The Power of Five Oblivion (15 page)

He would worry about that later. Right now his thoughts were with Scarlett. She was in the vehicle ahead of him and he wondered if she was still alive. Would there be any hospitals still standing in all this wreckage that had the facilities to treat her? And what of Matt? Richard felt a wrench of helplessness, knowing that after all the two of them had been through together, they were suddenly apart. The door which had brought him from Hong Kong to Giza could have taken Matt anywhere. The two of them could be – and probably were – on opposite sides of the world.

The lead jeep swerved around a corner, through a shattered archway and continued down a narrow alley that had shuttered windows on both sides and dozens of washing lines criss-crossing each other with sheets and ragged clothes hanging down. It was as if they had entered a secret passage. The way ahead was blocked. A bus had been abandoned in the street, but as they approached, it was somehow drawn aside to reveal a gateway behind. Richard saw armed soldiers, dressed in the same desert camouflage, waiting in a courtyard beyond and he knew that they had arrived.

The compound was a rectangle of dust and concrete, surrounded by a breeze-block wall that was still intact and covered with faded posters and graffiti. Three anonymous buildings faced the main entrance, all of them three storeys high with barred windows, crumbling plaster and no sign of any decoration at all. As the vehicles pulled in, Richard saw goalposts with the tattered remains of a net and a wire hoop for basketball. This had once been a school. Or a prison. Behind them, more soldiers were sliding a heavy steel door across the entrance. There were wooden observation posts at each corner, manned by guards with guns and radio transmitters, doing their best to stay out of sight.

The jeeps came to a halt. As Richard got out, he saw Scarlett being lifted by two men and carried into the building furthest away. He tried to follow her but suddenly the Frenchman who had spoken to him at the pyramids was at his side.

“There is nothing you can do for her, Mr Cole. We have medical facilities here and she will be well cared for. We have been waiting a long time for you to arrive. You must come with me.”

Mr Cole
.

We have been waiting a long time…

The Frenchman knew his name. They had been waiting at the pyramids for the two of them to appear. None of it made any sense.

Richard allowed himself to be escorted towards the main building, the one that stood between the other two. But before he was allowed to go in, a guard appeared and barked at him in Arabic. The guard was young, no more than nineteen. War had quickly turned him into an adult.

“He wishes to search you before you can enter,” the Frenchman explained. “Your backpack … you are not permitted to carry weapons.”

It was only now that Richard remembered the backpack that he had been wearing in Hong Kong and that was still strapped to his shoulders. It contained two precious objects. One was a diary, written in the sixteenth century by a Spanish monk, Joseph of Cordoba. It contained the only known history of the Old Ones and, Richard hoped, it might also hold a clue to how they could be defeated. The other object was indeed a weapon. It was a gold knife set with semi-precious stones that had been given to him by the Incas when he was in Peru. The knife was also known as a
tumi
and had once been used for sacrifices.

Richard had no choice. He handed the backpack over and watched as the young soldier, bearded with blank eyes, rummaged through it.

The soldier turned over his clothes. He found the book, took it out and glanced through it, then returned it without even looking at it. He unzipped the pockets and examined the insides. Then, with a cursory nod, he handed the backpack back to Richard. Once again, Richard found himself marvelling at what he knew had been nothing less than a display of Inca magic. The
tumi
had been in full sight of the soldier. He must have even pushed it aside as his hands burrowed into the pack. But he hadn’t noticed it was there. This was what the
amauta
, the Inca wise man, had told him. The knife was practically invisible. That was its power. Richard had even been able to carry it through airport security when he had flown into London. But the old man had added something else.

“Do not thank me. One day you will curse me for giving it to you.”

Richard often thought about that and wondered what he’d meant.

At least having the knife meant that if these people were enemies and this turned out to be some sort of trap, he would be armed. Richard reflected on that as he followed the Frenchman inside. He found himself being led down a short corridor and into an empty classroom with a blackboard at one end, a few scattered desks and chairs and a view over the courtyard. Now that they were out of the sandstorm, the Frenchman had removed his face covering to reveal long grey hair, sunken cheeks and eyes that were full of trouble. He was about fifty and seemed somehow suited to the room. Perhaps he had been a teacher or lecturer once.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I can arrange to have some food and water brought up.”

“I’m fine,” Richard said. He had forgotten how long it had been since his last meal but he couldn’t sit down and eat until he had heard about Scarlett. “Where is Scarlett?” he asked.

“There are doctors here. We have a full working hospital in the block next door. You are very lucky. There is a bullet lodged in her head and without them she would not have a chance.”

“What is this place? And you used my name. How do you know who I am?”

“I am sure you have a great many questions, Mr Cole. So, I must admit, do I. Perhaps it would help if you let me speak first. I will begin, if I may, with an observation. You have forgotten me but you and I have met before. It was in London, in a place called Farringdon.”

“The Nexus…?”

Richard certainly hadn’t forgotten the organization that had been helping them almost from the moment that he and Matt had met. The Nexus was made up of very important and influential people – police, politicians, churchmen, wealthy businessmen and women – who knew about the Old Ones and the threat they posed to the world and had come together to lead the fight against them. At the same time, they were smart enough to realize that if they went public, talking about demons and black magic, they would be ridiculed. The newspapers would tear them apart. And so they met in secret. They had used their huge collective wealth to set up a resistance movement that had branches all over the world. Richard had visited them in one such location, in central London. He remembered Susan Ashwood, the blind medium. And Mr Fabian, who had nearly got them killed in Peru. And then there was Mr Lee, the Chinese businessman who had helped them reach Hong Kong.

But this man was a stranger to him.

Unless…

Richard examined him more closely. Now that he thought about it, there had been a Frenchman in the room in Farringdon. He had seen him twice; once after the petrol tanker had destroyed Matt’s school and the two of them had been sent to Peru, then again when they had returned on their way to Hong Kong. But the person he had met had been much younger than the man who was examining him curiously now. He’d had shorter, darker hair. He had been wearing a suit.

“My name is Albert Rémy,” the Frenchman said. “You might as well know that now. But before you say anything else, let me ask you this. You remember me?”

“Yes…” Richard was hesitant.

“When did you and I last meet?”

“I was in Farringdon about ten days ago.”

“Ten days…” Rémy smiled sadly. “It is as I suspected. A trick has been played on you, my friend. Or perhaps it has been played on both of us. For you, it has been ten days. But for me, it is more than ten years since we were last together.”

“Ten years?”

“You were there with the American boy, Jamie. And also with Matthieu. We sent you to Macau, which we believed was the only safe way to enter Hong Kong.” Rémy held up a hand. “Do not try to argue with me. It will drive you mad. Ever since the Old Ones came into the world, so many things have happened that do not seem possible, that we cannot understand. I will tell you how it is from my point of view and then you can say what you wish.

“I remember very clearly that last meeting with you. You had heard that Scarlett, the fifth Gatekeeper, was in Hong Kong and although we were certain it was a trap, we had to send you there. After that, we heard nothing more from you. There was a typhoon of great power that destroyed much of the city. Tens of thousands of people were killed and we wondered if you were among them. We had no way of knowing and could only do what we had always sworn to do. We waited for you. We have been waiting for ten long years.”

“Why are you here in Egypt?” Richard asked. “Why not London?”

“London no longer exists, my friend. At least, not in the way you knew it.” Richard looked shocked and Rémy continued. “I warned you not to ask questions. Let me explain…

“We all knew that there was a doorway in Hong Kong that you could use to travel across the world. You yourself had told us so, as you had found it in the diary of the Spanish monk. There were twenty-four other doors, some of which you had identified. We knew of St Meredith’s in London, the cave at Lake Tahoe, the Abbey of San Galgano in Italy and the Temple of Coricancha in Cuzco, Peru. You also named other locations in Australia, South America and here in Egypt. It was clear to us that if you were ever to appear again, it would be through one of the doorways. It was therefore decided that agents of the Nexus would take responsibility for each one of the doorways that we knew and be there, should you ever arrive. I was sent to the Great Pyramid.”

“But you weren’t the only ones who knew about them,” Richard muttered.

“Of course not. Have you forgotten that before you received the diary, it was in the hands of the industrialist Diego Salamanda? Before it reached you, he would certainly have studied it, and everything that is known to us is also known to the Old Ones. Not all the gates were identified in the diary. What this means is that some of them are safe. But the majority of them were surrounded, watched every minute of the day and night for ten years. The Old Ones were also waiting for the five children – Matt, Pedro, Scott, Jamie and Scarlett – to reappear. The moment that happened, they would be taken prisoner … as very nearly happened to you today.”

“Except that you were there.”

“You begin to see. Yes. The watchers were themselves being watched. I have spent thousands of hours waiting for you, Richard. It has been a long vigil and often I have thought to myself that it was a hopeless one. You have no idea how glad I am to see you now.”

“So what’s happening in Cairo? How come there’s a war going on? Who were the soldiers at the pyramids? And there was a shape-changer with them…!”

“Ah yes. The shape-changer. It is very rare to see one, although we know they help the government forces. The Old Ones do not like to show themselves. They prefer to work behind the scenes.

“Much has occurred in ten years, my friend, and none of it has been good. In fact, when I look at what has happened to the world, I wonder if the Old Ones have not used their powers, playing with the fabric of time. Look at what they have done to you! You are gone for ten days but ten years have passed. Well, so it is for the world. It seems sometimes as if we flicker from crisis to crisis, that a year becomes a week, a week no more than a minute. How else can so many bad things happen in so short a space of time? The volcano that erupted in Japan. The tsunami that hit the coast of Australia. The plague in China. The earthquake in the west coast of America. The total failure of the crops and the famine that followed. Famine in the United States? Would you ever have believed it?”

“What about London?”

“Not all the catastrophes have been the work of nature, Richard. After the banking system collapsed, there were riots all over Europe. Much of my own city, Paris, was set ablaze. For London, it was a terrorist bomb. A nuclear bomb. Nine of them, in fact, each one destroying a major city in the United Kingdom on the same day.”

Richard felt sick. So few words adding up to so much death. He simply couldn’t take in the enormity of what the Frenchman was saying. What he was being told was insane. He had been away for ten days, not ten years, and it was as if he was hearing the history of ten centuries.

The Old Ones had made it happen. That was why they were here.

“I will not tire you with the rest of it – not all at once,” Rémy said. “You only need to know the situation here. A military government has taken over Egypt. The same has happened in many places in the Middle East. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces here is led by a man called Field Marshall Karim el-Akkad and he is utterly ruthless. He owes his power purely to the fact that he is supported by the Old Ones and he does everything that he is told. Citizens here are routinely kidnapped, tortured and killed. Everyone lives in fear.

“There is, however, a resistance movement. It has been partly funded by the Nexus. We have been supplying them with food, arms and ammunition, much of it flown into Dubai and then carried here, a thousand kilometres across the desert. In return, they have been helping us watch over the pyramid. Government forces were waiting for you when you emerged this morning. The rebels then attacked them and brought you here.”

“Here…?”

“A rebel hospital and training centre. It is one of many. I will not say you are safe here because nowhere in the Middle East is safe. But they are operating on Scarlett even now and if it is at all possible for her to be saved, they will save her.”

Richard was feeling exhausted. His mouth was dry. “I think I would like to have something to drink after all,” he said.

“I will arrange it. We have a room here for you. We will get you fresh clothes and perhaps you need to have a sleep.”

“And you’ll tell me about Scarlett?”

“As soon as there is news, of course.”

Albert Rémy stood up and went to the door. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you returned,” he said.