The Curse of Medusa

“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.

“We have to get back to DC in a hurry,” Brooke said to Lopez, the lead BDS man. “Those sons-of-bitches killed three of my men back at the cabin and they almost killed me, my daughter and Joe Hawke here. Whoever the hell they are we need the President to respond and…”

Lopez and the other men shared a glance. He turned to the Pentagon chief. “You mean you haven’t heard, sir?”

Brooke stopped dead on the asphalt and the entire entourage screeched to a halt around him. He stared at Lopez. “Heard what?”

“The President’s been kidnapped, sir.”

Brooke looked incredulous. “Kidnapped? That can’t be possible!”

“Sorry, sir, but it’s more than possible — it just happened.”

Anger flashed across Brooke’s face. “Well, how the hell did it happen?”

Lopez shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t have the details, sir. It’s total chaos everywhere right now. From what we can gather he was snatched when he was down in Louisiana.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“I know, sir.”

They started walking again, faster now, and reached the plane where they stood at the bottom of the airstair. A few hundred yards to their right a group of men were refuelling an Embraer jet and readying it for takeoff.

“We gotta get back to DC right now. I’m going to need to talk to Mike Thorn. Has he been sworn in yet?”

Another glance. “Sir, the Vice President was killed this morning.”

Brooke’s face changed from anger to an incipient fear. “Killed?”

Lopez nodded. “He was shot by a sniper when he was leaving his house.”

Brooke looked at his daughter and ran a trembling hand over his stubble.

“And they also got Speaker Tobin — when he was at a football game with his wife. I would have told you earlier but I presumed you knew.”

“We were under attack, Lopez! We had no time to read the news.” Brooke’s eyes widened like saucers as he shook his head in disbelief and horror. “We’re talking about the total decapitation of the US Government!”

The normally hardened BDS men began to look nervous.

“Doesn’t that mean you’re the President or something?” Hawke asked.

Brooke shook his head. “No, I’m fifth in the presidential line of succession.”

“So who’s number four?”

Brooke put his hands on his hips and stared up at the sky for a few seconds. “After the Speaker, the presidential line of succession goes to the President pro tempore of the Senate.”

“And who’s that?” Hawke asked.

Brooke sighed and returned his gaze from the heavens. “Teddy Kimble.”

Hawke looked from Brooke to Alex and then back to Brooke. “You sound unhappy about something.”

“It’s nothing, it’s just that…”

With his words still hanging in the air, Brooke stopped talking and looked over Hawke’s shoulder, his jaw dropping in horror.

Hawke spun around to see a rocket-propelled grenade racing toward them.

“Run!” the Englishman shouted.

The group scattered in all directions as the grenade struck the port engine of the C-32 and ignited the kerosene contained in the wing. A series of enormous explosions tore through the aircraft and sent a white-hot fireball into the air over the airport.