by E. M. DAVEY
Livingstone …
Jake let the name course through his body.
Were you here?
He felt a little tug inside him as they returned to the central chamber, and as they entered the third branch the sensation became stronger. He let it draw him on. Livingstone had walked this way, with his battered blue cap and weary tread.
Something foreign emerged from the gloom, some form that did not belong in this subterranean world, where each rock had been smoothed by an eternity of drip-drip-drip. Boulders were piled against the wall, arising from drifts of soft sand.
Human hands did this.
Suddenly Jake saw whose: a tiny crucifix was carved into the cave wall. It was the mark of Dr Livingstone in this chapel for his adjunct to the Bible. Jake touched the symbol, moved by the explorer’s devotion, allowing his forehead to be pulled against the rock.
The clink of stone on stone distracted him.
Jenny was clawing at the pile. Rolling away boulders, digging into pebbles and scree with both hands. A triangle of pitch black was revealed, widening swiftly into a cavity. The beam caught upon particles meandering in the air, disturbed after a century of slumber. There was a chest inside.
The cave was flooded with light.
Jake turned to see the silhouettes of two men with torches, marching towards them like extra-terrestrials from a spaceship. He heard metal on machined metal as they released safety catches, echoing harshly in the cave. The limp and the hulking body were enough to identify one of them.
Facing the beam, shoulder to shoulder, Jake and Jenny stood to confront Frank Davis for a final time.
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The man with the cheese-grater face regarded them with Kalashnikov primed. He looked tired and hollowed out, as if dead inside.
“Hello,” said Jake.
Serval didn’t respond. Only the crack and tumble of moving stone filled the cave, the canine pants of Davis at work. The gap had become a window, big enough to scramble through.
“What’s your name?” Jake tried.
“Jacob.”
Jake had once read that at a subconscious level, we are conditioned to prefer people with the same name as us. People are statistically more likely to move into streets with a similar name to their own.
“Me too,” he said. “But I guess you already know that.”
Serval did not respond.
Davis was inside the grotto. “His initials are on the chest! D.L., David Livingstone.”
Serval’s eyes fractionally narrowed, and it hit Jake.
They don’t know why. They don’t understand the Livingstone connection at all.
Which meant he’d led them to it, he reflected dismally. He leaned back against the rock and closed his eyes. Why did everything he touched turn to disaster? He had only made things worse, right from beginning to end. Davis was dragging Livingstone’s chest from the grotto, lead-lined to protect the contents from water and the ravages of time.
Jake opened his eyes – and he laughed out loud.
“I really hate to piss on your parade gents,” he said. “But the padlock’s broken.”
Davis took in the sheared-off metal, coated in rust.
“Someone got here first.” Jake chuckled. “A very long time ago, by the looks of things.”
“All righty, you’d best enjoy your little laugh.” Davis’s lips trembled with anger. “’Cos you will not be grinning in a moment, my love.”
He lunged at Jake. Punched him in the temple. Punched him in the throat. Punched him in the eye so hard that he passed out. When he came around his face was in the sand and Davis’s knee was pressed into his neck. The assassin was far too strong to resist; Jake was a child in his embrace. Dimly he was aware of Jenny’s screams. So this was what a violent end felt like. He tried to think about something happy, and a memory of eating bread and cheese with Jenny on an Italian hillside came to him. But something else was happening. His right arm was wrenched backward – it felt as if his shoulder-blade would pop out – and his shirt sleeve was ripped open. Before he knew it there was a needle in his wrist. Davis pressed down the plunger and fire rushed up Jake’s arm. He braced himself for the cave to start spinning, for his world to stop.
Nothing happened.
“That’ll teach you to be a cheeky bastard,” said Davis.
“What did you just put in me?”
“Oh, that little thing? Well, seeing as you ask. You just mainlined the Ebola virus, matey.”
Ebola.
Ebola.
The most terrifying three syllables in the English language. Jake grabbed his elbow and tried to restrict the flow of blood into his torso.
“Don’t be a mug,” said Davis. “You’ve just had enough of the virus to infect fifteen thousand people, direct to the heart.” He thumped his own ribcage. “Oh, and it’s a fast acting strain. Give it a few hours, then my hunch is you’ll start feeling a little bit … out of sorts.”
Serval brandished a vial. “We do have this though. It’s a course of experimental drugs. Proven to be quite efficacious. With decent medical care you’d probably make it. Whether you get the cure depends on how much you tell us.”
“Time being of the essence, so to speak, let me set out my stall right away,” said Davis. “One, how is Livingstone wrapped up in all this? Two, how did Britain lose the Disciplina? And three, we’ll take your best guess as to where it is now.”
“He won’t tell you,” said Jenny. “Don’t you know Jake at all by now?”
“Oh yes he fucking well will,” said Davis. “I’d bet my wig on it.”
“That’s what you think,” said Jake.
“So now we play the waiting game,” said Davis.
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It was 10 pm when the first wave of fever swept Jake’s body, an unearthly symbiosis of heat and cold that bulldozed through him like a gigantic rolling pin. His throat was sore and he was getting pins and needles in his hands.
Davis had quarantined himself at the end of the passage. “How’s the patient?”
“You may as well put a bullet in me, because I’m telling you sod all,” said Jake. “Oh – and one more thing.”
“What’s that then?”
“You’re a twat.”
Jenny’s bark of laughter was as sudden as it was incongruous.
Davis stepped back in mock surprise. “Well, well, well! What have we here? It’s Billy Big Bollocks. A fiver says he won’t keep it up when he starts haemorrhaging out of his arse.” He peered at Jake. “You do look a bit peaky, fella. Why don’t you just get it off your chest, son?”
Jake’s headache increased by the second and the cave walls seemed to tremble before his eyes. The most feared virus on earth was in him.
“I’m proud of you, Jake,” Jenny yelled. “You’ll get through this. I know that you will.”
“Put a cake in it, you silly hag,” said Davis. “Don’t get all emotional, it’s an embarrassment. And take those sunglasses off too, you look ridiculous.”
Jake was about to retort when another wave of iciness burst through him, followed by a nausea of dizzying intensity that liquefied his stomach. He was riding the onset of the worst flu imaginable, magnified five thousand-fold.
E-bo-la.
“I’m going to make you an offer,” said Serval. His arms were wrapped around his own chest, as if he was cold. “Ten million quid if you come on board – authorised by London, right from the top. That’s what the British government thinks you’re worth. Let’s get some fresh air and some phone signal, and you can watch the funds hitting your account.”
“That’s the down payment,” said Davis.
“You’ll be on a half a million annual retainer as for long as your services are needed,” said Serval.
“More than I get for doing Number 10’s dirty work, I’ll tell you that,” said Davis.
“You can’t buy him,” said Jenny. “He’s better than you.”
“Oh why don’t you shut your rat trap?” Davis snarled, s
wiping her across the face with the back of his hand. “Stupid tart. We don’t want to hear it, all right?”
“I don’t agree with his methods.” Everyone turned to Serval and Serval turned to Davis. “I don’t, Frank. To speak candidly, I think you’re a brute.”
Jake sensed something in this man. A grain of residual decency, though somewhere along the line he had evidently turned very bad indeed.
“I do agree with the goal, though,” said Serval. “I agree with what the government plans to do with this thing once we’ve obtained it.”
“Over my dead body,” whispered Jake.
Without warning another rush of fever surged through him. He heard the rasp of cicadas in his eardrums, felt the cave closing in.
“Do you know what that plan is?” said Serval. “Have you guessed it yet?”
“I’m all ears,” said Jake.
Serval coughed, a ragged noise. “Why don’t you work it out for yourself? You’re supposed to be the ‘great analytical prodigy’ after all, the guy who’d finally lead us to the Disciplina. Let’s see those famous grey cells in action. Exhibit A, Sierra Leone. Pacified and improved beyond measure, yes?”
Jake made no comment.
“Exhibit B, Nigeria. Even as we speak, thousands of lives are being saved by British intervention.”
“If you say so. Your point?”
When Serval coughed again his hand flew to his mouth and he inspected his palm before continuing. “My point is that the Prime Minister’s goal is nothing less than total rebuilding of the British Empire.”
Total silence.
“And this is a Good Thing. And with the Book of Thunder to guide him, he’ll be able to actually accomplish it.”
“You’re stark raving mad,” said Jake. “You realise that, don’t you?”
“This sort of thing is exactly why I fell out with MI6,” muttered Jenny.
“Tell me this then, which was the better world?” Serval’s voice sounded reedy and thin. “The British-run planet of the nineteenth century, or the madhouse of today? Think of Russian expansionism, the growth of the Islamic State. The human rights abuses going on in China would never have been allowed under Disraeli. You ask why I’m doing this? I’m doing it because I believe in the Anglo-Saxon way. I believe the world was a fairer place when it was run by the British.”
For a heartbeat Jake was in sympathy with his namesake.
“We can make a new British golden era, a new Victorian Age. You can make it happen, Jake. And as an aside, you’ll be filthy rich – though do I do appreciate you’re not the biddable type.”
Jake closed his eyes, trying to fight the revolving of his stomach, the sickness in his blood. The crack of lightning, the thunderous roar of a Napoleonic cannonade. Hot vomit surged up his throat, cascading out of him by the pail-load. It was bloody.
“You haven’t got much time,” said Serval.
Jake entertained the notion. He could become a figure on a par with Caesar and Jesus Christ – or he could die a wretched death in this cave and Jenny would be killed.
“Take part.” Serval extended a hand. “Let’s turn the map red once more.”
My god. I could actually do it.
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“Nice try,” said Jake.
Serval frowned.
“And it’s a nice vision, too,” Jake continued. “Quite the utopia. Only there’s a problem with it. A square you just can’t circle.”
“What’s that then?” said Davis.
“It’s that by definition you can never bestow liberty at the barrel of a gun,” said Jake. “There’s no freedom without independence. The subjects of conquerors have no emancipation. That was the contradiction at the heart of the British Empire. Yes, the Victorians believed they were civilising the world – that’s what Livingstone thought, anyway. Some of them even did a bit of good. But they were propagating a tyranny with the trappings of justice. And if you want to bring that back – well, you’ll need to find another stooge. I’ll have no part in it. And neither should you, Jacob.”
Serval flinched. Jake thought he saw a glimmer of self-awareness in his eyes, a realisation, perhaps. He stared into those deadened pupils, willing decency into them.
“You’re talking bollocks,” said Davis.
Serval glanced at Davis sidelong. As if appraising him.
“Because when the British Empire was alive,” said Jake, “how you played the game meant more than winning. Every true Englishman knows that. I think you do too, deep down. Don’t you?”
Serval’s eyes had flickered up into his skull; Jake had the curious impression that he was replaying scenes from his life. He stared at Serval and blinked three times, renewing the entreaty.
Turn back.
Serval’s grip on the rifle tightened. He glanced left, sizing up Davis’s position and stance. The atmosphere in the cave was electric – Jake felt it, Jenny felt it. Only Davis was unaware of the changed dynamic. He grinned like a Staffie, panting in agitation at the prospect of butchery.
Serval coughed.
He staggered.
He dropped the gun, lurched sideways onto the cave wall. Clotted blood splattered down his chin, dripping on the rock face. He leaned there panting.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped.
There was movement in darkness, then gunshots. And before anyone could react, both Serval and Davis had been killed.
*
These were the scenes in Bujumbura: the city in pitch blackness; Kanisha being mobbed by curious Burundians as she bought a SIM card on the Boulevard Mwambutsa; and Eric Bafadhili, the man from the internet café, fending off the locals gamely. For Kanisha had made the most reckless decision of her life. Someone had the Disciplina – and finding it was worth risking her life for. That someone had visited her internet page once more and the IP address pinged back was in Bujumbura. She’d offered Bafadhili $1,000 to identify the men who had visited his café, and there they were. The website had been accessed from a hotel, the hotelier had described his only European customers and a taxi driver revealed where they had gone next. She would sleep for now – night driving in Burundi was a death wish – but the next morning she would follow. Like beads of water drawn by gravity to a single point, each actor was converging upon Livingstone’s heart of darkness.
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The bullet hole in Serval’s forehead glistened like a glacé cherry. Davis lay sprawled upon the sand: body twisted awkwardly, legs akimbo and shot through one eye. In death his jaw still swung open with a doglike grin. Over the toppled corpses stood the Americans.
High above them Evelyn Parr had heard the gunshots, manifestly not the distinctive clatter of an AK47. Somehow the Americans had known where to go – and they had found another way in.
“Again,” said Jenny.
At the museum in Vienna; in the backstreets of Cambridge; right across East Africa. The CIA had always been there, chasing them, waiting for them. And now Jake knew why. Deissler’s eyes were blood-red: like those of Rudolf Hess, having summoned down a bolt of lightning at Mytchett Place. Jake was looking into the face of a fulguriator, a man who had consulted the Network that very morning and knew where they would be. At once the entire tapestry was revealed to him in all of its wicked fineness. Suddenly Jake understood what had become of Napoleon’s Book of Thunder. He could detail every owner, from the time of Hannibal to the present day. He needed no black magic, had consulted no manifestation; intellect alone had revealed it.
“Henry Morton Stanley,” he said.
Deissler nodded. “Very good.”
“The pages of his diary, describing his first encounter with Livingstone … they were ripped out. That’s why some doubt he ever said the ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ line.”
“Indeed.”
“When they travelled together along Lake Tanganyika, Stanley must have observed him burying the first chest. After Livingstone’s death – much later, perhaps – he returned to exhume it.”
“This is also correct
.”
“Finally Stanley came here, following Livingstone’s diaries like we did. He found the last section of the linen book and brought it to his adopted homeland. You guys discovered it worked.”
“You called it,” said Deissler.
Jake gritted his teeth as another pulse of fever rattled through him.
“And the British golden age was over,” he said. “The American century was about to begin.”
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The United States of America. She had elbowed aside the powers of the Old World, bestridden the twentieth century like a colossus; ended it a superpower to rival ancient Rome.
“But the American century was no bad thing,” said Deissler. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“The Pax Americana has been a good peace,” said di Angelo. “Broadly, a world policed by the White House has been a good one.”
Jake had to admit there was something in that.
“Unlike the Brits, we played by the rules,” said Deissler.
“The rules?” said Jake. “What rules?”
“You haven’t heard of the Prophecies of Vegoia?” said Deissler.
Jake heard Jenny’s sharp intake of breath. He recalled Michael Beloff’s notes on Napoleon’s first major defeat since acquiring the Book of Fate.
1809. Austria again. During this campaign, there were the first signs of ill-health in Napoleon.
Beloff had circled ill-health and added: Vegoia. Borders.
“Let me refresh your memory,” said Deissler. “Vegoia was an Etruscan prophet. She said this …”
When he began speaking in Etruscan Jake fancied the cave had become a little darker, and he was glad of the weight of rock over his head, blocking out the sky. Jenny was on her knees beside him, trembling with each word like the pilgrim of a dark god.
“Tin is the god of boundaries,” she said. “Knowing the greed of men and their lust for land, he wanted everything to be proper concerning them. Those who violate them will be damned by the gods.”