Then, the door to the bathroom opened, and she spun around to see the figure of a tall man entering the room. The soap stung her eyes, and she tried to rub it away while simultaneously tracking the path of the man as he approached through the steam.
He swung open the door and lunged at her. Dressed in black, stubble. Not Ryan or Hawke. She reacted fast, but slipped on the water and fell over backwards, almost knocking herself out.
The man pulled a knife from his belt and thrust it forward. Lea screamed and lashed out, landing a solid kick in the man’s groin.
He doubled over reaching instinctively to protect his balls, but Lea’s army training kicked in and she grabbed the shower gel bottle and rammed it into his face, splitting his lip and ramming hard into the columella of his nose. Blood sprayed out into the tiny cubicle and over her naked body.
The man lurched back now reaching for his lip, cursing. He waved the knife blindly in the steam as she slipped out of the shower and into the hotel room. She tried to open the door but the man grabbed her arm and yanked her back onto the bed.
She screamed and punched the man in the throat.
He gasped and strained to suck air into his lungs.
She screamed again, and tried to bring her knee up into the man’s groin a second time, but this time he was ready, grabbing her knee and almost crushing it as he forced it to her side.
He gripped the knife and pushed it towards her throat.
Then the door smashed open. It was Hawke.
He grabbed the assailant by the shoulders and pulled him away from her, spinning him around and landing an eye-watering punch in his nose which gave away like papier-maché under the force of his heavy fist.
Lea scrambled to cover herself with the nearest thing to hand — the duvet.
The man staggered back until he struck the windowsill.
Hawke stormed forward, pulled his hands away from his broken nose, and hit him again, this time breaking his cheekbone. “Who sent you, you bastard?” he shouted. The man didn't reply.
So Hawke opened the door and pushed him onto the balcony.
The man, still in a daze from the vicious assault was helpless as Hawke picked him up in a fireman’s lift and then dangled him over the balcony. He screamed and flailed about like a rag doll in the cold wind.
“Who sent you?” Hawke shouted. “That right there is the last time I ask before dropping you on the street down there and turning you into a puddle of gravy, get what I’m saying?”
The man stared at the ant-like people and tiny toy cars driving along the street fifteen storeys below and got what Hawke was saying: “Vetsch. His name is Vetsch. Please don’t kill me, man. Not this way, man, please.”
“Who and where is Vetsch?”
“All I know is the name, Kaspar Vetsch — that’s it, I swear. I never met him, and I never saw him. He paid me to kill you all. That’s all I know.”
“You’re not very good at your job, are you?” Lea called out from inside the room.
Hawke pulled the man off the balcony and threw him back in the room. He scrambled to his feet and Lea thought he was going to run, but instead he picked up the knife a second time and made another move towards her, pulling the duvet off and lunging at her with the knife.
Hawke sighed, and stepped into the fight, tossing Lea a hand towel to cover herself and disarming the man in a second with a hefty downwards chop on his forearm. They struggled and ended up crashing into the bathroom where Lea could hear various grunts and punches and then the sound of breaking glass. She got up. Ryan stepped cautiously into the room.
“What’s going on?” he whispered. “When Hawke heard you screaming he told me to stay in the other room. I wanted to come, honestly.”
“Save it, you weasel.”
Hawke emerged from the bathroom rubbing his fist.
“Are you all right?” Lea asked.
“You should see the other guy,” Hawke joked.
“I could have taken him, by the way. You should have let me finish the job.”
“Sure,” Hawke said doubtfully.
“I guess this means we’re on the right track, at least,” Ryan said.
They peered in the bathroom. The assassin lay unconscious, face down in the shower, with the hot water running the blood from his broken nose down into the drain. “I guess his career as an assassin is all washed up,” Hawke said.
Lea ignored it. “So would you two just get out of here please! If you hadn’t noticed I’m actually completely naked apart from this ridiculous hand towel.”
“I noticed,” Ryan said keenly.
“Out!”
They took East Sixty-Fourth Street until Central Park and then turned right on Fifth Avenue which they followed all the way to the Museum Mile and then the Metropolitan Museum of Art itself, set in the east side of the park. A light snow shower began to fall and they started to wish they’d taken one of the many famous yellow cabs, but it was a short walk taking less than twenty minutes.
All the same, they were grateful to step off the cold street and into the heated building. “So this is where we start?” Hawke asked, casting a skeptical eye over the sheer size of the place.
“It’s our best chance,” Ryan said. “If we knew why these people wanted to find Poseidon’s tomb in the first place it would make things a hell of a lot easier.”
They explained to a security guard what they were doing and moments later Hawke saw someone approaching. “This must be our babysitter,” he said.
The young man walked across the imposing Great Hall with a spring in his step.
“Welcome to the Met,” he said cheerily, shaking their hands. “You must be the Eden Group?”
Hawke frowned. “I’ve never been called that before.”
“I’m Mitch McKay and I’m one of the curators here.”
“Nice to meet you, Mitch,” Hawke said, disappointed with the limp handshake — always a bad sign.
“I must say we were surprised to get a call from your Government but we’re only too happy to help in any way we can — especially if there is any kind of threat to one of our pieces.”
“Looks like an amazing place.” Lea looked at the vaulted ceiling high above them.
“Sure is,” Mitch said, beaming. “This was all built in 1902 and is some of the finest neoclassical design in the entire world. The façade is all limestone, you know. All absolutely priceless, naturally.”
Hawke nodded. “Naturally.”
“The department you want is on the first floor.”
“You mean ground floor,” Ryan said chippily.
“He means first floor, Ryan,” Lea said. “And stop being such a fool.”
“If it's on the ground level then it's the ground floor.”
“In America,” Mitch chimed in with a warm smile, “we call the ground level the first floor.”
“Yes, but that’s not logical because…”
“Enough, Ryan.” Lea elbowed him gently in the ribs.
Mitch steered them to the left and talked more about the history of the museum with so much personal pride Hawke wondered if he thought he owned the place.
“Well, here we are,” Mitch said at last. “This is the Greek and Roman Art section right here, and what you want is up on the mezzanine — up there. Please, follow me.”
They stepped into the large atrium and wondered among the many statues from the various ancient Greek and Roman periods. Mitch nodded his head in appreciation as if they were his children.
“Upstairs here is the mezzanine, and that’s where we keep the vases. Do you know which one to look for?”
“Yes. It’s one of a pair created in around 400 BC, we think. Poseidon and…”