“Fucking fantastic,” Scarlet said, coughing. “Thanks for asking.”
“He’s gone!” Lea said. The desperation in her voice was clear for all to hear.
Hawke looked through the smoke to the Oracle’s desk and saw she was right. He was gone.
He leaped to his feet and ran to the desk, smashing his fist down on top of it with frustration. “Damn it to hell!”
“Where did he go?” Scarlet asked, scanning the room.
Hawke sighed. “There’s an escape hatch.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Lea said.
“And he remembered to pack the idol before he went on vacation as well,” Scarlet said.
Maria Kurikova felt confident as she moved deeper into the fight. She knew that somewhere behind her Reaper and Ryan were advancing to the north in pursuit of Dirk Kruger, but her sights were set firmly on Luk and Kamchatka.
She struck out on the pipe, her boots slipping here and there on small streams of leaking oil, but it was the fastest way to get to the other side of the substructure. If she went all the way around the safety scaffolding she knew she would lose them.
Below her the raging black sea pounded and roared like a trapped bear and sprayed her with freezing saltwater as she made her way across to the other side.
And then she saw him.
Luk.
He was standing in the shadows of the scaffolding on the far western side of the substructure and he looked scared, which surprised her. All around them the battle raged and now somewhere above her from the main platform she heard a loud explosion and felt the vibration from the shockwave as it emanated into the substructure. Lexi got the refinery, she thought.
And then Luk pulled a knife from his belt and tossed it in the air so he was holding it by the blade… ready to throw it at me.
She flicked her eyes down at the violent sea and knew there was nothing down there but a terrible, lonely death.
She looked back up.
The next seconds went like lightning.
Luk pulled his arm back to throw the knife.
Maria fired her gun and dodged to the left to miss the knife.
She slipped on the pipe and tumbled over it.
Luk staggered backwards, his hands clutching the savage bullet wound in his stomach.
Maria grabbed hold of the pipe as she fell down, and just managed to grab hold of a riveted plate holding two segments of the pipe together. She was safe, for now, and had stopped herself plummeting into the sea, but it was only now that her hands were grasping the pipe’s metal that she realized it was hot — too hot to handle.
She cursed in pain as she hauled herself back up the pipe and then staggered to her feet. Not taking any more chances she made the last few yards of the pipe and stepped off onto the substructure’s platform a foot away from Luk.
“Please…” Luk murmured. “Make it fast.”
“You want it fast?” she said, her heavy Russian accent concealing only part of the utter contempt she felt for the man kneeling in front of her.
She raised her boot and placed it on his chest. “Нет…No.”
And with that she booted him off the platform.
He screamed as he tumbled over the edge of the Seastead and crashed down into the Kort nozzle of the moored container ship below. Sucked down by the force of the enormous ducted propellers he was drawn helplessly toward the savage, whirring blades. The last thing she heard were Luk’s blood-curdling screams as his body was sucked inside the industrial cowling and minced by the vessel’s azimuth thruster. This was followed by a terrible noise that sounded like an industrial meat grinder. Seconds later the heaving Atlantic was bright red with blood and then it was all gone, washed away with the tide forever.
“Death by a thousand cuts, you bastard,” she said coolly, and slipped her gun back inside her holster.
And then saw the muzzle flash.
And heard the crack.
And felt the shot.
It felt like someone had run a hot poker through her heart.
She gasped, but felt no air fill her lungs, and then she dropped to her knees as the hot blood poured from her mouth.
She knew what had happened… or thought she knew, because now she was losing consciousness. Her blood pressure was dropping because of the nine mil hole in her heart and there was nothing she could do to save herself.
The battle seemed to move in slow-motion as she turned her head and saw Vincent Reno racing toward her with his gun raised. He was screaming Non! and then he fired three successive shots above her head to kill the assassin. She never knew if he got him because instead she chose to close her eyes and go to sleep.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Who the hell has an escape hatch under his frigging desk?” Lea asked, sighing angrily.
“The President of the United States, for one thing,” Hawke said. “I know because Alex told me she saw it when her Dad introduced her to President Grant. It’s right under the Resolute Desk and leads down on a slide to the Secret Service’s Horsepower Command post in the White House basement.”
“Well, this arsehole has one too,” Lea said. “And he’s just used it to get away. Damn it all!”
A man rushed into the room with a gun raised. He was wearing black and Hawke immediately saw the Athanatoi mark on his wrist. He burst into action ready to fight him when he saw it was the man they had called Lazarus.
“Where is the bastard?” Lazarus said.
Scarlet pointed down the escape chute. “He left the party early.”
Lazarus ran to the chute and cursed in a foreign language none of them recognized. He stared down into the gloom of the escape route, his face crossed with frustration, anger and fear.
“Where does this lead?” Hawke asked.
“He has an aircraft.”
“Shit,” Hawke said.
“Double shit,” Lea said.
Scarlet sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Make that a triple.”
“No, this is definitely a four turd situation,” Camacho added.
“Let’s get after him,” Hawke yelled. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. If we want kill him it’s now or never.”
Lazarus shook his head. “Many have wanted to kill him, but all have failed. Today I will succeed where they all failed.”
The man from the helipad burst into the room with a gun. “Lazarus, you traitor!”
They exchanged gunfire, both striking each other. Lazarus’s aim was better, hitting the other man in the head and killing him instantly, but his own wound was in the stomach. Death would be slow and agonizing.
“Jesus!” Lea said, running to the wounded man. “Oh God…”
“Get after him!” Lazarus said, his voice barely a whisper. “He must die. Take this.” He handed Hawke his M4 complete with grenade launcher attachment. “You’ll need it.”
“Scarlet — with me,” Hawke said. “We’re going after Wolff. Lea and Jack — stay with Lazarus. He could help us.”
Hawke slid down the escape chute at speed, folding his arms over his chest as if he were using an aircraft’s evacuation slide. Seconds later his journey was over and he found himself on a sheet steel platform beside a narrow-gauge railroad leading off into a tunnel.
“What the fuck is this?” Scarlet said, now standing beside him. “Disneyland?”
“He’s gone, Cairo — and whatever he used to get away was the only one because there’s nothing else here.”
“Then we have to run along the tracks,” she said. “Now’s your chance to get back from Pork to Hawke.”
He gave her a look and readied the grenade launcher. “Let’s see who gets there first then shall we?”
Lea stared down at the dying man. “Why did they call you a traitor, Lazarus?”