The Curse of Medusa

CHAPTER TWO

The former Special Boat Service man watched a brief flash of fear and confusion on the American Secretary of Defense’s face before he banished them from his mind and brought the situation back under control. Now, a look of steely determination fixed in his eyes.

Hawke rose from the table. “What makes the chatter so convincing, Jack?”

Brooke sighed and ran a hand absent-mindedly through his silver hair. “It came through a respected German asset and correlates with other metadata we’ve been collecting for a while now.”

Brooke straightened his tie and pulled his jacket on. The former Delta officer clearly wasn’t going to waste any more time worrying. “I have to get back to Washington,” he said. “The weather’s clear and there’s a government jet waiting for me at Friedman. I can get back in around four hours.”

Alex put her fork down and stood up from the table. “I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Brooke said. “You’re not.”

“Come on, Dad! I’m ready to get back in the saddle again.” Unconsciously, she glanced down at her legs when she spoke.

Brooke frowned. “I know that you can walk again, honey,” he said, turning to Hawke and offering another shallow nod of gratitude. “We have Joe here to thank for that, and I’ll owe him till the day I die but you’re not ready to go back in the field, Alex. We don’t know what the hell we’re dealing with so you’re just staying put. Your mother would never forgive me if anything were to happen to you.”

“Yeah,” Hawke agreed. “Your Dad’s right.”

Alex gave him the look from hell. “Thanks a bunch, Joe. What I could have done with right now is a little support.”

“Your Dad’s right, Alex, and you know it.”

Alex watched as her Dad got some things together and called Coleman into the room. Nate Coleman was the lead man in his Bureau of Diplomatic Security team. He ordered him to get the car ready and brief the other two agents about staying at the cabin to look after his daughter. She could tell by the look on her father’s face that he wasn’t going to change his mind. “I suppose, if you both insist on it, then there’s not much I can do.”

“Good girl,” Brooke said. “It’s safe here in the middle of nowhere, honey. We don’t know what’s under threat but I doubt it’s the Idaho mountains.”

“I guess.”

“And we’ll call you when we get to DC,” Hawke said.

Alex smiled. “Sure… wait a minute!”

“What?” as Hawke spoke he jammed some toast in his mouth and slid his jacket on.

“If I can’t go, then you can’t go!”

“Why not?” the Englishman said matter-of-factly.

“We don’t have time for this,” Brooke said. “Alex, you’re staying here with two of my best guys protecting you — Regan and Walsh — Joe and I are going to DC. No more discussion.”

“But Dad, if —”

The unit sent to kill them arrived like lightning. They were wearing all black with balaclavas and carrying identical Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine guns fitted with suppressors.

Alex saw them first over her father’s shoulder as the back of Special Agent Regan’s skull blew off and he fell back into the plates of food on the table with a tremendous crash. A second later shots rang out all over the front of the cabin and then they all heard a burst of submachine gun fire and saw Agent Walsh slump to the ground on the patio — a pool of blood forming around his silent corpse.

Hawke spun around, reaching for the Beretta M9 on the breakfast bar and screaming at Jack Brooke and his daughter to dive for cover. He ducked down behind the wooden bar as more automatic fire raked the wall of Brooke’s kitchen and sprayed all over the side of the living room. Shards of splintered oak panel burst all over the room as the bullets ripped through the furniture and walls. A large deer antler trophy was blasted from the wall above the fireplace and shattered on the hearth.

One of the men threw a grenade into the room and screamed at them: “Goodbye, Mr Secretary!”

Hawke saw it first and picked it up, hurling it through the open double doors of the living room where it exploded on the patio and blasted the glass from the windows and doors back into the room in a lethal shower.

Special Agent Coleman ran into the room, firing bursts from his handgun at the gunmen as he closed in on Brooke. “The car’s ready, Mr Secretary. We have to get you out of here, sir!”

“Like hell you do!” Brooke shouted. “You get my girl to safety first.” As he spoke he wrenched a Smith & Wesson .45 from an inside pocket and fired back at the men in the kitchen. He hit one of them, the three bullets exploding in his chest and sending him staggering back out the door where he collapsed on the porch steps.

“Look out!” Hawke tried to push Coleman to safety but it was too late. Another shooter in the garden had targeted the Special Agent and Hawke watched with horror as a small red dot laser-sight tracked up Coleman’s back and stopped on the rear of his head. Coleman was dead before he hit the floor, and still the bullets came flying.

Another gunman made some headway toward the double doors before Hawke used the M9 to drop him with a lethal neck shot. His mind buzzed as he considered the various options open to them. Clearly they were under massive attack, and it was also obvious the target, just for once, wasn’t him but the Secretary of Defense. He had no idea if other senior members of the US Government were also under attack, but focussed instead on defending Jack Brooke and his daughter. Everything else could be considered when they were safe.

The situation wasn’t new to Hawke — he had worked in high-level security positions before, the most prominent one being when he was charged to protect a delegation of British Government ministers on a trade mission to Zambia. It went well until the last minute, and then things could have gone a lot more smoothly. At the last minute everything went badly wrong for the British delegation, but why had always been a mystery.

It was during his time in Lusaka that he had met Zhang Xiaoli, otherwise known as Lexi Zhang. Agent Dragonfly had been in the country investigating some kind of problem that concerned the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, or that was how she had put it to him, at least. He had enjoyed her company. They made each other laugh, but they both felt the undercurrent of forbidden excitement, the subterfuge that was always there when dealing with an agent working for a foreign power.

That was then and this was now. Now he wasn’t defending a team of middle-ranking British Civil Servants, but the man who gave all operational commands to the Pentagon — the American Secretary of Defense, one of the most powerful men on the planet — and he was under mortal threat at the hands of a team of highly trained professional assassins.

But Hawke had no time to think about the bigger picture now. Right now his priority was to lead Brooke and Alex to safety, and he had to think fast.

“Jack, can we get to the garage from here?”

Brooke nodded. “Sure, but if you’re thinking about a car forget it. I don’t keep my cars in the garage. I use the garage as a workshop and all the cars are parked in the outbuilding across the yard and through the trees.”

“That’s handy,” Hawke said.

“We can get there through the garage though,” Brooke said. “But it’s going to be tough.”

Hawke nodded. “Sounds like we have no choice, but we have to do all we can to get you out of here — both of you.”

As the bullets traced over their heads, Alex held Hawke’s arm. “If anyone can do it, I guess that man’s you.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Hawke said, ducking to dodge another bullet, “but normally I have you on the other end of a headset telling me what to do.”

“All right, then,” Brooke said, checking his weapon. “Let’s do this. We have a country to save.”