The Secret of Excalibur (24 page)

Mitchell fired a shot. The bullet hit the BMW’s windscreen, cracking the glass, but missing the men inside. The Russian returned fire. Mitchell dropped flat on the bed as more holes ripped through the van.

The firing stopped. Chase checked the mirror. The gunman withdrew into the 7 Series, reloading.

And the car itself grew larger, leaping forward to ram them—

The VW’s occupants were jolted by the impact. The van swerved towards a fence, Chase barely managing to straighten out before being hit again - the 7 Series was pushing them from behind.

The speedometer needle whipped past sixty, rapidly heading into unknown territory as the snarl of the BMW’s engine filled the cabin. The steering wheel shuddered in Chase’s hands, the vehicle starting to snake. He fought to keep it in line. If he lost control, the van would flip over.

He looked ahead - and saw the end of the road approaching rapidly, the brick wall of a farm building on the other side of a T-junction directly ahead. ‘Shit!’

Only the roof of the 7 Series was now visible in the mirror, the driver still barging them along like a locomotive—

‘Jack!’ Nina yelled. ‘Do something!’

‘I’ve only got one bullet left!’ Mitchell protested. But he still got to his knees, and was about to shoot at the driver when a burst of gunfire from the other Russian forced him back down. ‘Dammit!’

They were running out of road. Nina glanced back and saw the camping stove lying on its side. ‘The stove, throw the stove!’

Mitchell was lost. ‘What?’

‘Throw it - and shoot it!’

Realisation flashed across Mitchell’s face. He snatched up the fallen stove and hurled it through the rear window.

The gunman was about to shoot him when the gas cylinder slammed into the bullet-damaged windscreen, hanging partway through the cracked glass like a fat blue fly in a spider’s web. His eyes instinctively flicked towards it—

Mitchell fired.

The last bullet punched through one side of the cylinder and out of the other as it drove the cylinder through the windscreen, hot lead igniting the gas in its wake.

It exploded directly between the two men, shrapnel ripping their flesh like a shotgun blast before they were incinerated. The car swerved sharply before hitting a tree and flipping over, bowling along the narrow lane in a shower of flaming debris.

Chase slammed on the brakes. The tyres screamed, as did the occupants of the Volkswagen as it hurtled towards the farm wall, smoke belching from its wheels—

They hit.

But at barely five miles per hour. There was a muffled crunch as the camper van’s bowed nose was flattened against the unyielding brickwork, then it rolled backwards and came to a stop.

Chase found himself bent over the steering wheel, one foot still jammed on the brake. He looked across to see Nina blinking at him from the passenger footwell. ‘So . . . we
are
still alive, right?’

Mitchell was flattened against the back of Nina’s seat. ‘More or less,’ he said, coughing as acrid tyre smoke wafted through the broken windows. He sat upright and looked back. The burning hulk of the 7 Series lay on its side about fifty feet away, blocking the road. ‘Don’t think they are, though.’

‘Great.’ The engine had stalled, but to Chase’s surprise it restarted when he turned the key. ‘Okay, now what?’

Mitchell searched for his phone. ‘First thing, clear the area, in case Kruglov’s found another car. I’ll call the embassy again, guide a chopper to us.’ He located his phone, but kept looking round, growing worried. ‘Shit! Where’s the sword?’

‘Here,’ said Nina, pulling herself back on to her seat. Excalibur had slid under it into the footwell. She picked it up. ‘Hey, it’s not glowing any more.’

‘Maybe we’re not on a ley line here,’ Mitchell suggested as he pushed the redial button. ‘Earth energy seems to follow natural lines of flux; we might be too far away from one to channel any.’

‘Well, whatever,’ said Nina, too exhausted by the chase to care about his theories. ‘We got it.’

Chase put the Volkswagen into reverse. The legendary sword of King Arthur in Nina’s hands, they drove away down the country lane.

21

‘
W
ell,’ said Mitchell, ‘you did it.’

‘
We
did it,’ Nina corrected.

Excalibur lay on a velvet cloth, carefully cleaned of dirt and gleaming under the lights in the office at the US embassy. The pieces of Caliburn sat beside it in their open metal case; a similar container had been prepared for the intact sword.

‘Yeah, we did,’ said Chase curtly. He stood away from the other two, leaning against a wall. ‘Cost us enough, though.’

‘It would have cost a lot more if Vaskovich had gotten his hands on it,’ said Mitchell. Ignoring Chase’s dark expression, he leaned closer to examine the blade, then gave Nina an admiring look. ‘You stuck this thing right through
stone
.’

‘Yeah, what was the deal with that?’ Nina asked, wanting to avert another dispute between the two men. ‘You said you had a theory - what is it?’

Mitchell almost reverently lifted Excalibur from the cloth. ‘It’s something else DARPA’s been working on - but I didn’t expect to see it here.’

‘So DARPA’s building lightsabers, are they?’

Mitchell smiled. ‘Not quite - but we
are
making monomolecular blades. Or at least trying to.’ Seeing her questioning expression, he continued, ‘If you can create a cutting edge that’s made up of one long, single molecule, then in theory it should be able to cut through almost anything. We’ve had some success by using carbon nanotubes, but only on a micro scale. Nothing with practical applications yet. But this . . .’ He eyed the sword. ‘Remember what I told you about Wootz steel, how it incorporated carbon nanotubes to give it incredible sharpness in 500 BC? So does this - but somehow, whatever it is about your body’s bioelectric field that’s causing the sword to channel earth energy is also aligning the nanotubes into a monomolecular edge. As soon as you let go, they lose their charge and go back to their original alignment - which is why I couldn’t pull the sword from the stone. But you could.’

Nina’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s a hell of a theory.’

‘I know. But it fits the facts.’

‘So if the right person was holding it, they could cut through
anything
?’

‘Maybe not anything, but definitely a lot of things. No wonder Arthur was unstoppable in battle.’

‘So why me? How come I could make it glow and you couldn’t?’

‘You got me there,’ said Mitchell, handing the sword to her. ‘Who knows, maybe you’re descended from King Arthur!’ He laughed, but Nina did not. He crossed the room and switched off the lights; the metal gave off a faint shimmering glow against the twilight beyond the embassy windows.

Chase raised an eyebrow. ‘Christ, you’re a Jedi.’

‘Try it with Caliburn,’ Mitchell suggested. Nina returned Excalibur to the cloth and picked up the piece of broken blade. It seemed to remain completely inert until she lowered it into the shadows below the table, whereupon the slightest glimmer of blue became discernible. ‘Looks like it reacts to you too, just not so much,’ he said as he turned the lights back on. ‘I guess Merlin must’ve needed another try to get the formula right.’

‘I guess so,’ she said, ‘but I still don’t understand how. And why’s it lighting up here? We’re in the middle of a city!’ She put the piece of Caliburn back in its case.

Mitchell looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe all the highways leading through the countryside and converging on London disrupt the lines of earth energy, even redirect them. We know we can use an antenna array to gather earth energy, so there could be other ways to affect it as well. But that’s something we can figure out now that we’ve got it.’ He carefully folded the velvet around Excalibur, then placed it in its case and closed it.

‘So what happens now?’ asked Chase.

‘Now? Both the swords go to DARPA for analysis. Then after we’re done, Excalibur comes back to England and I’d guess takes pride of place in the British Museum or Buckingham Palace or wherever. And meanwhile, Vaskovich gets jack shit.’ Mitchell smiled. ‘Which suits me just fine.’

‘And what about us?’ said Nina.

‘You go back to the IHA with yet another string to your bow. Atlantis, the Tomb of Hercules, and now King Arthur and Excalibur - that’s a pretty goddamn impressive résumé! You should be proud.’ He picked up the two cases. ‘As for me, well, back to the States with these babies so we can figure out how the hell Merlin made them in the first place. Once we do, we can create our own superconductors - and Uncle Sam gets the world’s first fully functioning earth energy generator.’

Nina nodded. ‘I’m going to have to be more open-minded in future, I guess. I thought this whole thing about earth energy was just pseudoscientific nonsense, but Bernd was right about that too. I bet he never imagined that I’d actually be physically able to prove it, though.’

‘But you did,’ Mitchell said. He paused, then put down one of the cases. ‘I owe you a hell of a lot. We would never have found the swords without you, Nina . . . and you, Eddie.’ He kissed Nina on the cheek, then extended his hand to Chase. ‘Seriously, man - you did a great job.’

‘You weren’t too shabby yourself,’ said Chase flatly. After a moment, he shook Mitchell’s hand.

‘Okay, then,’ said Mitchell, picking up the aluminium case again, ‘I guess this is it for now. You’re still booked into the hotel for tonight, compliments of DARPA so you’ll finally be able to put on some clean clothes. And enjoy the rest of your vacation - sorry it got interrupted.’

‘Actually, I didn’t mind that part so much,’ Chase muttered. Mitchell smiled, then left the room, taking the cases with him.

Nina waited until the door closed before speaking. ‘I think I
do
know why the sword reacted to me and nobody else,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t want to bring it up in front of Jack - I don’t know how much he knows about the Atlantean genome. After we discovered Atlantis, Kristian Frost told me his research found that about one per cent of the world’s population possessed the same genome as the ancient Atlanteans - that they were directly descended from them. I’m one of that one per cent. Some of the more fanciful Atlantis legends said the Atlanteans had unusual powers; I never believed them because they sounded like pure fantasy, but who knows?’ She looked at her hands. ‘Causing a sword to light up just by touching it would definitely qualify as unusual. Maybe the Atlanteans knew how to make a superconducting metal, even if they had no idea what that meant. Merlin might just have been trying to recreate the same thing.’

She waited for a response from Chase. Nothing seemed forthcoming. ‘Eddie? Did you hear me?’

‘Course I heard you, I’m not deaf,’ he replied, frowning. ‘I just didn’t
care
.’ He stepped towards her. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nina! I told you not to go, and look what happened! You almost got killed. And I don’t know what . . .’ He took a breath. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.’

‘To
Jack
?’ Nina exclaimed, incredulous.

‘What?’ Chase was briefly confused before realising she had completely misunderstood him. ‘No, that’s not what I—’

‘For God’s sake!’ Nina snapped. ‘I cannot believe you are actually
jealous
of Jack! What, you think that first he took your job and now he’s going to take your woman?’

‘What do you mean, my job?’

‘You think your job is to look after me, don’t you?’ said Nina. ‘I just run around getting into trouble so that you can save me. But Jack comes along and can do the same thing,
and
he’s an American, like me,
and
he’s a PhD, like me, and you feel threatened!’

Chase crossed his arms angrily. ‘That’s the most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘Is it?’ She turned away to look out across Grosvenor Square, its trees and buildings silhouetted against the dusk sky. On the street below, she saw Mitchell descend the steps outside the embassy’s front entrance and climb into a waiting black cab. For some reason, he was only carrying one of the two cases. ‘You’re the one who’s being paranoid about Jack and behaving like a . . .’ She tailed off.

A
taxi
. . .

‘It’s got nothing to do with Jack!’ Chase protested behind her - but Nina was no longer listening.

She stared at the taxi in growing horror, colour draining from her face as realisation hit. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, my God!’ she repeated, whirling to face him. ‘It’s Jack - he’s not taking Excalibur to the States. He’s taking it to
Vaskovich
!’ She ran to the door. ‘Come on!’

Chase stared at her, anger turning to bewilderment. ‘What’re you talking about?’

‘He’s
stealing
it, he’s stealing my goddamn sword! Come on!’

She ran for the stairs, Chase following in confusion. ‘How do you know?’

‘Because he just got into a taxi!’

Sarcasm filled his voice. ‘Oh no, a
taxi
! That
proves
he’s evil!
Now
who’s being paranoid?’

They clattered down the stairs, a couple of embassy workers jumping out of their way. ‘Since when does Jack use taxis? Every time he’s gone
anywhere
, he’s had an official US government vehicle - car, plane, whatever! But now he’s carrying something incredibly valuable - and he decides to take it to the airport in a
cab
?’

They reached the lobby. Nina spotted Peach talking to a tall, granite-faced man with a close-cropped brush of pure white hair - who was holding the other metal case. ‘Mr Peach! Hey!’

Peach looked round in surprise. ‘Dr Wilde! What’s the matter?’

She jabbed a finger at the case. ‘Did Jack Mitchell just give you that?’ she asked the white-haired man.

Peach spoke for him. ‘Yes. We’re putting it into secure storage until it can be transferred to DARPA.’

‘Uh-huh. And what about the
other
case?’

‘What other case?’

‘The case he’s about to give to the Russians! Eddie, come on!’ Nina rushed for the exit, Chase shrugging helplessly at Peach before following her. One of the Marines stationed at the metal detectors inside the doors moved to block them, but Peach shouted for him to let them through. They ran down the steps and into Grosvenor Square.

Nina hunted for the taxi. ‘Where’d he go? Where’d he go?’

‘Over there.’ Chase pointed to the left; the road round the square was a one-way system, circulating clockwise. The traffic was light, the only cab in sight heading east along the long side of the gardens towards the heart of London.

Nina spotted a black cab outside the Marriott hotel to their right. They ran to it, the driver looking up expectantly. ‘Follow that cab!’

‘Are you taking the piss?’ the driver hooted.

‘No, no! That cab, over there!’ She pointed to the opposite corner of the park. ‘We need to be wherever he’s going, fast!’

The driver regarded her as if she were an escaped mental patient. Chase sighed and took out several banknotes. ‘Fifty quid do you?’

‘That’s the ticket,’ said the driver with a broad smile. ‘Hop in!’

The taxi set off with a determined diesel rasp. Nina peered ahead as they drove past the embassy and turned to head east. ‘There! There he is!’

The driver accelerated. ‘Saw you both come out of the embassy,’ he said. ‘So this geezer we’re after - terrorist, is he? Spy?’

‘A thief,’ Nina told him. The driver didn’t seem impressed, but continued the pursuit regardless.

‘You
think
,’ said Chase.

Nina addressed the driver. ‘If you were going to Heathrow from the embassy, would you go the way he’s going?’

‘God, no!’ the driver said, laughing. ‘Completely the other direction, miss.’

‘Told you,’ she said to Chase. ‘That’s why he didn’t take an official vehicle - he doesn’t want anyone from the embassy to know where he’s going.’

‘I still don’t get what you’re thinking,’ he complained. ‘If he was going to give the sword to Vaskovich anyway, why didn’t he just hand it over at Glastonbury?’

‘Maybe he didn’t want to blow his cover. Not in front of us.’

‘Okay, so if he’s really working for Vaskovich, he could have had Kruglov kill us and then make up whatever story he wanted. Why would he care about keeping us alive once he’s got the sword?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nina, shaking her head. ‘But Jack knew Kruglov and the rest . . . and they knew
him
.’

‘If they’re so matey, why were they trying to kill him?’

Nina didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, she sat back and watched as they caught up with Mitchell’s taxi, their driver keeping a couple of cars between the two black cabs. They turned south, eventually emerging on Regent Street and passing through the neon blaze of Piccadilly Circus before heading east again.

‘Looks like he’s going to Leicester Square,’ the cabbie said. Traffic had slowed considerably even by London’s sluggish standards, people crowding the pavements ahead.

‘What’s going on?’ Nina asked.

‘Film premiere at the Empire, miss. I dropped some girls off there earlier - they wanted to see that American bloke starring in it, wossname, that guy with teeth. Grant Thorn, that’s the one. My missus likes him, but I reckon he’s just another one of those plastic Americans. No offence, miss.’

‘Uh-huh. Hey, he’s stopping,’ Nina said, seeing the other taxi pull over.

‘Stop here,’ Chase told the driver. The taxi squealed to a halt a few car-lengths behind its quarry as Mitchell climbed out. Chase paid the driver. ‘Keep the change.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ the driver replied. Nina opened the door as Mitchell headed into the crowd. ‘Hope you catch your thief !’

‘Do you know your way around here?’ she asked Chase as they hurried after Mitchell, battling to keep sight of him through the throng.

‘More or less. I lived in London when I was with Sophia.’