The Curse of Medusa

CHAPTER ONE

The Englishman sprinted toward the edge of the cliff with all his might and leaped into the void without a second thought. Instantly he felt the air rush up and flow over him. It was a little colder at this altitude. Joe Hawke liked cold air. It brought back memories of home. Sometimes, he thought, memories are the best part of life.

He looked beneath him and saw a river far below flash in the sunlight as he plummeted toward the rocky ground. He noticed he was flying a little slower than usual and his path through the air was choppier than he normally managed. All things considered, this was not one of his best wingsuit exits but it would do, and he could always try again tomorrow. He had nothing else to do.

His suit had started flying earlier than usual, and a few seconds after leaving the cliff he was gliding through the summer air like an eagle. As he raced forward, his arms stretched out behind him, he glanced back and saw he had a tail flutter, where part of the suit in between his legs had failed to pressurize properly. The result made the fabric flap wildly as he cut through the air. He cursed — this was what was slowing him down.

No matter. The valley floor below was still thousands of feet beneath him as he sailed out further into the hot Idaho day and twisted to the right to correct the direction and speed of his descent to earth. He felt alive. He felt free.

As he ripped through the sky at nearly two hundred miles per hour, he looked down again and searched for his landing site. They’d been staying at the cabin now for a few weeks — his way of winding down and staying away from the press. It turned out that saving the world back in the Ethiopian Highlands had stirred the interest of the world’s media. Sending Maxim Vetrov to his horrifying death in the catacombs inside the Tomb of Eternity had livened things up even more, despite Eden’s attempts to suppress the story. At least Eden had managed to keep Hawke’s name out of the papers — he’d rather be hunted across Siberia by Spetsnaz than face a press pool.

He shook it from his mind and returned to the day.

The horizon was hazy today, but the day was hot, and the ground was rushing up toward him as fast as it always did. He chose his usual landing place as his mind drifted back to Africa and the argument he’d had with the team back in Luxor. How they said they’d all been lying to him from the very beginning, that they’d mostly known each other from the start and were testing him to see if he was suitable to join their gang. He’d been angry and walked away from them — leaving even Lea Donovan behind, just hours after she had almost died. He’d been a stupid fool, and he knew it.

Now, the adrenalin pulsed through his veins as the ground zoomed toward him, but receded when he turned upwards and performed a move wingsuiters called the cobra — using forward momentum to pull up and drastically reduce speed. Then he pulled the ripcord and his parachute opened out behind him. He felt the jerk as the chute rapidly slowed his fall and he gently guided himself to the selected drop zone with the careful use of the steering lines. Moments later he jogged to a stop outside the cabin and his parachute fell gently to the dusty ground behind him.

He stepped out of the harness and unzipped the wingsuit on his way up the cabin steps, pausing to tap the little barometer she had placed on the porch. Pressure rising.

Inside he could smell cooking and heard her singing along to a song on the radio. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge to find a cold drink.

“Hey,” she said, without turning to face him. She was busy cooking breakfast. “Good jump?”

“Yeah, not bad,” Hawke said, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge and walking over to Alex Reeve. He leaned over her to smell the cooking eggs. “Looks great.”

“You know…”

Hawke sighed. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Oh yeah? So what am I going to say, Nostradamus?”

“You’re going to tell me to call Lea. I could tell by your tone… Anyway, you tell me the same thing every morning, so it doesn’t exactly take Nostradamus.”

“Wrong. I was going to tell you to go wash up because I’m about to put this on the table.” She lifted the pan to underline the point.

Hawke hesitated to take some bacon out of the pan. “Yeah, right. You’ve told me to call her about a thousand times. I’m starting to think it’s all you can say — plus, I’ll have my breakfast on a plate thanks, not the table.”

She rolled her eyes. “How does she put up with you?”

“Did… how did she. She’s probably moved on by now.”

“That’s up to you, you pig-headed fool.”

“Hey! Less of the cheek, madam.”

Alex served up three plates of bacon and eggs and walked over to the table with them. Hawke knew it had been strange for Alex to use her legs again after so long, but she seemed to have got used to it over time. She once told him that sometimes she felt like she had never been shot, and the whole thing had been nothing more than a terrible nightmare.

They sat down together and he watched the sun light up the steam rising from the plates.

She looked at him. “I know I said it before, Joe… but thanks.”

Hawke put some pepper on his eggs.

“Thanks for what?”

“For saving my life in Moscow, of course. Vetrov was going to feed me alive to crocodiles.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She paused a beat. “You know…”

He glanced at her, forking the food into his mouth. “What now?”

“You never actually thanked me for saving your life in Serbia.”

Hawke set his knife and fork down. “Sure I did.”

“No, not since we met face to face.”

Hawke considered the matter and smiled. She was right. “But I thanked you over the phone the day you got me out of that hellhole.”

“Yeah, I remember. I’m just saying…”

Hawke decided to play dumb. “Saying what?”

“Nothing.”

He ate some of the eggs and swigged from his mug of coffee. “No, go on. What are you trying to say?”

Alex sighed and shook her head. “You can be a real pig sometimes.”

“What?!”

“You know what.”

“All right, then since we’re saying thanks for saving each other’s lives…” he looked her in the eye and his face grew serious. No more jokes. “Thank you, Alex.”

She was silent for a moment. “Is that it?”

Hawke looked at her again, unsure if she was playing games or not. He’d known Agent Nightingale for many years, but Alex Reeve was a newcomer in his life. “What do you want me to do — tap dance it out for you in Morse Code?”

She laughed. “Sure. You should do that. I’d like to see it.”

“Never going to happen.” He ate another mouthful of eggs and some more bacon.

She made a show of putting down her fork and leaning back from the table to get a better look at him. “Seriously — I think you could pull off a tap dance.”

“Too bad — I left my dancing shoes in London.”

“They’re called tap shoes.”

He winked. “But aren’t you glad I didn’t know that?”

“So you say…”

“All right, game over. I said thanks. I’m sorry, okay?”

“You know, since you’re in the mood to grovel, I know someone else you owe an apology to.”

Hawke stopped eating and pushed back from the table. “Not this again. Leave it.”

“Just saying…”

He looked at her as the sun shone through the kitchen window and danced in her hair. She was beautiful, and it got to him that she’d turned herself into a recluse after the incident in Colombia.

“She should have told me the truth,” he said flatly.

“She was under orders not to tell you, Joe. You’re being unreasonable.”

He shook his head to signal his disagreement, but in his heart he knew she was right. Lea Donovan was under orders not to tell him about the mysterious ECHO team and their secret island headquarters in the Caribbean. Those orders were issued by Sir Richard Eden himself, a serious character who, in Hawke’s opinion, shouldn’t be crossed. Hawke respected Eden, and he loved Lea… only his pride had stopped him from accepting their invitation and joining them on Elysium.

Now, thanks to his hot temper on an even hotter day, he’d stormed out on them all back in Egypt. Now he didn’t even know where Elysium, or Lea, was.

“You can shake your head, cowboy, but you know in here,” she leaned forward and touched his chest with her finger, “that you’re in sad and pathetic denial, not to mention totally in the wrong.”

He offered a shallow nod but said nothing as he looked at the food on the third plate, untouched and slowly growing colder.

For a while they ate in silence until Alex decided finally to offer an olive branch.

“Look… I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“No, you were right to bring it up. I keep myself to myself most of the time, but I guess this time I need to open up and maybe I should call her or something. Thing is, I’m just no good at keeping in touch. In my life people just come and go… I haven’t spoken to my family for a long time.”

Alex looked up at him, and sipped her coffee. “You still haven’t told me about your family in England.”

“Nope.”

“You definitely have family in England, right?”

“Yeap.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me.”

Hawke ate some eggs and sipped his coffee. “Look…” he set down his knife and fork and sighed.

Alex tried again. “Just the basics would be nice — names, jobs, how you feel about them…”

“All right, well, it’s complicated, but it goes like this…”

Jack Brooke appeared in the doorway with a phone to his ear. He looked worried and Alex rarely saw her father like this. Something wasn’t right.

The Pentagon chief disconnected the call and stared into the middle distance.

“What is it, Dad?” said Alex.

“What’s wrong, Jack?” Hawke asked.

For a few seconds Brooke didn’t know how to answer. When he spoke, both Hawke and Alex wished he hadn’t.

“That was Deakin at the NSA. He says they’re getting chatter about an imminent attack on the United States. Serious chatter about a serious attack.”

Hawke looked from Brooke to Alex and put down his knife and fork. Something told him breakfast time was over.