“Comrade Borshov, your job there is finished. I have another for you. Priority.”

On the other side of Moscow, Viktor Petrov jumped into a large black Mercedes and headed for the airport. Several large diplomatic bags nestled safely beside him on the soft leather seat. Upstairs in his large drawing room the ashes of a copied security brief still smouldered.

Borshov heard the call disconnect and let his hand drop to his side. A priority assignment from the Little Wolf meant other missions were to be immediately abandoned. He reached up and touched the frozen blood around the ragged hole in his face. He ached, not from the raw wound, but for vengeance.

Alex Hunter would die by his hand, this day, next or whenever he got close enough. Borshov had his own priorities; Volkov would never know.

Ping. Alex’s headset stopped everyone dead.

Aimee bent over and rested her hands on her knees, drawing in deep breaths through clenched teeth to try to filter the dusty air. She tried to spit out the dirt but realised there was no saliva in her dry mouth. She saw Matt stifle a cough, both of them not wishing to make any noise in the suffocating darkness. Their torch beams were nothing but a dull brown now and the reduced peripheral light made her feel the colossal stone blocks in the walls were getting closer and heavier around them. A wave of fatigue and nausea passed through her and she looked up at Alex to see him place the unit over his head, close his eyes and press the receive button. She crossed her fingers.

“Arcadian receiving, over.”

When Alex’s voice came over the speaker in the command centre, everyone stopped what they were doing and then cheered loudly. Though the Hammer felt like leaping to his feet and punching the air, he needed to stay cool and clear-headed as the mission was a long way from being over.

“Good to hear your voice, Arcadian, what is your immediate operational status?” Hammerson smiled to himself; he only just stopped himself from calling Alex “son.” Captain Alex Hunter, the Arcadian, was a HAWC field agent. In dispassionate military terms he was an “asset,” a weapon to be deployed and expended without emotion. However, the Hammer couldn’t help taking pride in the way Alex had grown to be the leader and ultimate professional he was.

There was another crackle of background noise and then: “Are we ever glad to hear you, sir. HAWC unit is down to one member; there are three remaining scientific personnel; two with me, one missing. Plane crash survivors, if there were any, and Hendsen party look to have encountered large indigenous biological. There are no remains and no survivors.”

Hammerson placed large fingers on his forehead and rubbed. His HAWCs, all those men and women, dead. Another bloody mission paid for in flesh, he thought.