The Curse of Medusa

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 referring 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.