Baumann moved closer, purring with a depraved kind of satisfaction at the misery he was inflicting on her, and then she took her chance, thrusting the glass splinter hard into his thigh and yanking it down as if she were trying to saw through wood.
He screamed in agony and kicked her in the face out of pure reflex action. She flew backwards but stopped herself from banging her head on the wall. She looked up to see Baumann hunched over in agony and blood pouring down from the wound.
She had obviously hit the artery in his leg. Baumann looked at her, a terrifying mix of rage, fear and revenge crossing his face like a dark shadow, and he stalked towards her, dragging his wounded leg behind him in a trail of blood and wine.
Hugo Zaugg stared at the small statue on his desk. It was a small, smooth sculpture in bronze, over two thousand years old — a perfectly water-preserved rendering of Poseidon. The god was looking meaningfully out across the expansive room, and across time itself, with pensive eyes and a firm grip on the trident.
A few inches to the left of the statue and in a commanding position in the exact center of his desk was a shiny black Bakelite telephone. Zaugg’s eyes moved from Poseidon to the phone.
He had been waiting anxiously for it to ring for some time. Yes, he had located the tomb. Yes, he had found the trident wrapped in furs inside the otherwise empty sarcophagus.
But no, he had not found the map.
And so he waited nervously to explain the news.
And yet the gods made him wait.
He drummed his fingers along the edge of the smooth mahogany desk and closed his eyes. His mind wandered immediately to what could be such a glorious future, if only he held the map in his hands. The torment of delay could only be soothed by the concomitant sweetness of victory.
How many times had he cradled that dream in his mind — seeing the smooth, golden water running through his dreams, staring at his ageing face in its rippled bronze surface? How many times had he read those Ancient Greek texts with their tantalizing references to eternal life? And how much he needed the missing map to solve this most glorious and divine of puzzles.
But he knew he had to remain calm, and proceed in a tactical, measured way. The map must surely exist — it was inconceivable that the tomb and the trident could be real but not the map. He would simply have to redouble his efforts if he wanted to drink of the divine nectar.
He would search harder for the map — there would be other clues in the tomb and with them would come the location of where to find the source of the water of life.
And then the telephone rang harshly in the soft silence of the climate-controlled study.
Zaugg fumbled for the receiver, almost dropping it on his way.
“You have good news for me?”
As usual, the voice was distorted behind a series of morphing applications. It sounded ghostly, and distant. The only man in the world Hugo Zaugg genuinely feared.
“Yes. We have secured the tomb and we have the trident.
“Good. This pleases me.”
“I am honored.” Zaugg was sweating.
“And what of the map?”
Zaugg waited a few seconds before giving his rehearsed reply. “We have not found the map yet, but my men are searching through the contents of the tomb.”
“Don’t fail me, Zaugg.”
“No, sir. It is just a matter of time.”
“Everything is just a matter of time.”
And the phone line went dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Hart and the others were directed to a private stand and met by Sir Richard Eden himself, and they were quickly shown to an idling Eurocopter Super Cougar, a five-bladed beast of a chopper that was going to take them up the mountain to Zaugg’s compound.
“How did you get all this sorted?” Hawke asked Eden.
“Let’s just say we have the blessing of certain sympathetic elements in the Swiss Government.”
As they loaded their kit and weapons into the back of the Cougar, Eden once again stressed the necessity of keeping the operation as quiet as possible. It was nearing nightfall now and the temperature was slipping below zero. A light snow blew in the air from the east and promised to make the night harder than it had to be.
Hawke took the moment to write a text to Nightingale. He told her was going in to rescue Lea and take Zaugg out. He hoped Lea was still alive and asked Nightingale for any help she could offer. He sent the message. He hoped she’d received it, and slipped the phone back in his pocket.
With a handful of soldiers from the Swiss Army and a couple of men Reaper had organized in the back of the helicopter, it was seriously less cosy than Gorokhov’s Flying Circus, and the earlier atmosphere of contemplation and quiet conversation he had shared with the others was replaced with the usual one found on covert ops — a weird blend of tense anticipation, nerves and crude humor.
Hawke was also feeling jittery, but the sight of Ryan squashed in between two former Foreign Legion mercs, trying — and failing miserably — to make them laugh with his unique blend of wit and observational humor was enough to bring a smile to anyone’s face.
As they flew up the mountain, Eden was still furiously trying to make contact with Matheson to update him on the operation and receive any new information. Hawke wondered just how far up all of this went.
But he refocussed his mind on the task at hand: “This is one hell of a mission,” he said.
A peal of grim laughter rippled through the small group. Reaper lit another Gauloise and leaned against the side of the chopper to smoke his cigarette. Hart and Scarlet were arguing about the relative merits of their branches of the military.
Then a voice spoke next to Hawke.
“She doesn’t love me, you know.”
It was Ryan. He had joined him at the back of the Cougar.
“What?”
“Lea. She doesn’t love me anymore. I know that — I’m not stupid.”
“What are you telling me for?”
Ryan simply looked at him.
“Ah. Is it that obvious?”
“Not to Lea, no. She’s pretty focused on her career right now.”
“I had noticed.”
“She’s not the sort of woman to take a hint, Joe. I’ve known her a long time, so trust me on this one. She’s the kind of woman you just have to grab hold of and tell her how you feel.”
The Cougar flew low along an elevated valley before ascending into the snow clouds on its way up to Zaugg’s compound and their final approach with destiny.
They emerged through the clouds to see the last few rays of sunlight on the western horizon as they streaked across the tops of the alps. Ahead of them a razorback ridge of mountain peaks loomed silent in the frozen dusk. Concealed into the crevices of one was the sprawling compound of Hugo Zaugg.
They flew closer and then Hawke saw it for the first time.
From his vantage point of twelve thousand feet altitude, Hawke examined the compound which now nestled below the chopper in the western crags of one of the mountain peaks.
Zaugg’s lair.
It was to this place that he had brought Lea Donovan, not to mention the looted contents of Poseidon’s tomb.
“So,” Ryan asked more perkily than the situation would have suggested was appropriate, “where’s the helicopter going to land?”
Hawke glanced at Reaper and both men burst out laughing.
“The helicopter is going to turn around now and land in Sion,” Reaper said.
“Yes, sure, but where is it going to drop us off first?”