David Leadbeater: Weapons of the Gods

Luther leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “If it helps, when she touched me, I only got half wood.”

Drake pushed him away, laughing. “Are you kidding me? I don’t need to know that. Crap, now I’m wishing we’d beaten you down and left you in the desert.”

“You beat me down?” Luther looked surprised, the enormous head rearing back. “I seem to remember saving and capturing you in that desert, boy.”

They heard footsteps rattling along a tunnel, saving Drake the indignity of replying. He focused on the opening and the team spread out to make ready for surprises.

None came. Instead, Captain Cambridge and another man exited, both standing there and looking a little bemused.

“Wow,” Cambridge said in a deep baritone. “I didn’t realize there were so many of you.”

“We’re a big crew,” Drake admitted. “It’s good to see you again, Cambridge. Thanks for your help with the nukes back in the Ukraine. We were close to wiping out there for a while.”

“Not again,” Luther barked. “Sounds like you guys need child minders.”

Cambridge held out a calloused hand. “My pleasure. And may I introduce you to Major Bennett, Secretary Crowe’s contact over here.”

Drake shook and then Hayden stepped forward, perhaps feeling a little left out. “And what do you have for us, Major?”

“Just Bennett,” the man said. “I’m no Major down here. And I don’t feel like a Major up there at present.” His blue eyes shot up toward the ceiling. “Having to tread lightly. We don’t know who’s involved with this Tempest group and who isn’t, I’m afraid. It’s all very… underhand. It’s so clandestine…” He glanced at Hayden and Drake. “If Kimberley hadn’t put her full weight and reputation behind this I’d say you were wasting our time.”

“Well thank God for the Americans,” Alicia breathed. “At least they have sense.”

Bennett blinked at her. “I doubt there’s any British in the higher echelons of Tempest,” he said. “But there may well be a few lackeys over here. We’re still rooting around. Now, Kimberley tells me a wild story about seven weapons?”

Drake nodded. “Seven that we know of. I doubt there’s any particular order to them but the first — the Sword of Mars — is in your possession.”

“I’m only privy to so much,” Bennett admitted. “I run the DSF out of Whitehall which, as I’m sure you know, is the entity that oversees all British Special Forces operations. Yes, I have contacts, but I still have to take great care.”

“Understood. Where is the sword?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute. I understand you can track these weapons?”

“That we can,” Dahl spoke up, nodding his blonde head. “We recalibrated a GPS device to search for the still unnamed material that is part of their structure. It worked.”

Drake looked across at him. “That’s Dumb Swede for ‘yes.’”

Dahl gave him the sly finger.

“Well, good,” Bennett said. “Then you can track all seven down.”

Drake thought he’d misheard. “All… seven?”

Cambridge jumped in. “The Sword of Mars is missing, I’m afraid.”

“For how long?” Hayden asked.

“A couple of hours,” Bennett said defensively. “We’re all over it.”

“All over it?” Drake repeated. “That sword was our biggest hope. We don’t know what they’ll do if they find all seven.”

“We have to recover it,” Dahl said. “Tempest already proved they care nothing about military and civilian life. They have to be stopped.”

“Swords must never fall into the wrong hands,” Kenzie said from across the other side of the chamber where she stood apart, leaning against the damp wall. “They should be in mine.”

Bennett nodded hesitantly at the Israeli and then addressed everyone. “The op is ongoing. London city and airports have the heaviest surveillance in the world. We will find the perpetrator by backtracking from the moment of the theft of the sword. Then, we’ll have facial match.” He glanced at his phone. “It’s already been narrowed down. It’s nothing more than a matter of time.”

Drake found it hard to accept the major’s word in light of recent information. Still, the British hadn’t known the significance of the weapon until this very moment. “It’s partly our fault,” he said. “We should have contacted you sooner.”

“Thank you, but I will take it on the chin,” Bennett said. “Kimberley only just broke away from Tempest and is living with a sense of not knowing what they’ll do to her next. To anyone. There’s a lot going on here, gents and ladies.”

Alicia made a point of glaring. “You realize you’ve just excluded poor old Yorgi, right?”

Bennett opened his mouth to question her but then his phone started to ring. Cambridge watched him closely as he checked the screen before answering. Drake watched them both.

“What do you think?” he mouthed at Hayden.

“It all feels laborious,” she said. “We need to shift it up a gear. Tempest clearly has an agenda and Luther here was not their only attack dog.”

“Dog?” Luther frowned.

“Yeah,” Alicia nodded at him. “Rhino would be more precise.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, any time.”

Drake interrupted their flirting which, he knew, stemmed from Alicia’s suspicion that Mai was attracted to him. Surprisingly, the Japanese warrior had remained silent and calm this entire time.

“Fact is,” he said. “We can’t touch Tempest yet. They’re too well insulated which, I hope, Major Bennett here and Secretary of Defense Crowe will soon change. We’re at the sharp end, as usual, but this time we have everything to fight for.”

Hayden nodded. “Couldn’t be bigger.”

“Yeah,” Dahl agreed. “Our freedom. Our todays and tomorrows. Tempest must be destroyed.”

“We’re fighting for men and women that don’t even know they’ve been disconnected,” Drake said. “For soldiers out there, risking everything, thinking there’s a real support system at their backs where, instead, there’s a kill order.” He paused. “And that’s another thing. Somehow, some way, we have to pull these teams together. United, we will be stronger.”

“Agreed,” Hayden said, looking around. “Karin would have been perfect for that. I still don’t agree with her decision… but she is her own tour de force now, I guess.”

“FrameHub do need taking down.” Drake shrugged. “And I guess she’s being hunted too, by the US Military. Send a geek to catch a geek. That’s what I say.”

Luther shifted his feet. “Molokai has some experience with military communications. Nothing fantastic,” he acknowledged, “but I think he could try.”

Drake looked to the side of the chamber where the mysterious man lurked, face covered to the nose by a desert scarf, body bulked out by innumerable layers of clothes, protected by the flak jacket he never removed, and a big coat.

“We need a base,” Hayden told Bennett, but by then the man was answering a call. When he finished he stared expectantly at the SPEAR team.

“How about that?” he said. “We’ve found the wankers that stole the sword. Are you ready?”

“Lead on, Major,” Drake said. “This isn’t business anymore. It’s fucking personal.”

The old, abandoned hospital sat amid several overgrown acres near Muswell Hill. It was a timeworn Victorian villa that had once been used as a home for disturbed psychiatric patients and people with a high drug dependency. Today it sat in decay, similar to many old buildings in London, with no clear signs as to the owner and nobody paid to maintain it.

Alicia viewed it from the street, a military scope in her hand. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Looks creepy.”