Kingdom of Darkness

32

A day later, Nina was on the opposite side of the globe.

She thought it was a day later, at least. Exhaustion and emotion had screwed up her body clock even without factoring in the confusion of multiple time zones. But one thing she was sure of was that while it might help her physically, she had no desire to sleep. Every time her eyelids closed, she glimpsed the horrors she had witnessed in the Enklave. Macy’s murder, Zane’s torture, the burning building with terrified children trapped inside… and the crowd of frenzied Nazis baying for her death as the noose tightened around her throat—

Nina drew in a sharp breath. For a moment, she had felt the rope’s strands cutting into her skin. She touched her neck to reassure herself that there was nothing there.

She tried to force the jumble of memories following the escape from the Nazi compound into a coherent timeline. On arriving in Lago Amargo, Eddie had got a policeman named Miranda to call the Argentinian federal police, who arrived in force a few hours later. Not long after that, the survivors from the Enklave were secured, Roland and Julieta having a joyful reunion. Julieta’s father, the mayor, had turned himself in to the federales over some connection with Kroll and his people; two badly beaten local cops were taken into custody far less willingly.

By then, Nina had contacted Oswald Seretse in New York. That in turn led to a conference call with the FBI and Interpol in which Zane’s fears were confirmed: the surviving Nazis had indeed left Argentina undetected. ‘How the fucking hell do thirty Aryan shitheads with guns stroll through customs without being spotted?’ had been Eddie’s incredulous contribution to the discussion, and Nina’s own response had been scarcely less restrained.

But she knew where they were going. Iran.

She recalled from her time as the IHA’s director that the Iranian government would not cooperate with the agency, considering it too closely tied to the United States, and it was barely more willing to work with international law enforcement. Seretse relayed the news that the Iranians had been warned about the Nazis, for which Interpol was thanked and assured that the elite Revolutionary Guard would detain them. Zane, silently sitting in on the call, responded only with a sardonic shake of his head. ‘Leitz will already have paid off the local Revolutionary Guard commander to act as their escort,’ he said when it concluded. ‘The Guard like to parade themselves as the moral guardians of the Islamic revolution, but they’re corrupt from bottom to top. Especially the top.’

So now, instead of returning to New York as she had told Seretse, she was in a fishing boat that had set out from Astara at the southern tip of Azerbaijan, heading south-east across the Caspian Sea.

Eddie entered the small cabin. ‘I wouldn’t bother getting up,’ he told his wife as she sat up on the narrow bed. ‘It’s dark, and it’s pissing down.’ He wiped a hand over his damp hair and took off his ravaged leather jacket.

‘How long before we get there?’

He perched beside her. ‘A few hours yet. This isn’t exactly a speedboat.’

‘Unlike those things the Mossad brought.’ Zane was aboard the old trawler with them — along with a small squad of young and determined-looking Israeli agents.

‘Yeah. I’m still not Mossad’s number one fan, but they’ve got some pretty cool gear.’ He smiled, then rested a gentle hand on her stomach. ‘How are you faring?’

‘Fine. A little Dramamine works wonders.’

Another smile, but his eyes were serious. ‘I didn’t mean seasickness. I meant… everything else.’

‘I’m trying not to think about it,’ she said. ‘It’s… it’s too much to process right now. Especially…’

‘Macy?’

She nodded. ‘Seretse will have told her parents by now, but… I’ll have to talk to them when this is over. I’ll have to. But what am I going to say? “I’m sorry for your loss — oh, and by the way, it was all my fault your daughter was murdered”?’

‘No.’ Eddie’s hand moved firmly to her shoulder as he looked deep into her eyes. ‘No. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m not going to let you blame yourself for it. Okay? I know what you’re going through; I had to tell Mitzi’s parents what happened after she got shot in Austria. I blamed myself at the time, and God knows her mum and dad blamed me too. But now…’ He paused, the incident still emotional even after several years. ‘Just because she was with me didn’t make it my fault. It took a long time, but eventually I realised that. That punk-haired Russian bitch killed her, not me. And it was Kroll who killed Macy, not you. I know you want to blame yourself, but you can’t. I won’t let you blame yourself for the rest…’ He trailed off.

‘Of my life?’ Nina finished.

A grim nod. ‘It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair!’ he said with sudden anguish. ‘Everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve survived — but you’ve still got that growing inside you.’ He jabbed his other hand towards her side. ‘Has anything changed?’

‘Yeah, but… not in any good way.’ She tugged up her shirt. Even over the short time since she had last examined them closely, when Kroll made his Faustian offer, the growths had become more malign.

The sight made Eddie sag. ‘Christ. It just gets worse.’

‘I know. I know.’ She wrapped both hands around his. ‘Don’t look at it. Don’t even think about it. I’m trying not to. I’ve got more than enough worries as it is.’

‘Me too. Although at the moment, one of the biggest is that we’re about to sneak into Iran with a bloody Mossad strike team. If we get caught…’

‘Thanks for reminding me; I’ve been trying not to think about that either!’ They both managed to smile. Nina pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For being with me.’

‘Where else would I be?’ he said, with a mock shrug. ‘Like I said, you’re stuck with me to the end.’

She grinned, squeezing his hand. ‘I’m glad.’ Another kiss, then she regarded his bruised face. ‘God, you look tired. When did you last get any sleep?’

‘I had a bit on the flight from Argentina, but not much. It took ages to get hold of Hafez.’ Nina had long been impressed by Eddie’s extensive list of friends around the globe; Hafez was an Iranian whom she had met on her very first adventure with the man who would later become her husband. ‘You can’t just ring up someone in Iran and say “We’re coming in with a bunch of Mossad blokes, can you meet us?” There’s a lot of buggering around with code words and satphones. Before that? I dunno, probably when I went over to Argentina in the first place.’

‘So you’re planning to sneak into a hostile country on an hour’s sleep? Bad idea. If we’ve got a few hours, you should make the most of them. Come on, lie down with me.’

He seemed oddly reluctant. ‘I’m not sure there’s room for both of us. And you need it more.’

‘No, I don’t.’ Sleep was the last thing she wanted, knowing what visions waited behind her eyes. ‘Edward J. Chase, take off your clothes and get into bed, right now!’

The order was given with humour, and he smiled in response, but he was still reticent even as he peeled off his clothing. She soon realised why. He was covered in angry bruises and cuts. ‘Oh my God!’ she cried. ‘When did you get all those?’

‘Remember those Argie cops?’ he said as he unfastened his belt. ‘One of them was a Falklands veteran. He had a chip on his shoulder about Brits. So he tried to knock a chip off my shoulder. Took one out of my tooth, too.’ He slid his jeans down to reveal more after-images of a beating. ‘Also, jumping off a moving train while fighting Nazis really fucking hurts.’

‘But you came through it.’ Nina regarded him with loving sympathy as she pulled back the sheets. ‘And you saved me.’

Now naked, he stood before her, all the accumulated injuries to his muscular body exposed — not merely the most recent, but old scars too. He looked back in silence for a long moment, then spoke. ‘Get undressed. I want to be with you.’

There was no jokiness behind his words, just a heartfelt desire for closeness, intimacy, that he knew she shared. She said nothing as she slipped off her top. Her own wounds were revealed, but neither looked anywhere but into the other’s eyes.

Eddie climbed into the cramped bunk, tugging the covers over them. ‘Seems like forever since we were last like this.’

‘I know.’ Nina nuzzled against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her, feeling his warmth. ‘Too long.’

‘I hope that bloody door locks,’ he said. ‘Don’t want a load of salty seamen coming in here.’

‘I might,’ she said with a grin that was more than merely suggestive.

He laughed as he reached up to switch out the light. ‘Now I know I can’t let you go,’ he said, running his hands down her body. ‘I’ve made you as bad as me!’

A knock on the cabin door forced the couple back to wakefulness. Nina raised her head, realising with surprise that she couldn’t remember falling asleep — or having any dreams, good or bad. ‘What?’ she called as Eddie sat up.

‘It’s almost time,’ said Zane from outside.

‘This is it, then,’ Eddie told Nina, groping for the light switch.

She kicked away the sheets and swung her feet down to the deck. ‘Did you sleep?’

‘Yeah. I think that was what I needed.’

‘And by “that”, you mean…’

‘Yeah. That.’ He grinned.

‘Me too.’

‘We didn’t use any protection,’ he noted. ‘What changed your mind? After all that time not wanting to take any risks?’

‘For one thing, I decided to trust the doctors’ opinion that the eitr infection isn’t transmissible. For another…’ She touched his cheek. ‘I couldn’t live what’s left of my life without being so close to you again.’

He smiled lovingly, then kissed her. ‘You know, I’m really glad I married you.’

‘So am I.’ She started to dress. ‘Hmm. I could use a shower, but I doubt this boat’s got much of a bathroom.’

‘What, doing a King of the World on the bow and hoping the waves splash you isn’t enough?’ He retrieved his clothing, giving the tumours on her side a mournful glance. ‘This is it, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘After this, once we’re done, if we’re done… it’s only going to be you and me, right? No more little operations to help out the IHA? Just the two of us, together. To the end.’

Nina nodded. ‘Yeah. To the end.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’ A moment as they exchanged looks, then kissed again.

‘Thanks,’ said Eddie as they finished dressing. ‘Okay, so before that… let’s go and invade a hostile country.’

Zane was waiting for them on the old trawler’s darkened bridge. ‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked, with a hint of a knowing smile.

‘Best I have for ages,’ Eddie replied. ‘What’s the sitrep?’

The Israeli directed his attention to a GPS screen. ‘We’re forty kilometres off the Iranian coast. Captain Aslanov,’ he nodded towards the bearded middle-aged Azerbaijani at the controls, ‘says that going any closer will definitely draw attention from their patrol boats. They sometimes investigate ships even farther out, so he’s taking a risk just being here.’

‘Well, yeah, with a hold full of Mossad spooks. How long will your little toys take to get us ashore?’

‘Not long. We’ve used them to infiltrate the country before.’

‘Are you sure they won’t be seen?’ asked Nina. The trawler’s hold contained a pair of small, odd-looking speedboats. ‘Don’t the Iranians have radar?’

‘They do, but,’ a grin, ‘our boats don’t need to worry about it. Your head has a bigger radar cross-section than they do. Well, Eddie’s does, definitely.’

‘You saying I’ve got a big head?’ the Englishman faux-protested.

‘I never even thought about it. Okay, we’re ready to go. Our radar says the nearest other ship is five kilometres to the south-east, and Captain Aslanov thinks it’s probably a patrol boat. So he’ll raise his nets and use them for cover while we drop our boats, then we’ll let him get clear before we move off.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s 3.36. Sunrise is at about 5.50, so that gives us just enough time before dawn to get to shore, hide the boats and meet your friend. If he’s there,’ he added.

‘He’ll be there,’ Eddie assured him.

‘Good. So are you ready?’

‘As I’ll ever be,’ Nina said, with a sigh.

They headed to the trawler’s deck. To Eddie’s relief, the rain had stopped. Aslanov whistled to his crew, who raised the nets on the starboard side like a curtain, blocking everything behind them from potential observers aboard the Iranian patrol vessel. The Mossad agents brought their boats out of the hold and moved them to the port side.

The vessels, slender launches with angular, faceted prows made from a textured material resembling carbon fibre, were quickly lowered into the sea. ‘With me,’ said Zane, climbing into the lead boat after the pilot. His leg was still stiff from Rasche’s stab wound, but it had been stitched up and treated as best it could. He helped first Nina, then Eddie down. Another agent joined them, the five remaining men boarding the other craft.

‘Bit nippy,’ said the Englishman as a stiff breeze blew across the water. Nina had donned a black parka, but he had chosen to stay with his torn jacket.

‘Why didn’t you wear something else? That’s not just ruined, it’s covered in… I don’t even want to know what it’s covered in.’

‘Dead Nazis, mostly. Which is why I’m keeping it on.’

‘To remind you who we’re up against?’ asked Zane.

‘No. To remind me to finish the job. There’s still plenty of ’em left.’

The boats were pushed clear of the trawler. Engines revved, and the old vessel wallowed away. ‘Okay, keep down,’ said Zane. The launch’s seats were set very low inside the hull, the passengers leaning back almost horizontally as if in a racing car.

‘Isn’t it kinda hard for the driver to see?’ Nina asked. The view ahead was mostly obscured by a raised lip above the top of the dashboard, into which was set a softly glowing GPS display.

‘We’re on open water, so we won’t run into anything — I hope!’ The Israeli watched the trawler until it was well clear of the two bobbing stealth boats. A command, and the pilot started the engine, a muffled rumble coming from the rear of the vessel. Another growl from astern told them that the second boat had followed suit.

The pilot slowly opened the throttle to bring the vessel around towards the coast, a flashing green diamond marking a waypoint on the GPS, then increased power. Both boats surged across the water, their shallow keels and ducted propellers barely raising a wake.

Nina was very glad of her motion-sickness remedy. Even though the huge inland sea was quite calm, the same low profile that made the vessel nearly invisible to radar also meant that it was very sensitive to even small waves, each new crest thumping up through the hull into her spine. But she could tell from the speed at which spray was whipping past that the boats were fast.

Zane occasionally raised his head to look for more Iranian patrols, but the sea held only darkness. ‘How much longer?’ Eddie shouted to him over the smack of the waves.

‘Fifteen minutes! You’re sure your contact will be there?’

‘He was sneaking me and my mates into Iran while you were still playing with fucking Lego,’ Eddie replied with faint impatience. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Just checking.’ In the screen’s glow, Nina saw Zane’s mouth curl into a smirk. ‘So, you operated in Iran when you were young? What was it like there when the Shah was still in power?’

Eddie kicked Zane’s seat. ‘Fuck off, you cheeky little bastard.’ Nina laughed.

The two boats continued onwards. After another ten jolting minutes, the pilot reduced power. The GPS display showed they were approaching the shore. Nina saw with disquiet that there were lights along a good swathe of the coastline. ‘Jeez, are you sure we’ll be able to land without being seen? And how are we going to hide the boats?’

Zane produced night-vision goggles and surveyed what lay ahead. ‘That’s a forest,’ he said, pointing out a gap over a mile long in the line of lights. ‘The Sisangan National Park. We’ve used it as an entry point before. And I doubt anyone will be on the beach this early in the morning.’

‘I dunno,’ said Eddie. ‘You’d be surprised how many people in New York are out jogging at the crack of sparrowfart.’

‘Iran isn’t exactly the world’s jogging capital,’ the Israeli replied. He surveyed the shoreline again, then issued an order. The boats angled for the forest’s eastern end, reducing power to glide up to the empty beach.

To Nina’s alarm, headlights were intermittently visible through the trees behind the shore. ‘I thought nobody would be around?’

‘It’s a highway,’ Zane replied, unconcerned. ‘No one driving along it will be able to see us.’ The pilot brought them in until breaking waves began to rock them, at which point Zane and another Mossad operative jumped out, dragging the craft ashore. The second boat came in alongside. The other occupants disembarked, and the agents picked up the empty vessels and carried them across the sand into the trees. Grubby tarpaulins were draped over them, the coverings weighed down with rocks.

‘That’s how you’re hiding them?’ Nina asked. ‘What if someone looks under the tarps and finds two super-high-tech stealth boats?’

‘Trust me, nobody will look,’ said Zane, scooping up a handful of dirt and tossing it over one of the tarpaulins. The other got the same treatment. ‘Tourists who come here either walk on the beach or go into the forest on the far side of the highway. Even if they see these, they just look like ordinary boats when they’re covered — nothing worth paying attention to. I told you, we’ve done this before.’

‘Yeah, hiding something in plain sight by making it look really boring does actually work,’ Eddie told his wife. ‘Did it a few times in the SAS: we’d park up in a rusty old van to bag someone and nobody’d give us a second look. Well, except that time some little scrote opened the back door to see if there was anything he could nick. Blew the op, but it was worth it for the look on his face when he saw us all pointing guns at him. I think he genuinely shat himself.’

‘Lovely,’ she said, still unconvinced. But the Israelis were satisfied by the boats’ new low-tech camouflage and set off through the woods.

It did not take long for the group to reach a dirt track cutting through the strip of forest between the beach and the highway. A van lurked in the darkness. Two of the Mossad agents drew their weapons and moved into the trees to cover it.

‘Is that Hafez’s?’ Nina whispered.

Zane regarded it through the goggles. ‘I can’t tell if there’s anyone inside.’

‘I can,’ said Eddie. Before anyone could object, he advanced on the van, whistling loudly and tunelessly.

The Israeli made an aggrieved noise. ‘He’s being subtle again. That worked out so well last time!’

The driver’s door opened, a cloud of smoke wafting out. The lurking Israelis’ guns snapped on to the bearded man who emerged. ‘Oi, Hafez!’ Eddie called. ‘You really ought to stop smoking — it gives away that you’re in there when it leaks out of the windows.’

Hafez Marradejan took a long, mocking drag on his cigarette. ‘You used to smoke too, Eddie!’ he rasped.

‘Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I’ve sorted myself out since then.’ He embraced the older man. ‘Glad to see you again.’

‘And you. Six years, I think it has been?’

‘About that, yeah. Did you have any trouble getting here?’

‘Only from my wife! She was not pleased when I told her I was going to drive across half the country to see an old friend.’ A cackle, which turned into a cough, then Hafez peered past the Englishman. ‘So, where are the others?’

‘In the woods.’ Eddie turned and waved. ‘It’s okay, come on out.’

Nina was first to leave the trees, Zane and most of the other Mossad operatives following more cautiously. The two men keeping watch remained in the shadows, wary of deception or ambush.

But there was neither. ‘Hafez!’ said Nina. ‘Hi, remember me?’

‘Yes, of course!’ he replied, clasping her hand and shaking it. ‘You have become famous since then, no?’

‘Or infamous. And married, too.’ She took hold of Eddie’s arm.

The Iranian grinned. ‘Ah, so he did not sort himself out. I thought so!’

‘Are you okay? The last time I saw you, you’d been shot in the leg.’

‘An old wound now,’ he said dismissively, before giving the other men a quizzical look. ‘And these are…?’

‘Jared Zane,’ said Eddie, introducing the Israeli, ‘and his… associates. Probably best that you don’t ask where they’re from.’

Hafez finished his cigarette and ground it under his foot. ‘Pfft. I know Israeli special forces when I see them. Or Mossad, but the two are almost one these days.’ Ignoring Zane’s surprise, he went on: ‘You have vouched for them, Eddie, so that is good enough for me. And from what you told me, their business here is not with the people of Iran.’

‘No,’ Zane said. ‘At least not today.’

Eddie sighed as Hafez narrowed his eyes. ‘He doesn’t like the Iranian government any more than you do,’ he told the younger man, ‘so don’t even start waving your cock around.’

Hafez opened the rear doors. ‘It is big enough for all of you. Including the two men in the trees.’ Again Zane was caught by surprise; the Iranian gave him a yellow-toothed grin.

‘I keep telling this kid how useful experience is, but he won’t bloody listen,’ said Eddie, smirking. Zane shook his head, then signalled for the pair to join the others.

‘So, I am taking you into the Alborz mountains?’ asked Hafez as the Israelis clambered into the van.

‘Yeah,’ replied Nina. ‘The only problem is, I don’t know exactly where. I’ve narrowed it down to a fairly small area near one of the passes, but we’ll still have to search when we get there.’

‘I will get you as close as I can.’ With all the Mossad agents now squeezed inside, he closed the doors. ‘Oh, even though I will take the back roads, you will still need to wear a headscarf,’ he told Nina apologetically. ‘Red hair, it stands out — and with a truck full of spies, I do not want to attract attention!’

‘That’s okay,’ she said, touching her bedraggled ponytail. ‘The state my hair’s in, I’m happy to keep it under wraps.’

Hafez smiled. ‘There is one in the front. Okay, now we can go.’ He opened the passenger door for her and Eddie, then returned to the driver’s seat. There was a packet of Winston cigarettes on the dashboard; he flicked out one of the white cylinders with an almost automatic movement and put it in his mouth, then hesitated. ‘You think I smoke too much?’ Eddie nodded. ‘If you can give up, then bah, so can I.’ He returned the unlit cigarette to its home. ‘For one day, at least.’

Nina fastened a black scarf around her head as the Iranian started the engine. ‘You don’t appreciate your health until you lose it,’ she told him, with a sad look at her husband.

The target area was only some sixty miles from the landing site as the crow flew, but the journey was considerably more circuitous. Hafez was being extra cautious, avoiding major settlements and not wanting to draw the slightest interest from anyone they passed, be they civilian, police or military. By the time they left the coastal plain and began to ascend into the long east — west range of the Alborz, it was after eleven o’clock.

Nina’s prior visit to Iran had taken her to its dry and dusty western region, so the landscape came as a surprise. The mountains trapped clouds rolling in from the Caspian, resulting in a thick verdant carpet of forest covering the entire northern flank of the peaks. ‘Beautiful, yes?’ said Hafez as the van cruised up a tree-lined road winding deeper into the wilderness.

‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘But finding what we’re looking for in these woods might be harder than I thought.’

‘Hopefully Kroll and his lot’ll have the same problem,’ said Eddie.

‘Guess we’ll find out soon.’ There was a satnav on the dash; it showed that they were only a few kilometres from their destination — or at least the start of their search.

Minutes passed, the Iranian swinging the van around a series of hairpin bends as the potholed road ascended the pass. The clouds thickened the higher they climbed, casting a gloomy pall over both the scenery and Nina’s mood. She had barely escaped with her life from the Nazis… but now she was likely to face them again.

She had to do it, though. Kroll and the others had been trying to escape the world’s notice. But if they found the spring and shared it with their wealthy backers, they would regain influence around the globe.

She couldn’t let that happen. If she did, Macy and many others would have died for nothing…

‘This is it,’ said Hafez, bringing her back to immediate concerns. A muddy track to one side headed into the thick forest.

Eddie was immediately on alert. ‘Someone’s been up there recently,’ he said, spotting tyre marks in the wet earth. ‘Hafez, pull over.’

The back doors were flung open even before the van fully halted. Zane and the other Israelis jumped out and dispersed rapidly into the trees, guns readied. Eddie drew his own weapon, a nine-millimetre BUL Cherokee pistol provided by the Mossad agent. He examined the tracks. ‘A jeep, plus… three trucks,’ he reported. ‘Pretty heavily loaded an’ all. They’ve gone into the woods — but they haven’t come out.’

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that they were full of lumberjacks?’ said Nina.

Zane joined the Englishman. ‘Four-by-fours, big ones,’ he said. ‘Most likely Neynava troop trucks. Three of them would be enough to carry Kroll’s forces. The jeep was probably a Safir — the Revolutionary Guard commander’s ride.’ He saw Eddie’s impressed expression. ‘I might not be as experienced as you, but my intel’s right up to date.’

‘So now what?’ Nina asked.

‘We can’t risk taking the van any further,’ Eddie replied. ‘They might hear it.’

‘I do not want to leave you behind,’ Hafez protested from his vehicle.

‘I’m not saying you should go back home. But you’ll need to get out of sight. There was another track about a mile down the hill; use that.’ He surveyed the cloud-shrouded peaks to the south. ‘Nina, how far are we from the spring?’

Nina checked a map. ‘Six kilometres, at least.’ She had marked the search area; it was higher up the slopes. ‘That way,’ she said, pointing. ‘The tallest mountain could be the one from Andreas’ text.’

‘They won’t get trucks up there,’ Zane noted. ‘They’ll have to go on foot.’

Eddie went to the van. ‘Hafez, we’ll go on from here. Wait for us where I said.’

The Iranian reluctantly agreed. ‘For how long?’

‘Fucked if I know, mate. Jared, you got any walkie-talkies?’ Zane nodded. ‘Okay, give one to Hafez.’ He turned back to the older man. ‘We’ll give you a squawk when we come back. If we come back.’

‘You do not sound confident.’

‘There’s ten of us, and about thirty of them. And they’ve got one of our friends hostage. I’ve had worse odds, but…’

Hafez got out and embraced him. ‘Allah be with you, my friend. And you too, Nina,’ he added over Eddie’s shoulder. ‘I will wait for you. Well, until I run out of cigarettes!’

‘Go on, bugger off,’ Eddie told him with a grin. The Iranian detached himself, accepting a radio from Zane and climbing into the van. A quick U-turn, and the vehicle headed back downhill.

Nina took off her headscarf. ‘I just hope we won’t need to get out of here in a hurry…’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Eddie gazed back at the mountains. The tallest peak was well over a kilometre high, the uppermost section of its southern face a near-vertical wall dropping down to the steep forest below. ‘Okay, we’d better get started. We should stay clear of this track, though. Just in case someone comes back along it.’

‘Definitely,’ Zane agreed. ‘Which way?’

Eddie checked Nina’s map before indicating a rise about a mile distant. ‘Over there. We can go along that ridge. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier than climbing straight up its side.’

The Israeli nodded, then told his men to move into the trees. ‘You ready for this?’ Eddie asked his wife.

‘Not really,’ she said, ‘but… I’m doing it anyway.’

He smiled, then kissed her. ‘Come on, then.’

Hand in hand, they followed the others into the dense, damp forest.

The going soon became harder than expected. Not because the terrain was particularly difficult, though it was quite steep in places. What was wearing the party down wasn’t physical. Under the thick, obscuring canopy of the trees, the atmosphere was oppressive, the very air thick and cloying. With clouds blotting out the sun, there were not even shafts of light through the trees to relieve the twilight gloom.

‘What was this place called in the Alexander Romance?’ Eddie asked as they trudged up the slope.

‘Alexander first knew it as the Land of the Blessed,’ Nina replied. ‘But once he was inside, he started calling it the Land of Darkness — or the Region or Kingdom, depending on the translation. Andreas called it the Kingdom of Darkness on the relic. It’s an accurate description, whichever way. There’s a passage in the Romance where it got so dark even in daytime that Alexander and his men couldn’t go any deeper without risking getting lost.’

‘So how did they get through?’

She smiled. ‘Wisdom. There was an old man in Alexander’s army who told him they should only ride mares who had foals. They left the foals behind, so when they eventually returned after exploring, the mares led them back to their children. Alexander was so impressed that he gave the old man ten pounds of gold as a reward.’

‘See, Jared?’ Eddie called to the Israeli, who was a short distance ahead. ‘Age and experience win again.’ He turned back to Nina and asked more quietly: ‘Would that actually work?’

‘I haven’t a clue. I’m not a horse expert. But it was while they were exploring that Andreas found the Spring of Immortality, so if it still exists…’ She let the words hang in the stifling air.

Zane slowed to let them draw level. ‘What did it say about the spring in the Alexander Romance? What exactly are we looking for?’

‘There wasn’t much description in the Romance itself,’ Nina told him. ‘Alexander and his men had a choice of paths; the left one turned out to be impassable, so they went right even though it was darker — actually, Alexander later left a message for travellers that to get through the Land of the Blessed, they should always take the right-hand path. They eventually found a place where the water “flashed like lightning”, which Andreas discovered to be the Spring of Immortality. As for what Andreas said on the inscriptions on the fish,’ she glanced over her shoulder at her backpack, which contained the bronze artefact amongst her other gear, ‘the spring is through the Gate of Alexander, which is in the shadow of the area’s tallest peak. The mountain we’re heading for seems to fit the bill, but beyond that, all I can hope is that we’ll know it when we see it. If we see it.’

‘And if we’re not too late to get to it,’ Eddie said with a sudden urgency as he saw the men ahead react to something. ‘Get down.’

They crouched behind a tree. ‘What is it?’ Nina asked.

‘I can hear an engine,’ Zane whispered. ‘It must be on the track.’ He produced a pair of compact binoculars and peered downhill.

The sound of a vehicle jolting along rough ground reached them. But nothing was visible for several seconds… until a flicker of movement appeared between the trees, heading towards the road.

‘It’s the jeep,’ said Zane, tracking it. ‘A Safir; I was right,’ he added with a little smugness directed at the Englishman. ‘Looks like an officer in the passenger seat… Revolutionary Guard.’

‘What about the other trucks?’ Eddie asked.

‘I can only hear the jeep.’ They waited in silence until the vehicle passed and its engine note died away. ‘I think that was the local Guard commander going home rather than sit around in a damp forest. Leitz paid him to get Kroll and his men to where they want to go, but now that he’s fulfilled his part of the deal, he’s leaving.’

‘I can’t blame him,’ said Nina. ‘But I guess that means they’ve already started their search.’ She looked up the slope, but nothing was visible through the tree cover. ‘And we’ve still got four or five kilometres to go.’

‘We’d better keep moving, then,’ said Zane.

The team continued through the woods, eventually reaching the ridge. The trees thinned out as they climbed, enough of the sky visible to let Nina get a GPS fix. ‘Okay, this is where we are,’ she said, showing the others their position on the map. ‘So it’s about another three kilometres to the search area. I would have tried to use the fish to confirm we’re at the right latitude, but it’s kinda cloudy.’ Muted amusement from the others.

‘It’ll take a while to check the whole thing,’ said Eddie. The zone she had marked covered more than a square kilometre. ‘And that’s assuming it’s not already crawling with Nazis.’

‘We know roughly what we’re looking for, though.’ She produced the bronze fish from her rucksack, running a fingertip along one of the lines of Greek text. ‘The Gate of Alexander seems from the context to be a physical structure. It might still be standing.’

Zane examined the map. ‘Won’t it be lower down than that? Surely a spring can’t start too high up a mountain; where would the water come from?’

‘Actually, there are springs recorded practically on mountain summits. The reservoir can be miles underground — the weight of the rock forces the water up through fissures.’ She folded the map, returning it and the artefact to her pack. ‘But according to Andreas, the Gate of Alexander is in the shadow of the tallest peak, so I’m guessing — I’m hoping — that it’s not right at the top.’

‘She’s usually pretty good at this, don’t worry,’ Eddie told the Israeli. ‘Okay, crack on!’

They set off again, tromping back into the darkness of the forest. The ground became steeper, slowing their progress. It took well over an hour before they reached the edge of the target area, the sheer-sided peak looming over them to the south, and nearly another hour after that before their search found anything.

What they discovered was not a spring, or any kind of gateway.

‘Shit!’ Eddie hissed, waving the others to a halt. ‘Get into cover!’

‘What is it?’ Nina asked as she scurried behind a tree.

‘Footprints. They’re already here!’

The forest floor was covered in a thick layer of fallen foliage, absorbing the group’s individual tracks, but not even the carpet of mulch could hide the passage of dozens of men. A churned trail of boot prints angled up the shadowed hillside.

Zane glared up the slope. ‘They might have found the spring already.’

‘Maybe, but they haven’t come back down yet,’ Nina said. ‘We’ve still got a chance to stop them.’

‘We’re outnumbered at least three to one!’

‘Thought that was what Mossad were into,’ said Eddie with a half-smile. ‘Surrounded by your enemies, never backing down, all that?’

The Israeli was not amused. ‘This isn’t exactly our homeland. But no, I wasn’t planning to back down. Not when we’re this close.’

The team moved parallel to the Nazis’ trail, leaving a gap of about a hundred feet. They headed higher, alert to the slightest activity. But all they heard was glum birdsong. The climb continued, five minutes passing without incident, ten—

One of the Mossad agents raised a hand. Everyone immediately stopped and crouched. Nina saw nothing ahead. She tried to pick out any sounds over the sudden drum of her heart…

Faint voices reached her, along with a rhythmic thumping and scraping. Looking uphill, she saw that the slope eased not far above, a broad shelf running across the forested hillside. The noises were coming from higher and to the right. ‘Sounds like they’re digging.’

‘Back up,’ ordered Zane. ‘We’ll go around them and get a view from above.’

‘Keep well clear,’ Eddie warned. ‘They might have posted sentries.’

The group made a wide circle around the hub of activity, looping in towards it from higher up. The digging was taking place a few hundred feet above the shelf, not far from the base of the peak’s southern face. Eddie dropped to a crawl, stopping behind a fungus-covered log. The Mossad agents spread out nearby, Zane and Nina joining the Englishman to look through the trees at what lay below.

‘Oh God,’ Nina whispered. ‘We’re too late…’