The Curse of Medusa

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Klaus Kiefel looked into the camera and scowled at the world. Alan Pauling had made the final adjustments to the webcams a few moments ago and was now busy typing commands into a laptop.

“Are we ready to roll?” Kiefel said, straightening his roll-neck and adjusting his hair in the polished metal of the distillation unit.

“We’re sure are, Klaus,” Pauling said. “Just make sure you’re ready to transfer my ten million dollars.”

The German raised an eyebrow. “You’ll get your money, Alan. Just make sure this works. I don’t want it traced — understand?”

“There’ll be no tracing this signal to anywhere,” he said, and gave the boss the sign that the signal was live and broadcasting.

Kiefel stepped into the limelight. His fifteen minutes had arrived at last, and he held America in the palm of his hand.

“People of the United States… people of the world — you are about to witness the birth of a new nation right here in America… a new kind of revolution. You are about to witness a new kind of civilization run by a newer, different kind of law — a higher law!”

After a tense opening, Kiefel relaxed slightly and began to wander back and forth in front of the camera as if he were delivering a simple lecture on ancient Greek mythology.

“Your government has been lying to you all. You need to know this. What is casually dismissed as the insane ramblings of the conspiracy nut is in fact the truth. Area 51 is real, and so are all the things the conspiracy theorists say are inside it.”

He paused for effect. “And so is the notorious Archive 7… This too is a real storage facility used by the United States Government to hide some of the most ancient secrets of this world from you, the common man and woman.”

Kiefel paused a beat to let the words sink in, then he started to talk about his mother’s execution. This was the moment he had been waiting for. This was his chance to get the ultimate revenge on a world he hated.

In Washington, Brooke looked at Kimble and his Chief-of-Staff Scott Anderson who were both in his office by way of a conference call, their faces lit large on a plasma screen to the left of the one where Kiefel’s horror show was now unfolding.

“You getting this, Mr President?” Brooke asked, his raspy drawl dominating the room.

Kimble nodded grimly but said nothing. Anderson looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole.

Revelling in his new-found fame, Kiefel continued to strut up and down before the camera. “Your leaders have deceived you. They know ancient truths about your world that would shock you to your core, but they have kept them from you. Now, you will see a small part of the fabric of their lies and deceit come undone before your very eyes! You will see the light of reality and truth as it shines through from the ancient past and brightens the darkness you have been kept in.”

Kiefel clicked his fingers and a tall, muscular man dragged a smaller, older man in a suit in front of the screen.

“My God!” Anderson said. “That’s Dirk Partridge, one of the President’s closest Secret Service agents!”

“Who’s the ape hauling him across the room?” Kim asked.

“According to our facial recognition software, his name’s Jakob Müller, a burned out gymnast from another age, now a small-time thug from Leipzig.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Hawke said.

“Me too,” Alex whispered, moving closer to Hawke and putting a hand on his arm.

On the plasma screen, Kiefel smiled and continued. “This is United States Secret Service Agent Dirk Partridge. Shortly he will have the honor of dying for his country in the most ancient and wonderful of ways, and I would be honored if you join us for that.”

Kiefel directed an insane grin at the camera and then the screen flicked to static.

“God damn it!” Brooke boomed. “Can’t anyone shut this madman down?”

“We’re working on it, sir,” said one of his staffers. “But right now we can’t even find his location.”

“So shut down the internet!”

The staffer looked at him. “We can’t do that, sir, not since the Cybersecurity Act of 2009.”

Brooke said nothing for a moment, looking up at Kimble’s face on the plasma screen across the room. Since Hawke had told him about the new President’s reaction when he’d learned about Watkins’s death back at the Smithsonian, Brooke had begun to harbor certain suspicions about his new Commander-in-Chief, but now wasn’t the time to indulge in conspiracy theories or let his mind wander off-track.

Brooke looked from the President to the staffer. “That’s just not true, son…”

Kimble looked at Anderson, equally shocked. Brooke considered that being in the Top Job for less than a few hours meant that Teddy Kimble probably knew a lot less about these things than your average conspiracy theorist.

“What are you talking about, Mr Secretary?” President Kimble said.

Anderson spoke up. “He’s talking about the Kill Switch, sir.”

“The what?”

“It’s a cybercrime countermeasure, sir,” Anderson said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“Would someone tell me just what the hell we’re talking about?” Kimble said.

Brooke sighed. “Everyone below codeword clearance please leave the room… except you three.” He pointed at Alex, Hawke and Kim Taylor. “You ain’t going anywhere. I need you.”

When the room was clear, Brooke cleared his throat and walked out from behind his desk. “We’re talking about the Kill Switch, Mr President. You won’t have been briefed on it yet, of course. Its existence has been rumored a lot, I know… and there is even some kind of an accommodation for it in the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, but…”

“Wait a minute,” Kimble said, confused. “That Act expired years ago.”

Anderson and Brooke exchanged a glance.

Anderson spoke first. “It did, sir, and it didn’t.”

Hawke listened with interest as Kimble reacted. “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, Mr President,” Brooke said, “that parts of the Act were taken on and… initiated.”

“It means,” Anderson continued, “that there is a Kill Switch in place, even though its use would be highly questionable in law, not to mention the outrage it would cause.”

“But I strongly recommend you order its use right now, Mr President,” Brooke said firmly. “We don’t know what Kiefel is planning on doing, sir, but it might be in our interests to control the situation better than this, if you get my meaning… He can talk all he likes but something tells me things might start to get a little more graphic.”

Kimble looked at Anderson and considered what he had been told.

“And how does this thing work?” he asked.

“You order me to kill the internet, and I’ll make it happen.”

“How fast?”

“Not long — an hour or so. It’s a technical operation.”

Kimble furrowed his brow with the stress of indecision. “I’m not sure about the Constitutional implications here, Jack. This is a civil liberties issue, you realize. The President can’t be seen to be taking over the internet and policing freedom of expression like this.”

“You can’t be serious?” Brooke said. “We’re not talking about freedom of expression, sir. This maniac could start killing people on live TV any moment!”

Kimble and Anderson shared a glance. “Leave it with me, Jack. I’ll get back to you.”

The screen went black and Brooke slammed his fist into the desk a second time. “Damn it!”

“Maybe he has a point, Dad,” Alex said. “The Government shouldn’t be controlling the internet.”

Brooke looked at his daughter with his sharp, gray eyes. “Believe me, Teddy Kimble doesn’t give a shit about civil liberties. He’s stalling for some other reason. Joe was right about Kimble — someone’s pulling his strings… but who and where the hell is the puppet master?”

Hawke’s cell phone rang and he snatched it from his pocket.

It was Vincent and he sounded unnerved. “Did you see that?”

“Sure did. We need to get to Ivy City in a hurry, Vincent.” Hawke ran a hand through his hair. “…because things are really looking like shit from this end.”

“Naturellement, mon ami. We can do this. When you hire Foreign Legion you get results.”

Hawke smiled. It was good to hear the voice of an old friend once again.

“Okay — we’ll coordinate on the way and team up when we get there.”

“D’accord. This is the address.”

Hawke wrote the address down. “We’re out of here,” he said.

A second later, he and Kim Taylor were running to her Government-issue Chevy Suburban in the parking lot of the Pentagon.

Ryan looked at the screen of his cell-phone and saw Alex Reeve was calling for the second time that night. It was well after midnight on Elysium, but he was awake, lying on the beach, counting stars and slapping at mosquitoes. Condensation from a can of Red Stripe lager was running over his hand. He thought of Maria back in the compound, lying in bed… Life was good, for some at least.

“Alex, hi. You can’t seem to stay away from me.”

“Get over yourself, nerd.”

“To be called a nerd by you is a compliment.”

“Listen, Ryan, I know you said Eden wasn’t playing ball, but you need to hear this.”

“Sounds like it!”

“Joe just got back from the Smithsonian and said the guards there were frozen — turned to stone. More than that, I just had a long conversation with Dad in which he proceeded to tell me some very interesting factoids about all of this.”

“Sounds fascinating, not to mention highly classified.”

“Sure, but I know you can handle it, right?”

“Right,” he said confidently, noting the more serious tone in her voice.

“The short version is this is about Medusa, Ryan — as in ancient Greece, gods, and so on. If you’d seen the video you’d have no doubt, believe me.”

“Medusa?” Ryan said excitedly. “She wasn’t a god though. She was more of a… well, a monster, I suppose. Not sure how else you’d describe the Gorgon sisters, really.”

“Right, and this is why I want you here, helping me with this. I can get you all the clearance you need.”

“I don’t know. Eden was pretty clear.”

“But that was before we knew about Medusa. You have to tell him, Ryan. I don’t know about you but I think this has ECHO written all over it. You have to convince Eden to give you guys the go ahead and the use of one of those jets he keeps locked up down there.”

Ryan looked from the stars to his can of lager. “I’ll speak with the old man, but no promises.”