Malchus had picked up a short dark wooden pole about a foot long. As he inserted it into the loop of silk behind the chair, she could feel the pressure round her neck tighten unbearably as he started to turn the pole, mechanically twisting the garrotte tighter and tighter.
She could now hear choking and gagging noises, but was not sure where they were coming from.
She felt disconnected from what was happening.
A rainbow of searing bright stars floated in front of her eyes in a swirling mist of black and purple whorls.
Somewhere in the distance she thought she could hear chanting in Latin. But it did not sound right. The words were wrong. And it was not the usual harmonious tones of plainchant. It had a rough quality to it, discordant and violent.
Sagging, she was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming tiredness. She could no longer feel any of her body, and was aware only of a hot rushing sensation.
She felt hopelessly drunk. The room was spinning, and she was overcome with an unbearable urge to pass out.
Her hearing was going. She could still make out the malevolent chanting, but it sounded ever more indistinct, as if underwater.
Trying to focus her eyes on the wall one last time to stave off the slide into unconsciousness, she knew her sight was now failing terminally, too. Dark patches began to cloud the room.
She could feel the end coming.
As the rushing sound in her ears became deafeningly loud, her eyes rolled up into her head, and she felt herself keel over into an all-enveloping darkness.
——————— ◆ ———————
Boleskine House
Foyers
Loch Ness IV2
Scotland
The United Kingdom
In the heavy blackness surrounding her, Ava could hear someone gasping painfully, sucking in deep rattling lungfuls of air.
Mystified, she listened to the disturbing sound as the darkness in front of her eyes began to break apart, allowing kaleidoscopic patches of light and colour to appear.
She was being suffocated by a thick blanket of grogginess, and had no memory of where she was.
Confused, she tried to move, but her body was paralyzed—her arms and legs pinned down by unseen weights.
With rising anxiety, she tried to open her eyes, but the intense throbbing in her skull was too painful, and she could not break through it to move any of her facial muscles.
Listening more closely to the rasping breathing, she realized with alarm it was coming from her own throat.
It was her mouth, wildly gulping in air.
The knowledge seemed to trigger a reconnection with her body, and she was suddenly aware of an intense burning in her lungs as the air rushed in. She sucked it down hungrily.
As her heart and lungs filled her body with freshly aerated blood, her memory returned with a sickening jolt. She panicked at the image in her mind’s eye of Malchus sitting astride her, his eyes filled with a perverted excitement as he revelled in the sight of her dying throes.
Breathing more freely now, she realized he was no longer on top of her, and her neck was not being constricted.
But she was acutely aware the danger might not have passed. It could just have changed into something else. Maybe he was going to keep asphyxiating and reviving her, again and again.
Forcing her eyes open, she blinked several times as she looked around the room.
To her relief, she could immediately see Malchus was no longer behind her. Instead, he was sprawled in an ungainly heap on the wooden floor—his nose newly crooked, and two trickles of scarlet blood flowing out from his nostrils onto his fleshy lips and chin.
He seemed oblivious to the injury, and was lying where he had fallen, glaring up with pure hatred at Ferguson, who was standing over him, the blue Sig Sauer aimed directly at his hairless head.
She felt an overpowering wave of gratitude towards Ferguson, who was looking at her with concern. She mustered a smile with what little strength she had. Her head exploded with a slicing pain as she moved her lips, but she did not mind. She had to be alive to feel pain.
Behind Ferguson, she could see the tall patrician figure of Saxby. She owed him a debt of gratitude, too. This was the second time he had arrived to pick up the pieces after Malchus had got the better of her.
He seemed as unruffled as ever. His charcoal-grey suit was immaculately pressed, and his full head of silver hair lent him its usual air of distinction.
As her breathing became more regular, she shot him a look of thanks. But when his eyes met hers, she was startled to see no warm greeting or acknowledgement—only a fixed expression of icy purpose.
With mounting disbelief, she watched as he turned towards Ferguson, aiming the pistol he was holding at waist height directly at Ferguson’s chest.
“Drop it, Major Ferguson,” he ordered him coldly.
Ava was not sure she had heard right.
Was she hallucinating?
She knew the mind played tricks when oxygen-starved,
Was she still unconscious? Was it even possible to dream when unconscious?
She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood in an effort to try to wake herself up. But the sight in front of her remained unchanged.
Ferguson had turned to stare over his shoulder at Saxby with incredulity, his gun still trained ahead of him on Malchus.
“Don’t test me.” The older man’s tone was abrupt. “You were never part of the plan, and I’ll gladly remove you from it.”
Her mind was spinning.
What plan?
She was struggling to make sense of what she was seeing.
This was all part of some plan?
Ferguson kept his gun on Malchus, continuing to stare over his shoulder at Saxby, seemingly evaluating the likelihood of the older man carrying out the threat.
Needing no further cue, Malchus quickly stood up and stepped towards Ferguson. Swinging his whole upper body in a lightning-fast jab, he punched Ferguson viciously, a hammering downwards blow to the nape of his neck.
Saxby watched impassively as Ferguson dropped like a stone. The moment he hit the floor, Malchus stamped down hard on his wrist, grinding his shoe’s heel into the soft flesh of Ferguson’s inside lower arm. With a grunt of pain, Ferguson released the gun.
Malchus took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood off his face. At the same time, he kicked Ferguson’s gun sharply away, sending it spinning to the wall, harmlessly out of reach.
Ava’s mind was still reeling.
Saxby? In it with Malchus?
It did not make sense.
She struggled to see why Saxby would want to collaborate with Malchus.
What possible interest could Saxby have in Malchus
’
s neo-Nazi movement?
It simply did not add up.
Had they been cooperating?
For how long?
The residual fog was making it hard for her to think clearly, but her thoughts were cut short as the door opened and a group of men entered. They were heavily armed, and wheeling a number of large flight-cases.
She counted six gunmen in total, including the one who was evidently their leader—a tall hulking man with the forearms of his leather jacket pushed up to reveal a selection of tattoos.
It was immediately obvious to her that this group was not related to Max and his team of
L
é
gionnaires
. There was nothing of the French team’s quiet camaraderie or professionalism about them—just a sense of raw aggression and menace.
Saxby turned with authority to the large man. “Pack the artefacts in the cellar and then this table. We need to be out of here in five minutes.” He nodded towards Ava and Ferguson. “Take these two to the helicopter, and put a guard on them.”
The large man instructed four of the team to go below. They peeled off without a word, taking the biggest two flight cases with them. He then gave a quiet order to the tall dark-blond man beside him. She thought she heard the name “Danny”, before the blond man stepped over towards her and Ferguson.
Malchus threw him a set of small black keys, and he swiftly removed the handcuffs shackling Ava’s ankles, reusing one of the pairs to lock Ferguson’s hands behind his back.
“Move.” He ordered Ava and Ferguson, guiding her hands over the back of the chair’s high back so she was free. He jabbed Ferguson with his submachine gun, pushing them both quickly out into the front hall.
Passing the white-tiled room leading to the cellar, she could see the four men had already disappeared down the steps, leaving the two large flight cases open in the upper room.
Slowing her pace as her heart rate increased, she wondered if she might catch a sight of the Ark as the men brought it upstairs.
She sensed the dark-blond man leading them was also walking a little more slowly as they passed the open doorway, but he ushered her on, and in no time they were out of the grand front doors and on the sweeping gravel path.
The outside air temperature had dropped significantly, and there was a cold wind whipping her hands and face. She breathed deeply, and felt the cloud of fog lifting further, enabling her to think more clearly again. Her neck was sore, and would remain so for days. But nothing was broken, and the bruising would heal.
Up ahead in the moonlight, she could discern the outline of a medium-sized helicopter on the lawn. She had not heard it land, although wondered perhaps if that was what the deafening rushing sound in her ears had been as she had blacked out.
The rotors were not turning. But there was a pilot in the front cabin, and he had his headset on, ready.
As they reached the helicopter, the guard slid open the main cabin’s metal side door and ushered them inside, following behind.
There was no heating, and the grey ribbed walls of the helicopter were stripped down and uninviting, but she was grateful to be out of the wind. The moulded bucket seats were uncomfortable, but anything was a relief after the unyielding hard wood of Malchus’s garrotting chair.
She looked at the guard, who had taken a seat opposite her and Ferguson. His submachine gun was cradled in his lap, pointed directly at them, his finger never leaving the trigger. She could see from the way he was watching them that he was not an amateur. He was alert. Trained.
“So who are you people?” she asked.
“No talking,” he replied curtly.
From just those two words, she could hear there was something non-native in his accent. Eastern European? Afrikaans? She could not quite put her finger on it.
“Where are you taking us?” she persisted.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he replied, his face expressionless. “Just be quiet.”
There it was again. But this time he had said enough for her to recognize it.
She frowned, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. The group of men who had entered with Saxby were clearly with Malchus. They were thugs, just like the men he had brought to the Basilica di San Clemente with him—neo-Nazi paramilitaries.
But that made little sense if she had heard right.
Although it had only been the faintest hint, she would know it anywhere. She had visited the Dominicans’
É
cole Biblique
archaeology school in Jerusalem many times in her years stationed with the National Archaeological Museum in Amman, and the accent was unmistakeable.
True, it was very subtle in his case—barely noticeable. It could easily have passed for a slight vestige of one of the many hundreds of regional accents in England, or possibly from one of the world’s other English-speaking countries.
But she was in no doubt.
The man opposite her was an Israeli.
She sat back, lost in thought.
She had heard that some extremist modern British right-wing groups now had Jewish members, united in a newly discovered virulent anti-Islamism.
But that seemed unlikely—Malchus was a neo-Nazi, not a white supremacist.
On the other hand, and more worryingly, it could also mean the Israeli authorities were as interested in what was in Malchus’s cellar as she was.
That would mean competition and complications.
Before she could explore her thoughts any further, the cabin door slid open, letting in a rush of cold air.
Silently, one of the armed men climbed in and pushed a button. A metal ramp began to descend with a low hum. When it was fully extended, he signalled to the men outside to begin loading up.
One by one, they wheeled the shiny flight cases up the ramp, moving them to the middle of the cabin. Working silently, they secured them to the floor with buckled canvas load straps.
Surveying the metal cases, Ava could feel her breathing quicken. She ignored the three boxes she knew contained the Table of Practice and seals, and concentrated on the two larger ones.
She wanted nothing more than to rush over, unfasten them, and rip off the lids. But she was still handcuffed.
The thought of being so close to the Ark was almost too much to bear. There, two feet away from her, was the object she had been thinking about day and night for the past eleven days, and on and off for most of her life.
But there was nothing she could do.
She was a prisoner, on possibly the most heavily armed helicopter in the British Isles.
Tearing her eyes away, she heard the rotor engines start as Saxby climbed into the cockpit beside the pilot, and Malchus and the remaining men buckled themselves into the seats in the rear cabin.
Although she had no idea where they were going, or what Saxby’s plan for her was, her one consolation was that the Ark was going with her. That meant her chances of recovering it were not yet over.
That had to be enough for now.
She stared out of the window opposite her at the nearby trees and bushes. As the pilot opened the throttle, she watched the trees being whipped backwards, bending at impossible angles in the gale force rotor wash.
She breathed out, readying herself, as Saxby’s voice came over the cabin speakers.
“This is a momentous night. The apocalypse that annihilates the present and ushers in a new world order appears in the mythos of all cultures. The ancient Akkadians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Sumerians have it in their flood stories. The Christians prophesy Armageddon. And in our own northern European tradition it is the Twilight of the Gods—the Nordic
Ragnar
ö
k
or Germanic
G
ö
tterd
ä
mmerung
.”
He paused, letting his message sink in before continuing. “Brothers, tonight we take a decisive step towards that apocalypse. We begin the establishment of the Fourth
Reich
and the new Aryan Imperium.”