Lea dried her eyes and looked behind her into the cabin. Jack Camacho and Scarlet Sloane were asleep, the English SAS officer’s head resting on the American CIA man’s broad shoulder. Lexi Zhang was staring out the opposite window, no doubt her usual worries scattered to the wind by the thoughts of this terrible day. Reaper was smoking on the stern, collars up and wordless.
Hawke now gripped the wheel and trimmed the boat at five degrees, instantly smoothing the ride and allowing the vessel to increase in speed. He checked the compass and nodded with inward satisfaction that he hadn’t forgotten how to drive a boat. A small consolation after the terrible disaster of the Seastead battle, she guessed.
She knew he was thinking about Ryan and Maria, and adding their deaths to the list of all the others who had died since this all began — Sophie Durand, Olivia Hart, Bradley Karlsson, Ben, Alfie, Sasha… the roll-call of the innocent dead went on and on and made her want to scream with rage. She knew he felt the same.
At least Mendoza, Soto, Luk, Kamchatka and the bastard Kruger were all dead. It brought some small comfort to her that her friends hadn’t died for nothing. Dispatching Luk and Kamchatka to the ocean floor for eternity was a particularly comforting thought.
Hawke put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. He hadn’t shaved for days and he looked tired and yet there was still a kind of energy around him and that was comforting too, but the truth they had learned from the Oracle felt like it was crushing her and making it hard to breathe. It changed everything. There really were cults of immortal beings who worked in the shadows to control governments and the Oracle was some kind of leader who possessed the power to destroy mountains on the other side of the world.
None of it made any sense, but it was the new reality and they all had to rise to meet it with a show of force. The Oracle’s vow to annihilate mankind had not fallen on deaf ears and the ECHO team had to stop him. But where to start… she knew it had something to do with those damned idols.
The former Commando checked the compass and put the boat to sea, his heart heavy with the knowledge he was leaving two fallen comrades behind. It wasn’t the first time. As a commando and an SBS canoeist and even now as an ECHO team member he had lost colleagues and friends before, but this time felt different. This time felt extra raw.
Reaper felt the same way, and he knew he had to step up and be there for his new friends. It was time to put his reluctance to join things behind him and request a formal place on the ECHO team. He picked up his tobacco tin and cigarette papers and moved forward to the wheelhouse. Lexi was trying to hide her tears, but not doing a very good job of it, and when he saw Camacho and Scarlet sharing a hug and a few quiet words of consolation, he knew he had to be with these people.
“I want in,” he said.
Hawke looked at Lea, and she shrugged her shoulders. “As soon as we get back to the island we’ll speak to Rich.”
“You think he’ll accept me?”
Hawke nodded. “He’d be crazy not to, Vincent.”
Reaper gave a solemn nod and began the intricate process of rolling a cigarette at sea. Not his first time, the slim cigarette was made in seconds and hanging off his lower lip as he searched through his pockets for a lighter. Before he found his own, a flash of light in front of his face startled him. He followed the arm back to the inscrutable face of Scarlet Sloane, who was now also smoking.
“Ah — tu as du feu,” he mumbled. “I lost mine in the battle, je crois.”
Scarlet sighed. “I’d lose my soul before I lost my lighter.”
“I can believe that,” Hawke said under his breath.
Reaper took the light and moments later he was puffing out a cloud of fresh tobacco smoke as he wandered back to the stern.
Scarlet went back to Camacho and Lexi went below decks to be alone.
Hawke settled on taking the boat back to Elysium.
Beside him, Lea Donovan looked back out to sea. The smoking Seastead was now nothing more than a smudge on the distant horizon.
She wasn’t going to let any of this stand, and she knew none of the others would either. She clenched her jaw as she fought the rage back once again, her mind spinning with thoughts of justice and revenge as she heard those terrible words echo in her mind once again… this isn’t the end, Donovan — only the beginning.
You can bet on it, she thought.
You can bet on it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Here is a great place for me to thank you for reading my book, and also give a special thanks to everyone who has followed Hawke’s journey from the beginning. Regular readers will know how I feel that writing/reading a novel is a shared experience and I hope you enjoy reading these tales as much as I enjoy writing them. I have some really exciting and new ideas about the future of the Joe Hawke Series and I can’t wait to share them with you. I’m also hoping to be able to bring you some good news about a release date on the standalone thriller I’ve been working on, which is called The Armageddon Protocol as well as some other projects.
Let me add that all reviews at Amazon are gratefully received as they are essential to the series, so please allow me to give a big thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave me a review in the past. I also want to say thanks to everyone who has left me a review on Goodreads as well. It means a lot to a writer and I value your opinion. If you enjoyed the book and would like to leave me a review, please just follow this link. Also, if you would like to join my mailing list please do so here www.robjonesnovels.com
Other Books by Rob Jones
The Vault of Poseidon (Joe Hawke #1)
Thunder God (Joe Hawke #2)
The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke #3)
The Curse of Medusa (Joe Hawke #4)
Valhalla Gold (Joe Hawke #5)
The Aztec Prophecy (Joe Hawke #6)
The Secret of Atlantis (Joe Hawke #7)
The Lost City (Joe Hawke #8)
You can find updates, information and all other news about my novels, including new book releases on my Facebook page — https://www.facebook.com/RobJonesNovels/