by Rob Jones
He paused for effect. “And so is the notorious Archive 7… This too is a real storage facility used by the United States Government to hide some of the most ancient secrets of this world from you, the common man and woman.”
Kiefel paused a beat to let the words sink in, then he started to talk about his mother’s execution. This was the moment he had been waiting for. This was his chance to get the ultimate revenge on a world he hated.
*
In Washington, Brooke looked at Kimble and his Chief-of-Staff Scott Anderson who were both in his office by way of a conference call, their faces lit large on a plasma screen to the left of the one where Kiefel’s horror show was now unfolding.
“You getting this, Mr President?” Brooke asked, his raspy drawl dominating the room.
Kimble nodded grimly but said nothing. Anderson looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole.
Revelling in his new-found fame, Kiefel continued to strut up and down before the camera. “Your leaders have deceived you. They know ancient truths about your world that would shock you to your core, but they have kept them from you. Now, you will see a small part of the fabric of their lies and deceit come undone before your very eyes! You will see the light of reality and truth as it shines through from the ancient past and brightens the darkness you have been kept in.”
Kiefel clicked his fingers and a tall, muscular man dragged a smaller, older man in a suit in front of the screen.
“My God!” Anderson said. “That’s Dirk Partridge, one of the President’s closest Secret Service agents!”
“Who’s the ape hauling him across the room?” Kim asked.
“According to our facial recognition software, his name’s Jakob Müller, a burned out gymnast from another age, now a small-time thug from Leipzig.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Hawke said.
“Me too,” Alex whispered, moving closer to Hawke and putting a hand on his arm.
On the plasma screen, Kiefel smiled and continued. “This is United States Secret Service Agent Dirk Partridge. Shortly he will have the honor of dying for his country in the most ancient and wonderful of ways, and I would be honored if you join us for that.”
Kiefel directed an insane grin at the camera and then the screen flicked to static.
“God damn it!” Brooke boomed. “Can’t anyone shut this madman down?”
“We’re working on it, sir,” said one of his staffers. “But right now we can’t even find his location.”
“So shut down the internet!”
The staffer looked at him. “We can’t do that, sir, not since the Cybersecurity Act of 2009.”
Brooke said nothing for a moment, looking up at Kimble’s face on the plasma screen across the room. Since Hawke had told him about the new President’s reaction when he’d learned about Watkins’s death back at the Smithsonian, Brooke had begun to harbor certain suspicions about his new Commander-in-Chief, but now wasn’t the time to indulge in conspiracy theories or let his mind wander off-track.
Brooke looked from the President to the staffer. “That’s just not true, son…”
Kimble looked at Anderson, equally shocked. Brooke considered that being in the Top Job for less than a few hours meant that Teddy Kimble probably knew a lot less about these things than your average conspiracy theorist.
“What are you talking about, Mr Secretary?” President Kimble said.
Anderson spoke up. “He’s talking about the Kill Switch, sir.”
“The what?”
“It’s a cybercrime countermeasure, sir,” Anderson said, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“Would someone tell me just what the hell we’re talking about?” Kimble said.
Brooke sighed. “Everyone below codeword clearance please leave the room… except you three.” He pointed at Alex, Hawke and Kim Taylor. “You ain’t going anywhere. I need you.”
When the room was clear, Brooke cleared his throat and walked out from behind his desk. “We’re talking about the Kill Switch, Mr President. You won’t have been briefed on it yet, of course. Its existence has been rumored a lot, I know… and there is even some kind of an accommodation for it in the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, but…”
“Wait a minute,” Kimble said, confused. “That Act expired years ago.”
Anderson and Brooke exchanged a glance.
Anderson spoke first. “It did, sir, and it didn’t.”
Hawke listened with interest as Kimble reacted. “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Mr President,” Brooke said, “that parts of the Act were taken on and… initiated.”
“It means,” Anderson continued, “that there is a Kill Switch in place, even though its use would be highly questionable in law, not to mention the outrage it would cause.”
“But I strongly recommend you order its use right now, Mr President,” Brooke said firmly. “We don’t know what Kiefel is planning on doing, sir, but it might be in our interests to control the situation better than this, if you get my meaning… He can talk all he likes but something tells me things might start to get a little more graphic.”
Kimble looked at Anderson and considered what he had been told.
“And how does this thing work?” he asked.
“You order me to kill the internet, and I’ll make it happen.”
“How fast?”
“Not long – an hour or so. It’s a technical operation.”
Kimble furrowed his brow with the stress of indecision. “I’m not sure about the Constitutional implications here, Jack. This is a civil liberties issue, you realize. The President can’t be seen to be taking over the internet and policing freedom of expression like this.”
“You can’t be serious?” Brooke said. “We’re not talking about freedom of expression, sir. This maniac could start killing people on live TV any moment!”
Kimble and Anderson shared a glance. “Leave it with me, Jack. I’ll get back to you.”
The screen went black and Brooke slammed his fist into the desk a second time. “Damn it!”
“Maybe he has a point, Dad,” Alex said. “The Government shouldn’t be controlling the internet.”
Brooke looked at his daughter with his sharp, gray eyes. “Believe me, Teddy Kimble doesn’t give a shit about civil liberties. He’s stalling for some other reason. Joe was right about Kimble – someone’s pulling his strings… but who and where the hell is the puppet master?”
Hawke’s cell phone rang and he snatched it from his pocket.
It was Vincent and he sounded unnerved. “Did you see that?”
“Sure did. We need to get to Ivy City in a hurry, Vincent.” Hawke ran a hand through his hair. “…because things are really looking like shit from this end.”
“Naturellement, mon ami. We can do this. When you hire Foreign Legion you get results.”
Hawke smiled. It was good to hear the voice of an old friend once again.
“Okay – we’ll coordinate on the way and team up when we get there.”
“D’accord. This is the address.”
Hawke wrote the address down. “We’re out of here,” he said.
A second later, he and Kim Taylor were running to her Government-issue Chevy Suburban in the parking lot of the Pentagon.
*
Ryan looked at the screen of his cell-phone and saw Alex Reeve was calling for the second time that night. It was well after midnight on Elysium, but he was awake, lying on the beach, counting stars and slapping at mosquitoes. Condensation from a can of Red Stripe lager was running over his hand. He thought of Maria back in the compound, lying in bed… Life was good, for some at least.
“Alex, hi. You can’t seem to stay away from me.”
“Get over yourself, nerd.”
“To be called a nerd by you is a compliment.”
“Listen, Ryan, I know you said Eden wasn’t playing ball, but you need to hear this.”
“Sounds l
ike it!”
“Joe just got back from the Smithsonian and said the guards there were frozen – turned to stone. More than that, I just had a long conversation with Dad in which he proceeded to tell me some very interesting factoids about all of this.”
“Sounds fascinating, not to mention highly classified.”
“Sure, but I know you can handle it, right?”
“Right,” he said confidently, noting the more serious tone in her voice.
“The short version is this is about Medusa, Ryan – as in ancient Greece, gods, and so on. If you’d seen the video you’d have no doubt, believe me.”
“Medusa?” Ryan said excitedly. “She wasn’t a god though. She was more of a… well, a monster, I suppose. Not sure how else you’d describe the Gorgon sisters, really.”
“Right, and this is why I want you here, helping me with this. I can get you all the clearance you need.”
“I don’t know. Eden was pretty clear.”
“But that was before we knew about Medusa. You have to tell him, Ryan. I don’t know about you but I think this has ECHO written all over it. You have to convince Eden to give you guys the go ahead and the use of one of those jets he keeps locked up down there.”
Ryan looked from the stars to his can of lager. “I’ll speak with the old man, but no promises.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mikey O’Sullivan glanced at Lea and then checked the rear-view. “You mean the Range Rover?” Behind them, the orange lights of the Dublin streets flashed on the shiny hood of a looming black Range Rover.
Lea nodded. “Been following us since the quay. Don’t like the way it’s keeping three or fours cars behind us all the time.” The evening was getting on and the traffic, both pedestrian and road, was beginning to thin out for the night.
Mikey sighed heavily. “Could be Benny.”
Lea looked at him. “Benny?”
“Sure, he’s a bookie I might owe a few euros to, give or take.”
In the back seat, Kyle tipped his head back and laughed. “Try fifteen thousand.”
“You owe a bookie fifteen thousand euros?” Lea said.
Mikey shrugged his meaty shoulders. “Got a bad tip, you know? Bloody thing was off the bridle all the way around. It happens.”
“Your luck with the horses is neither here nor there, Mikey,” Devlin said. “Is it this mysterious bloody turf accountant on our arses or not?”
“Don’t get narky with me, Danny Boy – I’m the one risking me arse for you at the drop of a hat!”
Kyle nodded his head appreciatively. “The man makes a good point, Danny.”
Devlin rolled his eyes. “All right, then the flaming point’s taken, but would you just answer me please – is it Benny Euro or not?”
Mikey smiled and squinted into his mirror once again, taking a longer look.
“No.”
“No?” Lea said.
“I would say definitely not.”
Kyle narrowed his eyes. “What makes you say that, Mikey?”
The Range Rover was closer now, and Mikey was able to get a much clearer view. “Because I know Benny Quinn can get nasty with his fists, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know anyone with a submachine gun.”
Lea, Devlin and Kyle all turned to Mikey in shock and spoke in perfect unison.
“What?!”
Mikey nodded. “Guy in the passenger seat seems to be holding a submachine gun.”
Lea leaned forward again and checked her mirror. “Janey Bloody Mac, he ain’t kidding!”
Before they had time to respond, the Range Rover accelerated and skidded around the remaining cars in between them.
“Time to get outta here!” Mikey said, and floored the accelerator.
The Quattro raced along the north bank of the Liffey, screeching past the Customs House, its heavy roar echoing off the stonework and drifting across the river.
“Are the bastards still behind us?” Devlin asked.
A gunshot blasted the mirror clean off the driver’s door.
“Guess so,” Kyle drawled.
“They shot Ciara!” Mikey exclaimed. “They bloody shot Ciara!”
In the back of the Quattro, out of Mikey’s vision, Kyle face-palmed and lowered his voice. “Oh God…”
“What was that, Kyle?” Mikey said, trying to see him in the mirror.
“Nothing.”
“I said they bloody shot Ciara!”
“Is she bleeding?” Kyle said.
Mikey narrowed his eyes. “You’ll be bloody bleeding in a minute!”
Mikey swerved around a dawdling bus and accelerated along Eden Quay.
“Bloody hell, Mikey!” Lea shouted. “You’re going against the traffic!”
“Thanks Miss Donovan – I hadn’t noticed that.”
Mikey changed down and powered the Audi the wrong way along a bus lane before swinging the wheel hard to the left and crossing the Liffey on O’Connell Bridge. The little skull-shaped air-freshener swung back and forth from the rear-view mirror as the big Irishman slammed on the brakes to avoid an old lady crossing the road. She looked up at the Quattro, startled.
“I won’t have the elderly treated with disrespect,” Mikey said, and waved at her cheerily. “You cross safely, my love.” He turned to Lea, his voice lowering to a tone of confidential respect. “We all get vulnerable when we’re old.”
The lady stopped pulling her little tartan trolley bag and raised her finger at the car. “You shouldn’t be on the road driving like dat, ya fuckin’ eejit!”
Mikey changed into first and drove carefully around her. “She was just a little shocked, that’s all.”
As they crawled past her Mikey waved apologetically, but she was in full-flow now, and not to be pacified.
She waved her rubber-tipped walking stick in the air. “Ya tink Dublin’s a fuckin’ rally track now, do ya, ya stupid gombeen?”
“Sorry, Granny!” he said, and moved the car forward into D’Olier Street.
“Bloody Northsider…” Kyle mumbled.
“Now then, Kyle – don’t be like that,” Mikey said. “She’s alright really, and… hang on a minute, I’m from Northside!”
“Who’d ya think I was talking about, you fool? Not that sweet little old lady you nearly drove over the top of, surely?”
Mikey laughed. “I was nowhere near driving over the top of her.”
“Just as bloody well,” Kyle said. “If you had you’d have made a right bloody mess.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Mikey said, giving an evaluating shake of the head. “Maybe the front spoiler might have got smashed a bit though.”
Kyle winked at Lea. “I was talking about the old lady, Mikey.”
Seeing Mikey O’Sullivan’s hard-exterior crumbled down by a little old lady made Lea smile briefly, but it was wiped from her face a second later when she instinctively glanced in her side mirror. “Bastards still behind us, Mikey.”
Devlin twisted in the cramped rear seat and confirmed it. “They sure are – just hitting the bridge now.”
Mikey didn’t wait for a second, slamming down on the throttle and sending the Quattro lurching forward in a whine of squealing tires and blue rubber smoke. He weaved in and out of the light traffic along the north side of Trinity College and headed south through the city. “We’ll lose the bastards down here and then get out of town.”
They took the corner fast, and Lea caught a sign outside a tourist shop. It was offering tours of the Cliffs of Moher. For a second she was back on the cliffs with her father, but the sound of bullets hitting the back of the Audi dragged her back from her past.
“They’re still shooting at Ciara, Mikey!” Kyle shouted. “If you don’t do something about it pretty soon, she’ll think you love another.”
Mikey said nothing, but focussed on dodging pedestrians crossing Grafton Street.
“Like maybe a Passat or something.”
Mikey ignored Kyle once again, reserving his attention for more pedestria
ns, this time walking in and out of St. Stephen’s Green. He turned the Audi toward the large monument on the northwest corner of the green and changed down.
“Oh, no!” Lea shouted. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Mikey never kids,” she heard Kyle say from the back.
Devlin pulled his seatbelt forward so he could lean closer to the front seats. “What’s the problem?”
“Sit back in your seat, Danny,” Mikey said. “Ciara won’t have been driven like this since Monte Carlo.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to drive them into the back-arse of nowhere and lose the bastards!”
Mikey blew the horn and sent a few pub-goers running out of the archway.
Lea shielded her eyes as Mikey powered the Quattro through Fusilier’s Arch. On the other side of the archway, two metal bollards scraped either side of the car and tore off the remaining wing mirror on Lea’s side.
“Bastards ain’t getting a Range Rover through there, are they now?” Mikey said, swinging the wheel to the right and skidding onto the public walkway that stretched deep into the large park. He struck a trash can with the front left wing and sent it flying into the air behind them. It landed with a metallic smack in their wake as they powered forward into the park.
The Range Rover skidded violently to the right at the last minute to avoid the arch and roared south along St. Stephen’s Green.
Lea checked her mirror and saw the gunmen swerve dangerously around a few drunken students meandering along the street. “That was close!” she said. “They don’t care who they kill, it seems.”
“I’ll say,” Mikey said with conviction. “They showed that when they shot at my Ciara.”
A moment later they had no choice but to leave the park and rejoin the street.
Lea wound down the window and pulled a Glock from her holster. She clicked the seat-belt release and twisted around in her seat, a look of focussed determination on her face.
“What the hell are you doing, woman?” Mikey said, eyeing the Glock.