The Apocalypse Fire (Ava Curzon Trilogy Book 2)

by Dominic Selwood

  A wider theory about the meaning of the vellum fragment was beginning to take shape in her mind.

  Heading back to the study, she spotted out of the corner of her eye that the small light on the side of her landline handset was flashing red.

  She picked it up and connected to her voicemail.

  A message had been left earlier that afternoon.

  As it began to play, she recognized the raspy Scottish voice immediately.

  It was Swinton. And he was not happy.

  She listened to the whole message, then put the receiver down, the blood rising to her face.

  Swinton had received a call from a Mossad officer complaining about Ava harassing Oleg Durov and getting into a public brawl in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Mossad informed Swinton that they had already taken steps to warn Ava off Durov, and now they were formally complaining about her visit to Israel.

  Ava leaned up against the wall, her mind spinning.

  Was this Uri’s doing?

  And how, if MI13 was so ultra-secret, had Mossad known to call Swinton?

  She started to go cold.

  Or had Swinton made contact with Mossad?

  Is that how Uri had known she was on the flight to Israel?

  She took a deep breath.

  She had never been able to shake off the feeling that Swinton was hiding something from her.

  Why had he warned her off Durov in the first place? Why had Julia been shot outside her house when she was carrying the green umbrella Swinton had given Ava? Why had Swinton called her in Paris only minutes after she had been attacked?

  Ava strode into the hallway and put on her jacket.

  It was time to see Swinton.

  He had a lot of questions to answer.

  Chapter 52

  Belsize Park

  London

  England

  The United Kingdom

  AVA CHECKED HER watch.

  It was too late for Swinton to still be in the office, so she pulled out her phone and brought up the photo she had taken of his profile page on the MI13 computer.

  It showed his personal address was in Belsize Park.

  She got back on the Brough and headed north. The rush hour was over, and the ride took less than twenty minutes.

  When she arrived at the address, she parked up around the corner, then approached on foot.

  The street was quiet, and Swinton’s house was set back from the road. A screen of carefully tended hedges blocked out any view of the ground floor and provided privacy.

  She approached the narrow gate, and caught a glimpse through a gap in the hedge of a small front garden. Behind it was a detached three-storey Victorian red-brick house. A small flight of white steps led up to a portico and doorway set between two bay windows.

  It was plainly not a cheap house, and she realized how little she actually knew of Swinton.

  Easing open the gate, she covered the few yards of flagged paving stones and steps up to the front door.

  The bay to her right was in complete darkness.

  The slatted blinds on the inside of the window to her left prevented her seeing into the room, but there was light glowing behind the wooden louvres, and also through the patterned transom glass over the front door.

  She spotted a small brass bell ringer in the brickwork beside the door, but as she reached out to press it, the silence was broken by the muffled report of a suppressed gunshot, followed a moment later by a second.

  Her adrenaline fired instantly, and she darted to her right, out of the doorway.

  What the hell was happening in there?

  Who was shooting?

  Her pulse was racing as she hauled herself over the wooden side gate, and dropped down into the back garden, where the moon and streetlamps provided ample light for her to see her way along the path.

  Moving swiftly alongside the neatly tended lawn and shrubs, she rounded the corner of the building and quickly assessed the back of the house. It was unfussy, with a large window next to a pair of patio doors opening off a kitchen-dining room.

  She approached softly, and peered through the glass.

  The lights in the back room were off, but there was enough illumination filtering through from the front of the house and the windows to reveal a long room with a large kitchen table.

  There was no outside handle on the patio doors, so she hooked her fingers around the end of the outer sliding pane and tried moving it.

  It was firmly locked.

  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her ring of keys, and selected one which had six teeth of equal height, separated by five valleys of equal depth. She knew she should not really carry the key, but it was very handy for the endless storerooms and cupboards at the Museum, and old habits died hard.

  She stopped to pick up a fist-sized ornamental pebble from the edge of the patio, then returned to the doors and jiggled the bump key into the lock, pushing it all the way home. She then withdrew it a fraction, and turned it lightly, avoiding any excess pressure on the pins that might inadvertently restrict their free movement.

  Holding the pebble firmly, she tapped it on the end of the key several times, forcing the lock’s pins to jump from the shock. On the third tap, the lower set of pins fell back into the barrel at the same time, and the light pressure she was exerting on the key turned it.

  It was as easy as that.

  She gently slid the patio door open, stepped inside the building, then closed the door quietly behind her.

  Now she could see the room more clearly, it was plain that everything about the décor was masculine and had not been updated for decades. Even more revealingly, the absence of any family clutter and the pile of identical takeaway food boxes by the cooker suggested strongly that Swinton lived alone.

  Her heart was racing, and she had no way of knowing whether whoever had fired the gunshots was still inside the house. He or she could have left by the front door while she was round the back. Or they might still be there.

  Grabbing an old metal poker from beside the fireplace, she moved silently through the kitchen and up a short flight of steps into the hallway.

  The wide passageway was hung with large maps of Scotland on one wall, and a collection of antique prints of policemen on the other.

  That made sense. She could believe Swinton had been a detective before entering the intelligence services.

  The doors off the hall to the left were closed, but the ones to the right were ajar.

  Her feet made no noise on the soft carpet as she moved forward and peered cautiously into the first room.

  It was dark and empty.

  She tried the second, but as she leant round the corner, she sensed a rapid movement behind her, and spun round just as a gun was being raised to her face.

  Without hesitating, she brought the poker crashing down on the collarbone above the arm holding the weapon.

  There was a loud crack of bone, followed by the sound of the gun falling to the ground. Whoever had surprised her thudded back against the hallway wall with a whimper.

  His face was a mask of pain, and as Ava caught sight of his features, she was astonished to find herself looking directly at Sir Mark Jennings.

  She had the poker raised again, but Jennings was leaning up against the wall, pale and sweating heavily. The noise of his panting was filling the silence, and from the ashen colour of his skin, it was evident he was in no condition to fight any more.

  With one hand he was clutching his stomach, and she did not need medical training to appreciate the severity of the ragged wound bleeding out heavily over his ripped shirt. As she lowered the poker, he began ineffectually trying to clamp the fabric of his jacket over the injury to staunch the loss of blood.

  “Where’s Swinton?” Ava asked, looking about for any sign of a struggle.

  When it became clear Jennings was not going to answer, she grabbed hold of his good arm, pinned it roughly behind his back in a shoulder lock, and pushed him through into the fr
ont sitting room.

  As she entered, her eyes swept the room, and she felt a rising wave of nausea.

  Swinton was sprawled on the floor, with a bloodied kitchen knife by his right hand. There was a bullet entry wound in his chest, and another – unmistakeably an execution shot – in the centre of his forehead.

  He was lying completely still, his eyes staring glassily at the ceiling.

  Ava pushed Jennings down into an armchair beside the bay window.

  Piecing together what had happened in the room, she stepped back into the hallway, picked up Jennings’s gun, then re-entered the room, training the weapon on him.

  Walking over to a telephone on a side-table, she pulled her sleeve over her hand, and telephoned for an ambulance, giving the address and explaining there was a victim of a serious stabbing at the property. She gave no other details, and hung up.

  When she was done, she turned her attention back to Jennings. “Why?” she asked, looking down at Swinton’s body.

  “Because he picked the wrong side,” Jennings rasped.

  Ava was staring at Jennings closely.

  “Nice of you to come and protect him,” he continued. “Although you should’ve been quicker.”

  “So it was you,” Ava murmured, as the pieces of the puzzle snapped together. “You’re the one helping Durov.”

  “And Swinton was protecting you.” He nodded. “He was thrilled to have got you into MI13. He reckoned you were going to be the rising star of his team. But he was always anxious you were getting too far out of your depth with Durov.”

  “Protecting me?” Ava repeated. “But then how…” she began, then stopped as she realized that it did, in fact, make complete sense.

  She just had not seen it.

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself entirely,” he added. “When he called and asked for my help, I knew it was a sign. I was waiting outside the building that night, and it was me who gave your address to Durov and told him you were carrying a green umbrella. It was also me who saw from the passenger manifests that you were on the Eurostar, so I gave Durov another chance at taking you down. When Swinton called you immediately afterwards, that was because I asked him to. I wanted to know whether you were still around. And, if you were, whether you had made any progress with the Rasputin cryptographs. As you can imagine, I wasn’t happy that Swinton had given you the second one, although there was nothing I could do about it. Swinton was obliging enough to make the call at my suggestion. He didn’t suspect anything – and definitely not that he was making you increasingly more suspicious of him.”

  Ava looked down at Swinton’s body, feeling an intense wave of regret that she had misjudged him.

  And now she knew who it was that had been trying to kill her.

  “It turns out he was onto me,” he wheezed. “Like you, he had figured out that Durov was getting help with your movements. He confronted me with my ‘treachery’. But, then, I don’t see it that way. I’m not betraying my country. This isn’t still the Cold War. This is about the redemption of mankind – about saving us all.”

  “You’re one of them – the Skoptsy?” Ava stared at him in disbelief.

  “Lord, no,” Jennings grunted. Then his voice changed as he began reciting. “There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

  “The Apocalypse.” Ava did not take her eyes off him. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Everything.” Jennings’s breathing was coming with more difficulty. “Durov’s far cleverer than you.” He paused. “Then again, he knows what he’s looking for. You see, he knows that the prize is one of the original letters of the Apocalypse.”

  “Written by Saint John,” Ava confirmed.

  Just as the vellum manuscript said.

  Jennings was now holding a cushion in front of his stomach in an effort to contain the bleeding.

  “The Bible tells us,” he panted, “that when Saint John had his divine vision of the Apocalypse, he wrote it out seven times, and sent a copy to each of the seven churches of Asia.”

  Ava nodded. “So what?”

  “Each was a scroll, closed with a seal,” he wheezed. “Don’t you see?”

  She did not. He sounded delusional.

  “In John’s vision, there’s a scroll with seven seals, and only the Lamb has the power to open them. But if you read on, you’ll know that only once the seals have been opened can the climax of the End Times begin. The first seal lets loose a white horse with a conquering rider. The second unleashes a red horse with a rider bringing war. The third conjures up a black horse with a rider holding scales. The fourth summons a pale horse whose rider is Death. The fifth gives a vision of the souls of all the dead in the Word of God. The sixth brings an earthquake, the sun turns black, the moon becomes blood, and the stars fall to earth. And the seventh calls forth seven angels with seven trumpets.”

  Ava was lost. “In every age there have been madmen prophesying the arrival of the end times. Is that what Durov is doing?”

  Jennings coughed and turned paler. “Saint John sent out seven physical scrolls of his apocalyptic vision. And in that revelation there were seven seals on a scroll. Don’t you see the connection?”

  Ava stared at him, the gun she had aimed at him not wavering.

  “Legend has always said that the seal on John’s seventh letter was never opened.”

  “That’s deranged.” Her eyes widened. “You’re saying that the seven imaginary seals in the Apocalypse vision are the same as the physical seals on the seven letters John sent out?”

  It was ludicrous.

  He nodded. “The Devil has been loose for two millennia, and hence the world has been in chaos. Only by opening the seventh seal can we enter upon the time of the angels and trumpets and the final Rapture and Tribulation.”

  Ava tightened her grip on the gun.

  He was certifiably insane.

  “Durov is guided by the Blessed Virgin,” Jennings’s voice was coming in gasps. “He knows where the seventh seal is – the one that has yet to be opened. It’s on the unread letter John sent to the church of—”

  “Smyrna,” Ava finished his sentence for him. “To Bishop Polycarp.”

  Jennings smiled weakly. “Maybe you are as clever as he is – in which case you know that Saint Polycarp was like Saint John’s son. They lived together on Patmos as master and pupil. But once John revealed the Apocalypse, Polycarp could not bring himself to open the seal. Perhaps he knew what it would bring. Instead, he hid the letter.”

  She knew it.

  In Antioch.

  Durov was hunting for an original letter of the biblical book of the Apocalypse.

  She shook her head.

  How did people still believe this stuff?

  It was madness.

  “When I was in the US,” Jennings continued, his voice now fading in and out, “my wife died. I was born again, you see. Only then did everything make sense. I met my brothers in Jesus – like-minded people. My life developed purpose, and I understood the time was drawing near. And it is. We have friends everywhere, from the White House to the Middle East. So when the rockets are launched on Damascus, the prophecy will be fulfilled.”

  Ava was not sure she had heard right. “What rockets?”

  Jennings continued, oblivious, the blood now staining his trousers and the chair, his voice growing slower and fainter. “After such an act of
aggression, Damascus will retaliate against Tel Aviv.” His breathing had become ragged, and his voice was now more of a whisper.

  Ava stepped closer to listen.

  “With so many casualties, Israel will feel compelled to respond mercilessly. The Arab world will not stand by and watch. There will be riots in their streets. The atmosphere is already febrile, and will become more so when evidence emerges that Israel most likely sank the Saudi oil tanker. The US will come to the aid of Israel. The groundwork has been carefully laid. The Americans are incensed by all the attacks on them – even the website of the White House. They are poised to take the war to the jihadis. There will be strong public support. At the same time, Russia is at breaking point with Israel. The Kremlin will be pushed over the edge, and will side with the Arabs. It will be regional chaos in a matter of hours, and that is when we will open the seventh seal.”

  This was insanity.

  “When?” Ava bent down to hear him. “When will this happen?”

  Jennings coughed, a weak rattling wheeze, and let go of the blood-sodden cushion to reveal that his whole front was sopping with blood.

  Ava picked up another cushion, her sleeve still pulled over her hand, and placed it over the ragged stab wound, pressing hard. “Which rockets?” she persisted.

  Jennings looked up at her, his eyes struggling to focus. “He’s not perfect. But he will be.”

  She frowned.

  What?

  “Which rockets?” she repeated. “What do you mean, ‘he’s not perfect’?”

  Jennings’s hands dropped to his sides as his body went limp.

  “You need to tell me.” Ava bent low to his face. “Which rockets?”

  His mouth began to bubble with saliva, but no sound came out.

  She put her ear to his mouth.

  He was breathing, but only barely.

  She checked her watch. It had been eight minutes since she entered the house. The ambulance would be here soon. And the Police after that.

  She needed to get out of there, or she would be dragged into hours of questioning. And right now, her priority was to find out which missiles were to be fired, when, and how to stop them. If she was questioned by the Police, it would take days to confirm her story, especially as she could not contact MI13. With Swinton gone, who would believe any of what she said?