Temple of the Gods

Temple of the Gods - By Andy McDermott



Prologue




The ocean had no name, nor did the gnarled land rising from it. There was no one to name them. In time there would be, after the scarred primordial world had completed another four billion orbits of its sun, but for now it was utterly barren. The planet could not even truly be said to be dead; it had never seen life.

Yet.

Had a person from that far future somehow been able to stand on the nameless obsidian sands, they would have seen a world very different from the one they knew, countless volcanoes spewing smoke and ash into the sky. This was a landscape in flux, growing literally by the day as the planet’s molten core forced itself outwards through the cracks in its crust.

The hypothetical observer would have found their glimpses of the heavens through the black clouds just as unfamiliar as the world beneath them. Above was an almost constant fireworks display of bright lines searing across the sky. Meteors: lumps of rock and rubble too small to survive the transition from the vacuum of space, atmospheric friction incinerating the building blocks of the still youthful solar system miles above the ground.

But the larger an incoming meteor, the greater its chance of surviving the fall.

Among the fleeting streaks of fire was something brighter. Not a line, but a shimmering point of light, seemingly unmoving. In fact, it was travelling at over ten miles per second. Its stillness was an optical illusion – it was heading straight for the black beach like a bullet fired from the stars.

The light flared. The rock was surrounded by a searing shockwave of plasma as it ploughed deeper into the atmosphere, its outer layers fragmenting and shedding in its wake. But it was large enough to guarantee that no matter how much mass was burned away, it would hit the ground. An impact and explosion powerful enough to obliterate everything within a radius of tens of miles should have been inevitable.

Until something extraordinary happened.

The meteor flared again, only this time the flash was an electric blue, not a fiery red. More flashes followed, but not from the plunging rock. They came from the sky around it, great bolts of lightning lancing to the ground. The observer, had he or she existed, would have noticed a distinct pattern to them, as if they were being channelled along lines of some natural force.

And the rock began to slow.

This was more than the braking effect of the atmosphere. The meteor was losing speed in almost direct proportion to the growing intensity of the lightning flashes. It was as though the world below was trying to cushion its fall . . . or push it away.

But it was too late for that. Even as the electrical blizzard raged around it, the meteor continued its descent. Slowing, still slowing, but not enough—

It hit the beach at several times the speed of sound, unleashing the same energy as a small nuclear bomb. A blinding flash lit the volcanic landscape, an expanding wall of fire racing out from the point of impact. Tens of thousands of tons of pulverised bedrock were blasted skywards. But even though it was now only a small fraction of the size it had been minutes earlier, the new arrival from the infinite depths of space, glowing red-hot at the bottom of the newly created crater, was still over a hundred feet across.

Then the ocean found it.

Water gushed over the crater’s lip, the sea greedily surging in to claim the new space. The churning wavefront crashed against the meteorite – and another explosion shook the beach, outer layers of burning rock shattering in a swelling cloud of steam as they were suddenly cooled.

Gradually, stillness returned. The lightning died down, dark clouds rolling in to repair the tear in their blanket. Before long, the only movement was the eternal slosh of the waves.

What remained of the meteorite at the bottom of the new lagoon was now even smaller, only the heart of the traveller remaining intact. But for the first time in unknown ages, that core of strange, purple stone was exposed to something other than compressed rock or the harsh emptiness of space. Water, working its way into every exposed crack to find whatever was within.

It took time, six whole days, before anything happened. Even then, the time-travelling observer would have needed a microscope to see it, and still been profoundly unimpressed. A tiny bubble, the product of chemical processes at work within the ragged rock, broke free and rose to the water’s surface, to be instantly lost amongst the foaming waves. It was not the most inspiring beginning.

But it was a beginning.

Life had arrived on planet Earth.





Zimbabwe:





Four Billion Years Later




The heat and stench were as inescapable as the cell itself. The thick stone and clay walls of the former pioneer fort trapped warmth like a kiln, and the small, stoutly barred window providing the only ventilation opened out almost directly on to the row of latrines at one side of the prison’s central courtyard.

Fort Helena. Hell on earth for those unfortunates imprisoned within by the country’s despotic regime.

A bearded man sat statue-like in one dirty corner of the gloomy cell; his stillness partly because of the cloying heat, and partly because each movement brought pain. He had been delivered to the prison a day earlier, and as a welcoming gift given a beating by a group of guards before being taken to a dark room where a grinning man had provided him with a hands-on demonstration of some of the numerous instruments of torture at his disposal. Just a sample, he had been promised. A full show would soon follow.

Someone else was in the torture chamber now, screams echoing through the passages. The guards had made a point of dragging the victim past the man’s cell so that he would hear his desperate pleas for mercy. Another sample, a demonstration. You’re next.

A new sound, this from outside. A rising mechanical thrum – an approaching helicopter.

The man stirred, painfully levering himself upright and going to the little window. He ignored the foul smell from the latrines, narrowing his eyes against the harsh daylight as he watched uniformed men hurry into the courtyard to form an honour guard. Behind them came the prison’s governor, a squat, toad-faced man in small gold-rimmed glasses. From his look of apprehension it was clear that the new arrival was important.

The prisoner tensed. He knew who was aboard the helicopter.

Someone with very good reasons to hate him.

Dust and grit swirled as the helicopter descended. It was an elderly aircraft, a French-built Alouette III light utility chopper converted to what was known as ‘G-car’ specification by the addition of a pair of machine guns. A veteran of the civil war that led to Rhodesia’s becoming Zimbabwe in 1980 . . . now being used as VIP transport for a man who fought in that war as a youth, gaining a nickname that he retained with pride to this day.

Gamba Boodu. ‘The Butcher.’

A guard opened the cabin door and Boodu stepped out, head high as if daring the still whirling rotor blades above him to strike. Despite the baking temperatures, he wore a long black greatcoat over an immaculately fitted suit, the coat’s hem flapping in the downdraught as he strode across the courtyard to the governor. Sunlight glinted off gold: a large ring on the middle finger of his right hand, inset with a sparkling emerald. That same hand held an object that he swung like a walking stick, its end stabbing into the ground with each step.

A machete, its handle decorated with lines of gold.

The bearded man remembered the weapon well. Some years earlier, he had wrested it from the militia leader and used it against him. The result was a deep, V-shaped line of pink against the Zimbabwean’s dark skin, the scar the aftermath of a blow that had hacked clean through flesh to leave a bloody hole in his cheek like a second mouth.

He smiled, very faintly. The injury was only a fraction of what a murderer and sadist like Boodu deserved, but among his many unpleasant characteristics was vanity: every look in the mirror would provide some punishment.

The smile disappeared as, formalities quickly over, Boodu and the governor marched into the prison buildings. They would soon come to the cell. The man returned to his filthy corner.

Footsteps over the screams. The wooden cover of the peephole slid back, then came the clatter and rasp of a key in the lock. The heavy door swung open. A guard entered first, pistol aimed at the still figure, who responded with nothing more than a fractional raising of his eyes. Next came the governor, broad mouth curled into a smirk, and finally Boodu himself. The machete’s tip clinked down on the stone floor.

‘What a pleasant surprise,’ said Boodu, his deep voice filled with gloating satisfaction. ‘Eddie Chase.’

The balding Englishman lifted his head. ‘Ay up,’ he said in a broad Yorkshire accent. ‘How’s the face?’

The line of the scar shifted as Boodu’s expression tightened. ‘It has healed.’

‘So who’d you use as your plastic surgeon? Dr Frankenstein?’

The governor angrily clicked his fingers, and the guard booted Eddie hard in the side. He was about to deliver another blow when Boodu stopped him. ‘Leave him for me,’ the Zimbabwean rumbled. He ground the machete’s point over the floor, the sound as unpleasant as nails on a blackboard. ‘I’m going to have some fun with him.’

Eddie clutched his aching ribs. ‘You’re throwing us a big party with cakes and jelly?’

‘The only thing that will be thrown is your corpse, into a pit,’ said Boodu. He rasped the blade over the flagstones again. ‘You caused me a lot of pain, Chase – professional and personal. Getting those criminals across the border made me look very bad in front of the president. It took me a long time to get back into his favour.’

‘Leaving the country ’cause you don’t want to have your family raped and murdered doesn’t make you a criminal.’

Boodu snorted sarcastically. ‘If you oppose the president, you are a criminal. And my country has far too many of these criminals – this prison is full of them. They must be dealt with. Firmly.’ He paused to listen to a shriek from the torture chamber. ‘Like your friend Strutter. A dog of war, spreading sedition, arranging for mercenaries to work for criminals. Mercenaries like you, Chase.’

‘Not any more, mate. I had a career change.’

‘Yes, I heard. We do still get the international news here in Zimbabwe, even if it is filled with lies about our country. You married an American, no? I’m very sorry.’ He laughed. ‘But I also heard that you got into some trouble, hey? You are wanted for murdering an Interpol officer! I was almost tempted to turn you over to them. But then –’ he turned his face to display his mangled cheek to the prisoner – ‘I remembered that you gave me this.’

‘My pleasure,’ Eddie said with a sardonic grin.

‘It will soon be my pleasure.’ Boodu advanced, tapping the machete on the floor. He nodded to the guard. ‘Hold him.’

Eddie was kicked again, harder than before. While the Yorkshireman gasped for breath, the guard hauled him up and shoved him against the wall.

‘Here,’ said Boodu, mouth somewhere between a smile and a snarl. He brought up the blade and sliced through one of Eddie’s dirty, ragged sleeves – and the skin beneath. Dark blood blossomed on the fabric.

Eddie choked back a growl of pain. ‘You f*cking cockwipe!’

‘When I was told you had been arrested, I had it sharpened. Just for you.’

‘Hope you had it sterilised too,’ said Eddie as the guard released him. ‘Wouldn’t want to catch anything.’ He examined the cut. Boodu had been right about the machete’s sharpness; the African’s sweep had only been light, but still enough to open up a stinging gash in his arm.

Boodu laughed again. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Chase. You knew you were a dead man if you ever came back to Zimbabwe – so I congratulate you on your bravery, at least – but you were a fool to be so open about it. We were watching all of Strutter’s contacts. Did you really think we had forgotten you?’ He gestured at Eddie’s face. ‘A beard! That was your disguise? Very stupid. You must have spent too long in America, with all the comforts of marriage – you forgot how the world really works.’

‘I didn’t forget,’ said Eddie. Boodu was about to say something else when a prison official appeared at the door and indicated that he wished to speak to the governor. The two men exchanged muttered words, eyeing Eddie suspiciously, before the militia leader went over to join in the sotto voce discussion.

Before long, Boodu let out a sharp ‘Ha!’ and, swinging the machete almost nonchalantly, turned back to Eddie. ‘Where is it, Chase?’

‘Where’s what?’ Eddie replied, face a portrait of innocence.

‘You have a radio transmitter. My pilot picked it up, and then used the prison’s own receiver to triangulate its position. This cell.’

The governor was already defensive. ‘We searched him when he was brought here.’

‘Not well enough,’ said Boodu, his look suggesting there would be repercussions for the oversight. ‘So that’s why you were so open about coming here to rescue Strutter. You thought a homing beacon would help your friends rescue you if you got into trouble.’ He shook his head. ‘Not from here, Chase. Not from Fort Helena. Now, where is it? Or will I have to cut you apart to find it?’ He raised the machete again.

With a defeated look, Eddie unfastened his trousers. ‘Don’t get all excited, lads,’ he said as he reached into the back of his underwear and, straining in discomfort, extracted a small tubular object from where the sun didn’t shine. ‘Ow! Christ, you’ve no idea how uncomfy that was. Made my eyes water.’

Boodu was about to take it from Eddie when he noticed the unsavoury coating on its metal surface and instructed the guard to hold it instead. With an expression of great distaste, the man held it up for his superiors to examine. It was around three inches long and a little over an inch in diameter, one end rounded off. A red LED blinked at the other, flat end, a tiny switch beside it. ‘Does the switch turn it off?’ Boodu asked Eddie. The Englishman nodded.

Boodu gestured to the guard, who clicked the switch with a thumbnail. The LED went dark. Chuckling, he regarded Eddie again. ‘You shouldn’t have set it to transmit on a military frequency, Chase. A stupid mistake.’

‘Oh, I dunno,’ said Eddie. A sudden confidence in his voice was accompanied by distant sounds from outside, a series of flat thuds. Boodu stiffened, realising that the situation had somehow changed. ‘It wasn’t to tell my mates I was here.’ A broad smile exposed the gap between his front teeth. ‘It was to tell ’em you were here.’

He dropped and shielded his head—

A rising high-pitched whine told Boodu what was happening – but too late to do anything about it as mortar shells struck the prison.

A hole exploded in the corridor’s ceiling, shrapnel ripping into the head and back of the prison official. The governor was also hit, the blast flinging him into the cell. Both Boodu and the guard were thrown off their feet as more detonations tore through the building.

Eddie lifted his head as the first round of shelling ceased. As planned, the bombs had been fired to impact in a pattern around his cell as soon as the beacon was switched off. Risky, but he’d had confidence in his collaborators’ aim. The mortars were just over the top of a small ridge almost a mile from the fort, set up and sighted on his position by surreptitious use of a laser rangefinder during the early hours of the morning. So far, they were on target. The door hung off its hinges, the wall beside it smashed. A shaft of sunlight cut through the swirling dust from a hole in the roof.

He jumped up. The guard was closest to him, breaking out of his daze as he saw the prisoner move and standing clumsily, raising his gun—

Eddie grabbed his arm and wrenched it up behind his back as he fired. The bullet smacked against the door.

The sound shocked the governor back to life. He fumbled for his own holstered weapon, broad face contorted in panic and fury.

Eddie twisted the guard’s arm even harder, jamming the gun’s muzzle into his lower back – and his own index finger on top of his captive’s. Four shots burst gorily through the guard’s abdomen. Even mangled and smashed by their passage, the rounds still had enough force to tear into the governor’s flesh. He screamed, gun forgotten as he writhed in agony from the mortal wounds.

Pulling the gun from the dead guard’s hand, Eddie dropped the corpse and whirled to face Boodu. The Zimbabwean was on his hands and knees. Squinting in pain and disorientation, his gaze fell upon his machete, the ornate handle just inches away. He grabbed it—

Eddie’s foot stamped down on the blade.

Boodu looked up to find the smoking, blood-dripping gun pointed right at him. ‘All right, faceache,’ Eddie growled. ‘Let go.’ Boodu withdrew his hand and backed away. The Englishman bent to retrieve the machete. Outside, an alarm bell started ringing – just as another round of far-off thumps reached the prison. ‘Oh, and if I were you, I’d duck.’

Boodu shielded his head as another round of mortar shells struck their targets. These explosions were further away, but still enough to shake dust from the ceiling as guard towers were blasted into fragments and the prefabricated administration block blew apart, the remains collapsing on top of the prison staff inside.

Eddie jabbed Boodu with the machete. Another noise rose: the helicopter, its pilot desperately trying to take off. ‘Okay, get up. Get up!’ He gestured with the gun towards the broken door. ‘Move.’

Boodu had no choice but to obey, though his voice seethed with defiance. ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Long term? Botswana. Short term,’ Eddie went on as the other man responded with confusion, ‘we’re going to do what I came here for – get Strutter. Lead the way.’

‘You can’t get out of here,’ Boodu spat as they exited the cell. Through the hole in the ceiling, they heard the Alouette’s roar as it left the ground. ‘The main gate is shut, and mortars won’t break it – I know, I attacked this place during the war. You need a tank. And you don’t have one.’

‘Let me worry about that,’ said Eddie. He prodded him again, far from gently, with the machete’s point. ‘Come on, shift your arse.’

Making an angry sound, Boodu stepped over the rubble littering the floor and moved down the passage, Eddie a few paces behind. Another explosion outside: a secondary detonation, one of the vehicles inside the compound. There would be a last round of shelling, then after that everything depended on getting the main gate open . . .

Frantic yelling and thumping came from a cell as they passed it, a man inside begging in the Shona language. Eddie checked the door, but it needed a key. Shit! He should have taken the set from the dead guard—

Another guard ran out from a junction ahead, gun in hand. He looked relieved to see Boodu – then realised that the militia leader was not alone and whipped up his pistol.

Eddie was quicker. A single shot, and the guard fell backwards, blood gushing from a bullet wound in his forehead.

Boodu spun, intending to take advantage of the distraction and tackle Eddie, but the Englishman had already brought the gun back to cover him. ‘Get his keys and open the cell,’ he ordered.

Boodu glared venomously at him, then after a moment a calculating expression formed on his face. ‘Why don’t you just kill me?’ he asked, more rhetorically than in concern. Cunning replaced calculation. ‘You can’t, can you? You need me alive.’

‘Not quite,’ said Eddie. ‘I want you alive, ’cause I’ll get paid extra.’

‘And you said you weren’t a mercenary any more,’ Boodu scoffed, before the implications of Eddie’s words sank in. ‘Paid? By who?’

‘Oh, just the people I got across the border last time I was here. And some other Zimbabweans who escaped.’ His voice hardened. ‘People who had to leave family behind. Family you got hold of. They’re pretty keen to see you again – on their terms.’ A flicker of genuine fear replaced arrogance in Boodu’s eyes. ‘Strutter’s the main reason I’m here, but giving you to them’s a bonus. But don’t get me wrong – if you try anything again, I’ll blow your f*cking head off and give ’em what’s left of it in a carrier bag. Now open the door.’

Boodu did as he was told. The door swung open and a haggard man, face swollen with bruises, rushed out – only to retreat in fear when he saw who had released him.

‘It’s okay, come out,’ said Eddie, bringing his gun to the back of Boodu’s head to show the terrified prisoner that the balance of power had changed. He glanced into the cell and saw that the man was not alone; there were five others, all showing signs of recent beatings, in the cramped, sweltering space. He tossed the keys into the room. ‘Get everyone out, and be ready to run when you see the signal.’

‘What signal?’ a prisoner asked.

Eddie grinned. ‘You won’t miss it.’ He swatted Boodu with the machete as the men in the cell hesitantly emerged, as if expecting some cruel trick. ‘Keep moving.’

‘You are setting these traitors, these scum, free?’ Boodu hissed through clenched teeth. ‘You’ll die for this, Chase!’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Eddie replied with a shrug. ‘But first, let’s set another scumbag free and get Strutter, eh?’

Trying to mask his concern, Boodu continued down the passageway, Eddie behind him. More people were quickly released from other cells. Another series of explosions shook the old fort: the final mortar attack. If things were going to plan, the prison would now be in chaos, with communications and most of the defences smashed. The next phase – creating an escape route – should now be under way.

But while freeing Zimbabwean political prisoners would be a great humanitarian feat, it wasn’t why Eddie was there. Only one prisoner concerned him.

The man behind the steel door they had just reached.

Keeping Boodu at gunpoint, Eddie listened at the grille set into it, straining to make out anything over the clamour of alarm bells. That the opening was there at all spoke volumes. Torture chambers designed for the purpose of extracting information were generally soundproofed, the atrocities committed within witnessed only by the torturers and their victims. This, though, let everyone in the cells hear the screams. Another form of torture, more insidious, one that didn’t even require the abusers to lay a hand on their other victims.

Through the door, he heard muted gasping. Anything else was masked by the bells and his own less than perfect hearing, damaged by years of exposure to gunfire and explosions. ‘Open it,’ he muttered to Boodu.

The Zimbabwean glowered, but pushed the door open. ‘It’s Boodu,’ he announced.

There was no answer. Surprised, Boodu stepped cautiously into the chamber. Eddie followed a couple of steps behind. On the far side of the shadowed room he saw the man he had come to rescue: Johnny Strutter, an overweight Kenyan man in his forties. Strutter was shackled face-first against the wall, his bare back marked with savage weals and bleeding lines where he had been whipped. There was also a strong, sickly smell like scorched meat. Burn marks dotted across Strutter’s shoulders and upper back told Eddie that it wasn’t from a barbecue. A bench beside him was home to numerous instruments of torture, some of which had been demonstrated to – and upon – Eddie the previous day.

Their user was gone, however. The torturer had fled like a coward at the first sign of danger. Whips and hooks and soldering irons were no defence against bombs and bullets.

Eddie gestured at Strutter. ‘Get him down.’

At gunpoint, Boodu unlocked the shackles. The overweight man collapsed when the last one was released, moaning. ‘Into the corner,’ snapped Eddie, signalling for Boodu to back away as he checked the prisoner.

Strutter forced open his pain-clenched eyes. ‘Chase?’ he rasped in disbelief. ‘Eddie Chase! God above, it is you! I almost didn’t recognise you with the beard . . .’

‘Can you walk?’ Eddie demanded curtly.

Strutter flexed his legs and grimaced. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been through a lot since I was arrested, old friend. You’ll have to carry me.’

Eddie fixed him with a cold glare. ‘Let’s get this straight, Strutter. I’m not your “old friend”, and I’m not f*cking carrying your fat arse anywhere. I want one thing out of you – information – and if you can’t move I’ll chain you back to that wall and carry on where the last guy left off to get it.’

Strutter hurriedly got up. ‘On the other hand, I could walk.’

‘Glad we’re on the same page.’ Eddie turned back to Boodu. ‘All right, dickhead, let’s go. Strutter, take this machete. If he tries anything, stab him.’

Strutter took the blade and eyed Boodu. ‘It would be a grand thing for the entire world if I just stabbed him anyway.’

‘I know, but I’ll get a few quid for handing him over.’

‘You are back in the mercenary business? I thought you left for good.’

‘It’s just temporary,’ Eddie said as he returned to the door. The only people he saw outside were prisoners, a few of whom had acquired weapons from the guards and were exchanging intermittent fire through a door to the courtyard. Fort Helena was still in turmoil.

But even with the governor dead, there was a chain of command. Somebody would soon take charge; every minute brought a counter-attack closer. The armoury might have been destroyed, but the guards still had firepower on their side.

Boodu knew this too. ‘You can’t get out,’ he said, sneering at the prisoners. ‘You think these starving dogs can break through the gate?’

‘Nope,’ said Eddie, heading for the exit. ‘But I know someone who can.’

As if on cue, more gunfire erupted outside – but from the prisoners’ confusion, it was clear that it wasn’t being aimed at them. Eddie cautiously peered into the courtyard. The watch-towers were smouldering wrecks, and a column of black smoke rose from the remains of the administration block. A car nearby was also ablaze. But what about the guards?

He saw several uniformed men race across the courtyard to scale the steps built into the fort’s thick defensive wall, joining others along the ramparts – and firing on something outside the prison.

Something getting closer.

A deep rumbling growl filled the air. Boodu’s eyes went wide. ‘You have got a tank!’

‘Not quite,’ said Eddie, ‘but the next best thing.’ He smiled. ‘Check out my killdozer.’

The great gates burst apart.

Roaring through a cloud of dust and black diesel smoke was a large bulldozer, its front blade raised like a battering ram – but this was no ordinary construction vehicle. The engine compartment and cabin were covered by steel plates. The guards’ bullets clanked harmlessly off the armour as the behemoth ground over the ruined gates into the courtyard.

The killdozer was not simply an impenetrable bullet magnet, however. It had weapons of its own. Slots in the cabin’s shields dropped open – and the muzzles of machine guns poked out, firing up at the fort’s defenders. Guards flailed and fell under the hail of fire. The machine rumbled on, flattening a car into unrecognisable scrap.

Eddie called to the prisoners. ‘Okay! That’s your way out of here – there are trucks coming to the gate. When I tell you, run for it!’

Boodu raged impotently. ‘English bastard! You’re helping these traitors escape? You’ll die for this – no, you’ll beg me to kill you after I’m finished with you!’

The prisoners’ own fury rose as they realised who he was. Eddie reasserted who was in charge by cracking his gun against Boodu’s head. ‘Keep your f*cking mouth shut – or I’ll give you to this lot. We’ll see who’s begging then.’ Seeing the vengeance-filled eyes of the men surrounding him, Boodu wisely decided to stay silent.

A thunderous explosion shook the building, and the lights went out. Eddie saw the killdozer backing away from the blazing remains of the prison’s generators. Through the gates, he spotted a pickup truck barrelling down the dusty road to the fort. ‘If you’ve got a gun, get ready to use it!’ he called. ‘If you haven’t, then run for the gate . . . now!’

He broke from the doorway into the courtyard, gun at the ready. Strutter followed, forcing Boodu along at machete-point. The prisoners spilled out behind them.

The killdozer was growling back to the gate, but Eddie was only concerned with the remaining guards. A man leaned round a corner and fired into the fleeing crowd – then dropped with a spurting chest wound as Eddie returned the favour.

Another two guards rose from cover behind a wall and opened up with rifles. There were screams as prisoners were hit. Eddie turned to deal with the new threat, but the men in the killdozer beat him to it, the machine guns unleashing furious bursts of automatic fire. The wall pocked and splintered under the barrage, both guards tumbling amidst bright red sprays of blood as bullets ripped into their bodies.

Shots cracked out from the escapees. The other guards realised they were overmatched and tried to retreat. Spitting lines of fire from the killdozer tracked them.

Eddie was almost at the gate. The pickup had stopped outside, other vehicles pulling up behind it. Inside them were resistance members opposed to Zimbabwe’s brutal government, many of whom had been driven to direct action by the imprisonment of family or friends in places like Fort Helena. A man jumped from the pickup and waved frantically to him. Banga Nandoro, one of those with whom Eddie had planned the whole operation.

‘Come on, hurry!’ Banga yelled as Eddie charged through the gate, the prisoners following him. More men jumped from the arriving trucks to help pile the escapees aboard.

Eddie ran to Banga, gun still raised as he watched the fort’s walls for snipers. ‘Glad you could make it,’ he told the Zimbabwean as Boodu and Strutter caught up.

Banga nodded, eyes fixed on the men emerging from the gate. At the sight of one in particular, he gasped. ‘Chinouyazue!’ he cried, running to his brother.

Eddie patted his heart. ‘Makes you feel all warm in here, doesn’t it?’ Boodu’s expression twisted into a glower.

The killdozer reached the gate, the remaining prisoners streaming past as it turned on its tracks to prevent any surviving vehicles from leaving the compound. A steel slab dropped from the cabin’s side, hitting the ground with a bang. Two Zimbabweans holding machine guns emerged, followed by a huge Caucasian man who unfolded himself from the cramped confines and squeezed out. He saw Eddie and gave him a cheery wave, then hopped down and produced a hand grenade, pulling the pin and tossing it over his shoulder into the killdozer as he jogged away. An explosion ripped apart the controls, turning the makeshift tank into an extremely solid barricade.

‘Little man!’ Oleg Maximov called as he approached Eddie. ‘You okay, da?’ The bearded Russian scooped him up in a crushing embrace.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Eddie grunted. ‘Okay, okay, that’s hurting now!’ Grinning, Maximov released him. Eddie saw numerous red marks on his face and arms: he had been scorched by the spent bullet casings pinging around inside the cabin. ‘Did you get burned?’

‘Da, a little,’ said Maximov, tugging out a pair of silicone earplugs; without protection, the gunfire inside the metal-walled cabin would have been deafening. He smiled. ‘It felt good.’

‘You’re weird, Max.’ Years earlier, the muscular giant had survived a bullet to the head, with the side effect that his pain response had become scrambled. Getting hurt now actually gave him pleasure, making the ex-Spetsnaz mercenary an extremely dangerous opponent, as Eddie had discovered.

But they were on the same side for this job. ‘Nice work,’ he told Maximov, before turning his attention back to the escapees. Almost a hundred prisoners had been freed, he estimated; so many that it might be touch and go whether they could all fit in the waiting trucks. ‘Come on, move it!’ he shouted, waving for the stragglers to hurry.

‘And where do you think they will all go?’ Boodu demanded with condescending sarcasm. He glanced to the west; Botswana was only ten miles away. ‘The border is too well guarded – they will never get across it. And if they stay in Zimbabwe, we will find them. There is nowhere they can hide.’

‘That’s not gonna be your problem,’ said Eddie. The last of the men squeezed aboard the trucks, some dangling from the sides, held by their former cellmates. The first vehicle started to lumber away. ‘Right, Banga, we’d better shift. I don’t want to miss my flight.’

Banga helped his weary brother into the pickup’s cab, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Eddie hopped into the rear bed, keeping his gun on Boodu as the Zimbabwean, Strutter and Maximov followed suit. The pickup set off, but instead of following the other trucks back along the dirt road, it angled away into open scrubland. Shots from the fort followed them, but they were quickly beyond the range of the guards’ weapons.

Banga kept driving across the windy plain. After a few minutes, structures appeared ahead. Skeletal frames rose from the ground like hands clawing from a grave, the part-built beginnings of what had been planned as a cement works before Zimbabwe’s ruined economy forced construction to be suspended. The killdozer, in its original peaceful guise, had been one of the pieces of equipment abandoned in situ.

A long road ran from the site to a highway a few miles to the south, widened and flattened to allow the passage of heavy machinery. Eddie hoped it would also be wide enough for another form of transport . . .

‘There she is!’ shouted Maximov, pointing into the sky. Eddie looked up to see a bright yellow aircraft approaching at low altitude.

It wasn’t the one he had expected, however. ‘What the bloody hell’s that?’ he demanded as the large, ponderous biplane made a lazy descent towards the road. The closer it came to the ground the slower it moved, to the point where it seemed to be hanging impossibly in the air. Then, with an upward twitch of its nose, it dropped the last few feet and bounced along the dirt track before trundling to a stop near the unfinished buildings.

Banga drove the pickup to meet it. Strutter prodded Boodu out of the back with the machete as Eddie jumped out and ran to the aircraft. A hatch opened in the biplane’s rear flank. ‘TD!’ he yelled over the engine’s sputtering growl. ‘What the f*ck’s this piece of old crap?’

Tamara Defendé looked offended. ‘And it’s nice to see you too, Eddie,’ she said in her melodious Namibian accent.

‘What happened to the Piper?’ He had expected her to be flying her Twin Comanche air-taxi.

‘Didn’t I tell you? I’ve got two planes now – my business is expanding. I thought you might need something bigger for this.’ She nodded at Maximov as he accompanied Strutter and Boodu to the aircraft. ‘I don’t think he would even fit in the Piper.’

Eddie was still far from impressed. ‘But . . . but it’s f*cking prehistoric! It’s a biplane, for Christ’s sake. Who built it, the Wright brothers?’

‘It’s Russian,’ said TD, pouting in defence of her plane’s honour. ‘It’s an Antonov—’

‘Antonov An-2, yeah, I know.’ Eddie’s military training had included aircraft recognition. He clambered into the surprisingly capacious hold, moving aside to let the three other men in. ‘I meant, why the hell would you buy this thing? It must be sixty years old!’

‘Hah! It’s only thirty-nine years old, so it’s younger than you—’

‘It’s the same age, actually,’ he protested. ‘I’m not forty yet.’

‘—and it’s cheap and simple and I can repair it with a wrench and a hammer out in the bush if I need to. And it can carry a lot of cargo and land just about anywhere, so it’s perfect for my work.’

‘Main thing I want to know is: is it fast?’ Eddie asked as he waved goodbye to Banga and shut the hatch.

‘Not really, but this is Africa. Things don’t happen in a rush here.’

‘They will once the government finds out what just happened at the prison.’

The attractive young pilot took the hint and hurried up the cabin to clamber through an arched opening into the cockpit. Eddie checked on the other passengers. Strutter, evidently as unconvinced by the Antonov’s supposed airworthiness as Eddie, had already strapped himself firmly in. The only thing keeping Boodu down, however, was Maximov’s scowl from the neighbouring seat.

‘You’ll never get away,’ the Zimbabwean snarled as Eddie took the seat next to Strutter, facing him across the cabin. ‘Not in this antique.’

‘Ten miles and we’re across the border,’ Eddie reminded him. ‘Even this thing can make it before any of your fighters reach us.’ TD revved the engine, applying full rudder to turn the elderly aircraft back down the road. The Antonov lurched over the bumps. Strutter nervously pulled his straps even tighter. ‘If it can make it,’ said Boodu.

‘I heard that,’ TD snapped from the cockpit. She straightened out, braking and checking the instruments before pushing the throttle to full power. The engine roared, the entire fuselage vibrating and rattling.

‘I should have kept earplugs in,’ Maximov complained. Eddie had to agree; the Antonov betrayed its Soviet military heritage by its utter lack of creature comforts like soundproofing.

‘Hang on,’ TD warned. The jolting increased as the biplane picked up speed. Eddie looked out through the row of circular portholes, gripping the arm of his seat with one hand as he kept the gun aimed at Boodu with the other. They were doing forty miles per hour, fifty – then abruptly the juddering eased and the plane tipped back sharply as it took to the air. Antiquated though it might be, the Antonov still had low-speed performance that almost no modern planes could match.

‘How long to the border?’ Eddie shouted to TD as she banked to head west towards her current home country.

‘Less than ten minutes.’

‘Okay.’ Once the An-2 reached Botswanan airspace – passage had already been secured – another fifteen minutes of flight would bring them to a bush airstrip.

Where the relatives of some of Boodu’s victims awaited his arrival.

Boodu had realised this, his attempt at a neutral expression not hiding the concern on his scarred face. His gaze flicked to the machete, which Strutter had shoved point-down into the frame between his and Eddie’s seats. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Eddie warned, with a jab of the gun for emphasis. The militia leader leaned back in his seat, eyes narrowed.

Now that they were in the air, Strutter started to relax. He wiped sweat from his forehead, then turned to the Englishman. ‘You say you are not my friend, Eddie, but for getting me out of that place, you have a friend for life. Whether you like it or not!’ He beamed, but the smile faded at Eddie’s unimpressed look. ‘Whatever you need, whatever you want, you’ll have it.’

‘Just information’ll do,’ said Eddie. ‘I’m trying to find someone.’

‘If anyone can find them, I can,’ Strutter said proudly.

‘That’s why I rescued you. In fact, that’s the only reason I rescued you.’ The Kenyan looked somewhat deflated, so Eddie softened slightly. ‘You get me what I want, Johnny, and as far as I’m concerned we’re all square, and you’re free to go. Sound good?’

Strutter nodded. ‘It does. Thank you.’ He offered his hand. ‘I promise you, I will find—’

A line of ragged holes burst open in the fuselage, shards of aluminium showering the passengers.

Wind shrieked into the cabin. ‘Shit!’ Eddie gasped as TD threw the lumbering plane into an evasive turn. They were being fired on – but how?

The Alouette. Boodu’s helicopter was equipped with a pair of .303 calibre Browning machine guns – and after fleeing the prison, it must have withdrawn to a safe distance before its crew spotted the incoming Antonov and deduced that the highest-value escapees would be taken aboard. Eddie didn’t know the Alouette’s top speed, but suspected it would match – or beat – the old biplane.

Another burst of machine gun fire punctured the hull, the shots ripping along the length of the plane—

Into the cockpit.

TD screamed. Eddie saw blood on the windscreen. The plane lurched. ‘TD, are you okay? TD!’

Her reply was a barely coherent wail. ‘Oh God, my arm!’

Eddie jumped up and was about to enter the cockpit to help her when the nose tilted upwards, sending him staggering back down the cabin . . .

Boodu lunged for his machete.

Off-balance, Eddie’s shot at him went wide, adding another hole to the Antonov’s puckered fuselage as Boodu yanked the blade from the seat frame—

More of the Alouette’s bullets struck the biplane. It pitched up almost vertically, dropping Eddie and Boodu towards the rear bulkhead as the other two men struggled to hold on to their seats.

The sheet metal buckled under Eddie as he crashed against it. Boodu slammed down beside him, the machete clanging against the bulkhead just inches from the Yorkshireman’s chest.

Boodu swept the weapon as Eddie rolled away. The machete’s sharp edge caught his arm – only a glancing blow, but still deep enough to draw blood. He tried to bring the gun round, but Boodu lashed out with one leg and kicked his hand, sending the pistol flying across the hold.

The plane’s nose tipped back down. Even wounded, TD was still fighting to keep control of her aircraft. Eddie thumped to the deck as the Antonov came out of its climb. Over the engine’s roar, he heard the clatter of the helicopter’s machine guns. Bullets clunked into the wings.

‘Max!’ he shouted. ‘Get into the cockpit and help her!’ Maximov gave him a thumbs-up and squeezed through the cockpit entrance.

More bullet impacts, this time against the fuselage. One of the portholes blew out – then the cabin hatch burst open and fell away behind the plane. Strutter screamed in terror.

Eddie clung to a structural spar as the slipstream tried to drag him out after the hatch. The horizon tipped sharply, the Antonov now in a steepening plunge. The engine note rose in pitch.

Boodu braced his feet against another spar and swung again, Eddie ducking just in time to avoid a machete blow to his face. The blade clanged against the hull above his head. He retaliated with a punch, but only caught the Zimbabwean’s shoulder as he drew back the machete for another attack.

A churning sensation in Eddie’s stomach told him that he was in freefall. The Antonov was picking up speed in its dive.

Which gave him a new dimension in which to fight.

Boodu slashed at him – but Eddie had already kicked away and shot towards the ceiling, grabbing a flapping cargo strap and using it to somersault himself around. The plane’s occupants were now effectively in zero-g, the Antonov’s power dive matching the speed at which gravity was dragging them down. From Boodu’s expression of shock – and sudden nausea – it was something he had never experienced before.

Eddie had, however. He kicked off again and propelled himself at the Zimbabwean like a missile. Before Boodu could react, the Englishman had ploughed into him, sending both men tumbling weightlessly across the hold. He drove a punch into Boodu’s face, breaking his nose. Globules of blood whirled in the air. Another powerful blow, then he grabbed the African’s arm and tried to pry the machete from his grip.

The engine note changed again, the cabin spinning around them as the plane turned. They were running out of sky . . .

Eddie finally broke Boodu’s hold on the machete – as Maximov pulled up, hard. No longer in freefall, the two men crashed heavily to the deck. Gravity went from zero to double as the An-2 continued its roller coaster ride. The machete slammed down with sledgehammer force, embedding its tip an inch into the floor beside the open hatch.

The ground outside was frighteningly close—

An explosion of dust whirled into the cabin as the Antonov pulled out of its headlong dive mere feet above the plain and began another steep, rolling climb. Eddie and Boodu, still grappling, slid back down the hold . . .

Straight at the hatch.

Eddie realised the danger and let go of Boodu, clawing at the spars. He snagged one with his fingertips, but lost his grip almost immediately and continued to slither towards the opening. Boodu, just ahead of him, screamed as he fell into nothingness—

And caught the back edge of the frame, dangling outside the ascending aircraft.

Eddie flailed his arms helplessly, sliding out into the void . . .

His left hand slapped against one of the wrecked hinges. He grabbed it. Torn metal cut into his palm, but he had no choice but to cling on as his free hand hunted for purchase—

Boodu’s hand clamped around his throat.

The militia leader pulled himself higher. Choking, Eddie looked down at him, seeing his face twisted into a defiant snarl. Behind the Antonov’s tail, the pursuing Alouette came into view as it climbed after the biplane. ‘If I die,’ Boodu roared into the wind, ‘so do you, Chase!’

He squeezed harder, trying to force Eddie away from the hatch. The hinge’s sharp edges dug deeper into the Englishman’s hand. He tried to push Boodu back down, but didn’t have enough leverage. Instead, he groped inside the cabin for a handhold . . .

His fingers found sharp, thick metal.

The machete!

He tugged at the handle. The blade shifted, but didn’t come loose, still stuck in the floor like a crude Excalibur. Boodu dug his thumb harder against Eddie’s windpipe, hauling himself higher. Another few inches and he would be able to get an elbow over the edge of the hatch to pull himself inside.

A last desperate yank – and the blade came free.

Supported by only one hand, Eddie swung further out of the hatch. Boodu shot him a look of triumph – which abruptly vanished as he saw what his opponent was holding. ‘No, don’t!’ he cried.

‘Hands off!’ Eddie shouted.

He brought down the machete in a savage slash – and lopped the Zimbabwean’s clutching arm off at the wrist.

With a horrible shriek, Boodu plummeted away in the Antonov’s wake—

And fell into the helicopter’s rotor blades.

The lower half of his body burst into a thick spray that repainted the olive-green military camouflage in a gory red, the upper smashed screaming through the cockpit windows. The Alouette slewed round, rapidly losing height – then hit the ground and exploded in an oily fireball.

Eddie stabbed the machete into the plane’s side and dragged himself back into the cabin as the Antonov levelled out. He lay gasping for several seconds before realising that Boodu’s severed hand was still gripping his neck. He pulled off the appendage and was about to toss it through the hatch after its former owner when he took in the ring on its finger, the emerald still gleaming in its gold setting. A moment’s thought, then he wedged it in a seat frame and staggered to the front of the compartment. Strutter was still clutching his chair, petrified. Eddie leaned into the cockpit. ‘TD! Are you okay?’

Maximov had the controls, hunched in the co-pilot’s position with a look of laser-beam concentration. Beside him, TD was very pale, her left hand tightly squeezed around her bloodied right biceps. ‘Not – really,’ she managed to say through her pained grimace. ‘Oh, God, it hurts!’

‘Let me see.’ He carefully lifted her hand. She cried out, but he saw enough of the injury to know that it wouldn’t be life-threatening if she got prompt medical attention. ‘Okay, it’s okay,’ he said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘Just keep hold of it. We’ll fix you up when we land. How far to the border?’

She squinted at the instruments, then out of the window. ‘We’ll be . . . across it in a minute.’

‘I have question,’ said Maximov, gripping the controls so hard that the tendons stood out on the backs of his hairy hands like brake cables. ‘How do we land? I don’t know how to fly!’ He gave Eddie a hopeful glance. ‘Do you?’

‘Nope – it’s been on my to-do list for about five f*cking years!’ He looked back at TD. ‘Can you talk him through it? I don’t want to have been in three plane crashes in eleven bloody months.’

She managed a feeble smile. ‘No problem. Another reason I bought . . . an Antonov. If you turn into the wind, the stall speed is . . . zero knots. So much lift it can just – float down.’

‘You’re kidding.’ Another attempt at a smile through her pain. ‘You’re not. Wow. I guess Russian stuff isn’t as crap as I thought.’

‘Hoy!’ Maximov protested.

Eddie grinned and retreated into the main cabin. Strutter’s look of rictus terror had finally relaxed, and he was hesitantly loosening his seatbelt straps. ‘I’d keep ’em fastened,’ Eddie warned him. ‘This might be a bit bumpy.’

Twenty minutes later, the Antonov was on the ground, in more or less one piece. Eddie had radioed ahead to alert the reception committee that they needed medical help; it turned out that no fewer than three of the waiting Zimbabwean expatriates were doctors, educated professionals being high on the list of targets for the government’s thugs. Two of them took TD to the nearby bush farmhouse for emergency treatment. The third wanted to check Eddie’s injuries, but he had business to attend to first.

Maximov followed the Englishman from the plane. ‘That was easy!’ he crowed. ‘Maybe I should become pilot, da?’

Despite TD’s claims, the An-2’s touchdown had been far from feather-light. Eddie tried to crick the stiffness out of his sore neck and spine. ‘You might need a bit more practice.’ Maximov laughed.

‘Mr Chase?’ Waiting for Eddie was Japera Tangwerai, one of those whom he had helped escape from Zimbabwe several years before. Although she was only in her early thirties, the lines of stress and loss on her face made her appear middle-aged, for she had seen nearly her entire family murdered by Zimbabwean militia forces. Her only surviving child, a boy now eight years old, looked up at Eddie nervously from behind her skirts. ‘What happened? Did you free the prisoners from Fort Helena?’

‘Yeah,’ he told her. ‘Don’t know exactly how many, but a lot, about a hundred. Banga and his people got them out of there.’

‘And what about . . .’ Her voice dropped. ‘What about Boodu?’

Even as a whisper, the hated name still caught the attention of others nearby. More people approached Eddie. ‘Did you catch him?’ a man demanded. ‘Did you bring the Butcher?’

‘Some of him. Here.’ Eddie brought something out from behind his back. ‘Let me give you a hand.’

Everyone recoiled in instinctive shock and disgust before they realised the significance of the distinctive ring on one stiffening finger. ‘It . . . it’s his,’ said Japera softly. ‘It’s the Butcher’s hand.’ She raised her voice to her companions. ‘It is the Butcher’s hand!’

The man who had spoken stared at it, then his mouth widened into a grin. He took the lifeless hand and held it aloft. ‘You killed the Butcher! He’s dead! The Butcher is dead!’ The call was taken up by the others, delight and relief spreading through the little crowd.

Japera’s response was more muted, a tear beading in one eye. ‘You killed Gamba Boodu,’ she said quietly to Eddie. ‘Thank you. My family . . . can rest now. Thank you.’ She squeezed his hand. He nodded in silent acknowledgement. After a moment, she released him. ‘I will get your money.’

‘Don’t give it to me,’ he said, to her surprise. ‘TD can have most of my share – I don’t think getting her plane fixed’ll be cheap. And Max can have the rest.’ He nodded towards the huge Russian, who was surrounded by cheering Zimbabweans and looking bemused but pleased by the attention. ‘All I need is enough to cover some expenses. Plane fares, mainly.’

Japera tried to hide her disappointment. ‘You are leaving? So soon?’

‘I’ve got somewhere to go. All I need is to find out where. Excuse me.’ He headed back to the plane to meet Strutter, who had just planted both feet on solid ground with huge relief.

‘Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!’ said the Kenyan, rubbing his brow. ‘We made it – you saved me!’

‘Yeah, well, don’t expect me to make a habit of it. Like I said, if you tell me what I need to know, we’ll be all square.’

‘No problem. I will find your friend, don’t you worry.’

‘He’s not a friend,’ said Eddie, expression turning cold. ‘You know Alexander Stikes?’

Strutter nodded. ‘Of course. Ex-SAS like you, runs his own PMC – although I heard he suddenly shut it down not long ago and started working for someone full time. I had some dealings with him; arranged for him to hire mercenaries for certain jobs, people like Maximov. But he’s a dangerous man. In honesty, I’m happy he’s gone.’ He regarded Eddie curiously. ‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for someone you don’t like. Why do you want to find him?’

Eddie’s face became even harder. ‘So I can kill him.’