The Apocalypse Fire (Ava Curzon Trilogy Book 2)

by Dominic Selwood

  Is that what he was saying?

  Was Mossad involved?

  Uri’s face was impassive. “The Russian. Oleg Durov.”

  She was not quite sure she had heard right.

  He continued. “Stay away from him.”

  Ava’s mind was whirring. “Durov?” She struggled to keep the surprise out of her voice. “He’s one of yours?”

  Uri ignored her. “People here are surprised you even have clearance to engage with him.”

  She could not believe what she was hearing. “Let me get this straight. You’re protecting Durov?”

  The electronic face on the tablet remained expressionless. “As I said, this is not my file.”

  She was thinking fast. “That makes no sense. Russia is fighting to keep the current Syrian regime in power. Moscow is dropping heavy ordnance all over the opposition. That makes Durov and his Kremlin friends your number one enemy at the moment. It simply—”

  He cut her off. “You need to understand something,” his tone was sharp. “Your name has come to me only because I know you. But it’s seriously not a good sign. You’re being given one warning. So take it, and stay away from Durov.”

  “Or what?” Ava felt anger getting the better of her. “You’re going to get on a plane and pay me a visit?”

  Uri ignored the question. “I understand there was an incident at your house last night.”

  Ava reeled, as if someone had knocked the wind out of her.

  What was he implying?

  “That wasn’t you.” Her cheeks were getting hot. “You’re not that sloppy. If you had—”

  He cut her off again, his expression cold. “You’re not listening. Do not interfere with the security of the State of Israel.”

  “That’s absurd—” she began. But his image had disappeared, and she was looking at the Skype address book once more.

  She stood staring at the black glass, momentarily speechless, before turning to Ferguson in disbelief. “What on earth was that all about?”

  He looked back at her warily. “I’ve got no idea,” he answered slowly. “Uri’s just a foot soldier. But you’ve seriously annoyed someone very high up the food chain in Mossad.”

  Chapter 24

  Oryol Oblast

  Russian Federation

  DUROV WAS KEENLY aware of his responsibility to instruct the younger members of his flock.

  It was a task he undertook fervently.

  The afternoon was mellow, and he had gathered the children around him, under a spreading ash tree, shimmering green beneath the blue sky.

  He was sitting cross-legged, his simple linen prayer shawl draped around his shoulders.

  He had chosen them specifically – exactly fourteen of them – selecting the ones aged between six and eleven. He had found it was the ideal age range. Old enough to have opinions. Young enough to be guided. Independent enough to go out afterwards and influence their peers with what they had learnt.

  He pulled a bundle of soft richly decorated red cloth from his jacket pocket, and slowly unwrapped it to reveal an old book.

  He knew the children would be impressed by the worn shiny black leather and the gold-tooled decoration. He let the sunlight play on it, picking out the single word embossed in large faded gold letters on the front.

  It read simply: Библия. Bible.

  He placed the red cloth onto the ground in front of him, and laid the Bible on it, facing the children.

  “Who can tell me what is special about this book?” he asked the group.

  They looked at it, nervously.

  “Who wrote it?” he probed.

  One of the boys closest to him made as if to speak.

  Durov nodded his permission.

  “God?” the boy asked.

  “Good.” Durov laid his hand lightly on the edge of the leather cover. “It’s the word of God.”

  He let silence descend to allow the words to sink in.

  “And should we obey the word of God?” He glanced around the group, from one to the next. “Do you think God expects us to do what he told us to do?”

  They nodded in unison.

  “And after trusting us with all the best gifts in life – our families, friends, and all the things that make us happy – do you think he has a right to be upset if we don’t do what he asks?”

  Again, the children nodded, before being distracted by a squirrel, which had emerged from a nearby tree.

  Durov let them watch.

  They would understand soon enough.

  “Now,” he resumed, when the squirrel had disappeared. “Here’s a more difficult question. How do we know that God loves us?”

  “Because his son died for us?” a girl at the back answered, her confidence bolstered.

  Durov’s anger flared suddenly, but he suppressed it.

  Now was not the time.

  “Your parents are Brother Artyom and Sister Galina, aren’t they?” he asked.

  The girl’s lip started to tremble as she slowly nodded – uncertain whether to be proud that he knew who she was, or worried that she had done something wrong.

  “Good.” Durov made a mental note of the names.

  He turned back to the group. “The Meshiha is not God’s son.” He was watching closely for any dissent. “He is God, in the form of God-the-Son. He is of the mystical Trinity – three-in-one.”

  He could see the girl was still confused.

  It was no matter.

  She would understand after her parents were disciplined. She would not make the mistake again.

  “God allowed himself to be killed to save us,” he continued, “because he knew we’d understand. He knew we’d see that a good death is the gateway to eternal life.”

  He gently picked up the book, and opened it at an old ribbon marking a page.

  He reverently handed the volume to a girl in the front row. “Read,” he commanded, “where I have marked the text.”

  In a halting voice, the girl began to read aloud.

  “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

  “Wherefore comfort one another with these words,” Durov completed the passage from memory. He breathed in deeply, feeling the power of the Spirit moving within him.

  “So what is God telling us?” he asked, after a pause. “Who does he say goes to heaven with the Meshiha?”

  A boy at the front spoke. “Those who get lifted up to heaven with him.”

  Durov nodded. “Good. And who else?”

  There was silence.

  “Who else did he say” Durov pressed them. “Didn’t he say, ‘Them also which sleep with Jesus’?”

  The children nodded solemnly.

  “So the living and the dead rise with him.” He dropped his voice reverentially. “Now, this is important. Who did he say rises first?”

  He nodded towards the girl. “Read it again, just to yourself.”

  The girl put her finger on the page, and began tracing out the words, her lips moving as she read. Then she looked up. “The dead in Christ.”

  “Good,” he answered quietly. “And after them, which living people will be saved, do you think?”

  The group was silent at first. Then a boy to his side answered. “The good ones.”

  Durov paused, then nodded. “But what if God isn’t sure who among the living has kept his rules?” He took the Bible from the girl. “Or what if we had once done something bad, and it counted against us? It would be a shame to miss out on heaven, wouldn’t it?” Durov suggested quietly but firmly.

  The children looked sombre.

  “But, you’re clever children. And I know you listened carefully to the B
ible. I know you heard God’s word telling us that the dead will definitely rise and be Raptured in the air. And they will rise first.”

  “So the dead people will all go to heaven?” the boy responded.

  “Clever boy.” Durov smiled.

  Now the children understood.

  “Those who die for the Meshiha definitely go to heaven.”

  Chapter 25

  The Eurostar

  The United Kingdom | The Republic of France

  AFTER THE CONVERSATION with Uri, Ava had returned to thinking about the earthenware artefact she had seen at Los Tres Toros, along with Professor Amine Hamidou’s notebook and what she assumed was his satchel.

  She was still stunned by what had been carved onto the pottery.

  It had left her overwhelmed – and furious she had not found a way of taking it with her.

  Her number one priority now was to try and find a way to get it back.

  The idea that the gang at Borough Market might break it – or worse, lose it – was plaguing her, partly for reasons that were not wholly selfless. She would love to bring the piece to the British Museum and be part of all the excitement that would surround the announcement of such an amazing find. But she also knew that an artefact of that importance unequivocally belonged in a world museum, where scholars would pore over it and rewrite the history of the Bible. The thought that it might languish unnoticed in some personal collection of black market antiquities was almost unbearable.

  She had quickly concluded that there was only one person who could fill her in on the background, and help her to get it back.

  Professor Hamidou.

  When she had tried calling the Sorbonne, where he worked, he had not answered his phone. The departmental secretary had eventually picked up, and explained to Ava that Professor Hamidou had not been in for a couple of days, and had missed a number of classes.

  Alarmed, Ava had looked up his home address, then made two reservations on the next Eurostar train to Paris.

  Once on the train, there had been nothing further to be done about the pottery, so Ava had spread the two printouts from Rasputin’s notebooks on the table in front of her, and focused on the one Swinton had given her that afternoon at the Cavalry and Guards Club.

  Chapter 26

  Gare du Nord

  112 Rue de Maubeuge

  10e arrondissement

  Paris

  The Republic of France

  THE UNDERGROUND PLATFORM at the Gare du Nord was crowded.

  Moments earlier, Ava and Ferguson had clambered off the Eurostar train, passed through the barriers into the heaving station’s main concourse, then descended the central stairwell into Paris’s vast Métro system.

  Once on the underground platform, there was no sign of the subterranean network’s famous art nouveau architectural panache. Instead, the space was hot, smelled of drains, and the decoration was limited to some unappealing grubby grey tiles.

  The platform started to fill quickly.

  As she waited for the next train, Ava began thinking through what she might discover from Professor Hamidou about the Aramaic pottery.

  She fervently hoped he would be able to help – to shed some light on where the shard was from, how he came to have it, why he had not told anyone about it, and how the Mexicans had acquired it. Most of all, she hoped he would be able to tell her how they could get it back again.

  The more she thought about it, the more worrying it was that Professor Hamidou had not been to the university for a couple of days. She hoped it was simply that he had been temporarily out of town. After all, he was a researcher, and could be in any of a hundred and one places. But something did not feel right. If he was simply away on a study-trip, his assistant at the university should have been well aware of his movements.

  Even though Ava did not want to think about it, she had to face the possibility that something far more final might have befallen him. Many artefacts from the Middle East were currently passing through hands with blood on them. And the gang at Los Tres Toros was plainly not involved in the antiquities trade on the basis of their technical archaeological skills.

  She saw a flash of grey on the tracks.

  Rats.

  At least that accounted for some of the smell.

  Around her, the crowd was beginning to turn into a crush. It was at least four people deep.

  As she thought through how she would approach Professor Hamidou, she realized that although she knew what he looked like from his photograph in the British Museum book, he would probably not recognize her. She made a mental note to fish out her Museum identity card when arriving at his flat.

  She glanced at her watch. It was still the rush hour.

  Unlike most London underground platforms, which only catered for one train at a time, this was a double tunnel, with space for trains going in both directions. She could see right across the two rows of wide black tracks to the opposite side, where a similarly large throng of people was gathering to go south.

  Finally hearing her train approach, she glanced along to the end of the platform, and watched as the brightly lit large-windowed carriages emerged from the tunnel and began rattling their way loudly towards her.

  As the train neared, she sensed a fast movement beside her.

  Surprised, she turned, just in time to see a man emerging quickly from the crush. He was wearing a brown hoodie, with the hood pulled over a wide-peaked baseball cap. From the way he was looking at the floor, keeping his face almost completely obscured, she immediately knew there was something very wrong

  He darted in behind her, with the front of his left shoulder pressed up against her back.

  Instinctively, she glanced down at his hands, and a wave of horror flooded through her.

  He was holding a short hypodermic needle – in a small syringe.

  The crowd of commuters, oblivious, was crushing her from all sides.

  She felt her muscles flood with adrenaline.

  He was about to attack.

  She could not get away. There was nowhere to go. The crowd was too thick.

  She jinked hard to the side, watching as his fist passed less than an inch from her hip.

  Her brain was flooding with questions.

  Who was he?

  Who had sent him?

  Her eye never left the thin spike of sharpened steel.

  She was barely aware of what was happening, but as she saw him prepare to strike again, she knew she had to counterattack, or he would keep coming.

  He only needed to hit her once, and it would be over.

  She swivelled to face him as he turned towards her, punching the needle forwards again, directly at her abdomen.

  But this time she was ready.

  She swerved out of the way, wrenching herself out of range, knocking hard into the passengers beside her.

  As the needle sliced through empty air, she grabbed his other arm, yanking him forwards as she stepped around and behind him. In a split second, she swung her right fist into the back of his head, then followed through with her elbow, driving him down onto the concrete floor. As he fell, she stamped hard on the back of his knee joint.

  She was on autopilot.

  It was all happening so fast.

  Ignoring the horrified faces around her, she bent down to hit him again, but he was too quick, and rolled away.

  Before she could do anything, his arm and shoulder disappeared over the edge of the platform. She saw his other hand scrabbling to hold onto the platform, then his head went over the edge, followed by rest of his body.

  Time froze, and there was a pause of what seemed an age. Then suddenly everything began again, and she heard the inevitable sickening thump of several tons of steel train slamming into the man’s body, smashing him down onto the tracks, then powering over him.

  A moment later, the noise of the train squealing was joined by screaming, sobbing, and people shouting in horror and panic.

  Her blood pounding, Ava straightened ag
ainst the person immediately behind her. Wheeling around with a clenched fist, she registered just in time that it was Ferguson.

  “Walk fast,” he ordered, grabbing her elbow firmly, his voice low. He propelled her towards the exit behind them, which was already filling with hysterical commuters. “He won’t have been alone.”

  Chapter 27

  Gare du Nord

  112 Rue de Maubeuge

  10e arrondissement

  Paris

  The Republic of France

  EMERGING ONTO THE street, Ava gulped in deep lungfuls of air.

  Ferguson took her shoulder, steadying her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. The adrenaline was still coursing around her system. “He just…” She left the sentence unfinished, still in shock.

  She had no idea what had been in the syringe. Air? Ricin, like in London in the 1970s? Mercury like in Germany in 2012?

  But one thing she was absolutely sure of – someone had unequivocally and very deliberately tried to kill her.

  “In here.” Ferguson directed her through the glass door of a small bar-tabac.

  Inside the low-lit café, a row of men sat at the shiny high metal bar, variously drinking a range of coffees, beers, and liqueurs.

  Ferguson pulled up two chairs at a small table near the back.

  “Deux cafés cognacs,” he ordered as the waiter approached.

  When the waiter returned a few moments later and put the tall thick glasses down on the table, Ava took a large mouthful of the scalding hot drink, feeling the bite of the cognac on the back of her throat, and the relaxing warmth of the sweet coffee.

  Her mind was racing.

  Who the hell was trying to kill her?

  Again?

  Who knew she would be in Paris?

  One thing was now totally clear.

  The shooting outside her house in London the previous evening had not been a coincidence.

  Someone definitely wanted her dead.

  And they were not amateurs. They knew she would be in Paris.

  Or else they had followed her there.

  Either way, they were organized.