The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake 4) (20 page)

Then don’t do it,
he thought.
Walk away. Tell the Norseman. Christ, even alert the authorities.

But the proud leader of one of the six families just couldn’t subject himself to such exposure. He was, after all, privileged. A god among men. He was allowed such quirks of character.

Everything would soon start to go his way. It always did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Drake stared unseeing at the wintry, sun-struck streets of Vienna as Karin followed the detached directions of the inbuilt sat-nav to the place where the Norseman promised the Shadow Elite had kept their headquarters for thousands of years.

All those years ago, Wells had issued the order to kill Alyson. Time had enabled Drake to get past her death, but with the commencement of the Odin cycle it had cruelly thrust the details back into his face. That—and more.

Drake hadn’t just lost Alyson in that crash. He had also lost his unborn child. Beyond strife, hunger, injustice and torture, there was one nightmarish absolute—a parent should never have to bury their own child, unborn or not. Now, Drake dwelled on what might have been and how his life might have been different, and had to physically shut down the pain that rose inside. A soldier’s hard wall of indifference and denial struggled to intervene and compartmentalize the suffering.

Around him the streets of Vienna started to darken. Bright, colorful lights shone out warm and inviting against the night. Drake saw young children dressed in bobble hats and mittens, wrapped up with scarves, running between the shops, their parents struggling to keep up and keep an eye out for them. He saw the impressive architecture of a sprawling museum, its ancient facade artfully lit by a modern light show. He saw businessmen and secretaries, tourists and salespeople boiling up from the underground, many then darting across the wide roads whilst trying to avoid the metal bullets that flashed everywhere without thought—a cyclist rarely stops in Vienna.

Somewhere nondescript and unknown, they pulled over to the side of the road and accepted three men into the car. The men were hard-looking and rugged and carried big black holdalls. Sam, their leader, gave Drake a nod.

“Sam,” the ex-SAS man greeted his old friend and his team, “thanks for joining us.”

“Nowhere else to be, matey.”

Beyond that, the throng thinned, but the old buildings with their eye-catching construction continued. A meandering park opened out to the right where, Belmonte told them, a superb restaurant sat right in the middle. A place frequented by and saved for the locals, cheap and delicious, not touted to the rich tourists. Still more streets and more sets of traffic lights and apartment complexes, and then they were in a tree-lined neighborhood. Even farther and the gateways became less frequent until. . .

The Norseman said, “Slow down. That is the place.”

Drake observed a narrow gateway, lined on all sides with the requisite high trees. A razor-wire topped fence would no doubt stand behind the tee-line. He pressed a button to lower the electric window.

“Aye up. Well, you’d better not be lying to us, big man. The penalty for lies around here is slow and painful, and not something you usually come back from.”

Mai raised an eyebrow at that one. “A date with Alicia?”

Even the Englishwoman grinned. “You’re closer to the truth than you think.”

Drake expected Belmonte to chirp up next, but the English thief was not himself these days. He said nothing, just stared out the front window, tapping the wheel. Drake turned in his seat. The second car had pulled up behind them. The rest of the Shadow Elite and the eight Pieces of Odin awaited them.

*****

With care, stealth and help from the Norseman, the team walked right through the front gates and melted quickly into the darkened grounds. No one challenged them at the gate, but then the Norseman had input the combination with his face just a few inches from the camera. The possibility existed that he had, in fact, entered an “intruder” alarm code, a set of numbers used to allow entry, but at the same time triggering a silent alert. Mai, Alicia and half the team slipped to the left, Drake and the others to the right.

And then they moved quickly, always alert, eyes peeled for guards and traps or any signs of movement ahead. They crept carefully for some time through the trees and ornamental gardens. The Shadow Elite’s mansion was cloaked in a shroud of deep privacy. Then, after Drake began to wonder if there actually was any building ahead and that maybe the Norseman had sacrificed himself for his brethren, he saw the main road make a sweeping right curve up ahead.

And right on the cusp of that bend, standing as tall and wide and impressive as any house in Vienna, the secret headquarters of the group who ruled the world sat in silence.

Lights blazed from almost every window.

Dahl muttered, “Not exactly
green
warriors, are they?”

Drake dropped to one knee and dragged the Norseman up alongside him. Wetness soaked up from the grass through his trousers. His weapon clunked as it rapped the old man on the head. “Is that normal?” He hissed.

“No.” The Norseman looked shocked. “It certainly isn’t.”

“And the front door?” Mai asked. “Does it normally hang off its hinges like that?”

Drake looked closer, marvelling at the Japanese agent’s eagle eye. The front door was small, overhung by a big arch and hidden partially behind a pillar, but the angles of the framework looked all wrong.

“Good spot.”

“Something. . .” the Norseman began.

A gunshot echoed from inside the house. The Norseman drew in a sharp breath. “No. Oh no. . .”

Drake signaled and the group exploded from the trees like a well-primed and organized unit. Mai and Alicia flanked him with Dahl covering the rear and dragging the Norseman along. On the other side, Hayden and Kinimaka took point, with Komodo and the SAS team following and fanning out. Immediately behind them and staying impressively low came Karin and Ben, Gates and Belmonte.

Drake reached the house and took a quick gander through the nearest window before flattening himself against the wall. He shook his head.
Nothing.
Mai checked the next, and Alicia the next. Both women shook their heads.

“Front door.”

Drake skipped past the windows until he reached the open door. He saw the thick wood had been hacked at and chewed through by bullets. The frame and concrete surrounds were pitted. Even the ornamental window above the door and the lintel had been pockmarked by flying lead.

“Not professionals then,” Alicia said.

“Which makes it worse.” Drake looked inside the house and quickly stepped back. “Spray and prey mercenaries are easy to come by, but hell to keep under control. Let’s move.”

The Norseman grunted something, sounding genuinely concerned for his five cohorts, but Dahl cuffed him and told him to shut his mouth if he valued his teeth. Inside the place, old paintings hung from the walls and rich furnishings sat upon Persian and old Egyptian rugs. The sculpted ceilings sported hanging chandeliers. First-rate sculptures of mythical and ancient beasts lined both sides of the corridor. Drake guessed they would not be reproductions. When he looked more closely, one painting depicted ancient Babylon with all its depraved delights, another Sodom and Gomorrah in immoral glory. Still another showed the devils of hell, corrupting young people whilst business-suited men stood and sipped whisky from crystal tumblers and watched, naked from the waist down.

“This?” Dahl growled into the Norseman’s face. “This is how you live whilst so many struggle and die?”

Drake checked the first room. Hayden cleared the one on the opposite side of the immense hallway. Their ears were tuned for the slightest sounds. From somewhere up ahead, they heard low groans, a scream, and an order shouted in a guttural, foreign voice. It seemed to float from the back of the house.

Another room cleared, and then a fourth. Hayden and Kinimaka stepped into a fifth, this one with a wider entranceway and two enormous doors—the kind that were generally opened by waiting doormen. After a tense moment, when neither of them instantly emerged, Drake glided over to the entrance.

Hayden’s back was to him, rigid. Kinimaka hung his head. Drake, already fearing the worst, stepped past the big Hawaiian to appraise the room.

Horror froze his feet.

They had been nailed to the walls. Four members of the Shadow Elite, arms outstretched and legs bent in the crucifix position, their palms and feet shot through with heavy duty bolts right into the walls themselves. Rivers of blood ran down the priceless tapestries, furs and drapes that hung around them, pooling on the floor. The men’s eyes bulged, their groans weak, full of pain.

The rest of the team filed into the room. Not even Ben and Karin made noises of surprise or regret on seeing the men. Live by the sword. . . taste the blood of innocents. . .die screaming, asshole.

No one moved to help the men. They hadn’t been up there long. Drake’s main concern now was over the individuals who had done this and the whereabouts of the eight pieces of Odin. He turned, weapon ready and eyed Sam and the SAS team, who had stayed to cover the hallway.

Sam nodded.
All good.

He edged out. The voice of the Norseman stopped him. “What? You have to—”

Dahl smashed a fist into his mouth. “We have to do nothing. You should be thinking up ways of staying useful because as soon as you become obsolete. . .you’re going the same way as your ancestor Beowulf and the Vikings.”

“And what does that—?”

“Into the fucking ground. Now shut up.”

The Norseman didn’t even flinch from the blow, just stared at his colleagues with, at last, some emotion in his face. He seemed almost on the verge of tears.

The team fanned out into the hallway and advanced. Four more rooms were cleared and now they heard only silence. Drake cursed inwardly that they had arrived too late, but moving forward now without care would only get one of them killed.

He turned to the Norseman. “We heard a gunshot. Someone still has to be here. What’s back there?”

“A large room that leads to the rear gardens. The French windows are extensive, designed to give a full view of the—”

“Dahl,” Drake said. The Swede silenced the Norseman with another punch.

Drake moved as fast as he dared. He noticed a bloody trail that extended along the wall at shoulder height.
Could one of the intruders be injured?
If they were, it was most likely due to being shot by one of their own men.

He stopped at the closed door and signaled for readiness. Kinimaka kicked it in and Drake leapt through first, closely followed by Hayden. Before him stretched an entire wall of glass doors and, beyond that, a spectacular view.

But it was the immediate sight of a crawling, bloodied man with a knife in his back and a gun in his hand that grabbed their attention.

“Holgate!” The Norseman tried to leap forward, but Dahl clamped a huge arm around his throat.

“Wait.”

“Is he one of you?” Drake hissed without taking his eyes off the room, the man, and the spectacle beyond the windows.

“Yes. Matthew Holgate. The youngest member of our group.”

Mai, Alicia and the SAS team flowed around Drake, taking point and responsibility for observing their perimeters. Drake dropped to the floor next to the man just as a coughing fit wracked his body.

“What happened?” Drake asked.

Holgate jumped and turned his head, trying to bring the gun around. Drake disarmed him with no regard to his wounds and repeated his question.

“They. . .they jumped me.” Holgate coughed. “They made me watch—” He coughed again, screwing his face up in pain. “Whilst they. . .
crucified
. . .my friends. The only friends I have known.”

The Norseman fell to his knees beside Holgate. “What happened here? Look, it is I. You have to tell me what went wrong tonight.”

“Wrong?” Holgate spat the word as if it contained poison. “Everything has been wrong for years. But you? You never noticed. Your plans. . .your precious, flawless plans had to be executed. Day after day. Week after week.” Holgate groaned and tried to reach around his body for the knife.

Drake grabbed his hand. “Probably best to leave that alone, dickhead.”

The Norseman reached out too, but Dahl clamped his hand like a vice. Holgate took a moment and then continued, “
You never knew.”
He suddenly hissed, and his eyes burned like fire as they turned on the Norseman. “You never even knew when I lost it all. You were unapproachable, a statue of ice in a suit and a tie. You failed
me.”

The Norseman fell back, staring in horror. “I? What? You lost your fortune? The family’s fortune? Impossible.”

Mai reported from her position near a set of French doors. “We have movement out here. I see men among the trees behind the rink.”

Drake tore his attention away from the exchange between the two Shadow Elite men. The question was—did they need to give chase?

“Wait,” he interrupted Holgate. “The eight pieces of Odin. Do they have them?”

Holgate’s face went whiter than snow. His lips moved, but no words spilled from his mouth.

“Do they have the pieces?”
Drake wanted to throttle the man.

“Yes.” The admission was like a death rattle.

“And where are they taking them?”

Absolute fear blanketed Holgate’s eyes. “They double-crossed me.” He rasped in disbelief. “They leave me with nothing.”

“Where are they taking them?”
Drake almost reached for the knife.

“To an arms bazaar!” Holgate cried out. “A vast terrorist market. The pieces are set to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.”

Drake was on his feet in an instant. “Go!” he shouted. “We have to stop them!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mai and Alicia moved in sync, slipping out of the partially opened door and onto the patio beyond. Drake now allowed himself to take in the full spectacle of what lay beyond the windows.