“No need to leap to my defense, boy. I think Mr Karlsson and I are going to have a beautiful future together.”
“You do?” Karlsson said, beaming.
“Sure, don’t you?”
He shrugged his giant bear shoulders and ran a chunky hand over his shaved head. “If you say so, baby. If you say so.”
Inside they ran along another corridor and down a series of steps — heading all the time toward the sound of some kind of hammering and then a drilling noise. After another minute they reached a service hatch which they climbed down inside and then found themselves inside the belly of the beast — here, the main support columns for the entire structure were exposed, and at the far end they saw the Lotus and her lackeys fixing what looked like a giant car-jack at the base of one of the columns.
“What the fuck?” Karlsson said.
“They’re drilling into the bedrock,” said Ryan. “They won’t need to go far though if what McShain told us about the device is anything to go by. We need to act fast.”
His words were cut off by the sound of hysterical shouting and screaming. The Lotus had seen them and was ordering her men forward to attack. Half a dozen of them took up defensive positions while another three moved forward, firing short bursts from their submachine guns as they crab-walked closer to Scarlet’s team.
“Take cover!” Scarlet shouted, and they leaped behind the columns. A savage firefight ensued as both sides fought for supremacy of the tunnel. Scarlet looked down to see the men finish their work on the device as the other goons kept them pinned down. The Lotus strutted forward and pushed some buttons on the top panel, then smiled and ordered her men to kill everyone in sight.
“Why are they fighting so hard?” Ryan asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Because we’re blocking the only way out,” Karlsson said. “Those assholes can’t get out of here until we’re all dead, and now the timer’s running on their personal little Domesday machine down there the pressure’s really on. I’m guessing that chopper up there with the cute little rope ladder is waiting for them, but we’re not going to let that happen, right?”
The battle raged for another five minutes until Scarlet’s team finally overcame them and broke through their defenses. They advanced on the Lotus and her inner guard who were now retreating to a recess at the back of the complex.
“Ryan!” screamed Scarlet. “Get that fucking thing switched off or your balls are mine, and not in a good way.”
Ryan scuttled forward, Sophie covering him with her pistol. Ahead of them, Scarlet and Bradley Karlsson raged forwards toward the Lotus and her surviving minions.
Ryan hunched over the device, struggling to take in all the information in such a short time. He looked at the countdown panel.
Ninety seconds.
“Umm…”
Eighty seconds.
“If I recall correctly, the wiring on this was… no — hang on. I'm remembering something else.”
“Bloody hell, stop being Ryan for a second!” Scarlet screamed, and fired off another three rounds of her pistol.
Seventy seconds.
Sixty seconds.
“Oh, dear…”
Fifty seconds.
“Ah — I remember… if I take this red wire and disconnect it, according to McShain all I need to do then is take out the green one and splice them together. Or was it the blue one?”
Forty seconds.
Then, in the heat of the battle Sophie looked up to see one of the men aiming his pistol directly at Ryan’s head. She screamed, and launched herself forward, flying through the air and firing retaliatory shots at the man at the same time.
The man fired.
She fired back — muzzle flash, smoke, bullet released.
She passed in between Ryan and the man and took the bullet through her throat.
She collapsed in a heap beside Ryan, hanging over a low concrete barricade like a rag doll.
Her bullet then struck the man in the forehead and killed him instantly.
Ryan was totally shell-shocked. He looked at Sophie, saw the blood pouring from her neck down the cold concrete.
“Is she all right?” he screamed.
“The device, Ryan!” Scarlet screamed, her SAS training kicking in hard now, ruthless, mercenary. “Turn the fucking device off. We’ll check Soph in a minute.”
Thirty seconds.
Ryan’s world seemed to slow down. He looked at Sophie and knew in his heart she was gone. He turned to Scarlet. She was now fighting the Lotus in hand to hand combat. Kung Fu versus Krav Maga. The Lotus planted a solid kick in Scarlet’s sternum and sent her flying back, breathless.
Scarlet regained her balance and spun around to land a perfectly timed and devastating spinning heel kick in the Lotus’s face, smashing her nose and cutting a deep scar into her cheek with the heel of her boot. The Lotus staggered backwards but kept her balance. Scarlet saw she was searching for her knife but gave no quarter.
Scarlet snatched up a pistol and fired four shots at the Lotus’s head. She was so pumped she carried on squeezing the trigger long after the bullets had run out and the sound of the dry-firing filled the cavernous space for several seconds afterwards as the hammer struck down on the empty chamber, click, click, click, click. They were all dead now, and she, Bradley and Ryan would be joining them along with the entire population of Tokyo if Ryan Bale didn't work fast.
Twenty seconds.
“As soon as you can, Ryan,” Karlsson said, a heavy hand on his shoulder. Ryan’s eyes crawled all over the place, from the whirring numbers on the Tesla device, counting down to the destruction of the city above, to the terrible sight of Sophie’s body, flopped lifeless over the concrete retaining wall where she had fallen moments earlier, killed trying to save his life.
“I can’t do it!” he mumbled. ”I just can't do it any more… not now — not with Sophie gone like this.” His lower lip began to tremble and Scarlet was concerned he was about to fall apart.
“Listen, Ryan. The lives of twenty million people, and more importantly my life, are all in your hands right now, you got that?”
Ten seconds.
Ryan stripped the green wire…
Five seconds.
…and spliced it into the red wire he had previously disconnected…
Two seconds.
And silence.
Scarlet looked at the counter. Two seconds remaining.
“Pussy,” Karlsson said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hairy hand. “James Bond always waited until one second.”
But Ryan didn't hear any words. He was staring at the lifeless body of Sophie Durand, and choking back the tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hawke was now face to face with Sheng Fang for the second time since all this began, and as far as he was concerned that was two times too many.
Before anyone had a chance to think, Sheng told Luk to order the men forward, and they proceeded toward the next chamber. Ahead of them lay the final of Qin’s lethal challenges — the trial of metal.
Amid a serene sense of triumph, Sheng turned the final bend in the tunnel and saw with horror an enormous shining lake stretching out before him. The glare of the glow-sticks reflected brightly in the surface of the water as he ordered two men to move forward to the lake’s shore and report their findings.
The men nervously descended toward the water and Sheng watched with interest as they stooped to investigate. Moments later both men collapsed into the lake, dead. Luk glanced anxiously at Sheng and mumbled something about the curse of the tomb and a burning sky, but Sheng was undeterred.
He called two more men forward and ordered them down to the water to investigate further and collect the bodies. They looked at the corpses on the shore in the cavern below and objected, so Sheng had Luk shoot one of them. Their lives meant nothing to him, so long as they were able to help him achieve his destiny and fulfill the prophecy. Any man who refused to obey his orders was of no use.