‘Come on,’ shouted Sean. The rats had been distracted, but who knew for how long.
They reached the elevator.
Sean pressed the button, banged on the elevator doors. Then he tried to pull the doors open. They wouldn’t budge.
They turned to watch the final act of Li being eaten. Alek was resting on Sean’s shoulder, still knocked out, oblivious. There was blood all down Alek’s arms and legs. It was all over Sean’s shirt now and on his trousers too.
Li’s body jerked and the whole hill of rats moved as blood fired a few feet up into the air, then sprayed the white rats in a mist that died quickly. Sean banged on the doors again.
It wouldn’t be long before the rats realised there was more to eat than Li and his colleague.
And then the elevator doors pinged.
Isabel felt a great rising wave of relief.
But inside was Adar and her relief fled. He had a purple bruise on the side of his face and a sour expression. He had a black gun too. It was pointing at them.
He stepped out of the elevator and waved his gun at Sean and Isabel. ‘You two. What happened to the others?’ He glanced across the cavern and his mouth opened. His eyes widened.
Isabel turned away from Adar and pulled the gun from her waistband, slowly. She would get only one shot. But she wasn’t afraid. She’d been top of her class in pistol drill in the Foreign Office the year she’d joined. She swung the gun up. She took a deep breath and shifted fast down onto one knee.
Adar was moving too, turning. The barrel of his gun was coming around. Everything slowed as she watched it coming to face her.
He was too fast.
She heard an echoing crack. Something punched her shoulder, swinging her around. She’d been hit!
She fell. Sean shouted.
But her arm was still in front of her and she was still holding the gun. She sighted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. The force of the shot sent her shoulder back with an agonising jerk.
And then Sean was pulling her up.
‘We gotta go!’ He shouted.
She could hear the rats squealing again as she passed Adar. The sound they made was the growl of a hungry pack. She saw a pulsing red hole in Adar’s chest as they passed him. He was twitching, his eyes blinking, as if he was trying to get up, but the flow of blood made it clear that he had no chance.
The last thing she saw as the elevator doors closed were the rats jumping high as they reached Adar. He was still alive as they began their meal. His arms flailed and then they were all over him, covering him in a seething whiteness.
The elevator doors closed.
But something was in it with them. She heard Sean screaming. She was leaning against the back wall, dizzy. Then she heard a thud and the squealing stopped.
‘What’s the code start with?’ shouted Sean.
‘A hash … a …’ Her voice trailed off.
She could hear him tapping at the keys. He tapped twice. Then they were moving.
The elevator creaked a few times, but she didn’t care. Sean had his shirt off. He was tearing it into strips. There was a horrible bone-deep thumping coming from her shoulder.
‘Is Alek okay?’ she said.
‘Sit down,’ he shouted at her.
She sat on the wooden floor. There was something warm dripping down the side of her body. Was she under a leak? Then her head was emptying, swirling. It had become light.
There was a voice calling. It was far away.
‘Is Alek okay?’ she was saying, again and again.
Then there was a buzzing, voices.
But she couldn’t understand the words. And everything was dark.
EPILOGUE
It was a month before Henry Mowlam finished his report on what had happened at BXH.
No redundancies had been announced yet at the bank. BXH, and its regulators, were still assessing the damage. The riot that had occurred outside the BXH building in Manhattan had evaporated after the National Guard had turned up, but the shockwaves had taken days to pass in the US.
What happened in the secret mausoleums under the bank didn’t come out in anything even approximating the truth. One newspaper claimed the bones discovered in the underground cave had been there for centuries. Another tried to start a panic about commuters being at risk from rats. Then it was revealed that thousands of rats had been killed by a team of specialists in the hours after the cavern was opened up.
The SEC suspended the takeover and BXH’s shares as an investigation was carried out into all matters surrounding the events at the bank.
It was unlikely, but not impossible, that the takeover would still go ahead. The other members of the board of the Ebony Dragon hedge fund had disowned Lord Bidoner.
And the Chinese authorities had made clear they had no part in any murders or illegal activity. They denied all know-ledge of what Li and his assistant had been up to.
The Vaughanns were charged with a series of offences within days.
Sean, during an interview back in London, blamed himself for what had happened to his family.
Sean had proved that he was waiting at City Airport in the east end of London while the BXH jet was readied for departure, when the dancer was murdered in Soho. Security camera evidence had backed him up.
‘You should have gone straight to the police when you discovered Alek was being threatened,’ said Henry, softly.
‘I know,’ said Sean.
‘Are you still at BXH?’ said Henry.
‘No, they terminated the facial recognition project.’
‘How’s Alek these days,’ said Henry.
‘He’s okay. It’s amazing, considering what happened.’
‘Kids are very resilient,’ said Henry.
‘He still has nightmares, though.’
‘And Rose Suchard is all right?’
‘She’s still a bit shaky, but she’s very grateful to the Metropolitan police. She says the officers who traced her phone call deserve a medal from the Queen.’
Henry smiled. ‘The NYPD released you quickly.’ He looked at his notes.
‘Not that quickly. They questioned me for twelve hours. I had to repeat the whole thing three times. Lord Bidoner’s body led them to an apartment that he had a pass key for. They found Alek’s jacket there. The fact that Adar was found to have a knife on him and I was on the security camera tapes in that other building when Grainger was killed was enough to convince them that I was telling the truth.’
‘They found other things in Lord Bidoner’s apartment too.’
‘What things?’
‘Pieces of skin in a fridge. That backed up what you said about him burning something weird in a candle.’
‘I didn’t know that was human skin.’
‘It links him to a number of murders. If you ever hear anything about Xena again you must inform us immediately.’
‘There wasn’t anything about him being a murderer in the newspapers.’
‘No, thankfully. He’s one psycho the world doesn’t need to know about.’ He rubbed the table between them, as if rubbing away a stain.
‘Has anyone found any trace of Xena or the statue?’ said Sean.
‘No, she’s disappeared into thin air. They found a tunnel, which connects that cave to an abandoned subway station. It was used by whoever built those mausoleums.’
‘What do you think was in that statue that Lord Bidoner wanted so badly?’
Henry shrugged.
‘I hope I never see it again.’ Sean sounded angry for the first time during the two hour interview.
‘I can understand that, given everything that happened.’ Henry paused. ‘I think we can let you go now.’
Isabel opened the door quickly when Sean got home that night.
Her shoulder still had a bandage around it.
They hugged, Sean unwilling to let go. Isabel pulled away.
‘It is definitely all over now, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All that stupid symbol stuff is finished.’
‘Yes,’ said Sean. He hugged her again.
‘Thank God. I never want to hear about any of it again.’ She held him tight.
‘Do they accept everything you told them?’
‘Yes. Everything. He even apologised for doubting me.’
She didn’t reply this time. She just hugged him. Hard. He could feel her heart beating, smell her warmth. He breathed it in. He’d been worried about her. She’d been different since the hospital had released her in Manhattan, and it wasn’t just because she’d lost a lot of blood and suffered a flesh wound. It seemed she was relishing being alive.
‘We’ve been very lucky,’ she whispered. ‘Everything’s back the way it should be. Now I just want a normal boring life again. No more adventures. Please. And I never want to hear about that Xena bitch ever again.’
‘You won’t.’ He breathed deep. It was all over.
And he hoped he was right about Xena.
Then he pulled away. He’d heard Alek coming down the stairs. He bent down and opened his arms. It was time for them to be a family again.
The Manhattan that I Love
Manhattan, the island that is most of what I know of New York, is a city of the imagination. I dreamed of going there for decades, before I finally arrived on a Greyhound bus from Toronto in 1988. I loved every part of it then. And I still do.
It teems with people. And it’s full of wonders. I have been back many times since and every time it shows a different side to me. I have wandered the streets at dawn, when it’s almost quiet, and crossed Times Square on a Saturday night when it’s jammed full of people, and always it is gorgeous and full of surprises.
I imagine Manhattan as a city in a snow globe, captured for ever in its twentieth-century magnificence, its skyscrapers reaching high and its lights twinkling below.
Here are some of the places I love visiting when I am there:
The Empire State Building is, for me, the iconic New York skyscraper. Located on Fifth Avenue, this building, with its 102 floors, is hard to miss. It is 1,250 feet high and has an antenna at the top that extends by another 204 feet.
It was the tallest building in the world after it was completed in 1931. And it remained the tallest building for forty years afterwards. An art deco masterpiece, it is simply one of the wonders of the modern world. And it was built in just fifteen months. The observation deck, which has seen over one hundred million visitors, took in more than the rent for the whole building during its first year of operation.
The second place I like visiting is also an icon, but this time it is a shop; Macy’s. There’s something about a huge department store, with great offers on every floor, that says a lot about New York to me. I love a bargain and I love quality. Macy’s represents all that.
Apparently there are 798 Macy’s stores across America, but it’s the iconic store in Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan that I love to visit. Macy’s features, in my mind at least, in many classic movies about New York, but the only one it is central to, that I am aware of, is Miracle on 34th Street, the 1947 Christmas time movie, which we used to watch repeats of on TV when I was young.
The next place I urge you to visit in Manhattan is a traditional New York diner. They are fast, friendly and the food fills you up.
If you want the classic American hamburger experience a good diner in Manhattan is the way to do it. And if you want something a bit modern, something organic and green, you can get that too in the huge array of diner-type restaurants at street level all over Manhattan. If you’re on a budget a Manhattan diner is a great way to see how real New Yorker’s live, without maxing the credit card.
After you’ve had lunch I recommend a visit to Grand Central Terminal. The picture opposite is one I took of a platform deep underground. The distant lights would be approximately where the long-lost platform actually exists connecting the Waldorf Astoria to a siding near Grand Central. I was almost arrested the time I took this picture! Grand Central is still the largest train station in the world, because of its forty-four platforms and sixty-seven tracks. It was largely completed in 1913 although the construction took ten years as the railroad companies needed to keep the tracks running. And new underground levels are still being built!
One of the innovations of the new terminal, when it was built, was the dual level underground platforms, which are still in use. And this is disregarding the subway system that now connects into Grand Central.
Grand Central is most famous for its huge main concourse, 275 feet long, 120 feet wide and 125 feet high. It features in iconic American movies such as North by Northwest, The Fisher King and Superman: The Movie.
I spent hours in Grand Central the last time I was in Manhattan. It has a pulsing energy and to my mind, a cinnamony smell that is unique. It’s a commuter station now, despite its size, so you don’t get as many passengers with piles of luggage, but it’s still the most romantic of places. You can meet your lover at the information booth in the centre of the main concourse, then head to the Oyster Bar or to one of the other numerous restaurants in the dining concourse.
Grand Central has a whispering gallery too, a low ceramic arch near the Oyster Bar, where a whisper can seem like a shout. It’s a popular place for marriage proposals, apparently.
The next place I like to visit in Manhattan is Times Square. The first time I visited the city I listened to a preacher on a soap box at a corner criticising the racial divide in America. The atmosphere was electric. People were hurrying by. The next time I visited in the ’90s the atmosphere was totally different. It was more family friendly. And it’s stayed that way.
Times Square, also in Midtown Manhattan, is at the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretches from 42nd to 47th Street. It’s been called the Crossroads of the World and the Great White Way. The theatres of Broadway are close by and the pull of this whole area sees over 300,000 visitors pass through Times Square every day. It is believed to be the most popular tourist destination in the world with thirty-nine million visitors annually, increasing each year on New Year’s Eve when the New Year is ushered in in America with a Waterford crystal ball being lowered at midnight, while a million people watch from the streets all around. Times Square is named after The New York Times, which moved to a building in the area in 1904. Soon after the first electrified advertisement sign appeared on another building nearby. From the 1920s until the 1990s the area developed a reputation for sleaze and gangsterism, but that has now been dispelled.
Manhattan has many beautiful sight, its museums, art galleries, restaurants and parks are renowned all over the world. Its sombre memorials are also well worth visiting, but the above are the places in the city that captivated me.
Finally, I would like to thank all the inhabitants of Manhattan and everyone who works to keep the city functioning, for keeping my fantasy city alive while I am not there. Thank you all.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank HarperCollins, and all the great editors who have helped me, especially Sammia Rafique. Editing is not dead. Far from it. But I must say that all the errors that remain are my responsibility alone.
I would also like to thank all the other truly supportive staff at HarperCollins and all the great editors, designers and translators who are taking this series worldwide.
My heartfelt thanks also goes to all of my wonderful fans and writing friends in Dublin and around the world. Your encouragement and ideas have been truly inspirational. My wife and my children, and all who I have not so far thanked, are hereby acknowledged for the very real support they have provided.
And finally to all my readers, I would like to thank you for coming with me on the journey and for your belief in the power of story. Without you, writers have nothing. Contact me on Twitter with your comments: @LPOBryan.
About the Author
Laurence O’Bryan has worked in marketing for many years, ten of them in London, until he was made redundant. He then returned to Dublin where he has lived since.
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br /> To find out more about Laurence find him on Twitter @LPOBryan, follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/laurence.obryan or visit his blog www.lpobryan.wordpress.com.
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Copyright
Published by Avon, an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2013
Copyright © Laurence O’Bryan 2013
Cover image: Head Design
Cover design: www.headdesign.co.uk
Laurence O’Bryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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