by E. M. DAVEY
He gave a fractional nod. “You may proceed.”
All along the corridor the tension went out of necks and backs.
Ronaldson had missed every warning sign. The demand to override established process (essential for gaining access). Urgency (no time to refer up). Strange requests (a major red flag). Name-dropping and flattery (and this really should have put him on guard). Di Angelo had played the man for a fool.
At the end of the corridor was door 4751, nothing unusual to mark it out. For fifteen minutes di Angelo fed junk code into the card, which beeped ineffectually at the door. Ronaldson seemed gratified.
“You didn’t see it,” he said. “Did you?”
“What’s that?”
“Up there.”
There was a hole in the titanium doorframe big enough to slot a matchstick into. From his wristwatch Ronaldson drew out a single metal pin, a few Byzantine notches at the end.
“It’s with me at every moment,” he said. “The wizened-looking guy who normally comes – you know him?”
“Deissler.”
“That’s him. In and out the whole time. Wakes me up in the middle of the night. Interrupts me when I’m having sex with my wife. Sends me away once he’s got the key.” And in a hoarse whisper: “My god, how I’ve wondered what’s in this room.”
“You’re about to find out.”
Ronaldson inserted the pin and there was a deep humming, like the warp drive of a spaceship. The doors rolled open.
“What in the …”
A darkened room, the eye drawn to a central plinth illuminated by dozens of spotlights. Across it were laid strips of yellowed linen, marked with hundreds of characters that were archaic and strange. The complete and unabridged Disciplina Etrusca, in all of its ancient glory. This book had been wielded by Roman consuls; borne onto the field of Austerlitz by Napoleon Bonaparte; gazed upon by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the direst secret of the Imperial age.
“I want you and your men to leave now,” said di Angelo. “Go to a different level.”
Ronaldson had recovered. “I … I can’t do that, sir. Not for you.”
“That’s a shame.” Di Angelo rolled up his left trouser-leg and plunged his pen deep into the calf. A transparent liquid pooled on the floor. It smelled faintly like hydrogen peroxide.
“What is this?” Ronaldson took a step back. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, man,” said di Angelo.
He stabbed himself in the other calf and a milkier liquid flowed out. The first substance was C-Stoff, the second was D-Stoff; together they make a crude and volatile jet fuel. Suddenly Ronaldson saw the danger and went for his gun, but already it was too late. The puddles were about to touch.
Di Angelo smiled. He would be in heaven soon. Perhaps he would meet Andy there. They could be friends. The liquids connected and there was a quite tremendous explosion.
110
By Jake Wolsey, Special Correspondent
THE PRIME MINISTER has resigned after a plot he masterminded to spread the Ebola virus and enable his designs for a new British Empire in West Africa was exposed by this newspaper.
MI6 agents deliberately infected entire villages in Sierra Leone and Nigeria in order to destabilise both countries and facilitate a British military takeover. Irrefutable evidence of the conspiracy was obtained in the form of secretly recorded footage of Victor Milne and the Chief of MI6, Sir Dennis Amaoko, admitting to the scheme. Photographs of MI6 agents at work and other leaked documents also point to the veracity of the claims. At least 30,000 people have died in the outbreaks, while Sierra Leone is shortly due to vote in a referendum to transfer its government to Westminster in perpetuity. The revelations are already being compared to Watergate.
Confronted with the evidence yesterday afternoon, Mr Milne tendered his resignation to fight the allegations. He was due to visit Buckingham Palace this morning to offer The Queen an account of his actions and seek permission to dissolve the government. A snap general election is expected before the end of the year and the Home Secretary has become acting Prime Minister. Her first action was to invite a UN peacekeeping force to take over in Sierra Leone. It is thought British troops will remain in Nigeria for now, as a disordered withdrawal could put frontline soldiers at risk.
The White House has released the following statement from the President of the United States: “I am shocked and appalled to hear these allegations, which, if true, cast a mark of terrible shame against our longest-standing ally.
“There can be no excuse, no justification, for such wicked deeds. I will be ensuring these matters are investigated by the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague at the earliest opportunity.
“The British people themselves, however, remain friends and cousins of the United States. The shameful actions of one man and his handful of acolytes must not be allowed to besmirch the good name of a nation with a long and noble history of standing up for freedom and confronting tyranny. His ambitions were not their ambitions, his crime is not their crime.”
In a day of fast-moving developments:
Britain’s membership of Nato and the UN Security Council has been suspended with immediate effect.
Sir Dennis Amaoko was found dead in a car near his home in Barnet, north London. Police sources say it appears he took his own life.
The Scottish National Party disassociated the Scottish people from the government’s actions and demanded a new independence referendum immediately.
There have been suggestions that the full-blown constitutional crisis Britain finds itself in may see the dissolving of the Commonwealth, although the Monarchy itself is not thought under threat.
There have been calls for The Queen to make a public statement. There is however no suggestion that Her Majesty was aware of the plot in any way.
Alison Tovey, leader of the Opposition, said: “Victor Milne appears to have presided over a crime of a heinousness not perpetrated by British hands since the slave trade. Now justice must take its course.
“I applaud the heroic investigative journalism that brought this to light.”
A total of 48 British soldiers died during the invasion of Sierra Leone, while 17 have already lost their lives in Nigeria.
Sandra Brabham, mother of Captain James Brabham, 29, killed in Kano two days ago, said: “I am sickened to think that my eldest son may have sacrificed his life to satiate the monstrous and egotistical plans of a man …”
(Story continues pages 2 –35).
BENEATH THE STORY, by Jake Wolsey, Special Correspondent.
While exposing crimes perpetrated by the British Secret Service I was forced to live in hiding for more than two years, during which time numerous attempts on my life were made. But mine was not the only sacrifice. Two whistleblowers at MI6 were instrumental in bringing the matter to light. The name of the first is being withheld for their own safety. The second, Jennifer Frobisher, is missing and presumed dead. But for their heroism, these deeds may have gone unpunished. This newspaper pays tribute to them.
111
So it was that Waring, Heston and their new star reporter came to be standing with arms over each other’s shoulders like footballers during a World Cup penalty shootout to watch the Prime Minister resign. As the door to Number 10 opened, a newsroom which had spent twenty-four hours in tumult became that rarer thing: silent. History was unfolding before them. Milne shuffled to the lectern and looked at his feet for a long time. He appeared on the verge of tears.
“I am hereby resigning this great office,” he began. “Though I deny every word of these allegations, I know well enough that when the sands of politics shift and turn against a man, he can no more fight his destiny than he might Fate itself.”
Milne took a step away from the lectern – then returned, as if he could not bear to be parted from it, and glared at the cameras.
“Above all, I enjoin the people of Britain to cherish their Commonwealth and uphold it, to the death.”
“Just biz
arre,” whispered Heston. “The man’s lost his mind.”
With that Milne departed, sloping off along Downing Street in a blaze of flashes, his rounded shoulders suddenly those of a worn old school caretaker, not the global statesman nor the builder of Empire. Jake Wolsey, a man who had fought Fate and won, watched him go. Outside the gates Milne was read his rights, handcuffed and placed in a scuffed old police Transit van like a common criminal. The last photograph captured a morose stare through the vehicle’s window up at Big Ben as Milne thought about all it stood for; all he had betrayed. Winston Churchill gave the van a flinty glare as it circled Parliament Square.
On a big screen in a corner of the newsroom, Jake spotted something. He slipped his editor’s embrace and took a few steps towards it: hesitant, dazed, his heart hammering a double-beat. The plasma screen was split into twenty different feeds. All but one was fixated on Westminster, but Fox News had cut to a different story. The pictures came from a news plane, circling an atoll in the Indian Ocean. Smoke billowed upwards, as if the island was a live volcano. Jake enlarged the feed until it filled the screen, the vapours pouring towards him as the plane circled, and clenched a fist.
He did it.
Then a curious thing happened. Just as one might spot fanciful shapes in clouds on a summer’s day, the smoke seemed to form the silhouette of a cloaked man in a bicorne hat. A hat that was once worth forty thousand men. But it simply faded away. Something departed Jake then, some shadow that had been with him a long time. He had a new lightness in his chest, and he felt too the eye of Fate turn from him, turn away from earth and man, as if bored with its plaything: seeking some new bauble with which to while away an infinity of time and space. And even a measure of respect. For what a mortal man could do, when he put his mind to it.
“Let’s get cracking,” said Heston. “We’ve got a newspaper to write.”
“I have to go to Islington,” said Jake. “I need to go and get something.”
The news editor was about to answer back, but he merely nodded. “All right Jake-lad, I guess you’ve earned an afternoon off.”
Before he left Jake was seized by an impulse and he took the lift to the roof, staring into the heavens. The spires of the Tower of London could be seen protruding over the rooftops a few miles away. It was a clear blue sky. He thought of Jenny and hoped she was at peace. He thought of Chloë too, what she had told him in the car. It might be interesting to get to know her; but it would be just too damn weird. Finally he thought of Kanisha, who had tracked him down in Burundi of all places: as if sent there by the whims of providence.
There was something about her.
He wasn’t going to contact her yet. He needed to do nothing for a while, to digest everything that had happened. But sooner or later, he decided, he would ask Kanisha out for a coffee. And he did not need the Book of Fate to know she would say yes.
Author’s Note
As stated at the beginning of this novel, every quotation attributed to a historical figure is genuine. The documents I cite are authentic; my account of the Napoleonic Wars and the British Empire is a matter of historical fact, as you can read for yourself in the history books. The murals in the Foreign Office are exactly as described, as are the statues in Westminster Square. A hood like that worn by Etruscan augurs really was found in Napoleon’s baggage train after his defeat at Waterloo. The Zagreb Linen is real and its history is as described; the sarcophagus of the child with the broken face can be viewed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. However, in reality no mummies are conclusively linked to that of Nesikhonsu. Sir Neil Campbell’s memoirs of his meetings with Napoleon are an astonishing read, although like all of the diaries and correspondence I have quoted, I’ve edited them down (faithfully) in the name of drama and brevity.
This novel provides the reader with substantive evidence that lightning prophecy was behind the achievements of both Napoleon Bonaparte and the Victorians. Let us consider, for a moment, the alternative possibility – that this was not so, and that these feats were accomplished by mere mortals. That is, in its way, even more remarkable. For all of Napoleon’s indifference to the death and suffering caused by his crazed ambition, researching this book left me in no doubt that he was one of the most astonishing men who ever lived. And while the Victorians may have possessed many attitudes at odds with modern society, their adventurousness, industry, inventiveness and fortitude made them quite incredible people too. Stanley and Livingstone were equally remarkable men, and their exploits make those of modern explorers look like a stroll to the shops.
Brace yourself for a stream of thankyous: this book was seriously research-heavy and I relied much upon the kindness of others. I simply could not have written it without the help of the wonderful and kind Etruscan historian Professor Jean MacIntosh Turfa, one of the handful of people alive who can read Etruscan. I am grateful to Gabriel Heaton of Sotheby’s for his advice on the identification of rare manuscripts; to the BBC’s internet journalism guru Paul Myers for his expertise on tracking anonymous web users; and to my colleague Guy Lynn for teaching me everything I know about running undercover investigations. The ‘High Court test’ is one of his. Thanks to Dr Joyce Tyldesley of the University of Manchester for her advice on Egyptology. Thanks to Dr Paul Keenan of the London School of Economics for allowing me to return to my alma mater and sit in on Napoleon lectures. And thanks are due to Dr Robert Massey of Bristol Grammar School (my old history teacher!) for introducing me to Palmerston, Gladstone et al., and for his thoughts on the manuscript. Thanks to all my dear friends at BBC London for their enthusiasm and support for my foray into fiction. Thank you as well to Huw Edwards for agreeing to make a ‘cameo’ appearance in the story! I’m also grateful to Ian Mann for his wisdom on social engineering – if you wish to avoid falling victim to this yourself, his book Hacking The Human is a great place to start and I have it on good authority that it is a widely-read text in the Foreign Office. I spent much time perusing archives up and down the country in researching this tale, and I thank them for all their assistance. In particular I am indebted to Churchill College Cambridge, the University of Cambridge Library and the British Library. I only wish that in the absence of typewriters, the handwriting of our Victorian forebears was a little more legible. And thank you to my godfather Dr Paul Smith for his advice on Romans, Jerusalem and making big bangs!
Thank you to my crack team of readers: Henry Freeman, Anthea Gordon, Anna Cookson and my parents. Your comments enhanced the book so much. Thank you to my smashing agent Robin Wade, who has always pulled out all the stops on my behalf, to my brilliant copy editor Deborah Blake, and to Andrew Lockett, who signed these books and first believed in them. Thanks as well to all the excellent staff at Duckworth, especially Emma Daley and Matt Casbourne, and my editor Gesche Ipsen. And a doff of the cap as well to our legendary publisher Peter Mayer. To my fellow ink-splattered toiler in the Duckworth stable Tarn Richardson: cheers for the support, old boy. Thanks to Sarah ‘Citrus’ Thomas for being the best of pals and for showing me Vienna. Thank you also to all those who’ve accompanied me to the various locations described in this book, especially Joss Plant. I’m really glad I didn’t have to do the Livingstone leg by myself, matey.
I loved all the destinations featured in this book, and with the exception of the Palestinian Territories I researched them all on the ground. But I have to mention Sierra Leone in particular. My portrayal of that land draws heavily on incidents that (sadly) did occur during the last civil war. But that was a long time ago now, and things are not like that any more. ‘Sweet Salone’ is the most beautiful and awe-inspiring country I’ve visited, to say nothing of the people. It’s safe enough and Ebola is over – do go.
And most of all thank you to Anna, who is an incredibly special person and was a beam of positivity throughout this slightly bonkers endeavour.
The Book of Fate is now closed, and I turn my attention to a new set of characters and a new period altogether: the great darkness of Pre
history and the Stone Age. This is Deep Time. Behaviourally modern humans have existed for 50,000 years; recorded history is 5,000 years long; that leaves 45,000 years of radio silence in which our ancestors roamed the earth and left barely a trace.
What the heck were we doing all that time?
About the Author
E.M. Davey is a 33-year-old journalist specialising in undercover investigative journalism. He is currently working for BBC Radio 4 and has presented on the World Service. When not working he enjoys travel to far-flung and occasionally dangerous spots to inspire his fiction, and just for the heck of it. He has visited forty-seven countries (and counting) and while researching this book he was charged by an enraged hippopotamus. History has been his lifelong passion. This is his second thriller.
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Copyright
First published in 2016 by
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