The 4th Secret

by The 4th Secret (retail) (epub)

  Harker was finally able to get a clear view of the creatures as a fourth now joined the pack, and he was struck by how they all moved with the dexterity of a big cat. The swagger at the hips and the side-turning of their heads as they growled at Brulet’s swinging sword, was similar to the behaviour of a lion or a tiger, yet they resembled canines with those elongated snouts and with incisors akin to some devilish crossbreed dog sent from the very depths of hell itself.

  ‘Close it now,’ Brulet yelled as soon as he slid through the narrow gap, and Harker slammed the washroom door shut. Both men then pressed themselves up against its surface as a series of heavy thuds began to rock it from the other side.

  ‘Look!’ Chloe shouted with her eyes fixed on the door, pointing to the bulging cracks that were appearing on its surface and becoming thicker with every impact.

  Harker watched helplessly as the middle of the door began to bend and splinter. Suddenly the idea of dying in that helicopter crash seemed remarkably pleasant compared to being ripped apart by all those razor-sharp teeth. He glanced at Brulet and Chloe, both looking equally helpless, and opened his mouth to say something reassuring. But nothing came out. What do you say when there is nothing to be said?

  Harker was still searching for words when a high-pitched shriek echoed through the barn, silencing even the roars and growls on the other side of the door. At the same time the pounding ceased and the three of them visibly winced as the shrill wail continued throughout the barn. This continued for a few more moments, then it cut out as abruptly as it had begun. Harker and Brulet’s eyes met in a look of confusion, but at no time did they take any pressure off the door they were still glued to.

  Then, without warning, Brulet’s whole body snapped to attention, becoming rigid, and his fists clenched tightly as he began to shake violently before dropping to the floor. In the dim light Harker instinctively began reaching down to his companion, then something struck his chest. As his body began to tense and his veins began to burn, he managed to glance down at the two metallic darts, each attached to slender wires, that had embedded themselves into his upper body. Unable to otherwise move, he fell to the floor and begun twitching uncontrollably as 50,000 volts electrified him. Up ahead two similar darts sent Chloe also crashing to the ground, to join her friends in the same undignified dance.

  After a few more seconds the electric charge ceased and, with bleary eyes, Harker followed the wires back to the two men, wearing balaclavas and armoured vests, who had appeared from the secret hatch where the end toilet had stood and who now made their way towards them, each holding a stun gun. The nearest one lowered his Taser, unclipped a black Motorola walkie-talkie from his belt, and began to speak into it.

  ‘They’re now incapacitated, sir,’ the man explained in a husky German accent. ‘Do you want them all neutralised?’

  There was a few moments of silence before the walkie-talkie crackled into life. ‘No. Bring them inside.’

  ‘Copy that,’ the guard replied and he was just about to reach down and unhook the metal darts from Harker’s chest when the Motorola crackled once more. ‘But before you do… give them an extra shock.’

  Chapter 42

  ‘We’ve dosed your prisoner with sodium thiopental Mr Shroder, but its barely had any effect at all. If this doesn’t work, we could try cutting. It’s messy, and should be considered an option of last resort, but it will work. Everyone has their breaking point … everyone.’

  Shroder returned the steely gaze of the GSG 9 captain with his poker face intact, not betraying the high level of unease he felt regarding the method now being proposed. GSG 9 was Germany’s top counter-terrorist unit, dealing with everything from the airborne breach of an oil platform to hostage rescue. The elite unit had been set up after the 1973 Munich Olympics massacre, when eleven members of the Israeli team were taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. From start to finish the whole episode had not gone well, resulting in two of the hostages being murdered in their hotel rooms and the final nine dying in a botched rescue attempt by the German police. With all the hostages dead and the failed operation being played out on the world’s media, it had been decided that a special elite unit was needed for any future such eventualities. That unit was designated as GSG 9 and although its recruits were chosen solely from active police officers, as was not the case for the majority of similar units around the world, they had proved themselves over the years to be among the best at what they did.

  ‘I wasn’t aware that the GSG were in the business of torture, Captain Müller,’ Shroder remarked plainly, and without a shred of accusation in his tone.

  ‘We’re not,’ Müller replied, ‘but given that half of Europe is under martial law and thousands of lives have recently been lost, the Federal Ministry of the Interior has given me free rein to follow up any leads as I see fit,’ the stocky captain then motioned to Karl, who stood watching the exchange with arms folded. ‘And, according to our own intelligence officer working on the information you provided him, it is my understanding that these individuals may be central to those disastrous events. So, unless you have any other evidence explaining why the hell we were called into arrest these people, I can only offer you the options I have at my disposal.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Müller,’ Karl stepped in between the two men, realising the conversation was beginning to boil over, ‘your co-operation is much appreciated. Could you give us a moment alone?’

  Müller paused and then exited the room with a frustrated grunt.

  ‘I think it’s high time you gave me an explanation, Michael,’ Karl said softly once they were alone. ‘I organised this assault in good faith, and instead of the terrorists you promised me, I find we’ve just arrested a group of families who are simply taking a fucking holiday!’

  Shroder turned away with his hands on his hips and paced away a few steps. He did this not out of frustration but to give himself some time to figure out how best to explain the situation without losing his friend’s confidence. The thought of revealing his knowledge of the Magi and their seemingly supernatural bid to bring about the end of the world was laughable, and Karl would have him thrown into a padded cell. What he needed was the right mixture of fact and fiction – but mainly fact – to get Karl on-board. ‘OK,’ Shroder said, finally turning round with his face full of resolve. ‘But I need you to keep an open mind here.’

  ‘How open?’

  ‘As open as you can manage.’ Shroder replied, watching as the German intelligence officer’s shoulders twitched and his hands dropped to his sides. At first he thought his friend was about to shake his head in disappointment but instead he focused on him with sincerity in his eyes.

  ‘Yesterday I watched half of Vatican City disappear into a hole in the earth, and today I saw a news reporter getting mauled by something I can describe only as a monster from my worst childhood nightmares.’ said Karl, moving closer to Shroder. ‘At this very moment my wife is sitting at home having stocked our cupboards with every type of canned food known to man, and praying that she’ll live to see another day. And she’s not even religious! The internet and the TV stations are down and a quarter of our national police force failed to check in for work today, presumably so they could be at home with their families. Believe me when I tell you that at this point that my mind isn’t just open … It is gaping.’ Karl reached over and placed a hand on Shroder’s shoulder sympathetically. ‘So how about you tell me what’s really going on?’

  Shroder took a moment to gauge the man before offering a compliant nod. ‘There is a group – a small but very powerful group – that has been attempting to bring about the end of the world.’ He felt his cheek muscles tense at the mere mention of such a notion but was immediately bolstered by Karl’s stare which remained unflinching and resolute. ‘And the people you’ve just arrested are, I think, the families of this group… and wherever they were heading is where we need to be.’

  Karl removed his hand from Shroder’s sho
ulder and his eyes wandered to the floor then back up again. ‘Are we talking about ‘the’ end of the world here? Fire-and-brimstone kind of end?’

  ‘Yes,’ Shroder replied firmly, now devoid of any embarrassment. ‘The Old Testament kind.’

  ‘And the man that died tonight, what did he have to do with all this?’ Karl questioned and referring to Lusic Bekhit.

  ‘He was the whistle-blower. The man that managed to infiltrate this group and was killed for it.’ Shroder lied because there was only so much he was going to reveal.

  ‘Does this group have a name?’

  ‘They call themselves the Magi and they are an influential consortium of religious zealots who I believe have set this whole crisis in motion.’

  Karl suppressed a gulp and his eyes began to wander. He made his way over to the large single window overlooking the airbus factory floor, and focused his gaze on the group of people being detained by a squad of GSG 9 officers. He then rested his hands on the windowsill, exhaled a large sigh and shook his head. ‘That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, Michael… especially coming from you.’

  Shroder was already making his way over to the same window to further justify his case, when the German raised a hand towards him.

  ‘What’s crazier still is that I actually believe you.’

  Shroder immediately unstiffened and the two men stood there in silence for a moment until Karl turned to face him with a look of renewed bewilderment.

  ‘You really think this is happening, don’t you?’

  ‘I know what I’ve seen over the last few days and something is definitely happening… something bizarre and totally out of our hands. But, despite how either of us might feel regarding the religious element, there is one thing I am certain of and that is someone down there knows what’s going on – and we need to find out, now.’

  A few seconds passed before Karl gave a nod of his head. ‘Fine, you can interrogate him. But, for the record, this is a terrorist investigation and there will be no mention of this discussion, or they’ll have me locked up even before you are … Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Shroder replied, already heading for the door.

  ‘Wait,’ Karl called out after him. ‘How the hell do you expect to persuade this man to talk? He’s been on sodium thiopental for the last twenty minutes, and hasn’t even told us his name!’

  The question stopped Shroder short, and he turned back around. It was the same question he had been brooding on ever since the Magi group had been arrested, and the answer to it had his stomach churning ever since. It was one that had every moral scruple in his body screaming out in disgust, but the truth drug was proving useless so far, and Shroder suspected that Captain Müller’s option of ‘cutting’ would have little effect either. Brulet had been right when he had stated that these Magi soldiers would rather die than disclose any information, so that left only one option no matter how much Shroder detested the thought of it.

  ‘Well,’ Karl badgered, ‘what will you do?’

  ‘I’m going to give him two options,’ Shroder replied coldly, already getting himself into character. ‘Either he tells us where they were heading,’ the MI6 agent snarled, ‘or I’m going to kill his entire family… right in front of his eyes.’

  * * *

  ‘Everybody out now,’ Shroder yelled to the guard as two GSG 9 officers dragged a hooded and handcuffed woman into the room and sat her down directly opposite the same Magi soldier that had been knocked out on the airport tarmac earlier. Once the guard and both officers had left, Shroder closed the door behind them. He then approached the handcuffed suspect and slapped him sharply across the face.

  ‘Don’t feel like talking yet?’ Shroder scowled.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ the prisoner replied sluggishly as a result of the sodium thiopental still fresh in his system.

  Shroder strode over to the female he had brought in and ripped off her hood to reveal a blonde-haired woman with a strip of duct tape over her mouth and black lines streaking her cheeks where tears had caused her eyeliner to run. Her gaze widened at the sight of the prisoner opposite, and she gurgled in distress behind the confines of the sticky tape. The male prisoner, on the other hand, continued to stare ahead blankly.

  ‘How about now?’ Shroder barked.

  The man shook his head. ‘She’s not one of mine.’

  Shroder reached into his back pocket and pulled out two German passports. He flipped them both open at the ID pages and held them out in front of him. ‘That’s strange because these documents say otherwise … Mr and Mrs Roth.’

  Shroder slipped the black hood back over the head of the still gurgling ‘Mrs Roth’ then dropped both passports on the floor before turning back over to the man who was looking decidedly unimpressed. ‘There’s something I want you to see now,’ Shroder declared, and he pulled Roth up by the collar and hustled him over to the far end of the room, then through a sliding door on to a metal walkway that looked down over the factory floor. Shroder slammed the prisoner against the metal railing before pulling out another passport from his inside pocket. He thrust the photo page into Roth’s face, then pointed down towards a ten-year-old girl wearing a hooded red overcoat with appliqué bows on the pockets. The young girl huddled next to one of the female adults, seemingly oblivious to the two men up on the walkway staring down at her. ‘And that is your little girl, Ada.’ Shroder announced. ‘She really is a lovely little thing, isn’t she?’

  Roth gazed down at the child with dull eyes, then looked back at Shroder and nodded listlessly. ‘Yes she is,’ he replied. ‘So what?’

  Shroder pushed the fellow along the walkway and back into the office where the hooded Mrs Roth was still gurgling away in terror, most likely unaware they had even left the room. He pushed the bound man back down on to the chair, then took a position directly between them. ‘So what, Mr Roth, is that I am going to make you an offer,’ Shroder explained in a cold and callous tone. ‘You tell me where you were heading and I walk away.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’ Roth replied with a sarcastic smirk at the answer he guessed would be forth coming.

  Shroder pulled the Browning handgun from his side holster and dangled it in front of him by the grip. ‘Then I will kill your family one by one, starting with your wife here.’

  His threat seemingly had little effect on the Magi soldier, whose lips curled cynically.

  ‘You’re not going to do that,’ Roth stated smugly, with a sarcastic rolling of his eyes. ‘The police don’t kill women and children.’

  Shroder moved in closer to his cuffed prisoner, knelt down beside him and began lightly tapping the barrel of the gun against his own thigh pensively. ‘I know who you are, Roth… and I know what the Magi are.’

  The mention of the Magi drew a flicker of surprise from Roth. ‘What are the Magi?’ he replied gruffly.

  ‘Come now, Mr Roth there is no need to be coy. After all, we are all old acquaintances here.’

  Roth was now looking confused as the MI6 agent continued.

  ‘I know that your little group of power-hungry psychopaths has been responsible, in one way or another, for every disaster that has happened in the past few days, and for the hundreds of thousands of people that have already lost their lives, including women and children. So the question you have to ask yourself is not why would I kill your wife and child… but why I wouldn’t?’

  Shroder stood up again and stepped over to the other chair. He placed the muzzle of the gun against the side of Mrs Roth’s head, whereupon she immediately tensed up. ‘Do you really think that a couple more casualties is going to make the slightest bit of difference to me, seeing as we have already lost so many?’

  Roth eyed him cautiously. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said and then slumped in his chair.

  Shroder raised an eyebrow and cocked his pistol. ‘Do you believe this?’

  Without warning, and no doubt in response to sound of the gun cocking, Mrs Roth leapt from her seat and began runn
ing blindly past her husband and towards the open sliding door. She had just made it to the walkway beyond when a shot rang out and she dropped to the grating, with only her quivering legs still visible. Roth gawped in shock as Shroder, gun still raised, marched over to the fallen body and unloaded two more shots until her legs went still.

  From down below, frightened screams echoed around the factory floor, which were joined by an enraged screech from Roth, who jumped to his feet only to be slammed back into his seat by Shroder, who forcefully jammed the still hot muzzle deep into the man’s ribs. ‘Do you feel like talking now or do I go and fetch you daughter?’ he snarled with his eyes full of determination. ‘It’s your decision, Roth. Solely your choice.’

  Tears began to form in Roth’s eyes and he now trembled and hissed in anger.

  ‘Well? What is it to be, Roth?’ Shroder persisted. ‘Your stubbornness has already caused the death of your wife. Do you want your daughter’s blood on your hands as well? And I promise you she won’t die so easily.’

  Roth continued to struggle violently against his restraints as tears trickled down his cheeks, before, finally calming, he closed his eyes and nodded sombrely. ‘Give me a map.’

  Shroder pulled out an already prepared ordinance map of the world from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded it before placing it upon the grieving man’s lap. He then stood back with the gun still raised. After a few seconds of examining it, Roth swivelled his hand towards the map as best as his handcuffs would allow and pointed to a particular area. ‘This is the airfield we were flying to, and where we are all instructed to meet.’

  Shroder retrieved the map and studied the location. ‘Why? What’s there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Roth replied, shaking his head miserably. ‘We all received word to pack what we could and head for that location with our families immediately. The details for the flight were sent on to us shortly afterwards, but as to why there I have no idea.’