At the end of the corridor they were faced with a choice of two final rooms. On the left was what looked like a library of some sort — walls of books stretching from floor to ceiling and a handful of expensive leather chairs dotted around some reading tables. The whole scene was lit by dim, amber lamps fixed to the walls.
“In there?” Lea asked.
Before Hawke could reply gunmen opened fire on them from the other room. They dived for cover inside the library, Hawke and Lea on one side of the door and Scarlet and Vincent on the other. Vincent fired back with a vengeance, shielding Scarlet from the incoming rounds.
“I never knew you cared, Vincent,” she said. “But I fight my own battles.”
She leaned around him and shot one of the men in the throat. He fell back, pointlessly gasping for air as blood pumped from his severed carotid arteries and sprayed out into the room. He collapsed in a heap on the floor while another man took cover behind an expansive desk, firing back single-burst shots at them, blasting splinters out of the doorframe and tearing holes in the floorboards at their feet.
Taking cover behind Hawke’s broad back, Lea squinted and fired a single shot at the man’s leg which she could see through the knee hole in the desk. She struck the tibia and the man screamed in agony as the bone shattered. As he fell to the floor gripping his leg with his hands, Lea fired a second shot and ended his life.
Hawke looked at her. “Get out the wrong side of bed this morning?”
“He was begging for it.”
They crossed the corridor and entered the room. Looking around they saw instantly it must be Sala’s study. The large desk the man had tried to use for cover was covered in old scrolls, and large maps of the ancient world adorned the apple-white plaster walls. Above them was an impressive gilded ceiling with a painting of a god holding a thunderbolt.
“Thor,” Hawke said.
“And is that what I think it is?” Scarlet said, pointing her gun at the long piece of wood on the desk.
“Bloody hell,” Hawke said. “I think it just might be!”
He leaned forward and picked it up. It was without a doubt the same strange split piece of wood they had first seen back in Javier’s secret loft chamber. He weighed it in his hands and looked carefully at the intricate carvings. “I think this is our lost little baby all right — here, take a look.”
He handed it to Lea and her eyes wandered over the severed symbols. “This is it, no doubt about it, but no sign of the cloak. Wait… did you hear that?”
“What?” Scarlet’s eyes darted to the door but there was no one there.
Vincent turned and readied his knife. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing,” Lea said, returning her gaze to the handle. “I just thought I heard…”
And then, without any warning, the ground beneath their feet gave way and they began their descent into darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They fell down the chute for several seconds, mercifully falling at a slight incline which slowed their fall. The walls of the tunnel were smooth and obviously carved by man.
Before any of them had a chance to speak or even scream, they hit the bottom — a soft fall because of a thick layer of straw on the floor. They got their bearings back and began to look around their new home. It looked like a natural cavern in the shape of a tear-drop and they could see no way out other than the way they had just arrived.
They looked up the gently inclining tunnel and saw the gilded ceiling of Sala’s study — the face of Thor looking down on them, with disapproving menace.
Scarlet stood up and began to dust herself down. “Oh, well this is just another fine mess you two have got me into. I’m going to start calling you Laurel and Hardy, I think.”
Vincent got to his feet and gave an appreciative nod. “Ah, a comedy classic.”
“Hey, that’s not fair, Cairo,” Hawke said. “Lea looks nothing like Oliver Hardy.”
Lea slapped his shoulder. “Hey! She meant you were Hardy, right?”
Scarlet pursed her lips. “You’re making my point for me now.”
“What are you talking about?” Lea said, getting to her feet and squaring up to her.
“Well, just then when you slapped Joe,” said Scarlet. “You may as well have knocked his bowler hat off or pinched his nose.”
Lea put her hands on her hips “Nose pinching was the Three Stooges, ya eejit.”
“Was it?” Scarlet asked.
“Yes it bloody was!” Lea said. She turned to Hawke. “Was it?”
Hawke sighed as he got to his feet. “Yes.”
“I told you!” Lea said, jabbing Scarlet in the arm. “And that would make you Zippo!”
Hawke sighed again. “It was Zeppo, not Zippo! And he was in the Marx Brothers not a Stooge.”
“Was he?”
Hawke and Vincent nodded simultaneously.
“Are we really having this conversation?” Scarlet said, raising her hands in the air with disbelief.
“Wait,” Lea said. “So who was Zippo with — the Stooges?”
“Oh my God!” Scarlet said, tipping her head back and sighing deeply. Looking up at the trapdoor she froze. “Ah…”
Hawke and Lea stopped talking and looked at her. “What is it?”
“We have company!” Scarlet said, and pointed at the trapdoor.
They stared up at the circular aperture, at least thirty feet above them, and saw the figures of two men appear on the rim.
“Holy craparola!” Lea said as she glanced at them.
Scarlet sighed. “Seconded.”
“I knew I should have ignored your phone call,” said the Frenchman with a sigh.
One of the men was wearing a herringbone suit with an open-necked black shirt, and stood casually with one hand in his pocket. He wore rimless glasses and had long, black hair that hung forward as he peered over into the pit, but the feature that really stood out was that he was holding a golden straw-colored snake in his hands.
They’d never seen the man with long hair before, but they recognized the man beside him immediately. He was the creature behind the vicious attack on Victoria’s beach house back in the Florida Keys who had snatched Lea and the flash drive. Worse, he was the man who had led the assault on the castillo in the Basque Country and murdered Javier and Gunnar before fleeing with the cloak of invisibility and the axe handle. Now, he was standing above them with a KRISS Vector submachine gun gripped in his hands.
The man with long hair gave them a grim smile. “Ah — bona nit, my friends. Please, don’t get up.” He laughed at his own joke and gently caressed the snake.
Hawke knew they were totally vulnerable. With a weapon like the KRISS, the ape on the right could turn all three of them into Swiss cheese in half a second and there was nowhere to run.
“Who are you?” Hawke shouted.
“I am Álvaro Sala, and this is Leon Smets. I believe you had the pleasure of his company in Florida.”
The goon with the KRISS gave them a mocking grin and bowed his head. Now Hawke saw the grenade tattoo once again, and so did Vincent.
“You bastard, Smets!” Vincent yelled.
Leon Smets leaned over the pit and grinned as a look of recognition crossed his face. “Wait — Legionnaire Deuxieme Classe Reno? Could that be you?”
“Why don’t you come down and find out?” Vincent said. “I owe you something.”
“Why don’t you shut your mouth?” Smets said.