by Maynard Sims
Carter, Bailey, and Crozier had been joined by McKinley and were standing, two each side of the table, staring down at the map.
“So, Martin,” Crozier said. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll leave it to Captain Allen to explain. This is very much a military operation.”
Frank Allen cleared his throat and got to his feet. “As I understand it, the purpose of this operation is to liberate Dr. Payne, Mr. Czerwinski, and the girl, Czerwinski’s niece, Julia. Before we go any further, I need to know how much collateral damage is acceptable.”
Crozier considered the question for a moment. “I think the question is now moot. Of course the safety of Payne, Czerwinski, and his niece is primary, but it’s been decided that Holly and his people pose a significant threat, and as such they should be treated with extreme prejudice.”
“In other words, we take them out,” Fulbright said.
“Quite,” Crozier said.
Allen and Fulbright exchanged looks.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Carter said. “John Holly is pure evil. If he gets a chance to kill you, or any of us, he will.”
“No problem,” Allen said with a smile. “I just like to know what the etiquette is, that’s all.”
“Nice turn of phrase,” Harry Bailey muttered under his breath.
“So, just to be clear,” Fulbright said. “I can tell my men that anyone at the manor other than Payne, Czerwinski, and the girl is a legitimate target?”
“Sanctioned by the home secretary himself,” Crozier lied.
“That’s good enough for me.”
“Right. Can we move forward to the plan itself?”
“We think the best way to attack the place is to come in through the woods, here.” Allen swept his hand over a green-shaded area on the map to the east of Faircroft Manor.
“We have a couple of sources stationed there already,” Martin Impey said. “And the intelligence we’ve received from them tells us the trees are dense enough to give us cover until the last possible moment.”
“If I can interrupt,” Carter said. “Tree cover in itself won’t be enough, Captain. John Holly is a very powerful psychic. He will pick up on you and your men before you’re halfway through the woods. His telekinetic powers are extraordinary. He could have your men blowing one anothers’ balls off in the blink of an eye.”
Allen didn’t question it. He’d worked too many operations with the department to be fazed by the more outlandish elements involved. “Interesting,” he said. “So how do I protect my men?”
“You don’t. We do,” Carter said. “Harry, McKinley, and I will set up a psychic screen. Call it running interference if you like. We can block any signals you and your men give off. If Holly tries any kind of psychic probe he’ll be met with what is effectively white noise. He’ll know something’s going on but won’t be able to determine what it is. If Jason Pike and Rachel Grey are true to their word, he’ll have his hands full dealing with the diversion they’re planning.”
“Which is what, precisely?” Crozier said.
Carter shook his head. “I don’t know the details. But when I spoke to Pike just before we came in here, he suggested it would be something that will totally focus John Holly’s energies.”
“Well, let’s hope he’s right,” Bailey said. “Otherwise this could turn into a nightmare.”
“Well, we’ll try to look on the bright side, shall we,” Crozier said. “Carry on, Captain.”
Chapter Sixty-one
This is the ultimate end of man, to find the One which is in him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Malcolm O’Donnell’s apartment, Holborn, London, England
Malcolm O’Donnell threw the sheet aside and swung his legs to the floor, turning to smile at the girl on the bed beside him. Sophia was extraordinarily pretty with clear skin, rich pink lips, and the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Her fair hair was long, hanging halfway down her flawless back. He knew when he’d seen her at the club the evening before that she would be his next victim. She was young, barely above the age of consent, but that only enticed him further. He was longing to sink his fingers into her, to savor her youthful organs, to extract her young and vibrant life force. That he hadn’t dispatched her already said much for his iron will and much-prided self-control, but it would happen soon now; he could not contain himself much longer.
“Coffee?” he said.
“Oh yes.” Sophia licked her lips and flopped back down onto the pillow, her hair fanning out like a silver cape. “Don’t be long,” she said.
Malcolm stared down at her long, lithe body; his gaze dwelling on the small but perfectly formed breasts and traveling down to the neatly trimmed mound of pubic hair. There were tiny droplets of moisture trapped in the curls. He felt himself swelling again. Perhaps one last fuck before he fed, but first the coffee.
When he returned to the bedroom, the bed was empty. There was a momentary pulse of panic before he heard the water running in the en suite shower room. He relaxed, set the coffee mugs on the bedside cabinet, and lay back down on the bed.
When the door to the shower room opened and Sophia emerged, still dripping but wrapped in a towel, he was nursing the largest erection he could ever remember having.
“My word,” she said, admiration in her voice, and dropped the towel to the floor. She slid onto the bed and straddled him, taking his erection, and inserting it inside her, making a small groaning noise in her throat. She leaned over him, letting the wet strands of her silver hair glide over his chest, making him shiver. She started to move rhythmically in time with his breathing, then reached down and traced a line on his chest with her fingernail.
“Does that feel good, honey?” she said breathlessly.
“Oh Jesus, yes,” Malcolm said and closed his eyes to block out any distractions and to intensify the sensation.
Suddenly there was pain, indescribable pain.
He opened his eyes.
Sophia was smiling down at him. Her fingers were buried knuckle deep in the soft skin under his rib cage. He felt the fingers curling inside him, closing around his ribs.
“Bye, Malcolm,” she said sensually, and wrenched at his rib cage, ripping the skin, splitting his sternum and opening him up like a clam.
As Malcolm screamed, Sophia fell on him, burying her face in the soft tissue of his lungs, liver, spleen, and heart; tearing at them with her razor-sharp teeth.
Malcolm died before his mind could comprehend how things could have gone so terribly, terribly wrong.
Sophia climbed from the body and wiped the blood from her mouth with the damp towel, padded across the bedroom and picked up the telephone. It was answered on the first ring.
“It’s done,” she said.
On the other end of the line, Jason Pike said, “Good girl. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” There was a smile in his voice.
Chapter Sixty-two
Faircroft Manor, Hertfordshire, England.
Holly felt Malcolm’s death as a ripple through his mind. Malcolm was his most trusted aide. Holly was sitting in front of his computer screen, trying to take onboard the reports coming in from various contacts around the world.
His empire was coming under attack.
There had been arson attacks on three of his “restaurants” in the US. The two in New York had been burned to the ground; the one in Seattle was still burning, but looked likely to go the same way. Many of his people had been attacked in their homes, and there had even been random gang attacks on the street. In Spain three of his people had been hunted down and stoned to death in the Mijas bullring.
On their own the incidents were slight—minor inconveniences. But together they were taking on a much greater significance. They were being orchestrated.
And now Malcolm, his trusted aide, dead. He searched with his mind, trying to concentrate on Malcolm’s last moments, b
ut the images he was getting were jumbled, confused. He slammed his hand on the desk, furious with himself for not being able to focus. When the telephone rang he snatched up the receiver. “Yes!”
“It’s Klimdt. We have a situation here.”
Chapter Sixty-three
Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.
—King Solomon
The Spree Clinic, Zurich, Switzerland
Wolfgang Klimdt had just finished his morning rounds when the security alarm sounded. The wailing siren was deafening, and Klimdt threw his hands over his ears as he ran to the nearest security station.
The guard was sitting at his post, watching the bank of CCTV screens with openmouthed astonishment. Klimdt pushed him out of the way and took his seat, punching buttons and checking each screen in turn. Each screen told the same story. The clinic was under attack.
Paramilitaries armed with semiautomatic weapons were rampaging through the complex. There seemed to be forty or fifty of them. It was similar to the raid that had occurred several years ago, but there was a difference this time. In the last attack the clinic’s security staff had been able to put up a big enough show of force to deter the attackers and drive them back, eventually overpowering and killing them all. This time the attack force was like a hydra. For every one of the raiders who fell, there seemed to be two more to take his place. The raiders were behaving like fanatics, disregarding their own lives. It had all the hallmarks of a suicide mission.
While Klimdt was trying to find the confidence that his own people would prevail once again, a niggling doubt was beginning to insinuate its way into his mind. He picked up the phone and punched in the number to Faircroft Manor.
Chapter Sixty-four
Faircroft Manor, Hertfordshire, England
Holly listened while Klimdt described what was happening at the clinic. When the man finished speaking, Holly was silent for a moment as he tried to assess the situation.
Finally he took a breath. “Salvage what you can and get out of there. Go to the emergency tunnel. I’ll have someone there to meet you at the other end. He’ll take you to the airport. There will be a plane waiting for you. It’s imperative you get yourself and the remaining specimens to England. You can carry on your work here at the manor. We will not let this incident stop the project. Understood?”
“But what about the staff? What about the new breed?”
“Anything you can’t carry is expendable. You have the code for the self-destruct?”
Klimdt hesitated. “Yes, but…”
“No buts,” Holly said. “Get out of there, and before you do, set the self-destruct. Blow the place to hell. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
Holly severed the connection and dialed another number.
Chapter Sixty-five
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
—Kahlil Gibran
The Spree Clinic, Zurich, Switzerland
Klimdt checked the screens again. The raiders were still two floors above him, and the specimens and the papers he needed were in a laboratory three floors below, deep in the heart of the mountain. Two floors below that was the emergency tunnel. He ran out into the corridor and hit the elevator button.
He waited for the car to descend, checking his watch. “Come on,” he muttered, but after a full minute it became obvious the elevator would not be coming. Somewhere above him elevator doors had been wedged open, immobilizing the system. The door to the stairs was at the end of the corridor. He ran to it and pulled it open, hitting the stairs still running, taking them two at a time. Above him he could hear people shouting and the sound of sporadic gunfire. He didn’t look back.
By the time he reached the laboratory, he was panting for breath; a sedentary lifestyle, forty-a-day cigarette habit, and advancing years were doing him no favors.
The two technicians working in the lab looked at him curiously as he bustled in.
“Is everything okay?” one of them said. “We thought we heard shots.”
Klimdt appeared flustered. “It’s an attack on the clinic. You’re not safe here. Go up to the tenth floor. Our people are there. They’ll protect you.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll join you there shortly,” Klimdt lied. “Go now…while there’s still time.”
The technicians looked at each other for a moment, then ran to the door.
“Take the stairs. The elevator isn’t working.” Expendable.
He waited until the lab was empty, then went to the cold store and removed the phials he needed, nestling them down in a cold box. Once they were safely packed, he downloaded the files he needed onto a memory stick and logged in the password sequence for the self-destruct. As he hit the enter key, an alarm siren began to wail throughout the complex. With the memory stick in his pocket and the cold box tucked under his arm, he rushed back to the stairs and started his descent. He had ten minutes before the entire complex exploded. He was praying he had enough time.
There were safety lights set every ten yards along the walls of the tunnel. He used them as markers to chart his progress. He was continually glancing at his wristwatch, counting off the seconds. With less than a minute to go, he reached the reinforced steel door that led to the outside world and safety. There was a lever and bar mechanism to open it. He carefully put the cold box down on the floor and gripped the lever with both hands, using all his weight to push it down. After a moment’s resistance, the lever moved and the bar securing the door slid aside. He pulled and the door opened easily.
Fresh air hit him in the face and he sucked it in greedily. The sun was blazing down and glared into his eyes. He put his hand up to shield them. He could make out the outline of a man standing by a limousine parked on the mountain road.
“Quick,” he said. “We have to get out of here. The whole complex is going to explode.”
The man was walking toward him slowly, with no sense of urgency. Klimdt could see enough now to recognize him. It was one of Holly’s drivers. Toby? Was that his name?
The man, Toby, was smiling.
“I said quickly, goddammit!”
Toby put his fingers to his lips. “Shhh. Listen,” he said.
“What?”
“Listen.”
In the still Swiss morning air there was silence. Klimdt blinked, trying to understand the significance of the peace and stillness. Then he realized what was wrong. The self-destruct’s warning system. The siren. He couldn’t hear it.
Toby’s smile widened. “We switched it off,” he said. “No explosion. No kaboom. Understand now?”
Klimdt shook his head.
“How about now?”
Suddenly a gun appeared in Toby’s right hand. The gun coughed twice.
Klimdt didn’t feel the bullets enter his chest. He stared down at himself, watching the blood spreading across the front of his shirt like a red flower blooming in the morning sun. He sank to his knees. His mouth opened. A question formed on his lips, but it remained unasked as Klimdt toppled forward onto the tarmac and died.
Toby punched in a number on his cell phone. “Klimdt’s dead.”
“And the clinic?” Rachel Grey said.
“Under our control.”
“Good,” Rachel said. “Good.”
Chapter Sixty-six
Department 18 Headquarters, Whitehall, London, England
Harry Bailey dropped the sixty-year-old file onto Crozier’s desk. “So why did Reid wait until now to produce this?”
Crozier looked up at the cuts and contusions on his old friend’s face. “You look dreadful. Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“I’m fine. The file?”
“You’ve read it?”
“Cover to cover.” Bailey pulled up a chair and sat, stifling a groan. He’d lied. He wasn’t fine at all. His body felt as if it had tumbled over
a cliff and hit every rock on the way down.
“Henry Manners was a good man, but he ruffled too many feathers while he was director here. I think the government of the day used this report as a lever to oust him from his position. In letting me have the file, Reid was handing me my own poisoned chalice.”
“But why?”
“Reid’s no friend to the department. Hasn’t been for years. If he had his way, he’d close us down.”
Bailey frowned. “So why is he giving us the go-ahead for this operation?”
Crozier smiled. “What’s the phrase? Give them enough rope…”
“So you think Reid wants you out and he’ll use this to persuade his buddies in the cabinet to replace you?”
“That’s my take on it.”
“Why give you advanced warning by letting you see the file?”
“Politics,” Crozier said. “There are enough people in government who know of the file’s existence. If Reid hadn’t handed it over, questions would have been asked. Why let us go into this operation without all the known facts? But now, with the file in our possession, we have all the known facts, so we go in with our eyes open.”
“So what does all this mean?” Bailey said, genuinely baffled.
“It means, Harry old friend, that we have to succeed. We don’t have a choice.”
“And Reid doesn’t think we will?”
“No, I don’t think he does.”
Harry Bailey shook his head. “Politicians,” he said. “I hate the bloody lot of them.”
“Amen to that,” Crozier said.
“I’d better get going.”
“Take care, Harry. Carter has a habit of losing people.”
“You should cut him some slack, Simon. I’ve read the reports of all of his missions. He’s in the clear, and he’s bloody effective.”