David Leadbeater - Weapons of the Gods

But what would they return to?

He couldn’t know that, so locked the question away. Refugees was one of the main issues with this war, over five million fleeing Syria and three million fleeing Iraq. Even the battle for Mosul itself led to in excess of one million people fleeing their homes.

The Forge of Vulcan lay in Syria, within walking range of one of IS’s last bastions. The area was intensely guarded up to IS standard, which was to say incomprehensible to most. The cave system itself might even be in use.

“How did the forge end up in an IS fortress?” Alicia asked.

“The militant group discovered it whilst ransacking and destroying people’s homes,” Dahl read aloud, since not everyone could crowd around Hayden’s laptop. “An archaeologist’s perhaps. It may even have been stolen from Europeans working here — the land of Syria still lies at the heart of archaeology.”

“I don’t understand how we know it’s there,” Kenzie said. “If a team got close enough to use the tracking device why didn’t they just go in and get it?”

“That’s the interesting part,” Hayden explained. “Apparently, it’s being advertised for a huge sum of cash on the dark web.”

“Part of me wonders if it’s worth risking our lives for,” Alicia said. “But then the other part assures me that the forge will be the deciding element in Tempest’s plan. It’s Sod’s Law.”

“Agreed,” Drake said. “And the forge is bigger than the others — containing large amounts of material. Knowing Tempest, they’ll just buy this thing.”

“They wouldn’t trust IS,” Kinimaka said. “Don’t forget who Tempest are. CIA, bankers, businessmen, judges. They know how deals can fail.”

“And all we know is it’s inside that cave system?” Drake pointed at the screen.

“Deep inside,” Hayden said. “The device barely got a read.”

“We’ll need to be fully, utterly loaded,” Luther said with relish. “More weapons and ammo than Fort Bragg. We get among that army… our chances drop by the second.”

Hayden nodded. “And we’ll need to be HALO’d in. Dropped from four thousand meters right on the edge of their camp,” she said. “It’s gonna be tough.”

Luther eyeballed her. “Tough?” he repeated. “Spec ops eat this shit for breakfast. Sure hope you can keep up, Team SPEAR.”

“We’ll do our best,” Drake replied without emotion.

“Are you kidding?” Dahl said, grinning. “It’s party time. Not only are we gonna HALO together, but we get to stick it to IS too. That’s bucket-list stuff right there, folks.”

Not entirely certain Dahl knew what bucket-list ideals really stood for, Drake looked at the assemblage. Mai, with all the demons of her past laid to rest and now probably unsure of her next step. Her proximity to Luther showed it might be right there. The big warrior himself, unable to curtail his glee at the prospect of a new battle, a warrior at heart and probably incapable of settling down. Kenzie, teetering on the edge of everything — fight or flight, good and bad, struggle forward or fall back. Drake was sure she would leave. Meters away and unmistakably apart, sat Dahl, a man on hold, kept in suspense until he could return to reclaim the family he loved. Then there was Hayden and Mano, skirting around the edge of a new relationship but neither wanting to spoil it by trying too hard.

Smyth… waiting for Lauren. Waiting for a miracle, it seemed.

Molokai was a mystery. An anomaly to the group. Drake couldn’t read him at all, and wondered if it might be better not to look at the man’s past.

And that left Alicia and himself. Honestly, where were they? Their relationship was stronger than mountains, their bond tighter than a death grip. But where were they going? From one skirmish to another, one mission to the next.

Alicia was right. Some R&R was long overdue.

“I guess we should get on with it then.” Alicia brought him back to the present by whispering in his ear.

“Eh?”

“Hay just told us to meet outside the hotel in thirty. That corresponds to twenty minutes shagging time. C’mon, better bring your A-game, Drakey.”

“Shouldn’t we conserve energy for the… you know… humongous battle we have coming?”

“Nah.”

“Shouldn’t we be gathering our weapons?”

“I’m only interested in one weapon right now.”

“And later? If we save the world?”

“I might let you go on top.”

“Aw, thanks.”

As they climbed the stairs to their room, Drake thought about their relationship and how they needed some real time together. Do people find getting time off together this hard in the real world? He wondered.

But then they were walking down their corridor and Alicia was already disrobing.

“Whoa, your panties say ‘come and get it’ on the ass.”

“I know. I bought them for your sake when I remembered you’re so fucking slow on the uptake.”

“Awesome.” Drake threw her onto the bed. “How about leaving ’em right where they are, love?”

Karin Blake endured another night and day with the FrameHub geeks, learning what they knew, stealing their secrets and their code with her eidetic memory, trolling their open jobs, their assignments and personal projects, suffering their corner-of-the-eye stares every time she got up to walk to the water cooler or the refrigerator, tolerating their terrible and often deplorable jokes.

It wouldn’t be bad if they were ultimately harmless. Then she could bear their smutty remarks, their smaller, low-key hacks, their relatively undamaging social media shamings. She could even overlook all eight of them peeking at her — and using the internal cameras — when she dressed for bed. In part, she understood all these things — they were males under thirty that had never lived with a woman before and sure as hell never touched one. At first, she wondered if organizing a wild party with beer and hookers might cure them of their afflictions, but then she began to look deeper.

FrameHub were evil, perfectly defined by malice. The softer machinations worked atop deeper intrigues, each one more distressing, each one hiding a further layer of depravity. They did not care who they hurt — and they trolled the dark web for the worst immoral sins.

She gave up all hope in them as their supreme moment ticked inexorably closer. The prison break was on schedule, ready to green-light. Karin had never seen such a wicked glow in men’s faces, not even in the expressions of the worst mercenaries, warlords and crime bosses she’d come up against. In short, they wanted every single human being to suffer — man, woman and child — and intended to create countless, unending scenarios to make sure that happened.

Karin used a dead drop account to message Dino and Wu. It was part of her routine to check the account every hour for incoming messages relating to her hacks, and FrameHub accepted it after the first day and stopped checking.

Now, they had twelve minutes left.

Karin looked over Piranha’s shoulder, getting deliberately close. The kid couldn’t concentrate and kept breaking off to smile at her. Time ticked by. In an ideal world she could probably take all eight of these assholes out herself, but army training had taught her to rely on trustworthy backup. To wait for it if possible.

Having tracked and then followed her on the way down here, Dino and Wu would arrive at this very spot in… six minutes.

She clamped a hand on Piranha’s bicep. “Wait, is that San Quentin?” She nodded at the quickly scrolling list.

“Yeah, why?”

“My old boyfriend’s in there.” She laughed. “Wow, I could tell you a few stories about us two.”