by Rob Jones
“I remember, Lea.”
“But now it looks like I might be able to prove it.”
He gave her a sideways glance, eyes narrowing. “How’s that then?”
“Danny, listen – recently a close friend of mine in British intelligence…”
“Now that’s an aposiopesis if ever I heard one, young Donovan.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was going to say that he’s a very good friend of mine, and he knew Dad. Anyway, he got some information recently about one of his and Dad’s mutual friends – a Sean McNamara.”
“What sort of information?”
“He was killed, Danny. Someone broke into his cottage in Cork and garrotted him to death with the silk cord of his own dressing gown.”
Devlin winced and put his pint glass down. “Now, I asked you right at the start if it was anything too nasty. You could have given some kind of warning – that’s put me right off me Arthur’s.”
“This is serious, Danny.”
“It bloody sounds like it!”
Lea rubbed her eyes. “That it is, Danny – that it is…”
“So what’s this got to do with you and me?”
“Whoever killed him was looking for something. That was obvious because the whole place was trashed, but they didn’t find it.”
He gave her a look. “And how do you know that?”
“Because just before he was killed, he sent Rich – my intel friend – an email.”
“While he was being garrotted?”
“Sure. Turns out he’d set up an automatic emergency send function on his mobile phone. You can send a pre-written message out to any number of contacts just by holding down the volume button on your phone.”
“And how many contacts did this message go to?”
“Just one – Rich.”
“And it said..?”
“It said if he was reading this message, then they had come for him at last, that they were the same people who had killed my father, and that what they were looking for they would find on the side of the sun.”
“On the side of the sun? I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you don’t speak Irish.”
Devlin rolled his eyes and laughed. “Don’t start that again.”
“On the side of the sun is Taobh na Gréine in Irish, Danny.”
“Still not with you.”
“I can tell you never went on a self-catering holiday as a kid…”
“I grew up in South Africa, Lea, you know that. Just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
“My parents’ holiday cottage was called Taobh na Gréine, Danny – a lot of those places are called that. McNamara’s emergency message was telling Rich that the men who killed him and my father are searching for something, and that whatever they were looking for, Dad must have hidden in his cottage.”
Devlin smiled. “You see, now – now – I’m right up there with you. All I need to know is why you’re telling me about this? Surely you can hire a car and drive to the cottage without recruiting an old soak like Danny Devlin?”
Another pause. “There’s something else.”
“I bloody knew it! Am I going to need another drink?”
“McNamara and Dad were both doctors, Danny. Not your average GPs but research specialists. The message hinted that what the killers were searching for might have something to do with their later research work. That’s all.”
“That’s all?! It’s more than enough to be going on with! Garrotted doctors in cosy cottages? Until now I used to think it was a weird day if it stopped raining, but now I see I was wrong.”
“Danny, will you help me?”
“Lea, you know that…”
Without warning, bullets drilled through the windows at the front of Flynn’s and blasted shattered glass into the room with the force of a hurricane. The handful of drinkers dived for the floor and crawled over the broken glass on their way behind the bar. More bullets shredded through the woodwork and peppered the bottles of whiskey, vodka and gin neatly lined up behind the bar. A mix of glass shards and alcoholic mist rained down on those sheltering beneath.
Lea and Devlin leaped from their table and slammed themselves against the far wall. She peered around the corner through the wrecked entrance of the pub and saw three men in ski masks standing behind a black Peugeot 508 estate car. Each of them was carrying what looked like a MAT-49 – a blowback operated submachine gun used by the French Army.
The gunmen swaggered across the narrow pedestrian area toward the ruined pub.
“Like father like daughter, hein?” one of them shouted, and laughed. It sounded to Lea a lot like a French accent.
“Out you come, little piggies,” said another, also French.
Devlin looked at Lea. “Don’t know about you, Donovan, but I think that’s one invitation I’m going to turn down.”
The men sprayed more lead into the small pub, tearing up the word-work around the old bar into a thousand splinters. “Time to die, little piggies.”
Lea didn’t think so. “Is there a back way outta here, Danny?”
Devlin nodded. “Just through there.” He nodded at the back of the bar. “That door leads to a side entrance, but I don’t like our chances. It’s a narrow alley and we’ll get cut to shreds before we’ve got ten yards if they see us go down there.”
“Then let’s hope they don’t see us go down there because I think it’s our only chance!”
Devlin dusted himself down. “If you’re up for it then count me in. I’ve never been beaten by a woman yet and I’m not going to start now.”
They made a dash for it, taking advantage of the night’s darkness and the shadows to reach the end of the narrow lane with their lives intact. Behind them, they heard the gunmen demolishing the small pub with their submachine guns and laughing wildly.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Devlin said, “but I really hope those guys are after you and not me.”
Lea gave him a look. “Oh, they’re after me all right.”
He looked at her, worried. “Listen, it’s not going to take them long to work out we’re not in there, so let’s get moving.”
Lea took a breath. “But to where, Danny?”
Devlin winced as another burst of gunfire echoed down the lane. “Sounds to me like we’re going to need some back-up.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As they pulled into the Smithsonian car park, Hawke checked his phone to see if Brooke had called, but there were no messages from anyone – and that included Lea Donovan. He didn’t like the way he felt about that, and considered calling her, but then put the phone back. She hadn’t called him, had she? He shook the matter from his mind – it wasn’t like he had nothing else to think about.
Hawke and Special Agent Kim Taylor made their way to the main entrance of the enormous museum and saw it was deserted. No surprises there – that was part of the curfew – but what shocked them both were the dead security guards scattered behind the front desk. They instantly drew their weapons and proceeded with guns raised, spooked by what they had just seen.
They took the elevator to Watkins’s office and cautiously made their way inside but when they got there they found the same thing – someone had shot Frank Watkins several times with a nine mil weapon of some description and propped him up on his chair.
“These guys are always a step ahead of us,” Hawke muttered.
“Look at this,” Kim said, peering at Watkins’s computer.
Hawke looked at her. Back at the Pentagon, Brooke had introduced her as his best man, which had induced an eye-roll from Kim Taylor. She was tall and slim, with brown hair tied back in a bun and wore a black suit. It didn’t look to Hawke like she smiled very often.
“What is it?” the Englishman asked.
“Looks like a list of classified objects stored here at the archive.”
Hawke ran his eyes over the data, but the series of code numbers meant nothing to him. “But what are they ref
erring to exactly?”
“It looks like these are catalog numbers for various items. I’m not sure what exactly – but if you look here, you can see he’s written this one down on a pad, in the middle of this pretty elaborate doodle.”
Hawke looked at the agent, confused. “And that’s relevant why?”
Kim rolled her eyes. “This doodle took a long time – check it out. It’s not the sort of thing a man with a busy mind does for amusement – you maybe, but not the guy who runs the Smithsonian. This was done while he was on the phone, and considering it’s all around a catalog number it’s safe to assume at this point that this catalog number here must be what Kimble ordered him to release from the archive.”
Hawke nodded. “This just goes deeper and deeper. We have to find out what the hell was released, and that means we’re going to Archive 7.”
*
In the vast, deserted museum, it didn’t take long to reach the storage levels and take the elevator to Archive 7. Moments after exiting the elevator they followed the same corridor used by Prescott and Reznik until they reached the heart of the secret facility.
Hawke went first, but came to a sudden stop when he stepped through the second steel doorway.
“What’s the matter?” Kim asked, scarcely believing anything could be more shocking than what they had already seen upstairs.
“They’re all frozen solid – like stone,” Hawke said, his heart filling with horror.
“That can’t be right,” Kim said, but one look tempered her natural cynicism. “Oh my God…”
“My thoughts exactly.”
They drew closer to the far wall of the warehouse.
“This door here,” Hawke said. “Check it out.”
Kim moved past the frozen man and stood beside Hawke. “What am I looking at?”
Hawke gave an ironic smile as his eyes ran over the military lettering: X375837-1: POSEIDON’S TRIDENT…. “So this is where Eddie Kosinski and his department hide all their little treasures.”
“Who’s Eddie Kosinski?” she asked.
“Never mind. It just helps me to know where this is. Come on – whatever was in here is long gone now and we have a President to report to.”
They sprinted back through the labyrinthine corridors of the subterranean archive and got back to their car as fast as they could.
“We need to report to Jack,” Hawke said.
“Nuh-uh,” Kim said firmly. “I’m reporting this to the President.”
“But I report to Jack.”
“And I report to President Kimble. If people are getting turned to stone, he needs to know first. You call Jack after the President’s been briefed.”
Hawke gave way on the point and climbed into the Chevy Suburban as Kim hit speed-dial. It rang gently on speaker and Hawke still couldn’t believe they were calling the direct number of the President of the United States.
Beside him, Special Agent Kim Taylor checked the mirrors and reloaded her SIG as she waited for a response.
Kimble’s voice spoke in the phone, distant and isolated. “Is that you, Agent Taylor?”
“Yes, sir,” Kim said. “I’m with Joe Hawke and we’re on speaker.”
“Good evening, Mr Hawke.”
“Good evening, Mr President,” Hawke said, resisting the inclination to call him Teddy.
“Agent Deakin briefed me on your mission. What did you get?”
“Frank Watkins is dead, sir.”
A pause. “You mean the Secretary of the Smithsonian?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you doing at the Smithsonian? Deakin told me we were chasing a lead about the missing agent, Novak?”
“Yes, sir, we are,” Kim said. “But we got a lead about something odd happening at the Smithsonian, so we have another team going to Novak’s house while Hawke and I went to check out the museum.”
Kimble paused a beat. They heard a long sigh.
“You’re sure Frank Watkins is dead?”
“Pretty sure. He was shot through the head. Looks like a professional job.”
“Part of the terror campaign then?”
“We think so, sir,” Kim said. “But there’s something else.”
A longer silence. Over the speaker phone Hawke could hear the sound of the Oval Office clock ticking. It sounded pretty lonely in there. “And that’s what?”
“We found something a little strange, sir,” Kim said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Some of the guards in Archive 7, Mr President…” Hawke said.
Kimble’s voice rose. “Well, what about them, damn it?”
Kim Taylor replied. “They were turned to stone, sir.”
“Turned to… what did you just say?”
Hawke sighed. “She said they were turned to stone, Mr President. When we were in Archive 7 chasing down our lead we found some of the guards there were just blocks of…it looked a lot like stone.”
“Did you consider that you were looking at an actual statue?”
“No sir,” Kim said. “It wasn’t anything like that. It was like stone, but not exactly stone. I can’t explain it but it’s got to have something to do with today’s terror attacks.”
What he said next shocked them both. “I don’t want you to pursue this.”
“I’m sorry?” Hawke was astonished.
“You heard me, Hawke. Whatever the hell is going on at the Smithsonian and your goddam statues, we have bigger problems right now, starting with tracking down whoever the hell is firing missiles at my capital city!”
Kim spoke next. “Sir, I really think…”
Kimble shut Kim Taylor down fast and hard. “You take your orders from me, Agent Taylor, and I am ordering you to get back to the White House right now.”
“Yes sir.”
Kimble cut the call and they pulled out into the deserted street, Hawke at the wheel. He gave her a look.
“He is my Commander-in-Chief, Hawke.”
“So you’re just going to do as he tells you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Pretty much, and even better than that, as a foreign adviser to the Defense Secretary, or whatever the hell you are, you’re under my command, so buckle up because we’re headed back to the White House.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Hawke said. “We should go back to the Pentagon and talk with Brooke.”
“I already told you, I can’t disobey the President.”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Live dangerously for once, Kim. Everyone else is doing it.”
She gave him a look as he accelerated the Suburban.
“All right, but as soon as you’ve checked in with Brooke we go to the White House. God knows what I’ll tell the President about why it took so long.”
Hawke glanced down the deserted street, totally silent thanks to the curfew.
“Just tell him you hit traffic.”
Kim ignored him and holstered her weapon. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The tropical sunset was approaching, and now the cicadas’ call filled a humid, peaceful evening on the isle of Elysium. “Looks like a bloody mess to me,” Scarlet said, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately lighting a second. As she did so, she kept one eye on the TV.
Sir Richard Eden raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we should extend the smoking ban to the outside areas as well?”
“If you do then you can say goodbye to me, Dickie.”
Ryan suppressed a laugh and took a sip from his drink. Maria Kurikova got up from her chair and kissed him on the cheek.
“I need to make a call to Moscow,” she said. “And then I want to go to bed.”
He watched her slink away into the compound and take her cell phone from her pocket.
“Bloody hell – is that Joe?” Scarlet leaned in closer to the TV and studied the chaos carefully for a few seconds. She was watching a news video from around an hour and a half ago featuring the US Secretary of Defense
being driven with some urgency into the White House.
“I told you Alex called me and said she needed my help,” Ryan said. “But she never mentioned anything about Joe being with her.”
“Well he bloody well is!” Scarlet said.
“Are you sure?” Eden said. “What did you see?”
“Joe Sodding Hawke in the front seat of an SUV with Jack Brooke and his daughter right behind him.”
Eden sighed and looked over his glasses at the plasma screen on the wall of the outside area. He turned up the volume to drown out the sound of the cicadas and watched with interest as the video clip of Hawke and Brooke replayed. Beneath the image of the black SUV speeding into the White House the news ticker was running with the headline: AMERICA UNDER ATTACK.
Eden was silent for a long time before speaking. “I’m not going to say this is an easy decision but the truth is this simply isn’t an ECHO mission. I can’t sanction the use of our resources for this. This is an internal American situation and the Americans will handle it extremely well as they always do.”
Scarlet sighed. “Fine, then don’t make it a formal ECHO mission, but give me one of the jets and let me go up and make sure he’s okay.”
Eden stared at Scarlet with his business face. “I said no.”
And that was that.
*
Vincent Reno and Agent Doyle burned out of the White House in a Black Raven Secret Service-issue Cadillac Escalade and skidded onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Doyle was at the wheel, and he knew the city inside out. Vincent passed the time by loading his PAMAS, whistling the Marseilleise as he pushed the nine mil bullets into the magazine.
Vincent had been happy to fly up from the Everglades when Hawke had called him a few hours ago. The truth was, his mission to put an end to a coke smuggler’s operation in Florida was coming to an end and he was getting bored. He was about to fly out of the country to France when the attacks had grounded all civil aircraft, leaving him stranded in Miami. Hooking up with Hawke and smashing the bastards behind the attacks was just fine with him.