The Shadow Conspiracy

by The Shadow Conspiracy (epub)

  After several failed attempts to overtake, the BMW now changed tactics and slammed into the Fiat’s rear. A punishing jolt threw both occupants forwards, and even though they were keeping as low in their seats as humanly possible, the blow appeared to infuriate Doggie. In a moment of madness the dean sat up, and with a furious expression stuck his head through the shattered passenger window and shook his fist at the BMW.

  ‘You bunch of degenerate reprobates!’ he yelled.

  Harker slid one hand off the wheel and pulled his companion down just as another burst from the automatic sent bullets thudding into the back of the car. ‘You idiot! What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘I’m getting angry,’ Doggie ranted, and for a moment Harker had no recognition of the man alongside him. He had never seen the dean behaving so manically, but then again he had never seen him being shot at either. His friend had transmuted from a mild-mannered gent to a road rage nutter in less than a second.

  ‘Do you feel better now?’ Harker yelled, clutching the steering wheel with both hands again.

  Doggie slid himself further down towards the footwell and glared at Harker with fire in his eyes. ‘You bet your sweet bottom I do. Now drive, you bastard, as I refuse to die in Gibraltar.’

  In that instant of staring into his friend’s eyes, Harker realised that Doggie was cracking up. And as another burst of gunfire slammed into the car’s bodywork, who could blame him?

  With Doggie now crouched in the footwell, Harker glanced back at the road in front and felt his heart skip a beat as – with lights flashing – an oncoming Ford Fiesta loudly honked its horn. Harker jerked the steering wheel to the right, missing the car by inches.

  The Fiesta clipped the side of the BMW and sent it slamming into the rock face, crumpling the right side of the bonnet, which in turn locked the right wheel in a cloud of smoking rubber.

  At a glance, the Fiesta itself looked relatively unscathed, but the damage done to the BMW’s wheel had it screeching to a long drawn out halt. With the accelerator still pinned to the floor, Harker pulled the Fiat further away, and by the time they saw sweet, welcoming sunlight at the tunnel’s exit ahead, the BMW was over fifty metres behind them with black fumes now billowing out of its bonnet – or what was left of it.

  Apart from some seriously loud hyperventilating from Doggie, both men remained silent for the rest of their short journey to the airport.

  Harker’s whole body now ached. Although neither of them had suffered a bullet wound, he felt like he had been hit by a freight train. Adrenalin was keeping him going, but their tight escape had more than frayed his nerves and his thinking. His objective was simple: get to the jet and safety.

  He finally pulled up on a grass verge no more than twenty metres from the check-in point, then turned off the engine which spluttered to a halt. The airport seemed unusually quiet but it would not be too long before someone noticed a bullet-ridden Fiat with all its windows shattered. With luck, they could be in the air within ten minutes, hopefully before news of the minister’s assassination caused a massive security crackdown on the Rock. So he knew they had to keep moving, even though his palms felt glued to the steering wheel and his muscles had tensed to snapping point.

  Harker looked over to see Doggie appearing calmer though still pretty wired. He tapped the dean on the shoulder. ‘We have to get moving.’

  Doggie attempted a nod, but his head jerked violently back and forth instead. Nevertheless, he pulled himself upright on the seat and expelled a shuddering sigh of relief. ‘How are you going to explain the state of this car, Alex?’ he said, scanning the multiple bullet holes just about everywhere.

  ‘We’ll just dump it here, Tom. It’s now the least of our problems,’ Harker replied. He managed a mild smirk as his pounding heart began to settle. ‘Besides… it’s registered in your name.’

  Chapter 12

  ‘Jesus Christ, Alex, do you realise how serious this is? It’s the lead story on all the news channels.’ On Harker’s phone screen, John Schroder’s frowning face moved closer. ‘Every law enforcement agency in the UK will be all over this faster than shit through a goose. You can’t just brush the death of a government minister under the rug. There’s going to be real scrutiny from all sides, I can promise you.’

  In all the years Harker had known John Schroder there were few times he had seen the man so worked up, and they had been through some pretty rough scrapes together. The MI6 officer was one of the smartest, craftiest men Harker knew, and he possessed an ability to compartmentalise his experiences that allowed him not only to be a reliable and clear-thinking asset within the intelligence community but also to maintain his cover as a Templar agent.

  Harker had once goaded him about his status as a double agent within MI6 and it had not gone down well, ending in an abject apology. Schroder was a loyal British subject, beyond reproach, and given that he considered his membership of the Templars to be on the side of good, his dual roles rarely, if ever, came into conflict. But this was different. The death of a UK minister and apprehending those responsible would be the top priority, and though the two men trusted each other, Schroder’s currently suspicious expression was something Harker couldn’t ignore.

  ‘I had nothing to do with it, John,’ Harker replied, struggling to not look guilty under Schroder’s sceptical glare. ‘Harold Cortez approached me and he got shot during that conversation. I only just managed to get away safely myself.’

  ‘And me as well,’ Doggie interrupted, pointing to himself excitedly. Clearly the adrenalin was still running strong.

  After abandoning the bullet-ridden rental car they had managed to get to the Cessna jet without complication, and had been safely in the air before news of the minister’s murder hit the media. Their flight plan had been filed with the UK as its destination, but twenty minutes into the flight Harker was still deciding what their next port of call should be when Schroder had called.

  ‘How did you know I was in Gibraltar anyway?’ Harker enquired.

  ‘How did he know we were in Gibraltar,’ Doggie interjected, but his trivial pique was dismissed sharply by a flick of Harker’s hand.

  ‘Your babysitter, Botha, let me know,’ Schroder answered, with no sign of his frustration fading. ‘And when I heard about the minister’s death, I had the unsettling feeling you might be involved – and I was right.’

  Harker ignored the ‘babysitter’ reference and sighed. ‘I’ve never lied to you, John, and you know that. But I’m right in the middle—’ He glanced over at Doggie, who had folded his arms combatively. ‘I mean, we’re caught in the middle of something. Wrong place and wrong time.’

  ‘I doubt that, Alex, as you have a talent for being in the wrong place at exactly the right time. What the hell is going on?’

  ‘After we found Avi Legrundy… did you hear about that?’

  ‘Course I did. Botha brought me up to speed,’ Schroder replied. ‘The last time I checked, he was preparing to move her to a more secure location – until we decide what to do with her.’

  ‘Good. Well, she had a map on her directing us to a certain Barbara Holtz, who is – was –working at an underwater dig site in Gibraltar.’

  There was a pause as Schroder’s mouth tightened. ‘An underwater dig site? I haven’t heard anything about that.’

  ‘You and everyone else,’ Doggie once again interjected, as usual keen to be part of the conversation.

  ‘It’s true,’ Harker continued. ‘Cortez was being blackmailed to keep it all hush-hush. At least that’s what he told me before someone took a potshot at him.’

  ‘What kind of dig is it?’

  ‘You should have seen it, John – a pyramid, right under the Gibraltar strait.’

  ‘A pyramid?’ Schroder looked bemused.

  ‘I know, it sounds so unlikely, but what’s more is that the carbon dating suggests it’s around eleven thousand years old.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Schroder remarked dismissively. ‘The Great Pyrami
d of Giza wasn’t built until 2,500 BC.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Harker replied, suddenly becoming excited at the thought, ‘so it shouldn’t even exist. And it appears to have served as some kind of hub or beacon for people in search of it.’

  ‘A hub? But for what?’

  ‘We don’t know. We were still debating that when someone brought down the whole site with some detonation charges. We only just managed to escape, but whoever arranged the explosion also sent a diver down to finish the job. As a result, Dr Holtz is lying unconscious in a decompression chamber even as we speak.’ Harker now pulled out the gold coin he had taken from the site and twiddled it between his fingers. ‘We also found this down there.’

  Schroder moved even closer to the screen, his eyes squinting, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Honestly, John, I’m not sure,’ Harker replied, putting it back in his pocket, ‘but it’s inscribed with the same text as the tattoo on that body we found with Legrundy.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ was Schroder’s reaction.

  ‘I know, like I said, we only just managed to escape. I was later approached by Harold Cortez at the hospital where Barbara Holtz had been taken. He didn’t have much to say except about himself being blackmailed into keeping it all a secret.’

  Harker considered explaining how his own intelligence skills – or tradecraft, as Schroder would have put it – had managed to extract the necessary information, but the MI6 officer appeared far more interested in the why.

  ‘Blackmailed? How?’

  ‘He was compromised by photos showing him indulging in what you might call equestrian-themed sex games. I don’t think you really want to know the details.’

  Schroder raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? Well, each to their own.’

  ‘I didn’t get the name of his blackmailer, but this whole rabbit hole quest started with Avi Legrundy, so I’d bet a pretty penny that they’re part of Mithras.’

  A silence now fell momentarily, as Schroder gazed away from the camera thoughtfully.

  ‘If that’s true, then it would seem we’ve landed right in the middle of whatever the Mithras are currently up to,’ Schroder replied finally.

  ‘And it would also seem that they’re mopping up any loose ends – including Mr Cortez.’

  ‘And you as well, Alex,’ Doggie added.

  Schroder nodded in agreement. ‘We already knew Legrundy had been out to get you since you foiled their plans for recruiting you. And if you’re right about all this, then she’s inadvertently drawn us into whatever other plans they have. Which turns her into a real liability for them.’

  The mention of Legrundy’s role had Harker thinking busily. If the Red Death’s obsession with Harker’s payback had unwittingly encroached on what the Mithras were now up to, then they would surely make an attempt to retrieve her, rather than risk leaving her in the hands of the Templars.

  ‘We need to contact Botha and give him a heads-up,’ he decided, and this suggestion was met with a firm nod from Schroder. But before the MI6 officer could reply, a voice crackled from the main screen located at the front of the cabin.

  ‘Apologies for the interruption, gentlemen, but I asked the pilot not to bother you whilst you were in full flow.’

  They all knew that voice and simultaneously turned towards the screen. Harker positioned his phone so that Schroder could also see it.

  ‘Truly fascinating. And as usual, Alex, you’ve ended up right in the centre of things.’

  Sebastian Brulet, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, gave them a courteous nod. The unusual sheen of his very white skin appeared to gleam more brightly due to the hue of the screen.

  ‘Sebastian,’ Harker acknowledged, happy to see his old friend. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Better than you, I’d suggest – given your adventures of the past few hours. Are you and Dean Lercher both well?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Doggie replied, with a certain pride in the fact, and he sat up straighter in his chair.

  ‘Yes,’ responded Harker, ‘if you don’t count almost being blown up and witnessing the murder of a UK government minister taking place right in front of me.’

  ‘And having to make a daring escape from killers armed with AK-47s,’ Doggie added with pride.

  ‘Yes, Dean, I’d heard. And given the circumstances, I can only say how happy I am to see you both appearing unscathed.’ Brulet gave them a reassuring smile. ‘I only wish Mr Cortez could have been so fortunate.’

  There were many good things one could say about Sebastian Brulet, for he was kind, considerate, charming and staunchly loyal to those around him, but he possessed some qualities that only become apparent when meeting in person. For one, there was his uncanny ability to command respect without saying a word. It was an innate charisma. You either had it or you didn’t, and Brulet had it in spades.

  Of course, his eyes inspired a sort of fascination in anyone close enough to see them. His pupils were not round but cross-shaped, due to a hereditary genetic condition. It was thought that generations ago this mutation had been a factor in his family being chosen for prominence by the Knights Templar. Those peculiar eyes were now staring at them from the screen.

  ‘What do you think is going on here, Alex?’ the Grand Master asked, as a lock of white hair escaped his ponytail and was brushed to one side.

  ‘Apart from the discovery, which would literally tear apart archaeological timelines, I’m not really sure… yet. But given the lengths the Mithras appear ready to go to in order to cover it all up, I would guess that it’s something we should definitely be scrutinising. Then there’s that strange… man… we found with Legrundy.’ Harker was still uncertain what to call the humanoid. Even considering its physical similarities with those frescos back at the dig site, especially the eyes, he wasn’t ready to accept such implications – let alone the ‘god’ aspect Barbara Holtz had referred to. But now he decided it was time to at least put it out there and gauge their reaction.

  ‘We found a series of frescos at the dig site, inside the pyramid itself, and it may sound crazy, but there were some similarities in them with… the humanoid.’

  Brulet frowned. ‘What do you mean, similarities?’

  Harker was still wondering how to phrase his thoughts when Doggie just came out with it. ‘Alex thinks that strange-looking fellow you recovered is an alien. He also thinks the frescos refer to some ancient alien civilisation that came to Earth, whereupon humans declared them to be gods.’

  ‘Tom, that is not at all what I think!’ Harker exploded, feeling his cheeks begin to flush. He was an archaeologist, not a conspiracy nut. ‘I’m just looking at the evidence, and from what I’ve seen so far, it would seem that… that…’

  ‘That extraterrestrials have been guiding us human beings for at least eleven thousand years,’ Doggie concluded sarcastically, with a little chuckle.

  Harker could feel his blood boiling. It had been a long time since he and Doggie had tussled seriously and, although they rarely argued, when they did so it was explosive, and he felt his anger begin to spill over. ‘You know something, Tom? You’ve been acting like a bloody idiot ever since we got shot at back in Gibraltar.’

  Doggie was already rolling his eyes. ‘What, you mean about half an hour ago?’

  ‘Half an hour is enough, Thomas,’ Harker replied scathingly, deliberately reverting to using his friend’s full name, ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘Do tell,’ the dean groaned.

  ‘I think you cracked somewhere along the line. I think, while those bullets were flying overhead, something in you snapped. You’ve been as bitchy as hell ever since. And what was with the “You bunch of degenerate reprobates”?’ Harker recalled mockingly before jabbing a finger towards a small stain alongside the zip of Doggie’s trousers. ‘And let’s not forget how you wet yourself.’

  Doggie’s mouth dropped open and he looked absolutely livid. ‘How dare you accuse me of incontinence! These are coffee stains.’

  ‘Oh, really.
That’s funny,’ Harker said, still gesturing to the offending area, ‘I’ve never had yellow coffee before.’

  ‘Enough,’ Brulet roared, and both men immediately went quiet. ‘Please, gentlemen, you’re behaving like children. Could I offer some suggestions?’

  Neither man offered any sign of consent but they did remain silent with their eyes now glued to Brulet.

  ‘Alex, how long exactly were you down there?’

  ‘How long where?’

  ‘The dive, Alex. How long were you down there?’

  ‘Umm, about forty minutes, give or take.’

  Brulet raised his head knowingly. ‘And how long before you stepped onto this plane?’

  This simple question had Harker realising what the Grand Master was getting at. ‘Probably not long enough,’ he said.

  As any diver would know, a certain period of time should elapse between diving and flying, so much so that there were charts specifically devised as necessary guidance for anyone planning such an endeavour. It concerned the body’s reaction to pressure and if it wasn’t followed could have serious consequences.

  ‘I would suggest, Alex, that you’re suffering from a mild case of decompression sickness. Symptoms would include nausea, irritability, and perhaps also some dizziness.’

  Harker slumped back in his seat and rubbed his forehead. ‘I do feel a bit light-headed,’ he confessed.

  ‘And Dean Lercher,’ Brulet continued, ‘I would suggest that you may be suffering from shock. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. Why don’t you go and get yourself a Coke? I’m sure the jet is adequately stocked. The sugar will help. While you’re doing that I’ll ask the pilot to drop down to a lower altitude and reset the cabin pressure accordingly.’

  The screen went black. Doggie silently made his way over to the flight cupboard, pulled out a Coke and began slurping it, as the jet started to descend.

  ‘You all right?’ Schroder asked suddenly over the phone as Harker lay back in his seat and closed his eyes.

  ‘I’ll be OK. With everything going on, the precautions slipped my mind.’