“Let ’em have it!” a voice rang out.
Then Mai was in action, running, planting a foot firmly on Mano’s back and using him as a springboard to launch her body among the mercs. She landed hard and true, scattering their weapons and unbalancing them. Instantly, she kicked out whilst they were already unstable, toppling one headlong into the griping Kinimaka and another in his wake. The one above her landed on his tailbone, yelping. She grabbed his gun, twisted it in his hand and shot him three times with it. The fourth bullet went past his head as another man sought to target her. The fifth made sure he collapsed back into the man above, head blown away.
Giving her clearer sight of the tunnel above. The mercs were bunched up, hampered beyond measure, and she added one more body to the mix, killing the next visible merc and making him fall among his comrades.
“Close quarter combat,” Luther breathed in an impressed tone. “Now there’s a specialist.”
Drake backed Dahl as they slowed the oncoming mercs in the other direction. Effectively, they were guarding the exit and the mercenaries were trapped. The dubious factor was that the mercs were leaving.
What had they found?
Overheard transmissions told him nothing except they had radioed in for heavy machinery, which could mean absolutely anything. It was clear though that the mercs were in a desperate hurry. They were sacrificing their number just to get close to the exit.
Kenzie jumped after Mai, looking to help. She dragged the first dead man away, let him slide past, then used the close-set walls as a fulcrum to jump over the next. She kicked him down until his body slithered into Kinimaka. The Hawaiian got the message, heaving upright and wincing even as he threw the dead men past him.
All the way to Drake, who rolled them out into the downward passage.
Communications flared between both mercenary groups. Drake could hear one team telling the other to fall back, to let them take the lead, to get the hell out of the way.
“We found it!”
His heart leapt as he heard those words. Crouch zeroed in on it too, coming to Drake’s shoulder and listening.
“No way we’re gonna lift that mother,” someone shouted into a walkie. “It’s almost thirty by thirty and weighs about six tons. We got a stallion en route, but someone gotta smoke these fuckers first.”
What’s he talking about? Drake mouthed at Crouch.
“Must admit I’m stumped. I thought all we were here for was a wall painting, a mural. Could he be talking about the weapon itself?”
Drake guessed it was possible. “These men are clearly FrameHub’s mercs. If Tempest and the others were ever here they’ve been dispatched. Maybe that’s why the mercs are in such a rush — to safeguard what they found.”
“Sounds likely,” Crouch said.
The incredible close-quarter battle continued inside the Great Pyramid. Drake saw a dead policeman thrown in front of the upcoming mercs, positioned as shields, and gritted his teeth in hatred. Another was thrown from above, striking Kenzie and knocking her to the floor. Mai resisted a concerted attack, breaking a man’s knees with her gun and watching him stagger past into the arms of Kinimaka.
Today, not kind arms.
Mai fired up at the next, using each man as a shield to reach around. Twice bullets ripped through clothes but passed her by.
Drake and Dahl braced as the mercs inched closer. They had lost eight of their number but still retained at least that many, uncompromising with their advance. The time was approaching when they would push past the upward passage and that was going to present some problems.
For all of them.
“Make sure you’re fully loaded,” Drake shouted. “Here they come!”
CHAPTER FORTY
An unknown quandary faced them. Nobody had ever fought in such close quarters against so many armed men inside an ancient pyramid before. Alicia pointed it out, and the rest had to agree.
Luther was halfway up the incline, helping Mai, drawn to her courage and skill. Pine and Carey were at his back. That gave the rest of the SPEAR team chance to ponder the mercs coming from below.
They couldn’t step out into the line of fire. They could hardly let them pass. But they found they could not stop them either. At least eight mercs attacked in a line, carrying their dead and at least one man not-so-dead, with them and forcing them against the hole where Dahl and Drake crouched. Their bullets struck the dead bodies; the dead bodies fell upon them, their number weighing everyone down. A flapping skull struck Hayden, felling her. A lifeless, weighty frame came down on Drake, pinning him to the floor. A slim man pushed up at Dahl, rocking him back on his heels and then another was added to the weight and the makeshift barricade, forcing him back and allowing more mercs to slip past.
They did get some shots off, and through, heard cries of pain. Bullets found their mark. Some came through the other way too, one almost felling Kinimaka for a second time.
“Not again,” was heard as he went gasping to the floor, shocked at how close it had come.
Drake wriggled free of his obstruction. Another landed atop him, slithering across the man above and adding its weight. Drake was trapped. Perhaps the ascending mercs could have made more of that chance, but their heads were pointed in one direction only, their orders to escape as fast as they could.
Mai fought tirelessly, dragging down the last of the mercs and throwing him over her shoulders. Luther caught him in mid-air and slammed his head against the bedrock, only dropping him when all life had departed the body. When Mai had checked for stragglers she turned and caught Luther gazing at her.
“You,” he said, “are one incredible conflict diamond. And I mean that in the best possible way.”
“I know how you mean it.” Mai acknowledged the compliment with a nod.
“If I weren’t such a gentleman I’d ask you to accompany me on your next available date…” He left it hanging.
Mai picked her way through the dead. “And are you a gentleman?”
“Depends what your answer would be.”
“No, it depends on what you intend to do with us once this is finished.”
Luther took in the scene with fascinated eyes. From the bodies strewn up the incline that led to the King’s Chamber to those Drake and Dahl and the others were throwing off further down. “This is… captivating.”
“For us, mate, this is normal,” Drake said. “Now help me lug this big moose off Alicia.”
“That is Alicia,” Kenzie said.
Drake almost fell for it, glancing twice, but caught his natural instinct at the very last second. Once Alicia was free and the way cleared, Dahl took a tentative look back up the tunnel, toward the exit.
“Looks clear. Ready to move?”
“All good.”
“Wait.” Crouch stopped them. “This merc is still alive.”
“Well, what do you wanna do?” Alicia said. “Nurse him? These guys made their own… tomb. Let them lie in it.”
“You’re not wrong,” Crouch said. “But he may have information and, people, that is just what we need right now.”
He knelt alongside the faintly gasping man, cradling his head and helping him to achieve a more comfortable position. “Listen up,” he said. “Your own men shot you, used you as a human shield so they could escape. All I want is one answer—what did you find?”
“I am not with them,” came the soft, indignant reply. “I am… professor at Akhet…” Crouch knew this was the museum of natural history in Cairo. “They… forced me to come along and… help.” He coughed hard. “Then… they use me as human… shield. The wall painting,” he said. “It was the same as the last which we found already opened just an hour ago… the capstone…”