The Isis Covenant

by Douglas, James

  ‘None who enter the sacred valley may ever leave it. A curse upon the red scourge that defiles this place.’ Spittle shot from his lips as he raised a shaking finger and pointed it at my face. ‘A curse upon the seeker. A curse upon the betrayer.’ The finger swung to Bassus, who drew back as if he expected to be struck down by a lightning bolt. ‘I call upon the all-seeing eye to destroy the usurpers.’ This last in a rising shriek which ended in an unmistakable rumbling from our rear that told me that somehow the tunnel entrance had been blocked. I felt the men at my back shifting uneasily and saw the triumph in the priest’s eyes.

  ‘Steady,’ I commanded. ‘You are soldiers of Rome, not some leaderless rabble. Do not be taken in by a charlatan’s tricks. What has been done can be undone. These people must be supplied from somewhere. They cannot trap us without trapping themselves.’ As I spoke I marched to where the priest waited with a look of perplexed savagery, which I wiped from his face with the hilt of my sword, splashing blood across the stones and snapping his front teeth at the root. He went down with a howl and I hauled him to his feet with my sword point in his ribs, forcing him in front of me into the shadow of the great pillared entrance.

  ‘Torches!’

  Ten men followed me inside, while the rest deployed to protect the temple against any threat from without. The torches flared, and for a wonderful moment we were blinded by the light reflected from a million golden surfaces and awed by the riches confronting us. But we had no time to dwell on this magnificence. Uttering a cry in some foul language, the priest slipped from my grasp, and we were attacked from all sides. In that first second I was tempted to form the testudo, the impenetrable carapace of shields that is the legionary’s defence of last resort. But a moment’s reflection told me these were not warriors who faced us, only mere priests and slaves, old men, women and children armed with hunting spears, knives and scythes. Instead, we retreated in good order to the door and formed line. Our attackers pressed us hard, hacking desperately at shields and armour, but within seconds I heard the voice I had been waiting for. Bassus had at last reacted to the commotion and led the rest of the men to our aid. With a supreme effort we pivoted like a door opening to allow our reinforcements to join us and the slaughter began.

  As I moved forward my sword sank deep in the belly of a wild-eyed elder and I rammed him aside with my shield. Following behind, the armoured wedge of my men stepped over twitching bodies as I sought the High Priest among the panicking throng. A flash of green caught my eye and I turned to see him clambering up between two enormous statues on the far side of the temple. Snarling, I hacked my way towards him determined his soul would be mine to take. Before I reached the base of the figures I was confronted by a teenage boy wielding a long spear. A spear in the right hands can be a dangerous weapon, even against a man in armour, but this spear was held like a farmer’s hoe and I was inside the point before he made up his mind where he was going to place it. My sword arm rose and I saw the light of hope die in his eyes. He fell back knowing he would never be a man.

  ‘Hold!’

  A man in battle kills and keeps on killing until he is dead or there is nothing left to kill, but something in that desperate shout stayed my hand. I looked up to find the High Priest framed by the statues, holding a glittering relic above his head.

  ‘The crown for his life. The Crown of Isis for the boy’s life.’

  The words stayed my hand and the anguish in them told me this was his son. ‘Enough.’ My command rose above the clash of swords and the shrieks of the dying. The clamour receded, leaving only the harsh breathing of the killers and the groans of their victims. I placed the point of my sword at the boy’s throat and his dark eyes widened as he felt the cold iron.

  ‘Why, priest? What makes your trinket worth a life compared to all this?’

  ‘Of all Queen Dido’s treasures the Crown of Isis is the greatest.’ He advanced deliberately down the steps still holding the crown aloft. My breath caught in my throat as I noticed for the first time the enormous gem set between the twin horns, its rays flickering like liquid balefire. ‘It was created by Isis herself from the gifts of her father Keb, the gold of the earth and a star plucked from the sky, which she named the Eye of Isis and through which she sees all things. It has been passed down through the ages bestowing immortality on all who wore it.’

  He knelt before me and laid the crown, with its golden horns and great diamond, at my feet. I laughed, but my throat felt as dry as the perpetual deserts we had crossed.

  ‘If it confers immortality, why is Queen Dido herself not here to place it in my hands?’

  He looked up and I read the contempt in his eyes at the hunger in my voice.

  ‘Only Dido had the strength to set it aside and place it beyond the reach of men.’

  ‘Yet men have come here, and now you offer it up to me. Why?’

  His eyes flicked to the boy so quickly I wasn’t certain what I’d seen. I increased the pressure on the point and heard a satisfying gurgle of terror.

  ‘Why?’ I repeated.

  ‘If you are here, it is by the will of the goddess.’ His eyes locked on mine and I saw something beyond human comprehension in them. At the same time his voice grew in strength. I will remember his words till the day the world ends. ‘You may have fifty years in each hundred without paying a single day’s price, but stay a moment longer and Isis will keep your soul for an eternity of torment.’

  ‘Out. All of you, out.’ Bassus darted a suspicious glance at me as he left the temple, and in that moment signed his own death warrant. ‘Leave the priest and his son, but remove the rest.’

  An hour later, when the screams had faded, I emerged into the light to find every man staring at me and the burden I carried. I wiped my bloody sword on a cloth cut from the priest’s green robe.

  X

  IT WAS ANOTHER week before Jamie found the time to visit the Egyptian section of the British Museum. At first it seemed simple, but the more he studied the printout of the file Detective Danny Fisher had sent him the more he realized that something was wrong. The all-seeing eye was a common enough symbol in Egyptology, featuring in amulets, pendants and sculptures, but there was something different about this eye. He spent most of the morning in the museum’s great domed reading room studying dusty tracts and scholarly works. Well after lunchtime, with hunger gnawing at him like a starving rat, he eventually found what he was looking for and an intriguing pencilled cross-reference attached to it. The only problem was, what did it mean?

  He searched for the volume the note referred to, but it wasn’t on the shelf where it should be. The tome was so obscure it didn’t seem likely someone else had borrowed it, more likely it had been put back in the wrong place. Still it was worth checking.

  ‘I’m looking for a book called Myths and Legends of the Ancient World. The computer says it should be on the shelf, but it seems to be missing?’

  The girl behind the counter frowned and checked her own computer before turning to an old-fashioned ledger. She shook her head. ‘I thought so. The database hasn’t been updated yet. This title was reported missing three weeks ago. Stolen. You’d be amazed how often it happens.’

  He thanked her, hiding his frustration, and turned away.

  ‘Oh, hang on,’ she called. ‘Yes, I thought I was right. We actually have another copy of Myths and Legends, only it’s in our foreign-language section. Would that be of help?’

  When he was certain he had what he was looking for he returned the books and walked across the Great Court and through the pillared entrance onto Great Russell Street. Normally, he would have taken the Tube to Bond Street, but instead he decided to walk back to the office to give himself time to consider what he’d found. His route took him across Tottenham Court Road, and a few minutes later he reached Oxford Street. The quickest way was straight on, but somehow the thought of forcing his way through hordes of damp shoppers didn’t appeal, so he turned down towards Soho Square and then west, letting his feet
find the way. It wasn’t until too late that he realized he was being followed. Two of them, in jeans and what the kids called ‘hoodies’ – thick sweatshirts, with all-encompassing cowls that hid their faces. The one on the right was in blue and the other dark brown. Jamie cursed himself for not taking the more obvious route and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Idiot. How could he have lowered his guard like this?

  He glanced back a second time and confirmed his first suspicion. Young men, lean and hard, their fitness apparent in the way they carried themselves. If they’d been muggers they would have walked with a certain amount of aggressive swagger and tried to distract him with some sort of diversion. These men were like Cruise missiles locked on to their target. They were less than twenty paces away and keeping in step with quick, purposeful strides. Fight or run? He looked around for an escape route, but they’d caught him in the perfect place, a narrow street of bars and nightclubs whose shuttered fronts wouldn’t be opened for hours yet. Run then; he was certain he could stay ahead of them until he reached the relative safety of one of the busier streets. But even as he made the decision he saw it was too late. Two more appeared at the end of the road, hands hanging loose by their sides and making their way directly towards him. He crossed the road, just in case he was wrong, but they mirrored his movement and he knew that behind him the followers would be doing the same. His heart rate increased and he fought to control his breathing. He wasn’t frightened, not yet, only prepared. The world slowed and he knew it would stay that way until it was over. He slipped his hand into his pocket and about-turned so that he was walking directly towards the men who’d been following him. Their faces were just visible in the shadow of the hoods, and he could see the consternation on them. The fact that there were four aggressors was oddly reassuring, because you didn’t need four people to shoot somebody in the back of the head. A few paces separated them now. The thought occurred to him that he might be wrong, and that they were going to let him pass, but the man on the left went for his pocket and then there was no going back.

  The sock full of damp building sand had been sitting uncomfortably in Jamie’s pocket all day. He swung it backhanded at full extension so it took brown hoodie on the point of the jaw. For the victim, it was like being on the wrong end of an uppercut from Mike Tyson. His head snapped back with a horrible crunch of breaking teeth, and he went down with his eyes crossed as his legs collapsed under him. Even as his man was falling, Jamie continued his spin, reckoning that the element of surprise would have frozen blue hoodie in place. He didn’t have time to worry about the men behind him, but he heard a shout that told him they weren’t far away. As it turned out, blue hoodie was quicker than he looked. By the time Jamie faced him he was inside the most effective range of the improvised sap with a knife in his right hand and coming in at a crouch. Jamie blocked the knife thrust with his left wrist in a way that would have made his close combat instructor proud and raised his right foot and brought his boot down on the inside of his attacker’s left knee, drawing a satisfying cry of agony as blue hoodie joined his friend on the concrete. But the clock in his head told him his time was almost up. He spun to face the new threat, flailing with the sock even as some kind of spring-loaded blackjack landed on the nerve midway between his shoulder and his neck. Even cushioned by his overcoat’s shoulder pad, the numbing shock ran down his right arm and the sock fell from his nerveless fingers. At the same time an explosion of agony swamped his body and filled his brain with red light. He was already going down as his legs were kicked from beneath him and he twisted his head to avoid smashing his face on the rough concrete.

  ‘Look what the bastard’s done to Jimmy.’

  A boot thumped in his ribs, but the pain barely registered amid the waves of agony still radiating from his injured shoulder.

  ‘Cunt!’

  Someone kicked him in the stomach, knocking all the air from him, and he tried to struggle to his feet to escape the flailing boots. How could he have forgotten the cosh? This time it was his left side, and he might as well have been paraplegic for all he could do to defend himself as he fell back face first with the dirt and dog-pee smell of damp pavement in his nostrils.

  He could hardly move a muscle. Even as the thought gelled, one of them – he thought it might be blue hoodie – took a half-hearted kick that grazed his cheek, but nonetheless hurt like hell.

  A hand twisted in his hair and raised his head from the pavement.

  ‘The man says to back off.’ The voice snarled in his right ear, but it seemed to come from very far away. ‘You got that, fucker? The man says to back off.’

  He tried to respond, but his brain struggled to make sense of what he’d heard. Back off? Back off what? Which man? Without warning his face exploded as his nose was smashed against the ground. Tears filled his eyes and he tasted iron in his mouth.

  ‘I said, you got that fucker? Nod if you understand.’

  Somehow he must have managed to nod.

  ‘Cos if you don’t, next time we won’t be so fuckin’ gentle. In the meantime, here’s something on account. For Jimmy.’

  XI

  PAUL DORNBERGER STRAIGHTENED his blue silk tie and walked up to the unassuming wooden door set into a ten-foot-high stone wall topped with electrified razor wire. As he reached it, he pressed the bell and looked upwards with a smile into the unblinking eye of the security camera. Inside the house, he knew Gerard, the monosyllabic Brummie, would be studying his face with those cold eyes of his and using the facial identification software to ensure he hadn’t been substituted by someone who’d had plastic surgery. With a soft click the door opened to reveal the tanned features of Vince, the former Delta Force sergeant. There was that moment – no day was complete without it – when Vince looked disappointed he couldn’t shoot him, but it quickly passed and the Californian lowered his Heckler & Koch MP5 and ushered him inside. It was unusual to see anyone other than an armed policeman carrying weapons in London, but this house had been designated an outstation of the embassy of the former Russian republic of, and now independent, Moldova and was diplomatic ground. What went in and out in the diplomatic bag was of no interest to anyone but Oleg Samsonov. The neighbours might have been alarmed at the amount of weaponry often on show in the gardens, but there were no neighbours, because the owner had bought both adjoining properties. Up the gravel path, accompanied by Vince all the way, past the cameras and between the sensors to the house, a huge modernistic cube of a place, all brushed steel and blast-proof mirrored glass. The main accommodation lay on the upper floors, with the ground and basement devoted to the kitchens, servants quarters and garaging for the owner’s ten-strong fleet of identical limousines and his sports cars, none of which, to Dornberger’s certain knowledge, he had ever driven. They approached a glass door set in the corner of the ground floor and Dornberger punched in today’s code. Again there was the click as it opened onto an enclosed stairway. Up the stairs, all twenty-four of them, safe in the knowledge that Gerard was watching his every move and at the first sign of suspicion he could isolate the stairway and fill it with incapacitating gas. Finally, he reached the top and another keypad, before the door opened onto the security area.

  Gerard looked up from his monitors. ‘You’re three minutes late.’

  ‘And a good morning to you, Gerard. I was visiting the old man in hospital.’

  Gerard nodded and typed the information into his computer, where every deviation in routine had to be recorded.

  ‘Mornin’, Paul.’ Kenny, the former Australian SAS man, gave him a grin that disguised the fact that he was the deadliest killer in a house full of deadly killers. ‘Any improvement in the old fella?’

  Dornberger shrugged. ‘They’re doing their best.’

  Kenny nodded sympathetically and opened the steel door to the main apartments.

  His glass-fronted office was along a corridor lined with thirteenth-century Russian icons and just off an enormous lounge area. In the centre of the lounge st
ood a large cube of what looked like stainless steel, which Paul Dornberger knew rose to form the core of the top three floors of the building; a multi-storey panic room whose lock combination was known only to the owner and his wife and which was designed to survive the collapse of the building and anything but a nuclear explosion.

  On his desk a secretary had placed a list of the owner’s particular interests for the day and he spent an hour on the computer and the phone gathering the information he would need for his briefing to the world’s forty-first richest man.

  At precisely 10 a.m., he stood up and knocked on the door of Oleg Samsonov’s office overlooking the park.