The Sword of Moses (58 page)

Ava examined the envelope. The top had been slit neatly open with a razor-sharp knife. She pulled the edges apart, revealing a single sheet of folded paper nestling inside.

She took the page out carefully, and spread it out on the desk.

Like the envelope, it had been handwritten with a broad-nibbed fountain pen. The first line was in a deep vermillion red, with the rest in the same dark emerald-green ink as the envelope.

It was immediately obvious the writing was different from the hand that filled the pages of notes on Drewitt’s desk. He had therefore clearly received the letter from someone else.

She looked hard at the paper. Her first impression was that it contained five lines of eccentrically looped writing, followed by a final line in a plainer script. But as her eyes focused on it, she realized to her surprise that she could only read the last line.

Peering more closely, she suddenly saw why.

What had looked like ordinary curly writing filling the first five lines was, in fact, nothing of the sort.

She stared in disbelief at the page.

“What on earth is that?” Ferguson had walked up behind her, and was peering down at the paper.

“What is it?” she heard herself repeating, dazed. “Actually, that’s the easy part.”

“Not from where I’m standing.” He shook his head, staring at the odd writing.

Ava gazed at it, her mind flooding.

“Ava, what is it?” Ferguson touched her arm, pulling her out of her reverie.

“This,” she answered slowly, focusing back on the page, “is almost certainly what we came for.”

He furrowed his brow, peering down at the bizarre glyphs. “But what does it say? Does it mean anything to you?”

She shook her head slowly. “If it did, I’d be famous.”

“But you know what it is?” She could hear the frustration in his voice.

“Oh yes,” she replied, staring at it bleakly. “It’s one of the most infamous codes ever devised.”

“So what’s the problem?” There was a note of enthusiasm in his voice. “Let’s get it home, look it up, and decipher it. It shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

She paused, before turning to look at him with a growing sense of helplessness. “The problem, as you put it,” she spoke softly, reluctant to say the words. “is that in the six hundred years since the code was first used, no one has ever been able to crack even one single letter of it.”

——————— ◆ ———————

Stockbridge House

Nr Newton Tony

Wiltshire SP4

England

The
United Kingdom

Ava slipped the enigmatic letter back into its crisp envelope, and tucked it away into her pocket.

“We need to find Malchus’s lair,” she announced, crossing the room and heading back to the airy hallway.

“Haven’t we got what we came for?” Ferguson was following behind her.

“You cover the ground floor,” she pointed down the hallway towards the west wing of the house, where there were more large day rooms. “I’ll take upstairs.”

Ferguson glanced at his watch.

“I’ll be quick,” she reassured him over her shoulder, climbing the wide staircase, taking the loosely carpeted steps two at a time. 

Striding along the upper hallway, she did not have time to take in the paintings, vases, and other country house paraphernalia.

She knew what she was looking for.

As she headed down a step into what seemed to be an older part of the house, she felt it before she even knew it was there—an uneasy feeling, an inexplicable sense of something not right.  She struggled to put a name to it.

The closest she could get was malice.

Reaching a pair of fluted columns flanking a small but elegant lobby, she could see a suite of rooms leading off the parquet-floored vestibule.

The feeling was stronger here.

Pushing open the suite’s main door, she found herself in a dark room.

She had no doubt the deep blue cloth wallpaper had been considered elegant in its day, but now it seemed only to suck out what little brightness managed to penetrate the narrow leaded windows.

She had never been an expert on Nazi memorabilia, but the decoration left her in no doubt these were Malchus’s rooms.

On the far wall was an antique marching banner—its bold ornamented swastika and ‘THULE GESELLSCHAFT 1919’ lettering leaving her in no doubt about the
völkisch
-racist politics of the men who had once carried it. Under it, she recognized the faded interwar photographs of stony-faced Nazi henchmen posing in Munich under similar standards.

The shrine-like atmosphere made her skin crawl.

She struggled to understand how anyone could want such images around them.

Opposite, on the facing wall, she recognized the large picture of the breasted and horned Baphomet ram—an ugly pentagram blazing on its forehead.

There was nothing subtle about the room. She had little difficulty believing it served Malchus well as a private retreat.

She tried to imagine just how intimidated Drewitt must have been by Malchus’s threats. There was no other explanation for how he could have tolerated this room—in his home.   No one with a sane mind could have chosen these images as decoration. 

Looking around, she recognized the desk by the window. It had been the one in Drewitt’s photographs of the medal.

So this is where he was caught.

She felt a flash of anger, remembering how Malchus had set Drewitt up, then killed him to motivate her.

Well, she was definitely motivated now.

There was nothing on the desk apart from two tall brass lamps, one at either end. Its surface was otherwise clear. There was no sign of any laptop, phone, papers, or anything that might give her a clue what Malchus was up to.

The atmosphere in the room sent a chill down her spine. The feeling of malice she had sensed in the hallway was stronger and all-pervasive here—a palpable malevolence.

Hearing a noise, she spun round, her nerves already on edge, her muscles tensed.

Was someone there?

She stared at the door, listening acutely.

Was this what Drewitt had heard before Malchus found him?

She told herself to stay calm. There was no one in the house. She had checked it carefully, and the burglar alarm had been on when they entered.

She had seen nothing to suggest they were not completely alone.

On the other hand, if there was someone there, even if it was Malchus—
especially
if it was Malchus, she would be ready this time.

She strained to listen, but could hear no further sound.

Walking quickly but quietly out and across the lobby, she looked up and down the hallway.

It was deserted.

She relaxed. It must have been her imagination—or one of the many noises an old house can make.

Stepping back into the room, she bent down to pick up a book lying on a small wooden table beside a sturdy armchair.

The title page said it was a private edition of Aleister Crowley’s
Liber XV Missa Gnostica
.

It meant nothing to her. But as she flicked through it, she could see it was some type of occult equivalent of the Catholic mass. But in place of a priest, bread, wine, and the usual prayers, there were cakes, a lance, invocations to strange ancient deities, and a naked priestess on the altar.

She noted with interest that Malchus had signed his name in the
Ex Libris
box on the book’s flyleaf, and had added meticulous handwritten notes and amendments to some of the pages.

She pulled out the envelope she had found in Drewitt’s jacket.

The handwriting was identical.

So, the letter was from Malchus.

She put the book of ritual down, and looked around for anything else Malchus had left lying about.

Hearing another noise, she froze again.

This time there was no doubting it.

It was a footstep.

Wheeling round, she saw a figure in the doorway silhouetted against the bright light from the hall.

She recognized the intruder’s outline, but for a fleeting second could not place it.

His shape was familiar yet unexpected, and her brain took a moment to identify the profile.

It was not Malchus. She was sure of that.

Suddenly it clicked into place. He was not someone she had ever contemplated might be at the house.

DeVere.

As he stepped into the room, the cheery greeting she was about to give him died in her throat on seeing the grim expression on his face—and the small Kahr nine-millimetre he was pointing directly at her.

There was no airy greeting from him either.

“I warned you, Ava.” He was speaking slowly and deliberately. “I specifically warned you.”

“Peter, what on earth—” she began, bewildered.

“I told you,” he cut her off. “In London, by the river that night. I specifically warned you to leave it alone and go back to Baghdad.”

He stepped further into the room, allowing the light to fall onto his grey chalk-striped suit and heavy-rimmed glasses.

His tone was threatening, and there was no ambiguity about the way in which he was pointing the diminutive silver and black weapon at her.

“But you didn’t listen, did you?” The reprimand was unmistakable. “I take no responsibility for this situation, Ava. I couldn’t have been clearer. I even specifically told you to trust no one. How much more could I have done? I imagined any person of your intelligence would get the hint. But,” he stared at her accusingly, “just like your father, you don’t know when to leave something alone.”

Ava’s mind was spinning as the horrific realization of what she was hearing began to dawn on her.

“On the floor,” DeVere ordered, motioning with the pistol’s muzzle towards the rug. “Face down, hands behind your head.”

She stared at him, a rage rising inside her at the implications of what he was saying. “What if I don’t?” She glared at him. “What are you going to do?”

DeVere’s eyes were cold and clinical. She was chilled by the change from their usual jovial expression.

“If I could silence your father, I’ll have no problem doing the same to you.” There was no mistaking the steel in his voice. “Now do as I say.”

Ava barely heard him. The blood was hammering though her ears as the words sank in.

She fought to process the information.

DeVere? Killed her father? Not Malchus?

She sank to her knees in a daze.

“I said face down.” The voice was harsh. As she leant forward, she felt his foot in the small of her back, pushing her onto the floor.

“I warned him to steer clear of Malchus, too. I told him to stay away. But just like you, he thought he knew better.”

Pinned onto the floor, her chest crushed by the weight of his foot, she twisted her head to get a better look at him

He was standing beside her—the black hole of the handgun’s barrel pointing straight at her head. There was no emotion behind the heavy-rimmed glasses—just cold resolve.

A wave of revulsion rushed through her.

All these years.

The lies he had told.

The crocodile tears he had shed.

“Malchus is mine, you see.” He was speaking slowly. “Always was. He’s my asset, and I wasn’t going to have your father blunder in and ruin everything.” He stared at her impassively. “And neither will you.”

She was barely listening. Her eyes were searching the room for anything she could use against him. But it was sparsely furnished, and there was little in the way of furniture or anything else that could serve as a weapon.

With a mounting sickening feeling, she realized that if he wanted to pull the trigger, there was absolutely nothing she could do.

Her only chance was to delay the moment. If she could buy more time, an idea might come to her.

Or he might make a mistake.

She had to play for time.

“What do you mean, your asset?” she asked, unable to keep the scorn from her voice, “You mean you are on his payroll?”

DeVere eyed her carefully. He seemed to be weighing up whether or not to respond. Making up his mind, he continued. “When the wall came down in ’89, western Europe was rapidly flooded with ex-soviet-bloc intelligence officers on the lookout for a deal to give them a new life. Malchus wasn’t the only one to try his luck in England. Boatloads of them came across the channel. But unsurprisingly, most turned out to be mediocre low-level apparatchiks of minimal interest. It took years of debriefing them to discover we knew more than they did.”

“But Malchus was different, right?” Ava prompted.

He ignored the contemptuous tone in her voice. “I knew nothing of Malchus. But when the Thelema hit our radar screens, I made it my goal to penetrate the organization—to get close to their inner core, which I soon found orbited around Malchus. The beauty of it was that I didn’t have to act very hard in my new role. You see, Malchus and I have a lot in common, in the way we see things.”

She could feel the weight on her back diminishing slightly as he became absorbed in talking and ceased treading down so hard. But she was under no illusions. The gun was still pointing directly at her head.

“How did the Firm’s vetting never catch you?” she asked. “You’re delusional.”

“Why?” There was a flash of anger in his eyes. “Because I love my country and refuse to stand by while it obsessively self-harms?” He glared at her. “I’ve served all my life. I’ve never asked for riches or recognition. The only reward I ever wanted was to see my country stand tall. But instead I’ve witnessed it sicken and wither—its identity eaten away by an aggressive cancer. I will not apologize to anyone that I care for our heritage. The real insanity is how the rancid politicians have sold us, turning a strong proud nation into a putrid sore-ridden cripple, its infected lifeblood slipping away. Our land has a pervasive sickness, and it needs strong medicine.”

“And you seriously think Malchus has the cure?” Ava could not keep the incredulity from her voice.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot,” he snapped. “I’m not some star-struck adolescent.”

Behind his head she could see the dark eyes of the hellish Baphomet ram on the far wall gazing out over them, casting its malign aura into the room.

She felt trapped in a scene of surreal madness.

“So Malchus runs his neo-Nazi operation in England, and you protect him?” Ava shook her head. “You’ll never get away with it.”

“But I already have,” he smiled nastily. “For longer than you can imagine. It’s so easy, you know. People only see what they want to see.”

Ava did not reply. She stared at him, trying to reconcile the man she knew with the ranting stranger pointing the gun at her.

“No one suspects a thing,” he sounded smug. “I’m very good at covering my tracks. It’s one of the skills the job has taught me.”

“The letter from C,” she asked, “the one whitewashing my father’s death and blocking any prosecution of Malchus—that was your doing, wasn’t it?” She stared up at him, only managing to control her anger in order to get the answers she needed to hear.

“You know about that?” He looked confused for a moment. “Never mind. The secret will stay in this room with you.”

“So it was you?” she insisted.

“You see, Ava, it’s all very simple. I’ve always wanted Malchus to succeed. So I can’t allow anyone to check up on him. Fortunately, as he’s my asset, I get to tell the story. As it happens, C was happy to sign the letter because he had read the file.”

“Which you had falsified.”

He gazed at her blankly. “Only the naïve believe what they read, Ava—especially in government files.” He sneered. “I wrote his file the way I wanted it, then had it classified for the most senior eyes only to keep snoopers away. As far as C knows, Malchus is a key asset in the fight to discover what happened to a significant quantity of Former Soviet Union weapons-grade uranium. That makes him a vital asset to be protected.”

“According to the file, your father had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—one of those accidents that happens despite the best planning. Soon after that, Malchus fell foul of the Turkish authorities and did a spell in an Istanbul prison, but after a suitable delay I managed to get him out quietly. And so here we are.”

The pressure on her back increased as he trod down harder on her again, only reminding her that she still had no plan for how to get out of the situation.

She needed an idea fast. She had to stall him.