He saw no sign of the eight pieces of Odin. Surely, they had to be in the tent. But, truth be told, he didn’t know. And the large mass of men assembled down that slope and among the choppers beyond daunted even him.
Several rows of large containers lined the summit to his right, just where the houses ended. Since the terrorists couldn’t have brought the containers with them, he deduced that they must have something to do with the old village, or with whoever moved in afterward and then vanished.
Slowly, he shuffled back and slid down to the ground. Dahl, Hayden and Sam came up to him. “Not good,” Hayden reported, her voice higher than usual probably due to the painkillers. “The plaza is not heavily guarded, but the way beyond — that’s just batshit crazy.”
“More than a hundred,” Dahl agreed. “And surprisingly sensible. It’s their escape route and the site of the auction. The leaders will be conducting their deals in private on the plaza. Nobody wants a talkative guard eavesdropping on their dealings now, do they?”
Sam looked worried. “Matt, even our team would have trouble getting near that tent.”
“Let’s look at it another way.” Drake shrugged. “The bastards will be over-confident, smug and proud, as terrorist leaders often are. That’s our advantage.”
“It may be,” Dahl said. “But none of that helps us sneak past over a hundred well-placed guards.”
Drake met the Swede’s eyes. “Who said anything about sneaking?”
It was a moment before Dahl caught on. “Fucking hell, you’ve got massive balls, mate, I’ll give you that.”
“Scarily big,” Drake agreed.
“Wait, hoaloha.” Kinimaka forgot himself in his surprise. “You mean to attack them. Them?” He waved a hand in the tent’s general direction.
“Not strictly attack,” Drake said gently. “More like storm.”
“Are you tripping cos you’re not getting your daily diet of fish and chips or something?” Kinimaka blustered. “We can’t—”
Hayden moved close to Kinimaka and stopped him with a tender hand placed on the shoulder. The Hawaiian almost jumped out of his skin and turned, wide-eyed, to stare at his boss.
“It’s alright, Mano,” she said quietly. “You should listen to him. He’s our leader.”
Drake squatted with his back to the wall and looked up, immensely moved to see all the people who he regarded as his “team” gathered round at this last moment. Mai and Alicia sat beside him. Hayden and Kinimaka dropped to their knees to listen. Ben and Karin and the haunted Belmonte had crept to his other side. Komodo — the soldier who had gamely chased down the Blood King with him — sat with Karin. Jonathan Gates stood behind Komodo, grim determination radiating from posture, his face and his eyes.
And Torsten Dahl, the mad Swede, gazed at him with something like utter respect, love and unreserved faith, a hard-earned quality in any man of combat, let alone one as capable as Dahl.
Drake held up an imaginary glass. “We could go home this minute,” he said. “The terrorists won’t care. The world would never know. Or we could hang around and not back down. Raise a glass to freedom and stuff our way of life down these bastard’s throats. We’ve stuck it out this far together…”
Drake met every eye, every concerned flicker. “When our dreams die…” He pictured Alyson and Kennedy, but most of all he saw the person he had most wanted to know, but had never known. The person who had lived but never known life — his unborn baby, Emily. “We want to die. Or drink. We realize there are worse things than hell. But I’m still here — and I’m around to tell you this — the last few months have more than hurt us, they’ve kicked us hard in the bollocks, but they brought us here. Together. Right now, with that doomsday weapon less than a mile away.” He stood up, hefting his rifle. “So let’s go show these terrorist clowns what the term balls to the wall really means.”
PART 4
DRAKE’S LAST STAND
‘…and into the valley of death rode the six hundred…’
‘Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Among the deserted houses the team crept, just waiting for that moment — the step that proved to be the one too far. It came quickly. They managed to quietly despatch another three of the terrorists’ perimeter guards before it happened, but the fourth’s finger squeezed reflexively on the trigger as he died.
Shots rang out, horrendously loud among the grim concrete walls. In that moment every man and woman sprang to life. Guns up, the teams darted between the buildings, spreading out to ensure nobody flanked them. Gunshots rang out as more terrorist guards began to converge. Drake saw a bobbing figure up ahead, fired, and blew a corner of the wall away in a hard, sharp spray. One of the SAS teams had climbed to the rooftops and were keeping pace up there. Every corner posed a new problem, every turn of the street threw shadows and potential hiding places in their faces.
Drake advanced steadily, Mai and Alicia — the two people he would most want at his side in this situation — keeping pace. Every few seconds, more shots rang out. He could only imagine the panic in the plaza, the arms being packed away and the choppers being warmed up. With a quick jab he keyed his chest mic. “Make sure the Norseman’s kept handy. If anyone knows who has the pieces, it’s him.”
The chance was slim, he knew, but they couldn’t afford to miss even the slimmest opportunity here today.
“I miss this,” Alicia said happily at his side. “Late nights, days of battle and rough sex. My kind of living.” She opened fire as a man peered around a corner ahead, blowing a small part of his head away.
More streets, and the attackers spread out even more until their line grew dangerously thin. Drake saw the final few houses ahead where the ground sloped away towards the plaza and hurried forward.
His mic buzzed. “Problem.”
“What?”
But then he reached the summit of the hill himself and flashed a glance down. A large amount of terrorist guards and what looked like hired mercenaries were running toward them, staying low and firing in sequence so that never a second passed without a bullet in flight. A well-organized force.
Drake cast quickly about. The containers were a few hundred yards to their right, offering advancement and cover. He keyed the mic. “Move right.”
They side-stepped quickly, backs to the houses, firing tenaciously and throwing dozens of grenades. Bullets flashed in both directions, hammering against the house walls like thunder, showering those around with mortar, digging up dirt around the advancing terrorists, spinning some around and sending others hurtling back down the bloody slope. Explosions tore up rock and soil, flesh and bone. A desperate melee of death and destruction saw Drake’s whole team dodging to the right and digging into positions among the high, steel containers. Drake threw himself to the hard earth, kicking up dust and stones, wasting no time as he sighted on those below and blasted out another barrage of lead.
Then the attackers crested the hill, still firing, and were suddenly among them. Drake fired twice, still prone, taking two men out, then rose and met a head-on assault. He smashed the butt of his rifle into the man’s teeth, felt a spray of blood, lifted the weapon and brought it hard down on the top of his head. The man fell to his knees. Drake drew the knife with his other hand and finished it. Another man flung himself at the Englishman. Drake simply stood, unbendable, and met the man’s flight with a powerful head-butt to the face. Without sound or movement, his attacker collapsed in a heap.