by Gilliam Ness
Suddenly a flash of light spread out behind the castle, followed almost immediately by the buffeting sound of an explosion. Amir’s distractions had been detonated, and for an instant the castle looked like it belonged in Disney Land. A huge star-burst spread out behind one of the turrets, followed by another and yet another. The wheels were in motion. There was no going back now.
“I sure hope the brakes work on this thing,” said Gabriel, leaping from the cliff face and sliding out into the starry night.
CHAPTER 6
Soho, New York City.
Christian Antov lay on the floor, curled into a semi-fetal ball at the foot of a dark and immense unfinished painting. He was a middle-aged man, thin and pale, and wore only tailored, medium grey suites; always with a white shirt and a neutral coloured tie. Around him his expansive Soho studio stretched out like a war zone, the lofty ceilings and exposed brick walls of upper-scale Manhattan real-estate doing nothing to mask the sordidness of the scene that surrounded him.
As usual it had been a late night of debauchery, the scattered debris of empty bottles and cigarette butts leaving no doubt that there had been a large gathering there the night before. Christian opened an eye, only to take note of the handful of guests who had remained to spend the night. They littered the floor like scattered corpses in a lost battle, framed, as it were, by a backdrop of the vast and morbid paintings that comprised the bulk of his work.
“Get the hell out,” he said weakly. “Get the hell out of my studio.”
Groaning in pain, Christian propped himself on an elbow until he had managed to sit up and face the fifteen foot canvas that hung before him.
“Get the hell out of my studio!” he bellowed at the painting. “Get out, you ungrateful pieces of shit!”
Christian’s head screamed out in pain. Behind him he could hear groans and muttering, followed by the quick patter of feet. His guests were well familiar with his unpredictable temper, and they made no delay in their exodus. Seconds later Christian heard the door slam shut behind them, and he cursed aloud, letting his head fall into his hands. His brain was still reeling from the drink, and his body trembled from the excessive cocaine he had consumed. He swallowed hard, making an effort to control his loose bowels. At least he was alone now. All he needed was a cigarette and a drink.
He turned to search for an abandoned butt on the floor and groaned from the effort. It was then that he saw them: Two men at the door. They were wearing black suits.
“I told you to get the hell out!” screamed Christian in fury. “GET OUT!”
There was a long pause.
“Now, this is no way to treat your guests,” said one of them at last. “And it is certainly not the way you were raised to behave.”
They were too far away for Christian to discern their faces, but he immediately recognized their familiar Dutch accents. A feeling of hatred filled him as the last of his strength ebbed slowly away.
“What do you want?” he said listlessly, falling back onto the canvas behind him.
He picked a trampled cigarette off the floor and lit it, inhaling deeply.
“What the fuck do you want from me?”
He could see the men approaching. They were immaculately dressed, and they picked their way through the carnage of the party as though it were human waste.
“You will be grieved to know that your father is very near death, Christian,” said one of the men. “He has sent us to collect you. He wants to see you.”
Christian laughed coldly.
“He can die and rot for all I care.”
“Get up, Christian,” said the other man firmly. “The jet is waiting.”
CHAPTER 7
The Atlas Mountains, Morocco.
“Amir!”
Gabriel’s whisper sounded more like a scream. He was speaking into his radio, the sound of the fireworks outside still echoing through the castle.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, but I can’t see you.”
“I’m still in the conference room,” he said. “The Cube’s not in the safe.”
Amir threw down his toothpick.
“You gotta get out of there, Boss. They’re already starting to comb the place. You don’t have much time.”
“I’m not leaving without the Cube,” said Gabriel, still searching through the safe. “Where are they concentrating their search?”
“Perimeters, for now,” said Amir, his normally smooth tenor beginning to roughen a little at the edges. “Guards are all over the grounds. They even got dogs. It won’t be long before they start searching the castle.”
“And where’s Nasrallah?”
“I don’t know,” he said, frustrated. “Inside somewhere. Boss. Truly. You gotta get out now. You’re in a lot of danger. Your escape route could be cut off at any moment.”
“I’m not leaving without the Cube.”
Gabriel pocketed his radio and scanned the room. It was without a doubt the castle’s most important chamber, its twenty-foot ceilings held aloft by four massive columns. On the room’s northern wall ran a long arcade of elegant sandstone arches. They opened onto an expansive terrace. At some point the arcade had been glassed in, and it was through these windows that Amir had been spying on the meeting only moments before. In the centre of the room sat the large wooden conference table where the criminals had gathered.
Coagulating under one of the chairs was a large pool of blood, its contents having been tracked about the room, painting the stone floor as though it were an abstract canvas. Gabriel stood before the empty safe he had only just blasted open, its twisted door lying on the floor at his feet. Next to it, he could see a set of footprints that stood apart from the other boot prints in the room. He knew in an instant that they were made by the dress shoes that Nasrallah wore.
Gabriel followed the prints out of the room. Whereas all the other traffic had gone in the same direction, namely to the opium den, Nasrallah had taken a different path. Gabriel could see his footprints leading down a long stone corridor and he followed them to a spiraling flight of descending steps.
Moving as silently as possible, he made his way down, arriving at a small antechamber containing a heavy wooden door. He could hear two guards calling out in Arabic somewhere above him. He pressed himself against the wall and remained there motionless. Behind the door there was only silence. Once the guards had moved away Gabriel tried the handle and found that it was unlocked.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered.
He slowly opened the door.
With nothing but the dim light from the stairwell to illuminate the room, it was difficult to see what lay within. Gabriel entered regardless, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. He made use of a large deadbolt to lock it shut. If the guards decided to come that way they would have one more obstacle to get through before finding him. With the door closed, the room plunged into darkness, but Gabriel had come prepared. In the green hue of his infrared goggles he saw that he was in a storeroom of sorts, the chamber littered with cluttered tables and shelves, all laden with scales, cardboard boxes and plastic bags.
“The packaging department,” he muttered to himself, “but no drugs anywhere. Weird.”
There were three doors in this room. Two were shut and one slightly ajar. From the open door came a cooler reading than the others, leading Gabriel to consider that the room might be a connecting chamber, and the one Nasrallah had taken. He approached it with great stealth. In a chamber such as this, even the slightest shuffle would be amplified twenty times over. Gabriel eyed the door, listening intently for any sounds behind it.
“Let’s see if you took door number three,” he muttered under his breath, pushing the door open.
Producing a black light scanner, Gabriel switched off his night vision and was immediately able to see the glowing residue of blood from Nasrallah’s shoes. It shone brightly back at him, leaving a track of prints heading off into the chamber. Gabriel entered silently, activating his
night vision once again. He was in what looked to be the castle’s original kitchen, the giant hearth before him still blackened by the soot of ancient fires. To his left, beneath a row of crudely hewn sinks, he noticed a drainage trough emptying into a narrow pit.
Gabriel cocked an eyebrow and pushed back his shaggy hair. A faint glow was radiating from an open doorway just ahead of him. He removed his goggles and approached it cautiously, pressing himself against the wall and peeking in. Within was a medium-sized room, its worktables cluttered with computers and an assortment of scientific apparatus. What had once been an ancient pantry had now been converted into a laboratory of sorts. The tiled floors and walls provided the perfect hermetic environment.
He stepped silently forward, a particular table catching his attention immediately. It sat apart from the others, and was the only one not covered in clutter. Above it hung a single halogen fixture, its dimmed light illuminating a very out of context piece of equipment.
What would a drug lord be wanting with a portable X-ray machine?
Gabriel made his way to the table and was almost disappointed by what he found. There, resting on a tray of lead was the treasure he had been seeking, but it was by no means what he had been expecting. Under the halogen light he saw it for what it was: A typical quadriform cube, measuring some fifteen centimeters in width, and constructed from what appeared to be velum or wood.
My God, is this what all the fuss is about?
Gabriel had seen countless treasures; priceless works of art boasting outstanding materials and craftsmanship. Disappointingly, the piece before him seemed rather unremarkable; a mediocre artifact at best. Typical of such quadriforms, each of its six sides were decorated with illuminations, but in this case, the illustrations consisted of six, crudely rendered apples, their peels removed, but curiously left coiled around them. Gabriel was perplexed.
What kind of medieval subject matter is a peeled apple?
He bent closer to the relic, noticing only then the elegance of the framework that encased it. Constructed in time-blackened silver, it comprised an exoskeleton of intertwining branches, each section encrusted with what appeared to be heavily soiled rubies and emeralds. It was not, however, until Gabriel had carefully picked up the artifact that he was at last made aware of its uniqueness. Whereas most of the quadriforms he had encountered had been hollow and used strictly for decorative purposes, this artifact was surprisingly heavy for its size.
Now I can see why he was trying to x-ray it. There’s got to be something inside.
The artifact was definitely not what Gabriel had been expecting to take hold of. In it he felt an inexplicable quality; something that defied any kind of rational description. As he turned it over in his hands he would have easily lost track of time were it not for the vibration of his radio calling him back to reality.
“I found it,” he whispered into the receiver, snapping out of his trance. “Amir. I’ve got the Cube.”
“Boss. You gotta listen very carefully.”
It was the first time Gabriel had ever sensed fear in Amir’s voice. By its varying volume, Gabriel could tell that Amir was running as he spoke.
“I had to give up my lookout point. There are guards everywhere. I just saw Nasrallah. He came out screaming. They know you’re inside!”
Gabriel heard a violent pounding. The guards had arrived at the door he had bolted shut. He looked up, startled.
“Shit.”
He could hear Amir’s urgent whisper through the radio.
“Get to the escape route right away! You might still be able to make it there in time. Call me the minute you get through and I’ll set off the charges. I’ll meet you at the river rendezvous point.”
“Amir,” said Gabriel, his voice calm and steady. “I’ll never make it out that way now. I’m deep in the castle. I want you to blow the escape route right away. Hopefully it’ll confuse them a bit, and give me time to get out of here.”
“What? Are you crazy? That’s the only way out. You know that! You gotta run!”
“Amir!” said Gabriel, a little too loudly. “There’s no time to argue. Blow it NOW! That’s an order. I’ll meet you at the river. Just look out for me. I don’t know where I’ll be. Now do it!”
Gabriel turned off his radio. He could have no more distractions. He produced a plastic food container from his pack and placed the Cube in it, sealing it tightly. He had got this far. He had retrieved the Cube; his Cube. He would get out of this place. He knew he could do it.
The pounding was getting louder. More guards had arrived at the door. He had a few minutes at most. He sprinted back to the room he had just been in and approached the dark pit that the wash basins emptied into. He produced a flashlight from his belt and shone the beam into its depths. The channel angled its way down and looked to be unobstructed.
“The Moors were geniuses,” he said to himself, trying to think straight. “Geniuses are practical people. Practical people always dump their shit into the closest body of water they can find.”
He peered into the drain.
“If this goes anywhere, it goes to the river. It just has to.”
Behind him, the banging had turned into a violent pounding. The soldiers had found something to ram the door with. They would be on him in seconds. Gabriel tightened the straps of his pack. In the beam of his flashlight he watched a six-inch millipede scurry into the pit. He passed a hand over his two-day beard, battling his fear of the crawling insects.
Suddenly, the castle shook underfoot, jarring him to attention. Amir had just blown up his former escape route. Any other option he might have had for escape was gone now. Cursing under his breath, he lowered himself into the tight passage head first. At six-foot-two Gabriel was not a small man, but the channel was just big enough to wiggle through.
“Good thing I’m not claustrophobic,” he muttered, lying to himself.
CHAPTER 8
Los Picos De Europa, Northern Spain.
Only when the last throbbing beats of the rescue helicopter had faded away did Isaac Rodchenko at last regain consciousness. Before him, precariously perched on a cliff’s edge, and set high in the midst of a sweeping mountainscape, lay the wreckage of the chartered floatplane. Trapped in it were the lifeless bodies of Father Franco Rossi and Professor Agardi Metrovich –as well as the plane’s pilot– all inaccessible to the Spanish Civil Guard’s retrieval team, due to the high winds.
After many failed attempts, the team had at last been able to hover long enough to lower a paramedic down to confirm that there were no survivors. The man had picked quickly through the wreckage, finding the bodies of the dead, but failing to locate Isaac Rodchenko. Having secretly stowed himself away on the plane, Isaac had not appeared on the plane’s manifest, and as he had been thrown clear of the impact zone, he had gone completely unnoticed. As it was, he lay pinned beneath a section of fuselage, battered and delirious, yet miraculously still alive.
Earlier that day, and much to the surprise of the Professor and Father Franco, Isaac had listened attentively to their strange request, and had granted them permission to conduct a special burial ceremony for his son on the island where he had been conceived. Given his faltering mental health, it had been agreed that Isaac would not attend this ceremony, but unbeknownst to the Professor and the priest, Isaac had secretly boarded the floatplane and hidden himself in the cargo area, where the coffin had been stowed.
The sun was low in the sky when Isaac began to slip once again into unconsciousness. His face was badly bruised, his dark grey suit torn in places but amazingly free of blood. Overhead a rushing mass of cloud sped past like a giant floating landmass, lulling him into a delirious half sleep.
Below the crash site, the jagged mountains of Los Picos de Europa stretched out like a mouthful of teeth, each peak a mountain unto itself. It was here in this wild place, far from the world of men, and surrounded by death on all sides, that Isaac witnessed something that defied all the laws of physical nature. To his u
tter horror, he could feel the corpse of his son jerking and twitching at his feet.
“Dear Father in heaven,” he prayed, his eyes wide with fear, “deliver me from this evil. Bring peace to the body of my child.”
Isaac tried in vain to move his foot away from what he knew to be an abomination, all the while battling with his guilt for wanting to do so. This was his beloved son; his own flesh and blood. But like a frozen stone, the malformed cadaver seemed to be drawing the life from his body. Through the sole of his shoe he could feel its malignance. This was no longer his poor and helpless son. It had transformed into something utterly evil. He looked down to see the body twitch and jerk with the force of a recently severed limb. His son was dead; he had watched him die. What lay at his feet was no longer his child. It was a beast; a cold corpse that somehow still lived.
CHAPTER 9
Rome, Italy.
The rain was coming down in torrents as Gabriel’s cab pulled up to the old stone church. It was 6:30 a.m. and Rome was just waking up. In the distance he could hear the siren of an ambulance cutting through the humid air, the wet cobblestones at his feet reflecting the erratic flashes of headlights as a growing number of rush hour cars rumbled past.
“Grazie,” he said, handing the driver a fifty euro note.
With a nod of thanks, the cab driver passed him his luggage; a single leather pack, travel worn and battered.
Navigating his way through an obstacle course of puddles, Gabriel made his way into the shelter of the monastery’s arcade, much like a child playing hopscotch. Before him a towering wooden door barred his way.
He shook the rain from his equally battered leather flight jacket, sounding a great iron knocker that hung at the centre of the portico. Within moments a little door had opened within the larger door, and Gabriel had to duck low to get through. An old Christian Brother waited on the other side, and he shut the postern behind Gabriel after he had entered, the clank of the deadbolt echoing through the empty chapel.