by Rob Jones
He ducked his head as he powered the WaveRunner through the hole in the cliff and steered hard to the right. The hot wind buffeted him as he turned south and accelerated the machine to its maximum of just under seventy miles per hour.
Glancing behind him, he was impressed to see Lea had taken the same shortcut through the erosion hole. He watched as she steered the Jet Ski to the right and leaned over to expedite its turn in the warm water. He knew how much she wanted to win and show him that he wasn’t just going to waltz down here to the island and show everyone how everything was done. He knew that she considered winning to be a serious business – almost as serious as losing, he thought.
He was now reaching the end of the southwest tip of the island and turning north for the final part of the race. Ahead was the home-straight, where a slightly intoxicated Ryan Bale had promised to wave in the winner of the race.
He approached the finish line and saw Ryan and Maria were no longer on the pier to witness his victory.
Racing across the line, he powered the WaveRunner down and even had time to moor it at the end of the jetty before Lea pulled up and shut her engine off.
“That doesn’t count as a win,” she said.
“Sure it does.”
“You cheated.”
“Let’s talk about it over a nice, cold beer.”
*
Hawke pushed open the double doors of the HQ’s entrance and strolled casually into the chilled climate-controlled complex. Behind him, Lea was still arguing about how he forfeited the race when he started before Ryan gave the signal, and he knew she was right but he didn’t care. All was fair in love and jet ski races.
After pulling two cold beers from the fridge and tossing one to Lea, they stepped into the sunken living area and relaxed. Hawke was horrified to see that while they had been on their race Ryan had undergone some kind of transformation. He was now wearing Bermuda shorts and the loudest Hawaiian shirt he had ever seen.
“It’s true what they,” Hawke said, patting Ryan on the back and looking at his clothes. “Some things really cannot be unseen.”
Alex Reeve laughed and agreed with a nod of her head, but Maria looked lovingly at the new, bright Ryan from where she was working in the kitchen.
“Hey!” she called over the counter. “He looks great!”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, smiling. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
They collapsed on the sofa in front of the enormous plasma TV and Hawke took a long, slow drink of the beer. Beside him, Scarlet Sloane was sitting with a cigarette in one hand and what looked like a banana daiquiri in the other, while Maria was still in the kitchen trying to make chicken noodles. It didn’t smell like it was going too well.
“I still can’t believe I’m actually here, in ECHO HQ,” Hawke said. He paused to look over the large space again, glancing up at the swirling fans on the ceiling and then bringing his eyes down to the enormous window wall which gave a view of the sparkling turquoise ocean beyond. “What does ECHO stand for again?”
“It stands for the Eden Counter-Hostile Organization,” Scarlet said confidently.
Lea looked puzzled. “I thought we agreed on Eden Covert History Organization – or maybe even the Eden Covert Heritage Organization?”
“No, that’s what you agreed on,” Scarlet said. “Everyone else thought it was naff and went with Counter-Hostile. Makes us sound much harder.”
“But we spend our time in the world of covert history,” Lea whined.
Scarlet scoffed. “Covert History or Covert Heritage makes us sound like those nimrods who dig up old coins with Tony Robinson.”
“Hey!” Ryan said. “I like those programs – and it’s Sir Tony Robinson to you.” Maria entered the room with a couple of bags of chips.
“What happened to the noodles?” Scarlet asked.
“They went black,” Maria said. “And very hard… like little shards of detonated wood.”
“Yummy!” Scarlet said.
“Hey – hold up,” said Ryan.
“What is it?” Lea asked.
Ryan craned his neck over the sofa and tried to look up the circular staircase to see into Eden’s study. “Eden’s on the Bat Phone.”
Scarlet leaned back in her chair and slowly pulled the cigarette from her mouth. “So if you take a call on it, Ryan, would that make it the Twat Phone?”
A general rumble of laughter went around the room.
Ryan gave Scarlet a withering glance and slowly extended his middle finger in her direction as he made his reply. “But let me get this straight,” he said, deadpan. “Didn’t you shoot the President of the United States?”
Maria laughed and handed Ryan the bag of chips.
Scarlet sighed and rolled her eyes. “Not this again.”
“But you did, yeah?”
“Well… sort of, but it was for his own good.”
Hawke recalled the moment he’d watched as Agent Doyle dragged President Charles Grant from the Hudson River, the two of them looking like a couple of drowned rats… and then the moment the President had thanked him for saving the nation.
“But technically,” Ryan continued mischievously, “it was an assassination attempt – am I right?”
“Oh, do shut up, boy – you’re getting tiresome. It was no such thing and you know it. I made the call to get the President in the water because I knew Doyle was a strong swimmer from when we had initially attacked the Perseus, and Kiefel was about to shoot him. He still had three shots left in his weapon at that point. It was the only way I could think of to get Charlie to safety.”
“Charlie?”
Scarlet gave a smug smile. “Sure, that’s what he asked me to call him when we spoke on the phone.”
“Please tell me you’re not having one of your lurid affairs with the American President,” Ryan said. “Unlike most of your victims this one’s not disposable. You realize that, right?”
Hawke listened with amusement, but kept one eye on Eden who was now descending the staircase on his way to join them in the main area.
Scarlet sighed and got up from her chair, picking up a cushion as she went. “I am not having an affair with Charlie, so keep your pants dry.” She smacked the cushion into Ryan’s face and pretended to smother him. He fought her off somewhat unconvincingly and when he was free of the cushion he saw she too was now watching Eden as he drew closer.
“What’s the matter, Rich?” Lea said.
“I think we might have a problem.”
Scarlet looked serious. “What’s going on?”
“I just took a call a second ago.”
“We know,” Scarlet said. “We saw you on the Tw… Bat Phone.”
Her comment didn’t register with Sir Richard Eden. “It was Lady Victoria Hamilton-Talbot.”
Lea nodded. “I’ve heard you talk of her – who is she again?”
“Her father, the viscount, is an old friend of mine.”
“And what did she want?”
Eden looked troubled. “She’s just told me that a mutual friend of ours was murdered and that she thinks it might have something to do with Thor.”
Silence followed as Eden furrowed his brow and sat down gently in his leather chair. Outside the window they all heard the gentle chirping of a mangrove cuckoo hidden somewhere in the canopies of a line of nearby coconut palms.
Hawke, who had noticed a look of discomfort on Lea’s face at the mention of Thor, was the first to break the silence. “Thor – you’re serious?”
Eden fixed his eyes on the former SBS man. “When have you ever known me not to be serious?”
Hawke accepted the rebuke. True enough, he thought. “Did she say anything else?”
Another long period of silence followed.
Eden lowered his voice. “She’s not sure exactly what happened but the police found his body in a burned-out museum in eastern Canada. They say he’d been shot twice in the heart.” Involuntarily, Eden rubbed his forehead as a deep sigh emanated from
his lips.
“I’m sorry, Rich,” Alex said quietly.
“This is terrible news, Rich,” Lea said. “I don’t know what to say – you must be in shock.”
“I am, and it gets worse… She had a telephone message telling her to stop asking questions about his death or she’ll be next.”
“Does she know what it’s all about?” Ryan asked,
Eden looked gloomy. “Nate – her friend and former supervisor – spent his life researching the local tribes of the Canadian Maritimes. I met him on more than one occasion and he was a damned decent sort. American, from Connecticut. She said that for some reason he’d started talking to her recently about Thor, the Norse god and she’s sure it must have something to do with his death.”
“But what’s our interest in this?” Scarlet said. “Aside from gold, of course?”
“Our interest as you put it,” Eden said, “is that Victoria’s father is a very old friend of mine. If she needs my help then I’m going to give it to her.”
“Sounds fair enough to me,” Ryan said, looking at Scarlet. “Anyway, I thought everyone was interested in Thor?”
Scarlet snorted and swept her pack of cigarettes off the table as she made her way to the door. “I’m interested in anything that promises me a pay off, boy… and gold is the best promise of all.”
“We’re not just interested in bloody gold, Scarlet,” Eden said sharply. “ECHO is about more than that. We’re not just treasure hunters.”
Scarlet took the point and looked apologetic as she put the cigarette in her mouth.
“Anyway,” Eden said, a look of foreboding on his face. “We’re going to get into this because if this has anything to do with Thor and the Norse legends then this is exactly what we’re all about. Plus, if there’s a chance this might lead to anything of archaeological significance then I want it here, with us, not disappearing into some government archive.”
“Looks like I’m going to need to change into my Batman t-shirt,” Ryan said seriously.
“So where are we going?” Hawke asked.
“The Buccaneer Palm Resort,” Eden said quietly, obviously still bothered by the phone call. “She has a place there. It used to belong to her father.”
“You mean in the Florida Keys?” Lea asked.
“Yes, Little Torch Key,” Eden replied. “I want a jet fuelled and in the air within the hour and all of you on it.”
And Hawke thought that sounded like the best idea he’d heard all week.
CHAPTER TWO
Florida Keys
The Gulfstream touched down at Florida Keys Marathon Airport less than two hours after Victoria Hamilton-Talbot’s telephone call to Sir Richard Eden. Hawke, Lea, Scarlet and Ryan made the team, with Eden keeping Alex on the island to man the computers and Maria for security.
The flight passed without any problems, but from the air they had seen Hurricane Jasmine far on the eastern horizon just as they landed. Now, from their new vantage point on the ground it was just as impressive, but too far away to be of any danger to them. This was life in the tropics.
They hired a self-drive SUV from the airport and Hawke took the wheel while Lea called Eden and informed him of their arrival. They headed southwest on Rick Turner before hanging a right onto US-1 S. The drive was flat and mostly featureless as they drove along the Overseas Highway.
Passing Bahia Honda Key and the State Park, they hit Big Pine Key and then crossed Pine Channel. Watching the sun-soaked landscape drift past the car window, Lea’s mind turned to her recent journey to Ireland, and how it all fitted together with why she was now in Florida. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her father’s research notes had been focussed on the Norse goddesses of healing and now a man connected with research into Thor had been killed.
Now, she was feeling guilty that she had kept the contents of her father’s research file to herself when she’d returned from Ireland. When she’d landed she had taken the file to her quarters, scanned the contents onto a disc and copied them to a flash-drive, and then put the notes in her filing cabinet – but she had told no one. She had no idea why her father was researching the Norse legends, and she wanted to keep it to herself until she’d looked into it more, but now that looked like a bad plan. Clearly all this had to be connected.
“We’re here,” Hawke said, casting an eye on the Sat Nav. “Little Torch Key.”
He indicated left and turned the SUV off the road. They drove across a small gravel car park and pulled up outside the exclusive resort. It was set over several acres of expensive beachfront real estate and while some here owned their properties most rented. Just inside the entrance was a long, low building which was clearly the main reception and a few people in broad sunhats were meandering along the winding paths inside the compound. The place offered the sort of peace and tranquillity that could only be bought for several thousand dollars per night.
Victoria’s place was at the south end of the resort and the walk took them several minutes through the center of the compound until they finally weaved their way to the luxury residence. It was hidden among a burst of tropical plants and shaded from the sun by several towering palm trees which swayed gently in the warm breeze now coming off the Straits of Florida.
The young woman waved to them from the veranda and they walked slowly up the steps to join her.
“You must be Lea Donovan?” she said. “Dickie’s told me a lot about you.”
Hawke gave Scarlet a questioning look and mouthed the word Dickie at her, but Scarlet shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.
Victoria caught the shared glance and turned to Scarlet. “And you’re the woman who tried to kill President Grant, right?”
Scarlet opened her mouth to reply but Hawke put his finger over her lips. “She’s kidding, Cairo.”
Victoria smiled wanly and addressed all of them together. “Please, all of you – come in. You’re most welcome.”
*
Inside turned out to be even more sumptuous than outside, and Ryan stared at the plush drinks cabinet and mosquito net-covered beds down the corridor with unconcealed jealousy. Through the open window, beyond a neat strip of sand, the strong, clear Florida sun pitched down on the turquoise water.
“Woah,” he said finally.
Scarlet sniffed. “I’ve never heard such a well-articulated exclamation of appreciation.”
They sat in the main room, which was part of an open-plan lower level with polished hardwood floorboards, wooden slat walls and Louvre windows. Victoria poured everyone iced tea, which elicited a look of disgust from Scarlet Sloane.
“Haven’t you got anything stronger, Victoria? When I’m saving the world I tend to run on heavier fuel than this.”
“Of course,” Victoria said. Her long brown hair blew gently in the cross-ventilation from the Louvre windows. She opened the double doors of the walnut veneer drinks cabinet and made a dramatic sweeping gesture with her hands. “The bar is open… and please, call me Vikki.”
“A vodka’ll do me, Vikki,” Scarlet said unceremoniously.
Even though she had heard Eden talk several times of Victoria Hamilton-Talbot, Lea had never met her before and she knew very little about her. She was an academic by training, specializing in maritime archaeology and her former supervisor, with whom there had been rumors of an affair, was Dr Nate Derby. She also knew from Richard that she happened to be the daughter of Lord Peter Hamilton-Talbot, the Viscount of Weston, and that entitled her to the title Lady Victoria Hamilton-Talbot, but she never used it.
Now Victoria brought the small-talk to an end as she deftly steered the conversation back around to business. “One of these days someone’s going to have to tell me where old Dickie’s little hideout is,” she said in an attempt to make everyone relax.
No one replied.
“Why are we here, Vikki?” Hawke said flatly.
Lea watched the woman carefully as she surveyed the group, and then lowered herself slowly into a wicker chair beside the
open window. “As I’m sure Dickie will have briefed you, a few days ago my old boss Nate was found dead in a burned-out building up in Canada. I think he was murdered.”
“Yes, Rich briefed us on it,” Lea said taking the lead. “We’re very sorry for your loss – were you close?”
“Our academic partnership was extremely close, yes, but that was the extent of our relationship.”
“Why do you think he was murdered?” Hawke asked.
Victoria hesitated, and Lea thought she looked like she was calculating something before answering. “I can’t be sure, but I think it’s got something to do with what he was researching… on the side.”
“What was his specialist field of research?” Ryan asked.
“Pre-historic archaeology in the Maritimes, but he’d started researching Thor.”
“And you think something to do with this got him killed?” Hawke asked.
Victoria sighed. “Maybe, yes, but it all seems too strange.”
“What makes you say that?” Lea said.
“Nate had started acting rather peculiar lately – missing important lectures and other professional appointments, ignoring his cell whenever I tried to call him, and also he’d started drinking… that wasn’t like him.”
“He wasn’t all bad then,” Scarlet said under her breath.
“But this Thor business,” Victoria said, the hesitancy almost palpable in her voice.
“What about it?” Lea said.
“He started talking to me more and more about it. He became obsessed with Thor.”
That name again. Lea felt the anxiety rising as she considered if all this could be a coincidence. Could her attack in Ireland for a file containing research into Norse legends, and now the murder of a man obsessed with Thor, really be connected somehow?
Her thoughts were broken by the sound of Hawke’s voice. “We’re going to need more than this if we’re going to help, Vikki.”