He put a finger to his lips, then edged forward, peeking out of the niche and peering down the length of the passage.
He saw two spots of light floating in the darkness. Definitely advancing.
First job: determine intent. He wasn’t going to let them get any closer before he knew what kind of threat they posed.
He flashed his light in their direction.
The response was immediate.
A section of the passage no more than a metre from where he hid puffed out a spray of stone chips and dust. A fraction later the sound like sledgehammer blows filled the tunnel.
Well that answers that, Frost thought, pulling back another precious inch, trying to disappear into the wall.
He reached around the corner with the Browning and pumped two quick shots in the direction of the lights. He wasn’t trying to hit anything. He just wanted them hesitant. The pistol’s report filled the niche. Lili clapped hands over her ears. Denison didn’t so much as flinch.
More silenced rounds split the air, these ones striking stone and old wood. A third volley shot harmlessly past the niche to impact somewhere in the darkness beyond. They traded shots for nearly a full minute, until the air was thick with dust and cordite.
Frost pumped another pair of shots down the narrow tunnel.
Through the ringing in his ears, he heard a muffled grunt and a sharp cry of pain, but before he could press home the advantage the niche dissolved into a miasma of smoke, dust and noise as another sustained volley of shots tore into the fabric of the tunnel around them. He tried to read the chaos: best estimate four men, and given the ferocity of the sustained fire they were nowhere near exhausting their ammo.
Frost had two full thirteen-round spare clips along with five left in the Browning. They wouldn’t last forever, even with restraint.
“Of course!” Lili’s voice nearly made him turn. He couldn’t worry about her if he wanted to stay alive. She was carefully examining the contents of the scroll case. She’d managed to unroll the brittle parchment, keeping it more or less intact. Cracked and faded, the script was still legible. “How could I have been so stupid?” Lili berated herself, oblivious to the danger they faced.
“What does it say?” Denison pressed.
Frost didn’t care what it said unless it contained a failsafe get-out-of-jail-free card, this being the jail.
There was a lull in the incoming fire. It didn’t make things any better. The tunnel was still choked with dust and fumes. He tried to listen for anything, a tell-tale crunch of a footstep, anything to betray the gunmen’s advance.
Frost wasn’t a victim. And he wasn’t about to become one.
He grasped Denison’s shoulder. “Use that survey to find us a route out of here.”
“There is no way out. We had to dig our way in. The entrance has been buried for two thousand years.”
“I don’t care. Find another spot close to the surface. We dug our way in, we’ll dig our way out if we have to. Just be ready to move when I give the signal.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Frost aimed into the heart of the dust cloud and burned through the rest of the magazine, grouping the bullets two to the left, one in the centre, two to the right. Even before the report of Frost’s last round subsided, the clay walls exploded as a storm of lead tore up the passage.
Frost slammed a fresh magazine into the Hi-Power but held back.
Denison and Lili were urgently studying the survey, tracing paths through the maze of tombs. “Get ready,” he repeated. “As soon as there’s a break in fire, we’re out of here. Understood?”
The only reply was a terse nod from Denison; Lili didn’t even glance up.
After thirty seconds, the tumult ceased with unexpected abruptness.
Frost waited for the lull to pass.
It always did.
He counted out eleven in his head, the barked: “Go!”
Denison took Lili by the hand and sprinted headlong into the dark.
Frost watched them go.
Then followed.
He had only gone four steps when a hollow metallic clang clattered on the tunnel floor. He didn’t need to see it to know exactly what it was.
There wasn’t time to shout a warning, and any shout would have lost reaction time, anyway. Frost sprinted full pelt forward, arms thrown wide, and tackled the others like a prop forward and drove them to the ground an instant before the grenade detonated.
7 The Four Beasts
Nonesuch Manor—2056 UTC
Sir Charles sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to fend off a persistent headache.
He looked again at the information displayed on the monitor.
“Feast or famine,” he said, and glanced over at Lethe. Surrounded by keyboards and monitors, with a row of empty energy drink cans lined up along the edge of his desk, the young man looked strangely helpless; all that information at his fingertips, and no way to put it to use.
“Enough,” Sir Charles declared. “Mr Lethe, what do we really know?”
The young man blinked at him. “Sir?”
“It’s a question of facts. We have all the information we need. You could argue we have too much. Now it’s time to make sense of it. And that means going outside of our comfort zones. Let’s join the dots.”
Lethe nodded slowly, his unspoken reply: I’m the tech guy. I dig. I exploit flaws in systems and open back doors. I’m not an analyst. And it was true. When it came to collating raw data Lethe was a wizard, but parsing the data was a different thing. It took a different mind-set to put what he found in a human context. Therein lay the double-edged sword of progress.
Sir Charles possessed a lifetime of experience—he’d played and survived the game of Cold War era espionage. He was a strategist. A schemer. He lived in a world where intuition rather than information determined the moves and counter-moves. It was one such an ‘intuitive leap’ on the part of MI6 that had led to the order to terminate Tony Denison. He knew that. No doubt they thought it was regrettable that Frost was caught up in the process, but when it came right down to it he was an acceptable loss. Collateral damage.
The old man needed to find a way to get ahead of the game.
Intuition or information? It was a false choice. One without the other was useless.
“Like Alice, we need to start at the beginning. So only the facts: what do we really know about the Four Evangelists?”
Lethe started rattled out a rapid sequence of taps on his keyboard, but Sir Charles raised his hand. “Forget the Internet, Mr Lethe. I said what do we know. We’ve already read everything Google has to offer on the subject, so synthesize it for me.”
Lethe stopped typing but his fingers didn’t stop moving. He made a fist with his right hand, then unclenched it, spreading his fingers wide. He was uncomfortable, but the old man didn’t care. Comfort wasn’t a luxury any of them had.
“Think of it as a pop quiz.”
“That doesn’t help. The name comes from the Book of Revelations—”
“Revelation. Singular. Common mistake.”
Lethe blinked. “Is that important?”
“I have no idea, but it is a fact. Do go on.”
“Well... according to Six, this group believes that Revelation isn’t a religious vision at all, but a blueprint for world domination.” Lethe drummed his fingers on the desk, obviously itching to back up his words by calling something up on the screen. “The seed of the idea was first put forth by an Italian historian—Lorenzo Martedi—who postulated the idea that John of Patmos wasn’t really a Christian at all, but a sort of guerrilla leader, trying to organize a revolt against Rome. Evidently, someone caught onto the notion of using the same plan in a more modern setting, though there’s only anecdotal support for the existence of the group.”
“Anecdotal?”
“Rumours circulated from Internet chat rooms; conspiracy theories and such.”
“And Vauxhall takes these seriously?”
Lethe
shrugged. “That’s the thing about conspiracy theories. If enough people start talking about them, they have a way of becoming real.”
“And what particular theory do the Four Evangelists espouse?”
“Nothing particularly new. One of the dominant themes in conspiracy circles has always been the emergence of one world government. It’s the great slumbering evil; the forces of Mordor and the Galactic Empire all rolled into one. One theory goes that global agencies—the United Nations, the World Bank, and so forth—were prophesised in Revelations...Revelation... as dragons and monsters trying to take over the world. The Four Evangelists think they are on the side of the angels, opposing the rise of the Antichrist.”
“And I would assume Brigadier Anthony Denison been linked to this conspiracy because of his vocal opposition to globalisation. Is there a more explicit connection?”
“I don’t know.” Lethe’s hands went for the keyboard, but he stopped himself. “For what it’s worth, I found stacks of conspiracy-related nonsense on Denison’s hard-drive, but no explicit mention of this particular group.”
Sir Charles rubbed the space between his eyes again, trying to focus his mind. He was bone-weary but rest wasn’t a luxury any of them had. Not if they wanted to help Frost. “Does Six name any other likely members?”
“Quite a few actually. Anyone who’s ever overtly expressed pro-nationalist sentiments is on the watch list; it’s rather like a witch hunt.”
“I take it that ‘Four Evangelists’ isn’t meant to be a literal assessment of the groups’ numbers. You said the group has a secular interpretation of the Revelation. I believe you used the word ‘blueprint.’”
“That seems to be Six’s position. The faithful don’t take it upon themselves to fulfil prophecy; they sit back and wait for God to make it happen.”
“That’s assuming they don’t believe that God has chosen them to be agents of the Divine Will.” Sir Charles shook his head. “A blueprint? How so?”
Lethe’s fingers finally stopped twitching, and Sir Charles realised that he had asked the right question. “A picture’s worth a thousand words,” Lethe said. He rattled out a command line and a moment later, the array of wall monitors was filled with lines of text.
Sir Charles began reading it aloud: “‘And round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.’”
“The ‘beasts’ are the Four Evangelists,” Lethe said.
Sir Charles kept reading. “‘And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.’ I think we’ve found our blueprint, Mr Lethe.”
8 White Horse
Westminster—2118 UTC
Konstantin Khavin strode confidently up the walkway. He felt the growing intensity of the gaze of the uniformed constable who stood between himself and his ultimate goal: the main entrance to Clarendon House, one of several official residences for members of the Royal Family located in the City of Westminster. When he was within five metres, the man spoke in a polite but authoritative voice. “Closed to the public for the day, sir. Sorry. You’ll have to come ‘round tomorrow if you want the tour.”
Konstantin’s didn’t break his stride. He raised one hand and let the flap of a black leather wallet fall open on the gold badge of a Metropolitan Police Inspector, along with an identification card bearing his picture. Both were near-perfect forgeries capable of withstanding any visual scrutiny. They’d also pass most electronic methods of verification. Konstantin had lived in England long enough to mask the worst of his Russian accent with concentration. “Inspector Kennedy, Counter-terrorism Command. I need to speak with the watch commander. Now.”
The other man bristled a little. It was always a territorial pissing contest. He wasn’t going to let someone from the Yard just walk up and order him around without making him work for it. He dutifully examined Konstantin’s fake ID, and then keyed his wireless headset. “There’s a man from CTC here, sir. Says he needs to speak with you.”
The man’s gaze was no less suspicious, but after a moment he nodded. “Chief Inspector Baxter has the watch tonight, sir. He’s in the security office...you know the way?”
“Nope. I’ve never been inside before,” Konstantin said, wondering if the seemingly innocent question was the shibboleth that would expose him as a fraud. The fact that the constable immediately delivered a rapid fire set of directions and then stood aside to admit him, did not entirely allay his concerns.
Once inside, Konstantin ignored the constable’s detailed directions and began roaming the halls of the manor house.
The doors to a number of ground floor rooms stood open, no doubt part of the public tour, and Konstantin passed these by without so much as a second look. He wasn’t interested in what they had to say about life, the universe or anything else. He was more interested in the closed-circuit video cameras that watched from the ceiling at regular intervals. They were discreet, but if you knew what you were looking for easy enough to spot. The place was quiet. He only saw a few members of the household staff, and they were busy with their duties. There were no other officers from the Protection Service inside that he saw. After a few minutes of wandering unescorted another constable caught up, halfway up a flight of stairs he wasn’t supposed to be climbing.
“Inspector Kennedy?”
Konstantin noted the use of his alias. It was safe to assume someone from the security team had been following his movements on the CCTV and they’d exchanged radio reports with the guy on the door. He turned to the uniformed officer, feigning embarrassment. “Sorry. This place is a maze.”
A polite nod was the only acknowledgement. “If you’ll follow me, sir.”
Konstantin turned and followed him back down the stairs, falling into step behind the constable. The man led him turn after turn, through double sets of fire doors, on an unerring path to a part of the first floor that clearly wasn’t on the tour. The policeman knocked on an unmarked metal door and then without waiting for a response turned the knob and pushed it open.
No key card or numeric security pad, the Russian noted. Very typically British. Trusting. Old School.
The office, like the door, was a strictly utilitarian affair. Functional. In other words: ugly. Instead of priceless objects d’art, the walls were adorned with dry wipe boards and tacked up bits of paper with things like rosters, circuit duty and the day’s visitors on. Konstantin noted the bank of flat screen video monitors that displayed static images of the hallways. The central screen showed a graphic representation of the floor plan, but before he could get a good look at it, the room’s lone occupant rose from behind an MDF desk and addressed him.
“Kennedy is it?”
Chief Inspector Baxter appeared too young to have a senior position in Protection Services, but Konstantin suspected that wasn’t a liability at all. He had the straight back and bearing of a military man. Along with his athletic physique and chiselled features he might have stepped right out of a recruitment poster.
Konstantin took a deep breath; the lie would need to be smooth.
“Inspector James Kennedy, Counter-terrorism Command. I apologize for showing up unannounced like this, but I’ve learned of a credible threat to His Royal Highness.”
Baxter’s expression was unreadable. He said nothing, but motioned for Khavin to take a chair. Only when both men were seated did the watch commander break his silence. “Well, let’s have it.” There was a hint of sarcasm in Baxter’s voice but Konstantin couldn’t quite tell if it was directed at the message or the messenger.
“There’s a new group. Radical nationalists. They call themselves... ‘the Four Evangelis
ts.’” Konstantin’s pause was unintentional; although he’d read and reread Lethe’s email, which had told him precious little about the group Tony Denison was allegedly affiliated with, it was the first time he’d spoken the name aloud and it felt awkward on his tongue. If he’d been naming a terror cell it would have been a much more brutal sounding name, something stark and threatening. The Four Evangelists just sounded wrong in his ears. “We’ve received a tip that they are planning to make a move against His Royal Highness.”
“The Four Evangelists? Sounds like the name of a gospel music quartet.”
“Even so, all indications are that the action is imminent.”
Konstantin recalled the salient points of the email, the fruits of Lethe’s hasty search of both the secure MI6 database and the far-flung fringes of the Internet and his sub-ether network of contacts. “The name is taken from the Bible; the Book of Revelation.”
Baxter waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t care where the name comes from. Just tell me what they’re planning, and what you think I should do about it.”
“The Prince is vulnerable here.” Understatement of the year, Konstantin thought. When he’d grasped the significance of the letter he’d found in Denison’s flat and determined his next course of action, a quick trawl of Internet newsgroups dedicated to following the everyday activities of the royal family had given him the exact location of the man who had written the letter. The royal family provided constant fodder for professional journalists, amateur paparazzi, and obsessed fans alike. Despite the fact they had around-the-clock security—provided by the elite Protection Command of the Metropolitan Police—those resources could only stretch so far. There were always going to be points of vulnerability. It hadn’t taken the Russian long to identify one that might well be exploited—at least by him, to prove his point.
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