Kennedy was dragging Hayden’s exhausted body away from the centre of battle. Ben had run to help her. Parnevik was up studying Odin’s tomb — the twat.
Abel Frey had confronted Torsten Dahl. The Swede was besting the German in every way, his movements becoming smarter by the second as strength returned to his aching limbs.
Christ! Drake thought. We are kicking ass here! Or in the good old spirit of Dino-rock… Let me entertain you!
Not relishing a confrontation with Alicia he nevertheless moved towards Wells, evaluating that the fifty-year-old needed the most help. When his old female teammate clapped eyes on him she stood back from the fight.
“Kicked your balls already once this week, Drake. You that much of a sadist you want it again?”
“You got lucky, Alicia. By the way, you train your boyf?” he nodded back at the barely moving American.
“Only in obedience,” she flipped both knives up and caught them in a single motion. “Come on! I just love me a threesome!”
Her nature might be wild but her actions were controlled and calculating. She jabbed at Drake whilst slyly trying to corner Wells with his back to the endless void. The Commander saw her intentions at the last possible second and hurled himself past her.
Drake fended off both her knives, turning each blade away and trying not to get his wrists broke in the process. It wasn’t just that she was good… it was that she was consistently good.
Abel Frey suddenly shot past them. It seemed that, unable to best Dahl, he had resorted to sprinting past the Swede in his headlong quest for Odin’s tomb.
And in that split-second, Drake saw Marsters and the last German soldier locked in a deadly struggle, right on the dusty edge of the platform. Then, with shocking abruptness, both men stumbled and just fell off.
Dying screams echoed into the void.
Drake compartmentalised it, said a prayer for Wells, and then swept his body around and took off after Frey. He couldn’t leave Ben exposed back there. Kennedy was blocking the designer’s path, steeling herself, but as he sprinted forward Drake noticed a small black object clasped in Frey’s hand.
Radio or mobile. Some kind of transmitter.
What the fu-?
It was beyond comprehension what happened next. In an event of mind-boggling recklessness the side of the mountain suddenly imploded! There was a heavy whump and then giant boulders and chunks of rock shale were flying everywhere. Stones of all shapes and sizes darted and whizzed across the void like bullets.
A great hole appeared in the side of the volcano, like a hammer smashed through thin plasterboard. Drab daylight shone through the gap. Another whump and the hole widened even further. A hale of rubble cascaded down the bottomless pit in an eerie, profound silence.
Drake hit the floor, holding his head in his hands. Some of that detonated rock was bound to have damaged the other priceless tombs. What the hell was going on?
THIRTY-NINE
A chopper appeared in the newly-made hole, hovering for a second before flying through!
Four heavy lines and several rappel lines dangled from the base of the machine.
It beggared belief. Abel Frey had just ordered the cracking of a mountain-side. A mountain-side that was part of an active volcano, and one that might somehow trigger the mass extinction event known as a Supervolcano.
To enhance his collection.
The man was deranged beyond even what Drake and the rest of the human race had credited him for. He was laughing maniacally even now and when Drake raised his eyes he saw Frey had not moved an inch, but stood solidly upright as the exploding mountain fizzed around him.
Alicia left Wells and stumbled to Frey’s side, even her crazy composure slipping a little. Beyond them Professor Parnevik, Ben and Kennedy had been shielded by the walls of Odin’s niche. Hayden was flat out, motionless. Had she come all this way to die in fiery madness? Wells knelt to one side, clutching his stomach.
The helicopter drifted closer, its motor screaming. Frey raised a machine pistol and gestured everyone back from Odin’s massive sarcophagus. A brief burst reinforced his request, bullets clanging and scattering off priceless gold Viking relics in the form of shields, swords, breastplates and horned helmets. Gold coins, shifted by the chain of events, began to rain down from the shelves like Times Square confetti.
Frey waved the chopper in.
Drake got to his knees. “You move that coffin, you risk the entire world!” he screamed, his voice barely audible above the heavy thud of rotor blades.
“Don’t be a wimp!” Frey shouted back, his face twisted like that of an evil clown strung out on heroin. “Admit it, Drake. I beat you!”
“It’s not about winning!” Drake cried back, but now the chopper was directly overhead and he couldn’t even hear himself speak. He watched as Frey guided it in, spraying bullets at a whim as he waved his hands. Drake prayed that his friends wouldn’t catch a stray round.
The German had lost it. Being this close to his lifelong obsession had simply cracked him up.
Dahl was beside him now. They watched Frey and Alicia guide the heavy chains lower and lower until finally they looped them around both ends of the sarcophagus. Frey made sure they were secure.
The helicopter took the weight. Nothing happened.
Frey shrieked into his handset. The helicopter tried again, this time its engines roaring like an infuriated dinosaur. The chains took the weight and there was a distinct cracking sound, the noise of rock being shattered.
Odin’s coffin shifted.
“This is our last chance!” Dahl screamed into Drake’s ear. “We go for the chopper! With Milo’s gun!”
Drake ran the scenario. They might destroy the chopper and save the Tomb. But Ben and Kennedy, along with Hayden and Parnevik, would surely die.
“There’s no time!” Dahl was shouting. “It’s this or Apocalypse!”
The Swede leapt for Milo’s weapon. Drake squeezed his eyes shut as agony pierced his heart. His eyes fell on Ben and Kennedy, and the agony of decision twisted noose-like inside him. Lose with one hand, lose with the other. And then he decided he just couldn’t let Dahl do it. Could he sacrifice two friends to save the world?
No.
He leap-frogged forward just as Dahl began rummaging through Milo’s clothing. The Swede stumbled back in surprise as Milo launched his body upright, the American hunched in agony but mobile, and limping towards the edge of the platform. Towards one of the rappel lines.
Drake paused in shock. The helicopter’s engines shrieked once more and an unholy crack of noise filled the cavern. In another moment, Odin’s outsize sarcophagus shifted and pulled free of its moorings, swinging alarmingly towards Drake and the edge of the platform, tons of swinging death.
“Noooo!” Dahl’s cry echoed Parnevik’s.
There was a shriek, a crazy shriek like a vent-hole being superheated, a sound like all the demons in Hell being burned alive. From the newly uncovered hole beneath Odin’s Tomb a blast of sulphuric air shot up.
Frey and Alicia lunged away, narrowly missing being burned alive as they clambered atop the swinging coffin. Frey shouted: “Do not come after us, Drake! I have insurance!” then seemed to get an idea, a vouchsafe of security. He shouted at Drake’s companions: “Now! Follow the coffin or you die!” Frey encouraged them by waving his machine-pistol, and they had no choice but to edge around the column of steam.