by Rob Jones
Mitch’s eyes widened. “You’re remarkably well informed.”
“Yeah.” Lea jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at Ryan. “Thank the nerd, not me.”
“Someone taking my name in vain?” Ryan asked, walking over to them from the mezzanine. “Some amazing artifacts in here, Mitch.”
“Gee, thanks. We like to think so.”
Ryan’s gaze was immediately drawn to the Poseidon Vase. “Now that really is beautiful.”
Lea nodded. “But how can it help us?”
“Give Uncle Ryan a look,” he said, snatching the vase from Hawke’s hands.
“Hey, watch out!” Mitch snapped. “That’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!”
“It’s fascinating,” Ryan said, pushing his glasses up on the top of his head and peering closely at the artwork. “Rather late for a black-figure work, isn't it?”
Mitch nodded appreciatively, now calm in the knowledge that anyone who knew such a fact could not possibly drop such an ancient piece of art.
“So what’s the deal, Sherlock?” Hawke asked impatiently. “What has that vase got to do with Professor Fleetwood’s dying words?”
“Dying words?” Mitch went pale. “What’s going on here, exactly?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Hawke said reassuringly.
Lea looked at Ryan. “Well?”
“I have no idea...” Ryan said. “I need more time. All I see is an ancient vase painted in the bilingual style, featuring Poseidon holding a damned fishing line.”
“Is there anything written on it?” Hawke said.
“Look underneath,” said Lea.
Ryan turned it upside down but drew a blank. “Sorry, nothing – look.”
The others peered at the bottom which was a standard, unmarked base, not glazed.
“I could have told you that and saved you a flight,” Mitch said. “And no, before you look there’s nothing inside either.”
With these words, the three of them peered into the vase, maneuvering it so one of the spotlights illuminated the interior. Nothing.
Lea sighed. “What was that damned quote again?” she said.
“I think you mean quotation,” said Ryan. “A quote is what the plumber gives you to fix the toilet.”
“Shut up, Ryan,” Lea said. “You know what I mean.”
“All right – the quotation was Those Who Seek His Power, Will Find It Buried In His Kingdom.”
Mitch scratched his head.
Hawke and Lea stared at the vase in Ryan’s hands.
“Quite the riddle,” said Ryan.
“Those Who Seek His Power, Will Find It Buried In His Kingdom,” Hawke repeated, staring at Poseidon, sitting on the rock, fishing, looking into history. Casually ignoring their plight.
Lea looked at it again. “Maybe there’s some kind of code hidden in the picture.”
“What do you mean?” Hawke asked.
“Like if you look at it upside down or in a mirror or something.”
Hawke shook his head. “Look at him, sitting on his rock with all his future ahead of him. Immortal.”
“Actually,” Ryan piped up, “the ancient Greeks saw time the other way around to us. For them, the past receded away in front of them, while the future was approaching them behind their backs, which makes a lot of sense when you consider you know your past but not your future.”
“How has this guy not got a girlfriend?” Hawke said.
“Hey!” Ryan said. “And who says I haven’t got a girlfriend?”
“Inflatable dolls don't count,” said Hawke.
Lea rolled her eyes. “Save it, Joe.”
“I’m just saying how does that help us right now?” said Hawke, backing down.
Silence all round. Now it was Mitch looking at his watch. “Listen, if you guys have finished I’ll have to ask you to hand the vase back to me so I can lock it up again.”
Then the sound of screaming echoed up through the atrium into the mezzanine level.
“What the hell?” Mitch said, stepping forward to take a look.
“Why do I get the feeling this whole thing’s about to go arseways, Joe?” said Lea.
More screaming, and then a man shouting orders at people, followed by several gunshots and the sound of smashing glass. Chaos had come to order at the New York Met.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Oh my God!” Lea craned her head over the mezzanine rail and then back to Hawke. “They’re here.”
“Who are here?” Mitch asked, confused.
Hawke turned to Mitch. “You don’t want to know. Suffice it to say they want that vase and not for its aesthetic value, either.”
“This vase?” Mitch asked, turning the pottery over in his hands. “I don’t understand. It’s unique but hardly the most expensive item in the collection. There are artifacts downstairs worth millions of dollars – some are priceless.”
“They don’t care about money,” Hawke said. ‘They already have that.”
Another round of gunfire, this time automatic rifles, filled the atrium and then the sound not of screaming but terrified silence. Lea’s mind raced with possible options, but with a museum gallery full of frightened civilians the choices were limited.
“Mr Hawke!” shouted a voice from below the mezzanine. “I know you are here with your friends, so don’t be shy.”
Lea looked at Hawke and could see he was considering options just as she had done. She was aware of the others staring at him, looking desperately for some kind of lead. She thought about the accent of the man who was shouting – definitely Germanic, probably Bavarian or Swiss, she thought.
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, horrified 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.
“What the hell is this?” he shouted.
“Damn it, Joe, he can’t shoot that,” Lea said, grabbing herself a pistol. “He couldn’t hit a barn door with a Howitzer at ten yards.”
“No one is going after them unnarmed,” Hawke said, and ran into the Grand Hall.
No sooner had they reached the Grand Hall when they were forced to turn back in the midst of a savage volley of automatic weapons’ fire, shot indiscriminately in their direction. Large chunks of marble were blasted from the sides of a fluted Ionic column Lea was using for cover.
“Good job Mitch isn't around to see that,” Ryan said.
“Poor taste, Ryan. Another reason why I divorced you.”
“I think we established that, in fact, I divorced you.”
Hawke sighed. “Please you two, not this again, and not now!” He returned fire and planted a neat line of bullets in the side of one of the cash registers now being used as cover by one of Vetsch’s men.
One of the men began to spray sub-machine gun fire in a reckless arc around the Grand Hall just for the hell of it, and another threw a grenade into the center of the room as they ran out into the courtyard.
The grenade exploded and showered plaster and dust down on them. Hawke sat up and scrambled behind one of the Doric columns for cover while Lea and Ryan copied his lead and hid behind the next column along.
Hawke saw two more security guards run toward the assailants, with pistols raised and screams demanding Vetsch and his men drop their weapons and put their hands above their heads. He fired a few rounds in their direction to try and draw their fire but it was too late.
Vetsch raked them with his sub-machine gun and they both fell to the floor, almost cut in half with the number of rounds plowed into them. They’re not playing games, thought Hawke.
With that final flourish, Vetsch led his men out of the museum and into the street. Hawke, Lea and Ryan pursued them as fast as they could.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“We need a vehicle right now.” Hawke saw the quickest option ahead of the museum’s Fifth Avenue entrance. An empty car was idling in a line of traffic – its owner had gotten out and seemed to be arguing about something with the driver of a cab parked behind him.
“That’s our ride right there,” Hawke said. “Come on, be quick and be quiet.”
“This is beyond a joke,” said Ryan as they climbed into the 1935 Ford hot rod, complete with flames painted on the hood, a visible engine and double exhaust cut-outs.
Ahead of them, Vetsch and his men were making their escape in a black Mercedes S-Class.
They climbed into the hot rod, Hawke at the wheel, and a second l
ater were racing up Fifth Avenue, the roar of the twin exhausts making the owner and just about everyone else in uptown Manhattan turn in horror.
On the road, Hawke slammed the throttle down and was impressed by the Ford’s sharp acceleration and the ludicrous roar of the suped-up flathead V8 engine. “I’ve never driven a hot rod before,” he said, nodding with appreciation.
“Simple things amuse simple people, I suppose,” sighed Ryan.
Lea smiled. “It’s pretty cool, actually.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ryan said. “You’re not actually impressed by this sort of thing, are you? You realize men drive cars like this as compensation for their inadequate penis size.”
Hawke smirked. “Is that a fact?”
“A well-known one in certain circles.”
“Circles of jealous losers, you mean?”
“Both of you, stop it,” Lea shouted.
“I’m just stating a fact about men, cars and small penis size.”
“Well, you would know, Ryan,” Lea said, causing him to redden. A smirk spread on Hawke’s lips.
Hawke accelerated the Ford and weaved through the traffic, leaving a sea of angry car horns and fist-waving in the rear-view. The Mercedes skidded around to the left and joined East Drive heading into Central Park where it sped up and overtook several slower-moving vehicles who swerved to let it pass.
Irate joggers waved their water bottles at him and swore brashly, but to no effect. Seconds later they were doing the same thing to Hawke and the hot rod as he tore past them and sharpened his pursuit of Zaugg’s team.
It was now that the Mercedes slowed and skidded across the cycle lane to the left, mounted the grassed area and cut across the footpath. A man selling hotdogs jumped to safety before shouting abuse and angrily waving a pair of cooking tongs in the air.
“Where the hell are they going?” Hawke asked as passers-by in their path screamed and scattered.
“North Meadow – it's where the baseball fields are.” Lea waved her iPhone at Hawke. “I just got a map of Manhattan up so we can see what’s what.”
“Ah,” Hawke said, giving the phone a sly, sideways glance. “I was wondering how long it would take you to think of that.”
