The Curse of Medusa

Beside him, Special Agent Kim Taylor checked the mirrors and reloaded her SIG as she waited for a response.

Kimble’s voice spoke in the phone, distant and isolated. “Is that you, Agent Taylor?”

“Yes, sir,” Kim said. “I’m with Joe Hawke and we’re on speaker.”

“Good evening, Mr Hawke.”

“Good evening, Mr President,” Hawke said, resisting the inclination to call him Teddy.

“Agent Deakin briefed me on your mission. What did you get?”

“Frank Watkins is dead, sir.”

A pause. “You mean the Secretary of the Smithsonian?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell are you doing at the Smithsonian? Deakin told me we were chasing a lead about the missing agent, Novak?”

“Yes, sir, we are,” Kim said. “But we got a lead about something odd happening at the Smithsonian, so we have another team going to Novak’s house while Hawke and I went to check out the museum.”

Kimble paused a beat. They heard a long sigh.

“You’re sure Frank Watkins is dead?”

“Pretty sure. He was shot through the head. Looks like a professional job.”

“Part of the terror campaign then?”

“We think so, sir,” Kim said. “But there’s something else.”

A longer silence. Over the speaker phone Hawke could hear the sound of the Oval Office clock ticking. It sounded pretty lonely in there. “And that’s what?”

“We found something a little strange, sir,” Kim said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Some of the guards in Archive 7, Mr President…” Hawke said.

Kimble’s voice rose. “Well, what about them, damn it?”

Kim Taylor replied. “They were turned to stone, sir.”

“Turned to… what did you just say?”

Hawke sighed. “She said they were turned to stone, Mr President. When we were in Archive 7 chasing down our lead we found some of the guards there were just blocks of…it looked a lot like stone.”

“Did you consider that you were looking at an actual statue?”

“No sir,” Kim said. “It wasn’t anything like that. It was like stone, but not exactly stone. I can’t explain it but it’s got to have something to do with today’s terror attacks.”

What he said next shocked them both. “I don’t want you to pursue this.”

“I’m sorry?” Hawke was astonished.

“You heard me, Hawke. Whatever the hell is going on at the Smithsonian and your goddam statues, we have bigger problems right now, starting with tracking down whoever the hell is firing missiles at my capital city!”

Kim spoke next. “Sir, I really think…”

Kimble shut Kim Taylor down fast and hard. “You take your orders from me, Agent Taylor, and I am ordering you to get back to the White House right now.”

“Yes sir.”

Kimble cut the call and they pulled out into the deserted street, Hawke at the wheel. He gave her a look.

“He is my Commander-in-Chief, Hawke.”

“So you’re just going to do as he tells you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Pretty much, and even better than that, as a foreign adviser to the Defense Secretary, or whatever the hell you are, you’re under my command, so buckle up because we’re headed back to the White House.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Hawke said. “We should go back to the Pentagon and talk with Brooke.”

“I already told you, I can’t disobey the President.”

Hawke rolled his eyes. “Live dangerously for once, Kim. Everyone else is doing it.”

She gave him a look as he accelerated the Suburban.

“All right, but as soon as you’ve checked in with Brooke we go to the White House. God knows what I’ll tell the President about why it took so long.”

Hawke glanced down the deserted street, totally silent thanks to the curfew.

“Just tell him you hit traffic.”

Kim ignored him and holstered her weapon. It was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The tropical sunset was approaching, and now the cicadas’ call filled a humid, peaceful evening on the isle of Elysium. “Looks like a bloody mess to me,” Scarlet said, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately lighting a second. As she did so, she kept one eye on the TV.

Sir Richard Eden raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we should extend the smoking ban to the outside areas as well?”

“If you do then you can say goodbye to me, Dickie.”

Ryan suppressed a laugh and took a sip from his drink. Maria Kurikova got up from her chair and kissed him on the cheek.

“I need to make a call to Moscow,” she said. “And then I want to go to bed.”

He watched her slink away into the compound and take her cell phone from her pocket.

“Bloody hell — is that Joe?” Scarlet leaned in closer to the TV and studied the chaos carefully for a few seconds. She was watching a news video from around an hour and a half ago featuring the US Secretary of Defense being driven with some urgency into the White House.

“I told you Alex called me and said she needed my help,” Ryan said. “But she never mentioned anything about Joe being with her.”

“Well he bloody well is!” Scarlet said.

“Are you sure?” Eden said. “What did you see?”

“Joe Sodding Hawke in the front seat of an SUV with Jack Brooke and his daughter right behind him.”