When Block heard him, the Russian monk was already in the air, pivoting over the hood of the pickup truck on his right hand. He brought his right boot up and smashed it into Block’s face. The merc fell away from the truck and crashed down into the gravel, letting go of his gun which smacked to the ground a few feet from him.
Wordlessly, Hendrik Block got to his feet and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of a filthy, gnarled hand. He moved to snatch the weapon, but Nikolai read his mind. The Russian monk dived for the gun, tumbling into a barrel-roll as he picked it up from the ground.
Block cursed and stormed forward, but Nikolai was already on his feet, gun in hand. The merc pulled up fast and raised his hands. Grinning, he took a step away from the monk and gave a mock laugh. “You wouldn’t shoot an innocent, unarmed man?”
“You might be unarmed, but you’re not innocent.”
Inside the truck, Jazmin jumped in her seat and squeezed her eyes shut when the gun went off. Three sharp, cold reports echoed across the western slopes of the mountain as Block crumpled to the dry, sandy ground and died.
Nikolai uttered an Athanatoi prayer, long-since drilled into him, and stuffed the gun into his belt. He swung open the rear door and tore the gag from Jazmin’s mouth.
“My God!” she said. “You killed him in cold blood.”
“We must get you out of here,” he growled in his Russian accent. “They will be back and we have to find the others.”
He pulled her from the truck and untied her hands, then selected some weapons from the back of the pickup truck. “Did they hurt you?”
She nodded. “But not badly. I’m sorry, but I broke easily and told them how to find this place. They showed me photos of the lyre and forced me to translate them.”
“They’re bastards. Don’t worry about it.”
Behind him, Jazmin looked down at Block’s dead body. “I can’t believe you killed him.”
“I’ve done much worse — now, come on!”
The giant Congolese general raised his broad, scarred hand and pushed Mukendi away from Hawke. “No! Get back!”
The younger merc’s eyes flicked from Hawke to Kashala, and then back to the Englishman. “I will gut you like a wild pig.”
“Perhaps later,” Hawke said. “When we know each other better.”
Kashala approached Hawke. “I thought you were a military man.”
“You thought right.”
“Then why do you not salute? I am a military officer, a general.” His lip curled. “You show me great disrespect by not saluting me.”
“I’m a civilian now, Kashala, but even if I weren’t, I’d never salute slime like you.”
Mukendi gasped, his eyes crawling from the prisoner over to his boss. Crombez gave a low whistle and shook his head, mumbling something in quiet, whispered French.
“You salute the rank, not the man,” Demotte called out.
“True,” Hawke said. “Still, in this case I’ll make an exception.”
After a tense silence, Kashala ripped the papyrus bundle from his hands and turned his back on Hawke as he quickly leafed through them. Returning his attention to the English prisoner, he said, “And this is the map?”
“Yes, in return for the safe release of my team.”
Kashala raised a hand to stop his team laughing. “You are in no position to make any deals with me, Hawke. If this map is authentic, I may consider letting you live. Then again, I may cut your throat with the bullnose skinning knife hanging off my belt. I have not decided yet.”
“Ah, the agony of choice.”
“Bring me the woman!” Kashala yelled at Demotte. “Only she can tell us if this is what this fool says it is.”
Demotte gave a casual salute, slung his rifle over his shoulder and began to climb back up the mercs’ telescopic ladder.
“If you are lying to me, Hawke, you have until my man brings Dr Benedek down here, and then you are a dead man.”
Hawke glanced at his watch and saw he was halfway through the ten minutes. With any luck, the team had broken through the false wall behind the sarcophagus and found a way out. In terms of numbers, the Blood Crew were easily beatable by ECHO, but what pushed things their way was the weapons. He didn’t fancy going up against Mukendi’s Kalashnikov armed with nothing more than some papyrus and a pick mattock.
“It’s no lie, Kashala. That’s the map to Hades, but what I don’t understand is what a man like Dimitrov wants with it.”
“That is not for you to understand.”
“And where is Dimitrov, anyway?”
“Mr Dimitrov is on his way. Perhaps he will want to kill you himself.”
A few long minutes passed until Demotte rushed back down the ladder, a look of panic on his face. “She’s gone!”
Kashala turned his broad, sweaty face to the Belgian merc. “What do you mean, gone?”
“Benedek!” he said. “She’s gone and Block is dead!”
Kashala’s face crumpled. “Block is dead?”
A nod, and the mercs shared a look of rage.
Hawke laughed. “Looks like your date has run out on you, Joseph.”
Kashala returned the laugh. “Then there is no reason to keep you alive.”
“And there’s no reason to stay here talking bollocks with you, either.”
Before Kashala could respond, Hawke aimed himself in Chumbu’s direction and threw himself into a parkour roll. A split second passed, and he was on his feet rugby-tackling the merc to the floor. He piled a hard fist into the shocked man’s face and snatched his sidearm and a glow stick.
Kashala screamed at his men to kill him, but it was too late.
Hawke fired on the men and forced them to take cover as he rolled into the marble shaft and disappeared from sight.
“Kill him!” Kashala’s enraged voice boomed from above. “Kill him now!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hawke sprinted through the tunnel’s debris with the glowstick in one hand and his Glock in the other. It seemed narrower now he was pounding through it at full speed, and he had to duck his head here and there to stop from smashing into the rocky ceiling.
Reaching his friends, he was relieved to see they had opened the cavity behind the sarcophagus. “Might be time to leave the party,” he yelled.
“Eh?”
Suddenly, the tunnel behind Hawke was filled with submachine gunfire and muzzle flashes. “Like, now! And please tell me this new tunnel goes somewhere!”
“It goes up is all we can say,” Lea said. Seeing the look in his face, she added. “Hey, we were pressed for time!”
For a few explosive seconds, the fusillade of gunfire violently strobed the darkness of the tomb and the ear-splitting crack of the rounds tearing into the ancient gypsum plaster cut into them like razors. In the chaos, dust and smoke, Kashala called out to his men. “They’re over there behind the sarcophagus!”
They climbed into the cavity and began to run for their lives.
Scarlet turned and fired.
“Come on, Cairo!” Lea yelled. “You’re too far back.”
“She’s going as fast as she can,” Ryan called out in the darkness. “Considering she smokes like a freight train smokestack.”
“Give it a rest, you tit,” Scarlet said.
“Yeah, shut it, Ryan,” said Lea. “Your gags are weighing us down right now.”
Just to make the point, Scarlet speeded up and overtook Ryan. Pushing him roughly out of the way, she turned around so she was now running backwards and slowly raised her middle finger in the air. “What’s the matter, Nancy?” she said. “Forget your running shoes?”
With Orpheus’s codex clutched in his hand, Ryan’s lungs burned as he ran. “Funny.”
Zeke called out, “Not funny! They’re right behind us!”