‘Is that so?’ Schofield said. ‘Mr Fairfax, would you like to be a field officer for a day?’
‘Anything to get out of this office, man. My boss is the biggest asshole on the planet.’
‘When you get a chance, then, why don’t you go down to St John’s and have a chat with Doctor Oliphant.’
‘You got it.’ Fairfax signed off.
‘What about you?’ Mother said to Schofield. ‘You’re not going to stay with this bounty hunter, are you?’ She shot Knight a withering glare. Knight just raised his eyebrows.
‘He says I can go wherever I like,’ Schofield said. ‘It’s up to him to protect me.’
‘So where are you going?’ Book II asked.
Schofield’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m going to the source of this bounty hunt. I’m going to that castle in France.’
Book II said, ‘What are you going to do? Knock on the front door?’
‘No,’ Schofield said. ‘I’m going to collect a bounty.’
‘A bounty?’ Mother said. ‘I, er, don’t mean to be devil’s advocate, but don’t you need a . . . head . . . to collect the reward?’
‘That’s right,’ Schofield said, looking at Knight’s modified Palm Pilot, the mini-computer that depicted Demon Larkham’s progress. ‘And I know just where to get some. And at the same time, I’m going to get Gant back.’
THIRD ATTACK
AFGHANISTAN–FRANCE
26 OCTOBER 1150 HOURS (FRANCE)
E.S.T. (NEW YORK, USA) 0550 HOURS
Over the next fifty years the earth’s population will soar from 5.5 billion to more than 9 billion . . . 95 percent of the population increase will be in the poorest regions of the world.
From: The Coming Anarchy by Robert D. Kaplan
(VINTAGE, NEW YORK, 2001)
The Camp of the Saints, Jean Raspail’s 1972 novel about an invasion of France by an armada of destitute Third World people . . . appears to have been prophetic . . . In the 19th century, Europe invaded and colonised Africa. In the 21st century, Africa invades and colonises Europe.
From: The Death of the West by Patrick J. Buchanan
(ST MARTIN’S PRESS, NEW YORK, 2002)
10. POLANSKI, Damien G. USA ISS
BERLIN, GERMANY
22 OCTOBER, 2300 HOURS
He liked to fuck girls from behind, pumping like a jackhammer and calling out cowboy shouts. And he was an ass man, too. He loved young twenty-somethings with tight little bottoms.
She’d discovered these facts from the prostitutes of Berlin’s red light district, whose services he engaged often.
Damien Polanski’s career had seen better days.
An Eastern Bloc expert during the Cold War, he was now stationed in the ISS’s Berlin field office, growing older and more irrelevant every day. His daring conquests of the ’80s—the defection of Karmonov, the discovery of the Soviet ‘Cobra’ files—long forgotten by an intelligence agency that didn’t love you back.
An old dog in a new world.
She caught his eye easily enough. It wasn’t hard. She was stunning to look at—long slender legs, muscular shoulders, small perfectly-formed breasts and those cool Eurasian eyes.
The Ice Queen, some called her.
She’d stood at the bar opposite his booth, dropped her purse, and bent over to get it, offering him a clear view up her black-vinyl mini-skirt. No panties.
Within 15 minutes, he was hurriedly taking off his trousers in a hotel room, thinking, Giddy-up, baby! Giddy-up!
She emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing at all, her hands hidden behind her back. Polanski’s eyes widened with delight. He dived onto the bed, and turned—just as the short-bladed samurai sword that she gripped in her hands sliced clean through his neck.
7. NAZZAR, Yousef M. LEBN HAMAS
BEIRUT, LEBANON
23 OCTOBER, 2100 HOURS
Witnesses would say it was one of the most professional hits they had ever seen in Beirut—which was saying something.
They saw Yousef Nazzar, a senior HAMAS commander known to have been trained by the Soviets, enter the apartment building.
Not a moment later, two sedans skidded to a halt outside the lobby and eight commandos piled out of them, rushed into the building. One of them carried a white box with a red cross on its side.
One thing was common to all the witnesses’ accounts: the guns the assassins used. They were either identified or described as VZ-61 Skorpion machine pistols.
And then suddenly the assassins were out and, with a squeal of tyres, were gone.
Yousef Nazzar’s body was found later, spreadeagled on the floor of his apartment, the head missing.
8. NICHOLSON, Francis X. USA USAMRMC
CEDAR FALLS RETIREMENT VILLAGE MIAMI, FLORIDA
24 OCTOBER, 0700 HOURS
The front-desk nurse couldn’t have known he was a killer.
When she’d asked, ‘Can I help you?’ he had replied politely that he was from the hospital, come to collect the personal effects of a recently-transferred resident of Cedar Falls.
He was tall and thin, with deep black skin and a high forehead. More than one witness would describe him as ‘African’ in appearance. They didn’t known that in the global bounty hunting community he was known by a very simple name: ‘the Zulu’.
Dressed in a white labcoat, he strode calmly through the home, carrying a white organ-delivery box in his hand.
He found the room quickly, found the old man, Frank Nicholson, lying in his bed asleep.
Without missing a beat, the Zulu drew a machete from under his coat and . . .
The police found his car two hours later, abandoned in the long-term carpark at the airport.
By that time, however, the Zulu was sitting in the first-class section of United Airlines Flight 45 bound for Paris, the white organ-delivery box resting on the seat beside him.
Frank Nicholson was missed at the retirement village. He’d been a popular resident, friendly and outgoing.
The management had liked him too. Since he’d been a doctor in his career days, he’d saved more than one elderly resident who had collapsed on the golf course.
It was funny, though, unlike many others, he’d never really spoken about his glory days.
If asked he would say he’d been a scientist at the US Army Medical Research and Matériel Command at Fort Detrick, ‘just doing some medical tests for the armed forces’ before he’d retired the previous year.
And then came that night when the assassin had come and cut off his head.
FORTERESSE DE VALOIS
BRITTANY, FRANCE
26 OCTOBER, 1150 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(0550 HOURS E.S.T. USA)
He’d always loved anarchy.
Loved the idea of it, the concept of it: the complete and utter loss of control; society without order.
He particularly loved the way people—common people, average people, ordinary people—responded to it.
When soccer stadiums collapsed, they stampeded.
When earthquakes struck, they looted.
During anarchic warfare—Nanjing, My Lai, Stalingrad—they raped and mutilated their fellow human beings.
The teleconference with the other members of the Council wouldn’t begin for another ten minutes, which gave Member No. 12 enough time to indulge his passion for anarchy.
His real name was Jonathan Killian.
Jonathan James Killian III, to be precise, and at 37 he was the youngest member of the Council.
Born into wealth—his father had been American, his mother French—he had the supercilious bearing of a man who was accustomed to having everything he desired. He was also possessed of a cold level stare that could give the most combative negotiator pause. It was a powerful gift, one that was accentuated by an unusual facial feature: Jonathan Killian had one blue eye and one brown.
He was worth $32 billion, and by virtue of a labyrinthine network of companies, was the ultimate owner of the Forteresse de Valois.
Killian had always disliked Member No. 5.
While wealthy beyond measure thanks to an inherited Texan oil empire, No. 5 was of low intellect and prone to tantrums. At 58, he was still essentially a spoilt brat. He had also been a continually stubborn opponent of Killian’s ideas in Council meetings. He was very irritating.
Right now, however, Member No. 5 stood in a wide stone dungeon on the lowest level of the Forteresse de Valois, deep within the castle’s stone mount, accompanied by his four personal assistants.
The dungeon was called the Shark Pit.
Sixteen feet deep with sheer stone walls, it was perfectly circular; and wide too, about 50 yards across. It was also filled with an irregular array of elevated stone stages. One thing about it was clear: once a person was placed inside it, escape was impossible.
In the pit’s centre, plunging vertically down into the earth, was a 10-foot-wide ‘sink-hole’ that led directly to the ocean.
Right now, the tide was coming in, so the water entering the Pit via the sink-hole was rising fast, spilling out into the wider pit, filling it, turning the irregular collection of elevated stages into a series of small stone islands—much to the horror of Member No. 5 and his assistants.
Adding to their fear, two dark shapes could be glimpsed swimming through the alleyways between the islands, just beneath the surface of the water—shapes featuring dorsal fins and bullet-shaped heads.
Two large tiger sharks.
In addition to all this, the Shark Pit came with two other features worth noting.
First, a viewing balcony situated on its southern side. Before the Revolution, the French aristocracy were known to hold gladiatorial contests in their dungeons—usually pitting peasants against peasants, or in the more elaborate dungeons like the one at the Forteresse de Valois, peasants against animals.
The second noteworthy feature of the Shark Pit could be found on the largest of its elevated stone platforms, over by the northern wall. On this stage sat a truly terrifying device: a 12-foot-high guillotine.
Tall and brutal, the guillotine was an addition made by Jonathan Killian himself. At its base was a crude wooden block with slots carved into it—slots for a person’s head and hands. A crank handle on the guillotine’s side raised its steeply-angled blade. A simple release lever dropped it.
Killian had been inspired by the acts of Japanese soldiers during the sack of the Chinese city of Nanjing in 1937.
During three horrific weeks, the Japanese had subjected the Chinese to unspeakable torture. Over 360,000 people were murdered by hand during that time. Horror stories emerged of Japanese soldiers conducting beheading contests; or worse, giving fathers a choice: rape their own daughters or watch them be raped; or telling sons to have sex with their own mothers or die.
Killian was intrigued. Usually, the Chinese men would take the honourable way out and accept death rather than perform such hideous acts.
But some did not.
And that was what had amused Killian. Just how far people would go in pursuit of self-preservation.
And so he’d had the guillotine inserted into the Shark Pit.
It was designed to give those who were placed in the pit a similar choice.
Die a terrifying death at the mercy of the tiger sharks, or die quickly and painlessly by their own hand on the guillotine.
Sometimes, when he had a group of people in the pit (as he did today), Killian would offer them Faustian bargains: ‘Kill your boss on the guillotine, and I will release the rest of you’; ‘Kill that hysterical screaming woman, and I will release the rest of you.’
Of course, he never released anyone. But the prisoners never knew that, and on many occasions they themselves died with blood on their hands.
The five people in the pit scratched desperately at the walls, the incoming water rising rapidly around them.
One of No. 5’s female assistants made it a few feet up the wall—making for a tiny stone handhold there—but she was quickly pulled down by a bigger man who saw the handhold as his chance at life.
Killian watched them from the southern viewing balcony, utterly fascinated.
One of these people is worth $22 billion, he thought. The others earn about $65,000 a year in salaries. Yet now they are all truly equal.
Anarchy, he thought. The great equaliser.
Soon the water level rose five feet above the floor—chest height—and the two tiger sharks now roamed the pit more freely in a rush. At first the people cowered on the stone islands, but soon those islands also went sufficiently under the surface.
Five people. Two sharks.
It wasn’t pretty.
The sharks rushed the hapless people—ramming them into the water, taking them under, ripping them open. Blood stained the churning waves.
After a male assistant went under in a froth of spraying blood, No. 5’s two female assistants killed themselves on the guillotine.
So, too, No. 5 himself.
In the end, rather than face the sharks, he preferred to cut off his own head.
Then abruptly it was over and the rising water enveloped the guillotine stage, washing it clean of evidence, and the sharks gorged themselves on the headless corpses too, and Jonathan Killian III turned on his heel and headed up to his office for the noon teleconference.
Faces on television screens, arrayed around the walls.
The faces of the other members of the Council, tuning in from around the world.
Killian took his seat.
Five years previously, he had inherited his father’s vast shipping and defence-contracting empire—a maze of companies known as the Axon Corporation. Among other things, Axon Corp constructed destroyers and long-range missiles for the US Government.
In each of the first three years after his father’s death, Jonathan Killian had increased Axon’s annual profits fivefold.
His formal invitation to join the Council had come soon after.
‘Member No. 12,’ the Chairman said, addressing Killian. ‘Where is Member No. 5? He is staying with you, is he not?’
Killian smiled. ‘He pulled a muscle in the swimming pool. My personal physician is looking at him now.’
‘Is everything in place?’
‘Yes,’ Killian said. ‘The Kormoran ships are in position all around the world, fully armed. DGSE delivered the corpses to America last week and my facility in Norfolk has been liberally stained with their blood—ready for the US inspectors. All systems are in place, merely awaiting the go signal.’
Killian paused. Took the plunge.
‘Of course, Mr Chairman,’ he added, ‘as I’ve said before, it’s not too late to initiate the extra step—’
‘Member No. 12,’ the Chair said sharply, ‘the course of action has been decided upon and we will not deviate from it. I’m sorry, but if you raise this “extra step” matter again, penalties will be imposed.’
Killian bowed his head. ‘As you wish, Mr Chairman.’
A Council penalty was something to be avoided.
Joseph Kennedy had lost two of his famous sons for disobeying a Council directive to cease doing business with Japan in the ’50s.
Charles Lindbergh’s infant son was kidnapped and killed, while Lindbergh himself had been forced to endure a smear campaign suggesting he admired Adolf Hitler—all because he had defied a Council edict to keep doing business with the Nazis in the 1930s.
More recently, there was the impertinent Enron board. And everyone knew what had happened to Enron.
As the teleconference went on, Jonathan Killian remained silent.
On this issue, he felt he knew better than the Council.
The Zimbabwe Experiment—his idea—had more than proved his point. After decades of economic repression at the hands of Europeans, poverty-stricken African majorities no longer cared for the white man’s property rights.
And the Hartford Report on global population growth—and Western population decline—had only further bolstered his argument.
But now was not the time to argue.
The formal business of the teleconference concluded, and several of the Council members stayed online, chatting among themselves.
Killian just watched them.
One member was saying, ‘Just bought the drilling rights for a flat billion. I said take it or leave it. These stupid African governments just don’t have a choice . . .’
The Chairman himself was laughing: ‘. . . I ran into that Mattencourt woman at Spencer’s the other night. She certainly is an aggressive little filly. She asked again if I would consider her for a seat on the Council. So I said, “What are you worth?” She said, “26 billion.” “And your company?” “170 billion.” So I say, “Well, that’s certainly enough. What do you say, you give me a blow job in the men’s room right now and you’re in.” She stormed off!’
Dinosaurs, Killian thought. Old men. Old ideas. You’d expect better from the richest businessmen in the world.
He pressed a button, cutting the signal, and all of the televisions on the walls around him shrank to black.
AIRSPACE ABOVE TURKEY
26 OCTOBER, 1400 HOURS LOCAL TIME
(0600 HOURS E.S.T. USA)
The MicroDots that had attached themselves to Demon Larkham’s IG-88 team told a peculiar tale.
After leaving the Karpalov coalmine, Larkham’s team had flown to a British-controlled airfield in Kunduz—a fact which had immediately rung alarm bells in Schofield’s head.
Because it meant that Larkham was working with the tacit approval of the British government on this matter.
Not a good sign, Schofield thought, as he ripped through the sky in the back of Aloysius Knight’s Black Raven.
So the British knew what was going on . . .
At the airfield in Kunduz, the IG-88 men had divided into two sub-teams, one getting on board an aircraft and heading in the direction of London, the other boarding a second plane and heading for the northwestern coast of France.
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