Botha looked somewhat miffed at whatever insinuation Harker was making, and he instinctively scanned the empty corridor before replying.
‘Alex, how long have I been on your protection detail?’
‘Just over three months.’
‘That’s right. And my main protocol is to keep you safe and alive, correct?’
Harker gave a simple nod and let the Templar finish.
‘Then how unprofessional would I be not to know the nearest hospital to your location at any given time? Besides, we have a small medical unit – composed of our own people – on standby at all times in case anything should happen to you. They move, posing as a consultancy team, to whatever hospital I request so as to raise as little suspicion as possible.’
This last admission had Harker’s mouth drop open slightly. He knew the Templars were keeping a close eye on him but had never imagined this level of diligence simply for his protection.
‘I had no idea.’
‘And neither should you. That’s for me to worry about,’ Botha replied with a stern grin. He leaned towards him. ‘I sometimes wonder if you realise just how important your role as Jarl is to the Templars, Alex.’
Botha made a good point because, despite gaining access to every secret the Templars possessed, Harker had maintained a level-headed approach to his recent appointment. It was an importance that, unfortunately, was not observed to quite the same degree by Chloe. On the way over to the hospital he had called her to apologise for not attending the family get together. Chloe had been understanding but had made it patently clear that she was not at all happy about it. Still, Doggie would hold the fort for him – although whether that was a good thing was yet to be seen.
‘I really do appreciate everything you do for me, Xavier,’ Harker replied sincerely, and received a simple nod from Botha, just as a muffled sound of organised chaos could be heard from the other side of the operating theatre doors.
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like that thing.’ Botha turned to face him. ‘Those oversized eyes…’
‘Forget the eyes. How about the five fingers!’
Both men now stared at each other in confusion.
‘It looked barely human,’ Harker ventured, but this observation received a more than disconcerted look from Botha.
‘Let’s just wait and see what the doctor says, shall we?’
‘And Legrundy?’ For the first time since discovering the strange humanoid, Harker was considering the Mithras killer’s role in all this. ‘Where is she now?’
‘She’s being taken to a safe house for the time being, but hopefully she can shed some light on all this.’
‘Good luck then,’ Harker snorted dismissively. ‘She’s as tight-lipped as they come.’
Botha was already nodding in agreement. ‘Maybe, but we’ll see.’
His menacing tone had Harker eyeing him suspiciously, because the Templars weren’t torturers – even when dealing with someone as vile as Legrundy – but there was something in the man’s voice that hinted nothing was off the table.
This awkward moment was broken as the operating theatre doors were pushed outwards and one of the nurses appeared.
‘I think you’d better come in, gentlemen.’
The operating theatre was a flurry of activity as a team of three nurses worked on their new patient. Poised above him, Dr Cordon, wearing green scrubs and a surgical mask, was already securing two defibrillator pads to the man’s chest.
‘Stand clear,’ the surgeon warned, as the short drone of an alarm signalled that the charge was ready.
The patient’s body rose upwards as the pads released an electrical charge, his muscles tensing briefly before relaxing back against the table. Dr Cordon checked for a pulse. Whatever he felt made him pause and, after a puzzled glance towards the nearest nurse, he repeated his order for a second time
‘Clear.’
Another charge surged through the patient’s muscles, and once again his chest rose upwards momentarily before sinking back down onto the operating table, as the team checked again for a heartbeat.
Nothing.
With a gloomy expression, Dr Cordon looked in Botha’s direction and shook his head. ‘He’s gone, so I’m calling it. DOA.’ But rather than raising the blanket to cover the deceased’s head, he instead beckoned over one of the nurses.
‘Get me the ultrasound, please, quick as you can.’
Within moments the nurse had wheeled the scanner over and placed the transducer into Dr Cordon’s waiting hands. With the flick of a switch the scanner’s monitor flickered into life.
Now brimming with curiosity, Harker moved closer to the operating table to watch as Dr Cordon gelled up the tip of the transducer and ran it across the dead man’s chest, and the screen began to offer an interior glimpse of the body.
‘What are you looking for?’ Harker asked, as Botha now joined him.
‘Hold on and I’ll show you,’ the surgeon replied. He brought the transducer to a halt directly in the middle of the dead man’s chest, his gaze locked on the monitor. ‘That’s unbelievable.’
Dr Cordon instinctively stepped back from the monitor, and Harker pushed forward to get a better look. Even though his medical training was limited in the extreme, there was no denying what he now saw.
‘He’s got two hearts,’ Harker declared flatly, whereupon the surgeon managed a nod. ‘Is that… normal?’
‘Obviously not, Alex,’ Botha replied sarcastically, peering at the screen, and both he and the doctor glared at Harker as if he were an idiot.
‘What I mean is have you ever seen that before?’ Harker persisted, and this time received a more understanding look from the surgeon.
‘I’ve never seen… I’ve not even heard of it occurring, except in conjoined twins.’
The three men glanced at one another thoughtfully, whereupon Dr Cordon began to move the transducer lower down the patient’s abdomen. ‘Everything else is normal, so far as I can see. The kidneys, liver, lungs are a bit larger than normal, but apart from that…’
His hand came to a stop and then hovered above an area on the lower left hand side of the stomach, before moving the instrument further around the patient’s flank. ‘There’s something else in there,’ he muttered. He plucked a scalpel off the metal side tray and began to make a shallow incision, from the centre of the sternum, in a C shape running all the way down to the waist. He then began to separate the skin from the muscle, with gentle flicks of the scalpel, until an entire flap of skin could be rolled back.
By now Harker felt pretty sure he was about to throw up, but as Dr Cordon lightly scraped away yellow patches of fat to reveal something else on the inside of the skin, his queasiness turned to fascination. There were markings, tattooed in black ink, on the inner surface of the skin itself.
‘What the hell is that?’ Botha asked loudly even as Dr Cordon continued to scrape away yet more fatty tissue, and in so doing revealed more of the tattoo.
‘It’s some kind of writing,’ Harker replied, already beginning to recognise some of the letters. Dr Cordon scraped off the last pieces of tissue to reveal the markings in full. There were five lines’ worth, meticulously drawn, but what really stood out was the symbol that enclosed the text. It looked like a simple bag, with looped handles at the top, and the written lines were all contained inside it.
‘Is that a shopping bag?’ Botha asked, instantly feeling foolish for having suggested such a ridiculous thing. But he was right, for it did look like the kind of item one might carry groceries in.
‘It’s cuneiform script,’ Harker replied, moving hesitantly closer to the creature’s exposed flesh.
Botha was now looking confused and he shook his head. ‘Cuneiform? Sounds French. What is it? A French shopping outlet?’
‘No, you fool,’ snapped Harker, getting a dirty look from Botha for his dismissiveness. ‘It’s an ancient form of writing – the oldest, actually – but I don’t recognise the words. Just as importan
tly, how did he manage to tattoo it on the inside of his skin?’
The three men gazed at each other vacantly, as the three nurses behind them looked on with blank expressions.
‘I’ve absolutely no idea,’ Dr Cordon replied, as someone began pounding on the doors. This had all three men startled and they turned in unison to see it open slightly and a face peer through the gap.
‘Ah, there you are.’ Dean Thomas Lercher offered them a courteous smile as he pushed his way into the room. ‘Alex, what are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here? What about the family meal with Chloe?’
Doggie waved a hand in front of him dismissively. ‘It’s going fine, don’t worry. But after your rather cryptic phone call to Chloe, I wanted to check you were OK.’
Harker’s call had been anything but cryptic: he was at the hospital, he was fine, but he’d have to miss the meal with Chloe’s parents. In truth this intrusion was more likely due to Doggie’s need to be in the middle of everything, a theory that was confirmed within moments.
‘So you’ve not been in an accident then. That’s a relief.’ Doggie gave a sigh as he let the doors swing shut behind him and headed over to join the others with a look of eager curiosity, raising his shoulders like a schoolboy in the playground wanting to get in on whatever was being discussed. ‘So, what’s going on?’
Before Harker could answer, the dean caught sight of the abnormal-looking body they were all standing around, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening like saucers.
‘What the hell is that?’
Instinctively both Harker and Botha formed a barrier in front of the operating table but Doggie swiftly circumnavigated them and came to a stop at the foot of the table.
‘Good god, Alex,’ he gasped, raising a hand before his mouth in obvious revulsion at the sight. ‘What on earth are you up to? And could someone please tell me why this man’s skin has been peeled back?’
Doggie now focused his attention on the patient’s unique appearance. ‘Is he human?’ the dean enquired in a daze, his hand dropping from his mouth.
Given the bizarre appearance of the dead man’s face, it was a reasonable question. Botha only offered a shrug of his shoulders, and it was Harker who replied. ‘Yes… we think so.’
‘But he’s got six fingers!’ Doggie exclaimed in an unusually high tone of voice, before noticing the other arm was a stump. ‘And what happened to his other hand?’
Although he appeared grossed out by the spectacle he was clearly also fascinated. Then he pointed to the tattooed writing. ‘And what is that?’
Dr Cordon immediately pulled the skin flap back across to hide the writing, which elicited an immediate and unamused glare from the dean.
‘I take it we’re all friends here,’ he said resentfully.
‘Friends’ was Doggie’s latest code word for Templars, and Botha, looking unhappy, expelled a frustrated sigh.
‘We are indeed, Dean.’
That was all the reassurance Doggie needed and he sauntered over to Harker’s side as Dr Cordon pulled the flap back open. ‘So, what have we got here, gentlemen?’ he began sternly, instantly settling into lecturer mode.
Telling Doggie to get lost would be a waste of breath, and anyway the man could prove to be of some help to them.
‘You tell me,’ Harker suggested as the dean looked closer, wrinkling his nose.
‘Interesting. I would say, at a glance, it’s a type of cuneiform – but not one I recognise.’
‘That’s was my thinking too,’ Harker said, now pointing to the bag symbol encompassing the entire tattoo. ‘And that surround?’
At the sound of a vibrating mobile phone, Botha reached into his pocket and then without a word made his way out of the operating theatre into the corridor outside.
Doggie continued to examine the markings more closely. ‘Well, it represents some sort of bag, doesn’t it, Alex?’
‘Yes, that much I guessed. But what is it?’
Doggie thought hard about this for a moment, then he stood up straight and made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Well, I’d say that if the writing is a shopping list, then this was a person in tremendous need of a pen and paper.’
The joke did not amuse Harker or Dr Cordon.
‘Sorry, Alex, just my attempt at bringing some levity into the situation,’ Doggie said gingerly. ‘It’s not every day one is faced with a corpse missing one hand, five fingers on the other hand, that doesn’t even appear to be human.’
Harker’s continued silence spoke volumes and, with an embarrassed gulp, Doggie resumed his more professional manner.
‘I don’t know what that means exactly, but basically cuneiform was the written text of the Sumerians or the Mesopotamians – two of the oldest civilisations ever to grace the earth. They invented the wheel and were the first to develop agriculture and animal husbandry, as you well know, Alex. It’s from them that earliest human civilisation sprang, but our lack of precise archaeological knowledge of them means they enter only as a footnote in most history books.’
‘They were also the first to introduce the twelve-month calendar,’ Harker pointed out, as Doggie nodded in agreement.
‘Very true, using the lunar cycle. But in general they remain a somewhat mysterious group…’ His words trailed off and then his eyebrows lifted upwards. ‘You should go and speak to Barbara Holtz, who’s still one of the leading scholars when it comes to cuneiform and the Sumerians. You remember her, don’t you, Alex?’
Doggie’s last sentence was delivered with one eyebrow raised teasingly. ‘I believe she’s based in Gibraltar, if memory serves,’ he continued.
Harker’s eyes narrowed at the mention, but before he could answer, the doors swung open and Botha reappeared, waving his mobile in one hand.
‘One of my boys found something back at the old house,’ he began encouragingly. ‘On that world map we found, with the bloodstain marking Gibraltar. There were three names written underneath it in black biro. Easily missed until they shone a torch onto it.’
‘Barbara Holtz being one,’ Harker remarked, receiving a surprised stare from Botha.
‘Yes, Dr Barbara Holtz. How did you know that?’
‘Just an educated guess,’ Harker replied, with a glance over at Doggie as Botha continued.
‘The other two were Dr Michael Wexler and Dr Marsouk Khan, both archaeologists.’
The two names elicited no spark of recognition from either Harker or Doggie. Botha continued, now scrolling through the screen of his phone.
‘Dr Khan was found dead at his home after suffering a heart attack, some two weeks ago, while Michael Wexler’s body washed up on the shores of southern France the day before yesterday… the working assumption being suicide.’
Harker felt his heart begin to beat faster. This wasn’t due to shock, because he had never met these men, but rather the feeling of a connection being made – like holding a piece of a puzzle whose precise location on the board had yet to be discovered. Completely nonsensical maybe, but a powerful feeling nonetheless. ‘Do you happen to know what they were working on?’
‘Doesn’t say, but I’m sure we can find out,’ Botha replied before dropping the phone back in his pocket. ‘Though I’ll bet the blood on the map matches our friend’s here.’
They all glanced over at the corpse lying on the table with the dried blood on its remaining fingertips.
‘Whatever the Mithras cult were looking for, they obviously got it out of him.’
As Harker mulled over what any of this could mean, it was the surgeon who now sought to bring the gathering to a close.
‘Well, gentlemen, I intend now to do an autopsy, so unless you revel in the sight of blood, then I would suggest you leave the room.’
‘Of course, Doctor,’ Harker said with a gracious nod. ‘I’d be very interested to know what you discover and also I’d appreciate a detailed photograph of that tattoo. Xavier here can give you my contact number.’
With a thumbs-up from Cordon, Harker nudged Doggie out into the corridor, whilst Botha stayed behind to hand over the relevant details.
No sooner had the doors swung closed behind them than Doggie had grabbed him by the lapels, his professional demeanour entirely vanished. ‘What the hell is going on? You take off from the church in pursuit of Legrundy and next I find you deliberating around the bloody corpse of… whatever that thing is with its skin peeled off.’
Even though the dean appeared furious, he was, as usual, consumed only with curiosity. So Harker simply grasped his friend by the arm and guided him along the corridor. ‘I’ll tell you all about it in the car, but I need you to go back to the meal now and keep everyone happy.’
This request brought Doggie to a complete halt, and he stubbornly crossed his arms. ‘There’s not a chance I’m going back there. It’s a total nightmare.’
‘But I thought you said everything was going great!’
‘Well, it is, for me,’ Doggie said tentatively, nevertheless managing a smug smile. ‘They’ve really warmed to me. But as for you? Well, let’s just say that charm you’re usually renowned for hasn’t hit the mark.’
Harker let out a groan and dropped his chin momentarily to his chest, before looking back up at Doggie with a rather pathetic hint of desperation in his eyes. ‘Her mother seemed to like me.’
He received a wince from Doggie and a slow shake of the head.
‘Did her father mention me?’ Harker asked, his eyes beginning to glaze in defeat.
‘Well, not by name, but he did refer to “that bloody man” quite a few times.’
Harker’s shoulders slumped and he rubbed at his forehead in frustration. ‘Christ, you’d think I robbed her old man blind or something.’
Doggie gave a short chuckle. ‘What can be worse than stealing away a father’s only daughter? And, just for the record, I told you that arriving unannounced at the church was a bad idea.’
Harker was doing everything in his power not to clasp his hands around Doggie’s throat and throttle him, when Botha came striding towards them.
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