Drake smiled. “But even the best of the best ain’t seen anything like us,” he said with conviction in his voice. “What was it Wells used to say? Heroes never quit. They stay strong until the end.”
The drive to Heathrow didn’t take long. Drake tried Hayden again, but didn’t expect to reach her. She was in the air, en route to Germany where the last and deadliest tomb of the gods had been located by both the good and the bad guys. Tomb three held all the vilest gods. The worst of their kind.
The race to reach it first was well and truly on.
“No luck,” Drake said and cut the call. He looked at Mai swiping away at her 3D smartphone. “A three a.m. flight, you say? That will get us in two hours after Hayden. Hopefully, she’ll wait.”
“She’ll wait.” Alicia echoed. “That girl has faith. And, naturally, she needs us.” A bounce of energy sent her blond curls flying.
Drake typed in another number. He wasn’t surprised when the man from Hereford answered on the first ring.
“Drake?”
“Hello, Sam. Thanks again for guarding the Blakes for me, mate. A debt like that—” He faltered.
“Never needs repaying between friends.” Sam finished for him. “You saved my life a hundred times. Now, what’s up?”
“How’re you fixed for a German op?”
There was a brief pause. “Not too well, mate. Of our people, I can get three for about two days. Four including me.”
“Then go now,” Drake told him. “Meet me in Singen, Germany, as soon as you can.”
Drake saw the bright lights of Heathrow swinging around to the left and ended the call. He raised an eyebrow at Mai. “I got four. How about you?”
“Two.” She half-smiled and then threw a glare toward the back seat. “How about you, Alicia? How many friends can you count on?”
Alicia let out a loud snore, as if asleep.
Mai snorted. “Thought so.”
CHAPTER NINE
Russell Cayman knew hardship. His junkie parents had abandoned him in a ditch when he was four. They were caught and tried, but that didn’t save Cayman from being shuttled from one cruel, uncaring foster family to the next. Having never known love, he would never know how to give it or recognize it.
Children of the “system” were always on the radar of the more clandestine sections of governmental agencies, and in particular, the ones who ended up demonstrating a brilliant skill-set in one area or another. The CIA moved in when he was fourteen, and with no real guardian and no family, Cayman was happy to accept their friendship. It was many years later that he understood it was to be a friendship with fangs, and with no way out.
Now, Cayman threw his keys onto the tiny table by the door and headed into his apartment. The place would have made a Spartan happy. There were no furnishings, no home comforts, just a chair to sit in, a bed to sleep on, a table to eat off, and a TV to keep up to date with the world news. But it gave him some peace. Here he was happiest.
Cayman possessed no social skills beyond what the agency had taught him. So now, stressed to the point where he wanted, needed, to kill, he walked into the kitchen and quickly began choosing pots and pans. He rummaged through the fridge and picked out a chicken breast, some Italian chorizo sausage, peppers, celery and green beans. Furiously, he began mixing up some meat stock whilst he fried an onion and added fresh garlic.
Slowly, the tension seeped away.
The mix of concentration, aromatic smells and simple exercise worked to drain the pressure from his body. Cooking was his only release, and then only when he was home because nowhere else felt the same.
As he chopped the peppers, the knife slipped, cutting a tiny chunk of flesh from his finger. He left it nestled amidst the peppers as he swept them into the big pan and let the blood drain into the mix. Time ceased to exist. Jambalaya was his masterpiece, the pinnacle of his long-practiced culinary skills.
After a while, Cayman laid out a knife and fork on the empty table, the noise echoing around the empty apartment as if to mock him. He sat down, carefully thinking about nothing, still dressed in the standard suit and tie, and ate with robotic, measured strokes.
Hayden and Gates had escaped his trap in L.A. Where would they turn up next? Their cohorts, Ben and Karin Blake, had fled the CIA building a mere twenty minutes before Cayman’s men arrived.
He stopped eating. The anxiety made him want to fling the meal to the floor. Made him want to stab the fork through the meat of his hand and suck at the blood and the torn flesh for solace, using the hand like a grotesque dummy. He’d done it before.
But the heady aroma invaded his senses again. He returned to the meal. He finished the bowl, stood up and walked over to the window. The neighborhood outside was busy, full of parents and children hurrying about their daily routines. Cayman had chosen to live amidst a bustling civilian population, though he didn’t know why. Was it the need to feel he was a part of something? Something real, as opposed to the shadowy cutthroat world he thrived in?
He watched the young mothers, familiar figures by now. The children. He was a monster in their midst, the Halloween ghoul come to life. But the government indulged his whim and let him live amongst them.
No, not the government. The people behind the government. They didn’t have a conscience. They didn’t care where he lived, so long as they got what they wanted. The American government, the top brass, had actually balked at the idea of allowing him the use of this location…but they’d been overruled.
The Shadow Elite. They were the towering silhouette behind the monster. The blackness at the heart of the gloom. A body of six men, Cayman knew, who played the world’s governments like puppets. Their interest, already piqued at the discovery of the spectacular tombs and preserved bones of so many legendary gods, had skyrocketed into the stratosphere when they learned of the doomsday device. The response had been immediate. First, it must not fall into the hands of anyone else, for that person might then be able to wield some influence over them, and second, they should be the ones to control it since they always had been, and always would be, the world’s governing body. It was an irony to them, Cayman knew, that they should possess the power of old gods, since they were the new gods. And the Norseman, their leader, was an unstoppable force. On a whim, he could start a war. On the toss of a coin, he could wipe out a village — anywhere in the world. Cayman had witnessed his power first-hand. The memories still gave him night terrors.
Cayman turned back to the emptiness of his home, as his cellphone began to chirp a standard ringtone.
“Cayman here.”
“This is Mackenzie, sir. I’m in charge of coordinating all the data we collect from tombs one and two that might relate to tomb three.”
“I know exactly who you are. What do you want?”
“It’s tomb three, sir. We have a location.”
Cayman was careful not to let his excitement show. This was it! The Shadow Elite would be, literally, ecstatic.
“Gather everyone.” He spoke the words slowly and succinctly. “Send them all to the location at once. Now — where is it?”
CHAPTER TEN
Drake’s flight landed at Zurich airport a little before six a.m. Swiss time. He’d already received coordinates in-flight from Hayden so, as soon as they passed through security control without a hiccup, they found a taxi rank and gave the driver a local address. Within twenty minutes, they turned off Zurichstrasse onto Wisentalstrasse and dropped off outside a gray, nondescript building with the initials IMI painted onto a very old, very shabby sign, which hung precariously over the front door.