The Camelot Code

54

Angelo Marchetti feels like someone clubbed him with a baseball bat. He puts a hand to the pain in his forehead. Opening his eyes is like winding up rusty metal shutters and squinting into the blaze of a scorching summer’s day.

He’s in bed. That much he can work out. The lights are on, the curtains open. But it’s black outside. The digital clock next to him says 0447. No time to be awake.

But this is not his own room. It’s a hotel. Not in America. Abroad.

There’s a noise. The stirring of a body. He pulls the duvet back.

A naked woman is asleep alongside him. No one he recognizes. Which isn’t so strange. Women he had relationships with bailed on him a long time ago.

Angelo pulls himself upright and looks at her. She’s olive-skinned, Latin, maybe Hispanic. Hair even longer and blacker than his. Small-breasted and full-hipped. A tattoo of a serpent hugs her waist like a belt. Its diamond-shaped head rests upon her shaved pubic area and its long, thin tongue disappears between her legs.

Insects are buzzing. Not in the room but in his head. Swarms of crickets, wasps and bees are angry at being woken and are stinging the soft grey honeycomb of his brain.

Marchetti gets up and wanders around. There is white powder on a low table. Needles. Mirrors. Antiseptic wipes and empty plastic bags. Speedballs.

Now he remembers. He’d sat in here with the hooker. Gisela — her name had been Gisela. Spanish and wild. They’d done enough coke to kill a rock band.

The floor ahead of him is covered with torn-off clothes. Empty bottles of water. Money.

Stacks and stacks of pound notes.

It all comes back to him. He’s in London. And last night he got lucky. Very lucky.

55

Sharp morning light bursts through a beat-up shade in Fulo’s office and makes Mitzi squint painfully.

An airbag in Irish’s car broke her nose and left her with multiple bruises, including two black eyes and lips that look like she’s just done Botox.

Mitzi shifts her chair into a patch of shade while the captain reads a note on his computer.

‘The latest from Memorial Hospital is that he’s stable but still critical.’

‘He’s lucky to be alive.’ Mitzi tentatively puts fingers to the painful throb in the middle of her nose.

‘Not so lucky.’ Fulo reads the rest of the note. ‘He has broken ribs, left collarbone, and right wrist. He’s dislocated his right kneecap, sprained his left ankle and’ — he dries up.

‘And what, Captain?’

Fulo continues in an even more sombre tone. ‘His liver’s failing. It’s totally screwed. That’s what caused the blood you say he coughed up just before the blackout.’

‘Liquor?’

‘Years of it.’ His face contorts with anger. ‘Fuck, he was a good cop. Once. Before the freezer case.’

‘The what?’

‘Domestic over in Brookland. Young woman staggered into the precinct looking like she hadn’t eaten in a year.’ He points at Mitzi, ‘She had panda eyes — like yours. Kid was black and blue. Scars all over her flesh and she couldn’t speak.’

‘Shock?’

‘Doctors said some years back her tongue had been stapled to her lip with a carpet-fitter’s gun. When it turned gangrenous, her captor sliced off the end. Kid was left with a stump. But she could write. Wrote down stuff you’d never want to read. Fitzgerald was lead on the case. He went back to the shack she picked out as the one she’d been kept in and abused. Unsub had long gone. Searched the place and he found a freezer in the garage.’

‘I think I can guess what was in it.’

‘I don’t think you can. Fitzgerald found corpses of newborns.’

Mitzi hangs her head.

‘Four of them. Laid out in a line. The psychopathic son-of-a-bitch had abducted the woman when she was thirteen, and got her pregnant four times.’

She grasps at a straw of hope. ‘The kids were stillbirths?’

‘No. He’d delivered them, cut the umbilical cords and put them in the freezer to die.’

‘Why? Why did he keep them? Why not bury them?’

‘Trophies. He told the woman they were proof of his virility.’

‘Jesus. Please tell me this psychopath is on Death Row so I can go cheer when the big day comes.’

‘Better than that. He turned up dead in a motel in New York. Someone tied him to a chair, stuffed part of a bed sheet in his mouth and shot him in the testicles. According to the ME, the killer waited at least an hour before he pulled the sheet out of his mouth and put the gun between his teeth and fired the second bullet.’

‘Nice job.’

‘You’re not alone in thinking that. No one dug too deep to find the triggerman. Least of all, Fitzgerald. He barely seemed surprised. If you follow my drift.’

She nods. ‘I hope the hospital manage to fix him up. Get him a liver transplant, or whatever it takes.’

‘We’ll pull some strings. See what we can do to hike him up a donor list.’ He searches the layer of papers on his desk and pulls up a sheet. ‘This is for you.’

She takes it and stares at a list of names.

‘They’re private numbers for all the main British Embassy staff here and in London.’

‘Thanks. I’ll trawl them when I get back to California.’ She notices a half-smile. It’s the kind bosses always have when they know something you don’t. ‘What’d I miss?’

‘I spoke to your supervisor, Miss Donovan. She’s happy for you to be seconded to run this case from Washington, least ’til we see whether it’s got road to run or is just a dead end.’

‘She never mentioned this when I updated her last night.’

‘I spoke to her an hour ago. She expects you to call her after this meeting.’

‘Captain, I’d really like to see my daughters. I’m sure you can understand that.’

‘Then clear this up quickly, Lieutenant. And let’s not kid ourselves, both you and I know that someone’s going to have to go to England, and that sure as hell isn’t going to be me or Lieutenant Fitzgerald.’

56

Angelo Marchetti wakes Gisela the hooker.

He pays her off and bundles her out. Now he needs to shower, dress and get ready for his breakfast meeting.

The upcoming face-to-face is, after all, why he flew here some thirty hours ago.

He’s acutely aware that the man he’s meeting also owns the room he’s staying in and the illegal casino downstairs where last night he won several thousand pounds. No big deal, considering the business he’s about to conclude will net him millions. Millions and a new start. One far away from Owain Gwyn and his army of do-gooders.

Marchetti fastens the slim-cut white shirt that hangs loose over blue jeans. In the mirror, the thirty-four-year-old studies flecks of grey in his jet black locks and designer beard. His youth has gone and the signs of ageing make him nostalgic. As a teenager he played soccer for Napoli. Three short years during which he earned millions and spent much of it helping the poor in Campania.

Then came his blackest day.

A leg-breaking tackle that robbed him of his first international cap. The type of injury that would lead to years of rehab, painkillers and failed comebacks. At first, he fell back on his investments and continued to be a dedicated young philanthropist, building projects and hope for street kids in Scampia and Secondigliano. It was these acts that attracted the Arthurians to him and for a time gave him a reason to live. He worked hard at keeping young Italians out of the grasp of the Camorra and the Mafia.

Then had come the second blow.

Both he and his wife were having secret affairs. She with a former teammate. He with drink and drugs.

At first, the addiction was purely painkillers. They tamped the physical and mental hurt. Then as loneliness bit he befriended cocaine and heroin.

He moved to America to be out of the reach of the mob-owned dealers he owed money to, but as his debts grew so too did his addictions. He added gambling to his opiates in a bid to raise enough cash to pay everyone off and start again. Only he lost ten times more than he won.

The rap on the door shakes him from his thoughts.

He peeps through the spyhole.

Three figures fill his view — two large men, both armed.

And him.

The man Gwyn had spoken so much of.

The one the SSOA fear and hate the most.

57

Mitzi all but slams the phone down on Donovan.

The last thing she wanted was to stay in DC.

Ruthy, Jade and Amber are going to give her hell when she tells them that the couple of days she promised to be away is going to be more like a couple of weeks.

Now she needs more clothes. Unless she wants to end up smelling worse than Irish or his car. What’s left of it. What’s left of him, for that matter. She makes a mental note to call the hospital — right after she’s worked her way through the list of names Fulo gave her.

A vending machine coughs out something close to coffee and she takes it to Irish’s desk in the Homicide Squad Room. The whole square yard of space smells of him. Booze, fast food and dust have seeped into the cloth and wood where he’s done all his hours. Or not done it, judging by the piles of stuff stacked up.

She clears junk and gets down to the job of calling around. Systematically, she works her way through the private office and cell phone numbers of Britain’s entire senior diplomatic staff in the USA, both present and past.

No one picks up.

Unperturbed, she leaves messages for them to get back to her but doubts that they will.

Mitzi’s about to call her sister when a woman with spiky black hair and a pale, androgynous face appears at the edge of the desk and catches her by surprise. ‘Hey! Don’t go creeping up on people like that.’ She puts her hand to her chest. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘Sorry. Are you the lieutenant sent from the FBI?’

Mitzi looks over the dyed locks, black top and matching skinny jeans and boots. ‘Not if you’re the Grim Reaper. What’s with the look?’

‘I’m Kirstin Collins.’ She gestures to her clothes. ‘I’m working drugs, undercover at a club, but I was helping Irish out as well. Do you know how he is?’

‘Lieutenant Fallon.’ She stretches out a hand. ‘From what I heard, he’s in a bad way.’

‘Looks like you took a whack yourself.’

‘Yeah, that’s just because I can’t put make-up on. I always look this bad, even without the bruises.’

Kirstin laughs.

‘I’m going to call the hospital in a minute and check on him. Take a seat.’ Mitzi points at a chair. ‘Irish spoke highly of you. Said you’d make a good cop one day.’

‘One day?’ She laughs. ‘He’s got a cheek. Fulo says you’re running his case, that right?’

‘I guess so. Why? Have you got something?’

She tries not to stare too much at the black eyes and plastered nose. ‘You know Irish got a lead on the SUV and the Lincoln from Traffic?’

‘Yeah, I’m up to speed.’

‘Well, I looked on the map for all-night food joints near the exit where the vehicles came off. There were only a few. None had surveillance on their parking lots.’

‘That’s the way the cookie usually crumbles, Kirstin.’

‘I know. But I did talk to the overnight managers about whether they saw anything suspicious.’

‘I’m guessing one of them did, or else you wouldn’t be recounting this tale.’

‘Right. Guy called Ludo working ANAR, the All Night All Right franchise out near Stead Park, noticed a Lincoln leaving his lot. Minutes later a tow-truck appeared, hooked up the SUV and hauled it away.’

‘This Ludo get the name of the garage?’

‘No. But that wasn’t what stuck in his mind.’

‘What did?’

The SUV driver had eaten in the diner, but the Lincoln owner hadn’t. Soon after the paying customer left, Mr Lincoln owner came in and used the washroom. Then he reappeared and went straight back out again. This got the supervisor pissed, because they hate people just using the john and not ordering anything, so he went outside to shout at him. Only he didn’t holler because he saw the guy was at his car and looked like he was in pain. Ludo said he was struggling to get into the seat, holding a stack of paper towels to his arm. Then, as the Lincoln drove past him he saw the plates. He asked himself why a diplomat wanted to use his bathroom so urgently and why he needed a stack of towels for his arm.’

‘And?’

‘He went back to the restroom and found spots of blood on the floor.’

‘I’m going to ask a stupid question. By any chance did he mop up and keep the rags or sponge?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not, but deep inside me lives a young pixie called Hope and sometimes she just won’t shut the fuck up.’

Kirstin laughs. ‘Well, your pixie might be in luck because Ludo did notice something strange. Despite the spatter on the floor, there were no stained towels in the bin. No mess. Just the drips.’

‘So he came over all Dexter and did some blood analysis?’

‘Kind of. He thought maybe Mr SUV had been caught banging Mr Lincoln’s wife and been chased down to the diner where it all kicked off. He went outside to check everything was okay and saw the SUV being trucked away.’

Mitzi curses a lost opportunity. ‘Shame about the blood.’

‘Not really. My boyfriend’s a CSI. He went round and swabbed the floor for me. Even though it had been cleaned, he got traces from the mortar between the tiles. They’ve been processed in the labs and we have two good DNA profiles.’

‘Two? As in killer and victim?’

‘I guess that’s your pixie mouthing off again, Lieutenant. I really don’t know what he got. I’m just about to run the profiles through Records. You want to join me?’

58

The two bodyguards are not as tall as Marchetti but they’re more muscular and much younger.

In contrast, their employer is a small, slender man in his mid-forties. The Italian can hardly believe this unassuming figure is the notorious Josep Mardrid. He walks them through to the lounge area of the suite.

Mardrid sits on a cotton sofa, while the muscle stand around him like bookends. ‘Are you disappointed, Marchetti?’ He unbuttons his jacket. ‘Did you expect me to come wearing a black cape and have the horns and tail of a devil?’

‘I didn’t expect anything. Your intermediary gave you one of the burial crosses. Do you want to do business or not?’

‘What do you have for me?’

Marchetti slips a hand onto the shelf beneath the table and produces a Celtic cross.

Mardrid takes it and turns it in his palm. ‘You promised me valuable artefacts and secret information, Mr Marchetti. All I see there is a lump of old iron.’

‘It’s more than that. It’s an Arthurian burial cross.’

There’s a flicker of interest in his eyes. ‘Tell me more.’

‘When one of their knights is killed, he is buried with a cross placed on his chest. It is said they are forged from the same ore as Excalibur.’

‘A quaint story. How is this any use to me?’

‘It’s more than quaint, it’s true. Thousands of these men have been buried for centuries on land owned by Gwyn. They are laid in what the Order knows as Knight’s Graveyards. Sacred plots in secret places, all over the world. I imagine that if I were to give you their locations, and you were to make them public, then as the police and press began their enquiries, it would be advantageous to you to see Sir Owain exposed in such a way.’

‘Go on.’

‘I can do that.’ He picks up the cross. ‘This circle in the middle of the crucifix isn’t Celtic; it symbolizes the Arthurian round table. You can expose Gwyn as a fantasist, or whatever you like.’

‘I may have misjudged you, Mr Marchetti. If this cross is all you say it is, why did one of your men try to sell it, or one like it, to a Jew dealer in America and then have him killed?’

‘A mistake. Some idiots I employed acted out of turn. It was a question of money.’

‘Idiots do that kind of thing.’ He turns the cross over in his hands. ‘I would like to do what you said. It would be pleasing to see Gwyn’s warriors dug from the earth, and amusing watching him cope with the press fervour.’ He stretches out a hand. ‘Give me the details of these burial grounds.’

Marchetti laughs. ‘I may have employed idiots, but I am not foolish enough to have such details here with me. They are safe and tradable.’

‘Then let’s trade. What do you want for them?’

‘Ten million dollars for every graveyard.’

Mardrid smiles. ‘A ridiculous price. But not unreasonable for the ruin of Owain Gwyn.’ He gets to his feet and straightens out his suit. ‘Mr Marchetti, know this: there is now no going back on this deal.’ He wags the cross at him. ‘If you do not deliver as promised, I will have my men dig you a grave and bury you alive with your cross. Good day.’

59

Mitzi tips the water cooler and drains the last drops into a blue plastic cup. It’s enough to swill down another dose of painkillers.

Kirstin Collins stares at a monitor. She’s waiting for the national lottery of databases to play out and tell her if she’s struck lucky with matches to the two DNA profiles created from blood found at the diner near Dupont Circle.

‘How we doing?’ Mitzi drags a chair next to her.

‘Still searching. I like how on TV cop shows it’s all done in a single click.’

‘Yeah, and the guys in the squad are so handsome and have hearts of gold.’

The screen pings up the first result.

‘Profile One is not a winning ticket,’ says Kirstin. ‘No matches to any known offender.’

There’s an agonizing pause before the second profile result is revealed.

‘We have ourselves a hit! Bradley John Deagan. Forty-two years of age. One previous conviction for fraud.’

‘What kinda fraud?’

Kirstin scrolls down. ‘Something to do with a painting.’ She reads on, ‘Looks like he tried to sell one that never existed.’

‘What?’

‘Hold on. Let me click through to find the rest.’ Kirstin follows a link to supporting documentation. ‘Okay, here we go — the artwork was done by a guy named Eyck. It’s called The Ghent Altarpiece and was made up of different paintings — what they call panels. One of these was stolen and never found. Deagan tried to con a man called Christie by saying he had it and wanted to sell it.’

‘I think you mean Christie’s — it’s an auction house, not a person. They specialize in art and antiques.’

‘My bad for not knowing. I don’t buy a lot of art. Not unless you count my Chippendale poster.’

‘I don’t.’

‘If you saw it, you’d change your mind.’

‘I’m sure I would. Does the report say anything more about the piece he tried to sell?’

Kirstin scans the text. ‘Not much. Says part of the altarpiece shows four groups of people gathering in a meadow to worship the Lamb of God and Deagan claimed his painting showed a fifth group, one that had never previously been identified.’

‘Any values on there? Either for the real painting or what Deagan wanted for his fake?’

She reads as she scrolls. ‘The altarpiece was fifteenth-century — and wow was it big — eleven feet by fifteen.’ Kirstin spots a dollar sign. ‘Ten million. Deagan wanted a minimum of ten million bucks for his fake. Man, it must have been good.’

Mitzi mentally lists her catalogue of clues:

The panels of The Ghent Altarpiece.

A Celtic cross.

A memory stick full of code.

A murdered antiques dealer.

A dead crook.

A missing art fraudster linked to a British diplomat who’s left the country.

A man’s voice breaks her concentration. ‘Listen up.’

‘Hang on,’ she says to Kirstin. She looks around and sees Captain Fulo in the doorway.

He lifts his pitch, so the cops and clerks at the back of the room can hear him, ‘People, give me your attention. I just got a call from the hospital. Lieutenant Patrick Fitzgerald died ten minutes ago.’

There are gasps and he waits a respectful second or two.

‘Anyone want to talk privately, I’m in my office.’

60

There are things that Angelo Marchetti had forgotten to tell Josep Mardrid. Things that could now get him killed.

Sat in a run-down pub, next to a seedy strip joint, he throws back his third shot of vodka and tries not to think of the mess he’s in.

He lied when he said he had the details of all the Knights’ Graveyards. He hasn’t. Truth is, they were on a digital file that he made on an SSOA memory stick when he was based at Caergwyn Castle in Wales. He copied them from the master computer along with scans of sacred books kept in the Arthurian Library.

The plan was to demand money from Gwyn in return for the stick. But he lost his nerve and looked for another way of making cash without directly exposing himself to the wrath of the Order.

His chance came when he returned to America.

He was put in charge of the burial of a young knight killed by arms traffickers. The internment was close to Glastonbury inside the Meshomasic State Forest in Connecticut.

After the ritual he sent his men away, telling them he needed time alone with his fallen brother. Only instead of paying his respects, he stole the man’s burial cross and those of his father and grandfather, who had been laid to rest in the same tomb.

Marchetti had connections who could sell them for him. Men who supplied him with drugs. Gang bosses who were likely to kill him if he didn’t settle his debts soon.

Out of financial desperation, he ended up giving one of the crosses and the original SSOA memory stick to Kyle Coll, the head of the Mara Salvatrucha family. He’d separately transcribed parts of the books on to a sheet of paper, so a dealer would be interested in the extracts, but he’d kept back the key to the code.

What he hadn’t realized, until he checked the copy he’d made for himself, was that whenever the data was copied to non-SSOA software or hardware it corrupted. The copy he’d kept for himself became worthless.

Despite that setback, for a short while, it looked like things were still going to work out. The gang found Goldman, who specialized in religious artefacts. He came up with a deposit and was keen on buying all three crosses. When they threw in the extracts of the books he saw big dollar signs.

Then the old man did something stupid. He chipped his offer price at the last minute and threatened to expose them to the cops if they didn’t accept it. The bluff cost him his life.

Things lurched from bad to worse.

Angelo had arranged to meet Brad Deagan at the Dupont diner, but he got wasted on crack and arrived late. So late, that all he saw was George Dalton leaving the parking lot. He watched the Lincoln go, then the tow truck come for Deagan’s SUV. It was then that he knew the game was up and he had to flee the country before the Order got to him.

Now he has another chance.

A final one.

He finishes his drink and prays he doesn’t blow it.

61

There’s no way Mitzi can sit at Irish’s desk. It wouldn’t be right. Neither would hanging around while colleagues badmouth him.

She grabs a cab and gets to thinking she could have developed a soft spot for Irish. Bad boys and broken-downs have always been her type. And he was certainly a renovation job.

Back in her room at Silver Fall Lodge, she flips open the minibar, finds a bottle of the hard stuff and unscrews the top. ‘Here’s to you, Lieutenant Fitzgerald. I hope heaven has a free bar and a good woman to love you.’ She jolts back enough brandy to burn her throat, then grabs a dose of painkillers and lies down for a five-minute rest.

Two hours later, she’s woken by the jangle of her phone.

Her heart hammers as she grabs it from the bedside table. ‘Hello.’

There’s a pause before a man answers, ‘Is that Lieutenant Fallon?’

She struggles to sit up. Pain drives a stake through the middle of her face. ‘Yeah, it is.’ She sees the number is withheld. ‘Look, if you’re another cold-calling asshole trying to sell me insurance or a car loan, then I warn you buddy, now is NOT the time.’

‘This is Sir Owain Gwyn, former UK ambassador to America.’

She closes her eyes and begs for the floor to open up and swallow her.

‘You called me and several of my colleagues saying you needed help with regard to a homicide investigation. How can we assist you?’

Mitzi is so not ready for this. The sleep and painkillers have left her mind all fugged. ‘My apologies. The case I’m working involves the death of two people and there’s a link to one of your staff, a Mr George Dalton. I’d like to ask him a few questions.’

‘What questions, Lieutenant?’

‘Where he was at certain times, who he was with and what he was doing. The usual kind of questions.’

‘He was most probably with me. He’s a senior member of my staff and I’m afraid I work him very hard. How about I have my secretary call you and you submit a list of questions for Mr Dalton? I will see that he answers them for you.’

‘How about I talk to him directly?’

‘I don’t think that’s preferable or convenient for us. There are certain protocols we have to follow.’

Mitzi senses she’s being shut down. ‘Your consul and my homicides are linked to a religious relic, a Celtic cross; would that mean anything to you, ambassador?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘What about Code X?’

He pauses. ‘I’m sorry; someone distracted me with a message. Can you repeat what you said, please?’

Mitzi knows she’s struck a nerve. ‘Code X. Does that mean something to you?’

‘It does, Lieutenant, but I can’t speak about this on the telephone. It is somewhat complicated, and delicate. Is there a way we can talk face to face?’

She lets out a long sigh and faces up to the inevitability of a painful flight to the UK. ‘I can be on a plane tomorrow.’

‘Good. My secretary will call you to make arrangements. I’ll have a driver meet you at the airport.’

The phone goes dead.

She slaps it down on the table and collapses on the bed. ‘Shit. Shit. Shittety-shit.’

It rings again.

She gives it a sideways look that could melt iron then takes the call. ‘Hello.’

‘Mom, it’s Amber.’

‘Oh, hiya, honey. How are you?’

‘I’m sick. Aunt Ruth says I have gastro-something.’

‘Gastroenteritis?’

‘Yeah, that. I’m just living in the bathroom and Jade’s driving me crazy. When are you coming home? I really need you, Mom.’

62

It takes Mitzi twenty minutes and a whole lot of bribery to persuade Amber that she isn’t the mother from hell. It takes twice as long to do the same with Jade.

Ruth is predictably cold when she’s told that the overnight stay in Washington is going to be stretched into a transatlantic trip that most likely will last another week.

Years of being a cop tells Mitzi her younger sister is more than just pissed about being put on. She sounds depressed, angry and confused and Mitzi wishes she were there to help her work through the mess with Jack.

Once the call’s done, she sinks another brandy miniature and bins the bottle. A mirror on the wall of her tiny hotel room throws back an almost unrecognizable woman with black eyes, a fire-truck-red nose and unattractive strap of white plaster. The only consolation is they straightened a crooked break delivered by her ex’s fist half a decade ago.

Mitzi thumbs through a room-service menu and intends to order only a chicken salad and milk but somehow a side of fries and a slice of pecan pie get added.

While waiting for the food, she calls Donovan and updates her on everything from Irish’s death to her conversation with Gwyn and the need to go to London.

‘Your timing’s good,’ says her boss. ‘Eleonora got a break on the satanic killing. She’s with the cops and they’ll be bringing charges within the hour.’

‘Lucky her. Who was it down to?’

‘Brother of the husband. You weren’t far off with your initial guesswork. She’ll tell you the story when you’re back. Point is, Bronty can be freed up, if you think he’d be of help to you.’

‘Given all the religious connections, I’m sure he would be.’

‘Thought so. You want him here, or do I send him UPS to London?’

‘London would be better. Is he going to be okay with making a trip like that with so little notice?’

‘About as okay as you were.’ Donovan waits a beat. There’s something she needs to make her lieutenant aware of. ‘You know that we’re going to draw heat on this. British diplomats have friends who are American diplomats who have friends in the justice system who pull strings in every puppet theatre from the grubbiest station house to the Oval Office.’

‘Yeah, I can imagine how it might play out.’

‘Good, then you know that I need you to be smart. I’ll keep them off your back as long as possible, but if I tell you we have to pull out, you pull out. No tantrums. No shit storms. Agreed?’

She’s too tired to fight. ‘Agreed.’

‘Remember you said that, because if you leave me hanging on this one, that car crash you’ve been in will feel like a day at the spa when I’m done with you.’

63

Mitzi eases her physical and emotional pain with some retail therapy.

By the time she settles on the Airbus to the UK, she’s assuaged herself with the purchase of several packs of Calvin underwear, a red button-up long-sleeved top and a navy-and-white striped shirt to go with a long milled wool skirt in the same colour, a pale-blue V-neck lambs’ wool jumper and a matching T-shirt to wear beneath it.

It’s been a long time since she’s bought wool but she has no intention of freezing in those crazy British temperatures. Given the option, she’d never even visit a country that thinks seventy degrees is a good summer’s day.

The transatlantic trip turns out to be more bearable than the internal flight was from San Francisco to Washington. No screaming kids around her. No warring families dug into the trenches of coach-class seating. By the time she’s had a deep Ibuprofen-induced sleep and watched several weepy movies, the plane is hitting the blacktop at Heathrow, or Hell Row as she heard the cabin crew calling it.

It’s gone midnight when she clears customs and finds her way to the airport Hilton. No sooner does she set the digital clock by her bed and crash out than it’s buzzing and flashing with all the urgency of a nuclear alarm.

It’s seven a.m.

Mitzi can’t believe six hours vanished in a blink.

Her shoulders and neck have stiffened post-car-crash, especially on the side where the safety belt jerked tight on impact and prevented her being thrown around the tumbling vehicle like a rag doll in a washing machine.

She puts on the new skirt and striped shirt and finds it doesn’t really go with the lamb’s wool jumper like she hoped. Worse than that, the black rings around her eyes are now so dense and circular they look like some joker painted them on her face while she was asleep. Her nose has also swollen more and turned black across the fracture. She uses a bathroom mirror to fix a new dressing and tells herself, ‘Mitz, you’re gonna have to give up that dream of pulling a royal husband while you’re here.’

Around eight she heads downstairs to breakfast. She has an hour in which to meet up with Bronty, brief him, check out and be in reception to meet the ambassador’s driver to take them to their meeting.

A young woman stood by the restaurant door takes note of her room number and shows her to a table for two, which by no accident is in the far corner where she can’t frighten other guests.

Bronty turns up soon after a young Polish waiter has left her with a pot of black coffee and a sympathetic look. The FBI man’s dressed in caramel-coloured cords and a pink Lacoste polo shirt. He has a cable-knit brown sweater draped over his shoulders.

‘Sweet Mother of God,’ says the ex-priest as he settles at the table. ‘What happened to you?’

Mitzi puts her cup down. ‘That’s your one free cheap shot. Now, do you want coffee? Or do you want to push your luck with more questions about the face?’

64

The tinted windows of the armour-plated Range Rover give Lance Beaucoup and Jennifer Gwyn the sinful luxury of holding hands without worrying whether bodyguards in the following car might see them.

They travel north along coastal roads, past Avonmouth, then west over the Second Severn Crossing, skirting Newport and into the six hundred square miles of wilderness that is the Brecon Beacons.

The four-by-four rumbles into a rugged landscape of forests, fields, lakes and mountains. It’s a stretch of countryside that is the among the most guarded in Britain.

Jennifer runs a finger gently over the ridges of Lance’s scarred knuckles as he grips the steering wheel. ‘What are these? Evidence of a misspent youth?’

‘Fights won and lost. Childhood scuffles and adult battles. I remember each and every wound.’

She puts him to the test. ‘This?’

He glances at a shiny white bridge spanning the first and second knuckles of his left hand. ‘A brawl in a Parisian bar. My best friend’s twenty-first birthday.’

‘And this?’

He looks at a sliver crease the length of his little finger. ‘Ah, that was a fall from my girlfriend’s Vespa.’ There’s a hint of nostalgia in his voice. ‘I was seventeen and she nineteen.’

‘And pretty?’

‘Very. We hit a patch of oil and I came down hard on my hand. Fractured my collarbone as well. It hurt a lot, but not as much as when she left me for a married man.’

‘C’est la vie,’ says Jennifer. ‘Love sometimes ends in people being hurt.’

He takes a beat, looks at the road ahead and then asks, ‘Will you hurt me one day?’

She grips his hand tightly and smiles sadly. ‘You know I will. Ours is a love that will break both our hearts.’

65

Bronty excitedly tugs Mitzi’s arm as she checks them out at the reception desk. ‘They’ve sent a Rolls-Royce for us.’ He virtually scampers out of the hotel towards the waiting vehicle.

She gets her credit card receipt and follows him outside. ‘Looks older than Joan Rivers,’ she says eyeing the vintage vehicle.

‘It is,’ says the driver, a former soldier called Harold, now in his fifties. ‘Considerably older. This is a Phantom IV, ma’am. Hand-crafted by the same team that created the first Rolls for the queen.’ He opens the rear door for them. ‘If you please.’

Mitzi slips inside, followed awkwardly by Bronty, who is pulling an antiseptic wipe from a travel-pack he’s clutching.

The door shuts without a sound and the driver continues his story as he settles into the front seat and glides the car away from the hotel. ‘You are sitting in the most exclusive Rolls-Royce ever made.’ He eyes Bronty wiping the armrests. ‘It is also valeted every day, sir.’

The FBI man embarrassingly balls his tissue and slips it into a pocket.

‘This model is one of eighteen built in the early fifties and they were only made for royalty and heads of state.’

Mitzi looks at him in the rear-view as she responds, ‘So, did Sir Owain buy it from a royal or a state official?’

‘I have no idea, ma’am. You’ll have to ask him yourself.’

Bronty notices the traditional flying lady statue over the front grille has been replaced by a different symbol. ‘What’s that figure on the hood, the one where the usual Rolls statue goes?’

Harold takes delight in explaining. ‘Ah, well, sir, just as the queen’s original Rolls had a special mascot of St George slaying a dragon, Sir Owain’s has an individual sculpture on the bonnet. We call them bonnets, not hoods, sir. The statue is of an unknown knight, atop the crest of a hill where a famous battle was fought. It’s part of the family’s heraldic crest. Honour in Anonymity.’

‘That’s a motto that wouldn’t work in Hollywood,’ says Mitzi. She accidently presses a button on her armrest and a glass screen slides up behind the driver.

His voice crackles from recessed speakers. ‘That’s for privacy, ma’am. Should you wish to speak to me, there’s a microphone button next to the one you just pressed. When the green light is on I can both hear you and speak to you. Otherwise, I will leave you in peace for the rest of our journey, which will take approximately fifty minutes.’

Mitzi says, ‘Thanks,’ but she’s not sure if he’s heard her or not. She turns to Bronty. ‘Did you get a message from Vicks to call me about the cross?’

He covers his face with his hands. ‘Sorry, I forgot. Eleonora had me working so hard on her case, I just didn’t get round to it.’

‘Great. At least I know where I stand in the food chain.’

‘You’re now at the very front.’ He smiles as genuinely as he can manage. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Whatever you can tell me. Why is the Celtic cross unlike normal crucifixes, and what does the circle signify?’

‘Well, it’s popularly believed that when foreign missionaries started to try to convert Druids to Christianity, St Patrick came upon a stone carved with the circle for the moon and he insisted a Latin crucifix was carved over it. He blessed the new symbol of crucifix and moon united and the first Celtic cross was born.’

‘Neat. You think it’s true?’

‘There’s as much to prove it as disprove it. Another theory has it that the circle is a Eucharistic emblem, the holy wafer of Christ, which is always round. Others believe it represents the halo of the Holy Ghost. These days everyone from the Church of Wales to any tourist company with a connection to Ireland, Scotland or Wales seems to use it. Plus online mystics, astrologers, shops selling fortune-telling crystals and any Irish folk group that’s ever played in public.’

‘All bullshit, then?’

‘One man’s bullshit is another man’s faith. And as we both know, faith can move mountains.’

‘And make lots of money.’

‘Of course. Nothing ever works without money — not even the church.’ Bronty remembers a story from his days as a priest. ‘Crazy old father in my seminary insisted the circle on the cross was nothing to do with the Eucharist or St Patrick. He said it was Christian recognition of an alliance with the Round Table Knights of King Arthur.’

‘Hard to imagine Jesus and Merlin in the same breath.’

‘Any harder than envisaging St George slaying a dragon, water being turned into wine or a virgin birth?’

‘Suppose not.’

‘Anyway, the old priest was a great storyteller. He used to entertain us with tales about how holy crosses for the knights were cast from metal dug from Jesus’s tomb by the Apostles. He said they were half dagger, half cross and would also be used to sink into the hearts of heathen warriors to save their souls.’

‘That’s a nice Christian act. Have you seen the sketch made by the store girl in Maryland?’

He looks guilty. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t.’

She digs in her purse and takes out a folded copy.

He takes it off her and looks. ‘It’s hard to tell from this, as I guess the scale and dimensions are all wrong, but it looks part dagger, part crucifix.’ He hands it back with a smile. ‘That said, the pointed end was probably so the cross could be stuck in the earth and Mass held on a hillside or suchlike.’

She folds the paper up and returns it to her purse. ‘You think we should call your old priest and show him this?’

Bronty laughs. ‘Mitzi, Father Ryan was very fond of the altar wine. It aided the colour of his storytelling, if you get my drift.’

‘Okay, but if he believed this King Arthur and holy cross stuff maybe other people do. That would explain why it was valuable and why people killed for it. You know, like the Holy Grail and fragments from the True Cross?’

‘King Arthur didn’t even exist,’ he says dismissively. ‘Anyway, I thought you said Vicky had shown the sketch to someone at the Smithsonian?’

‘She has and they said Iron Age, remember?’

‘I do,’ he answers snappily. ‘And they’re much more likely to be right than Father Ryan.’

‘Still no harm in checking. Experts almost always disagree with each other.’

He shakes his head at her stubbornness. ‘Then you’ll need to do it through prayer and divine intervention — he died six or seven years ago.’

Mitzi falls quiet and mulls over the cross as she stares out of the car window. The landscape is rapidly changing as the city starts to rise up and wrap its arms of bricks and glass around them.

She takes out her smartphone, clicks on the camera function, leans close to Bronty and demands, ‘Smile!’

He forces a grin.

She takes the shot, and holds the camera so they can both see the result. ‘It’s for when I get back. I want to show the girls that I was in a Rolls. It might distract them from wanting to kill me for staying away so long.’

66

Caergwyn Castle blushes pink in the afternoon sun. Its four corner towers and a sturdy central keep stand rudely exposed against the soft greens of fields and forests.

Jennifer Gwyn steps from the Range Rover. She’s wearing a light boat-neck sweater and blue Jacquard trousers, having chosen comfort over glamour for the two-hour road trip. The air is refreshingly crisp, with a hint of flint and iron and she enjoys the feel of a gentle wind in her hair as she looks up at the battlements.

She knows he is there. Behind the stone at the top of the tower, watching. Looking down through glassed slits that once concealed the deadly arrows of the country’s finest bowmen.

Myrddin.

He has known her all her life. At times, understood her better than she could herself.

The old man has had much to say while she’s been away in America. Once she’s face-to-face with him, he’s bound to peel open her thoughts.

The burly bodyguards spill from their vehicles and begin to relax. The SAS and Marines constantly train in outer sections of the fortified grounds. Arthurian ‘soldiers’ are drilled and barracked closer to the castle walls. Those two rings of deadly steel are supplemented by an armed security team that only operates inside the ancient building.

A moon-faced butler in black suit and white shirt approaches, followed by two young footmen in red jackets. ‘Welcome back, Lady Gwyn.’

‘Thank you, Alwyn. How is everybody?’

He walks with her to the door, as the footmen take cases from the Range Rover and instructions from Lance. ‘I am pleased to say that all are well, m’lady. Mrs Stokes is off as you know, due to have her first child next week, so Nerys is filling in as head chef.’

‘She’s up to that?’

‘Most certainly. Don’t tell Mrs Stokes this, but Nerys’s lamb cawl is the finest since my mother made it.’

Jennifer laughs and gives a traditional Welsh response: ‘Cystal yfed o’r cawl a bwyta’r cig’ — ‘It is as good to drink the broth as eat the meat.’

He’s pleased to hear her use the old language. ‘Will you and Mr Beaucoup be dining alone tonight? Only—’

She anticipates his comment. ‘No. We will eat with Myrddin. He will curse me into my next lifetime if we do not join him.’

‘A wise decision, your ladyship.’

Alwyn leaves her in the grand entrance. It is a cavernous space of dark wooden floors and walls, coats of armour, heraldic crests and mounted animal heads.

The young footmen smile as they pass her and haul cases up a grand staircase that splits at the top into two galleys.

Lance appears. Apprehension shows in his eyes. There is no escaping Owain’s presence in here. The castle is steeped in his heritage. His spirit runs like electricity through every room.

Jennifer sees his fear. ‘You feel him, don’t you?’

He tilts his head in resignation. ‘It is impossible not to.’

She takes him lightly by the hand and walks him into a corridor. ‘Come, let’s take tea in the southern drawing room. Afterwards, you can do your work and then we’ll meet again for dinner.’

‘With Myrddin?’

‘Yes, with Myrddin.’ She sees his worry. ‘I will see him first. Make sure that I soften the blows.’

67

The street names flashing past the windshield of the vintage Rolls are places Mitzi’s only ever heard about. Piccadilly Circus. Oxford Street. Covent Garden. Leicester Square. The Strand.

Traffic slows as they approach a giant building of blasted white stone, tall arched windows, heavy black gates and soaring spires. It looks like a wing of Hogwarts. An impression compounded by an isolated stone plinth and grotesque sculpture of some kind of bird. She presses the button that Harold the chauffeur said would get his attention.

‘Excuse me. Can you tell me where the hell we are and what all these buildings and freaky statues are about?’

The driver glances back as he answers. ‘We’re on Fleet Street, ma’am. That’s the Royal Courts of Justice alongside us. Sir Owain’s office is just around the corner.’ He glances at the priceless Charles Bell Birch sculpture standing proudly on its column and tries to prevent a tone of cultural superiority from creeping into his voice. ‘This is the Temple Bar monument; it used to denote the edge of the city. The statue you mentioned is a heraldic dragon. You will find there are two on the crest of the City of London, along with the cross of St George.’

Bronty is listening with interest. ‘You said Temple — is that connected to the Knights Templar?’

‘Yes, sir. Its name comes from the Temple Church and the Temple area. They were once in the ownership of the knights but are now home to the legal profession.’

‘Saints and sinners,’ adds Mitzi, sarcastically. ‘A modern-day lawyer is about as far as you can get from a chivalrous and honourable knight of old.’

‘You might well be right about that, ma’am.’ The traffic starts to move a little faster and Harold manages to get into second gear. ‘It may interest you to know that each year the monarch customarily stops at Temple Bar before entering the City of London, so that the Lord Mayor may offer up the City’s pearl-encrusted Sword of State as a token of loyalty.’

‘I confess to being completely uninterested,’ replies Mitzi, ‘until the point you mentioned pearls. Then you got me. Next life, I’m sure as hell coming back as a British queen.’

‘I wish you luck, ma’am.’ He glides the car silently around a corner then noisily over a cobbled backstreet that ends at a gated archway. The Rolls stops until the metal slides back, then it effortlessly slips into a long passage.

Mitzi watches the gates close and the sunlight disappear. The narrow passage gradually becomes a spiralling underground ramp that makes tight twists and turns into a vast underground parking lot where it stops.

The chauffeur gets out and opens the door for them. ‘Please follow me.’

He leads the way into a smart reception area of glass and steel, and an elevator guarded by two blue-suited men. Words are quickly and pleasantly exchanged then Harold swipes a finger over a print scanner near the elevator’s call button.

‘This will take you to reception. I or one of my colleagues will be here for you when your business is finished.’ He nods courteously and steps aside as big steel doors slide open.

The door closes automatically once Mitzi and Bronty are inside and the lift rises without any sensation of movement.

When it stops and opens, they’re facing a large picture window with a panoramic view of London.

‘Wow,’ says Bronty as they step out. ‘We must be what, two or three hundred feet above ground.’

‘Three hundred and sixty,’ says a slim brunette in a business suit. ‘Welcome to CEI. I’m Melissa Sachs, Sir Owain’s personal secretary.’ A gold bracelet shimmers on the bronzed skin of her elegant wrist as she extends her hand to greet them. ‘He’s waiting for you.’

68

Lady Gwyn crosses the cobbled courtyard to the south-eastern wing and what’s always been known as the Augur’s Tower. Generations of servants have assumed the name comes from an old wives’ tale that if you stood at the top you’d be so high you could see into the future.

Despite the modern security cameras and armed guards around her, the walk always takes Jennifer back in time. It’s easy to picture the battlements filled with archers and the thick walls running red with the blood of her ancestor’s enemies.

She takes a calming breath as she pushes the old oak door that has been left open for her and enters the cold, sparsely furnished space that constitutes Myrddin’s living quarters.

The old man is sat in a seven-foot-high wooden throne. A large heraldic coat of arms hovers over his head. It depicts two fiery dragons back to back, divided by a broadsword. His green eyes shine from beneath wrinkled hoods of flesh and his liver-spotted, bony hands hang over the ends of the arched armrests.

‘I expected you earlier.’ His tone isn’t critical. It has no trace of disappointment or judgement in it.

Jennifer understands it well. She’s listened to it all her life, learned how to decipher every decibel of speech. ‘I had to settle my lover.’

It is no shock to him. He’d had visions of the affair long before she tilted her head at the young man and he’s sure she realizes that. ‘Have you no warm embrace to raise the cold spirit of your old confidant?’

She smiles and goes to him.

Myrddin folds her into his musty robes. For a moment, they hold each other tightly, then she takes his icy fingers in her warm palms and opens up to him. ‘I am frightened. Afraid of the changes that I know you and Owain sense are coming.’

‘My child, you and your family have been through such things so many times before. The seasons change. Winter kills and spring gives life.’ He drops his gaze pointedly to her stomach. ‘Have you told him yet?’

‘You know I haven’t.’

‘Then you must.’

‘And how will he react? With joy or sorrow?’

‘With understanding. I have told him I have seen the child. He knows the vision points to his own mortality. Remember, in the birth of the new, the spirit of the dead is born again and grows stronger.’

‘I wish this wasn’t our way.’

‘But it is and always will be.’

She steels herself to ask the most awful of questions. ‘How will it come?’

‘I have not yet seen.’ He looks kindly on her. ‘It will be honourable and brave; of that alone you can be certain.’

Jennifer closes her eyes to stop the flow of tears. It is too soon to feel sad.

He sees her fighting her emotions and bends to comfort her. ‘There, there, my child. A love like yours and Owain’s never dies. That is the point of the Arthurian Cycle. Your children perpetually recreate the spirit and goodness that is needed to project the old Order into the new world.’

‘I know. But it does not stop my heart and soul from hurting.’

‘Then let us hope that the other man you share your bed with is as good at drying tears as he is at coaxing sighs.’

She blushes. ‘I trust tonight you will not be as shocking with him as you are with me.’

‘Only if you promise to come and see me every day that you are here.’

‘Then I promise.’ She leans forward and kisses him. ‘Now be sure to keep your side of the bargain.’

He smiles as she starts to leave. ‘Soon, Jennifer. Tell Owain sooner rather than later. Time is not feeling kindly towards us.’

69

At the end of the top floor, Melissa Sachs stops in front of a set of double oak doors, pushes one open and steps aside to let the visitors through.

The room they enter is breathtaking. It is a giant dome of glass that overhangs the edge of the building. Reinforced panes and floor panels give the impression of walking on air.

Mitzi and Bronty move apprehensively towards the centre.

‘Please come all the way in — it’s perfectly safe.’ The amused reassurance is from an exceptionally tall and broad man in a bottle-green suit and waistcoat. ‘I’m Owain Gwyn and this is my colleague, George Dalton.’

‘Mitzi Fallon.’ She stares nervously through the floor onto the sidewalk hundreds of feet below. ‘This is my colleague, Jon Bronty.’

Owain shakes hands then leads Mitzi to two leather settees where there is a stretch of solid floor around her. ‘Please, sit here. I know some people find the room a little daunting.’

She lowers herself onto a seat. ‘Thanks. I get a little vertigo. Especially when there’s nothing between me and a splat, save an inch or two of glass.’

He smiles. ‘It looks like you’ve already had some kind of splat.’

‘I have. A car accident back in the States.’

Bronty and Dalton join them on the sofas.

‘Help yourselves to drinks.’ Owain gestures to bottles of juice, soda and water laid out on a small table between them.

‘Thanks.’ Mitzi pops the cap on a squat bottle of water and takes a swig.

He waits for her to put it down before he continues. ‘Lieutenant, both George and I wish to be as helpful as possible. I stress the word possible because there may be matters of national security that prevent us giving you complete disclosure and I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand the reasons for that.’ He angles his body towards Bronty, who’s just produced a notebook and is digging around for a pen. ‘I must also stress that this conversation is purely “off the record”. We are seeing you without the presence of embassy lawyers and without reminding you of the rigorous defence that can be presented by diplomatic immunity.’

‘Except of course you just did.’ Mitzi smiles politely. ‘I get the picture. You’re both going to clam up; it’s just a question of when.’ Without hurrying, she takes out a deck of photographs from a file she’s brought. Like a Vegas croupier, she places them face down on the table, alongside the bottles.

As she looks up, she notices a stark contrast in the two men opposite her.

Owain Gwyn is relaxed and attentive. George Dalton, who is still to utter a word, looks as nervous as a kitten on a lake of ice.

Bronty is studying them as well. As a priest, he developed a strong intuition about character, almost as though he could tell who was struggling with the weight of sin and who wasn’t. Neither of them seems to be carrying heavy loads, but there is something unusual about Gwyn.

More than charisma.

He seems to radiate peace and gentleness. It’s the kind of intensity Bronty felt around missionaries in Africa, only more so. Considerably more so.

‘This is Amir Goldman.’ Mitzi plays her first card. Face up. A post-mortem shot of the old man. Naked. White. A clear view of the wounded stomach. ‘Knifed to death in his antiques store in Maryland last Friday night.’

She turns over the second. Another PM shot. Taken in the woods just as the body had been pulled from worm-infested earth. ‘This gentleman is James Tiago Sacconni, an ex-con with previous for knife attacks. He was seen coming out of Goldman’s on the night the store owner was murdered. He got into a brown SUV, an Escalade hybrid and was killed minutes later. His body was buried in nearby woods.’

Mitzi notes that neither diplomat flinches when shown the pictures. She dips into her folder and pulls out a printed Google map. ‘Please look at this for me, Mr Dalton. On there, you’ll see the antiques store. It’s marked “A”. The woods where Sacconni was found are marked “B”. You’ll notice there’s a “C”. This is Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, where the British Embassy is.’

She watches the younger man fixate on the map. Spots how he crosses his ankles to stop his foot tapping. Doesn’t miss the way he pushes his lips together to wet them as discreetly as possible. She slides her gaze over to Gwyn and finds he’s not at all interested in the map, only in his colleague and how he’s holding up.

Mitzi sits back and relaxes.

There are still cards to play but now it’s time to bluff a little and raise the stakes.

She waits until the consul lifts his head and catches her penetrating stare. ‘My question, Mr Dalton, is this — where were you between nine-thirty p.m. Friday last and daybreak Saturday?’

The lips are licked again. ‘I’m not sure. So much happened just before I left Washington to return to the UK.’ He looks towards the ambassador. ‘I think I was collecting something for Sir Owain. Something confidential.’

The knight gives a confirmatory nod.

The collective evasiveness encourages Mitzi not to rush things. ‘What vehicle were you in?’

‘The embassy Lincoln.’

‘That’s a silver MKZ with a panoramic roof?’

‘Yes.’

‘What would you say if I told you that an eyewitness saw that Lincoln follow a brown Escalade, driven by Mr Sacconni, away from Goldman’s store just after he was murdered?’

‘I’d say your witness might be confusing my car being on the same road at the same time as the other vehicle, with the notion of me deliberately following it.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Mitzi plays her next cards. She flips over the third, fourth and fifth photographs. ‘This is a sequence of shots taken of the Lincoln, with you at the wheel, heading south from the Beltway intersection. For some reason, you are always a quarter mile behind the SUV.’ She taps the last photograph. ‘And when it comes off at Dupont, so do you.’

The consul shrugs dismissively. ‘I can see half a dozen cars in your shots there. You could say any one of them was following that target vehicle. And I’m absolutely sure I wasn’t the only person to exit at Dupont.’

Mitzi makes mental notes. He just gave her two valuable insights. But she’s not going to mention them. Not now. Not until the time is right and the advantage high. ‘It’s a nine-mile stretch from Kensington to the diner. You were the only driver that joined the road within sixty seconds of the Escalade and you didn’t overtake it during that short journey south. A little strange, don’t you think?’

Again the shrug. And another confident answer. ‘I’m a safe driver. I represent the British Government and I’m conscious of that honour, so I stick to the speed limit.’

The door opens and Melissa Sachs appears and looks pointedly towards her boss.

‘Excuse me.’ Sir Owain gets up and walks to her.

They talk briefly.

The ambassador returns to his guests. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to carry on without me for a moment. I have an urgent call I need to step out and take.’

Mitzi turns back to Dalton. Time to play her trump card. She flips over a grainy photograph of the All Night All Right Diner that she had Kirstin take and make look as though it had come from a security camera. ‘This is a fast food joint off Connecticut Avenue, out from Dupont, down seventeenth near Stead Park. Not the kind of place I’d imagine a person like you would visit. But you did.’

His eyes flick from it to the two remaining face-down photographs on the table and guesses that they show him both inside and outside the diner.

‘What were you doing there, Mr Dalton?’

He shifts awkwardly in his seat. ‘It was a call of nature. I used their washroom.’ He picks up a bottle of water and casually drinks, then adds, ‘We Brits are a bit old-fashioned. We can’t just go urinating in the wild.’

‘Hell, no!’ says Mitzi. ‘What would the world come to?’ She opens her own bottle and mirrors his actions. ‘How did things go in the men’s room?’

‘What do you mean? I went to the toilet. How do you think it went?’

She notes his touchiness and puts her bottle down next to his. ‘Talk me through it. Tell me.’

His face flushes with anger. ‘I went in. Used the urinal. Went out and drove home.’ He sits back and glares at her. ‘Did you really come all the way from the States to ask about my toilet habits?’

‘You’d better believe it, buddy.’ The guy’s as guilty as hell. If she gives him a little more rope sure as night follows day he’s going to hang himself.

The office door opens.

Sir Owain enters. There’s purposefulness in his stance. ‘I’m very sorry; I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Something of extreme importance and urgency has happened.’

Mitzi collects the photographs, drops them in her folder and grabs her bottle of water. She’s as mad as hell and struggles to hide it. Sir La-de-da was probably watching on a hidden camera and didn’t like the fact his boy was in trouble. She gets to her feet and walks over to him. ‘Is whatever just happened really more important than the Code X files, ambassador? I was so looking forward to discussing them with you.’

‘It is, Lieutenant.’ His eyes narrow. ‘You will learn soon enough what detained me and why this meeting had to be curtailed. I only hope that when you do, you will apologize for that remark and then it may be possible for us to meet again.’

70

From the rain-puddled roof of the Augur’s Tower, Myrddin gazes nostalgically across the shimmering estate’s vast lake into the distant forests where the red deer run.

It seems only a couple of springs since he hunted and fished there as a young man, his head full of plans and his heart swollen with love. In those days, he lived on whatever he caught. Venison, rabbit and salmon, when he was lucky. Rat and squirrel when he wasn’t. Every day brought fresh adventures. His craft needed to be learned. Secrets had to be discovered. The magic of life was still to be learned.

As he descends to his solar, he can’t help but think that the years have flown faster than the falcons he used to train. Nowadays, he feels he has become a slave to the very crafts he strove so hard to master. Knowledge has tired him. The sheer weight of it has fixed leaden boots to his weary feet.

He is sinking.

And Owain Gwyn is the reason why.

He guided him from boy to man. Made him his charge. His protégé. The manifestation of all his hopes and loves. It became his life’s work to empower him, to help him achieve his greatness — and goodness. To make Owain a king among men.

The small cot of a bed creaks and his old spine cracks as he stretches out on the hard boards and worn-out mattress. He’s never afforded himself luxuries — except for his imagination. Inside his mind, he has indulged himself in pleasures mere mortals would never comprehend.

Sleep comes quickly.

And visions, too. Mixed and confused. Like multiple movies spliced together.

There is water. Vast stretches of it. Bigger than a lake. Smaller than a sea. People speaking in foreign tongues. Loved ones separated by geography, united in grief.

Then there are bodies. Burning bodies. Buried bodies. Decomposing bodies that stir in the soil and rise from their wormeries. Living bodies, still bleeding, rattling with death but not yet surrendered.

And women.

There is a young woman and an old one. Together but strangers. Women from different lands. One he recognizes; one he doesn’t. The older one is terribly powerful. A threat to everything and everyone he holds close.

But there is goodness about her as well. And vulnerability.

Out in the unmarked fields, in plots known only to the Arthurians, bones that once bent and broke for the betterment of mankind shake off their blankets of soil and once more feel the kiss of the sun.

But this is no resurrection. No Day of Judgement. No moment of divine redemption. This is exposure. Destruction of the Order. The end of secrecy.

Myrddin’s closed eyes are blinded by the bright lights of his vision. Blues and reds and oranges and whites. His ears ache from the shouts of voices, male and female, adult and child. They are crying. Begging for the pain to stop. Their screams overlap. Fight to be heard above each other.

And there is Owain. At the centre of the pain. Desperately trying to soak it all up.

Unable to stop it.

71

Melissa Sachs shows the Americans out and returns to Sir Owain’s office. ‘Are you ready for your call with the Home Secretary, sir?’

‘I am. Thank you, Melissa.’

George Dalton rises from the sofa. ‘Would you like me to leave?’

‘No. Stay. We need to talk as soon as I’ve dealt with this call.’ A light on his phone flashes. He picks it up and answers. ‘Hello, Charles. How are you all coping?’

‘Best we can. How much do you know?’ Charles Hatfield suspects it’s at least as much as he does.

‘Only the briefest details. Bomb on the Eurostar. Explosion at the British end. Something like fifty dead.’

‘Might be more. We won’t know until the emergency services report back. The device went off south of Ashford, five minutes from the station. A pensioner saw a man doing something with wires inside a rucksack and she alerted train staff. When the guard questioned the suspect, he made a run for the toilet, locked himself inside and exploded the bloody thing.’

A live video feed from a helicopter is already up on the monitor in front of the ambassador. It shows the splayed track, smoke and flames rising from the concertinaed carriages, corpses on the rails and the blinking lights of fire engines and ambulances. ‘I’m finishing up a meeting here and then I’ll come into Whitehall. I assume you’ll be putting together a Cabinet Office briefing?’

‘Research team is already working on it. When can you join us?’

‘Within the hour.’

‘Good.’ Hatfield checks fresh data on his computer as he speaks. ‘I know this is of no comfort to those victims or their blessed families, but thank God the bomb didn’t go off in the tunnel. A blast mid-channel would have been an even bigger tragedy.’

‘That must have been the intention.’ Gwyn watches the helicopter on his screen come to a stationary hover directly over the cratered track. ‘Anyone claimed responsibility yet?’

‘Not yet. But it’ll be al-Qaeda.’

Gwyn puts the phone down and returns to Dalton. He can tell his colleague is worried. ‘What is it, George?’

‘I’ve been thinking about the interview with the Americans. I fear I may have messed things up.’

‘Why?’

‘In retrospect, I don’t think that lieutenant knew I was at the diner near Dupont, and now I’ve confirmed I was.’

‘The fact she raised it with you meant she had good reason to believe you were there. The big mistake was taking the Lincoln.’

‘I had no choice. I was in the Lincoln when I got the message that Marchetti’s men were heading out to Kensington. Had I swapped cars, I would never have got there in time.’

‘I need to get directly involved in this Eurostar blast, so you must take care of the Americans. Have someone find out where they’re staying. I want their room turned over and electronic or human surveillance on them all the time, until I say otherwise. Let’s see if we can stop this investigation before it stops us.’

72

News of the train bombing plays on the radio in the Rolls.

Once the bulletin finishes, Mitzi calls Sir Owain’s office and leaves a message with Melissa. The ambassador had been right, there was good reason for her to apologize.

The journey to their new hotel is a long and muted one. Despite the privacy glass, neither she nor Bronty feel comfortable discussing their interview.

They book into The Dean, a new hotel in Soho, close to famous media haunts like the Groucho Club and Ivy and debrief over room-service club sandwiches, fries and two large pots of coffee.

‘So what did you make of our friend the British Consul?’ He slaps the bottom of a ketchup bottle to release a blat of sauce.

‘Dalton’s up to his neck in the whole thing.’ She opens her sandwich like a book. ‘Why is this bacon so much better than the stuff I have back home?’

‘The Brits do good bacon. How d’you know he’s implicated?’

‘First slip he made was to admit the Lincoln had been outside Amir Goldman’s store. No surveillance footage put him there. Then he got nervous and referred to the brown SUV as “the target car”.’

‘Maybe he’s an ex-soldier, or policeman.’

‘He’s not. I checked before we flew out. But he might be a former spook, MI5 or 6.’

‘It’d explain the manner in which he followed the Escalade.’

‘Yeah. But not why he followed it. Or what he was doing when the SUV stopped in the woods and Sacconni got whacked.’

‘You think Dalton killed him?’

‘No. I think Sacconni was killed by his partner-in-crime, Bradley Deagan. But I think Dalton may have killed Deagan at the Dupont diner.’ She reaches into her purse and produces a small plastic bottle of water. ‘Which is why this little baby might help us.’

‘Your drink from Gwyn’s office?’

She smiles, ‘No, not mine. Dalton’s. And I’m willing to bet the DNA on this matches the profile we lifted from blood in the diner’s bathroom — blood mingled with Deagan’s.’

‘Who exactly is Deagan?’

‘A fraudster who tried to pull a con on an auction house with a painting called The Ghent Altarpiece.’

His eyes widen. ‘Also known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. One of the greatest and most stolen pieces of art ever created.’ He points to her laptop. ‘Mind if I use that for a second?’

‘Be my guest.’

He opens a search engine and types in ‘Ghent Altarpiece’. ‘Here, look at this.’

He paraphrases text below the paragraph. ‘It was commissioned in the fifteenth century for an altar in a private chapel in Belgium. The twenty-four panels form one overall picture when opened up and then a completely different one when closed.’

‘I only see twelve.’

‘Twelve front, twelve back.’

Now she sees it. ‘Stupid me.’

‘It’s been the object of thirteen crimes over six centuries, including six separate thefts and a ransom demand.’

She pours fresh coffee for them both. ‘Come on then, more detail: tell me the juicy stuff.’

‘In the early nineteenth century some panels were pawned by the Ghent Diocese and ended up in England. They were bought by the King of Prussia and exhibited in Berlin. After the First World War, they were confiscated from the Germans as part of reparations. When the Second World War broke out the Belgians sent the paintings to the Vatican for safekeeping. At least that was the plan. Hitler’s troops intercepted them, brought them to Bavaria and locked them in a castle. When Allied attacks intensified, he moved them into salt mines. Then when we beat the Nazis, our troops returned them to the Belgians.’

‘And the ransom?’

He takes a second. ‘Let me get this right. Back in the thirties, two panels, a front and back, were stolen from St Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. Often it’s reported as one, but actually there were two. One called ‘The Just Judges’ and the other John the Baptist. A lot of ransom letters were sent. They demanded more than a million Belgian Francs and warned that unless it was paid the paintings would be destroyed.’

‘What happened?’

‘The bishop never paid the money. There were some negotiations and the John the Baptist painting was recovered, but ‘The Just Judges’ was never found. Another painter was hired to fill in the blank on the altarpiece, but by all accounts there are errors in the scene.’

‘Okay, enough history,’ says Mitzi. ‘My head’s exploding and to be honest the last thing I want is a missing painting to add to a homicide that already has religious relics and secret codes.’

‘Have the cryptologists got anywhere with that?’

‘I have to call Vicks and check. It would be great if this Code X stick gave us all the answers.’

‘Did you say “Code X”, as in the letter X?’

‘Yeah. Why do you ask?’

‘Have you got the stick?’

‘Sure.’ She digs it out of her purse and passes it to him.

Bronty reads ‘C-O-D-E-X’ and smiles.

‘What?’

‘It’s “Codex” not “Code X”. One word, Latin by origin, as in ancient bibles and manuscripts. So your secret code is no new thing. It’s hiding something that’s probably been hidden for centuries. Something people are probably prepared to kill to keep hidden.’

73

Cabinet Office Briefing Room ‘A’ is said to be the venue from which the press originated the acronym COBRA. Around its famous conference table are Defence Secretary Sir Wesley Piggott-Smith, Home Secretary Charles Hatfield, Deputy Prime Minister Norman Batherson and the ACPO chief, Milton Coleman.

Ambassador Gwyn is shown into the cool, darkened room by a Whitehall aide and takes a seat next to the deputy PM.

The Home Secretary acknowledges his appearance, ‘Good afternoon, Sir Owain. I had only just started.’ He stands in front of a giant screen playing mute video footage from the blast scene. ‘The latest figures we have are fifty-four dead and forty injured. The prime minister is in Scotland but in the next half hour will helicopter down to Ashford and hold a press conference at the scene. The bomb squad is checking the remains of the train for secondary devices and, of course, the track is being inspected as well. The railway operator has contingencies to bus people around the derailment, but they’ve been told there’s no chance of trains running through the tunnel for at least the next twelve hours.’

The police chief, a tall, thin man in his late fifties, throws a question across the table. ‘Have we got confirmation it’s al-Qaeda behind all this?’

‘They plan to post a video,’ answers Owain. ‘It will be uploaded to an Al Jazeera server in the next few minutes. It will warn travellers in the West to expect more bombs and deaths.’

No one asks how the ambassador knows this. He does, after all, have special responsibilities for counter-terrorism and everyone in the room has been present at other meetings where he’s been more reliably informed than they were.

‘What are we facing, Owain?’ asks the Deputy PM. ‘A specific campaign of terror aimed at the UK? Or is this a wider strategy linked to the US bomb?’

‘It’s wider. And not just America. I expect there to be further attacks, and on soil less used to bloodshed than ours.’

The Defence Secretary knows what he’s alluding to. ‘Italy?’

‘Exactly.’

Sir Wesley explains to the rest of the group. ‘We’ve been hearing the same thing. Possibilities of attacks on Rome as a response to the Pope’s condemnation of what he called ‘maliciously misguided Muslim fundamentalists.’

Owain adds a little more depth to the comment. ‘Al-Qaeda is thought to have a new, three-pronged strategy — firstly, business as usual; that means bombing the hell out of Britain and America. Secondly, as Sir Wesley just said, attacking soft Christian targets, such as Rome. This hasn’t been done before and has the Spaniards just as worried as the Italians. We also believe they intend to use a new generation of highly trained assassins to kill high-profile VIPs.’

The door swings open and a young civil servant steps in and whispers discreetly to the home secretary, then leaves.

Charles Hatfield fingers the remote control and points it at a screen. ‘Al Jazeera just ran this. It’s exactly as Sir Owain said.’

The man who appears on screen doesn’t fit the traditional stereotype of the Muslim terrorist. There’s no straggly beard. No loose white robes. No Koran in hand. For once the video doesn’t look like it’s been shot in a school hall, with a dark curtain behind. There are no masked soldiers in the background with rifles across their chests. Instead, a calm young man in his late twenties, with neat hair and beard looks straight into camera. He is dressed in a charcoal-grey suit and, despite the rugged sandy backdrop of an Afghan hillside, he looks as calm as a foreign correspondent.

‘Citizens of the west,’ says a steady voice in excellent English. ‘When you see this, it will be because I have killed and injured many people. Many innocents who did not deserve for such a thing to happen to them.’ His tone is flat and without a trace of rage. ‘I regret their deaths and injuries. But most of all, I regret that their governments made it necessary for them to die. As you watch, listen and read of the deaths, ask yourself this: what does al-Qaeda want? Why are they doing these things? Why are they killing so many people?’ He takes a pause and lets the seeds of the questions he scattered germinate in the fertile minds of those who might listen.

‘There has to be a good reason, doesn’t there? Such as the belief that your own country should be free of your enemies. That every person should have their own home, their patch of land, their personal base in life — because that’s what the words al-Qaeda mean — “the base”. Ask yourselves this, if foreigners tried to occupy your country, change your government and kill your friends, family and parents, what would you do?’ His soft dark eyes hold the camera before he continues, ‘I think I know. You would fight. You would fight to the death. As you count the bodies of today and the bodies of tomorrow, think beyond the rhetoric of your leaders, think about my words. When would you surrender?’ Now the gentle eyes narrow and the camera shot tightens. ‘Never. You would never surrender. Nor will we.’

The video stops on a freeze frame.

Owain Gwyn points at the screen. ‘This is a new breed of terrorist. And the start of a new campaign of terror. Fought by new leaders in new ways.’

‘I think you’re wrong,’ says the Defence Secretary. ‘New faces perhaps, but it’s the same old game. They bomb. They run. They hide. They have limited resources and limited support. We’ll find them soon enough and this time we’ll wipe every one of them from the face of the earth.’

Owain bites his tongue. Sir Wesley couldn’t be more wrong. A storm is coming. One unlike any seen before.

74

A soft summer shower falls as the handsome delivery driver juggles the cardboard box in his arms and struggles to lock the back doors of his van. The neighbourhood he’s in looks decent, but you can never be sure. Leave the vehicle unlocked and you’re as good as asking for some scumbag to climb in and steal stuff. Maybe even the van itself.

As far as he’s concerned, they’re welcome to it. It’s a piece of shit. The engine’s slower than a constipated snail and it stinks of sweat and cigarettes. Still, he’ll be shot of it soon.

He checks the name and address on the package, then climbs the short stack of steps to the apartment block. Dark marks appear on top of the box where raindrops hit and get blotted by the cardboard.

He knocks on a tatty door and waits.

There’s a noise on the other side. The sound of someone pressing against the door. He sees a little fisheye lens in the middle of the wood and guesses the occupant is on the other side peering through at him.

‘Who is it?’ The voice is female and hesitant.

‘Amazon. I’ve got a package to be signed for.’

The door opens a chink and a chain pulls tight. He pushes the box forward so she can see the smiley river logo.

It closes again and opens fully.

He extends the parcel in his hands. ‘Careful with this; it’s a little heavy.’

The woman takes it from him.

He lunges forward and pushes her so she staggers back and falls. The heavy parcel bangs painfully against her chest as she hits the floor and cracks her head.

The delivery man kicks the door shut and stands over her. He leans down and pushes the end of a silenced handgun into her mouth. ‘You really should have asked for some ID, cupcakes.’

75

Less than two miles from the Cabinet briefing in Whitehall, Mitzi Fallon and Jon Bronty set up base in an FBI office inside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Intelligence officers have been working from here since the days when the country’s second president, John Adams, had a home in the picturesque square.

Two doors away, field officers are getting up to speed on the Eurostar bomb blast and working out how it fits with the attack on Grand Central in New York.

Mitzi watches bigwigs come and go as she passes over the water bottle she took from Gwyn’s office. She completes all the necessary chain-of-evidence paperwork and asks how long she’ll have to wait to get the DNA profile.

The answer comes from a young clerk being run ragged by all the sudden activity. She’s mid-twenties, with frizzy brown hair and hard black spectacles that sit on an aquiline nose amid a pale, freckled face. ‘Within the week. Maybe sooner if the labs are at full strength.’

‘How about tomorrow?’ There’s a hint of annoyance in her tone. ‘I’m only here for a couple of days and this is linked to a homicide back in the US.’

‘Homicides aren’t priority.’ She pushes the bagged evidence into her tray and starts fresh work on her computer.

Mitzi takes it back out and drops it in front of her. ‘Then what is?’

The young Chicagoan gives her a scornful upward glance. ‘If you don’t know don’t ask, ma’am.’

Mitzi bends low over the computer and lifts the nametag on the lapel of the clerk’s black jacket. ‘Please don’t screw with me, Annie Linklatter. As you see from my currently less than pretty face I’m in a bad place at the moment and people in bad places do bad things. So how about you cut me a break and save us both a lot of pain?’

The girl’s face reddens. ‘I’ll try for tomorrow — or the day after.’

‘Tomorrow would be real good.’ She wanders away. ‘I’ll be by first thing.’

Bronty is on the phone when she gets back to their temporary office. ‘I’ve got Vicks on the line,’ he says.

‘Put her on speakerphone.’

Bronty obliges. ‘Vicks, Mitzi has just walked in — you’re on speaker.’

‘Hi, Lieutenant! I’ve got some good and bad news for you. Which would you like first?’

‘I only do good news, Vicks. Keep the bad to yourself and go fix it. What you got?’

‘Okay. I’ve done the extra digging you asked for on Owain Gwyn. I’m just mailing it to you.’

‘Great. I’ll log on while we’re speaking.’ She flips open her computer and powers up.

‘And the cryptologists have made progress on the data you sent over. It’s really weird. Seems to be a story about King Arthur and his knights.’

‘Codex,’ whispers Bronty to Mitzi in a triumphant told-you-so tone.

Vicky continues her update, ‘The file directory they decrypted is entitled “The Camelot Code” and it contains four parts — The Fallen, Avalon, Modern Prophecies and The Arthurian Cycle.’

Mitzi writes the names down on a pad next to the computer, which is still running start-up security programs. ‘So, what is this, a kind of Arthurian Twilight Saga?’

‘They’ve only transcribed the first page — apparently the code is problematic.’

‘They say what kinda code it is?’ asked Bronty.

‘Yeah, they call it Random Revolver. Every letter of the alphabet is represented by a number — that’s the simple part, like a kid’s cypher — but then the numbers and the letters related to them don’t stay the same, they keep changing. So for example, say the letter A is represented by 1, N by 2 and D by 3. The word AND would be coded 123. You get that?’

‘Yeah, that’s easy to follow.’

‘Right, but in the next sentence, the letter A is represented by 2, N by 3 and D by 4, so AND now becomes 234.’

Mitzi gets it, ‘So everything just moves down a number.’

‘No, sometimes letters and numbers are randomly matched. Hence the name. The cryptologist I spoke to said the only way they cracked it was to create two virtual circles — the outer one had twenty-six letters on it, the inner one had twenty-six corresponding numbers. The letters got a new number every sentence. But this didn’t make sense when they hit the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first and twenty-eighth lines. At those points, the whole sequence reset and sometimes would go backwards or start skipping odd or even numbers.’

‘Days of the week,’ observes Bronty. ‘It reset because there are seven days in a week. Monks used to write what were called Calendar Codes, where every week or every month they changed the key to the code they wrote secret messages in.’

‘Enough,’ says Mitzi. ‘You two are making my head pound. Vicks, just tell me what this damned Camelot Code said.’

The young researcher gets excited. ‘It’s wonderful, weird gothic stuff. You have to read it to make sense of it. I’m sending a transcript of what they’ve cracked so far. It’s from a section called The Fallen.’

‘Can’t wait to read it,’ says Mitzi sarcastically. ‘Anything else to brighten my day?’

‘That’s it.’

‘You said there was bad news.’

‘I did, and you told me to keep it to myself.’

‘I know, but as well as being a lying bitch, I’m nosy as hell. So tell me.’

Vicky braces herself for a verbal backlash. ‘The data you sent to me — it started to self-corrupt as soon as I opened it. I lost a lot of the files and—’

‘What?’

‘Please — before you holler — the cryptologists say it wasn’t my fault. They say it was primed with a suicide bug.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It means that when copies are made on software or hardware that doesn’t belong to the originator the code corrupts. You must have the original authorized copy.’

‘So how come it didn’t corrupt instantly when I sent it to you?’

‘It would have done on any other system but ours. The FBI computers locked the first digits, that’s all. Everything else died within that split-second. The techies say the coding and technology behind all this is super smart — as in intelligence agency smart.’

Mitzi glances at the small memory stick lying free in her purse. ‘Good job I took high security measures to protect the original, then.’

‘Absolutely,’ says Vicky, unaware of the irony.

There’s a ping on Mitzi’s computer. She glances at the screen. ‘Just got your stuff. I’ll go check it with Bronty and one of us will get back to you. Thanks, Vicks.’

She kills the call and Bronty comes round behind her to look over her shoulder.

Mitzi opens her mailbox and clicks on a document marked The Fallen.

The two investigators exchange glances of bewilderment.

Mitzi shrinks the mail and looks for the other document that Vicky promised. ‘Let’s read what she found out about Owain Gwyn before we start trying to work out what all this means.’

The next attachment is a series of factual points. It lacks the lyrical narrative of the decoded transcript but the contents are every bit as dramatic.

Mitzi finishes Gwyn’s biog and types a note to Vicky asking her to dig deeper into the history of the ambassador, his family and his business. She hits SEND, pushes her chair back on its wheels and turns to Bronty. ‘Why, oh why, did I never find a guy like Owain Gwyn? On paper, he’s everything a girl could ask for. A man with almost as many medals as millions.’

Bronty is unimpressed. ‘He’s not all he seems, Mitzi, trust me on that. He has amazing charisma, I’ll grant you, but there’s a dark side to him as well.’ He leans across the laptop and taps the screen with his finger. ‘Look at this: the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for bravery in battle and the Victoria Cross for inspirational leadership on the battlefield. What do those medals mean to you?’

She answers with one word, ‘Hero.’

‘It means he’s a killer. A trained and ruthless life-taker. One so good at it, his government and Queen have awarded him their top prizes for doing so. People like Owain Gwyn redefine the word dangerous. We have to be careful — very careful — in how we deal with this man.’

76

Angelo Marchetti is buzzing from the line of coke he’s snorted in the washroom of a dingy café behind Tottenham Court Road Tube station.

The full rush hits him as he steps into the street and gets swallowed up in the fast, noisy tide of people. His senses are super-sharp. He can smell the rich, roasted coffees they carry in their hands, the sweet dope some of them are smoking, the colognes and perfumes on their cheeks.

His iPhone pulses and he slaps several pockets until he finds it. There’s no number on the caller display but he knows who it’s from. Right now, no one in the world is more important than the man at the other end of the line.

He hits the green answer button, ‘Tell me all my troubles are over.’

The noise on the street disappears as he listens. It seems for a moment the whole world has stopped. Marchetti’s drug-induced high has just been depressingly blown away. ‘You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure.’

The caller is certain. He insists there is no way he could be wrong.

Marchetti looks around the street. The energy has gone. People are only ghosts to him now. He’s lost all connection and feeling for the world around him.

He’s a dead man walking.

Unless he can think of something new, it’s only a matter of time before either Mardrid or Gwyn end his sorry life.

The caller is still on the phone. He wants a decision. In light of what’s happened, he wants to know what needs to be done.

‘Okay,’ says Marchetti. ‘Do what you have to. But do it quickly and never call me again.’

77

It’s late evening by the time Owain Gwyn gets back to his company desk.

Melissa Sachs sticks her head around her boss’s door. ‘Do you need me to stay longer?’

He glances at the clock: 21.15.

‘No, I’m sorry. I had no idea it was that late.’

She smiles understandingly. It’s always that late and he never seems to notice.

‘I’m fine, Melissa. Thanks for hanging on.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She starts to leave, then has an afterthought. ‘Would you like me to order you any food?’

‘No thanks. It’ll do my waistline good to miss a meal.’ He playfully waves her away.

Once she’s gone, he presses a button that locks the door and another that slides back a wooden panel in the opposite wall and reveals an eighty-inch LED monitor. He uses his desk computer to pull up live satellite feeds of the carnage near Ashford and at the same time a video link to the SSOA offices in America.

Gareth Madoc slips into a seat thousands of miles away and activates the conferencing facility. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

Owain takes off the mute control at his end. ‘Loud and clear. How are you?’

‘Holding up. Nothing that a night’s sleep wouldn’t solve.’

‘All in good time. Tell me about our friend Nabil Tabrizi.’

‘We’ve had eyes and ears on him and Malek the bomb-maker since the blast. There’s been no movement from either of them and no contact between them.’

Owain grimaces. ‘I’d hoped Nabil would be careless.’

‘He hasn’t been. Not yet. I think Malek still being around is significant.’

‘Why?’

‘It confirms that the suicide vest wasn’t his handiwork. If it had been, they’d have moved him out of the area for fear of any connection.’

‘Meaning they still want him in NYC to do something else.’

‘I think so.’

‘Then we have to find out who the other bomb-maker is. Do the Americans have any idea?’

‘The CIA is all over the two terrorists seized in the raid on the body shop. They’ve introduced them to a whole new world of pain but neither have given anything up.’

‘They will,’ says Owain. ‘Providing of course that they have anything to give up and the CIA don’t kill them in the process.’

‘We have one lead that might prove fruitful, but I don’t want to raise your hopes prematurely.’

‘They need raising, even if it is only temporary.’

He gives it his best shot. ‘Antun’s death was caught on CCTV cameras at the station. We were able to work backwards, block-by-block following him on street surveillance systems. He came to Grand Central in a white van that had been parked at the back of a group of old row houses down Westchester Avenue. There’s a shot of Antun and the man he fought with and killed getting into it.’

Owain had to cast his mind back ‘Hadn’t we been watching one of Nabil’s safe houses near there?’

‘Yes, but it’s not where he is now. We do however have footage from there showing a young Muslim woman going in, looking terrified.’

Poor kid.’

‘Lucky kid, more like. When she comes out, she’s on her knees, kissing the ground. Praising Allah for something.’

‘Her life.’

‘That’s what I thought. My guess is she was the original candidate for the suicide vest, then Antun volunteered to take her place.’

‘Let’s hope she stayed lucky.’

‘She has so far. I’ve got a crew monitoring her. If we can offer her a new start somewhere far away then she might be turnable.’

‘Does the CIA know about her?’

‘Not yet. But they’ll be doing the same surveillance back-trace that we did, only with more primitive equipment.’

Gwyn drums his fingers on the big table. ‘I’m hesitant because I’m trying to see the bigger picture. Lance has intelligence pointing at an al-Qaeda strike in Rome and I’m trying to reconcile the two locations.’

‘Surely it’s an either or?’

Owain grimaces. ‘Maybe not. Mardrid is pumping money into AQ like never before. For some time, he’s been riding the coat tails of the Muslim Brotherhood, helping them build powerbases in Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Libya. If you couple that with his activities in Africa, you can see an ambitious plan of destabilization.’

‘Good old-fashioned monetary warfare.’

‘War always is, Gareth, and for centuries the Mardrids have funded the most brutal of them. I’ve told Lance I want Josep Mardrid dead, and I mean it. We have to cut the head off the serpent. If we don’t, many innocent lives will be lost.’

78

A simple meal of roasted lamb, new potatoes and summer vegetables is served in a wainscoted room decorated with a hundred and fifty medieval shields. Each one comes from a Blood Line knight, a founding member of the secret Arthurian Order.

The room is wide and tall, with heavy crimson drapes and leaded ceiling-to-floor windows to three walls. In winter, a raging fire would roar in the massive inglenook hearth that dominates the fourth wall.

Lady Gwyn, Lance Beaucoup and Myrddin sit at a long table made from a giant oak that grew for centuries in the castle’s grounds. Down the length of its noble grain stand ten silver candelabras, all dripping candle wax.

Myrddin puts down a silver jewelled wine goblet that he’s owned all his life and blots red wine from his lips with a white cotton napkin. His green eyes settle on Lance as though reading his thoughts. ‘I believe it was February of last year.’

‘What was?’ The Frenchman puts down his knife and fork.

‘This was the first time that you were bold enough to declare your affections to the good lady.’

Lance picks up his wine and drinks nervously.

‘Since then, you have thought of her every morning and every night. You are so hopelessly in love you would die for her. You’d give up your own life in a heartbeat. Wouldn’t you?’

He knows there is no point denying it. ‘I would.’

‘It is good to know there is honour in dishonour, because one day you most probably will have to lay down your life for her. I believe it is something Owain knows as well.’

Lance looks alarmed, ‘Does he—’

Myrddin cuts him off with a mocking smile. ‘You insult both him and me with your question. What is important is that he thinks much of you. He sees you as brave and… gallant.’

The comment angers him. ‘In days of old such gallantry would deserve more than ridicule from an old man.’

Myrddin runs a finger across his throat. ‘In days of old cold steel may have been drawn across warm flesh in response to indiscretion such as yours.’

Lance looks to Jennifer. ‘Was this why you arranged tonight’s dinner? To have me lectured and embarrassed in this way?’

Myrddin prevents her answering. ‘No, it is for me to remind you that discretion is the better part of valour. Some things in the great Cycle are inevitable and it behoves me to instruct those central to its motion to behave in a manner that does not cause concern among the circles. Do you understand, my young and gallant knight?’

‘Enough, monsieur. I am done with this.’ Lance drops his napkin on the table and pushes back his chair. ‘It is better I go and swallow my words, than stay and spit out poison that sickens our future relationship.’

‘As you wish.’

Lance nods at Jennifer and leaves.

Myrddin stretches out his hand and takes hers. ‘He has made a wise decision. In the mathematics of the heart, love and goodness are multiplied by sacrifice and so far your lover has made but a small contribution.’

‘Don’t chide him so.’

‘My child, soon you will be called upon to make the greatest of sacrifices and I need to ensure your account is not empty of love when life withdraws all that matters to you.’

She squeezes tight. Holds on like she did when she was a child and ran to him, frightened. ‘How long has Owain known?’

‘Long enough to prepare and not so long to be immune to hurt. The blackest of times is coming and both your husband and I believe your fiery French friend is best suited to guide you to the light.’

79

At the end of what seems a long day Mitzi and Bronty eat in the hotel restaurant. Soup. Steaks and fries. Nothing fancy. No dessert but one too many glasses of wine. Bloated and sleepy, they crash out as soon as they’re finished.

Mitzi climbs into bed and calls her sister.

Ruth still sounds angry with her. ‘I was wondering if you were going to bother to call.’

She fights back a curt reply. ‘Busy day, Ruthy. You may have noticed there’s been a bombing in the UK. On top of that, I’m still working a double homicide.’

‘I wasn’t criticizing.’

‘Sounded like you were warming up to it. How’s Amber?’

‘A little better.’ Her tone softens. ‘She’s not eating yet but we got her a prescription and she’s moved from the bathroom to her bed. She’s on the mend.’

Mitzi tries to build bridges. ‘Thanks for looking after her. I’m really sorry I’m not there.’

‘Yeah. I wish you were here too. I know what happened with Jack wasn’t your fault.’ There’s an awkward lull before she adds, ‘I just needed someone to blame. Other than me.’

‘Then blame him. Not you.’

‘I know. Hey, what I said about you finding another place. There’s no rush. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.’

‘I’ll find somewhere soon. Promise.’

‘Not too soon. I’m gonna miss having people round.’

‘Oh, we’ll still be around — just not under your feet. Do either of my daughters want to talk to me?’

‘I think Amber’s asleep, but I’ll put Jade on.’ She holds the phone and shouts across the open-plan room. ‘It’s your mom; she wants to talk to you.’

Mitzi hears the sound of the dishwasher being emptied and her daughter’s voice in the background: ‘I don’t want to talk to her. If she can’t be bothered to be here, then I can’t be bothered either.’

‘Jade!’

There’s a pause before Ruth comes back on the phone. ‘Sorry, she’s doing stuff.’

‘Yeah, it sounded like it. I heard her, Ruthy. She’s clearly still mad at me.’

‘She’s a teenager; she’s mad at most things. I’ll try to get her to call you later.’

‘Thanks.’ Mitzi doesn’t want to hang up without acknowledging her sister’s wish to put things right between them. ‘And thanks for not being mad with me any more. I hate it when we row.’

‘Me too.’

‘Then we won’t. Not any longer. Tell the girls I love them and I can’t wait to see them.’

‘Will do.’

She hangs up and feels horribly sad and lonely. Maybe taking this job was the wrong thing. It’s provided the new start she needed but now it’s torturing her with guilt about not being with the kids.

Her cell phone rings. She looks at the number and sees it’s a Washington area code. ‘Fallon.’

‘Lieutenant, it’s Kirstin Collins. I hope I haven’t woken you?’

‘No. But me and my beaten-up face are about to turn in for the night.’

‘Then I’ll try not to keep you. Sophie Hudson, the assistant at Goldman’s, has been found dead in her apartment. Her neck’s broken and her home has been trashed.’

80

It’s gone two in the morning when Angelo Marchetti staggers out of Experientia, a basement club regarded as the West End’s coolest.

He’s more wasted than he’s been for years and is uncertain he can find a cab, let alone his hotel.

Today’s been a shitter. A Grade One crap-a-doodle-dandy of badness.

And even now, out of his brain on poorly cut coke, he can’t bury the thought that he had a young girl killed and still hasn’t recovered the digital data that would have been his passport to an unworried life of plenty.

He staggers down a narrow, dark side street and heads towards the haze of lights at the far end.

He hears the click, a second before a voice demands, ‘Give me your fucking money.’

Marchetti doesn’t answer.

‘Your money, phone ’n’ watch, or I’ll fuckin’ shoot you.’

He doesn’t speak because he’s wondering if it would be a good thing to get shot. To put an end to all the crap he’s in. If the stick-up guy is any good, it’ll be over real quick. ‘Go fuck yourself.’

‘I mean it, man.’ The voice gets closer. ‘Empty your fuckin’ pockets, or I’ll waste you.’

Marchetti’s SSOA training kicks in. He sobers up fast. The loudmouth is a punk but he’s not alone. There are two, maybe three others shuffling in the shadows. In a second, someone will grab him. They’ll throw punches and kicks and pile in on him and have their fun.

‘Okay. Okay!’ He holds up his hands. ‘I’m doing the watch. I’m taking it off.’ He steps forward placidly and then snaps a full-blooded punch into one of the hazy outlines.

‘Fuuuck!’ A shadow reels back holding a broken jaw.

Marchetti drops to the floor and grabs an ankle. He tugs hard and the body goes down. He keeps hold of the foot and twists until the ankle breaks.

There’s a roar of gunfire.

Stick-up boy has finally found the balls to pull the trigger. But it’s only a warning shot. And that’s his big mistake. He’s given away his position.

Before the goon recovers from the recoil, Marchetti is at him. He smacks the weapon away with his right hand and smashes his skull into the shooter’s face.

Someone punches Marchetti in the side. A dull pain registers. He drives an elbow into the attacker’s head and sends him crashing into a wall.

It’s getting messy now and he knows that, even sober, three against one is eventually going to turn bad unless he wants to start killing people.

The blow in his side is achingly painful. He puts a hand down and realizes he’s been knifed not punched.

Marchetti goes after the stick-up guy while he still has the strength. He throws a disciplined right-hander that cracks the gunman’s ribs. The punk gasps for air. Marchetti plucks the gun from his helpless fingers and shoots him in the leg.

The muzzle flash shows the whereabouts of the other two men. He swings and fires low. Leg shots, aimed to cripple, not kill.

The air fills with the smell of cordite and screams of wounded men.

Marchetti jams the gun in his belt and hobbles out of the alley. None of them is going to be rushing after him. Not now. Not ever.