Hawke and Lea stepped closer to the mezzanine and saw several masked men holding the lower level of the Greek and Roman Gallery hostage. Behind them two security guards lay dead, their weapons still holstered. It must have been a lightning assault.
“Who are you?” Hawke shouted.
The man chuckled. “You know who I am. You are responsible for the death of one of my employees earlier today.”
“Kaspar Vetsch!”
“The very same.”
“And I didn’t kill your man, Vetsch.”
“No, I did, for failing me.”
Hawke looked at the others. Mitch was nervous, but still standing. Ryan looked like he needed to sit down. Lea spoke next: “If only we had some weapons.”
Hawke nodded in agreement and turned back to face Vetsch. “What do you want?”
“Don’t stall for time. You know what I want, and you will bring it to me immediately or I will shoot a hostage every ten seconds, starting with this security guard.”
One of Vetsch’s men dragged a guard into view. He was bloodied and bruised and holding what looked like a fleshwound on his arm. Vetsch began counting to ten.
“We can talk about this, Vetsch,” Hawke shouted. “Just let the women and children leave.”
A single gunshot ripped through the silence and the security guard fell to the floor, dead. Vetsch waved his pistol and a man in a suit was dragged off the floor.
“Oh God!” Mitch said. “That’s Dr Peterson, the curator of Medieval Art.”
“Don’t waste my time, Hawke. My employer is not a man to play with.”
“And who’s that?” Lea whispered. “Baumann?”
Hawke nodded. “I think so.” He turned to Mitch. “Hand me that thing.”
Mitch handed the vase over without question, nervously peering down at Dr Peterson. Vetsch had counted to seven.
“All right, stop counting Vetsch,” Hawke shouted over the balcony. “I’m bringing the vase down.”
Vetsch smiled and Peterson was pushed back to the floor where he collapsed in a heap on the parquet tiles, sobbing.
“Are you crazy?” Ryan said. “He’ll shoot you. He’s obviously a complete psychopath.”
“I have no choice,” Hawke said. “He’ll kill those people without blinking.”
He took the vase in his arms and walked towards the stairs.
Lea watched Hawke walk slowly along the mezzanine to the steps, cradling the vase carefully in his arms the way he might hold a baby.
“Oh, sodding hell I am such a moron!” Ryan said.
“What are you talking about, Ryan?”
“The line from Fleetwood’s translation — “Those Who Seek His Power, Will Find It Buried In His Kingdom…”
“What about it?”
“It’s Poseidon — his kingdom was the ocean.”
“So what?”
“So the bottom of the vase was represented to portray the ocean, wasn’t it?”
“And?”
“So the Vienna Painter wasn’t giving us a clue to crack a code in the picture of Poseidon himself, but telling us that whatever we’re looking for is hidden actually inside the vase.”
“We looked inside the vase,” Lea said.
“No, not its interior. I mean actually inside it — baked into the pottery itself, down at the base where the sea was painted. Those who seek his power will find it buried in his kingdom — buried in the sea. Do you see now?”
Lea nodded. “Excellent work, Ryan,” she whispered in her Dublin drawl. “You’re a great guy to have around five minutes after a crisis.”
“At least I thought of it!”
“A shame you couldn’t have thought of it before these maniacs turned up. Now they’ve got Hawke.”
She heard Vetsch laugh again, and then shout more orders. “All of you are to come down please, not just Hawke — and with your hands up.”
“Shit,” Ryan said. “I thought we were going to get away with that.”
“He’s… he’s not going to kill us, is he?” asked Mitch.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Lea said. “Just follow my lead.”
“Quickly please,” Vetsch shouted. “We don't want to wait for the police to arrive, do we?”
Lea and the others soon caught up with Hawke, and the three of them were now standing together at the bottom of the mezzanine stairs.
One of the men stalked over to Hawke, grabbed the vase and pistol-whipped him across the face, almost knocking him to the floor. Hawke kept his balance, tensing with anger at the vicious assault. The other men laughed and the museum visitors looked on, horrifed at what their day had become.
“Give it to me!” barked Vetsch, and the man handed him the artifact. “Ah! The Poseidon Vase — we meet at last.”
Lea watched Vetsch caress the vase with his gloved fingers, grinning and nodding his head in appreciation.
“Such a beautiful object as this,” he said, “deserves to be treated with respect.” As he spoke, he held the vase out on one hand at arm’s length and let it wobble from side to side, pretending to let it fall and then catching it again. His men laughed. Mitch almost passed out.
“The truth is I know nothing about ancient Greece,” Vetsch said, looking at his watch. “Nothing about their bizarre little rituals and orgies, nothing about their myths, legends and deities, and certainly nothing about their damned pottery.”
“You’ve got what you came for, Vetsch!” Hawke shouted. “Just let these people go.”
“Silence!” he screamed, his eyes almost popping from his head. “This vase is irreplacable, am I right, Mr Curator?” Vetsch pointed the gun at his head.
Mitch nodded, terrified. Lea saw he was sweating with fear.
“But sadly, orders are orders, and you don’t disobey the man who gave me those orders.” And just like that, Vetsch let the vase slip from his fingers and fall to the tiled floor where it smashed into dozens of pieces. They scattered across the floor, ancient orange dust rising from them into the air where the sun illuminated them like tiny dust motes.
“Oh dear God!” Mitch said, shaking his head.
Then Lea saw it. Among the fractured pieces of pottery was a golden semi-circle covered in strange carvings.
Vetsch saw it too, and leaned slowly forward to scoop it up in his gloved hand. He held it aloft theatrically where it caught the sunlight and flashed in Lea’s eyes.
Vetsch laughed as he turned the piece of ancient metal in his hand, and for a moment the room was silent and still until the peace was shattered by the sound of police sirens.
“Whatever that is,” Mitch said, stepping forward, “the museum will pay anything you ask for it, I can assure you.”
“Some prices are too high to pay,” Vetsch said and raised his pistol. Hawke tried to tackle Mitch to the ground but it was too late, Vetsch had shot him through the heart and he dropped backwards against the pedestal of an Aphrodite statue. Lea watched in horror as Mitch slid down, smearing the pedestal with his blood as he sank lifeless to the ground.
All hell broke loose.
The hostages screamed and scattered in all directions to save their own lives. Ryan dived behind a statue of Dionysus while Hawke and Lea charged Vetsch and his men, but they were kept back by a hail of bullets as the Swiss team retreated out of the gallery and sprinted across the Grand Hall.
“What now?” Lea asked.
“I don’t know about you,” Hawke said, “but I’m going to grab a gun and chase after those bastards.”
“Good plan — coming Ryan?”
“Well, I…”
“Get a move on, Rupert,” Hawke shouted, tossing him a security guard’s Smith & Wesson.