This heist had taken place on a cloudless summer day. A BMW 330i, painted in green-and-yellow-checked paramedic livery, had stopped outside the Royal Society’s office building in Carlton House Terrace, just off the Mall in Central London. Three men dressed as medics had walked unchallenged into the document room of the Society’s archive wing and, in seconds, had located their target: a rare 1596 first edition of Villalpando’s biblical commentary on the prophet Ezekiel, known as the Ezechielem Explanationes. Tradition had it that the commentary had once formed the centrepiece of Isaac Newton’s own personal library. After placing the volume in a medical bag, the paramedics made their way back through the reception area to their waiting vehicle while brushing off questions from concerned staff. Within seconds, the ambulance car was speeding its way down the Mall, eventually disappearing into an underground car park near Victoria. DCI Milton had been in charge of the case. His investigations quickly came up against a brick wall.
The third picture stared up at Blake from his desk. It was a high-resolution police photograph of a satellite phone handset. Blake had studied the picture for months, and its image was burned into his brain.
The third heist took place on an unusually warm late autumn afternoon in Cannes. The robbery had targeted the private collection of the French industrialist Didier Clerot. The gang, dressed as holidaymakers, smashed their way through the front door of Mr Clerot’s exclusive waterfront residence. Brandishing automatic weapons, the thieves broke into the document safe and took several of Newton’s notebooks and a leather binder containing a collection of his personal letters. The collection had been catalogued for insurance purposes as the ‘F’ collection, as Newton had addressed each letter to the same individual: a Mr F. The exact identity of Mr F had remained a mystery since the discovery of the papers in 1936.
However, Clerot’s gardener, who had seen the felons enter the building, took quick action, and armed officers arrived at the scene within minutes. A firefight ensued, which resulted in the death of a member of the local gendarmerie. After a chase through the tourist-filled waterfront, an area impassable to police cars, the felons escaped via speedboat, but not before one of the gang dropped a secure satellite phone during their getaway.
After days of sophisticated forensic work, Interpol’s telecommunications unit in Grenoble had managed to decrypt two messages on the phone’s hard drive. The first message read: ‘50% of fees transferred, 50% on safe delivery.’ The second stated, ‘Document drop, 1st Dec, Faversham, Marshall Street, London.’ Both messages had originated in London.
Despite the treasure trove of valuable books within the safe—including a 1623 first folio of Shakespeare’s works and early books by Ptolemy and Nicolaus Copernicus—only the Newton notebooks and letters had been taken. An hour before the heist, the gang had painted all the public benches outside Mr Clerot’s house to discourage anyone from sitting on them and observing their entry and exit into the building.
By the time details of the heist broke on the evening news, DCI Milton had received the call from Interpol requesting his urgent involvement in the case. Several days later, the Chief of Police of Cannes informed Milton of the contents of the decrypted phone messages. A week later, the DCI was sitting in a surveillance van in Marshall Street waiting for the drop-off. Unbeknown to Milton, so was the Drakon. Aware that Vinka’s satellite phone was now in police hands, the Drakon had taken no chances. At the first sign of the police, the drop-off had been terminated with a single sniper bullet to the back of Vinka’s head.
Three photographs, three jobs, one name: the Drakon.
Blake refilled his mug and carried it over to his single unmade bed. After taking a long draw of whisky, he rested the mug on his chest and closed his eyes. He willed himself to remember Nomsa’s smile, but the memory refused to take shape in his mind. He tried again, fighting hard to bring her face back. Finally, images began to return: the outline of her lips, the sweep of her neck, the shape of her hands. For over five minutes, Blake lay motionless, lost in thought, only the constant sound of traffic outside disturbing the silence.
Chapter 23
Wednesday 25 November
The back doors of the white transit van slammed shut, and the sound was taken up through the trees swaying their goodbye to the fading afternoon sun. Max Crossland pressed a button on the key fob, and the van’s central locking mechanism kicked into life, pulling the locking pins down into each door. He walked to the front of the vehicle and carefully placed the keys under the arch of the front right wheel. He walked over to Denic, who was already astride one of the two BMW R1200RT police motorcycles parked further up the forest track. His comrade snapped shut the tinted visor of his police bike helmet and gave him the thumbs up.
Transporting the bikes in the van had been easy. The two-hour drive from the Drakon’s secure freight container in the Isle of Dogs to the deserted farm in the Gog and Magog Hills, just five miles outside Cambridge, had gone without a hitch. The farm provided excellent cover from the air and from the traffic speeding close by on the A1307, one of the main highways in and out of the historic city.
In unison, the two men, both clad in police leathers, started their powerful four-stroke boxer engines and kicked away the bike stands. One after the other, the two police motorbikes pulled away from the seclusion of the trees and started the short climb up the farm track to join the main road. Over the integrated helmet radio system, Crossland reminded Denic of the UK speed limit.
Chapter 24
Dr Carla Sabatini looked at Brother Nathan sitting in the car passenger seat, his large frame slightly too big for the available cabin space. She smiled.
‘Well Nathan, we’ve arrived in good time. I agreed with Henry that we’d meet him inside the library. I’ll give him a call to say we’re here.’ Sabatini started to rummage around in her handbag to find her mobile phone.
‘Carla, I will be ever in your debt,’ Brother Nathan said earnestly. He pressed the bright red button by his side, and his seat belt quickly retracted. The priest gave out a laboured groan as if some great pressure had just been released from his chest. Sabatini leaned over to her old friend and squeezed his knee, attempting to lighten the mood.
‘Happy birthday, Nathan,’ said Sabatini.
‘I’m sorry, Carla. My chest is sore. I guess I’m finally becoming an old man.’
Today was the priest’s seventieth birthday, but instead of appearing his usual jovial self, Brother Nathan seemed unusually preoccupied. Over the years, they had travelled together many times, but the drive they had just made from Heathrow to the spires of Trinity College, Cambridge, had been different. Something had changed in his spirit, as if he were carrying a heavy weight upon his shoulders.
Sabatini was talking into her mobile.
‘… a visitor’s pass from the main building? No problem. We’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Ciao.’
Sabatini looked over to her passenger.
‘Nathan, you stay in the car. I need to collect our passes from security over there.’ She pointed to a large red-brick building several hundred metres away from the edge of the car park. ‘I won’t be long.’ With that, she opened the car door and started along the gravel path.
After clearing the condensation from the car window with the back of his hand, the priest followed the progress of his old student towards the building. Moments later, he searched through the pockets of his overcoat in the footwell. He quickly found the two objects he was looking for. The larger of the items was the crimson book of Gérard de Ridefort. Pressing back into his seat, Brother Nathan scanned the car park in both directions. Satisfied he wasn’t being overlooked, he opened the crimson book at a page marked by the stub of his Alitalia boarding pass and started reading. Even though he had read the words time and time again, his heart pounded like a steam train. Newton’s handwritten annotations to the illuminated volume shouted out from the pages.
In the darkness of night, I rode to my lodgings in Whitechapel and retired to my room to consider the knowledge that Mr F had imparted. If I hadn’t been an eyewitness to the curious happenings of the previous hours, I should have apprehended it as some delusion of the senses, but I knew in the depths of my heart that it was true. Henceforth my world seemed quite altered. I fell to my knees and tried to make my peace with God. I asked Him to remove this colossal yoke from my shoulders, but the more I examined my life, the more I had the strong apprehension that some extraordinary event was unfolding.
After many hours in prayer, I passed into a deep and heavy sleep. A curious dream came to me whose particulars were so lucid that I was shocked to find myself in the room of my lodgings when I awoke. I dreamt that Mr F had met me at Ludgate Hill and whilst sitting under St Paul’s Cross he showed me an object from the breast pocket of his jacket. It was an amalgam of gold metal, which I took for the twisted remains of his star-shaped amulet. He told me that the charm had just preserved his life by receiving the shot from a pistol and stifling its flight before it had penetrated his chest. So abruptly had the golden amulet deadened the force of the projectile that it had deformed the charm into a single distorted mass. I outstretched my hand to touch the object, but then I awoke upright in bed in my lodgings in Whitechapel.
I dressed immediately and, being so afflicted by what Mr F had imparted to me hours before, I set out again for my learned friend’s house in Devil’s Ditch. I arrived at his residence at around seven o’clock and knocked on his door to bid him greetings. All was silent. With the door unbolted I ventured in, and stealing a look into the kitchen, I saw Mr F sitting alone in silence with his back to me. As I approached, I saw that the poor man was stripped to his shirt with arms and legs bound to a chair, all his books and manuscripts scattered everywhere. There was a great effusion of blood on his person. Only the golden amulet around his neck seemed to be free from the red stain. Even to this day, I cannot forget the sight of his bared chest. A single word had been carved into the flesh with a blade.
‘Mastema’.
My learned teacher had been slain by some terrible malevolence. I was taken with such terror and the spectacle was so dreadful, that I was not able to stand the sight for another second. I was utterly undone. Remembering my dream from the previous night, I seized the amulet from around his neck, snapping its leather thong in my haste. Fearing for my very life, I took flight, and as I stumbled towards the door, I noticed the corner of the crimson journal signalling to me from under several sheets of vellum strewn on the floor. I picked it up and hid it in my cloak. After fleeing to my horse, I set spurs and rode north with great speed. Before long I was in Shoreditch and then onto the road for Cambridge.
As I rode back to Cambridge, I surveyed the horizon frequently, as I was most concerned that I was being followed by cut-throats. I arrived back to my quarters at the start of a great hailstorm, which broke many windows at the University. The next days were so blustery that not a leaf stayed on a tree. I resolved to devote my time to studying the scriptures, but I was frequently diverted with thoughts of the hideous murder of my friend and the crimson book that I had taken. I opened Gérard de Ridefort’s journal, and my gaze fell upon a map showing the floor plan of St Paul’s Cathedral and the position of the hidden crypt that Dr Wren’s excavations had inadvertently breached. The journal was also filled with other Templar secrets and alchemic knowledge, written in code to hide them from the sight of men. The truth which this writing reveals, I will not divulge here, as it will only add to the confusion of things.
I requested a discharge from my duties at the University, shut up my house and evaded all idle conversation. Keeping all windows, shutters and curtains closed, I set about to study and pray to God with great fervency and devotion. I kept within the walls and never stirred out, deep in study of the sacred books for some insight into the matter.
I sat at my desk burdened greatly with the weight of the task and turned the pages of my Bible. In desperation to discover God’s will, I cried out: ‘Lord, help me. I am lost. Show me your bidding!’ At that very juncture, I looked down at the book of scripture and saw my finger stopped over the forty-third chapter of the book of the Prophet Ezekiel. My eyes were drawn to verses ten and eleven.
‘Son of man, describe the temple … consider the plan … make known to them the design of the temple — its arrangement, its exits and entrances — its whole design and all of its regulations and laws. Write these down before them so that they may be faithful to its design …’
In these words, God spoke to my heart with such clarity that henceforth I had no doubt as to the course of my future undertakings. I had to discern the exact dimensions of the inner sanctuary of the Temple of Solomon. Once established, its sacred geometry was to be rebuilt in the great Cathedral of St Paul’s and the rod interned there once again, sanctified in the holy triangle of churches that the patriarch consecrated, preserved until Judgement Day.
In the retirement of that evening, I resolved to do God’s will. I sat at my desk in solemn study of the Book of Ezekiel, not even pausing for nourishment except a little bread and water. I translated the text from Coptic, Hebrew and Latin, and slowly decoded the dimensions, arrangement and relations of the floor plan of Solomon’s Temple. I stirred not out of my squalid den, and became mad with calculations and model-making. After some time I had reconstituted the exact mathematics of the temple and set it down on paper for the good Architect. Once completed, I broke my miserable confinement and sent word to Dr Wren that I would be attending the next meeting of the Royal Society at Gresham College, and I would be bringing knowledge of great worth and urgency.
Brother Nathan was shaken by the sound of gravel being walked upon close by. Startled by the sound, he dropped the Alitalia stub bookmark back into the crimson volume, and hurriedly returned the book into the pocket of his overcoat. Seconds later, Sabatini was sitting back down into the driver’s seat and clutching two plastic visitor security passes in her hand. With a gentle nod of her head, she signalled to her companion that it was time to leave the shelter of the car. Taking her prompt, Brother Nathan began to struggle to put on his overcoat. His hand was unable to successfully locate the right armhole, as the arm of the coat was pinned between the car seat and his back. Seeing his predicament, Sabatini reached over, released the trapped material and presented the once-concealed armhole to his still waving hand.
‘My hummingbird seems to be flapping his wings too fast again.’ Sabatini restrained a chuckle and set about collecting up the contents of the priest’s pockets that had fallen into the footwell of the car.
Outside, the wind shook the bare branches of the trees that bordered the neatly maintained lawn. Before them stood the magnificent Wren Library building, its Rutland stone exterior giving off a pinkish tinge in the dying light. Completed in 1695 and designed by Christopher Wren, England’s genius architect, the building and its rows of perfectly proportioned windows stood statesman-like above the surrounding lawn.
‘I’ve known Henry for years. He can be a bit odd sometimes, but he is very well regarded,’ explained Sabatini. She took Brother Nathan by the arm and walked him towards an entrance flanked on either side by impressive stone columns. ‘When I explained to Henry your interest in the exhibits, and that today is your birthday, he was only too happy to help.’
‘Thank you. You have always been so kind to me,’ he said. The priest paused, and Sabatini thought she could see moisture forming in his eyes. ‘I am getting old. I pray God will look after you when I am gone.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! There is plenty of life in my hummingbird yet,’ said Sabatini, laughing off his comment.
As they made their way towards the entrance, they were intercepted by a smartly dressed middle-aged man sporting a regimental moustache and a black bowler hat. Sabatini recognised the black bowler hat as part of the official uniform worn by every Trinity College porter.
‘Can I be of assistance?’ the porter asked in a way that was neither friendly nor hostile: a skill that he had obviously developed over years of vetting the general public, who strayed accidentally onto the college grounds.
‘Thank you. That would be extremely helpful. I am Dr Carla Sabatini and this is Brother Nathan Vittori. We are …’
‘You are guests of Dr Henry Jenkins. He is expecting you. Let me take you up to the library.’ The porter smiled, enjoying the brief sensation of authority as he led the visitors through the entrance archway to a large door kept ajar by an ornate metal doorstop.
The porter ushered the two visitors through the door and, in a hushed voice, reminded them that they were entering a place of quiet academic study.
‘Dr Jenkins is waiting for you at the top of the stairs. I will bid you goodbye here. Enjoy the rest of your day.’
Chapter 25
At the top of the staircase, the grey stone steps changed into a chequerboard-style marble floor. Brother Nathan’s stout brogue shoes echoed down the corridor as he walked towards the library. Soon, the narrow passageway led to a closed door with a paper sign taped to it that read ‘LIBRARY CLOSED FOR PRIVATE FUNCTION’.
‘That must be us,’ said Sabatini, trying the handle. The door opened with the kind of unforgiving creak that reminded Brother Nathan of the vertebrae in his back. The sound of straining hinges caused the man standing on the other side of the door to spin round.
‘My dear, Carla, it’s wonderful to see you. This must be Father Vittori. Come in, come in. You are very welcome. I believe congratulations are in order, Father Vittori. Happy birthday!’
THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1) Page 10