The Apocalypse Fire (Ava Curzon Trilogy Book 2)

by Dominic Selwood

  It made her sick thinking about it.

  Julia was not involved in any of this. She was something senior in a trendy fruit juice company, and should still be very much alive.

  Ava had been unable to sleep, and in the small hours of the morning had got up and padded through to the book-lined study, where she had sat awake in an armchair, staring through the window at the blue-black night sky.

  Who had tried to kill her?

  On her own doorstep?

  It brought back memories of her father’s death. He had not been a violent man. Yet he had died a brutal death. And now there was Julia.

  Why was death always part of the story? And why was it so often the wrong people who lay cold on the mortuary slab?

  Her eyes had settled on one of the photographs on her shelves. It showed her with the local team of archaeologists and conservators at Palmyra in Syria. They were all smiling in the picture, excited to be working on one of the world’s richest archaeological sites – a national heritage of which they were immensely proud. And now they were all dead – butchered in their own country in the war of ideologies tearing the region apart.

  When growing up, she had never dreamed that she would be surrounded by so much bloodshed. She knew it was occasionally a feature in the world of intelligence. But it had never occurred to her that in some parts of the world archaeology would move onto the front line.

  She had finally fallen asleep shortly after daybreak, and she was now sitting in her kitchen while Ferguson prepared breakfast. He had rung for an update on her afternoon at MI13, but when she told him what had happened, he had come round immediately.

  She took a sip from the cup of fresh tea in front of her, instantly feeling more alive.

  “Any idea who ordered it?” His voice was full of concern.

  “A few.” She had been turning the options over in her mind ever since it happened. “For starters, after the other day, I don’t think I’m on Durov’s Christmas card list. And then there’s Ramos.”

  Ferguson frowned.

  “I went into an Old Bond Street gallery yesterday,” she explained, “and leant on a dealer who’s importing antiquities from Syria.” She took another sip of the tea. “It’s just Museum stuff.”

  “Right.” Ferguson grinned. “I’m sure you asked very nicely.”

  “I need to know who he’s buying from,” she explained. “There are only a few routes for Syrian antiquities into London, and they urgently need to be closed down. To do that, I have to get higher up the supply chain.”

  She watched Ferguson as he unpacked the bacon, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes from the thick brown paper bag he had brought in with him.

  He turned and noticed her gaze. “Any soldier will tell you the same.” He took the thick slices of bacon from their waxed paper wrapping. “There aren’t many mornings that can’t be improved by a good breakfast.”

  “Then there’s Swinton,” she added.

  Ferguson stopped unpacking the ingredients and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Seriously?”

  She had given it a lot of thought. “Just before I left MI13 yesterday, he took my pass. That means I was carrying nothing to link me to him. He also gave me a green umbrella, which Julia was carrying, right by my doorstep, when she was hit.”

  He rubbed his hand across his chin. “Christ. That’s all we need.” He stared out of the window for a moment. “Why would Swinton want you dead?”

  She could not put her finger on it. “Maybe I’ve done something to upset him in the past? Or perhaps it’s not even about me. Maybe Swinton wants to frame Durov – stitch him up for murdering one of the team, but without losing anyone valuable?”

  Ferguson chewed his lip. “That’s pretty off the scale. You really think he’d do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “Maybe he’s working for Durov? I mean, what do we really know about him?”

  Ferguson checked the temperature in the frying pan, then carefully laid in the rashers of bacon. “The sound money has to be on Durov. We know for sure that he’s not your biggest fan.”

  “But how does he know where I live?” Ava was finding it hard to believe. “Can he really have traced me that quickly?” She stood up and walked over to the window.

  Peering through the blinds, she looked out onto the pavement, at the spot where Julia had been lying. The police had already taken away the small white tent they had put up, and the road looked just as it always did.

  It was as if Julia had never existed.

  “Well, we’re going to have to wait and see who comes out of the woodwork,” Ava concluded quietly. “They tried and failed. So the chances are they’ll come again.”

  Ferguson turned on the grill, and slid the tomatoes under it.

  “Anyway,” she changed the subject, “I’ve been thinking about Rasputin’s cryptograph, and I reckon I’m getting somewhere with it.”

  She returned to the table, and Ferguson pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her.

  She put Swinton’s printout of the bizarre cross onto the table between them.

  “I’m assuming that this was written in Russia by Rasputin in the last decade of his life. At that time he was heavily connected with the Russian royal family, as he was treating the young Tsesarevich Alexei for haemophilia. In other words, the prince’s blood had a dangerous clotting disorder.”

  “DISEASED ROYAL BLOOD,” Ferguson agreed.

  He looked down at the cryptograph and put his finger on the words: CITY OF SAINT PETER. “Don’t tell me, the Russian royal family spent a lot of time in Saint Petersburg?”

  Ava nodded. “In Rasputin’s day, Saint Petersburg had been the capital of the Russian Empire for two hundred years. It was the home of the Russian government. And the royal family had their court there.”

  “The only problem is this.” Ava pointed to the word in the middle: ANASTASIS.

  “Anastasia was the prince’s sister.” Ferguson frowned. “It fits nicely, doesn’t it?”

  Ava twisted the sheet so he could see it more clearly.

  “It might be a reference to her,” Ava conceded. “But it clearly says ANASTASIS, which is the Greek word at the root of her name. Why not just write Anastasia?”

  “It’s part of a concealed message.” Ferguson walked back over to the cooker. “So it’s been slightly disguised. Anastasia would make complete sense. After all, Rasputin was very friendly with the whole family, wasn’t he?”

  Ava took another sip of her tea. “True. He got to know her mother, the Tsarina Alexandra, when he began treating the prince. The doctors could do nothing, and Rasputin was the only one who seemed to be able to help. Inevitably, Alexandra became his greatest fan, and their friendship lasted for a decade, becoming ever closer.

  “But, when the Revolution came in 1917, the Communist revolutionaries herded the whole imperial Romanov family off to a secret location. They crammed them into a basement, where a group answering to Lenin shot and bayoneted them. Then they doused the bodies in sulphuric acid to obliterate all traces of the murders. Alexei was thirteen at the time. Anastasia was seventeen. There were three other sisters, too: all executed.”

  “Christ.” Ferguson’s face fell. “Child murder. One hell of a basis for a new political system.” He cut two thick slices of bread. “But weren’t there rumours Anastasia survived?”

  Ava nodded. “There was speculation for decades. But all their graves have now been found near Yekaterinburg, a thousand miles east of Moscow in the Urals, and DNA tests have confirmed their identities.”

  Ava tapped the drawing, lost in thought. “However, Rasputin was killed a year and a half before the Romanovs were murdered, so this clue isn’t going to be about rumours of Anastasia’s survival.”

  “You said Anastasis meant resurrection in Greek. Rasputin was a seriously hard man to kill, I seem to remember. Could that be a connection? Is it about Rasputin coming back?” Ferguson cracked an egg into the frying pan.

&nb
sp; “He was a walking scandal.” Ava had read up on the story with fascination the previous afternoon at MI13. “His clothes were filthy. He didn’t wash. He was almost permanently on an epic drunken binge. And he maintained that it was important to sin as much as possible in order to be truly forgiven by God. So the endless spiritual counselling sessions he offered his many female devotees usually involved having sex with them so they could all repent together afterwards. He was quite the charmer, it seems.”

  “Eventually, a group of ultra-conservatives decided that he had to go before he dragged the Romanovs down with him. They gave him poisoned wine and teacakes, but he shrugged it off. Then they shot him, but he kept going. So they shot him again. He was still alive, so finally they tied him up and dropped him through a hole in the ice on the river, where he finally drowned.”

  “With all that going on, I’m amazed he had time to keep a notebook,” Ferguson muttered.

  Ava watched as he scooped the bacon out of the pan and put it on two plates, carefully adding the rest of the food.

  It had been a long time since anyone had cooked breakfast for her.

  He was a good friend, she mused, casting her mind back to Baghdad, and the time when he had wanted to be more than a friend. They had become very close then. But she had never let it happen.

  “So you think there may be a Russian royal link, rather than a connection to the Turin Shroud?” He brought the two plates to the table.

  As Ava took a mouthful, she realized she was starving. After the events of the previous evening, she had been too wired to eat.

  She nodded. “I haven’t found anything to suggest that Rasputin had ever heard of the Turin Shroud. The only link in all this that I’ve been able to discover is between Rasputin and Durov.”

  “Really?” He looked up. “Rasputin’s spiritual exercises seem at the opposite end of the scale from the Skoptsy’s rituals.”

  Ava had been delighted when she had found the connection while looking through the Foreign Office files.

  She shook her head. “It seems that, for a while, Rasputin was a member of the Khlysty – a rural cult that went in for religious ecstasies, tempered with doses of flagellation and self-mortification. After a while, Rasputin broke away from them, and focused more intensely on the ecstatic side of Khlysty life. At the same time, others went in the opposite direction, becoming more puritanical. One group became the Skoptsy.”

  Ferguson looked pensive as he topped up Ava’s tea. “So the Khlysty and Rasputin are both in the ancestral DNA of the Skoptsy, which explains why Durov might see Rasputin as some sort of guru?”

  Ava could feel the warming food bringing her strength back. “Exactly. Anyway,” she changed the subject, “how was the stake out yesterday? Did Mary get to the airport?”

  “As it happens, she called me,” he answered. “So it was more of an escort service than a stake out.”

  Ava looked across at him. “She must like you if she’s tracked down your number.”

  He shook his head. “I gave it to her that night at the embassy.”

  Ava felt a pang of something she could not quite define.

  She glanced down at her mug of tea, avoiding his gaze.

  Where had that come from?

  “I ended up driving her to the airport,” he continued. “She didn’t say too much. She’s been at the Vatican a few years. She used to be with the Los Angeles police department, and there was some story about something to do with a gang in LA killing a child. It left her feeling responsible, so she wanted to get away and make a clean break. A local priest connected her to the Vatican. That’s all I got, so I still don’t know exactly what she does there.”

  Ava was stumped too. She had dealt with various parts of the Vatican when borrowing items from their collections for exhibitions. There was the Swiss Guard, who looked after the pope and the Apostolic Palace. But it was unlikely Mary was connected to them, as they were an all-male unit. Then there was the Gendarmerie Corps, which managed all policing and security for the Vatican and its properties. But that was also all male, and anyway, Mary said she was a “liaison”.

  Ferguson interrupted her thoughts. “What about the other letters in Rasputin’s drawing? The eight around the cross?” He looked down and pointed to them. “ESHTNOAC, or CHASE NOT.”

  Ava finished a final mouthful of the breakfast, and stared into the middle distance. “Right now, I have absolutely no idea.”

  Her phone vibrated. Glancing down, she read the message, and her heart started to beat a little faster.

  “Come on,” she announced, getting up. “We may get answers to at least one of our questions. Swinton wants to see us. Now.”

  Chapter 21

  The Cavalry and Guards Club

  127 Piccadilly

  London W1

  The United Kingdom

  SWINTON’S SMS TOLD them to come to 127 Piccadilly.

  It was a short ride away, and when they got there, the large navy-blue flag flapping over the entrance announced it was the Cavalry and Guards Club.

  “Seriously?” Ferguson looked bemused. “Swinton didn’t strike me as the sort to hang around playing billiards all day.”

  They headed up the stone steps between the four-columned portico, and through the grand double doors.

  Inside, the polished marble, cream, and mahogany atrium was hushed – a world away from the traffic thundering along outside between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner.

  There was a reception desk, a painting of a Georgian monarch on the wall, and an elderly man in a pinstripe suit sitting in a black leather armchair reading a broadsheet newspaper.

  With no formalities, they were shown through into a comfortable drawing room, where Ava immediately spotted Swinton and Sir Mark Jennings.

  “This is alright,” Ferguson indicated the opulent surroundings.

  “Reminds me of my misspent youth.” Jennings smiled. “Coldstream Guards. You?”

  Ferguson shook his head. “Infantry. Green Jackets, originally.”

  Jennings motioned for them to sit, and Swinton leant forward to speak.

  “So what the hell happened last night?” He was not looking friendly.

  Ava struggled to keep her composure.

  He was angry with her?

  She was the one with the assassination on her doorstep.

  “How did you hear about it?” she asked quietly, keen to see his reaction.

  “The whole town knows,” he erupted. “It’s not every day someone’s gunned down in St James’s.”

  “Not someone. Her name was Julia,” Ava replied, barely able to conceal her emotions. “And what’s everyone saying?”

  “They’re all mystified,” he answered brusquely. “They’re all wondering why anyone would want to take out a minor businesswoman in a drive-by shooting.” He peered at Ava. “Fortunately, the police don’t know who you are, yet, but they’ll work it out sooner or later.” He slumped back in his chair. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

  She shook her head.

  He did not need to know about Ramos.

  She had been thinking about it further on the ride over, and had come to the conclusion that if Ramos had wanted to get rid of her, he would have done it discreetly, to avoid questions. What had happened the previous evening in her street may as well have had spotlights and a band playing. It did, in fact, have all the hallmarks of a bold attention-seeking Russian hit.

  Or someone wanted it to look that way.

  “Anyway,” Swinton continued, “I’m glad you’re here. We’ve picked up reports that Durov is putting noses out of joint in the Russian military, and that he’s somehow connected to the Saudi oil spill that’s all over the news. I haven’t changed my view that you’re to stay away from him, but for the moment we need to build the best picture of the man we can.”

  “What does satellite intel say?” Ferguson chipped in. “Did we have anything in the sky?”

  Swinton nodded. “There’s always som
ething watching the Saudi ports. Our friends in the Ministry of Defence have ruled out an accident. They think it was sabotage.”

  “Frogmen could have attached limpet mines with timers to the hull while the vessel was in the harbour, or later, when it was in open waters,” Ferguson suggested. “It’s going to be very hard to pinpoint. Were there Russians in the areas?”

  “The Middle East is swarming with Russians.” Swinton pursed his lips. “Half the Red Army and Air Force are in Syria. And I hear that restaurant menus in Dubai now list the food in Russian first.”

  “Why Durov?” Ferguson asked. “What’s the connection?”

  “His business interests are in petrochemicals,” Jennings answered, joining the conversation. “There’s been a full-on economic oil war for several years now. The Saudis are depressing the price to hurt the Iranians, whom they want to cripple before Iran can reassert itself too fully in the region. Meanwhile, the Americans are sitting by happily, as the low oil price is whipping Russia, which does Washington all sorts of favours.”

  “And reducing the Saudi oversupply of oil helps push prices back up.” Ava finished the train of thought for him. “And an increased oil price helps Durov.”

  “It could’ve been Iran, of course, attacking the tanker,” Jennings continued. “It’s just as much in their interest to see Saudi’s oil industry hurt, while getting the price back up.”

  Ferguson looked uncertain. “That’d be a big step for Tehran, though, wouldn’t it? They’re doing well in Iraq and Syria at the moment, and the lifting of sanctions is bringing them back into the mainstream. Why would they take on Saudi now? They’ve got more to lose than gain.”

  Ava nodded. “The Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great stretched from Eastern Europe to China. Their monarchy lasted for almost five thousand years until 1979. They have a highly educated population, developed industry, deep financial markets, and a lot of oil. And they’re well aware that they’re a natural regional superpower, regardless of who has, or doesn’t have, oil at any moment. With the US withdrawal, they’re gradually and successfully coming out as the region’s dominant power, so I agree. I can’t see them starting a full-on war with Saudi now.”