The Camelot Code

143

As the waves of unconsciousness ebb away Mitzi feels a burn in her right shoulder where she’d been stabbed. Any deeper and she’d have bled out. There’s a dull pulse in the centre of her face where her nose has been re-broken. But it doesn’t feel as agonizing as it should. She guesses they’ve given her a shot of something.

Even without opening her eyes, she knows her hands are tied behind her back and she’s sat upright on a hard metal chair, the kind that folds up and can be easily moved. Her ankles have been bound and the lack of sway means she’s no longer on the boat. She guesses the shot was a sedative that kept her quiet while they moved her from the river.

In the blackness beyond her closed eyes, she hears a woman cough. It’s probably the brunette and there’s no doubt at least one man with her as well.

She smells fresh cigarette smoke and sawdust. The air on her face is cool but not cold. From the way sounds come and go, she believes she’s in a medium-sized room rather than a big open space like a warehouse.

‘You want tea?’ asks the woman.

A man answers. ‘Yeah, if you’re making.’

Heels clack across bare boards. Tap water spurts then pounds the metal of a kettle. An electric switch clicks. Mitzi guesses they’re in a private house, office or apartment that is still being built, decorated or renovated.

‘No milk, that okay?’

‘You got sugar?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then three sugars to make up for it being black.’

Mitzi keeps her eyes closed and counts her blessings. They haven’t killed her. Her daughters must still be alive. She’s still figuring out the significance of them moving her, when she hears a door click open and a man speak. ‘She should be awake by now.’

The voice is that of the man with the knife. Mitzi hears him walk towards her. She braces herself.

He puts a hand across her mouth and pinches her nose to block off the airway.

She splutters for breath and finally opens her eyes.

Marchetti squats so he is on her level. ‘Hello again.’

Mitzi looks beyond him. The room is an apartment; she was right about that. The lights are on, meaning it’s night-time. The place has been freshly plastered. There are dust covers everywhere. Sawn floorboards. Tins of emulsion and gloss paint are stacked in a corner.

‘Any idea what this is?’ Marchetti holds a black baton-like object in his hand.

She focuses on it. ‘A metal detector.’

‘Clever girl.’ He steps back. ‘Get her up.’ He hands the security wand to the brunette. ‘Check her out.’

The muscular guy pulls Mitzi off the chair. ‘Spread your legs.’ He laughs. ‘I bet it’s a while since someone said that to you.’

‘Get on with it,’ shouts Marchetti.

The brunette turns on the scanner and runs it up the inside of Mitzi’s legs.

‘Her stomach,’ booms Marchetti. ‘For God’s sake, it’s going to be in her stomach or bowels, not her thighs.’

The woman reddens and switches the paddle to the torso. She moves it slowly and gets a beep off Mitzi’s belt. The muscle unfastens it and pulls it from the loops around her slacks. He unclips the top stud, pulls down the zip and rips open her shirt. The brunette moves the paddle over bare flesh and down to one side, where she gets another beep.

‘Well, well, well.’ Marchetti sounds pleased. ‘Seems you might be telling the truth after all.’ He turns to the muscle. ‘Sit her back down.’

Mitzi watches him walk out of her line of sight. ‘Like I said, release Amber and I won’t leave you in any doubt about whether what’s in my guts is what you want, or just a blank stick.’

‘Clever,’ he shouts. ‘It buys you a little more time because you know I have to check it and therefore I won’t just slice you open.’ She hears him running water, then he appears with a mug and passes it to the brunette. ‘Hold this until I’m ready.’ He pulls open a box of tablets, tosses the cardboard and pops out all the pills from the two metal foils. His eyes light up as he looks at Mitzi. ‘This is going to be messy.’ He grabs her hair and pulls her head back. ‘Open your mouth.’

She keeps it closed.

He chops his fist on her broken nose.

Mitzi screams in pain.

Marchetti forces the laxatives through her teeth and keeps her head tilted back. ‘Water!’

The brunette pours the contents of the mug into her mouth. Mitzi gags. Tries to spit the tablets out.

Marchetti holds his hand over her mouth until she swallows. Mitzi hangs her head forward and wheezes for breath. Marchetti yanks her head back again and forces another handful of tablets over her tongue. This time she doesn’t have the air or willpower to fight. As soon as the water hits her lips, she starts to swallow.

He wipes his wet hand on her and walks away. As he reaches the door, he calls back to his minions. ‘Put her in the closet so she doesn’t make too much mess.’

144

The laptop on George Dalton’s knees shows video feeds from the helmet cameras of the armed response units on the barge on the Thames.

The big old slug of a boat has crawled up to the quayside and moored below the approach to the select development where Mitzi Fallon is being held.

‘Tac response is ready.’ He turns to Owain: ‘We’re getting parabolic microphones trained on the building, we should have audio any minute.’

‘Good. Keep the men on standby,’ says Owain. ‘We have to maximize the chance of getting to the girls before they go in.’ He calls Madoc to catch up on developments across the Atlantic.

‘Gareth, can you speak?’

‘Not for long.’

‘How are we doing on finding the Fallon kids?’

‘Ross Green and Eve Garrett have identified some suspects. They’re pro teams that Marchetti or Mardrid are indirectly linked to. We need time to get a fix on where they are right now.’

‘Time is the one thing we don’t have.’

‘I know. I’ve got six tac teams out in the Bay area, spread both sides of the water, but it’s a big space. To be honest, without top-notch intel on faces and places, we’re going to draw a blank.’

Owain has already contemplated that bleak outcome. ‘If it goes badly, Gareth, I don’t want these animals leaving California in anything but a box.’

‘Understood. Is there anything else?’

‘There is. I’ve decided we can’t let al-Shibh and his followers run until the morning.’

Madoc winces. ‘We have a really good chance of identifying all the key members of this reconstructed cell.’

‘I realize that, but without knowing who their target is, let alone the location and time of the attack, it’s a risk we can’t afford to take.’

‘I just need a little more time. Let it run until al-Shibh takes us to wherever he’s going to lay his head tonight.’

Owain stands firm. ‘We can’t. I’m sorry.’

Madoc blows out a long sigh but doesn’t argue. ‘Okay. How do you want to play it? You going to call Ron Briers at the NIA?’

He wants to soften the disappointment to him. ‘Do you have someone on your “Tried and Trusted” list who you’d like to give a boost to?’

‘Yes, I do. Several people.’

‘Then you call it in. Always good to help those on the way up.’

‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’

‘No need. Just make that call to your guy and make it soon.’

‘Will do.’

Owain turns off the phone.

‘We’ve got sound,’ says Dalton. ‘It’s muffled but I can hear Fallon. She sounds in a bad way.’

145

The brunette spreads newspaper on the floor of the built-in closet. Her muscled friend strips Mitzi waist down, throws her into the space and shuts the sliding doors.

Being treated like a dog hurts almost as much as her busted nose and wounded shoulder. Gradually comes the added grief of extreme stomach cramps caused by the pills. Mitzi suffers in silence for as long as she can, then shouts through the blackness, ‘You guys best get me to a john. And quick.’

There’s a bang on the doors and the muscle shouts back, ‘You just do your mess in there, little doggie, and hurry the fuck up.’ He gives the wood a kick as he steps away.

Mitzi feels lower than low. Time is running out. She shifts sides to try to release the growing cramps. In the blackness she remembers the words of the strange old man at Caergwyn Castle. In her weakest moments she’s capable of the most amazing things.

Pain drains from her wounds and stomach. The thumping in her head stops. She’s able to distance herself from the torture, slip through an imaginary trapdoor and hide away and grow strong.

Mitzi pictures her babies. Remembers them being handed to her in the hospital bed. The soft touch of their faces. The wonder of kissing their cheeks for the first time. The surge of protective, maternal love. A love so strong she’d kill if she had to.

The closet doors slide open. She blinks as light floods her space.

The brunette puts her hand to her mouth and looks like she’s going to be sick. ‘Oh my God, what a fucking mess.’

Mitzi feels no shame. No embarrassment. Whatever happens next, she won’t give in. Won’t give up. Won’t let her girls down.

146

Joe Steffani of the NIA recognizes the incoming number on his desk phone and picks up straight away. ‘Let me guess,’ he says in his Bronx accent, ‘you’re calling to keep me from my kids and you’re gonna ruin my evening?’

‘Ruin it or make it?’ says Gareth Madoc. ‘Depends how you interpret the news I’m about to give you.’

‘Ha freakin’ ha. So, what exactly have you got for me, my strangely well-informed foreign friend?’

‘Ali bin al-Shibh.’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘Seriously. He is here in New York.’

Joe feels his stomach flip. ‘You sure of this? You got eyes on him or something?’

‘Eyes and ears. We’re so close we could floss his pearly whites.’

The NIA man grows suspicious. ‘Why?’

‘Why doesn’t matter. He just recorded a video message in the home of a senior mosque figure; now he’s in a car with a couple of bodyguards heading to JFK. Once he’s there, I guess he’ll go to a private hangar and vanish.’

‘Motherfucker.’ He pulls his jacket off the back of his chair. ‘You got hook-ups for me?’

‘Will have by the time you’ve called a team together. You’ll need other units too. At least four. We’ve got tails on the cell’s bomber, commander and associates.’

‘Jeez! You and your cowboys have been keeping things from us, Gareth. Naughty, naughty.’

‘I consider myself told off. Once you’re up and running we need to talk face-to-face.’

‘You bet your ass we do.’

Madoc hangs up. A screen on his desk shows Zachra Korshidi re-entering the place she calls home. He hopes to God that when everything starts happening he can get her out of there, alive.

147

CARDT psychologist Helena Banks opens the door of her boss’s office. ‘You got a minute?’

‘That’s all I’ve got.’ Bob Beam waves to a chair. ‘I just heard from Spinks. He struck out in Walnut Creek. The single guy who hired the big shack came up kosher. Turns out he’d split from his wife but still went to the cabin he’d rented for her and their three kids. He’d figured he’d paid for it so he might as well use it.’

‘Should have sub-let it,’ says Helena. ‘He’ll need all the dough he can get for maintenance. I’ve been thinking about vehicles.’

‘Go on.’

‘We talked again to Ruth Everett and she said she saw a sedan at the bottom of her drive. It was part of why she bought into the woman’s story about being alone and broken down.’

‘We went through this.’ He pulls a file from a tray stack on his desk. ‘Only two dozen single women renting sedans in the last week and they all paid by credit cards.’

‘I know. But I had research run rentals again and guess what, we have a guy who rented an RV at San Fran International and also a sedan in San Mateo.’

Beam feels his heart jump. ‘You got a name and address?’

She puts a yellow Stick-It on his desk. ‘Chris Wilkins, married man, has a business in LA.’

He peels off the paper. ‘Name and address check out?’

‘Yep. He exists. So does his business. House isn’t his though — it’s rented and the company is a mom-and-pop affair on an industrial estate. Type you could walk away from in a blink.’

‘Record?’

‘None.’

‘Wife?’

‘Teresa. Tess.’

‘You got a picture of him or his lady?’

‘Not yet. We’re pulling some from licensing and Homeland Security.’

‘Rap sheets?’

‘None. Not so much as a write-up for speeding.’

Beam goes back to the root of what he guesses sparked her interest. ‘Why would someone hire a sedan and an RV?’

‘Unusual but not unheard of,’ answers Helena. ‘RVs are good accommodation but only crawl and are hell to park. Sedans get you around faster and more comfortably. What’s strange, though, is that they have no kids, so you’d think motels or hotels would be more to their liking. On top of that, Wilkins rented them both separately and from different firms. It’s not the kind of thing most people do. Folks want to strike a deal, get a two-vehicle discount.’

‘Maybe the sedan was an afterthought and perhaps the wife can’t drive?’

Helena gives a knowing smile. ‘Oh but she can.’

‘She can?’

‘Both the RV and sedan went over the Oakland Bay Bridge around ten p.m., which is about the same time Ruth Everett was regaining consciousness on the floor of her kitchen.’

148

The covert cab parks in the dark adjacent to the SSOA barge and less than five hundred metres from the development block where Mitzi is held.

Owain Gwyn’s cell phone rings. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s done.’ Gareth Madoc sounds deflated. ‘I’ve told my NIA contact and he’s on his way over here. He already has a team meeting with Lanza and they’re circling al-Shibh as we speak. I guess before dawn all our targets will be closed down, though I suspect it’ll be tough to stick them with charges.’

‘Don’t be depressed. We had to choose between trying to catch everyone red-handed or ensuring no one gets hurt.’

‘I know. I just wanted this to be one of those times we managed both.’

‘We saved lives. Hang on to that.’

‘I will. My guy’s here, so I’ve got to go. Before you ask, I’ve nothing new on the Fallon girls but I promise I’ll call you the instant I have.’

‘Thanks. Let’s talk later.’ Owain hangs up and turns to Dalton.

The consul updates him. ‘We’ve got a two-man team on the roof. They’ve heat-scanned the surface and she’s being held in a top-floor room on the western side.’

Owain casts his eyes up into the darkness. ‘Are you thinking of going in from the roof?’

‘Not unless we have to. I want to get a listening device on the window; the feed from the parabolic microphones isn’t as good as I hoped. We’re going to lower an invisible camera as well, a fibre optic one that won’t be seen in this light.’

‘Do we know what Marchetti is doing?’

Dalton covers his earpiece and listens. ‘I don’t think he’s in the room at the moment. I’ve picked up three voices. Fallon’s, a woman’s and a man’s.’

The ambassador glances at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to leave you. The Vatican hasn’t returned my messages and even when they do, I’m sure I know what the answer will be.’

‘They’re not going to call off tomorrow.’

‘No, of course not, it’s too late. Which means I have to get to Cardigan and re-examine the security.’

‘I’m fine here, don’t worry.’ He taps the computer monitor. ‘We’ve got all our best men on this job; we’ll get Fallon out safely.’

‘I know you will.’ Owain leaves his seat and opens the cab door. His private car is just a few hundred yards away. ‘Try not to kill Marchetti. I really want some quality time with our old friend.’

149

Beneath the pitch-black sky Angelo Marchetti stares out at the bright lights of the city. In front of him lies the watery vista of the Thames Barrier and to his right the glass-and-steel forest of Canary Wharf.

When the penthouse he’s in is completed, Mardrid will sell it for millions, no doubt to some rich Russian or Arab. Right now, the whole development is nothing more than bare floors, walls and ceilings.

In his jacket pocket is a rolled up cloth that contains a hypodermic, some clean needles and enough heroin and cocaine to keep any decent rock band high for a month. The temptation to shoot it all into a big juicy vein is almost irresistible.

On a wad of paper towels is the memory stick his team just recovered from the Californian cop.

She’s been lying to him.

The stick isn’t his. It’s smaller, thinner, lighter and empty.

The question now is what to do with her.

Fortunately, Mardrid is not yet on his back. But within a day or two, he will be. And Marchetti knows that if he can’t deliver the details of the knights’ graves, then he might as well dig his own.

He grabs the wad and useless file and strolls into the other room.

As per his orders, the woman’s out of the closet, cleaned up and sat down.

Marchetti grabs another fold-up metal chair and settles opposite her. He holds the memory stick in front of her red and battered eyes.

‘Where’s the real one?’

Mitzi focuses on her girls. Imagines them running to her as toddlers, sweeping them off their feet, holding them tight.

Marchetti shouts this time. ‘Where — the — fuck — is — it?’

She finds just enough saliva for her lips to work. ‘Get Amber to a hospital and I’ll tell you.’

He shakes his head in amazement. After everything he’s done to her, how can she not be broken? What more has to happen for her to simply give in?

He knows the answer. She won’t. He’s seen people like her before: iron-willed, unflinching. Not so very long ago he had been such a person.

Through the window opposite, the sky starts to lighten. He knows dawn will come within the hour and with it intensified efforts in the US to find the girls.

‘All right.’ He sounds exasperated. ‘I’ll release one of your little bitches. I’ll fix it. But I promise you this.’ He steps closer, his eyes wide with rage. ‘If you fuck with me — if you don’t instantly give me what I want, then I will make you watch your other daughter die and it will not be a merciful death. It will be a slow and painful scream-for-mommy death, worse than anything you have ever seen or imagined.’

150

Chris Wilkins honks his car horn as he approaches the hideout, knowing that forgetting to do so could result in a face full of lead.

Tess opens up. A Glock 29 dangles from her right hand; an assault rifle is only a grab away. From his face, she knows something is eating him. ‘Everything okay?’

He takes one long look at the girls. They’re still bound, gagged and hooded but are now separated. One is sat in a chair, her feet tied to the legs and her hands to the back. The other — the injured one — is on the floor, her legs raised and hand bandaged.

‘In the back.’ He nods to the kitchen.

Tess bolts the door and follows him into the adjoining room.

He lets out an anguished sigh. ‘He wants us to free one of the girls.’

‘He what?’

‘The cut one. Says we have to take her to a hospital as far away as possible and leave her there with instructions to call her mom’s cell phone straight away.’

She shrugs. ‘We can get her to call from anywhere. It doesn’t have to be a hospital.’

‘I didn’t tell it right. She has to call from the hospital, so her mother can check she’s there.’

‘Okay. I get it. Smart bitch.’

‘Where’s the best medical centre?’

Tess shrugs. ‘No real idea. I’ll look online. There’ll probably be ones at Oakland and San Ramon.’

‘Have a look east. Find something as far away from here as I could make in an hour.’ He nods at the girl. ‘How is she?’

‘No real trouble. Bled like a haemophiliac after you cut her fingertip off with that carver and she’s been whimpering like a kitten ever since.’

He goes to the fridge and pulls a beer. ‘You want one?’

She takes a bottle and pops the cap. ‘I don’t like this. Don’t like it one bit. You let the other side call the shots and it leads to trouble. Especially if the other side’s a Fed.’

151

Sandra Donovan makes sure the door to her office is shut. It’s a precaution she always takes when she’s about to receive a call as important as the one being put through.

The director of the FBI wants to talk privately to her.

The light on her desk phone flashes. She snatches up the receiver, ‘Yes, sir.’

Peter Lansley’s noted as the kind of boss who likes to warm up a conversation. That’s before he drops a bucket of ice down your pants. So she’s not surprised to hear him start with small talk. ‘How are you, Sandra? I’ve not seen you since the VICAP conference in Quantico.’

‘I’m very fine, sir. Thank you for asking.’

‘Good presentation that day — you certainly got some of the old timers thinking. I’m calling you about the Fallon case; there’s something I need to tell you off the record.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘In a moment you’ll receive a call from a man who will give you two code words: Tole and Mac. That’s Tango, Oscar, Lima, Echo. And Mike, Alpha, Charlie.’

‘I’ve got it, sir.’

‘Good. Because after that, this man will give you some information and believe me, you’ll be able to trust it. He’s a platinum-quality source. The intel we’ve had from him has never once been wrong. Never, Sandra.’

She notes his emphasis. ‘This information, does it come from our side of the line or the other side, sir?’

There’s a hint of laughter in his voice. ‘Our side, Sandra. Very much our side. I told the caller that you could be trusted to deal directly with him. Don’t let me down.’

‘I won’t, sir.’

The line goes dead. Donovan returns the receiver to its cradle and wonders what the hell anyone outside her team or Bob Beam’s squad can tell her about the kidnapping of Mitzi Fallon’s kids.

She doesn’t have to wait long.

Her secretary buzzes through. ‘I have a man on the phone. He says Director Lansley will have spoken to you and you’ll be expecting this call.’

Her eyes widen in anticipation. ‘Put him through, Sylvia. Put him through.’

152

As Owain’s helicopter sifts air over Cardigan he thinks how, centuries ago, this had been the starting and stopping point for hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors. It supported a booming shipbuilding industry, a thriving trade in wool export and a buoyant local community.

Not any more.

Once the river silted up, the big boats stopped coming and economic rot set in. Nowadays it’s a small town with a population of less than five thousand. Tourists tend to be either of the history or religious variety. They visit the eleventh-century castle or St Mary’s, the twelfth-century church that houses the Catholic national shrine of Wales, a statue of the Blessed Virgin known as Our Lady of the Taper and Our Lady of Cardigan.

The shrine is the focus of the new Pope’s visit, the first to Wales for over thirty years. A cause for national celebration. And Owain’s first port of call.

Rain clouds shroud the break of dawn and temperatures are almost frosty as a limousine picks him up and heads across town. Alongside him is Carrie Auckland, a former MI5 high flyer who has been heading his European VIP protective units for the past five years. The forty-two-year-old is kitted out in a black bomber jacket, matching combat pants and sneakers.

She shifts her wiry, athletic frame and tries to reassure him that everything is going to be fine. ‘Every hour of every day, we check bins, drains, post boxes and vantage points along the papal route. There’s not a house, apartment, store or garage we haven’t turned over. There’s no chance of an attempt on his life.’

‘There’s always a chance, Carrie — that’s why I’m here.’

‘Unnecessarily, I hope.’

‘Me too. Don’t for one moment think my early arrival is a vote of no confidence. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best in the business.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s just that the Watch Team insists there will be an attempt on the Holy Father’s life and an extra pair of hands is always useful.’

‘Watch have been wrong before.’ She hands over a manila folder filled with briefing sheets.

‘Many times. And I hope they are today.’

‘The first document is the papal agenda,’ she explains. ‘The second, a list of people who will meet the Holy Father or be close to him. I’ve talked to Vatican security and either you or I will never be more than a few yards away. The third is a profile on the pontiff and his travelling habits. The fourth, an analysis of—’

He cuts her short. ‘Too much, Carrie — just give me the highlights.’

‘Okay. Well, this is the first time a Pope has been in Wales since 1982. He’s visiting Cardigan, Swansea and Cardiff before arriving late in Westminster for Mass in the morning, then a flight to Belgium to bless a further restoration of The Ghent Altarpiece.’

‘We’ll talk about Ghent later. Just focus on Cardigan for the moment.’

‘The village is easy for containment. I think between ourselves, the Vatican and security services we’re locked down safe. The church goes back to the twelfth century but it’s been extended, modernized and a place developed for the shrine.’ She points to the folder. ‘The schematics are all in there. You’ll see that it’s a difficult area to cover, so we’ve had to be extra vigilant there.’

‘Good. You seem very well-prepared.’ He relaxes a little. ‘From a security point of view, what are you most worried about?’

She smiles. ‘The unexpected. The nature of life is that something unexpected always happens.’

153

Sandra Donovan slides two photographs across her desk. One of a man and one of a woman.

Bob Beam picks them up. ‘What are these?’

‘Just sent to me via an untraceable server.’

He smiles. ‘There’s no such thing as untraceable.’

‘Really? Go talk to the tech boys. I just said the same thing to them and they laughed in my face. They’ll bore you rigid with explanations of how these JPEGs got pinged through every IP server in Asia before arriving here.’

He holds up the pictures. ‘And these people are?’

‘Gerry and Susan Stanhope. Paul and Sharron Glass. Steve and Sarah Dopler. Or more familiarly, Chris and Tess Wilkins. According to a trusted source, they’re behind the Fallon kidnapping.’

He stares at the round face of the man and the chiselled cheeks of a blonde woman. ‘We came across the same name when checking out rentals. What’s the source?’

‘I can’t say, but it’s good.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Can’t. It came to me via Lansley.’

His eyes widen. ‘Anything other than pictures to go on?’

Donovan rests her hands on the desk. ‘Apparently, there’s a select group of former soldiers already hunting the Wilkins couple.’

‘Mercenaries?’

‘I don’t know who’s paying or controlling them, just that Lansley says we can trust them. The man who called me supplied a list of all the locations that they’re searching.’

He shrugs. ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

She flips a sheet of paper to him. ‘These are places they say they can’t get to for the next hour. Maybe you can prioritize these addresses as part of your ops?’

‘For the record, I don’t like working on intel I don’t know the provenance of.’

‘Noted.’

He snatches it from her. ‘Eight different locales. Great.’

‘It’s better than we had, Bob.’

He scrapes back the chair, stands and waves the paper at her as he heads for the door. ‘This is going to end badly. Remember I said that.’

‘Make sure it doesn’t and—’

He slams the door.

‘—don’t slam the door!’

154

The sixty-seven-mile journey takes Chris Wilkins an hour and forty minutes.

He drives west into Danville, south to Dublin and then east through Tracy and north up towards Stockton.

About a mile away from the town’s General Hospital, he pulls off the freeway, takes a left and parks near the Chinese Cemetery. He puts a hand across the top of the passenger seat, turns and looks into the back of the Toyota where Amber is tied up beneath a blanket. She hasn’t been given any painkillers or sedatives for more than three hours because he needs her to be lucid when she gets into the emergency room. The lack of drugs means she’s distressed and is moaning so much he wants to clip her.

‘We’re about there. I’ll have you in a hospital in a few minutes. Remember, you get them to call your mom right away. Not after treatment — right away.’

Before restarting the engine, he uses a new burner to call London. ‘The girl will be inside San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton within ten minutes. Call me when she’s connected with the mom, then I’m gone.’

‘I understand,’ says Marchetti.

‘You’d better. And don’t go forgetting that extra risk equals extra payment.’

‘Don’t worry about your money.’

Chris kills the call and dials Tess. ‘I’m there and about to go in.’

‘Good luck, baby. Love you.’

‘Love you too, sweetcheeks.’ He hangs up, checks the time and his gun. Three hours from now, he’ll be catching a flight to Vegas from Stockton airport. Either that or he’ll be running for his life, because once Amber’s made the call to her mother, he’s going to kill her. Then he’ll call Tess and she’ll kill the other one.

After that, they’ll both be gone.

So far gone, it’ll be like they never existed.

155

It’s so long since Gareth Madoc has eaten, his stomach sounds like a damaged washing machine. He unwraps the sandwich his secretary has brought him. It’s his favourite pastrami with mustard on rye and it’s an inch from his mouth when his desk phone rings.

‘Hell and damnation.’ He drops the food back on its greaseproof paper and picks up the call. ‘Madoc.’

‘Don’t sound so crabby; it’s Steffani.’

‘The pick-ups all worked out?’

‘Yeah, even better than that. I owe you one.’

‘You owe me several and don’t you forget. Spill the details.’

‘Bin al-Shibh’s face was a picture. Never saw it coming. He was in a private hangar at JFK about to board a Lear. We had him boxed like a dog.’

‘Any shooting?’

‘No. Came without a tear. We have him at CTU under interrogation. Mousavi and Tabrizi are a different story.’

‘More troublesome, I guess.’

‘You guess right. Tabrizi is a fit boy. We took him at the house your people had been sitting on, but he fought like crazy. Had to break his face and some ribs before he gave up. Mousavi we took down in a cheap diner over the east side, when he went to the men’s room. Can you believe this — he had one hand on a concealed gun even while taking a leak.’

‘It’s what you call being tooled up.’

‘Ha freakin’ ha. My agent wasn’t laughing — the fucker shot him in the foot and pissed all over him.’

‘He okay?’

‘Yeah, the injury’s the kind that’ll fade but the story won’t.’

‘What about Malek Hussan?’

‘Made us on the street and ran for it. After fifty yards, he had to stop and give up. Poor fuck nearly wheezed himself into a heart attack.’

‘Korshidi?’

‘Just this minute swept him up. He’s playing it smart, alleging discrimination against him and his mosque. He’ll change his tune when we run him the tape he made of al-Shibh.’

‘Now you’ve got him, I’m going to take his daughter out of circulation; she was one of our main sources.’ As an afterthought he adds, ‘Maybe we’ll scoop up her mother too. Can you help with a safe house if necessary?’

‘Least I can do. We’ve got a place in Greenwich. It’ll be good for a day or so.’

‘Thanks. I guess none of them have given up the location of the planned explosion?’

Steffani laughs. ‘That’s the second guess you’ve got right. I’ll call you if anyone sings, but don’t hold your breath, buddy.’

156

It’s bedlam in ER.

Charge Nurse Betty Lipton’s working a double and has just had a surgeon and two nurses call in sick.

Theatre is backed up with all manner of injuries. A lumberjack who chain-sawed a thigh bone. Two separate road traffic incidents with complicated crush and skull injuries. And a father of two who tried to blow his own head off with a handgun.

‘Nurse!’

She ignores the shout from the rows of the walking wounded.

‘Nurse!’

She looks up from her computer. Several people are stood peering at something. No doubt a collapse.

‘Nurse!’

‘Okay! Save your blood pressure, I’m coming.’ She rounds the desk and heads over. Plastic seats are pushed back.

Someone’s out for the count at the back of the room.

‘Move to one side, give me some room.’

On the ground is a teenage girl. She’s wrapped in a Tartan car blanket that someone’s pulled open. Her legs and hands are bound. There’s a gag in her mouth.

Stapled to her chest is a note.

157

Amber Fallon is lifted onto a gurney and rushed into a treatment cubicle. Nurses check vital signs, they hook up drips and unwrap blood-stained bandages around her hand.

Outside the curtain, Betty Lipton hands the note to hospital administrator Ann Lesley, and brings her up to speed. ‘Kid’s called Amber Fallon. She’s got a partially severed finger and is wiped out. Says she has to call her mom straight away or her sister gets killed.’

Lesley reads the note. ‘You think she’s genuine, or is this a clinical case of attention grabbing?’

‘Munchausen is always hard to tell. I guess we make the call to her mom and find out.’

‘I want to see her first.’

Betty leads the way into the cubicle.

Amber is propped up on a pillow and looks frightened. She jabbers as soon as she sees them, ‘I have to call my mom — the man said.’

Lesley lifts a handset from a wall mount. ‘What’s her number, honey?’

‘It’s in my pocket.’ She can’t get at it because her hand is still being cleaned up. ‘It’s not my mom’s cell but one that the man said she’d be on.’

Betty gets it for her and hands it across.

‘What man do you mean, honey?’ Lesley checks the digits on the note and enters them.

‘The one who took us. He said if I don’t call straight away, he’ll kill Jade.’

‘Jade’s your sister?’ She hits dial.

‘Yes.’ She sounds close to breaking.

The number rings out and is instantly picked up. ‘Hello.’

‘This is Ann Lesley from San Joaquin Hospital. Who is that?’

‘Lieutenant Fallon — do you have my daughter?’

She’s surprised the mom is a cop. ‘Yes, I do. Amber’s just being treated by some of my staff. Mrs Fallon—’

Mitzi cuts her off. ‘Lady, I don’t have time for questions. Give me the main number of your hospital, so I can call back and confirm you are who you say you are. Please do this right away — a lot of lives depend on it.’

‘The number you need is four six eight, four seven hundred. If you’re calling from out of Stockton the area code is two zero nine. Tell reception to put the call through to ER and they’ll route it to me.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘She’s fine, Mrs Fallon. She’s in safe hands now.’

Mitzi feels like she’s going to cry. ‘Thanks.’

The administrator hangs up, ducks the curtain and shouts to the triage desk. ‘Call switchboard and say they’re about to get a call for me. It’s urgent and needs to be put through immediately.’

Lesley looks around the waiting area as the nurse calls the operator. ER is jammed to bursting. She wishes there was somewhere she could shift all these patients to.

She re-enters the cubicle and looks at the young girl on the bed. Poor kid is stressed out and, judging from the whiteness of her skin, pretty bled out too.

She takes a tissue from a box at the side of the bed and wipes tears welling up in the corners of Amber’s reddened eyes.

The phone on the wall rings. Everyone stares at it.

Lesley snatches it from the cradle. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s Mitzi Fallon. Are you still with Amber?’

‘Yes, Mrs Fallon.’

‘Then for God’s sake get her somewhere safe and call the—’

The line goes dead.

Amber looks up at the administrator. ‘What did Mom say?’

She puts a reassuring hand to the girl’s face. ‘She says you’re not to worry. Everything’s going to be fine.’

158

‘San Joaquin Hospital — Amber Fallon has just been admitted to the ER.’

Bob Beam looks up from his desk at Assistant Director Donovan. ‘Your source again?’

She corrects him. ‘Lansley’s source.’

His instinct is to check. Always check before you deploy. He picks up his desk phone. ‘Get me the administrator at San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton. I’ll hold.’

The AD lets out a sigh of frustration. ‘You need to get a team there, Bob, and you need to do it quick.’

He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I need to be sure, Sandra. Post budget cuts mean we have too few people and once they’re gone they’re gone.’

His secretary comes on the line. ‘Putting you through now.’

A woman’s voice follows. ‘Ann Lesley; who am I talking to?’

‘This is Special Agent Robert Beam from the FBI in San Francisco. Can you confirm for me that you’ve just admitted a young girl called Amber Fallon?’

The line goes silent for a moment. ‘Agent Beam, do you have a number I can call you back on to verify you are who you say you are?’

‘Jesus Christ, lady, I don’t have time for this—’

‘A number, please.’

‘Five, five, three, seven four hundred and make it fast.’ He slams down the phone and looks up at Donovan. ‘She wants to check who I am.’

‘Checking can be so annoying, eh?’ She’s red-faced with anger as she flips out her phone and taps in a number. ‘Eleonora, it’s Sandra Donovan. Get yourself to San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton. Run the lights. Mitzi’s daughter Amber has just been admitted.’

Beam is about to argue when his phone rings. ‘H’lo.’

‘Agent Beam?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Ann Lesley. We do have Amber Fallon. She’s with me right now and she’s a very frightened young lady—’

‘We’re going to get some agents out to your hospital, ma’am.’

‘She was left in ER with a note pinned to her chest saying the police were not to be called. She claims her sister is in great danger—’

‘We know about that, ma’am. Thank you for your help.’ He glances down at the two face shots Donovan gave him. ‘Can you tell me, was she with a man or woman? A big man, round faced with dark hair, or a woman, probably blonde hair, quite pretty?’

‘No, sir. She wasn’t with anyone. She’d just been left here.’

‘Can I talk to her?’

‘Not right now. We’ve given her a sedative and need to get her X-rayed and treated.’

‘Call me when you’re done.’ He hangs up and turns to Donovan.

The AD’s gone.

‘Shit.’ He bangs a hand down on the desk.

159

Marchetti’s slap knocks the phone out of Mitzi’s hands.

There’s wildness in his eyes. It’s a look she’s seen before. Usually on the face of a murderer or rapist she’s hunted down. Sometimes on that of her ex-husband.

Marchetti grabs her by the throat and squeezes hard. ‘One daughter freed. That was the deal.’ He shows a smartphone in his other hand. ‘Now, do you want to watch the other one being chopped up, piece by piece — or are you going to give me my fucking memory stick?’ He lets go and leaves her spluttering.

Mitzi struggles to get her breath.

Marchetti gives her a second then grabs her by the hair and lifts her head. ‘Where is it?’

‘Dean Street.’

‘Be more specific.’

‘I bagged and wired it. Sealed it in an evidence bag and hung it down a street drain outside the hotel where I stayed.’

Marchetti sizes up a punch, one to teach the bitch a lesson.

There’s a blinding flash. Smoke.

The brunette screams.

There’s gunfire. Pistol shots. Pop. Pop. Pop. The raw stutter of semi-automatics. Blue and orange muzzle flashes in the dark, smoky haze.

Then silence.

160

George Dalton watches the tac teams on split-screen feeds on his laptop.

Soon after the team leader and his right-hand man go through the window, four SSOA operatives take out the front door of the apartment and come in as back-up.

Once the shooting stops, Dalton switches to the single night-vision camera on the helmet of the team leader. The viewing frame fills with a pea-green sea as the former marine crunches his way over shattered glass, splintered wood and bodies.

The first corpse to come into focus is one of the bodyguards. He’s bleeding out in a classic dead man’s sprawl near the doorway. A Glock rests in his loose fingers.

Next to him is what remains of a thin, young woman. Most of her face and chest have been chewed away by the bullets of an MP5.

The body of a second bodyguard is against the foot of an adjacent wall, legs stretched out, back against a doorframe. It looks to Dalton like he’s been shot as he came in from another room.

The leader’s camera tracks across to the centre of the foggy room. Two SSOA men are bent over Angelo Marchetti.

Dalton speaks into a microphone. ‘Leader One from Base: is he alive?’

‘This is Leader One — that’s a negative Base. Target is not alive.’

‘Shit!’ Dalton remembers Owain’s request to have ‘quality time’ with their former colleague. ‘And Fallon?’

The team leader swings his head so the camera shows her. Mitzi’s chair is upturned. She’s lying on her back. Her knees point at the ceiling. The operative moves close.

Dalton hears the American’s voice. ‘About freakin’ time. Help me off this damned chair. Get me a phone, or by Christ I’ll make an even bigger mess than you just did.’

161

Eleonora Fracci has Mitzi in mind as she guns up the Crossfire and burns rubber out of San Ramon. Specifically, it’s the moment they met in the squad room and Fallon showed them a framed shot of her daughters at Disney. She’d never seen anyone look at a photo as proudly as Mitzi had. More than anything, she wants to see a new frame there — one showing Mitzi and the girls with Mickey. Hell, she might even go with them and take it herself.

She drives with one hand and finger-punches the address of San Joaquin Hospital into the sat-nav stuck to her windshield. The display tells her she’s fifty miles and fifty minutes away. ‘Idiota!’ She’s confident she’ll do it in thirty. The old six-speed Chrysler has a three-litre turbocharged V6 under its brilliant red hood and its limiter has been removed.

By the time she hits the 1-680, she’s topping a hundred and fifty. San Ramon Central Park. Bishop Ranch Open Space. Athan Downs and Dublin Hills are all just a smear against the Crossfire.

Then the traffic backs up.

At the Donald D. Doyle Highway, the road becomes a parking lot. Drivers hammer horns. Local radio says there’s a pile-up on the intersection with the Arthur H. Breed, the freeway she needs to use.

Eleonora flips on her sirens and lights. Traffic is fender-to-fender. It takes ten minutes for her to get off at Dublin Boulevard and run a road parallel to the blocked freeway.

There are stacks of red tail-lights up ahead. Others seem to have had the same idea. She hits the lights and sirens again. The sat-nav says she’s coming to the end of the Boulevard and needs to re-join the freeway in less than a mile.

Eleonora picks up her radio and calls Donovan. ‘I’m stuck in traffic. It’s really bad.’

‘How bad is really bad?’

She looks again and flinches. ‘I could still be half an hour away. You best get a local cop to the hospital until I fight my way through this.’

Donovan doesn’t answer, but Eleonora’s certain she hears her boss swear, just before she slams the phone down on her.

162

Chris Wilkins is counting seconds.

His instructions from Marchetti were very clear. Take the girl to the hospital and wait there. If he didn’t get a call within half an hour, kill the kid and get Tess to do the same with the other one.

Not that he minds.

Murder had always been on the cards. He’d just never imagined doing it in a hospital in Stockton.

He pumps a hospital vending machine for coffee and checks his watch.

Two minutes.

If he doesn’t get a call in one hundred and twenty seconds he’s going to walk back into ER, find the girl and put a bullet in her head. He’s already dumped his hired sedan in case they get a trace on it and has broken into a car on the staff lot and left it ready to hotwire.

Sixty seconds.

The coffee tastes like crap. He drops it in a trashcan and heads to a washroom. He goes into a stall, takes a leak and removes his black flight jacket. It’s a reversible one. Once he turns it inside out, it’s red and looks strikingly different.

The digital watch on his wrist beeps.

Time’s up.

He checks his gun and steps out of the stall. There’s no one else in the washroom. He calls Tess. ‘It’s me.’

‘Hi.’

‘No call. Do it.’

She hesitates. ‘Okay.’

The mirror over the taps throws back the reflection of a hardened killer. One who’s wasted plenty of people. But never a kid.

He tells himself there’s a first time for everything and heads out the door.

163

Tess Wilkins looks across the shack’s open lounge to the young girl bound and hooded on the sofa.

She knows what she has to do and knows the risk of not doing it. Dead captives tell no tales. Live ones cause trouble.

She goes into the crummy bedroom and gathers what little stuff she and Chris have in there. She jams clothes into a rucksack, then walks to the bathroom.

Toothbrushes, paste, soap, hair dye, shaving gear and hairspray get swept into the bag as well.

In the kitchen, she empties the pedal bin onto the floor. There isn’t much in it, just some fast-food packages and hand wipes. Under a microscope, though, there’d be enough DNA to send both her and her beloved to the Big House. Tess spreads everything out, then goes to the five-gallon jerry can that Chris left by the door. She pops the cap, hauls it as high as she can manage and sprinkles gasoline.

Tess sloshes the fuel liberally in the kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom and then pauses as she enters the lounge area. There’s an order to things and she doesn’t want to mess up.

She puts the can down, takes the rucksack outside to the RV and throws it in the passenger side of the cab. She slips the keys into the ignition and pauses for a second to think of anything she’s missed.

There isn’t.

She plans to walk back inside, put a cushion around her gun, and then shoot the kid in the head. After that, she’ll empty the rest of the jerry, light a match and torch the place to get rid of any forensic traces. While the shack’s burning she’ll be driving. Before it’s even extinguished she’ll be at the airport. With any luck, by the time they start asking the serious questions, she’ll already be back in LA mixing a cocktail for Chris.

All she has to do now is go back inside and pull the trigger.

164

Sandra Donovan has no choice but to call Stockton’s Chief of Police. What she’d most like to do is locate whatever squad car is nearest San Joaquin Hospital and get the officers sent over there as fast as possible. But there are protocols and chains of command to respect.

The chief assures the assistant director that he fully understands the urgency of getting officers there until her agents arrive. As soon as she hangs up, he stresses the very same point to his deputy, who in turn undertakes to get on the case straight away.

The deputy calls his watch commander who then alerts his two strategic operations commanders. And so, fifteen minutes after Sandra Donovan’s call, a cruiser eventually rolls out of Police HQ in East Weber Avenue bearing senior patrolmen Darren Ratcliffe and Tony Emery.

As they hit the freeway they are less than fifteen minutes away from the hospital, more like ten if Emery puts his foot to the floor, like he usually does. Only yesterday, he got a reprimand for driving too fast and dangerous, so he’s not going to be dumb enough to make that mistake again.

165

Two of the tac team carry Mitzi out of the apartment block and into a private ambulance.

Dalton rides with her and calls for a clean-up squad to put the building back the way it was, before they sprayed it with thunderflashes and bullets.

He finishes the call and leans over Mitzi. ‘Stupid question, but how are you feeling?’

‘Like shit in a blender.’ She thinks of what she just said. ‘Scrub that. I never want to hear the word shit again.’

‘We have a hospital near Temple. Doctors are on standby to check you out.’

‘I don’t care. I just want to speak to my girls.’ She tries to sit herself up and falls back, wincing with pain.

‘Relax. I’ve called the FBI and they’ve got people on their way to Stockton where Amber called you from.’

‘Have you found Jade?’

‘Not yet. We still don’t know where she is, and nor do your colleagues. But we’re working together on it.’

Mitzi’s spirits sink. The whole point of her going in there and surrendering to those damned people, was to buy the time necessary to recover both her girls. She looks to Dalton. ‘You got a phone?’

He holds one out.

‘Call that hospital for me; I have to talk to Amber.’

He gets reception, then ER, then the administrator and finally Mitzi’s daughter. ‘Amber, hold on, I’m going to put your mom on the line.’ He passes the handset to Mitzi.

‘Baby, is that you? Are you all right?’

‘I guess.’ The teenager is sat beside Betty Lipton waiting for a doctor. ‘My hand aches in a really weird way. It’s like all my finger’s still there and someone’s squeezing it in pliers or something.’

Mitzi feels her heart break. ‘Be strong, honey. Have they given you anything for the pain?’

‘Yeah, they’re being real nice, Mom.’ There’s an awkward silence and then she adds, ‘ Mom, I’m sorry about what happened. They just grabbed us — I had no time to shout to Jade or—’

‘Baby, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You’re safe now, that’s all that matters. I’m still in London but I’ll be on a plane real soon and with you in less than half a day.’ She looks to Dalton for reassurance and he gives her a silent nod.

‘I love you, honey. I love you so much and I’m coming home to look after you and make sure you are all right.’

‘I love you too, Mom.’ She can’t hold back the tears now. Tears of relief. Tears of trauma.

‘Don’t cry, sweetheart, you just hang in there now. Get some rest and do whatever the doctors tell you. You hear me?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’ She blows her nose on a tissue the nurse passed her. ‘Mom, is Jade all right?’

‘She’s going to be fine as well.’ She looks up at Dalton but this time there’s no reassuring nod. ‘We’re Fallon women, aren’t we? And you know us girls always come out winners.’

166

There’s an empty seat in the ER waiting room, three rows back, four seats from the end. Chris Wilkins slides his big frame onto the grey plastic.

It’s the perfect place to sit and watch.

He hears names being called. Sick people hobble into curtained cubicles to see exhausted medics. Trolleys pass, bearing horizontal patients and vertical drip stands. Minute by minute the scene repeats itself.

He watches and listens. Finally, he sees her. A nurse has an arm around Amber and a suited woman is on her other side, guiding her down the corridor.

Wilkins drops the newspaper he hasn’t been reading and tags along. Overhead signs signal different departments. He hangs back to avoid being seen.

Part way down a corridor they head into an area marked X-RAY.

Wilkins walks slowly along the passage and stands in the doorway. The department is jammed with people waiting to be scanned. The woman in the suit speaks to the receptionist and they’re told to go straight on through.

Wilkins steps into the corridor and checks his escape routes. Either back the way he came, or through a door marked Emergency Exit. By his reckoning, the latter will bring him out close to the staff parking lot and the car he’s broken open.

He walks into X-Ray reception and keeps his head down and face away from the nurse behind the desk.

As he approaches the closed theatre doors, he hears her call after him, ‘Excuse me, sir. You can’t go in there.’

He pushes a door open.

Two women turn and stare at him. His eyes flit across the room. The Fallon girl isn’t there. He can’t see her anywhere.

A nurse approaches him. ‘You need to wait outside, sir.’ She puts her right arm on his shoulder and tries to usher him out.

He shakes her off. ‘Where’s the girl? The girl you were with?’

The comment sparks the suited-woman into life. ‘Who are you?’

He shifts his jacket so they see his gun. ‘I’m a federal agent. I’ve been sent to protect her.’

They both look relieved.

‘She’s just using the washroom,’ says the nurse. Her face lights up as over his shoulder she spots her returning. ‘Here she is now.’

Amber catches the nurse’s eye. And a glimpse of the man. She recognizes him instantly.

He starts to turn.

Amber grabs the handles of a wheelchair by the door and runs it hard into him. Extended metal foot rests smash into his shins. Wilkins loses balance and falls.

‘It’s him!’ screams Amber. ‘The man who took me.’ She runs from the theatre.

Wilkins has lost neither gun nor focus. He scrambles to his feet. The charge nurse bars the doorway.

Wilkins shoots her in the chest and steps over the body.

There are screams all around him. He shuffles out into the waiting room, his right ankle burning with pain. Scared patients jam up the reception. ‘Get the fuck outta my way!’ He raises the gun and they clear his path.

In the corridor, he catches sight of Amber running through a mass of people. He lets off two high shots and they bring down part of the ceiling. Everyone but the girl hits the ground. An alarm goes off behind him. He ignores it and tries not to rush his shot. She’s twenty yards away weaving left and right. Smart kid.

But not smart enough. He squeezes the trigger.

A roar bowls down the corridor.

Amber throws up her arms and falls face first.

An alarm goes off in front of him. More people spill into the corridor. They’re coming from all directions. He has to get out of there. Has to make it to the parking lot and the waiting car.

Wilkins snatches another shot at the fallen body and runs.

167

More than anything, Mitzi wants to shower.

She lets the hospital medics stitch up her shoulder and give her a booster jab, then she grabs a luxury white robe from a brass hook on the back of an expensive oak door and tells them all to scram.

The en-suite bathroom to the private room where she’s being treated has one of those waterfall showers that she’s seen in expensive hotels.

Mitzi turns it on full, dips her head under the warm water and stands there with one hand on the wall to make sure she doesn’t slip or pass out. Once she’s acclimatized, she grabs shampoo and pours out enough to soap a field of sheep.

Her face is greasy and tender. Blood has dried and clogged inside her nostrils. For almost a minute, the water runs red while she cleans herself up. Inevitably, she gets her shoulder-dressing wet. She’s too sore to wash anything below knee height and too stiff to raise her legs. Right now, she’d pay a thousand bucks for someone to scrub her feet.

The cubicle glass is completely steamed up by the time she gingerly steps out and eases her battered body into the fresh-smelling white robe.

With some difficulty, Mitzi manages to towel surplus water off her hair and opens the door to the hospital room.

Dalton is stood there.

‘Holy fuckola!’ She puts a hand to her heart. ‘I thought you Brits were supposed to have real good manners.’

He knows there’s no kind way to break the news. ‘I’m afraid your daughter Amber’s been shot. She’s in surgery fighting for her life.’

Mitzi doesn’t take it in. ‘No, that can’t be. I spoke to her. I called her on your phone. That’s not—’

‘The man who abducted her went into the hospital and shot her. He killed a nurse, too.’

Her legs turn to jelly. She puts a hand on the wall but her knees fold and she collapses against the side of the bed.

Dalton rushes to her side. Tries to pick her up.

She pushes him off. She’s on her knees and she can hear herself praying to a God she’s not sure even exists.

He stands patiently next to her. Waits for the moment when she’s ready for him to help her up and then hurt her some more by telling all the details.

168

Fresh alarm bells sound as Chris Wilkins hits the horizontal metal bar on the red door and kicks open the Emergency Exit.

He’d hoped to catch the kid clean. A quick kill in a quiet corner of the hospital, then slip out while people were still in shock. Now he’s leaving in a hail of alarms and he’s not sure he’s done enough to finish her. Even worse, he’s noticed a security camera on the way out that he didn’t see on the way in.

By his reckoning, unless he’s away from the hospital grounds and out of sight within the next ten minutes he’s going to end up in a police body bag. He walks briskly around the building and turns sharp right. At least his sense of direction is good. The staff parking lot is straight ahead. Within five strides he sees the Ford he’s broken into and left ready.

He skids down a short grass bank, clatters into a green Chevy and clambers around the back of it. When he gets to the blue Ford he yanks open the driver’s door, tumbles in and pulls it shut. He sits and drips sweat while checking the windshield and rear-view mirror.

So far so good.

He wipes his brow with his forearm and jams the cables together. The engine growls. Before driving off, he takes another beat to compose himself. This isn’t the time to make stupid mistakes. He has to appear just like any other driver. Law-abiding. Careful. Maybe shocked by all the noise and activity around him.

He pulls on his safety belt and adjusts the rear-view. People are spilling out of the building. The panic is starting. He stays calm. Drives slowly around the lot and onto one of the hospital’s service roads. Coming up to the exit he sees a police cruiser screaming towards him. Its rooftop blues are flashing disco crazy.

Wilkins coolly indicates. He pulls over and gives the squad car maximum room to blast past. Other drivers in front and behind follow suit. He’s lost in the crowd.

Once the cruiser has gone he tags behind the car in front and leaves by the main exit.

Now he has to think.

For the next half-hour, the cops will be glued up gathering details. It’ll be all about the nurse and the Fallon girl. Gradually, they’ll get their shit together and pull pictures of him from the CCTV and wire them to patrol cars across the county. Soon after that, someone at the hospital is going to report their car missing and then the Ford will be useless.

A red Chrysler Crossfire with police lights strobing its grille flashes past him.

Wilkins has a bad feeling. Local cops don’t drive cars like that.

It must be Feds. It means it’s no longer safe to catch the flight Tess has booked him on. He’ll have to try another airport, or find a new way out of the country.

169

Tess Wilkins puts the jerry can in the RV and returns to the shack. Her hands stink of gasoline. She goes to the sink, soaps and scrubs.

She dries on a hand towel, tosses it on the floor and walks to the grubby sofa. She picks up a stained cushion and wraps it around the muzzle of her pistol.

Less than two feet from her, Jade Fallon is curled up against the other arm of the furniture. The kid’s hands are still tied behind her back, her mouth taped and head hooded. She’s so motionless that Tess guesses she’s asleep.

Or dead.

Maybe she suffocated. Tess watches the youngster’s chest and sees it slowly rise and fall.

Pity.

If the girl had been dead, she’d just burn the place and be gone. In the last few minutes, she’s been growing squeamish. Even gotten to wondering if she could let the kid live. The proposal still appeals to her conscience. But not her sense of self-survival. And Tess Wilkins is ruled by self-preservation.

She swallows hard, lifts the muffled gun and looks away as she shoots Jade in the head. It’s louder than she expected. Like an echo. The recoil more powerful than she’d imagined.

Then the pain and realization kick in. She’s not only fired a shot, she’s been shot.

Fire spreads through her chest and back. Tess stumbles and sees a small, thin woman in the doorway, hands outstretched and a gun clasped between them.

She must have got a round off at the same time.

Tess Wilkins coughs blood as she hits the floor. At least she killed the kid. It’s one less witness against Chris.

170

Eleonora Fracci follows the screams.

She finds two lone cops in X-ray playing King Canute with a tidal wave of panicking patients. She flashes her shield at the older police. ‘I’m looking for Amber Fallon, a teenage girl, daughter of a colleague.’

He shakes his head. ‘She’s in ER — they’re operating.’

‘What happened?’

‘Guy busts into here, shoots a nurse, chases the girl down the corridor and pops her before he cracks a fire exit and disappears.’

‘How badly hurt is she?’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno. Bad, I guess.’

Eleonora notices blood pooled in the doorway to the X-ray room. As she gets closer she sees the body of the nurse. It’s been turned. There are smears on the floor where someone tried to save her. Bloody footprints lead away. They’re small. A woman’s, not a man’s. No doubt made by someone professional enough to have known that once death was certain the body would have to be left in situ for the cops and ME.

Eleonora looks at the gunshot wound. It’s left of chest and looks like it was made from no more than three feet away. It takes a special kind of animal to kill like that. One that’s killed before. One that feels nothing when he looks into the eyes of another human being and takes their life.

She makes the sign of the cross and says a quick and silent prayer for the dead woman’s soul, then she heads back to the cop. ‘Did anyone get a description of the gunman?’

He points to a camera above the reception desk. ‘We’re searching the tapes. That little baby should have a clean shot of him.’

‘That’s what I want,’ says Eleonora. ‘A clean shot at this bastard.’

‘There’s a queue,’ says a tall, dark-haired man who has appeared just a few yards from her.

She looks at him suspiciously.

‘I’m Ross Green and I guess you’re Agent Fracci.’ He jabs a thumb over his shoulder to the corridor. ‘Can we talk outside?’

171

SSOA agent Eve Garrett drags the woman’s body off the sofa so she can get to the girl.

Blood seeps from the black hood pulled tight over Jade’s head. She grabs the drawstring, unties it and carefully pulls off the cloth.

Jade is unconscious and unresponsive. Her mouth still taped.

Eve guesses there’s a wound around the temporal or parietal bones on the left side of her head. She pulls off the tape, puts her fingers into a river of red and feels for a pulse.

There isn’t one.

She puts her hand to Jade’s mouth and can’t feel any breath. Eve’s not ready to give up. She presses the button on her radio. ‘I need paramedics and I need them Superman fast.’

Control has her coordinates so she doesn’t waste time waiting for a reply. Eve digs out a Swiss Army knife from her pocket and uses the blade to sever the thick plastic band around the girl’s wrists. She picks her up, lays her on the floor and checks her airway before she starts CPR.

Two beats in, Eve spots the muzzle-flash burns on the cushion. She can’t help but wonder what kind of woman could execute a young girl like that. Death was too good for the bitch.

She checks again for a pulse. There still isn’t one.

‘Goddamn it, come on!’ She starts another cycle of chest compressions. ‘Don’t give up on me, girl.’

Eve knows that the statistics are stacked against her. CPR seldom saves the lives of people shot and bleeding like this.

But there’s always a chance.

The wound is fresh, less than five minutes old, and that means there’s a slim hope of saving the brain from damage and keeping the heart pumping.

Sweat pours down Eve’s face. Muscles in her wrists and arms ache. But she doesn’t stop.

The door to the shack has been hanging open ever since she walked in. Through it she hears the thwack of helicopter blades. ‘They’re coming, honey,’ she whispers to Jade. ‘The paramedics will be here any minute.’

Dust blows in the doorway. The hum of rotors makes the floor vibrate.

She looks up and sees two medics. One has a defib machine, the other an oxygen kit and medicine case.

172

Inside the church of Our Lady of the Taper, one of the dog handlers respectfully calls an all clear. A watching inspector gives a thumbs-up. Another handler and his sniffer dog weave in and out of rows of seats.

Owain leaves them to it and walks the building on his own. He knows everyone is going to be searched and no one can get in here without prior vetting and electronic scanning. But he has a bad feeling — the kind Myrddin taught him never to ignore.

The service is being filmed, relayed to crowds outside and broadcast live to the world, but only three camera points have been allowed and none are on the altar. Covert but armed police are stationed at all three points and at the sound control desk. All the televisual crews have been thoroughly validated and will be body-searched each and every time they pass through the church.

Owain walks outside and watches officers direct onlookers to strategic areas behind street barriers. There are two cordoned-off sections specifically for photographers, journalists and camera crews. Over his head a trio of police helicopters circle high, wide and near.

Carrie Auckland walks through a checkpoint. She’s now more suitably attired for a church service, in a knee-length blue dress with high neckline.

As soon as she reaches him she breaks the news. ‘The Vatican helicopter has just touched down and the Guard are making the transfer to the Popemobile.’

‘How long?’

‘Ten minutes. No more.’

173

Eleonora makes Ross Green stand outside her car while she checks with Donovan that he is who he says he is, some PI from a hotshot international company she’s never heard of with special clearance from the FBI director to work on the case.

She rings off and shrugs. ‘My boss says you can help.’

‘Glad I passed the test.’ The SSOA operative leans against Eleonora’s Crossfire. ‘The shooter is called Chris Wilkins, aka several other false names. We believe his real identity is Charlie Wood, an unspectacular name for a very special breed of killer, kidnapper and all round bad guy. He’s married to an equally obnoxious waste of human DNA called Theresa Wood, née Tobin.’

‘And how do you know this?’

‘It’s my job to know it. Like I said, we’re on the same side. My colleagues are trying to help your colleague, and right now Wilkins is getting away.’ Ross dips into his jacket pocket and pulls out a fold of paper. ‘He’s booked on a flight out of Stockton in an hour. My betting is that after all this heat he’s going to skip it.’ He sees her going for her phone. ‘I’ve already got someone at the airport. And at Byron and Livermore Tracy and Camp Parks. Then I’m blown. Fresh out of personnel.’

‘And you want me to fix cover at the other airports?’

He nods. ‘I have a feeling he’ll try for a small private plane out of the state, then go international for a while.’

‘I can do this. I’ll call my office again.’

‘Good. Then give me your cell number and I’ll get moving. I see anything I’ll call you.’

She pulls a card from her jeans. ‘Where are you going?’

‘South.’

‘Mexico?’

‘Uh-huh. If he drives hard and straight, it’s six hours, max. I have to cover all bases.’

174

The airlift from Mount Diablo to the John Muir Hospital helipad takes only a few minutes.

Eve Garrett flies with Jade. She stays until paramedics roll her into the ER. As the surgery doors shut a mortuary crew trundles past with a gurney to pick up the corpse of the female kidnapper.

The SSOA agent cleans up in a washroom and is about to make herself scarce, when a stubble-faced young medic in scrubs catches her arm. ‘You best hang on; the sheriff is going to want a word with you.’

She shakes him off. ‘Don’t touch!’

‘My bad.’ He lifts a hands apologetically. ‘Just doing my job.’

The brunette dips into her pocket and produces a false ID. ‘I’m a PI. His office already has my number.’ She starts for the exit.

‘Wait!’

She turns and scowls.

‘Please. Is there anything you can tell me about the shooting — anything that might help us treat the victim?’

She stops and gives what little she’s got. ‘You’re still well within the Golden Hour. I was there when the shot was fired.’ She mentally chastises herself. ‘If I’d been seconds earlier the kid wouldn’t even have been hurt.’

He eases up on her. ‘Paramedics said you did a good job. Gave her a fighting chance.’

‘Did my best.’

He clicks a pen and prepares to write on a clipboard. ‘How long did you have to work her heart?’

‘Five, six minutes. Felt a whole lot longer.’

‘It always does.’ He makes a note. ‘How soon before they got oxygen to her?’

‘Less than ten. I was still working her when they arrived.’

‘That’s good. A lack of oxygen to the brain is always our biggest fear.’

‘You said fighting chance — you think she’s gonna make it?’

He weighs up how to respond and in the end goes for honesty. ‘Usually a head wound is the kind of trauma you don’t get over.’

Her face falls.

‘That said, the shot wasn’t straight on.’ He bends his wrist to demonstrate. ‘The kid has lost a lot of scalp and bone but no brain.’

‘So she’ll be okay?’

‘I can’t say that. Giving CPR and getting oxygen to her so quickly are big pluses though. At the moment, they’re dealing with shock and swelling, so she’s a long way from okay. That said, she’s hanging in there and if she’s a fighter then anything’s possible.’

‘She’s certainly that. We done here?’

‘We’re done. Thanks.’

Eve takes her cue and hightails it out of the main entrance.

She spots a taxi rank and grabs a ride back to the shack. With any luck, there’ll be something there that gives her a clue as to where the other kidnapper is.

175

The plate on the uniquely customized Mercedes Benz M Class reads SCV 1 — Stato della Citta del Vaticano — and even by the pace of country traffic, it’s moving disruptively slowly.

Slowly, but perfectly on time.

It takes exactly ten minutes for the armour-plated Popemobile to make the journey from the improvised helipad off the A487 into the crowd-packed streets of Cardigan.

The Holy Father watches the adoration from behind four walls of bulletproof glass and warmly acknowledges as many onlookers as he can.

Invisible rings of security are already in place as the famous white vehicle stops. The Vatican’s Swiss Guards are closest, the British secret service next and then Owain’s SSOA operatives. There’s a deafening cheer as the new Pope appears at the back of the vehicle and descends hydraulically operated steps into the cool Welsh air. He smiles and looks around before kneeling and kissing the earth.

As the pontiff rises, the cheering reaches a new crescendo. He walks towards a prearranged spot where a seven-year-old boy and eight-year-old girl are waiting in newly bought school uniforms.

The Pope bends to talk to them. There’s an explosion of camera flashes. He accepts a bible from the boy and a bouquet of flowers from the girl. More camera flashes. A tidal wave of cheers. Clapping sweeps him along a red carpet and into a protected entrance.

Owain takes out his phone and calls his wife.

She doesn’t pick up.

He leaves a message. ‘Hi, it’s nothing special. I’m at the church and about to go in, so will have the phone turned to silent.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘I love you, Jenny. Love you more than you’ll ever know.’

‘Touching,’ says a voice behind him.

Owain’s blood runs cold.

He turns, and sees Josep Mardrid barely a yard away. ‘What are you doing here?’

The suntanned face oozes a gleaming smile. ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’ He makes the sign of the cross. ‘I’m a very religious man.’

‘You’re the personification of evil.’

Mardrid looks pleased. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ He studies the ambassador’s face. ‘I love churches and graveyards, don’t you? So much history and ritual. Secrets buried beneath ground. Hidden but so close to disclosure. You understand what I’m alluding to, don’t you?’ He smiles generously. ‘I have one of your knights’ crosses, Gwyn. The first of many that I plan to collect.’

‘I’ll take that as an admission of theft, though that’s the least of your crimes. By the way, they won’t let you keep a cross where you’re going.’

Mardrid laughs and fastens the middle button of his jacket. ‘Sorry I can’t stay and chat but I have things to do — history to make.’ He tips his head. ‘I’ll be sure to return the cross. When I bury you.’

Owain calls Carrie Auckland as he watches his old enemy drift towards a party of Spanish diplomats. ‘Josep Mardrid is here.’

‘What?’

‘He’s with the Spanish contingent around the front of the church.’

‘I’ll have eyes on him in a minute.’

Owain signs off and joins the flow of dignitaries filing into the church. As he walks down the centre aisle, he recognizes English, Welsh and Italian ministers, the deputy head of MI5 and the Oberst, the Commandant of the Swiss Guard. There are TV celebrities that he can’t put names to and by the look of it, there’s also a small block of local parishioners.

Mardrid.

He can’t take his mind off the man. He’s here to ‘make history’. He’d sought him out to brag about it. And mention the cross. Owain looks around and can’t see him.

He takes his place on the front pew. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Carrie Auckland briefing two of her undercover operatives.

The temperature in the church is becoming uncomfortably warm. He glances at his watch. Five minutes until the start of Mass. His attention drifts to the big bronze statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. When Pope Benedict blessed it, back in 2010 during his visit to London, it was designated as the Welsh national shrine. Today the new Pope will follow in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II by blessing a candle and inserting it in the taper holder in the Virgin’s right hand.

The phone in his pocket silently vibrates with a text message. He slides it out and discreetly reads the screen.

‘Jade Fallon shot in head. In surgery. Suspect Tess Wilkins now dead. Eve.’

Owain returns the phone to his pocket. The doors at the back of the church clunk closed. Organ music strikes up. People stand and straighten out their best clothes.

The greatest Mass that Wales has ever witnessed is about to begin.

176

Chris Wilkins decides it’s time to ditch the Ford. He’s already run it longer than intended.

Stockton Airport lies less than fifteen minutes from the hospital. He’d hoped to have dropped the car there and been out of state before anyone even started looking for it. After the shootings, it’s too risky.

The road ahead offers nowhere for him to pull in and grab new wheels. He turns his burner on and calls Tess for the third time.

There’s no pick up.

They’ve been together for more than a decade and he’s never had to call three times to reach her. Wilkins turns off the phone, slides down the window of the Ford and tosses it. Through a side mirror, he sees it hit the blacktop and bounce into grass.

He’d put the first two unanswered calls down to the complication of killing the Fallon kid, torching the place and getting out of the area. Now he knows it isn’t that. Tess is a pro. She always understood the importance of following the plan and either phoning in or being around to take the call. He’s trying not to think the unthinkable, to imagine she’s been caught — or worse.

With Stockton no longer an exit option, he considers finding a small airport and paying cash to a hick pilot to get him out of State, but there’s a good chance the cops are going to be all over those kind of landing strips.

He rules out a run to Canada, even though Vancouver is only a fifteen-hour haul from Stockton and if he went a more roundabout route, he could hit Winnipeg in under a day.

As soon as he gets new wheels he’ll head south towards Mexico. Not down the fast lanes of the interstate where the cops might come hunting and the traffic cameras could pick him up. He has another route. One so windy and obscure, he’s certain God himself wouldn’t be able to find it.

177

Joe Steffani drives across town to meet with the brass in the NIA. The radio is up high and so is the sun. It’s been a hell of a successful day and he should be happier.

Locking up five major terrorists should pretty much make his career, and that’s going to bring the kind of security, salary and pension that will set him up for life.

But he’s not.

What’s eating him is that if Gareth Madoc is right, there are going to be three terror attacks in the next twenty-four hours and one of them will be right here in New York City. That’s why the top brass want to see him in person.

From the checks he’s just done, al-Shibh, Korshidi, Tabrizi, Hussan and Iman Yousef Mousavi are still saying nothing.

The traffic in Lower Manhattan is worse than ever. Steffani’s Jeep grinds to a dispiriting halt part way down Wall Street. He shakes his head in dismay. There’s still enough time to get to his meeting but only just.

He stares around him, bored and impatient. A cute blonde in a Lexus to his left looks him over. Some idiot is trying to get a hot-dog cart through the traffic and is drawing horns. Down a side street looms a church an ex-girlfriend of his used to go to. Its neo-Gothic spire used to soar above everything. Now it’s dwarfed by the buildings around it. Such is progress.

The traffic finally moves and he loses sight of it.

Then something hits him.

And the jigsaw of clues comes together, almost like a miracle.

178

No one does theatre better than the Catholic Church.

Not for them, understatement, nuance or humility.

The way Owain sees it, any Catholic Mass is a grand affair, but one including the Bishop of Rome is the religious equivalent of a Cirque du Soleil premiere.

There are so many lit candles Cardigan could put Las Vegas in the shade. The opening act, a central procession of the entire ecclesiastical cast, is breathtaking. Finest silk and cotton vestments. Priceless golden incense burners and chalices. Intoxicating scents of frankincense and elevated voices of heavenly choristers.

All a distraction from the most important thing of all.

The Holy Father’s safety.

An army of well-regimented altar boys in crisp, black-and-white cassocks and cottas is usurped only by a legion of lavishly robed priests, bishops and archbishops who have insisted that they too must have a place centre stage. But none compare to the sumptuous sight of the new pontiff.

He is dressed in layer after layer of antique vestments. Each drips with symbolism as old as Christianity itself. A uniquely designed pallium, ornamented with red crosses that represent the blood of Jesus, is fixed to his chasuble with three gold pins, representing the nails with which he was crucified.

Owain notices a fanon, a shawl of alternating gold and silver stripes and a subcinctorium, a strip of fabric embroidered with a cross and the same Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, as featured in The Ghent Altarpiece.

Over the Holy Father’s left arm is a maniple, a band of priceless silk made of intertwined red and gold threads, symbolizing the unity of Eastern and Western Catholic rites.

Most striking of all is the long, open-fronted cope that the Pope is wearing: red, fringed with green, deliberately evocative of the Welsh flag. The Holy Father walks to the lectern, raises his gaze to the packed and hushed congregation, then greets them in stilted Welsh: ‘Bendith Duw arnoch — the blessing of God be upon you.’

All hearts rise.

All except one.

The appearance of Josep Mardrid has shaken Owain Gwyn. Deep inside the house of God, he feels the force of evil stirring.

179

The call from Joe Steffani leaves Gareth Madoc slack-jawed.

Being a foreigner, he simply hadn’t made the connection that his New Yorker contact has. Now it makes sense.

Perfect sense.

Madoc is gone from his desk in sixty seconds and gets himself down to Lower Manhattan via Metro rather than the car-jammed road.

At the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, he sees what had got Steffani excited. There, as big as big could be, is the explanation of what Mousavi had meant when he was secretly recorded at the al-Qaeda safe house saying, ‘…the Trinity will be no more.’

Everyone thought it was a reference to three separate targets, but it wasn’t.

It was just one.

A National Historic Landmark. A place where people took refuge from flying debris when the first tower collapsed during 9/11. A building connected to the ancient kings and queens of England.

Trinity Church.

The sanctified bricks and mortar represent the long-standing special relationship between the Church of England and God-fearing America. Forged when the first stone was laid in the seventeenth century and strong enough to survive two rebuilds and more than three hundred years.

New York’s finest, cops from the financial district, are out in force turning people away, setting up barricades and trying to push sidewalk traffic further and further back.

But it might be too late.

Madoc catches a glimpse of Steffani on a phone. He’s walking away from the church, towards the graveyard where, among others, lie Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, the first US treasury secretary, and Robert Fulton, developer of the world’s first steamboat.

Trinity is the perfect target. It destroys history as well as lives.

‘Hey, Joe!’

Steffani looks up and acknowledges him.

Madoc wanders over and waits until he finishes the call.

The NIA agent clicks off his phone and turns on his smile. ‘We came up trumps, buddy.’ He points to the tower. ‘Up there are twenty-three of the biggest bells in the US. Half were replaced recently by a company from England. There was a service engineer in there yesterday, fit the description of Malek. The bomb squad just found several pounds of his handiwork packed beneath the decking boards.’

‘It’s defused?’

Steffani nods. ‘It certainly is.’

Madoc allows himself his first smile for a long time. ‘I’ve got someone to call, someone who’s going to be very relieved to hear that.’

180

The Gospel reading passes without so much as a stumbled syllable.

The pontiff ends by reminding everyone that in 1982, when John Paul II became the first reigning Pope to visit Wales, he called on the young people of Britain to begin ‘a crusade of prayer’. He adds, with almost passionate emphasis, ‘That crusade needs to be renewed. The enemies we face today are more insidious and demanding than ever. We must become increasingly united and devoted in our worship of the Lord, Jesus Christ, Our Saviour.’ He lets the message sink in, then adds, ‘Bendith Duw ar bobol Cymru! — God bless the people of Wales!’ The cheers of the crowds outside can be heard through the church walls.

The Pope leaves the lectern and heads towards the sacred statue for the final part of his heavily stage-managed Mass — the lighting and blessing of a new taper.

Owain’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He palms it so it can’t be seen as he reads the message. ‘Target was “Trinity” the church in NYC. Bomb defused. GM.’

Tension flows out of his shoulders. His worries about the Pope have been for nothing. He’ll call Gareth as soon as the service finishes.

Around him, expectation builds among the assembled congregation. A cherubic acolyte walks self-consciously across the altar. In his uncomfortably outstretched hands, he carries a long, narrow box fashioned from dark hardwood and fastened with a large clasp bearing the Papal insignia. It comprises the crossed silver and gold keys of Saint Peter, the triple crown of the pontiff showing his roles as supreme pastor, teacher and priest and most importantly, at the top of the clasp, a distinct cross on a globe, signifying the sovereignty of Jesus.

The Pope opens the box and removes a virgin candle, brought directly from Rome.

A second acolyte appears, somewhat older than the first and with steadier hands. He carries a long candle lighter, made of wood and brass. He waits patiently to one side.

Slowly, reverently, the Holy Father places the candle in the holder in the right hand of the Virgin Mary and then turns for the lighter.

Inexplicably, the acolyte drops it.

The clatter of brass sends a shockwave through the church. Security men tense. Hands dip into jackets.

But nothing has happened. Nothing but a dropped prop on the ecclesiastical stage.

The boy picks up the ceremonial instrument. A kindly priest moves towards him and beneath his robes, finds a lighter.

There’s a click and a hiss of an incongruous Zippo. Once more the flame intended for the ceremony is lit.

The Holy Father appears unperturbed. He waits patiently for the priest to retreat, and calmly takes the lighter from the red-faced young man.

All eyes are on the candle in the statue’s hand.

All except Owain’s.

He is scanning the church. He glances behind him and looks back to the altar.

The Pope ensures the candle is burning brightly. He hands the brass lighter back to the acolyte and blesses the shrine. There’s a reserved but definite smile on his face as he turns and addresses the congregation.

Owain doesn’t hear what he says. His mind is on the candle. It’s the only thing he didn’t personally check. He’s sure it will have been examined by the Swiss Guard, but he didn’t check it.

He reminds himself of Gareth’s message. The attack was planned in New York and it’s been thwarted. The crisis is over.

Yet doubt remains.

He looks again at the candle and at others in the church. It’s thicker than some, longer than others, smaller than most. The flame is the same as those around it. There really isn’t anything unusual about the column of wax, except that it has just been blessed by a man Catholics believe is the holiest person on the planet.

The door at the back of the church creaks. Someone is trying to leave without disturbing the Mass. It’s an odd time to go. There are only a few minutes left of the service.

The exit is controlled by the Swiss Guard. They wouldn’t let anyone leave. Not now. Most likely one of them has stepped outside.

Why?

Owain fears he knows the answer.

The candle could contain a core of C4, a pliable and stable explosive that isn’t detonated by flame. Whoever is leaving may be about to trigger it remotely using a shockwave detonator. It’s the kind of play a military man, someone like a Swiss Guard, would make.

He hesitates. Tells himself to stay still, or he’ll just make a fool of himself.

But he can’t.

He breaks from the pew of dignitaries and rushes the altar. There’s an outbreak of gasps.

Two robed priests try to block him. He knocks them away. He has to get himself in front of the candle. At best, he’ll look an idiot. At worst, he’ll block the blast.

He extends a hand and shoves the Holy Father clean off the altar.

Outside, on the giant screens, and on televisions across the world, millions watch in horror.

The bomb goes off.

Stone, glass and flesh fill the morning sky.