The Isis Covenant

XXVII

Beneath the first light of the sickle moon.

Paul Dornberger frowned and checked his calculations, though he knew the answer well enough. The old man’s time was running out.

He tried to remember the first occasion his father had mentioned the children, but his mind was blank. Had it been in the cellar? He could never truly know that, because the visions of what had happened there were never complete. They arrived like star-shells over a battlefield; a burst of light, a moment of stark illumination, a fleeting shadow, then back into the darkness. But they always left that lingering doubt. Had he truly seen what he thought he had seen? Done what he feared he had done? It struck him that there was some memory that even a mind saturated with so much blood had to repress for fear of the consequences it would bring. He felt a surge of an unfamiliar emotion that brought with it a shudder. The realization came as a shock. It was there, somewhere inside this kaleidoscope that was his head, but Paul Dornberger didn’t dare to access it. Beyond a hidden door in his tortured mind was the secret that made him who he was. But he was too frightened to look for it.

Oleg Samsonov appeared in the doorway.

‘Are you all right, Paul?’

Dornberger forced a smile. ‘Of course, sir. By the way, I have these papers for you to sign.’

‘Fine, but come upstairs.’ Samsonov gave an embarrassed grin. ‘I’ve left my reading glasses in the big lounge.’ Dornberger smiled back. His employer was notoriously shy of admitting any deficiency. It was a measure of his growing trust that he revealed even this minor physical fault. Paul followed the other man up the spiral staircase to a room that took up two-thirds of the second floor of the building. Above this were the family bedrooms and dressing rooms and the state-of-the-art gym, and above that a helicopter pad hidden behind blast-proof walls. The space, it was more than a room, was enormous, a vast floor of the finest Finnish ash hardwood, scattered with oriental carpets from Isfahan and Tabriz, each of which would have paid Paul Dornberger’s annual salary twice over. In one corner hung the largest and most expensive flat-screen television that money could buy. In another, a Swedish sound system that had cost as much as one of Oleg’s Ferraris. The space had been designed somehow to produce separate acoustic zones, so that Oleg could be listening to music at the same time as Dmitri watched cartoons and his film-star wife Irina was entertaining her friends by the enormous picture window that looked over the park. Marble busts from Rome and Greece jostled with modern sculptures on strategically placed pedestals. And in the centre, its exterior hung with fine art worth millions, the panic room.

‘You’re putting in a lot of extra hours lately on these merger deals.’

‘Maybe you should give him some time off?’ Irina Samsonov kissed Paul on both cheeks, while Dmitri pawed at his hand with a shy smile. Oleg picked up his son and hugged him.

‘I don’t think Paul has any of those treats he doesn’t believe I know about. Maybe later, Dimi. Ah,’ he sighed, ‘here they are. If there is one thing I detest it is getting older, but even money cannot buy you youth.’

Irina kissed her husband on the lips in a show of genuine affection. There was nothing artificial about Oleg Samsonov’s wife, neither the love she showed her family nor the beauty that seemed to light up any room she entered. ‘No, but it could buy you laser surgery, if you weren’t so frightened.’

Oleg shook his head ruefully. ‘No man, certainly no Russian, goes into hospital unless he needs to.’

He signed the documents, reading each one with care before putting his pen to it.

‘You should let Paul see your new acquisition,’ Irina suggested. ‘After all, he’s almost one of the family. He bought it while you were in New York. How did that go, Paul?’

Dornberger smiled. He had a momentary vision of terrified faces and the particular salt-sweet scent of burning flesh. ‘I think we’ll see the fruits of it before too long.’

Oleg glanced at the panic-room door and frowned. ‘No, we have things to talk about. Perhaps another time.’ Paul nodded and bit back his disappointment. If Irina was excited about whatever was in the panic room, it must be something special.

They walked back downstairs and Oleg went to his office, leaving Paul to deal with the papers. Dornberger’s mind drifted back to his earlier inner conflict. The Crown and the knife. The ever-presents in his life. It was still difficult to believe that what he had learned in the past few months was true. Yet how else could his father be explained? How else could he be explained. His father’s creation. Always the outsider. Never loved. Never treated as a child should be. His life had revolved around the Crown and the knife and Hartmann. A small bleep from his computer alerted him to a message in his super-encrypted e-mail basket. He opened it and read. It was a complex message with a number of attached documents and it took time before he understood its true meaning. The contents took his breath away. One step. Just one more step and he had him.