The Curse of Medusa

He stroked his handlebar moustache and after a moment to clear his head he loaded his trusty PAMAS G-1. The idea of his children being exposed to this nightmare and turned to stone filled him with a barely controllable fear, but he fought it back. It was what the Legion had trained him to do. There was always time to drown your sorrows, but now was never that time. Now was always about fighting.

“No one home?”

He turned to see Hawke beside him. “Not this time, mon ami. I expect they have gone to her mother’s.”

Reaper wiped the sweat from his brow and readied his weapon as they pulled up as near to the perimeter of the processing plant as they could get without giving themselves away. It was a thick mangrove forest. They shut the engines off and climbed out the Jeeps with their weapons.

Doyle was technically in charge of the operation, but had been briefed by Hawke on the best ingress strategy. Now, he led the team around the far edge of the mangrove forest and over the scrubby dead grass which formed a boundary between the processing plant and the rest of the world. Here, on a raised bank, they were able to establish a good overwatch position from which to survey the plant.

Hawke took a night-vision monocular and scanned the plant. “I see the Presidential limo down there. Its rear door is still open and it looks like it’s been abandoned.”

“Anything else?” Doyle asked.

“No, which is what worries me. Where is Kiefel’s transport?”

“Only one way to find out,” Scarlet said.

They reached the perimeter fence and with the aid of a pair of bolt-cutters they were through and crossed the outer zone in seconds. Vincent now saw why Kiefel would choose such a place to weaponize the bacteria — not only was it miles from anywhere but the place itself was labyrinthine in its construction.

As they got closer the true scale of the place dawned on them. The plant was a vast compound of various buildings, storage units and chimneys, all reflecting the bright Louisiana moonlight on their rusted metal exteriors. The wild jumble of buildings stretching all over the expansive compound was not exactly conducive to an easy search and rescue mission.

“Let’s get in there!” Vincent said. “You think I want to be in this country any longer than I absolutely have to, Doyle?”

Hawke suppressed a laugh.

Doyle smiled. “Oh yeah, and I wish I lived in France so much.”

The American Secret Service agent gave the order to move forward, and they headed straight across the enormous car park. Once it would have been full, but now the factory’s disused status had turned it into real tumbleweed territory. Moments later they were pushing into the plant itself, where they fanned out and each took their own section to search.

After searching part of the isomerisation plant, Vincent heard Doyle’s voice over the radio — he and Hawke had found what they were looking for.

By the time Vincent arrived, Doyle was in already in a rage.

“Damn it!” Doyle screamed. “They’ve moved out.”

Vincent felt his anguish as he watched the American agent walk across the room and behold his old boss and mentor for the first time. Now, frozen in stone forever, Dirk Partridge stared into eternity, lifeless. Someone had slid Partridge’s bifocals back onto his stone face. A form of casual mockery which they all knew was the ultimate act of disrespect.

“I swear I’ll kill them all for this!” Doyle said.

Then they heard a creaking sound above them. They spun around and aimed their weapons on the air-conditioning duct grille.

“Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot, man!”

“Get down now!” Doyle screamed.

A man in a security guard uniform lowered himself out of the duct and landed with a gentle thump on the desk. He clambered down to the ground, his terrified face drained of color.

“Who are you?” Doyle asked.

“Name’s Logan. I was working tonight’s shift with Jenny Sanchez…” The man looked at his former colleague, now no more than a granite statue. “We got separated and when I ran out of bullets I hid up in the aircon ducts. I did nothing to save her!”

“What happened here, Logan?”

“They used the equipment in the distillation unit to weaponize the bacteria. That thing… I’ll never forget what it looked like as long as I live…”

“We need more details than that.”

“Whatever the hell they extracted from the head they installed into a couple of canisters. They said they were going to spray LA and New York with them.”

“Where, exactly?”

“The place in LA belongs to the big boss — Kiefel, his name was. God damn it, that guy was crazy!”

“And what about New York?”

“I swear I don’t know — they never said no more about it.”

Hawke frowned. “Great — New York — that narrows it down.”

Vincent sighed. “So what now?”

Hawke took a second. “You take Kim Taylor here and some SWAT and get over to LA. Me, Cairo and Doyle will go to New York in the meantime. We’ll get Alex and Ryan to work on the specific locations while we’re in the air.”

Vincent shrugged his shoulders. “It’s as good a plan as any.”

“So let’s get on it.”

* * *