear in her eye, and then she put it back in the drawer.
“We’ll be having the party in the recreation room, Maggie. Is that all right?”
Maggie nodded, but said nothing. The storm was in now, and starting to whip up on the shale cliffs of the bay.
Grace moved to the door and turned down the dimmer-switch on the light. “I can’t tell you the details but some of the guests have a secret planned for you, is that all right?” A gentle pink glow fell over the room, and for a few moments the only sound was the quiet sound of ticking as the radiator pipes expanded under the floorboards.
“Oh yes,” Maggie said, a smile breaking through the wrinkles on her face. “I’ve lived with secrets all my life.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I wanted a lean, fast story so I hope I achieved that with this. I started researching the Incas and putting this story together a while ago when I was planning The Aztec Prophecy, and because of the cliffhanger in The Secret of Atlantis I made the decision to release them together so you didn’t have to wait ages to find out what happened! These books take many weeks to write (sometimes longer…) so sadly I cannot promise another Hawke adventure for a while…
Let me use this place to thank you for all the support I receive in my emails and to say that I always reply to messages even if takes me a few days. Coming up next is a real change with the release of a standalone action-adventure thriller called The Armageddon Protocol which is not in the Hawke universe and features a new set of characters that I really hope you’ll enjoy.