The Lost City (Joe Hawke Book 8) Read online

  THE LOST CITY

  (Joe Hawke #8)

  Rob Jones

  Copyright © 2016 by Rob Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  THE LOST CITY is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and occurrences are entirely fictional products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you would like to share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, please go to an ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Other Books by Rob Jones

  The Joe Hawke Series

  The Vault of Poseidon (Joe Hawke #1)

  Thunder God (Joe Hawke #2)

  The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke #3)

  The Curse of Medusa (Joe Hawke #4)

  Valhalla Gold (Joe Hawke #5)

  The Aztec Prophecy (Joe Hawke #6)

  The Secret of Atlantis (Joe Hawke #7)

  The Lost City (Joe Hawke #8)

  This novel is an action-adventure thriller and includes archaeological, military and mystery themes. I welcome constructive comments and I’m always happy to get your feedback.

  Website: www.robjonesnovels.com

  Facebook: http://bit.ly/RobJonesNovels

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @AuthorRobJones

  DEDICATION

  For R

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  The Caribbean Sea, Colombia, June 1708

  With the blazing tropical sun moving rapidly toward the west, Capitan José Fernández de Santillán of the Spanish galleon San José raised a telescope to his eye and watched the horizon with a growing sense of dread. He knew the British were in the area off the coast of Cartagena, sailing in a squadron under the command of the daring Englishman Charles Wager, but where exactly was still a mystery.

  But what they wanted was no mystery.

  The gold.

  But the British had no right to the gold because the Spanish had found it first. They had fought the Incans for it, and won. The hoard he was transporting across the oceans back to Spain was not intended for British coffers. King Philip V had been very clear in his proclamation. Santillán had heard rumors about the depressed king, and his penchant for being sung to sleep every night by the Italian castrato Farinelli, but while that was hearsay confined to the royal court, the orders about the treasure couldn’t be any clearer. He was to return to Spain with the Lost Treasure of the Incas in his hold as fast as the prevailing westerlies could carry the San José, and no mistake.

  And then he saw them, sailing directly toward his flotilla. He removed the scope to rub his eye and then levelled it once again at the foreign ships on the muggy horizon. For a moment he wondered if Wager had changed his strategy and was preparing to turn his ships, but then it became clear they were simply moving into battle formation and approaching his flotilla as fast as the wind would take them.

  Lieutenant Commander Martinez de Medina walked up beside him and hoped his face was not conveying the fear he felt rising in his stomach. “How long, sir?”

  “We should have put to sea earlier,” Santillán said calmly, aware the eyes and ears of his men would be keener than ever today.

  He pocketed the brass telescope and walked up the steps to the ship’s forecastle. He was trying to show his men how a calm, measured commander dealt with an enemy action at sea, but inwardly he was less certain. The British enjoyed a fierce reputation at sea, inherited from centuries of dominance by the English Royal Navy. Now they were rounding on him en masse and it was time to act or he would lose everything from the gold to his reputation, and maybe even his life.

  “Divide the fleet!” Santillán ordered. The swell was growing as fast as the gap between him and the British was narrowing.

  The lieutenant commander looked at him nervously. “Is that wise, sir?”

  “Follow my orders, commander!” the captain snapped. Moments later the order was obeyed and carried out by the helmsman. He watched with a stony, impassive glare as his small flotilla of galleons broke apart in the sultry ocean and fanned out in a defensive position.

  Dividing the fleet was a questionable tactic, but Santillán knew that many of his ships were laden to the brim with the Incan treasure hoard and the British were much more powerful. Even if they suffered a defeat, at least this way some of the Treasure Fleet would get away and perhaps some small part of the lost Incan gold would stand a better chance of getting back to Madrid.

  Friar Lorenzo rushed to the captain, his face a mess of tortured uncertainty. “You cannot let them get the hoard, Captain!”

  “I do not intend to, Friar. Now get below decks before you get your head shot off with a cannonball.” He turned away from the religious man and yelled another order as the British ships came within range. “Bring her about, Helmsman! We’ll fire at her stern and rip through her that way. The planks are thinnest on her arse.”

  Before he could give the command to fire, the British beat him to it, and they fired with all their might and fury. Their cannonballs flew through the air and struck the San Joaquín, one of the Spanish ships to their starboard, smashing the top of her foremast clean off and tearing the rigging to shreds. Men scrambled on the deck as they struggled to contain the fire and control their vessel but Capitan Villaneuva managed to turn his ship and flee into the gathering dusk.

  Santillán was pleased, but now it was their turn. “Fire!” Santillán yelled, and held on tight as the mighty cannons below fired their vengeance across the tropical waves. A second later they smashed into the starboard bow of one of the British ships.

  Santillán held his telescope calmly at his eye and scanned the chaos on the British deck with amusement, but his mirth was quickly taken away when he saw th
em fire a renewed volley. The flash of the cannons and the rise of the smoke came first, and then a second later the thunder-deep roar as the sound raced across the ocean and struck his ears.

  And then the cannonballs struck another ship in the Spanish flotilla, smashing into the stern and blasting the officers’ quarters into matchwood. The destruction rained down over the water in a cloud of sea spray and smoke and men scrambled wildly on the deck to put out the fires. A second later the British fired another volley, this time punching a hole through the fore just under the portside hawsehole. It was followed a second later by an enormous explosion that blew the foredeck into the air and ripped off the bow of the ship.

  “They hit the ammunition store!” Santillán said, his mouth turning downwards in a hurry. He carelessly wiped the sweat from his forehead with the silken sleeve of his shirt and took a step back toward the helm. “We need to go to their assistance at once!”

  All around them now the cannonballs were smashing into their ships and exploding into enormous fireballs. A look of uncertainty flashed across the face of Lieutenant Commander Martinez de Medina. “The British outnumber us massively, sir – and it looks like they want to board us!”

  Santillán turned to face him, and raised his voice. “We have men in the water so hold your tongue, man! If you think for one moment that I would abandon…”

  Before he could complete his sentence, a deep, terrifying explosion roared from below their own decks and seemed to shake even the sea around them. “Oh my God!” Santillán said. “They’ve hit the powder magazines!” A second later the front of the galleon was consumed in a gigantic fireball. Smoke billowed everywhere and now the flames of the explosion were licking up the mainmast and had caught on the studding sail. It was true carnage and Santillán gasped as he beheld the nightmare unfolding before him, and all under his command.

  A young officer ran to him, breathless, and the panic clear on his tar-streaked face. “Sir, we’re taking on water!”

  Santillán stared at him for a moment and then the San José began to list badly to port. He turned to Medina. “Give the order to abandon ship!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  As the commander ordered sailors to prepare the skiffs and the pinnace and have the men quit the ship, Friar Lorenzo waddled up to him, his hands in a knot and his round, sweaty face a study of confused panic.

  “What is it, Friar?”

  “You have ordered the men off the ship!”

  “Indeed, I have.”

  “But what about the treasure, sir?”

  “The treasure shall go to the bottom of the ocean and enrich only the sharks, Friar. You will be joining it if you do not get to one of the skiffs.”

  “But, sir! The King has promised the church much of the treasure!”

  “Then the King may swim down to the seabed and fetch it for himself!”

  With the British sailing fast toward them, and the San José slowly sinking beneath the warm waves of the Caribbean Sea, Santillán’s eyes crawled over the smoking, burning carnage as the ship went down, Inca gold and all. For a moment he wondered if these treasures would ever be recovered, and then he raised his eyes to the sky and offered the heavens a silent prayer.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cartagena, Present Day

  The Colombian sun burned over the old Colonial city without mercy. The city was established in 1533 by the Spanish who named it after Carthage, and the small bay had been a safe haven for people for five thousand years. Today, the port city was a bustling place kept alive mainly by tourism.

  The Naval Del Caribe, or the Naval Museum of the Caribbean, was tucked away in the Old Town of Cartagena, deep inside the city’s Sixteenth Century walls. This was one of the finest Colonial cities in all of Latin America, but none of that mattered to the man in the skull mask as he rattled through the stifling humidity of the old town’s back streets in the front of an ancient Hyundai pick-up truck.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, and clicked a fresh magazine into his Heckler & Koch MP5. “Pull your bloody masks down.”

  The other two men obeyed, and moments later they all had eerie Halloween masks covering their faces as they turned the final corner and pulled up across the street from the museum.

  “No security on the door,” said the man in a Frankenstein mask.

  A third man who was wearing a Scream ghost mask turned to face the Skull. “Just as you thought, boss.”

  In the front seat, Skull was scanning the street ahead of him and then used the mirror to check behind. “Remember, it’s in and out,” he said, leaving no room for excuses later. “Then we take the object to the Syrian and go from there, right?”

  “And you think you can trust the Syrian?” Frankenstein asked.

  Skull didn’t respond at once. The truth was he had no idea. The Syrian had come to him, not the other way around. He had spoken eloquently about his life’s dream, and he reassured him that he could deliver the sort of manpower needed to achieve such a demanding mission.

  The Syrian had heard about the Skull from his involvement in previous museum raids and other lootings. He now knew, the Syrian had patiently explained, where there was more gold and treasure than anywhere else on earth. More precious stones than any man could dream of in his wildest imagination.

  Skull had listened and nodded in all the right places. He’d heard all the right buzzwords – Incas, lost treasure, gold, emeralds, and then even a few words that concerned him – Hezbollah, freedom-fighters, revenge… but the Syrian had made a compelling argument that only together did they have the skills to find the treasure, and he’d even spoken in hushed tones of something much more awesome lurking amongst the lost gold. Skull had reluctantly agreed to the partnership. If there was one thing he was short of it was manpower.

  And as for trust… he was with Aesop, and never trusted the advice of a man in difficulties. The Syrian looked like he had more difficulties than most, but Skull had left the matter untouched. He didn’t want to scare the man away with too many impertinent questions.

  He turned to face Frankenstein. “Don’t even trust your own reflection,” he said sourly. Then he turned to the bound and gagged man on the back seat. “Wouldn’t you agree with that?”

  The man looked back at Skull with fear in his eyes but made no reply due to the gag tied around his mouth. The many beatings the young man had received at the hands of Skull and his friends had taught him not to aggravate these men, and now he sat in passive silence. He dreamed of escaping from their grip, but his value to them was too great, and they never let him out of their sight.

  A hard jab in his ribs knocked him from his daydream and he was suddenly aware the other men were all now laughing at his inability to reply on account of the gag.

  “I thought you’d agree,” Skull said, turning in his seat and knocking him out with the butt of his weapon. He twisted back around and turned to the masked men. “Let’s go.”

  Skull checked the mask was secure and they jumped out of the van. Their rehearsal paid off when they were through the lobby and up the stairs in less than thirty seconds leaving only two dead security guards behind them.

  They scanned the museum’s upper level for any sign of the target and their hunt was cut short when their prey saw them and tried to get away.

  “There he is!” Frankenstein said, pointing at the door at the end of the corridor. A man in a linen jacket had already seen them and was moving toward the door with speed. “We need him alive!”

  Skull directed his men forward and they thundered down the short museum corridor with their submachine guns. A woman with a pair of glasses balanced on her nose opened her door to see what all the fuss was about but after seeing the guns she thought better of it and disappeared back inside her office.

  *

  Héctor Barrera slammed the door, turned the key in the lock and stood up against the wall as he strained for breath. His asthma was exacerbated by stress and now his heart was beating nineteen to the dozen
as his panicked mind raced in a bid to evade his pursuers.

  He knew who they were, and he had been expecting them – but not like this. He had visualized a business meeting. A cosy chat and a simple transaction. You get the mask, and I get the brown envelope stuffed with hundred dollar bills. After a few short breaths he could feel his chest tighten and the sound of his high-pitched wheezing now filled the silent room.

  “Give us the mask,” the voice said in Spanish. Barrera thought the accent sounded Mexicano but with a tinge of Guatemalan around the edges. He couldn’t be sure but the man was certainly not a local. Then another man’s voice – this time speaking in English.

  “We know you have it, old man. Hand it over and we will let you live.”

  The second voice was gravelly but clearer – Dutch, or New Zealand, maybe – but before his mind could think about it any further there was a crash at the door and he felt it judder in the frame. He heard some swearing and then he felt someone kick the lower panel of the door but it held in place.

  “Last chance and we do it the hard way,” the gravelly voice said.

  Barrera’s mind raced again as he strained to think of a way out. Opposite him on the far wall of the office was the window, but he was on the third floor and there was no fire escape. Nothing beyond that glass except a long drop to the asphalt and a very hard landing.

  “Who are you?” he said, stalling for time. “What do you want with me?”