Lexi raised her gun and squeezed the trigger without a second thought, blasting Maria dead-center in the stomach.
Maria screamed in shock and agony. “What have you done?!”
“It’s war, Maria, and you’re dead.”
Without blinking, Lexi fired a second time across the chest and Maria screamed in pain and she staggered backwards toward the fridge, staring in horror as her white shirt turned blood red. “How could you?!” she screamed, her voice trailing away.
But Lexi was already gone, running up the circular staircase on her way to the upper levels. She knew this was the location of Alex Reeve’s research center, and consequently the nerve center of the ECHO team, and aside from Eden himself it was the highest value target on the island.
All warfare is based on deception, Xiaoli said the ghost of Shi Keyu. Lexi ignored it as she climbed silently up some wooden steps and moved along the mezzanine toward the research center.
“Lexi?” Alex looked startled as she turned from the computer to face her. Her face changed when she saw the gun in Lexi’s hands. “Listen, just take it easy, all right? You don’t have to use that…”
Lexi had heard enough. An ice-cold darkness had descended over her mind once again, just like the one she had felt when she’d called the Ministry’s Internal Affairs Department about Shi Keyu’s extra-curricular activities with a woman from the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency. He was arrested a day later.
Without a moment of hesitation she fired the gun at Alex, striking her across the chest and upper arms and sending her flying around in the swivel chair. Alex screamed in shock, but it was over faster than she knew.
It wasn’t something Lexi wanted to linger over, so without glancing back, she moved stealthily along the corridor on her way to Eden. She’d already calculated that at this time of night he would either be in his bed or in his study, and the bedroom was her first port of call. She silently opened the door and switched on the lights, but the bed was made and empty, which meant only one thing — Sir Richard Eden had run out of hiding places.
Lexi Zhang raised her gun and stalked silently along the corridor to the final objective. Her mission’s end was behind one more oak-panelled door, and she intended to see it through to its logical conclusion.
She saw there was a low light on inside the study. Was he still awake — reading perhaps? Not a crazy idea, she thought. Maria and Alex had still been awake after all. But then again Eden was older than they were — perhaps he’d simply fallen asleep with the lamp on. For a long time she simply listened at the door but after a few minutes she decided he must be asleep.
She pushed the door open slowly and saw she was right. There, stretched out on his long leather couch beneath the Louvre windows at the side of his desk, was the mission objective: Sir Richard Eden MP.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Hawke was first to emerge from the AW101 and was immediately whipped in the face by the driving, icy wind. “Still summer, I see,” he said as he helped the others from the sliding door on the side and walked around to the back of the chopper.
Trond opened the rear cargo ramp from inside the cockpit and the hydraulic motors slowly lowered it to the wet, gravelly sand on the beach. When it was fully extended Hawke climbed up into the back of the chopper again and began the process of unstrapping the mini submersible from the helicopter.
“We don’t have much time,” he said, casting a suspicious eye out into the ocean. “Going by the surveys we studied, Sala should be able to get the Migaloo all the way through into Valhalla, but if not he’s always got the Triton. Either way he’s well ahead of us.”
When it was free, they all worked together to roll the mini sub out the back of the helicopter and push it down to the sea on its trailer. The wind was rising again, and as a consequence the sea was getting rougher by the minute. The Barents Sea was what was known as a marginal sea — a body of water bordered by various peninsulas or islands and attached to a larger ocean, in this case the Arctic Ocean. Rich in hydrocarbons, today it was filled with rigs plundering its many oil and gas fields but Hawke and the others now knew it was also home to a much richer treasure — the Hall of the Slain, Valhalla itself.
When the sub was in place, Hawke gave Trond the signal and the mighty helicopter powered up. It buffeted them all in its downdraft as it lumbered up into the leaden Norwegian Arctic sky and disappeared from view into the low storm clouds above them.
Alone now, they hurried to move the sub to the correct depth and released it from the trailer. Hawke climbed inside first and began the process of firing up the engine and instrument panel as the storm grew in power all around them. Even this far in the bay, he felt the sub being knocked about by the swell of the sea and knew it was time to dive. Calling the others on board they closed the hatch and he piloted the submersible out to sea.
Scarlet stared at the poky interior of the mini-sub with anxious eyes. “This thing is safe, right?”
“Of course it is,” Hawke said, tapping the yoke with pride.
“But it really doesn’t look very safe,” Victoria said.
“Trust me,” Hawke said with a grin. “If it suddenly implodes at crush depth you won’t even know what’s happened.”
Ryan laughed, then winced in pain and gripped his arm.
“That’s just Joe’s way of dealing with stressful situations,” Lea said.
“This is why I joined the SAS and not the bloody frogmen,” said Scarlet, looking once again around the creaking interior of the sub as it continued to dive into the black ocean.
“Well unfortunately, Cairo,” Hawke said without taking his eyes off the controls, “Valhalla is underwater, so today we’ll just have to do it my way.”
“That’s what worries me,” she said, and then jumped. “What the hell was that?!”
“It’s just the hull compressing, Cairo. Like when you crush someone’s skull between your thighs.”
“But that kills them.”
“But unlike you, I’m in control of the situation, and the sub is designed for much greater depths than this, so why not relax and enjoy? This is probably the only time in your life you will be sailing in a mini-sub to Valhalla.”
“If you say so,” Scarlet said, unconvinced. “I suppose a cigarette…”
“No, you cannot smoke in here,” Hawke said flatly.
“I was joking, frogman.”
Knowing how much Cairo Sloane liked to smoke to calm her nerves, Hawke had his doubts, but made no comment as he navigated them deeper and turned into the mouth of the tunnel. The submarine started to jolt and bang around.
Scarlet reached out for something to hang onto. “What the hell’s going on now?”
“We’re sailing into the wake vortex of the Migaloo — no need to panic.”
“Wake vortex?” Victoria said.
“A submarine moving through water is a lot like an aircraft moving through the air, so it creates a wake vortex behind in the same way a plane does.”
“So this is just turbulence?” Ryan said.
“Got it in one, mate.”
Lea gazed through the tiny window, amazed. “I wonder how far ahead Sala is?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Hawke said. “I can see a change in the light up ahead. They must have surfaced in an underground lake and fired up some glow sticks. No way is that natural light at this depth.”
Moments later Lea was the first to see it — the hull of the Migaloo was fifty meters ahead and perfectly still in the water like a dead whale-shark. “There they are!”
Hawke nodded and his response was immediate, shutting down the engines and filling the ballast tanks with compressed air. Slowly and silently the mini sub made its way to the surface, and when they breached it they saw they had been right — they were in a cavernous underwater lake.