WarGod

by Steven Savile

  “He should be moved to a secure location,” the Russian paused a beat before adding. “I’d like a chance to brief His Royal Highness on the situation.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to ask for an autograph while you’re at it? Sit for a photo?”

  Konstantin’s leathery face creased, but before he could protest, Baxter laid his hands flat on the desktop and leaned forward. “I came over to SO14 from CTC just six months ago. Funny thing, Inspector Kennedy, I don’t recall ever seeing you before. But we must know some of the same people.” The Chief Inspector let the comment—both an accusation and a challenge—hang in the air between them.

  Konstantin let his mask of outrage slip.

  Baxter had called his bluff. Any protest would only make what he was about to do that much harder. His spread his hands guiltily. “Seems I chose the wrong cover.”

  Baxter likewise abandoned all pretence of civility and professional courtesy. He stood abruptly, one hand dropping to the butt of the pistol holstered on his belt.

  “Before this gets nasty, let me explain.” Konstantin leaned back in his chair and quickly raised his hands in a show they were empty. “It’s true, I’m not with the Yard.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know?”

  “I work for the Crown. I’m with Special Branch and if you know people there as well, I’d be happy to compare names, birthdays, favourite colours and bad habits.”

  Baxter held his aggressive stance but made no move. “First it’s CTC, now SIS. Why should I believe you?”

  “Six is foreign affairs. It’s out of my hands. I’ve kicked it up the chain and eventually bureaucracy will catch up and the message will get to where it needs to go, but there’s no time for that.” Khavin lowered his hands. “Look, I apologize for the deception, but believe me, everything I’ve told you is legit. I can show you.”

  “You do talk a lot of shit, don’t you?”

  Khavin slowly reached for the breast pocket of his jacket, and as he did, Baxter bristled.

  “I’m going for my mobile,” Konstantin explained, moving slowly. He held the lapel of the coat open to show that he wasn’t concealing a weapon. With even more exaggerated slowness, he dipped two fingers into the pocket and brought out his smartphone. He tapped the screen a few times, bringing up the email message Lethe had sent, and then placed the device on the desktop. “It’s all there. Read it for yourself.”

  Baxter kept his right hand on his firearm, but warily reached out for the phone with his left. He had to lean forward slightly to reach it from his standing position, and when he did, Konstantin made his move.

  He struck with the swiftness of a viper.

  He seized Baxter’s wrist and yanked the man toward him, twisting the police supervisor around so that his back slammed down across the desktop. Konstantin wrapped his left arm around Baxter’s throat and squeezed the sides of the man’s neck between his forearm and biceps. At the same time, he clamped a firm right hand over the policeman’s own, holding both it and the gun immobile.

  Khavin could feel Baxter’s raw strength—the man was no seven stone weakling—as the policeman struggled against his chokehold. It didn’t matter how strong he was. Konstantin had him on his back and he couldn’t get any kind of leverage, meaning he couldn’t offer any sort of counterattack.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. Nod if you understand?”

  The policeman’s eyes were wide. Angry. He understood plenty. So did Konstantin.

  Baxter’s movements became more purposeful.

  He tried to wriggle a hand in between his throat and Konstantin’s arm.

  The Russian closed his vice-like grip even tighter.

  “Don’t make me do this,” Konstantin said flatly, but Baxter wasn’t giving up the struggle. He was frantic now. Panicked.

  Thirty seconds.

  Baxter’s hand fell away from his throat.

  He began frantically tapping the Russian’s forearm. It was urgent. Almost polite.

  The security cop had almost certainly been trained in ground fighting techniques—grappling, jiu jitsu and the like—but it was one thing to learn them and another to use them to fight for your life. Konstantin was a fighter. But more than anything else, he was a survivor. The impulse to tap out had been a desperate, instinctive reaction; a primal part of his brain, programmed by hours of mock combat in a gymnasium, had taken over. Safety signals carried no weight in the real world.

  Konstantin maintained the pressure until Baxter’s struggles weakened and finally ceased—and then just as quickly he released his captive and made sure he was still breathing. He used Baxter’s own handcuffs to bind him in his chair. Two of Her Majesty’s government employees dead, one unconscious in under two hours. He wasn’t exactly making friends. And it was going to get worse. Much worse.

  Konstantin scooped up his phone and helped himself to Baxter’s radio. He emptied out his gun and pocketed the shells. The whiteboard on the wall opposite the desk detailed the duty stations for the night watch. The protection detail comprised of four men, not including Baxter; two in stationary positions near key exits, and two on roving patrol. The Russian studied the CCTV monitors looking for the patrol.

  Next he turned his eyes to the central screen with the manor’s floor plan.

  In a room on the second floor, just below a label that read: “Office #3,” there was a black bar with a six-digit designation code. It was a radio frequency; the Royal Protection service had put an RFID tag on their charge. Konstantin watched the monitors for a few seconds longer, ensuring that his route was clear, then left the office at a brisk walk.

  Less than a minute later, he was standing in the doorway of Office #3, staring at Tony Denison’s secret patron.

  He was older than Khavin expected—the camera obviously added as many years as it did pounds. It occurred to the Russian that they were probably of an age. He had never been one to follow the royals, but recalled a time when the Prince’s personal life had been the stuff of tabloids and scandals almost daily. That kind of ‘news’ had played well in the Soviet Union; it was a tailor made example of bourgeois excesses in the West. But even then, a mere foot soldier in the Cold War, Konstantin had taken such propaganda with more than just the metaphorical grain of salt. Still, it was the image of the Prince that had stuck in his head: a young man in polo kit, carousing with models and actresses, frittering away the wealth stolen from the working class. We both got old, he thought, looking at the man.

  The Prince was seated behind an elegant antique desk pecking away at a computer keyboard. A two-finger typist. He glanced up as the big Russian entered, and then his gaze locked on the Glock in the intruder’s hand.

  “I have no wish to harm you, Highness.” Khavin now made no effort to conceal his accent. “But if it happens...” He gave a little shrug. “I won’t shed a tear.”

  To his credit, the Prince remained calm. “What can I do for you?”

  The question threw Konstantin. It was polite. Cultured. He’d been expecting a demand to get out. A threat in return. He had been so caught up in the audacity of what he was attempting that he hadn’t really thought through exactly what he hoped to accomplish if he pulled it off. And suddenly here he was face to face with the Prince. There were questions that needed answering, suspicions that needed to be confirmed, and both were made all the more urgent by the brief postscript Lethe had attached to the briefing on the Four Evangelists. Konstantin had felt an ominous chill as he’d read the words: “Frost has been cut loose. The Old Man says that whatever it is you’re doing, do it, do it well, and bring Frosty in from the cold.”

  Ronan Frost was not exactly his friend. He didn’t have friends. But they were a team, even if in name only. They were a collection of lone wolves working towards a common goal.

  And yet he felt a kinship with Frost and the others that was so much more profound than something as simple as friendship.

  The idea that one of his brothers-in-blood had been set adrift made his soul ache
.

  There was nothing he wouldn’t do to help Frost.

  Likewise, roles reversed, the Irishman would move heaven and earth to help him.

  If that meant throwing away his career, his freedom, perhaps even his life, he would do it.

  It was that simple.

  So here he was.

  Now what?

  There was no time for indecision. Elaborate deception would have given them time to regroup. The truth then...at least just enough to set the hook.

  He strode briskly across the room, keeping the Glock trained on the Prince, and tossed the folded letter onto the desk. “You wrote this, yes? Tony Denison does this for you?”

  The Prince’s eyes dropped to stare at the parchment.

  His silence was all the confirmation he needed.

  “The sword?” Khavin pressed. “What makes it so important?”

  The Prince looked at him, weighing him up. It was hard to tell from his expression whether he found Konstantin wanting. “The Brigadier is doing me a personal favour.” The Prince looked up slowly from the letter, meeting the Russian’s gaze. “I can’t imagine why this would be of interest to your government.”

  He thinks I’m FSB. Khavin suppressed a smile. Good. Sir Charles may have given his blessing, but there was no way the old man would have authorised shaking down one of Her Majesty’s family, no matter how many steps they were removed from the throne. And even though Khavin had made it clear that he was acting without orders when the shit hit the fan, it would be all over Nonesuch. So, if the Prince wanted to believe he was a foreign intelligence agent, well, it wouldn’t hurt. “I am the one asking the questions,” he said sharply, exaggerating his accent to almost cartoonish proportions.

  “Very well. The sword is an historical artefact. If you know anything about me, then you know that I’ve a keen interest in archaeology.”

  “Let’s assume I don’t share your interest, so, tell me, is it worth a lot of money?”

  “Money?” The Prince seemed appalled by so crass a suggestion. “I would imagine it’s priceless.”

  “But that’s not why you want it, is it?”

  Silence.

  “Denison was the target of an assassination attempt tonight,” Khavin continued. “Several, actually. Does that surprise you?”

  “Someone tried to kill Tony? Is he—?”

  “Still alive.”

  The Prince slumped in his chair. “Who? Who’s behind it? Who would do such a thing?”

  Once more, Konstantin debated what tack to take, and decided again that the truth would yield the best results, and the quickest. He forced a guttural laugh. “You don’t know? These would-be assassins work for your own government. British Intelligence, Your Highness.”

  A look of horror crossed the royal’s face. “Impossible. You’re lying.”

  Now, Khavin thought. “They believe they are protecting you. You see, they think Denison is one of the Four Evangelists.”

  “Tony isn’t...” The Prince caught himself. A blank mask slipped easily over his face; this was a man used to lying. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about, I’m afraid. You should go now. While you still can.”

  From the moment he’d read the Prince’s letter, Konstantin had known exactly why MI6 had elected to sanction the hit on the former brigadier, and Lethe’s email had only served to confirm his theory. The search for an old relic was irrelevant; a smoke screen. What mattered—and the only thing that mattered—was that an outspoken critic of British foreign policy—a man believed to be part of a radical nationalist conspiracy—was doing an off the books favour for the Crown. That fact would be beyond embarrassing if it ever got out. Add to that Six believed the conspirators were gearing up to launch their offensive.

  And right up until that moment, the only question Konstantin had had was whether the Prince had been included in the decision to terminate Denison.

  Now he had his answer.

  ‘Tony isn’t...what? Isn’t one of the Four? And how could Your Highness know that?

  The squawk of radio noise sounded in his ear: “Base, this is North Gate. Radio check, over.”

  He glanced at his wristwatch. 21:29. The sentries were a minute early with their scheduled call-ins.

  When Baxter didn’t respond, someone would come to investigate. It would take no more than two minutes before someone discovered what he had done.

  But he couldn’t go now. Not without knowing more.

  “I think you know exactly what that means. The Four Evangelists...who are they? What are they?”

  The Prince stared back, no sign of the inner turmoil.

  He really was a very good liar.

  So Konstantin threw subtlety to the wind.

  “Denison will be killed and you’ll never have your sword. My...” he leaned heavily on the desk as he said, “employers don’t know whether that is a good thing. They are concerned about variables which might destabilise a delicate situation. They said to me: ‘Go find out which side of this we want to be on.’ So you tell me: why is the sword so important?” He rested his knuckles on the Prince’s antique desk and leaned in. “Are you one of the Four Evangelists?”

  The other man slowly deflated back into his chair. “I take it you don’t really know anything about them.”

  Lethe’s message had described them as some kind of quasi-religious conspiracy with Biblical leanings, but without the proper context it was difficult to grasp exactly what he meant. What, precisely, was the difference between one religious indoctrination and another? The Bible held no more significance to him than the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita or for that matter any other made up lunacy like Dianetics. They were all just make believe. The only truth he knew for sure was that regardless of what any of those books actually said, extremists would find a bloody and violent way of interpreting Holy Writ.

  The Prince didn’t wait for a reply. “I was a fool to have gotten mixed up in this. David made it sound so innocent...so perfect.”

  “David?” Konstantin said.

  “David Habersham. An old acquaintance.”

  Konstantin noted the shift in tone and diplomatic choice of words. The Prince was already looking for ways to distance himself from the situation. “And Habersham is one of the Four?”

  The Prince appeared not to have heard the question. “The Book of Revelation describes four angels each with the head of a different animal. Traditionally, they have been associated with the authors of the four gospels, and so are often called ‘the Four Evangelists.’ In Revelation, the four bear witness to the opening of a scroll with seven seals. When each seal is broken in turn, something...well, something fantastic occurs.”

  There was another hiss in Konstantin’s ear. “Base, it’s North Gate. Do you copy?”

  The Prince misread the slight shift in the Russian’s expression. “You don’t know any of this, do you?”

  “I may have missed a few days of Sunday School.”

  “When the first seal is broken, a white horse rides forth. According to the prophecy, the rider of that horse wears a crown.”

  The mention of the horse triggered something in his memory. “The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse?”

  “Ah, so you do know something about it.”

  “What does this have to do with Habersham?”

  “David is, as you have already surmised, part of this group. But they aren’t what you may think; not radicals or extremists at all, and certainly not religious ideologues trying to make the prophecies come true.”

  Konstantin already understood that much. Lethe’s message had been colourful as ever: Using Revelation as a blueprint for some nefarious scheme.

  “Habersham believes that the Revelation was never intended to be a book of prophecy. Rather, it was a coded message. A way of disseminating a strategy designed to break the hegemony of Rome.”

  “Rome? As in the Vatican?”

  “The seven parts of the scroll were seven steps to the plan, and the first,
most important part was the establishment of a legitimate ruler who would be able to lead the cause.” The Prince managed a rather guilty smile. “A unique interpretation, to be sure, but, if you’ll humour me a moment, the idea is not entirely without merit. We know very little about John of Patmos; for years, it was believed that he was St. John the Divine, but many scholars have come to believe he was a different man altogether. He may even have been a political exile, intent on co-opting Christianity as a foundation for his revolt.”

  Konstantin checked his watch again. The Prince was talking, but he wasn’t talking fast enough. Not about anything important. He clenched his fist. He needed to go. But he wasn’t about to. Not while the pieces were beginning to fall into place. There wasn’t a clear picture, but he felt certain that he was on the verge of...well, a revelation. “The rider of the white horse wears a crown. Is that what Habersham promised you? A crown?”

  That odd smile tugged up the corners of the Prince’s mouth. “Oh, believe me, I gave up any such ambition a long time ago. The crown is not for me.”

  The crown....

  The United Kingdom was a monarchy in name only. The crown was a symbol, an echo. It belonged to a lost era; the House of Windsor was nothing more than a celebrity family. But as long as the framework for the Empire remained intact, there was always the possibility of a return to the former glory. If the right person wore the crown.

  “Not for you perhaps,” Konstantin said as another of the pieces fell into place. “But perhaps you want something more for the next king. With it he could be more than just a figurehead.” He was sure he was missing something. “What I don’t understand is where Habersham comes in? And the sword?”