Ryder

by Nick Pengelley

  The train pulled into a station. A few passengers, nondescript, waited to board.

  “Battle’s next,” Joram said.

  Ayesha picked up her sandwich. It might be a while before she got something else to eat. Neither of them took any notice of the Japanese man, built like a sumo wrestler and anything but nondescript, who entered their coach and seated himself at the farther end.

  Chapter 26

  “David,” Dame Imogen Worsley spoke into her phone. “Tell me about Bebe Daniels. Why did she leave Six?” The head of MI5 had waited until she got back to her office after visiting Susannah Armstrong at the hospital, before making the call to her opposite number at MI6, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service, counterpart of the CIA. The likelihood was that she’d be making more calls as a result, and she wanted to be in a secure environment.

  David McAndress coughed. He cleared his throat, then said, “We let her go. Had no choice. She should have been prosecuted, but you know how it is.”

  “What was it?”

  “Death of a suspect in custody. He died of a heart attack. Daniels was the interrogator.”

  “I see.” People died of heart attacks all the time. The fact, though, that Daniels had been let go, that McAndress said she should have been prosecuted, meant she’d tortured the suspect. To have prosecuted her would have opened a can of worms, tarnishing both MI6 and the British government in the eyes of the world. It was also more than likely, Imogen guessed, that the suspect who’d died was a foreign national who may have been kidnapped and held illegally by MI6. “You had no problem with her taking a job as the prime minister’s private secretary?” she asked.

  “Why should I? Daniels is extremely talented. Superefficient. She speaks eight languages. Then there’s the security angle—she’d effectively be an extra bodyguard…Shit!”

  “I wondered when the penny was going to drop. What was Daniels’s principal area of expertise?”

  The silence lasted so long Imogen began to think the connection had been broken.

  “Black ops,” McAndress said, finally.

  “Ah.” Black ops. Spook talk for assassinations; usually political.

  Imogen cut short McAndress’s apologetic protestations, ended the call, and pressed the speed-dial number for CIA’s London station chief. “John,” she said, when he answered.

  “What have you got?”

  “Bebe Daniels worked for Six.”

  A brief silence throbbed with American-accented embarrassment, then “I know.”

  She closed her eyes. Fuck! She wanted to tear Danforth a new one. Not now. “I won’t ask you when you recruited her; I’ll leave that for another time.”

  “Imogen—”

  “I suppose you also know that she worked black ops for Six?”

  “Black ops? Fuck! Hell no! I didn’t—”

  “Here’s what I know, John.” Imogen drew a lined pad toward her, picked up a pen, and wrote as she talked. “One: Bebe Daniels poisoned the prime minister.”

  “How—”

  “Susannah told me so herself.”

  “She told you? When? Is she—”

  “The PM’s going to be fine.”

  “Thank God.” The sigh of relief she heard over the phone told her volumes about the American reaction to the attempt on Susannah Armstrong’s life. Or, more likely, their views on her putative successor.

  “Two: Daniels is an ex–MI6 assassin. You and I both know what kind of skill set she must have.”

  Danforth grunted.

  “Three: Daniels said Ayesha was the last person to see Susannah, in order to throw suspicion on Ayesha.”

  “Why—”

  “Four: Daniels was recommended for her position at Number 10 by Noel Malcolm.”

  “Malcolm? Then—”

  Determinedly, writing on her pad as she talked, “Five: Malcolm is now acting prime minister, maneuvering to ensure the job is his on a permanent basis.

  “Six: He intends to break up the United Kingdom, declaring independence for England.”

  She waited, but Danforth said nothing. “Seven: Susannah Armstrong has been an obstacle to that design.”

  “Eight: Bebe Daniels is working for Noel Malcolm. Feeding you disinformation, or whatever Malcolm wants you to know.”

  “Okay.” The American sighed. “So what now? How do we prove Malcolm is behind the attempt on the prime minister’s life?”

  “Communications intercepts are out. Daniels would have taken precautions.”

  “What then?”

  “The Maltese Falcon. Malcolm hoped Ayesha would find it for him. He meant to use her skills as a researcher. That’s all. Then he thought she’d be out of the picture.”

  Danforth snorted. “More fool him.”

  “Agreed. It sounds like Ayesha’s got the Falcon. If she has, she won’t give it up. Not easily.”

  “You think Malcolm has sicced Bebe Daniels on her?”

  “That’s the logical conclusion.” Find Ayesha and the Maltese Falcon, she thought, and she’d find Bebe Daniels. Somehow, she didn’t yet know how, that would get her the proof she needed of Malcolm’s complicity in the attempted assassination of the prime minister.

  “So, the million-dollar question: Where is Ayesha Ryder?”

  Imogen’s eyes were drawn to the map on her wall; to the south coast. “Hastings seems like a good place to start.”

  “Hastings?”

  “Battle of, 1066. Where Harold was killed. Presumably he—and his sword—were buried somewhere nearby.”

  “Works for me. Imogen, there’s something else.”

  “Hmm?” She pulled her gaze from the map, and thoughts of how to get to Hastings, and focused on what Danforth was saying.

  “The vote in the House of Commons this afternoon on Malcolm’s referendum bill. We need to stop it.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me. What have you got in mind?”

  “Your foreign secretary.”

  “Philip Balfour? A coup?”

  “Just a little one. And we don’t use that word anymore. Not since Egypt.”

  She made a face, remembering other times, other CIA coups—so many of them disasters. She checked the time. “All right. Let’s go and see the foreign minister. See if we can’t get him to take over the government. And John?”

  “Imogen?”

  “I need to stay here. In London. And I’m not sure who I can trust to go to Hastings—”

  “I’ll be on my way as soon as we’ve bearded Mr. Balfour in his den.”

  “Thank you.” More than anything she wished she could go to Hastings herself. She had to stay in the capital, though, close to Susannah Armstrong. John Danforth would find Ayesha. Imogen was confident of that.

  Chapter 27

  Gravel crunched under Joram’s boots. He was vaguely aware of the sound but his attention was focused on the slim figure of Ayesha Ryder. His colleague marched ahead of him, her head thrown back as she scanned the crumbled ruins of Battle Abbey. The old stonework glinted with dew in the morning light. Jackdaws and starlings flew in and out of the gaping windows, lending the whole edifice an air of blending naturally with the rustic English countryside, of which it had so long been a part.

  They had walked from the train station, skirting the field where, nearly a thousand years before, the fate of the nation had been decided. Ayesha had been amazed to find that it was apparently little changed since Harold’s forces had faced off against those of William of Normandy.

  “I assumed it had been built over years ago,” she observed to Joram.

  “A natural assumption. I thought so, too. Until my first visit. It really is something to look out across these fields and imagine thousands of men, some in chain mail, all trying their best to kill one another, armed with bows, swords, and axes.”

  “It would have been a slaughterhouse.”

  Joram could picture it all too well. He’d fought in battles himself. Not on the scale of Hastings. But bloody enough. “T
he injuries would have been appalling. Medical care virtually nonexistent. Far more probably died after the battle than during it.” The wind picked up and, just for a moment, Joram imagined he could hear the screams and moans of the wounded and dying; smell the blood and excrement. Just for a moment, too, he was back in the Falklands, a young subaltern, trying desperately to hold back the guts of a fallen comrade as they spilled into the grass. Whether the language was Spanish, or Norman French or Saxon English, death was death.

  Ayesha stopped to peer through the remains of a window, into the interior of the abbey. Joram leaned against the old stone. He allowed his gaze to linger on her body. The tight-fitting jeans, molded to the round swell of her buttocks, left little to the imagination. He loved that she was tall, almost his own height. But physical attributes were a small part of what made any person. Far more than her alluring figure, he admired Ayesha’s intellect. And her indomitable will. He’d only ever met one other who came close to matching her.

  Joram had not lived the life of a monk—he enjoyed physical pleasure as much as any man. But when he first joined the covert forces of Her Majesty’s Government, he’d accepted that those pleasures were best taken in the form of casual dalliances. Both he and his partner of the moment had known that there’d be nothing permanent. Talk, laughter, and brief sublimation of desire. That was enough. By the time he’d officially retired he’d been set in his ways. He’d never looked for anything more. But there was something different about Ayesha Ryder. It was foolish, he knew, to think she might be interested in him as other than a friend. Presumptuous. Even so, he’d spent the journey from London contemplating her while she slept. Castles in the air, he told himself, as Ayesha withdrew from the window and they set off once more.

  Rounding the front of the ruined abbey, destroyed in the sixteenth century during the dissolution of the English monasteries under Henry VIII, they entered the open area where the church that Pope Alexander II ordered William the Conqueror to build had once stood. Joram halted in his tracks, stunned.

  “We’re too late.” Ayesha kicked viciously at a clump of grass.

  The entire area in front of the abbey ruins was roped off. Earth was mounded in piles. Digging equipment was much in evidence. A small earthmover was parked to one side, but everything else was for manual labor—the sure signs of an archaeological dig.

  “This was all grass when I was here last,” Joram told her, despondently.

  Ayesha nodded. There was nothing to be said. What had happened was all too apparent.

  The archaeologists had dug several trenches. Along the walls of the old church. Through what would have been the nave. And a major excavation across the area of the high altar. In this area the lone occupant of the dig crouched over a stone slab, cleaning it with a small brush. She wore khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt that showed off tanned and muscled arms. A red bandanna was wrapped around her hair. Deep in her work, the woman did not look up until their shadows fell across her. Then she glanced up, smiled briefly, and nodded. She returned to her work.

  “Good morning,” Joram called.

  The archaeologist looked up again.

  “ ’Morning.” She was not smiling now. “I’m afraid this dig is off-limits to tourists. You can get information about what we’re doing back at the visitor center.”

  “We’re not tourists.” Joram adopted his best friendly commanding-officer-type manner. “Could we talk to you, please? We’re looking for something that might be just where you’re standing.”

  The woman, about forty, stared up at Joram. She stood. She was nearly as tall as Ayesha. She reached up to pull herself out of the trench. Joram bent down and offered her a hand, which she accepted. When she was on the same level, she appraised them from hazel eyes, flecked with yellow. Cat’s eyes, Joram noted. If it were not for Ayesha, he might have thought her the most attractive woman he’d ever met.

  “Niobe Bagot,” the woman said. “University of Sussex. I’m in charge of this dig.”

  “Okay,” the archaeologist continued, once introductions had been performed. “You have my full attention. Just what did you hope to find here?”

  “King Harold,” Joram replied. “The Harold who was killed at the Battle of Hastings. In 1066. On this very spot, if the legend is true.”

  “It’s true all right. We’re as sure of that as we can be sure of anything. I’m sorry, but he’s not here.” Niobe Bagot bit her lip. After a moment, clearly hesitant, she added, “I think he may be not be far off, though.”

  “Will you tell us where?” Ayesha asked. Joram heard the anxiety in her voice, mixed with hope.

  Niobe Bagot frowned. Then her eyes widened. “You’re the Ayesha Ryder, aren’t you? The Ark of the Covenant. And the Washington treasure? The Holy Land, too—that whole business at the Tower of London?”

  “Yes.”

  Joram held his breath. He wondered whether Ayesha’s notoriety was going to be a help or hindrance.

  “You’re on the trail of King Harold? Or is it something else?”

  “What makes you say that?” Joram asked her.

  “I asked first.”

  “That’s…fair. But it’s quite a story. You may not believe it.”

  “I’ve got time. As to believing it, well, let’s just say that Dr. Ryder’s reputation precedes her. You’ve earned the benefit of the doubt.” Niobe Bagot nodded to the tent that was set up to one side of the excavations. “Tea? It’s just brewed.”

  Sometime later Joram leaned back in a folding canvas chair and sipped tea from a chipped tin mug. “That’s the tale,” he concluded.

  The archaeologist’s expression had remained inscrutable. She’d made no comment as Joram explained about the Maltese Falcon. Or the clue that was discovered inside the Falcon that told of a further clue, this time to the treasure of the Knights Templar, which was to be found in the tomb of Ethelred the Unready. How that clue in turn had directed them to the burial place of King Harold. And her.

  While Joram spoke, Ayesha drew out from an inside pocket of her jacket the copy of the extract she’d made from Lady Frances Verney’s journal, as well as copies she’d made of the clues found inside the Maltese Falcon and the casket from King Ethelred’s tomb. She handed the pages to Niobe Bagot.

  The archaeologist let her gaze linger on Ayesha, then Joram. She’s deciding what to say, Joram guessed, hoping very much she was not going to tell them to get lost.

  “Okay,” Niobe Bagot said, finally. “I have no idea how you found the Maltese Falcon. I’ve always loved the movie and I’m sure it will make a great story when the newspapers and bloggers get hold of it. Leaving aside for the moment how you managed to find the tomb of Ethelred the Unready, which, given that it was supposedly lost in the Great Fire of London, and is a feat no archaeologist has ever achieved, leaving that aside I say, although I damned well want to know how you did it, I believe you! About King Harold and the Templar treasure, that is.” Her face broke into a broad grin. She rose and swept out of the tent. “C’mon,” she said, over her shoulder, “there’s something you’ve got to see.”

  Jumping down into the excavation, the archaeologist strode to the middle of the trench that bisected the site of the high altar. She squatted on the ground beside the stone slab she’d been working on when they arrived. Words, worn by time but still visible, were incised into it. In Latin.

  Joram knelt beside Niobe Bagot and peered at the inscription.

  “ ‘Here England fell,’ ” the archaeologist translated. “That bit’s clear. It’s not much of a stretch to say it confirms that Harold did die here. The next bit’s less clear. As far as I’ve been able to make out, it refers to the reinterment of his body, on William’s orders. In the church of a manor. The manor of Wilbert of Herst.”

  “Herst?” Ayesha queried her. “Do you know anything about it? Does it still exist?”

  “If I’m right,” Niobe said as she rose and dusted off her knees, “it refers to Herstmonceux. It’s a village a
few miles from here. Wilbert was a follower of one of William’s close supporters. There’s a record of him being granted the manor, in the Domesday Book. There’s been a castle at Herstmonceux pretty much since that time. I was going to go there when you turned up.”

  “Hold on.” Joram did his best to contain the excitement he felt rising inside him. “You said you believed us about the Templar treasure. I mean, I’m sure you’re right, that ‘England’ is a reference to Harold, but the inscription says nothing about the Templars. Is there something else?”

  Niobe grinned. Then she bent forward over the stone slab. She brushed away some more dirt and pointed to a small device carved into the stone above the inscription. It depicted two knights riding on a single horse. “It’s the emblem of the Templars,” she told them. “The two knights riding a single horse was meant to signify their vow of poverty.”

  “Dr. Bagot—” Joram began.

  “Niobe, please. If this is going to become Raiders of the Lost Treasure or something, then we should be on a first-name basis.”

  “Niobe. I’m Joram. Have you seen anyone else poking about here? Other than tourists, that is?”

  “No one. Apart from a student intern, I’m the only one at the dig today. My two colleagues are spending the day in London. Why?” Her eyes widened. “No! Don’t tell me! Bad guys? My God, it really is like the movies!”

  “They wouldn’t have had time to get here yet.” Joram was unable to restrain a smile; Niobe, like Ayesha, was a woman after his own heart. “Even assuming they’ve got on our trail. And if they somehow know about King Harold, they’d go to Waltham Abbey.”