Temple of the Gods

31




Sophia was still close enough to block the mercenaries’ line of fire. Eddie used the brief moment of protection to pull his legs inside the little elevator, curling into a ball – as his weight far overloaded its maximum capacity and sent the car plunging down the shaft.

The impact of landing knocked the breath from his lungs. Dizzied, he kicked open the doors and scrambled out, dropping heavily to the tiled floor.

Amsel’s corpse lay nearby, blood oozing from a gaping head wound. The storeroom was empty, its door open – as was the outside exit. Stikes must have planted one of his men in the kitchen staff. The hotel workers themselves had fled.

He staggered upright. Amsel’s weapons—

They were gone. Stikes’s man must have taken them.

Which left him completely unarmed against a team of mercenaries out for his blood.

‘Get down to the kitchens!’ Stikes bellowed to his men. ‘Now!’ The black-clad mercs sprinted for the exit.

Larry was still staring in astonishment at the empty hole in the wall. ‘He – he jumped down the dumbwaiter!’

‘Yeah, he does things like that,’ said Nina, trying not to let her enemies detect her concern for her husband’s safety.

Stikes pushed past them to Sophia. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, shaken – before turning to look at the hatch. Her shock became outrage. ‘You let him get away!’

‘We could have shot him, but I thought you wouldn’t appreciate having the bullets go through you first,’ he said testily, before returning to the table. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, for your own safety I’d recommend that we leave the hotel until I get confirmation that Chase is dead.’

‘You want us to run away?’ rasped Meerkrieger. ‘It sounds as if you’re scared of him.’

‘Hardly,’ the Englishman said, stiffening. ‘It’s just that Chase has, shall we say, a talent for destruction. I wouldn’t put it past him to set the hotel on fire or cause a gas explosion in an attempt to escape.’ His audience’s expressions showed that they were quickly coming round to his way of thinking.

‘He won’t try to escape,’ said Sophia. She pointed at Nina and Larry. ‘He’ll try to rescue them.’

‘Then we’d better make sure he can’t reach them. Or these.’ He picked up the case containing the statues. ‘We’ll take the cable car down to the village. I’ll call ahead to have transport waiting for us.’

The Group members stood. ‘Are you sure this is necessary?’ Warden asked.

‘As long as Chase is running loose, I wouldn’t take any chances. This way, please.’

‘You heard him,’ said Sophia, jabbing Nina with the Glock.

Everyone hurried for the main exit, Nina and Larry exchanging worried glances.

Eddie ran across the kitchen. He needed to get back upstairs to find Nina and his father, but the closest flight of steps, just outside the swing doors, would at any moment have mercenaries pounding down it. If he could get past it before they arrived, though, he might be able to find an alternative way up . . .

He saw fast-moving shadows on the stairwell wall through the circular windows. ‘Arse!’ he muttered as he changed direction for the exterior door.

The swing doors crashed open behind him. Bullets blazed across the kitchen – but he was already pounding up the snow-covered steps outside. Whirling snowflakes pricked his eyes as he reached the top. Wherever he ran, the mercs would be able to follow his trail in the snow and pick him off – he had to buy himself some time.

The bins—

The nearest wheeled container was a few feet away. He grabbed the handles on its side. It shifted slightly, but refused to move from its spot.

If it was chained to the others, he was screwed.

He pulled harder – and with a crackle of ice from around its wheels it jolted away from its fellows. Eddie ran round it and pushed. Boots scraping against the slippery ground, he shoved it towards the stairwell. It was over half full, and the snow piled up on its lid wasn’t making it any lighter. ‘Come on, come on,’ he gasped. ‘Come on, you smelly bastard—’

A cry of ‘Here, he’s here!’ from below – and a sub-machine gun let rip on full auto, bullets tearing up through the bin’s side and erupting out through the plastic lid amid geysers of snow. Eddie yelled and dropped down, pushing with his shoulder—

The bin lurched sharply as the wheels went over the edge of the top step – and suddenly the whole thing raced away from him, bouncing and crashing down the stairs. The firing stopped, the mercenary trying to retreat into the kitchen – but he was too slow. The bin hit like a charging bull, slamming him backwards into the base of the stairwell. The crack of bones was almost lost beneath the echoing boom and clatter of metal and trash.

Eddie was already running for the front of the hotel. With the bin blocking the kitchen door, Stikes’s men would have to find another exit.

He rounded the corner. The towering windows of the Alpine Lounge glowed above him. From his low angle he couldn’t see much of the room itself, but enough was visible to reveal that it was empty. The Group had left – taking their prisoners with them.

But where?

Movement through the blowing snow gave him an answer. At the hotel’s far end, beyond the skating rink, the cable car emerged from the upper station and began its descent. Its interior lights shone brightly, revealing that it was packed to the brim with passengers.

One of whom had very distinctive red hair.

‘Buggeration and f*ckery!’ Stikes’s doing, he knew; the former officer was making sure Eddie could no longer interfere in the game by taking away the most important pieces. The statues, Nina to make use of them . . . and Larry to force her to cooperate.

He ran through the snow after the cable car. In a few minutes it would reach the village, and the Group and their captives would be whisked away.

He had to catch up. But he had abandoned his skis after reaching the bottom of the slope, and it would take too long to retrieve them. He needed a faster alternative . . .

The luge run.

The long wooden shed at its top was almost directly beneath the cable lines. If he could get to a sled, it would be the quickest way down the mountain short of flying.

Movement in the hotel. Two mercenaries barged through a set of glass doors, readying their MP5s—

Eddie altered course, raising his arms to protect his head and diving through a window in the side of a small hut beside the ice rink. His thick coat protected him from the broken glass, but the rough landing still hurt. He jumped up, seeing that the hut’s rear wall was lined with shelves full of ice skates.

He also saw that there was only one exit – a door facing the hotel.

Which would bring him straight into the gunmen’s sights—

The mercenaries opened fire, spraying the hut with bullets. Splinters exploded from the wooden walls. One man was shooting at chest height, the other aiming lower as he swept his gun back and forth in case their target had thrown himself flat.

Both their magazines ran dry almost simultaneously. They put in fresh ammunition as they tromped through the snow to the door. Lines of bullet holes ran across the hut’s façade, the largest gap between them little more than six inches. Anyone inside would be Swiss cheese.

The pock-marked door was kicked open—

Apart from broken wood and scattered skates, the hut was empty.

The mercenaries looked at each other, puzzled. There was nowhere their quarry could have exited unseen. One man leaned cautiously through the door to check if he was skulking in a shadowed corner . . .

A long spike of gleaming steel whisked down from the ceiling and stabbed deep into his eye socket.

The mercenary screamed and fell backwards against his companion as Eddie dropped from the rafters, having used the same concealment tactic as Stikes’s men had in the Alpine Lounge – with equal effectiveness. He wore a skating boot on his right fist like a misshapen boxing glove, the tail of its blade coated in blood. The mortally wounded man collapsed, the other merc trying to bring his MP5 back up.

The blade slashed again, sweeping across the second man’s neck and sending an arcing cascade of gore over the clean white snow. Gurgling, the mercenary clutched helplessly at his slit throat, then slumped on top of his comrade.

Eddie tossed the boot away and snatched up an MP5, then resumed his run for the luge track. He spotted the cable car again as he neared the top of the slope, now little more than a small box of light fading into the snowy darkness below. Was he too late to catch it?

Only one way to find out. He raced into the shed, the open-ended building a garage of sorts for sleds. Some were luges, designed to be ridden feet-first; others were ‘skeletons’, where the rider lay on their stomach to make a head-first descent.

It only now occurred to him that he had no idea how to control either.

‘It’s a sledge, how hard can it be?’ Not quite convinced, he slung the gun and pulled a luge into the open. It had a leather strap resembling reins attached to its front, but there was no apparent steering mechanism on the runners. The only way to guide it was presumably by shifting his weight.

He would have to figure it out on the way down. Hauling it to the top of the track, Eddie was about to take his seat when he heard shouts from the ice rink. The two corpses had been found – and their discoverers were already following him, weapons at the ready—

Eddie threw himself bodily on to the luge as the first shots whizzed past him. His momentum sent it slithering on to the track . . . where it picked up speed with alarming rapidity.

He was in completely the wrong position to control it, lying prone with his head at the front and legs dangling off the back. He frantically grabbed the strap and pulled it tight, then looked ahead. Snowflakes stabbed at his eyes, forcing him to squint. There was just enough residual twilight for him to make out the line of the track, its sides marked by raised walls of snow and ice – and he was veering straight for one of them.

‘Shit!’ He pulled hard on the reins, leaning as far as he dared in the opposite direction. The luge’s runners rasped over the icy ground as it skidded, going almost side-on down the track before he shoved down the toe of one boot to act as an anchor and swing him back into line.

He was only doing about thirty miles per hour – but lying just inches off the ground with his head out front like a bony bumper, it felt more like a hundred and thirty. The ride was horribly rough, not even the snow on the track smoothing his descent. Another curve ahead. He shifted his weight again, the sled this time turning in a slightly more controlled manner. The wall whipped past a hand’s breadth away.

The lights of the cable car swung back into view as he came out of the bend. He was already gaining. If he kept up this pace – and didn’t kill himself first – he would overtake it well before it reached the village . . .

A new sound over the grind of metal on ice. An engine.

The harsh rasp was unmistakable. A snowmobile.

He didn’t dare look back to find it. The luge was still gaining speed, the track twisting through a stand of trees. Another wall rushed at him; he slammed down a foot and rolled almost fully on his side to swerve away from it. Too fast, nearly out of control – but the snowmobile was closing, its engine snarling as it bounced over the terrain. He was trapped by the track’s confines, but the other driver could take the quickest route to intercept him.

The luge ploughed through a hump of snow, the explosion of powder briefly blinding him. Gasping, he put both feet down to slow the sledge, the ice scraping viciously against his toes.

Another curve, his sleeve brushing the wall as he strained to make the turn. The snowmobile’s engine was briefly muffled as he passed behind a large snowbank. He had almost caught up with the cable car—

The snowmobile’s muted roar suddenly became a terrifying howl as it burst over the top of the bank and swept down into the track directly behind him.

Its headlight pinned him in its glaring beam. Eddie now had a clear view of the track ahead, but a crash was no longer the greatest danger. He looked back. The snowmobile was less than ten feet behind, twin front skis slashing through the ice.

The engine revved. The gap closed. He brought the luge skittering round another bend. The snowmobile followed, its rider feathering the throttle to hold it in a controlled skid before applying full power again. The light grew brighter.

Eddie braced himself—

One of the skis bashed against his foot. The impact knocked the sled round, sending him at a wall. He desperately tried to counter it, but overcompensated. The luge wriggled like a fish beneath him, almost throwing him off. He was forced to jam both feet down against the track to keep control – and the snowmobile rammed him again, harder. Pain shot through his ankle as his foot was almost crushed under the skid.

The snowmobile dropped back slightly, then revved again, rushing forward to run him over . . .

Another curve – and the wall was partly covered by a snowdrift. Eddie flung the luge into a sharp turn. It hit the wall – but the drift was just thick enough for the runners to ride up over it.

Even so, the impact flipped him off the sled. He sailed helplessly through the air. Trees loomed ahead—

He missed a trunk by less than a foot, smacking down in deep snow beyond it. The luge thunked off the tree and spun away in pieces.

His pursuer turned hard to follow him. The machine slammed over the wall, going airborne—

And smashing straight into a tree.

The snowmobile exploded, a boiling orange fireball lighting up the little forest. Eddie shielded his head as burning debris rained down around him. He waited a few seconds, then cautiously sat up.

The snow had cushioned his landing, but he was still sore and woozy, ankle throbbing from its run-in with the skid. He shifted, putting experimental weight on it. The effort made him wince as pain spiked through the joint. He was still able to move, but running after the cable car would hurt . . .

The cable car! He looked up. It would pass almost directly overhead in seconds. He was still some way from the village, and without the sled there was no way he could possibly catch up before it reached the lower station. The MP5 was also gone, lost in the snow. He stared helplessly at the gondola as it rumbled over the trees.

Someone stared back at him.

Stikes.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Stikes, banging an exasperated hand on the glass as he saw movement in the firelit snow below. ‘It’s Chase!’

Nina shoved past the mercenary guarding her and pressed her nose to the window. To her delight, she saw a figure amongst the flaming remains of a snowmobile. ‘He’s still alive!’ She gave Larry a triumphant look. The elder Chase beamed at the news.

‘Not for long,’ said Sophia, pushing between the Group members to see for herself. She batted the guard’s arm. ‘You! You’ve got a gun – shoot him!’

The mercenary turned to Stikes for confirmation. ‘Do as she says,’ he ordered. ‘Everyone move away from the door.’

The cabin was already crowded, and it became even more cramped as the other passengers pressed back so Stikes could slide open the door. A freezing, snow-laden wind blew in. The mercenary braced himself against the frame as he leaned out and aimed at the man below.

Eddie searched for cover. The nearest tree was the one the snowmobile had hit, flames licking up its trunk. But if he ran straight for it he would be presenting his back to the gunman above.

Instead he dived back into the piled snow as the MP5 fired. Bullets slapped into the drift and debris behind him. He rolled as he landed to offer the smallest possible target. The cable car was carrying his attacker inexorably away; every passing moment would make him harder to hit.

But right now he was still well within range. Another roll as more shots kicked up fountains of snow. Each impact got closer, the mercenary adjusting his aim to follow him—

Everyone in the cable car flinched away from the noise of the MP5 as the mercenary fired.

Except Nina. She lashed out, knocking Stikes back from the door – then hurled herself bodily at the mercenary—

Tackling him out of the cable car.

‘Nina!’ Larry cried, but she was gone.

Trees rushed up at her. She screamed, the mercenary beneath her doing likewise as they plunged into the snow-laden foliage. Branches broke, the cracks louder and deeper as the limbs thickened further down the tree – then suddenly the man slammed to a stop, Nina bouncing painfully off him and tumbling, winded, the rest of the way to the ground. Blinding by spraying snow and thrashing boughs, she hit the hillside with a thud.

Warden looked out of the cable car in horror. ‘My God! We’ve got to get her back – she could be hurt, or even dead!’

‘Wouldn’t that be a shame,’ Sophia said quietly.

Stikes took out his radio. ‘This is Stikes! Chase and Dr Wilde are in the hotel grounds, about five hundred metres from the village. They’re directly below the cable car line near a burning tree. Dr Wilde must be taken alive – she may need medical attention. My orders regarding Chase stand; I want him killed on sight.’ He checked the scene behind. A figure was lolloping away from the fire towards the site of Nina’s touchdown. ‘He’s still alive!’ He slammed the door shut in barely contained rage.

‘A sentiment I’ve felt all too many times,’ said Sophia.

Larry spoke up unexpectedly, all eyes turning to him. ‘What can I say? That’s my boy.’ He smiled at the hostile gazes of the other passengers.

Eddie moved as quickly as he could down the hill, the steep slope and deep snow tough to negotiate even without an aching ankle. He reached the still-quivering tree, seeing no sign of his wife. ‘Nina! Can you hear me? Nina!’

‘Ow . . .’ came a muffled voice. He followed the sound, discovering a cartoonishly perfect Nina-shaped hole in a snowdrift. Its maker was spread-eagled at the bottom.

‘F*ck me, I’ve found a snow angel,’ he said, clearing away the snow. ‘Are you okay? Can you move?’

‘No, and I dunno, in that order. Agh, Jesus . . .’ Nina struggled to sit up, hair festooned with bits of branches and needles. ‘God damn it! Feels like my head’s coming off,’ she said, pressing a hand against one temple – then looking round in alarm. ‘Eddie! The guy I pushed out of the cable car – where is he?’

Eddie hurriedly surveyed their surroundings. ‘I can’t see anyone . . . oh, hang on.’ There was a dark patch beneath the tree, standing out against the snow even in the dying light. ‘Okay, I’ve found him. Don’t think he’ll give us any problems.’

Nina blearily followed his gaze to see the mercenary impaled on a branch thirty feet above like some grotesque Christmas ornament. Blood dribbled down the boughs below him. ‘He’s gone out on a limb.’

‘Hey! Shit puns are my department.’ He lifted her out of the snowdrift. ‘Where’s Dad?’

‘In the cable car.’ The gondola was now out of sight behind the trees. ‘And they’ve still got the statues too.’

Eddie looked in the other direction. Lights were descending the mountainside from the hotel. ‘They’re coming. We’ve got to get to the village.’

‘But they’ll be waiting for us,’ Nina objected.

‘Better than us waiting for them. Come on.’ They set off through the snow.

The village soon came into view, the cable car’s elevated lower station standing out above the houses. The gondola had already reached its destination, but it would take Eddie and Nina another couple of minutes to wade through the snow to the edge of the hotel’s grounds, never mind the village proper. ‘Damn it!’ said Nina. ‘They’ll be long gone when we get there.’

Eddie had other concerns. The main entrance to the grounds was marked by a large gate at the end of a bridge over the railway – and he had just spotted more lights spreading out from it. He looked uphill. The mercenaries from the hotel were now following their trail through the snow, torches bobbing as they yomped down the slope. ‘Shit! They’re catching up. Go that way.’ He pointed to the right, beyond the village’s edge.

‘What’s over there?’

‘Not men with guns, and that’ll do me for now!’

Nina heard something over the crump of snow and their own panting, a deep rhythmic huffing like the breath of some giant animal. ‘It’s the train!’ Past the bridge, glowing embers from the steam locomotive’s funnel swirled in the air as it headed back down the valley. ‘Eddie, the track goes right along the bottom of the grounds – if we can make it stop, we can get aboard.’

He was already judging distances and speeds: of the train, himself and Nina . . . and the two groups of mercenaries closing on them. ‘There won’t be time for it to stop.’

‘Then how are we going to get on it?’

‘Jump!’

‘Jump?’

‘What, you’ve never train-surfed before?’

‘No, because it’s insane!’

‘You never want to try anything new. Come on, hoof it!’ They reached the fence and climbed over it.

The men coming from the gate had obviously been in radio contact with their comrades higher up; the dots of torchlight were all now heading along the bottom of the grounds. The group following Nina and Eddie’s trail were less than a hundred metres behind – and closing the gap.

The train was rapidly approaching, the clanking of the loco’s running gear growing louder. Another jab of pain stabbed through Eddie’s ankle, but he forced himself to run faster as the train came into view, travelling through a shallow cutting below. The carriage roofs were a couple of feet higher than the upper side. ‘There!’ he shouted, pointing at a slight rise on the cutting’s edge. ‘Get ready to jump!’ He grabbed Nina’s hand.

The locomotive surged past, belching steam and hot, sooty smoke. ‘Oh God!’ Nina cried as they ran the last few yards. ‘We’re gonna diiiie—’

They leapt, clearing the gap – and landing hard on a metal roof. Nina staggered, but kept her footing – just. It was Eddie who stumbled, one foot slipping out from under him. He skidded across the roof, legs flailing over the side . . .

Nina still had hold of his hand. She gripped it with all her strength and wedged a heel against a domed ventilator cover. The jolt as she caught his weight felt as though her arm was tearing from its socket, but she fought through the pain and held on. Eddie dangled before managing to catch the carriage’s rain gutter with his boot’s ice-shredded toe. He forced himself back on to the roof.

Nina dropped on her butt with a bang. ‘Jesus!’ she gasped, releasing his hand. ‘I thought you were going over!’

‘So did I,’ Eddie admitted, gasping for breath – and then coughing as a dirty cloud rolled over them. ‘Bloody hell! Let’s get off here before we end up smoked like f*cking hams.’

He crawled along the roof, Nina behind him, and looked down. Like the locomotive, the carriages were vintage, with open platforms at each end. Eddie lowered Nina down, then thumped on to the platform himself.

A door led inside. They went through – to find the tourists taking the last train of the day staring at them in astonishment. Their touchdown on the roof had been far from quiet.

‘What?’ said Nina, deciding that nonchalance was as good a response as any. ‘I’ve got a ticket.’ She fished inside her clothing to produce it; it was indeed a return fare.

‘I don’t,’ Eddie complained.

She flopped down in a seat and smiled. ‘Well, if the conductor comes along, you’ll just have to hide in the john.’

‘They did what?’ Stikes barked into his phone.

‘Let me guess,’ said Sophia with a resigned sigh, ‘they got away from your men.’

He shot her an irritated look. ‘They jumped on the train.’ Leaning forward, he addressed the driver of the Range Rover in which he, Sophia, Warden and Larry were travelling. ‘Can we get to the next station before them?’

‘Not on this road, sir,’ came the apologetic reply. ‘The train goes through a tunnel, but the road goes the long way round.’

Stikes sat back, fuming. ‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ said Larry mockingly.

‘We still have Chase’s father,’ Warden said from the front seat, regarding the man in question with disapproval. ‘Chase and Dr Wilde came here to rescue him – they’ll do the same again.’

‘Only if we can contact them to issue an ultimatum, and I doubt they’ll be going back to the IHA to wait for one,’ Sophia told him. ‘They’ll try to find the meteorite.’

‘So they can destroy it,’ Stikes added.

‘But we have the statues,’ said Warden. ‘She can’t locate it without them.’

‘And we can’t locate it without her,’ Stikes pointed out. ‘We only know it’s somewhere in Ethiopia. And Wilde probably got a much better idea where from this . . . vision.’

Warden nodded. ‘So what do we do?’

Stikes straightened in his seat. ‘The first thing I need’, he said imperiously, ‘is total and unrestricted access to the Group’s resources worldwide. Men, information, money – everything, from all the members.’

The American eyed him suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘If we’re going to beat Wilde and Chase to the meteorite, we can’t afford to waste time discussing how to proceed. We have to act quickly and decisively. There’s still a chance we can catch them before they leave Switzerland, or at least before they reach Africa, but unfortunately they’re very resourceful – as you’ve just seen. If we can get people and equipment in place in Ethiopia as soon as possible, we still have a chance of beating them. We can either capture Wilde and force her to locate the stone for us . . .’

‘Or let her lead us to it,’ finished Warden.

‘Exactly.’

The American nodded again. ‘All right. I’ll give you complete access.’ He took out his phone – then fixed Stikes with a warning look, raising a finger. ‘Don’t screw this up.’

‘I won’t,’ Stikes replied firmly. ‘I’m not going to let them win.’