Hawke picked off another of the men in the garden, sending him spinning around into the shrubbery where he got tangled and ended up hanging there like a macabre scarecrow. The SBS man nodded in appreciation of his work when he heard Ryan shouting from across the room.
“Er… guys!”
“What is it, Ryan?” Scarlet shouted. “If you want someone to change your nappy I’m afraid the grown-ups are rather busy at the moment and if you…” She stopped talking when she saw the look on his face. “Ryan?”
Ryan said nothing, but raised a hand and pointed over Scarlet’s shoulder.
Hawke turned to see someone holding Victoria hostage. It was the woman he had seen in the garden with the crew cut. She was tall with a powerful athletic body and a thin, jagged scar ran from the corner of her mouth and snaked away behind her left ear. She blew a large purple bubblegum bubble which popped and she pulled it back into her mouth. Whoever she was, she was holding a knife to Victoria Hamilton-Talbot’s slender throat. The serrated blade pushed into the soft flesh and started to draw blood.
Then she spoke. “All of you — drop your weapons or she dies, right in front of you.”
Hawke watched an expression of total fear color Victoria’s face as he processed the woman’s accent. It sounded Russian, he considered — maybe a southern dialect. He hated to give the order, but he knew had no choice. “Do as she says!”
Scarlet spoke next. “All right, just take it easy, darling,” she said, never taking her eyes off the woman. “I’m going to climb away from the geek and stand up, with my hands above my head — I’m not armed.”
The woman peered at Ryan for a second before giving Scarlet a slow nod of approval to stand up.
Scarlet moved away from Ryan, hands up to show she was unarmed, and made her way slowly into the center of the room.
Hawke studied the woman carefully as she spoke and measured up the threat: left-handed, Russian accent, and a coldness in her eyes that reminded him of someone he had met before.
Then she screamed another order. “All of you, guns down! I won’t tell you again.”
Hawke cursed inwardly, but gently set his gun down on the floorboards. “Just let her go and tell us what you want.”
Before he finished speaking, the sole surviving gunman from the garden stepped casually through the rear doors and stood in the center of the room. This was the man with the tattoo of a burning grenade on his neck. He too was tall but sported slicked-back hair and had a solid, prominent nose. He spoke in rapid French to the woman holding Victoria and then looked down at Hawke on the floor.
“Could this be the mighty Joe Hawke?” he said.
“Right first time,” Hawke said sourly. “And who are you?”
With no warning, the man kicked Hawke in the face and sent him flying back into the upturned drinks cabinet. “My name is Leon Smets and never forget it.”
Hawke wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and crawled back up to his knees. He noticed the yacht at the bottom of the garden was slipping out of view to the south of the resort.
Smets surveyed the small group for a few seconds and nodded with appreciation. His dark eyes settled menacingly on Victoria. “Are you Donovan?”
She shook her head.
“Where is Donovan?” he said, looking around at the others, all kneeling on the floor. “Give me her or this woman dies right in front of you.” He nodded dismissively at Victoria who was still trembling in the woman’s grip.
Hawke knew what Lea had to do. He knew she couldn’t watch an innocent woman die to protect herself, but why Smets could possibly want her and not Victoria was a mystery to him.
Lea turned her face up to Smets and spoke. “I’m Lea Donovan… what do you want with me?”
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet. “You know what we want. Come with me, and no more fucking questions.” His voice was cold and emotionless.
Hawke reached out to her as she passed but they all knew she had no choice but to surrender. That hunting knife was pushing deeper into Victoria’s throat and the woman holding it looked like she wanted to kill her more than she wanted to take her next breath.
When Lea was beside Smets, the former Foreign Legion man gave a nod to the woman and she pushed Victoria away. Smets put his gun in the small of Lea’s back as Victoria gasped with a strange mix of relief and horror. She tumbled to the floor beside Hawke.
“I’m so sorry…” she said quietly.
“Forget it,” Hawke said. “People like this don’t play fair.”
Smets grinned, but there was nothing in the eyes except hate. “Now we go, and you stay here like good little puppies or the Irish woman gets her throat slit.”
They moved Lea away into the kitchen and silence fell in the room as the ECHO team looked at each other, stunned.
Hawke knew there was no time to waste, so he grabbed his gun and ran to the kitchen. He went through the narrow door and turned the corner with the weapon raised but found an empty room. The flyscreen door was closing slowly behind them. They had gone, and he had to act fast if he was going to rescue Lea. Why they had gone to all this trouble to take her was a question he could answer later, but how had they known they were in Florida?
He smashed his way through the wedged-shut outside door and scanned the back yard for Lea and her kidnappers. He felt the adrenalin pounding through his body as his mind raced with visions of her being subjected to another kidnapping, and maybe worse. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.
“I see them!” he shouted to the others. “The bastards are dragging her toward the boat!”
The yacht he had seen going south was slowly moving further along the coast from Victoria’s beach hut to where it was covered by the curve of a tree-lined beach. The Englishman now saw it was a Maritimo M58, a luxurious sixty-foot motor yacht with several opulently appointed decks not to mention some pretty chunky hardware under the hood. Whoever was behind this operation had funds.
“We can’t let them get away!” Ryan shouted, pulling out his phone.
“Thanks for that contribution, Captain Obvious,” Scarlet said as she smoothly reloaded her SIG. “And now is hardly the time to play Final Fantasy, is it dear?”
“I’m not playing Final Bloody Fantasy,” he replied. “I’m taking their picture. If they’re Foreign Legion our friend from Marseille might be able to help identify them.” He zoomed in on them and started snapping pictures.
“Ah, yes,” Scarlet said. “I was waiting to see how long it would be till you thought of that.”
Hawke ignored the comments as he tracked the attackers’ progress through the resort. They were keeping off the central path and using the gardens of the beach huts for added cover as they made their way to the boat.
“The yacht has to come into the coast to pick them up.” Scarlet said.
From their position in the garden they were able to look down the side of the property at the coast and watch as the luxury boat sailed calmly away from them.
“They’re going to rendezvous further down the coast behind those palms!” Hawke said.
“There’s a short-cut through here!” Victoria said. “It’s a narrow track which is used by the garbage trucks once a week. If they’re trying to get back to the coast then this is the fastest way to try and catch them.”
“Right,” Hawke said firmly. “Scarlet, you stay here with Vikki and Ryan — I’m going after Lea.”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Babysitting again?”
“We’re not sure if they’re planning on attacking again or if they have other men here we don’t know about. The last thing we want is for us both to go after Lea and get back to find Vikki and Ryan with their heads blown off.”