Lea watched as Demotte and the Blood Crew activated the enormous magnetic trap and push it inside the cavern to a black hole in the rock face. Between where they were standing and the action down at the rock face, Crombez and Demotte stood with Kalashnikov’s trained on them.
“What you’re doing here isn’t just insane, Dimitrov,” Lea said. “This goes to an entirely different level.”
“Please,” the mafia boss waved her words away. “No more compliments or you will make me blush.” He called Kashala over and the Congolese general padded across the cavern, away from the magnetic device. “Is it ready?”
Kashala nodded. “Ready and waiting for your order.”
Dimitrov looked at the scientist. “Go to work, Zhivkov. Initiate your machine and capture the antimatter particles. There is nothing to stop us now. The future of the world will soon be in the palm of my hand.”
Kashala gave the Bulgarian a sly glance and then went back down the path. Speaking in rapid French, he ordered his men to make way for Zhivkov. They obeyed his orders and surrounded the machine in a semi-circle, drawing their weapons and creating a defensive semi-circle around it.
“This is not looking good, Josiah.”
Hawke turned to Lea, once again lowering his voice to a whisper. “We’ve been in worse situations.”
She tipped her head back and fixed him in the eye. “And when the frigging fuck might that have been?”
“You’re right,” he conceded. “This is the worst.”
“Thank you.”
Hawke moved forward but Vizard smacked him in the chest with the stock of his rifle. “Get back!”
“Do as he says!” Dimitrov snapped.
“You don’t own us, Dimitrov!” Lea said. “You’re just a jumped-up thug with a chain of restaurants.”
“Yeah,” Ryan threw in. “And I bet last time you went to one of them you ordered the pasta and the antipasta at the same time, but they exploded in the kitchen!”
Zeke laughed. “I like it.”
“Silence!” Dimitrov yelled. “I will not be mocked. General Kashala, have your men tie these people up and secure them to the MFT. When we detonate this cave, they will be buried beneath millions of tons of volcanic rock.” He turned to Lea with a smile on his face. “And no one will ever hear anything of you or any of your miserable friends ever again.”
Crombez grabbed Reaper. “Come on, Vincent.”
“How could you do this?” Reaper said. “Work for a man like Dimitrov on a project like this?”
The Belgian merc gave a nonchalant shrug. “You know how this works. I live my life according to the golden rule — he who has the gold makes the rules. Right now, the King pays the most for mercenary work and so I work for him. You could join me, right now. I would vouch for your loyalty to the King. The paycheck is one million dollars each.”
Reaper shook his head sadly. “Go to hell, Olivier.”
The Belgian laughed. “This is very funny, considering where you are going to die today.”
What happened next reminded Hawke why Reaper was such a valued member of the team.
The Frenchman lashed out, simultaneously grabbing Crombez by the neck and disarming him. He grabbed his assault rifle for himself and threw Hawke the merc’s SIG.
Hawke caught the gun, released the mag and checked it. Full. He’d expected nothing less from a man with Crombez’s training and experience. Cradling the weapon with both hands, he raised it into the aim with the muzzle pointing directly at Kashala.
Using the merc as a human shield, Reaper swung the automatic weapon around and aimed it at Dimitrov. “Tell them to drop their weapons or you will die in five seconds.”
Kashala’s reaction was just as sharp. Drawing a sidearm from a holster on his belt, he fired on Reaper, forcing him back behind the boulders.
Hawke instantly returned fire, but the Congolese warlord slipped behind the pillars in front of the door. The distraction had given Dimitrov, the mafia men and the Blood Crew time to take cover and open a savage volley of fire on the defenceless ECHO team.
Reaper’s reaction was merciless. Using the stock of the rifle, he struck Crombez hard on the side of the head and knocked him out. Then he turned the rifle on the enemy and began sweeping the muzzle from side to side, peppering their position with automatic fire.
Far from being cowed, Kashala shocked everyone by ordering his men forward into battle, and moments later Demotte led the hardened force of mercenaries out of their cover. With the mafia men following behind, they screamed as they ran toward them, endless fire spitting from their Kalashnikovs.
“And we’ve got one rifle and one sidearm,” Hawke said. “Oh, happy days.”
“Buckle up,” Lea said, tucking her head down behind the boulder. “’Cause things are about to go to hell in a big way!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The onslaught raged.
Hellish mayhem like they had never known before exploded in the antechamber outside the tiny cavern. In the chaos, Camacho and Zeke scrambled inside the entrance and engaged in closer-quarter combat with two of the new mercs. Both hardened fighters, the Texan tank commander managed to disarm one of the men and shoot them both down, while the former CIA man snatched up their bags.
The two of them jogged back over and crashed down in the dirt behind the boulder. “Gotta be some shooting irons in here, right?” Zeke said.
Camacho opened the bag and they all peered inside.
“A few shooting irons,” Hawke said, handing the guns out. “And if I’m not very much mistaken, that’s a nice little lightweight, smoothbore, muzzle-loading mortar.”
Lea sighed. “God I just love it when you talk dirty, Josiah.”
Hawke ducked to dodge a tracing bullet and gave her a look as he set up the bipod mount and base plate. “Looks like they were kind enough to pack some high explosives, too.” He stopped and called out across the chamber. “Love you guys!”
“Did you have to do that?” Lexi said.
“No, but I just wanted to,” he said. “Wait a minute — there’s something else in here.”
Nikolai leaned in. “What?”
Hawke pulled out a strange cannister and shone his flashlight beam on it. “Ryan?”
The young man squinted as he assessed it. “Looks like some sort of heavy-duty scientific container. Hang on, I think I know. If Zhivkov really has invented an antimatter magnetic field generator, he’s going to need a mobile field generator to transport the antihydrogen particles. My money is on this cannister being exactly that.”
Hawke stuffed it back inside and slung the bag over his shoulder. “Well, good job we’ve got it then. Now, looks like it’s time we sort the wheat from the chaff. Firing!”
He dropped a shell down inside the cannon and fired it across the cave. Cradling their heads in their arms, the ECHO team waited for the fireworks and weren’t disappointed when they started.
The far end of the cavern exploded in a fireball, scattering car-sized chunks of rock and an equally lethal cloud of debris all over Kashala’s unsuspecting men far below. The Congolese and Belgian mercs ran for cover in every direction, with some heading for arched tunnels and others diving back behind the boulders. One of the Congolese men was too slow and was crushed by a granite slab the size of refrigerator.
Hawke watched the destruction and death unfurl with no sense of pleasure or relief. These men might be their enemy, but they were paid mercs working for cash. Maybe if he hadn’t met Lea, he’d be doing something similar right now. He just didn’t know. Now, a substantial section of the cavern’s roof split away and fell to the ground, squashing two of Dimitrov’s mafia goons flat. Hawke looked away and reloaded his gun.