“No, I don’t think so,” Hawke said. “We should go back to the Pentagon and talk with Brooke.”
“I already told you, I can’t disobey the President.”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Live dangerously for once, Kim. Everyone else is doing it.”
She gave him a look as he accelerated the Suburban.
“All right, but as soon as you’ve checked in with Brooke we go to the White House. God knows what I’ll tell the President about why it took so long.”
Hawke glanced down the deserted street, totally silent thanks to the curfew.
“Just tell him you hit traffic.”
Kim ignored him and holstered her weapon. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The tropical sunset was approaching, and now the cicadas’ call filled a humid, peaceful evening on the isle of Elysium. “Looks like a bloody mess to me,” Scarlet said, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately lighting a second. As she did so, she kept one eye on the TV.
Sir Richard Eden raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we should extend the smoking ban to the outside areas as well?”
“If you do then you can say goodbye to me, Dickie.”
Ryan suppressed a laugh and took a sip from his drink. Maria Kurikova got up from her chair and kissed him on the cheek.
“I need to make a call to Moscow,” she said. “And then I want to go to bed.”
He watched her slink away into the compound and take her cell phone from her pocket.
“Bloody hell — is that Joe?” Scarlet leaned in closer to the TV and studied the chaos carefully for a few seconds. She was watching a news video from around an hour and a half ago featuring the US Secretary of Defense being driven with some urgency into the White House.
“I told you Alex called me and said she needed my help,” Ryan said. “But she never mentioned anything about Joe being with her.”
“Well he bloody well is!” Scarlet said.
“Are you sure?” Eden said. “What did you see?”
“Joe Sodding Hawke in the front seat of an SUV with Jack Brooke and his daughter right behind him.”
Eden sighed and looked over his glasses at the plasma screen on the wall of the outside area. He turned up the volume to drown out the sound of the cicadas and watched with interest as the video clip of Hawke and Brooke replayed. Beneath the image of the black SUV speeding into the White House the news ticker was running with the headline: AMERICA UNDER ATTACK.
Eden was silent for a long time before speaking. “I’m not going to say this is an easy decision but the truth is this simply isn’t an ECHO mission. I can’t sanction the use of our resources for this. This is an internal American situation and the Americans will handle it extremely well as they always do.”
Scarlet sighed. “Fine, then don’t make it a formal ECHO mission, but give me one of the jets and let me go up and make sure he’s okay.”
Eden stared at Scarlet with his business face. “I said no.”
And that was that.
Vincent Reno and Agent Doyle burned out of the White House in a Black Raven Secret Service-issue Cadillac Escalade and skidded onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Doyle was at the wheel, and he knew the city inside out. Vincent passed the time by loading his PAMAS, whistling the Marseilleise as he pushed the nine mil bullets into the magazine.
Vincent had been happy to fly up from the Everglades when Hawke had called him a few hours ago. The truth was, his mission to put an end to a coke smuggler’s operation in Florida was coming to an end and he was getting bored. He was about to fly out of the country to France when the attacks had grounded all civil aircraft, leaving him stranded in Miami. Hooking up with Hawke and smashing the bastards behind the attacks was just fine with him.
Doyle had been less enthusiastic to work with him, but they were the orders of the Secretary of Defense so he had no choice but to go along. Now, it had taken less than fifteen minutes to get to Palisades, the neighborhood where Kevin Novak lived on his own in a modest house near the canal. Doyle spun the wheel and took the corner so fast the Cadillac nearly tipped onto two wheels.
“That son of a bitch better have a damned good explanation for his disappearance,” Doyle said as they approached the property.
“I’ll take the back,” Vincent said quietly. As he spoke he checked the magazine in his PAMAS G1 and slid it back into the grip, locking it in place with a gentle nudge.
“We need him to talk,” Doyle said, glancing at the gun in Vincent’s large hand. “If he’s alive, then he stays that way, got it?”
Vincent shrugged his shoulders. “It’s your country.”
They didn’t even stop to close the Escalade’s doors when they got to the house. They drew their weapons and split up, Doyle going to the front door while Vincent climbed over a side gate and jogged up the deck steps at the back. A few seconds later Doyle rang the bell and moved his hand smoothly to the SIG under his jacket.
Vincent barely had time to react when the back door burst open and Kevin Novak came scuttling out. He looked up at the enormous French merc — the last person he had expected to find outside on his deck. He tried to draw his gun but he ran out of time.
“Putain!” Vincent screamed, and drove his fist into the startled man’s face.
Novak staggered back into the kitchen and crashed into a chair.
Vincent moved into the kitchen to finish the job, and saw the silhouette of another, bigger man in the hall. His features were obscured by an electric light behind him, but he looked pretty out of shape and was carrying what looked like some car keys.
Vincent raised his weapon and aimed at the man in the shadows. “Stay where you are and put your hands up.”
“Sod that!” came the reply, and he slipped into a doorway behind him and out of sight.
Below Vincent, Novak was struggling to his feet, one hand on his broken nose and another raised palm out to indicate he’d already had enough. Vincent didn’t believe him, and punched him once again, this time knocking him out.
Then he began to sweep the house for the silhouette, wherever he was.
He paced down the hall and turned at the door he had seen the man flee toward. Now he was just a few yards from the front door and he saw Doyle standing on the stoop. He unlocked the catch with his free hand. “You want an embossed invitation to joint the party, or what, American?”
Doyle said nothing, but cocked his gun and joined the Frenchman in the hunt.
“Bastard went in there,” Vincent said, pointing to the door. He opened it and saw steps descending to the basement.
“Shit!”
They heard a car engine roar to life and then a brand new bright red Dodge Viper smashed through the garage door in a burst of splinters and wood dust and skidded out into the street.
Doyle sprinted back out of the house to catch the licence number but it was too late. The 8 liter V-10 had spirited the Viper away in a cloud of burned rubber and tire squeals.
“Damn it!” Doyle screamed, and kicked over a trashcan at the side of the house.
“Don’t sweat it, mon ami,” Vincent said, tipping his head to the house to indicate Novak. “We might have lost the engine driver, but we still have the oily rag, n’est-ce pas?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Charles Grant tried hard to fight down his fear when Klaus Kiefel took possession of some kind of mystery delivery. Seeing half of the capital city destroyed had excited the German in an almost unnatural way, but this latest arrival seemed to delight him more than ever.
Whatever it was, it took two armed men to carry it into the room and place it in front of the boss. Sprayed on the side in black paint was a serial number: X422387-0, and Grant knew one thing — items catalogued in Archive 7 with an initial ‘X’ code were always related to the vital national interest of the United States.