The Secret of Excalibur Read Free Page B

to execute her anyway, right?’
    Dalton gave him a cold smile. ‘I have faith in the justice system to do the right thing.’
    ‘Glad to hear it.’ Chase raised his hand. ‘Thank you, Mr President.’
    ‘Thank you , Mr Chase.’ The President shook the offered hand, then raised his voice. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to take care of a small difference of opinion with our Russian friends. The USS George Washington is already on station, but hopefully a second carrier group will help make our point.’ The muted laughter the comment provoked was very much of the dark kind: the ongoing disagreement between the West and Russia over the extension of the latter’s territorial claims in the Arctic had taken an ominous turn just a few days earlier, when Russian warships forced an American survey vessel out of the disputed waters at the point of their guns. ‘Dr Wilde, Mr Chase - and Hector,’ Dalton added, nodding to Amoros, ‘thank you.’
    With that, Nina, Chase and Amoros left the Oval Office, a young aide escorting them through the White House corridors. ‘Thought that went okay,’ said Chase. ‘Well, my bits did, anyway.’
    Nina ground a fist against her forehead. ‘Oh, God! I can’t believe I made an ass of myself in front of the President!’
    ‘Twice in two minutes, an’ all,’ Chase commented.
    ‘ Not helping!’
    ‘Don’t worry about it, Nina,’ Amoros said reassuringly. ‘You did fine.’
    Chase waved a thumb at the medal round her neck. ‘And you got a nice piece of bling out of it.’
    ‘Eddie,’ Amoros chided, ‘the Presidential Medal of Freedom is not “bling”!’
    Nina felt mildly affronted as well. ‘Yeah, come on, Eddie. I wouldn’t make fun of you if you got a medal from the Queen.’
    ‘Who says I haven’t?’ Chase replied, deadpan.
    Nina regarded him suspiciously. Even after having known him for over two years, she still wasn’t quite able to tell whether he was being serious or, as he called it on the frequent occasions when he was doing so, ‘taking the piss’. ‘Nah,’ she said at last. ‘If you’d really got a medal from the Queen, you’d have told me by now. Even you couldn’t keep that a secret.’
    He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I’ve got medals, though. I just don’t make a big deal about them. They’re in a box somewhere.’
    ‘Well, maybe you can dig them out and show them to me when we get home. We’ve got time before the flight.’
    Chase grinned. ‘I didn’t say the box was here , did I?’ He flicked Nina’s medal, making a faint metallic ting. ‘I think you should wear that on the train back to New York. See if anyone recognises you.’
     
    Nina was indeed recognised on the Acela high-speed train to Penn Station, but it wasn’t because of the medal, which she returned to its presentation case before leaving the White House.
    The discovery of Atlantis had not taken place under ideal conditions - the backer of Nina’s expedition had ulterior, genocidal motives. So the Western nations behind the founding of the International Heritage Agency, under the auspices of the United Nations, had in large part set it up in order to devise a much more innocuous cover story.
    Such a story had finally been agreed upon, and a carefully staged programme of media coverage arranged to reveal it to the public, with Nina, fittingly enough, at its head. As a result, she had recently been doing the publicity rounds in newspapers, magazines and even TV - hence her being spotted by a man who asked for her autograph. ‘Bit more of this,’ said Chase as they left the train, ‘and you’ll be in all the tabloids.’
    ‘God, no! I don’t want that much recognition,’ Nina moaned. Though she had to admit, being recognised by a complete stranger had been a flattering, if bizarre, experience. ‘It’s not like I’m a movie star.’
    ‘You’re a star to me, love,’ said Chase, putting a hand round her waist before casually sliding it down to grope her butt.