Temple of the Gods

‘No!’ Warden barked. ‘We need her! Are you insane?’

‘You have to ask?’ said Nina.

Stikes issued orders to his men. ‘Move her away — and him as well,’ he added, indicating Larry. ‘Careful, Chase. Don’t try anything foolish. We may need your wife, but we don’t need her conscious. Or even fully intact.’

‘Go on,’ said Eddie to Nina and Larry as the mercenaries approached. ‘Both of you.’

Nina clutched his hands. ‘Eddie, I’m not going to let this crazy bitch shoot you!’

‘I’ll be okay. Go on.’

The guards pulled her away. ‘Eddie!’

‘I must admit, Eddie,’ said Sophia, striding towards her ex-husband with the clack of stiletto heels, ‘if there’s one thing that I’m very slightly jealous of about your relationship with Nina — and there is only the one thing, and it is only very, very slightly — it’s that no matter what annoying and petty personal issues you have, when the chips are down you always support each other. If you’d had that kind of commitment to our marriage, who knows where we’d be now?’

‘I’m the one who didn’t have commitment?’ said Eddie. ‘You were the one who was off like a shot to open your legs for the first rich guy who came along!’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘That’s hardly an accurate description.’

‘No? You lost interest in me the moment your dad cut you off from his money, and you started trying to fuck your way back into high society. Sex for cash? You know, there’s a name for people like you.’

Sophia pointed the gun at his face. ‘Don’t you dare call me that.’

‘Or what, you’ll shoot me? You’re going to do that anyway, so I might as well clear the air while I can. You’re fucking pathetic, Soph. Daddy’s little girl doesn’t get what she wants, so she takes it out on everyone else. Same old story, only now “everyone else” is literally everyone in the world!’

Eddie could tell from her increasingly angered expression that the mentions of her father had touched a raw nerve. He pushed on with a sarcastic sneer. ‘Yeah, his lordship was a great example of the superior classes, wasn’t he? Turns his back on his own daughter, and then loses everything he owns to people like this lot —’ he waved a hand at the Group, who were watching as if transfixed by a soap opera — ‘because he’s a chinless fucking idiot who thought having a title made him immune to how the real world works. The only thing you could be with a role model like that was a whor—’

Lips tight with fury, she stepped closer and slapped him, hard. Eddie took the blow—

And grabbed her gun hand, twisting her arm with savage force to pull her against him. He clamped his other hand round her throat, pushing the Glock’s muzzle up against her chin. She cried out in choked pain.

‘Okay, everyone freeze!’ he shouted, backing up as the mercenaries aimed their weapons and looked to Stikes for instructions. ‘Anyone tries anything, she’ll get her fucking head blown off.’

Warden recovered from his shock at the sudden turnaround of events, making a sound that could almost have been a relieved chuckle. ‘I doubt anyone here would have a problem with that.’ His companions nodded in agreement.

‘I would,’ Stikes said darkly. ‘Chase, let her go or I’ll have Nina shot.’

‘You’ll do no such damn thing,’ Warden snapped.

‘In that case I’ll have your father shot.’ Some of his men’s guns moved to cover Larry. ‘However great your daddy issues are, I’m sure you don’t want them resolved with a bullet, do you?’

Eddie kept retreating, hauling Sophia with him. ‘You don’t know what I think of my dad.’

‘Edward!’ protested Larry.

‘He doesn’t mean it,’ Nina whispered to him. ‘I’m… pretty sure.’

‘Chase!’ said Stikes, losing patience. ‘Let her go and give up. You can’t get away, so just accept the inevitable.’

‘Which is what?’ said Eddie, briefly checking behind. He was now only a matter of feet from the catering trolleys.

‘That I was always going to win. I’ll even make it quick for you.’

‘Like when you made it quick for those women you murdered in Afghanistan?’

‘Enough! Last chance, Chase.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Eddie. He dropped the gun… then shoved Sophia forcefully away as he threw himself backwards—

Into the dumbwaiter.

31

Sophia was still close enough to block the mercenaries’ line of fire. Eddie used the brief moment of protection to pull his legs inside the little elevator, curling into a ball — as his weight far overloaded its maximum capacity and sent the car plunging down the shaft.

The impact of landing knocked the breath from his lungs. Dizzied, he kicked open the doors and scrambled out, dropping heavily to the tiled floor.

Amsel’s corpse lay nearby, blood oozing from a gaping head wound. The storeroom was empty, its door open — as was the outside exit. Stikes must have planted one of his men in the kitchen staff. The hotel workers themselves had fled.

He staggered upright. Amsel’s weapons—

They were gone. Stikes’s man must have taken them.

Which left him completely unarmed against a team of mercenaries out for his blood.

‘Get down to the kitchens!’ Stikes bellowed to his men. ‘Now!’ The black-clad mercs sprinted for the exit.

Larry was still staring in astonishment at the empty hole in the wall. ‘He — he jumped down the dumbwaiter!’

‘Yeah, he does things like that,’ said Nina, trying not to let her enemies detect her concern for her husband’s safety.

Stikes pushed past them to Sophia. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, shaken — before turning to look at the hatch. Her shock became outrage. ‘You let him get away!’

‘We could have shot him, but I thought you wouldn’t appreciate having the bullets go through you first,’ he said testily, before returning to the table. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, for your own safety I’d recommend that we leave the hotel until I get confirmation that Chase is dead.’

‘You want us to run away?’ rasped Meerkrieger. ‘It sounds as if you’re scared of him.’

‘Hardly,’ the Englishman said, stiffening. ‘It’s just that Chase has, shall we say, a talent for destruction. I wouldn’t put it past him to set the hotel on fire or cause a gas explosion in an attempt to escape.’ His audience’s expressions showed that they were quickly coming round to his way of thinking.

‘He won’t try to escape,’ said Sophia. She pointed at Nina and Larry. ‘He’ll try to rescue them.’

‘Then we’d better make sure he can’t reach them. Or these.’ He picked up the case containing the statues. ‘We’ll take the cable car down to the village. I’ll call ahead to have transport waiting for us.’

The Group members stood. ‘Are you sure this is necessary?’ Warden asked.

‘As long as Chase is running loose, I wouldn’t take any chances. This way, please.’

‘You heard him,’ said Sophia, jabbing Nina with the Glock.

Everyone hurried for the main exit, Nina and Larry exchanging worried glances.

Eddie ran across the kitchen. He needed to get back upstairs to find Nina and his father, but the closest flight of steps, just outside the swing doors, would at any moment have mercenaries pounding down it. If he could get past it before they arrived, though, he might be able to find an alternative way up…

He saw fast-moving shadows on the stairwell wall through the circular windows. ‘Arse!’ he muttered as he