The Five Greatest Warriors Read online

  He hefted Alby to his feet.

  “How are we going to do that?” Alby asked.

  “The old-fashioned way,” Jack said.

  Jack and Alby hustled back across the city, heading for the northeast harbor, racing over bridges or swinging—with Alby piggybacking on Jack’s back.

  After twenty minutes of this kind of travel, they came to the hill of stone steps that descended into the enclosed harbor there.

  “I just hope they haven’t cleared the tunnel and got to the open sea yet,” Jack said, pulling off his helmet and stepping knee deep into the water.

  Then he began banging the metal helmet against the first stone step beneath the waterline.

  Dull clangs rang out. Three short ones, three long ones, then three short ones again.

  Morse code, Alby realized.

  Jack clanged the helmet against the stone some more, punching out another code.

  “Let’s hope the sonar operator knows his Morse,” he said.

  “How will they know it’s you?” Alby said. “They might think it’s a trap, that it’s Wolf trying to bring them back.”

  “I’m signaling: ‘S.O.S. COWBOYS COME BACK.’ The twins only just got their nicknames, nicknames Wolf can’t possibly know.”

  “How will you know if they’ve heard you?”

  Jack sat down on the top step, holding his helmet limply in his hand. “I can’t know. All we can do now is wait and hope they haven’t already gone out of range.”

  Jack and Alby waited, sitting on the top step of the hill of stairs rising out of the ancient walled harbor, in the dying yellow light of Wolf’s flares.

  The shadows lengthened as the flares began to sink and fizzle out. The majestic underground city and the pyramid lording over it, having existed in darkness for so many centuries, were about to be plunged back into blackness.

  And as the last flare began to flicker and die, Jack put his arm around Alby. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  The flare went out.

  Darkness engulfed them.

  A MOMENT LATER, a colossal whooshing noise filled the air, followed by splashing and the sound of water running off the flanks of a—Bam!

  A spotlight lanced out of the darkness, exposing Jack and Alby on their step, illuminating them in a circle of harsh white light. They had to shield their eyes, the light was so bright.

  A Russian-made Kilo-class submarine loomed in the water in front of them, dark and immense.

  A hatch opened beside the external spotlight and out of it stepped J. J. Wickham, the Sea Ranger, Jack’s longtime friend and captain of the Indian Raider. With him were the Adamson twins, Lachlan and Julius, Jack’s mathematical and historical experts.

  “Jack!” the Sea Ranger said. “And you must be Alby—Jack’s told me all about you. Well, come on! Get in! We were in the middle of a perfectly good escape when you called us back. You can tell us all about how you escaped certain death when we’re out of here. Now, move!”

  Jack could only smile. He grabbed Alby’s hand and they leaped down into the water and clambered aboard the submarine.

  An hour later, the sub emerged from the ancient tunnel and powered out into the Indian Ocean, barely beating a South African Navy frigate sent to investigate the waters off the Cape of Good Hope.

  Once they were safe and clear, the Sea Ranger sought Jack out in his quarters. He found him sitting with Alby, re-dressing the little boy’s bullet wound.

  “You’re lucky the bullet went right through,” Jack was saying. “Took a little chunk of your shoulder with it. You’ll have full range of motion again in about six weeks.”

  “What’ll I tell my mom?” Alby asked.

  Jack whispered conspiratorially, “I was kinda hoping you’d let me put a cast on your arm and we’d tell your mum you broke your arm falling out of a tree.”

  “Done.”

  “Er, Jack,” Wickham interrupted. “What do we do now?”

  Jack looked up.

  “We regroup. As soon as we’re in safe radio space, call the others on the Halicarnassus and tell them to rendezvous with us at World’s End.”

  “World’s End? I thought it’d been abandoned.”

  “It was abandoned, which is why it’s perfect for us right now. Zoe and Wizard know the coordinates.”

  “I’ll get on it.” Wickham left.

  Jack watched him go, lost in thought.

  Alby was eyeing Jack. “Mr. West?”

  “Yeah?” Jack came out of his reverie.

  “That Wolf guy has the first two Pillars, fully charged, plus the Firestone and the Philosopher’s Stone. That English lady, Iolanthe, has the Fourth Pillar. We have no sacred stones, no Pillars, no nothing. Have we lost this fight?”

  Jack looked down at his feet. Then he replied, “Alby, we’re playing a different game to them: they want power and strength and riches. We just want to keep the world turning. And while we’re still breathing, we’re still in the game. No fight is over till the last punch is thrown.”

  CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

  DECEMBER 17, 2007, 0600 HOURS

  THE SOUTH African Navy patrol boat came alongside a military dock in the shadow of Table Mountain.

  As soon as its gangway hit the dock, Jack West Sr.—Jack’s father and bitter rival in this quest—strode off the boat and stepped straight into a waiting limousine. Known as Wolf, in his late fifties, he was burly and strong, and he looked just like Jack West Jr., with a creased face and ice blue eyes, only twenty years older.

  With Wolf was his five-person entourage, a mixed group that represented the coalition of nations and organizations backing Wolf’s participation in the quest to lay the Six Pillars at the Six Vertices: China, Saudi Arabia, the Royal Families of Europe, and his own American military-industrial cabal, the Caldwell Group.

  Representing China was Colonel Mao Gongli. Known as the Butcher of Tiananmen, he’d supplied Chinese weapons and manpower to the cause. His dead eyes hardly ever registered emotion, not even when he shot someone in the back of the head.

  Representing the Caldwell Group along with Wolf was Wolf’s second son, a cold-blooded CIEF operator, formerly of Delta, who went by the call sign Rapier.

  Representing Saudi Arabia was the man who had betrayed Jack West’s team earlier in the mission: thin and skeletal, with a long ratlike nose, he was an agent of the notorious Saudi Royal Intelligence Service known as Vulture.

  Accompanying Vulture was a handsome young captain from the United Arab Emirates named Scimitar. The first son of its chief sheik—and thus the older brother of Pooh Bear—Scimitar had joined Vulture in his betrayal of Jack and Pooh Bear, even going so far as to leave his younger brother to die in an Ethiopian mine.

  The last member of Wolf’s entourage was a woman, a beautiful and poised young lady in her thirties: Ms. Iolanthe Compton-Jones, the Keeper of the Royal Records of the House of Windsor.

  As the six of them sat in the limousine bound for Cape Town’s military airstrip, Wolf pulled a glittering Pillar from his pack and handed it to Vulture.

  “As per our bargain, Saudi,” Wolf said. “Once I got the Second Pillar, fully charged, you became entitled to the First, also charged.”

  Vulture took the First Pillar, charged at the First Vertex at Abu Simbel, eyeing it with barely concealed delight.

  When he replied, his eyes scanned Wolf’s closely. “That was indeed our bargain, Colonel West. I thank you for honoring the agreement. I wish you good fortune in the remainder of your mission. Should you require any further assistance from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you need only call.”

  The limousine arrived at the military base. Passing the gatehouse without any checks, it arrived at two Gulfstream-IV private jets parked side by side.

  Vulture and Scimitar boarded one and immediately departed.

  Wolf, Rapier, Mao, and Iolanthe watched them go.

  Mao said, “I don’t trust the Saudis for a moment. They have money, but they have all the honor of a gang of desert bandits
.”

  “They had their use.” Iolanthe shrugged. “We used them.”

  “And they came through,” Wolf said.

  “So what now?” Mao asked.

  “Now,” Wolf said, “we get a reprieve of approximately three months, till March of next year. And we’ll need that time to research the locations of the remaining four Pillars and Vertices.”

  Iolanthe said, “I have the Fourth Pillar already. The Third Pillar is believed to be in the possession of the Japanese Imperial Family. I understand that after the Second World War, a team of American agents was sent to find it but failed. Is this true?”

  Wolf nodded. “Hirohito hid it during the war. We never found it. We assume it’s still somewhere in Japan.

  “Which means we have in our possession the Second and the Fourth Pillars,” he continued. “The Third, Fifth, and Sixth Pillars must still be found. Likewise, all four of the remaining Vertices need to be discovered before the return of the Dark Sun in March of next year. I’ve had my scientific people working on the Stonehenge data while we’ve been traipsing around Africa, and I imagine our new African friend, the Neetha holy man, will have unique knowledge as well.”

  “What about this coalition of minnow nations?” Mao growled. “This group led by your first son, the Australian.”

  “He doesn’t lead them anymore,” Wolf said, thinking of Jack falling into the abyss. “Without him, they’re weakened but not destroyed. The Irish woman is formidable, as we discovered in Africa, and Professor Epper is resilient. In the short term, pressure needs to be exerted on their masters.”

  “And in the longer term? What if they cross our path again?”

  “Then we crush them with overwhelming force,” Wolf said.

  “Good,” Mao said. “Finally.”

  AIRSPACE OVER NAMIBIA

  DECEMBER 17, 2007, 0645 HOURS

  THE HALICARNASSUS thundered through the sky, banking dramatically to evade the line of glowing tracer rounds that sizzled through the air all around it, tracers that had been unleashed by a pursuing South African Air Force F-15, the first of four fighters chasing it.

  The big black 747 rocketed westward, crossing the boundary between the drab brown Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, heading out over the vast expanse of blue.

  It had been fleeing like this for almost an hour, since South Africa—all their expenses paid by the Saudis—had scrambled an air patrol to take them out: and in the last ten minutes, as the fighters had caught up with them, it had become a running aerial gun battle.

  As the Halicarnassus flew, it returned fire at the lead F-15 from one of the 50mm gun turrets mounted on the inner sections of its wings.

  Manning the starboard gun—facing backward as the jumbo screamed forward through the air—was Zoe Kissane. She drew a bead on the trailing F-15 and assailed it with a withering blast of 50mm fire.

  But the South African pilot was skilled and he barrel rolled clear of the stream of gunfire.

  “Sky Monster . . . !” Zoe called into her radio. “This is like shooting at goddamn bumblebees! What’s our plan!”

  Sky Monster’s voice came in from the cockpit: “They might be smaller and faster than we are, but we can fly farther than they can. They gotta be running low on fuel. So the plan is: you keep holding them off while I get us as far as possible over the ocean, till they decide they’re too low on gas and have to turn back. We beat them with range.”

  Sky Monster proved to be correct.

  A few minutes later, the lead South African fighter loosed a single AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile and bugged out, heading back for the mainland with his buddies.

  Zoe took care of the Sidewinder with a directed microwave burst that literally cooked the missile’s dome-mounted infrared targeting system, and the missile ditched harmlessly into the ocean.

  The aerial battle over, she wearily headed up to the 747’s cockpit, where she found Wizard and Lily with Sky Monster.

  Oddly, they were grinning, beaming even.

  “Zoe,” Wizard said, “we just got a call from the Sea Ranger. Jack’s alive and he has Alby with him. The Sea Ranger has them both. They want us to rendezvous at World’s End.”

  Zoe sighed with relief. “Thank God. Take us there.”

  LITTLE MCDONALD ISLAND

  INDIAN OCEAN

  DECEMBER 20, 2007

  3 DAYS LATER

  AT THE bottom of the Indian Ocean, in one of the most remote regions of the world, there can be found a cluster of barren rocky islands.

  The Kerguélen Islands are administered by France, while the Prince Edward Islands are claimed by South Africa. But south of them all, battered year-round by icy Antarctic winds and the rolling waves of the southern seas, is the Heard group of islands. They are administered by Australia.

  One of the Heard islands is Little McDonald Island. It has no wildlife and little flora. There is literally no reason to go there. Which is probably why it was used during World War II as a resupply base for the Australian Navy, complete with fuel dumps, storage warehouses, and even a short landing strip.

  By the 1990s, its use as a base was long obsolete and it was shut down in late 1991. Whole containers of canned food and diesel fuel had been left there, and in sixteen years, not a single can had been stolen. It wasn’t worth the effort to get there.

  Which was why no one in the world noticed the Kilo-class submarine and the black Boeing 747 that arrived at Little McDonald Island two days after the high drama at the Second Vertex.

  Of course, they knew the island by another name: World’s End.

  The reunion of Jack and the team was a joyous occasion.

  Lily leaped into Jack’s arms, hugged him tightly—then she ran over to Alby and hugged him even harder.

  Zoe and Jack also embraced warmly, holding each other for a full minute.

  “Alby told me all about what happened with the Neetha,” Jack said softly. “You must have been incredible.”

  Zoe didn’t answer.

  She just began sobbing on Jack’s shoulder, burying her head in his neck, unleashing the pent-up stress and emotion that had been inside her since her bloody encounter with the lost tribe of African cannibals.

  When at last she spoke, she said in a hoarse voice, “Next time, let’s let somebody else save the world.”

  Jack laughed, stroking her hair gently.

  As he held Zoe, he saw Wizard and, with him, the archaeologist and Neetha expert, Diane Cassidy, plus the Neetha youth, Ono, who had helped them during their escape from the remote tribe.

  Wizard smiled. “Clearly, it’s not the fall that kills you, Jack.”

  “Right,” Jack said.

  “Hey,” Lily said, looking around, suddenly alarmed. “Where’s Pooh Bear? And where’s Stretch?”

  Once the reunion was complete and introductions made, the team went inside a decrepit old warehouse beside the island’s airstrip. Water was heated for showers; canned food was opened and eaten; and Jack explained to the others what had happened to him before he’d arrived at Cape Town.

  He told them what had happened at the mine in Ethiopia, including the betrayal of Vulture and Scimitar, his own gruesome crucifixion, his and Pooh Bear’s bloody escape and the parting gift they’d received from the Ethiopian slave force there: the fabled Twin Tablets of Thuthmosis.

  Jack pulled the two stone tablets from his backpack, which had been kept on the submarine during the events at the Second Vertex.

  Wizard audibly gasped at the sight of them.

  “If Thuthmosis was actually Moses,” he said, “then that would make these the Ten Com—”

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  “Goodness-gracious-Mother-of . . .”

  “As for Stretch,” Jack went on, “Wolf didn’t bring him to the mine. Instead, he took him back to the Mossad in Israel, to claim the sixteen-million-dollar bounty on Stretch’s head.”

  “Oh no . . .” Lily breathed.

  Jack said, “After Pooh Bear and I escaped
from that mine in Ethiopia, we headed south to the old farm in Kenya. But when I set out for Zanzibar to find the Sea Ranger, Pooh Bear didn’t come with me. He went off to rescue Stretch from the Mossad’s dungeons. That was nine days ago. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  A solemn silence descended on the group.

  Lily broke it.

  “When we were in the Hanging Gardens,” she said, “Stretch defied an Israeli Army squad and saved my life. He chose us over them and now they’re making him pay.”

  She recalled the scene vividly: trapped in a filling pool of quicksand, she had stood on Stretch’s shoulders to poke her nose and mouth above the surface, while he had breathed through his sniper rifle’s gun barrel, using it as a snorkel.

  Alby asked, “What does the Mossad do to Israeli soldiers who switch sides and fight against them?”

  Jack threw a glance at Zoe and Wizard. Zoe nodded silently. Wizard just bowed his head.

  When he finally answered, Jack spoke in a low voice, his face serious. “The Mossad isn’t known for showing mercy to its enemies. Traitors like Stretch receive the harshest punishment of all. There are stories of high-security desert prisons, their locations kept strictly secret, where high-grade prisoners are kept under twenty-four-hour guard and . . . mistreated . . . for years.”

  “Mistreated?” Lily said.

  “For years?” Alby said.

  Jack said, “If Pooh Bear even manages to discover where they’re keeping Stretch, getting in and busting him out will be an all-but-impossible task. It’d be like breaking into Guantanamo Bay and running off with a terrorist.”

  Lily said, “You did that once, Daddy. Can’t we go and help Pooh Bear?”

  Jack looked at her sadly. “Lily. Honey. There are some operations that even I wouldn’t dare attempt, and this is one of them. I’m sorry, I really am, but we have to leave that to Pooh Bear and keep our eyes on the larger mission. It’s a hard decision for me to make, really hard, believe me, but weighing up the possibilities and probabilities of success, I have to make it this way. I’m sorry.”