The Excalibur Codex

XXXIV

‘We have the sword.’ A rumble of congratulations greeted the news and Adam Steele saw the thrill of excitement run through the five members of the inner committee.

‘Then we can proceed?’

Steele nodded. ‘Initiate the countdown. Everything must be in place for the State Opening of Parliament in two weeks.’

When they were gone he stared out of the window, surprised at how calm he felt and how easy it had been to issue the final, irrevocable order. This had always been part of the plan, but he’d hoped that the M25 massacre and the inevitable upsurge of anger against the Muslim population would make it unnecessary. The people of this country — the real people — should have taken to the streets in their hundreds of thousands and forced on the Government the kind of changes the committee had been demanding. The rest, a quiet, non-violent shift of power, would have followed inevitably. A few had acted as he had forecast, but the masses had stayed in front of their televisions and their computer screens, had lounged at the bars of their smelly pubs and kept attending their silly football matches — and done nothing.

He felt his rage grow at the decision they had forced on him. It was all for them. All this risk and sacrifice. Didn’t they realize the cancer that was spreading among them? Tribal enclaves, transplanted from their foreign homelands, growing and pulsing in every city, taking over whole streets, then whole districts, driving out the native species by their very numbers and their insidious financial strength. He shuddered at the thought of the alien culture and barbaric religion taking over his beloved Great Britain. The black and brown and yellow faces that tormented him every time he left the sanctuary of his home. The babel of unnatural languages that assaulted his ears. No, they had to be stopped. Dead. There was only one way to remove an alien breed, and that was to cut it out at the roots. But he couldn’t do it alone. So Adam Steele had made the first tentative approaches and was surprised at how many of his class had similar concerns.

It had begun quietly. They didn’t advertise their presence, but used their collective influence to try to make the changes that were so obviously needed. But those in power hadn’t listened. It had taken many months before he understood that the political system he believed was ruining the country was nothing but a sham. A cowardly, neo-Liberal conspiracy with a shadowy all-party core that ensured the status quo at all costs. After that, the way ahead had been clear. There could be no change without sweeping away the existing order.

After 9/11 and 7/7 another great atrocity was only a matter of time. The people who had died in the M25 massacre were the price that had to be paid for bringing the country to its senses. They had died for Britain, and it didn’t matter who had killed them, as long as the right people were blamed. But it hadn’t been enough, and now one more great blow must be struck to ensure the backlash that was needed to sweep away the old regime, create a new Britain, and at the same time ensure a speedy and efficient change of power. It would happen on the only day Parliament was sure to be packed with politicians of all persuasions. The Queen’s Speech brought all but the most sedentary out to cram the velvet benches and show their over-fed faces for the TV news cameras.

They would all be there, the ambitious and the slothful, the greedy and the God-fearing, the thieves and the liars, Franklin among them, unaware that he was no longer required. A pity about Her Majesty, but she had done her job and now it was time to move on. Not her fault that she had ruled such a cabal of spineless failures. And since this was a special year, she would be conveniently accompanied by her entire brood. All but the Duke, who would be laid out by a last-minute indisposition.

The Duke would be as shocked as the nation when it transpired that Al-Qaida, in an outrage unheard of even in terrorist warfare, had somehow managed to conceal a container of hydrogen cyanide in the Commons chamber. He had gone along with the lesser conspiracy in good faith, flattered to believe that he could be Britain’s saviour. When the doors shut behind the royal entourage, a high-pressure stream of lethal gas would fill the great hall, killing everyone inside in less than a minute. Despite his grief, the Duke would be persuaded to step forward to head a committee of national solidarity, and, by the time it met, the army and police would already be in control of all communications, transport and security.

Then it would begin.

But first there were a few loose ends to tie up.

Gault still couldn’t believe it. ‘So they kept me sweating in a stone dungeon for two days while you were drinking the old bastard’s wine cellar dry?’

‘More or less.’

‘And you got the sword. You actually found Excalibur.’ He shook his head in wonder and Jamie was struck by the effect the blade could have on even the most cynical and hardened soul. At Helena Webster’s request he’d waited until they were back in New York before he revealed that the mission had been a success.

‘I told you, she wanted me to have it.’ Jamie glanced back to where the sword was concealed in a stubby green tube, of a type normally used to transport what the Yanks called fishing poles. It lay anonymously across the rearmost seats of the seven-seater Mercedes taxi van as they stuttered their way through the traffic of 7th Avenue.

‘Well, you might look a bit cheerier about it. You’ve done it, your lordship. I didn’t think you had it in you, but our master is wetting himself with excitement and the money is in the bank. Who knows, Charlotte might even let you have your wicked way with her.’ He nudged the younger man in the ribs and Jamie managed a tired smile and rubbed a hand over the several days’ stubble that had accumulated on his cheeks.

‘Actually, old chum, all I want to do is have a shave and a shower and a bit of kip, and not even Charlotte could wake me up. Where is she, anyway? I thought she’d be at the airport to meet us?’

‘She’s putting the final touches to the export arrangements. The boss doesn’t want any loose ends and his precious sword stuck in customs for six months. We do this by the book, just like we agreed.’

When they reached their hotel, Jamie carried the tube containing the sword up to the fourth-floor room Charlotte had booked for them, while Gault handed over their passports at the desk. Before he reached the check-in the former soldier switched one of the passports in his hand with another in his pocket. Just why Adam Steele wanted the young art dealer checked in under a different name wasn’t clear, but Gault had learned not to argue with his employer.

Three hours later he shook Jamie awake. ‘It’s all set up. I have to meet Charlotte, I take the sword to her and she’ll deal with it from there.’ He laid a slim metal briefcase that had been waiting for them in the room on the bed. ‘Don’t let this out of your sight.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘My laundry, what do you think? It’s a laptop and a few other electronic gizmos I asked Steele to send along for the trip in case they were needed. The problem is they’re not exactly legal and if anybody else gets hold of them we could end up in jail. What time to do you have?’

Jamie looked at his watch and yawned. ‘Around five forty-five.’

‘I mean exactly.’

‘Five forty … six p.m.’

‘Good. Unless you hear otherwise, at precisely six thirty you will call Adam on the satellite phone and tell him the deal is done. Got that? Normal procedure. Speed dial two.’

Jamie felt the hair bristle on the back of his neck. ‘I’m not an idiot, Gault. Stop treating me like one.’

‘Keep your shirt on.’ The other man shrugged. ‘I’m only passing on the instructions. One way or the other it’ll soon be over and we don’t ever have to see each other again.’

The tube lay by the window and Jamie picked it up, reluctant for a moment to part with the contents. But this had been the whole point of the mission: to get the sword to Adam Steele. Gault noticed the hesitation and looked at him curiously as they carried out a gentle tug of war. Eventually, he persuaded the stubby green cylinder from Jamie’s hands and pulled on his jacket. He shook his head. ‘This thing drives people crazy. I hope it was worth all the effort,’ he said before the door closed behind him.

Jamie waited till he was gone before picking up the briefcase and studying the combination lock. His fingers hovered over the dials for almost a minute before he placed it beside the sat-phone and lay back on the bed. It would wait.

Their hotel was just off Washington Square in Greenwich Village, and Gault walked through the park and along 5th Avenue before taking a right into East 9th Street. He was entirely unselfconscious about the burden he carried. He’d been in New York often enough to know that nothing surprised the inhabitants. As long as you minded your own business you could wear what you liked and do what you liked. He’d once seen two men carrying a stuffed horse, for Christ’s sake. The building he sought was another small hotel set slightly back from the street of high-rise apartment blocks. He walked past it once and carried on for another hundred paces before turning back abruptly, checking for any unnatural reactions in his fellow pedestrians. Retracing his steps, he tried the side door to the block’s underground garage and found it unlocked as he’d been told. With a last scan to make sure he was alone, he slipped inside and closed the metal door behind him.

The garage was a place of shadows, with dimly lit bays alternating with patches of darkness, but nothing in the air said he should be nervous. Besides, this wasn’t the first time he’d been here. He walked slowly down the centre of the concrete roadway between the bays, checking each one as he went, his hand close to his waistband and the butt of the pistol he carried. Reaching the end of the row, he took the slipway down to the lower level. He caught a whiff of a familiar perfume and smiled. Charlotte was waiting where she said she’d be, in the fifth bay down, the slim figure silhouetted against the light and standing by the open trunk of the anonymous hired Ford. He walked towards her.

Two sharp puffs of disturbed air broke the silence, followed by the sound of a body falling to the ground. A pair of shadows detached themselves from the deeper darkness of one of the unlit bays twenty paces away and manhandled the still warm body into the trunk of a second car.

‘Hello?’ The hand that gripped the mobile phone was slightly damp, and there might have been a hint of regret in the voice. ‘He’s here. You will find him in room 408 of the Washington Park Greenwich Hotel.’ The words were in Pashto, the language of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. When the message had been confirmed, the speaker programmed the Ford’s satnav for JFK and moved the car into gear.

Jamie Saintclair lay fully dressed on the bed. He looked from his watch to the satellite phone for the twentieth time and felt the adrenalin coursing through his veins like pure heroin. It had all begun to come together in his mind on the way back from Reno. Tiny snippets of conversation, a scrambled detail from a news bulletin, a few words out of place while a man had been trying to kill him, and all the odd little coincidences that seemed to follow them around Europe and the USA. He reached for the briefcase, then changed his mind yet again. His suspicion that something wasn’t right had hardened earlier, while he’d been pretending to doze, when Gault had left the room for more than an hour. Instinct told him the SBS man had been replacing the gun he’d lost at Marlette Lake. Why? All right, men like Gault didn’t take any chances and it was patently clear he felt naked without a weapon, but all he had to do was deliver the tube. Why would Gault need a gun to walk four blocks? Was he right? He couldn’t be sure, but he had to make a decision. He looked at the watch again: six eighteen. Twelve minutes.

He got up and marched to the window, studying the traffic on the street below. How long could he wait? The door drew his eyes. What if Gault walked back through that door now? Would that change anything? His brain urged him to relax because everything was fine and Gault knew what he was doing. The SBS man’s travel case was still in the wardrobe where he had placed it, alongside Charlotte’s. The plane tickets were on the table beside the phone. Three First Class flights from JFK to Heathrow at ten the next morning. Hell, they’d be drinking champagne for breakfast. Six twenty-two. His fingers twitched and he reached out and drew the satellite phone and the case to where he could comfortably reach them. The street outside was bathed in shadow. He picked up the bottle of water beside the bed and took another drink, but his mouth seemed to absorb the liquid like a patch of desert and he felt no benefit. He thought of Abbie, and her last cryptic message, and Sarah Grant in the dank East Prussian forest — Whatever your friend Steele is up to it isn’t just about money or an old sword. Six twenty-four. He closed his eyes, counting the seconds in his head. Not yet. Not yet. Six twenty-five. How in the name of Christ had he got into this? His hand closed on the sat-phone and he looked at the face. The 2 button seemed to scream at him. Still five minutes to go. No, four minutes.

It was as if a series of tiny levers inside his head clicked into place. Too many coincidences. He scooped up the briefcase on the way to the door, which he opened slowly, checking the corridor beyond. Christ, hurry. He could feel the seconds ticking in his head as he rounded the corner to the lift area. The stairs were situated beyond the lift and he made his way quickly towards them, not quite running. Ahead of him a maid’s trolley sat outside one of the rooms, blocking half the corridor and covered in sheets and pillows. The lift was to his left and as he passed it the soft double beep of the car arriving at his floor almost gave him a heart attack. Behind him the doors began to open and he dropped softly behind the maid’s cart, his heart pounding in his chest. He’d look an idiot if he was wrong and some tourist couple walked past on the way to their rooms. But he knew he wasn’t wrong.

Three or four sets of feet on the carpeted floor. A whispered conversation that his imagination told him was not in English. He waited, certain the harsh scream of his breathing would give him away. Now. Without looking back he made a dive for the stairs and descended, taking two at a time. When he reached the ground-floor entrance to the lobby he slowed to compose himself and checked his watch. Fifty seconds. Still time. He opened the door and walked briskly across the lobby. As he headed for the hotel entrance he noticed a nervous-looking brown-skinned man sitting on a chair to his left studying him with startled eyes. Then he was in the street.

Upstairs, outside Room 408, the leader of the four-man hit team nodded to his comrade with the pass key and the man slipped it into the lock and turned the handle. Drawing their pistols, they burst into the room. At the same moment, in the hotel lobby below, the dark man reached for his phone.

Jamie took ten paces up Washington Place and at exactly six thirty pressed the 2 button and put the phone to his ear.

He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was looking directly at the hotel window when the explosion punched the front of Room 408 into the street, a bright blossom of flame with a flat-screen TV and a blackened truncated starfish shape that had once been human at its centre. The blast almost knocked him off his feet and he hunched down, partially deafened, as windows shattered all around and a hail of burning wreckage tumbled onto the people and cars below. As his hearing returned, a woman’s hysterical screams split the unnatural silence and a hubbub of disbelieving voices grew and spread even as the sound of the first sirens reached them.

Men and women ran past towards the hotel to help the casualties, but Jamie didn’t join them. Instead, he carefully removed the SIM card from the sat-phone, placed the phone on the ground and crushed it under his foot. When he was satisfied, he picked up the smashed casing and crammed it into his pocket before walking away in the opposite direction.