Lea leaned her head to look past the smashed windshield. “We’re running out of ridge, Joe!”
“I’m on it!”
The Stallion was behind them again, but this time keeping its distance. “They’re staying out of the range of the handguns, Joe!” Scarlet said.
“Incoming!” Reaper yelled. He pulled his head back in the window.
Scarlet climbed back inside. “Five seconds, Josiah and we’re a thousand pieces!”
Hawke checked the mirror and saw this time they were firing the missile to their right to stop them taking cover down on the slope.
But the left was a steep drop all the way down to the bottom of the mountain.
And then the Stinger was on them.
Hawke spun the wheel to the left to avoid a direct hit and sent the Highlander scrambling over to the edge of the ridge. His plan was to try and keep the SUV from tumbling over by constantly steering the vehicle to the right and fighting gravity until the danger was passed, but it struck much closer than he’d anticipated and he had underestimated the awesome power of the Stinger.
The Highlander tipped onto its two left wheels and they all knew that their lives were now in the hands of the gods.
“Put your windows down!” Hawke yelled.
As they tipped over onto their side, Lea screamed and held onto the sides of her seat. In the rear seats the rest of the team clung on for their lives, and up front Hawke struggled against hope to get the steering wheel lined up in the right place for when the Highlander finally crashed back down on its wheels.
It turned over and over, partially crumpling the reinforced roof in over their heads and throwing them about as if they were in an industrial washing machine. The glass in the windshield exploded into their faces like a grenade as the roof collapsed, but thanks to Hawke’s quick-thinking the other windows were open, and the glass safely inside the doors. After what seemed like forever the wrecked Toyota came to a stop on the shores of the lake.
The ECHO team immediately crawled from the smoking wreckage of the trashed Highlander and checked for injuries. They had gotten away lightly, with only a few bruises and cuts among them. Worse was the damage to their professional pride as they watched Kruger’s Jeep Cherokee screech to a halt in an open field down by the Mawddach River. The Super Stallion swooped down and landed a few dozen yards further west, its powerful rotors blasting the surrounding grass totally flat as the South African ran to it and disappeared inside its side door with Zito and the other men following a few paces behind. This time none of them looked back.
“So now they have the Sword of Fire,” Ryan said.
“And they murdered Kloos in cold blood,” said Kim.
Lea sighed. “We’re going to need Lund again. We need to trace that chopper in a hurry.” She pulled her phone out and made a call to the enigmatic Dane.
Scarlet leaned against the wrecked Highlander and lit a cigarette. “Look on the bright side,” she said.
“And what would that be?” Hawke asked.
“You’ve broken a new record, Joe.”
“Have I?”
She nodded and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Not even Jeremy Clarkson could inflict this much carnage on a Toyota.”
“Funny,” he said.
“So what now, Batman?” Kim said, looking at Hawke.
“We wait for this,” he said, pointing his chin over at Lea, who was still on the phone. She ended the call and walked over to them.
“What’s the deal?” Hawke said.
“The Stallion is owned by a man named Pavel Horak, and the scheduled flight path takes it back to a mansion he owns just outside of London.”
“So that’s who’s pulling Krugsie’s strings,” Ryan said.
“A mansion?” said Kim.
Lea nodded. “Uh-huh. Apparently, it’s called Woodrow House. This Horak guy has owned it for years. Lund says he’s an eccentric Czech billionaire. He also says there’s some kind of terror threat going on in London. This has to be linked.”
“Wait a minute — you mean the Pavel Horak?” Ryan said. “As in Sir Pavel Horak?”
Lea shrugged her shoulders. “I never heard of him so he’s just like any other Pavel Horak to me.”
Ryan sighed. “Pavel Horak is one of the country’s leading software magnates and to say he’s eccentric is the understatement of the century. He’s totally crazy.”
Another shrug from Lea. “I don’t care if he’s the Easter buggering Bunny. Looks like Dirk Kruger is staying at his place before he flies out of the UK so that makes him a legitmate target.”
“What the hell does a man like Pavel Horak want with the idol?” Reaper said.
Hawke said, “That’s just what I was thinking.”
“Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “I remember now — Pavel Horak was in the news recently because they’re about to take his knighthood away over some kind of financial scandal.”
Kim frowned. “You think that’s enough to drive him to commit some kind of terrorist atrocity in London?”
“That’s a strategic concern,” Hawke said. “We’re in the field and focussing on the tactical. Lea, is Lund going to get us some back-up?”
Lea shook her head and sighed. “As far as getting the authorities involved, Lund says it’s a big no. He says there’s no way he can run security checks before we get there. If we alert the police or anti-terror units we might be alerting the enemy. Horak has deep pockets and long arms.”
“Fuck that,” Scarlet said. She whipped out her phone and punched some numbers into the pad. “We need back-up and I know just the man to call.” She walked away from the group as she started to speak into the phone.
“Does Lund know how Horak and Kruger are planning on getting the sword out of the country?” Hawke asked.
“Horak does a lot of business in London and his preferred method of travel is helicopter. He has a hangar at the property with a small collection of choppers there. Lund says there’s only one flight scheduled for today and that’s an AgustaWestland belonging to Horak himself.”
“Sounds like that’s the escape plan then,” Ryan said.
“When?” Hawke asked.
“Just after midday,” Lea said.
Scarlet returned and slipped her phone into her pocket. “Sorted. An old mate of mine from the Regiment has agreed to join our madness. Hope he doesn’t make you feel like some sort of big girl, Joe.”
Hawke opened his mouth to reply, but Scarlet cut him off: “So what’s the plan?”
“We think our arms dealer friend is going to try and leave the country with this Horak bloke. They have an AgustaWestland,” Lea said.
“When?”
“Midday.”
Reaper glanced at his watch and gave a shrug. “We can do it if we hurry.”
Kim laughed. “When do you crazies ever do anything that isn't in a hurry?”
“True,” Scarlet said. “And that includes Ryan in bed… so Lea says,” she added hastily.
Hawke rolled his eyes and looked at the Toyota. “Looks like we’re going to need some new wheels to get back to the airport though.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Scarlet was up front in the Lexus LX. They had hired it after landing at London Heathrow Airport and even kept a straight face when they had signed the form promising to bring it back in one piece.
Following a round of jokes about Hawke’s driving back in Snowdonia, Vincent Reno was at the wheel, and now they were turning off the M4 and heading into the Berkshire countryside. If the Google Earth images were anything to go by, Woodrow House was a large Georgian mansion nestled in around twelve acres of prime Home Counties real estate and a just stone’s throw from Windsor Castle.
For Scarlet this was as close to home as she could get. Not only was Richard Eden’s country house close by, but so was her own family home. She closed her eyes and the darkness took her back there once again. The sunlight shining on the bricks on the side of their sixteenth century manor house, her father’s smile as he walked a tray of drinks out to the shade of an ash tree, her mother cursing as she dropped one of her beloved books and lost the page. Her brother Spencer playing with his toys on the croquet lawn.