The Doomsday Testament (45 page)

He was still smiling when the arm locked around his neck like a steel clamp.

Shock and fear slowed his reactions, but he knew the first few seconds of a situation like this were crucial. He managed to stab his elbow into the ribs of the man behind him with enough force to make him grunt and his right leg twisted round the other’s in an attempt to unbalance him. At the same time, he reached both hands over his left shoulder to get a grip of his unseen opponent’s collar and threw his weight forward, bending his left knee and trying for a hip throw that would use the attacker’s bulk against him. He might as well have tried to shift a block of concrete. In desperation he smashed his head backward, anything to loosen the grip that was choking him, but he only managed a glancing blow that made the other man laugh. His stockinged heels scraped on the concrete as he was dragged helplessly towards a darkened alcove off the main car park.

‘Twice you have missed our appointment. There will not be a third time.’

The voice sounded familiar, but before he could place it Jamie’s legs were kicked from under him and massive hands slammed him to the ground so the back of his skull bounced off the floor. While his head still spun, some kind of filthy rag was stuffed into his mouth. He was positioned head first towards the garage with his
feet
into the alcove. An enormous weight settled on his chest, pinning his arms at his side and he found himself looking up into a grinning face that was too small for the head it inhabited. He searched for a name and his heart stopped as he found it. Gustav.

‘I took this from a Taliban who was trying to cut my balls off outside Farkar, up in Kunduz,’ the squat German said conversationally, producing a long curved knife from inside his zipped jacket. ‘Guess who still has their balls?’

He brought the knife down close to Jamie’s face, so he could see every shade of blue on the shimmering blade, and drew the razor edge across the Englishman’s cheek. Very slowly. First the left side, then the right; the blade rasping effortlessly through two days of stubble.

‘You didn’t have time to shave? No need now, eh? Frederick, he thinks you’re planning to auction the Sun Stone, but that will not happen, OK?’ He slapped Jamie’s cheek for emphasis. Now the wicked twinkle of the knife point hovered directly over Jamie’s right eyeball. ‘It won’t happen because you are going to tell Gustav exactly where it is or you end up like your friend. The stone belongs to us, the keepers of the truth; the successors of the ancients. Only we have the knowledge to use it for the purpose it was intended.’ The words came out stilted and mechanical, as if they’d been learned by constant repetition in a school room. Jamie shook his head to try to dislodge the gag, but the German interpreted the movement as rebellion or defiance. ‘No? That’s good, because now we’re going
to
have some fun, you and me.’ Gustav studied him impassively, like a butcher contemplating a cut of meat. ‘The eyes, the ears or the nose? Not the tongue. You will need the tongue later.’ His free hand reached down to caress the side of Jamie’s head. ‘The ears then.’

Desperately, Jamie used all his strength in an attempt to shift the German.

‘Shhh,’ Gustav said gently. ‘The more you struggle, the worse it is for you.’

Rough fingers closed on the lobe of Jamie’s right ear and pulled it taut. He tried to scream behind the gag that filled his mouth, but he knew no one would ever hear him. He thought he was losing his mind when a red spot appeared like a cancerous mole beside Gustav’s left lip. The spot wavered and Jamie’s eyes followed it. The German must have read something in his captive’s face, because he hesitated before making the cut. Another bright spot appeared over his left breast, and a third almost exactly in the centre of his forehead. Gustav frowned and his eye drifted down to the spot on his chest. It took him a split second to recognize it for what it was.

‘No!’

The knife rose high before the blade descended in a deadly two-handed arc towards Jamie’s exposed throat. Three sharp cracks split the silence.

Sarah saw Jamie emerge from the car park lift and went to meet him. The Englishman’s face was pale, almost grey, and at first he seemed to look right
through
her. When she took his arm, he blinked and forced a smile.

‘Hey, you’re shaking,’ she said.

‘I had a bit of a run-in with the car park attendant. I’ll be fine in a minute.’

They walked in the general direction of the river. It was busy now, the offices and banks were emptying and the streets filled with shoppers. At the intersection of two streets they found a tourist sign that pointed them towards the Frauenkirche and, when they crossed, there it was, on the far side of a small park in the centre of the square.

Sarah gave an involuntary gasp when she saw the soaring, octagonal confection in honeyed stone that dominated everything around it, the enormous dome topped by a twenty-foot bell tower. As they walked across the square, Jamie hesitated, torn between what he knew was right and what he knew was best. He could turn away now and they could get on with their lives as if this had never happened. But could they? Frederick and his thugs would never stop looking for them as long as he thought they would lead him to the Sun Stone. Every time they opened the door it could be to some human meat grinder like Gustav. No. It had to be this way. In any case, there were things he had to know and things Sarah had to understand.

She felt his steps falter and thought he was delaying to get a better view of the church. ‘I wonder what your grandfather would have thought of it?’

Jamie squeezed her hand, the last doubt gone, and
led
her into the hallowed silence of the interior, where the gilt Baroque ceiling soared above just as it had done three hundred years earlier, supported by lavishly painted marble columns and layers of galleries, the windows allowing in an almost ethereal light that made the whole church glow. In the cupola of the dome, they could see the faces staring out from the glass front of the ramp that led in a long spiral up to the viewing platform. Several dozen tourists wandered the aisles taking in the wonder around them. Sarah followed him to a place in the front pew in front of the astonishing golden masterpiece of the High Altar and waited as he bowed his head as if in prayer.

They’d been sitting for a few minutes when they were joined by a pony-tailed man in a denim jacket who looked as if he’d just escaped from a 1970s pop group. Gradually, recognition dawned. Howard Vanderbilt never voluntarily appeared on TV business shows, but despite his best efforts a few images of him survived. The pictures they used were either photos from a time when the ponytail had actually been in fashion or blurred shots of a distant figure on the hundred-million-dollar yacht that transported him around the Bahamas every summer. Jamie tried to tell himself he’d been expecting this, but it was still a shock to be sitting within feet of one of the richest men in the world – especially when that man was holding a gleaming 9 mm pistol that appeared to be aimed in the direction of his heart.

‘Mr Saintclair, I’m glad to meet you at last.’

‘I wish I could say the same, sir.’

The fact that Howard Vanderbilt was carrying a gun told Jamie everything he needed about the billionaire industrialist’s state of mind. Just like Walter Brohm, Vanderbilt had been driven beyond logic and reason by the Sun Stone. Why else would a man who could buy and sell whole countries be running around with a pistol when he had half a dozen perfectly good executioners sitting within fifteen feet? Their relative positions meant they were forced to talk across Sarah, who seemed not to have noticed the pistol and was showing similar signs to a volcano about to erupt. Her hands clutched at the shoulder bag in her lap and Jamie hoped she would keep them there.

A commotion at the back of the church signalled a new influx of visitors and Jamie turned his head to see a dark-suited figure he recognized as Frederick push his way past Vanderbilt’s bodyguards. Four shaven-headed minders in leather jackets and jeans accompanied him, sweeping the interior of the Frauenkirche with their eyes and evidently not liking what they saw. They’d still be trying to figure out Gustav’s mysterious disappearance and it would make them jumpy, but Jamie hoped not too jumpy. He was reassured when a word from Frederick brought them to heel. He noted a flaring of the nostrils when the previously impassive German recognized the man sitting beside him. Interesting, but they’d have to wait to see how interesting.

The German took his seat in the second pew, off to Jamie’s right but within touching distance of Howard Vanderbilt’s left shoulder. An aide approached the
tycoon
and he visibly stiffened when he heard whatever information he’d been given. Vanderbilt snatched a glance towards the man seated behind him and Frederick’s pale eyes hardened, confirming the surveillance information Mr Lim had provided in exchange for the location of the Sun Stone. Of course, the trade had been a little one-sided and Mr Lim hadn’t expected to be part of a delegation, but Jamie hoped he was a man who appreciated irony.

For a few seconds the two sets of bodyguards jockeyed for position in the open spaces around the pews as if they were part of a carefully choreographed ballet. Vanderbilt frowned, his patience evidently wearing thin. ‘As you can see, Frederick, I have this situation under control,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Your presence is not required. We can talk about this later, but for now I think you and your friends should leave.’ The only answer was a short laugh and at some unseen signal one of Vanderbilt’s bodyguards moved to Frederick’s right where he could cover the German’s gun hand.

Howard Vanderbilt sighed and when he spoke, Jamie detected a lack of certainty in his voice. The weariness of a man who had run out of time, or ideas, or both. Obviously this wasn’t going according to the industrialist’s plan.

‘You have caused me some trouble, Mr Saintclair. I have spent a great deal of time and money seeking out what has brought us to this place. It ends here. Am I clear on that?’

‘Very clear, Mr Vanderbilt.’ He thought he heard the
word
‘chicken’ but Sarah might only have been sighing. ‘But I would have thought that in your world everything was a matter of negotiation?’

Vanderbilt leaned closer to Sarah. ‘I can buy it, or I can take it, son, it’s up to you. Name your price. We’re finished playing games.’

Jamie shook his head and looked around. ‘Do you think you and your stormtroopers are the only people who’ve been following me? Bugging my phone? There’s probably an NSA satellite up there right at this moment, listening to every word we say. The cheerful Oriental gentleman at the back with his two friends is to my certain knowledge a representative of the Chinese government. Everybody wants the Sun Stone, Howard, and frankly you’re the last person I’d give it up to. All you want to do is exploit it, whatever the cost. Just like Brohm.’

Vanderbilt’s face hardened. ‘Have it your own way, son.’ He moved the barrel of the pistol from Jamie to Sarah. ‘Tell me where the stone and Brohm’s documents are or I’ll kill the girl.’

Jamie stared at him. Not even Howard Vanderbilt could get away with murder in a church full of witnesses, but suddenly the church wasn’t so full. Young men in dark suits began ushering the tourists out. Most went, but Jamie could hear Mr Lim politely refusing the offer of assistance to leave, and the distinct sound of a pistol being cocked seemed to indicate that the pro-Frederick members of the Vril Society were prepared to stand their ground. Jamie hoped that he hadn’t misread the
cast
who’d assembled here, the last thing they needed was a shooting war in the Frauenkirche.

Vanderbilt took a big breath. ‘I . . .’

It wasn’t often a man like Howard Vanderbilt could be rendered speechless, but the muzzle of the little pistol Sarah Grant was screwing into the flesh beneath his right ear achieved what presidents and prime ministers had routinely failed to do.

‘The Sun Stone belongs to the State of Israel,’ she said loudly enough for everyone in the church to hear.

‘Perhaps I should have mentioned that, Howard,’ Jamie said patiently. ‘Miss Grant and the handsome gentleman who has the drop on us from the walkway up there are here to represent the people who were sacrificed to help Walter Brohm unlock the potential of the Sun Stone.’

It was time. He got to his feet and addressed everyone in the church. ‘Gentlemen.’ He raised his voice and it rang around the enormous space that had been designed precisely for that purpose. He allowed himself a smile at Sarah. ‘And lady. This is a place of worship, let us not turn it into a war zone. As you can see, we have a number of competing interests for the legacy of the late Brigadeführer Walter Brohm. Mr Vanderbilt here believes he has a divine right to exploit it and the gun in his hand suggests he is probably prepared to go further than any of you to get it. The shadowy gentleman behind him, representing the paramilitary wing of the Vril Society, may have a legal point were he to suggest that what Walter Brohm called the Sun Stone was in
the
gift of the then Tibetan government and that the investment which brought the major breakthrough in exploiting it was made by his countrymen. I suppose the German government could make a similar claim, though I doubt that they would want to press it. Mr Lim,’ the Chinaman bowed his head, ‘of the Chinese People’s Republic, would argue that his country has a more legitimate claim to it than any of you, because the Sun Stone was first discovered in the soil his people lay claim to, although I know the supporters of a Free Tibet would dispute that claim. And finally, Miss Sarah Grant, representative of the State of Israel, who can give evidence, which I’d be happy to support, of the human sacrifice her people were forced to make by Walter Brohm in the pursuit of his obsession.

‘But,’ he continued, ‘as I said, this is a place of worship. It is not a law court. You are all here because you want to know the story of the Sun Stone, particularly how it is going to end. My grandfather, like Walter Brohm’s father, was a churchman, so please indulge me if I preach you a short sermon about greed.