The Armageddon Protocol

FIVE

Harry and Lucia climbed the steps at the base of the Casino de Salamanca and walked out into the busy Spanish night. It was colder now and the wind was rising. The last time he had been in Madrid was back in August when what the French called the Sirocco, but the Spanish called the Lebeche, had blown into town. It was a strong southerly that blew in from the deserts of North Africa, pushed on top of Madrid in advance of a low pressure zone moving in from the Sahara desert, and describing it as hot was an understatement. But tonight was different, tonight there was even a little snow in the air.

He saw the traffic trundling along the Paseo de la Castellana, even at this late hour. They walked south on the Paseo for a few minutes and headed towards Pablo’s apartment in the nearby district of Chamberí. The Paseo de la Castellano, or the Castilian’s Mall, was one of the grandest avenues in the city, over six kilometres long and much of it lined with expensive retail outlets and cherry trees lit up with fairy lights, but neither of them saw any of this tonight.

They walked fast along the Paseo for another block, and then crossed over the Plaza Doctor Marañon and continued up the Calle Miguel Ángel. To his left, Harry could see the chrome, steel and glass of the Caixa bank building, partially obscured behind a line of horse chestnut trees. Pablo’s apartment was almost in sight.

They reached the residential block, and Harry led the way up the steps until they reached the third floor where the apartment was located, and then he saw it — Pablo Reyes’s front door, now shut from Lucia’s recent exit and still smeared with his blood. Sprawled out in front of it was the dead body of the professor’s neighbor, Mariana Vidal.

They heard a voice behind and swung around to see a scared-looking man standing in a white t-shirt and his underwear. He was holding a phone in his hand. “I told you I called the police, you murderer!” the neighbor shouted.

Lucia took a step back, but Harry walked over to him and grabbed him by the top of his t-shirt. “Why don’t you wait for them in there?” he said, and pushed him back inside his apartment. He slammed the door on him and moved back over to Lucia.

“I told you he called them!” she said.

Harry frowned and checked his watch. “You told me that seven or eight minutes ago back at the restaurant — only they’re not here, are they?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know — but that’s a little suspicious, don’t you think?”

“Should we call them?” she asked.

“No, not yet. They’ll only complicate things for the time being. I want to know what’s going on and fast. Involving the police is the best way to ensure we get cut out of the loop. Have you got the key?”

“No, sorry. I slammed it behind me without thinking.”

Harry pulled Mrs Vidal out the way and took a closer look at the door. He recognised the lock — a reasonable brand but the cylinder was a cheap affair and was no challenge at all. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his key-ring, selecting a bump key. This was a key cut with the deepest possible grooves to allow the user to manipulate the springs and drivers inside the lock.

He slid the key into the cylinder housing and then pulled it out one notch before turning it very slightly to the right. He then gave the back of it a solid tap with the heel of his hand and pushed it back in.

Nothing happened.

“What’s going on?” Lucia asked, confused.

Harry flicked his eyes at her. “Takes a moment, just make sure your friendly neighbor’s minding his own business.”

He tapped the back of the key once again and this time it moved. This created a gap in the shear-line and raised the spring-loaded top pins inside the cylinder plug for a fraction of a second, giving him just enough time to turn the key and open the lock.

“How did you do that?” Lucia said with amazement.

“It’s called bumping a lock and it’s very naughty.”

“You’re a thief these days?”

Harry shrugged and gave her a sideways glance. “I’m not sure it’s called that when you’re paid by the government to do it, but whatever you want to call it I don’t do it any more. Come on — we need to get inside.”

The Englishman gently nudged the door open with the toe of his shoe and took a cautious step back as he did so. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here but if Lucia’s boyfriend really was dead he was certain he didn’t want to share his fate.

Inside the apartment, he turned to Lucia. “Where is he?”

She pointed to the end of the corridor. “He’s in there, the lounge.”

He nodded his head and swallowed hard. “All right, then you stay here while I take a look.”

He turned away from her and after making a quick search of the apartment to ensure they were alone, he walked the length of the apartment’s central corridor to the end door. Easing it back and peering his head around the open door, he knew in a heartbeat that the girl had been right and Pablo Reyes was dead.

The corpse was getting cold now, and the pulse long gone. Even worse was the puddle of blood congealing around the terrific wound on the man’s neck. It looked like it had been done with some sort of wire. Harry winced at the thought of how much pain the old man must have suffered in his final few moments but any rage he might have felt was quickly extinguished by his usual tidal wave of world-weariness and cynicism. This was what happens in the world, he told himself, but it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a price to pay.

A heavy price.

He pulled a throw from the couch and gently covered the professor’s face with it as Lucia entered the room once again.

“He’s dead, right?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes.”

Her voice was breaking, and he recognized the symptoms of shock as she perched herself on the arm of one of the chairs. “So what now?”

Harry wished he knew. He was supposed to meeting Lucia and Pablo just that night for dinner, and now this. “Has anything been stolen?”

“I don’t think so — but it’s so hard to tell with so much damage everywhere.”

Harry stood and surveyed the destruction the killer had caused in the apartment — books were wrenched from shelves, cushions heaved out of sofas and the TV had been tipped over onto its screen. “In your email to me you said he was a security guard.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Was that for a bank?”

“No, for a museum — the Prado.”

He sighed.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m just trying to work out why anyone would do this.”

“But before that he was a physicist.”

“He was a physicist?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t find that odd at all?”

“What?”

“That a physicist would walk away from a well-paid career to be a security guard?”

“Not at all. He told me he was tired of university politics and wanted to change career. He was studying to be an art restorer if you must know, but I know he was still researching in his old field.”

“And what was that?”

“Pablo was conducting research into nanoparticles, specifically brain-machine interface technology and how smart dust interacts with the human cortex.”

Harry sighed again. “I used to be a secret agent and now I’m a dropout gambler, Lucia. You’ll need to say that again in English.”

“He was studying how nanotechnology could affect the human brain.”

Harry furrowed his brow. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”

She dried her eyes again. “You think this is why someone killed him?”

“It sounds like a better lead than someone killing him because he was doing an art restoration degree, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what to think… but what can we do?”

“It’s obvious,” Harry said. “We have to find out why he was killed, and fast. Whoever was here must have killed him for a reason. They must have taken something from him — information perhaps, or something more tangible that he was keeping here in the flat. We don’t know what they have or how far they’ve got or even who they are. All we can do is try and work out what Pablo was researching — what he discovered — and try to get there first.”

“But how?”

“We have to be logical, and work on a few safe assumptions. First, he would have kept his research here in his apartment, so he could work on it and keep it safe. Second, he would not have left it lying around just anywhere in case something like this happened, and third we must assume he would never have given up any information.”

“I”m not so sure…”

“Listen, that idiot in the flat opposite has already called the police, and you’re going to be the prime suspect when they turn up. Trust me when I say they’re not going to let us hang around in here and get to the bottom of this, so this is our only chance, right now.”

“But they’re still not here.”

Harry checked his watch and frowned again. “Which is strange. He called them nearly fifteen minutes ago now and reported a murder, and yet they’re still not here. I’m not liking that at all.”

“What do you think it means?”

“It can mean only one of two things. First, the Madrid Police are all asleep tonight, or second, that he was under surveillance by the big boys and when the call came in it was diverted up the food chain.”

“The CNI?”

He nodded. “I’d say so, and that means when the cavalry arrives we’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”

“So what shall we do, Harry? I’m scared…”

“First we have to find the research.”

“It could be anywhere!”

“No, not anywhere — it’s specifically somewhere, and that’s different.”

They made a quick search of the professor’s study but found nothing obvious, and then made their way back into the main living area.

“We’re never going to find it!”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I don’t know. How do we know that the killer didn’t find it?”

“Because you’re still alive. If he’d found what he was looking for he would have killed you too. It looks like he was interrupted by your neighbor calling the police and he fled without whatever he was looking for.

“And that means he’ll be back?”

Harry nodded. “Probably. It’s obviously a pretty big deal.”

“So where is it?”

“Wait — you said it was his research — maybe even his life’s work. And now we know it was important enough for someone to be driven to murder. Where is the best place to hide a tree?”

“I don’t understand.”

“A forest. We start with his books.”

They began to search through the books — those the killer had thrown on the floor and those still on the shelves. Then Harry stopped in his tracks. He knew it had to be what he was looking for the moment he saw it. On a shelf with over fifty textbooks on physics and nanotechnology was just one book that didn’t fit in — it was an old, thin book — the Epistola CVI. He reached for it and took it from the shelf.

“What is it?” Lucia asked.

“It’s the Epistola CVI written by Bernard of Clairvaux.”

“Who is he?”

“Who was he, you mean — he died nearly a thousand years ago. He was a French abbott and a founding member of the Cistercian Order. This has to have something to do with this business.”

“How do you know?”

“Very expensive education.”

“No, I mean how do you know it has something to do with the murder?”

“Look at the shelf — look at the whole room — there’s nothing in here except science. His art books are all in the study, but everything in this room is about physics from all the books on the shelves to the little Newton’s Cradle on his desk. The only thing in this entire space that is not about science in this room is this one little book. This book was put here on purpose.”

Ruiz accelerated the Spider around the north of the city and approached Chamberí where the apartment was located. He slowed the car and pulled up at the end of the street which was now cordoned off and guarded by several armed police officers.

An unmarked white BMW was parked in front of three black and white cars a few yards away. The cars were marked on the doors Policía Municipal Madrid and had flashing blue lights but no sirens. In the front passenger seat of the BMW, he instantly recognized Inspector Jefe Cristina Fernandez.

As she climbed out of the car, she squeezed her temples and sighed. “There was a time when Madrid was a safe city, Rafael,” she said. “But it’s starting to feel like this is no longer the case.

“How many men?” Ruiz asked.

“Six, but when we arrived and cordoned off the street one of my officers reported movement inside the apartment.”

“Someone’s inside Reyes’s apartment?”

“Yes, they must have gotten in before my officers sealed off the apartment block.”

“Any ID?”

“No, but maybe the killer went back to the scene of the crime.”

“Whoever it is, they’ve run out of time… and luck,” Ruiz said. “We’re going in right now — get the men briefed and ready to go.”