The Camelot Code

by Sam Christer

  Mitzi stands too. She’s not in the business of sitting like an idiot while a suspect makes a run for it or, worse still, picks up something that happens to be loaded.

  She follows her to the bedroom and as Sophie reaches for a drawer beneath a vanity mirror, she un-holsters her gun. ‘Do that real slow, so I don’t have a momentary lapse of judgement and blow your freakin’ head off.’

  The girl looks terrified. Her hands shake as she pulls a small USB stick from beneath a tangle of underwear and holds it out. ‘This is all I was getting.’

  Mitzi takes it and holsters the gun. She looks down at the tiny eight-gigabyte memory stick in the palm of her hand. ‘What’s on it and how did you get it?’

  Sophie wanders back to the lounge. ‘I couldn’t make sense of it. Mr Goldman was given it by someone he was doing business with – I don’t know who. He tried it in the work PC and it came out as a jumble of letters and numbers. He gave it to me to try to make sense of.’

  ‘And what was wrong? Was it formatted for Mac or something?’

  ‘No. It really was just letters and numbers.’

  ‘Like what? A recipe for alphabet soup?’

  ‘Just like a jumble. The only thing I could make out was writing on the side of the stick. Someone’s scratched “CODE X”.’

  Mitzi holds the minuscule USB between thumb and forefinger. ‘So why lie about this?’

  She shrugs guiltily. ‘I’m a store clerk – and an out-of-work one now. I figured it might bring me some money in the future.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I thought I might sell it to a newspaper.’

  ‘Classy gal. Make a buck on your dead boss. Anything else you took or you’re forgetting to tell us?’

  ‘No.’ Sophie twists a strand of her hair to settle her nerves. ‘You gonna charge me with something?’

  ‘Not for now. Being scared of having no work ain’t a misdemeanour, else we’d be jailing half the country. But wise up, honey: lying to cops is. You’re lucky, you get a pass this time, but if I have to come back, then we’ll be playing a different game with a different ending.’

  39

  NEW YORK

  After six hours in the unventilated basement, Antun takes a bathroom break, shadowed by Aasif, who’s been briefed to trust no one.

  Antun watches the big man as he washes at the sink. It’s clear that the enforcer’s wide shoulders have been rounded from lifting titanic weights and working slow, repetitive curls in a gym. Thin white snakes crawl across his knuckles and jawbone, long scars from years of street brawls. Antun notes where they are. All are right-sided defence wounds except for the mark on the left of his face, no doubt delivered by a right-handed attacker with a knife. He suspects the assailant is no longer around to brag about the encounter.

  Aasif rips a wad of green paper towels from a wall dispenser and holds them out in his fist. ‘Here. Hurry up.’

  Antun takes them and slowly wipes his hands. ‘What’s your rush? I thought your kind liked restrooms.’

  ‘My kind? What’s my kind?’

  He smiles his way past him. ‘You know what it is.’

  Aasif grabs his shoulder. ‘You say that again and I’ll rip a new asshole in your face.’

  ‘Sure you will.’ He stands eyeball to eyeball. ‘And we both know what you’d like to do with assholes.’

  Aasif’s fists ball in anger.

  Antun laughs in his face. He’s taken apart bigger and meaner creatures than Aasif. Most importantly he now knows where the ape’s trigger is and how quickly it can be pulled.

  The two of them return to their seats in the rancid basement and glare across at each other. Both know their time will come.

  Three bangs on the floor above their heads prompt Nabil to break his silence. ‘She’s here.’ He turns to Aasif. ‘Bring the vest.’

  40

  GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND

  As well as his diplomatic duties and stewardship of the SSOA, Sir Owain Gwyn is the owner and non-executive chairman of Caledfwlch Ethical Investments, a multi-billion-dollar global investment company, started by his family generations ago. He is also the patron of more than a dozen charities and as a result, much of his first full day back in the UK is spent contacting his various offices.

  The knight takes a late lunch with his wife, then returns to the SSOA’s underground control centre for a final briefing with Inner Circle secretary, Lance Beaucoup.

  The room is dominated by a long wall of video screens and several rows of staff manning terminals and monitors linked to data, surveillance and satellite systems.

  The two men sit in one of four concave areas that contain large desks-cum-conference-tables buffered by slide-across soundproof screens.

  ‘I’m afraid I have no news on Antun,’ confesses the Frenchman. ‘I just spoke to Gareth and he has been unable to contact him.’

  Owain is worried. ‘I thought we had him under surveillance?’

  ‘We did. The team reported that they saw him meet Nabil, but we lost them both.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We stayed with them for two changes of subway train, then they disappeared.’

  ‘What about the electronic tracker?’

  ‘Antun dropped it soon after the meet. Nabil must have gone to frisk him, so he had to.’

  Owain is annoyed with himself. ‘We should have pulled him out as soon as the Americans made their raid. If anything goes wrong I will never forgive myself.’

  ‘Antun Bhatti is one of our best operatives; he can look after himself.’

  ‘Sometimes being the best is not good enough. Over the centuries we have filled graves with the best of men.’

  ‘I understand.’ Lance passes over a stack of screen prints.

  ‘What are these?’

  ‘Latest satellite surveillance shots from Togo. Mardrid has torched an entire village. Thirty deaths. Most of them burned alive. Fatalities include two coffee farmers shot in the head. I think they were the first to go.’

  Owain throws the sheets onto his desk. ‘Damn every bone in his body!’ He rests his forehead on his hands and tries to control the rage. ‘I want him dead, Lance. I don’t care how. I want Mardrid lying beneath six feet of earth before he spreads any more of his cancer around the world.’

  ‘We can never get near him. His security is better than a Saudi king’s.’

  ‘Then until you can, stop this!’ He slaps a hand on the prints. ‘We’ve got people in Ghana; move them over. Find the ringleaders and give them to the locals to deal with.’

  ‘We will need more than a handful of locals to contain Mardrid’s thugs.’

  ‘I know, but this at least will give them hope.’ He takes a moment to think, then adds, ‘I’ll seek approval from the Inner Circle to raise crusaders and have the action ratified by an extraordinary meeting of the Blood Line.’ Owain’s mood darkens as he imagines what else Mardrid may have brewing. ‘Any news on Marchetti? Is that viperous traitor already in the Spanish devil’s nest?’

  ‘He flew into Charles de Gaulle yesterday, but we haven’t found out whether he caught a connecting flight or stayed in the city.’

  ‘He’ll have flown on. Find where Mardrid is and you’ll find Marchetti.’ Owain stands and straightens out the jacket of his navy-blue suit. ‘I’m sorry; I really have to rush. Will you drive Jennifer to Caergwyn in the morning? I’ll join you there when I can.’

  ‘It will be my pleasure.’

  ‘Merci.’ Owain leaves to say goodbye to his wife.

  He finds her stood by the front door in a short brown tweed skirt and an ochre-coloured jacket. The earthy colours complement her blonde hair and blue eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He stoops to kiss her. ‘You have no idea how much I want to stay with you and be in your bed tonight.’

  ‘I think I do.’ And the look in her eyes confirms it. ‘I’ve had your overnight bag with your dinner suit and change of clothes put in the aircraft.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Be
careful.’

  ‘I always am.’

  He can still smell her perfume and feel the tingle of her lips as he boards the Bell.

  The helicopter blades quickly build noise and speed. With a graceful lunge it leaves the ground, billowing dust and shaking trees.

  Owain sees his wife wave and then drift back inside. He looks forward as the craft climbs into the pale evening cloud-base and banks east towards London and Buckingham Palace. In a short while, he’ll take part in a meeting so secret he hasn’t even told Jennifer about it.

  41

  NORTH BETHESDA, MARYLAND

  It’s gone three p.m. when Mitzi leaves Sophie Hudson’s place.

  Irish is asleep at the wheel, his seat laid out flat and the car sunk in a pool of shade beneath some elms.

  She opens the passenger door quietly, gets in and slams it.

  Irish sits up fast. ‘Whadafuck!’

  ‘Result,’ she says mischievously.

  He blinks and rubs blood into his face. ‘What?’

  She holds up the silver memory stick Sophie had given her. ‘This is what your store girl was keeping from you.’

  He cranks his seat back into an upright position and takes it. ‘What’s on here?’

  ‘Remains to be seen. Scratch on the side says CODE X. Sophie Hudson said her boss got it as a kind of sample for some deal he was doing. Apparently, it contains only letters and numbers.’

  ‘Sounds like a scam.’

  ‘Run me to the hotel so I can dump my stuff, then we can look and maybe get something to eat and drink.’

  He starts the engine. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Coffee. That’s the drink I have in mind.’

  He lets the snipe slide as he swings the Taurus round and out towards Kensington. ‘So the woman-to-woman trick worked, hey?’ He looks pleased with himself. ‘How d’you play it? Momsy or sisterly?’

  ‘Momsy?’ She shoots him a stare that could kill. ‘You looking to spend the afternoon in hospital?’

  ‘Okay.’ He raises a hand to acknowledge his error.

  ‘She needed a little jolt, that’s all.’ Mitzi glances out the window as they make their way down a long tree-lined avenue. ‘It’s pretty out here. We going far?’

  ‘Too pretty for murder. We got about three miles to go.’ He switches the radio on to pass the time. Country music crackles in cheap door speakers.

  ‘Sign to your right says Rock Creek.’ Mitzi points it out. ‘That where the second body turned up?’

  ‘Yeah. Rock Creek Trail. It’s a twenty-mile woodland walk from Lake Needwood to just south of where the stiff was buried.’

  ‘You got a name on him yet?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m gonna call through to records when we get to your hotel. I’m sure his prints will bring up a hit somewhere.’

  The Taurus bumps over the Knowles Avenue Bridge then glides along the asphalt to a T-junction. Irish takes them right down Connecticut into town and halts in front of a white two-storey building. ‘Here you go, home from home.’

  Mitzi gets out and heads to the trunk.

  He gets there ahead of her. ‘You check in; I’ll bring your case.’

  The gesture catches her by surprise. ‘I’m fine. I can manage.’

  He reaches around her and grabs the bag. ‘I’d like to.’

  She shrugs and walks past a board that says Silver Fall Lodge. A weed-free grit path cuts across a long green lawn fringed by overhanging oaks. The bag rumbles noisily on its hard plastic wheels a few feet behind her.

  The small lobby is little more than a big square of white walls over a limed pine floor. A low-level desk supports a computer screen, keyboard and printer. Behind it is a row of brass keys on numbered hooks.

  A young woman in a smart black jacket and pearl-coloured blouse checks Mitzi in to what she promises is ‘the finest’ of its six bedrooms.

  Irish drops the bag. ‘I’m going to the bar.’ He catches Mitzi’s disapproving look. ‘For coffee.’

  The receptionist points his way. ‘It’s through to your left, sir.’

  Mitzi takes the stairs, then a dusty red carpet down a narrow, dark landing to her room.

  It’s tiny. She’s bought shoes in bigger boxes. The dull cream walls and dark wood floor crowd her. Brightest thing about the place is a mock-oriental jug of mixed flowers on a crappy bureau. Ruthy would know their species, but to her they’re just big round reds and spiky yellows with sprigs of green.

  Mitzi plugs in her FBI laptop and powers it up. While it’s loading programs, she unpacks her bag and hangs clothes in a musty closet. Once the computer is up to speed, she inserts the memory stick that Sophie gave her and opens its directory.

  There is nothing but nonsense.

  Four lots of nonsense as far as she can make out.

  There are big blocks of numbers and letters. Row after row of numbers and then row after row of letters. Never numbers and letters on a line together. Mitzi downloads the contents of the stick onto her hard drive, dials her office in San Francisco and traps the phone between an ear and shoulder.

  The call’s answered almost instantly. ‘Vicky Cantrell.’

  ‘Vicks, it’s Mitzi Fallon. I’m in Kensington and I’ve got some data files I want to upload. Are you at your terminal?’

  ‘Yeah, I am, Lieutenant. Give me a second to open the doc box and check the capture display.’ Vicky’s nimble fingers flick across the keyboard. ‘Okay, send what you’ve got and I’ll be able to check it comes in.’

  Mitzi uses a secure FBI portal to upload the contents of the stick.

  ‘Got it.’ Vicky scans the file. ‘Hang on. This is just lines of numbers and letters. Should it be like that?’

  ‘That’s all I saw when I plugged it in. Give it to techies and crypto to work out.’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘The other thing I was calling about was the cross. Did you have any luck with your professors?’

  ‘I did. Let me find my notes.’ She opens her bottom drawer and they’re in a newly created hang file entitled, ‘Homicides – O.I.C. Lieutenant Fallon’. ‘Here we go. I showed it around and the real expert on this kind of thing turned out to be a Professor Quinn at the Smithsonian. He said he’d never seen anything exactly like that in iron and the Smith had no records of any such design.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ asks Mitzi, a little confused. ‘We got zip?’

  ‘No, it’s not that bad. Quinn says the fact that there are no records probably means it’s Iron Age.’

  ‘Which was when?’

  ‘In Europe, somewhere between 1200 BC and 400 BC.’

  Mitzi frowns. ‘You mean to say that Europe has a different Iron Age time than everywhere else?’

  ‘Egypt, Cyprus and the like have even older Iron Ages. Indian Iron Age is similar. Japanese and Chinese a bit later. Quinn thinks this was a Celtic burial cross, from the Irish Iron Age, which ended with the Romanization-Christianization of Britain.’

  ‘Value?’

  ‘He wasn’t sure but he guessed not that much.’

  ‘How much is not much?’

  ‘He said a few hundred bucks, but then only to a keen collector. He’s mailed some professor in Oxford for a second opinion on its origins and value.’

  ‘When will the Brit get back to him?’

  ‘I don’t know. The UK is five hours ahead of DC, eight of San Francisco. Academics work at least twelve hours behind the rest of the world, so I guess tomorrow or the day after?’

  ‘Not good enough. You’ve gotta be more on the ball, Vicks. Pester Quinn, get the number for the British guy and harass him directly. I don’t do “waiting” and from now on neither do you.’

  ‘Understood, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Good. And thanks for your help. Can you put me through to Donovan. I guess I should check in with her.’

  ‘She’s out. I saw her leave with the director. You want me to ask her secretary for the AD’s cell number?’

  ‘No, thanks. But leave a message that
I called and say she can contact me if she wants an update. Is Bronty there?’

  ‘No. Eleonora is; you want to talk to her?’

  She hesitates, ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘Hang on.’

  There’s a delay then the Italian picks up. ‘M-itzi, how was your flight?’

  ‘Two degrees of pain lower than a cervical smear. How you doing with your witch?’

  ‘We’ve found the coven she worshipped at. It’s a group that split away from the Church of Satan.’

  ‘Glad you’re making progress. Could you have Bronty call me when you see him? I want to ask him something.’

  ‘Si. No problem. I have him call right away.’

  ‘Grazie.’

  ‘Prego, Meetzee.’

  She hangs up and the phone immediately rings. It’s a message from Fitzgerald. ‘The coffee’s crap. I’m over at the Phoenix Bar, a block east of your bunkhouse, on the corner. Join me when you’re ready.’

  She hangs up, grabs her laptop and hurries out.

  Hurries because the last thing she wants is to babysit a drunk for the rest of the evening.

  42

  GLASTONBURY, ENGLAND

  Lance Beaucoup makes his way out into the lawned gardens, near where he and Owain fenced. He follows several hundred yards of twisting, biscuit-coloured pathway that takes him past an ancient maze, a hilltop orchard and down to the south lake.

  The Frenchman’s feet clump on the teak decking as he approaches an elegant Victorian summerhouse that overhangs the fish-stocked water. Green painted rowing boats are moored beneath the decking and as he spots them he remembers how he and Owain caught salmon far out in the sparkling waters spread around the estate.

  The curtains are closed and the summerhouse door is locked. He uses his key and enters the darkness.

  She is here.

  He knows she is. He smells her perfume. Her body. Her hair. Being so close and not seeing her makes his pulse race.