The Sword of Fire

CHAPTER THREE

Hawke and Kim Taylor were leaving the West Wing and walking out to their car when Ryan called back. He sounded different these days. He hadn’t been the same since the death of Maria Kurikova a few weeks ago. She had been shot by a Russian sniper named Ekel Kvashnin, codename Kamchatka, while Ryan was being kidnapped by an arms dealer named Dirk Kruger. He had been the last to know the terrible truth, when Vincent Reno told him on a mountain track in Colombia.

The young hacker from London had reacted by drinking heavily and making erratic and dangerous decisions. He had started smoking again; cigarettes mostly but also cannabis in any format he could get it. Then he had dropped off the radar for weeks. After his absence, the next time anyone from ECHO heard from him was when he texted a picture of his first tattoo — Машa — on his upper arm. It meant Masha, the abbreviated form of Maria… what he used to call her.

Hawke climbed into the car as he spoke into the phone. “So what’s going on, mate?”

“Definitely something for ECHO.”

With Eden in a coma, these calls were now coming to Hawke. There was another man — a mysterious Dane named Magnus Lund who claimed to be part of a far-reaching consortium that owned the island of Elysium. Lund had assumed authority of the ECHO team after Eden’s injury, but despite his actions on the Lost City mission, none of the team truly trusted him enough to put their lives in his hands, so for now he was being kept as distant as possible.

Hawke was in the car now and as Kim buckled up he put the phone into the hands-free set and switched to speaker phone. “What is it, Ryan?”

“Do you know anything about the Welsh Triads?”

“Chinese drug-smuggling gangs in Cardiff?”

Ryan gave a heavy sigh. “Please Lord, let that be a joke.”

“It was a joke,” Kim said. “I think.”

“Of course it was a joke,” Hawke said with a sideways glance at Kim. “Go on, mate.”

“The Welsh Triads are a collection of medieval manuscripts which are centred on everything being brought together in groups of three — a very holy number in ancient Celtic tradition.”

“Go on.”

“Famous texts include the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest, but there are others. They were stored all over Wales for hundreds of years but today most of them are in the National Library in Cardiff. The manuscripts of the Welsh Triads are almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg, and most scholars agree that there are probably countless missing texts out there.”

“Why are you telling me this, Ryan? Do you want ECHO to pay for you to go on holiday to Wales?”

“Like I said earlier when you were chilling out in the Oval Office, I’m telling you because one of them has just turned up and I think it could be critical to our mission.”

Hawke glanced at Kim and smiled. “Tell me more.”

“So this manuscript could be the parent text to both the White Book and Red Book and it’s just surfaced in Boston, Massachusetts courtesy of a private collector dying in his sleep and leaving it to the State in his will. It’s now in the possession of the Boston Metropolitan Museum, and they have pictures of it on their website. They’re calling it the Gold Book or the Book of Gold. It’s very exciting.”

“Sounds like it,” Hawke said with an eye roll.

“But that’s not even the best bit.”

“Spit it out, Ryan,” Kim said.

“You remember the strange symbols all over the idol we found in Mexico?”

“Sure.”

“Well, they’re all over this manuscript as well.”

Hawke and Kim shared a glance. The symbols they had found in Mexico were very similar to those they had seen on the Valhalla idol, and they had been struggling to understand their connection ever since. How ancient relics from places as far away from one another as Lapland and Mexico could share the same symbols had mystified the entire team, including Ryan and Alex.

“Are you absolutely sure about this, mate?” he asked.

“It’s me, Joe; of course I’m absolutely sure. The problem is, the picture on the museum’s website is only giving me a partial image of the symbols and by the looks of the way they taper off the edge of the page I’m guessing there are more that are totally out of sight. That’s why I have to get my hands on the actual manuscript. I could fly to Boston or you could pick it up on your way back to London.”

London. Hawke’s hometown. A place he loved to visit. A place he loved to avoid. Today he was due to fly back and meet Lea. They were supposed to talk to the doctors about Sir Richard Eden, and he guessed that meant his condition was slipping.

“Where are you, Ryan? The latest picture on your Facebook page is of you in Paris.”

A long pause. Hawke knew Ryan was still trying to come to terms with his loss and presumed he’d been on a colossal bender in the City of Light.

“I’m in London now, at the hospital.”

“Any change?”

“None.”

Kim gave Hawke a look of consolation.

Hawke changed the subject. “How much are we paying for it?”

“That’s up to you now, Joe.”

“For now,” Hawke corrected him. “What does Lea say?”

“She says just buy it. She’s drifting a bit. She needs you — we all do. You’re the acting head of ECHO as far as the rest of us are concerned. This is important, Joe. We all know in our blood that the idols are central to all this, and now a thousand year-old Welsh manuscript turns up with almost identical symbols on it to the Mexican and Valhalla idols. I have to get a closer look inside it if I’m going to see all of its secrets.”

Hawke sighed. “In that case, we’d better get our arses up to Boston.”