The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The entire compound had now ceased to be Hugo Zaugg’s peaceful refuge in the mountains and instead an atmosphere of total pandemonium pervaded every corner of the place.

Previously loyal servants to Zaugg were now stealing anything they could get their hands on as Hawke and his forces swept through the rooms and corridors, the gym and the swimming pool, clearing them with their guns and grenades.

Only his most committed followers kept up the fight, firing back with machine guns and leaving booby-traps where they could in order to slow Hawke as he expedited the assault and closed in on Zaugg and Lea.

Now, in Zaugg’s private quarters, the resistance was even fiercer. Hawke ducked low and sprinted down a corridor lined with plush carpet and black and white pictures of Nazi rallies.

“Who the hell is this guy?” he said to himself as he ducked to dodge a hail of bullets fired over his head from a room at the side. He spun around and threw in a grenade, diving for cover as it exploded and fired shards of splintered desk and door and pieces of burned carpet back out in the hall.

“You talking to me?” said a voice in his ear. It was Nightingale.

“Sorry, no, N. Just enjoying Zaugg’s taste in interior décor. He has quite a nifty style of neo-Nazi gothic combined with postmodern whimsy.”

“Well, if you want to talk to him about it his office is a right turn then dead ahead.”

“Thanks.”

Hawke turned into the corridor to see two men with shaved heads standing outside a large oak door. They were armed with Heckler & Kochs and Hawke guessed they weren’t guarding the drinks cabinet.

“Got it, N — thanks for your help.”

The men began firing at him, tearing up the wall over his head and shattering a giant Chinese vase into a thousand pieces.

“Always a pleasure, she replied. “Don’t get your head blown off, please.”

She disconnected as Hawke launched his final assault, dropping to his stomach and firing the machine gun at the men who were, for all their firepower, sitting ducks at the end of a corridor. They returned fire but he made short work of them, and then headed towards Zaugg’s study.

In his panic and rage, Zaugg pulled a Luger from his desk and dragged Lea from his office in the Ark into the hidden passageway behind the bookcase. They stepped into another elevator and moments later the shiny steel doors opened to reveal they were standing on a windy platform jutting out of the mountainside. Lea watched the snow race past them as Zaugg pushed her out into the cold. She saw a single cable-car blowing gently in the wind.

“None of this will exist in ten minutes. You are coming with me as my insurance.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Another insurance policy, my dear. Recently scientists induced an avalanche in the Vallée de la Sionne, which is what you see below you. They used explosives to trigger the avalanche so they could study the results and learn more about these terrible acts of nature.”

“Why are you telling me this, Zaugg? If this is your way of charming women I think you need to rethink your strategy.”

Zaugg smiled coldly. “They wanted to study what they call avalanche motion, and the snow they exploded off the side of the mountain crashed down the slopes at a terrifying three hundred kilometers per hour. Do you realize how utterly futile it would be, trying to out-run millions of tons of snow moving at that speed?”

“And?”

“And I am about to detonate a similar series of explosives, but this time considerably more. They will cause avalanches ten times greater than those of the experiment and send millions of tons of snow crashing down in the valley below, killing tens of thousands of people.”

“You’re insane.”

“Not at all. The explosives are designed to ensure this entire compound is buried beneath half the mountain that now looms above us, crushing everything here, including anyone still in it when it happens. It will take months for the authorities to work out what happened here and go through whatever isn’t totally destroyed. It will also kill all of your friends. It is the ultimate home defense!”

“Please don’t do this!” she pleaded, looking over the rail at the town’s lights twinkling in the valley below.

Zaugg smirked. “I can’t let Hawke destroy my life’s work. Do you have any idea of the sort of effort and patience required to put a plan like this together — to wait until everything aligns? You think I would let anyone else have these treasures? Do you think I would let any other man control the trident or locate the source of eternal life?!” He waved the trident in his hand and held it aloft insanely, as if he were a god. For a moment Lea thought she saw it flash, but it was merely the reflection of one of the lights.

“You can’t kill all those innocent people, Zaugg!”

“No one is innocent! Any one of those people would kill their mothers for the chance of eternal life!”

“Don’t judge everyone else by your own disgusting standards.”

“I will not let anyone else have these riches. This entire compound will be destroyed and the whole valley below will be swallowed by millions of tons of snow and ice.”

Lea was horrified. “I’ve never heard anything so crazy in all my life.”

“Like all the ants, you have no imagination.”

“You’ll kill everyone!”

“Not everyone, my dear. You think I am as stupid as that? Oh, no! I will survive and so will you, for now!”

“Let me go!”

“Silence! You’re coming with me!”

Zaugg grabbed Lea by the arm and dragged her from the platform towards the cable car.

Hawke found the study empty, but saw the elevator, which he rushed inside and ordered down to the lowest level. When the doors opened he was met by the same warehouse Lea had seen, but instead of a hive of activity it was now all but deserted.

Whatever Zaugg had been planning had obviously been big — this place looked like it could survive a nuclear winter. Stacked up along the walls was everything anyone could possibly need — food, water, weapons, generators, snow-plows, skis — the list went on.

“You!” he screamed at a man in a boiler suit. “Where’s Zaugg?”

The terrified man pointed down the corridor, and Hawke was at his office seconds later, bursting into the room to find Dietmar Grobel hurriedly stuffing gold coins into a suitcase. The German stared at Hawke with terror in his eyes.

“Where’s Lea?” he screamed.

“You’re too late, Hawke. Zaugg’s already gone, and he took her with him.” Grobel continued to stuff the gold into the case. “Listen, Zaugg is going insane! Get away while you can.”

“I think that ship sailed a few years ago,” replied Hawke.

“You can't catch him now. He had a secret escape route built into the wall here. It takes him to a cable car which goes straight down into the town. He’s heading for the airport — I heard him ordering the pilots to ready his private plane for a long-haul flight.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” Hawke said, and knocked Grobel unconscious. He disappeared into the secret passageway and took the elevator up to the platform where he too was met by a blast of icy, snowy wind.

He turned and saw the cable car, and watched in horror as Zaugg dragged Lea roughly into the gondola.

Zaugg raised his gun to Lea’s temple.

“So we meet again, Mr Hawke,” Zaugg stroked his goatee beard and examined Hawke as if he was an insect. “Under any other circumstances perhaps I would describe it as a pleasure to make the acquaintance of someone like you, but as it is I’m sure you will forgive me if I tell you I am quite sick of the sight of you and wish you dead. As it happens, I always get my wish.”

Hawke took a step forward.

“Get back! I will shoot her, I swear it! Lower your gun.”

Hawke stopped and did as he was told.

“Admit it!” screamed Zaugg. “You lost! Like so many before you, you tried to beat me, but once again I have won! Ich habe gewonnen!”

Lea felt Zaugg’s slate-gray eyes burning into her as the cable car began to descend out of the compound’s housing and into the howling snowstorm outside.

Now safely away from the imminent explosion of the compound, Zaugg stood motionless and stared at her. She saw him up-close for the first time. He was skeletal-thin, with a few days’ stubble covering his horribly sunken cheeks like thin grey moss.

Horror crossed Lea’s face as she watched him pull a radio control device from his pocket and slide out an aerial on the top of it.

“Please don’t do this!” she shouted.

“Silence! The last thing I will do before we take to the air is push this button. That will explode a series of charges carefully located in the compound and along the snowline of these mountains. The entire valley will be crushed and the compound annihilated. I will survive, however, and so will this.”

Zaugg caressed the golden trident resting in his arms as the cable-car jolted downwards towards the valley, buffeted by the growing power of the snowstorm.