With Devlin’s cover fire to their left, Hawke now zoomed the bike up the incline and launched into the night air. The engine growled as they flew through the night and then crashed back down on the path leading into the small forest. Gravel chips and pine cones exploded out around them as the bike smashed down to earth.
Lexi pointed to another muzzle flash. ‘There!”
Hawke revved the bike and turned the handlebars to the left. Navigating the narrow path for a few seconds they were soon beside Danny Devlin. He was crouching behind one of the pine trunks with a good view of the sniper. A few meters behind him was the other rider — dead in the undergrowth, and his bike was propped up against another trunk.
“Glad you could make it,” Devlin said.
Hawke opened his mouth to tell the Irishman his fortune but Lexi grabbed his arm.
“Not the time, Joe.”
She was right, but he couldn’t help it. “You could have killed all of us, Danny!”
He smiled and winked. “Not my fault if you’re slow off the mark, Josiah.”
Hawke’s response was silenced by Devlin turning and firing the stolen rider’s weapon at the sniper.
“Now,” Devlin said coolly. “I wonder if that third round made the mark?”
They looked over the top of the dark beach at the bluff and then they saw the sniper roll gently away from his position and let go of the rifle. It tumbled off the edge of the bluff and hit the sandy beach below it with a soft thud.
Devlin gave them another of his famous winks. “I thank you…”
“Good shot!” Lexi said.
“Thanks,” said Devlin. “I don’t think that naughty little monkey’s ever going to reload again.”
She turned to Hawke. “Wasn’t it, Joe?”
“What?”
“A good shot!”
Hawke paused for a second. “Let’s get on with it, yeah? We can congratulate ourselves when Lea’s safe.”
“We’ll get her back safe, all right,” Devlin said with confidence.
“Maybe,” Hawke said flatly. “But thanks to you, the whole world and his wife knows we’re here.”
The former SBS man pushed past Devlin and padded through the undergrowth toward the treeline closest to the villa. With the two dirt bike riders and the sniper taken out, it was pretty obvious Giancarlo Zito was not going to be in a very good mood when they finally caught up with him.
Worse, thanks to Devlin’s crazy call to make a break for it back on the beach, the Italian mobster would be totally prepared for any assault and maybe even making plans to leave the island with Lea and the manuscript before they could reach the villa. He knew Lea spoke very highly of ‘the Commandant’ but he was starting to ask questions about her judgement of the man.
As they trudged through the forest toward the southern part of the villa compound Hawke turned to Devlin. “This time, you do as I say, when I say it, right?”
Devlin raised his palms in a truce gesture and gently bowed his head. “You’re the boss, Joe, you’re the boss.”
Hawke locked eyes on him and sighed. “On an ECHO operation, in the field, then yes, I am, Danny. If you can’t handle it then you can’t roll with us, all right?”
Devlin was silent for a few tense seconds, and then smiled and said, “I already told you — you’re the boss.”
“Joe — leave it, we have to think of Lea,” Lexi said.
“I am thinking of Lea,” Hawke said defiantly. “When we get inside Zito’s villa we can’t afford another fuckfest like we just had back on the beach, and that happened because the chain of command broke down. Are we all clear?”
Devlin and Lexi nodded. Everyone knew the reprimand had been aimed at the Irishman, but no one mentioned it again as they trudged through the final part of the forest, broke the tree line and finally emerged face to face with Zito’s private villa.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Crouching in the shade of the perimeter wall, Hawke pushed the magazine release button on his Glock and pulled the slide back. The empty mag dropped to the ground and he quickly smacked the spare into the grip. Wasting an entire mag trying to save Devlin’s life on the beach had got his blood up, but now wasn’t the time for debates.
The peace didn’t last long, and now Zito’s men activated a series of security lights around the property. The bright lights lit the perimeter up almost as bright as day, and then the shooting started. The first to open fire was a man on the roof with what sounded like a compact machine pistol.
“Aim’s well off,” Devlin said.
“He doesn’t know where we are,” Hawke said. “He’s just making a statement.”
“I’ll give him a statement,” Lexi said, and raised her gun into the aim.
“You’ll never hit him as long as he’s behind these damned lights,” Devlin said.
Lexi threw him a look. “Thanks for that, bái chī.” She shook her head and then lined up the first light with the front sight post of her weapon. She pulled the trigger and the light exploded in a shower of sparks. “One down, four to go.”
Before the Irishman replied, Lexi Zhang astonished him by blasting the four remaining security lights to shattered glass in as many seconds. Then she lifted her weapon and fired on the shooter on the roof. He tried to take cover behind a chimney stack but she was too fast for him. She ploughed the first round into his left shoulder as he dived for the cover and turned him around like a spinning top. Firing a second time she hit his throat and he crumpled down like an empty suit.
She raised her smoking muzzle to her lips and blew the smoke into Devlin’s amazed face. “How was that?”
Devlin laughed. “Pretty damned good, as a matter of fact — but tell me, what does bái chī mean?”
“It means you’re very rugged.”
“Does it now?” he beamed.
“Yes,” Hawke said with a withering glance. “Does it now?”
Turning her back on Devlin, Lexi winked at Hawke and they turned to face the villa again. With the grounds plunged into darkness, they noticed a flashing light in one of the upstairs windows. “Check it out,” he said.
Lexi squinted up at the light. “What is it?”
“Morse code — SOS.”
“Lea!” Devlin said.
“Maybe,” Hawke muttered. “Or maybe a trap.”
“We have to check it out,” said Lexi.
Hawke nodded, and the team cut across the blackened lawn until they reached a broad patio and a set of French doors. Trying the doors and finding them locked, Hawke fired at them with his Glock and fractured the safety glass into a thousand pieces. He picked up a heavy bronze patio chair and hurled it at the window. It smashed through the pane and skidded to a halt in a sea of glass splinters all over the floor inside.
“Come on,” he said. “We haven’t got much time until…”
The lights went out.
“Damn it!” Lexi said. “Now they have the advantage.”
“They always had the advantage,” Devlin said.
“Not while I’m around,” said Hawke.
Lexi looked at him in the darkness. “If there’s one thing that always amazes me it’s the size of your cock-”
Her words were cut short by the sound of the enemy firing on them. Judging by what the rounds were hitting, Hawke figured they didn’t have night vision, but he dived on the floor just as fast. Seconds later Lexi and Devlin were beside him, taking shelter from the gunfire behind a large, antique sofa.
“It’s just two guys, I think,” Devlin said. “On the landing of the stairs there.”
With her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, Lexi peered around the sofa and confirmed what Devlin had said.
“There’s another staircase over there in the kitchen,” Hawke said quietly. “You keep these clowns company,” he said. “I’m going upstairs to get Lea.”