The Camelot Code (8 page)

The second semi-final of
America’s Got Talent
is playing on the new fifty-inch flat-screen in the family lounge. Sword-swallowing dwarves compete with gymnastic nuns for a place in the last show. TV doesn’t get better than this.

At least not when your brain is aching from stress and all you want to do is sit in front of the tube with a drink and snacks.

Ron Briars has had a rough day. Right now he’s wondering if he should have got 3D as a bigger reward for all that hard labour.

Sixty-inch, 3D, internet equipped. Home cinema, surround sound. Sport certainly would have been a blast on that baby.

But – as usual – he’d given in to his wife’s demands and settled for something a bit smaller. More fitting with the layout of the room, the French windows and fireplace. Not that either him or his teenage son can even begin to understand how the fireplace or windows have anything to do with a TV.

Ron’s cell phone rings.

Wife and child stare accusingly at the BlackBerry as it rudely buzzes and flashes on the side table next to his iPhone and almost empty glass of French red.

Not many people have the number and those that do are very important. White House-important. Chief of Staff- or even President-important.

Ron smiles apologetically, gets up and takes the offending phone to the den. A glance at the display shows the caller has withheld the number.

The head of the National Intelligence Agency answers with caution. ‘Hello.’

‘Tole Mac.’ The voice is calm and measured, almost without accent but clearly British. ‘That’s Tango. Oscar. Lima. Echo. Mike. Alpha. Charlie.’

Seven letters and two words agreed by the NIA and the party on the line as a means of identity verification.

The caller is a trusted source. About as trusted as they come.

The principal security advisor to the President of the United States reaches quickly for pen and paper. ‘Clearance noted. Please, go on.’

‘Denny’s Garage and Body Shop, opposite Leonard Gordon Park in Jersey. You have between midnight tonight and sunrise. No later. Four men are sleeping inside with enough explosives to rip up half of New York. One entrance, a roller door and it is alarmed. We wish you good luck.’

The Inner Circle disbands and the armour-plated helicopters and cars disperse.

Only Beaucoup and Dalton stay behind. They’re working closely on leads relating to the missing crosses and whereabouts of Angelo Marchetti.

Owain and his wife dine alone. Not in the plush summer room that overlooks the croquet lawn, or in the conservatory that opens out to the rose gardens and southern lake.

They eat in the wild. Out at the summit of Glastonbury Tor, where the sun sets cherry-red across the soft, green, rolling hills.

Hundreds of feet beneath them, armed guards patrol the hill and ensure the couple have their brief moment of privacy. Anyone wishing to climb the very public place will be politely paid off with whatever it takes – thousands of pounds if necessary.

The contents of the wicker picnic basket are as exceptional as the ancient landscape. Rustic bread and Welsh cakes baked within the last hour. Buffalo mozzarella, beef tomatoes and green and black olives delivered that morning from Tuscany. Fresh cockles and shrimps from the nearby coast. Homemade pheasant pâté and an ’82 Lafite from the Rothschild estate in France.

They sit at the top, where thousands of years ago there was a monk’s retreat and then a sacred chapel. From here they can pick out Great Breach Wood, Polden Hills, Brent Knoll and West Mendip Hills.

But Owain and Jennifer see much more. They see the ghosts of Shamans, Druid priests and necromancers. They see St Patrick strolling the land looking for converts. Saxon hermits hiding in the hillsides. Celtic tribes massing. Roman armies marching. The roots of civilization growing.

And they see Arthur and his Queen arm-in-arm, the Knights of the Round Table assembling and the holy goddess Fortuna stretching her sword-holding hand up from the cold water of the lake.

For almost a minute, Jennifer watches her husband stare into the distance. Normally, being here relaxes him, helps him unwind. But today the tension is still there, etched in grooves across his head and in words unspoken. She intertwines her fingers with his. ‘What are you thinking?’

It takes him a second to return from distant thoughts. ‘Many things, but nothing for you to worry about.’

She tugs his hand. ‘Don’t patronize me. What’s troubling you?’

‘Josep Mardrid.’

She shudders at the mere mention of the name. ‘What has he done now?’

‘He and his corporation grow more ruthless by the week. Currently, his bankers are buying up huge stretches of land in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Togo. Among others.’

‘Why is that so bad?’ Jennifer asks. We’ve invested out there and a lot of the charities I support are busy there.’

‘He’s trying to create a slave trade just like his family did generations ago. In Togo he’s been paying armed gangs to terrorize farmers and destroy their crops. Hundreds of men and their wives and children have been injured, some killed.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘The gangs rape teenagers of either sex. They break the bones of babies and children, then Mardrid has his suited bankers move in and make the beaten men derisory offers for their businesses. He is emerging as a third-world baron in cocoa, cotton and coffee. In time, he’ll do the same in cattle and will then control all the major food chains.’

‘What will you do about it?’

‘Anything and everything I can. If necessary, we’ll fight fire with fire. If we don’t, then nothing will be grown or raised without him getting his share.’ Owain puts his arm around his wife and kisses her. ‘Let’s not talk about him. He only makes my blood boil and we have so little time together. I have to leave for London tomorrow.’

She squeezes up to him. ‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘Neither do I. But I have so much to do. And so little time in which to do it.’

His words sting her. ‘Have you spoken to Myrddin? Is he worrying you as well?’

‘No, I haven’t. And no, he’s not worrying me.’ Owain doesn’t mention that the old man has already insisted on coming to see him. ‘But I really don’t need to speak to him to know something bad is happening. I feel what he feels. I always have done.’

Jennifer lifts his fingers to her lips and kisses them. She knows he’s right. Things are about to change. And not because of what her husband has said, or what Myrddin might believe, but because of the very thing that she is keeping secret.

The CTU rendezvous takes place at 0100 hours on the south side of Leonard Gordon Park, a six-acre spread of popular recreational land off Manhattan Avenue.

It takes Operational Commander Paul Bendon less than a minute to remind the six-man assault unit and two-man bomb-disposal team of the layout of the building and in particular where the four terrorists and their cache of explosives will be positioned inside it.

While Bendon speaks, a miniature drone hovers silently over the single-storey building. High in the starless night sky, it constantly relays thermal images formed from the men’s body heat to the tiny screen embedded in the visor of his full-face protective mask and helmet.

The commander runs a final check with two surveillance operatives hidden close to the target building and then gives the ‘go’ signal.

The unit slips silently from the blacked-out van and shifts stealthily across the corner of the park towards John F. Kennedy Boulevard. The body shop is in sight.

The metal roller door is down all the way and anchored from the inside. The three front windows and the back two are closed and have sturdy wire mesh over what is certain to be reinforced glass. The walls are white pebbledash over thick breezeblock. The roof is bitumen, plasterboard and cheap wooden joists – all too thin and noisy to risk anyone walking on.

It means Bendon has had to plan another way in.

The team with him is the best there is: MacNeish, King, Kupka, Parry, Cavell and Elliott have been in more than a dozen raids at least as dangerous as this. When it comes to badasses, they’re off the scale.

Bendon waves MacNeish forward.

The thickset operative slips into position, raises an Arwen launcher to his shoulder and chugs a series of brick-penetrating rounds through the mortar.

As the payloads empty CS into the body shop, a small explosive charge blows out an architectural weak spot between the roller door and the window. King rolls in two flashbangs.

Kupka and Parry are through the hole and into the smoke before the dust has had a chance to rise, let alone settle. Bullets spray from CTU carbines – not the normal deadly lead but unique tranquillizers that penetrate and discharge on impact.

There’s a volley of enemy fire from low in the far corner. A round smacks Elliott in the shoulder and spins him. Cavell returns fire.

It seems like all hell is breaking loose. A wall collapses and part of the roof falls in. Parry shouts, ‘Out! Out!’

More of the roof comes in. There’s another wild burst of gunfire. A crouching terrorist breaks cover and runs through the mist.

Bendon sees him. He’s heading into the other part of the body shop. The place where the pits and the explosives are.

A burst from the commander’s Heckler and Koch hits the terrorist in the back and drops him in the dirt. Bendon kicks the man’s weapon away and snags him with fast-tie plastic cuffs.

Another bomber breaks from the mist.

Kupka is close enough to smash a forearm into his face and knock him flat. He tilts his gun and shoots tranquillizer into the man’s chest.

There’s silence now.

Everyone strains and concentrates. Thermal recon showed four people – they’ve only hit two.

The team sweeps the fog with their weapons. One by one, calm voices speak into Bendon’s earpiece.

‘Clear south.’

‘Clear east.’

‘Clear west.’

‘Clear north.’

He picks through the rubble. Chunks of brick and breezeblock shift beneath the soles of his boots. Down in the pit he sees the store of bombs and bomb-making materials. There are stacks of PBX, plastic bonded explosives. Some small devices are already completed, others still need to be assembled. Alongside them are dozens of detonators, bags of binding materials, packs of plasticizers and several canisters of cyclotrimethylene.

Bendon waves the bomb-squad boys forward and steps outside. Two of the cell got away when the roof fell in but his men are after them. He picks up the radio in the van and links through to CTU control. ‘Two captured. Two escaped but the information was a hundred per cent accurate. The place was a bomb factory. A big one. Tell Director Briars his informant delivered, again.’

The black Jaguar arrives in the dead of night.

Armed guards leave the warmth of their security lodge, peer briefly through the bulletproof glass then respectfully wave the limousine past.

It travels a short way down an unlit track to an old gatekeeper’s cottage. The driver, a large man with military haircut gets out and opens the back door for his passenger.

Myrddin struggles to extricate himself from the plush seating. His long spine is bent and stiff from the arduous journey, his mind already on the return trip he must make soon after daybreak.

The cottage smells of damp and is as sparsely furnished as his chambers in Wales. There are no curtains or carpets. In the middle of a rough wooden table stands a wicker basket of cold meats and cheeses, along with a vintage bottle of single malt whisky and two glasses.

Outside he hears noises. Feet on gravel. Attentive voices of the gate guards.

The door creaks open and Owain Gwyn enters. ‘It is so good to see you!’

They embrace warmly.

‘How are you, my dear, dear boy?’ asks Myrddin as they break.

‘I am well. Though I feel terrible about you driving all this way. You should have used the helicopter.’

‘
Fuh
.’ He flaps a hand dismissively. ‘Horrible things. You know I am too old to fly.’

Owain laughs and then points around at the bare room. ‘I always feel bad when you stay out here in the cold like a hermit. We could make you so much more comfortable in the main house.’

‘I
like
to live like this. Besides, I have the whisky to keep me warm.’ He uncaps the bottle and pours two glasses.

Owain sits at the table with him. ‘When we get to Wales, let me bring people in and refurbish your chambers and the solar. Central heating, damp proofing, electricity. Bring you some of the comforts of the twenty-first century.’

He shakes his head. ‘Shelter alone is a luxury. Anything more builds a barrier between me and the spirits I wish to converse with.’

Owain raises his malt. ‘
This
is the only spirit I want any contact with.’

They touch glasses and drink.

Myrddin puts his whisky down and cuts to the purpose of his visit. ‘I have told you of some of the recent things that have broken my sleep. Have any of the visions yet made sense to you?’

‘Sadly, yes.’

‘Specifically?’

Owain is pained to explain, ‘Angelo Marchetti, a member of the Inner Circle has been stealing artefacts and money. It’s a long story, but as a result, men he recruited were responsible for a murder in America – the owner of an antique store —’

‘Ah, this is the Keeper of Time.’

‘It would seem to fit your prophecy.’ He freshens their glasses.

‘But only one dead?’

‘No, there were more.’

‘I foresaw the brown and silent beast that bore Death and his disciples.’

Owain nods. ‘One of the men we pursued was in a brown hybrid SUV – that’s a vehicle that runs silently on electricity as well as petrol or diesel.’

‘As old as I am, I know what hybrid means.’ He turns his sad eyes up at Owain. ‘There is something I have not yet told you.’

‘Then, I suppose now is the time to tell it.’

Myrddin is almost afraid to speak the words. ‘I have seen
the child
.’

Owain looks shaken.

‘He is coming.’

‘You are certain?’

‘I am. He is coming and with him, there will be a river of blood that will flow from country to country, continent to continent.’