He slumped forward and the Jeep spun out of control. Hawke saw the passenger trying to push the driver away from the wheel but it was too late. They flew off the side of the road, dust, grit and grass spraying in a wild arc behind them as they plunged behind the line of the cliff.
Seconds later Hawke heard a metallic crunching sound as the Jeep thudded into the rocks at the base of the cliff, and then an enormous explosion.
“Where did they go?” Reaper said, straining to see in the rear-view mirror while keeping the Jeep from sharing the same fate.
“They had to fly.” Hawke reloaded the MP7 with the ammo from the back of the Jeep and climbed into the front passenger seat.
“What about Zaugg?”
Hawke watched as Zaugg’s convoy trundled to the south of Sami on its way to the airfield. “We keep following them. I’ll call Hart and have her join us at the airport. I don’t want him leaving our sight.”
Hawke and Reaper kept their distance as they tailed Zaugg’s convoy to Kefalonia International Airport, and weren’t surprised to see them pull up alongside a white Boeing 767 idling on the apron. It had the words ZAUGG INDUSTRIES painted on the side in black letters.
“He doesn’t do things by half, I’ll give him that,” Hawke said.
“You think we can stop him?” Reaper asked.
“No. He’s obviously bought his way out of here — the customs guys aren’t even looking in those boxes. A pay-off, I guess. We just have to hope Hart and the others get here fast.”
Hart and the others arrived in an old Land Rover, courtesy of Sophie’s hotwiring skills, but it was too late to stop Zaugg.
“He flew out a quarter of an hour ago,” Reaper said, casually sucking on a cigarette.
“Did you manage to organize a plane?” Hawke asked Hart.
She shook her head. “Not enough time, sorry. Not even I am that amazing.”
“Then we’ll have to make other arrangements.”
After customs and security, it didn’t take Hawke long to persuade a cleaner to part with his clearance card and then they were airside and walking across to a line of private jets parked outside a hangar on the east side of the airport. Moments later they were inside one of the jets.
“Who the hell are you?” said an obese businessman. He spoke in a Central Russian dialect. He was surrounded by women.
“We’re your new flight crew.” Hawke powered a fist into the man’s face and knocked him unconscious to the floor in less than a second.
One of the women screamed hysterically. “Do you know who that was?”
“I couldn’t care less. Now sit down and shut up.”
“That was Yevgeny Gorokhov! Greatest glamour photographer in Russia.”
“Glamour photographer!” Scarlet said. “They’re porn models for God’s sake.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Reaper, arching an oddly appreciative eyebrow.
“They’re porn stars?!” Ryan said, a grin spreading across his face.
“We’re models,” said one of the women haughtily but not particularly convincingly. “Not porn stars. How dare you?!”
“Only you could hijack a plane full of porn stars, Joe,” said Hart.
“Hey! How could I have known what they were? We needed a plane and I got us one. You could be a little more grateful.”
“They’re not porn stars,” Ryan said. “They’re models. She just said so.”
“He’s right,” Reaper said. “She did just say that.”
“Please, guys,” said Ryan, never lifting his eyes from the women. “I think we need to get in the air. I feel a warm front coming on.”
“Oh, do shut up, Ryan,” Scarlet said. “And stop being so bloody sexist and pathetic, you little nerd. I cannot believe a woman like Lea married you. I guess she was young. That’s what it must have been, am I right? Young and stupid.”
Hawke laughed. “Ouch.”
“And you can shut up too.” Scarlet folded her arms and pursed her lips.
“Where are you flying tonight?” Hawke asked the women.
“We go back to Moscow. We had a photoshoot here.”
“A photoshoot,” Ryan said. “I love it. Where’s the camera?”
“We go to Moscow!”
“Not any more you’re not. We’re going to Switzerland and we need to get going right now, so everyone shut up and buckle up, in that order.”
In the air, Ryan busied himself serving the women drinks, and then brought Hawke and Scarlet some beers.
“Having fun, Ryan?” Hawke asked, smiling. He was starting to feel like his older brother.
“That one’s Tatjana,” Ryan said. “And the one in the boa is Liliya.”
“You can’t keep them, all right Ryan?” Scarlet said.
Hawke resisted the temptation that had so easily devoured Ryan, and spent the flight considering tactical options and discussing the next phase of the attack with Hart. No matter how hard he tried to focus on the matter professionally, his mind kept wandering to Lea. He couldn’t let her die the way he had let Liz die back in Hanoi.
On the approach to Sion the Citation banked gracefully to the port side to reveal a stunning vista of the Swiss Alps, snow-capped and glistening a pink-white in the late afternoon sun.
The aircraft then swung back with a heavy forty degree turn to starboard to line up with Runway 07. Hawke watched the lights of Sion grow larger as the plane extended flaps and he heard the gear go down.
A few moments later they were racing along the runway, speed brakes activated and the powerful reverse thrusters deployed bringing the jet to taxi speed in seconds.
It was only a matter of time before he got his revenge on Hugo Zaugg.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The powerful Sikorsky swooped over the town of Sion and thundered through a narrow valley, flanked on either side by steep tree-lined mountainsides and rocky precipices.
Less than thirty minutes ago they had touched down at Sion International Airport in the 767, and they were now racing toward Zaugg’s stronghold in the mountain peaks to the south of the town.
Zaugg himself had been out of sight in his private cabin for the duration of the flight from Kefalonia, but now he was sitting opposite Lea Donovan in the luxury cabin of the helicopter, along with Dietmar Grobel and Heinrich Baumann.
After what he had done to her, she hated the sight of him, sitting there so close to her in the confined space of the helicopter. She wished she could push him out of the door and watch him fall to his death in the rocky valley below.
“How long until the men get the hoard to the mountain?” Zaugg asked.
“No more than an hour,” Grobel replied.
“Good.”
Lea saw the silhouette of Zaugg’s compound on the horizon. They drew nearer, and now she saw more detail below the helicopter — his private ski lodge was nearby, a stark postmodern black against the smooth white snow all around them. Elevated above the other buildings was a large building, constructed in glass and chrome in another modern architectural style — Zaugg’s mansion.
“We are here,” he said, peering through the window as the chopper descended to the helipad outside the enormous house.
Baumann pushed her out of the Sikorsky, but there was something about the way he touched her that made her flinch with revulsion. He had stroked her shoulder before nudging her forward at gunpoint.
Ahead of her, a short distance from the mansion and down a shallow snow-covered slope she saw what looked like some kind of cargo bay carved into the mountainside. A forklift was moving large metal containers from the back of a Mil Mi-26 transport helicopter into the gaping hole in the mountain, while a group of men carrying clipboards were issuing others with directions. They looked like they were waiting for something important to happen.