They drove around the Lincoln Memorial on their way north. It was covered in scaffolding. After Klaus Kiefel had blown half the north side of it to pieces with a Hellfire missile the city’s authorities had ordered a major rebuilding project to bring it back to life again.
“They’re nearly done with the repairs,” Alex said, pointing at the impressive memorial. “I still can’t believe what happened to it.”
“Bastards,” McGee said.
“We got the bastards, though,” Hawke said.
He thought about Kiefel and his obsession with the Curse of Medusa that had nearly destroyed America. Today seemed to be the day for old memories to claw their way to the surface of his mind. If there was one thing Joe Hawke hated it was dwelling on the past, so he shook it all from his mind, grateful that they had now arrived at the White House.
Having Brandon ‘Lurch’ McGee on board had its advantages. Among these was being waved through the northwest gate of one of America’s most secure government buildings and then directed to park right outside the West Wing. Another was being whisked through security at high-speed and finding yourself inside the Oval Office with the minimum of fuss. He had never been in the world’s most famous office before, and the first thing that struck him was how it seemed much smaller than the one he had seen in the movies.
“Darling!” President Jack Brooke rose from the Resolute Desk.
“It’s great to see you too, Mr President,” Hawke said.
Alex rolled her eyes as her father gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You doing okay, kid?”
“Sure.”
Brooke locked eyes with Hawke and the two men shared a strong handshake. “You still looking after my little girl, Joe?”
Alex sighed and pushed the chair over to the coffee table. “Dad, don’t call me that.”
“Most of the time she looks after me, Mr President,” Hawke said, trying to defuse the tension. He knew Alex had serious issues with her father and clearly his new job as president had changed none of that.
There was a tap on the door and then a friendly face stepped into the office. “We have an update on the Korean situation, sir, plus there’s the UK state visit schedule and…” Special Agent Kim Taylor stopped when she saw Hawke and Alex. “I didn’t know you were out of hospital. It’s good to see you Alex, and you too, Joe.”
“Just got out today,” Alex said.
“You’re working here now?” Hawke asked.
“That’s right. I transferred into the Secret Service.”
“And she’s great,” Brooke said. He walked over to them and sat on the couch beside Alex. “So here’s the plan. With me behind that desk and you in this damned wheelchair, I want you to stay in DC for a while. You can work from the White House — I had an office prepared in the Residence.” He looked at his daughter intently. This time there was no trace of the now world-famous crooked Brooke grin, just a serious look of concern for a beloved daughter. “What do you say, Alex?”
She hesitated and looked at Hawke.
The Englishman looked from Brooke to Alex and gave a resigned smile. “We can’t go back to Elysium, Alex. It’s not safe yet.”
“Joe’s right,” Kim said.
Alex gave a reticent shrug. “I guess…”
“Good job, darling,” Brooke said. “You and me have a lot of catching up to do. You’re coming with me to London, right?”
Alex scrunched her mouth up a little and frowned. “Do I have to?”
Brooke laughed. “Of course not, but I’d love your company. You’d be strictly behind the scenes.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Sure.”
Hawke looked her. “You get to fly on Air Force One and you have to think about it?”
“All right, all right,” she said, bowing to the pressure. “I’ll go — but no press.”
Brooke clapped his hands together. “You got it — anyone want coffee? They make great coffee here.”
Hawke declined. “No thanks, Mr President.”
Alex shook her head. “I’m good, Dad.”
Hawke started to talk when his phone rang. He excused himself and walked away for a moment. When he returned he looked anxious.
“What is it?” Brooke said.
“That was Ryan,” said Hawke. “He says we might have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?” Alex asked.
“Something about an old manuscript he’s located. It could be critical to our mission. He’s going to call me back in a minute.”
“Where is this manuscript?” Brooke asked.
“Boston.”
“Take Agent Taylor. You’re in the US now and this is her jurisdiction. No maverick bullshit, Hawke.”
“Naturally,” he said, and caught a passing looking of disappointment in Kim’s eyes. He guessed the last thing she wanted to do was leave the nerve center of power to go on a wild goose chase in Boston, but then she said, “Yes, sir, Mr President.”
He also guessed she had no business refusing an order from the Commander-in-Chief.
Mike Clark, Brooke’s Chief of Staff, tapped on the other door and stepped into the office. “We have the Vice President on Line 2, sir.”
Brooke cracked his knuckles and sat down behind his desk. He picked up the phone and waved a silent goodbye to Hawke and Kim. Alex mouthed see ya and then they turned to go.
As Hawke and Kim stepped outside the office, the Englishman just caught the start of Brooke’s conversation with his Vice President, Davis Faulkner. “Hey, Davis,” Brooke said heartily. “How’s tricks?”
And then the President’s Body Man gave them a reluctant smile and closed the Oval Office door.
CHAPTER TWO
Lea Donovan looked down at the man in the hospital bed and clenched her jaw with anger. She had known Richard Eden since she was a child. He had been there when her father was killed and helped her navigate through some rocky teenage years. Now, he needed her help more than ever but she could do nothing except wait and pray and then wait some more.
Beside her stood Ryan Bale, a man changed forever by the cold-blooded murder of his girlfriend, Maria Kurikova. He respected the same grim silence as his former wife as he placed an unlit cigarette in his hand and collapsed into a chair beside the bed. In Ryan she saw a different man now — harder, colder and maybe even a little reckless.
The door opened and Lexi Zhang walked in. She was holding three coffees and after handing them around she sat at the foot of the bed and shared the tense atmosphere with her three friends. After a sip of her drink, she finally broke the silence.
“Any change?”
Several seconds passed before Lea replied. “Nothing.”
The EKG machine measuring their boss’s heart rate sounded a low alarm they had all heard before. A nurse scuttled in and made a few adjustments. She checked the ventilator and the IV drip, smiled at them and left again.
Lea sighed. “How the hell did this happen?”
“The fucking Oracle is how it happened,” Ryan said.
“And don’t think for a second that he won’t pay for it with his life,” said Lexi.
The anger on her face was met with the sound of a fresh wave of rain lashing on the window and a burst of lightning. For a second or two, Lea saw the London skyline illuminated in stark black and white and then a deep roar of thunder echoed over the city and made the hospital shake.
“That’s easy to say,” she said, “but all I care about right now is getting Rich back.”
“That’s what we all want,” Lexi said. “I’d be nothing without him. He gave me hope and I owe him everything.”
“He gave us all hope,” Ryan said. “He gave me ECHO, and that’s the only family I’ve ever really known.”
Lea barely heard their words. Her eyes were following the path of the IV tube as it snaked toward the hideous cannula in Eden’s bruised hand. Looking at his face — thin now, sunken cheeks and light silver tubble — she saw his eyelids flicker and a moment of hope danced through her mind even though she had seen it so many times before. Soon, he was still once again, as quiet and motionless as the dead.
The heart rate machine beeped gently in the background.
Another bolt of lightning.
Another growl of thunder.
Everything was spinning out of contol and she felt like screaming.
The team had split in Rio with Hawke flying to America to help Alex while Reaper returned to his family in the south of France. Scarlet and Camacho had hooked up and gone to Vegas, and the rest of the team flew to London to be with Eden. Now Lea felt like everything was falling apart. Their home, the secret Caribbean island called Elysium was still nothing more than smouldering ruins since the attack which had almost claimed Eden’s life.
ECHO was without a leader and without a base and now she and Hawke were split up and separated by an ocean. Not for the first time she wondered if it was all worth it, but at the center of her soul was the brutal murder of her father. That was the dynamo that would never stop powering her forward until she had gotten her revenge and laid every last ghost to rest. The only way to do that was with ECHO at her back.
“He’ll be all right, Lea,” Ryan said from the other side of the room.
She looked up and saw he had now moved the unlit cigarette to his lips and it was bouncing around as he spoke.
“I hope so.”
Lexi finished her coffee and tried to change the subject. “Ryan, what did Joe say when you called him about — what was it now?”
“An ancient manuscript belonging to the Welsh triads.”
“Oh, yeah I forgot about that,” Lea said, absent-mindedly. She moved her eyes away from Eden and looked at herself for a moment in the reflection of the hospital window. Then she turned to Ryan. “You asked for money to buy it, right?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the deal again?”
“It just turned up in a museum in Boston,” Ryan said. “The reason I think we should take an interest is because when I was looking at pictures of it on their website I saw several of the same symbols that we saw on the idol in Mexico. I haven’t told Joe that bit yet.”
“The exact same symbols?” Lexi said.
Ryan nodded. “Right, which is very odd. If you ask me whoever wrote that manuscript had obviously seen the symbols somewhere and copied them down. The question is — where did the scribe see them?”
“Another idol?” Lexi said, her eyes almost sparkling.
“Possibly,” Ryan said. “That’s why I want to see the manuscript more closely. I asked Hawke to buy it from the museum — or at least make an offer. Its market value is well within ECHO’s budget for this sort of thing, right Lea?”
Lea was thinking back to her first mission with Eden when they had stormed a facility in northern Russia and killed a rogue colonel. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Now she was dimly aware that someone was asking her a question, but she had missed all the words. “I’m sorry?”
Ryan sighed and fiddled with the cigarette. “I said we can afford to buy it, yes?”
“Oh, yeah… I think so. Rich normally did the numbers.”
“But what if they tell us to get lost?” Lexi said.
Ryan shrugged his shoulders. “Then I have to fly all the way to Boston to look through an ancient manuscript or ECHO loses the chance to have another important relic — another important part of this puzzle we’re trying to put together.”
“Sounds great to me,” Lexi said. “Anything that helps us get closer to the truth behind this and take out the Oracle gets my vote. What do you think, Lea?”
No response.
Ryan sighed. “I’m going to call Joe back.”
“Lea — did you hear what I just said?”
She flicked her head around. “Sorry, Lex… no — I was miles away.”
As Ryan left the room to make the call, he and Lexi shared a concerned glance, but Lea didn’t see that either. The truth was she had so much on her mind the stress was blotting out most of the surface stuff in her life.
Eden was the main problem.
What no one knew but her was that just this afternoon the doctor heading his care had told her the former Parachute Regiment officer’s condition had worsened slightly, and she should start to make preparations in case the worst happened. Doing what Eden himself would do, she had kept the news to herself because there was no point worrying the others unnecessarily.
Not until the unthinkable happened.
Next was the email she had picked up on her phone the day before. It was from her brother, Finn. He hadn’t talked to her for ten years, maybe more. That was weird enough, but what she had read in it was playing on her mind. A nursing home in Galway Bay had been in touch about a relative of theirs. Someone named Maggie who had died recently.
She didn’t recognize the name.
They had box of things for her and said it was urgent. They couldn’t find her, so they had asked Finn to give her the box. He didn’t want to deal with it. Not interested. If she wanted to sort it out then she had to come to his place in Dublin and get the box. He was away but he would leave a key for her. The email was typical Finn Donovan — short, blunt and not even signed.
The message had been bothering her since she read it. She had plenty of relatives over in Galway Bay and all over that part of the country, but she had never heard of that particular nursing home and as far as she knew she didn’t have any relatives in it. Now, someone at the home had told her a loved one had died and left a box of things for her to see. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. All she knew was it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
It never rains, but it pours.