He tried to smile. “Because I wanted to tell the world about what we really are.”
She took a deep breath. “Are you… gods?”
He shook his head. “We have lots of names — the Athanatoi is a very old word we use but there are others — the Shadowmen, the 10th Floor Group, the Priesthood — it depends on the country. In China we’re called Bāxiān, a group of eight xian, or transcendental saints.”
“How many groups are there?”
“There are many sects, or factions. Some refer to these as churches, or creeds, others even use the word denominations, but it all comes to same thing. There are lots of us, more than you know. We are immortal, but not divine. We are human, just like you. We were given the secret of immortality and we guard it with our lives, as you have seen. You can think of us as priests serving a higher power.”
“What higher power — the Oracle?” Camacho asked.
The man laughed, coughing out more blood. He shook his head and gasped in pain as he clutched his stomach. “The Oracle serves the higher power just like the rest of us but now he’s locked in endless skirmishes in the search for…” he doubled over in pain and made an agonized wheezing sound. His blood pressure was falling too low. “I’m dying… I’m finally dying.”
“No you’re not!” Lea said, leaning forward and tightening the tourniquet, but it was useless work and they both knew it. She gripped the man’s head in her hands. “Searching for what, Lazarus?”
He looked up into her eyes as he released his dying breath. “Knock, and the door will be opened to you.”
And then he was gone.
Lea closed her eyes and sighed, and then laid the man’s head gently down in the rubble.
Jack Brooke picked up the phone and dialled through to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. A few seconds later Davis Faulkner picked up the call.
“What the hell is going on in the Caribbean, Davis?”
“I don’t know, Jack.”
“A lot of people are talking to me about some kind of military strike on an island down there.” Brooke knew the island, but Faulkner didn’t need to know that.
“I’m the same — just getting crap flying in all over me, six ways from Sunday.”
“Find out what the hell is going on and get back to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and Davis…” Brooke rubbed his hand over his face and took a breath. “I’d kinda hoped I could bring this up when we were face to face, but you heard about Harper, right?” His shook his head with sadness as he thought about Harper Cavazo, one of the senators for Florida.
“Sure did — no wonder they call those damned things Doctor Killers.”
Brooke clenched his jaw. He had known Harper for twenty years. Her death in a light aircraft accident a few days ago still felt raw. The NTSB was still investigating.
“Listen, Davis… we’ve known each other a long time so I guess you know what’s coming.”
“Oh no…”
“You don’t think you’re up to it?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly…” his voice trailed off and Brooke heard a long inhalation on the famous cigar.
“So what do you say?”
“I was thinking about retiring somewhere tropical with a cool drink in each hand.”
“But instead you’re going to join me on the ticket and be my Vice President, right?”
A long pause. “I’d be honoured to share a ticket with you, Jack.”
Brooke smiled. He liked Davis Faulkner — to a limit, but more than that he was a Florida man, and that was a major battleground state in the up-coming election. Brooke was going to have to carry the Sunshine State if he wanted the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Thanks, Davis. Now — find out just who’s been blowing the hell out of the Caribbean. It’s in our sphere of influence and no one plays down there without us knowing about it.”
“You got it, Jack.”
Brooke cut the call. He’d done the right thing. Not that he was going to tell Davis Faulkner about it, but his daughter had been on that island when it was attacked and he wanted to know who to pay back for the favor. At least the old Floridian had agreed to join him on the ticket and run as his Vice President. If Davis could deliver Florida’s Electoral College votes he was sure he could win the Oval Office and if something ever happened to Brooke, Davis Faulkner would be a safe pair of hands in the White House.
At least not everything today had been a disaster.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Hawke and Scarlet emerged from the monorail and found themselves exactly where Lazarus had described. They were standing on a rain-lashed section of the Seastead’s upper level on the northeast of the platform by a runway. A sky slick and greasy with rain loomed above them and dead ahead was the hangar. Trundling out of it was a small Eclipse 500 business jet.
With the grenade launcher the dying man had give him gripped firmly in his hands, and only three rounds for it in his pocket, Hawke knew they only had one chance to stop Otmar Wolff, and that chance was now.
“We have to get closer!” he said. “This thing has a two hundred meter range so we couldn’t hit a barn door from this range.”
They ran across the platform in the rain and wind as fast as they could, never taking their eyes off the jet. Its two Pratt & Whitney turbofans were already fired up and the Oracle was trundling it out of the tiny hangar and lining it up on the runway.
“He’s on his way, Joe!”
“We’ll see about that.”
He aimed the grenade launcher and fired on the small jet. A puff of smoke and then two seconds later the small hangar exploded in a fireball.
“Strike one,” Scarlet said, looking anxiously at the jet as it began to speed up.
Hawke fired the second grenade. Two seconds later another large fireball exploded into the air, this time on the runway twenty yards behind the accelerating jet.
Scarlet sighed and turned to look at Hawke. “Strike two… only one grenade left.”
Ahead on the runway, Wolff had pushed the throttles forward and the afterburners lit up at the back of the small jet. It speeded up rapidly and began to race away down the runway.
“Now or never, Joe.”
Yes, thanks, Hawke thought. I got that.
Reaper turned the corner one second too late to save her. He’d just watched Ryan Bale and Dirk Kruger die in a boat explosion caused by Dragan Korać, and then wasted Korać for it. Now, he was thundering toward the sound of gunshots and arrived just in time to see Maria take Luk out. She’d booted him off the platform after he’d tried to kill her with a knife. It was a job well done, but then things had gone badly wrong.
He tried to stop it but was a second too late.
Another fatal shot, this time from above.
And Maria fell down. She swayed back and forth and then it was over.
Reaper immediately scanned the rigging above her and saw the assassin. He was already trying to get away.
Ekel Kvashnin.
Kamchatka had claimed another victim, but this time, Reaper swore, it would be his last.
The Frenchman jammed the gun into his belt and started to climb up into the support scaffolding in pursuit of the Russian hitman. The weasel had now reached the top of the scaffolding and was on a small mezzanine level, taking cover behind one of the Seastead’s enormous electrical turbo generators.
He watched with hatred as Kamchatka reloaded his rifle and took up a defensive position. Seconds later they were engaged in a high-intensity fire fight. A fire fight Vincent Reno was determined he had to win.
High above on the next platform he heard the chaotic noise of battle and what sounded like the whining of an aircraft’s jets, but dismissed it, not believing an aircraft could take off from a platform of this size.