The Curse of Medusa

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After several heavy layers of White House security, Joe Hawke and Alex followed the Secretary of Defense into a West Wing elevator where they were met by two US Marines. Moments later they were at the underground level.

“This way, sir.”

As they made their way along a short corridor, Hawke checked a message on his phone and smiled. His back-up was in the city.

They soon reached the entrance to the White House Situation Room and after taking salutes from the junior Marines, a senior officer showed them inside.

Hawke glanced around at the American President’s emergency command bunker and took in the calm but tense atmosphere. The country’s most experienced and senior military officers and CIA officials were struggling to get to grips with the attack.

He turned to Alex and tried not to look like he was in awe. “Have you ever been in here before?”

She shook her head. “Are you kidding?”

Teddy Kimble shuffled across the plush blue carpet and shook Brooke’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr Secretary.”

Brooke gave a cursory nod in acknowledgement. “So where are we, Mr President?”

For a moment, Kimble almost looked over his shoulder to see who Brooke was talking to, but then he realized once again he was now the Commander-in-Chief. He reminded Hawke of a frightened rabbit.

“We’re up to our necks in shit, Jack,” Kimble said, and ran a trembling hand through a fine head of dyed hair. “They killed Mike Thorn and Todd Tobin and snatched the President right off the street down in Louisiana.”

Several of the senior military men gave each other worried glances at Kimble’s reference to the President. An army general cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Sir, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment was invoked an hour ago and you were sworn in on the Bible. You have to stop referring to Charles Grant as the President. You are the President, sir. You need to understand that. ”

Kimble stared wide-eyed at the general and acknowledged him politely. He looked tired and on edge. “Of course, General McAlister… of course.” He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning to pace nervously up and down the room for a few moments while he processed the nightmare. He wondered what a man like McAlister would do if he found out he was in league with the terrorists. Probably shoot him on the spot, he thought.

Over the next few moments information flooded into the Situation Room via a bank of secure phone lines and internet connections.

General McAlister took control of the situation with ease, his gravitas commanding a deep respect among the other men and women in the room, including Teddy Kimble.

“I want updates, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his deep voice exuding a calm determination.

“The coasts are secure, sir,” said a naval officer.

A USAF man stepped up. “And we have a no-fly zone over all of Washington. Should we extend it to the entire country?”

McAlister looked to Kimble.

The President seemed to be wavering.

It was clear that the Joint Chiefs wanted to respond hard and fast, and Jack Brooke was in agreement. Kimble, on the other hand, seemed strangely reluctant to move forward.

“I’m not sure,” he said quietly. “We can’t be seen to over-react. The world is watching, and after certain foreign policy…errors,” he paused and stared at McAlister, “we can’t just wade into this guns blazing. We need more intelligence if we’re to make an intelligent response. Remember, only DC has come under attack as of right now.”

“With respect, Mr President,” McAlister said loudly, “I strongly disagree. This is the most savage attack on the United States since nine-eleven. You’re right — the world is watching, and what it needs to see is some serious leadership and a brutal smack-down of these maniacs. We need to enforce a national no-fly zone immediately.”

Kimble saw he was facing growing opposition and backed down. “All right… all right. The attacks on DC were by drones so let’s clear the skies except for our guys, of course.”

McAlister looked at the senior USAF man in the room. “Do it!”

Kimble walked to the door. “All right, keep me updated, gentlemen.”

They all snapped to attention as Scott Anderson opened the door and the two men exited.

Brooke looked to Hawke. “We need to get to the Pentagon. That’s my home-ground.” As he spoke his phone rang. “I have to take this.” He walked to a quiet corner and spoke in hushed tones.

Alex moved closer to Hawke.

“This is as insane as it gets,” she said, shaking her head.

Hawke wasn’t so sure. “As insane as Poseidon, Lei Gong and Osiris all being real?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that.”

A few tense moments later, Brooke walked back over to Hawke and Alex. “That was Frank Watkins over at the Smithsonian. He’s an old buddy of mine from way back and he just told me he got a very interesting phone call a few minutes ago from President Kimble.”

Alex looked at the older man. In here, he no longer seemed to be her father, but another man altogether — a man she barely recognized. “A call about what?”

“He’s issued an Executive Order which orders the release of something stored in Archive 7.” Brooke glared at them both. “Neither one of you two has ever heard of Archive 7, got it?”

“Got it,” Hawke said.

“Is that normal?” Alex asked.

Brooke shook his head. “I don’t think so, especially at a time like this. The items stored in Archive 7 all relate to… how shall I put this…?”

“Stuff like Poseidon?” Hawke asked flatly.

Brooke realized the futility of beating around the bush with a man of Hawke’s experience. “Exactly like Poseidon,” he continued. “And a whole lot of other stuff you’d never believe as well. Why he’s ordered the priority release of some kind of archaeological artefact at a time like this worries me a great deal.”

Hawke stepped forward and lowered his voice. “You want me to check it out?”

“You read my mind.”

Brooke turned to Hank Deakin, the head of the President’s personal protection detail who was about to return to the Oval Office. “Hank, we’re heading back to the Pentagon, please inform the President that’s where he can contact me.”

“Yes, sir, Mr Secretary.”

As they headed to the door a man in a gray suit slipped into the room. He approached Deakin.

“Sir — we have a problem.”

Deakin looked at Brooke and Hawke with a look of grave concern on his face.

“What is it, Doyle?” Deakin asked.

“Agent Novak, sir. He’s not here.”

“Is he on shift?”

“Yes, sir. As a matter of fact he’s supposed to be in this room right now.”

“Has he called in?”

“No, sir.”

Deakin turned once again to Brooke, Hawke and Alex. All of them were thinking the same thing.

Brooke spoke first. “We need someone to get over to his place right now!”

Deakin nodded and turned to his man. “Doyle — I want you to get over to Kevin Novak’s place right away, and take your best man.”

“No… wait,” Hawke said. He turned to Brooke. “We need to stay inside of this, Jack. We should send one of our guys with Agent Doyle.”

“Who do you suggest?”

“An old friend of mine just arrived in DC and is waiting outside the White House. He can be trusted one hundred per cent.”

Brooke looked confused. “How did he get to the White House in the middle of this curfew?”

“Yeah, curfews don’t stop a man like Vincent Reno.”

“Ah,” Alex said. “So that’s the mystery back-up you texted from the jet.”

“Exactly.”

Brooke nodded. “All right, so here’s what we’re going to do. Doyle and this Reno guy — get over to Novak’s place and see where that leads. Meanwhile I want Hawke and one of my agents to get over to the Smithsonian and check out just what the hell Frank Watkins is talking about.”

Suddenly they were on the go again. Not for the first time, Hawke found himself being grateful that Lea and the others were nowhere near this mess. The thought of her safe and sound on Elysium was of some comfort, at least.

The six men all had Secret Service ID and were armed with SIG Sauer P229s. They arrived at the Smithsonian a few moments after President Kimble’s telephone call to Director Watkins, and moments later were ushered through the main gates and shown to the elevator.

As the elevator descended to Archive 7, no one spoke until the little light above the door indicated they had arrived. Then one of the men said: “Let’s make this quick.”

They moved to the security team, where Captain Aaron Reznik looked at the paperwork. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. In nearly twenty years in the US Army he’d never seen anything like this before.

“I’m going to need to show this to the Colonel. Wait here.”

Reznik ordered the guards to keep the men outside the archive while he made a phone call.

“Sir, I think you need to see this.”

“What is it, Reznik?”

“It’s an Executive Order, sir, signed by the President of the United States.”

Colonel Prescott was unmoved. “That’s fine, Reznik. I’m on my way.”

Reznik hung up the phone and told the men to wait. Two minutes later the heavy, metal door swung open and the tall, slim figure of Colonel Douglas Prescott appeared in the half-light. “Follow me,” was all he said.

Reznik and the group of men obeyed in diligent silence as they followed the senior army man through the doorway and down a long corridor. Their footsteps echoed loudly off the brushed aluminum walls and ceiling as they walked to the end where a second door awaited them.

Prescott punched in a long keycode and the second door swung open to reveal a large warehouse, several storeys underground, built into the bedrock beneath the city itself. If any of the men were impressed by it, they didn’t show it.

“Where is the object?” one of them asked.

“Over there,” Prescott said quietly, his breath showing in the cold damp air of the storage facility. The whole place was full of boxes stacked up to create what looked almost like a maze. He pointed to the far wall, which contained hundreds of what looked like very large safety deposit boxes. “Follow me.”

They walked across the warehouse to the far wall in silence. Something made Reznik glance over his shoulder but nothing was there except the USSS Agents. As he moved along behind the Colonel he read the codes and descriptions on the locked doors of the boxes… X193745-4: ARK OF THE COVENANT… X375837-1: POSEIDON’S TRIDENT… X422387-0: ULTRA-CLASSIFIED.

Reznik shivered. “This whole place creeps me out.”

Prescott shot him a look. “That’s enough, Captain!”

The Colonel tapped in another long keycode and the large door clicked open. He swung it fully open and walked inside.

The men swarmed inside the small room. “We’ll take it from here, Colonel.”

They moved ahead of Prescott and Reznik and formed a huddle.

“What are you men doing there?” Prescott said nervously. He reached for his gun as the men opened the heavy safe door at the end of the room and extracted something from within it.

The agents turned to reveal they were now wearing gas masks and fitting long black NBC gloves on their hands. The man who had spoken back in the elevator was now holding the most dreadful thing Reznik had ever seen, but the young American officer had no time to react. A second after his eyes settled on the horror before him, he felt himself stiffening. His breathing became more labored and now he was unable to move his legs, or even call out for help.

His desperate eyes moved just enough to see Colonel Prescott going through the same terrible ordeal — clutching at his throat but unable to move or even scream out in terror.

A wave of ice-cold panic rushed over Reznik as he realized the Colonel was turning to stone, and was now nothing more than a statue. It had happened right before his eyes, but the realization that the same thing was happening to him, mercifully, came too late, and his world came to an end before he knew that he too had turned to stone.