King Solomon's Curse

39

Nina watched through the windows with Huygens and other shocked embassy staff as a dark cloud drifted across the Thames. The Houses of Parliament were out of direct sight around a bend in the river, but the thunderous boom of an uncontrolled building collapse had already told her enough. It was a noise she had heard before; she had been in her native Manhattan on September 11, 2001, a similar distance from Ground Zero, and its recurrence chilled her very soul.

‘Oh, my God…’ she whispered. ‘He did it. He actually did it…’

Quentin Hove stared at a television in 10 Downing Street. One of the news channels had a helicopter airborne over the capital, and had cut live to it when it became clear that something was happening at the Houses of Parliament. His face was ashen, eyes wide in shock, but he couldn’t avert his gaze. ‘What have you done?’ he said, voice barely audible.

The only other person in the room was C. ‘What have we done, Prime Minister,’ Armitage reminded him. ‘Brice’s plan was approved by both of us.’

Hove rounded on the intelligence chief. ‘But — I didn’t — I didn’t know he was going to do this!’ He stabbed a finger at the television. The helicopter was orbiting Parliament, revealing the destruction in almost three-dimensional clarity. The fallen clock tower had almost totally demolished the north wing of the Palace of Westminster, the House of Commons beyond a collapsed shell.

An urgent knock at the door. ‘Prime Minister!’ called a frantic aide, rushing in without waiting for a reply. ‘It’s Parliament, there — there’s been an attack!’

Hove hurriedly attempted to compose himself, with little success. ‘I know. I know! I’ll be out in a moment. Wait outside. Get out!’ he added, voice cracking, when the man did not immediately retreat.

C felt his phone buzz and quickly checked its screen. He had already ignored two calls from SIS headquarters, which he knew would be his staff trying to inform him about the disaster, but the number told him this was one he needed to take. ‘Yes?’

‘Sir, the operation is completed,’ Brice replied.

‘I know, the PM and I are watching on television. What’s your status?’ The other man sounded as if he was running, but there was also definite stress behind his breathlessness. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘Yes, sir, but that’s not important. I needed to speak to you. Chase showed up.’

C tried to conceal his concern from the politician beside him. ‘GB63 didn’t catch him? What about the American woman?’

‘I don’t know, sir. I haven’t been in contact with ops. You may need to follow that up.’

‘I most definitely will. Where are you now?’

‘In St James’s Park. I’m going to get clear of the area, then go to the safe house. Sir, I… I’ll need medical treatment.’ The request sounded like an admission of defeat.

‘Is that him?’ Hove demanded before C could reply. ‘Is that Brice? Let me speak to him!’

Armitage shook his head. ‘Sir, that would be inadvisable—’

‘Do what I tell you!’ The command was almost a scream. C reluctantly put the phone on speaker. ‘Brice, you — you maniac!’ Hove shouted at it. ‘You blew up Big Ben!’

No reply came from the phone, but C spoke for his subordinate, voice calm and cold. ‘His inference was quite clear, Prime Minister. When you chose to send the Home Secretary to PMQs in your stead, I took that as confirmation that you were fully on board with the operation.’

‘The operation!’ The Prime Minister’s voice rose almost to a screech. ‘We — you, you’ve destroyed Parliament! You must have killed everyone inside!’

C stepped closer, both for a better look at the television and to apply subtle physical intimidation to the smaller man. The helicopter was now over Parliament Square, cameras zooming in on the growing crowd spilling out of the building. ‘Not everyone, it would seem. There are survivors.’ They both kept watching. ‘Quite a few survivors.’ He sounded almost surprised.

‘Sir, if there isn’t anything else,’ Brice prompted, ‘I need to get to the safe house.’

‘Go,’ C told him. ‘I’ll send a medic to meet you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ He disconnected.

C turned back to Hove. ‘I need to return to Vauxhall Cross, Prime Minister. There are some matters that require my attention.’

The Prime Minister’s watery eyes widened again. ‘What? What do you mean? Have we — have you been exposed? If MI6’s involvement comes out—’

Armitage cut him off. ‘Nothing like that. A cover story’s already been prepared, that Islamic terrorists smuggled explosives into the sewer tunnels under the tower’s foundations. It gives us both a believable scapegoat, and justification to cancel the election and implement a national state of emergency.’ He put a hand on Hove’s shoulder; the other man flinched. ‘You’ve done the right thing, Prime Minister. This will allow us to secure our borders and crack down on internal dissent. You will be the one to lead us through this most difficult time. You must seize the opportunity — as long as you don’t weaken, everything will turn out to the nation’s advantage.’

‘I… yes, yes,’ said Hove, nodding. ‘I’ll prepare a statement immediately.’

‘Good. We will rebuild, sir. Britain will come out of this stronger than ever before. And so will you.’

The churning ripples from the Transit’s plunge into the Thames faded. Despite their fear, some of the people on Westminster Bridge had still rushed to look for any signs of the driver who had crashed into the waters below.

There were none. A man took off his jacket, about to dive after him in a rescue attempt—

‘There he is! There!’ someone cried.

Eddie broke through the waves, gasping. The sinking van’s wake had dragged him down, the Yorkshireman needing all his strength to break free. But now he was being carried along by the strong current, passing beneath the bridge. He struck exhaustedly towards shore — not the one from which he had come, but the south bank. It was farther away, but was clear of the chaos that had erupted around Parliament — and, he hoped, would be free of SIS assassins.

While Nina and Huygens hurriedly discussed events, a member of the official’s staff had continued watching the video. ‘Mr Huygens, sir!’ he called. ‘Dr Wilde was right. This guy,’ he gestured at a freeze-frame of Brice, ‘talks about this Shamir thing being a sonic weapon that can destroy buildings from a distance, and his first thought is to use it for a decapitation attack.’

‘Which he’s just done,’ said Nina. Someone had switched on a television, which was showing grim helicopter footage of the devastation.

‘But is there conclusive proof?’ Huygens asked. ‘This biblical weapon — it sounds too fantastic to be real.’

‘How real does it have to be?’ she demanded, jabbing a hand at the screen as a replay of the clock tower’s collapse began. ‘And it’s still out there! Brice still has it. Eddie, my husband, went after him, but…’ She trailed off as an awful thought formed. Eddie had failed to stop the attack — or may not even have had the chance to try. ‘You’ve got to get someone over there to find him!’

‘We won’t be able to get close,’ Huygens told her. The replay continued, the helicopter’s cameraman zooming in on fleeing people before pulling back to show the whole terrifying scene. ‘The Brits’ll close the entire area off, if they haven’t already — it’s just around the corner from Downing Street and less than a mile from Buckingham Palace.’

‘You’ve got to try, though! He might be—’ Something on the television caught her eye. A white pickup truck was moving against the other vehicles, heading towards the crumbling tower. The cameraman had also spotted the unusual activity and zoomed in again, keeping the building in frame as the truck approached it.

There was a grey rectangular object in the vehicle’s bed — its dimensions and colour triggering a jolt of recognition. She darted closer to the screen, but the shape broke down into fuzzy pixels. Was it the Shamir’s lead case? She couldn’t tell — but there was something inside it, a greenish smear that might have been the strange stone itself…

‘Holy crap!’ someone gasped. Nina withdrew — and watched in shock as the clock’s hands plunged to the ground, impacting so close behind the truck that it visibly jolted. ‘That’s the luckiest guy on earth, right there!’

‘Where’s he going?’ asked Huygens, transfixed. ‘The bridge is blocked, he can’t get over it—’

He broke off as they saw that the driver wasn’t trying to cross the bridge. The pickup deliberately swung at the railings — and crashed through, nose-diving towards the water below.

Nina saw the driver bail out as it fell. Another shock of recognition, this time with fear at the sight of a bald man in a leather jacket disappearing into the Thames. ‘Oh my God! That was him, that was Eddie!’ She stared at the screen, hoping to see him surface, but now the camera had fixed upon the clock tower as it began its inexorable collapse. The room went silent, everyone watching in stunned horror.

The scene played out to its devastating conclusion as a dust cloud swept up from the ruins. The channel cut back to a grim-faced studio presenter. Nina turned to Huygens. ‘That was Eddie in that truck, I’m sure of it — and I’m also sure the Shamir was in its back. That means the Shamir’s in the river… and he might still be alive. You’ve got to get somebody down there to find him. Please.’

The State Department official tore his gaze from the screen. ‘I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.’

It took Eddie the better part of ten minutes to find a way up to ground level, penned in by the sheer wall running along the South Bank’s waterfront. By the time he did, the streets were filled with the whoops and screams of sirens as emergency services from all over London poured into Westminster. Helicopters buzzed ceaselessly overhead, the civilian aircraft that had been first on the scene ordered away to clear space for air ambulances and police choppers.

He squelched up a flight of steps at a jetty near Lambeth Bridge. The riverfront was thronged by onlookers. He pushed through them to stare back at Parliament, half a mile upriver.

The sight that greeted him was wrong, grinding the gears of his mind as it struggled to process the absence of Big Ben from the skyline. The clock tower was familiar to every Briton even if they had never visited the capital, a symbol of the nation that had seemed eternal and unshakeable.

But now it was gone.

Anger surged through Eddie. Partly at himself, for failing to stop the attack — but mostly at Brice and his backers for carrying it out. Despite the agent’s sneering claims to be acting for the good of the country, he was no patriot, rather the biggest traitor in Britain’s history. Guy Fawkes had only planned to destroy the Houses of Parliament; Brice had succeeded.

His fury had no target, though. Brice had escaped, wounded but very much alive. He could now be anywhere. And he had no idea whether or not Nina had reached the American embassy with the evidence against the rogue MI6 man…

Images of his wife and daughter flashed through his mind. He had to find out what had happened to Nina, and get word to someone who could save Macy from Brice’s watchers. He was now only about a mile from the US embassy — but the most direct route to it would take him literally past the front door of SIS headquarters.

He moved back through the crowd and started along the waterfront. Some areas of London, especially along the river, had changed nearly beyond recognition in the fifteen years since he had lived in the capital. He needed to figure out how to get to the embassy without being caught…

‘Mr Chase? Eddie Chase!’

He whipped around, ready to run — or fight. A large black SUV had pulled up at the roadside, but it was an American model, even bigger than the Range Rovers that had been pursuing him. Its registration plate was a non-standard format, three numbers followed by a ‘D’ revealing that it was a diplomatic vehicle. The man calling his name had an American accent. ‘Who’s asking?’ Eddie replied warily.

The young man held up an identity badge. ‘My name’s Thomas Roston, from the US embassy. Your wife asked us to find you — although we didn’t expect to see you right there on the sidewalk!’

‘Yeah? What’s my wife’s name?’

‘Nina Wilde. Why, you got amnesia?’

‘Funny bastard,’ the Yorkshireman rumbled, but the mere fact that Roston was willing to talk rather than gun him down on sight made him more inclined to believe his story. ‘Did you get what she was bringing to you?’

The other man nodded. ‘The ambassador’s watching the video right now. We’ve been asked to take you to him. I hear you’ve had some problems with the British security services?’

‘You could say that.’

‘We’ll get you past them. Get in.’ He tipped his head towards the rear door.

Eddie was still suspicious, but if Roston’s superiors had Nina, he would have to deal with them one way or another. ‘Okay,’ he said, opening the door. ‘Apologies in advance, though.’

‘For what?’

He sat down, his sodden clothes squishing under him. ‘For ruining your upholstery.’

Roston was indeed telling the truth. It took some time for the SUV to reach the embassy, the police having set up roadblocks and checkpoints at several junctions, but eventually they pulled into an underground parking lot.

They took a lift up into the main building. ‘We’ll get you some dry clothes,’ Roston’s driver told Eddie.

‘Wouldn’t bother,’ he replied sardonically as the doors opened. ‘Took so long to get here, they’ve pretty much dried out on their own.’

‘You do need a change, though,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Because they stink.’

‘Nina!’ cried Eddie in delight and relief as he saw his wife hurry out from a stern-faced reception committee. ‘You okay, love?’

Nina held up her left arm, which was now supported by a sling. ‘Nope. Got shot. But that’s okay, they took care of it — and gave me an injection of something that kinda makes me want to get shot more often.’ She smiled to assure him that was a joke, then they embraced.

‘Nothing too powerful,’ one of the embassy staff said. ‘We need you both to be clear-headed.’ He extended his hand to Eddie. ‘Alvin Crane, Deputy Chief of Mission here in London. The ambassador is currently talking to the President. I can tell you right now, the video your wife brought to us is… explosive. If what this John Brice says on it is true—’

‘It’s true,’ Eddie told him firmly.

‘Then it’s going to seriously impact the US — UK relationship, if it turns out the downing of Flight 180 really was carried out by a British agent with approval from the top.’

Even veiled in diplomatic terms, the Yorkshireman still picked up on the implied threat against his country. ‘We don’t know if Quentin Hove specifically signed off on crashing the plane to rescue Mukobo,’ he said, wanting to pin the blame on specific individuals rather than the nation as a whole. ‘But it seems like he authorised Brice to do whatever he wanted to start a civil war in DR Congo. Problem was, Brice is a fucking psycho.’

‘That’s something we can let the investigators and lawyers figure out,’ said Crane. ‘The first thing is for you to talk to the ambassador and the President, so you can answer their questions and give your side of the story. After that… it’s up to the President to decide on a response.’

‘That sounds ominous,’ Nina said quietly.

The diplomat gestured down a corridor. ‘Anyway, if you’ll come with me, we’ll get started. Although first…’ His nose wrinkled. ‘Maybe you might like a change of clothes, Mr Chase?’

Eddie shook his head. ‘The President can’t smell me over a conference call, so let’s not waste time. Brice’s business is way dirtier than anything I’ve been swimming in.’