“It states that whoever spends the night on Cadair Idris will either become a poet or a madman. They must witness dawn from the peak to fulfil the legend. The text here indicates that this is essential to finding the location of the sword.”
“Sounds like we’re on our way to Wales,” Lea said.
“Whoop-de-doo,” Scarlet said. She sidled up to Kloos and touched his arm. “Are you certain this mountain isn’t actually in St. Lucia or somewhere like that?”
The Dutch academic narrowed his eyes and looked at her with confusion. “I don’t understand — the mountain is in…”
“We know where the mountain is, Dr Kloos,” Lea said. “Please ignore our colleague. That’s what we try and do.”
Kloos locked his townhouse and they stepped out into Prinsengracht. Birds sang in the trees and a boat full of happy tourists chugged down the canal opposite his front door. He glanced at his watch. “If we hurry, we can get the next train from the Central Station to Schiphol. We can be in Cardiff in a couple of hours.”
They made their way along the street en route to the station. A light drizzle had started to fall but the city was still busy with people going about their business. Hawke had visited the city many years ago with Liz. They had strolled along the canals together and shared a long weekend before promising to return one day.
Her murder meant that would never happen. He felt the anger rise in him once more: killing the bastard who had ordered her death had almost closed the book, but the trigger man, Alfredo Lazaro, was still out there somewhere. As far as Hawke was concerned, the Cuban hit man had given up his right to live after he’d murdered his wife, and he had vowed to hunt him down, but so far not even the ECHO machine had managed to find so much as a trace of him. It was as if since the murder he had turned into a ghost.
He quelled the range inside his heart by glancing over at Lea. She was talking quietly to Dr Kloos and Kim Taylor as they walked along the cobblestones beside the canal on the way to the station. As he watched her smiling and laughing, all the world started to make sense again, and he realized he was holding the box containing the engagement ring. He had put his hand in his pocket without even knowing it and was now turning the small box over in his fingers.
It was time to put the past behind him. Lazaro could wait. He knew in his heart that it was time to move on, and that meant popping the question. The thought of it made him more nervous than the idea of going into battle, but he’d done it before so he could do it again. He made up his mind to ask Lea to marry him as soon as the mission was over and prayed she would say yes.
As they approached the station, Hawke was on edge. Everywhere he looked he saw innocent people — men, women and children enjoying their day. He was always concerned when members of the public got dragged into the battlefield that the ECHO team spent their lives fighting on and this was no exception.
“We should just be in time to get the next train,” Kloos said, tapping his watch.
A man beside him was now telling off his daughter in the bustle of the crowd and she was crying in response. With one eye on them, Hawke scanned the crowd for potential problems; the man in a badly-fitting business suit leaning against the station wall, the two men standing just inside the station’s entrance… the woman with the briefcase who seemed to be monitoring the crowd.
It happened fast. The man with the crying child had been walking beside Hawke toward the station, but now he leaned into the Englishman and started to speak. “Hand Kloos over or this girl dies.”
Hawke was stunned. He looked at the man’s face and saw he meant business, and more than that, he now gently lifted the magazine to reveal a semi-automatic Colt beneath it. With calm, steady hands he was pointing it into the girl’s back.
Hawke’s mind raced. When Maroni had told him that they’d identified Kloos as being able to translate the document he knew Kruger would send men after him, but not this way. From what he had seen so far of Zito’s men he’d expected an all-out attack, not something as depraved as using a kidnapped child as a bargaining chip.
“Make a fuss and she’s dead,” the man repeated.
The others caught on to what was happening, and Devlin fronted up to the man, but Hawke pulled him away and pointed at the magazine. “M1911,” he said. “Aimed at the kid.”
“Toscano,” Lea said. “I recognize him from the island.”
Before anyone said another word, a second man slipped out of the crowd behind them and dragged Kloos away from the ECHO team, and then they were gone, both men, Kloos and the crying girl. “The other one’s called Bruno,” Lea said. “I think maybe they’re brothers but I’m not sure.”
Hawke watched them as they pulled Kloos and the girl deep into the crowd and headed toward the station.
“What the hell are we going to do?” Kim said.
“They’re using the crowd for cover,” said Scarlet.
Hawke pulled the Glock from his pocket. “Not for long they’re not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tiger turned the cards and revealed Four of a Kind. He raised his eyes to Pig to see his reaction but the older man was a veteran of poker and simply folded his hand with a weary sigh. “That’s the third hand in a row that I have won,” he said. “Perhaps you should consider retiring not only from the Ministry but also from the poker circuit.”
“Maybe you are right,” Pig said, and then looked over Tiger’s shoulder, causing the younger man to twist in his chair. He saw Monkey sitting beside Mrs Zhang. He was running the tip of his switchblade up her inner thigh, but the duct tape over her mouth kept her screams silent to the rest of the world. Mr Zhang was sitting on the floor with a bag over his head and his hands tied behind his back.
“Stop that,” Tiger said. His words were mild, but his tone was sharp and left no room for misunderstanding.
Monkey held the knife in place for a moment, staring into the eyes of his leader as if to judge the man’s mettle. Without taking his eyes off Tiger, Monkey pushed the button on the ivory handle and the blade snapped back inside with a metallic click. Mrs Zhang jump with fear.
Rat strolled back into the room with a tray full of food from the Zhangs’ kitchen cupboards. He glanced at Monkey with disgust. “She’s old enough to be your grandmother. This is not professional. Why did Zhou call you Monkey? You’re the Pig.”
Monkey leaped from the saggy sofa and flicked the knife open again. “What was that?”
“Is there a probem with your ears as well as your mind?” Rat said, lowering the tray of food onto the table and reaching into his jacket.
Tiger grabbed his arm and stopped him from pulling his weapon. He sighed heavily and pushed back from the table. “No fighting in here,” he said, and moved his eyes over to the terrified Mrs Zhang. “And no more of that.”
“I was bored,” Monkey said. A fiendish smirk crept over his lean face.
“That’s part of the job,” Pig said, collecting the cards up. “We wait.”
“And this brawling stops now.” Tiger closed his eyes and started to count to ten. “The next time I see any of you, you will be minding your own business in silence.”
He heard a sigh. A shuffle of feet. The tension eased away like sesame oil sliding off a warm spoon. When he opened his eyes, the others had obeyed him and backed down. Pig was shuffling the deck of cards, Rat had moved into the kitchen and was searching through the refrigerator, and Monkey had stripped down to his waist. He had twisted the Zhang’s anglepoise lamp around so it shone on the wall and now he was fighting his own shadow to practice a series of razor-sharp roundhouse kicks.
With this new scene unfolding around him, Tiger breathed out and took his seat once again. This was a familiar moment for the Chinese government man: the tension of a half-completed mission heavy in the air, the smell of fear floating like incense. Not for the first time he wondered if he would miss all this when he finally turned his back on it.