The Four Corners of the Earth

CHAPTER TWO

Alexandria sprawled in all its modern glory beyond the plate-glass window; a thriving, concrete metropolis, bordered by a glittering sea, marked by palm trees and hotels, a curving coastline and the enormously impressive Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

The CIA safe house looked out over six jam-packed lanes that carried traffic slowly around the bow of the coast. All access to the feeble balcony outside was restricted by the heavy glass and bars. Only the main living room offered any signs of comfort; the kitchen was small and makeshift, the two bedrooms long since converted into steel cages. Only one person manned the safe house on a permanent basis, and he was clearly way out of his comfort zone.

Alicia ordered a round of coffees. “Hey, dude, that’s four black, two with milk, three with creamer and one with a sniff of cinnamon. Got it?”

“I don’t…” The thirty-something man with thin-rimmed glasses and bushy eyebrows blinked furiously. “I don’t… make coffee. Do you get it?”

“You don’t? Well, what the hell are you here for?”

“Liaison. Local contact. Housekeeper. I—”

Alicia squinted hard. “Housekeeper?”

“Yeah. But not like that. I—”

Alicia turned away. “Fuck, dude. You don’t make beds. You don’t make coffee. What the hell are we paying you for?”

Drake was trying hard to tune the Englishwoman out, concentrating instead on the meeting between Smyth and Lauren. The New Yorker had been prepped and flown out to Egypt the moment the new threat went from somewhat concerning to red hot priority. Standing at the center of the room, hair down and game-face on, she was ready to update the team, but as Smyth now approached Lauren a whole range of emotions struck her head-on.

“Not now,” she said immediately.

“I’m alive,” Smyth growled. “Thought you might be interested.”

Instead of snapping back, Lauren took a deep breath. “I worry about you every day, every minute. I do. Is that pleasing to you, Smyth?”

The soldier opened his mouth to retort, but Alicia stepped smartly in. “Shit, didn’t you hear? His name’s Lancelot. He prefers it to Smyth. We all call him it now.”

Lauren was taken aback for the second time in a minute. “Lance-a-what? Isn’t that the name of an old knight?”

“Sure is,” Alicia said happily. “Same guy that committed infidelity with the king’s wife.”

“Are you saying I should be worried? Or care?”

Alicia stared at Smyth. “Nah. If he loses you the best he’s gonna get is a baboon and there are no red-arsed monkeys in Egypt.” She swept the room with a questing air. “At least, not outside this room.”

Mai was now standing beside Lauren, having drifted over after double-checking the safe house’s security. “Shall we catch up with the op? I’m assuming that’s why Lauren is here?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The New Yorker quickly recaptured her composure. “You all wanna sit down? This might take a while.”

Yorgi found a seat. Drake perched on the arm of a chair, watching the room closely. It was clear to him, seeing from the outside, how Dahl and Kenzie drifted closer, how Hayden glided away from Kinimaka and, thankfully, how Alicia and Mai now seemed more accepting of each other’s presence. Drake felt hugely relieved over that outcome, but the next big thing was about to erupt. Yorgi had been almost completely silent since his revelation of only three days ago.

I am the one who killed my parents in cold blood.

Yeah, it had put a dampener on the celebrations but nobody pressed the Russian. He had come far indeed to confess the act; he needed time now to decipher the memory into real words.

Lauren looked a little uncomfortable standing at the head of the room, but when Smyth backed away she started to speak. “Firstly, we may have a lead as to the whereabouts of Tyler Webb’s secret stash. Remember — he promised more secrets would be unearthed?”

Drake remembered it well. They’d been worrying about the potential fallout ever since. Or at least, two or three have.

“But we have no time for that now. Later, I hope we can all take a trip. But this… this new threat began when the organization TerraLeaks dropped a whole slew of documents onto the Internet.” She grimaced. “More like a physical bomb dropped onto a digital foundation. The documents were all handwritten, clearly fanatical, and entirely self-aggrandizing. The usual old dross. Employees of TerraLeaks discovered them inside an old bunker in Cuba, something left over from decades ago. It seems the bunker used to be the headquarters of a group of madmen that called themselves the Order of the Last Judgment.”

“Sounds like a bunch of laughs,” Drake said.

“Sure it was. But in truth, it gets much worse. These men were all war criminals, escaped from Nazi Germany and hiding in Cuba. Now, as you all know, it’s easier to make a list of weird shit the Nazis weren’t interested in than a list of the things they were. This Order was created to pass things on to future generations. If they were caught or killed, they wanted some glorious repercussion somewhere down the line.”

“And you’re saying they’ve got it?” Hayden asked.

“Well, not yet. Nothing is proven. The Order were made up of two generals, two powerful government figures and two wealthy businessmen. Together, they would have wielded considerable power and resources.”

“How do we know this?” Mai asked.

“Oh, they’ve kept nothing hidden. Names, events, places. It’s all there in the documents. And TerraLeaks have followed suit,” Lauren shook her head, “as they do.”

“You’re saying everyone knows?” Drake said softly. “Every bloody organization in the world? Shit.” He swung his head toward the window as if beholding the whole world out there, converging.

“The document in question isn’t fully finished—” Lauren began.

Alicia snorted. “If course it isn’t.”

“So we don’t have all of the information. We can only assume these war criminals that vanished from the face of the earth around twenty seven years ago didn’t get chance to finish their work.”

“Vanished?” Dahl murmured, shuffling a little. “That usually means secret police. Or Special Forces. Makes sense since they were war criminals.”

Lauren nodded. “That’s the consensus. But whoever ‘vanished’ them didn’t think to look for a secret bunker.”

“Probably the SAS then.” Dahl glanced over at Drake. “Thick bastards.”

“At least our Special Forces aren’t called ABBA.”

Kinimaka wandered over to the window to take a look. “Sounds like the mother of all mistakes,” he rumbled at the glass. “Letting this info go free. How many governments are going to be hunting it down at the same time?”

“At least six,” Lauren said. “That we know of. Could be more than that by now. The race began whilst you guys were finishing off in Peru.”

“Finishing off?” Smyth repeated. “We were saving lives.”

Lauren shrugged. “Nobody blames you for it.”

Drake distinctly remembered Smyth’s repeated requests to hurry the hell up during the last mission. But this was no time to bring it up. Instead, he quietly caught the New Yorker’s attention.

“So,” he said. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what this Order of the Last Judgment planned and how it’s going to destroy the world?”

Lauren took a deep breath. “All right then. I hope you’re ready for this.”