Her mind refused to accept what she was seeing.
This could not be happening.
Her eyes scoured the room for the Ark.
It had gone.
She stared in disbelief, first at the smoking remains, then at the scene of destruction in the vault around her.
The men who had been crowding around, helping Saxby lift the Ark’s lid, were lying on the floor—a pile of bodies, many with whole limbs missing. Judging by the way they had fallen, it was clear they had taken the full force of the blast, shielding Ava from the brunt of it.
None were moving.
Saxby lay next to them. From the missing section of skull through which she could see a mess of mangled brain matter, it was immediately obvious he was also very dead.
Her head was spinning, and she still could not hear anything through the ringing in her ears. But she was thinking clearly enough to know something explosive had just detonated very close to the Ark.
As she replayed the scene in her mind, she realized that the explosion had been triggered the moment they had lifted its lid.
Was that even possible?
Suddenly, the realization hit her.
It was something that had bothered her in the days after she had left Dubai. And now it made sense.
Arkady Sergeyevitch Yevchenko
.
As he had lain strapped to the table in his suite’s kitchen at the Burj al-Arab hotel, his last word had baffled her.
“Insurance,” he had whispered.
It had seemed a strange thing to say as a dying word, and she had been struggling to make sense of it ever since.
Had this been his insurance?
She shook her head in disbelief.
He booby-trapped the Ark?
It was unthinkable.
The Ark had survived for over three thousand years. And now it was gone, right under her nose—the handiwork of a paranoid Russian lawyer.
Distraught, she closed her eyes, fighting the urge to start screaming at someone.
Anyone.
Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes again and looked down at Malchus, who was picking himself up off the floor.
But he never made it.
Two searing white lights ripped either side of the darkened room apart, followed a millisecond later by a pair of deafening deep percussive booms.
The effect on Ava’s body was dramatic and instantaneous.
Her vision was bleached out as the intense flashes tore through her eyes, leaving her unable to see anything beyond a burning bright-white magnesium light stamped onto the back of her retinas.
Her ears, already deadened from whatever had detonated in the Ark, shut down completely so she could hear nothing except a high-pitched whistling. And as the fluid in her inner ear was bludgeoned by the heavy pressure waves, she lost her sense of balance, and the room turned upside down.
At first she thought she may have been shot in the head or had a stroke. But as her vision slowly returned, she was aware of armed men swarming the stage around her, and others fast-roping down at breakneck speed from the shattered high windows above.
Their balaclavas and unmarked all-black tactical ops kit gave away nothing about their identity.
They quickly formed a ring around the stage, their weapons levelled at the neo-Nazi paramilitaries standing and lying on the floor, equally as stunned as she was.
The intruders were shouting something, but Ava could hear only an eerie silence overlaid by the whistling in her ears.
Over by the main door, another armed group burst in. They came in hard, weapons raised at shoulder-height, with mounted flashlights sweeping the room, cutting the gloom into tunnels of fast-moving bright white light.
They were fully armoured in helmets and hard-plated ballistic counter-terrorism jackets. Their sleeves bore small rectangular German flags above eagles and the word ‘POLIZEI’. Several of them also wore badges displaying parachute wings in oak leaves.
Still unable to hear, she was suddenly aware of one of the balaclavad men on the stage making straight for her, pulling a short-bladed dagger from his ops waistcoat. The glow from the braziers reflected on the brushed steel blade as he appeared to shout something at her.
With no hearing, she was wholly at his mercy—with no way of telling if he was friend or foe.
He arrived in front of her, still shouting something, but his lips were covered by his balaclava so she could not even lip-read what he was saying.
Beyond him, over on the other side of the stage, she saw two more figures rapidly fast-roping in. They were not wearing the same all-black kit as the others, and with a flash of amazement followed by overwhelming relief she recognized them immediately—Ferguson and the guard, Danny.
Ferguson was wearing different clothes to the ones she had last seen him in, but his expression was infinitely happier. Both were armed, and took up positions on the stage alongside the others.
She looked at the man with the knife, peering at his eyes through the holes in the balaclava. Finally, she recognized the deep shadows and crinkled lines of the Frenchman’s lived-in face.
“Max?” she shouted, as the intense relief washed over her.
The man nodded, raising the knife to cut her hands free.
Breathing more easily now, she looked around intently, and saw that Max and his men were carrying FAMAS assault rifles. Reproaching herself for her lack of observation, that was the only clue she should have needed.
Frenchmen were patriotic to the end,
Quickly slicing through the ropes, Max helped her off the stake. She put her arms on him to steady herself, and with no warning he took hold of the shard of gold protruding from her shoulder and expertly pulled it out cleanly.
She was overwhelmed by a sudden stabbing agony from the metal slicing across the raw nerve endings in the wound. But the sensation quickly subsided into a more manageable aching pain as her body released a slew of natural opioids.
She stamped her feet and shook her arms to get the blood circulating again, before noticing that Max was saying something to her.
She pointed to her ears and shrugged to indicate she was deaf.
He lifted his balaclava so she could read his lips. “There’s someone outside who wants to see you.”
She nodded, moving closer to the edge of the stage, away from the stake. As she did, she spotted a hollow metal canister on the floor, the shape of an elongated drinks can with a dozen circular perforations drilled into the casing.
She was reassured to see she had not had a stroke.
Stun grenades.
Still reeling, she could see the German police shouting and gesticulating for the neo-Nazi paramilitaries to put their firearms down and lie on the ground.
None of them complied. They kept their weapons pointed at the killing funnel the policemen had just walked into, and at Max’s men on the stage.
Their leader—the large tattooed guard—was a few yards away from her, still aiming his submachine gun at the policemen. It looked like a toy in his massive arms, but the expression on his face was anything but playful.
Slowly, in the gloom, he began to turn.
She could see one of the German policemen yelling at him, but she still could not hear anything. Before she knew it, the large man’s gun was pointing directly at her chest.
His lips were moving.
As the whistling in her ears began to subside, she started to hear what he was saying. It sounded heavily muffled, as if her head was under a blanket, but at least she could dimly make out the words.
“Let us out, or she dies, and so do a lot of you.” He spoke clearly and deliberately, slowly covering the last few yards to where she was, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out on his granite face. “I’ll slot her right here. You’ve got ten seconds to decide.”
All eyes were suddenly on him.
There was silence as everyone calculated the likely consequences if shooting started, although it was obvious that the wrong decision would turn the room into a bloodbath very quickly.
The tattooed guard was staring at Ava over the barrel of his gun. His nostrils were flared, and he was breathing hard.
She had seen the look often enough to know he was a man preparing to kill.
Instead of fear or panic, Ava felt a surge of elation.
The police may or may not make the right call. But she had absolutely had enough for one night of people making decisions that resulted in her getting seriously hurt.
Having been tied up under the threat of death for so long, her pent-up anger and fear exploded inside her in a rush of adrenaline.
Now she was free of the ropes, she no longer had to be a spectator.
Not any more.
Her destiny was in her own hands again.
In a lightning-fast movement, she lunged towards the big guard, drawing the lethal bronze sickle-sword from the sash around her hips, and swinging it up with both hands to a fighting guard.
It was an amazingly well-balanced weapon, and it felt good to no longer be the only unarmed person in the room.
She planted her feet two yards in front of the large man. “Let’s do this,” she hissed at him, feeling her muscles flood with blood.
She was angry, and had every intention of letting it show. “You don’t need the gun,” she taunted. “Or do you?” Her eyes flashed darkly.
She had been watching him since Boleskine House, and was keenly aware that he was very dangerous. He was alert and moved well, and could not have reached his position in the organization without being able to handle himself against people who knew how to fight much dirtier than she did.
But one advantage she did have was the element of surprise.
There was no way he would have anticipated this development.
It was a gamble. She was betting he needed her alive to use as a bargaining chip. But if she was wrong, she was happy to take her chances. At least it was a fairer fight then being tied to a chair or a stake and strangled or bled out.
“What’s the matter?” Ava injected a note of mockery into her voice. “Never touched a woman before?”
She could feel the tension in the room like a charge of electricity, but was beyond fear. After all she had been through, it was exhilarating to be in charge of her own fate again.
There was a look of incredulity in his eyes, but it rapidly turned into a snarl of rage. He took a step forward, and she could see his finger starting to squeeze the trigger.
But he never got to finish the movement, as with a deafening bang, the back of his head vapourized into a fine red mist, and he dropped heavily to the floor.
Off to the side, through the dim light, she could see Ferguson’s arm outstretched, and a small cloud of smoke dissipating into the air above the pistol in his hand.
Ava was breathing hard, trying to calm herself down.
“Put your weapons on the floor!” the brawny leader of the German police screamed at the neo-Nazi paramilitaries again. “Now!”
With Saxby dead on the stage and the Skipper down, one by one they complied.
“On the floor!” the policeman shouted. “Face down. All of you. Hands behind you heads.”
As the men began sliding to the floor, the police moved swiftly among them, rolling them onto their fronts and securing their hands with zip ties.
Ava felt someone touch her arm. She swung round, the sword still raised.
It was Ferguson.
“Well, you look beautiful,” he nodded appreciatively. “There was no need to dress specially for me.”
Ava had been in the costume so long she had forgotten she was wearing it. She blushed under the heavy white make-up. “You like it?” She lowered the sword, recovering quickly. “Maybe I’ll keep it then.”
“You should seriously think about it,” he nodded approvingly. “And the perfume, too. Very nice.”
She smiled back at him—it was the first time she had anything to smile about all day. It was truly good to see him. “So you and Danny couldn’t stay away?” she asked.
“His name’s Uri. He’s Israeli. I’d say Mossad, but he’s keeping quiet about that.”
“I thought as much,” Ava nodded. This was an added obstacle. “What’s he doing here?”
“Same as us,” Ferguson answered, tucking his gun back into his waistband. “He fished me out of the well to help him. But when our German friends turned up, we decided to give them a hand. Then when Max arrived, it seemed rude not to accept his invitation to join in his rope games.”
He looked at the wound in her shoulder. There was blood seeping onto her clothing. “You want to get that seen to.”
Ava nodded. She would do it later. “So who called the German police?”
“Police?” He shook his head. “Don’t let them hear you say that. They’re GSG-9, the German version of the SAS. They can’t be army by law, so they all leave and get a police uniform instead.” He smiled. “Apparently once our MI6 tail had picked up our location at Boleskine House, the ever-diligent team at Legoland tracked the chopper to here. They couldn’t get over the Channel in time to follow us, so they called in GSG-9 to pick us up. But as it happens, our German colleagues turn out to be much more interested in Malchus and his friends than whatever we may have done.” He indicated the neo-Nazis being frog-marched out of the door. “They’ve done a good job. They got all the guys outside rounded up, too.”
At the mention of Malchus’s name, Ava suddenly realized she had not seen him for a while. The last time she had spotted him, Uri had been near him.
“Damn it!” she yelled, jumping off the stage, and running for the door. Passing Max, she shoved the bronze sword into his hand, and pulled a handgun off his belt kit. “I’ll bring it back,” she shouted, tearing past him and out of the cellar.
——————— ◆ ———————
The SS Generals
’
Hall
Wewelsburg Castle
B
ü
ren
Paderborn North-Rhine Westphalia
Federal Republic of Germany
Ava sprinted up the steep castle steps leading out of the cellar.
She
had
to find Malchus.
Losing him now, after everything that had happened, was simply unthinkable. She would never be able to forgive herself.
She ran out into the cobbled courtyard.
The pale moonlight was largely obscured by clouds, and she could only make out the armoured outlines and swinging tactical gun-lights of the GSG-9 team, who were roughly shepherding Saxby’s followers into waiting vans, their engines throbbing in the cold night air.
Looking about properly for the first time since arriving, she could see that the ancient castle was a labyrinth of interconnecting rooms and hiding places.
He could be anywhere.
She had little idea where to start. Any choice seemed as random as any other.
The three sombre towers were high, and the imposing connecting ranges had three or four storeys each. There were easily over a hundred windows in the castle, and probably half as many rooms.
She stared at the glass, looking for a clue. But she could tell nothing. The windows shone black—the rooms behind them shrouded in darkness.
As she gazed around with increasing desperation, something told her that wherever Malchus was, the Israeli would not be far away.
Running back into the imposing north tower, she sprinted up the dark steps to the third-floor solar, where Saxby and Malchus had held her and Ferguson before the ceremony.
Pushing open the old iron-reinforced door, she found the torches had been extinguished and the large room was empty.
Taking the steps back down two at a time, she realized that on her way up she had failed to register an arched wooden door on the ground floor. Above it, she read the aged inscription incised into the old stone:
DOMUS MEA DOMUS ORATIONIS VOCABITUR
which she quickly translated, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’.
The biblical quotation referring to the Temple of Solomon seemed starkly incongruous given everything she had experienced that evening. She assumed it was from the days when the castle had belonged to the local bishop-princes. It perhaps even indicated the room had once been their chapel.
Leaning her shoulder hard against the door, she found to her frustration that it was locked. But with her ear now only inches from the wood, she could make out muffled voices behind it.
Keenly aware that every passing second could mean Malchus was slipping further out of her reach, there was no time for luxuries like picking the lock.
Pointing her gun into the small ancient brass-faced keyhole, she took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. There was a chance it could blow her hand off, but she figured she was owed some good luck by now.
The noise of the discharge in the small stone corridor was deafening.
As the echo died, she smashed the pistol’s butt hard into the lock, and to her relief she heard the mechanism clatter onto the floor inside the room.
Without pausing, she rammed the solid door with her shoulder and, after a moment’s resistance, it yielded.
As she burst through into the room, she took a moment to take in the extraordinary sight.
It was dimly lit—illuminated by a single pool of flickering light thrown off by a sole flaming torch set in a wall sconce by the door.
The space was circular, just like the solar above and the cellar below—but distinctly grander than either. The ceiling rested on twelve solid pillars arranged in a circle of squat arches, creating a grandiose arcade around the edge of room. The overall effect was like some 1930s fascist take on a Graeco-Roman temple.
Malchus was on his back, spread-eagled on the blue-grey marble floor. He was lying directly over what looked like a large inlaid circle of overlapping swastika crosses—their twelve long double-bent crooked arms spiralling out in an occult sun-wheel.
His black robe had been torn off down to the waist exposing his upper body, and Uri was kneeling on top of him, his back to the door, pinning Malchus’s upper arms to the floor with his knees.
As Ava entered and Uri turned, she noticed the lethal outline of the Spear of Destiny in his hands, and dozens of livid deep bleeding incisions and gouges on Malchus’s sweating body, arms, and face.
“Get off him,” she ordered, pointing the handgun directly at Uri’s chest.
“Just walk away,” Uri snapped in reply. He turned to stare at her, his expression unwelcoming. “Leave.”
Ava kept the gun trained on him, unwavering. “You heard me.”
Uri glared back at her. “Your friend Ferguson killed the Skipper and lost me valuable intelligence. Now I have to get it from other sources.” He glowered down at Malchus, then looked back at her. “Leave me to do what I have to do.”
“Now!” Ava ordered him again, moving closer with the weapon.
“So the British can sit on whatever information he yields up and only trade it with us when it serves them?” Uri cocked his eyebrows at her. “My country’s need of what he knows is greater than yours, I think you’ll agree?”
Ava shook her head. “This has nothing to do with politics. It’s now a police matter. There are things he needs to answer for, and I’m going to see he does.”
“How very moving,” Malchus sneered from under Uri, his voice a deep rasp. “Daddy’s grieving girl turns out to be my saviour. I’m touched.” He broke off, loudly sucking in a mouthful of air as Uri jabbed the spear tip deep into one of the cuts and twisted it.
“Be polite to the lady,” Uri growled.
Through the mask of pain, Malchus glared at Ava, narrowing his eyes. “And precisely how long do you think it’ll take me to convince the police to hand me over to MI6?” His eyes radiated conceit.
“I’ll be on the streets again in days with the slate wiped clean. Thanks to DeVere, they know nothing about me or the wider organization. After tonight, they’ll jump at the chance to run me as an asset.” He smiled insincerely. “Maybe I’ll even tell them something interesting every now and then.”
He paused to let his words sink in. “And what will you tell them?” His tone was scornful. “You’re a discredited former junior employee. An amateur. A disappointment. I’ve been doing this since before you were born.” His eyes were mocking. “You’re out of your league.” Grunting with pain as Uri again jabbed the spear into one of the wounds, he nevertheless managed to finish his monologue with a note of triumph. “No one is going to touch me.”
Ava looked down at his lacerated and blood-streaked face. “You overestimate your significance.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. “After five minutes listening to your rabid delusions, they’ll put you in a secure hospital and throw away the key. There’s no jury trial for people like you. They’ll lock you away in a mental hospital and the world will soon forget you ever existed.”
“On the strength of your word?” Malchus jeered. “The woman who murdered Prince and DeVere and was the last person seen with Lord Drewitt?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Without DeVere, you have nothing. I’ll soon be one of the British authorities’ best assets, and how long do you really think it’ll take me to find another DeVere?” His eyes were gleaming. “Face it. I am, and always will be, more valuable to them than you.”
Ava was buying none of it. She had heard enough. The sooner she could hand him over to the police and get the sound of his deranged gloating out of her ears, the better.
She turned back to Uri, her voice leaving no doubt of her intent. “Move away. I’m not going to ask you again.”
Uri shot her a long resentful look. He raised his hands slowly into the air. “Okay. Your decision.” He stood up off Malchus. “I’m done here, anyway.”
Malchus smirked as Uri climbed off him—a smug mocking smile.
Ava pointed the gun at Malchus. “Now. Your turn,” she ordered him. “Get up.”
Malchus looked about conceitedly, putting his hands on the floor and pushed himself into an upright sitting position.
Without warning, Uri spun round with lightning speed. In one fluid motion, he extended his right hand with the spear blade still in it, and swung towards Malchus.
Before Ava could react, he drove the sharpened edges of the antique weapon’s point deep into Malchus’s throat, scything through the windpipe, oesophagus, and major blood vessels.
Malchus crumpled back to the floor with a strangled sound, clutching his throat with his left hand, a look of stunned disbelief on his face.
Uri barged past Ava, shoving the bloodied Spear of Destiny into her hands. “You know he’s right. They’d have put him back on the streets in days.”
With that, he was gone through the door.
“What are you even doing here?” Ava shouted after him, rage welling up inside her. “You didn’t come for Saxby or Malchus. You’re here for the Ark, aren’t you?”
Uri stopped and turned slowly to face her. “So did you see it?” he asked quietly. “Was it the genuine Ark?”
The question sliced through Ava.
The pain of remembering its fate was physical. She could feel her stomach knot and her chest tighten.
She struggled to keep her voice under control, afraid the frustration of finally finding the Ark then losing it was all too much.
But try as she might to contain her feelings, they bubbled over. “If it wasn’t for people like you, it might still be here.” She could feel her pulse rising as the anger started to flood out. “You all treat it like it’s some trophy—a symbol of power and favour, a talisman to bless your actions. You measure everything in political points.” Her voice dropped. “You value nothing.”
Uri shrugged. “It wasn’t built to be put in a museum, I can tell you that. It’s the ultimate statement of superiority and power. It always was.
Emmanuel.
God is with us. That's why the tribes carried it in the desert, demonstrating their favoured status. Whether you like it or not, it’s a political totem. That’s its function. What other purpose could it ever have had?”
The question hung in the air between them.
“Then we’ve both lost something today,” Ava answered slowly.
“I’m not a romantic," Uri replied. “It’s best where it is—beyond danger, where it can no longer be a threat to us.”
Ava shook her head. She had no desire to hear any more. It was like being back at MI6—in a world where everything had a price and was ultimately expendable.
“The Ark may be gone, but it’s not over," Uri added, walking away. “It never is.”
That was not how it felt from where Ava was standing.
She had lost the Ark, the chance of seeing Malchus answer for her father's death, and the only person who could exonerate her with the British authorities.
With that, Uri was gone.
She watched him disappear down the corridor, before she turned back into the room, lost in thought.
She gazed down at Malchus, and at the spurting crimson fluid seeping through his fingers.
The sight of him lying in a pool of his own blood whipped up a storm of conflicting feelings inside her.
She had never wanted his death. That was not what this had been about. She had planned to see him answer for her father’s murder.
But as she looked down at him, with his life pumping rapidly out of his neck, some primal force inside her could not help but feel satisfaction. She had seen his savagery at first hand. The world would be a better place without him. No one could argue with that.
As she looked at the bloodied hairless body, her mind filled with one sole thought. It was repeating again and again, bringing with it a strange sense of calm.
It was over.
The nightmare that had begun the day her father had failed to come home from Vauxhall Cross was finally at an end. Whatever twisted motives had been driving Malchus all these years were now as dead as he was, seeping out onto the floor along with his lifeblood.
Exhaling slowly and deeply, she tucked the gun into the sash wrapped around her lower back, and could feel the tension in her taut body begin to dissipate. Her shoulders dropped, and an overwhelming tiredness began to flood through her.
Stretching her neck from side to side to relieve the tightness, she suddenly just wanted to get out of the sordid castle.
Admittedly, she had not visited under the best circumstances, but there was something unwholesome about it, as if the walls had soaked up the dark deeds they had witnessed—from the ancient witch trials to whatever sinister solar or Irminist rites the SS had held there.
The abiding sense of malevolence was made all the more tangible by the broken body now lying splayed on the central sun-wheel, like some gruesome re-enactment of a medieval heretic broken on the wheel.
Turning and heading for the door, she suddenly caught sight of an unexpected movement out of the corner of her eye.
Whirling around in disbelief, she was in time to see Malchus had used his last ebbing strength to unclip a small black handgun from an ankle holster, and was now raising it in a blood-soaked hand, pointing it directly at her.
She had no time to pull her gun, or even to think.
Using the momentum from spinning round, she continued the arc of her arm, whipping it out as hard as she could—hurling the Spear of Destiny directly at him with all her strength.
She watched, mesmerized, as the crude Roman weapon flew through the air as if in slow motion. After what seemed an age, its ancient sharpened tip struck him in the middle of the forehead, instantly piercing the skin and shattering the bone, driving itself deep into his brain.
Without a word, he slumped back onto the floor, an obscene gurgling sound escaping from his bubbling lacerated throat.
When the gruesome noise stopped, he lay deathly still.
Ava walked over to the mangled body and looked down, breathing hard.
His lifeless green eyes stared glassily up at her—as cold and reptilian in death as they had been in life. The bulk of the spear was protruding from his forehead, but at least two inches of it were buried deep in his brain. She watched as a clear fluid trickled from his nose, and blood began to ooze out from around the spear tip onto his pale forehead.