The Excalibur Codex

by James Douglas

  Jamie watched the slim figure walk down the broad avenue of giant elm trees, followed by the watchful Carl, and realized he had never felt so utterly alone. Sooner or later the NYPD or the CIA were going to link him to the bombing at the Washington Park Hotel. When they did that they’d use all their resources to uncover the series of coincidences that had brought him there. Once that happened every law enforcement agency in the United States and Europe would be looking for Jamie Saintclair. The SIM card from the sat-phone felt as if it was burning a hole in his pocket. He’d no doubt the sat-phone records and the timings of the bombings in Madrid, Corfu and New York would match up. And how many more had there been in Germany and Poland? Someone had used him. All the evidence pointed to Gault and Adam Steele. He couldn’t understand why, but he was going to find out.

  But that meant he had to get out of the States and back to Britain, and how the hell was he going to do that?

  He turned his eyes skywards for inspiration and found himself staring into the face of a familiar-looking young man. Oddly, the bronze figure was doing something very similar as he sat with his quill pen poised to record his latest piece of genius. Time had given the statue a patina of pale green, which, if anything, added dignity to the subject. The memory of excruciating nights in his grandfather’s kitchen listening to indecipherable doggerel in a heathen tongue and being forced to eat what had tasted like spicy sawdust made Jamie smile despite the desperate circumstances. Old Matthew Sinclair had been a great Burns man, and here he was, Robert Burns, another lad stranded a long way from home. The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley. The line from an oft-heard poem seemed to perfectly sum up Jamie’s current predicament.

  But if Rabbie Burns had a message it was one of perseverance and hope, and Jamie took comfort from it now. All he needed was some of that inspiration. Did he have any favours he could call in? Not exactly – the balance sheet was all on the debit side – but maybe that didn’t matter.

  He pulled out the mobile phone Helena Webster had given him and dialled a number that was etched on his brain. The ring tone sounded twice.

  His voice was surprisingly steady when he spoke. ‘I’m in trouble and I’m going to need some help getting home … Yes, I understand that. But I have something to trade. Get back to me when you know what’s possible and I’ll tell you what I have.’

  He rang off with all the care of a man who had just prodded a large cobra with a short stick.

  By late afternoon Helena still hadn’t got back to him and he considered buying a sleeping bag in preparation for another night in the park. He was walking towards the stores when the phone buzzed to announce the arrival of a text. An hour later he stood by the Burns statue, staring across at its companion, another Scottish literary giant, when he noticed a certain pattern of movement. Large men in jeans, wearing designer sunglasses and jackets cut to conceal a certain kind of weaponry, took up strategic positions at all points of the compass around him, cutting off every avenue of escape.

  He didn’t feel any fear. There’d always been the possibility of this outcome. But it surprised him. It was difficult to believe she’d betray him.

  Helena Webster marched up the avenue with a sense of purpose that matched the military dispositions she’d put in place. Only one thing didn’t quite fit, and that was the silver case in Carl’s hand as he walked behind her. When she reached him, her face was so pale he could see the marbling of the veins beneath her skin. ‘Give me one reason why I shouldn’t hand you in.’

  He didn’t flinch as he met her cold stare. ‘If you’ve looked at the material in there, and you need a reason, I doubt I’m going to convince you. Either you trust me or you don’t, Helena.’

  ‘My sources in the FBI say they have a passport picture of the man who rented the hotel room. A man with an Islamic name. They plan to put it out later today. You are a dangerous man to know, Mr Saintclair.’

  He nodded, there was no disputing that. ‘Someone needed a sacrificial goat and I was volunteered.’

  ‘You know what’s in here?’

  ‘Not the specifics,’ he admitted. ‘But, in general, I think I can guess.’

  ‘We are talking about mass murder. If what is contained on the hard disk of this computer is true, the kind of detail involved could only have come from the terrorists themselves. Detail of timings and logistics, types of explosives, even estimates of casualties. Dozens of attacks all over the world. The only thing that stops me handing you over to the authorities is the fact that it has been fragmented and repeated all over the disk in a way that’s designed to ensure at least some of it would have survived the explosion in the hotel.’

  ‘Doesn’t that suggest I’m telling the truth?’ He could hear the weariness in his own voice and it sounded like defeat.

  ‘Perhaps.’ It wasn’t quite an acceptance. ‘But there are other things on here. A kind of information timebomb designed to stay hidden for weeks before any normal technician would reach them. Information about things that haven’t happened yet. And those things scare the hell out of me. I need to know what you’re going to do with it.’

  ‘I’m going to use it to buy my life.’

  She took a deep breath and walked past him up the Mall towards the intersection with Center Drive. For a moment he thought he’d lost her and waited for the security detail to close in, but she stopped abruptly and turned back towards him.

  ‘How?’

  So he told her.

  Later, when the ring of guards was gone and only Carl remained, ostentatiously examining the statue on the far side of the paved road, she studied the briefcase with puzzled disgust. ‘You took a chance giving me this. The information it contains could be very valuable to certain people I know in the CIA.’

  ‘I trusted you.’

  ‘Still, I might have been tempted.’

  ‘You would have been sentencing me to death.’ He shrugged. ‘Or at least several lifetimes in one of your lovely state penitentiaries. I didn’t think you’d do that.’

  Her eyes hardened and he knew he was back on dangerous ground. ‘What made you think that, Mr Saintclair?’

  ‘I’m a very good judge of character.’

  She looked up sharply, but gradually her face relaxed into a smile at the reminder of her own boast.

  ‘You could have made me disappear at the castle,’ he pointed out, ‘and it would have been much more convenient for you if you had. But you didn’t. I think you’ve had enough of killing.’ The smile froze and Helena Webster’s eyes flashed with new menace. He knew he might be talking himself into a noose, but he’d gone too far to stop now. ‘You spoke about your grandfather replicating the ceremonies, thinking I wouldn’t know what that meant. But I do, right down to the last detail. And I understand exactly what it would have taken. That’s what killed your father, wasn’t it? The knowledge of what his father had done in his deranged quest to unleash the secret of the swords. There had to be blood and, more important, a source of that blood. Did Rolf Lauterbacher supply them? Is that what was on the page you cut from his journal? At first I didn’t understand why you didn’t just take the whole book, but then I realized you couldn’t have known the daughter didn’t have access to his safe. If she did, she would have noticed it missing and the German police would have investigated his “accident” a bit more thoroughly. So you ran your high-tech scanner over the pages, decoded the contents – that would have been simple enough for you with the decryption software you supply to your friends in the CIA – took the incriminating page and said a fond farewell to your father’s old pal Rolf.’

  A vein throbbed in her temple, and for a moment he thought he’d pushed her too far.

  ‘I was right, Mr Saintclair, you are clever.’ She glanced towards Carl. ‘What do you intend to do with that information?’

  He studied the pale face, noticing something he hadn’t earlier, a resemblance to a martyred saint in a Caravaggio painting. ‘Nothing. I think your family has suffered enough.’
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  After a moment’s hesitation she signalled Carl and the black man approached with the case. Jamie took it and weighed it in his hands. He delved in his pocket until he found what he was looking for. The combination was as he’d guessed – 19 2 19 – the numbers in the alphabet that matched SBS. He popped it open and dropped the SIM card inside, before closing it and whirling the dials to relock it. Helena Webster gave him a questioning look as he handed it back to her.

  ‘I’d like you to send it to this address, please.’

  He produced a piece of paper and she took it with a puzzled frown. ‘Will it be safe there?’

  ‘As safe as anywhere.’

  They walked to the end of the road. ‘Are you sure I can’t help you get back home?’

  He managed a tired smile. ‘You’ve done enough.’ The truth was that he doubted whether Helena Webster’s gratitude for him keeping his mouth shut would last long. She was beautiful, a bit too intelligent, and there was always that buried element of black widow spider.

  Anyway, he had plans of his own.

  Jamal al Hamza took the news with his usual equanimity. The target would be dead if Allah had willed it. There was nothing to do but pass on the information to his master. He left the coffee shop in Peshawar through the back entrance and directly into the garage that took up the entire rear of the building. At random he chose a beige Toyota, one of the six different SUVs parked there, and flicked the switch for the electronic doors. As he drove through the familiar chaos of the busy streets he was unaware that his progress had been picked up by one of several satellites programmed to monitor the particular pattern sprayed on the vehicle’s roof by one of hundreds of ground operatives recruited to help monitor the movements of the many doubtful vehicles that moved through the area in and around the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The dye used to mark the car was invisible to anyone on the ground and the SUV was one of four that the satellites had tracked between the street behind the cafe and a residential complex in the centre of Kohat, one of the less likely terrorist strongholds in the region. It would take several months before the significance of the movement was identified, and at that point it would become a priority for high-ranking officials of a country several thousands of kilometres away. The results would be spectacular.

  XXXVI

  ‘Can you accompany me, please, sir?’

  Jamie had seen them watching him as he approached passport control at Heathrow after his more or less straightforward return to London by way of a meat truck into Canada and a scheduled flight from Montreal. The passport he’d used was identical to his own apart from a slightly modified number and with the name he’d been born with – SINCLAIR – instead of the supposedly aristocratic version his mother had believed would help him ascend the social heights at Cambridge. A cursory glance from the passport officer seemed slight recompense for an hour in the snaking line through the security gates, but it turned out to be for confirmation rather than identification.

  He followed two suited young men with identical close-cropped sandy hair through an unmarked door, conscious of the matched pair of armed cops watching in the background, their trigger fingers twitching. Out of the public eye any pretence of politeness disappeared and the men removed the shoulder bag he was carrying, took an arm each and propelled him along a corridor until they reached another anonymous door.

  ‘May I ask what this is all about?’ he said as politely as the circumstances merited. ‘I do have certain rights, you know.’

  ‘No.’ The man on his right in the grey suit twisted his arm painfully and pushed him so his head hit the door, fortunately as his partner was opening it. Once inside they sat him at a table facing a blank wall of opaque grey glass that no doubt allowed people to see in, but not the prisoner to see out.

  ‘Can you place the contents of your pockets on the table, please?’ Grey suit gave the order in a monotone that gave nothing away as he rummaged through Jamie’s flight bag.

  Jamie fumbled for a few moments, eventually producing his passport, mobile phone and wallet, his house keys, loose change in a mixture of four currencies, and a pile of boiled sweets. He laid them on the surface in front of him.

  ‘They’re for my ears,’ he explained as he spread the sweets in a mosaic pattern, green to the right and orange to the left. ‘They don’t like the pressure changes.’

  Grey suit immediately homed in on the mobile phone, which he placed in an evidence bag and took to the door, where it was whisked away by an unseen hand. The second man – Jamie was fairly certain they were from the Met’s anti-terror branch – separated out the pile on the table, pushing the sweets haphazardly into another evidence bag. He picked up one of the coins and examined it with a look of suspicion. ‘A Polish piatka, can I assume you’ve been in Poland recently?’

  ‘Relatively recently.’

  ‘Only I don’t see a stamp in your passport.’

  ‘That would be because, as you see, it’s quite a new passport – I had to have mine replaced because it was stolen recently in New York – and they don’t tend to stamp your passport at Polish airports the way they used to do. I rather miss it. Now can you please tell me what’s going on?’

  Blue suit glanced at grey suit, who in turn glanced at the opaque wall.

  ‘You are being held under Schedule Seven of the Terrorism Act 2000. You should be aware that this entitles us to take DNA samples and carry out a strip search.’ He paused to allow the words to sink in. ‘Also that it is a criminal offence not to answer our questions.’

  ‘Fire away, old chum.’ Jamie produced an unlikely smile that reflected a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘I’m perfectly happy to answer your questions. Nothing to hide at all. I’m sure it’ll all iron itself out when you find out you have the wrong chap, but don’t worry, I won’t sue.’

  As it turned out, they didn’t ask him anything. With a final perplexed look from blue suit they left him alone with a uniformed constable who seemed to be a deaf mute and whose eyes never left the far wall. Jamie knew this was where he was supposed to be unnerved into confessing all his sins, but as he went over his strategy for the fifteenth time, he still couldn’t improve on playing every bouncer with a straight bat until the opening he hoped he’d carved for himself arrived. If it didn’t, he was probably going to jail for a very long time, but there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do about it. He was also glad he’d had a pee when he left the plane.

  Ninety minutes after he’d disappeared, blue suit returned with an older man who took his seat on the opposite side of the table and slapped down a thick orange file as the uniformed officer left the room. The older man, bulky in a dark suit and with the pinched angry features that so often herald a heart attack, hunched over the maroon oblong of Jamie’s passport, studying it with the intimate care of a coin dealer. Eventually, he threw it dismissively on the table between them.

  ‘What do you know about a man called Mohammed al-Awali?’ They must have handed out flat, emotionless voices at Scotland Yard special casting.

  ‘I’ve never heard the name. As I told your colleague, I have no idea why I’m being held here and I’d very much like to call my lawyer.’

  The man – in Jamie’s mind he’d become The Chief Inspector – ignored the suggestion, pulled out a photograph and placed it beside the passport. ‘Do you recognize him?’

  Jamie picked up the picture, a grainy head-and-shoulders photo, and squinted. ‘It does look a bit like me,’ he admitted, ‘though a few years older. That explains what I was saying to your colleague about mistaken identity.’

  The Chief Inspector’s head lifted and Jamie found himself the focus of two drill-bit eyes. ‘Please don’t underestimate the seriousness of your position, sir. The man in the picture, who looks a bit like you, has been linked to terrorist offences all over the world. Until twenty-four hours ago the FBI believed Mr al-Awali, a Muslim convert of British origin, had died in an explosion in New York along with other named Al-Qaida operatives, but he is obvio
usly a gentleman of some resource because he escaped with moments to spare. He is currently whereabouts unknown,’ the cold eyes bored into Jamie, ‘or at least he was. United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Greece and the United States. Does that list of countries ring any bells with you, Mr Sinclair? Or the deaths of over a hundred innocent people, including the US ambassador to NATO and his wife?’ Jamie didn’t say anything, because he sensed there was nothing he could say. Without warning the other man changed tack. ‘Is this your mobile telephone?’ From the folder, he slid the slim pre-paid mobile phone Helena Webster had handed over another lifetime ago in Central Park.

  ‘Yes, it looks like it.’

  ‘The one you normally use?’

  ‘I’ve had it since New York.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘The old one was stolen.’

  ‘In New York?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How very convenient.’

  Jamie let his shoulders sag. ‘Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you … Inspector? I really don’t know what this is all about. My girlfriend died in—’

  The Chief Inspector leaned across the table. ‘I’ve just told you what this is all about, Mr Sinclair, or Mr al-Awali. If you have anything to give us, now is the time before it’s too late.’

  ‘What do you mean too late? I hope that’s not a threat?’

  ‘Oh, you can be as defensive as you like, son, but don’t try to be too clever. Right at this very moment a team of lawyers is putting together a case against Mohammed al-Awali in New York on charges of inciting terrorism, causing an explosion and multiple counts of murder. Once they’re in place they will be asking for the extradition of the suspect to the United States of America, which the British government will undoubtedly fast-track. There al-Awali will go on trial in a state that currently favours the death penalty. What do you fancy, son, lethal injection or the chair?’ He pushed his face into Jamie’s, close enough that the younger man could smell the mint on his breath. ‘This is your one chance. If you give us enough evidence to build a case in this country and on the European mainland against the men who ordered the attack, the bombers and their quartermasters, then the likelihood is you’ll be tried in this country. You didn’t act alone. Maybe you don’t know it all, but you know something and that something could save your life. But you have to give me it now, or it’s out of my hands.’