In the cave, the Old Man removed his new robes, folding them before placing them on the cave floor.
Matil didn't want to see. He looked around the cave and discovered, in one corner, the source of the stench. It was piled high with raw food. The vegetables and leaves nearest the floor were rotting, but the top layer was fresher. The Old Man threw the apples Matil had brought onto the pile.
Matil watched the naked hermit stretch out onto the heap of stinking food. He shifted as if trying to get comfortable, and slimy green matter stuck to his ancient skin.
Then that horrible cratered countenance turned towards Matil, the yellow eyes met his, and a finger beckoned.
Matil's terror returned in a rush as he floated to hover over the Old Man, his body tilting and his face looking into that of the hermit's, inches away.
The Old Man reached up with his right hand. A dirty thumbnail, long and sharp. Matil couldn't move away as the nail scratched across his neck, before coming to rest next to the biggest vein in his throat. Matil looked into those yellow eyes one last time. There was nothing human there. A demon who wore a man's body but was no more human than the krait Matil had seen slinking in the woodpile.
There was no pain when the thumbnail sliced through his jugular, just an odd, loosening sensation in his throat, followed by warmth as his blood ran down his neck and onto the Old Man.
Even as his brain began the process of shutting down, Matil saw the change begin. Those terrible yellow eyes were clouding over. Matil's body fell on top of the hermit and slid down until his face was pressed against the papery skin of his chest.
Matil could feel the creature's heart beating. As his awareness stuttered and failed, the Old Man's heart slowed, fluttered, and stopped. There was a cracking noise as the ribs beneath Matil snapped and crumbled, the foul body losing coherence.
The demon is dead, thought Matil, as he succumbed to his own final sleep.
It was dusk the same day when a figure appeared at the cave mouth and looked out across the valley. The tunnel Matil and the Old Man had followed led to a ledge inaccessible to anything other than the shaheens that occasionally nested there.
The figure, dressed in the robes of a monk, looked out from the cliff face for a few seconds, then disappeared back into the darkness of the cave. Had anyone from Matil's village been there to see it, they might have remarked on the unusual height and strong physical condition of the monk. Looking more closely, they would have whispered to each other about an amazing resemblance to the missing boy. If Matil had been ten years older, surely he would have looked like this, they would have said, shaking their heads, puzzled and fearful.
But no one saw, and the figure did not re-emerge until the sun had dipped beneath the horizon and the night birds were calling.
He stepped out of the cave, his foot landing on nothing but the Himalayan air. He fell silently, the only sound his flapping robes as they twitched and snapped in the wind. In defiance of nature, his progress downward slowed ten yards from the tops of the trees, and when his bare feet hit the ground, it was with no more force than if he had jumped from the lowest branch of the nearest horse chestnut.
He walked. He was no demon, but the boy had been right to believe he wasn't human. This body was the latest to carry him. There had been many others. Some of his lives had been memorable. Most had not.
He walked because that was what he did. It was what he had always done.
He had been known by many names. The Old Man was among the least imaginative, but it wasn't the first time that label had been attached to him.
He walked south. He did not care where he was going, or why he had chosen that direction. It made no difference to him. He knew he must walk, so he did.
According to the date the boy had mentioned, the Old Man had been in that cave for nearly two hundred years. He couldn't remember precisely when he had reached the remote village and retreated into isolation, but he knew he had been there too long.
As he walked, animals scurried out of his path, obeying a biological imperative they didn't understand.
The Old Man had a Purpose. It was the Purpose which kept him walking and prompted him to move on when he had been in one place too long. It was the Purpose which forced him to find a new body when necessary.
The problem was, the Old Man had forgotten what the Purpose was long, long ago. He only knew the Purpose was why he lived and that he must not rest until he had fulfilled it. He was sure that, when the moment arrived, the Purpose would be revealed to him, and he would know what to do.
And so he walked. And walked. And walked.
5
Apart from the missing door, the blast-proof cabin had survived, but it had changed shape. It now looked like more like a tube than a cuboid. The noise of the blast had been subtle enough it was unlikely anyone would have alerted the authorities. Even so, Daniel and Sara knew it would be best to work fast. They had just wiped out the titans, the most famous beings on the planet.
People would look for them. And they would look hard. Satellite imagery, security camera footage, and the statements of every eyewitness would be scrutinised.
They stopped near the opening where the door used to be. Daniel reached into a big laundry bag and handed Sara an oxygen mask, putting one on himself. Heat was still rippling out of the structure. Daniel stepped forward into the room. There was no smoke because nothing was burning, but the steel walls and floor were too hot to touch.
"It's bearable," he said, his voice muffled by the mask. "Come on in."
Sara joined Daniel just inside the doorway. They both stared for a moment at the floor, then Sara let out a long breath of relief as she counted nine distinct puddles of slime.
The sight was surreal. Daniel experienced a momentary wave of dizziness as his brain fought against his gut, which was telling him he'd just murdered nine people, including his own parent.
"Abos and the titans," said Sara. "Sounds like a really shit band."
It wasn't the best joke, but they both succumbed to a fit of giggles.
"We—we—have to hurry," managed Sara.
Daniel went back to the laundry bag and brought out squares of plastic sheeting with eyelets and cord pre-threaded, designed to loop up into a sack. He laid them out on the warehouse floor and pulled two snow shovels from the bottom of the bag. He passed one to Sara before going back into the cabin and using his own to scrape the first green-blue puddle of slime away from the floor. The slime shifted as they worked as if it were alive. Which, Daniel reminded himself, it was.
"How long do we have?" he said.
Sara frowned. "We should go by the worst-case scenario. The titans might have radioed in their position at some point, and—even if they didn't—they'll have wearable tech that enables their position to be tracked. I'm assuming they have our location already."
"Which means?" Daniel said.
"Which means they'll be watching and waiting for now. They'll think their boys will have captured Abos. It's eight against one."
She scooped up the nearest puddle and walked back out to the warehouse where Daniel was tying his first sack. He looked up.
"When will they move on us?"
"Once they realise something's wrong, which could happen any time. They'll want a satellite image, so they'll send the nearest RAF jet to take a closer look."
Daniel and Sara walked in and out of the cabin as they talked.
"Where's your driver?" said Sara.
"Texted him before we came in. He should be here any minute."
The plan was working so far, but every element had to go smoothly if they were to succeed. What the authorities did, or failed to do, over the next few days, was crucial to their success. There were four of them, and they needed to outwit the combined intelligence and military services of Britain and America. The survival of a species was at stake. And those puddles of slime weren't titans; they were Shuck, once a giant dog that terrorised East Anglia; Susan, who had been the mad monk Rasputin; B
astet, the cat goddess of Ancient Egypt; Boudicca, the Iceni warrior queen. The other four, according to Abos, probably came from cylinders identical to the one in which he was discovered. He had seen four such cylinders at Titus Gorman's headquarters in White Sands.
Six minutes later, they heard a diesel engine starting up, and a rhythmic beeping as the van reversed towards the warehouse. Sara ducked back into the cabin and stayed out of sight. Daniel jogged over, and as the van drew level, he banged on the rear. It stopped, and a short, wiry, sun-baked man wearing shorts and a faded Quiksilver shirt jumped down from the driver's seat. He squeezed between the back of the van and the warehouse door and fist-bumped Daniel.
"Good to go, Steve?"
Daniel nodded. "Yep. Here's the first payment." He put a roll of fifty-pound notes into the man's hand.
"That's five thousand, Jerry. The rest when you get to Edinburgh."
Jerry whistled, looking around the warehouse, then staring at the distorted shape of the blast-proof cabin. "Well, it's your money, Steve. I'm not going to ask."
"Best you don't," said Daniel. He opened the rear doors of the van, revealing nine old-fashioned milk cans.
"And you swear it ain't heroin or guns or nothing?"
"Jerry, I'll let you see exactly what it is before you go anywhere, okay?"
"Yeah," said Jerry, stuffing his hands in his pockets, "sounds fair."
Daniel looked at his watch and remembered Sara's worst-case scenario.
Four minutes and thirty-two seconds later, the anonymous white transit van left the warehouse, followed the winding B roads northeast, and headed towards Exeter and the M5.
Jerry held the steering wheel between his legs as he rolled himself a joint before lighting it and cranking down the window. It was another beautiful morning in Cornwall, and he had five grand in his pocket. He turned up the radio and laughed when he thought about what he was being paid to deliver five hundred miles away.
"What the fuck?" he said aloud and laughed even louder.
By mid-morning, Jerry's white van was the most wanted vehicle in the country.
Daniel, Sara, Saffi and TripleDee were all in the speedboat when they heard the approaching jet.
Sara looked at her watch. It was eight twenty-five.
"That was tight. Five minutes earlier, and they might have seen us."
TripleDee had already untied them from the moorings, and they were drifting away from the jetty. He went to start the engine, but Saffi stopped him.
"The jet will have thermal imaging equipment," she said. "It rained last night, so moisture on the boat's awning should help keep us invisible, but if you start those engines, they'll light up beautifully on the pilot's screens. It's a flyby. Wait for it to pass overhead again, then go."
TripleDee took his hand away from the ignition as she spoke.
"What exactly did you do at the UN?" he said.
"I would tell you, but I'd have to kill you," she said. TripleDee laughed, then stopped. Saffi was the only human there, the others being halfheroes. But he had met no one with her aura of quiet authority. Sara might be the brains of the team, but Saffi exuded a sense of experience, and, when she spoke, everyone listened.
They all heard it then. The jet had returned, lower this time, the noise making conversation impossible as it passed. When the roar had become a whine, then a hum, Saffi turned to TripleDee.
"Okay, Trip, how fast can this thing go?"
He turned the ignition, pushed the throttle all the way forward, and the twin engines pushed the prow up as the boat powered through the water, heading out into the open sea.
Saffi directed TripleDee as they headed southwest, following the line of the coast. While they could still see land, Daniel called out landmarks as they passed them, consulting a map on his phone.
"Padstow."
"Newquay."
"St Ives."
"Land's End."
"And on our right, ladies and gentlemen, the famous Scilly Isles. Twinned with the Sensible Isles in the Caribbean."
No one laughed. Sara chewed her nails. Daniel pulled her hand away from her mouth.
"I didn't think people did that for real when they were nervous."
"I'm not nervous," said Sara, in a voice an octave higher than normal.
Daniel couldn't think of anything reassuring to say, so he shut up and watched the Scilly Isles recede as the surrounding waves deepened and broadened, becoming rolling, tilting hills of water.
"Ah," he said, and threw up over the side.
Saffi rubbed his back, which is the universal treatment for violent vomiting, crossing all borders, and equally useless everywhere.
After another twenty minutes, she tapped TripleDee's arm.
"This is it. Cut the engines."
The silence that descended after the thrash of the propellors was almost surreal. Daniel noticed other sounds; the splash of the waves against the hull, the creak of fibreglass and wood, the distant cries of seabirds. After a few seconds, he decided the slow rock and tilt of the boat at rest was even worse than when it was moving, and he brought up the rest of his breakfast.
"Urggghhh," he said. "What now?"
Saffi handed him a bottle of water, then checked the coordinates on her GPS device.
"We wait for our ride to show up," she said.
6
Air Commodore Fiona Bardock was on the ground at the location of the incident a few minutes before ten thirty that morning.
Four years earlier, at thirty-three, she had resigned her commission, married her partner, and turned her back on what all her peers assumed would be a swift climb up the ranks. The British government allowed her to do so and gave her a pension of unprecedented generosity, on the understanding that she would make herself available for any national emergency or international incident which required her expertise.
After Jake had brought her tea in her studio, and re-tuned the radio to a news channel, she put down her paintbrush and listened to the unfolding story. The attack on Air Force One, the rumoured return of The Deterrent, and his subsequent pursuit by the titans was reported in an excited, breathless fashion she hadn't heard on Radio Four since a minor royal had been filmed in a strip club.
Fiona changed into combat gear, the only clue to her rank the subtle blue and yellow epaulette on her shoulders.
"Mmm," Jake said when she walked into the kitchen, "you know how much I like it when you wear your uniform."
"Down, boy," she said. "I have work to do."
He buttered a piece of toast and covered it with a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter.
"Protein," he said, putting it into her hand as she picked up the pre-packed rucksack that lived in the porch.
"Thanks," she said, taking a big bite, then smearing a peanutty kiss onto his lips. "I'll call you."
"Any idea when...?"
She shook her head. "As soon as I find The Deterrent and eight titans."
Fiona's hand was on the door of the car when Jake called after her.
"Maybe they won't need you. They must have other investigators. Have they even asked yet?"
She blew him a kiss and got into the Range Rover. Just before she closed the door, her phone rang. She held it up and waggled it at Jake before pushing it onto the hands-free cradle and starting the engine.
He waved as she bounced away over the potholes dotting the mile-long lane that led from their cottage to the main road.
"Once a soldier, always a bloody soldier," he said.
The president had skipped the motorcade from Heathrow, heading straight to central London by helicopter instead. MI5 had set up an operations area for his team in its Thames-side headquarters. A senior MI5 officer led the way. By the time the president and his staff were shown into the suite of rooms, the US Director of Intelligence was on one video conference screen. A second screen showed a woman the president half-recognised. He sat down at the head of the table and beckoned to Casey.
"Who the hell is that old woman?
She keeping the seat warm until her boss gets there?" he said, jerking his head towards the screen.
"My name is Roberta Grayling, Mister President," said the woman on the screen. "I'm director of Airforce Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance."
"Shit," said the president to Casey, "can she hear me?"
There was an awkward moment of silence before the woman spoke again. "The line is open, sir."
The president grunted and turned to the other screen. "Chuckie, what have you got for me?"
Director Of Intelligence Charles T Winters had once broken a man's nose who had called him Chuckie.
"Sir, at this stage we are reliant on satellite and drone imagery until we get intel from British forces on the ground. They are on the way to the location pinpointed by the RAF. If I can hand over to—"
"You sure they found the right place? What about the tracking devices?"
"All signals from the titans' trackers stopped transmitting at eight hundred and forty-four hours, sir. The British have sent their best operative in to head up the investigation."
"Good. Make sure he reports to me."
"She, sir. Air Commodore Fiona Bardock. Sir, Director Grayling has the intel from the RAF flyby."
"Who?"
Roberta Grayling coughed, and the president looked at her.
“Mister President, you should be able to see the thermal image on the screen now."
Casey pointed at the largest screen on the far wall, which showed a black-and-white photograph taken from the jet that morning. The warehouse was the only sizeable building for miles around. The aftermath of the explosion showed as a splash of bright white in an otherwise grey picture.
"What am I looking at?"
Grayling tapped some keys and a cropped image, showing only the warehouse itself filled the screen.
The Last Of The First Page 3
