Hawke dashed down the steps of the museum with the dead man’s gun gripped tight in his right hand. A woman in a heavy red coat and wooly hat saw him and gasped. She ducked inside the Harbor Garage and pulled a phone from her pocket.
Great, Hawke thought. And now the place will be crawling with cops too…
Sprinting behind the IMAX he raised his gun and prepared to fire, but there was no sign of the men. He saw a fire exit door swinging in the damp breeze and ran to it. Slick with rain on the outside but dry on the inside, it was clear the door had been open only a few seconds.
Stepping inside, the world changed again. The cold air of the day was replaced by the gentle warmth of the theatre heating system, and the low hum of the cars and buses was now replaced by the sound of an orchestral score and people enjoying themselves.
Gun raised in the aim, he moved swiftly inside the theatre until he was immersed in the Amazon rainforest, which now loomed high above him in magnificent 3D on the massive screen. The IMAX customers were flying over the lush jungle in a helicopter, whooping with joy as the chopper swooped over a cliff and dived into a valley. Color splashed all over the screen as dozens of parrots burst through the canopy and flew toward them, but the former SBS man down in the shadows of the aisle was focused on the enemy right here in Boston.
He heard a scream — and this time one of fear. He had reached the end of the aisle and was now right beneath the screen. He saw the men moving stealthily across the apron at the base of the giant screen on their way to the northern exit, but their plan to evade him had backfired when one of the ushers had seen their guns.
Their response was savage. The lead man raised his M12 and fired at the usher; the muzzle violently flashed in the darkness. The young woman screamed again and then clutched her stomach and collapsed.
Hawke fired on the men and the entire audience started to panic. Innocent people trapped in a confined space with a danger like these men was the scenario he feared most. He had to push the gunmen out of the IMAX and away from the public as safely and fast as he could.
He returned fire knowing he had no chance of hitting them, but the attack forced them to retreat further into the back of the theatre. Now, fearing a terrorist attack, the IMAX management ended the film and slammed on the houselights just in time for Hawke to see the men slipping into the folds of the massive safety curtain and disappearing behind the screen.
A voice boomed over the in-house public address system. “Do not panic. Everyone please move to the nearest exit in a calm and safe way.”
No one listened. Scarred by the recent terrorist attacks in so many cities, the men, women and children in the IMAX now stampeded for any exit they could find and a chorus of terrified, panicked screams echoed up to the roof of the cinema. Luckily, they were all bundling toward exits in the opposite direction to the one the gunmen had taken, so Hawke had a clear path to pursue his quarry. He checked how many rounds were left in the guard’s pistol, smacked the magazine back into the grip and continued the chase.
He ran across the apron and leaped up onto the stage area in front of the screen. Behind him the audience were now yelling and pushing each other out of the way even more aggressively than before as they fought to reach the exits, but the Englishman slid into the curtains and vanished from the disarray unfolding in the main screening room.
Gun raised, Hawke ran backstage away from the bedlam behind him. Quiet now — deadly quiet. A gust of cold air emanated from a narrow corridor to his left. He ran along it and then jogged down a flight of concrete steps until he reached the northern exit. He moved swiftly outside and was met by the sound of police sirens as they slowly closed in on the Wharf District Park.
“There he is!” a woman shouted.
Hawke turned and saw the woman in the red coat who had seen him earlier. She was now ducking down behind a parked taxi cab.
He shook his head and sighed. You see me, but not the three goons with machine pistols…
He searched for the fleeing men, but there was no sign of them so he jumped on the hood of a Ford E-350 to get a better view. There they were — moving back in a defensive formation on their way north.
A few moments ago the Ford had been a bagel van but now it was turned rapidly into a sieve as the goons fired on Hawke with their M12s and drilled the vehicle full of hot lead.
He dived off the roof of the Ford and crashed into the sidewalk. He raised the pistol and returned fire. The men were still trying to move north along Old Atlantic Avenue, but Hawke’s fire had forced them east. Now they were sprinting along Harborwalk toward the New England Aquarium.
A dead end.
He scrambled to his feet and dashed down the Central Wharf through the drizzle. A fog was blowing in from the ocean and ahead of him the postmodern architecture of the aquarium was shrouded in gloom.
He followed the men inside the aquarium, determined they would not get away with the other sections of the manuscript. If Ryan Bale said it was significant and ECHO needed it, then it was significant and ECHO needed it. He had learned never to doubt the young hacker and he wasn’t about to start now.
He burst into the lobby area and scanned the darkened space for the gunmen. Screams came from somewhere up ahead to his right. He jogged forward, gun raised into the aim once again. He slowed his breathing and steadied his hands. Relaxed his trigger finger. The guard’s gun had a heavier trigger pull than he liked — maybe a little over two pounds, but he was used to it by now and knew how it would react when he fired it.
He reached a room several storeys high. At the bottom of it was a large pool full of truck-sized rocky islands covered in penguins. Hanging above one of the islands was the reconstructed skeleton of a whale, and through its enormous ribcage the former British commando just caught sight of the men as they moved through the shadows of a viewing gantry to the east of the penguin enclosure.
One of the men stopped to fire on Hawke and the M12 filled the silent enclosure like a Howitzer in an elevator. The sound of the bullets tore through the peace and quiet and sent the visitors into a frenzy. The penguins honked and dived into the water for safety.
Hawke desperately scanned the enclosure for a way to the men but the only option involved going all the way around the information desk. By the time he made the trip the men would be long gone.
Unless…
He leaped over the wall and crashed down on the first rocky island in the center of the pool. Without stopping, he jumped from the first island to the second island and then launched himself at the whale skeleton. Swinging on the skeleton like Tarzan on a vine he cleared the last part of the pool and landed with a smooth parkour roll on the viewing gantry.
Following the sounds of terrified people and automatic fire, he soon reached the tropical gallery. The men saw him close on their tails and loosed a savage fusillade of fire on him to keep him back.
Their bullets raked across the tropical tanks and exploded one of the glass walls. Water burst out of the tank and flooded the gallery with countless fish — catfish, rainbowfish, swordtails…
Hawke leaped over a puddle of Siamese fighting fish and charged toward the men. They had obviously decided that getting rid of the insane Englishman was harder than they had initially thought, and the leader ordered their retreat. Now they were clattering down a narrow flight of steel stairs beyond the tropical gallery’s fire door.
By the time he got to the bottom of the steps they were outside again, and this time he emerged to see them climbing into a small boat on the north side of the aquarium. A dead man was lying on the wharf and Hawke knew at once how the men had secured their transport.