Ryder

by Nick Pengelley

  Danforth floated. He knew he was unconscious; dreaming. He didn’t care. He and Lisa were home. His place in Virginia. She was making breakfast. He watched her, lazily, over a coffee and the morning paper. Admired the swell of her hips. The dark hair that she shook from her eyes. When she smiled at him, his heart melted to purest goo. God, but I love this woman!

  “Idiot.” Lisa turned back to the stove. In so doing, she knocked a pot to the floor. It fell with a crash that could have woken the dead. Danforth’s body vibrated with the shock.

  “What—”

  Memory returned. He raised a hand to wipe the dirt from his eyes. Spat more dirt from his mouth.

  “Lisa. Hey, Lisa. You okay?” He rolled off her. She didn’t move. “Lis?” Fear grabbed hold of his heart and twisted. He felt her shoulder. Shook it. He bent down and touched her hair. Felt her neck for a pulse. Then, gently, he turned her head.

  The hole was tiny. So tiny. It was enough, though, to permit entry of the metal splinter from the death-dealing projectile launched a thousand miles away; from one of his own country’s warships.

  Danforth buried Lisa there, behind the boulder. He buried his own heart with her.

  —

  The big American wiped his eyes and shrugged off the strong emotion that had suddenly overwhelmed him; he was used to it. He refocused on the Zeppelin. Wondered where it was bound. Thought, not for the first time, how different it would be to travel in such a way. Virgin had established a route from London to Washington, D.C. He’d already decided he’d take a flight on one next time he had to visit Langley.

  He lowered his gaze to the archaeological dig that scarred the earth in front of the ruins of Battle Abbey. He’d reported his arrival to Imogen Worsley. She’d wasted no time in giving him the glad tidings from London.

  “Wonderful news!” she’d told him. “Malcolm is out! Balfour completely blindsided him at the party meeting. He never knew what hit him.”

  “So it’s a done deal?” Danforth exhaled a sigh of relief. That was one disaster averted. And it would get the president off his back. “Balfour is the new leader? Acting prime minister, too?”

  “Not quite. They still have to take a vote.”

  “When will we know?”

  “Sometime in the next hour or so.”

  “Hmm. Somehow I don’t think Malcolm’s the man to go down without a fight. Rather like your King Harold.”

  “Any sign of him? Or Ayesha?”

  “Not so far. There’s an archaeological dig going on here, which may be significant. What about Daniels? Any developments?” Danforth asked the question with a tightening in his gut that pulled on his wound. He knew more about Daniels than he’d let on to Imogen. Way more. The woman was pure evil. But she’d been CIA’s—his—pure evil. And she’d been very useful. She might be useful again. He knew he might lose Imogen’s friendship if she found out. That would hurt like hell. But his country came first.

  “Nothing new. I’ll let you know if anything turns up….Keep me posted?”

  “Will do.”

  Danforth crossed to a large canvas tent, obviously the dig HQ.

  “Can I help you?”

  Danforth swung round. A young man with shaggy blond hair, dressed in faded blue jeans and a torn David Bowie T-shirt, regarded him suspiciously.

  “Hi. Are you with the dig?”

  “ ’Sright. University of Sussex.”

  “John C. Danforth III,” he said, introducing himself in his best, much-practiced southern drawl. He smiled broadly and extended his hand. His manner was calculated to put the most suspicious at ease. It almost never failed. It didn’t this time.

  “Mike Tancred.” The young man grinned reluctantly. Then he gripped Danforth’s hand. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a couple of friends of mine. Ayesha Ryder and Joram Tate. Don’t suppose you’ve seen them?”

  Eight minutes later, Danforth was behind the wheel of his rental car, his GPS issuing instructions in a posh British accent that would take him to Herstmonceux church.

  Chapter 35

  Noel Malcolm’s furious pacing had ground a broad track across the thick carpet of the office in the House of Commons designated for the use of the prime minister—or the person acting in that capacity. For the moment, that was him.

  He stopped in front of the fireplace and slammed his fist against the mantel. Where the fuck was Bebe Daniels? If only she’d brought him Harold’s sword. It could make all the difference. Even now. With the sword in his hand, he was certain the party would rally to his side. Balfour would be run over in the stampede.

  If Malcolm couldn’t win his own party over, he was going to make a direct appeal to the people—after he’d given the performance of his life in the House. He’d already set up an interview with Donna Ross for right after question time. After that, he planned to hit the talk shows. He’d fucking deluge the country. He glanced at his watch. Prime minister’s question time started in six minutes. Some prime ministers hated the ritual. Not he. Something with no equivalent in the United States, it was an almost daily opportunity, when Parliament was sitting, for MPs to question the leader of the government and his or her ministers about pretty much anything. Malcolm loved it. Protocol demanded he appear, despite the circumstances. Most people would expect he’d be brief; not engage in politics. He’d say something about Susannah Armstrong, almost eulogize her, but not quite. Unless she died in the next few minutes. He’d explain what was happening with the leadership of the party. Then he’d request an adjournment until a decision was made and whoever won the vote could appear before the House with the full backing of the party.

  That’s what people expected he’d do.

  “Fuck that!” Malcolm growled, although there was no one to hear him. He was going to confound expectations and expound his plan to the House. And, by extension, the people of the as yet still United Kingdom. Then he’d call for a vote. If Daniels turned up with Harold’s sword in time, so much the better. If not, dammit, he’d still carry the day.

  Malcolm swept up his notes and headed into the lobby. People greeted him. Some tried to shake his hand. He ignored them all. His blood was up. He was going to make a speech that would rival Churchill at his best. He could already see the headlines extolling his virtues and courage in this hour of England’s peril. Hear the acclaim that would ensure his victory and subsequent election.

  Malcolm was three paces from the door to the House of Commons when he saw Balfour coming toward him. The foreign minister was surrounded by a gaggle of acolytes, young men and women who appeared to hang on his every word.

  As Balfour’s entourage parted to let him through, Malcolm exchanged looks with the foreign minister. His fellow Yorkshireman smiled, although his eyes glittered like ice. Then he bumped against Malcolm. The acting prime minister felt a prick in his upper arm. He rubbed a hand over his sleeve, and promptly forgot about it.

  Malcolm stalked into the Commons chamber. He stopped just inside the doorway and surveyed the room in which so much history had been made. A lump came into his throat. Swallowing it down, he took four steps toward the government benches behind the despatch box, customary seat of the prime minister, conscious that he was the cynosure of every eye in this most august of places. He took one more step, then his legs dissolved under him and he collapsed onto the mottled brown carpet. His hands twitched spasmodically. He struggled for breath, gasping aloud. Then his eyes rolled back in his head. A pit darker than any Yorkshire coal mine opened before him. He fell in.

  Chapter 36

  The opening was less than three feet high. Caroline Frost found it, in the farthest corner of the cave. Ayesha wriggled through on her hands and knees. After five or six yards, the tunnel gradually increased in height until she could stand.

  Niobe squeezed her arm. “To your right. On the wall.”

  Ayesha shone her light, already sure of what she would see. It wasn’t Kilroy. “The Templars.”

  “We mu
st be getting close to the castle,” the vicar observed, her voice betraying the excitement she felt. “Back in the bad old days, most castles had escape routes of some kind, as a last resort if it looked like it was being taken. Or to get messages in and out, and supplies, during a seige. I’d say that’s what we’ve found.”

  Ayesha was not sure how far they had walked. Not for the first time, she was finding that distances underground seemed to be much farther than the reality, but her watch recorded an elapse of less than five minutes since the vicar had spoken, when the tunnel widened out so that she could no longer touch the walls. Niobe stopped dead.

  Ayesha stepped quickly to the side, narrowly avoiding a collision. She beamed her light to the front. “Shit!”

  The tunnel had opened out in a bulge. Oddly, rather than the natural rock and dirt they’d encountered until now, the floor was man-made—consisting of cut flagstones, carefully laid and perfectly level. Ayesha took this as a sign that they were getting close to something. The problem was that the bulge narrowed again after about twenty feet. Further progress was prevented by a gate. The gate consisted of five iron bars set within an iron frame, which looked to be embedded in the living rock. The gate was locked. And there was no sign of a key. Ayesha gripped one of the bars and pulled with every ounce of strength she possessed. There wasn’t the slightest give.

  “Whoever put this here knew what they were doing,” Niobe said. “There’s barely even a sign of rust. We’re not getting through it without cutting equipment.” She sighed. “We have some back at Battle. At the dig. We’ll have to go and get it. What’s amusing you?” she asked Joram. The librarian, who was crouched in front of the gate, had emitted a low chuckle.

  “It’s just a lock; a primitive one at that. Pivoted tumbler, most likely. Maybe some extra wards. I can get this open.” He smacked his jacket and groaned. “Damn! I left my kit back in the car.”

  “I’ll go,” Ayesha volunteered.

  —

  Ayesha checked her pulse as she stepped into the churchyard, pleased to find it was barely elevated from normal, despite her rapid passage back from the locked gate to the crypt, then up the winding staircase into the church.

  She perched on a boxlike tomb to catch her breath. She read the faded inscription: VINCENT MCGUINNESS, 1851–1907. LAWYER OF THIS PARISH. Lawyers and death, she mused. Why were there so many stories, and jokes? Back to Shakespeare.

  Idly, Ayesha glanced into the sky over the trees that edged the churchyard, in the direction of the castle. She frowned. A midsize Zeppelin was headed directly for the church. It couldn’t have been more than two hundred feet up. Much lower than it ought to have been. It was unlikely there was a landing zone anywhere nearby. Maybe it was in trouble. Or…For an instant, Ayesha remained rooted to the spot. Then she leaped to her feet.

  She sprinted to the Land Cruiser, pulling out the keys as she hurtled along the path through the churchyard. Flinging open the near-side rear door, she spied Joram’s satchel. She snatched it up, turned in one fluid motion, and tore back through the churchyard, her feet barely touching the ground. By the time she reached the church, the airship was directly overhead. Its engines had been thrumming. Now they stopped. The sudden silence, in which she could hear birds chirping in the trees, was all the more ominous. The Zeppelin floated directly above her. It sank lower still. Without warning, ropes were flung from the cabin. As these hurtled earthward, figures appeared, silhouetted against the envelope of the airship. Garbed in military-style camouflage gear, they wore backpacks with weapons slung across them. One of them, a bigger man than the rest, was dressed in black. For an instant they clung to the ropes. Then they dropped rapidly toward the churchyard. Toward her.

  Like a rabbit diving down a barrow to escape a mongoose, Ayesha sped into the church and flung herself down the winding staircase to the crypt. She maintained her footing by a miracle, leaped across and around the memorials to the dead, jumped into the empty sarcophagus and down the steps to the hidden tunnel below, raced by Harold’s open tomb without sparing him a look, and ran down the far tunnel, ricocheting off the walls in her haste to rejoin the others at the barred gate. She tossed Joram’s pack to him. “Here,” she gasped, the blood pounding in her temples. “They’re coming.”

  “Right,” Joram acknowledged, calmly. He opened the satchel and drew a gun from it, drawing a gasp of horror from the vicar. Ayesha recongized it as the weapon he’d removed from the body of the man whom she’d killed in St. Faith’s. She’d forgotten about it. “It may take a while to get the gate open,” Joram told Ayesha. “You’ll need to buy us some time.”

  The gun was a PAMAS G1, a copy of the Beretta 92—standard issue for France’s armed forces. Ayesha checked it was loaded. Then, with a nod to Joram, she drew a deep breath, turned, and ran back the way she’d come. Her brain was calculating times and distances. One thought was uppermost. The treasure. It wasn’t going to fall into Noel Malcolm’s hands.

  Chapter 37

  The black body bag was maneuvered into the back of the ambulance. A paramedic shut the doors. The vehicle moved slowly away, behind an escort of police motorcycles, its rooftop siren flashing.

  Dame Imogen Worsely rubbed her brow as she watched the ambulance depart. Noel Malcolm was dead. Heart attack was the working assumption; heaven knows he’d looked unhealthy enough, although they’d have to wait for the autopsy to know for certain.

  A great weight had been lifted from Imogen’s shoulders. Susannah Armstrong was making a rapid recovery. The prime minister would be back on her feet and running the country in no time. With Malcolm gone, the threat of his plans to break up the union and declare independence for England had also disappeared.

  Imogen would still have to weather the public outcry and the inevitable calls for her head, over the near assassination of the prime minister on her watch. With Susannah on her side she’d get through it. She rolled her neck, feeling the tension drop away. Back to Thames House. Then home for a few hours’ sleep. She smiled at the thought. Her phone buzzed.

  “Worsley.”

  “Immy.”

  “Norman? What’s happening?” She half chuckled. “Are you acting prime minister now?” There was no designated order of succession in the British cabinet, but the home secretary was generally regarded as the most senior minister, after the deputy prime minister, so she assumed her husband would take over until Susannah returned. “I’m thinking of heading home to bed for a bit.”

  “I don’t think you’ll want to.”

  Her hold on the phone tightened. What now?

  “I’ve just come from the party room. Philip Balfour called an emergency meeting as soon as we got the word about Malcolm. He’s been confirmed as acting prime minister.”

  “Oh! Are you disappointed?” She relaxed. If that was all…

  “That’s not the problem. Balfour intends to adopt Malcolm’s bill and push forward with the vote.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “Never more so.”

  “I don’t understand. Balfour said he wasn’t in favor of Malcolm’s plan; that he was only going along with it out of political expediency.”

  “He was lying.”

  “Shit!”

  “There’s more.”

  “Of course.” She walked slowly over to the embankment wall. A police line kept onlookers at bay. She stared over the gray waters of the Thames and braced herself.

  “Balfour announced that he expects shortly to be in possession of Harold’s sword, and that he wants it to become the symbol of the new England. He intends to unveil it to the House.”

  “Ohmigod!” Her mind raced. “That must mean—”

  “That he’s involved in the attempt on Susannah’s life.”

  “It’s the only explanation.” Imogen felt sick. How could I have been so wrong?

  “And Malcolm?”

  “I don’t know. I was so sure.” Imogen gripped the phone tighter. “Ayesha. Balfour must know where she is.” She bit
her lip. All her fears for her friend resurfaced. “Norman, I have to go.”

  Imogen lifted her gaze to the London Eye. The enormous Ferris wheel on the south bank of the Thames had become an icon of London since it was erected for the millennium celebrations. It was one of her great pleasures to take a flight—the Eye was operated by British Airways—and watch the old City rise into view beneath her. She closed her eyes. Ayesha. Where are you?

  Chapter 38

  Gun gripped in one hand, Ayesha peered over the top of the sarcophagus behind which she and Niobe Bagot had concealed themselves. The archaeologist had insisted on accompanying her, though she wasn’t armed. Ayesha was glad of the company.

  Her breathing had returned to something resembling normalcy after her mad dashes back and forth through the subterranean passages. She felt calm now; ready for whoever came down the stone staircase from the church.

  Except for the rasp of her own breathing, and that of Niobe beside her, Ayesha heard nothing. A minute passed. Two. Then something moved on the far side of the crypt. A face appeared at the bottom of the staircase. It vanished in the blink of an eye. Too quickly for her to draw a bead.

  The face reappeared. Longo was clad in black combat fatigues, earpiece equipped and weapon at the ready. He peered into the crypt, obviously wary of proceeding farther. The presence of the Land Cruiser and Ayesha’s mad flight across the churchyard, surely observed from the Zeppelin, would have forewarned him to the possibility of opposition. The encounter in St. Faith’s–under–St. Paul’s had told him she was capable of lethal force.

  Ayesha steadied the gun on top of the tomb. Squeezed the trigger; flinched at the sound. Although she was prepared for it, the percussive effect of the shot inside the crypt was enormous. Dismayed, she ignored the ringing in her ears. Her bullet had chipped a piece of stone out of the wall next to where Longo’s face had been.

  Longo had disappeared as soon as Ayesha fired. But the staircase wasn’t empty for long. A hand appeared, holding a submachine gun, an Uzi. It burst into life, sending a stream of bullets in a wide arc across the crypt. Ayesha and Niobe flattened themselves behind the sarcophagus as the bullets chipped masonry from memorials, walls, and the vaulted ceiling overhead. The reverberations, louder than any jackhammer, echoed in her skull.