by Simon Toyne
‘Although what?’ Liv prompted.
‘Although I rather suspect they may well turn out to be the same thing.’
Chapter 58
Two floors down, a freckled hand tapped out the user name and password that would grant access to the police database. The screen flashed and a mail account launched, telling him he had seven new messages. Six were departmental memos no one would ever read, the seventh was from someone called GARGOYLE. There was nothing in the subject line. The man glanced nervously over the top of his monitor then clicked it open. It contained just one word. Green.
He deep deleted the message, removing all trace of it from the network, then opened up a command module. A black box appeared on the screen asking for another user name and password. He entered them both, worming his way deeper into the network and scanning the recently updated files.
GARGOYLE was a relatively simple piece of software he had written himself, which made the job of monitoring the status of any case he wasn’t supposed to be looking at much, much easier. Rather than go through the tedious process of hacking into the central database and manually checking for new updates, he could simply attach the program to the architecture of any file, and whenever it was updated GARGOYLE automatically let him know via email.
He found the file on the dead monk, opened it, and started scrolling through. On page twenty-three he spotted a small block of text the program had highlighted in lime green. It detailed the taking into custody of one Liv Adamsen following her uncorroborated report of an attempted abduction at the airport. She was upstairs in an interview room on the fourth floor. That was Robbery and Homicide. He frowned, not quite sure what all that had to do with the dead monk.
Still. .
Not his problem.
Both parties had requested that any new additions to the case file be reported to them directly. Who was he to play gatekeeper?
He plugged a flash drive into the USB port on the front of his computer, copied and pasted the details then closed the case file and carefully retraced his steps through the maze of the database, re-locking all his invisible doors as he retreated.
When he was back at the default desktop he opened an innocuous spreadsheet for the benefit of anyone curious enough to glance at his screen, grabbed his coat and phone and headed for the door. He never sent anything from his own terminal, even encrypted. It was too risky and he was too careful. Besides, there was an Internet cafe around the corner where the baristas were hot and the coffee was better.
Chapter 59
Liv spent the next few minutes looking for words in the jumble of letters and writing them down in a list. She got words like SALT, LAST, TASK, MASK — nothing earth-shattering, nothing like ‘GRAIL’ or ‘CROSS’ or any of the other things the Sacrament was rumoured to be; certainly nothing worth dying for.
She tried making a single word from the capitalized letters — MAT — and studied what was left — s a l a k. She looked up at Arkadian. ‘What language do they speak in the Citadel?’
He shrugged. ‘Greek, Latin, Aramaic, English, Hebrew — all the modern languages and lots of the dead ones. There’s supposed to be a massive library in there, full of ancient texts. If your brother had anything to do with that side of things, I suppose the message could be written in any language.’
‘Great.’
‘But I don’t think he’d do that. Why would he send you a message you wouldn’t understand?’
Liv let out a long breath and picked up the photograph of her brother’s body. Her eyes traced the neat lines encircling his shoulders, upper thighs and neck, the T-shaped cross burned deep into the flesh of his left shoulder.
‘Maybe there’s something in these scars,’ she said. ‘Like a map, maybe.’
‘I agree they’re significant, but I think these symbols are more important. He took pains to scratch them on to five tiny seeds, then swallowed them, along with your phone number, and jumped into our jurisdiction so that they would be found during a post-mortem.’
Liv turned her attention back to the newspaper, the picture of Samuel now surrounded by the letters he’d taken such trouble to hide.
‘I want to see him,’ she said.
‘I don’t think that’s wise,’ Arkadian said softly. ‘Your brother fell from a very great height. His injuries were extensive, and we’ve conducted a thorough post-mortem. It would be better for you to wait.’
‘Wait until what? Until he’s been tidied up?’
‘Miss Adamsen, I don’t think you realize what happens to a body during a post-mortem.’
Liv took a deep breath and fixed him with her bright green eyes. ‘After a thorough external examination the coroner makes a Y-shaped incision on the torso, cracks the sternum and removes the heart, the lungs and the liver for further examination. The top of the skull is then detached with a saw and the face is peeled forward to gain access to the brain, which is also removed for examination. Ever been to New Jersey, Inspector?’
Arkadian blinked. ‘No,’ he replied.
‘Last year in Newark we had one hundred and seven homicides — more than two a week. In the last four years I’ve written stories on every aspect of crime, and researched every element of police procedure, including autopsies. I have personally attended more post-mortems than most rookie cops. So I know it’s not going to be pretty, and I know it’s my brother, but I also know I haven’t flown all this way on a maxed-out credit card — which has since been stolen, by the way — just to look at a bunch of photographs. So please,’ she said, turning the photo round and sliding it back across the table, ‘take me to see my brother.’
Arkadian’s eyes flicked between Liv’s face and the image in the photograph. They had the same colouring, the same high cheekbones and widely set eyes. Samuel’s eyes were shut but he knew they were the same intense green.
The buzz of his phone cut through the silence.
‘’Scuse me,’ he said, standing up and walking to the far side of the room.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ an excitable voice babbled in his ear the moment he pressed the answer button. ‘Just when you think a case cannot get any stranger,’ Reis said, ‘the lab results come back!’
‘What you got?’
‘The monk’s cells; they’re — ’
A high-pitched siren caused Arkadian to jerk the phone away from his head.
‘WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?’ he shouted, holding it as close as he could without bursting an eardrum.
‘FIRE ALARM!’ Reis shouted back through the banshee wail. ‘I THINK WE’RE BEING EVACUATED. NOT SURE IF IT’S A DRILL. I’LL CALL YOU WHEN IT’S OVER.’
Arkadian glanced at Liv. Locked eyes. Made a decision.
‘DON’T WORRY,’ he yelled into the phone, ‘I’LL COME TO YOU.’ He smiled and added, as much for Liv’s benefit as for Reis’s, ‘AND I’LL BE BRINGING A VISITOR.’
Chapter 60
The deafening noise of the propellers increased as a couple of thousand horse power fed into the Double Wasp engine on the right wing, slewing it round until the rear cargo hatch came to rest in line with the warehouse door.
Kathryn watched men in red overalls scamper forward and jam wooden chocks beneath the oversized wheels of the C-123 light cargo plane which they’d picked up for the princely sum of one dollar from the Brazilian Air Force on the understanding that the charity had to make it airworthy and ship it off the military airbase within thirty days or it would be used for target practice. It had been in such a bad state they only just made it, but it had clocked up over twenty thousand flying hours since.
The pitch of the engines fell and the watery mist whipped up by them began to clear as the rear hatch lowered. Kathryn marched across the wet tarmac, followed by Becky the intern and a customs officer who held his cap in place with one hand and a clipboard in the other. Kathryn had brought Becky so she could check everything in the tightly packed cargo hold against the manifest, and so that her eager prettiness would distract the customs o
fficer and the rest of the ground crew while the most precious and unregistered part of the load was discreetly removed.
Kathryn had seen her father many times over the past few years but never in Ruin. It was too dangerous, even after all this time. Instead she always flew to him in Rio or they met somewhere else to spend a bit of time together, discuss the charity’s latest projects, fulminate on whatever injustices were currently being visited upon the planet, and drink good whisky.
She reached the top of the ramp and peered at the large corporate logo stencilled on the thin aluminium skin of the first master pallet. The majority of this particular shipment was high-nitrate fertilizer, a gift from a large petrochemical company to salve its conscience for all the bad it did to the world. Kathryn was always conflicted by accepting such donations, but figured the people who were ultimately going to benefit from them didn’t care about the moral high ground; the only ground that mattered to them was the sort they could grow food on.
In a couple of days this fertilizer would be mingling with the sterile dust surrounding a village in the Sudan — if the Sudanese government gave them permission to fly it in, and if Gabriel managed to persuade the local warlords not to steal it all and turn it into bombs. He’d been making good progress before she’d called him back home. Now he’d have to start all over again.
Kathryn glanced to her side.
Becky and the customs officer were already checking the serial numbers on the crates. Beyond them she saw two of the three-man crew walk round the wing and head towards the rear of the plane. It required an effort of will not to look directly at them. Instead she waited for them to clear her peripheral vision before turning to make her way back down the loading ramp. ‘I’ll go tell the forklift driver he can come and make a start,’ she called over her shoulder.
‘Thanks,’ the customs officer said, without looking round.
Kathryn headed to the warehouse. It was almost three-quarters full of packing cases and master pallets arranged in evenly spaced lines. Ilker was rearranging some crates containing water-filtration kits. She pointed in the direction of the plane and he flicked her a thumbs-up, spun the forklift and headed for the open door. Kathryn continued down one of the passageways between the crates and into the office at the back of the warehouse.
One of the crewmen was helping himself to coffee from a jug that sat beneath the TV on the far wall. He turned and looked at her, his deeply tanned face already wrinkling into a huge smile. ‘Flight officer Miguel Ramirez at your service,’ he said, tapping the ID badge on his flight suit.
Kathryn leapt across the room, nearly knocking him over in her desperation to give him a hug. Despite her tiredness, her concerns about the present, the traumas of the day just gone, and the weight of history that hung over the ones to follow, she forgot everything for a moment and just held him.
After ninety years in exile, Oscar de la Cruz had come home.
They held each other tightly until Kathryn’s phone chimed in her pocket, breaking the spell. She pulled back, kissed her father on both cheeks then took it from her pocket. Oscar watched her face clench into a frown as she read the email that had been routed to it.
‘Gabriel?’
Kathryn shook her head. ‘The girl. She’s at the police station.’
‘Who’s the source?’
‘Someone inside the Central District building.’
‘Reliable?’
‘Accurate.’
Oscar shook his head. ‘Not the same thing.’
Kathryn shrugged. ‘He delivers when required and the information is always good.’
‘And what information has this source given us in the past?’
‘Police files covering every Church-related investigation in the past three years. We heard about him through a press contact.’
‘So I assume he does not give us this information for the love of our cause?’
‘No. He gives us this information for money.’
She looked down at her phone, re-reading the message, registering the time it had arrived, feeling angry with herself that she hadn’t seen it before. She cleared the screen and pressed a button to speed-dial a number. She wondered if the source had sent her the information before or after the Citadel. It didn’t really matter. By now the people who’d tried to abduct the girl at the airport would undoubtedly have the same information she did and would already be re-grouping.
The dialling sequence ended.
Somewhere in Ruin another phone started to ring.
Chapter 61
The Basilica Ferrumvia was the largest building in Ruin not belonging to the Church. It had risen piece by piece in the mid-nineteenth century like a red beacon of hope and modern progress from the mediaeval slums to the south of the Lost Quarter. Despite its ecclesiastical-sounding name, however, the only thing worshipped inside it was commerce. The ‘Church of the Iron Road’ was Ruin’s main train station.
By the time Gabriel pulled up outside the gothic facade, rush hour was well underway. He brought the lightweight trail bike to a stop under the vast glass and wrought-iron awning that stretched from the front of the building and eased it into a space next to a line of scooters. He kicked out the foot-rest, killed the engine and headed briskly into the station like any other commuter with a train to catch.
He walked quickly through the cacophonous central hall and descended into the muted silence of the left-luggage office dug deep into the bedrock beneath Platform 16.
Locker 68 stood in the furthest corner of the room, directly below one of the six closed-circuit cameras that watched the room. The position of the camera meant that, although Gabriel’s face was visible to anyone monitoring the feeds, the contents of the locker were not. He punched in a five-digit code and opened the door.
Inside was another black canvas bag, identical in size and make to the one over his shoulder. He unzipped it and pulled out a black quilted jacket and two fully loaded ammunition clips. He laid the clips on the floor of the locker, pulled out his SIG, carefully unscrewed the silencer and dropped it into the open bag. Silence was for night time. Any shooting during the day needed to be loud enough to scare away anyone who shouldn’t be there. He didn’t want innocent bystanders getting hurt. In the army it was called collateral damage. In the city it was called murder.
He looked round, slipped the bag from his shoulder and shrugged off his jacket, replacing it with the quilted one. The loaded clips went into the pocket. The SIG went back into the pancake shoulder holster, less bulky without the silencer. He picked up the bag, stashed it in the locker then unzipped it and pulled out Liv’s hold-all. He hesitated, his innate courtesy preventing him from prying into a woman’s personal property, then opened it anyway.
He found clothes, toiletries, a phone charger, all the things you’d stuff in a bag if you were heading someplace in a hurry. There was also a small laptop in a case, a wallet, credit cards, a press ID card and a Starbucks loyalty card that was nearly full. A side pocket produced a passport, a set of house keys and a paper 1-Hour Foto wallet. Inside were a dozen or so glossy prints of Liv and a young man on a daytrip to New York. She was a few years younger in the photos than the girl he had met at the airport — early twenties maybe. The young man was clearly her brother. He had the same dark blonde hair, the same softly rounded, attractive face — handsome in him, pretty in her — the same bright green eyes shone with the joy of shared laughter from both faces.
The last image dated the trip to pre-2001. The young man stood alone between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, his arms pushing outward, his face twisted in a caricature of extreme effort. With his long hair and hint of a beard he looked like Samson in the temple of the Philistines. It was an ominous image, laden with tragedy, not only because of what happened to the towers, but because the image of the happy young man with his arms outstretched aped the pose he would ultimately take in the final hours before he fell.
Gabriel slid the photos back into the wallet. His practical i
nstinct was to leave the bag in the locker, but he slung it over his shoulder, slammed the door and headed to the exit. Keeping it close would act as a talisman for him, a good luck charm, a lens through which to focus his determination and purpose so that when he found the girl and got her to safety he could give it back to her.
In his mind her security had become his personal mission. He couldn’t say exactly why or when he had decided that this was so. Maybe when he’d watched her scampering across the rain-slicked car park, fuelled by a fear partly caused by him. Maybe even earlier — when he’d first seen her startling green eyes searching for the truth in his own. He could take the fear away from her at least, if he got the chance.
He emerged from the gloom of the left-luggage office back into the bright glare of the main concourse. The arched glass ceiling, a hundred feet high at its apex, seemed to gather every sound and reflect it back. It was so loud that he felt rather than heard his phone ringing in his pocket.
‘The girl’s been taken to the Central District,’ Kathryn said. ‘She’s in an interview room on the fourth floor giving a statement about what happened last night.’
‘How old’s the information?’
‘Just got it. But we think the person who gave it to us is also feeding the Sancti.’
It made sense. It also meant the people who’d tried to snatch Liv the previous night would be close by, biding their time until they got another chance.
