“So now you want me to rescue you? I thought your ego couldn’t handle that?”
She shrugged and kissed him on the cheek. “What can I say? I blow hot and cold.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Hawke took Han through first, and had to resupply him with oxygen from his lungs only once. Five minutes doesn’t sound like a long time until you’re underwater, as his old CO used to say, and Han found that out three-quarters of the way through the pitch-black tunnel.
Next was Lea, who needed two top-ups and seemed to enjoy them rather more than the Shaolin monk had. Finally it was Reaper’s turn, and to his eternal disgust he was forced to give Hawke the pre-arranged signal for more air with the end of the tunnel only a few dozen feet away.
“I nearly made it without any help,” he said, breathing hard as he clambered up into the tiny chamber. “I can’t believe it… I could even see the light!”
“Sounds to me like you wanted a little kiss from Hawke, Reap.”
Reaper glared at her, still breathing hard. “I did not.”
“Are you sure about that, boyo? You sound pretty excited by it all, what with that heavy breathing and all…” She looked up at Hawke and winked. “And what’s this I hear about you being so close to the end and seeing the light and still asking for some air. I know if I saw the light I’d probably be able to make it on my own.”
“Leave it,” Reaper said.
“You love Hawke!”
“Then you better watch out, yeah?” he said, and clambered to his feet. He turned to Hawke. “Seriously though, thank you my friend. You saved my life. One day, perhaps, in the far distant future…”
“You’ll repay the favor?” Hawke asked.
“I was going to say maybe I will let you call me Vincent.”
Hawke laughed as they moved on deeper into the cave system.
The next bend in the tunnel revealed an enormous cavernous space bigger than any of the previous ones with a single footbridge carved out of the cave’s stone stretching across to the other side. Hawke flicked a small stone over the ledge and counted as it fell into the darkness. At least two or three hundred feet, he thought.
Lea joined him and held his arm as she peered over the edge. “How long till you’d hit the bottom, do you reckon?”
Hawke shrugged. “If Ryan were here I’m sure he’d tell us.”
“If Ryan were here,” she said, “we’d be getting a full-on lecture about the terminal velocity of a human being.”
Han leaned over and peered into the darkness. “The question is,” he said, “if you fell over that ledge would your fall be too short or too long?”
Reaper coughed and spat over the ledge. “If I fell over there, I would shoot myself before I hit the bottom, no?”
Hawke nodded in agreement. “So let’s make sure no one is stupid enough to fall over then. I don’t want any of my guys turning themselves into pancakes on my watch.”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be like pancakes,” Reaper said. “I saw a man leap from the top of the Eiffel Tower once.”
“Yes, thanks, Vincent,” Hawke said,
“It looked like someone had dropped a bag of oatmeal and strawberry jam over the side.”
“But wait a minute,” Lea said, turning to Han, “and by the way thanks very much for that little image, Reaps… I thought you said this was the trial by fire?”
Han nodded grimly as his eyes crawled over the cavern. A cold, damp wind blew up from behind them on its way deeper into the cave system.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Hawke said.
Han looked concerned.
They made their way across the footbridge and reached the other side without any problems.
“I don't like it,” Hawke said. “That was too easy.”
“And where was the fire?” said Lea as they pushed on.
Then everything changed.
They turned the final bend in the tunnel and saw Sheng and his men standing and facing them, all armed with submachine guns.
“How fortuitous that you should stumble upon us here, Mr Hawke,” Sheng said coldly. “And how polite of you to volunteer to put yourself first for the next trial.”
“Always a pleasure to help the criminally insane, Sheng,” Hawke said.
His comment was met with a sharp smack in his stomach by the butt of Luk’s rifle. Hawke fell to the floor in agony while Sheng laughed in the deep silence of the cave.
“Through that hole in the rock is the final trial — the Test of Metal.”
Lea turned to Han. “What’s that?”
“I do not know,” Han said. “But he will have to use all his skills now. The final trial must surely be the greatest of all.”
Sheng smirked as Luk dragged Hawke to his feet. “After you, please, Mr Hawke.”
Scarlet and Sergeant Yakamoto led the way as the team jogged into the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line. The bridge-tunnel combo that stretched across the bay in the heart of the city had taken nearly a decade to build and formed a link between the two prefectures of Kawasaki and Kisarazu.
Slowly they gained ground and found themselves approaching the central point of the construction, an artificial island the Japanese named umihotaru, or the firefly. They were now entering a section full of shops and restaurants. Scarlet followed Yakamoto down a glittering escalator and into a lower level which opened out into a broad plaza lined with more stores selling books and snack foods.
People milled around browsing through magazines while others sipped tea or ordered fast food from the many restaurants. Scarlet looked at them and thought only that if they failed in their bid to stop the Lotus, these people would be the first victims of the genocide Sheng had planned for their city.
And it wouldn’t stop there. Relations between Japan and China had been worsening for decades, and she doubted Japanese public opinion would tolerate such an attack made by one of China’s most visible billionaires.
Yakamoto spoke into his headset in rapid Japanese and then led them down a narrow corridor behind a salad bar. Moments later they were facing a fire escape which the hefty sergeant opened by unceremoniously kicking the panic bar with his Army issue steel toecap boot.
They were now in a staff-only zone, and walking along another narrow corridor toward a series of stainless steel steps which led down to a longer service corridor.
Without any warning, they heard a tremendous roar of gunfire and looked ahead to see the tell-tale muzzle flash of automatic weapons emanating from a door on the side of the service tunnel.
“Looks like our welcoming committee,” Scarlet said. “Everybody down!”
They took cover and gradually moved forward using the giant concrete support pillars as protection against the bullets tracing along the tunnel. They reached the service door and Karlsson kicked it down with a savage, no-nonsense blow and before the door had even smacked against the inside wall he unleashed an unambiguously ferocious burst of gunfire, peppering the space with hundreds of bullets in just a few short seconds, screaming the whole time he was firing the weapon.
Scarlet rolled her eyes as the enormous cloud of concrete dust settled around them. “Is that really necessary, Bradley?
Karlsson released the trigger. “Is what really necessary?”
“All that dreadful screaming? It’s frightfully bad form, and so very American of you.”
“In the same way that being such a cold-hearted ice bitch is so very British of you, you mean?”
“Ouch,” Ryan said, taking his fingers out of his hears. “But she does make a point about the screaming.”