Standing before the mercs, facing them down, were just four people. Drake wanted to rub his eyes, cartoon-like, just to make sure they weren’t deceiving him because one of those people was Karin Blake.
Words, and thoughts, failed him.
Alongside her were two young men, standing like soldiers and with guns perfectly poised. Maybe they’d graduated from the same school?
The fourth figure took even his breath away.
“What the fuck is that?” he breathed.
Intrigued, the entire team came around the corner. No longer wary, they didn’t need to be. The mercs’ attention was completely engaged.
The fourth figure was crazy looking, a large behemoth dressed in robes and rags, all draped and wrapped around his torso. Around his face he wore more rags so that only his eyes peered out. His legs were clad in knee-length shorts and on his feet he wore brown sandals. One hand held the biggest machine gun Drake had ever seen, over 15mm diameter and heavy as hell. The flesh Drake could see was corded and brown. It was the other hand that drew his attention. He’d seen something like it before, but never quite as vicious looking.
“Oh, that,” Luther suddenly said. “That’s my big brother.”
Dahl gawped at him. “You have a big brother? Fuck me.”
“I sure do. His name’s Molokai. But don’t speak to him. He’d just as soon spit down your severed neck than shoot the shit, if you get my meaning.”
Drake couldn’t tear his eyes away from the right claw — a mechanical, knife-edged appendage instead of a hand, all steel and carbon-fiber, and gleaming in the sun, fingers opening and closing mechanically, edged by blades and dripping thick red blood into the thin covering of sand by his feet.
Dahl shook his out of it. “Get moving. We need to help them.”
Luther laughed. “Ha, ha. Not with Molokai. He’s a weapon. Just watch.”
Drake didn’t listen. “This team doesn’t spectate,” he said. “It helps.”
Before they even sprang into motion the battle began. The helicopter hovered and the mercs fired their weapons, the amplified sound immense beside the Great Pyramid. Karin and her accomplices dived to the sides, firing accurately and cleverly, using broken and crumbling steps for cover. Molokai raised the gun that was about the size of Yorgi and opened fire, the clack-clack of its chambers resounding as deep down as Drake’s very soul.
Bullets tacked a line across the mercs, each bullet killing a man and blowing a large hole through his torso. They shattered large chunks from the pyramid. In just seconds Molokai had ended ten men and was walking forward, into the fire. He didn’t go unscathed, taking bullets to the chest, but he somehow walked through the barrage, withstanding the pain. When a bullet struck a part of his body that was not protected by Kevlar he ignored that too — shrugging the through-and-through off with an irritated twist of the mouth.
Half the mercs were finished. Drake now found himself confronted with the unknown scenario of the SPEAR team being forced to simply watch the last battle. They were normally a full part of it.
So this is retirement? he thought ironically. Watching? I don’t like it.
Bullets clattered and struck hard. Karin and her two comrades fought economically and with a minimum of risk. Molokai did resort to taking cover but only when a bullet took off his ear lobe, causing that appendage to start bleeding profusely. Luther grunted with humor at the incident.
“Kai won’t like that.”
The unorthodox fighter dug his clawed hand into a body and threw it at the remaining mercs, shredding it with bullets. It was distraction enough to take out another two. Drake and Dahl were on the scene then, followed by Luther, and finished the mercs that remained.
There was a lull, a strange nonentity of action that lasted half a minute. During this time the big chopper continued to hover.
Drake ignored Molokai and walked over to Karin. The last surviving Blake stared at him with neutral eyes, letting him get close and not dropping her gun.
“It’s me,” he said, wondering if she had a head injury. “Matt.”
“About time,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Where have you been?” he asked. “Why now?” A thousand questions hovered at the tip of his tongue.
“Not now,” Karin said. “After the battle.”
“We just finished it.” Drake laughed.
“What, them? No, they were just the guards. The real force of mercs is coming. They were waiting out front.” She jerked her head in the direction of the Sphinx. “Do you know what they’re chasing?”
“Yeah, the capstone.” Drake shelved his questions for later, turning to the arriving team. “Fighting’s not done.”
“Oh, thank you for that.” Alicia sighed loudly. “I thought we’d missed out.”
Hayden, Kinimaka and others greeted Karin carefully as the black-haired girl looked on. She smiled, nodding, but Drake thought he detected something else there. Maybe it was the training.
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t worry. You can get close again. With us. If you want to, that is.”
Karin motioned at her friends. “Meet Dino and Wu. New friends of mine.”
Luther brought Molokai over, seeming intent on introducing him. At the last moment Molokai stepped back with Luther; Pine and Carey fanning out.
“We can take it from here,” Luther said. “And we can take you. I wasn’t sure I’d need backup to take you, Drake, but called my big brother here just in case. Do you really wanna tangle with both of us?”
They leveled their guns and the standoff began.
“Bloody hell, Luther. Why can’t you see past the trees?”
“Because I have the luxury of not having to. Now lay down your arms, all of you.”
Drake worried, thinking of everything Crowe had said about Tempest and what Lauren might have discovered. If they fought back now, some would die. A glance at Karin told him she hadn’t been expecting this; so she wasn’t in on it.
“Tempest,” he said. “The weapons. The other teams. Luther, we have too much at stake and so does the world.”
Luther waved his handgun. “Down. Now. You have until the count of—”
The whistle started low but grew very quickly, becoming a thunderous roar. It came out of the sky, a missile fired by FrameHub, precisely monitored so that it struck at the exact angle and the exact point. Drake threw himself headlong. The missile struck the Great Pyramid and exploded, throwing rubble out into the air along its first and second seams, blasting a hole in the side.
The huge chopper still hovered; out of the blast radius.
Over the hill came a running horde of mercenaries.
“Weapons!” Dahl cried out.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Shattered pieces of Khufu’s tomb landed all around them and upon them. The team sighted the attacking mercs and unleashed a hail of gunfire, but the force was too strong and reckless, overcoming them in minutes. The helicopter at their back repositioned slowly, moving until it hovered outside the great hole that had been blasted in the side of the pyramid.
“They’re going for the capstone,” Crouch said. “They just breached the secret passage.”
Drake guessed as much. He smashed a running merc in the face as he raced past, then braced for a return punch of the production of a weapon, but none of the men were fighting. They were running straight for the still-smoking hole.
Chains dangled from the bottom of the helicopter, curled in a heavy iron mass for now. The quicker mercs grabbed hold and began to unfurl them, dragging them into the new hole. More soon joined, lending their strength to the task. Some fought with Luther, Molokai, Mai and Kinimaka, but only a few, causing a distraction. Others took cover and took potshots. The area was in chaos; frantic.