One of the men pulled his weapon from his shoulder and tapped the driver’s window with the muzzle. He spoke in Serbian, the incomprehensible words tumbling from his mouth like crumbs.
Hawke spoke to the man in his own language, the words carefully rehearsed on the flight. “We’re here to see Korać.”
The man nodded but narrowed his eyes with suspicion as he peered inside the car at Reaper. The Frenchman raised his hand and pretended to rub his face, but Hawke knew the intended purpose was to show the burning grenade tattoo of the Foreign Legion to the guard.
The man gave an appreciative nod and shouted a command at the other soldiers. Up ahead Hawke and Reaper watched the main gates swing open to reveal the inside of the Serbian warlord’s fortress.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dragan Korać took a long look at the two unemployed mercenaries standing before him and drummed his fingers on the edge of a table laden with meat and fruit. His eyes shone dully in the low light as he pronged a piece of rare lamb with the point of his knife and raised it to his mouth. As he chewed he revealed a missing canine tooth from the left side of his upper jaw. There was a dark, evaluating glint lurking in his eyes.
“You,” he said, pointing the knife at Reaper. “Now I see your face I remember you. You worked for me in the Congo.”
“That’s right.”
“You were very good,” he said, slowly chewing on the bloody lamb.
“We’re the best,” Reaper mumbled.
“It’s easy to say, my friend,” the Serbian drawled. He raised a glass of red wine and guzzled it down, sloppily wiping the trickles from the side of his mouth with his sleeve. “But in this business action speaks louder than words.” He belched loudly.
“Of course,” came the reply.
Korać nodded his head, but no smile. “We’ll see about that. I have a reputation to think about — ah!” He stopped mid-sentence when Dirk Kruger and his men walked into the room. “Kruger, I trust you are refreshed after your flight?”
Kruger looked at Hawke and Reaper like they were stray dogs and then returned his attention to his host. “I am. You show great hospitality, Mr Korać.”
Korać twisted in his chair, his mouth full of meat once again, and while still chewing spoke through the lamb. “Please — these men are offering themselves to me as mercenaries. If they’re any good they will join my regular army. Business is good, and I take new recruits all the time but they must work very hard to prove themselves or they’re out the door. If they’re lucky, that is.”
Kruger gave Hawke and Reaper a second cursory glance and returned his attention to Korać. “I hope the financial terms I offered were acceptable,” he said.
Korać waved his hand to indicate ambiguity, and then smiled broadly. “We talk about the money after we eat, but first you must all be very hungry. Please — sit down and join me. We will talk about your plan.”
Hawke, Reaper, Kruger and Van Zyl joined Korać at the thick wooden table and began to eat, but Hawke knew the real purpose of the meal wasn’t to sample the local delicacies of pljeskavica beef patties and veal schnitzel washed down with lashings of plum brandy. The real reason was to talk about Kruger’s mission and study him and Reaper for their reactions. From Korać’s point of view there was no harm in including two strange men in the discussion — either they would be determined as trustworthy and included, or not, and killed.
“Tell me, Dirk,” Korać began. “Why the need for my army?”
“Treasure.”
Korać stared at him, his smile fading and then returning. His eyes crawled over Hawke and Reaper for a moment before settling on the bottle of brandy in front of him. He poured a glass for himself and smacked the bottle back down on the table. “Treasure, you say?”
Kruger nodded, clearly uncomfortable with saying too much in front of so many people. “Treasure — diamonds… gold. Lots of gold.”
“You want my men to break into Fort Knox, like Mr Goldfinger?”
A low laugh rippled around the tense room.
“No,” Kruger said sharply. “The gold I want isn’t in Fort Knox, Dragan.”
“So where is it?” The earlier hint of a smile on Korać’s face was now totally gone and an even grimmer atmosphere fell over the room like a dark, suffocating blanket.
After a pregnant pause, Kruger fixed his dark eyes on the Serbian commander and spoke one single word. “Atlantis.”
For what seemed like eternity, silence hung in the air like cannon smoke, but then Korać burst into laughter and his men followed suit. Hawke and Reaper joined in but Kruger remained steely-eyed and straight-faced.
“You…” Korać struggled to get the words out through the laughter. “You’re not serious, Dirk?”
“I bloody am serious,” Kruger snapped. “And I don’t like being laughed at, man!”
In a heartbeat, Korać pulled a srbosjek blade from his belt and thrust it into the wooden tabletop before sweeping the brandy and bowls of fruit aside with his arm.
“Watch your tongue, Professor Kruger! I do not take kindly to people talking to me like this.”
Not expecting such a reaction, Kruger recoiled awkwardly in his seat and almost fell backwards on his chair. He saved himself from going back and landing with a smack on the flagstone floor, but he was clearly rattled. Across the table from him, Korać wrenched the knife from the table and studied the blade for a few moments.
“I’m sorry…” Kruger said reluctantly.
Korać slipped the knife back into his belt and offered a smile to the South African. “Let’s try and get along from now on. I’m sure we can be friends, but friends don’t lie to each other.”
“I’m not lying. I have spent many years looking for Atlantis and finally I have evidence it exists.”
This time, Korać didn’t laugh. “You better not be playing games with me, Dirk. My army has a very solid reputation from fighting in wars all over the world from Chechnya to the Congo. If you make me look like a fool chasing after mermaids you will pay for it with your life and the lives of your family.”
“No one’s talking about mermaids,” Kruger said regaining some of his cool after the unforeseen outburst a few moments ago. “I already said I’m looking for diamonds. All my life is about diamonds, Dragan. The legend of Atlantis was written by Plato, and he was very clear about it being an island full of gold and silver not to mention endless other precious stones and metals — including diamonds.”
“But you already said the word — legend. It’s nothing more than a legend.”
“I thought that until a few hours ago when I saw this.” Kruger pulled the golden idol from his bag and gently set it down on the table. The smooth golden edges sparkled in the dim light of Korać’s pretentious candelabra.
The Serbian’s eyes were glued to the idol. “What is that thing?” he said, nudging his chin at the ancient statuette.
Hawke saw it now up close for the first time. It was beguiling, beautiful, and yet flawed — covered in strange carvings as if someone had tried to tattoo her, and it was in a much poorer condition than he’d imagined too — with chips and gouges cut into her here and there. It was in a much worse condition than the Valhalla idol, but he noticed that the base she stood on had the same peculiar seven-pointed star configuration.
“You seem very interested in it…”
Hawke looked up to see Korać staring at him grimly. He hadn’t realized that he’d been so fixated by the idol. He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“It belonged to an associate of mine,” Kruger said, moving it away from Hawke and closer to Korać. “He gave it to me for the purposes of getting you and your army on board our project. He was very reluctant to let it out of his sight, I can promise you.”