Foretold by Thunder

by Edward M. Davey

  Waits remained silent.

  “You knew my team weren’t trained for hot work, but you didn’t care.”

  The spymaster smiled with irritation and flicked a forelock from his eyes.

  “You sent us in blind and ignorant. And now a damn good agent is dead and another’s injured and we’ve got a serious diplomatic incident on our hands.”

  Waits took a sip of coffee.

  “And for what? For some ridiculous inscription? What the hell is going on here, Charlie?”

  He had another sip of coffee.

  “Say something!” she shrieked.

  Waits gestured to her chair – it had been sent skittering across the room – and Jenny realized she was on her feet. She sat, and something about the action served to deflate her ire. She waited for him to talk.

  “I want you to know that I don’t hold that little outburst against you in the slightest,” Waits began. “In fact I’d be worried if my agents didn’t show any emotion when something awful, something awful like this has happened.”

  Jenny could feel heat pumping from her cheeks.

  “But you must understand that we had absolutely no clue about what was going to happen,” he said. “None whatsoever.”

  “Who were they?” she pleaded. “Who killed Jess?”

  “They could be any number of people. We just don’t know.” Waits took a biscuit.

  “What’s this all about, Charlie? Why are we even here?”

  Her handler didn’t reply, and Jenny’s temper rose once more.

  “If you don’t tell me I’ll go as high up the chain of command as it takes,” she said coldly. “Asking the same questions again, and again, and again.”

  “Do your job!” he screamed, gripping the table with both hands. “Do your job! Do your job! Do your job!”

  Jenny had gone white.

  “Do your job, Jennifer Frobisher,” Waits commanded again in a voice now turned hoarse. “Do what Her Majesty’s government pays you for, and remember the absolute and unfailing discretion we expect and for which you were selected for this assignment.” He produced an orange handkerchief and dabbed at both temples.

  “I will do my job,” said Jenny. “But please, Charlie, I have to know what was worth Jess’s life. Perhaps if you told me I would understand. Perhaps … perhaps we didn’t throw her away for nothing.”

  Waits fixed her with one eye, as if peering through a telescope. Then he produced a silver hipflask and swigged deeply, contemplating the nightmare this operation was becoming.

  “We don’t believe it’s true, of course,” he said at last. “We don’t believe it works. But there are others who do. Britain’s enemies. The feeling has always been that if we could obtain some of it – let them know we’ve got it – perhaps we could unsettle their decision making. Lead them into rash and unprofitable choices.”

  “Believe what’s true? Believe what works?”

  “What Jake and Florence have been looking for. The Disciplina Etrusca. The set of rules for the correct interaction between mortals and powers of a higher sphere.” A whimsical smile settled on the spymaster’s lips. “The power to predict the future, my dear.”

  32

  The palace shooting broke on Agency France Presse shortly after midnight. By the morning it was world news; Jake’s stay in Turkey was prolonged.

  “I need you in Istanbul after all,” Heston told him. “David wants to go big on it. We’re sorting a graphic.”

  “Niall … I was there.”

  “You get yourself down there and gather some colour. And give us a sidebar about the palace itself for a bit of context.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I was there. It was me they were after.”

  The news editor snorted. “Yeah, right.” He paused. “Wait. Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I am serious.”

  Heston digested it. “Jesus Christ, Jake. Are you ok? What the hell happened?”

  “Two people with guns tried to rob us on the way back to our hotel. Then one of them got killed right before our eyes – she got shot in the neck and the head for Christ’s sake.”

  “Wait a minute.” Heston’s voice had become tight. “Did you say she?”

  “Yes, a redhead. Why?”

  “The Guardian’s got an exclusive about an MI6 agent being shot dead. They can’t or won’t disclose the exact location, but they do say it was in the Mediterranean theatre. And they report two specific details. It was a she. And she was shot in the neck and the head.”

  Jake had turned haggard. “Well, it’s got to be the same woman, right?”

  “Almighty coincidence if not. Their source is unnamed. But it must be copper-bottomed, because they’ve plastered it all over the front page. It’s causing a heck of a stir here. As far as anyone knows she’s the first MI6 officer ever to have been killed by hostile action.”

  “Are MI6 confirming?”

  “The death, yes. But the government’s official position is to wander up and down whistling innocently.” Heston exhaled. “We’ve got a hell of a story on our hands if her death’s linked to what happened in the Topkapi. It’ll be a proper shit-storm.”

  “I should’ve called last night,” said Jake. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I –”

  “Not worried about that now,” Heston cut in. “Just worried about what we’re going to do with this stonking exclusive of yours. Tell me, Jake, what do you think is really going on here?”

  “I reckon it’s to do with this dig I’ve been covering. Earlier in the day we discovered an inscription. We copied it – and we were being held at gunpoint within the hour.”

  “Give me strength,” Heston snapped. “Not this again. Biggest security story this newspaper’s had all year and who’s on the scene? Mr Forces of Darkness.”

  “Just hear me out.” Jake noticed the assertiveness in his own voice. “I’m not trying to say this fortune-telling stuff actually works, of course not. But can we completely rule out that MI6 thinks that it works? Accept for the sake of argument that MI6 believes the Etruscans did have some sort of prophetic ability. At a stroke all the strange little things that have been happening make sense. Britton thinking he was being followed. That post-box being emptied at the wrong time. An MI6 agent trying to accost me and ending up being killed by God-knows-who. Then us being chased by men with sodding machine guns. All the pieces fall into place, Niall.”

  “Let’s deal in facts, not theories.” Heston’s breath was hot on the receiver. “Fact one, an MI6 agent was shot dead and you may have witnessed it. Fact two, all she did was walk towards you – we don’t actually know she was going to molest you in any way. Fact three, you were chased by gunmen. But they were probably just trying to eliminate eyewitnesses.”

  “What if the guys trying to kill us were MI6 too?”

  “That’s the single most libellous thing I’ve ever heard one of my reporters dream up and we’d both be in front of the High Court if even a whiff of it made it into print.”

  Jake was silenced.

  “I’m not running any of this Etruscan stuff, Jake, I’m just not. But you’re alive, that’s the main thing.” Heston mellowed. “And you did good. We’ll lead the news agenda all week with this. Look, I’m going to get Marvin to put some calls in.” Marvin Whyte was the security correspondent. “Hopefully he’ll be able to get a steer from the Home Office, confirm the redhead and the dead spook are the same person.”

  “Then he’ll take the story! Bloody hell, I could have died, Niall!”

  “Ok, ok, your byline,” said Heston. “I give you my word. But you need help standing it all up, and you don’t have the contacts to do it. In the meantime I think you need to get your arse back here, for your own security. You can hardly go wandering around in Istanbul after what’s happened. This is serious shit now, Jake. I don’t want a reporter getting killed on my watch.”

  Jake picked up a newspaper on the way back to the hotel. The English-language Hürriyet Daily News had splashed on the Topkapi s
hootout. What else? He read the account with consternation. The story sprawled from pages one to five, yet there was no mention of a redhead killed at the scene. Whoever she was, her body had been removed. Then something else caught his eye and a jolt of fright ran through him, strong enough to produce nausea. In the bottom right-hand corner of page five was a photograph of Dr Adnan Gul; Jake read the story with growing fury.

  A leading academic at the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul was found hanged this morning, police have revealed. Dr Adnan Gul was discovered by his cleaner at the small apartment where he lived alone in Sulukule, western Istanbul. Colleagues said he showed no prior signs of depression, and his apparent suicide came as a complete shock.

  33

  “They’ve killed Dr Gul,” Jake shouted, throwing the broadsheet at Florence. “They’ve bloody gone and done him in.”

  The archaeologist put the inscription to one side – books on linguistics were already spread about the room. But as she read the article her head bowed.

  “They were after Roger too,” she whispered.

  “Who are ‘they’, Florence? Is it MI6?”

  “I think so, Jake. I’m frightened.”

  The word hung in the air.

  “Maybe you should just … let it go. History is important, but it’s not worth dying for.”

  Florence’s head shot up like that of a cobra. “Never,” she spat. “Why should I? Why should I be cowed by them?”

  Jake gaped. “Your eye, Florence. What’s wrong with it?”

  The archaeologist fumbled for a mirror. “Oh my goodness,” she said.

  A tangle of vessels had burst across her eyeball, leaving a bloody streak across the white – it looked vaguely bestial. Florence studied her reflection for a long time. Then she replaced the mirror without comment and returned to the inscription.

  “What do you think these are all about, then?” she asked. “The Roman numerals at the end of the engraving.”

  “Who gives a damn? I’ve just told you Dr Gul has been murdered. Don’t you care about that?”

  “What is there to say?” she shot back. “Someone’s killed him, that’s the end of it. I’ve got a job to do.”

  Despite himself Jake peered at the shirt. Runic letters were scrawled across the material like the product of a disturbed mind – but the inscription concluded in four Roman numerals: IV, VII, IV, XLI.

  “Four, seven,” said Florence. “Followed by four, forty-one. What does it mean?”

  Jake considered the problem. “Well, it’s simple isn’t it? Book Four, verse seven. And then Book Four, verse forty-one. Eusebius is telling us to read on.”

  Florence’s mouth fell open. “You are amazing,” she said, scrambling for the paperback and looking up the first passage. “It’s entitled, ‘Ambassadors from barbarous nations receive presents from the Emperor’.”

  I have often stood near the imperial palace and observed an array of barbarians in attendance, bringing for Constantine their most precious gifts. There I have seen the distant Ethiopians, that widely divided race, from the most remote part of the world. They presented to the emperor those gifts which their own nation held in most esteem – crowns of gold, diadems set with precious stones, barbaric vestments embroidered with gold and flowers.

  “What did Constantine give the Ethiopians in return?” Jake wondered. “The title says the barbarians received presents from the emperor too.”

  Florence frowned, reading the page several times over. “It doesn’t actually mention his gift in the body of the text – only in the title.”

  “I can’t see Eusebius omitting that detail by accident,” said Jake. “It’s almost as if he’s trying to draw particular attention to the gift the Ethiopians received from Rome by not saying what it was. And we know what Eusebius thought Rome’s most precious possession was. The gift he held in ‘most esteem’.”

  “It would have made sense to hide the Book of Thunder in Africa,” admitted Florence. “There were ties of faith and diplomacy between Rome and Ethiopia, established trade routes. And it was the edge of the known world, far from the reach of Christian zealots. I don’t know though. Making such a leap based on three little sentences? Really?”

  “But there’s another line about Ethiopia in Life of Constantine,” said Jake. “Don’t you remember? The bit about Alexander the Great – we read it in the cistern.”

  Florence sought the passage in a flurry of page-turning.

  From among the Macedonians Alexander overthrew countless tribes of diverse nations. He waded through blood, a man like a thunderbolt. But Emperor Constantine began his reign at the time of life where the Macedonian ended it. He even pushed his conquests to the Ethiopians, illuminating with beams of light of the true religion the ends of the whole earth.

  “A man like a thunderbolt,” she said.

  “Beams of light,” Jake replied. “The true religion.”

  Florence closed the book. “It’s in Ethiopia. The Disciplina Etrusca is in Ethiopia.”

  There could be no doubt. Jake could almost sense the long-dead scholar chuckling at the solving of his puzzle – they were touching fingertips across the millennia.

  “But Ethiopia’s the size of France,” said Florence. “And we don’t have a clue where to look.”

  “Yes we do. The second passage indicated by the numerals.” Jake sought it out. “Book Four, verse forty-one. Eusebius is describing the preparations before a sacred festival.”

  Others interpreted passages of scripture, and unfolded their hidden meaning, while those who were unequal to these efforts presented mystical service for the Church of God. I myself explained details of the imperial edifice and endeavoured to gather from the prophetic visions fitting illustrations of the symbols it displayed.

  “Jesus,” said Jake. “Not much to go on, is it?”

  “We’ve got you, though.” Florence looked him up and down. “You’re our secret weapon, with your massive sexy brain. You see what other people miss. It’s like you’ve got a third eye.”

  At that exact moment Jake ceased to find her attractive. She had been using him, leading him on whenever she needed to make use of his intellect. But he needed her knowledge of the period just as sorely.

  “Florence,” he said. “Can I ask you a question?”

  There was something in Jake’s voice that made her look up. “What is it?”

  “When the Etruscans were at the height of their powers, did they assume their civilization was going to go on forever? Like, I don’t know, like maybe some Americans do now? Or did they have an appreciation that the Etruscan world would end one day?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, it was just a dream I had last night.”

  “Intriguing dream,” she said, examining him. “Yes, as a matter of fact they did think their civilization would end. They believed it was limited to a timescale fixed by the Gods. Etruscan civilization was allotted a ten saeculum lifespan – that’s equivalent to ten long lifetimes. And as it happens this proved remarkably accurate. An Etruscan haruspex called Volcatius saw a comet after Julius Caesar’s assassination and announced the final saeculum.”

  “Caesar?” said Jake. “But he lived two centuries after the Etruscan kingdoms were overthrown.”

  “In Caesar’s day there would still have been Etruscan nobles,” said Florence. “Families who spoke Etruscan. Etruscan neighbourhoods. But fast forward a hundred years and no one speaks Etruscan anymore. Etruscan civilization ended bang on schedule.”

  “It’s strange,” said Jake. “I must’ve read about all this saeculum stuff when I was researching my article. But I’d completely forgotten about it until that dream. Amazing how something can linger in your subconscious like that.”

  Florence seemed not to have heard him. “There’s something quite profound about such an understanding among an ancient people,” she said. “Because it’s true, isn’t it? No nation lives forever, however mighty. Rome fell, Napoleon is history, the sun set on the B
ritish Empire.”

  “Thou know’st tis common.” Jake was quoting Shakespeare and he stuck out his chin. “All that lives must die.”

  “Passing through nature to eternity,” Florence finished, more seriously.

  “And it’s happening as we speak,” he said. “Think of the movement of money from West to East. India and China are racing ahead, industrializing, trying to put a man on the moon. Soon Brazil and Mexico will be powerhouses too. And look at Europe, the sick man of the world. Drowning in debt, hugely uncompetitive, out of energy, out of ideas. We’re being eclipsed.”

  “In our lifetime everything will change.” Florence glanced at the inscription. “Asia awakens. We’re living through the end of Western domination.”

  The dream returned to Jake then. Not the content – but its feel.

  And the war of civilizations would go on.

  34

  Jenny was sitting outside the journalist’s new hotel in a blue Fiat as the phone call came in. She groaned. Another hectoring from Charlie Waits, no doubt – the control-freakery emanating from that man’s office knew no bounds. But when she looked at the caller ID it felt like a wet cloth had torn inside her chest.

  It simply said: Home.

  Jenny had visited her mother nightly during her time in Istanbul. Mum was always back to full health, but the dreams would typically be underscored by some prosaic difficulty she was facing. Last night it was a surprise birthday party for Dad. There were too many guests, not enough places for them all to hide.

  “Daddy?”

  “Jenny. Oh, Jen.”

  Her world tilted. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “It’s not the worst,” he said quickly. “But I’m afraid your mother’s very poorly. Her condition deteriorated overnight. Quite markedly.”

  Jenny said nothing, forcing him to continue.

  “Just after midnight she went into convulsions,” he said. “Then it was breathing difficulties. By the time I arrived she was hooked up to a machine to keep her lungs working.”