Joe Hawke Series Boxsets 4 Page 13

  “We did the same,” Ryan said. “Much of the contents of British museums and art galleries were hidden in Welsh mines and caves.”

  “Exactly, so,” Theodorakis said. “We did what we had to do to stop those monsters plundering the riches of our lands. You used what you had – the mines and caves of Wales – and we used what we had. We moved many of our priceless relics to places such as the ancient tombs at Delphi on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth. Other sites included the caves beneath the Acropolis or right here.”

  “Right here?”

  “Yes, in the museum. Beneath our feet is a maze of hidden underground chambers interconnected by ancient tunnels. When the Nazis broke through the front and advanced on Athens many of the treasures you see around you were transported to this secret underground system. Very few people know this history and even fewer are aware of the secret underground sections here in our museum.”

  Theodorakis’s phone buzzed. He checked the tiny screen and a look of confusion grew on his face. “Please, excuse me.”

  He put the phone to his ear and lowered his voice. A hurried, panicked conversation followed and then he turned to Hawke, visibly growing paler. “It seems we might have a major incident here in the city.”

  “A major incident?” Scarlet asked.

  The curator looked terrified. “A terror attack on the Parthenon. We have to get everyone to safety!”

  “The Parthenon is sitting on top of the Acropolis, right?” Kim said.

  “Of course,” said Theodorakis.

  “You said there were caves under the Acropolis and an underground system beneath the museum right here, right?”

  He gave a brief nod and looked like he was going to throw up. “This is unbelievable.”

  “Professor,” Scarlet said, snapping her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “Are the caves under the Parthenon and your underground facilities here at the museum linked together by tunnels?”

  His eyes widened as he realized what she was driving at. “Yes, they are.”

  “We need to get down there mate, and fast,” Hawke said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Lea took the steps down to the basement level two at a time. What had destroyed Theodorakis’s day had made hers – someone was making a move to steal the shield and that someone had to be Dirk Kruger, only he was trying to access the museum’s vaults via the tunnels under the Acropolis. This was their chance to nail him once and for all and take the final part of the puzzle for themselves.

  “Ready for a fight?”

  She turned to see Devlin at her side. He had already drawn his gun and looked like he was champing at the bit for a good old-fashioned showdown.

  “I’m ready to bring Kruger to justice, Danny. He needs to serve time for all the damage and destruction he’s brought to this world.”

  “He needs to die,” Ryan said from behind them.

  “We’re not a travelling courtroom, Ry,” Lea said. “If he gets killed in the crossfire then so be it, but our job is to secure the shield and let the authorities deal with Kruger.”

  Ryan said nothing more, but she knew what was making his heart tick at the moment. The grudge he held against the South African was as hard as they came and with good reason. It wasn’t ECHO’s policy to murder their enemies, but sometimes there was no avoiding it. Feelings ran high in a team like this, but they still had to follow the rules or they were no better than the people they were fighting.

  Ryan would have to be watched.

  She drew her gun as they crossed the basement and then followed the curator to a series of doors on the far wall. “Most of these are storage units, but this one is the access point to the underground system.” He fumbled with a heavy ring of old brass keys before finding the correct one and pushing it in the lock. “It’s so rarely used I can’t remember the last time anyone came down here, but there are other curators so perhaps more recently than I thought.”

  “Let’s just get the door open, shall we professor?” Scarlet said.

  Theodorakis paused and gave her an icy stare. “I’m doing my best! These keys are very old!”

  Hawke got up in his face. “Just do as she says, professor. Whoever’s shooting up the Parthenon right now is on their way here. Don’t forget that.”

  With trembling hands, he opened the door and they found themselves at the top of a long stone staircase. Bending around to the right, it was lit by a weak electric lightbulb hanging on a wire above them.

  “Cosy,” Lea said.

  “You go on,” Theodorakis said, handing Lea the keys. “If this is a terror attack on our city I must make sure my family are safe!”

  They watched the curator shuffle back up the steps and then turned to make their way inside the vaults. They soon reached the bottom of the stairs and walked along a short corridor. Lea went through the keys and opened a second, unlocked door which opened onto another much longer and wider corridor.

  High stacks of wooden crates towered either side of them, pushed up against the walls of the tunnel and closing them in. Most of the lids were nailed down, but some had been broken up at some point and straw used for packing poked out of the gaps. Hawke peeked inside one of the open boxes and saw an old vase with a depiction of Poseidon painted on the side. “Hello old friend,” he said.

  “What was that?” Kim said.

  “Nothing. Keep looking for the shield.”

  “Oh my God,” Kim said. “I think I found it.”

  Devlin peered into the box she was searching. “Well bugger me with a pair of long-handled hedge shears! She has, as well!”

  Scarlet gave him a passing look of disgust as she joined them at the box.

  Kim pulled the shield from its thick straw bedding and held it up to the others.

  “Ryan?” Hawke asked.

  “That’s it,” he said. “No doubt.”

  Lea felt a wave of relief. “Get on those symbols, Ry!”

  They formed a defensive position around the young hacker as he scoured over the carvings on the front of the shield. “I think I’ve got it,” he said at last.

  “Well stay away from me then,” Scarlet said. “Because if you’ve got it, I don’t want to catch it.”

  He smirked at her. “That gag is older than you are and that’s saying something.”

  “Don’t be so damned cheeky,” she said. “You mean that gag just has more experience than I do.”

  “Where’s the location of the tomb, Ry?”

  “Amphipolis, near Thessaloniki.”

  “We’re outta here, guys,” the Irishwoman said.

  “Wait,” said Reaper, indicating the other end of the corridor with a nudge of his square, unshaven chin. “Our old friends.”

  Kruger’s men rounded the bend in the tunnel and saw the ECHO team huddling around the row of large crates. The electric light above their heads was flickering in the damp, stone tunnel but Dirk Kruger was instantly recognizable. So was Blankov, Venter and a number of other men.

  Lea felt her heart skip a beat and gasped as she reached for her gun. Devlin was a step ahead of her and aimed his gun directly at the trafficker’s face. “Drop your guns, fellas,” the Irishman called out. “It’s game over.”

  Ryan lifted his gun and pointed it at Kruger. “Goodnight, Dirk.”

  Lea heard scuffling behind her and turned to see Reaper pulling Ryan back and forcing his gun hand down. “Not now,” he said. “You cannot kill him in cold blood, mon ami.”

  “Watch me!”

  “Non!”

  “No,” Hawke said. “Reaper’s right. We’re not executioners. Not like this.”

  Kruger curled his lip and looked at Ryan with contempt. “Someone change that boy’s diaper. It stinks in here.”

  Venter and the men laughed, but Blankov was looking decidedly serious about the situation unfolding in the tunnel. He smiled when a unit of Athanatoi streamed into the other end of the corridor behind the ECHO team. They were trapped between the two forces.<
br />
  “You look like a bunch of sewer rats,” Kruger said, chuckling at his observation. “A bunch of rats about to die down in this filthy hole.”

  “I don’t think so, Krugs,” Ryan yelled. “You’re the only one who’s going to die today.”

  Another cackle of delight. “The boy’s making death threats now! Drop your weapons and hand the shield over.”

  Ryan gave a sigh of defeat and passed the shield to his nemesis. Kruger snatched it from his hands and curled his lip. “I hope this piece of crap is worth all the trouble it’s given me, Blankov.”

  The Athanatoi chief took it from his hands and looked at him with contempt. “It is, now bring the prisoners with us to the chopper.”

  “Can’t we just kill them here?”

  “The Oracle has decided he wants to kill them personally.”

  Kruger and his men marched them along the tunnel toward the Parthenon, but just before they reached the entrance and with the top of the Parthenon visible in the distance, Hawke saw his chance. One of the cultists had gotten too close and now he body-slammed him into the tunnel wall and disarmed him. Firing the weapon at the Athanatoi he killed three of them before turning on Kruger.

  “Drop dead, Kruger,” Hawke said.

  “No, that’s your job,” the South African screamed back. “All of you men, kill them now!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As Kruger and his men opened fire on them and fled the tunnel, Devlin hit the floor and landed on a sea of empty shell cases. Bullets traced over his head and splintered through the rock in the tunnel wall. Kruger had surprised all of them with the speed and ruthlessness of his attack. The Parthenon was in view now and so was the chunky AugustaWestland AW101 powering up behind it. Kruger and his men were on the brink of escaping with the shield.

  He snatched his weapon from his holster and scrambled to his feet. Up ahead, Hawke and Reaper had sprinted over to the cover of the east side of the Temple of Venus while Lexi and Ryan were providing cover fire from the south side of the Temple of Rome. Over by the gateway to the Acropolis on the outcrop’s western edge, the chopper’s four massive rotors were powering up and starting to whir faster with every second.

  Images of his life flashed in his mind like a badly edited movie. His childhood in South Africa, his life in the Irish Army, his relationship with Lea and now his adventures with ECHO. He reached the top of the steps and found himself entirely without cover. He scanned the rocky escarpment and saw Scarlet. She was closest to him, having taken up an offensive position in what had once been the Altar of Athena.

  She saw him and rolled her eyes. “Get your arse over here, you fool! You’re standing out like a dick on a wedding cake!”

  Devlin sprinted across to her, chased all the way by a line of automatic fire from Venter’s MP5. The lethal rounds bit into the dust and dirt at his feet as he charged toward the cover of the ruins, skidding into safety with seconds to spare. Venter’s bullets slammed into the altar’s stonework and ricocheted into the dusk.

  “You want to get killed or something?” Scarlet said.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I was thinking about my life… I totally lost it, Cairo.”

  “You lost it a long time ago, Danny. Just stop whining and start shooting.”

  Devlin managed to give her a grin and nod in response. “Thanks, I needed that.”

  “I’m not your therapist, Danny. Just shoot!”

  Behind them, Camacho and Lea were dragging an unconscious Kim up the stone steps out of the tunnel’s mouth.

  “What happened?” Scarlet called over.

  “Hit her head diving for cover,” Lea said.

  Kim was still unconscious as Camacho hauled her up onto his shoulders in a fireman’s lift and pounded through the dust and gunfire to the cover of the Temple of Rome. They were all out of the tunnel complex now, but with Kim still knocked out they were a man down and now Kruger was climbing into the chopper. Blankov was already buckling up in his seat. Venter walked backwards as he fired his MP5 from the hip.

  The former South African commando leaped inside the chopper and the mighty machine powered up and lifted off the ground. It hovered for a few moments while the pilot slowly turned to port and then they all saw it at once.

  Venter was sitting behind a M134 Gatling gun mounted in the side door.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Scarlet cried out.

  Venter laughed as he opened fire on the team who were struggling to maintain their cover in the ruins. The pilot casually flew the helicopter higher into the air and off the southern edge of the rocky outcrop. Spinning in the air like a bird of prey, he swooped down over the top of them as Venter let rip with the Gatling gun again.

  Devlin and Scarlet clambered over the top of the ruins and sprinted for the more substantial cover of the Erectheion on the northern edge of the Acropolis. The ancient temple had once contained the most holy relics in the city, but today it was a skeleton of broken rocks and crumbling pillars. Whatever. Those pillars provided the cover they needed while they reloaded. They had to draw fire from Venter in the chopper to give Hawke and Reaper a chance to escape from the Temple of Venus and get to the Parthenon.

  Above them, Venter was a new god of death, raining down fire and brimstone on them from the sky. The rounds blasted into the pillars and blew chunks of the ancient, priceless ruins into the sky.

  Chank chank chank!

  Devlin cursed. “I don’t think they like us very much, Cairo!”

  “I don’t think they like the Acropolis very much either!”

  The six-barrel rotary machine gun in Venter’s hands continued to fire on them at six thousand rounds per minute. The muzzle flashed white and orange in the dying light and one of the commando’s men was helping to feed the ammo belt into the weapon. Both men lurched to the side as the chopper tipped to the side and headed over to the other side of the Acropolis.

  Devlin followed its path. “They’re after Hawke!”

  Hawke and Reaper were halfway along the open ground between the Temple of Venus and the Parthenon. The AW101 speeded above them and spun around to starboard on a dime, Venter firing all the time. The powerful rotary breech raining 50 mil rounds down on them wherever they tried to go to escape the savage fusillade.

  Devlin and Scarlet fired on the chopper from the Erectheion but their handguns were almost useless. Lexi and Ryan provided a second front, firing on them from the north side of the Temple of Rome, but the pilot responded by gaining some altitude and turning the machine in the air to expose the door on the other side. Kruger’s face appeared from the shadows inside the helicopter’s interior.

  “Holy shit!” Devlin cried out. “RPG!”

  Kruger squinted as he shouldered the RPG-7 and looked down the optical sight. He fired and the rocket-propelled grenade burst out of the front of the weapon. Smoke fired out the back of the launcher and dissipated out of the other door where Venter was still firing the Gatling gun. The missile streaked forward with a trail of smoke twisting behind it.

  “Take cover!” Scarlet yelled.

  Lexi and Ryan ran for their lives as the speeding warhead struck the north side of the Temple of Rome and detonated, blowing half of it into the sky in a cloud of smoke and flames. Lexi reached the cover of some olive trees and Ryan skidded down into a pile of rubble between the temple and the Acropolis’s eastern perimeter wall, cursing loudly as he came to stop in the dust and dirt.

  Camacho had used the attack on Lexi and Ryan to pound across the open ground with Kim on his shoulders. Lea was at his side, firing up at Venter, but now the chopper was heading their way. He saw Hawke and Reaper ahead, also providing cover fire as they peppered the chopper’s front windows with lead in the hope of taking out the pilots.

  “You can do it, Jack!” Reaper said.

  Devlin watched with his heart in his mouth as the chopper swooped down behind them until it was almost ground level and spun around to give Kruger the shot he so badly craved. If he got lu
cky now he could take out Hawke, Lea, Reaper, Camacho and Kim and a good chunk of the Parthenon into the bargain.

  “This is chaos!” he shouted.

  The sound of fighter jets.

  Devlin looked into the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. In the sky to the north, flying through the dazzling blue sky were two F-16 Fighting Falcons.

  Ryan and Lexi had regrouped and were running around the length of the perimeter wall until they slammed into the cover of the Erectheion beside Scarlet and Devlin.

  “You see the planes?” Devlin said.

  “It’s the Hellenic Air Force!” said Ryan.

  “Stupid bastard could have gotten away,” Lexi said. “But his obsession with killing us has cost him this time.”

  Hawke and Reaper were still firing on the chopper, but then Kruger fired the RPG again. The grenade ripped away from the launcher and sliced through the air on its way toward Camacho, Lea and Kim.

  “Incoming!” Reaper yelled.

  They made the Parthenon’s eastern side and scrambled up the stone steps. Hawke and Reaper continued firing as Camacho and Lea ran into the interior of the ancient temple. The CIA man slipped Kim from his shoulders as the grenade piled into the outer layer of pillars and detonated.

  They watched in disbelief as the Parthenon’s entire eastern section exploded in a giant fireball and filled the sky with a terrifying mushroom cloud of flames and black smoke. One of the F-16s screeched overhead as the pilot made a recce of the situation and counted the guns.

  Chunks of two and a half thousand-year-old masonry smashed down all around them, crumbling on impact and rolling away down the steps back to ground level. Camacho shielded the unconscious Kim with his body as the rocks and debris rained down from the fiery sky above their heads.

  Kruger’s chopper gained some more elevation and swooped away from the carnage, partially obscured now by the enormous mushroom cloud rising from the ashes of the Parthenon.