“Hey, did you notice that?”
“No, what?”
“You called me Joe, and not Joe Hawke.”
“”That’s because Joseph is such a good Irish name.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but my name’s not Joseph.”
“It’s not Joseph? So what’s it short for?”
“You have more chance of being reincarnated as Amphitrite than ever finding that out.”
Lea sighed again. “It just goes to show no one’s perfect, Joe Hawke.”
She kissed him again.
“But my kissing is perfect, right?” Hawke shot a quick glance at Lea to see that she was smiling at him. He brushed her cheek with his hand.
“You are so arrogant!” she said.
“I’m far too amazing to be arrogant.”
“If this is your idea of a date, Joe Hawke,” Lea said, “I think maybe you could be looking at second base after all.”
“Are you warming to me, Lea Donovan?”
They walked to the tourist viewing platform to see a team of search and rescue police already making their way to Zaugg’s corpse.
“Can’t say the Swiss aren’t efficient,” Lea said.
“True, but it’s sad really.” Hawke looked at Zaugg’s broken body on the rocks below, the snow around him red with blood. “In the end, it looks like he really fell for you.”
Lea ignored him. She was starting to fall in love with Joe Hawke.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
After the battle was over, they secured the trident from the gondola and flew back up to the compound where they began to disassemble the charges that were supposed to cause Zaugg’s mega-avalanche. Grobel had decided stealing the gold was more important than setting them off, and when Hawke knocked him out cold back in Zaugg’s office that permanently ended the threat.
Now, it was dawn, and the sky filled with more helicopters. The first to arrive was a white Sikorsky S-76C, a powerful twin-engined chopper which swooped over the compound a couple of times before touching down on Zaugg’s tennis courts. Moments later James Matheson, the British Foreign Secretary appeared. He was met by Sir Richard Eden who shook his hand and began the debrief immediately.
A second wave of choppers came in behind that, led by a black Sikorsky Sea King. They landed on the lawns behind the tennis courts and as the rotor blades slowed the doors swung open to reveal the American Secretary of Defense George Chambers, flanked by his Secret Service detail and followed by a familar face which Hawke took less than ten seconds to idenfity: Eddie Kosinski, the CIA officer from New York.
Kosinski recognized Hawke at the same time, and gave him a sarcastic salute as he walked past, flanked with men in military fatigues.
“What’s going on, Richard?” Lea asked.
Sir Richard Eden began to speak when James Matheson interrupted him.
“Seems like our American friends here caught on that something was up and joined the chase. They’re rather keen to get their hands on the contents of the tomb, I'm afraid.”
“But we found it!” Hawke protested. “The gold, the jewels, the trident… the whole bloody lot is ours!”
“But not the map,” Scarlet said, smirking.
James Matheson and Richard Eden shared a glance.
“You found a map?” Matheson said bluntly.
Hawke shook his head. “Nope. Poor old matey-lad Zaugg was under the impression that there was a map in the tomb somewhere, but he couldn’t find one. He was most upset about it.”
“Did he search the sarcophagus itself?” Matheson said.
“Yup — nada.”
“Could mean anything,” the Foreign Secretary said.
Hawke looked at Eden and Matheson. “Listen gents. I’ve been shot at on the streets of London, New York and Geneva, nearly drowned in a speedboat chase on the Thames and in a Greek cave, and almost crushed to death in an avalanche.”
“And your point is what?” Eden said, the thin trace of a smile appearing on his lips.
“My point is, I think I’ve earned the right for someone to tell me just what the fuck is going on.”
Matheson’s eyes narrowed, but Eden laughed.
Eden spoke first: “All I can say is that it looks like Zaugg may have been working on the orders from an unknown agency, and we’re already looking in to who it could be, but we can’t rule out an inside man.”
“But what is this damned map about?”
“The map is reputed to lead the bearer of it to the source of eternal life,” Matheson said flatly. “It’s probably nothing more than a legend. The real treasure is the trident — archaeological treasure, I mean, naturally.”
“And that’s going back to the States,” a loud voice said. Hawke turned to see Chambers and Kosinski approach Matheson and shake his hand. “Along with everything else here. Your government was most obliging when we reminded you about who controls the nuclear codes.”
“Quite,” Matheson said bitterly.
Hawke watched in disbelief as the Americans walked all over the top of Matheson and Eden, removing the trident and everything else they had utimately rescued from Zaugg.
Hawke and Lea left Hart with the dignitaries and walked over to the others who were now sitting on a low wall beside the tennis courts. A light snow began to fall and the high mountain air was crisp and cool. They watched the teams of American soldiers dragging the final contents of Poseidon’s tomb from Zaugg’s compound into the back of a US Army Chinook, blades whirring above the hurried activity of the military personnel.
“So that’s the last evidence on earth of Poseidon,” said Lea.
Hawke sighed. “I still can’t believe that Poseidon was real.”
As he spoke these words, they watched the Americans leading a bruised Dietmar Grobel out of the compound and throw him in the back of a Huey.
“This one’s an extraordinary rendition,” Kosinski shouted to Eden.
Over on the tennis courts, Sophie asked: “But what about the source of his ultimate power — it was the trident, no?”
“No I don't think so,” Hawke said. “I’m more convined than ever that’s a reference to his immortality, and that Zaugg knew that too, which is why he wasn't bothered about the gold and gems — or even the trident — and just searched for this mysterious map.”
“Which could just be a legend,” Lea said, shrugging her shoulders.
“The whole thing is probably just a legend,” Scarlet said. “Tombs full of bones and gold is one thing, but the idea of immortality is quite another. Oh, look! They’re off.” She gestured casually at the Chinook as its rotors sped up and the giant helicopter slowly lifted off the tennis courts and powered up into the air. It flew up and away from the compound and dipped below the horizon as it descended into the valley below, taking the contents of the vault of Poseidon with it.
“A successful mission,” Reaper said.
“How’d you figure that?” Sophie asked.
“Zaugg and Baumann are dead, Grobel will be taken into custody, and the vault of Poseidon was located and secured.”
Hawke frowned. “Yeah — by the wrong people.”
“Too bad — I beat you in the end though, right?”
It was Kosinski. He had walked over with a big, smug smile on his face.
“Just wanted to say goodbye, guys.”
Hawke stood up. “Maybe you won the battle but you didn’t win the war, Eddie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That’s for me to know and you to worry about.”
Kosinski looked confused and walked back over to a smaller Bell helicopter. Moments later it was airborne.
The other helicopters followed behind him until only Eden and Matheson and his security were left. Swiss police pulled up the main drive and began to turn the place into a crime scene.
“Time for us to go,” Eden said. Shall we?” He indicated his helicopter.