“Absolutely. I gave them a copy of it.”
“They have a copy of this?”
“Yes, I made it myself on my little Xerox,” explained the vicar helpfully.
The seething MI6 section chief struggled to keep calm, “Thank you, father, now please leave the church and wait outside. These are dangerous people.”
“Strange to hear you say that. They have been very friendly and polite to me. Surely, they don’t merit your concern? One is a man of letters.”
“For your own safety, get out. That is an order.” His voice was insistent.
The armed policeman’s attitude stunned the vicar, “My son, you are standing in God’s house. Only He can give orders in here.”
Colin locked his eyes on the confused vicar, “At this moment, as far as you’re concerned, I am God.”
Vicar Williams bristled at his words, “Sir, I am sure your intentions are good, but what you are saying reeks of blasphemy.”
“What I am saying reeks of the truth, vicar, and my will shall be done.”
He grabbed the parish minister by his robes and dragged him down the aisle to the main door.
“This isn’t right-”
Colin pushed the door open and shoved the vicar through it. “You’ll thank me for this one day.”
As the man of God stumbled across the gravel forecourt, Colin called to the waiting men outside, “Make sure he doesn’t come back in. And no one else is to enter.” Without a backward glance, he slammed shut the old wooden door and stormed between the pews towards the church’s records.
Thirty feet below him, huddled in the underground chamber dating back to the church’s original construction in 1340, Alex, Cate and Eddie gathered around a treasure trove of ancient books and parchments.
“These records are priceless!” For a man who loved the written word, Alex had found his Nirvana.
“But no mention anywhere about Mary’s husband,” said Cate, dashing the professor’s excitement. “I’ve found nothing showing he ever lived here, or in any of the other surrounding villages.”
“If neither of them were from here or had family close by, why did they travel so far to get married? Was it like a honeymoon thing?” asked Eddie.
“I doubt it. There was abject poverty throughout the working class of London back then, and few people would have been able to afford to do anything like that, and I certainly don’t think a woman like Mary was in the position to take a honeymoon. But it is a good question. If this wasn’t her fiancé’s home, why all the inconvenience of coming here? There were more than fifty churches nearby them in London where they could have held their wedding.”
Cate pulled on a cabinet door, “It’s locked, and there may be more records inside showing birth and local residence. But I can’t get it open.”
Alex turned to Eddie, “Can you run up and ask the vicar if he has a key to this cabinet?”
“Will do, professor.” Eddie was already bored with the research and book work, and happy to have the distraction. He grinned as he hurtled up the stairs, two at a time.
Eddie shoved open the heavy crypt door and emerged from the darkness into the last of the late afternoon sun flooding through the huge stained-glass gothic windows, lighting the church in a myriad of colors. As his eyes struggled to compensate to the change, he made out the silhouette of a dark figure halfway down the nave studying the books. He called out to him, “Vicar.”
The hazy shape turned and as he did, Eddie realized it was not the vicar, it was Colin Brown, the agent hunting him, and he was reaching for a sidearm in his holster.
“Shit!” Eddie flung himself backward between the pews as the first two bullets ripped into the old, dried wood, showering him with shards and splinters.
Eddie stayed on his hands and knees and crawled as quickly as he could back to the crypt’s entrance.
Three more rounds crashed into the pews, inches from Eddie, creating more matchwood. Even though Colin was firing blind, he was still too damn accurate with his shots and if it wasn’t for the strength of the centuries-old carpentry, he knew the bullets would have found their mark.
The firing stopped and Eddie heard the MI6 operative start toward him, calling out as he approached, “No point in running, kid. You’ll only die tired.”
The boy launched himself headfirst through the open crypt entryway and whirled around, pushing the big door shut. He felt bullets slamming into the other side of the wood and prayed it was thick enough to withstand the high impacts. Perhaps it was because he was in a church, his prayers were answered, and the five inches of old English oak swallowed up the hollow-point ammunition made in Illinois.
He swung the hinged beam on the back of the door into place and locked it shut. That should slow Mr. Brown down, but what now, where would they go, how could they get out? Eddie sprinted down the stairs to tell his friends of the nightmare above waiting for them.
Colin stared at the closed door contemplating his next move when a warning yell behind had him turning in place.
“Armed police. We’re coming in.”
Colin stood and watched as Simon burst through the main entrance, heading an assault team, weapons ready, visors down.
Simon saw Colin standing there, and raised his hand to halt his men, “Are you all right? We heard shots.”
“Get them out now!” Colin demanded, pointing back to the door in dismissal.
Seeing Colin was unhurt, Simon didn’t hesitate instructing his men to leave the church, and carried on toward him, alone. As the director of MI5’s operations approached, he could sense a bloodlust in Colin Brown. It was the feel he sometimes picked up when he was arresting an armed suspect after a prolonged chase, not something he was used to encountering when facing a fellow officer. Had any of his own men exhibited this kind of behavior he would have relieved them of their duties and arranged for them to have crisis counseling. But Colin Brown was not one of his team, he was a law unto himself. “What happened?” Simon asked.
“The kid pulled a gun on me. I fired to protect myself. But he made it through that door and locked himself in there.” Colin gestured to the entryway to the crypt.
Simon stepped forward and pushed on the door. Nothing. No movement. “That’s solid timber. It was built to take a battering ram. We’d have to blow it to get through.”
“Exactly. And by the time demolitions got here, half the tabloid press in Britain would be on site wanting to find out who these three Americans are, why they’re attracting all this attention and offering them a spot on next season’s Celebrity Big Brother. If they talk to anyone now, this will all come down on our heads.”
“It can’t be that bad unless it has escalated way beyond what you said when you brought this case to me three days ago. I understand your concern, and the possible ramifications, but this was meant to be a simple locate and arrest op.”
Colin gestured to the pile of books lying on a small table to the side of the aisles, “Let me show you something.” He led the way to the stack and pointed to the writing in the open one, “They found this.”
Simon read the entry in the centuries-old record book and was staggered by what he saw, “So what you said is true! They were married.”
“Yes, one hundred percent legal, and in a Church of England ceremony. They came out here, away from London, because their secret would be safe. It worked for them and stayed that way for so many years.”
“And with all our resources and more than a century of searching, we found nothing, but you bring in this American professor and he unravels it in a week? How did he do it? The man is a magician. What is your plan now?” Simon was lost.
“We do our job. The kid will use this information against us. You know full well who and what we are sworn to protect. You go out and stay with your men. I’ll take care of things in here.”
“This is a domestic threat. It’s my duty to be present with you to bring it to an end.”
“Damn it, you are present.” Colin Brown�
�s voice rose in anger, “But let me handle this and do what is necessary. It started overseas as an MI6 mission and I am simply following the pursuit to its conclusion. You would be better served outside with your men, and should the whole thing go tits up, you’ll have plausible deniability. This is my job now.”
Simon felt the threat in Brown’s tone and saw the man’s hand unconsciously tightening around his pistol grip, his knuckles turning white. His twenty years of field training kicked in and he found himself assessing the MI6 agent as a possible adversary. He took in the agent’s strong build and powerful stance; he might be able to disarm him of his weapon, but then what?
He was all too aware of Colin Brown’s reputation which had become legend throughout Britain’s SIS – the Secret Intelligence Service. His operation in the Bahamas a few years before when he had located two stolen warheads, had saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe, and more recently, his almost single-handed destruction of the opium cartel in the East had virtually stemmed the flow of heroin into the United Kingdom. If it came to a hand-to-hand encounter, Simon held no false hopes, physical combat was Brown’s specialty, and what could he do against a field agent with his kind of training and background? Better to cooperate and keep his eyes on him.
“Okay, I’ll be outside with my teams, but don’t do anything stupid in here.”
Brown hissed his answer as Simon turned away, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
The MI5 director walked towards the door, understanding for the first time the vast gulf existing between the two intelligence branches. The men and women of Five were usually brought into the Ministry with a background of being trained detectives or experienced police personnel, and remained committed to preventing acts of domestic terror and bringing potential perpetrators to justice.
The agents from MI6 were recruited under very different circumstances, often after proving their edge in bloody overseas actions with the SAS or UKSF. Their roles were intended primarily as assassins, sent to put an end to their targets by whatever means they deemed fit. That’s why so few of the people they went after ever ended up in court or in prison. They simply ended up dead.
Colin remained a statue until Simon left the church, and then exploded into action. He selected a series of heavy wooden pews and dragged them one at a time across the stone floors to block the crypt’s entrance. Within minutes, ten of the old benches were stacked against the oak door.
He turned back and saw dozens of prayer and hymn books had fallen from the narrow shelves of the pews as he’d lugged them into place, and realizing the purpose they could serve, he grabbed them from the floor, throwing them onto the pile.
As the stack grew, he raced back to the five massive books and picked them up. Surprised by their combined weight, he carried the more than two hundred years of irreplaceable records over to the waiting heap of wood and paper barricading the door.
He shrugged hard and tossed them onto the mound. He reached forward and found the incriminating page bearing Mary Kelly’s marriage. The agent took a series of deep breaths to bring his fury under control, and muttered to himself, “How appropriate. You came looking for births, marriages, and deaths, and now you will have three of them.”
With those words, he pulled a butane lighter from his pocket and lit the offending entry and watched with satisfaction as the old parchment curled and caught fire, eradicating the names of Mary Kelly and Albert Wettin. He pushed the burning book deep into the pile and in seconds it ignited the remaining four volumes, their flames rapidly spreading and turning the heap of hymn and prayer books into a blaze.
Colin stepped back as the pews began to catch and burn, and now the combination of ancient wood and dry paper turned into a raging sea of flames, licking hungrily at the wooden door, sealing the exit forever.
As the fire roared out of control, Colin reached inside his protective vest and pulled a snub-nosed .38 revolver, spinning the cylinder to check it was loaded. Satisfied, he shot three times in rapid succession at the vicar’s pulpit, watching as the bullets buried themselves deep into the carved wood. Then he turned the small pistol around and fired it at his left arm, at point blank range, shooting himself, but only enough for the bullet to rip through his sleeve and tear open a nasty cut on the outside of his bicep, creating a jagged flesh wound.
He smiled at the blood running down his arm, dripping from his wrist onto the church’s tiled floor. It should be convincing, but perhaps a little too convenient. There was still one more thing he needed to do to ensure he would be believed.
The MI6 agent measured his steps as he walked down the aisle toward the church’s exit door. He went only a few yards before he stopped, but figured it should put him far enough away from the fire in case he blacked out for a minute or so. He couldn’t imagine he would be unconscious any longer than that unless it came to a worse-case scenario.
Colin sat at one of the pews remaining in place and reached forward to the small shelf in front of him, removing a prayer book and a hymnal that waited there for the next service and a devout parishioner. He weighed them both in his hand; the book of hymns was thicker and heavier, so he let the volume of prayers drop to the floor. He slid the hymn book beneath the right side of his Kevlar vest. It was a tight fit getting it between the ballistic panels and his chest. Good, he thought, the four hundred plus pages and the heavy cover binding it should provide the extra padding, if needed.
For a second time, he twisted the Smith & Wesson revolver around and held it about twelve inches from his vest, far enough away so it would leave no gunshot residue on the protective fabric.
The agent pushed his back firmly against the wooden pew and tensed, ready to absorb the whiplash generated by the .38’s round. Everything was in place, and with no time left to hesitate, he aimed the lethal handgun squarely at his chest, and pulled the trigger.
He barely heard the sound of the shot, as the impact of the 8.1-gram bullet smashed against the poly-paraphenylene fibers like a sledgehammer, forcing all the air from his lungs and jerking his body upwards on the pew, as his locked position against the bench avoided any violent backward, jarring movement.
Colin took a second to suck in a breath and assess his physical condition. He was alive, the bullet hadn’t penetrated the Kevlar vest and had mushroomed slightly and wedged deep into the central protective panel, clearly visible for all to see, exactly the outcome he’d hoped for.
Colin pulled the hymn book, which had thankfully proven to be unnecessary, from beneath his vest and let it fall to the ground. He rose to his feet and flung the revolver across the church and into the conflagration behind him. He smiled as the little pistol disappeared into the flames, knowing its charred remains would be found there in the days to come.
Satisfied he had done all he could to cover his actions, and knowing it was now time to leave the burning church, he sprinted for the door, yelling as he ran, “I’m coming out. They’ve got guns!”
He burst headlong through the door and collapsed on the ground outside, clutching his bloody arm in full view of the MI5 response squads, before calling out to them, a desperate, pleading edge now ringing in his voice, “Get me a medic. I’ve been shot.”
Deep in the crypt, Alex, Cate, and Eddie reacted in alarm as they heard the five muffled booms from the revolver.
“Jesus, he’s firing again,” called out Eddie.
“Who is he shooting at?” said Cate.
Alex sensed their growing panic, and felt it mounting within himself, but knew he had to act, “I’m going to go up and talk to him.”
Eddie whipped around, “You can’t. He’s gone crazy. He didn’t want to talk. He fired as soon as he saw me with no warning or anything. If you had been up there with me, he’d have tried to kill you too.”
Alex paused and dropped his head. Eddie waited; hoping his words had gotten through to the professor. They had, but not in the way the teen planned.
Eddie’s words triggered memories, memories of the terrible nig
ht in Prague when he had stayed in the hotel, lost in his own research, while his wife and child set out to explore the city and find a restaurant. Then, hours later, had come the knock on the door, and the two uniformed policemen standing there, telling him, in halting English, the news that altered his life forever.
He could still hear the first officer even now, as if Time itself had burned the voice into his consciousness, echoing through the years, “If you had been with them, you would have been killed too.”
Maybe the policeman was right, and he would have been died in that senseless tragedy, but perhaps by being there he could have changed things, he could have saved them. He would never know and that question haunted him every waking minute.
Alex shrugged to bring himself back from the dark place he’d returned to, “I have to try.”
Without waiting for an answer or his friends’ approval, the professor ran to the long, curved stone stairs and raced up them to the door. He grabbed the blocking beam and readied to swing it upwards and unbar the entry.
He hesitated, and called a warning through it first, “Mr. Brown, if you can hear me, it’s Professor Turner. I’m coming out to talk.”
He pushed the heavy beam up, freeing the locking mechanism, grasped the raised handle and pulled the huge door open.
Alex leaped backward to save himself. He stared in shock at the out of control inferno only inches from him, as flames from the pews and books roared upwards, already igniting the hanging tapestries and oil paintings on the church’s walls and flickering closer to the ancient wooden ceiling and rafters.
He desperately tried to close the door but burning sections of the blazing pews propped against the crypt’s entryway tumbled through, breaking apart on the floor in a shower of sparks and charred splinters, blocking the swing of the door. The intense heat and rapidly spreading fire made them impossible to grab and move, and Alex was forced back into the crypt, his last glimpse of the interior of the treasured seven-hundred-year-old house of worship was as a huge wooden hanging candelabra, forty feet above the nave, erupted into flames.
Birthright: Pray your past stays hidden (Alex Turner Book 1) Page 14
