The Curse of Medusa

The shockwave lifted Hawke and the others from their feet and blasted them away from the plane like rag dolls. Hawke smashed into the side of a small utility shed and fell to the asphalt with a smack. He shook his head, blinked and looked up to see the Secretary’s official aircraft had turned into nothing more than a blown-out airframe of twisted blackened metal. Flames poured from every part of it. It looked like the burned carcass of some hideous, dead monster.

Hawke now watched in horror as the pilots tried to escape on rope ladders hanging out of their windows, only to be mown down by the submachine gun fire of the men who had fired the grenade.

By now, the BDS men were on their feet and helping Brooke back onto his.

Hawke ran a few yards to Alex and helped her up.

“What the hell was that?” she asked.

“Up there,” Hawke said, pointing to the roof line of an industrial unit a few hundred yards beyond the airport’s western perimeter fence. “I saw a puff of smoke rising into the air when we turned and saw the grenade. I’m guessing it’s our friends who borrowed your Dad’s Corvette, plus a few of their friends.”

“Well whoever the hell they are,” Brooke said, joining them, “they’re not going to give up after one shot so get after them, Lopez!”

Lopez and the others fanned out and returned fire, temporarily pinning the enemy gunmen down. As the fighting continued, passengers, pilots and cabin crews streamed from their planes and ran for the cover of one of the hangars.

The familiar wail of sirens rose up in the hot Idaho air from behind the departure building. “Fire trucks and police…” Brooke said. He looked at the burning jet and shook his head in anger.

Lopez ran back over. “We took a couple of them out, but there has to be more. We need to get you out of here, Mr Secretary.”

“Concurred,” Hawke said. “And that’s how we’re going to do it.”

He pointed to the United Express Embraer jet a few hundred yards behind them that he had seen the men refuelling.

“Our pilots are dead, Joe!” Brooke shouted.

“I can fly that thing no problem,” he said. “It’s the only plane here with the range and we know it’s fuelled.”

Brooke gave Hawke a double-take. “You can fly it?”

“Almost one hundred percent certain.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alex said. “Almost one hundred percent?”

“It’s me or them!” Hawke said. He pointed as another one of Lopez’s men was shot through the chest and collapsed on the hot asphalt.

“Let’s get out of here!” Brooke said, and the four of them ran up the airstair and into the Embraer. From the top of the airstair, Brooke called out for Lopez to get on board, but he stayed behind to pin some approaching gunmen down behind a maintenance shed.

“Get in here, Lopez!” Brooke screamed.

“Yes, sir!”

He sprinted up the airstair, but as Special Agent Lopez began to close the heavy door behind him, one of the shooters fired a bullet through his neck. The round ricocheted off the far cabin wall, causing no damage, but Lopez was gone. He clutched at his neck in horror as he fell from the Embraer and landed with a sickening wet smack on the asphalt below.

Horror flooded through Jack Brooke, but he wasted no time in securing the door and joining Hawke and his daughter in the cockpit. It was time to take the fight to the enemy.

CHAPTER TEN

The Secret Service agents bundled Senator Edward D. Kimble into the black Cadillac SUV that was idling outside his office on Capitol Hill and made the short journey to the White House. As they headed west, Kimble looked along the National Mall in horror at the devastated Washington Monument directly ahead of them.

They made a sharp right turn and skidded onto Pennsylvania Avenue. With the curfew now in force across the city for all non-approved journeys, the journey took a few short minutes and they arrived at the east entrance of the White House in double-quick time. The Cadillac swept through the gates and accelerated along the drive around the South Lawn. Seconds later Kimble was being rushed into the south entrance of the Executive Residence.

They were met by Scott Anderson, Charles Grant’s Chief-of-Staff. “Welcome to the White House, sir,” he said hurriedly to Kimble. He was out of breath as they paced through the residence toward the West Wing. The nervous faces of junior staffers peered up at him as he raced past them. “This won’t take long, sir.”

As they moved along the plush corridor, Kimble said nothing.

And then they reached the Oval Office.

Teddy Kimble was speechless for the first time in his life. He had been in the impressive room many times before, but all those times it was someone else’s office, and that someone else was the President of the United States. Charles Grant had always been in here, standing behind the desk, and the rest of the room orbited around his powerful gravitas. Now, Grant was gone, and the room was his.

Or soon would be.

But what had seemed like a good idea at the time was now starting to feel very wrong.