But that was some time ago now, and maybe Luk had killed so many people Joe Hawke simply didn’t stand out to him. He watched as the two men spoke quietly with Korać for a few minutes. “These two bastards tried it on with my daughter,” he said to the two new arrivals, repeating the speech he had given a few moments earlier. “Can you believe that? Now we have two new men in our army and they are going to prove to us all that their hearts are with us by executing them.” With a grim smirk, he turned to Hawke, who had now realized that neither Luk nor Kamchatka had recognized him. “And you’re not going to let us down.”
Hawke was out of options, and raised the sword above his head when Korać suddenly stopped him and grabbed the sword. “Who taught you how to use a sword? This is not how you swing it.”
Korać took the sword and began an elaborate demonstration of how to swing a sword down against the bare neck of a man awaiting his execution. With each slash of the blade the terrified men flinched and whimpered in fear. “This is how you do it — Mr — what was your name again?”
“Slade,” Hawke said.
“Slade — of course. Only, my friend here…” he tipped his head to a now-grinning Luk. “He seems to think your name is Joe Hawke, and you work for a Western intelligence agency by the name of ECHO.” He pushed the tip of the sword into the soft flesh of Hawke’s throat. “Is he right or wrong?”
“He’s right,” Reaper said, and followed his words with a devastating right-hook into the side of Korać’s face. A terrific crunching sound emanated from his mouth and the Serbian staggered sideways, dropping the heavy sword.
Then all hell broke loose in Korać’s compound.
“We need to get the fuck outta here!” Reaper screamed.
“You think we’re rumbled then?” Hawke said with a grin.
Reaper gave him a look and the two men scrambled across the courtyard as Korać staggered to his feet and after spitting blood onto the flagstones he screamed at his men to kill the two runaways.
A second later a dozen Serbian mercenaries opened fire and filled the courtyard with a savage blaze of nine mil rounds. The two ECHO men only just evaded their bullets by darting into one of the doors in the cloister on the western edge of the courtyard. A second later and they were inside Korać’s compound.
Hawke paused and stared up and down the long corridor in a bid to remember which way led to the front of the sprawling property where their car was parked. The corridor was filled with magnificent and obviously stolen works of modern art wherever he looked — this was where Korać wined and dined his potential clients and this grotesque display of wealth and crime was clearly what it took to swing the deals in his direction.
“Quite the collection,” Reaper said, getting his breath back. Everywhere the Frenchman’s eyes settled they fell upon a famous work of art. “Rothko, Basquiat — and mon dieu — this is a Matisse. These must be worth millions of dollars.”
“You can admire the art later, Vincent — we have work to do.”
They hurried through to the main hall where Korać had shown his guests his twisted brand of entertainment and picked up some of the Serbians’ weapons.
“Lucky he didn’t have more of his men here or we’d be toes by now.”
“Toast, Reaper. It’s toast.”
Hawke checked the mag and slid a round into the chamber while Reaper smashed open one of the windows and opened fire on the men in the courtyard. Hawke joined in a second later from the next window down and soon the men outside were dancing like fools as they darted here and there to evade the bullets.
Hawke’s mind was racing with the unfolding chaos. He was good at absorbing shocks to the system and prided himself on moving on past them and not letting them get to him but the arrival of Luk and Kamchatka in Korać’s courtyard had taken him by surprise. He had no idea what either of them were doing here, but at the very least it meant he had two more people to fight — two people with a serious grudge against him and the rest of the ECHO team.
They fired at the men to keep them pinned down. Across the other side of the yard their bullets smashed out windows and tore Korać’s Mighty Bucky bull-riding machine to hundreds of pieces, but now the mercs and Kruger’s goons worked out where the fire was coming from and split into two to fight back, with a backup unit forming a second front on the west side of the house.
Hawke grabbed Korać’s candelabra and set fire to the drapes either side of the main entrance to his hall and seconds later enormous white-hot flames were licking up the curtains and crawling all over the wooden support beams on the ceiling. The room filled with a noxious black smoke which poured from the shattered windows in thick columns before blooming up into the cold Serbian sky.
Korać screamed in response, waving his men forward into the fray with his gun hand, but making sure to keep at the rear with Kruger as they began to close in on the English soldier and the French legionnaire.
Hawke kept up the barrage, never flinching and not even considering retreat. He tore through his magazine and smacked his second and last into place before taking out another of Korać’s men who had left himself exposed in the corridor.
And then Korać changed tactics.
“He’s telling his men to pull back!” Reaper screamed.
“They’re all getting out of here,” Hawke said. “Including Kruger.”
“If they go up to the main road they’ll run straight into our people.”
“They’re not that stupid,” the Englishman replied. “They’re going out the back of the courtyard where Alex said he had a second garage block. Jelena’s men are all around the perimeter!”
“Let’s get after the bastards,” Reaper said.
They crouched low and made their way out of the burning room toward the courtyard where they heard the sound of multiple engines roaring to life. “Quick!” Reaper said. “To the Riva!”
They sprinted to the front of the house where their car was parked, and Hawke looked from Reaper to the Riva and back again. “Do we have to?”
“Mais, oui… it’s our only chance.”
Hawke pushed his reluctance aside and clambered into the Russian car, twisting the ignition key and revving the tiny engine as the Frenchman climbed in beside him and slammed his door shut. Hawke trundled the car around the side of the house as the Frenchman scanned the horizon for the fleeing enemy.
“There they go!” Reaper said, pointing through the rear archway of the courtyard. Speeding away from the compound was a Cadillac Escalade and a Jeep Wrangler. They skidded out of the garage block in a blaze of exhaust fumes and burning rubber before chewing up clods of dirt from the side of the road and spraying the earth up in a wild arc behind them.
“Go!” Reaper said.
“I am going,” Hawke said flooring the throttle. He rammed the Riva’s gear stick into first and spun the front wheels so fast he almost burned through the rubber. He released the clutch and the tiny car jolted forward. As the underpowered sedan belched and farted its way out of the compound, something told him this was not going to be the easiest pursuit he had ever given.
“Call Lea and the others and get a team in the fort to save those men.”
Reaper nodded and made the call as Hawke steered the car through the brown Serbian countryside which now stretched out before them as they speeded down the hill in pursuit of Korać and Kruger. A quick glance in the wobbling rear view mirror at least gave Hawke the satisfaction of seeing the Serbian warlord’s compound burning to the ground, including his precious art collection.
Hawke struggled to power the ageing Lada forward but at least for now they were racing down the hill on which the compound was built. Ahead of them the Escalade and the Wrangler were making short work of the rough tracks stretching away toward the forest.