——————— ◆ ———————
US Central Command
(USCENTCOM)
Camp as-Sayliyah
The State of Qatar
The Arabian Gulf
The military flight back to Qatar was uneventful.
Ava’s experiences in Kazakhstan had left her exhausted, and she had been grateful for the opportunity to collapse into the hard seat and recharge.
Her clothes still reeked of exhaust fumes, and she was a long way off full strength. But having devoured the steaming foil pack of chilli and rice the loadie had passed her, and then had some sleep, she awoke feeling more refreshed.
When the plane nosed down onto the scorching tarmac at Camp as-Sayliyah, she was ready to face General Hunter.
Prince had no doubt reported back to him, so he would at least be aware all had not gone according to plan in Astana. Ferguson had headed straight back to London, and would by now have debriefed with DeVere, who may have passed some of it on to Hunter.
So what she had to say to him would not come as a total surprise.
The plane door popped open with a click and hiss. Dazzlingly bright desert morning sunlight filtered into the bare cabin, followed by a rush of hot air which hit her hard in the face and throat as if someone had opened a large oven door. But after the dampness of Astana, she was pleased to feel the warmth.
As she stepped to the door and looked out across the bleak desertscape of eastern Qatar, she could see a camouflaged figure striding towards the plane.
It was General Hunter.
Even at a distance, he towered over his surroundings.
His expression suggested all was not well. “What the hell happened out there?” he bellowed over the deafening noise of the two tail-mounted jets powering down.
Ava was taken aback by the tone of his question. “You’re asking
me
?” she yelled back. “It should be me asking
you
!”
As she got to the bottom of the ramp, he ushered her into a green open-topped jeep heading back to the main building.
After hours in a stuffy plane, she was grateful for the fresh air. The breeze was refreshing, and she was enjoying the wind on her face.
“This wasn’t a complicated operation,” Hunter began, tapping his knee impatiently with his hand. “You’d better tell me what happened.”
Ava felt the tension of the last twelve hours bubbling over. “Let’s get one thing straight,” she turned to him indignantly. “You came to me with a problem. I was very happy to help—”
“Of course you were,” he interrupted. “It’s the chance of a lifetime for you—”
She cut him off. “But I expected at the very least some professional assistance. So far, I’m pretty underwhelmed, General. Your team lost us at the outset. Someone thought it was a smart idea to double-cross the Congolese, which they didn’t take well. We were drugged, gassed, and left for dead.” She glared at him. “I may have been out of the loop for a few years, but even in my day that wouldn’t have been considered a model operation.”
Hunter looked blank. “Double-crossed?”
Ava nodded. “Something about a recce then an assault on the warehouse where the militia had been holding the Ark. So they changed the plan and took us to a boat.”
Hunter looked surprised. “An assault? That’s news to me. I can assure you the order didn’t come from my office.”
He looked at the airstrip speeding by for a moment before running a large hand over his close-cropped grey hair. “So did you get to examine the Ark, before it all came unstuck?”
Ava shook her head. “The meeting turned nasty too soon. I never even saw it.”
Hunter grimaced. “Well, so be it.” His tone was businesslike once more. “The RMF militia has now broken off all communication. You were the last person to hear from them.”
He paused, changing tack. “If they were going to sell it, how would they do it?”
Ava considered the question for a moment. “The world of antiquities attracts a lot of crooks. Objects are regularly stolen—often to order. Export permits are forged. Officials are bribed to turn a blind eye. It’s all done privately through brokers, away from the taxman. The sums changing hands can be immense, running into the tens, sometimes even hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“But if you were them,” Hunter interrupted, “who would you go to if you wanted to sell something like the Ark?”
“Not so much who, as where,” Ava answered. “Black market antiquities obey a simple rule—they follow the money. If I was offloading an artifact as unique as this to a broker, it would have to be into Russia, the Gulf, or China. As it’s a Judeo-Christian object, I’d say one of the Russian brokers. They operate mostly out of St Petersburg, in the area around the Hermitage and the Nevsky Prospekt.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But the RMF have a political agenda. They’re not looking for a straightforward cash sale.”
“True,” Hunter nodded.
“Then that’s the market for power and politics, not the art market. For that, they’d probably use a go-between to get access into Tehran’s government circles. I’d guess that Beirut, Dubai and London are all home to the right kind of fixers.”
Hunter exhaled slowly, before pulling a card out of his top pocket. “Well, we’ve hit a brick wall for now. The militia has disappeared with the Ark, and there’s no guarantee we’ll see them again.” He gave the card to Ava. “These are my numbers. Call me if you hear anything—anything at all.”
Ava stared at him in disbelief.
That was it?
The end?
“You’re just walking away?” she asked, failing to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
Hunter raised his eyebrows. “Dr Curzon, we have many military commitments in this region. Unless we get credible intelligence the Ark is real and the militia is on the verge of engaging with the Iranians, then I can no longer allocate resources to this. I’m handing the file over to the Defense Intelligence people.” He buttoned up the pocket he had taken the card from. “They’ll call you if they need anything, I’m sure.”
Ava could hardly believe what she was hearing.
Hunter massaged the bridge of his nose with his chunky fingers. “So you really think they have the original Ark from King Solomon’s Temple?”
“I don’t know,” Ava replied quietly.
The driver pulled the jeep up outside the large main building where she had first been briefed. Hunter nodded for him to kill the engine.
He stared off into the distance, visibly troubled, before turning back to Ava. “There’s something else you should know. I’ve been in two minds whether to tell you.”
Ava raised an eyebrow. Nothing Hunter had said from the moment she first met him had been dull.
“We’re getting reports that the man behind the operation is a German, named Malchus. He was recently released early from serving a prison sentence in Turkey.”
The name meant nothing to Ava.
“He used to be a high-flying officer in the East German Stasi,” Hunter continued. “I know I don’t have to tell you what that means. When the wall came down in ’89, he went freelance, embracing the underworld of the new capitalism. By all accounts he’s an extremely nasty piece of work.”
“If he’s the average eastern-bloc gangster-capitalist, what’s his interest in biblical artefacts?” Ava could not see the connection. “Surely weapons and drugs are more his line?”
“Well, here’s the thing.” Hunter exhaled deeply. “The information we have says he’s into black magic and all that kind of stuff,” he grimaced. “And I don’t mean playing heavy metal records backwards and lighting joss sticks. He’s a highly dangerous man with heavy connections, and he’s deeply involved in some very twisted things.”
Ava smiled sadly. “You’re talking to the wrong Curzon, General. It’s my father who specialized in people like him. He set up a unit within MI6 focused on observing and penetrating occult-political movements. He worked hard to demonstrate that there are networks of them on every continent. It was his life’s work. He was convinced a modern intelligence service should know what these occultists are up to, and understand that they pose a permanent risk of going political. He only needed to cite Rasputin and Himmler to get people’s attention. He broke up a number of significant politico-occult circles, and foiled a handful of religious ritual killings… .” Her voice trailed off. “But, as I say, that was his line, not mine. I do straight archaeology.”
“I know about your father,” Hunter answered. “That’s why I’m going to give you this information—because your world just collided with his.” He pulled a photo out of his breast pocket and gave it to her. “That’s Malchus.”
She looked at the picture.
The image was of a stocky man with a full hairless face and fleshy lips. A pair of cold sea-green eyes stared out from heavy eyelids. Ava felt a shiver. It was a chilling face.
“I still don’t understand.” She looked at Hunter. “What’s this got to do with me?”
“I don’t know what the British authorities told you about your father’s death. But our files say he was investigating Malchus when he was killed.”
Ava went rigid.
She had never been told anything.
Even though she was employed by MI6 at the time, the details were never passed to her, despite her many requests. She had merely been told it was classified information, like all deaths in service.
There had been nothing else.
Hunter continued. “Our files show your father did Malchus’s group quite some damage, and that he was getting close to Malchus himself.” He paused. “Here’s the thing—our files also suggest there’s a strong chance it was Malchus himself who killed your father.”
With no warning Ava felt a bolt of white-hot anger well up and shoot through her as a cocktail of hormones and emotions ripped around her system. This was not the frustrated anger she had felt when he had died. It was different. And she knew instantly what it was.
It was rage.
She could not believe that now, after eleven years, she was hearing this for the first time. She had put her life on the line for the Firm more times than she could remember, yet they had never even given her this simple but life-changing piece of information.
Almost as quickly as it had begun, the heat passed, leaving her feeling drained. She breathed in slowly and deeply, and with it her mind settled into a sense of cold purpose.
“Why was this information never given to the police?” she asked, startled at how steady her voice sounded.
Hunter shrugged. “Maybe it was? Who knows.”
She thought angrily of DeVere. He had been her father’s partner. He had worked alongside him. He had been to their home innumerable times. And yet he had been satisfied with the explanation that her father had died on active service. But then she had always known that he was at heart a career man. He did things by the book. He was a safe pair of hands, and never ruffled feathers unnecessarily.
That was another reason why she had left.
The Firm made people less human.
She looked down at the photograph of Malchus again, her sense of focus now cold and crystal clear.
Regardless of her involvement with the Ark, she was going to see to it that Malchus was made to answer for his role in her father’s death—whatever part he may have played.
She had long ago given up all hope of finding out exactly how her father had died. Now, when she least expected it, she felt the deep drive of a sense of purpose to track down his killer.
She was staring so intently at the photograph that she barely heard Hunter. “Dr Curzon, I’m telling you this for your own safety. If there’s any possibility that Malchus still bears a grudge and might now turn his attention onto you—”
“I’ll recognize him,” Ava finished his thought in a low voice. “You can be sure of that.”
“Okay. We’ve done all we can for now.” From the tone of his voice she could tell the discussion was over.
He opened his door and got out of the jeep, then walked round to Ava’s side. “If I didn’t say so before, I’m sorry for what happened last night. Do you want our medics to check you over?”
Ava shook her head. “A paramedic cleared me before we took off.”
Hunter held out his hand to shake hers. “Then thank you for your time and courage, Dr Curzon. Needless to say, you’ve never been here, and yesterday and today didn’t happen. Please feel free to make use of the facilities on camp before we get you home.”
Ava shook his hand. “You know where to find me if the Ark surfaces again.” She nearly added “or Malchus”, but that was now her own personal issue. No need to confuse the two.
Hunter thumped the driver on the shoulder. “Make sure Dr Curzon gets home safely, door-to-door.”
She watched as Hunter headed through the large dusty doors into a sea of desert-pattern camouflage uniforms.
As the driver started the engine and they headed over to the visitors’ block, she had a deep feeling that, far from being over, her involvement with the Ark—and now with Malchus—was only just beginning.
——————— ◆ ———————
Quedlinburg
Saxony-Anhalt
The Federal Republic of Germany
Malchus retraced his steps back to Quedlinburg’s touristy
Marktplatz.
It was still deserted.
He passed the statue of Roland, Charlemagne’s famous paladin. The heroic knight was a common sight in Germany’s market-squares, but he did not find this one particularly impressive—not nearly as mighty as the ancient one in Bremen.
As he walked past the medieval
Rathaus
, the townhall, he stopped briefly to look at the strange carving of a dog over the doorway. But he soon carried on, turning west, leaving the old city behind.
The day was turning nasty, and angry clouds had descended, hiding the mountains and heralding rain.
But he was oblivious to the elements.
He clutched the silver flight case to his chest, and walked as quickly as he could. He only stopped once to visit the ancient Roman Catholic church of St Kastor, before arriving at his destination in under twenty minutes.
It was a nondescript nineteenth-century house. The cream paint had faded, the garden was a little overgrown, and it all had a general air of genteel neglect.
It was perfect for him. Hotels were busy, and asked for too many details. He wanted anonymity and privacy on this trip, and the unobtrusive
pension
fitted the bill exactly.
Entering the house, he closed the glass-panelled front door quietly behind him, and looked down the corridor past the ornate hall mirror and framed prints and maps. He could hear the television on in the back parlour, along with Frau Hahn’s muffled laughs at the jokes of the breakfast show host.
Without taking off his coat, he slipped swiftly and softly up the once elegant stairs.
His room was basic—not at all what he was used to. Nevertheless, he could see that Frau Hahn had done her best—furnishing it with featureless heavy wooden furniture that had obviously been in her family for generations. She had tried to make it welcoming with some cheap pictures and fabric curtains, but they could not mask the fact it was a tired room for rent.
Closing the door gently behind him, he took off his heavy coat and hung it in the naphtha-scented wardrobe.
Lying on the bed, he picked up a book from the bedside table—a 1611 version of the
Missa Niger
, bound in the original tooled black calfskin.
Opening the slim volume, he began to read the spiky gothic writing, mouthing and repeating the words aloud as he perfected his memorization of the text he had first learned so many years ago.
Lunchtime came and went, but he did not move from the bed.
At around 4:00 p.m., he padded through to the adjoining kitchenette and boiled a white enamel pan of water, from which he brewed himself a cup of thick bitter coffee.
Returning to his bed, he continued to read the ancient ritual until it got dark.
As the sun finally disappeared over the horizon to the west, he got off his bed and locked the door firmly, before picking up a thick leather bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and carrying it over to the small table by the window.
There was not much space in the room, but it was enough.
He pulled the curtains closed, and extinguished the lights.
After stripping off his clothes, he took four waxy black candles from the leather bag, and laid them on the floor to mark out the four cardinal points. As he lit them, a pungent musky odour began to permeate the room.
Taking a rune-engraved silver knife from the bag, he sliced a neat incision across the flesh of his left palm, then moved slowly around the room anticlockwise, dribbling blood to create the circumference of an imaginary circle around the points marked out by the candles.
Tracing an inverted five-pointed star in blood on his forehead, he sat down in the middle of the circle, and began, “
Gloria deo, domino inferorum …”
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