by Rob Jones
Hawke watched in the mirror with a good degree of satisfaction as both men instinctively raised their hands to protect their faces. The Corvette smashed through the fence and plowed into the field, its front spoiler ramming into a low rise in the earth and sending the car flying up into the air and spinning over onto its roof. It crashed back to earth with a heavy crunching sound as it landed upside down in the field and spun around two or three times before coming to a stop in a cloud of burst radiator steam.
Brooke cheered loudly as he pulled himself back into the Jeep and placed the shotgun down at his side. “To the airport, Joe,” was all he said.
Hawke and Alex shared a look but said nothing.
The former Special Forces man cruised the battered, hay-covered Cherokee down Main Street and followed the road as it curved around toward the airport. It was a small victory, but something told Hawke there was more trouble to come.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Klaus Kiefel sipped at the tequila as he watched his men push America’s Commander-in-Chief across the expansive car park toward the deserted processing plant. It was rough stuff, but it was all the now-dead security guards had thought to bring on their shift. Perhaps he should send the one remaining guard to buy something more appropriate for his sophisticated palate, but he had a feeling she would come in much more useful than that as the evening progressed. For now, she could stay tied to the side of distillation unit.
He’d heard there were nice tequilas, but this was a mixtos - the cheap plata kind where you used lime to hide the taste. The thing about deserted processing plants, the German considered, was that there was rarely a decent selection of citrus fruits available when you needed one. He grimaced as the foul, musky liquor burned its way inside him, and casually tossed the glass over his shoulder. It struck the hood of an old abandoned Ford truck and shattered over the cracked, weed-strewn asphalt.
Kiefel and several other men armed with suppressed Heckler & Koch submachine guns had taken less than five minutes to take out the security guards of the plant. It was a professional paramilitary operation – comms lines cut, no witnesses left standing. Easily achieved by the men, all ex-members of former Iron Curtain countries’ Special Forces – but it was just the beginning of a night of terror.
Now, he watched his master-plan come to fruition before his very eyes. Flanked by his liebling Angelika and the ever-loyal Jakob, Grant drew nearer to the plant. Kiefel studied his body language and thought he already looked vaguely dejected, but he also saw anger in his eyes.
With no words spoken, Kiefel opened the door and they moved inside, leaving the hot sun to climb higher in the Louisiana sky.
They walked for some time along cool corridors and sections all lined with industrial piping and conveyer belts. Eventually they arrived at a large room at the center of the abandoned plant.
The German glanced briefly at the set-up in the room – cameras, lights, MacBook Pro. All was going to plan. His dark eyes crawled momentarily over the sole remaining security guard – a young woman with a chipped, laminated name badge reading Sanchez. She was gagged and bound against a large distillation unit. She had seen her last sunrise, Kiefel considered without emotion, and then his attention turned to his new guest.
He straightened his black roll-neck and dusted himself down. “Guten Tag, Mr President,” he said calmly.
“Just who the hell are you, and…”
Before he finished his sentence, Kiefel nodded and Jakob knocked the President to the floor of the room. He struggled to get up off his knees but Jakob’s hand gripped his shoulder and held him down. Partridge tried to come to the President’s aid but Angelika smashed him in the back of his head with her pump-action shotgun and he collapsed to the floor unconscious.
Kiefel sighed and nonchalantly adjusted his hair in the reflection of the distillation unit’s shiny metal panel. “Not a very good way to introduce yourself, Mr Grant.” He turned his sharp eyes to the President and stared at him hard. “I suppose I do have the advantage, however, so let me introduce myself. I am Oberstleutnant Klaus Kiefel of the National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic.”
Grant looked up at him, confused. “The German Democratic Republic? That country hasn’t existed for over a quarter of a century.”
“A regrettable historical oversight, Mr President.”
“I don’t understand…” Grant glanced at the lights and camera. “What is it you want?”
Kiefel nodded in sympathetic understanding of the President’s confusion.
“Want… desire… need. What would you do, I wonder, if I told you that I want you to relinquish to me the gold codes?”
The look of horror on Grant’s lean face was quickly replaced by a smile and then a shallow laugh. The President shook his head. “You must be out of your mind if you think you can get your hands on the gold codes simply by kidnapping me. The United States is more important than one man, Kiefel, even if that person happens to be the President.”
Kiefel maintained his composure and stepped closer to Grant. “So you would not relinquish the gold codes, Mr President? How long do you think the world – the American people… your wife and children – will be able to watch you suffer in this plant?” Kiefel glanced around the old, broken down building.
“Mr Kiefel, as you well know, the gold codes are the launch codes for the entire United States nuclear arsenal. They allow me to authorize a full-scale nuclear attack against anywhere in the world, without the approval of Congress.”
“I know all this, Charlie. Why are you telling me?”
Grant bristled once more at the use of his first name. Only his wife called him Charlie. “I just thought if maybe you heard it out loud you’d realize how insane it was. You can do whatever you like to me, but believe me – you will never get those codes. As we speak, they are already being changed and the power the use them will be handed over to the Vice President, under the terms of the twenty-fifth amendment to our Constitution.”
“What do you mean?” Kiefel said, playing dumb.
“It means,” Grant continued proudly, “that I strongly suspect you are no longer talking to the President because that office will now be in the hands of Mike Thorn, my Vice President. If the twenty-fifth has been invoked, you are currently standing in a processing plant talking to plain old Mr Charles Grant, a regular citizen with less political power than the mayor of Sandy Springs, Georgia.”
Kiefel laughed for a moment, but his face snapped back to deadly serious a second later. “Mr Grant, I am perfectly aware of the twenty-fifth amendment, and we both know you are of great symbolic value to the United States whether or not that amendment has been invoked.” He paused and a mischievous smirk crossed his face. “But I am not interested in your gold codes, or your little nuclear football.”
Grant looked confused. “Then what game are you playing, Kiefel?”
“This is no game, I assure you… it is all very real. Soon, Angelika here will help me broadcast our first horror movie to the world. Oh – and if your hopes are resting with Vice President Mike Thorn they are sadly misplaced. Mr Thorn met with an unfortunate accident this morning outside his official residence. He is dead.”
“You’re lying!”
“No, I am not.” Kiefel gestured casually to the camera and then to the guard, still struggling in the corner.
“And let that woman go at once!” Grant shouted.
“I think not.”
“Whatever you do, I will never negotiate with terrorists!”
Klaus Kiefel nodded his head and smirked as he cast a casual glance at his watch. He had expected this.
“You will find out what I want soon enough, Mr Grant, but in the meantime – perhaps some entertainment while we wait?”
Kiefel snapped his fingers and Angelika spun a laptop around so Grant could see the monitor. A moment later a blurry image of Washington DC appeared on the screen. Everyone recognised the famous dome of the Jefferson Memorial.
“Wh
at the hell is this?” barked Grant.
“Alles zu seiner Zeit, Herr Grant.”
“Huh?”
Before Kiefel could translate, they both watched – Kiefel in delight and Grant in abject horror – as a missile tore away from the camera shot on the screen and raced toward the memorial. A second later it struck its target and exploded into the right-hand side of the dome.
Grant lifted a trembling hand to his mouth as a fireball whited-out the screen for a second, then the image returned to reveal an enormous plume of black smoke rising into the air over the city. When the smoke cleared he registered with a mix of terror and revulsion that a quarter of the building’s magnificent historical dome was now missing.
“You son of a bitch!” he spat. “That memorial is over two hundred years old! I swear to God you’ll pay for this.”
Kiefel sighed. “Hmm – this must have been the Viper, don’t you think, meine Liebling?”
Angelika nodded. “Ja.”
“We must try one of the Hellfires – they are much more powerful, are they not, Herr Grant?”
The rage coursing through Grant had rendered him speechless.
“A marvel of American engineering, the Hellfire missile. Yes – Angelika, instruct Pauling to use a Hellfire next – and make sure the target is equally as impressive.”
Grant shook his head. “They’ll blast that thing out of the sky in minutes after this!”
“Of course they will,” Kiefel replied calmly. “We have factored it into our strategy. That is why we are acting so fast – ah... here we are – let us see what treat Mr Pauling has for us now.”
They watched the monitor once again as the drone flew toward its next target.
The Washington Monument.
“Listen,” Grant said, panic rising in his previously steady voice. “You can’t do this... you have to stop!”
Kiefel raised his finger to his lips. “Please... hush, Mr Grant. You are interrupting the broadcast. It is educational.”
Before another word could be said, a second missile ripped away from the drone, leaving a horribly twisted gray smoke trail in its wake. The next second it struck the monument and the screen once again whited-out. When the image flickered back on the monitor another wild cloud of black smoke and fire was at the center of the screen.
Grant reacted with horror when the smoke cleared to reveal that the entire top third of the Washington Monument was now missing, turned into an enormous pile of rubble scattered around the monument’s base.
“You must stop this attack, Kiefel!” Grant paused for a second, staring wide-eyed at the screen. “All right... all right, damn it all! I’ll talk with you about what you want.”
Kiefel grinned. “Of course you will, but first let us see what a Hellfire can do to the Lincoln Memorial.”
Grant shook his head in disbelief as the drone swung left and flew toward the Reflecting Pool west of the now burning and destroyed Washington Monument. He knew that all hell must have broken loose in the capital by now, and that the twenty-fifth would have been invoked, putting Mike Thorn in the Oval Office – but... if Kiefel was telling the truth then that meant the line of succession would pass to the Speaker, Todd Tobin.
He had chosen Mike not only for his ability to secure votes all over the Deep South, but because he knew he would be a safe pair of hands if anything like this nightmare ever happened. Mike was a Navy vet with twenty years’ command experience, including nearly a decade commanding an aircraft carrier battle group.
Mike Thorn could handle a cheap, two-bit merchant of terror like Klaus Kiefel. He was less sure about Tobin – he was a solid, decent man with a deep love of his country, but Grant wasn’t sure about his ability to command a nation in a time of grave crisis.
But before he could consider the matter further, Kiefel cleared his throat and spoke again.
“Say goodbye to Mr Lincoln, Charlie.”
President Grant could scarcely bring himself to watch the nightmare that was about unfold on the small screen right before his eyes.
CHAPTER NINE
Lea Donovan leaned forward in the plush leather couch and stared hard at the giant 3D Plasma TV. She was sitting in the tropical headquarters of ECHO on Elysium, an island nestling in the warm, turquoise waters of the Caribbean. It was most people’s idea of paradise, but what she was seeing unfold on the TV looked more like some kind of hell on earth.
Right now, she was watching coverage of Washington DC as filmed by a news chopper hovering on the outskirts of the city. The news reader was explaining that a serious terrorist attack was underway in the United States. The President had been kidnapped, the Vice President and Speaker had both been assassinated and a no-fly zone was in force across the city. It was, announced the newsreader with grim anguish, a day of terrible national tragedy.
“That explains why the news chopper’s flying so far out,” Ryan said. He collapsed in the chair beside her and pulled open a bag of popcorn.
Lea glared at him. “Haven’t you got any respect at all?”
“What?” As he spoke, some popcorn tumbled out of his mouth and landed in his lap.
“It’s not a bloody Hollywood movie, Ry. This is real people we’re talking about.”
His face grew serious. “Yeah thanks, I got that. I’m just hungry, that’s all. Want some?” He held out the bag to her and she waved it away with a scowl on her face.
“You can be so childish and insensitive sometimes.”
“I’d do anything to stop the scumbags behind this,” he protested. “I’m just hungry, so leave me alone.”
She made no reply, but turned away to see Scarlet out on the ocean, ripping past the window-wall on a red-sailed windsurfer. Protected in the lee side of the kite, she performed a flawless back loop before blasting further out to sea. She never seemed to be still for more than a few seconds, Lea thought. Even now, as the tropical sun was pitching down at its strongest, Scarlet Sloane was still searching for adventure.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Ryan belching loudly. “Gross,” he said weakly. “I think a little bit of sick just came up.”
“For fuck’s sake, Ryan, get a grip.”
She heard a noise behind her and turned. Behind the couches in the center of the room was an impressive circular staircase of tempered glass and Brazilian cherry which lead to the mezzanine and offices on the upper level. Sir Richard Eden came bounding down it, three steps at a time, holding a slip of note paper.
Lea looked at his face. “So I guess you’ve heard about Washington?”
Eden shook his head. “No, what?” As he spoke he looked up at the TV set with horror.
“Terror attacks,” Lea said. “Massive, apparently.”
Eden’s face dropped. “My God, that’s terrible. “ He shook his head slowly and clenched his jaw. “We need to keep an eye on developments there.”
Ryan twisted in his seat. “So, we’re not packing for America then, boss?”
Eden looked at him, confused. “No. Why would be going to America?”
“Um – that,” Ryan said flatly, pointing at the TV set again.
“Of course not. We respond to matters concerning covert history and related anomalies.”
“So Poseidon, Thunder Gods and Osiris yes, but massive terror attacks no?”
Eden nodded. “Yes, and you have popcorn grease all around your mouth.”
As Ryan wiped the grease with his sleeve, Lea looked up at Eden.
“So if you’re not talking about the attacks in Washington, why did you come racing down here looking like you’ve seen a ghost?”
Eden looked at her, to Ryan, and then back to Lea. “You’d better come with me – alone.”
She followed him back to his private office. They took a seat and Eden started to speak.
When he had finished, Lea stared at her boss for a full minute in shocked silence. Then she wiped her eyes and sat up straight in her chair.
“My dad, you say?”
Eden nodded. “I know how hard this is for you, Lea. I knew Harry before you were born, and I was devastated when he died.”
Lea heard the words, but none of them seemed to make any sense. Her head was spinning so much from the revelation Eden had just delivered to her – but this time not in his usual calm and measured style. This time, he had sounded slightly ruffled and uncertain of things.
“Can we trust the source?” she asked quietly.
“Without a doubt. Sean McNamara was an old mutual friend of mine and your father’s, and this information comes from his sister.”
Her mind wandered. It felt like everything was falling apart. They had worked so hard to locate the elixir of eternal life, only for it to be snatched away when the Tomb of Eternity mysteriously crumbled away right under their feet. Then, to make matters worse, Joe Bloody Hawke had stormed off in a sulk because she had kept ECHO and Elysium a secret from him. She wanted to tell Hawke that he was being stupid, that she had to keep it from him – that was the way it worked. She wanted to kiss him… she wanted to throttle him. She didn’t even know where in the world he was, and now this.
She turned to face Eden. He was watching her, a look of understanding on his kind face.
“How many jets are available?” she asked.
“I thought you might ask that. The answer is two of the three. Sasha, Alfie and Ben are in Acapulco looking into the Wade affair.”
“Oh sure, I forgot about that… so I could use one then?”
He nodded. “For Harry Donovan’s girl, anything.”
*
Thanks to the tufts of wheat sticking out of the Jeep’s radiator grille, Hawke, Alex and Jack Brooke drew a certain amount of unwanted attention as they sped along Main Street and pulled into Friedman Memorial Airport.
Thanks to the Secretary’s phone call back on the highway, his jet was fuelled and ready to go, and a small contingent of men in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security who had stayed with the aircraft met them at the gate and ushered them outside to the apron.