Lea was thrown back into the rear of the boat and landed in a puddle of the Thames that had collected there during the last sharp turn in the river. “Oh, now that is just disgusting.”
“Sorry! At least you won’t need a bath tonight though — look at it that way.”
Lea gave him the bird as she climbed back up and this time grabbed on to the rail at the front.
“So what rank were you?” Hawke asked casually.
“Lieutenant, in intelligence.”
“Oh no, not a bloody officer.”
“Afraid so. What about you?”
“Sergeant.”
“I think you should call me ma’am in that case,” she said with a smirk.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. You should know I can’t stand officers.”
“That’s not very nice. They’re not all bad.”
Hawke scoffed. “They’re a bunch of incompetent idiots, and I’ll tell you something else as well, I… uh-oh.”
“What?”
“I have some bad news,” Hawke shouted to her, changing the subject.
“You are bad news, Joe Hawke.”
“Seriously — look.”
Hawke pointed to the boat in front which was pulling away to the north bank. The men inside clambered out and after emptying their magazines into Hawke’s motorboat they ran through the Royal Wharf.
“Where are they going?” Lea asked.
Hawke frowned. “I have a pretty good idea.”
They pulled the boat up just ahead of the Thames Barrier and followed the path the men had taken, only to see them entering London City Airport.
“Come on — maybe we can still catch them.”
Inside they saw the men enter a private departure lounge. Through the smoked glass they watched them present passports and then they were taken immediately to a smart blue Eurocopter.
Airport security stopped Hawke and Lea in their tracks.
“No one goes airside without passports and a security check.”
They watched helplessly as the chopper lifted into the air moments later, heading eastwards out over the water.
CHAPTER THREE
The snows of winter were early in Switzerland this year, and roared through the valley below. Hugo Zaugg wondered pensively back and forth on the thick white carpet of his study. Ever since he was alerted to this latest discovery his mind had touched upon nothing else. It was amazing what tracking keywords on certain email accounts could yield.
Most alarming to him was how to keep such a thing secret from the world. His father had done it for forty years, and he had diligently continued in his footsteps. That was the business he was in, after all.
His father had done it in Greece during the war, and it was thanks to Major Otto Zaugg’s archaeological work in the Ionian Sea that his son Hugo had known the legend was real. Now it looked like he was about to finish what his father had started, and it was all thanks to Richard Eden’s hard work.
Far below in the valley, the town lights came on one by one as darkness approached and the storm built in power. With Christmas on the horizon the streets were festooned with fairy lights and bunting.
Sion was an expensive place to live — one of the most expensive in Switzerland, but its appeal was minimal to the elderly billionaire as he went about his life’s work. The closest he had come to the streets below was the occasional time when his private helicopter flew over it en route to his mansion’s helipad.
He swivelled his telescope and watched a young couple struggling against the wind to get back to their apartment from a car which was parked in the snowy street outside. Zaugg studied their progress as he might watch a line of ants marching along a garden path. Sometimes life bored him.
But not tonight.
Zaugg turned to face his team. He was a short man, in an expensive grey suit with a navy blue tie and silk polka dot pocket square emerging somewhat flamboyantly from his breast pocket. He had a smooth, shaved head and a salt and pepper goatee beard trimmed to perfection. He smiled at them coldly.
His team of personal assistants and business associates watched him in silence for a long time before one of them spoke, fearful of Zaugg’s response.
“It was a mistake letting that woman get away,” the man said in French. “Who knows how much she told Eden before she was silenced? If this ever gets out the world as we know it will be over. Yet perhaps Eden doesn’t know what he has.”
“You think Sir Richard Eden doesn’t realize what was almost in his grasp?” Zaugg said, still looking through the window. He was speaking in French. “He spent two years and five million dollars funding that excavation. He knows what he has.”
“But we have the only translation,” said another man in German, excitedly. It was Dietmar Grobel, Zaugg’s number two. “How it will enlighten us! It is so precious.”
“Indeed,” Zaugg purred, this time in German. Yes, the original Ionian Texts and their translation were precious, but nowhere near as precious as what they would lead him to, he thought.
He considered Professor Fleetwood’s full translation in the context of the documents handed to him by his father. They whispered to him from the deep past: Those Who Seek His Power, Will Find It Buried In His Kingdom. He smiled and rolled the words over his tongue: Only Then Shall Divine Illumination Be Granted…
Zaugg closed his eyes. Poseidon and Amphitrite would lead him to their ultimate power, and Sir Richard Eden and his ragtag army of nobodies could not stop him.
“Their power will be mine,” he said. “It is merely a case of locating the vase in question and then we shall be given the next step in our long quest.”
“A glorious moment in history, sir,” Grobel said.
“But we must neutralize the Eden Group,” said the woman.
“Leave that to me,” Zaugg said in a whisper.
“But we must do it now…”
“I said leave it to me,” Zaugg repeated, his tone indicating that was the end of the matter.
“Are you sure you can keep something of this magnitude quiet?” said a thin man, swallowing anxiously at the end of his sentence. “Surely not even someone as powerful as you could keep something like this secret. What if Eden leaks it? If we hand everything over to the United Nations, perhaps…”
“What you say is madness!” said the woman.
Zaugg stopped his pacing and began to study the pattern of the snowfall as it raced past his enormous window wall. More snowflakes than stars in the universe, he thought. “The world is not ready for this and neither is Eden. Only I have what it takes to control such a power.”
“I concur,” said Grobel. “And we have invested too much for this to become public. We will lose everything. Eden will not reveal anything to the public. He understands its significance.”
“Herr Grobel is right,” continued the woman. “If this becomes public knowledge everything we aspire to will be in grave jeopardy.”
Zaugg walked to the leather swivel chair behind his expansive mahogany desk and gently sat down. He turned slowly once again to face his team.
They were a good lineup — the best that money could buy — archaeologists, geologists, historians, and experts in folklore and mythology. They knew what they were talking about, and they also knew the value of keeping him happy. Zaugg happened to agree with the majority opinion in the room — the world was not ready for such a find, the import of which would be truly earth-shattering if he got his way.
But it was not without precedent.
It was true that he already had one piece of the puzzle — discovered by his father in Greece during the war which he then smuggled into Switzerland under a false identity when the Allies occupied Germany.