The Camelot Code

1

A murky fog rises from beneath the Bay Bridge and crawls towards the giant federal buildings crowded near the choppy waters.

Mitzi Fallon stares out from the glass belly of the FBI skyscraper. ‘Some weather,’ she says to no one at her side. ‘I move from LA, for what? To start my morning in the mist, like a freakin’ gorilla? Sheesh.’

Heads turn as the muttering brunette, dressed in grey slacks and a new white top, hauls a box of personal belongings down a thousand miles of corridors.

She shoulders open a door marked: HISTORIC, RELIGIOUS AND UNEXPLAINED CRIMES UNIT and surveys a small but empty open-plan room with four desks. Tucked in the corner is a tiny office created by a floor-to-ceiling glass partition and a barely visible swing-in door.

Mitzi dumps her stuff on an empty desk and reflects on why she’s uprooted herself and two children to join a unit dubbed ‘The Unsolvables’. Some of it’s down to the pay rise and relocation cheque — money’s tight when you’re raising two teenage girls on your own. Part of it is the opportunity to widen her horizons and work with the FBI in a new multi-agency task force. If the truth were known, most of it is about starting afresh. Quitting town. Getting away from Alfie.

Her Alfie.

Alfie Fallon.

One-time love of her life, turned drunk, turned wife-beater.

The lieutenant unpacks. First out of the bubble wrap is a ‘World’s Best Mom’ mug, then a pile of framed photographs of her twins, Amber and Jade. A favourite of her and the girls at Disney gets a kiss before it’s put in place.

The thirty-nine-year-old crosses to a spotless desk that has only one item on it — a thin, stainless steel nameplate proclaiming its missing occupant to be JONATHAN BRONTY. She’s been told the squad’s only man was once a priest in a tough downtown district in LA. ‘Well, Father, if your soul is half as clean as your desk I’m sure you’re going straight to heaven when the big day comes.’

She puts the nameplate down and drifts to the next workstation. It’s heaped with files and documents. Teetering near the edge is a row of old reference books and the proclamation: VICTORIA CANTRELL, UNIT RESEARCHER.

Adjacent is a third desk, that of LT ELEONORA FRACCI.

Mitzi inspects a tube of expensive foreign hand cream, a gorgeous brown Achille Pinto silk scarf and two small blue Murano glass fish used as paperweights. She picks up a silver-framed photograph showing a strikingly beautiful woman in a smart Carabinieri police uniform, flanked by her small but proud mother and father.

The office door opens.

Stood there is her new boss, unit head Sandra Donovan.

‘Quite a looker.’ Mitzi returns the photo to Fracci’s desk. She nods to her cardboard box. ‘I think I’ll sit over there, just so no one thinks me and the lovely Eleonora are part of a before-and-after commercial.’

Donovan doesn’t laugh. The forty-four-year-old’s sense of humour is as short as her masculine haircut. She extends a hand and grips hard. ‘Good to have you on board, though we didn’t expect you until tomorrow.’

‘Hey, if that’s a problem, I can gladly go home.’

‘No. If you’re on the payroll, you’re on the clock. Personnel are useless. Come to my office; we can talk there.’

‘Where’s everyone else?’

‘They’re out on a case. Will be all day. It’s something the cops downtown have been struggling with.’

Mitzi follows her into the small area behind the soundproof glass. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Maybe.’ She slides into a chair behind her desk and gestures to Mitzi to sit. ‘Week ago cops found a woman’s body buried in her own back garden. Homicide has been grilling the husband ever since.’

‘Sounds like a domestic.’

‘They thought the same. But this is a weird one. Forensics found multiple semen samples on the corpse and none are the husband’s.’

Mitzi frowns. ‘But why call in this unit? What’s historic, religious or unexplainable about a rape-homicide?’

Donovan manages a smile for the first time. ‘The vic was a witch. A full-blown black magic priestess.’

2

Detective Paddy Fitzgerald, the cop everyone calls ‘Irish’, stands outside the antiques store on Howard Avenue, eating a large Danish. At his feet is a bucket of black coffee still too hot to hold let alone drink.

He isn’t going into that stinking hole of a crime scene until he’s finished his breakfast. The stiff in there has been cooking all weekend and from what one of the CSIs has told him, there are enough blowflies to lift him off his feet.

Calliphoridae.

He hates them with a passion. Hates their noise and their way of hanging around even when he’s batted the fuck out of them.

Irish sends uniforms to canvass for witnesses and tries the coffee. Still too hot. He puts it back down on the sidewalk and inspects the gathering crowd.

Human blowflies. Every bit as bad as the bloodsuckers inside. To say nothing about the press. Those cocksuckers are even worse. His vitriol has been sparked by the sight of Tommy Watson, an idiot from the crime desk of the Washington Post, with a long rap sheet for misquoting police.

The reporter raises a hand and with it his voice, ‘Hey, Detective.’

Irish ignores him.

‘You got a minute for me?’

He dusts pastry flakes off an unironed blue shirt that testifies yesterday’s dinner included meatballs and tomato sauce.

‘Come on; give me a break, Irish. You got a quote I can use for the online edition?’

‘Yeah, I got a quote. Tommy Watson don’t know his fat, lazy ass from his chicken-shit elbows — and if he wasn’t screwing the ugliest broad in Dispatch he wouldn’t even know to be here.’

‘Screw you, Lieutenant.’ He flips him the finger.

‘Screw you, Tommy tiny dick.’ He looks up, as he pulls forensic overalls and shoe covers from a police bag. ‘What? You don’t think Big Brenda told us about Tiny Tommy?’ He laughs and starts to suit up.

A hanging bell rings as he opens the door of Goldman’s Antiques and a sign saying CLOSED clatters against the reinforced glass. The light inside is nicotine-brown, as though tainted by too much contact with dark wood, dust and history.

The floorboards bend and creak as he walks a non-contamination route marked out by the forensic teams. The place smells of beeswax polish and brass cleaner.

And death.

The air is fat with the stomach-turning stink of it.

A young, male crime-scene photographer is up a short aluminium stepladder. He’s shooting video of the body, its relation to the entrance, the register, the showroom and the small restroom that, by the look of it, also gets used to make hot drinks.

Medical Examiner Cherrie Archer is on her knees, searching for defence wounds and trace on the hands of the cadaver. Over the stiff, curled fingers, the thirty-three-year-old blonde sees Irish shuffle towards her. He’s six-foot-plus but slouches and seems smaller. His dark, curly hair is specked with grey and looks like he slept the night in a cardboard box. Every time Cherrie sees him, she remembers that half a decade ago he had a brain sharper than her skull saw.

Then came the incident.

The one no one talks about.

Not divorce. Not the death of a partner. Not a clichéd crash into drink and ruin.

Something worse. Far worse.

She tucks a curl of hair back into the hood of her white Tyvek suit. ‘I’m just about to start, Detective. Want to join me?’

Irish’s knees crack as he bends beside her. ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had today.’ He corrects himself, ‘Come to think of it, it’s my best offer this year.’

3

Mitzi hears them coming down the corridor laughing and joking. The way colleagues do when they’re comfortable with each other.

She feels very much the new girl. Undoubtedly they’ll be nice as pie to her. Then someone will call a contact in LA and learn her husband used to beat her. Someone else will discover she stuck a gun to his head, had him jailed and then banned from coming within a mile of her or their kids.

‘Hi there!’ she says as they enter the office. ‘I’m Mitzi Fallon — from the LAPD.’ She sticks out a grin and her hand.

‘Jon Bronty,’ says a man with chestnut-brown hair. ‘People just call me Bronty.’

Mitzi notices he’s of medium build, not much taller than she is. Maybe five ten. Somewhere around thirty, trim but not muscular and, despite old-fashioned brown cords and a scruffy green shirt, has a comfortable way that she imagines some women — or maybe men — might find attractive.

‘This is Eleonora — Eleonora Fracci.’ Bronty pronounces the surname with melodramatic accentuation.

‘Ciao ’itzi.’ The brunette from the Carabinieri photograph is wearing a pale-pink blouse and short brown skirt that shows off ridiculously toned legs.

‘It’s Mitzi with an M.’ She tries not to sound too annoyed. ‘Not itzi as in “itsy bitsy”.’

The Italian looks baffled. ‘M— itzi?’

‘Close enough.’

A young, mousy woman in jeans and a Big Bang Theory T-shirt flashes a set of teeth braces. ‘Victoria Cantrell — Vicky. I do research. Research and coffee.’ Her voice says New York — Brooklyn. ‘Lots of coffee.’ She gives a nervous giggle. ‘They drink it all day. Would you like some?’

Mitzi would. She’d like a long tumbler of vodka to go with it. ‘Sure, that’d be great. Thanks.’

The youngster looks pleased. ‘How d’you take it?’

‘Black, no sugar,’ She pats her hips. ‘Can’t afford the calories.’

‘Exercise,’ suggests Eleonora. ‘It is the only way to kill calories. I take sugar and cream but I do gym and kill the calories. You should come.’

‘Honey, the only gym I could do in a morning is one spelled J-I-M, and he’s going to have to be tall, rich, handsome and not mind taking on two teenage girls.’ She spins round one of the framed pictures. ‘These are my calorie killers.’

The room is silent. Silent enough to tell her that no one else has kids.

She repositions the photo.

Sandra Donovan appears from behind her glass partition. ‘Are you ladies playing nicely?’

Mitzi and Eleonora stare through her.

‘Good. Then how about someone updates me on the Satanists?’

Bronty pumps a green bead of germicidal gel into his palms and rubs his hands clean as he talks. ‘The victim’s closet was full of black magic paraphernalia. Witches’ robes, candles and spell books.’

‘Nothing in the husband’s?’ asks Donovan.

‘Not a thing. He wasn’t into it, or didn’t know.’

‘Bullshit,’ says Mitzi.

‘You don’t know the case,’ snaps Eleonora.

‘I don’t need to. If she was being nailed by Satanists, hubby knew it. She’d be weird in bed. Ask any married guy.’

‘Maybe she should know the case.’ Sandra Donovan can’t help but enjoy the friction between them. ‘Give her the briefing notes, Eleonora.’ She turns to Mitzi. ‘It’s going to be interesting to see what you make of it.’

4

The British Embassy lies less than three miles north-west of the White House, in palatial grounds on the southern side of the US Naval Observatory and east of Dumbarton Oaks, the research centre renowned for Byzantine studies.

The building, the first erected on Embassy Row, boasts seven main bedrooms, all named after past ambassadors. The current occupant, Sir Owain Gwyn, stands patiently in the Howard and Halifax Suite while his valet dresses him.

Every article of clothing has been handmade by trusted tailors and carefully checked by the middle-aged servant before his master is allowed to wear it.

From laundry to skin, it is the valet’s job to know exactly who has washed, ironed and delivered it back into his care. Even then, the rigorous routine is far from over. Most items are X-rayed, others are subjected to toxicity testing. All are dusted top-to-bottom with a hand-scanner to ensure no microscopic trackers have been sewn into their fabrics.

‘Your under-armour, sir.’

‘Thank you, James.’ Forty-two-year-old Owain comes from a long line of tall, broad, dark-haired Welshmen. At almost six foot six, her Majesty’s ambassador in America has to become a contortionist to get into the proffered garment. Although it looks like a combination of vest and long johns, it is a unique piece of clothing, fashioned from state-of-the-art grapheme, a fine mesh of carbon atoms that, according to the manufacturers, is ‘strong enough to support the weight of an elephant balancing upon a spike’. He wears it to protect him, not from gymnastic mammals but from bullets and bombs.

‘Comfortable, sir?’

The roll of Owain’s warm brown eyes gives away the fact that he is not.

A buzzer sounds.

The flat-screen monitor above the door shows the output of eight security cameras around the residence, including the adjoining room where a tall, sandy-haired man in a sharp grey suit is waiting.

The valet knows his time is up. ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

‘I’m afraid I’ll need you early tonight for my farewell charity dinner, say five?’

‘That’s not a problem, sir. Might I be so bold as to say something personal?’

‘Feel free.’

‘I’m sure the government of the United States will miss you greatly. I think you have done amazing things in your work here, sir and it’s been an absolute pleasure to serve you. You’ll leave quite a hole.’

‘For all of a week, James. Then the hole will be filled and I’ll be forgotten. But thank you for your kind comments. You should get off now, make the most of the rest of your day and the short time we have left in Washington.’

The former guardsman gives a courteous nod, takes a neat military stride to the door and pulls it open for the ambassador.

Owain greets Gareth Madoc, a childhood friend and former army colleague, with the Welsh equivalent of good morning, ‘Bore da.’ He waves at a breakfast trolley. ‘Do you have room and time to have a crempog with me?’

The former soldier smiles. ‘I always have time for a crempog.’

The two men go back to a life before knighthoods, international postings and politics. Their history stretches beyond the green valleys where they were born to the intertwined genealogy of two clans who lived and fought together in days long before Romans ruled Britain.

Madoc leans down to the lower tray of the trolley and lifts out a wicker breadbasket covered by a starched white cloth. ‘A little surprise with your breakfast.’ He grasps the square of cotton and jerks it away, like a magician performing a table trick.

Owain stares at the basket’s contents. He carefully removes the single object and handles it with reverential respect. He turns it over in his scarred hands, then kisses it. ‘Who recovered this?’

‘George.’

‘And the rest?’

‘Still missing.’

Owain winces. ‘Were there casualties?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

The ambassador flinches then passes the ancient relic back. ‘I am late. Please make sure it is returned to its proper place. We need to talk this afternoon about what’s still missing and what we tell the others when I meet them.’

5

Irish bangs on the apartment door for the second time. ‘Police. Open up!’

He stands to the side and slips the safety off his gun. Sophie Hudson is only a store assistant at Goldman’s but she called in sick on the day of the murder. If she’s mixed up in this killing, anything might happen and Irish doesn’t want that ‘anything’ to include a doped-up boyfriend with a spray-and-pray Mac-10.

There’s a click. The door opens barely six inches.

A croaky voice spills through the crack. ‘I’m not taking the chain off. Not until I see some ID.’

Irish flips out his badge and holds it to the gap.

She could be buying time. The killer might be climbing out a window and down a fire escape.

‘C’mon lady, open the door, or I’ll do it for you.’

The slab of cheap, blue-painted MDF closes and reopens without the chain. A small woman in a short nightdress steps back so he can come in. She’s five six, a little plump and looks disorientated. Without make-up, her nose is Rudolph red and her long dark hair a mass of rats’ tails.

‘Sophie Hudson?’

‘Yeah. What’s this about?’

‘Lieutenant Fitzgerald, Washington Homicide. You work at Goldman’s in Kensington, right?’

‘Right.’ She’s quick enough to add together Homicide and Goldman and realize it equals something bad. ‘Is Mr Goldman okay?’

Irish goes Hawkeye. Now is the very second a killer or accomplice has to put on the best performance of their life.

‘No, he’s not. And he never will be. I’m sorry to say, he’s dead.’ He holds back the rest of the details.

Sophie’s hand goes up to cover her open mouth. ‘Oh, my God.’ She stretches out a bunch of fingers to the arm of a sofa, steadies herself and then sits.

It seems she’s forgotten she’s in a short nightie and Irish sees more of a young woman than he’s done for many a year.

The cop averts his eyes and walks to the back of the apartment. He runs water in the tiny galley kitchen and takes a tumbler to her.

‘Thanks.’ She looks dazed.

Seconds pass before she takes a drink and puts the glass on a side table. She pulls a tissue from a pink box with flowers on it and blows.

Irish can tell the cold is genuine. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved in the crime. Even killers and accomplices come down with flu. He glances at his notebook. ‘The answerphone in the store shows that you called Saturday around seven a.m. and said you were sick and couldn’t make it in.’

She holds up a tissue. ‘Been dying most of the weekend.’ She is instantly horrified by her unintentional pun. ‘I’m sorry. What happened to Mr Goldman?’

‘He was murdered in his store.’

He watches her face for twitches and her hands for tension. ‘So you were sick on Saturday but went in Friday. What time did you finish?’

‘A little after four. He sent me home early because of the cold.’ She bites a nail.

‘That was kind of him.’ Irish’s tone hints that he still needs to be convinced she’s telling the truth. ‘Did anything happen during the day that was different, or anything strike you as unusual in any way?’

She hesitates and chews the last of a hangnail.

‘He said he had some business happening. I guess he was referring to the cross that he bought.’

‘What kind of cross? A Nazi cross? Wartime stuff?’

‘No. Mr Goldman was Jewish. He wouldn’t touch anything like that. This was Christian.’

‘Catholic Christian or just Christian Christian?’

She gets to her feet. ‘I made a drawing of it.’ She goes to the back of her room and brings him a sheet of A3 notepaper from her bag.

Irish regards it with scepticism. ‘Why did you sketch this?’

She looks embarrassed. ‘Mr Goldman kept the cross from me and that made it intriguing. But he’s forgetful. He sent me to the safe to get an item for a customer and I saw it. Only a glance, but it was interesting, so I made the drawing. It looks kinda weird, don’t you think?’

Irish isn’t thinking about the cross.

He’d missed the safe.

Hadn’t seen one anywhere. Searched behind the counter, wall panels, back rooms, everywhere.

‘You said “safe” — did you mean as in a lock-up box or a wall safe?’

She smiles for the first time since she heard the knock on the door. ‘You couldn’t find it?’

‘No.’

‘Mr Goldman would have been pleased. It’s not a regular safe. It’s fitted into a wall and hidden behind a panel in the grandfather clock.’

6

Ruth Everett waters a long, wide bed of flowers at the front of her twenty-acre ranch. Through the spray rainbow, she sees the battered station wagon of her older sister raising dust at the end of the drive.

The two of them have always had an up-and-down kind of relationship, and since Mitzi moved in with her kids it’s been more down than up. She hopes it won’t be long before they find a place of their own and she and Jack get their privacy back.

The two women share their mom’s dark hair and good cheekbones, and these days pretty much the same ‘fuller woman’ body shape as the catalogues so kindly call it. But Ruth is tanned, toned and dresses like she has her own personal stylist, while Mitzi often looks like she got dressed in a thrift store.

Ruth watches the old car stop at the top of the drive, its long tail of brown dust wagging in the faultless blue sky. Her sister gets out and slaps the Ford’s door shut. Birds scatter from trees and a rabble of butterflies desert a buddleia.

She locks off the yellow nozzle on the end of the hosepipe as she approaches. ‘So how did it go?’

‘Jury’s out.’ Mitzi looks tired. ‘There’s an ex-priest with OCD, some Italian glamour puss who’s angling for a slap and a cute kid who makes crap coffee.’ She takes off her unfashionable, police-issue shades.

‘You being harsh?’

‘Yeah, I probably am. I hope so, anyway.’

‘How about I open a bottle of wine?’

‘How about I jump in the air and click my heels?’

Ruth smiles and hands over the hosepipe. ‘Spray a little while I get it.’

‘Sure.’ Mitzi twists the nozzle too much and decapitates several roses. ‘Where are the girls?’

‘They’ve gone into town with Jack to get stuff for a barbecue. I think they had it in mind to soft-soap their uncle into buying treats.’

‘Yeah they would. That’s the kind of sneaky thing my daughters do.’

Ruth drifts inside and Mitzi plays the water spray over the yellow roses, pink chrysanths and startlingly blue ceanothus. It’s a nice feeling. After living out here at ‘South Fork’, as she calls it, it’s going to be hard moving the kids to the kind of shack they’ll be able to afford. Still, they’re holding things together and Jade is kicking up less than she used to. The first few months after she threw Alfie out were bad for everyone but especially Jade. She’s always been closest to her dad and still misses him. As time goes by, Mitzi will probably let them visit the creep more, but right now one weekend a month is as much as she can stomach.

‘Sis, you’re still drowning things.’ Ruth has reappeared with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Mitzi twists the nozzle off and drops the hose. ‘Sorry. I was never good with growing stuff.’

‘You grew the girls good.’

She takes a glass from her and settles on a teak bench turned white by the sun. ‘You think?’

‘Yeah, I think.’ Ruth clinks her bowl of golden wine against her sister’s and sits beside her. ‘I wish my fifteen years of marriage had two gorgeous kids in it.’

‘Hey, you’ve got all this.’ She waves a hand at the giant spread of land. ‘And you can have my two any time you like.’

Ruth smiles. ‘I guess so. What about you and your new home?’

‘I scanned the papers today; there are a couple of places out at Serramonte and one across the San Mateo bridge that I’m going to fix to see at the weekend.’

‘There’s no rush.’

‘Thanks. But I’m driving you nuts. I can tell. And I need to get the girls settled over the summer and into school for the new term.’ She sees Jack’s SUV kicking dirt at the end of the long drive. ‘Looks like they’re back.’

Both women take final sips of wine, then wander over to where the garages are.

The big Porsche Cayenne halts and the girls burst out the back doors swinging store bags.

‘Uncle Jack bought us those trainers that we saw.’ Amber opens her bag for her mom to see. ‘Look, Prada.’

‘They’re so cool,’ adds Jade.

Mitzi’s in shock. She couldn’t have afforded one pair, let alone two. ‘That’s real kind, Jack. You’ve spoiled them, thanks.’

‘My pleasure. You got a big hug for your brother-in-law. How you doing?’

‘I’m doing good.’ She surrenders herself to his open arms and he pulls her a little too tight and intimate for her liking.

‘Let’s get that barbecue going,’ grins Jack as they break. He picks four bags of groceries out of the back of the SUV and winks at Mitzi as he heads to the house.

7

It’s early evening when Irish reaches the crime scene with Sophie Hudson. The streets have emptied and shadows on the tree-lined sidewalks softened.

The old man’s body has been moved. The wet squad has scrubbed away the blood and cleared the blowflies.

A uniformed cop opens up for them. Beyond clouds of industrial-standard disinfectant, Irish still smells death.

Sophie wobbles slightly as they enter. He puts a reassuring arm around her. ‘It’s okay; we’ll be outside again in no time — just open the safe for me.’

She nods and leans on him for support. The strange odours disorientate her. There’s a sickly sweet smell she doesn’t recognize. Irish feels her apprehension rise with every step.

Sophie stops and looks down. Areas of dark wooden boards near the counter are lighter than anywhere else. They’ve been washed. Scrubbed hard.

This is where the strange smell is coming from.

She can’t go forward. Can’t step nearer the place where it obviously happened.

Irish feels her go rigid. ‘Come to the side. We can walk round. Don’t look down. I’ll watch out for you.’

She lets him waltz her stiffly to the skirting boards and behind the counter. Only when she’s near the register does she realize she’s been holding her breath. A long sigh escapes.

‘You’re doing really well, Sophie. Really well.’ Irish can see the clock now. A grand casket of mahogany, with a face as white and cold as mortuary marble. There are minute and hour hands of black sculpted iron and a big brass pendulum swinging low.

Sophie gets down on her knees and flips open the tall oblong panel at the foot of the timepiece. Behind it is a small metal safe eighteen inches high by nine wide.

She types a six-number code on the keypad, hears a familiar click and pulls open the door. Inside are two pull-out shelves, each two feet long, extending beyond the back of the clock and into the part of the safe that is cemented into the load-bearing wall that the timepiece is bolted to.

Sophie lifts them out. She stands and puts the trays on the counter.

‘It’s not here.’ She looks up at Irish. ‘The cross has gone.’

8

Scrupulously polished mirrors around the vast, opulent ballroom reflect the dazzlingly dressed figures of more than two hundred of the world’s richest and most powerful people.

Sir Owain Gwyn insisted that his farewell is also a charity occasion, which is why movie stars, musicians, politicians, magazine editors, sportsmen and women have all paid $10,000 a ticket to attend the Ambassadorial Ball for the Disabled and the Homeless.

The deep bass of a brass gong draws eyes to the small stage where the Vice President of the United States, Connor Anderson awaits their attention.

‘Don’t worry, everybody, my speech is going to be very brief.’ The fifty-year-old white-haired Texan lets the last of the noise subside before he continues. ‘Sir Owain is leaving us, returning to the service of Her Majesty the Queen. On behalf of the American government and its people, I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done while you’ve been on duty here in our country. Your diplomacy and your hard work will be remembered forever.

‘Sir, you have made a special relationship between our countries even more special. But you and I, and President Renton, who regrets that he cannot be here tonight, know that you have achieved even greater things that for security reasons we cannot speak of. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a sign of a truly exceptional man that what he does privately, without public credit, outshines the work that most of us do publicly and crave recognition for. Sir Owain Gwyn we raise our glasses to you; we thank you most sincerely for all you have done and wish you the greatest of success in your new posting back in your homeland.’

The room resounds with hearty toasts of ‘Sir Owain!’

While the audience applauds, the vice president half-turns to an assistant and lifts from a velvet cushion a gold, white and red medal. ‘On behalf of the United States Department of Defense, it is my honour to present you with this decoration, the Legion of Merit for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.’

He holds aloft the rare neck order and even louder applause breaks out as the British knight stoops to duck his head into the loop of red ribbon.

It takes more than a minute for the clapping to stop.

The dark-haired diplomat cradles the medal, one of the highest ever awarded to a foreigner. ‘Most unusually for a Welshman, I find myself stuck for words.’ His soft brown eyes blink as camera flashes explode. ‘I’ll always treasure this and also the wonderful memories that at the end of tomorrow I will take back to Great Britain. I will leave behind a country that has become my second home and one I love dearly. The Gwyns have had ancestors here since the Mayflower docked. Rest assured that even when I am thousands of miles away, America and its great people will remain close to my heart. Thank you. Now enjoy yourselves.’

A band breaks into dance music and almost drowns the applause as he steps away from the small podium.

Gareth Madoc, who’s also his right-hand man in the US, takes him to one side. He cups his hand to his mouth so no one can lip-read the news he breaks to the ambassador. ‘We’ve just got new intelligence on a terror strike.’

‘Where?’

‘Here in America. New York, to be precise.’

Owain looks across the ballroom. ‘Then I should stay and not fly back tomorrow. We can rearrange my meeting with the others.’

‘No, it’s important that you stick to your agenda.’

‘Why?’

Madoc hesitates. ‘There were complications with regards to the recovery of the relic.’

‘The old man’s death?’

‘Yes. Believe me, it is best if you are out of the country as this unfolds.’

9

The girls are finally asleep and Ruth and Jack have gone to bed.

Mitzi is in Miss Piggy PJs — a Christmas present — but not ready to rest. For the past two hours, she’s gone back and forth on the witchcraft case. Donovan gave her a set of the case files and now she’s word-blind. Nothing she looks at makes sense any more.

She creeps downstairs and runs a glass of chilled water from the dispenser on the front of the giant fridge fitted neatly in the corner of Ruth’s lavish oak kitchen.

She takes her drink out onto the patio and hears crickets crackling in the darkness. Her presence triggers security lights that pick out the redwoods, giant sequoia and oaks standing sentry on the edges of the property. A vast tract of lawn is broken by a broad-leafed maple, some California laurels and a lot of Ruth’s flowerbeds.

The patio door slides open. Jack stands there in just his boxers, hairy gut sagging over stretched elastic. ‘Let me guess: you got so hot thinking about me you had to come out here to cool off?’ He grins and sneaks down on a steamer chair next to her. A newly popped bottle of beer drips condensation in his meaty hand.

‘You wish.’ Mitzi hopes to hell he’s not got anything stupid on his mind.

Jack stretches out and swigs the beer. ‘You want some?’

She can tell he’s still drunk from dinner and raises her glass of water. ‘I’m good, thanks.’ She gestures to the lawns. ‘Your garden looks as pretty at night as it does in the day.’

He swings around on the steamer and catches her eye. ‘So do you.’

Mitzi laughs him off. ‘You’ve had too much to drink.’

He stretches out a hand and grabs hers. ‘Seriously, Mitz.’ I’ve always been attracted to you. Even when I met Ruthy, it was you I wanted to be with.’

She pulls her hand free and stands. ‘I’m going to pretend I never heard that.’

He gets up and slips between her and the door. ‘Why? Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way. I’ve seen how you look at me. How you’ve always looked at me.’

‘Back off, Jack. All you’ve ever seen is what’s in your mind.’

‘Hey’ — he sounds offended — ‘a woman like you should be grateful for attention from a man like me.’

Mitzi can’t believe her ears. ‘What?’

He lumbers into her personal space, puts a hand to her cheek and breathes beer into her face. ‘I’ve been good to you and your girls. No harm you being a little good back.’ He pulls her close.

She flips her arms outward and pushes him away. ‘This never happened.’

He grabs her again. ‘But it should.’

Mitzi whips his wrist behind his back and slams him against the wall. She kicks out his right leg, so he’s left spread-eagled and eating brickwork. ‘Never happened, Jack.’ She pulls on his wrist and gets a grunt. ‘You never said anything and you never ended up like this.’ She kicks his leg wider until he face-slides down the wall.

The patio door makes a loud shushing noise as she slides it open, enters the vault of a lounge and slams it again. Before heading to the stairs, she takes one look back at the sorry heap out on the terrace and then heads to bed.

What she misses on the way up is her sister.

Ruth has been stood in the shadows of the lounge watching them both.

10

Irish sits alone at the bar drinking whisky.

He can’t be bothered to eat. Couldn’t care less about going home.

What he wants is to get blind drunk.

He needs the alcohol to flush the toxins of murder out of his body. Clear his head of the images of the old man with his staring eyes and his opened-up stomach twitching with maggots. And he needs it quickly, before the fragile dam walls in his memory break and the other horrors burst through.

The ones from the black day.

It’s eight years since he took a deep breath and lifted the lid of a crappy chest freezer in a suspect’s basement. He’d expected the worst. Knew it would be bad. But nothing had prepared him for what lay inside.

‘Again.’ He slams the shot glass down. ‘Double.’

The bartender knows better than to expect manners. Tomorrow or the next night, when Irish comes in sober, he’ll tip him big and apologize. Which is more than most people do.

The cop raises a hand to acknowledge the arrival of another pale amber vial of Slaney Malt.

Everything is still too clear.

He welcomes the tingle of the ten-year-old whisky against his lips. It goes down his throat like a trail of lit petrol then starts a comforting fire in his gut.

Sophie Hudson’s face swims to mind — the moment when she realized the cross was missing. How can a man get killed for a crucifix? How much could it possibly be worth? Who would buy such a thing and what would they do with it?

He feels the start of a sneeze and grabs a handkerchief from his pocket. The explosion is so hard it leaves blood on the dirty cotton. Must have picked up a cold from the damned store clerk. It’s the last thing he wants.

‘Again.’ Another bang of glass on wood.

The bartend gives him a dark look as he pours another.

‘Amir Emmanuel Goldman.’ Irish raises his refill high. ‘God bless you and’ — he grasps for something appropriate — ‘and may your fucking lousy killer rot in hell.’

He throws back the whisky and bangs the glass down.

Now he waits. The shot hits his stomach like gasoline in a volcano. His head rocks. Vision blurs. Tongue goes numb.

Drunkenness. At last, it is coming. Horribly late. But like a much-loved friend, always welcome.

Irish pulls out a wad of dollars and peels off too much. He slaps it down. Climbs unsteadily off the stool pushed up against the long brown bar and heads for the door. He’s going to make it.

The freezer lid has stayed closed. He’ll survive another night.

11

The pull of the moon is strong.

Ebb and flow. Like the rush of a tide hitting a shoreline, then creeping back out to sea.

Myrddin feels the elemental shift as he arthritically descends the stairs in the ancient tower. His bare feet slap cold well-worn slabs. His thin and mottled hands scratch cotton-candy hair that covers his head and face in almost equal measure.

Once more he’s been disturbed. Jarred from his sleep in the early hours. His mind filled with doubts and demons.

A rumbling cough breaks from his lungs and escapes as an echoing hack down the dark, stony passages.

He pushes open the heavy door to the Chamber of Prophecies and savours the oaky creak it makes and the clang of iron latch and lock as he closes it behind him.

This is his Chamber. Only he has ever come in here. Only he can divine the meaning of the visions that are channelled to this sacred spot. To the Font of Knowledge that stands on the tomb of the great one.

The musty midnight air is stirred by the swish of his long and lavishly decorated robe. His long fingers find the curved rim of the receptacle and he peers down into what seems an abyss.

The still liquid begins to tremble.

The augur sees shapes in the fractured surface, like clouds blowing in a stormy sky, swirling and spinning, spiralling and disappearing. Clouds torn and eaten by a monstrous black bird with a stomach full of flesh and bones.

Beneath the drifting grey islands, there is a woman with two faces. She is near a great lake, hiding in silence behind a giant shield of wood, wanting to be found by one but not another. She is full of love and confusion, the sun of the heart at odds with the moon of the mind.

The old mystic’s legs sag. He understands what the vision means. Knows who the woman is and whom she is going to betray. The consequences of the act are clear to him.

Darkness sucks oxygen from his lungs and starves his brain of thought. He slips shoulder first into the stone, then collapses onto the sacred tomb beneath it.

The world sways around him. He floats out into the blackness, like a small boat pulled from shore by the tides of an ocean.

12

Most of the city is still sleeping when Mitzi heads in to work.

She likes that she missed the rush hour. The great red bridge is almost empty and all the more magnificent for it.

Most of all, she likes that she’s not starting her day with an awkward face-off with Jack.

She spent most of the night wondering if she should tell her sister. But tell her what? That her husband was drunk and made a pass? That he said he’d always preferred her to Ruth? Either of those things was likely to end their marriage and create a rift between her and Ruth.

Hopefully, he got the message.

She takes a coffee to her desk and starts up the desktop PC. Her mailbox is jammed with spam and a couple of messages from ex-colleagues wishing her the best in the new job.

Before she starts work, she browses the Huffington Post. It has features on ‘Bondage for Beginners’, ‘Ten Reasons Why Women Like Bad Boys’ and ‘How Wearing Rubber Knickers Can Help You Lose Weight’. She works back to front, dismissing the pants story out of hand — she’d have to wear a truck tyre to lose the amount of weight she wants to. Bad boys are the last people she needs in her life. And she’s damned sure she doesn’t want her wrists wrapped up in cling film while some masked stranger spanks her with fifty-dollar paddles.

About an hour later, there are noises in the corridor.

Eleonora breezes in with wet hair and no make-up. She’s dressed head-to-toe in Fendi. A tailored military jacket in jade, and matching beltless pants cling to every perfect inch of her legs. A zesty yellow top is paired with a structured handbag in the same striking colour. She’s on her phone and drops a retro Diadora gym bag beside her desk while she talks intently.

Mitzi silently curses. It’s just not right that Eleonora looks that good.

The Italian finishes and glances across the desks. ‘Buongiorno, ’itzi. How are you?’

‘It’s Mitzi. M for motherfucker, then itzi. M-M-M-itzi.’

Eleonora laughs. ‘I am sorry. M for M-itzi. How are you?’

‘I’m good. Now let me guess, you’ve been to the gym and you’re feeling absolutely amazing.’

‘No, I feel like shit. I always do after gym. Did you know Michelle Obama goes at four-thirty a.m. every day?’

‘I don’t even want to think about four-thirty, let alone go anywhere at that time.’

Eleonora fingers her wet hair. ‘Guess I look a mess, yes?’

‘I wish I could say yes, but you look like you’re just about to strip off and model for Sports Illustrated.’

‘That’s a magazine?’

‘It’s a magazine. Guys say they buy it for the articles, but they’re not fooling anyone.’

A flash of mischief illuminates Eleonora’s face. ‘Aah, now I understand. Men, they are such simple animals.’ She grabs her purse. ‘I am going to the restroom, then maybe I buy coffee before I meet Bronty. You want to come with us?’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Bronty called last night. He met a priest who introduced him to someone in the Church of Satan and he knows our dead woman, Rea Masters.’

‘Knows as in sexually?’

‘No. I don’t think so. Though of course it is possible. Bronty said Rea started in the Church of Satan then found herself at odds with the grotto she joined.’

‘Grotto? You make it sound like Santa Claus.’

Eleonora sits on the edge of her new colleague’s desk. ‘That is what they call the covens, or lodges. You know the Church of Satan’s founder lived not far from here. For maybe thirty years it was run from San Francisco.’

‘Anton LaVey. He wrote the Satanic Bible, right?’

‘Si. After he died the Church switched to New York.’

‘Hell’s Kitchen?’ jokes Mitzi.

Eleonora misses the pun. ‘You want to come with us?’

‘Yeah, thanks, I’d like to ride along.’

The office door opens and Donovan sticks her head in. ‘Got a job for you, Fallon.’

‘I thought I had a job — this witchcraft case?’

Her boss hands over a sheet of paper. ‘This has got your name all over it. Just in from Washington.’

Mitzi takes the paper and looks at it. ‘What is this? Some kind of cross?’

‘Congratulations. I see why you made lieutenant and why you’re so valuable to HRU. It’s a cross that has been linked to a murder. The detective in charge has asked for our help. I said you’d be on the redeye and arrive tomorrow.’

‘That could be a problem. I need to fix childcare.’ She nods to the two girls in the photo on her desk.

‘It won’t be a problem,’ says Donovan. ‘Life fits around the job, not the other way round. Fracci and Bronty are working Masters, so you had better be on that plane — or find yourself another squad.’

13

The stone of the chamber floor makes for a cold pillow, but Myrddin gladly endures it until he feels some strength creep back into his limbs.

The seer’s head throbs and his bones crackle with arthritis as he gets to his feet. He knows what has to be done. His task is far from finished.

Myrddin eyes the Font of Knowledge, aware of the dangers it contains. For many years, the ancient receptacle has drained his energy and spirit. It has taken from him and given to him in equal measures. Each experience has left him fuller in mind and less in body.

He grips the bowl of the font. Braces himself for what is to come, tilts his head back and closes his eyes. ‘I am here, old friend. Standing firm and tall, ready for you again. Write your page of history and leave me fit to carry it to the fingers of the world, that they may turn it and move on.’

The stone he holds trembles. A slight vibration at first, then a deep rumble. A growing thunder beneath Myrddin’s feet. Then the energy. Different this time: not slow and building. A sudden jolt. Electrifying. His mind fills with white. Snow white. Virgin white. Angelic white.

The vision comes.

A baby who becomes a man who becomes immortal. A child who grows faster and stronger than any human ever has. A young man who faces the world with the wisdom of a centenarian.

Myrddin knows this man.

He sees him surrounded by people but alone. He is caught in a moment of doubt. Trapped between the holiest and unholiest of men. He is troubled by two women. One very much known to him and one a complete stranger. Both are in danger; both will see death.

Death. This time the old foe comes with a long list. He seeks out brothers and sisters, men and women. Seeks them out randomly and specifically. Some for good reason, others just for the joy of seeing their blood in the snow.

The pure white snow.

It’s falling now. At first, just flakes on the seer’s flushed cheeks. Cool, like the kiss of a maiden. Now heavier. Splashes of icy rain, chilly enough to start the shivers.

An avalanche.

A deadly whiteout erupts inside the seer’s mind. Knocks him to the ground. Covers him. Buries him. Suffocates him. His hands slip from the font and he stumbles backward. This time he doesn’t fall. The vision is complete. He understands and knows what he must do.

A new phase of the Arthurian Cycle has begun.

14

Twenty-three-year-old Dwaine Velez wishes he’d taken a leak before he got in his Ford Wagon.

If that little bitch’s pops hadn’t turned up shouting the odds ’bout the sanctity of his daughter he’d have been able to use their goddamned bathroom. Instead, he ended up hopping down the drive with one leg in his pants and the rest of his clothes thrown all over the shrubs.

Un-fucking-dignified. That’s what it was.

Still, it had been worth it. She was a peach. These girls out in the sticks don’t get much action and when they do — man, they make the most of it.

He heads south down Connecticut Avenue, back towards the Capital Beltway, dark eyes scanning for a place to pull over. Jay-Z is rapping on the radio — ‘Bring it On’ from Reasonable Doubt, the album that propelled him from being a punk who’d put a cap in his brother, to one of the world’s most bankable music stars.

Dwaine drums fingersticks on the steering wheel and gets thinking. ‘Hey fella, I sure as hell would like to teach your lady some tricks. That Beyoncé has one fine booty.’

The song hits the chorus and the voice from the radio answers.

The young contractor laughs. ‘I can hang. Man, can I hang. And bro’, let me tell you, no way would she ever come back to you after she’s spent a night with me.’

Up on the left he spots some trees, and maybe the last chance to relieve himself before rolling out west to help fix some drains in McLean then on to a backed-up septic tank just north of Washington.

What a life. Eat your heart out, Jay-Z.

He parks on Beach Drive, crosses the near-deserted carriage to a clump of trees and a long track called Rock Creek Trail.

Dwaine is desperate. The burly six-footer is spraying overgrown grass within a split-second of getting his fly down. Every time he thinks he’s going to stop, another round of tequila shots and bottled water comes from somewhere.

Must be the sex. Sex always makes him pee like he’s a fire hose.

A thought hits him. A bad one. He hopes to hell that bitch hasn’t given him something nasty. Dwaine looks down at the boiling soil.

‘Fuck, man!’

The shock is so much he wets his legs. He stumbles backwards. Staring up, through a thin layer of puddled earth, is a man’s face.

He’s been pissing on a dead guy.

15

A windy six-hour flight from Washington brings Owain Gwyn back to British soil, or, to be more precise, the blacktop runway at Heathrow.

A VIP escort team meets him airside and whisks him through diplomatic channels to his waiting helicopter. The armour-plated Bell is quickly in the air, covering the one hundred and thirty miles west to his country estate in Somerset at a cruising speed of more than two hundred and fifty miles an hour.

From the window of the ten-million-pound thirteen-seater, he watches the deep green of the lush English countryside slide beneath him. Mile by mile his spiritual connection renews. By the time he sees the Somerset Levels he feels whole again.

Glastonbury.

No other town triggers so many mystical associations.

The Isle of Glass. Joseph of Arimathea. The Holy Grail.

As the former British Ambassador to America looks down upon Glastonbury Tor, tales of history and legend blur in his mind. This is said to be Avalon, the place where Excalibur was forged. Where Arthur, the warrior king, was brought after being savagely wounded in battle by his mortal enemy, Mordred. Where some believe he died and others maintain he was ‘born again’ and rose to become immortal.

The helicopter circles a grand estate and begins its cautious descent. Owain Gwyn is back where he belongs, where his ancestors fought and died for freedom and Christianity. Back home.

He checks his phone as the descent begins. He has several missed messages but there is only one that truly interests him.

The one from Myrddin.

16

Booze seeps through Irish’s bloated pores as he stands over the buried corpse. He uses his stained hanky to wipe alcohol slick from his forehead.

The crime scene is only a mile from Amir Goldman’s store. Given that the most exciting thing this hick-town settlement ever sees is the traffic signal changing, he’s willing to bet his pension that they’re connected. Not that his pension’s worth that damned much.

For once, he’s arrived at a scene ahead of the ME and has already briefly interviewed the guy who apparently came here for a leak and splashed more than his feet.

He takes out a small camera bought more than a decade ago, with half the pixels of the one built into the new-fangled smartphone that he doesn’t know how to use. He shoots off three-sixty degrees’ worth of surrounding shots so he can always revisit the body and scene. CSIs will get better ones, but the process of doing it opens up his mind.

Irish concentrates harder than a chess player and picks his way around the scene, careful not to trample evidence underfoot, shift bushes, or knock any trace from thorns or branch snags.

Through the lens, the dead guy’s head looks like a dropped paper plate on the grey-brown soil. He’s been buried in the shallowest of shallow graves, face up, along a rough track that cuts through a copse of trees starting near the rest stop. There’s not enough flesh above ground to tell much about who he was. Dark hair. Hazel eyes. A big nose that he probably got teased about at school. He was probably mid- to late-twenties with fifty years still to burn.

The way Irish figures it, this is the only place the killer could have sunk him. The roots of nearby trees and bushes are too big for anyone to dig either left or right. It’s hurried and messy. Whoever did it was hoping the burial would buy him time. Meaning he’s not local and is long gone.

Even though the cop’s head is pounding from a hangover, he has a good idea of what’s gone down. The antique store had been a two man job. After the old man’s death they’d stopped and rowed. Things got out of hand and one killed the other.

Irish picks up boot prints: deep heel marks made in soft soil. Deep because the victor was carrying the body of the loser. He sees two drag lines. Parallel tracks right up to the shallow grave. And another set of footprints, smaller than the boots made by the poor schmuck who found the body.

Irish walks past the body. The path loops back onto the road and he can see a single set footprints heading that way.

The killer’s.

17

Jade and Amber are playing Swingball on the lawn when Mitzi pulls up. They’re belting the roped ball at each other and splitting their sides laughing as it lashes back around the centre pole and they swipe at nothing.

‘I’ll play the winner,’ shouts their mom, as she carries a bunch of flowers from her car towards the back door of her sister’s house.

‘It’ll be me,’ boasts Jade.

‘No way,’ Amber adds a Williams-sisters grunt to her backhand return.

Mitzi finds Ruth in the kitchen chopping vegetables. Red, yellow and green peppers cover a butcher-block island. ‘Hi honey, I’m home!’ she jokes.

The look on her sister’s face confirms her suspicions that this is going to be a tense meeting. ‘I brought you some flowers. Lilies — of some kind. I don’t know which, but they’re pretty.’ She offers the bunch of purple, pink and cream trumpets.

‘They’re Longiflorum and Aurelian hybrids. Thanks.’ Ruth opens a cupboard door, brings out a vase with a wide fluted neck and fills it three-quarters with water. ‘You were out early this morning.’

‘Yeah. First day at work had my head spinning.’ Mitzi takes a beat then plunges into the big request. ‘They want me to go to Washington to help on a murder. Would you mind looking after Jade and Amber for a couple days, till I get back?’

Ruth looks around for scissors. ‘When do they want you to go?’

‘Kinda now. Late flight tonight, gets me there at stupid o’clock in the morning.’

She finds the scissors in the dishwater, cuts the flower stems at a slant and drops them into the vase. ‘I saw you.’

‘Saw me where?’

‘Last night, with Jack. I saw you both.’

Mitzi turns cop and goes on the front foot. ‘And?’

‘Huh, is that all you can say? And?’

‘And’s a reasonable question—’

‘It’s not a question; it’s a conjunction.’ She slams the scissors down on the marbled worktop. ‘I saw Jack pawing you.’

Mitzi waves a dismissive hand. ‘He was drunk, Ruth. Men paw when they’re drunk. They paw anything. Shit, if you’d had a dog and it had been up on the back porch instead of me, he’d have most likely pawed the hound instead.’

‘I didn’t just see you — I heard you as well.’

‘Good. Then, you heard exactly what I said to him. I told him he was drunk and should behave. That was it. Nothing happened and I went to bed.’

‘Nothing? You threw him at the wall.’

‘Yeah, well, he’ll live.’ She moves towards her sister. ‘Don’t make too much out of this. Man plus drink equals something stupid. Every time.’

Ruth is in a bad place, doubts circle her marriage like buzzards over road kill. ‘I heard him say how he’d always liked you.’ Her voice slips towards a sob. ‘Liked you more than me and—’

‘Jeez, Ruthy, give this up!’ Mitzi holds her by the shoulders. ‘When guys are juiced, they say all kinds of shit. You know that. It’s a lesson learned on prom night and remembered every time you walk in a bar or club. Right?’

She nods. ‘Still, it’s best you go. I’ll look after the girls while you’re away, but when you come back, I don’t want you staying here. I want you out, Mitzi. I’ll pay for a motel — anything — but I don’t want you under my roof again, not anywhere near my husband.’

18

Soil falls in clumps from the corpse as the ME’s team lift it out of the shallow grave and rest it respectfully on a thick plastic sheet.

Irish squints to get his first full look at the vic. He has dark hair and is well-built. He’s dressed in a blue linen jacket, faded denims, a white T-shirt with the word DIESEL across the chest and ankle-length suede boots. His skin has been paled by death — dried out, cracked and creased by mud and earth.

Cherrie Archer, the examiner who worked Amir Goldman’s case, uses a soft brush to clear insects from dead eyes. She looks up at the detective and anticipates his question. ‘Right now, all I can tell you is what you can see. He’s male, late twenties, well-nourished, around a hundred and seventy pounds. Looks perfectly fit and healthy, except for being strangled to death.’

‘No gun or knife?’

‘Not that I see.’

Irish had expected a weapon. ‘Did the unsub use a ligature?’ He works his way around the pit so he can stand next to her and the body.

‘I don’t think so. The body’s quite dirty, though.’ She leans across and inspects the neck from several angles. ‘I can’t see any ligature marks, but look here…’ She points. ‘There’s bruising, abrasion, as though he’s been held from behind in a very strong choke hold.’

Irish bends over the corpse. ‘I see it. How would it have been done?’

‘Stand up and turn away from me.’

He does as he’s told.

Up close, Irish’s odour of sweat and alcohol is worse than the corpse’s. She ignores it while she uses her right arm to demonstrate a v-shaped lock on him. ‘The assailant probably jammed his head in the crook of his arm and then swung him up and over his hip.’ She leans a little so Irish can feel the choke.

‘Whoa, whoa, enough. I get it!’

She lets go. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah.’ He rubs his neck.

‘Hold a person long enough like that and they choke out. Keep doing it and they die.’ She moves back to the body. ‘I used to be a soldier. Learned close-combat skills along with medicine in the Marine Corps.’

‘I see.’ Irish carries on nursing his neck. ‘I guess not many guys took first dates too far with you, then?’

‘Not many.’

He turns his head left and right to free the cricks in his neck. ‘You got any gloves? I want to go through his pockets.’

She dips into her coveralls and produces a spare vinyl pair. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You look pretty pale.’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Apart from being half-killed by you, I picked up a cold, that’s all.’ Irish stretches the gloves and works his fingers inside. Truth is he feels weak as a kitten and wants to sleep for a year.

The vic’s jeans yield a squashed carton of cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, sticks of gum and the corner of a newspaper. There is a Washington phone number written on it. Irish pulls out his cell and calls it. The techies told him there’s a facility to record calls but he can’t remember how to do it.

The call beeps out and trips a message service.

An old voice, slow and precise, rolls down the line. ‘This is Amir Goldman; I’m not available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone — and be sure to visit our showroom in Kensington, the antiques capital of DC.’

Irish hangs up and looks at the scrap of paper. The dead man lying in front of him no doubt called Amir to check he was in the store. Then he turned up and killed him. ‘I need this bum’s prints, ASAP.’ He peels off his gloves and dumps them on the sheet. ‘Thanks, doc.’

19

Nabil stinks of garage grease. He hates the smell almost as much as he hates America.

It rides with him now, an unwelcome passenger in the cab of the white flatbed truck that he’s ‘borrowed’ from work to get home. Even in here, he can’t get away from it.

The twenty-four-year-old parks outside a verminous brownstone apartment block and climbs filthy stairs to the sixth floor. There’s no point trying the lift; he can’t remember when it last worked — doubts it ever will again.

He lets himself in to his short-term rental and slams the door so hard it makes the frame tremble. Hopefully, it pisses off the old guy next door who beats on the paper-thin wall every night.

He goes straight to the squalid kitchen, pulls a ready meal of Mac and Cheese from the refrigerator, forks the top and puts it in the microwave. While it cooks, he sticks his phone to his ear and speed-dials the only number on the handset.

‘It’s Nabil. I’m home.’

That’s all he says. All he ever says when he enters the apartment.

But it’s enough. It’s what’s expected of him. A coded phrase to let them know he’s alive.

Safe.

Not captured or killed.

20

Gwyn’s ivy-covered stately home has ten bedrooms, two dining rooms, a library, drawing room, study, orangery, two reception and living rooms, a ballroom, gymnasium, indoor and outdoor pools and more than thirty acres of heavily fortified and constantly guarded grounds.

He and his wife have a live-in chef, who has previously held two Michelin stars. All vegetable produce is grown in the house’s gardens, fish comes from the private lakes and meat and poultry from the estate’s farmland. It’s quite a place to come home to.

Outside the mansion’s great arched entrance door are the figures of waiting footmen and his wife, Jennifer. Lady Gwyn’s waist-length blonde hair is being blown by the down draft of helicopter blades and her silky amber dress sparkles in the bright sunlight.

Within moments of the copter’s door being opened, Owain’s in her arms. Holding. Kissing. Reconnecting.

She takes his hand and hurries him inside, away from the noise of the dying motors.

‘There’s a call,’ she says in the quiet shade of the marbled hall. ‘It’s from Gareth, he says he couldn’t get through while you were in the air.’

He takes it on an encrypted phone.

‘I’m sorry not to give you any time with Jennifer,’ says Madoc. ‘I’ve just had a message from Antun. Things are changing. The cell commander is nervous. A target has been fixed.’

‘Does he know where and when?’

‘Wall Street, tomorrow.’

‘Wall Street? Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. More importantly, he’s sure. I’m going to send you the details of where they’re plotting up, so you can talk to the Americans.’

Owain checks his watch. ‘I’ve got the Inner Circle meeting in an hour.’

‘It’ll be after that.’ He takes a long pause. ‘Are you going to tell them everything?’

‘I have to, Gareth. We have no option. Our old “friend” has left us with no choice but to issue the mandate.’

21

Irish is at the bar; a bottle of beer and a whisky chaser stand at his elbow.

Two women in their forties sit on stools around him, glasses of white wine in their hands.

Sarah Cohen has short brown hair and a wide mouth. Suzie Clark is a bleached blonde with strong blue eyes. They work stores either side of Goldman Antiques and for the past hour Irish has been buying drinks in return for information.

‘I was away when those uniformed police came by,’ explains Sarah. ‘Getting my things from my ex’s place.’ She emphasizes the past tense. ‘Which means I’m available.’

‘Not for long, I’m very sure.’ Irish lays on a little charm as he eases a notebook out of his jacket. ‘So tell me again what you saw on the night Amir died.’

‘I was going away Saturday morning. Had the day off and was headin’ to Atlantic City for a birthday party. I saw a man come out of Amir’s around ten-thirty p.m. and shut the door behind him.’

‘Why did that catch your eye?’

‘Coz he pushed on the handle to check it was locked properly. Like you’d do if you own the place.’

Irish writes before he asks the next question. ‘And how did you say he looked?’

‘Handsome,’ she says. ‘Muscular. Tender side of thirty.’ Her face lights up while she pictures him. ‘Tall and clean-shaven, very dark hair. Looked real nice.’

‘Did you notice what he was wearing?’

She thinks for a minute. ‘Blues. A blue jacket and jeans. Not a jean jacket, something smarter.’

Irish takes a swallow of his beer. The description fits the stiff dug up in the woods. ‘What’d he do then?’

‘Crossed the road, got into a big brown car and pulled away.’

Suzie taps her on the arm. ‘Tell him ’bout the noise.’

She obliges. ‘There wasn’t any.’

‘Probably an ’lectric vehicle,’ adds Suzie, keen to prove she’s worth her free drinks. ‘One of those high-breeds.’

‘You mean hybrids,’ says Irish. He turns back to Sarah. ‘You see the make, or recognize the type?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m not good with cars. Not like I am with men. It was a big, boxy thing.’

‘Probably an SUV,’ suggests Suzie authoritatively. ‘Sports Utility Vehicle.’

‘Thanks,’ says Irish. ‘I know what SUV means.’

‘I watched it go,’ adds Sarah. ‘A few seconds later a car started and drove after it. Took me clean by surprise because it hadn’t any lights on. It was silver. Like a limousine but not as big.’

Irish downs his whisky shot. ‘Like a pimp’s car?’

Sarah pulls a sour face. ‘No. Classier. It had one of those glass roofs. I could see street lights reflecting on it when it drove off.’

‘Two or four doors?’

She has to think. ‘Four.’ Something occurs to her. ‘Oh, and I might be wrong on this, but the licence plate was weird.’

‘How so? You mean out-of-state plates?’

She looks embarrassed. ‘It sounds stupid now. Forget I spoke. I’m really not sure I’m right and don’t want to say the wrong thing.’

‘Say it,’ urges Irish.

‘I don’t think it was a DC plate. I’m not even sure it was American.’

He waves the barman over and makes a final note. An out-of-state plate spells only one thing.

Trouble.

The kind that can be near-on impossible to investigate.

22

A swarm of helicopters cover the sprawling green grounds. Chauffeured cars crunch the long gravelled drive. Armed guards shadow eleven men and women into the stately home and usher them through cool, marbled corridors to a door marked Wine Cellar.

Two former SAS men flank the big black slab of oak. They check credentials before allowing anyone to descend the stairs. Once below ground the visitors use fingerprint- and retina-identification systems to enter a huge windowless and bombproof room.

At the centre of the secure space is an ancient, circular table. It is marked with heraldic crests and Christian symbols. The circle itself is more than just a design that ensures no one has prominence — it is a Eucharistic symbol: a representation of the holy host.

The delegates of the Secret and Sacred Order of Arthurians take their places.

They are all highly successful executives, CEOs and owners of philanthropic businesses that also fund the SSOA. The organization is dedicated to peace, freedom and an endless fight against terrorism and evil.

Like Britain, the country where it is headquartered, the SSOA is governed by two distinct authorities, one chosen and one hereditary. Today’s meeting is of the Inner Circle — an operational body made up of chosen delegates. They have been picked, not only because of their immense wealth and power, but also because they are so passionate about the central aims of the SSOA that they are willing to die — or kill — for them.

While the Inner Circle formulates and implements policy, it can’t do so without reference to a much larger and even older authority.

The Blood Line.

The BL is comprised of members who are direct descendants of the Knights of the Round Table.

Beneath these two bodies, is a hidden army of modern-day knights. A secret force, spread internationally. Recruited almost exclusively from national military and intelligence bodies. Its uniform is the anonymity of every day clothes and its camouflage that of suburbia and average life.

Today’s agenda, like the briefing paper, is written in Arthurian Code. The rotational cipher was created centuries ago on two wooden wheels marked with letters and numbers. The outer contained numbers and the inner letters. The base code would always be A and 1. But every day someone would spin the wheels and then record the random number that matched A. So if A aligned with 6, then the day’s code would be known as Plus Six. Modern Arthurians have special digital token codes that need alphanumeric logins to retrieve the pass codes of any documents sent to them.

Circle secretary Lance Beaucoup, reads the minutes of the last meeting. He is mid-thirties, tall, dark-haired with the broad shoulders of a swimmer and the waist of a gymnast. His voice has a Gallic lilt.

‘Does anyone wish to comment?’ asks Owain.

The room is silent.

‘Then take them as passed, Lance.’

There’s an awkward silence. One filled with expectancy and fear.

The Frenchman continues, ‘We come to the issue of our trusted colleague. Our absent friend.’

All eyes fall on the empty twelfth seat at the table.

‘It is now clear,’ says Owain, ‘that Angelo Marchetti has broken from our order. He has a secret life beyond his secret life. One of gambling, cocaine and crime. Angelo has been siphoning off money. His own accounts have been forged and he is personally bankrupt.’

Mutterings break out.

‘Please — I haven’t finished.’ He waits until silence has been restored. ‘He has stolen several artefacts from the Order and may have fled the country. From what we have been able to discover, he used local crooks to sell a number of burial crosses that he himself had looted. A religious dealer of dubious repute in America was approached and he acquired one cross. He was killed two days ago by Marchetti’s men. We aren’t sure why.

‘We now have a complication,’ continues Owain. ‘I’ve harboured suspicions about Angelo for a while so had him followed the last few weeks.’ He nods across the table to a young Englishman. ‘George tailed his men as they drove away from the dealer’s in Maryland. He’ll tell you the rest.’

George Dalton, a slightly built man with a trimmed dark beard and pale blue eyes, gives his account of what happened. ‘After the killing, two men left the scene. They stopped on the outskirts of Kensington and went into a copse. Only one of them came out. He drove south and pulled in at an all-night diner about a third of a mile east of Dupont Circle. I watched him eat at a booth by the window. When he returned to the car I tackled him. Unfortunately, he was more skilled an adversary than I expected and had a knife.’ George raises his arm to show his bandaged hand and wrist. ‘I’m afraid it was a very close-quarters encounter and he was killed. I recovered a Knight’s Cross from the glove compartment of his car.’

Owain interrupts. ‘There are still two crucifixes missing and possibly other artefacts that we don’t yet know about. We presume Angelo has now lost faith in his minions and is personally trying to sell the crosses. I think we can all guess to whom he will eventually turn and what the consequences of that could be.’

Fresh mutterings break out and Lance takes this as his cue. ‘As of this moment, Angelo Marchetti is expelled from our Order and we are issuing an alert for his capture and permanent exile. You should put whatever bounty you wish on his head and treat this as a matter of utmost urgency.’

Owain sees their sadness. The man with a death warrant on his head had been a friend and comrade to them for many years and his betrayal is hard to believe. ‘Be in no doubt — Angelo poses the biggest threat to our existence for centuries. Do not hesitate to act resolutely in this matter. We have no room for forgiveness, emotion or error. Strike swiftly; our chance may come but once.’

23

Police HQ is an imposing slab of sandstone and glass set among a collection of other similarly striking buildings that belong to the fire and justice departments, the district court and Department of Labor.

Up on the command corridor, the name etched on a door halfway down says CPT. ZACH FULO. Irish raps on it.

‘C’m’in!’ The words are spat out by a voice of grit and glue.

The cop opens the door and hesitantly steps inside.

A lean black man looks up from a desk layered in paperwork. ‘Take a seat, Lieutenant; you’re late.’

‘Traffic was bad out of Maryland. Sorry for the delay.’

‘Traffic’s bad everywhere. A guy your age should have learned that by now.’ His dark eyes tip to a document in his manicured hands. ‘HRU — that’s Historic Religious and Unsolved, right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What the hell they doing asking about one of our cases?’ He holds up the paper.

Irish stares at the FBI badge and realizes one of the top brass there must have written to him. ‘I asked them, sir. Given this has since kicked up into a double homicide I thought it it might be wise.’

‘No, Lieutenant. Wise would be asking me first. Really wise would have been solving the case already.’ He screws up the paper and throws the ball at him. ‘You’re an idiot, Fitzgerald. Just in case you’re in any doubt, idiots are at the opposite end of the spectrum to the wise.’

‘Captain, this crime is linked to some old cross that’s probably a valuable artefact. The HRU has the infrastructure to help us work all that out and find the kind of unsub prepared to kill for that kind of thing.’

‘Me. I’m prepared to kill. And guess who my victim’s likely to be? Now get outta here. I want a full report on my desk by seven in the morning, so don’t get too wasted tonight.’

Irish hauls his injured pride out of the captain’s office and back to his desk.

He pulls open the bottom drawer and grabs a box of tissues. The cold Sophie Hudson passed on still has him honking snot and blood. He sticks a wad of tissues in his pocket and pulls out the second thing he’s after.

Scotch.

He unscrews the top of his emergency bottle and takes a long swallow of the cheap whisky. Doesn’t stop until he feels its hot fingers choking his throat. Then he screws the top back, drops the bottle in his drawer and kicks it shut.

The office is deserted. A gap between shifts. He powers up the computer and finds what he hoped for in his mailbox.

A message from Traffic.

He’d told his old friend Billy Puller about the murder he was working was in woods off the south end of Rock Creek Trail, close to where the east-west Capital Beltway crosses Connecticut Avenue. He said he was interested in any brown SUVs and silver saloons that hit that intersection from ten p.m. onwards on Friday night. Ten being the earliest time the ME thought Amir Goldman could have died.

By the time he’s read the first line of Bill’s mail, his heart’s already flipping.

Irish opens the attachment and presses play.

The footage is good quality. An Escalade heads down a slip road. The overhead camera shows the driver. He’s alone. Late-thirties, maybe early-forties. Clean-shaven. Broad. Light hair.

Five cars back, a Lincoln pulls out to the middle lane, stays there and doesn’t zip on by. The kind of thing you do when you’re following someone and don’t want to be noticed.

Irish studies the traffic. The Escalade is doing about sixty. So is the Lincoln. He sure as hell is tagging him.

No sooner do the Dupont signs come on screen, than they both indicate and take their wagon train off the interstate and out of view.

Irish digs out the Scotch for a celebratory belt then rewinds the footage and plays it from the top. This time he sees the small stuff. The Escalade is badged as a hybrid and the Lincoln has a panoramic glass roof. Both vehicles fit with the descriptions Sarah Cohen gave him but the driver of the Escalade doesn’t. He has light hair. The victim in the woods was dark-haired. This must have been the driver parked up outside Amir’s store and the winner of whatever altercation broke out when they drove off after Goldman’s murder.

Irish figures that, given the timing of the footage, the guy he’s looking at on screen is almost certain to be the killer.

The Lincoln comes into view again. It’s an expensive model. One of the new ones.

‘Ho — lee shit.’ He hits pause. ‘Rule Friggin’ Britannia.’

A broad smile breaks out across his face as he stares at what is unmistakably a diplomatic plate.

24

The second semi-final of America’s Got Talent is playing on the new fifty-inch flat-screen in the family lounge. Sword-swallowing dwarves compete with gymnastic nuns for a place in the last show. TV doesn’t get better than this.

At least not when your brain is aching from stress and all you want to do is sit in front of the tube with a drink and snacks.

Ron Briars has had a rough day. Right now he’s wondering if he should have got 3D as a bigger reward for all that hard labour.

Sixty-inch, 3D, internet equipped. Home cinema, surround sound. Sport certainly would have been a blast on that baby.

But — as usual — he’d given in to his wife’s demands and settled for something a bit smaller. More fitting with the layout of the room, the French windows and fireplace. Not that either him or his teenage son can even begin to understand how the fireplace or windows have anything to do with a TV.

Ron’s cell phone rings.

Wife and child stare accusingly at the BlackBerry as it rudely buzzes and flashes on the side table next to his iPhone and almost empty glass of French red.

Not many people have the number and those that do are very important. White House-important. Chief of Staff- or even President-important.

Ron smiles apologetically, gets up and takes the offending phone to the den. A glance at the display shows the caller has withheld the number.

The head of the National Intelligence Agency answers with caution. ‘Hello.’

‘Tole Mac.’ The voice is calm and measured, almost without accent but clearly British. ‘That’s Tango. Oscar. Lima. Echo. Mike. Alpha. Charlie.’

Seven letters and two words agreed by the NIA and the party on the line as a means of identity verification.

The caller is a trusted source. About as trusted as they come.

The principal security advisor to the President of the United States reaches quickly for pen and paper. ‘Clearance noted. Please, go on.’

‘Denny’s Garage and Body Shop, opposite Leonard Gordon Park in Jersey. You have between midnight tonight and sunrise. No later. Four men are sleeping inside with enough explosives to rip up half of New York. One entrance, a roller door and it is alarmed. We wish you good luck.’

25

The Inner Circle disbands and the armour-plated helicopters and cars disperse.

Only Beaucoup and Dalton stay behind. They’re working closely on leads relating to the missing crosses and whereabouts of Angelo Marchetti.

Owain and his wife dine alone. Not in the plush summer room that overlooks the croquet lawn, or in the conservatory that opens out to the rose gardens and southern lake.

They eat in the wild. Out at the summit of Glastonbury Tor, where the sun sets cherry-red across the soft, green, rolling hills.

Hundreds of feet beneath them, armed guards patrol the hill and ensure the couple have their brief moment of privacy. Anyone wishing to climb the very public place will be politely paid off with whatever it takes — thousands of pounds if necessary.

The contents of the wicker picnic basket are as exceptional as the ancient landscape. Rustic bread and Welsh cakes baked within the last hour. Buffalo mozzarella, beef tomatoes and green and black olives delivered that morning from Tuscany. Fresh cockles and shrimps from the nearby coast. Homemade pheasant pâté and an ’82 Lafite from the Rothschild estate in France.

They sit at the top, where thousands of years ago there was a monk’s retreat and then a sacred chapel. From here they can pick out Great Breach Wood, Polden Hills, Brent Knoll and West Mendip Hills.

But Owain and Jennifer see much more. They see the ghosts of Shamans, Druid priests and necromancers. They see St Patrick strolling the land looking for converts. Saxon hermits hiding in the hillsides. Celtic tribes massing. Roman armies marching. The roots of civilization growing.

And they see Arthur and his Queen arm-in-arm, the Knights of the Round Table assembling and the holy goddess Fortuna stretching her sword-holding hand up from the cold water of the lake.

For almost a minute, Jennifer watches her husband stare into the distance. Normally, being here relaxes him, helps him unwind. But today the tension is still there, etched in grooves across his head and in words unspoken. She intertwines her fingers with his. ‘What are you thinking?’

It takes him a second to return from distant thoughts. ‘Many things, but nothing for you to worry about.’

She tugs his hand. ‘Don’t patronize me. What’s troubling you?’

‘Josep Mardrid.’

She shudders at the mere mention of the name. ‘What has he done now?’

‘He and his corporation grow more ruthless by the week. Currently, his bankers are buying up huge stretches of land in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Togo. Among others.’

‘Why is that so bad?’ Jennifer asks. We’ve invested out there and a lot of the charities I support are busy there.’

‘He’s trying to create a slave trade just like his family did generations ago. In Togo he’s been paying armed gangs to terrorize farmers and destroy their crops. Hundreds of men and their wives and children have been injured, some killed.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘The gangs rape teenagers of either sex. They break the bones of babies and children, then Mardrid has his suited bankers move in and make the beaten men derisory offers for their businesses. He is emerging as a third-world baron in cocoa, cotton and coffee. In time, he’ll do the same in cattle and will then control all the major food chains.’

‘What will you do about it?’

‘Anything and everything I can. If necessary, we’ll fight fire with fire. If we don’t, then nothing will be grown or raised without him getting his share.’ Owain puts his arm around his wife and kisses her. ‘Let’s not talk about him. He only makes my blood boil and we have so little time together. I have to leave for London tomorrow.’

She squeezes up to him. ‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘Neither do I. But I have so much to do. And so little time in which to do it.’

His words sting her. ‘Have you spoken to Myrddin? Is he worrying you as well?’

‘No, I haven’t. And no, he’s not worrying me.’ Owain doesn’t mention that the old man has already insisted on coming to see him. ‘But I really don’t need to speak to him to know something bad is happening. I feel what he feels. I always have done.’

Jennifer lifts his fingers to her lips and kisses them. She knows he’s right. Things are about to change. And not because of what her husband has said, or what Myrddin might believe, but because of the very thing that she is keeping secret.

26

The CTU rendezvous takes place at 0100 hours on the south side of Leonard Gordon Park, a six-acre spread of popular recreational land off Manhattan Avenue.

It takes Operational Commander Paul Bendon less than a minute to remind the six-man assault unit and two-man bomb-disposal team of the layout of the building and in particular where the four terrorists and their cache of explosives will be positioned inside it.

While Bendon speaks, a miniature drone hovers silently over the single-storey building. High in the starless night sky, it constantly relays thermal images formed from the men’s body heat to the tiny screen embedded in the visor of his full-face protective mask and helmet.

The commander runs a final check with two surveillance operatives hidden close to the target building and then gives the ‘go’ signal.

The unit slips silently from the blacked-out van and shifts stealthily across the corner of the park towards John F. Kennedy Boulevard. The body shop is in sight.

The metal roller door is down all the way and anchored from the inside. The three front windows and the back two are closed and have sturdy wire mesh over what is certain to be reinforced glass. The walls are white pebbledash over thick breezeblock. The roof is bitumen, plasterboard and cheap wooden joists — all too thin and noisy to risk anyone walking on.

It means Bendon has had to plan another way in.

The team with him is the best there is: MacNeish, King, Kupka, Parry, Cavell and Elliott have been in more than a dozen raids at least as dangerous as this. When it comes to badasses, they’re off the scale.

Bendon waves MacNeish forward.

The thickset operative slips into position, raises an Arwen launcher to his shoulder and chugs a series of brick-penetrating rounds through the mortar.

As the payloads empty CS into the body shop, a small explosive charge blows out an architectural weak spot between the roller door and the window. King rolls in two flashbangs.

Kupka and Parry are through the hole and into the smoke before the dust has had a chance to rise, let alone settle. Bullets spray from CTU carbines — not the normal deadly lead but unique tranquillizers that penetrate and discharge on impact.

There’s a volley of enemy fire from low in the far corner. A round smacks Elliott in the shoulder and spins him. Cavell returns fire.

It seems like all hell is breaking loose. A wall collapses and part of the roof falls in. Parry shouts, ‘Out! Out!’

More of the roof comes in. There’s another wild burst of gunfire. A crouching terrorist breaks cover and runs through the mist.

Bendon sees him. He’s heading into the other part of the body shop. The place where the pits and the explosives are.

A burst from the commander’s Heckler and Koch hits the terrorist in the back and drops him in the dirt. Bendon kicks the man’s weapon away and snags him with fast-tie plastic cuffs.

Another bomber breaks from the mist.

Kupka is close enough to smash a forearm into his face and knock him flat. He tilts his gun and shoots tranquillizer into the man’s chest.

There’s silence now.

Everyone strains and concentrates. Thermal recon showed four people — they’ve only hit two.

The team sweeps the fog with their weapons. One by one, calm voices speak into Bendon’s earpiece.

‘Clear south.’

‘Clear east.’

‘Clear west.’

‘Clear north.’

He picks through the rubble. Chunks of brick and breezeblock shift beneath the soles of his boots. Down in the pit he sees the store of bombs and bomb-making materials. There are stacks of PBX, plastic bonded explosives. Some small devices are already completed, others still need to be assembled. Alongside them are dozens of detonators, bags of binding materials, packs of plasticizers and several canisters of cyclotrimethylene.

Bendon waves the bomb-squad boys forward and steps outside. Two of the cell got away when the roof fell in but his men are after them. He picks up the radio in the van and links through to CTU control. ‘Two captured. Two escaped but the information was a hundred per cent accurate. The place was a bomb factory. A big one. Tell Director Briars his informant delivered, again.’

27

The black Jaguar arrives in the dead of night.

Armed guards leave the warmth of their security lodge, peer briefly through the bulletproof glass then respectfully wave the limousine past.

It travels a short way down an unlit track to an old gatekeeper’s cottage. The driver, a large man with military haircut gets out and opens the back door for his passenger.

Myrddin struggles to extricate himself from the plush seating. His long spine is bent and stiff from the arduous journey, his mind already on the return trip he must make soon after daybreak.

The cottage smells of damp and is as sparsely furnished as his chambers in Wales. There are no curtains or carpets. In the middle of a rough wooden table stands a wicker basket of cold meats and cheeses, along with a vintage bottle of single malt whisky and two glasses.

Outside he hears noises. Feet on gravel. Attentive voices of the gate guards.

The door creaks open and Owain Gwyn enters. ‘It is so good to see you!’

They embrace warmly.

‘How are you, my dear, dear boy?’ asks Myrddin as they break.

‘I am well. Though I feel terrible about you driving all this way. You should have used the helicopter.’

‘Fuh.’ He flaps a hand dismissively. ‘Horrible things. You know I am too old to fly.’

Owain laughs and then points around at the bare room. ‘I always feel bad when you stay out here in the cold like a hermit. We could make you so much more comfortable in the main house.’

‘I like to live like this. Besides, I have the whisky to keep me warm.’ He uncaps the bottle and pours two glasses.

Owain sits at the table with him. ‘When we get to Wales, let me bring people in and refurbish your chambers and the solar. Central heating, damp proofing, electricity. Bring you some of the comforts of the twenty-first century.’

He shakes his head. ‘Shelter alone is a luxury. Anything more builds a barrier between me and the spirits I wish to converse with.’

Owain raises his malt. ‘This is the only spirit I want any contact with.’

They touch glasses and drink.

Myrddin puts his whisky down and cuts to the purpose of his visit. ‘I have told you of some of the recent things that have broken my sleep. Have any of the visions yet made sense to you?’

‘Sadly, yes.’

‘Specifically?’

Owain is pained to explain, ‘Angelo Marchetti, a member of the Inner Circle has been stealing artefacts and money. It’s a long story, but as a result, men he recruited were responsible for a murder in America — the owner of an antique store—’

‘Ah, this is the Keeper of Time.’

‘It would seem to fit your prophecy.’ He freshens their glasses.

‘But only one dead?’

‘No, there were more.’

‘I foresaw the brown and silent beast that bore Death and his disciples.’

Owain nods. ‘One of the men we pursued was in a brown hybrid SUV — that’s a vehicle that runs silently on electricity as well as petrol or diesel.’

‘As old as I am, I know what hybrid means.’ He turns his sad eyes up at Owain. ‘There is something I have not yet told you.’

‘Then, I suppose now is the time to tell it.’

Myrddin is almost afraid to speak the words. ‘I have seen the child.’

Owain looks shaken.

‘He is coming.’

‘You are certain?’

‘I am. He is coming and with him, there will be a river of blood that will flow from country to country, continent to continent.’

28

The redeye from San Francisco leaves late. When it lands almost three thousand miles away, there’s no gate available. One of those nights is turning into one of those days.

Redirected into a freed-up bay, there’s no ground crew to operate the air-bridge. By the time the passengers sleepwalk off the Airbus, it’s almost half past eight in the morning and Mitzi is already two hours behind schedule.

‘Thank you, have a nice day,’ says a smiling stewardess.

Mitzi glares as she glides past. She’d been made to fly cattle-class by the FBI and hasn’t slept a wink. Her only good fortune is that she’s travelling with only a trolley bag, which means she breezes through security.

In the arrivals hall, she finds a scruffy, middle-aged taxi driver holding a piece of cardboard with her name on it. He looks about as pissed off as she feels.

‘Fallon — that’s me.’ She waves a hand.

‘You’re late in.’

She can’t believe his attitude. ‘Yeah, well, shit happens. Stick it on the bill. And while you’re doing that, add another ten dollars because I need some coffee before you drive me anywhere.’

He laughs and shakes his head in disbelief that he has to wait even longer. ‘There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Green Leaf or a Guava and Java, all within a minute of here.’

‘Dunkin’. The other two sound expensive and I’m in no mood to talk lapsang souchong to some spotty student.’

‘Can I take your bag?’

She notices that he smells of booze and looks like death. ‘I got it. Do I really look so weak that I can’t roll a trolley bag?’

‘No, you don’t. But you’re sure as hell snappy.’ He leads the way to the coffee shop. ‘I was just being polite.’

‘Yeah, well, in your case polite would be having a shower after a night on the beer.’

‘I worked late last night so didn’t get home to change. I’m sorry. I’m having something of a bad time at the moment.’

‘Yeah, well, bad time is no excuse for bad smell. My bad time runs all the way back to LA via San Francisco and courtesy of enough men smelling of liquor to know the score.’ She catches that maybe she’s whipping him too hard. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I kept you waiting. Remind me when you drop me off and I’ll make it up to you with a good tip.’

They arrive at the donut stand and join the queue. Mitzi flips open her purse. ‘You want coffee? I’m buying.’

He looks pleased. ‘Why not? Dunkaccino Medium. Could manage a strawberry cheese Danish if you can stretch that far.’

‘You’re joking, right? Strawberry cheese? They really do that?’

‘Strawberry cheese, or apple cheese. Take your pick.’

Mitzi goes strawberry plus a double espresso. She pays for everything and he picks up the bags and coffee from the counter.

‘Let’s sit a while and eat these,’ he motions to a table. ‘I don’t like to move around when I have food or drink.’

She studies her watch. ‘Not sure I have time for batting the breeze. I should have met someone an hour ago.’

‘I know you should. A cop, name of Fitzgerald.’ He pulls out a chair for her. ‘You just met him. Sit down and he’ll brief you while we eat.’

29

The rear lawn of the mansion glistens with morning dew.

Two figures, both dressed head-to-toe in white, tread the turf in the sharp morning light.

They nod respectfully, then fill the dawn air with the savage swish of steel.

Sir Owain Gwyn and Lance Beaucoup first crossed swords at the Olympics when France fought Great Britain. In battle, a great friendship was forged and Lance subsequently joined the Order.

Steel slashes air. Knees bend. Toes tap. The men spin and lunge and whirl, elegant figures in dazzling bright breeches and vests. Behind the foil facemasks, neither of them blink. To do so would be costly.

Across the lawn, an electronic scoring box beeps and echoes thinly.

First blood to the Frenchman — a fine feint followed by a lightning jab to the shoulder.

Owain counters aggression with guile. His giant feet go light. For a second, he has the speed of a featherweight. He parries, then lunges.

Lance dances backwards, ropes in his aggression and tries to stay patient. He counters and parries. Backs off again.

Owain lunges.

The Frenchman flicks away the epee blade and catches him low in the abdomen.

Another beep. A second point to the younger man.

They touch blades. The dance begins again. One that in ancient times would have ended in defeat, death or, worst of all, dishonour. Feet fly back and forth across the damp turf like scampering pups.

Lance cuts low, then high.

Owain blocks.

Both blades slide down to the bell guards. Eyes and muscles lock.

Owain leans in. Hurls his foe backwards. Lunges again.

The Frenchman deflects the blade downwards, steps to one side, stabs upwards.

A third beep.

‘Stop!’ Owain pulls off his mask in despair. ‘You are still too good for me.’ He sounds breathless. ‘I can’t be humiliated any more.’

‘Then use your right arm, mon cher ami.’

‘If I do, then my left will never learn to be an equal.’

Lance lifts his forearm to wipe sweat from his brow. ‘Your right is so good, your left will never need to hold steel.’

Owain puts his arm around his friend and leads him back to the house, where breakfast is being prepared. ‘Did you hear anything further about last night’s activities in New York?’

‘Yes. We got intelligence around four this morning. Two captive. The Americans will interrogate them later today. One of the others, the bomb-maker and Antun escaped when CTU stormed the building.’

‘Antun is a good man. Is he injured?’

‘No, not at all and he thinks his credibility is good enough for him to stay in.’

‘That’s dangerous. Very dangerous.’

‘Isn’t everything that we do?’

‘Al-Qaeda is depleted in people, not in thought. Make sure he does not underestimate them.’

‘I will.’

Lance raises his sword. ‘Would you like to try your luck one final time?’

A glint comes into Owain’s eyes. ‘I would. But not with these knitting needles. I have broadswords and body armour. How about a brief session with those, before breakfast?’

The Frenchman’s eyes twinkle. ‘I thought you would never ask.’

They walk back, talking of their shared passion, of ancient swords and historic battles. Owain glances towards the old gatehouse. The black Jaguar has left. Myrddin has already gone.

30

Irish briefs Mitzi over their airport breakfast.

He tells her in detail about the two deaths, the witnesses who’ve been interviewed, what few forensic clues they have and the footage of the Cadillac Escalade hybrid and its tag-team chum, the Lincoln.

When they’re done, he rolls her bag to the car and drops it in the Ford’s trunk.

She climbs in the passenger side and lets out a yell. ‘Holy Christ, what a mess!’

The footwell is filled with trash.

‘What you got down here, apart from dysentery and Ebola?’ She looks closer. ‘Old cans of soda. Screwed-up bags and wrappers from Subway and McDonald’s. A newspaper or ten.’

‘I like to read.’

‘I’ll buy you a book on hygiene.’

‘Not many people get in that side.’

‘I can see why. Where did you say we’re going first, embassy or to see the store girl?’

‘Embassy. It’s more important.’ He looks her way. ‘Outta interest, how did you end up in this weird FBI squad?’

‘I worked a case related to the Turin Shroud. You know what that is?’

‘Course. I was brought up Catholic. Used to be an altar boy. What d’ya reckon — is it fake or for real?’

Mitzi laughs. ‘That’s a long story. Anyway, after dealing with a lifetime’s worth of history, religion, politics and tricky Italians we got a result. I used it for a wage hike and a ticket out of town.’

‘You like the new job?’

‘Too early to say. So far, it beats the hell out of chasing gangs across Compton and Linwood.’ She checks her watch. ‘I’ve got a researcher showing a picture of your cross to history professors and theologians this morning. Give her another hour or so and I’ll call in.’

‘I pray she strikes lucky.’

‘You not picked up any more?’

‘Only that it was worth a lot of money. Amir, the old man I told you about, was scraping together every dime he had and borrowing more to buy it.’

‘Looks like your bosses made the smart move calling us in then.’

‘Ha.’ He shakes his head despondently.

‘Ha? What does “ha” mean?’

‘Means my bosses don’t really approve of you being here. I made the request without asking them.’

Mitzi raises an eyebrow. ‘Do you like having your ass kicked?’

‘It’s a tough old ass and it’s been kicked so much I don’t feel the pain no more.’

They pull up at the main entrance of the British Embassy. Both cops clock the plethora of surveillance cameras and heavy-duty guards with machine-guns and sniffer dogs.

Irish winds down the window and dangles his ID for a gate guard. ‘We’re investigating a major crime and need to speak to the ambassador, or one of his representatives.’

The security man lifts the road barrier. ‘Park over there and we’ll do some checks, then I’ll take you round to the rear entrance. One of the consular officials will come and speak to you.’

‘Thanks.’ Irish drives through and parks in a visitor space.

Mitzi gets out and takes in the red brick and ivy, the grand windows and pristine gardens. ‘Not bad. I guess at a push I could live here.’

31

Nabil Tabrizi has been a cell commander for only eighteen months. The bomb factory was his first big responsibility. One he screwed up.

He knows the CIA didn’t simply get lucky. His operation was taken out two days before they were ready to blow up Wall Street. Someone acted on top-quality information. Possibly from the inside.

Brought up in The Bronx, he is outwardly as much a New Yorker as most. But his heart has been with al-Qaeda ever since he was bullied at school for being Muslim. Long before his cousin was beaten to death by rednecks because he bore the same name as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the masterminds of the World Trade Center attacks.

Nabil meets his contact in a back room of a lawyer’s office near Stan’s Sports bar, a ball’s throw from the Yankee Stadium. The thin, black-eyed man sits in the shadows.

‘You have been compromised from within, Nabil.’ The words hang in the musty air. ‘You do realize that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do, Imam.’ He knows he must be both contrite and focused if he is to survive. ‘I am very sorry this has happened.’

‘Do you have any idea who it might be?’

‘Not Abbas or Samir. They were both taken by the authorities. And not Tamir; he was killed.’

‘Who does that leave?’

‘Halem and Malek are the only others. Malek was the bomb-maker, so I don’t think it was him.’

‘Then it may be Halem. But who is least known to you?’

He has to think for a moment. ‘Samir and Halem.’

‘This Halem, has he run?’

‘No. He is still around, which is why I think it may not be him.’

The Imam scratches at his beard. ‘It is not impossible that the Americans have arrested one of their own, in order to make him look guilty. They could always release him later and say they had to because of judicial problems.’

‘You think it might be one of them?’

‘I think nothing, Nabil. These are your men — it is you who must think. Think and act decisively. Does the holy book not tell us “fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you?”’

‘Yes, Imam, it does.’

‘Then that is what you must do.’

Nabil feels relieved. He is going to be given a second chance. ‘When I look into their faces, I will know who betrayed me.’

The Iman raises his arm and knocks twice on the wall behind him. The shadowy space he’s sitting in is broken by yellow light from an opening door. A large, olive-skinned man enters, dressed in baggy white trousers and a white vest that showcases gym-pumped arms. His head has been shaved and his angular face is framed in a beard shadow as dark as his eyes.

‘This is Aasif,’ he explains. ‘My most trusted enforcer. For now, he is your new recruit. He will help protect you and get to the truth.’

‘Thank you.’ Nabil bows his head in gratitude.

Aasif steps out of the shadows and stands intimidatingly close to his new colleague.

‘I have a test for you and your men.’ He looks up to the giant at his side. ‘Take him in the back room, Aasif and show him our “lie detector”.’

Through the shadows, Nabil sees a glint of teeth, the hint of a rare smile.

‘Go. It will help you determine who your traitor is — and teach the Americans a lesson into the bargain.’

32

Breakfast is served in the Gwyns’ ornate Edwardian conservatory. The golden light of what is becoming a beautiful morning rests on white linen tables and sparkles on china plates and silver cutlery.

Owain is distracted. Myrddin’s prophecies and the long conversation of last night are playing on his mind. That and Mardrid’s mafia-like movements in the third world. Gradually, he becomes conscious of a white-coated waiter who’s appeared at the table. ‘Some Ceylon tea, fresh berries and a croissant, please.’

The young waiter looks to Lance Beaucoup, who is settling into a chair.

‘Just coffee and a croissant. Merci.’

The waiter drifts off to his duties.

Lance nods to the third place set at the table. ‘Is Lady Gwyn joining us?’

‘No, she’s already out. Apparently, while we were having our extra fencing session she decided to go and ride the new horse that threw her the other day.’

He looks concerned. ‘Was she hurt?’

‘Just her pride. It’s a Welsh Cob stallion, a giant white that really doesn’t want to be tamed.’

‘That is part of the Welsh character, is it not?’

‘It is.’ He looks amused. ‘I feel for the horse. Eventually, Jenny will win. She always does.’

‘This is why I never married.’ He laughs.

‘I hope one day you’ll feel differently.’

The waiter returns with breakfast on a large silver tray. He holds it while a young waitress in a dark uniform pours the tea and coffee and serves the food.

Owain waits until they’ve walked away before he strikes up a new conversation. ‘Has the Knight’s Cross been returned to the burial ground?’

‘It has. Gawain and Danforth did it last night.’

‘Good. I am still shocked and sickened that Angelo would commit such sacrilege. Robbing the grave of a fallen brother; it turns my stomach.’

‘Grave-s. Remember he took three crosses.’

‘Indeed. We have three fallen brothers who’ve been foully stripped of their honour. Is security now what it should be?’

‘It is. And we are reviewing procedures in other countries as well.’ Lance hesitates before voicing a more delicate question. ‘Would you like me to ask George to review the British resting grounds, or would you rather tell him yourself? They and the French ones are after all the oldest and most significant.’

‘You tell him.’ He’s pleased that Lance is pushing the boundaries of his authority, developing into a natural leader. ‘I’m done here; I need to get to work.’ He wipes his hands on his napkin and gets to his feet.

Lance follows suit. ‘I will join you. If I stay here I will only fall asleep or drink too much coffee.’

They leave the conservatory and head into the main part of the house. A long corridor takes them to a set of stairs that drop another landing.

The two men use retinal and fingertip identification to pass into a short, wood-panelled cul-de-sac of three doors. The one to the left is filled by members of the Watch Team. To the right, Sir Owain’s private office.

Straight ahead is the SSOA command centre. The heartbeat of their Order.

33

After security checks have been completed, Mitzi and Irish are left in a high-ceilinged, dusty waiting room full of echoes and framed photographs of generations of British monarchs.

Half an hour ticks by.

Mitzi’s gossamer-thin patience is starting to shred when a blue-suited blond man strides in.

‘Hello, I’m Richard Stevens — how might I help you?’

Irish badges him and spills several balled up tissues in the process. ‘Lieutenant Fitzgerald from DC Police and this is Mitzi Fallon, from the FBI.’ He pauses while she produces her credentials.

Stevens takes both IDs and examines them carefully before returning them. ‘And you’re here, why?’

‘We’re running a homicide investigation and need your help.’ Irish gives a friendly shrug. ‘Hell, I know there are all those procedural channels and policies, but I could sure do with cutting through the red tape and getting a jump on our killer. Can I ask you something?’

The young attaché says nothing.

‘Take a look at these for me.’ Irish opens a brown envelope and shows blow-up photos the lab rushed for him late last night. ‘This Lincoln is registered to the British Embassy; we checked the plates.’ He hands a print to Stevens. ‘We need to know who was driving it last Friday night and where it is now?’

‘Do you have a record book of that kind of thing?’ asks Mitzi. ‘A driver we can talk to?’

Stevens hands the photograph back to Irish. ‘I’m sorry; you’re going to have to go through those dreadful channels. Probably best to have your Chief of Police contact the State Department and let them deal with it appropriately.’ He taps the face of his wristwatch. ‘Now, I’m afraid I have other duties to attend to.’

Mitzi presses. ‘If you don’t have time, maybe your boss does?’

‘That’s not possible.’ He looks amused. ‘If you were better informed you would know that Sir Owain Gwyn’s tenure is up. He returned to Britain yesterday along with his staff.’ He pre-empts her next question. ‘I have stayed on merely to help the new ambassador settle in. And he won’t be here today, or the rest of this week for that matter.’

She steps into the attaché’s personal space. ‘Do I look like a barn wall?’

The consular agent looks confused. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I just wondered — what with all that whitewash you just slopped over me.’

His tone alters. ‘I’m officially asking you to leave. If you don’t, I will call security and have you forcibly removed.’

‘We’re going.’ Mitzi pats him playfully on the cheek as she walks past. ‘Love your accent, honey. God save the freakin’ queen.’

34

For the past three years, Halem Hussain has been a trusted member of Nabil Tabrizi’s terror cell. Not for one moment has anyone within the group suspected he might be Antun Bhatti, a devoted member of the SSOA, a secret organization known to only a few people in the world.

But today, things are different.

Given the raid by the Counter-Terrorist Unit, he knows Nabil must consider him, and everyone else left alive, as the possible source of a leak to the authorities.

He sits in a circle of hard chairs, in the damp basement of a safe house off Westchester Avenue, just a nervous spit from where the Cross Bronx Expressway hits Parkchester Metro and the Hugh J. Grant Circle. He’s a stranger to the place. Brought here by Nabil, they made five different changes of transport and went to extraordinary lengths to make sure they weren’t tailed.

He and Malek the bomber have been searched and electronically ‘brushed’ for bugs by a man Nabil simply introduced as Aasif.

The young cell commander looks strained and worried. He leans on his knees as he speaks. ‘One of our colleagues is dead. Others have been captured by the Americans. Yet, the two of you, Malek and Halem, escaped unhurt. No bullet wounds. No scratches. No arrests. Tell me why did Allah look so favourably upon you?’

The small grey-haired bomb-maker, answers first. ‘When the Americans blew open the door I was in the toilet. This saved me from the blast and the gunfire. I praise Allah and I pray for those who were not as lucky as me. My work will bring glory to the rest of our team, I swear it.’

Nabil studies the man by his side. ‘And you, Halem?’

Antun doesn’t rush his answer. He hangs his head in shame.

‘Brother! I am waiting for your explanation.’

Finally, he looks up. His eyes are moist. ‘I was frightened.’ He lets the admission sink in. ‘I was thrown to the floor when the Americans fired their explosives and I stayed there.’ He drops his head again, before continuing. ‘I was too scared to move and hoped they didn’t kill me. Then part of the roof collapsed and I took the chance to run rather than fight.’ He raises his eyes. ‘Then I called and told you what had happened.’

Nabil remembers his horror at learning of the raid. Halem had indeed been the first to alert him and, had he not, maybe he would have been arrested or killed by the Americans. ‘There is a traitor among us. Of that, I am sure. It may be one of you, or perhaps even Abbas or Samir. For the moment, I cannot be certain. But I will be.’ He puts a hand on the man at his side. ‘Aasif, show them how we will find out.’

The enforcer dips his hands into a black garbage bag that the imam has given him and lifts out a thick fold of light brown canvas. As he unrolls it, a tangle of coloured wires and deep pockets packed with explosives and shrapnel become visible.

‘Tonight,’ says Nabil, ‘at the height of rush hour, one of our sisters will walk into Grand Central Station and turn a dull New York day into a truly historic one.’

35

The daily briefing paper that Lance places in Owain’s hands is not dissimilar to one that will shortly be passed to the President of the United States.

But this missive hasn’t been compiled by US or even British intelligence agencies. It’s come from the Arthurians’ Watch Team, a hand-picked group of security experts who gather information on the biggest threats to world security.

Today’s dossier runs from A-U. From Afghanistan and Algeria to Uzbekistan. Down the alphabet of terrorism, Owain learns of changes in strength, new affiliations and successful and failed strikes. He picks up early intelligence on Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, the Zviadists in Georgia, the Japanese Aum Supreme Truth movement, Hamas, and the Harakat ul-Ansar in Pakistan. He reads and absorbs it all, then settles on the separate paper that is always prepared for him.

The one marked MARDRID.

The title is the name of a company in the Spanish capital that is a front for an arms supplier, delivering tanks to Syria, warplanes to Iran, missiles to North Korea without compunction. Its CEO is Josep Mardrid, entrepreneur and evil personified.

Owain reads each line carefully, knowing that somewhere in the world Mardrid is most probably perusing a detailed report about him and his various activities. If Myrddin’s prophecies are right, they will meet again soon. Just as their ancestors did. Then there will be blood. Such a torrent of blood that it will sweep away some of the finest lives the world has ever known.

36

‘You’re going the wrong way.’ Irish jabs a thumb towards the front gate as he fishes for the last of the clean tissues in his pocket. ‘The car and the exit are over there.’

‘I’ve never had a good sense of direction.’ Mitzi saunters down the service road that snakes around the back of the embassy.

He sneezes then asks her, ‘Where you going?’

‘Garage will be down here. I figure we have less than five minutes before the Head of Ambassadorial Whitewash checks with security that we’ve gone.’

Irish struggles to keep up. ‘Hey, we have no warrant and my captain doesn’t even know that we’re here. He’ll kick my ass if you cause any problems.’

‘Thought you said your ass was hard and kick-resistant?’

‘I lied. I have a soft pussy of an ass, a real—’

‘Enough, or I’ll kick it myself.’

They follow the road as it winds through the cover of giant trees. In the clearing is a crop of old outbuildings and a spread of blacktop where embassy cars are parked.

Near the vehicles are a gas pump, oil drums, and a long single-storey garage with rolled up doors. Inside is a dark-brown Range Rover that looks several years old and alongside it, a black Jaguar, a supercharged XJL.

Mitzi’s gaze skips over the roofs and hoods. Right at the back she sees a silver Lincoln MKZ, with a panoramic roof.

‘Well looky look!’ She runs her fingers down the wing. ‘Don’t this seem familiar?’

‘This year’s model.’ Irish floats envious eyes over the badging and plump leather interior. ‘Three-point-seven-litre V6 engine, with rich leather and wood trim. We’re talking forty, maybe forty-five thousand dollars.’

‘You wouldn’t get change out of fifty.’ The comment comes from a ginger-haired man in blue overalls. He wipes his fingers on a rag even dirtier than his hands. ‘Can I help you with somethin’?’

‘Lieutenant Fitzgerald, DC Police.’ He flips his badge. ‘Who are you?’

‘Chas Dawkins. I’m the embassy’s chief mechanic — what’s wrong?’

‘You got records, Chas? Can you tell me where these cars might have been and who’s been driving them — like you, for example?’ Irish raises an accusatory eyebrow.

‘Me an’ the rest of the boys don’t do nothing but test drives and most of that’s on private roads.’ He gestures to the garage. ‘If the cars are taken out they have to be signed for. I’ve got logs.’

They walk into a darkness that smells of oil, petrol and spirit-based cleaners. Mitzi looks back for the security guards who will inevitably come.

Chas rifles through the drawers of a tatty wooden desk that has an ancient computer sat on top, along with a collection of dirty mugs that should have been washed yesterday. He produces an A3-sized hardback blue book and opens it. ‘What day and car you interested in?’

‘Friday last.’ Irish feels his heart jump. ‘Who had the Lincoln that night, say from eight onwards?’

The mechanic runs a finger down the columns until he finds a name and signature. ‘Mr Dalton.’

‘Who’s he?’ Mitzi watches a black Ford Expedition roll to a halt outside the garage.

‘George Dalton. He’s a consul.’

She sees guards slide from their vehicle, hitch up their pants, belts heavy with guns. ‘How long did he have the car?’

Chas has his head in the book. ‘Dropped it at the airport on Sunday morning. We pick—’

‘Don’t say anything else, Mr Dawkins.’ The order comes from a guard in his mid-fifties. ‘These people got no right to be here asking you questions.’

Mitzi winks at him. ‘You did good, Chas. Whatever the Stasi here say, you’ve done the right thing.’

37

‘The thing is’ — Nabil Tabrizi looks across at Halem and Malek as he speaks — ‘none of us is going to leave this room. Not until long after the suicide vest has been collected and Grand Central Station is bathed in the blood of the infidels.’ He studies their eyes for a sign of worry, a flash of recognition that one of them will be unable to contact his masters and prevent the attack.

Malek is the first to break a tense silence. ‘May I see the vest?’

The cell leader regards him with suspicion. ‘Why?’

‘To check it will work. These garments are prone to malfunction.’

Aasif holds it up. ‘Or is it because you want to sabotage it?’ Perhaps loosen a connection or two?’

The bomb-maker stays calm. ‘I am a professional and I am acting professionally.’ He turns his head towards the cell commander. ‘Do you respect my opinion and my skills, or not?’

‘Give it to him,’ says Nabil curtly.

Aasif carefully passes it over.

The commander slips a Glock from his belt and inspects the magazine. It’s a check done more out of boredom than anything else. ‘You are very quiet, Halem. What is on your mind?’ The rack of bullets makes a ratcheting click as it’s shoved back into the gun.

Antun feels Nabil’s eyes boring into him. ‘I was wondering if any thought had been given to the scanners at the station and how to get past them? Or is the plan just to explode the device outside?’

‘Much thought has gone into this plan,’ says Nabil. ‘The explosive is TATP and it will pass the scanners. Won’t it, Malek?’

‘It will. As you say, the maker has used triacetone triperoxide. It’s a crude but sensitive charge made up mainly of acetone, hydrogen peroxide and a strong acid like hydrochloric or sulphuric acid.’ He turns one of the vest pockets around to show the packed chemicals. ‘Because most security scanners are really only nitrogen detectors, they won’t pick this up. It is what we bomb-makers call “transparent”.’

Antun, the man they all know as Halem, wipes sweat from his brow. His thoughts are on the station. It’s not just the busiest stop in the New York City Subway system; it’s one of the most hectic places on earth. GCS has more than a hundred tracks and covers almost fifty acres of land. On a quiet day three-quarters of a million people pass through it. A bomb will cause unbelievable loss of life.

He has to stop the attack.

Even if that means getting killed in the process.

38

Mitzi lowers the window of the Taurus as they head out to Sophie Hudson’s apartment in North Bethesda. ‘You sure you left the bodies at the morgue, and they ain’t buried somewhere beneath your car trash?’

‘Very funny.’ Irish flips down the lid on the glove box. ‘There’s cologne in there; squirt it around and shut up.’

‘What an offer.’ Mitzi picks out a dubious green bottle of a scent she’s never heard of and sprays it. ‘Oh my God! I think I prefer the hidden corpse.’ She puts the bottle back.

‘Paid ten dollars for that.’

‘You should have arrested them for robbery.’

He smiles. For someone like Mitzi Fallon, he could maybe buy sixty-dollar cologne and get his shit together. Shame she’s just blowing through his life. Shame he has a life that just gets blown through. ‘I think Sophie Hudson’s holding back on me. I tell you that already?’

‘You did. You told me at the airport.’

He jabs a finger against his temple. ‘Got to the age when I can’t remember half of what I’ve said. Better to say it twice than not at all.’

‘Anything you can put your finger on?’

‘No. That’s the problem. It’s just a hunch.’ He drives lazily. Hands flopped together on the top of the wheel. ‘I was thinking, maybe you should see her on your own. Could be that woman-to-woman you’ll get something I wouldn’t.’

Mitzi gives him the once-over. He’s scruffy as hell and stinks of booze but beneath all that waste there’s a bright cop trying to come up for air. ‘I’ll give it a shot.’

Ten minutes later, Irish pulls over and kills the engine. ‘It’s that brownstone. Eighth floor, apartment 802.’ He slides his seat back and reclines it. ‘I’m gonna grab a little rest. See if I can sleep off this flu.’

She opens the passenger side and steps out to the sidewalk. ‘Women get flu, they simply struggle on; men get it, they have to sleep it off. Healthiest thing you could do is clean up this dumpster.’ She slams the door and looks around.

The street is clean and quiet. A few trees have grown mature around the old brownstone building, a patch of grass has got a path worn across the corner and there are a couple of benches where no doubt old folks sit during the day and kids congregate at night.

She takes the stairs, not the elevator and uses the time to run the details of the case through her head.

Sophie opens her apartment door on the first knock, but keeps it chained.

Mitzi shows her FBI badge. ‘I’m working your boss’s murder. Need to ask you some questions.’

‘I already talked to Lieutenant Fitzgerald.’

‘I know. Now you need to talk to me.’ She puts a finger on the chain. ‘Take it off, please?’

Sophie’s eyes show resignation. The door closes and re-opens without the chain.

‘Thanks.’ As she walks in Mitzi asks, ‘How you feeling? I’m told you’re sick.’

‘Getting better.’ Sophie is in her old university hoodie with blue jeans, pink socks and no shoes. She motions reluctantly to the sofa. ‘You want a drink or something?’

‘No I’m good.’ Mitzi sits and flips out a notebook. ‘Let’s do this quick.’

‘Sure.’ She settles opposite her. ‘Like I said, I went through it all with Lieutenant Fitzgerald. I’ve told him everything I know.’

‘I suspect not.’ She studies the landscape of the girl’s face, the tension in her cheeks, and the tightness around her mouth. ‘You ever done word-association tests?’

She frowns. ‘No.’

‘Okay, it goes like this: I say something and you answer with the first thing that comes into your head. From your answer, I’ll know whether you’re a liar or just a sick kid whose door I shouldn’t have knocked on.’ Mitzi clicks the top on her pen. ‘Here we go — word one: murder…⁠’

The store assistant doesn’t answer.

Mitzi repeats herself. ‘Murder, Sophie.Murder…⁠’

‘Mr Goldman?’

‘Good.’

Mitzi lets her hang. She leans forward, challengingly. ‘Hiding.’

Sophie’s pupils dilate. Her skin glows pink. ‘This is stupid. I’m not—’

‘Don’t!’ Mitzi holds up a traffic cop palm. ‘You don’t want to know what I’ve done to people who lie to my face.’

The silence returns.

Mitzi puts the pen and paper down. ‘Okay, game over. You got from sick kid to lying little bitch in two questions. Not a record, but still impressive.’ She takes her shield out and places it next to her. ‘The FBI didn’t send me here to play games, honey — they want me to charge someone with your boss’s murder. So, what happens now is I phone for a warrant, we toss this place and then charge you with suspicion—’

‘All right.’ Sophie rubs a hand nervously across her mouth and gets shakily to her feet. ‘I need to bring something from the bedroom.’

Mitzi stands too. She’s not in the business of sitting like an idiot while a suspect makes a run for it or, worse still, picks up something that happens to be loaded.

She follows her to the bedroom and as Sophie reaches for a drawer beneath a vanity mirror, she un-holsters her gun. ‘Do that real slow, so I don’t have a momentary lapse of judgement and blow your freakin’ head off.’

The girl looks terrified. Her hands shake as she pulls a small USB stick from beneath a tangle of underwear and holds it out. ‘This is all I was getting.’

Mitzi takes it and holsters the gun. She looks down at the tiny eight-gigabyte memory stick in the palm of her hand. ‘What’s on it and how did you get it?’

Sophie wanders back to the lounge. ‘I couldn’t make sense of it. Mr Goldman was given it by someone he was doing business with — I don’t know who. He tried it in the work PC and it came out as a jumble of letters and numbers. He gave it to me to try to make sense of.’

‘And what was wrong? Was it formatted for Mac or something?’

‘No. It really was just letters and numbers.’

‘Like what? A recipe for alphabet soup?’

‘Just like a jumble. The only thing I could make out was writing on the side of the stick. Someone’s scratched “CODE X”.’

Mitzi holds the minuscule USB between thumb and forefinger. ‘So why lie about this?’

She shrugs guiltily. ‘I’m a store clerk — and an out-of-work one now. I figured it might bring me some money in the future.’

‘How?’

‘I thought I might sell it to a newspaper.’

‘Classy gal. Make a buck on your dead boss. Anything else you took or you’re forgetting to tell us?’

‘No.’ Sophie twists a strand of her hair to settle her nerves. ‘You gonna charge me with something?’

‘Not for now. Being scared of having no work ain’t a misdemeanour, else we’d be jailing half the country. But wise up, honey: lying to cops is. You’re lucky, you get a pass this time, but if I have to come back, then we’ll be playing a different game with a different ending.’

39

After six hours in the unventilated basement, Antun takes a bathroom break, shadowed by Aasif, who’s been briefed to trust no one.

Antun watches the big man as he washes at the sink. It’s clear that the enforcer’s wide shoulders have been rounded from lifting titanic weights and working slow, repetitive curls in a gym. Thin white snakes crawl across his knuckles and jawbone, long scars from years of street brawls. Antun notes where they are. All are right-sided defence wounds except for the mark on the left of his face, no doubt delivered by a right-handed attacker with a knife. He suspects the assailant is no longer around to brag about the encounter.

Aasif rips a wad of green paper towels from a wall dispenser and holds them out in his fist. ‘Here. Hurry up.’

Antun takes them and slowly wipes his hands. ‘What’s your rush? I thought your kind liked restrooms.’

‘My kind? What’s my kind?’

He smiles his way past him. ‘You know what it is.’

Aasif grabs his shoulder. ‘You say that again and I’ll rip a new asshole in your face.’

‘Sure you will.’ He stands eyeball to eyeball. ‘And we both know what you’d like to do with assholes.’

Aasif’s fists ball in anger.

Antun laughs in his face. He’s taken apart bigger and meaner creatures than Aasif. Most importantly he now knows where the ape’s trigger is and how quickly it can be pulled.

The two of them return to their seats in the rancid basement and glare across at each other. Both know their time will come.

Three bangs on the floor above their heads prompt Nabil to break his silence. ‘She’s here.’ He turns to Aasif. ‘Bring the vest.’

40

As well as his diplomatic duties and stewardship of the SSOA, Sir Owain Gwyn is the owner and non-executive chairman of Caledfwlch Ethical Investments, a multi-billion-dollar global investment company, started by his family generations ago. He is also the patron of more than a dozen charities and as a result, much of his first full day back in the UK is spent contacting his various offices.

The knight takes a late lunch with his wife, then returns to the SSOA’s underground control centre for a final briefing with Inner Circle secretary, Lance Beaucoup.

The room is dominated by a long wall of video screens and several rows of staff manning terminals and monitors linked to data, surveillance and satellite systems.

The two men sit in one of four concave areas that contain large desks-cum-conference-tables buffered by slide-across soundproof screens.

‘I’m afraid I have no news on Antun,’ confesses the Frenchman. ‘I just spoke to Gareth and he has been unable to contact him.’

Owain is worried. ‘I thought we had him under surveillance?’

‘We did. The team reported that they saw him meet Nabil, but we lost them both.’

‘How?’

‘We stayed with them for two changes of subway train, then they disappeared.’

‘What about the electronic tracker?’

‘Antun dropped it soon after the meet. Nabil must have gone to frisk him, so he had to.’

Owain is annoyed with himself. ‘We should have pulled him out as soon as the Americans made their raid. If anything goes wrong I will never forgive myself.’

‘Antun Bhatti is one of our best operatives; he can look after himself.’

‘Sometimes being the best is not good enough. Over the centuries we have filled graves with the best of men.’

‘I understand.’ Lance passes over a stack of screen prints.

‘What are these?’

‘Latest satellite surveillance shots from Togo. Mardrid has torched an entire village. Thirty deaths. Most of them burned alive. Fatalities include two coffee farmers shot in the head. I think they were the first to go.’

Owain throws the sheets onto his desk. ‘Damn every bone in his body!’ He rests his forehead on his hands and tries to control the rage. ‘I want him dead, Lance. I don’t care how. I want Mardrid lying beneath six feet of earth before he spreads any more of his cancer around the world.’

‘We can never get near him. His security is better than a Saudi king’s.’

‘Then until you can, stop this!’ He slaps a hand on the prints. ‘We’ve got people in Ghana; move them over. Find the ringleaders and give them to the locals to deal with.’

‘We will need more than a handful of locals to contain Mardrid’s thugs.’

‘I know, but this at least will give them hope.’ He takes a moment to think, then adds, ‘I’ll seek approval from the Inner Circle to raise crusaders and have the action ratified by an extraordinary meeting of the Blood Line.’ Owain’s mood darkens as he imagines what else Mardrid may have brewing. ‘Any news on Marchetti? Is that viperous traitor already in the Spanish devil’s nest?’

‘He flew into Charles de Gaulle yesterday, but we haven’t found out whether he caught a connecting flight or stayed in the city.’

‘He’ll have flown on. Find where Mardrid is and you’ll find Marchetti.’ Owain stands and straightens out the jacket of his navy-blue suit. ‘I’m sorry; I really have to rush. Will you drive Jennifer to Caergwyn in the morning? I’ll join you there when I can.’

‘It will be my pleasure.’

‘Merci.’ Owain leaves to say goodbye to his wife.

He finds her stood by the front door in a short brown tweed skirt and an ochre-coloured jacket. The earthy colours complement her blonde hair and blue eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’ He stoops to kiss her. ‘You have no idea how much I want to stay with you and be in your bed tonight.’

‘I think I do.’ And the look in her eyes confirms it. ‘I’ve had your overnight bag with your dinner suit and change of clothes put in the aircraft.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Be careful.’

‘I always am.’

He can still smell her perfume and feel the tingle of her lips as he boards the Bell.

The helicopter blades quickly build noise and speed. With a graceful lunge it leaves the ground, billowing dust and shaking trees.

Owain sees his wife wave and then drift back inside. He looks forward as the craft climbs into the pale evening cloud-base and banks east towards London and Buckingham Palace. In a short while, he’ll take part in a meeting so secret he hasn’t even told Jennifer about it.

41

It’s gone three p.m. when Mitzi leaves Sophie Hudson’s place.

Irish is asleep at the wheel, his seat laid out flat and the car sunk in a pool of shade beneath some elms.

She opens the passenger door quietly, gets in and slams it.

Irish sits up fast. ‘Whadafuck!’

‘Result,’ she says mischievously.

He blinks and rubs blood into his face. ‘What?’

She holds up the silver memory stick Sophie had given her. ‘This is what your store girl was keeping from you.’

He cranks his seat back into an upright position and takes it. ‘What’s on here?’

‘Remains to be seen. Scratch on the side says CODE X. Sophie Hudson said her boss got it as a kind of sample for some deal he was doing. Apparently, it contains only letters and numbers.’

‘Sounds like a scam.’

‘Run me to the hotel so I can dump my stuff, then we can look and maybe get something to eat and drink.’

He starts the engine. ‘Good idea.’

‘Coffee. That’s the drink I have in mind.’

He lets the snipe slide as he swings the Taurus round and out towards Kensington. ‘So the woman-to-woman trick worked, hey?’ He looks pleased with himself. ‘How d’you play it? Momsy or sisterly?’

‘Momsy?’ She shoots him a stare that could kill. ‘You looking to spend the afternoon in hospital?’

‘Okay.’ He raises a hand to acknowledge his error.

‘She needed a little jolt, that’s all.’ Mitzi glances out the window as they make their way down a long tree-lined avenue. ‘It’s pretty out here. We going far?’

‘Too pretty for murder. We got about three miles to go.’ He switches the radio on to pass the time. Country music crackles in cheap door speakers.

‘Sign to your right says Rock Creek.’ Mitzi points it out. ‘That where the second body turned up?’

‘Yeah. Rock Creek Trail. It’s a twenty-mile woodland walk from Lake Needwood to just south of where the stiff was buried.’

‘You got a name on him yet?’

‘Not yet. I’m gonna call through to records when we get to your hotel. I’m sure his prints will bring up a hit somewhere.’

The Taurus bumps over the Knowles Avenue Bridge then glides along the asphalt to a T-junction. Irish takes them right down Connecticut into town and halts in front of a white two-storey building. ‘Here you go, home from home.’

Mitzi gets out and heads to the trunk.

He gets there ahead of her. ‘You check in; I’ll bring your case.’

The gesture catches her by surprise. ‘I’m fine. I can manage.’

He reaches around her and grabs the bag. ‘I’d like to.’

She shrugs and walks past a board that says Silver Fall Lodge. A weed-free grit path cuts across a long green lawn fringed by overhanging oaks. The bag rumbles noisily on its hard plastic wheels a few feet behind her.

The small lobby is little more than a big square of white walls over a limed pine floor. A low-level desk supports a computer screen, keyboard and printer. Behind it is a row of brass keys on numbered hooks.

A young woman in a smart black jacket and pearl-coloured blouse checks Mitzi in to what she promises is ‘the finest’ of its six bedrooms.

Irish drops the bag. ‘I’m going to the bar.’ He catches Mitzi’s disapproving look. ‘For coffee.’

The receptionist points his way. ‘It’s through to your left, sir.’

Mitzi takes the stairs, then a dusty red carpet down a narrow, dark landing to her room.

It’s tiny. She’s bought shoes in bigger boxes. The dull cream walls and dark wood floor crowd her. Brightest thing about the place is a mock-oriental jug of mixed flowers on a crappy bureau. Ruthy would know their species, but to her they’re just big round reds and spiky yellows with sprigs of green.

Mitzi plugs in her FBI laptop and powers it up. While it’s loading programs, she unpacks her bag and hangs clothes in a musty closet. Once the computer is up to speed, she inserts the memory stick that Sophie gave her and opens its directory.

There is nothing but nonsense.

Four lots of nonsense as far as she can make out.

There are big blocks of numbers and letters. Row after row of numbers and then row after row of letters. Never numbers and letters on a line together. Mitzi downloads the contents of the stick onto her hard drive, dials her office in San Francisco and traps the phone between an ear and shoulder.

The call’s answered almost instantly. ‘Vicky Cantrell.’

‘Vicks, it’s Mitzi Fallon. I’m in Kensington and I’ve got some data files I want to upload. Are you at your terminal?’

‘Yeah, I am, Lieutenant. Give me a second to open the doc box and check the capture display.’ Vicky’s nimble fingers flick across the keyboard. ‘Okay, send what you’ve got and I’ll be able to check it comes in.’

Mitzi uses a secure FBI portal to upload the contents of the stick.

‘Got it.’ Vicky scans the file. ‘Hang on. This is just lines of numbers and letters. Should it be like that?’

‘That’s all I saw when I plugged it in. Give it to techies and crypto to work out.’

‘You got it.’

‘The other thing I was calling about was the cross. Did you have any luck with your professors?’

‘I did. Let me find my notes.’ She opens her bottom drawer and they’re in a newly created hang file entitled, ‘Homicides — O.I.C. Lieutenant Fallon’. ‘Here we go. I showed it around and the real expert on this kind of thing turned out to be a Professor Quinn at the Smithsonian. He said he’d never seen anything exactly like that in iron and the Smith had no records of any such design.’

‘What’s that mean?’ asks Mitzi, a little confused. ‘We got zip?’

‘No, it’s not that bad. Quinn says the fact that there are no records probably means it’s Iron Age.’

‘Which was when?’

‘In Europe, somewhere between 1200 BC and 400 BC.’

Mitzi frowns. ‘You mean to say that Europe has a different Iron Age time than everywhere else?’

‘Egypt, Cyprus and the like have even older Iron Ages. Indian Iron Age is similar. Japanese and Chinese a bit later. Quinn thinks this was a Celtic burial cross, from the Irish Iron Age, which ended with the Romanization-Christianization of Britain.’

‘Value?’

‘He wasn’t sure but he guessed not that much.’

‘How much is not much?’

‘He said a few hundred bucks, but then only to a keen collector. He’s mailed some professor in Oxford for a second opinion on its origins and value.’

‘When will the Brit get back to him?’

‘I don’t know. The UK is five hours ahead of DC, eight of San Francisco. Academics work at least twelve hours behind the rest of the world, so I guess tomorrow or the day after?’

‘Not good enough. You’ve gotta be more on the ball, Vicks. Pester Quinn, get the number for the British guy and harass him directly. I don’t do “waiting” and from now on neither do you.’

‘Understood, Lieutenant.’

‘Good. And thanks for your help. Can you put me through to Donovan. I guess I should check in with her.’

‘She’s out. I saw her leave with the director. You want me to ask her secretary for the AD’s cell number?’

‘No, thanks. But leave a message that I called and say she can contact me if she wants an update. Is Bronty there?’

‘No. Eleonora is; you want to talk to her?’

She hesitates, ‘Yeah, okay.’

‘Hang on.’

There’s a delay then the Italian picks up. ‘M-itzi, how was your flight?’

‘Two degrees of pain lower than a cervical smear. How you doing with your witch?’

‘We’ve found the coven she worshipped at. It’s a group that split away from the Church of Satan.’

‘Glad you’re making progress. Could you have Bronty call me when you see him? I want to ask him something.’

‘Si. No problem. I have him call right away.’

‘Grazie.’

‘Prego, Meetzee.’

She hangs up and the phone immediately rings. It’s a message from Fitzgerald. ‘The coffee’s crap. I’m over at the Phoenix Bar, a block east of your bunkhouse, on the corner. Join me when you’re ready.’

She hangs up, grabs her laptop and hurries out.

Hurries because the last thing she wants is to babysit a drunk for the rest of the evening.

42

Lance Beaucoup makes his way out into the lawned gardens, near where he and Owain fenced. He follows several hundred yards of twisting, biscuit-coloured pathway that takes him past an ancient maze, a hilltop orchard and down to the south lake.

The Frenchman’s feet clump on the teak decking as he approaches an elegant Victorian summerhouse that overhangs the fish-stocked water. Green painted rowing boats are moored beneath the decking and as he spots them he remembers how he and Owain caught salmon far out in the sparkling waters spread around the estate.

The curtains are closed and the summerhouse door is locked. He uses his key and enters the darkness.

She is here.

He knows she is. He smells her perfume. Her body. Her hair. Being so close and not seeing her makes his pulse race.

‘Don’t speak.’

The voice is followed by an elegant female hand, cold and soft, that covers the heat of his lips. ‘I’ve been thinking all morning about what this was going to be like.’

Lance turns into her. Feels her soft body press against him.

She kisses his neck. His ear. Her hand stays across his mouth. ‘Don’t say anything. Not until you’ve finished making love to me.’

43

Aasif rolls up the suicide vest and slips it back into the black garbage bag that it had come in.

Nabil steers the big man to the door and the wooden stairs leading to the room where ‘the Chosen One’ is waiting.

‘Wait,’ calls Antun.

They stop and turn.

‘Let me.’

Nabil regards him with curiosity. ‘What?’

‘Let me wear the vest. It is why Allah saved me when the Americans came. My cowardice was meant to prepare me for this moment.’

‘No,’ says Malek, the bomb-maker. ‘Do not do this.’ He looks across at Nabil. ‘He is too valuable to make this sacrifice.’

‘Please,’ says Antun, falling to his knees. ‘Let me redeem myself by writing this page in our glorious history. Let me be the one.’

44

To Mitzi’s surprise, Irish is sat at a round table in the corner of the bar, with only a cup of black coffee in front of him.

No beer. No wine. No spirits.

Just coffee.

He’s deep in thought and doesn’t see her until she pushes back a stool opposite him. ‘Hi, how ya doin’?’

‘Good.’

‘To be honest, you don’t look good. In fact, you look so far from good I’m not sure Google Maps would be able to find you.’

‘Thanks.’ His eyes trip to the silver object in her hand. ‘Anything on the stick?’

‘Not that makes sense. I’ve copied it and uploaded it to my office to crawl all over.’ She holds it out to him. ‘You should keep the original.’

‘Give it me later. I have a history of losing things in bars.’

‘Like your reputation?’

He palms her off.

Mitzi slips the stick into her purse. ‘From what I saw, it’s like Sophie said: everything on it is in some batshit code.’

‘That’s an official type of cipher, is it? Batshit. Like Enigma and Caesar.’

‘How do we get food and drink in here?’

‘Old-fashioned way. I go to the bar and pay.’ He points over her shoulder. ‘There’s a chalkboard behind you with what might be edible. While you’re looking, can I get you a drink?’ He reads her mind. ‘Remember, you can have coffee, coffee or coffee.’

‘Then I’ll have coffee. I like mine big and black.’

He bites back a reply that would earn him a slap.

The bar is busy as hell and it takes an eternity for him to get her a drink and a refill for himself.

Irish’s hands shake as he carries the coffee back to the table and he hopes she doesn’t notice the spills as he puts the mugs down. ‘Waitress will be over in a minute for our food. Anything on the cross?’

‘Experts think it’s Celtic but not worth a lot.’

‘I thought it was ancient?’

‘Old doesn’t necessarily mean valuable.’

‘Tell me about it.’

She laughs.

Irish thinks back to what the girl told him. ‘Strange thing is, Sophie Hudson said Amir Goldman had been ready to pay thousands for it.’ He sips his refill and wishes he’d left it to cool. ‘How much exactly did your expert say it was worth?’

‘A few hundred bucks.’

‘So why would someone kill for something worth so little?’ His phone rings and he glances at the display. ‘The office.’

She watches him take the call and scribble in a dog-eared pad he’s pulled from his crumpled brown jacket. He has all the hallmarks of someone who’s fallen hard and is still crawling the sidewalk trying to get up.

Irish clicks off his phone. ‘Vic in the woods was one James T. Sacconni. A twenty-six-year-old ex-con with a string of previous for aggravated assault with a knife.’

‘Where’s he from?’

‘Originated New York. Has a juvenile rap sheet from there. Did two years in a Big House in Chicago.’

‘Mob connection?’

Irish is impressed. ‘Were you listening in?’

‘Italian-sounding name plus Big Apple and Windy City usually equals mob or gangs.’

‘Maybe both. He’s a known associate of Kyle and Jordan Coll, two brothers who head MS-13 — that’s the Mara Salvatrucha mob. It started independent but is now mafia-run.’

‘I’ve heard of it. They tangled with the Bloods back in Compton.’ Mitzi picks up her coffee. ‘You get a look at the plate on the SUV he was in before he got whacked?’

‘Yeah. We ran that. Came up cloned. Some whiter-than-white businessman out in Annandale owns the original and an Escalade that’s never seen anything dirtier than the paws of his Labrador.’

‘So let’s summarize what we’ve got. A missing Escalade that’s probably in the Potomac. Two dead guys — one an old antiques dealer, the other a known mob affiliate.’

Irish chips in. ‘A religious cross of indeterminate value and a memory stick full of “batshit code”, if I remember your words correctly.’

‘The code’s the clue,’ says Mitzi. ‘No point using batshit unless you want to hide something. And you only hide what’s valuable.’

‘Then we have the Lincoln, driven by a British consular official who follows our mobster’s SUV and the next day flies out of the country.’

Mitzi puts it together. ‘So, we need to talk to this George whatever-he-was-called.’

‘Dalton,’ says Irish. ‘But he’s back in London and will have diplomatic immunity.’

‘He’s key, though. Question is — do we make the approach through your boss or mine?’

Irish drops his head in his hands. He knows what the answer is. It’s his case. It has to come through his boss. And his captain is gonna love him for it.

45

Outside the building, the young woman breaks down and sobs.

Not out of disappointment that she can no longer be a martyr, but because by some incredible twist of fate she’s been saved.

She falls to her knees and kisses the ground.

Unbeknown to her, the man she will forever thank in her prayers is standing nervously in a ‘clean room’ above the basement.

After washing, Antun and the three others roll out prayer mats. They face Makkah and perform Salat al-’Asr, the afternoon dedication that is fourteen hundred years old.

Nabil leads the prayers by raising his hands to his ears and praising God. ‘Allahu Akbar.’

The others respond and follow him as he runs through Takbir, Qiyaam, Ruku, Sujud, and Tashahhud. Each stage is marked with readings, prayers and exhortations.

As they near the end, they turn their faces, first to the right and then to the left. Each movement sees them address the angels that follow all Muslims and record both their good and bad actions with the exhortation, ‘Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.’

The mats are rolled away. It is time to fit the suicide vest.

Antun strips to the waist. The packs of explosives feel cold against his skin. The canvas of the garment is rough. Hard wires press his flesh.

In the midst of these final preparations, he has to remind himself who he is, what he stands for and where he came from. He is Antun Bhatti, a proud member of the SSOA, the Sacred and Secret Order of Arthurians. Put simply, he’s a Christian soldier, prepared to lay down his own life to save others.

This vest is his crucifix. It is the holy instrument of death that he must carry to the end of his mortal road.

He remembers being a child in India. Eight years old, an orphan in the slums of the Punjab, running barefoot towards a squalid block of concrete that is his church. A giant wooden cross stands out at the end of a track covered in dusty black sewage, multi-coloured trash and fried grass. Muslim children throw rubble and stones as he races towards the sanctuary. He hears the missiles whizz in the air and clunk on the ground alongside him, feels the sting of those that connect with his flesh and bones.

Inside the cool of the church, young Antun sits on one of the old dark wooden pews, his feet not touching the floor, and counts the cuts and bruises on his bare legs and arms. Fourteen this month. The same number as the Stations of the Cross.

He puts a finger in the blood of a fresh cut on his knee and licks it. It tastes of iron and reminds him of the metal cross the priest put to his mouth at his confirmation.

The memory is vivid. As though it happened only yesterday.

Not a whole lifetime ago.

‘It is done.’ Nabil’s voice bridges past and present. He looks earnestly at Antun. ‘My brother, the Garden of Allah awaits you.’

46

Irish calls his boss and says he needs to see him.

Only when Zach Fulo hears the words ‘British Embassy’ does he tell his least popular cop that he’s got a slot at five-thirty p.m. and bad traffic or no bad traffic he’d better be on time and bring the Fed with him.

Before they head to Washington, Irish and Mitzi order the house special of deluxe quarter pounders, fries and onion rings.

The cuisine is more ballast than food and once the warm orgy of salt, carbs, fat and protein is over, they both wish they’d had the chicken salad.

He gets the check, while she takes a walk outside and calls her daughters. To be precise, she calls Jade, knowing that Amber won’t be far away and Jade will be annoyed if she doesn’t get called first, while Amber never thinks of such things.

‘Hi there — how are ya, honey?’

Jade is half-reading a magazine and answers in a bored and distracted voice. ‘All right.’

Mitzi tries not to be dispirited. ‘What’ve ya been doin’?’

‘Nothing much. Just hanging at Aunt Ruth’s.’

She really wishes her daughter wasn’t such hard work. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Don’t know. Uncle Jack’s gone to stay at a friend’s. I heard him and Aunt Ruth arguing this morning.’

‘About what?’ Her heart thumps.

Jade finally abandons the article on teen sex entitled ‘Should She, Shouldn’t She?’ and concentrates a little. ‘It was something about you. Uncle Jack said you’re a fucking bitch and then Aunt Ruth slapped him and told him to get the fuck out of the house.’

Mitzi takes a deep breath. ‘Wow. I wonder what I did to piss him off.’

‘Maybe the same thing you did to piss Dad off?’ She knows she’s now on borrowed time before she gets an earful. ‘Amber! Mom’s on the phone; she wants to talk to you.’ She drops the handset on a table.

Mitzi’s left seething.

Her other daughter picks up the phone, ‘Mom?’

She swallows the anger. ‘Hi, baby. How are you?’

‘I’m okay. When you coming home?’ She corrects herself. ‘I mean back to Aunt Ruth’s.’

‘Maybe tomorrow. Latest the day after. Are you having fun there?’

‘Yeah, we are. Well, me and Aunt Ruth are. Jade’s being — well, you know, Jade’s being Jade. We’re making cupcakes. Aunt Ruth’s baked a giant one. Wait ’til you see it, Mom. It’s bigger than the top off a trash can.’

‘Sounds great. What flavour?’

‘Chocolate. I mean — could it be anything other than chocolate?’

She laughs. ‘No, I guess not. Chocolate’s good and giant chocolate is super-good.’

‘Right! Do you want to talk to Aunt Ruth? I can go get her.’

Mitzi hesitates. ‘No. I’m okay. Don’t interrupt her if she’s busy in the kitchen. Just send her my love. Love you too, baby.’

‘Love you as well, Mom.’

‘Amber, give your sister a hug and kiss from me, and tell her not to be such a sourpuss.’

She laughs. ‘I will. Love you, Mom.’

Mitzi hears her shouting ‘sourpuss’ across the room as she hangs up.

Irish is stood by the Taurus, hands on the hood, looking as though he’s going to throw up.

She’s not ready to walk over to him. Her mind’s still on her kids and how Jade blames her for the break-up with her father. And it’s on Ruth and how she might well be blaming her for her break-up with Jack.

47

The armour-plated Bell is cleared to enter the secure airspace around Buckingham Palace and land on the royal helipad.

Visual security checks are conducted by armed protection staff before Owain is even allowed to step outside the craft.

Once he’s been cleared, he’s whisked inside by what seems a battalion of guards and footmen.

As he enters the Grand Hall, he remembers that it’s fifteen years since he was here for his investiture and how back then he’d realized his own family had frequented the building when it was no more than a town home for the Duke of Buckingham.

Such familiarity doesn’t stop him admiring the priceless works of art hung on the walls. Paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Dyck and Rubens that form part of the Royal Collection.

He passes the Throne Room, its proscenium arch supported by a pair of winged figures of Victory holding garlands above the chair of state. Then the giant ballroom along the East Gallery, the site of state banquets and diplomatic receptions.

The security escorts leave Owain to wait in the White Drawing Room, a name that amuses him because it is so non-white. The ceiling-to-floor drapes and pelmets, the chairs and sofas, cushions and footstools, fire screens and even the surrounds of the giant ornate mirrors that amplify every expansive wall are either a rich yellow or glistening gold.

The Prince of Wales enters.

He’s in a slimly tailored, light-grey suit with a white shirt and pink and gold silk tie, looped of course in a Windsor knot.

‘I hope you don’t mind us meeting here instead of Clarence House.’ He holds out a hand to the knight.

Owain bows as he shakes it. ‘Of course not, Your Royal Highness.’

‘Please, not so official when we are alone.’ The prince motions towards two three-seater sofas arranged opposite each other. ‘I know my father wants to say hello, so don’t be surprised if he bursts in on us.’

‘I won’t. It would be delightful to see him again.’

‘Have you been asked if you would like tea?’

‘I have, and I don’t but thank you.’

‘Owain, I asked you here to discuss your new position, that of ambassador-at-large, with responsibilities for defence and counter-terrorism.’

‘I’m honoured to serve and highly delighted to do so from British soil.’

‘I know. One can only exist in America for so long without going slightly crazy. It’s like holding your breath under very pleasant tropical water. You still have to come up for air.’ He unfastens his suit jacket and cuts to the chase. ‘I’d like to speak bluntly.’

‘Please do. I’m keen to know what flow of information you’d like and how often you’d like it. Being kept in the loop is one thing — getting strangled by it is quite another.’

‘Indeed. And this is where I have a problem.’ He tries to choose his words carefully. ‘It’s that I know so little of the inner workings of the SSOA.’

‘It is perhaps best that way.’

‘Perhaps, but please credit me with the intelligence to decide that for myself.’

Owain doesn’t respond. He knows there is more to come.

‘I wish to join your Order.’

‘With respect, I think it best that we operate at arm’s length from your good self.’

‘And I think it best you don’t.’

The gold-cased antique clock on the marble fireplace beside them ticks three times before the prince adds, ‘You know my military background, Owain, so please don’t give me some guff about any refusal being a way to protect me. I have spent most of my life on the hit list of some terrorist group or other and I’ve been in more than my fair share of trouble spots.’

‘It isn’t that.’

‘Then what exactly is it?’

‘Unless there is a genetic link to an original knight, the Blood Line is closed to you. And membership of the Inner Circle is not mine alone to grant. It has to be sanctioned by others.’

‘Then have them sanction it; I’m sure you have the influence.’

‘I do. But even then, it is only possible to become a member if you pass the initiation.’ He lets the word sink in, then adds, ‘There have never been any exceptions and can never be.’

‘I seek none.’ The prince looks pleased to have made some progress. ‘What exactly do these initiations involve?’ He smiles like a child anticipating a dare. ‘I still have some scars from the rites I endured during my military days.’

‘Blood, Your Royal Highness. The ritual spilling of yours and the fatal spilling of our enemy’s.’

48

Any hope Antun harboured of simply slipping off the vest and defusing it is being crushed.

Aasif fixes handcuffs behind his back and leads him to a green parcel-delivery van, parked around the corner from the basement hideaway. The enforcer bundles him in to the passenger seat and fastens the safety buckle.

They drive out to the Cross Bronx Expressway, then south-west towards Port Morris, East Harlem and ultimately Midtown East.

The big man dips his hand into his pocket and produces what looks like a metal cigar with a red button on the top. ‘This will help things go smoothly. Just in case you have second thoughts about your redemption and turn into a coward again.’ He gives a yellow-toothed grin as he slips the remote trigger back into his pocket.

The young SSOA operative watches the world rush up and hit the windshield. Sights he may never see again, sounds he’ll never hear.

The journey to Grand Central’s likely to take close to an hour. Best-case scenario is that he’s got sixty minutes in which to get himself out of the biggest jam of his life, or end up scattered in pieces, along with hundreds, maybe thousands of people.

He remembers this isn’t the first time the station has been hit by a bomb. Exactly twenty-five years to the day before 9/11 a group of Croatian nationalists planted one in a coin locker and at the same time hijacked a plane.

Back then, the terrorists had a change of heart. After stating their political demands, they revealed the location of the explosives.

Antun knows that today there will be no change of heart.

Al-Qaeda has no heart.

Only as they join the toll road at Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, about five miles from their destination, does Aasif have all fingers and thumbs on the steering wheel.

Antun sneaks a cuffed hand down to the seatbelt clasp and starts to unlock it.

A coach full of young children pulls alongside the van. Excited faces are pressed to the glass.

He hesitates.

Aasif puts his hand back into the detonator pocket and pulls away from the toll.

The moment has gone.

The next four miles roll by in silence. They come off at exit eleven and join crawling traffic onto East 53rd, then hit gridlock as they reach Second Avenue.

Antun feels his heart belt his chest. They’re less than a mile away but surrounded by cars. An explosion here would be as bad as inside the station.

Aasif sees the anxiety on his face. ‘Be patient. We are nearly there. I suggest you cleanse your mind and prepare yourself for the greatest moment of your miserable life.’

Traffic moves. Cars creep forward. They turn right onto 42nd. Antun sees the outline of the station at the bottom of the street. Time speeds up. The last frames of his life play double-speed.

Aasif insists on running through the plan once more. ‘I will stop just past the Grand Hyatt, then we will get out and walk to the main entrance. You will enter and keep walking. Count to twenty and then detonate. I will be going in the opposite direction but I’ll also be counting. If after twenty seconds I have not heard anything, then I will press my detonator. Do you understand?’

Antun nods.

They join a crush of cars and yellow cabs heading to the Hyatt and the other side of the station.

Aasif stops the car, pulls on the handbrake and takes out the ignition keys. He turns the ring around until he finds the one for the handcuffs and unlocks them.

Antun rubs his wrists. He pops the safety belt free and gets out. There are crowds all around him. The noises, smells and light of early evening seem more vibrant and meaningful than he’s ever known.

He sucks in what might be his last air as he waits for Aasif to lock the van.

The big man walks alongside him. They head slowly to the station entrance. The terrorist puts his hand on Antun’s shoulder and stops. ‘This is where I leave you, my brother.’ He shows him the detonator gripped tightly in his hand as he spreads his arms to embrace him.

Antun makes his move.

49

Captain Zach Fulo, rests his elbows on his paper-strewn desk and listens patiently as Irish summarizes the case.

Occasionally, he glances at the FBI woman to see if her face shows any disagreement with his lieutenant’s account.

It doesn’t.

Far as he can make out, she’s the serious type. Not a drinker. Certainly not a sleep-around, screw-your-way-to-the-top kind of girl. Ten years ago though, he imagines she would have been quite a looker. She’s got eyes that have seen life and the lack of a wedding ring on her finger probably means life has seen a lot of her as well.

Irish finishes with a plea to interview the British Consul George Dalton about his movements on the night of Amir Goldman’s murder. ‘Even if he ends up claiming diplomatic immunity, we owe it to the victim to pursue this line of enquiry and find the killer.’

‘Do you go along with all this?’ Fulo asks Mitzi. ‘You think we — and by that I mean the august bodies of the FBI and DC police — should go shouting through diplomatic doors and demanding ambassadors and attachés turn out their pockets and account for their actions?’

‘I do, sir. I don’t think anyone should be treated any different than anyone else. Regardless of their job, title, sex, age, religion, race or nationality. Equality for all perps; that’s my motto.’

He corrects her. ‘Suspected perps.’

She can see she’s winning him over. ‘Speaking plainly, Captain, if this guy Dalton wasn’t out of the country and wasn’t a member of the British diplomatic corps, we’d already have his evasive ass polishing a seat in one of our interview rooms.’

Fulo rocks on his chair. ‘Amazingly, Irish, I find myself agreeing with you and the lady here. I’m not one for people hiding behind position or privilege. Bad is bad, even if it’s dressed up in a diplomat’s thousand-dollar suit.’ He sits up straight and clicks open the log on his computer. ‘I take due note that you’ve referred this to me, so feel free to ask whatever questions you need, in whatever quarters you have to. Hell, go to England and shout them through the gates of Buckingham Castle if that’s what it takes to solve this case.’

‘Palace,’ says Mitzi. ‘It’s a palace, not a castle.’

He gives her a famous Zach Fulo stare then eyeballs Irish. ‘Wherever it is — and wherever you go, just make damned sure you take your manners with you. Do things politely, quickly and as economically as you can.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Fulo adds a final remark. ‘Don’t screw this up, Fitzgerald or so help me God you’ll need a castle to keep me off your ass.’

50

Antun smashes his forehead into the middle of Aasif ’s face.

The terrorist grunts and snorts blood.

Antun twists his left wrist and breaks it. He rams the busted bone up the giant’s back and feels the shoulder dislocate.

Aasif doesn’t want to die. He knows he’s got to overcome Antun and then get away from him before he detonates the vest. He also knows he’s being beaten. He focuses past the pain and kicks out wildly.

Antun sidesteps the sweep. He hooks his heel around the hulk’s shin and clatters him onto the hard ground.

Aasif rolls over on his good arm and gets to his feet. He’s pumped with adrenaline and delivers a nerve-numbing kick to Antun’s thigh.

Antun takes it and doesn’t fall. He retaliates with a punch that a heavyweight would be proud of. While the big guy sways from the shock, he spins and dropkicks him in the abdomen.

The enforcer hits the ground like a felled oak.

Antun drops on top of him and jams two knuckles over his windpipe.

Aasif senses death. He punches with his one good arm and connects with Antun’s lower jaw.

Antun channels his weight into his fingers and the softness of the throat beneath them.

People gather round. They shout for the cops. Someone tries to drag Antun off, but he doesn’t loosen his hold. The body below him goes into spasm. Legs kick. Heels bang on the sidewalk.

A final downward thrust of knuckle.

It’s over.

Antun falls back and catches his breath.

Someone shouts, ‘Jesus!’ Screams break out. Enough yells to stop every beat cop for a mile.

Antun stands. Sweat drips from his face. He turns to the freaked-out crowd, ‘Stand back! All of you, get right back.’ He opens the black, baggy jacket he’s wearing. Shows the vest. ‘I’ve got a bomb. They’ve made me wear a bomb.’

Bedlam breaks out.

To his left, uniformed cops stand frozen in their tracks. One of them mutters into a radio. Another sneaks his fingers towards a gun. To his right, fifty yards away, Antun sees a face he recognizes.

Nabil.

The cell commander turns and walks away.

Antun knows what’s about to happen. He closes his eyes just before the remotely detonated explosion blows his body into a thousand pieces.

51

Mitzi and Irish are on the way out of police HQ when the newsflash comes in.

‘Bomb blast at Grand Central!’ The shout comes from an old timer working the front desk. ‘Hell of a fucking mess.’

The two cops drift back his way.

‘More than a hundred dead.’ He reads the graphics bar crawling across the TV on a shelf to his right. ‘Maybe as many again injured. Reporter said the bomb could be heard more than a mile away.’

Mitzi swears.

Irish leans on the counter to see the screen. ‘They say who’s responsible?’

‘Not yet.’ The uniform guesses the story is so important it’s okay for him to crank up the sound.

A journalist is doing her best to report live from the scene. The constant wail of ambulances and fire trucks fights with her piece to camera. ‘The blast happened a little before six p.m. at the height of rush-hour traffic here in the centre of New York. At that time, this station, the sixth most visited tourist spot in the world, was at its busiest. Early reports say the explosion was caused by a male suicide bomber. Eyewitnesses describe him as being in his late twenties and of average height and build. Police are investigating reports that he got into a fight with another man on the sidewalk before revealing his suicide vest to onlookers and then detonating it.’

A caption rolls across screen with a number for people to call if they’re worried that a loved one, relative or friend might have been at the station.

Mitzi’s seen and heard enough. Everything beyond this point is just news people doing their business and depressing everyone else in the process.

She wanders outside and thinks of Jade and Amber, Ruthy and Groping Hands Jack and even her bum of an ex. She thanks God that they’re safe in boring old California rather than NYC, the new bomb capital of the world.

After a few minutes, Irish emerges scratching a muss of hair that feels like it’s turning into a bald patch. He glances at the news footage on the screen. ‘Kind of takes the shine off the good news the captain gave us.’

She’s not really listening. ‘D’you mind if I head back to the hotel and see if I can fix a flight out of here in the morning? I reckon I can be as much use to you on the phone from San Francisco as I can from here.’

He wishes she was staying but understands her desire to go. ‘Sure. Give me a minute and I’ll drive you back.’

‘No need. You look like you’re ready to crash out. I can get a cab.’

‘I’d like to drive you. That’s if you don’t mind sitting in the trash one last time.’

She appreciates the gesture. ‘I guess my tetanus and cholera jabs are good for a final ride in your crapmobile.’

52

The encrypted phone vibrates inside the pocket of Owain’s black dinner suit. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he says to the Canadian ambassador, ‘I’m afraid there’s an urgent call and I really have to take it.’

He doesn’t wait to hear the diplomat’s answer and presses the answer button as soon as he reaches the refuge of a corridor. ‘Hello, Gareth.’

‘Antun is dead.’

‘Dear God.’

‘A bomb has gone off at Grand Central in New York and he was at the centre of it.’

Owain feels sick. Sick and angry. He tries to keep a soldierly focus. ‘This presumably is the work of the cell he’d infiltrated and Nabil.’

‘It is. We have eyes back on Nabil.’

Owain wants to kill him. Have him shot within the hour. But he knows it’s not the answer. ‘Tabrizi is a commander but he’s not the main man. In fact, he’s probably their weak link.’

‘I agree. That’s what Antun told us. It’s why he wanted to stay within the cell and try to work his way up the chain of command.’

‘Then we must respect his bravery and not shoot this animal on sight. How many dead at the station, Gareth?’

‘Latest count is a hundred and eleven. Close to two hundred injured by debris.’ He’s almost reluctant to add the information he’s just learned. ‘It seems Antun was made to wear a suicide vest.’

Owain grimaces. ‘Then either he volunteered, hoping he could do it, or his cover was blown. Do you have an idea which?’

Gareth Madoc has been trying to piece together the same puzzle. ‘The police say he fought with another man on the sidewalk and killed him before detonating the vest.’

‘They have their facts wrong, someone else will have detonated it.’

‘It could have been Nabil. We only got eyes back on him post-explosion as he returned to a safe house.’

Owain watches guests heading in to the dining room to take their places at tables. ‘I have to go. I’ll call you later. For God’s sake, make sure we don’t lose Nabil. He’s young enough to make mistakes. We’re old enough to capitalize on them.’

‘I’ll look after it personally.’

‘Thanks. I want you back here unhurt. We’ve lost too many good men in too many bad situations and I fear this wave of attacks is far from over.’

53

Mitzi and Irish listen to the news on the car radio as they drive to her hotel in Kensington.

She notices he’s pale and sweating. He’s gripping the wheel and seems pained by a migraine or more likely the mother of all hangovers. ‘You got any help on this case? Maybe you do need to lie up for a day or two.’

‘Some borrowed hands from other investigations, that’s all.’

‘A double homicide doesn’t get you your own team?’

‘Team? Child murder will get you a team. That’s about all that does these days.’

‘Times get tough, criminals get tougher. It’s the way of the world.’

‘Sure is. There’s a bright kid called Kirstin Collins doing some leg work for me. She’ll be a good cop one day. If the system lets her.’

‘Or she doesn’t get pushed upstairs to drive a desk.’

He thinks about asking her some personal stuff. About her career. Her colleagues. Her life. Men. Relationships. Only a wave of sickness washes over him.

‘You okay?’

Irish coughs. Blood spatters the wheel.

He splutters red all over his hands and collapses.

‘Christ.’ Mitzi grabs the wheel.

His foot is jammed on the gas.

The Ford surges forward.

Sixty.

Mitzi swings the Ford wide of an SUV. Horns honk all around her.

Sixty-five.

Her heart hammers as she struggles to push Irish off the wheel.

Seventy.

A monumental shove sends his unconscious body crashing into the drivers’ door but his foot stays heavy on the accelerator.

Mitzi can’t move him any more.

Seventy-five.

Traffic brakes hard in front. She jerks the wheel. It twitches and skids from the outside lane to the middle one.

Eighty.

There’s a truck ahead. Red brake-lights flare. Mitzi squeals the Ford through to the inside lane. Crashing is now inevitable. It’s only a question of where.

The Taurus mounts a grass verge. A wing mirror clips a tree. The back of the car fishtails. Mitzi sees a clump of oaks rushing up fast. She spins the steering wheel.

The car flips. Slides on its side. Rolls on its roof. Metal crunches. Glass shatters.

There’s a deafening thump. She feels a vicious stab of pain in the middle of her face.

Then there’s blackness.