The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Vetsch’s apartment was a luxurious affair above a cyber café in Les Pâquis, a bohemian district on Geneva’s right bank. Despite the cold and the hour, people milled about in the streets outside, laughing and joking. As Hawke and Lea climbed the apartment steps, a young couple stepped into an Italian restaurant opposite, kissing as they opened the door.

“Seems like too a nice place for such a scumbag,” Lea said.

“All paid for by Zaugg, no doubt,” said Hawke.

They opened the door with Vetsch’s keys and took a quick look around — minimalist, clean lines, empty cupboards. On a glass coffee table was a copy of Plato’s Immortality of the Soul. Lea picked it up.

“A little heavy for a man like Kaspar Vetsch, wouldn’t you say?”

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est,” Hawke muttered under his breath.

Lea stepped into the back of the apartment, gun raised in defense, while Hawke began a search of the main living space. It was open-plan and had few hiding places. The search ended with a look through the kitchen cupboards.

“Anything back there?” he shouted.

“Maybe. You?”

“Nothing, Just instant coffee and some vodka — and a packet of old biscuits.”

“Sounds like he was a real party animal,” Lea said as she walked back into the lounge. “I found this in his bedroom. Check it out.”

She handed Hawke a manila folder three inches thick.

“What is it?” he asked, opening it.

“Looks like Vetsch’s career. By the looks of the files inside I’d say it was a list of his hits.”

Hawke looked through the folder. “This could be something,” he said, passing a file back to Lea. It was a single sheet of paper with a black and white mugshot of a man in the top center. “All the others have a nice red line through their faces but not this guy — and check out his name.”

Lea read the file. “Yannis Demetriou. Should I know him?”

“Look at his occupation.” He pointed at some text at the bottom of the page.

Lea read on, her eyes widening. “Professor of Classical Antiquities at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. My God — this must be his next hit.”

“I think so. And now Vetsch isn’t around to do it I guess Zaugg will just hire someone else, maybe even this Baumann maniac. We have half the golden arc, but the other half is still in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Zaugg can’t know that, because only we know that the Poseidon Vase contained only half the code.”

“But he must know he needs a specialist like Demetriou to translate or he wouldn’t have had Vetsch put him on his hit list. We have to get to him first, Joe. Heaven only knows what they’ll do to him if they get their hands on him.”

“You’re right. We have to warn him. Get his number from the internet if you can.”

Lea started searching on her iPhone.

There was a knock on the door and Scarlet walked into the room spinning the Lexus’s keys on her finger. “Honey, I’m home,” she said. “And I brought the kid, too.”

“Who?” Ryan asked, looking over his shoulder. “Oh, very funny.”

“Any news?” Scarlet asked, flopping into Vetsch’s white leather sofa and quickly arranging her hair.

“You mean apart from Vetsch’s tragic end on the banks of the Rhône?” Hawke asked.

“Of course.”

“Just this,” Lea handed Scarlet Vetsch’s hitlist.

“Oh my goodness gracious me,” Scarlet purred. “He was a naughty boy. He must have been one of the most active hitmen in Europe.”

“Western Europe, actually,” said a voice behind her.

They all spun around, guns raised.

Standing in the doorway was a young woman, standing alone, her hands raised in anticipation of their defensive reaction. She had dark brown hair, and was in her mid-twenties, tall and confident. Her eyes were intelligent and keen, but a weariness in them told Hawke she’d been around the block a few times.

“Who are you?” Hawke asked, Sig pointed squarely in her face, unwavering.

“My name is Sophie Durand,” she said. “I’m with the DGSE.”

“And who are they when they’re at home?” Ryan asked, looking up from his MacBook.

“The DGSE,” explained Hawke, “is the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, or, in English, the General Directorate for External Security. It’s the French equivalent of MI6 or CIA.”

“Oh, French secret service” Ryan said, going back to his computer. “What’s she doing here?”

“She wanted to check out Kaspar Vetsch’s interior design and ask him a few tips,” Scarlet said. “What do you think she wants here?”

“And you’ve been following us since when?” Lea asked.

“Since your little escapade all over Genève,” she replied. “The Swiss are watching you too.”

“But they don’t know you’re here?” Hawke said.

Sophie shook her head. “Of course not. I am very good at what I do.”

“We’re going to need some ID here,” Lea said.

Sophie opened her jacket so they could see the inside and slowly pulled out a thin black wallet. She held it forward and Scarlet casually took it and flipped it open. “In the old days this would have been enough,” she said, passing it to Hawke. “But these days…”

“Cairo’s right. Lea, take her picture and email it to the boss.”

Lea snapped a picture of her face and moments later a text came back from Sir Richard Eden.

“He says she’s legit,” she said.

They lowered their weapons and Hawke patted her down. In her shoulder holster he found a nine millimeter semi-automatic PAMAS G1s.

“Anything else?” Lea asked.

“Just a Beretta.” Hawke pulled it out of the holster and took a step back. “You can have this back when I trust you, and that’s going to take some time. You can start by telling us everything you know and why you’re here, exactly.”

Sophie sank into the sofa opposite Scarlet, who then kicked Ryan’s leg.

“Eh — what was that for?”

“Coffee, boy,” Scarlet said, flicking her head at the kitchen.

“I’m not your coffee bitch, you know,” he said.

“Sorry,” she said, “but you really are.”

“Just get some freaking coffee, would you, Ryan?” Lea said.

“And try and find some of those little French madeleine biscuits,” Hawke said. “I like those.”

Ryan flounced up from the MacBook and stormed into the kitchen, muttering to himself. He made no secret of his displeasure by slamming cupboard doors and cursing as he prepared the coffee.

Across the room, Sophie sat in the low light and started to talk.

“Paris knows Hugo Zaugg is up to something, but we also know how limited our understanding of him and his plans are. I have been cleared to make contact with you and ask if we can work together. My government has grave concerns about why Zaugg is so keen on finding the vault of Poseidon…”

Hawke and Lea shared a look at the mention of the Greek god. How much did other governments know about this? What were they keeping secret from the public?

“…and more particularly about what he might find inside it. And so when we detected your chatter — the buzzwords you used — I was put on your tail and so here I am. That is my story. What about yours?”

The others looked at each other for a moment. Hawke shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “Here,” he said, handing her the folder. “As if my day could get any weirder than living Greek gods and trident superweapons. Knock yourself out.”

“What is it?” she asked.

Hawke said: “It’s a folder containing the hitlist of Kaspar Vetsch. You obviously know him from what you said when you made your introduction.”

“Somewhat melodramatic introduction as well,” Scarlet sighed, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course we know Vestch. All the security services know him, and Baumann too. They are both thugs, but Baumann is more strategic shall we say, and Vetsch was more tactical.”

“In that folder is a list of all his hits, or what we presume to be his hits as they’re all crossed through with red pen.”

“This is true,” Sophie said, pointing at one of the files. “This man is Bernard Dupont, a big hitter in the Marseille underworld — crack cocaine, prostitution — you name it. Last week he was found dead in his apartment, shot through the heart.”

Hawke frowned. “Sounds like Vetsch. If you look at the back you’ll see a file with a picture that hasn’t been crossed out yet. His name is Yannis Demetriou and he works in Athens as a professor of classical antiquities. We think he was Vetsch’s next job.”

Lea spoke next. “He was probably going to kidnap him and torture him for information relating to the tomb. They did the same thing with an English professor called Lucy Fleetwood. They shot her through the heart and killed her.”

“He was an absolute pyscho,” Ryan said, arriving at the table and giving everyone an unimpressed look as he handed them the coffee mugs.

“If you think he was a psycho, you need to stay away from Heinrich Baumann,” Sophie said, sipping the hot coffee. She peered into the cup and frowned.

“Don’t blame me,” said Ryan. “It was all he had, and sorry, Joe — but no madeleines. I did find a packet of macaroons, so you can try your luck on those. They’re six months out of date.”

“It’s tempting, but no thanks.”

“I’m going to have one,” Ryan said, pulling the packet off the tray.

Hawke slurped his coffee. “Damn that’s hot, Rupert.”

“An inevitable consequence of having boiling water in it.”

“Didn’t you say the biscuits were six months old?” Hawke asked as he watched Ryan munching through one.

“That’s nothing to him,” Lea said. “You should see the fridge in his flat. They’ll need to irradiate it before they dump it.”

Ryan laughed. “It’s not that bad, Lea.”

“Nonsense — there’s more culture in there than Geneva.”

“You’re so funny,” said Ryan.

Hawke turned to Lea. “Any luck with Demetriou’s address?”

“Not really, just his phone number at the university but it’s too late for him to be at work now.”

“We need to get our arses to Athens,” Hawke said, finishing his coffee with a single gulp and setting the cup down on the table with a hefty smack. “We know the vase with the second half of the riddle is there and now we know Zaugg is somehow on the trail too because he was about to set Vetsch on Demetriou. He won’t stop until he gets what he wants and that means Demetriou is in grave danger.”

“How can we get there this time of night?” Ryan said.

“Leave that to me,” Sophie said.

“So let's do it then,” said Hawke.

“We’re making progress!” Ryan said.

Hawke looked at him doubtfully. “I think the war with Zaugg is just about to start.”

On the way to the airport, Hawke sent a text to Nightingale.

“I think that’s our ride,” Hawke said, pointing to a long, white jet. Some men in boiler suits were uncoupling a fuelling nozzle from its wing while the captain was conducting the pre-flight inspection of the aircraft, checking for fluid leaks and casting an expert eye over the pitot tubes.

The plane was a Cessna Citation X, a long-range jet with the distinction of being the fastest civilian aircraft on earth. How Sophie had obtained one at such short notice had not gone unquestioned by Lea, but she decided to leave it for later.

The main entry door at the front of the cabin featured an integral three-step airstair design and as they climbed up them the solid titanium blades of the twin Rolls Royce engines began to whir to life.

Inside, to the left, the first officer was beginning the flight plans and to the right was the passenger cabin. Eight white leather seats in dim blue lighting and a walnut-veneer drinks cabinet. The co-pilot pushed a button and all of the porthole covers gently opened.

They strapped in and the engines powered up. A few moments later they were racing from the ground, gear up. The Citation banked right hard and as the city lights of Geneva slipped away behind the aircraft, it straightened up and head southwest to Athens, soaring high above the clouds and racing toward the rising sun.

Lea Donovan drifted in and out of her nightmares as she watched glimpses of the Adriatic Sea through breaks in the cumulus far below. She felt a terrible sense of foreboding.

She looked over her shoulder and saw that Hawke was asleep. He looked younger now, taken away from reality by the soft glow of unconsciousness. She could see what his wife must have seen in him, but wondered whether a man like Joe Hawke could ever be happy in a real relationship.

He had mentioned Liz, but never discussed anything about her except the most casual detail, and then there was this mysterious woman in New York whom he claimed he knew only by her former CIA codename — Nightingale.

Even though she was more than a little intrigued by this strange American woman with no real identity, she would never give Joe Hawke the satisfaction of asking anything more about her than he had already volunteered. But that didn’t stop her wondering if his story about not knowing her was a lie and whether they had ever slept together.

Next to Hawke was Ryan, her former husband — now a disillusioned dropout and hacker extraordinaire, who used his unfathomable computer skills to keep the wolf from the door. He was several years younger than her and the divorce had hit him like a truck, throwing him off the rails in a big way. Before that he was different somehow, more out-going and confident, but after their marriage collapsed he had changed. It was then he turned inwards and started hacking.

Lea once again blamed herself for everything that had happened between them and slowly fell asleep.

Hawke woke from his sleep and stared out the window of the luxury jet, but all he saw was Liz’s kind, loving face. She had not found it easy to adjust when he moved from the commandos to the SBS. The demands were different, and so were the hours.

Worse, most of the missions he went on had secret or top secret security classifications so he couldn’t talk to her about them, which made it hard on both of them as the years wore on.

But she loved him enough to marry him, and they were married in a small church on the southern English coast. They could never have known what would unfold twenty-four hours later in Vietnam.

When everything changed.

Hawke squeezed the soft leather armrest of his seat on board the Citation and nearly tore the stuffing out. His attention snapped back to reality. Somewhere forty thousand feet below them was the Adriatic Sea. Above a thin layer of cirrostratus clouds the light of the moon reflected back out into space, where thousands of bright stars sparkled more brightly than anything he had seen from the ground.

He turned back to Lea to see she was falling asleep. What was she thinking about, he wondered? Somewhere behind them he heard Ryan begging Scarlet for his MacBook back. Sophie was up front talking to the pilots.

Then his iPhone rang.

Nightingale.

“N, hi.”

“Buenos noches, Joe.”

“You’re calling to teach me Spanish?”

“I’m calling because I’ve got that info you requested on your new friend.”

“I didn’t realize you could phone me on the plane,” he said.

He heard her sigh. “Sure,” she said. “High-capacity ka-band satellites have been in operation on commercial jets for ages. You can have phone calls, internet, whatever you like.”

Hawke got up from his seat and smiled at Lea, mouthing the word Nightingale as he walked past her to the rear of the plane. Lea rolled her eyes and nestled into her seat to go to sleep.

Hawke leaned against the toilet door.

“She has an interesting past. Last name Durand, born 29th June 1985, making her thirty years old. Former officer with the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, which is the French version of CIA or MI6.”

“I know all this — I’m not a complete idiot.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. You’re only partially an idiot.”

“We seem to be veering from the point…”

“Ah yes — Durand. She worked for DGSE for ten years, ending up a very senior rank, but then she left and I’ll be damned if I can find where.”

“She left the DGSE? When exactly?”

“About six months ago.”

“So she’s lying to us.”

Hawke thought for a few moments, and frowned. “She never said anything to me about this — in fact she told us she’d been cleared by the DGSE to work with us.”

“So maybe she’s working alone.”

“No way. She got us a private jet with no notice at all. She’s working for someone powerful and now we know it’s not the DGSE. Anything else?”

“Not really — both her parents are French, all from Marseille in the south — her address is Rue de Berceau in La Mulatière, and not much else, except — wait a minute.”

“What have you found?”

There was a long pause.

“It could be nothing, but given what you’re doing right now it could be relevant. I just took a look at her foreign missions that she undertook for the DGSE before quitting and it looks like she volunteered to work jobs in Switzerland and Greece. Like I said, it could be nothing, but then again…”

“It could hardly be a coincidence that those places are all related in some way to the search for Poseidon’s tomb.”

“Just what I was thinking — from Zaugg’s pad in Switzerland, all the way to Athens, it matches up perfectly.”

“You’re not just a pretty face, N,” Hawke said, deciding to keep the information she had just given him to himself for now. “Why won’t you tell me your name?”

“Ah! This again…”

“We could have dinner. I promise I won’t bring my Glock.”

“What sort of use would you be without that?”

“You might be surprised. I’m serious. Tell me your name.”

“How are you going to stop Zaugg, Joe?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Just interested.”

Hawke sighed.