by R D Shah
‘Who sent those orders?’ Shroder demanded with his gun still raised in a threatening manner.
‘McCray,’ Roth replied, bitterly now. ‘Donald McCray.’
‘I thought John Wilcox, our wonderful ex-Pope was head of the Magi?’ Shroder was fully aware of the change in leadership but wanted to hear it from this Magi underling’s own mouth.
Roth shook his head. ‘He was until recently but something brought about a change. What, I don’t know, but McCray is now the official Prime, meaning I follow his orders regardless.’ He gazed up at Shroder, his eyes brimming with hatred. ‘Did you enjoy killing my woman?’ he rasped. ‘Did it make you feel good?’
Shroder placed the Browning back in its holster and shook his head. ‘’I wouldn’t know,’ he replied drily, ‘but I’m sure your ‘brothers’ would know more about that type of activity than I do.’ He looked over at Mrs Roth’s lifeless body and smiled grimly. ‘Thank you, Mrs Roth, we’re good to go.’
Roth watched in astonishment as the corpse got to its feet, pulled off the cuffs and removed the bag from its head, to reveal the smiling face of a woman with short black hair.
‘Mr Roth, this is Officer Jung… and this,’ Shroder pointed towards the office door, ‘is Mrs Roth.’
The door swung open to reveal Karl standing with the cuffed Mrs Roth at his side, wearing an oversized boiler suit and still gagged with a piece of silver duct tape.
‘I thought you were going to come back in off the balcony before I could get her clothes on in time,’ Officer Jung announced, as Roth sat fuming over the trick that had been played.
‘Thank you, Officer Jung, you have been extremely helpful,’ Shroder acknowledged, as the policewoman made her way out of the room, taking Mrs Roth and Karl with her. ‘As have you been, Mr Roth,’ Shroder said, turning his attention back to the prisoner, before pulling out his weapon to reveal the blank cartridges inside. ‘Killing innocent women and children!’ he scoffed with disgust. ‘What do you take me for? A Magi?!’
Chapter 43
‘I said wake up,’ the masked man shouted before delivering a firm kick to Harker’s ribs. ‘It’s time to go.’
Harker prised open his heavy eyelids and stared up at a blurry image of the same masked man he had seen earlier, whilst on the business end of his Taser. The intense pain across his chest convinced him that his jailer must have already unleashed a few blows in bringing him round and, as the man raised his foot, ready to unleash another kick, Harker reached out and gripped the tip of his boot, pushing it away with what little strength he had.
‘I’m awake.’ Harker croaked, his throat tender and with that sensation of cottonmouth similar to the after-effects of an anaesthetic. ‘Where am I?’
The guard seized the chain of Harker’s handcuffs and roughly dragged him to his feet. ‘I said let’s walk not talk,’ the man growled unyieldingly in a voice thickly tainted with a Russian accent that Harker recognised all too well.
‘You’re one of McCray’s men, aren’t you?’
The answer to this question was delivered in the form of a firm punch to his stomach, before he was hauled out of the room and into a brightly lit corridor outside. It took Harker a few moments to regain his footing, and he tried to shake off the pain in his ribs as the guard continued dragging him forwards. The bright light from the halogen bulbs overhead helped improve his hazy vision and by the time they had navigated a series of narrow passages and were approaching the end doorway, he could make out his surroundings clearly despite his head throbbing.
The guard paused at the grey metal entrance and firmly gripped Harker’s cuffs as one would with a dog’s choke chain, before knocking firmly upon the door. They waited in silence for a few moments and Harker was sure he could hear a low-level mumble of conversation on the other side, which then went quiet before a voice called out. ‘Come in.’
The guard opened the door with a gentleness that had eluded his actions up until that point, and firmly shoved Harker inside.
The room was dark and, as the door closed behind him and the light from the corridor outside was cut off, Harker found himself in pitch-blackness. The air was warm, though, and a low level hum or buzzing sound was the only thing he could detect here. Wherever here was.
‘Hello?’ Harker attempted, his voice wavering ever so slightly at such unnerving surroundings. It is one thing to gaze into the darkness inside your own bedroom, secure in the knowledge that you are the only one there, but when one knows one is not alone and is being watched, a person will tend to give into their baser instincts. It’s all about the feeling of the hunter… and being hunted. Thankfully for Harker, it was his usual inherent sense of logic and the understanding of why we feel the way we do that immediately put him back at ease, and any fearful thoughts soon melted away.
‘If this is a bad time, I can always come back…. I’m free same time next Thursday?’
The silence continued, and Harker was preparing to deliver another flippant remark when all around him the glow of a lighting system began to brighten. His first impression was that he was in a cave, but as the darkness faded, he realised it was more than just that. The room wasn’t that big, maybe twenty-five metres in length and only half as wide, but the walls were composed of bare rock with an uneven surface. The ceiling was the same and so low that Harker could have touched it with an outstretched arm and a small jump. Indeed a cave would have been an apt description but for the shiny black marble tiles covering the floor and the glowing up-lighters set into the walls. The enclosed space was void of any furnishings and otherwise empty except for a single individual standing motionless at the far end of the room. With arms folded across his chest, he fixed Harker with a cold unemotional stare. It was the same stare Harker had seen previously at the Blackwater insane asylum just before Nurse Decker had taken a bullet to the head.
‘Captain McCray,’ Harker voiced challengingly, ‘I was wondering when we would meet again.’
McCray remained motionless, arms still crossed and his stare unflinching. ‘Of course you were,’ the assassin replied flatly, and without any hint of sarcasm. ‘I, on the other hand, knew exactly when we would meet, and I have done so since our first encounter.’
‘Really,’ Harker responded and he frowned in disbelief. ‘I doubt you ever expected me to find your little cave – or whatever this place is.’
McCray shook his head from side to side. ‘On the contrary, Professor Harker, I was counting on it.’
This response was perplexing and Harker got the feeling he was being toyed with, which caused him to dismiss any further peripheral questions and to focus instead on what he most needed to know. ‘First thing’s first, McCray,’ he said with an air of confident authority. ‘Where are those two people I arrived with?’ He had been about to mention Brulet by name but, considering the Magi’s hatred of the Templars, he now thought better of it. It was just possible that they did not know who they had captured, but that was a hope that was immediately dashed.
‘Ahh, yes, the woman I had expected to see. But to bring to my door the Grand Master himself, the infamous Sebastian Brulet, now that was a surprise – and a most welcome one.’
‘Are they alive?’ Harker asked, ignoring McCray’s apparent satisfaction.
‘Yes, there’re alive. Would you care to see them?’
‘I would care very much.’
‘Very well,’ McCray replied cordially and he reached back to the wall behind him to press a silver button. Within seconds a portion of the wall slid back to reveal the inside of a well-lit elevator. McCray entered first and waited for his guest to join him. Harker approached and then stopped cautiously to inspect the confined space he was being asked to enter.
‘I almost forgot,’ McCray gave a faint smile, ‘you’re not a fan of enclosed spaces, are you.’
Harker shot the assassin a mistrustful glance. ‘It’s not the enclosed space I’m wary of.’
This drew a contemptuous nod from McCray, who lent back against
one side of the elevator, allowing maximum room for his guest. ‘Professor, you may or may not believe this but I have no particular wish to see you come to any harm.’
‘Really?’ Harker replied, finally taking his place in the elevator. ‘I could have sworn you’ve been trying to kill me ever since we first met at Blackwater.’
McCray pressed a button on the panel and the doors slid shut before the elevator began to descend. ‘Yes, of course, from your point of view it must have seemed like that but, believe me, if I had wanted you dead you would be.’
Before Harker could reply McCray continued. ‘But I must warn you that if you try anything foolish in here, I will be forced to rethink my attitude.’ The assassin surveyed Harker with glazed eyes. ‘My training would enable me to take your life without even breaking a sweat. So, please, nothing rash.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen what your training can do,’ Harker replied with distaste.
‘Good,’ McCray replied. ‘Then why don’t we enjoy this ride in peace and quiet.’
The uncomfortable silence only lasted thirty seconds before Harker felt compelled to voice one of the many question swirling around his head since waking up. ‘So where are we exactly?’
McCray seemed happy to reply. ‘We are still in Caracas. We are now just deeper. Construction of this facility began back in the early 1960s when the Soviet Union was attempting to build a secret silo that could give them first-strike capabilities against the US.’
This casual remark about something so incredible drew a disbelieving gasp from Harker. ‘What! Venezuela would never have agreed to that. It would have made the whole country a prime target during a nuclear war.’
‘I never said they completed it. I just said they tried… besides, the Venezuelan Government never knew about it. On the contrary, they thought it was part of a project to protect the National Park above us. It was run by the KGB and directly overseen by Khrushchev himself. Of course, when the whole Cuban missile crisis thing happened, the project was called off and all the work they had done was sealed up. But when the Magi learned of its existence in the Seventies, they decided to pick up where Soviets had left off… all covertly of course.’
This startling revelation was almost as mind-blowing as anything Harker had learnt over the past few days. ‘You’re telling me that an entire underground facility was built here, and no one else even knows about it? How could you even keep that a secret?’
‘A lot of money, a lot of bribes and most of all a lot of fatal accidents happening to anyone that got even a whiff of what was going on. This facility has been the jewel in the Magi’s crown for many years.’
‘So you have taken control of the Magi?’ Harker was grasping for any shred of information he could find.
‘No, that particular institution has had its time in the sun.’
McCray’s answer was baffling and Harker let out a sigh of frustration. ‘So what is this place, then?’
‘This, Professor, is sanctuary for the devout. For the true believers.’
‘Sanctuary from what?’
Harker’s question drew a look of wide-eyed surprise from McCray, who leaned in closer. ‘What do you think? From the impending apocalypse of course. The world is about to be reshaped by God’s own will, and there is no stopping that.’
Harker eyed the assassin blankly and this was immediately seized upon by McCray, whose expression was now displaying an uncharacteristic fervour of emotion.
‘After everything you have seen in the last few days, do you doubt it?’
Harker’s mind began to fog over and suddenly became awash with doubt and confusion. The things he had seen: the destruction of the Vatican, the panic throughout the world, the ‘demons’ rising up to tear people apart only to then disappear back into the earth whence they came. A heavy sweat was now forming across his brow and he gulped deeply, the fluttering in his chest curiously dropping down to his stomach, and he felt his knees go weak as he struggled to hold himself upright. Up until that moment, he had been sure that he would find some type of down-to-earth answer for all those cataclysmic events happening across the world, and that his own profound sense of logic in all things would be rewarded. But, as he stared into the stern gaze of McCray, all he found was belief and conviction, and for a moment Harker thought he was going to throw up. ‘But those animals we encountered up top, you’re telling me they just happened to be in the same place as you, and attacking this … sanctuary?’
McCray placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. ‘Those things are not attacking us. They are protecting us.’
‘What?’
‘We are God’s chosen ones, Professor – we who followed His prophecy and would serve to protect those blessed with the belief,’ McCray was now yelling with spittle dribbling from his lips, his eyes piercing and unrelenting as those only found in a true believer, ‘and the faith and the courage to do what must be done, no matter what the cost.’
Harker’s head was aching and he could taste bile in his throat as McCray continued.
‘He is all things and he loves mankind above all else but He is a vengeful god and He will spite and destroy those that do not believe in His word… the true word… the only word, just as the Old Testament teaches us.’
Everything that had happened over the last few days, the deaths, the cataclysms, the world beginning to fall into chaos, it all suddenly began to descend upon Harker like a lead weight, crushing the last ounce of doubt from his very being, and he felt his mind and body begin to fold as he finally gave in to the possible truth of what he is being told. ‘This… this is really happening, isn’t it?’ Harker muttered. ‘The end of the world?’
McCray looked towards the door even as the elevator came to an abrupt halt, and he reached out and grabbed Harker by the lapels. ‘Are you prepared to meet your maker, Alex Harker? And to be judged for your eternal soul.’
The elevator doors slid apart to reveal nothing but pitch blackness and Harker was unceremoniously thrown into it, landing roughly on the floor. Behind him the light from the elevator vanished as the doors closed with a clank, and once again he found himself immersed in complete blackness. The intense nausea he felt forced him to lurch forward and retch but nothing came out, and he shivered for a few moments, with his forehead pressed against the cold surface underneath him. His head was now spinning and, as he attempted to pick himself up by resting on his hands, they slid away under a film of sweat, which sent him crashing back on to the floor. Shrugging off the shock of it, Harker wiped off his damp palms on his jacket sleeves, and slowly manoeuvred himself until he was standing upright, his shaking legs still causing him to sway back and forth. He struggled to contain the intense feeling of nausea that came and went in wave after wave when a sudden realisation sent a wave of panic surging through his body. It wasn’t nausea he was feeling, but fear: a terrifying, uncontrollable sensation of total fear causing goose pimples to tingle across his body.
Harker gulped deeply and began to wrestle with an overpowering and irrational desire to burst into tears and simply collapse in a heap. He was still fighting this urge when, out in the blackness in front of him, something growled. His whole body then went rigid as the growl became a voice. A deep bellowing voice piercing his eardrums like hot pins, and making him clasp both hands on to the side of his head.
‘Haaaarker… Alex Haaaarker,’ the voice boomed as he desperately tried to maintain some semblance of sanity.
‘You belong to me now,’ the voice continued coldly. ‘Welcome to hell.’
Chapter 44
Harker tightened the grip on his shins, pulling them closer to his chest in the foetal position, and then buried his face into his knees as he lay hunched in a ball on the cold hard floor. The feeling of dread that gripped him had reduced his mind to an empty morass where his thoughts remained locked into revolving around every worry, every nightmare he had ever had, and all wrapped up in an inescapable ball of self-doubt and despair. Despair over what exactly he couldn’t b
e sure, but this gut-wrenching feeling of spiralling hopelessness was so pervasive, so penetrating that he struggled to even contemplate moving, as if his muscles had become locked in the same invisible bindings that were also constricting his mind. How long had it been now since the voice had spoken? Seconds, minutes, even hours? He couldn’t tell, and at that moment he didn’t care, because the misery he felt overrode every ounce of free will in his body. Then a single thought pushed itself through the hellish dark blackness of his mind, forcing its way to the surface. And he prised open his mouth and pushed it out with a straining breath. ‘God forgive me. Help me … Please.’
The words had barely left his mouth when bright light cascaded all around him in a brilliant, blinding sea of white, and he recoiled, wincing in pain, as its rays washed over his contorted body. Harker kept his eyes shut until the glow through his eyelids appeared to dim slightly and then, with a nervous shake of his head, he began to open them. Slowly at first, his eyelashes parted, still quivering in response to the light, then wider and wider until he could make out a single shadowy figure in front of him. As his full sight returned, the blurriness began to disperse and he found himself gazing at a dazzling pair of white smiling teeth. Everything else within his line of vision remained black as if looking at a photographic negative, then in an instant all the colours flushed back into view. And Harker found himself staring directly into the face of a man, a face he knew… and tears of despair or relief, he wasn’t sure which, began to trickle down his sweat-smeared cheeks.
John Wilcox stood glaring down at him with contempt, his twisted smile an unsettling mix of loathing and joy all rolled into one. ‘I knew I could make a believer out of you once again, Alex Harker.’
‘What?’ Harker managed to splutter, fighting against the tears in his eyes.
‘McCray claimed you wouldn’t break, but I just knew you would,’ Wilcox replied, gesturing to his left.
