King Solomon's Curse

37

The traffic had cleared the bridge ahead, either oblivious of what had happened behind or wanting to escape the chaos. ‘Okay, Roy,’ said Nina as she accelerated, ‘how do we get to the embassy?’

Roy regarded the approaching south bank of the Thames. ‘We’ve got to get around Battersea Power Station, so… okay, head down this road to a roundabout, then go left. That’ll take us into Nine Elms — and that leads us straight to the embassy.’

‘Great!’

‘It also leads straight to Vauxhall Cross, so anyone sent after us from SIS headquarters will be coming down it.’

‘Not great!’ A flash of alarm as she spotted blue strobe lights in the distance — but again, the police had clearly been ordered not to intervene, the car not moving. Her capture — or elimination — would be left entirely to MI6’s assassins.

She raced on, sweeping past expensive, anonymous new apartment blocks on the left, a large park on the right. The roundabout came into view. The road to the left was clear, the police car preventing civilians from becoming ensnared in the chase. She was being channelled, corralled; her pursuers had probably realised where she was trying to go.

Which meant they could wait for her to come to them.

Pushing the grim thought aside, Nina brought the bus through the turn. ‘Under the bridge, there,’ said Roy.

A broad Victorian railway arch spanned the new road. She steered beneath it, careful to keep the shredded roof clear of the ironwork. ‘How far to the embassy?’

‘About a mile.’

‘And what about the video? Has it copied yet?’

‘Almost done… yes! It’s just finished.’

‘Okay, give it to me.’ He quickly unmounted the little flash drive and handed it to her. She shoved it in a pocket. ‘Okay, hold on!’

Roy hurriedly retreated and gripped a handrail as she blasted the horn and swung the bus out to overtake more sluggish traffic.

Brice brought his van around the green common of Parliament Square, slowing at its north-eastern corner. Instead of continuing around it, however, he turned on to the pavement. The tourists and passers-by merely flowed around him. The grubby Transit pickup, orange warning lights flashing on its roof, was the perfect stealth vehicle. Nobody would even look once, never mind twice, at a council workman on some mundane business.

He carefully guided the van along the little park’s northern side, halting in front of a statue of Winston Churchill. The sight of the great wartime leader gave him a surge of both pride and determination. Churchill had done whatever was necessary to protect his country from the forces seeking to destroy it; now he was going to do the same.

He got out and climbed up into the van’s rear. The lead box containing the Shamir was hidden under a dirty tarpaulin. His first task was to line the ancient weapon up on its target.

A glance across the square. The Elizabeth Tower dominated the scene, the clock standing tall over the northern end of the Houses of Parliament. The Victorian-era Gothic edifice was a globally recognised icon of Britain itself, visual shorthand for an entire country…

And he was going to bring it down.

He knew full well the damage its destruction would cause to his nation’s psyche. Indeed, part of him was appalled by the prospect. But it had to be done. The gaping scar in the London skyline would unify the people, bring up the walls necessary to protect against all enemies outside. And once they were in place, the process of rooting out those lurking within could begin.

The purge would begin in Westminster itself. Those in Parliament who were about to weaken and diminish their own country, who would sell it out to foreign powers, could not be allowed to take control. And he had the Prime Minister’s authorisation to prevent it.

He pulled the heavy box into position. Once he opened the lid, he would still have to position the strange stone itself to focus its destructive effect upon its target, but then all he needed to do was ensure it remained in place until the job was done… and that no one interfered.

He saw someone who might do just that. Parliament Square was the nearest area of open ground to the Houses of Parliament, and as such was under high security, both covert and visible. An example of the latter was now approaching, a uniformed Metropolitan Police officer who had taken an interest in the van.

SIS’s forgers had provided him with bogus work orders to justify his presence, but Brice had no intention of wasting time arguing with some dullard of a woodentop. He had taken the precaution of also demanding something that would get rid of interlopers with no questions asked. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the young policeman. ‘Would you mind stepping down?’

Brice jumped to the ground, drawing something from an overall pocket: a Met warrant card and badge. ‘DI Carver, Special Branch,’ he said in a low voice, his smooth elocution replaced by a harsh East End growl. ‘I’m on stakeout, and yer gonna bollocks things up if yer don’t get moving.’

The officer flinched, but held his ground. ‘Uh, sorry, sir,’ he said, peering more closely at the ID, ‘but you do understand that this is a high-security area? I need to—’

‘Course I bloody understand,’ snapped Brice. ‘Why d’yer think I’m ’ere? We got word that some of our bearded brethren might cause trouble today. Me an’ a dozen lads from SO15’ — the codename for the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command — ‘are watching for ’em, but they’re not going to poke their bloody noses out while yer standing ’ere like a streak of glowing piss!’ He jabbed a finger at the cop’s hi-vis vest. ‘All right, sonny, now just nod yer ’ead and piss off. You got a problem, report me to yer watch commander. Just do it from somewhere else.’

The policeman was briefly caught between anger and deference. The latter won out; a bad word from somebody in one of the Met’s special operations units could be disastrous to a junior officer’s career aspirations. ‘Okay, sir. Sorry to bother you. I’ll be on patrol if you need me.’

‘Just make sure nobody else wastes my time,’ said Brice, returning to the pickup bed. ‘What, yer still ’ere? Jesus Christ, go!’

The cop hurriedly strode away. The spy glared after him, then returned to his task.

Another look at the clock tower. Less than ten minutes before noon.

Ten minutes before Britain changed for ever.

Nina cringed as a jaywalker belatedly ran for the pavement ahead of her. ‘What the hell is with people in this goddamn city?’ she shouted to Roy. ‘Big red thing coming straight at them, and they just stare at it!’

‘They probably can’t believe a London bus is doing more than five miles per hour,’ he replied. Then: ‘Okay, we’re nearly here! Just past these buildings, on the right.’

Beyond a cluster of pricey apartment blocks was what Nina first took as parkland before the building at its heart came into view. The new US embassy in London was a glittering glass cube surrounded by open green space. It was not freely accessible, though; the complex stood atop a small rise, walls spiralling up around it as effectively as a castle’s battlements. It even had a moat of sorts, the side facing the Thames separated from the park by an artificial lake. Waterfalls gushed over its sheer inner edge.

There was a pedestrian entrance down a side road on the right, but she would not be able simply to walk in. A pair of the inevitable black Range Rovers waited on each leg of the junction ahead.

But she couldn’t stop, not now. She had to get the evidence against Brice and his co-conspirators to the ambassador. But how?

Her only option, insane though it was, struck her. ‘Roy!’ she yelled. ‘Can you swim?’

‘Yah, of course, but why—’

Keeping her foot hard on the accelerator, she spun the wheel to aim the ravaged Routemaster between the two Range Rovers. ‘’Cause we’re taking a dip!’

The Removal Men had expected her either to stop or try to round their blockade, crouching behind their vehicles to cover both roads. They hurriedly changed positions and opened fire, but by then the bus had already rushed between them—

It leapt over the kerb, churning up turf as it skidded through the park. People fled, screaming. The remaining windows on the bottom deck exploded under the hail of gunfire.

Splinters stabbed into Nina’s cheek as a bullet blew apart the panelling behind her head. She held course as the grassy ground rose up towards the lake. The embassy loomed beyond it—

She screamed as blood sprayed from her left forearm.

The bullet had not smashed any bones, but her hand was now useless, every flex of the fingers agonising. All she could do was grip the steering wheel harder with her right hand as the bus reached the top of the slope—

And vaulted over its summit.

The Routemaster went airborne as it cleared the lakeside, hurtling across the water… and arced down into it.

The impact flung Nina against the steering wheel — then a frothing wave crashed through the broken windscreen, sweeping her from her seat.

The world spun, another lightning bolt of agony shooting through her wounded arm as it struck something in the swirl. An echoing boom rolled through the water as the bus slammed down on the lake’s bottom. More pain as her head smacked against a seat… then something large absorbed the next impact.

Roy. The young man had also been swept up by the inrushing water, but overcame panic to thrust himself in front of her. She heard a gasp as she knocked the breath from him — but he quickly recovered, grabbing a handrail and catching her with his other arm.

He lifted her head above the churning flood. ‘The stairs!’ he spluttered, pushing her towards the forward flight. ‘Get up the stairs!’

‘Thanks,’ she gasped, spitting out a mouthful of lake as she found footing. ‘You okay?’

‘Was in the rowing club at uni. Took plenty of unplanned dips!’

Nina staggered up the staircase. The torn hole in the bus’s front gave her a clear view of what lay ahead. The Routemaster was about ten feet short of the embassy’s wall, a paved plaza visible beyond the waterfall flowing over its edge. Alarm bells sounded inside the compound as its staff reacted to the crash.

But the Removal Men were also responding, running towards the lake. The harsh clatter of automatic weapons echoed across the park, the bus taking more hits. Their orders were clearly to stop her from reaching the embassy at any cost — even if that meant gunning her down on the boundary of American territory.

Rounds tore through metal, smacking against seats. Nina ducked fearfully back into the stairwell — but only seconds remained before they reached the lakeside and riddled the entire upper deck with bullets.

She felt her pocket. The flash drive was still there. ‘Roy, get back in the water!’ she cried, hoping it would offer him some protection — then she sprang up and ran for the front of the bus.

New pain stabbed through her wounded arm, but she forced herself to ignore it, focused on the gap between the Routemaster and the embassy. A mere ten feet, but she had only a short run-up…

She leapt, one foot stamping down on the broken window frame to propel her over the gap—

The top of the wall rushed at her.

Too high. She was falling short.

She threw out her arms—

Her left arm again flared with agony even before she hit the barricade. She slammed against it, the wounded limb flopping uselessly to her side — but managed to hook her right arm over the concrete edge.

The waterfall rolled over her, threatening to tear her loose. Nina choked as the deluge hit her face. She clawed for grip, fingers finding a pipe along the inner wall of the pool above her and clutching it as hard as she could.

Shouts reached her over the hissing rush of water. She struggled to raise her head above it. Figures were running across the plaza towards her.

Men in uniform, rifles at the ready. Marines.

They were not the only armed men she had to worry about. More gunfire erupted from the park, splashes bursting from the falling water around her as bullets struck the wall—

The marines fired back. Clods of earth spat up around the Removal Men as a barrage of automatic fire closed in on them. Outnumbered and outgunned, the British assassins sent a few last rounds at Nina before breaking and running through the trees back to their vehicles.

The firing stopped — but Nina was still in danger. She could feel the pipe buckling under her weight. She tried to scrabble higher, but her feet found no purchase on the smooth, wet wall. And her other arm was useless, pain overcoming her attempts to lift it. She slipped lower, her head dropping back under the relentless waterfall as her handhold tore free—

Someone grabbed her right arm.

She cried out as she was hauled roughly upwards. Two marines had leapt into the watercourse along the wall’s upper edge and seized her. They waded back to the plaza and deposited her unceremoniously on the paving. ‘She’s wounded!’ one shouted, seeing blood spreading across her wet left arm.

Nina coughed, trying to clear her airways. ‘I’m — I’m Nina Wilde,’ she gasped. ‘I’m an American citizen — and I’ve got to see the ambassador! There’s a—’

Before she could say anything more, she was sharply brought to her feet. ‘Get her to detention,’ barked another marine, glaring after the gunmen as their Range Rovers peeled away. ‘The embassy’s been attacked — we need to lock it down and find out what the hell’s going on!’

‘I’m trying to tell you what’s going on!’ Nina protested. ‘I need to talk to the ambassador, right now! Please!’

But her captors refused to listen, picking her up and frogmarching her towards the embassy building.

Where a cell awaited her — one that she was certain she would still be inside at noon.