The Sword of Moses

by Dominic Selwood

  Büren

  Paderborn North-Rhine Westphalia

  Federal Republic of Germany

  Ava sprinted up the steep castle steps leading out of the cellar.

  She had to find Malchus.

  Losing him now, after everything that had happened, was simply unthinkable. She would never be able to forgive herself.

  She ran out into the cobbled courtyard.

  The pale moonlight was largely obscured by clouds, and she could only make out the armoured outlines and swinging tactical gun-lights of the GSG-9 team, who were roughly shepherding Saxby’s followers into waiting vans, their engines throbbing in the cold night air.

  Looking about properly for the first time since arriving, she could see that the ancient castle was a labyrinth of interconnecting rooms and hiding places.

  He could be anywhere.

  She had little idea where to start. Any choice seemed as random as any other.

  The three sombre towers were high, and the imposing connecting ranges had three or four storeys each. There were easily over a hundred windows in the castle, and probably half as many rooms.

  She stared at the glass, looking for a clue. But she could tell nothing. The windows shone black—the rooms behind them shrouded in darkness.

  As she gazed around with increasing desperation, something told her that wherever Malchus was, the Israeli would not be far away.

  Running back into the imposing north tower, she sprinted up the dark steps to the third-floor solar, where Saxby and Malchus had held her and Ferguson before the ceremony.

  Pushing open the old iron-reinforced door, she found the torches had been extinguished and the large room was empty.

  Taking the steps back down two at a time, she realized that on her way up she had failed to register an arched wooden door on the ground floor. Above it, she read the aged inscription incised into the old stone:

  DOMUS MEA DOMUS ORATIONIS VOCABITUR

  which she quickly translated, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’.

  The biblical quotation referring to the Temple of Solomon seemed starkly incongruous given everything she had experienced that evening. She assumed it was from the days when the castle had belonged to the local bishop-princes. It perhaps even indicated the room had once been their chapel.

  Leaning her shoulder hard against the door, she found to her frustration that it was locked. But with her ear now only inches from the wood, she could make out muffled voices behind it.

  Keenly aware that every passing second could mean Malchus was slipping further out of her reach, there was no time for luxuries like picking the lock.

  Pointing her gun into the small ancient brass-faced keyhole, she took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger. There was a chance it could blow her hand off, but she figured she was owed some good luck by now.

  The noise of the discharge in the small stone corridor was deafening.

  As the echo died, she smashed the pistol’s butt hard into the lock, and to her relief she heard the mechanism clatter onto the floor inside the room.

  Without pausing, she rammed the solid door with her shoulder and, after a moment’s resistance, it yielded.

  As she burst through into the room, she took a moment to take in the extraordinary sight.

  It was dimly lit—illuminated by a single pool of flickering light thrown off by a sole flaming torch set in a wall sconce by the door.

  The space was circular, just like the solar above and the cellar below—but distinctly grander than either. The ceiling rested on twelve solid pillars arranged in a circle of squat arches, creating a grandiose arcade around the edge of room. The overall effect was like some 1930s fascist take on a Graeco-Roman temple.

  Malchus was on his back, spread-eagled on the blue-grey marble floor. He was lying directly over what looked like a large inlaid circle of overlapping swastika crosses—their twelve long double-bent crooked arms spiralling out in an occult sun-wheel.

  His black robe had been torn off down to the waist exposing his upper body, and Uri was kneeling on top of him, his back to the door, pinning Malchus’s upper arms to the floor with his knees.

  As Ava entered and Uri turned, she noticed the lethal outline of the Spear of Destiny in his hands, and dozens of livid deep bleeding incisions and gouges on Malchus’s sweating body, arms, and face.

  “Get off him,” she ordered, pointing the handgun directly at Uri’s chest.

  “Just walk away,” Uri snapped in reply. He turned to stare at her, his expression unwelcoming. “Leave.”

  Ava kept the gun trained on him, unwavering. “You heard me.”

  Uri glared back at her. “Your friend Ferguson killed the Skipper and lost me valuable intelligence. Now I have to get it from other sources.” He glowered down at Malchus, then looked back at her. “Leave me to do what I have to do.”

  “Now!” Ava ordered him again, moving closer with the weapon.

  “So the British can sit on whatever information he yields up and only trade it with us when it serves them?” Uri cocked his eyebrows at her. “My country’s need of what he knows is greater than yours, I think you’ll agree?”

  Ava shook her head. “This has nothing to do with politics. It’s now a police matter. There are things he needs to answer for, and I’m going to see he does.”

  “How very moving,” Malchus sneered from under Uri, his voice a deep rasp. “Daddy’s grieving girl turns out to be my saviour. I’m touched.” He broke off, loudly sucking in a mouthful of air as Uri jabbed the spear tip deep into one of the cuts and twisted it.

  “Be polite to the lady,” Uri growled.

  Through the mask of pain, Malchus glared at Ava, narrowing his eyes. “And precisely how long do you think it’ll take me to convince the police to hand me over to MI6?” His eyes radiated conceit.

  “I’ll be on the streets again in days with the slate wiped clean. Thanks to DeVere, they know nothing about me or the wider organization. After tonight, they’ll jump at the chance to run me as an asset.” He smiled insincerely. “Maybe I’ll even tell them something interesting every now and then.”

  He paused to let his words sink in. “And what will you tell them?” His tone was scornful. “You’re a discredited former junior employee. An amateur. A disappointment. I’ve been doing this since before you were born.” His eyes were mocking. “You’re out of your league.” Grunting with pain as Uri again jabbed the spear into one of the wounds, he nevertheless managed to finish his monologue with a note of triumph. “No one is going to touch me.”

  Ava looked down at his lacerated and blood-streaked face. “You overestimate your significance.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. “After five minutes listening to your rabid delusions, they’ll put you in a secure hospital and throw away the key. There’s no jury trial for people like you. They’ll lock you away in a mental hospital and the world will soon forget you ever existed.”

  “On the strength of your word?” Malchus jeered. “The woman who murdered Prince and DeVere and was the last person seen with Lord Drewitt?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Without DeVere, you have nothing. I’ll soon be one of the British authorities’ best assets, and how long do you really think it’ll take me to find another DeVere?” His eyes were gleaming. “Face it. I am, and always will be, more valuable to them than you.”

  Ava was buying none of it. She had heard enough. The sooner she could hand him over to the police and get the sound of his deranged gloating out of her ears, the better.

  She turned back to Uri, her voice leaving no doubt of her intent. “Move away. I’m not going to ask you again.”

  Uri shot her a long resentful look. He raised his hands slowly into the air. “Okay. Your decision.” He stood up off Malchus. “I’m done here, anyway.”

  Malchus smirked as Uri climbed off him—a smug mocking smile.

  Ava pointed the gun at Malchus. “Now. Your turn,” she ordered him. “Get up.”

  Malchus looked abo
ut conceitedly, putting his hands on the floor and pushed himself into an upright sitting position.

  Without warning, Uri spun round with lightning speed. In one fluid motion, he extended his right hand with the spear blade still in it, and swung towards Malchus.

  Before Ava could react, he drove the sharpened edges of the antique weapon’s point deep into Malchus’s throat, scything through the windpipe, oesophagus, and major blood vessels.

  Malchus crumpled back to the floor with a strangled sound, clutching his throat with his left hand, a look of stunned disbelief on his face.

  Uri barged past Ava, shoving the bloodied Spear of Destiny into her hands. “You know he’s right. They’d have put him back on the streets in days.”

  With that, he was gone through the door.

  “What are you even doing here?” Ava shouted after him, rage welling up inside her. “You didn’t come for Saxby or Malchus. You’re here for the Ark, aren’t you?”

  Uri stopped and turned slowly to face her. “So did you see it?” he asked quietly. “Was it the genuine Ark?”

  The question sliced through Ava.

  The pain of remembering its fate was physical. She could feel her stomach knot and her chest tighten.

  She struggled to keep her voice under control, afraid the frustration of finally finding the Ark then losing it was all too much.

  But try as she might to contain her feelings, they bubbled over. “If it wasn’t for people like you, it might still be here.” She could feel her pulse rising as the anger started to flood out. “You all treat it like it’s some trophy—a symbol of power and favour, a talisman to bless your actions. You measure everything in political points.” Her voice dropped. “You value nothing.”

  Uri shrugged. “It wasn’t built to be put in a museum, I can tell you that. It’s the ultimate statement of superiority and power. It always was. Emmanuel. God is with us. That's why the tribes carried it in the desert, demonstrating their favoured status. Whether you like it or not, it’s a political totem. That’s its function. What other purpose could it ever have had?”

  The question hung in the air between them.

  “Then we’ve both lost something today,” Ava answered slowly.

  “I’m not a romantic," Uri replied. “It’s best where it is—beyond danger, where it can no longer be a threat to us.”

  Ava shook her head. She had no desire to hear any more. It was like being back at MI6—in a world where everything had a price and was ultimately expendable.

  “The Ark may be gone, but it’s not over," Uri added, walking away. “It never is.”

  That was not how it felt from where Ava was standing.

  She had lost the Ark, the chance of seeing Malchus answer for her father's death, and the only person who could exonerate her with the British authorities.

  With that, Uri was gone.

  She watched him disappear down the corridor, before she turned back into the room, lost in thought.

  She gazed down at Malchus, and at the spurting crimson fluid seeping through his fingers.

  The sight of him lying in a pool of his own blood whipped up a storm of conflicting feelings inside her.

  She had never wanted his death. That was not what this had been about. She had planned to see him answer for her father’s murder.

  But as she looked down at him, with his life pumping rapidly out of his neck, some primal force inside her could not help but feel satisfaction. She had seen his savagery at first hand. The world would be a better place without him. No one could argue with that.

  As she looked at the bloodied hairless body, her mind filled with one sole thought. It was repeating again and again, bringing with it a strange sense of calm.

  It was over.

  The nightmare that had begun the day her father had failed to come home from Vauxhall Cross was finally at an end. Whatever twisted motives had been driving Malchus all these years were now as dead as he was, seeping out onto the floor along with his lifeblood.

  Exhaling slowly and deeply, she tucked the gun into the sash wrapped around her lower back, and could feel the tension in her taut body begin to dissipate. Her shoulders dropped, and an overwhelming tiredness began to flood through her.

  Stretching her neck from side to side to relieve the tightness, she suddenly just wanted to get out of the sordid castle.

  Admittedly, she had not visited under the best circumstances, but there was something unwholesome about it, as if the walls had soaked up the dark deeds they had witnessed—from the ancient witch trials to whatever sinister solar or Irminist rites the SS had held there.

  The abiding sense of malevolence was made all the more tangible by the broken body now lying splayed on the central sun-wheel, like some gruesome re-enactment of a medieval heretic broken on the wheel.

  Turning and heading for the door, she suddenly caught sight of an unexpected movement out of the corner of her eye.

  Whirling around in disbelief, she was in time to see Malchus had used his last ebbing strength to unclip a small black handgun from an ankle holster, and was now raising it in a blood-soaked hand, pointing it directly at her.

  She had no time to pull her gun, or even to think.

  Using the momentum from spinning round, she continued the arc of her arm, whipping it out as hard as she could—hurling the Spear of Destiny directly at him with all her strength.

  She watched, mesmerized, as the crude Roman weapon flew through the air as if in slow motion. After what seemed an age, its ancient sharpened tip struck him in the middle of the forehead, instantly piercing the skin and shattering the bone, driving itself deep into his brain.

  Without a word, he slumped back onto the floor, an obscene gurgling sound escaping from his bubbling lacerated throat.

  When the gruesome noise stopped, he lay deathly still.

  Ava walked over to the mangled body and looked down, breathing hard.

  His lifeless green eyes stared glassily up at her—as cold and reptilian in death as they had been in life. The bulk of the spear was protruding from his forehead, but at least two inches of it were buried deep in his brain. She watched as a clear fluid trickled from his nose, and blood began to ooze out from around the spear tip onto his pale forehead.

  He was as still as marble.

  As she stared at him, she was aware her heart was hammering.

  But there could be no doubt.

  This time he was truly dead.

  As the blood pooled on the floor around his neck, she felt a sudden and unexpected relief that the world was finally rid of a small slice of pure evil.

  It really was over.

  When she had arrived at Boleskine House that afternoon, she had not imagined for a moment that the day would end in a historic Nazi cult temple with her looking down at Malchus’s mutilated corpse.

  It was a gruesome sight.

  In addition to the fatal head injury, Uri had punctured him dozens of times with the spear tip during the course of his interrogation, and the gaping cut to his neck was wet and ragged, leaving his upper body drenched in blood.

  She turned her eyes away.

  She had seen enough.

  Trying to erase the gory image from her mind, she headed for the door, keen to be as far from his corpse as possible.

  Making her way slowly out into the courtyard, she was suddenly grateful for the cool night air. She breathed it in deeply, taking a moment to clear her head.

  The great triangular space was empty. The GSG-9 men had finished clearing the cellar and were now outside the main gate with their remaining prisoners. The fleet of vans had gone. She guessed they were waiting for more vehicles to come and ferry Saxby’s supporters to the cells that awaited them.

  There was no sign of Max and his team. They must still be downstairs.

  Then she remembered the Frenchman had told her someone wanted to meet her outside afterwards.

  Looking about, at first she could not see anyone. But as her eyes grew accustomed to the g
loom, she eventually spotted him—a tall suited figure in the shadow of the doorway to the south-west tower.

  She moved a little closer to see more clearly, pulling the gun from her waist.

  The figure stepped forward from the darkness, allowing a sliver of moonlight to illuminate his quick dark eyes, aquiline nose, and black goatee beard.

  She instantly recognized Olivier De Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

  With no greeting, she raised the weapon and aimed it directly at him. “Don’t move.”

  “I understand.” His tone was sombre, made somehow more grave by his heavy French accent. “And I take personal responsibility for having put you in this position.”

  Ava kept the gun trained on him.

  “It pains me very much to discover Edmund Saxby was mixed up in this horror. I am mortified. I’ve known him all my adult life.” He looked at her wistfully. “And it’s only now I discover what an abomination he truly was. We owe you a great debt, Dr Curzon—both my organization, and me personally.” His eyes betrayed a mixture of sadness and anger.

  She looked at him guardedly.

  Maybe he was telling the truth. On the other hand, it was equally possible he was in it up to his neck along with Saxby and Malchus. After all, in one sense the crusades had championed violent white supremacy. Perhaps De Molay’s Templars were the perfect sponsors of Saxby’s vision for the new Nazi Imperium.

  “So Cordingly got my message?” Ava asked, her voice giving nothing away.

  De Molay nodded. “When Major Ferguson went to see him to explain you had gone to Loch Ness, he alerted Saxby, suspecting nothing. But when he received your internet message, he realized something was badly wrong, and immediately alerted me. As you requested, I brought our friends from the Légion in case of any trouble. And I’m glad I did. I’m truly relieved to see you are unharmed. Max and his men are also very grateful to you. They were hoping Malchus would be here. They took the slaying of their companion in Rome rather personally.”

  Ava suspected that Malchus and Max were unlikely to be in it together, given the hostilities in Rome. And Max and his team would hardly have stopped the ceremony and freed her if they were all complicit in the plan. But she was still not prepared to take anything at face value.