The Curse of Medusa

“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.

“What 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.