The Stonehenge Legacy

143

The black Ford Transit that rolls south from Devizes down the deserted A360 bears the green letters ‘ATE’ and a fluttering red flag. Beneath the official logo of the Army Training Estate are the words ‘Specialist Scientific Research Unit’.

The van’s six occupants wear high-visibility rainproof jackets emblazoned with the same crest. They carry in their pockets laminated ID cards and official authorisation to conduct a nocturnal wildlife survey in and around the IRPP, the Imber Range Perimeter Path, that skirts the live-firing area.

Megan looks around at the team and can’t help but be impressed. ‘It’s amazing what you can pull together when you are chasing a potential pay cheque of ten million dollars.’

‘Indeed it is,’ says Josh Goran, sat in the back on a flip-down seat opposite her. ‘Take a bow, Troy my boy.’

Troy Lynton looks up from the submarine glow of his laptop screen and gives a modest smile.

‘Troy’s our cyber king,’ explains Goran. ‘The world’s best hacker, forger and fixer. Give him a little time and there’s nowhere in the virtual world he can’t access and nothing he can’t steal or alter.’

Megan and Jimmy are crammed in the back with the two Americans. The driver is a man called Jay, who appears to be English. The front passenger is Luc, a former Dutch soldier who has been working with the crew for the past two years.

‘Right now there are no major military manoeuvres planned at Imber, so troop numbers are minimal,’ says Goran. ‘Most guys will be lying back at barracks or bedding locals. We should be able to move around without restriction.’

Half an hour later, the van’s headlights illuminate a warning sign: LIVE FIRING RANGE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC: KEEP OUT.

The Transit trundles slowly on, then pulls over in front of a deserted farmhouse. Jay guides the vehicle up behind it, out of sight of the main road.

‘Okay,’ says Goran. ‘Let’s move.’

They grab backpacks and quickly spread in different directions. Goran has equipped them all with two-way radios, compasses, night-vision goggles, flashlights and, for the sake of the cover story, cameras and clipboards. Lynton has also briefed them on Imber’s stone curlews, roe deer and badgers.

They move silently past shells of buildings, windowless and doorless brick hulks more reminiscent of Kosovo than Wiltshire. Once-beautiful thatched roofs have been replaced with rusted corrugated iron. Wildflower gardens have become mud pits, churned by the caterpillar tracks of tanks. Sprouting in the darkness, they see a red-and-yellow sign declaring, DANGER: UNEXPLODED MILITARY DEBRIS.

Jimmy and Megan stick to the instructions Goran has given them and methodically work their way through the ruins of Imber. English Jay does the same along a northern stretch towards Littleton Down, while Goran scouts the outer parts of West Lavington Down and Lynton works east through Summer Down.

They search for three hours. And find nothing.

As they regroup, Goran lays out a map on the bonnet of the van and jabs a finger south of Imber. ‘This here is the very heart of the firing range. The military call it the danger zone. We’ve barely been in it. So far, we’ve just skirted the outer areas.’

Jay glances at the topography. He’s still catching his breath. ‘It would take all day to drive around that amount of land, let alone walk it and search it.’

No one argues with him.

‘So now we have to make a decision,’ says Goran. ‘It’ll be sunrise any minute. If we carry on, there’s a high risk of being stopped and no longer any documented excuse for us being here.’

‘We need another cover,’ says Lynton. ‘We simply swap the nocturnal survey for a daytime one. It’s Sunday. No one is likely to call ATE and check. But I have to get near a computer and printer to change our papers and pin down some details.’

Goran looks at his watch. ‘Zero four hundred hours. I say we pull out of here before we’re seen. We grab a few hours’ sleep while Troy creates the new documents. Regroup at midday, return and work until nightfall.’

Megan agrees along with the rest but suffers a pang of motherly guilt at the prospect of leaving Sammy with her parents again.

They’re in the process of packing the rucksacks in the van when Goran quickly raises an arm. They freeze. From way off in the distance blink the headlights of an approaching vehicle. They take cover behind derelict buildings and the car zips past on the road heading out of the village.

‘White builder’s van,’ says Goran, getting to his feet. ‘It had a name like Smith and Son on the side. The back light over the number plate was out, so I don’t have a registration.’ He looks to Jimmy and Megan. ‘Did either of you recognise it? Did it mean anything to you?’

‘Yes,’ says Megan. ‘It meant a lot to us.’

144

The Henge Master sits alone in the darkness of the eastern chamber. He is waiting. Passing time. As he did yesterday morning. And the morning before.

It has always been the chore of Masters to plot the sunrise and sunset over the Sanctuary and Stonehenge. It is the Followers’ own geocentric model. Like the Greek philosophers, like Aristotle and Ptolemy, they follow a belief that a fixed point of the earth is the centre of the universe.

All things revolve around them. Only the Followers are wiser. It is not the orbit of planetary motions alone that they focus on. It is also their effect that is important. The resultant swirl of spiritual forces. The realignment of souls and energy. The gravitational drift of eternal power and essence.

The knowledge of the Followers predates all others. Theirs is the science that gave birth to astronomy, astrology, geography, meteorology and all others. The wisdom of the ancients.

Through the eastern star shaft, the Master sees the first trace of sunrise. Not dawn. This is different. More precise. The exact time the upper edge of the great orb appears above the horizon. The moment that the balance of power shifts. The split second the rule of night is over.

The first gasping breath of a newborn day.

Eyes fixed on the rising red and orange disc in the morning sky, the Master wonders for a moment about his new recruit. Phoenix. His son. His own flesh and blood. Today will be a telling one for him. For both of them. Blood is said to be thicker than water. Sunset will put that theory to the test. When the ball of fire dips in the west and the last of its trailing edge sinks below the horizon. The answer will be known.

Then history will be written.

145

Caitlyn wakes screaming.

The cell is compost black, wall torches long since burned out. Gideon heaves himself from the straw bunk beside her.

‘Eric! Eric, help me!’

He follows the nightmare voice, feels his way in the utter blackness. The red glow of torches held by Lookers spills through the iron doors of the cell and he catches a glimpse of her. Knees tucked high against her chest, eyes glazed with terror.

‘What’s happening in there?’ calls a Looker.

‘Help! Someone, help me!’

Gideon tries to calm her. ‘It’s okay. You’re all right.’

‘Help!’ The screams are louder.

He sits on the edge of the wooden bunk and tries to steady her. ‘Caitlyn, you’re dreaming. Wake up.’

Two Lookers step quickly into the cell, torches grotesquely illuminating their faces.

‘It’s okay,’ says Gideon, half-turning to them. ‘Light the wall torches and she’ll calm down. She’s just frightened.’

He puts his arms around her and holds her. ‘Don’t worry. No one is going to hurt you.’ The words stick in his throat. Liar.

Light gradually crawls across the walls as the lit torches burn. Caitlyn wakes from the horror of her dreams to face the stone-hard reality of her fate. She holds Gideon for protection. Her voice is rough and raw. ‘I need some water.’

The two Lookers wait for Phoenix to give his consent.

‘Get her some, please.’

The taller of the two, the man previously introduced as Volans, moves to the back of the cell and fills a pot beaker with water from one of the stone troughs. He hands it to her and she drinks.

Gideon looks again at the two robed men. There is something different about them. The way they are holding themselves, the way they stand. He looks into their faces. Reads their concern, their intensity of focus. Then he notices their robes.

They are armed. Both are carrying guns.

146

Megan wants to chase after him. Wants to get up behind Smithsen’s van and put him in a ditch. Find out what the hell he’s doing on MOD land at four in the morning.

Goran unclips the radio from his belt. ‘Command to Echo Leader. We’ve eyeballed a white van heading east out of Imber. Name on the side is Smithsen — Sierra Mike India Tango Hotel Sierra Echo November. Recon and report until otherwise instructed. Over.’

There is a hiss and then a crackly reply, ‘Copy that, Command. Over.’

Megan looks irritated. ‘Who was that?’

Goran looks smug. ‘I have surveillance units pegged to all corners of the compass,’ he says. ‘They’ll be effective for a while yet, until the roads fill up. After that, it’s going to become more difficult. Echo Team is on the van and will report back.’

‘I wish you’d told me you had those kind of resources. How can I help if I don’t know what you’re running with?’

The American grins widely. ‘Sorry, lady. I’m afraid you only get to learn about my resources on a need-to-know basis.’ He can see she’s about to give him a mouthful. ‘We don’t have time to argue. We’ve got to get out of here before it’s fully light.’

Megan glares at him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know exactly where that vehicle came from?’ She looks into the twilight, in the direction of the MOD danger zone and the route Smithsen took.

As he is about to reply, Goran’s radio spurts to life again. ‘Echo to Team Leader. We’ve got a problem. I think the target just made us.’

147

Caitlyn’s unsure of the man she’s sharing a cell with. He introduced himself yesterday as Gideon but she was too sick to do anything but just stare warily at him. Why is he in here with her? What does he want? He’s dressed like all the others but behaves differently. Not as mean. She looks across to him.

He acts friendly. Like he’s on her side. But he is one of them. She knows he is. The other guards listen to him. He told them to light the torches on the wall and they did it. They did as he said. No hesitation. He has influence over them. So why is he in the cell?

She feels weak and nauseous as she creaks her way out of her bunk and tries to take a step or two. He sees the tension on her face. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Why do you care?’ She glares at him like a frightened animal.

‘I’m not here to hurt you.’

Her heart jumps. A sudden rush of hope. ‘Have my parents paid the ransom? Am I going home?’ She forgets her caution and goes over to his bunk. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? It’s why I’m in here instead of that goddamned hole in the wall. It’s why you’re being nice to me. You’re preparing me for my release. Acclimatising me.’

Gideon stands and steadies her. ‘No, Caitlyn. That’s not it.’ He glances towards the iron bars. ‘For all I know, your parents haven’t even been asked for a ransom. The people who abducted you are not after any money. I’m sorry.’

She doesn’t understand. If they don’t want her money, then what do they want? The fear returns to her face. ‘So what’s going on, then?’ She gestures to the room. ‘Why this?’

‘Sit down. I’ll try to explain.’

She sits, nervous as a kitten.

Gideon feels her panic infecting him. What he says next could unhinge her. But he has to let her know, she must understand what is going to happen. She has to realise that these are her last hours alive.

148

Draco’s eyes are fixed in his rearview mirror, his hands locked on top of the van’s steering wheel. About five miles back he caught a glimpse of something behind them. A dark blur way back. Maybe five hundred metres. Tiny but enough. The road out of Imber is always deserted. Always. But not today. The blur is still there.

‘Can you make out what’s behind us?’ he says to Musca, beside him. ‘What kind of vehicle?’

The big butcher swivels in the passenger’s seat. He struggles with the shape. Not a van. Not an estate. ‘Too far back to see properly. A hatchback maybe. A Focus or a Golf, that kind of thing.’

‘Did you see where it came from?’

He turns back round. ‘Not a clue. Why?’

‘The army doesn’t let anyone park down here. So where the hell did it come from and what’s it doing out at this time?’

Musca leans forward so he can see it more magnified in the wing mirror. ‘Maybe they’re lost.’

‘Maybe.’ Draco takes his foot off the gas and slows the van down to thirty. Another glance in the rearview. A blood-red rising sun and the small black car. It’s closing the gap. The builder slows to twenty-five.

‘I’m going to brake and pull over without indicating. Get yourself ready.’

Musca eases a subcompact Glock 26 from his waistband and cradles it on his lap.

Draco hits the brakes. The car slides into a gravel run-off.

The hatchback swerves, its horn blaring. But it doesn’t stop. A window rolls down and the driver shakes a meaty fist.

Neither Draco nor Musca speak. Their eyes stay fixed on the tail-light of the car as it carries on down the dusty road. They watch until it completely disappears.

‘Pissheads,’ guesses Musca. ‘I’ll bet they’ve been on an all-nighter and are heading off to work.

Draco restarts the stalled engine. It makes sense. They might be going over to Tilshead or Westdown Camp. ‘Let’s hope so,’ he says. ‘Today is not the day we want anyone on our tail.’

149

‘You must be fucking crazy,’ Caitlyn says, backing away from Gideon. ‘Cults and and sacrifices? This is not for real.’ She paces nervously around the cell.

Gideon glances to the door. The Lookers are out there. Volans and the others. They are waiting. They will hear.

‘And this place?’ She raises her arms. ‘What is it? The room next to the fucking death chamber? Are you and your whack-job buddies going to take me somewhere and roast me over a fire?’ Her mind can’t cope with the madness of what he’s been trying to tell her.

He lets her vent. Pace. Blow off steam. Then he completes the picture. ‘Just before twilight you will be moved from here. You will be washed and changed into ceremonial robes and taken to the Great Room inside the Sanctuary. There the Master will perform a pre-sacrificial ritual.’

Her eyes widen. He’s deranged. Insane. Isn’t he?

Gideon tries to reassure her. ‘It is not sexual, but it is painful. Your body will be cut with the marks of the Sacreds. One incision for each of the trilithons. This is down your arms, your legs and your spine. Your wounds will be anointed with water of the Sacreds and you will be left for five hours.’

‘And then what?’

‘The Bearers will take you to the river. You will be immersed in the waters that the ancients crossed to erect the temple that you are in and Stonehenge.’

As she hears the word, she thinks of Jake. The last intimate moments they spent together.

‘The henge is where the final part of the ceremony will take place. The offering.’

She stares in utter disbelief. His words are from a lexicon of lunacy. Offering, sacrifice, Bearers, Sacreds. ‘How?’ The question jumps from her of its own accord. ‘How will it be done?’

‘It will be quick. Merciful.’

‘Merciful? What kind of word is that?’ She looks down. Her hands are trembling. It’s all so crazy she can’t believe any of this is going to happen. ‘Where’s Jake? Is he …’ Even saying his name distresses her. ‘Is he going to go through all this as well?’

‘No.’ Gideon tries to be gentle. ‘Your boyfriend is dead. The police found his body a few days ago. In a Campervan.’

Caitlyn loses her breath. It’s what she feared. Locked in that hole, she’s thought as much a hundred times, but the news still breaks her.

Gideon wraps his arms around her and feels her sob against his shoulder. Her whole body shakes as the tears come.

Over her shoulder, he sees a face at the bars of the cell. The face of his father.

150

Sammy is already awake and causing mayhem by the time Megan gets back to her parents’ place. She has make-up plastered across her face and over half the bedroom furniture.

‘Making myself pretty, Mummy.’ She smiles proudly and puckers her newly lipsticked lips.

‘Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.’ Megan sets the shower running and tries to wipe up some of the mess.

Her daughter walks to the low cabinet beneath the sink and collects her own bottle of shampoo. ‘I’m a big girl now, I can wash myself, Mummy.’

It makes Megan smile. Her daughter is growing up. Another few months and she’ll start big school. It doesn’t seem five minutes since Sammy was a babe in arms. Time is going so fast.

The water is fine and she helps Sammy over the edge of the cubicle, careful she doesn’t catch her toes, then closes the door. ‘You okay in there?’ She presses her face to the already steamed-up glass. Sammy slaps the other side, giggles.

Megan holds her head and pretends to be hit, puts her face back to the glass.

Sammy slaps it again and giggles even louder.

This kind of clowning could go on all day.

‘Very funny,’ says a deep voice behind her.

Megan spins round.

‘Adam.’ Her head fills with panic. ‘How did you get in?’

He smiles thinly. ‘Back door. Your mum left it open. I must have told her a dozen times to lock it. She just doesn’t listen, does she?’

Her heart is thumping. ‘What do you want, Adam? What are you doing in here?’

He shuts the bathroom door behind him. Traps them both in the bathroom. ‘Where were you last night, Meg?’

‘What?’ She tries to sound indignant.

‘You were out all night. And not in your car. You left it on the drive, and you weren’t working. So where were you? Who were you with?’

‘I think you should leave, Adam.’ She tries to step around him but he blocks her.

She stares him down. ‘Where I go and what I do is my business. Nothing to do with you. Now get out.’

His face colours. A vein in his neck twitches.

Megan tries for the door.

Again he blocks her. Slips his left hand the other side of her so she’s trapped between his outstretched arms.

‘Let me out.’ Megan doesn’t shout. She has one eye on Sammy. Her baby girl is sat squeezing shampoo down the shower drain.

‘When I’m ready, Meg. Now tell me where you were.’

He is so much bigger than she is. She knows she’ll lose any fight between them. But it doesn’t stop her trying. She drives a knee hard between his legs. He catches it with one hand. His fingers lock like a grip wrench. He squeezes until he sees pain on her face. With his other hand, he grabs her throat and pushes her hard against the bathroom door. ‘I hear you’ve been offered a job in Swindon. Promotion. Good for you. Best you take it.’ He glances towards his daughter. ‘Best for everyone. That way you keep your nose out of my life and out of everything else around here. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Daddy!’

The voice shocks them both. A soaking wet Sammy is out of the shower.

‘Princess!’ He grabs a towel, wraps it around her and scoops her into his arms. ‘Let me take a look at you.’ He pulls open the bathroom door. ‘Do us a favour, Meg, and make a cup of tea while I get my daughter dry.’

151

The Henge Master sits poring over ancient maps and astronomical charts spread on the stone table. The day’s celestial movements are critical. The time is coming.

‘Father.’

Both the voice and the word surprise him. Father. How he has longed to hear it. ‘Phoenix. Come in. I had forgotten that I’d sent for you.’

Phoenix. The name pricks Gideon like a thorn in his flesh.

‘Sit down.’ The Master gestures to the stone bench by the table. ‘How is the girl? She looked distressed when I saw you.’

‘Understandably so.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Her destiny. What will happen to her today. It’s right that she be given an opportunity to come to terms with this, make peace with her own god.’

‘And perhaps be accepted by ours.’

‘Indeed. I would like to stay with her, if that’s possible. Right until the very end. I think she needs me to give her strength.’

‘The very end. Do you think you are ready for that?’

‘I’m sure I am.’ Gideon pauses, as if weighing their words. ‘Father, we have no more secrets. You think you hold something over me but you don’t. I know where we are. I know it from your name, my family name, my heritage. I know it from the great forces that you can muster, from the architecture and archaeology of this Sanctuary, from the position of the star shafts and the alignment with the henge. I know it, Father.’

James Pendragon’s eyes are glittering in the dark. He walks closer to his son. ‘You are right. The time has come when we need to trust each other more. But know this: the ceremony has a certain vividness. It can be shocking. Are you sure you wish to be that close to the woman?’

‘I am sure.’

‘Very well. You may stay with her until the ritual of renewal has been completed, the Sacreds honoured and our debt repaid.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we reap the benefits. The autumn equinox is but twelve weeks away. This is the time the Sacreds will bless us.’

Gideon’s eyes fall on the scrolls of paper on the Master’s desk. They look identical to those he found in Nathaniel’s observatory.

The Master follows his eyes. ‘Do you know anything about archaeoastronomy or ethnoastronomy?’

‘Not much,’ he confesses. ‘The former is the study of how ancient people understood the movement of planets and stars and how they shaped their cultures around those movements. The latter is more the anthropological study of sky watching in contemporary societies.’

The Master looks pleased. ‘That’s right. Our Craft combines the two. We use historical records, such as those you have seen in our archive, and we keep looking, checking constellations and planetary movements. The alignments with the henge and the Sanctuary are critical to our beliefs.’

‘I know.’

‘Of course you do. You are one of the few who understands that nothing here is accidental. The position of every building block and star shaft, the physical alignments with sunrise in the east and sunset in the west, the architectural homage to magnetic north, the tilt of the Descending Passages to mirror the inclination of the earth, it all has sacred meaning.’ The Master grows thoughtful. ‘I must leave shortly. There are things I need to attend to outside of the Sanctuary. We had a problem earlier today. Nothing to worry about but I have to go.’

‘Anything I can assist with?’

‘No, no. Not at all. It would help if you could keep the girl calm. She will grow more anxious by the hour.’ He picks up a long slate knife from among the maps.

The ceremonial blade.

He holds up his right hand and cuts into the palm. Blood trickles in a crimson snake down his wrist. ‘Give me your hand.’

Gideon tentatively stretches his hand out and the Master draws the blade across his palm. Pendragon looks into his son’s unblinking eyes and takes the blooded hand in his own. ‘Blood on blood. Father and son. We are as one.’ He holds up their entwined fingers and draws Gideon tight to him. ‘When I next see you, it will be after the ritual has begun.’ He grips his son’s hand tighter. ‘Swear to me now, as my blood runs in yours and yours in mine, that our souls and our truths are aligned, that I can lay all my trust in you and in this bond between us.’

‘I swear it, Father.’

Gideon watches the crimson drops drip from his elbow and knows it won’t be the last blood shed today.

152

Josh Goran flips his mobile shut, amazed at what Jimmy has told him. He and his boss are no-shows. The woman says she’s staying with her kid and Jimmy’s apparently busy chasing another lead. He can’t believe it. The cops here are worse than the FBI. Hundred per cent amateurs.

Goran gets his men moving. Things are already running behind schedule and Echo Team has been compromised. Forced to abandon the surveillance on the builder’s van. But he isn’t worried. If there is anything to find out on the training range, he’ll find it.

They get back to Imber by early afternoon. The road into the range is as deserted as it was in the early hours of the morning. But as they cruise past the restricted signs, the empty buildings and devastated gardens, they see ripples of mud on the road.

‘Fresh tank tracks,’ says Luc from the front passenger seat. ‘Not even wet yet.’

‘Challenger, most probably,’ observes Goran. ‘Piece of shit. I saw them in Kosovo. Brits would have been better sticking to the old Chieftains.’

‘Or Rotem K2’s,’ says Luc. ‘Korean Black Panthers. They’ve got fire-and-forget technology and full nuclear, biological and chemical armour protection.’

‘K2’s are an army equivalent of a Kia,’ shouts Lynton from the back. ‘Who’d go to war in a Kia?’

They all laugh.

Goran takes the Transit off road down a dirt track, west towards Warminster. It bumps around for about a mile and a half then they park up and drag out rucksacks filled with cameras, clipboards, fake documentation and specimen bags. Their cover this time is as members of the International Entomological and Natural History Society. Insect hunters. Lynton has mocked up IENHS access documentation to the Imber range and even filled their bags with research papers on bees, bugs and all manner of weird creatures.

Luc and Jay drop ramps from the back of the van and unload four Yamaha YZ125 trail bikes.

‘Echo, November, Sierra and Whiskey Teams, this is Command,’ Goran barks into the radio. ‘We are go. Repeat, we are go. Command out.’

The four bikes start their outward sweep, while Echo, November, Sierra and Whiskey recon teams begin to walk inwards from the circumference of the range.

153

Warminster is eight point two miles west of Imber.

It takes the Henge Master twenty-five minutes to make the journey. On any day other than Sunday he would have done it in only nineteen. But Sunday is a day for churchgoers and tourists, and the old Saxon town has eight major places of worship and the kind of surroundings people don’t want to hurry past.

His vehicle rumbles through the main gates of Battlesbury Barracks and halts behind the parade ground. As he makes his way to his office, each soldier he passes stands to attention and salutes their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Sir James Pendragon. Routine and ritual is as important in his public life as it is in his secret one.

Settled behind his desk, he instructs his staff officer to send his guest through. The man he’s travelled here to meet. Wiltshire’s Deputy Chief Constable, Gregory Dockery, is in plain clothes — a grey wool suit with white cotton shirt and grey tie. In his sacred robes he would be known only as Grus.

‘How are you?’ Pendragon shakes his hand and gestures to a pair of brown leather Chesterfields.

‘I will be glad when tomorrow has come.’

‘As will we all.’ Pendragon smiles as he sits. ‘How are you managing your interested parties, the FBI, Interpol, Home Office? Tell me.’

‘Vice President Lock is back in the US. He rings the Chief five times a day. His wife is drunk or drugged all the time that she’s not on TV crying or pleading. The Home Office people are bored. They seem resigned to dealing with the fallout when the girl’s body turns up. As for Interpol, well, you know how useless Interpol is. Might as well ask the post office to find her.’

‘So all is good?’

‘Not quite.’ Dockery grows fidgety. ‘I think we may have a potential problem with the lone American wolf.’

Pendragon nods. ‘Major Joshua Goran, former Special Ops Command. I wondered how long it would be before he started causing trouble.’

‘Goran has a couple of my men on his payroll. They’re only feeding him what we want, but I got word that dogs in his pack are sniffing around Imber.’

‘Makes sense. Draco said he saw people out there this morning. They tailed him and Musca for a little while but pulled out when they realised they’d been seen.’

‘Any harm done?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Pendragon muses for a moment on the incident. ‘Most of our resources are stretched in preparation for tonight and tomorrow morning. But I will increase surveillance at the Sanctuary. I’ll make sure Goran is not a problem.’

‘Good.’ Dockery creaks forward on the leather, places his hands on his knees. ‘I also have some difficulties within the force, but I’m hoping they’re being dealt with.’

‘You mean Aquila’s woman?’

‘Yes. She’s off the case. Hunt was confused of course, but bought the reason for the transfer in the end. She starts a new cold case unit in Swindon tomorrow and we’ve destroyed any physical or electronic evidence she had put together. I also had Aquila pay her a visit this morning. I’m told it had the desired effect.’

‘Let’s hope so. And your son, what about him and the woman?’

Dockery flinches. ‘He remains a worry. Seems he has a lot of faith in the DI.’

‘Son or no son, you can’t allow him to become a problem, Gregory.’

‘I am aware of that. And your own child?’

‘Touché. I don’t think I have any worries there though. He passed the initiation of course, and he is more than aware that he already owes his life to our cause.’ Pendragon’s face hardens. ‘So why the visit? What is on your mind?’

Dockery creeps to the edge of his seat. ‘I have a suggestion. An unorthodox one. However, one I think you can sanction. If you agree, I’m certain our plans will go ahead tonight without any fear of interruption.’

154

The Apache helicopter swoops across Salisbury Plain at more than a hundred and fifty miles an hour. It banks high into the bright blue sky before looping back over the sun-parched Imber range.

The gunship is fitted with an M230 chain gun, synched to the helmet sights of the pilot and gunner. Even more deadly are its semi-active laser-guided Hellfire II missiles, capable of destroying tanks, buildings and bunkers. It’s a flying arsenal.

But this flight is non-aggressive. An impromptu run-out. The pilot Tommy Milner and his two-man crew sweep the plain to find a group of trespassers reported within the restricted area. A welcome break from the boredom of sitting around.

Milner calls in a result after only a few minutes.

‘Targets spotted. Twelve in total. Spread twelve o’clock, three o’clock, six o’clock and nine o’clock. Do you want exact verbal positioning or will you take refs off our data screen. Over?’

‘We got the data,’ says the base’s air controller. ‘Processing now. Can you describe movements?’

‘Charlie will give you details. I’m just going to hover so we can fix the cameras for you.’

Co-pilot Charlie Golding takes his cue. ‘Two distinct groupings. Four on motorcycles moving outwards towards Imber circular footpath as just described. Eight more in splits of two, on foot, moving inwards.’

Milner hits the zoom on one of the high-powered video surveillance cameras.

A soldierly form, dressed in some type of black uniform, fills the screen. ‘I have one of the trespassers full frame,’ says the pilot. ‘As you can see he is on some form of nonmilitary motorcycle, travelling at slow speed.’

‘Thank you, Apache One. We have the imaging. Standby for further instructions. Over.’

The controller turns to Lieutenant Colonel James Pendragon. ‘What do you want us to do, sir?’

The Master rises from the seat he’d taken near the monitors. ‘Send a ground patrol to clear the range. Lock these fools up until the morning. Then let them go.’

155

Megan has spent most of the day in shock. Adam’s surprise visit scared her. She knows exactly what he was doing. He was showing that he could find her, get to her or Sammy, any time he wanted. Well, it had worked. She’s still shaking long after he’s left.

Adam is still on her mind as Jimmy drives her out to West Lavington to meet a contact of his. A man who sounds almost as frightened as she is.

‘He’s terrified,’ says Jimmy. ‘Wouldn’t agree to speak to you unless it was way out in the country, somewhere he felt safe.’

Megan glances out of the window at an endless green blur. ‘Well, this is certainly way out in the country.’

They pull into the grounds of Dauntsey’s, a five-hundred-year-old red-brick boarding school set in a hundred acres of secluded countryside on the northern edge of Salisbury Plain.

‘His name is Lee Johns,’ explains Jimmy, parking in a line of parents’ vehicles near a stretch of sports fields. ‘He worked security at Stonehenge with Sean Grabb, the guy who turned up dead in Bath.’

‘And what, he just came forward today?’

‘No, I only found him this morning. I’ve been working my way through the security firm’s roster and finally caught him at home.’

A few minutes later an old Honda pulls in and parks up.

‘This is our boy,’ says Jimmy. ‘Best you get the rest of the tale from him.’ He slides out of his seat and heads across the car park.

Megan watches from the passenger seat and weighs Johns up as he approaches. Spotty-faced, mid-twenties, tall and thin but doesn’t walk proud. He’s a stooper. Self-conscious. Doesn’t look the kind that makes friends easily. Probably a loner. Lives by himself, doesn’t eat well and doesn’t have a girlfriend.

Jimmy opens a back door for Johns, returns to the driver’s seat and makes the introductions. ‘Lee, this is my boss, DI Baker. Tell her what you told me and don’t mess about.’

He looks at her like she’s about to eat him.

‘Go on. I won’t bite,’ she says.

‘You’re going to think I’m crazy.’

‘Try me.’

‘I work — worked — a lot with Sean Grabb. He was a good bloke. He sort of took me under his wing when I came up here. Sorted me out like. He got me a job, helped me get my head together and encouraged me to get off the gear I was on. You know about Sean, right?’

Megan nods.

Johns lowers his head. ‘He was a good bloke. A mate.’

Jimmy pushes him. ‘Tell the DI what you said about the cult and Stonehenge.’

He looks up. ‘It’s not a cult. It’s a religion. A proper religion. Goes back before Christ and everything. Sean was really into it. He believed the henge was some kind of sacred thing that was the home for ancient gods. He would go on and on about it, the power it had. He said the people who worshipped there were good people, doctors, lawyers and stuff, even coppers.’ He looks towards Jimmy. ‘No offence, like.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I got interested more because Sean was a mate and I wanted to stay tight with him. They took me somewhere weird and held this kind of mass and blessing.’

‘Where?’ asks Megan.

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. They put a hood over my head. I couldn’t see. They drove me somewhere. I remember the inside though. It was like a big old church, a cathedral kind of thing.’

‘Warminster?’ suggests Jimmy.

‘Might have been. I don’t know. I’ve not been in any churches anywhere since I were a kid. Anyways, I didn’t get to see it going in or coming out. Sean said it would be some time before I would be told where the meeting place was.’

Megan is anxious not to let him wander too far off track. ‘Lee, do you know about Caitlyn Lock, the American who was kidnapped at Stonehenge?’

‘Only what I saw on the news.’

‘This group and their secret place, do you think they have her there?’

He looks shocked. ‘The American? No, I don’t see them doing anything like that. No way.’

She can tell he’s scared. What interests her is why. ‘Jimmy says you know about something that’s supposed to be happening today?’

He looks uncertain.

‘Tell her, Lee.’ The DS glares at him.

‘All right. Look, it might be nothing. I mean, I’m not that involved with these people, right? I just work security at the henge and went along to the ceremony with Sean.’

‘We’ve heard all that,’ Megan snaps. ‘What is it, Lee?’

He takes a deep breath. ‘There is something big going down at the henge. Extra security has been put on. Dozens and dozens of extra uniforms. I’m on a detail that starts at six and stops anyone getting within a mile of the place.’

‘Aren’t there prayers, masses and ceremonies happening there all the time?’

‘Yeah, there are, but security is usually low level for that sort of stuff. A couple of guards to make sure no one messes with the Sacreds. Tonight is different. The area is completely shut to the public. No bookings from this afternoon until tomorrow.’ He turns to Jimmy. ‘Look at their records. You’ll find it’s for maintenance of the stones, but what happens out there tonight is nothing to do with maintenance. At least not the kind most people would expect.’

156

Luc van Daele is the first to run into an army ground patrol. He sees the Saxon armoured personnel carrier kicking up dust and spitting out fumes straight ahead. It’s not a surprise that they’ve turned up. In fact, he expected them much earlier than this.

He gears the dusty trail bike down to an unhurried halt and steps off. The engine dies as he turns away from the vehicle and speaks quickly and quietly into his radio. ‘I’ve got visitors. A personnel carrier with four-up. They’re just coming over for a chat. I’ll keep this channel open as long as possible. Over.’

The big, camouflaged Saxon grinds to a noisy halt and several soldiers spill out. Time to put Lynton’s cover story to the test. Van Daele wriggles free of his rucksack and digs out his false papers. ‘Hi there,’ he shouts with a friendly smile. ‘You guys work on a Sunday as well, eh?’

A clean-cut soldier in his late twenties is first to speak. He’s kitted out in standard green and brown field gear. The tactical recognition flash on his arm puts him at captain-level with the Yorkshire, one of the British army’s largest infantry regiments. ‘You’re trespassing here, sir. This is a restricted area. I need you to step away from the motor cycle and come with us.’

‘I think you’re mistaken.’ Van Daele holds out a plastic file filled with paperwork. ‘I’m with the International Entomological and Natural History Society. My colleagues and I have permission from the ATE to carry out a survey on rare myriapods and isopods.’ He can see the soldier doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. ‘Centipedes, lice, pill bugs, stuff like that.’

The captain takes the documentation but doesn’t look at it. ‘I’m sorry, sir. It doesn’t really matter what this says or what you’re doing, I’m under instructions to remove you from here.’

Luc knows better than to argue. ‘Okay. No problem.’ He waves a hand resignedly. ‘I can easily put up with going home early to my wife and children.’ He takes back the papers, shoves them in his rucksack and goes to start the bike.

The young captain steps in his path. ‘I’m afraid you can’t do that. You have to travel in the carrier with us, back to our barracks. One of my men will take care of your vehicle.’

‘Hey, come on now.’ Van Daele pushes the officer’s arm away. ‘I’m happy to ride this off your range, that should be enough for you.’

The captain calls to his men. ‘Welsby, Simmonds, Richards.’

Three squaddies quickly crowd van Daele and move him away from the bike. Two of them are no more than kids. He could crack their heads easily enough. Leave them flat on their backs shouting for Mummy. But not without looking anything but like an insect collector.

157

Megan and Jimmy let Johns go and drive towards Stonehenge. She has mixed feelings about what she just heard.

‘How much do you believe him, Jimmy?’

He drives with one hand on the wheel. ‘Lee is an ex-junkie. Hard for these people to get out of bed without lying. What’s on your mind?’

‘He used the word “Sacreds”. He didn’t call them stones. He called them Sacreds. The same word that Gideon Chase used.’

‘Sounds like he didn’t make it up then, not if Chase used the same word.’

Megan is still chewing things over. ‘He’s not telling us everything. He’s either more involved than he says he is, or less. Either way, he’s holding back for some reason.’

Jimmy puts his foot down as they clear Shrewton and join the last stretch of road to Amesbury. A brown sign for Stonehenge comes up on their right. ‘You want me to pull into the car park?’

‘No, not for a minute. Just drive around the place.’

He slows to a crawl as they pass the monument, then turns right off the A344 and heads past it on the other side down the A303. In the grounds around the henge they see more than two dozen black-suited security guards being organised into groups.

‘Well, it looks like he was telling the truth about some of it,’ says Jimmy.

‘Take another right,’ says Megan. ‘The lane, there. Park up and we’ll walk.’

Jimmy indicates and starts to manoeuvre. As he turns he’s confronted by a ‘Road Closed’ sign weighed down with sandbags in the middle of the lane.

‘I’ll stop further down and turn around,’ he says. ‘Otherwise we’ll have to go all the way to Winterbourne Stoke and back through Shrewton.’

He pulls out and starts a three-point turn. Megan glances across the open countryside. ‘I’m puzzled about something else that Johns said back there.’

‘What’s that?’ he spins the wheel and straightens up.

‘He mentioned that he thought people like doctors and police were members of this religion. When he said it, he looked towards you and said, “No offence”. Why did he do that?’

Jimmy knows what she’s getting at. ‘I told him I knew all about the movement. That my father has always been a member but that I never wanted to be. I said my old man was in the force, the Deputy Chief Constable, and he could check on that easily enough if he wanted. That’s how I got him to open up and tell us about tonight.’

‘Is that true, Jimmy? That your father is a member of the Followers? Is that why I’m being shipped out to Swindon?’

‘It’s just something I said to Johns to get him to talk.’

Megan looks into his eyes and sees he’s masking his emotions. ‘You think he is, don’t you?’

Jimmy looks away. He’s riddled with doubts. His father has been his lifelong hero, the reason he joined the force, the one man in the world who has always been there for him. He can’t accept he’s mixed up in something as awful as all this. Won’t accept it. Not yet. Not until there’s overwhelming proof.

158

Caitlyn starts to dry retch. There’s nothing she can do about it. She sits on the edge of her bunk, then drops to her knees. The intense heaving comes in painful spasms.

Gideon looks on feeling helpless. He puts an arm around her, gives her a drink, holds the clay cup to her lips. But he can see that he’s of no real comfort. Her condition is deteriorating fast.

She sits with her back against the wall and places her hands on her tummy. ‘My stomach feels like I’ve filled it with battery acid.’

‘That’s pretty much what it is. Gastric acid, secreted by the lining of your gut. Can you remember when you were taken? When you last ate anything?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve completely lost sense of time, of day and night.’ She thinks. Grasps at the last few days. ‘Wait. It was Saturday, the early hours of the morning. The day before the solstice. The nineteenth.’

‘Today is the twenty-seventh. Sunday, the twenty-seventh.’

‘Oh God.’

‘They’ve done this to purify you. The ritual demands that at least seven days pass without food passing your lips.’

His eyes are on the bars and the two Lookers stood outside. ‘Caitlyn, they’re going to come for you soon. When they do, they are going to start the ritual and part of it will involve taking you outside. I’m going to be with you. Security will be tight. Even tighter than it is now. But this is the only chance we will have.’

‘Chance?’ Her spirits lift a little. ‘What chance? What are you going to do?’

His eyes hold hers. ‘Everything I can.’

159

High in the clouds, the hovering Apache is the first to realise what is happening. The three motorbikes are making a run for it. Dust kicks up from the terrain and the trail bikes are suddenly screaming across the plain in opposite directions.

‘Trespassers dispersing. Are you catching this, control?’ Milner widens the camera focus to show as much of the ground below as possible.

‘Copy. We’ve got it, Apache. Ground patrols are ready to engage.’

Milner spots the big fat Saxon lumbering across the range, then the trails of two small, faster Land Rover Snatch 2’s crossing from the west.

‘Don’t often see bikers out here,’ remarks Golding off-mike. ‘Especially ones behaving like those guys.’

‘Never mind, good to give the old bird a spin, better than sitting around.’

Golding is as relaxed as the pilot. ‘No point having big equipment if you don’t use it, I guess.’

They both laugh as they watch the onboard monitor and the run the bikes are giving the army vehicles for their money.

‘Could be an op,’ says Golding. ‘Maybe 76th Foot or the 19th are playing the part of the trespassers?’

‘Might even be outsiders,’ says Milner. ‘You sometimes get the SAS or Marines coming down here for a workout before going out to the Middle East.’

One of the bikes pulls a sharp turn, leaves a Land Rover for dead and then blazes off in an entirely new direction.

‘They’re going to lose these guys.’ Milner points to the monitor. ‘Look what they’re doing. They’ve spread themselves so wide, so quickly. The patrols aren’t going to catch them.’

‘Someone’s going to get it tonight.’ Golding clicks on his radio. ‘We’ve got one trespasser heading south into the cover of trees near Heytesbury. Do you want us to reposition or stay as we are, covering the others?’

‘Keep your position, Apache One.’

Five minutes later it’s all over. The bikes have outmanoeuvred the ground patrols and disappeared. Only four more of the trespassers, all of whom were on foot, have been captured. Apache One wheels around and heads back to base.

160

STONEHENGE IS CLOSED.

From what Megan and Jimmy can make out, similar CLOSED signs have been posted on all approaches to the historic site. The public car park is shut and all non-public roads have been closed.

The two police officers walk along the tiny grass verge of the A344 and past the ugly stretch of fenced-off tarmac where coaches and cars normally pull in. They cross the road and peer through another stretch of fencing towards the most complete part of the henge.

‘What’s going on, Jimmy?’ She is staring at the dozens of uniformed security staff. They are all over the site.

‘No idea.’

They stand and watch. Groups of guards begin fixing massive sheets of black plastic to the wire mesh fencing. Blocking out any views from the nearby highways. Megan scurries towards the nearest team. ‘Hi there. What are you guys up to?’

They ignore her and carry on stretching out a vast swathe of black plastic.

‘What are you doing?’ shouts Jimmy.

‘Minding our own business.’ The reply comes from an older, unshaven man wearing a black T-shirt and cargo pants.

Megan slaps her police ID against the wires. ‘I’m a police officer. I just made it my business.’

The man gets up off his knees. Stanley knife in hand, he walks her way. ‘Carry on,’ he calls to the others. He pins a smile against the wires, right next to her ID. ‘It’s a private party. Booked by a VIP for tonight. Now tell me exactly why any of that can be your business?’

Megan ignores the aggressive tone. He’s probably an ex-cop in a dead-end security job who wants to make out to his cronies that he’s more important than he is. ‘And the sheeting.’ She gestures to the river of black now rolling across the field. ‘What’s that for?’

He looks at her like she’s dumb. ‘Privacy. Private land. Private party. Get it? If you pay out big money for your own personal pleasure, you don’t want nosy parkers at the fences troubling you all night. Understand what I mean? Now if you want to know more, you can ring my office. Maybe they’ll tell you who made the booking. Maybe they won’t. Now excuse me, I’ve got a job to do.’

He turns his back and walks away.

Bastard, she thinks.

‘I’ve got the number for the security company,’ says Jimmy. ‘I’ll call them from the car.’

Megan slaps a hand against the wire as she walks away. ‘Looks like your informant was right. They’re preparing for something big tonight. Something they apparently want to keep very, very private.’

161

The cell door creaks open and the draught causes the torch lighting on the wall to flicker.

‘Phoenix.’ Musca beckons him away from the sacrifice.

Gideon leaves Caitlyn on her bunk, lying on her side, her eyes glued to the hooded and robed figure filling the door frame.

Musca is wearing white cotton gloves and holding another pair. ‘Put these on.’

‘Why?’

The big butcher looks at him as though he’s stupid. ‘Fingerprints. We don’t want any prints on what I’m about to give you.’ He leans closer. ‘We will come for her in an hour. You need to tell her. So she has this final time for herself. For her to prepare for her death.’

It’s more than just a ritual to Musca, Gideon can tell. It’s sadism. The thrill of watching someone suffer. The man is enjoying it.

The big butcher steps outside the cell and takes a sheaf of plain A4 paper and a cheap pen from one of the Lookers. ‘Give her this. Tell her she’s allowed to write a final letter to anyone she likes. You can assure her they’ll get it.’

‘And will they?’

‘Providing she doesn’t do anything stupid like try to describe any of us or where she is, then yes, they will.’

‘I understand. Anything else?’

‘No. Sixty minutes, that’s all she has. Not a minute longer. Make sure she’s ready.’

The cell door clanks closed.

Caitlyn is sat up, anxiously watching him as he returns.

He hands the pen and paper to her. ‘They have given you this. To leave a message.’

‘For my parents?’

He can see that she’s got the wrong idea. ‘It’s not for ransom. I told you, there isn’t going to be any ransom demand. These people have no plans to release you.’ He sits alongside her and tries to help her through. ‘This is it. They are getting ready to start the ritual. You have an hour, that’s all. Then it will begin.’

162

Caitlyn writes two letters. One to her mother, one to her father. She wishes it could be just one. But it can’t. This is the way that she has to do it. Her parents’ divorce is screwing up her death almost as much as it did her life.

Words don’t come easy. At first, they don’t even come at all. Longhand is an alien lifeform to her. And letters like this, well, nothing prepares you for drafting letters like this. They should be the sole preserve of old people or people with awful diseases.

In the end she just writes down what she’s thinking.

Her note to her father is touchingly different.

Gideon doesn’t look at the letters when she’s finished. He just takes them off her and folds them in three. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Not really.’

She looks drained. Like the life has already gone from her.

She pours herself some water.

‘Damn it!’ She hurls the pot to the floor and starts to sob. ‘I don’t want to die. Oh, please God, don’t let them do this to me!’

163

The security firm’s number goes straight to answerphone. A recorded message. No one available until tomorrow.

‘Have you got the owner’s home number?’ asks Megan.

‘Yeah, John Doran-Smith. I’ve got a mobile.’ Jimmy thumbs through his notebook again and punches in the digits.

No answer.

Jimmy leaves a message, makes it sound serious, official police business, the man has to call him urgently.

Something’s happening. Megan knows now. She switches her thoughts back to Lee Johns. What is he not telling them? There are three main reasons why people like him start becoming helpful to the police. They’re afraid of going to prison. They need money for something, probably drugs. Or they’re into something they simply don’t know how to get out of it.

She turns to Jimmy. ‘Did Johns ask you for any money?’

‘Not a penny.’

‘He talked to you solely because his mate Grabb disappeared?’

‘Right.’

‘We should sack ourselves.’ Her face colours. ‘How could I be so stupid? He must have been with Grabb when they murdered Timberland and took Lock.’

Jimmy quickly dials Lee Johns’ mobile number. They should never have let him go, she knows that now. Half her mind was still on Sammy at the time.

‘No answer, boss.’ Jimmy holds up the phone as though to prove the point.

‘You know where he lives?’

The DS doesn’t need any bigger hint. He starts up the car.

‘Pray he’s there, Jimmy.’

164

The visit of the Master to the henge is unexpected.

Trusted members of the Inner Circle speed up the positioning of the black sheeting. The site is completely cleared. Only when veteran Lookers are in position outside the makeshift privacy curtain does the Master pass through the passageway under the road to the sacred site.

The day is finishing in cloud, the sun sinking mournfully low in the west. Time is of the essence. He walks the edge of the field. As always, he will enter the linked arms of the giant sarsens on a sun-line from the Heel Stone to Altar Stone. He stops at the horseshoe of five great trilithons and kneels.

‘Sacred rulers of our universe, I supplicate myself before you, seeking your guidance and wisdom. I do so in all my mortal frailty and loyalty. I dedicated myself to the ritual of renewal and have ensured all preparations to honour you are in place. The one you chose is ready. A small repayment of the vast debts we owe you.’

He glances up, sees a further ominous dimming of the daylight. An unexpected storm may be brewing. A force of nature augmented by the Sacreds.

‘Lords, our enemies are gathering. They close on us just as clouds surround the sun and moon. I know this to be a trial, a test of our faith and our resolution as Followers, but I cannot undertake it without your guidance. Without your consent.’

He feels his arms growing heavy. They drop by his side as though exhausted from holding a great burden. There is no need to talk now. The Sacreds know everything.

They are in his mind. In his doubts. They race through every atom of his existence. When they are done they leave him prostrate and gasping for air. But the Master has his answer.

He knows what he must do.

165

Kylie Lock slams the phone down on her husband.

The cheapskate son of a bitch still won’t agree to match the money. Okay, she gets that publicly he can’t do it. Vice Presidents don’t negotiate with terrorists, that she understands. But he could still put his hand in his damned pocket. Do it privately. She could tell the police and the press she raised the extra bucks herself.

But he won’t even do that. Can’t compromise his precious principles. Oh no, that would bring his integrity into question. Would cost him votes is what he means. Thom ‘Iron Man’ Lock can’t be seen to parley with the bad guys. Not even for his family. Certainly not in election year.

She stomps around her suite at the Dorchester. Rage building. Can’t even take it out on Charlene. The press aide has gone sick with food poisoning. On this day of all days. Kylie goes to the minibar, looks at the vodka. God she needs it. But she won’t. She takes a bar of chocolate instead. Sits chewing on the bed, watching TV and listening to the radio at the same time. She needs some valium. Or amphetamine. She snatches up the TV remote, switches to Sky News. Praying for another fix of news about her baby.

Kylie fires up the iPad and browses the internet, searching for snippets of information about her daughter. She shouldn’t. The web gossip is bitter. Twisted. Cruel. There is already a virtual tombstone, spray-painted with messages from fans. Mostly boys.

But she has to read it. All of it. She has to tune in to everything and anything to do with Caitlyn. Because deep down, deep inside her, she feels something she can’t explain.

Something instinctual. Maternal. Her nerves are jangling. Something bad is happening to her baby. She just knows it.

166

The sound is the one Caitlyn has been dreading.

Metal on metal.

A worn key turning in an old lock. The cell door is opening. They have come for her. The ritual is about to begin. She is going to die.

Gideon puts his arms around her. ‘Be ready,’ he whispers. ‘Whatever I do, whenever I do it, be ready to fight for your life.’

He can feel her heart hammering against his chest. She is trembling from head to toe.

‘It is time,’ says an impatient voice by the door.

Caitlyn clings to Gideon.

‘Be brave. Be strong.’ He peels her off him, holds her hand. ‘I’ll be with you.’

She takes a deep breath, tells herself to keep her wits about her. Don’t fall apart now. It would be the worst thing to do. The fight isn’t over until all hope is gone.

From somewhere deep inside, she finds courage, pulls her hand free from Gideon’s and walks towards the two robed men waiting by the cell door.

Draco nods to Gideon, gestures to the letters on the girl’s bunk. Gideon understands and rushes to collect them.

They walk the corridor of death, flames crackling from burning torches fixed to the walls and reach the cleansing area.

Caitlyn is pulled from Gideon, undressed and manhandled into the deep stone trench. Clear, cold mineral water powers down on her from the channelled inlets set in the rock ceiling. She shivers, fighting for breath.

Gideon turns away as the Cleansers pull her from the water, dry her and dress her in the long sacrificial robe. One of the Lookers walks over and talks quietly to him. ‘Come with me, Phoenix. You must stand for her in the Great Room. The circles of light are lit. They await her there.’

Gideon doesn’t want to leave her side. He feels a tug on his elbow and looks back at Caitlyn as they walk. He can’t see her face, he wants to see her face, make some human connection with her. But he can’t. Too many people around her.

In the Great Room, he looks helplessly around the chamber, smells the newly warmed wax of the candles. He looks up and sees that the star shafts are open. The sunless sky is grey and edging towards twilight.

Time is running out.

His eyes fall to the Slaughter Stone, the spot where Caitlyn will be strapped down and the marks of the trilithons opened up on her legs, arms and spine. There is a noise outside. Footsteps. They are bringing her in. The ritual is about to begin.

Draco’s hooded head appears in the doorway. His dark eyes fix on Gideon. ‘Come with me, now! The Great Room must be cleared. There’s a change of plan.’

167

‘Is there no other way round, Jimmy?’

The DS shakes his head. ‘Bulford’s a horror. You’ve got half the bloody army out here: 3rd Mechanised, the Rifles, Royal Logistics, even the RMP.’

Finally, they edge past the slow-moving convoy of squaddies and Jimmy works the car hard down Marlborough Road, takes a right into Hubert Hamilton Road, then a left into Harrington. At last they’re in the road where Lee Johns lives.

They slew to a halt, get out and sprint through a communal garden, up white concrete steps to a run-down flat. Megan keeps her finger pressed on the button while Jimmy shuffles along the small balcony to bang on the lounge window.

There’s no answer.

She crouches and shouts through the letterbox. ‘Lee, it’s DI Baker and DS Dockery. We need to talk to you. Urgently.’

Still nothing.

‘Put the door in.’

Jimmy hesitates.

‘Put it in, Jimmy, or I’ll do it.’

He steps back, plants a kick below the handle. His foot bounces off the lock but the door doesn’t break. He steps back again and delivers a firmer thump with his heel. This time it swings open and they pile in.

Jimmy runs through the lounge into the small kitchen. Megan takes the bedroom. Then the bathroom. Nothing. He isn’t here. She goes back into the bedroom. Opens the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. Full of clothes. Into the bathroom again. She finds his toothbrush. No sign of a hurried exit.

They wander outside, thinking about where next to hunt. Forty metres down the street Megan notices a thin man holding a newspaper in one hand and a sandwich in the other.

It’s him.

Johns sees them on the stairs. And starts to run.

He’s quick too. Much faster than Megan expected an ex-junkie to be. He makes a break for the fields behind Harrington Road. She barrels after him. Jimmy jogs back for the car, hopes to head him off as he comes out on Marlborough Road.

Megan is catching him.

Johns glances over his shoulder and sees her gaining. He also notices Jimmy is not there. It doesn’t take a lot of working out to figure he is following in the motor.

Johns peels away from Marlborough Road. He’s not going for the open fields. He’s not that stupid. Instead he goes north towards a dense copse. With any luck, he’ll lose her in there.

But he doesn’t make it.

Megan finds an extra burst of energy just as his tank runs empty. She takes him down metres from the edge of the woodland.

They are both breathing heavily but the DI is fitter and stronger. She grabs his wrist and twists his arm hard up his back.

He kicks a little but his lungs are on fire.

‘Don’t even think about it, Lee.’

168

Six Followers, led by Draco and Musca, briskly escort Caitlyn and Gideon back to their cell.

She is terrified by the men’s haste, their infectious nervous energy.

‘What’s going on?’ Gideon asks Draco.

‘Wait a minute.’

The Lookers push the sacrifice inside and Draco pulls him away from the bars. ‘The Master has changed the plans for the ritual. He has been to the henge and he has himself become a vessel for the Sacreds. The gods are within him. He is in the Great Room right now, allowing them to take their places in the Sanctuary.’

‘He is switching the location for the ritual?’

‘That’s right. He believes it safer to take place here, than out in the open.’

‘And that accords with tradition?’

‘It does. The henge in the Great Room comes from the same tabernacle stone as those on public display. In many ways it is a holier site.’

Gideon realises the implications of the switch. They’re not going to take her outside. He will have no chance to help her escape. He looks through the cell bars. She will be put to death just a short walk from where she is now.

‘I have to see my father. I must speak with him.’ He tries to push past him.

Draco blocks his way. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘I must.’

‘I said it is not possible.’ His eyes narrow. ‘The Master has left instructions that he must not be interrupted. Twilight is upon us. The ritual has begun.’

Gideon is returned to the cell and the door locked. Caitlyn sits on her bunk, her hair still wet, awkwardly holding the ceremonial gown about herself. It is split up the back so the knife of stone may be used on the naked flesh displayed beneath it.

Gideon slips off the rope from around his waist. ‘Here, use this. It will help you fasten the gown.’

She takes it and chokes back a sob. ‘It’s stupid, isn’t it? I’m about to be killed and here I am worrying about showing my ass.’

He understands her need to maintain some self-respect, some dignity. ‘It’s not stupid. It’s dignified.’

Caitlyn looks to the door. She’s almost too scared to talk. ‘What’s happening out there?’

‘They’re going to complete the ritual here, not at the henge.’ He wishes he had better news to break.

Her face is heavy with sadness. She looks completely lost. ‘Can you just hold me for a moment? I feel like I’m going to fall apart.’

Gideon moves closer. She wraps her hands around his waist and rests her head on his shoulder. It feels good to be comforted. To cling on to someone who doesn’t want to hurt her.

‘Hey!’ One of the Lookers rattles the cell door. ‘None of that. Back away from her.’

Gideon gives the man a withering glance. Does the idiot think he’s planning to have sex with her? How stupid. He knows as well as anyone that a defiled sacrifice wouldn’t be any use to anyone.

No use to anyone.

How could he not have seen it.

He might still be able to save her life.

169

The Henge Master stands clad in a hooded ceremonial sackcloth robe bleached red using an ancient mixture of beets, madder and chokecherries. Beneath his hood there is a moon-like crescent, the outline of his shock of grey-white hair.

The Sacreds have been positioned in their tabernacles. Special sanctuary lights, multicoloured glass tubes filled with virgin candles, have been positioned and lit at equidistant spaces around the henge.

Through the star shafts he sees the colour of the sky.

Twilight is but a blink away.

The Master is close to exhaustion. The strain of transporting the Sacreds to the Sanctuary has wearied him. But he will not fail.

He raises a ceremonial stone sprinkler, filled with water washed from the Sacreds and creates a divine line from the Altar Stone inside the horseshoe of trilithons, out through the eastern arches of the sarsens, across the Slaughter Stone to the Heel Stone.

From a pocket in his gown, he draws the ceremonial stone knife and gazes upon the slab where the sacrifice will be cut. Five cuts. One for each of the mighty trilithons where the Chief Sacreds reside, the gods of the sun, moon, stars, earth and afterlife.

She will be left for five hours. One hour for each god. Afterwards, she will be untethered and washed again in blessed waters. Then she will be offered.

The Master’s hand falls to his other deep pocket. He feels that they are there. The sacrificial hammers. He turns his attention to the two Bearers watching and waiting from the other side of the opening to the Great Room. In their grasp is the rough litter made of pine, ready to convey the sacrifice on her fatal journey.

He is ready.

He nods. The Bearers move instantly away.

170

‘What were you running for, Lee?’ Megan twists his arm even further up his back as she stands over him. ‘I don’t have time to mess around and neither do you.’

‘All right. All right, I’ll tell you.’

She sees Jimmy crossing the field and lets go of Johns. The kid struggles to his knees. Cradles his twisted and aching arm. ‘I got scared. I saw you at my place and just freaked.’

She pulls him to his feet. ‘You and Sean Grabb killed Jake Timberland and you helped him kidnap Caitlyn Lock. In policing terms, you are screwed, my strange young friend.’ She jabs a finger in his bony chest. ‘We already have the forensics to link Grabb with the killing and the abduction. And I’m sure that once we go hunting for your DNA, we’ll find it. Juries love DNA. Three letters that they’ll believe more than anything an ex-junkie like you could dream up.’

Johns has been jailed before. He doesn’t want to go back. He looks beyond them, down the road to the big open world. Balancing his options. Finally he speaks: ‘I want immunity, right? A guarantee I ain’t going to get charged with nothing.’

‘Dream on,’ says Jimmy. ‘We’re past immunity. It’s down to damage limitation now. Hurry up. What have you got before we throw the charge sheet at you?’

He nurses his arm again. ‘Not much. It’s not like you think.’

She glares at him. ‘Don’t piss about, Lee. We need everything. No lies. No leaving bits out. Everything.’

He puts his hand to his head. Images are swimming back to him. The man lying dead in the van. The pretty woman screaming and kicking. Him in the Camper suggesting they kill her rather than get caught. ‘It was an accident. Nobody meant anyone to die or anything.’ He sees their unbelieving looks. ‘I mean it. We were after them because the girl touched one of the Sacreds. Things got out of hand. Sean hit the bloke and when we drove him away he died. It freaked us out. We didn’t plan it like that.’

‘I said don’t leave things out.’ Megan jabs him again. ‘Why were you at the henge? Who wanted them and for what?’

He swallows. ‘A stranger has to be picked for the ritual. Sean said it had been decided that it would be whoever touched one of the Sacreds. It didn’t have to be that girl or the bloke with her, it could have been anyone, you know? They just got themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘So where is she?’ asks Jimmy.

‘She’s at the Sanctuary, the place I told you about. But like I said, I don’t know where it is.’ He can see their anger. ‘Really. I’ve never seen it from the outside. Out along the A360. Out near Imber, that’s all I know. We stopped on a road just before the village, near the range. Sean went on from there with the girl in his Warrior and I waited in the Camper with the stiff.’

Megan wants to crack him. ‘You’re talking about a young man whose life you stole. Show some respect.’

‘Go on,’ says Jimmy.

‘Sean came back and said he’d phoned someone. A member of the Inner Circle. He looked relieved. He thought it was all going to be all right.’

‘So what was all that earlier today?’ Megan asks. ‘That story about something happening at Stonehenge?’

He colours up.

She reads his face. ‘If this girl dies, you’re getting charged with murder.’

He understands. ‘A man called Matt Utley, we just call him Musca, came to me.’ He looks towards Jimmy. ‘He knew you were trying to get hold of me, to talk to me about Sean. He says that I’m to contact you, tell you that something’s going off tonight at the henge.’ Johns glances back to Megan. ‘I was confused like, because something was supposed to be going off there tonight. It’s the start of the ritual.’ He dries up.

‘Go on, Lee.’ Jimmy’s voice is firm.

‘Tonight is when the girl should be, you know, sacrificed. And it should be at Stonehenge.’

‘Should be?’

‘That’s the point,’ he explains, looking from one to the other. ‘They know you’re on to them. They know everything. Musca wanted me to say this to you. So you’d go to the stones.’

She lets out a long sigh. ‘So where would be the right place?’

‘The Sanctuary, I guess.’ He puts his wrists together and offers them out to Jimmy. ‘You’ve got to lock me up. Put me in protective custody somewhere. Musca said he’d kill me if I fucked this up. Said I’d go the same way as Sean if I didn’t do what he wanted.’

‘Get him locked up,’ she says. ‘DCI Tompkins can deal with him.’

171

The crazy son of a bitch is at it again. Phoenix has his shirt off and his hands up the back of the sacrifice’s robe. The bastard is feeling her behind. Volans presses his face to the bars of the cell, he can’t believe what he is seeing.

‘Hey!’ He rattles the cell door. ‘Leave her alone, you dog. I told you once.’

The two of them are in the corner trying to hide but he can still see them. Musca appears in the passageway. ‘What’s going on?’

‘That idiot is trying it on with the girl.’

‘What? Stop them. Open the damned door.’

Volans fumbles with the keys. Musca catches a glimpse of them kissing. ‘Quickly. Come on.’

The two Followers stride into the cell and catch Gideon and Caitlyn locked in a passionate embrace, oblivious to the noise around them.

‘Stupid fool!’ Musca grabs him by the hair, pulls him away from her.

Caitlyn steps back. Face full of desperation.

Musca spins Gideon around and crashes a fist into his face. But he doesn’t go down, he bear hugs him and holds on for dear life. Caitlyn lunges forward. A jagged shard of broken pot plunges into the side of Musca’s neck. She feels the warm spurt of blood on her face and knows she’s hit a main vein.

Musca shudders. Gideon lets him slip to the cold floor, then pulls a gun from his waistband. Volans is frozen. Stuck between helping his dying brother or securing the sacrifice.

‘Get the fuck away from her,’ Gideon says. ‘I won’t hesitate to kill you.’

172

‘Caitlyn, take his gun.’

Shaking with adrenalin, she draws the weapon from Volans’ waistband and pulls the bunch of keys from his hand.

‘Kneel down. Face the wall!’

As Volans moves, Gideon glances at the gun in his hand. He’s never held a firearm before, has no idea how to use it. No clue where the safety guard is or whether it’s even loaded.

‘Let’s go!’ He pushes Caitlyn out of the cell and closes the iron door behind him. He grabs her by the sleeve and they sprint down the passageway. Behind them come Volans’ cries for help.

In Gideon’s mind is a mental map. One he knows is incomplete. But it’s all they’ve got. He figures the most direct escape to be past the Great Room, on to the curving passageway of the the Outer Circle, then past the Master’s chamber. It would lead them to the stone staircase and the warehouse exit.

But that’s not where he’s heading. He’s following a hunch. One that will get them free. Or get them killed.

173

The Master steps hesitantly from the Great Room and looks around. The sacrifice should be here by now.

He hears noises spilling down the corridor, turns and walks back towards the cell. Four Bearers are running towards him. Without the litter.

‘She’s gone,’ shouts one. ‘The girl is out of her cell.’

‘My son, where is he?’

‘Also gone.’ The voice is that of Draco, hurrying up to the Master, blood on his hands. ‘They’ve killed Musca and taken Volans’ gun.’

‘Block the main exit,’ says the Master. ‘They will head for the stone steps into the anteroom.’ He feels ashamed that he trusted his child, personally guided him around the Sanctuary.

Draco despatches the Bearers. ‘And the avenue, what about the passageway from your chamber?’

The Master shakes his head. ‘He doesn’t know of it, but secure it anyway.’

‘I’ll go myself.’ Draco takes two men, instructs the rest to search the Sanctuary.

The Master looks into the emptiness of the Great Room. He can sense the displeasure of the Sacreds. But he is calm. The place is a fortress. There is plenty of time to recapture the girl and to complete the ceremony before first light.

He walks towards the Great Room, then thinks better of it.

He smiles and shouts for Draco. ‘Let the men go. Come with me. I know where they are.’

174

The wall torches are few and far between, the maze of passageways cold and heavy with the smell of damp and death.

Caitlyn clings to Gideon as they run. She prays that he knows what he’s doing. Fresh in her mind is her own futile escape attempt.

Something seems wrong to her. They’re heading downward. Running deeper into this horrible place rather than up and out into the safety of the outside world. ‘We’re going the wrong way!’

‘Trust me,’ shouts Gideon, short of breath.

Caitlyn knows she doesn’t have a choice.

As they run down the darkened corridors, he frantically tries to picture the twists and turns of the Sanctuary. In his mind it is like a buried pyramid, only dome-shaped. He sees the upper levels, the modern operational area. The carefully constructed weight-relieving chambers and corridors. Under them the Master’s chamber and the Great Room. He sees the Ascending and Descending Passageways east and west of these. Pictures them all built around the central star shaft. The corresponding points of the compass and constellations.

Now he envisages the eastern passageway. The access to the lowest level. The Crypt of the Ancients. The place they are heading towards.

The twisting and tilting corridors remind him again of Egyptian tombs. The kind of places that hold architectural secrets. He sees Khufu’s Great Pyramid and remembers its hidden chambers and passages.

He prays the Sanctuary has its own secrets. The star shafts, the varying heights in the corridors, the Ascending and Descending Passageways, and the geographic alignments. They are all clues that he’s right.

They slide to a halt in front of a locked oak door.

‘Quickly,’ he says, pulling a breathless Caitlyn tight to the wall. ‘Sit down. Sit here and stay here.’

He backs off several metres, turns to look at her. ‘Further forward. Come towards me half a metre.’

She slides along the ground, pulls her shaking knees up to her chest, rearranges the loose sacrificial gown.

‘Okay. Stop.’ He backs off further, rounds the corner of the passageway behind them, then reappears, looking hard at her.

‘Stay here. Don’t move. Whatever happens, even if you see them coming for you, don’t move.’

175

Caitlyn sits shaking on the cold floor, caught half in the light of a flickering wall torch, half in the long shadows of the high passageway leading to the Crypt of the Ancients.

Gideon has vanished. She is alone. Her mind drifts. Back to when she was a child, playing hide and seek with her parents. Only she hides so well neither of them can find her. She waits and waits and waits. Fears they’ll never come.

Is he gone for good? Has he left her as a decoy?

There’s a noise. Footsteps. Someone is approaching. The waiting is over. Muffled voices. They are coming for her. She remembers what he said: don’t move … whatever happens … don’t move.

Caitlyn holds her nerve. They’re close now. Very close. Footsteps so loud that she knows she is only seconds away from discovery.

She sees them. Two men. One old. One younger. Caitlyn screams. One of them moves to grab her.

The corridor fills with a ball of noise. A sound so loud she flinches in shock. Painful ringing erupts in her ears. The man in front of her clutches his chest. His eyes are wide, his mouth open. He lurches to the side, falls to his knees.

Gideon steps from the shadows. He levels a shaking gun at the older man in the red robe. ‘Father—’ He spits the word out.

The Henge Master glances at Draco on the floor, his blood leaking onto the stone. ‘What have you done?’

Gideon waves the gun. ‘—I need the key to the Crypt.’

The Master lifts the string from around his neck, his face full of contempt. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to leave without stealing something precious. You’re just a grave-robber like Nathaniel.’ He throws the key into the pool of blood near Draco.

‘Get it,’ Gideon says to Caitlyn, the Glock still levelled at his father.

She bends to pick it up.

Draco grabs her by the ankle, pulls her over.

The Master charges Gideon like a bull elephant, crashes him into a wall.

There is another deathly explosion.

176

The two men slump to the ground. Locked together. The Glock clatters over the blood-spattered stone slabs.

Caitlyn’s survival instinct kicks in. She stretches her arm through the cloying pool of Draco’s blood and grabs the fallen weapon. He’s still pulling at her. Strong hands moving from her ankle to her knee. She twists around. She has no choice but to go with the thought in her head. She pulls the trigger. Shoots him in the face. Point blank. The report is deafening.

Blood and brains spatter her. She drops the gun and holds her crimson-soaked hands in horror. She sits frozen until Gideon gets to her.

‘Come on, we have to go.’

Caitlyn can’t move. Multiple images of what she’s done are already branded in her mind. The way he looked at her, then the blood-red mist, flaying skin, saliva, flying bone. He’s dead. She just killed someone.

‘Caitlyn! Get up!’

She feels Gideon grab her hand. It’s wet with blood and brain. He is pulling her along, the stones feel soft beneath her feet. Her vision blurs. She stops and retches. Heaves the last specks of moisture from her empty stomach.

‘Come on!’

She retches again and looks to the side. Gideon is unlocking a door just a few metres away.

He rushes back and gets her, drags her with him through the new opening.

Blackness. Total blackness.

She stands shaking while he searches. The blood red mist sprays up before her eyes again. Flesh. Saliva. Bone. The final, frozen look in his eyes. Like a broken doll.

Light. A wall torch finally starts to burn close to her. Orange. Orange not red. Gideon has lit it. He leads her by the hand, lighting giant candles around the room. The blackness dissipates, dribbles away like water on hot sand. The room tilts. Her knees buckle and she feels a sickly warmth course through her.

‘Caitlyn!’

She hears his voice, tinny and distant, a shout from down a long, dark tunnel, as she falls.

177

The bullet from the Glock has gone straight through the Master’s thigh. He’s lucky. As a career soldier, he knows two simple truths. First, there’s no such thing as a non-fatal shooting. Let any wound bleed long enough and you’ll die. Second, unless you shoot your enemy in the skull or the spine, you’re not going to incapacitate them with a handgun. They’re going to be shocked to hell, but once they’re over that, they’re going to be up and at you again. And that’s what he’s going to do.

He wipes away the blood and examines the entry and exit points. Clean. He feels tentatively around the traumatised skin. The bullet was low velocity, so it’s a straight hole. Little effect on the surrounding tissue. He presses and watches the cavity fill. If it had been a high-velocity rifle, the injury may have been much worse.

He probes and pokes until he’s sure there’s no fragmentation in the wound, no shattered bone that has ripped up masses of muscle tissue. He tries to stand, but it’s hard to balance. Difficult to straighten his leg and painful to put any weight on it. He leans against the wall and pulls the cord belt from around his waist. He loops it around and pulls a tight tourniquet. It’s a temporary fix but good enough for now.

He’s risking nerve damage. Better that though, than to bleed to death. He looks down and sees the sticky puddle of blood and brain matter that has seeped from Draco. No point even checking for a pulse. In his peripheral vision he notices the flickering lights from the candles in the crypt. He hears his son shouting. Shouting to the woman to hurry up.

He dips in the deep pocket of his robe. Feels the sacrificial hammers and the ceremonial knife.

Enough to stop them.

Enough to fulfil the ritual.

178

Gideon reluctantly leaves her slumped and twitching in her faint. He carries the torch high and quickly makes his way around the crypt. He has to find the clue. Some proof that he hasn’t made a fatal mistake.

From the dozens of inclined coffins, empty eyes in skinless skulls seem to follow him. They trail him like ghosts. He can feel their wispy hands on his neck, cold like a dead-of-night shiver down his spine.

Egyptians ensured the dead who they honoured were surrounded by their most prized possessions. From what he can see, it seems to be the same with the Followers of the Sacreds. But the Egyptians equipped their tombs with something else. Secret passages into the afterlife. Long tunnels that allowed the reborn kings to rise again and rejoin their people.

Gideon tries to think of everything he knows about the pyramids. Of the modest structure honouring young Pepi II. The stepped Pyramid of Djoser. Sneferu’s Red Pyramid. And Giza — built two thousand five hundred years before Christ, around the same time as some of Stonehenge, and just after the completion of the Sanctuary. The Great Pyramid had chambers similar to those now surrounding him. Mysterious shafts stretched from the King’s and Queen’s chambers to the outside world. Secret corridors allowed freed spirits to escape to the heavens.

Gideon moves the coffins. Stirs the dead. Hears their bones grumble discontent. Cobwebbed skeletons creak and crack as he searches behind and beneath the caskets for trapdoors or concealed passageways. There are none.

He hears Caitlyn moan and walks over to her, stoops and holds the flame so he can see her face. She is coming round but she’s deathly pale. Glassy eyed. Her energy is spent.

He touches her shoulder reassuringly. ‘You’re all right. You fainted.’

Her eyes flick from him to the horrors of the room. Coffins. Skeletons. Candles. Her nightmare isn’t over.

He thinks back to his studies, to the dusty files of his research, his academic past. His mind tries to see beyond the obvious. A fleeting memory of a massive maze. It is that of Amenemhet. Reputedly an architectural work that surpassed the great pyramids, hundreds of rooms, passageways, corridors, false chambers, star shafts and hidden trapdoors.

There had been a hidden exit in the ceiling. Concealed by a stone trapdoor. A small hole opened up into a series of hidden rooms and passageways. An exit route filled with decoy chambers and deadly shafts. But still an exit route.

He remembers Scandinavian archaeologists discovered that the symbol of the maze represented the spring equinox, the time the sun was supposed to escape from the winter’s blackness. He looks up. His gaze drifts to the top of the giant cube of artefacts in the room’s centre. Even if they climbed it, they couldn’t reach the stone blocks above their heads. But it looks like the only possible way out.

He hopes Caitlyn is strong enough to make it.

‘We have to get moving, come on,’ he grabs her wrist and leads her to the giant stone block. Gideon starts to climb and then pulls her up the first set of stone shelves.

‘Hang on.’ He places her fingers on the edge of the giant sandstone cube. ‘Grip tight. I need to climb up another level, then I’ll—’

The words shrivel in his mouth.

He can see what she can’t. See the shape behind her.

179

Gideon moves too late to stop the stone blade slicing into Caitlyn’s calf.

She screams and almost loses her hold on the giant sandstone cube. Gideon grabs her arm and hoists her up a level.

The Master sweeps the knife again. Too low. It misses. He pushes himself closer. Slashes again. He’s closer now but not close enough. He ignores the pain in his leg and hoists himself on to the bottom layer of the archive cube.

Gideon is pushing Caitlyn up and around the side of the block. Edging her out of harm’s way. He’s looking the wrong way. The knife slices into his shoulder. He tumbles from the cube.

The Master lurches after him. This is personal. Pride. Honour. Everything to live — and die for. He attacks again with the blade.

The gun is back on the cube and Gideon has no chance of reaching it. His eyes are locked on the lethal blade in his father’s hand.

The Master hobbles and stabs. It’s an unbalanced lunge that falls short of its target. Gideon sees the weak spot. Blood is dribbling down the Master’s right leg. He launches a wild kick.

The Master howls with pain. The knife drops. Gideon could finish him. He could go back for the gun and shoot him. He doesn’t.

He turns and climbs up towards Caitlyn.

‘You’re a fool!’ shouts the Master, lying on the stone floor clutching his leg. ‘There’s no way out. You can’t get away.’

Gideon pulls himself up on to the top of the centrepiece and helps Caitlyn climb the last half metre. As they stand on the apex of the giant sandstone block, he sees that his father is right. There is no way out.

180

The Master hobbles back from the Crypt of the Ancients. He knows there is still time. If he can reach the Bearers, the Lookers, then the sacrifice can be recaptured. The hour is late but it is not yet impossible to complete the ritual.

He’s weak, dizzy, losing too much blood. His thigh is twitching and cramping. He stops, quickly refastens the tourniquet. Already nerves are deadening. Every step up the sloping passageway is a form of torture. But as he reaches the middle landing, he sees Grus with three Lookers.

‘Here! Over here!’ It’s the best he can manage as he slumps to the ground.

‘Get a medic, quickly,’ shouts Grus. He turns to two of the men. ‘Help me get him to his chamber.’

‘No,’ protests the Master. ‘My son and the sacrifice are in the Crypt of the Ancients. Get her. Get her now.’

‘Watch him,’ says Grus to one of the Lookers. ‘Don’t let him pass out.’ He looks down at his friend. ‘There’ll be a doctor here any minute.’

‘Go!’ shouts the Master. ‘They were climbing the centrepiece. Do whatever you have to, to bring the girl back.’

181

The Master is laid out on a stone table in his chamber.

‘You’ve lost a lot of blood,’ says the man tending him.

‘I know that,’ he snaps. ‘Just fix me.’

The medic nods. He waits for the ice and alcohol to come from the fridges in the operational area. He’s going to have to cauterise the wound with heated metal. Battlefield improvisation. Something he’s done before.

The Master’s mind is elsewhere. If he can’t complete the ritual, there will be repercussions. The power of the Sacreds will wane. Perhaps critically. It will be disastrous for so many people.

But if the sacrifice and his son escape? He shudders.

The Craft will be exposed. He cannot let that happen. He will have no option but to take the ultimate sanction. One that has been prepared. One that only his word can execute.

182

The top of the centrepiece in the crypt is solid. Gideon feels no break in the giant sandstone except for a thin square shaft that runs straight down the middle. He can see no obvious use for it. Was it designed to let something out? Drain away water or gasses? Or let something in?

He looks down the bottomless hole. Did it once house an even taller centrepiece that connected to the roof of the crypt? The shaft is about the width of a waterwell. It’s barely wide enough for him to fit into. But it’s all there is. There’s no sign of anything else that could constitute an exit.

At the edge of the block, Caitlyn sits nursing the gash to her leg. He looks again down the shaft, down into the terrifying darkness. The Lookers will be in the room any second. He sits and dangles his legs into the void.

Caitlyn stares at him incredulously. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I don’t know. Ancient structures seldom make sense. You just have to feel your way around them to discover their purpose.’ He lowers himself into the hole, so he is resting on his elbows. His gashed shoulder barks pain.

Gideon scrapes a foot against the wall. He can feel something. A tiny foothold. A gap in the sandstone. He wriggles his bare toe in and stretches his other leg down, searching for a second foothold. After arcing it back and forth, he finds one.

Caitlyn watches him disappearing into the shaft and drags herself over. She’s not going to be left here alone. Only his fingers are now visible from the top. He calls to her. ‘There are cut-outs in the side of the walls. It’s like climbing down a ladder. Feel your way down.’

His hands disappear and in the dim light she can only just see the top of his head. She gets on her knees and lowers herself into the blackness. Back into the dark hole. Her mind rebels, her body freezes. She can’t do it again. She can’t go into the hole.

But she has to. She has to follow Gideon. Has to trust him.

Her once-beautifully manicured toes rub against the rough sandstone until she finds the gaps and descends into the dark unknown.

Her left foot hits an unusually solid foothold, a knob of stone that protrudes from the wall. It enables her to shift her weight from her gashed leg and move down more confidently.

As soon as she’s done it, there’s an awful noise. A sound like a train trundling through a tunnel above her head.

‘What’s that?’ Gideon shouts from below.

She has no idea. She looks up.

Something is sliding across the top of the shaft. A stone disc cutting off the remaining light. Caitlyn watches it fill the gap above. There’s a clunk. A deathly halt.

They are sealed in. Trapped.

183

As the medic ties off a wrap of elasticised bandage around the Master’s wound, Grus repeats his awful news: ‘The crypt is empty. We searched it from top to bottom. If they were there, they’re not now.’

‘They were on the centrepiece.’ His voice is thinned by pain. ‘They were in there, I saw them climbing it.’

‘Do you think I ignored you?’ says Grus. ‘We searched everywhere. Including the centrepiece.’

‘I climbed it, Master,’ adds one of the Lookers. ‘To the very top. The roof above is unreachable. There is no way anyone could have escaped from up there.’

The Master swings his legs down from the stone table and sits up. The rush of blood makes him dizzy. ‘Then they’re still in the room.’

Grus leans close to his old friend. ‘Believe me, they are not. We would have found them.’

‘Then they must have slipped out of the crypt behind me.’ He stands down and flinches.

‘You should really rest,’ says the medic. ‘The cauterisation is fresh and you shouldn’t traumatise the wound any more.’

The Master ignores him. ‘Sweep the area one more time. Once more and then we are finished.’ An expression of defeat washes over his face. ‘Grus, you know what must be done, don’t you?’

He nods. He understands. Understands perfectly.

184

For a few seconds neither of them move. Frozen in the suffocating dark. They can see nothing. They hear nothing in the hot, still air. Only their own stilted breathing. The scrape of their feet on the stone.

Caitlyn starts to panic. ‘We’re going to suffocate. Oh Jesus, no!’

‘Stay calm.’ Gideon climbs up several notches in the stone well. ‘Caitlyn, stop it.’ He reaches out, finds her foot with his hand. Touches her. Makes contact. The shaft is too narrow for him to get any closer. ‘Please calm down. We have to think our way out of this.’

She shuts her eyes. Tries to squeeze out the stinking blackness of the shaft with her inner blackness. She breathes in slowly through her nose. Out slowly through her mouth.

Gideon hears the deep rhythm building above him. He waits, then asks, ‘What happened? Did you pull something, stand on anything?’

‘I stood on something.’ She sounds tearful. ‘I’m sorry. It’s near my knee now. It was some kind of ridge that stuck out.’

It figures.

He knows ancient tombs were often rigged with devices to stop thieves plundering them. He pulls himself up a little further and feels for the ridge. The stone is smooth. Innocuous in size and shape. It’s a strategically placed block counterbalanced by another lodged deeper in the structure. Any sizeable pressure on it, such as a person, shifts the counter weight, which in turn slides the stone disc above across the mouth of the shaft. Simple. Simple and deadly.

‘We’re trapped, aren’t we?’ She is trying to sound calm but shaking with dread.

‘There’s no going back, that’s for sure.’ Gideon doesn’t give her time to dwell on it. ‘We need to continue downwards. Don’t tread on anything else that sticks out. If you feel another of those trigger ledges, tell me. Okay?’

She takes another deep and calming breath. ‘Okay.’

She feels and hears him moving away from her. Finds it hard now to hold on. Knows the strength of her limbs is giving out. She’s losing the ability to grip securely.

‘Stop. Stop!’ His cry halts her in her tracks.

‘I’ve found another one.’

He runs his toe across it. There’s no doubt that it is a trigger ledge. But what exactly does it trigger? An opening? Or another seal? Perhaps one that will trap them in the shaft for eternity.

Or is it just a decoy?

Should they ignore it and press on? But then again, doing nothing could prove fatal.

Gideon’s mind spins. The very bottom of the shaft may also be a trigger plate. It’s not impossible that standing on it could unleash an avalanche of hidden sand, lime and chalk, or even rocks.

They could be buried alive.

185

‘Nothing,’ says Grus. ‘They are nowhere to be found.’

The Master sits with his wounded leg elevated. ‘You are sure?’

Grus nods. ‘We have swept it systematically, chamber by chamber, passageway by passageway.’

‘Then they are gone,’ says the Master. ‘That can be the only conclusion. They must have somehow slipped past the Lookers on the surface.’

Neither of them can see how that can possibly be, but there is no other logical conclusion. Grus is reluctant to say what’s on his mind, but he has to. ‘We are out of time to complete the ritual. We must give instructions to disperse the Cleansers, the Bearers, the Lookers. Our foreign brothers must be alerted. All precautions have to be taken.’

The Master struggles painfully to his feet. ‘You are right. We have failed the Sacreds.’ He corrects himself. ‘I have failed them. Failed you all.’

Grus knows there is no time for reassurances, forgiveness or sentimentality. ‘Do I have your permission to cancel all other activity and revert to the back-up protocol?’

‘You do.’ He opens his arms to his friend and they embrace. ‘Make sure the Sanctuary is cleared within the next ten minutes. I will attend the Sacreds, then use the passageway.’

Grus nods. ‘It is the only way.’

186

‘What’s happening?’ shouts Caitlyn. ‘What are you going to do?’

Gideon doesn’t know.

His heart is beating way too fast.

‘Just taking a breather,’ he lies as he slides his toes away from the trigger ledge. He finds another foothold and relaxes a little. ‘Be careful coming down, there’s another one of those traps.’

‘Okay.’ Her fingers slip. She leans back against the side of the shaft and jams herself against the walls before she falls. All that time immured inside the Sanctuary at last has some use.

‘You all right?’

‘Lost my grip.’ She feels the walls and is relieved to find another finger hold. ‘I’m fine now. It’s all right. Go on.’

He can’t.

Gideon has reached the bottom of the shaft. He pulls his foot back.

Uncertainty hits him again. He tries to calculate how far down they have climbed. At least five times his height, that’s five times 1.8 metres. They’re a good nine metres down. From what he can remember, the centrepiece was about five metres high, so they are already well below the floor level of the crypt.

The thought gives him comfort. Enough for him to put one foot down and then the other.

Nothing happens.

It’s safe.

But there is no way out that he can see.

There is a noise above him. Suddenly, he feels a crushing blow, a great weight thudding into his shoulder, driving him down the thin shaft, making his legs give way. It’s Caitlyn. She’s fallen on him.

The ground beneath him has opened up. The extra, sudden weight has triggered another trap. The stone floor slab tilts and falls away, and they slide entwined down the slope, sandpapered by the rough surface of the rock. For a few heart-stopping seconds they drop into nothing. Then the slope bottoms out, they slow, then stop.

They’re still alive. Alive and excited. There can only be one reason for the final drop. It is a passageway to the outer world. Gideon suddenly understands the centrepiece. It was designed to be filled with the spirits of the ancients. When the shaft was full enough with the weight of the spiritually reborn, it would trigger the opening to a final passageway that would allow them to exit.

Caitlyn groans. Tries to move. Gideon listens to her heavy breathing. He can tell that she’s exhausted. He puts an arm across her. ‘Rest a minute. We’re going to be all right now.’

187

The Apache crew scrambles within five minutes of the call from base.

Tommy Milner had been beginning to think the night time operation wasn’t going to happen. It seldom does. A routine seek and destroy, something he could do in his sleep. The four rotors lift them high into the black night sky and out across the range. In the distance they see the lights of vehicles clearing the range. They’d been told there’d been some secret recon done out there while they had been stood down.

Milner’s radio crackles into life. ‘Range now cleared for manoeuvres. Confirm when you have target in sight, Apache One.’

‘Affirmative base, we’re airborne and beginning our approach.’

‘System lock,’ announces Charlie Golding, the Longbow fire control radar at his fingertips. ‘Within range and ready for fire command. Over.’

‘You have authority to fire at will, Apache One.’

Golding checks his helmet display. From up above the main rotor, the fire control radar relays data to a matched milli metre wave seeker in the nose of the laser-guided Hellfire II missile. In the middle of his display, Golding sees the first of the enemy tanks that they have been instructed to destroy.

In the dark Wiltshire night there’s a blinding flash and an explosive roll of thunder. The ground trembles and groans as it sucks up the brutality of the bomb. Beneath two old Chieftains, the dome of the Great Room cracks like a boiled egg. The Sanctuary’s passageways disappear like shrivelled veins and the Crypt of the Ancients is buried under thousands of tonnes of sandstone, earth and rubble. It’s like it never existed.

188

Caitlyn and Gideon feel their way through the pitch black passageway. It’s getting wider and higher now. They’re able to walk side by side. She leans on him to ease the pain in her injured leg.

Gideon is still fearful. The ancients protected the shrines ferociously. There could be more surprises. The whole thing could collapse on them. Or underneath them. He stares into the murk, at the floor, the walls, desperate for any telltale signs. Anything unusual.

He uses his left hand to feel their way along the rock. Holds it high, in case there is a support beam or something worse threatening to smash into their unsuspecting skulls.

From the strain of his knees he can tell they’re climbing. Hopefully up means out. Bearing in mind how deep below ground the Sanctuary was sited, he guesses they still have a long way to go.

Caitlyn says little. The trauma of the last few hours and seven days without food have taken the last of her energy. It’s a miracle she’s still putting one foot in front of the other.

‘Do you want to stop?’

‘No. No. Keep going. If I stop, I might not be able to start again.’

They hobble on. A deafening noise erupts somewhere behind them. The ball of sound rolls through the passage. They can’t see anything, only hear and feel the shockwaves. The ground beneath them shakes. The walls too. The air fills with dust.

Gideon knows what’s happening. A cave-in.

‘We have to run.’ He grabs her around the waist and gets her moving. ‘The tunnel’s collapsing.’

It sounds like a giant subterranean beast has woken and is thundering after them, growling and biting at their heels. They charge in a blind panic up the darkened passageway, the jaws of the animal snapping at their heels.

Gideon runs smack into a stone wall. A dead end. The blow knocks him flat. He brings Caitlyn down with him. She tumbles sidewards into the blockage and cracks her hip.

There’s so much flying dust and rubble she can hardly breathe. The passageway is filling with soil and debris. They’re being buried alive.

‘Where are you?’ She has lost him in the darkness.

She feels soil and stone flow like a river of dirt over her bare feet. The tide of death is coming in.

‘Gideon! Gideon, where are you?’

He is face down in the gathering debris. His chest feels like it is filled with wet cement. There is a pounding in his head and his nose is broken. It takes all of his energy just to get up on his hands and knees.

‘Gideon!’ She shouts in desperation more than hope.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘I’m over here.’

But she can’t find him. ‘Over here! Gideon, I’m over here!’

He stumbles towards her voice. His outstretched hands finally find her. Dust is swirling, spiralling above her head.

‘Put your hand up! Lift your hand up.’ There’s excitement in her voice.

He does as she tells him.

His fingers find a thin ragged hole. A hole in an exit shaft through the tunnel ceiling. He links his hands together and presses them against her. ‘Put your foot in my hands. Climb.’

She’d laugh if she had the energy. It’s a shaft.

If it’s the same as the other one, Gideon calculates they’re just nine metres away from escaping.

Nine metres from freedom.

189

They haul themselves upwards using the last of their strength.

‘Stop,’ she shouts. ‘It’s another switch.’

‘Work round it,’ he says. ‘Don’t put any weight on it.’

Caitlyn shifts slowly around the trigger plate. But she is high in the shaft. She looks up, hoping to see some light. A glimpse of night sky. A sparkle of stars or fresh breeze. But there’s nothing and the air is still rank and fetid.

She climbs, thinking now about her parents, about making up with her mum, holding tight to her dad, saying a long and heartfelt sorry to Eric.

There are no more finger holds. She has run out of space. Reached the top of the shaft. She bangs it with the palms of her hands.

‘It’s blocked,’ she shouts down, dregs of panic already filtering back into her voice. ‘There’s no way out. It’s all sealed off.’

Gideon wishes he was in front and could explore whatever it is she has found. But the shaft is too narrow to swap positions.

‘What do I do?’ she shouts. Impatient. Frightened.

‘Wait and think.’ He tries to imagine the layout of the crypt. They climbed five metres up the centrepiece. They descended a total of nine metres. So the escape tunnel was four metres below the floor level of the crypt but probably rose by the same amount as they made their way along it. He reckons that since entering the second shaft they’ve only climbed about two metres. So the surface could still be at least three or four metres away.

‘Keep your hands off the roof of the shaft,’ he calls. ‘I’m going to try something.’

Caitlyn crouches low and waits.

He steps across the hole and deliberately puts his weight on the trigger ledge near his right foot. At first nothing happens. Then the stone disc above their heads slowly starts to slide back.

‘It’s moving. The thing is opening up.’

Her excitement quickly dies down. There is still no glimpse of sky. Just more shaft.

‘Keep going up,’ he urges. ‘After about a metre, you’ll find another trigger plate on the right. Don’t stand on anything on your left.’

She finds it. Tingles with anticipation. ‘What do I do?’

He hesitates. There’s everything to gain and everything to lose. He closes his eyes. ‘Step on it.’

Caitlyn edges upwards and leans across on her right foot. Nothing happens. She slides her other foot across. All her weight is now on the ledge. Soil and stone rain down on her head. She gasps with shock and fear. Turf and sand fall in on her and cascade down on to Gideon.

Fresh air. Caitlyn feels it for the first time in a week. She all but scampers up the last metre. Her fingers touch wet grass. She can hear the sweet sound of outside, feel freedom.

She hauls herself out of the hole and rolls on to her back. She’s still laughing as Gideon crawls out of the shaft and collapses beside her.

A cool wind floats across the bomb-blasted fields. They lie there panting and breathing in the early morning air. Neither of them notice the open-top Jeep heading their way or who is in it.

190

‘Stop in front of them,’ Grus calls to the staff officer at the wheel. He and Aquila ready themselves. Both are still dressed in the Craft’s sackcloth robes. The Jeep’s bobbing headlights cut through the grey twilight and fall on Gideon and Caitlyn’s wasted bodies.

Everyone had deserted the Sanctuary just minutes before the Master emerged and phoned the military base. In his capacity as lieutenant colonel, he’d given the command for the Apache air strike to take place and had then made his own escape.

Grus never expected to come across Gideon and the sacrifice. He was simply trying to get to his car parked just off the Imber range.

Gideon turns towards the blaze of light. Help at last. He shields his eyes from the glare and is about to shout to the driver when he makes out that the man approaching him on foot is carrying a gun. Even if he had the strength to run, there is nowhere he could hide. No escape.

Grus lets out a shallow laugh. ‘One last gift from the Sacreds. The treacherous son and the woman that ruined everything. Looks like she’s going to die after all.’

He slips the safety catch off the pistol and walks closer. Night sun lamps from the Apache suddenly unleash a torrent of blinding white light. A megaphone message echoes out of the surrounding field. ‘This is the police. Drop your weapon. You are surrounded.’

Grus’s face says that’s not going to happen. He recognises the voice. It’s Jimmy. His own son. He glances to the side and in the half-light beyond the search beam catches a glimpse of men in black uniforms, no more than fifty metres away. Tactical support. They’re running low, dropping into the grass, sighting their weapons. He knows the drill.

The light from the Apache burns brighter and the copter hovers lower.

‘Armed police, drop your weapon!’

His son’s voice hangs in the air. He’s out of time and he knows it. Grus raises the pistol, jams it in his mouth and fires.

The idling Jeep instantly kicks up grass and darts away. Gunfire blazes from across the field. The headlights of the Jeep go out. More shots. This time returned from the speeding vehicle. Sniper fire barks back from the grass, short growls like feral dogs.

The vehicle swerves viciously. It flips on its side. Cartwheels like a clumsy gymnast. Crashes upside down, spilling ragdoll corpses. An eerie silence ensues. No one moves.

Only when birdsong fills the air does one of the firearms team signal that it’s safe to move in. Gideon and Caitlyn struggle to their feet and hold each other. The new moon fades in the morning sky.

Dawn finally breaks over the flat Wiltshire plain.

191

News of Caitlyn’s safe recovery is relayed to the suite of Kylie Lock at five a.m. By six, the Hollywood star has sobered up enough to speak to her daughter and to tearfully relay the good news to her father.

Jude Tompkins has a full crime-scene team working on site at Imber by six-thirty. By seven the bodies of James Pendragon’s driver, Nicholas Smith, the Deputy Chief Constable, Gregory Dockery and Inspector Adam Stone have all been examined in situ by a Home Office pathologist and moved to the county mortuary.

By eight a.m. Lee Johns is being formally interviewed in Devizes by Jimmy and by nine he is the first to be charged with kidnapping and manslaughter.

By ten past eight, the media has the story. Newsflashes are filling every radio, television and web bulletin across most of the world.

At ten a.m., Chief Constable Alan Hunt fronts a hastily called press conference in Devizes, congratulating his officers and thanking the Home Office, the FBI and the public for their support.

By eleven, Josh Goran has given the first of what he intends to be many TV interviews, telling how he was responsible for leading the police to Imber and how he is now going to sue the army for the ten million dollars reward that he thinks should rightfully be his. He also shows reporters the fox holes that he and his men dug to escape from army patrols.

By midday someone at the barracks in Warminster remembers they still have several of Goran’s team in their cell block and grudgingly releases them.

A little after one p.m., Megan is at her parents’ house hugging her daughter Sammy and wondering how to tell her that she’ll never see her father again.

Just before three, Gideon wakes in the recovery ward of Salisbury District Hospital, the same one he was in after being attacked in the house of the man he’ll always think of as his father. His real father. Professor Nathaniel Chase.

At five p.m. Gideon receives a call of thanks from the Vice President of the United States and a fax from the office of the President.

At six p.m. security teams strip the black plastic sheeting from the fences around Stonehenge and prepare it for a public reopening the following day. By the time the workers have cleared the site, it’s twilight again.

Police reports show that no VIP party had taken place after all. There were no crowds and no sacrifice. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Except for one thing. In the pale light of that busy morning in Wiltshire, there was a solitary visitor to the henge. A tired-looking, grey-faced man entered the circle. He spent a solemn time on his knees, embracing each and every stone.

No one seems to know his name.

And no one has seen him since.