“If it really is Sheng then we’ve got a real war ahead of us!” Lexi said, her words laced with a lethal mix of fear and anger.
“If it’s war he wants then war he gets,” Scarlet said. “Eden was very clear about stopping Sheng with whatever it takes. We have carte blanche.”
“Why don’t we just start with getting out of here?” Lexi said.
Scarlet raised her voice over the sound of the gunfire. “For once I agree with you!”
The sound of men screaming and whooping with joy as they trashed the villa below resounded up the sweeping marble staircase. More shots were fired and more wanton destruction meted out by Sheng’s army of thugs.
Hawke ordered Lexi to retreat with the portrait while he and Scarlet covered her from their position at the top of the stairs. There was a French window in Chan’s bedroom which opened onto a broad balcony, flanked either side by two mature magnolias. It was at the rear of the house, which was now clear as the men who had stormed the villa from that direction were now inside attacking the new position defended by Hawke and Scarlet.
Hawke took a deep breath and focused his mind. It seemed his life was on a permanent full-speed setting and there was no escaping the fact. Now, only they had the portrait and only they knew about Hoffmann and the missing Tesla device developed by the US Navy. This meant only they could stop Sheng and whatever deranged plans he had for the world. Now was no time to get killed.
He and Scarlet poured a savage rain of fire onto the men at the bottom of the stairs as Lexi sprinted for safety, but they were gaining ground. There were just too many of them to fight in such an enclosed space.
“Update?!” he shouted over his shoulder.
Scarlet craned her neck and watched Lexi slip through the window, the portrait safely in her grasp. “She’s out, Joe.”
“Then it's time for you to go too,” he shouted. Bullets traced past his head and ripped through a massive abstract oil painting Chan had had hoisted onto the wall at the top of the stairs.
“And leave you here alone?” Scarlet picked off two of the men with startling casualness and watched them tumble down the stairs and collapse in a heap on the polished hall floor.
“Yes, and now, Cairo! I can look after myself.”
Downstairs one of the men Scarlet had just shot was screaming in pain.
“Damn!” she said. “Thought I’d finished them both off.”
One of the man’s compatriots fired a short burst of automatic rifle fire into his chest and ended the moaning.
“Can’t say their hearts aren’t in it,” Scarlet said. “And it's time for us both to go, Joe — now!”
Hawke flicked his head to the open window in Chan’s bedroom and made a quick calculation. “All right — let’s get out of here,” he said. “You take the tree on the left and I’ll take the one on the right. In three, two, one…”
They deserted their position and sprinted to the large bay window in the master bedroom. As they climbed into the canopies of the magnolias they heard the sound of Sheng’s men racing up the stairs and blasting everything in sight.
“Race you to the bottom!” cried Scarlet.
“You’re actually enjoying this, Cairo. You’re certifiable.”
Hawke hit the fake lawn with a gentle thud a second before Scarlet Sloane, which caused her more irritation than the sight of Sheng’s men appearing on the balcony and raking them with more machine gun fire. The bullets tore through the magnolia canopies and peppered the Astroturf all around them.
“Over there!” Hawke shouted. “It’s Lea!”
He directed Scarlet’s attention to the far side of the lawn where Lea was taking cover behind a long hedge. She was holding a gun taken from one of the men who had been holding her before the shooting started, but who was now lying dead on the floor.
“And look there — looks like Lexi’s arranged some transportation for us.”
They gave Lea the signal to retreat back to the SUV, and they sprinted across the lawn using Chan’s mature gardens as cover for most of the way before running through the main gates and climbing into one of the SUVs Sheng’s men had arrived in — it was a brand new Jaguar F-Pace. The driver was lying unconscious on the road beside the vehicle, and Scarlet used him as a step to help herself into the car.
“Thanks!” she said. “It would be a shame to bring any mud into such a beautiful car…”
“Are you okay, Lea?” Hawke asked.
She nodded — she looked shaken but not stirred.
“Then hit it!” screamed Hawke, and Lexi floored the accelerator.
The SUV’s wheels spun and the car lurched forward in a cloud of stinking black rubber smoke. Behind them, Hawke saw Sheng’s men jump into the second SUV.
“Yeah, they’re not going anywhere,” Lea said with that distinctive smile of hers.
“Alternator?” Hawke said.
“No time for all that,” the Irishwoman said. “Blew their bastard tires out. All four of them.”
Hawke smiled and nodded in appreciation of her work, but as Lexi steered the SUV roughly around the corner he saw Sheng’s men climbing back out of the disabled Nissan X-Trail and kick the tires. One of them crossed the street and fired a shot through the window of a silver Nissan GTR.
“Don’t celebrate too soon,” said Hawke, “but I think Sheng’s goons are more resourceful than we gave them credit for.”
“Oh, what now?” sighed Lea.
“They’ve decided to take a nice, shiny roadster for a joyride, and I think we’re the target.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sophie ordered some coffee while Ryan set up his laptop and started to research the missing portrait. If anyone had ever told her that she would end up falling for a man like Ryan Bale she would have tiger-punched them in the throat, but there was just something about him that she was attracted to.
It started when they were in the engine room of the Thalassa, but when he saved Joe Hawke’s life that really sealed the deal. She saw then that he was a just a regular guy trapped in a nerd’s body. And then there was his intellect. Her father had been a university lecturer and her childhood was filled with learning and knowledge. Perhaps Ryan was just another extension of that. She didn’t know, but she knew she had to protect him in an environment like this. This was her kind of world, not his.
Ryan spoke, his voice full of childish excitement. “Hey, look at this!”
“What have you found?” she said, setting down her coffee cup beside the laptop.
“I decided to start at the beginning — it’s only logical, after all.”
“Oui, c’est vrai…”
“Hawke’s just all over the place sometimes and he needs a man like me to organize him and make sense of things.”
Behind his back, Sophie smiled warmly at his words and gently shook her head.
“So where did you start?” she asked.
“It turns out this Felix Hoffmann guy was seriously into ancient China and its folklore and mythology. His main interest was the Thunder God, Lei Gong, although technically that really translates as Lord of Thunder if you’re using the Wade-Giles transcription system but in other systems it’s Léi Shén, the God of Thunder, which is fascinating because…”
“Ryan?”
“Yeah, Soph?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry, Soph. Anyway, I’ve just taken a look through Hoffmann’s research — hacked a couple of his email accounts and so on — you know what they say — walk a mile in a man’s shoes if you want to understand him, but read all his emails if you really want to actually know him.”