Sepulchre

He gathered the papers together on his desk. They would be ready for his secretary to tpe first thing in the morning. Rarely a happy man, Quinn-Reece- allowed his smile to broaden. He was pleased with the wording, for it emphasised, in all due modesty, of course, his strenuous efforts to secure those rights before anyone else got wind of the find, continuously trying to contact their agent on the island by telephone, telex and even personal messenger to his hotel. Unfortunately, the man could not be located (or so Quinn-Reece indicated in his report) and in the meanwhile, Magma's biggest rival had learned of the 'find'.

He allowed himself to chuckle.

Time to go home, he decided. Enough is enough. The report could indeed be more full, but why the hell should he put in any more hours on a Sunday? It was late afternoon and the skies were already darkened by clouds and drizzle. Before he went, though, a stiff gin and tonic to celebrate yet another successful deception.

lie left his desk and went to a wall cabinet, opening it to reveal his private liquor stock, there for entertaining business associates or, more often than not, for the frequent 'nips' that got him through the day. The small ice bucket was empty, but who needed ice'? fie poured a good measure of gin into a glass tumbler anti added an equal amount of tonic. He raised the glass to his ips when the noise outside his office door stopped him.

He shrugged. Security on their rounds, checking all offices. lour excellent health! he silently toasted himself, and took a large .wallow of the drink. The mixture warmed him, lightening his mood even further.

Just a few more months' subservience to chat obnoxious, stunted oaf, then home and dry, working for a company who would appreciate his business acumen, and who Mould be extremely grateful for past services. The risk had been :north it. And what could the Corporation do anyway even if they had discovered he was the source of the leaks? Take him to court? I Oh no, he knew too much for that. The share-holders would be ;unhappy if they were to (earn of Kline's true position at Magma, and the financial Press would have a ball. Even Consolidated were unaware of the psychic's presence within Magma—they merely ,assumed that the Corporation's field agents were more astute than their own. No, the worst that Magma could do would be to dismiss him. And pay him off for keeping his mouth shut, of course. Instead they were sacking the girl, Cora.

He was smiling again.

Quinn-Reece turned his head. Was someone still outside? He was sure he'd heard movement in the outer office. Leaving the glass on the corner of his desk, the vice-chairman walked to the half-open door.

He pulled it open all the way and looked through. 'Anyone ;here'?' he called out, feeling rather foolish.

There was no response.

He stepped forward and caught a whiff of spices just before -)mething soft fell over his head and blocked out the light.

Hands shoved him from behind and he staggered forward, fell, 'ay sprawled on a hard floor, his head still covered.

Quinn-Reece remained prone for a few seconds, regathering his senses. terribly afraid to move. He heard the click of a door closing. He was trembling badly.

The brief, stumbling journey had been one of the worst experiences of his life (so far), for it was a brutally rushed trip towards a fate unknown. He now knew how murderers must have felt in the old days when they were taken hooded from their cell and hurried to the gallows, giving them precious little time to consider the eternity waiting for them at the end of the corridor (except there was always time to consider that prospect, no matter how fast they took you, no matter how roughly they treated you, because part of your mind was quiet, entirely remote from the rest of your feverish thoughts, numbingly and so fearfully aware . . .). He had been held down—by two of them—even though no words were spoken, no one answered his demands, nor his pleas, he was sure there were two of them—yet he had felt himself rising.

The lift. They must have bundled him into the lift. But why? Where were they taking him? Oh God, was it true then? Were these people after Felix Kline? Had they made a mistake, thinking that he was psychic'?

That had to be it! So perhaps it was safe to look up, to show them, convince them they'd got the wrong man. He had no allegiance to Kline, far from it: he could tell them all they wanted to know. No need to harm him, he wasn't the one they were after.

Quinn-Reece hesitantly raised his head and saw the whiteness of the floor below the edges of the cloth.

Tentatively, expecting to have his hand knocked away at any moment, he lifted the hem. He could see the room now. Slowly he pulled the fluffy material away (it was a large towel, he realised, probably from one of the executive bathrooms) and looked around.

He was in the white room. Kline's white room.

And he was alone.

He pushed himself to his knees, his eyes half-closed against the brilliant glare. What was happening, what the hell were they playing at? Was the idea only to keep him out of the way for a while? The notion came as a relief. It emboldened him enough to rise to his feet.

Quinn-Reece went to the double-door and listened with his ear flat against the glossy surface. No sounds without. He tried one of the doorhandles. Locked.

Stepping back, he surveyed the entrance for a while, gradually becoming used to the assailing brightness.

He turned and began walking towards the smaller door on the opposite side of the room, his footsteps loud because of uninterrupted acoustics. He had reached the low central dais when the harsh whiteness around him collapsed into utter darkness.

Quinn-Reece cried out, as if the abrupt change had come as a physical blow.

There was nothing to see, absolutely nothing to focus on.

Even the floor beneath his feet had somehow lost substance. His hands—unseen—waved in the air before him, as though grasping for light itself.

'What are you doing?' he shouted, a feeble entreaty to the blackness.

Naturally there was no reply.

So disorientated was Quinn-Reece that he had to will one toot to go forward. The thought that he might be stepping over the brink into an abyss was difficult to dismiss. He moved his other foot, arms still outstretched like a blind man's (which, in effect he was), even though he knew there were no obstacles in his way.

Another step.

His breathing was fluttery.

Another step.

He could not see them, but he was aware that his fingers twitched like insect antennae.

Another step.

And he touched flesh.

So unexpected was the sensation, and so tense had QuinnReece become, that he shrieked like a woman. He fell away, a leg coming into sharp contact with the dais. He slumped across it and lay shaking.

Wondering why the fingertips of the hand that had touched whatever-no, he meant whoever-stood in his way were tingling, he brought them closer to his face, disregarding the fact that he was unable to see. He felt something clinging to them.

He rubbed his fingers together and whatever had been there flaked away. It had been tissue-thin.

'Who's there?' he managed to say, and was uncomfortable with the sound of his own voice.

The silence was more frightening than any reply.

A warm breath brushed his cheek. He spun around on the platform, scurrying to its furthest edge, away from whoever had leaned over him.

But a sigh close to his ear sent him scuttling back.

The men who had dragged him into this room must have slipped inside somehow after the lights had gone out! Yet he hadn't heard the opening and closing of a door, there had been no sudden shaft of light.

How could they be in there with him? He remembered the spicy smell before he had been hooded. The smell was familiar. From where, from when?

A low chuckle. From someone close by. And then a hand caressing his cheek.

Quinn-Reece flinched violently and quickly squirmed away.

The touch against his cheek had been roughened as though the other's skin was crispy with age. When he tried to wipe off the mark he felt had been left there, he discovered flaky tissue hanging to his own skin. He slapped it off in revulsion.

He twisted his head, this way and that, sightless but attempting to perceive. His whole body was quivering uncontrollably now. He sniffed, for there was a peculiar aroma in the air. Nothing to do with spices, this. Something different, vaguely unpleasant. Like a faint moulding dampness. Decay.

Light lashed out at him.

He cringed, covering his face with his hands. Peeped through open fingers at the rectangle of vivid colours high on the wall. One of the screens was lit.

It depicted a relief map of an island. A recognisably irregular shape. New Guinea. The colours merged, became a muddy blur. Faded to white. Became black.

A new map lit up. He forced himself to look. Was it?—yes, it was. Brazil. There had been a recent find, a low-grade gold deposit. Not by Magma, though. No, by Consolidated.

As the colours merged, Quinn-Reece looked around the room. The brightness from the screen should have revealed anyone else present. But he was the only occupant.

Blackness again.

Another screen came alive, and this time he could guess the location without recognising it. Namibia.

Yes, there had been a new discovery of uranium there. Again, not by Magma. He began to understand some of what was going on.

'Felix?' he ventured.

Total blackness. Still no reply.

'Felix, you're making a mistake. The girl, you said yourself . . .' His words trailed away. Kline wasn't in the room. Why was he talking as if he were?

Quinn-Reece began to slide his legs off the dais. He stopped when he heard a soft chuckle.

This time not only three screens lit up: they all did. And the colours ran together, from one screen to the next, frames no longer divisive, blues and greens and browns beginning to streak, to flow around the room, a swift-moving stream, faster and faster, a kaleidoscope of colour, dazzling him, mesmerising him, melting together, faster now, merging, gradually becoming white, an absence of colour, a broad pale strip circumscribing the room.

Things began to break through that white band. Creeping things. Black and shiny. Like giant cockroaches. Although their limbs, three on either side of their glossy shells, were like human arms. But scaly, and dark.

They hatched from the whiteness, wriggling through, dropping to the floor and into the shadows where only muted reflections on their curved backs could be observed. They scuttled across the floor towards him.

Quinn-Reece moved to the centre of the platform, drawing up his legs, denying to himself that this was happening, certain it was a nightmare, wondering why he could not wake.

The cracked band of white vanished.

Terrible blackness around him once more.

Nothing at all to be seen.

But he could hear those things tapping towards him.

'Felix, please!' he implored, for he knew that Kline was responsible, that Kline was punishing him for his betrayal. But he didn't understand how this could happen, for he realised it was no nightmare, the pain in his lower lip, where his teeth had clamped down, too sharp to be dreamt. He shrieked this time. ' Please!'

A chuckle from somewhere behind.

And a clicking close by as the first of those creatures scrambled over the edge of the dais.

Some time later, the doors to the white room opened and Khayed and Daoud slipped in. They went straight to the dead but unmarked body spread across the low dais, lifted it between them, and carried it out.

When the doors closed behind them, the room swiftly regressed to black.

KHAYED AND DAOUD. DISPLACED AND FOUND

They were not truly Jordanians. Asil Khayed and Youssef Daoud were born, in fact, as displaced persons, their families having fled Palestine when the Independent State of Israel was declared in May 1948. Their parents were of the same clan and came from the same village, which was close to Jerusalem. They had been led to believe by those who had their own political motives that the Zionist forces would destroy their homes and meagre crops, would slaughter their children and livestock, would rape their women, would torture and murder the men. Flight to the River Jordan was their only hope.

They came to the refugee camp at Ein es Sultan, one of many such sites scattered around the city of Jericho and along the West Bank. There the two Arab boys were born within weeks of each other, to be raised in the squalor of a vast tent city containing tens of thousands of grieving migrants, where there were no toilets, kitchens, or medical facilities, and where most days were spent awaiting the arrival of water trucks and supply convoys from Damascus and Amman. The tents provided by the International Red Cross were of thin canvas which, unlike the tough Bedouin tents of animal skins and furs, were virtually useless against the rains and sandstorms. Their beds were nothing more than light sleeping mats. Running, open sewers and hills of rotting garbage were everywhere, attracting flies and mosquitoes by the millions.

Severe dysentery was rife. Cholera, typhoid and other diseases claimed thousands of lives. Fierce rainfalls and then intolerable heat brought in by hamsin winds from the desert weakened all.

The muktar of their old village, whom the clans gathered around, could offer no comfort, for his spirit had been broken by the ignoble flight of his people and the hopelessness he saw all around. Hate with all your heart, he could only tell them, despise the Zionist dogs who have brought you to this. Nurture the hatred, live for revenge against the Jews.

Typhoid took Youssef's father, along with his two older brothers and a sister. That the young baby and his mother survived was no miracle, for death was indiscriminate. The widow and her child came under the protection of Asil's father, there being no energy for jealousy among the women. And the Koran, which spoke severely against adultery and fornication, also preached the blessedness of caring for cripples, idiots, blind men and widows. The boys grew up together and became closer than natural brothers.

Although rough hovels of mud bricks gradually replaced the tents, a form of rough villages taking shape along the Jordan, the rule of kaif—a passivity that might be described as idleness prevailed. Few businesses were set up, no industries were started. There were no schools for the younger exiles, no games or activities organised for them. The demoralised Palestinians relied on the charity of others, as if content to wallow in their own hatred for the Jews and the foreign powers that had betrayed them. The Moslem Brotherhood were eager to exploit the persecution and never tired of stoking the fires of vengeance against these infamous 'invaders', while at the same time extolling the virtues of martyrdom for the great Arab cause of repatriation.

Asil and Youssef were children of a nibbled ghetto, existing on whatever was sparingly given, thriving on bitterness which was generously supplied. When Asil's father was killed in a riot against the reviled Arab Legion of Jordan's King Abdullah who, along with certain leaders of other Arab states, saw the political advantages in keeping the Palestinians a nation in exile rather than welcoming and absorbing them as true brothers (acceptance of the State of Israel would be a threat to his own power in the Middle East), the boys took on the responsibility for their family. By then the United Nations had taken charge over the welfare of the refugee camps and at least some progress was taking place in these humble villages. In Ein es Sultan there were mosques, a ritual slaughterhouse, stores, warehouses and food distribution centres.

The boys were lucky enough to find jobs as coffee vendors, passing from shop to kiosk with their trays bearing coffee finjans, cups and sticky sweets, often trekking out to the lines of lorries awaiting customs clearance at the Allenby Bridge.

For pleasure they hung around the cafes and listened to the elders reminiscing about the old life in their villages, of the main square always awash with the aromas of pungent spices, cardamom in coffee, incense, and camel, donkey, sheep and goat dung. They spoke of important feasts, sighing over the exotic foods once served, while the boys would drool at their mention.

The elders' conversation would turn to memories of the houses they once dwelled in, solidly built with mud bricks and dung, brightly whitewashed to deflect the sun's rays, with a single colour outlining doors and windows, the roofs flat for collecting water during the rainy season. They spoke of village tradesmen, the potter, the carpenter, the sandal-maker, the basket and cloth weavers. Their eyes brimmed with tears as they remembered what had been lost to them. How life once centred around the village square with its well and ovens, the store and cafe where they could listen to the radio all day while they watched the passing activity, the cameleers, the pedlars on their loaded donkey carts, the knife and scissor grinders—the veiled women going about their daily tasks.

Eventually, when nostalgia held them in its soft-edged grip, they would boast of their feats in battle, their bravery, their cunning. And they would dismiss the Arab defeat by the Jews as a misconception, for they had been tricked by the agents of the devil, jinn—evil spirits—in human form. The Jews were not a worthy enemy. The Jews had an alliance with unholy forces. Mohammed, himself, had declared that the Jews had been led away from the edicts of Allah, and for that their punishment would be burning.

Asil and Youssef listened and absorbed. They wept for their homeland and for the life they had never known but missed dearly. They seethed with hatred for these people who called themselves Israelis.

The boys grew and became wise in the ways of survival. Schooling, even under the auspices of the UNRWA, was little more than a revolutionary training ground, the Arab tutors organising their students into cells, each with its own aggressive title, incitement against the so-called State of Israel and its treacherous allies the main lesson of every day. Physical education included weapons training, knife fighting, tracking and the negotiation of assault courses.

Black-marketeering became the most profitable occupation, stealing and intimidation a second best. Asil and Youssef became the runners for dealers in hashish, then lookouts for raids on supply depots.

Crude and boastful chatter between the two boys of the sexual delights they would bestow upon females soon faded when awareness took on physical actuality and they discovered their true yearning was for each other, their experiments resolving in glorious consummation. Asil and Youssef could imagine no other form of lovemaking surpassing the pleasure they had given one another. Although males were allowed to hold hands and kiss in public, homosexuality was frowned upon generally in the Arab world; Asil and Youssef kept the intimate side of their relationship to themselves, the illicitness adding to its deliciousness.

As with other Palestinian youths, they were pressured into joining the fedayeen when they were old enough, its members' violence and unruliness directed towards the jihad, the holy war, and against the oppressor. The Jordanians encouraged guerrilla raids into Jewish territory, the killing and maiming perpetrated in the name of Allah, and the more youths lost in such expeditions, the more martyrs the Arabs had to hold up to the world. A mark of manhood for the fedayeen recruits was to bite off the heads of live chickens and snakes, or to strangle puppies and cats.

Never considered outstandingly bright by their superiors, Asil and Youssef's performance in the field and their cunning in fighting was impressive. And the elders were suitably struck by the youths' cruelty.

Their missions into enemy territory became more frequent and more hazardous. It was on one such expedition that they discovered for themselves the extent—and the true nature—of their own barbarity.

Avoiding Israeli patrols, they had slipped across the border, their venture more of a test than a serious assault (the fedayeen were considering the two youths for important work in the revolutionary movement), their destination a kibbutz some miles from Ofra. Dunams of marsh and swampland there, as at countless other settlements in this relatively new state, had been skilfully irrigated and cultivated, so that what was once barren land had become areas of rich soil suitable for vines, orchards and grain. The fields were protected against incursion with nothing more than fences of cactus and thorny jujube, although the living quarters themselves were behind a tall stockade. Asil and Youssef's intention had been to blow up one of the kibbutz's water towers located outside the compound with explosives readily supplied by their Jordanian hosts. But as they broke through the crude boundary under the cover of darkness, they came upon a young Israeli couple, a youth and a girl, who had found a remote spot where they could make love without being disturbed.

The couple were lying beneath a eucalyptus and it was their murmurings that caught the attention of the two Arab intruders. Asil and Youssef looked at each other in surprise, their eyes wide and clear in the star-lit night, then crept closer to the source of the breathed sounds. The things they saw the youth doing to the girl sent shivers of excitement running through them, for never in their lives had they witnessed such wantonness, and never before had a female's hidden flesh been exposed thus. Because of the urgency of their lovemaking, the young couple did not hear the Arabs' approach.

Asil quickly disposed of the girl who, apart from curiosity over her secret places, held little interest for them. Ire slit her throat while Youssef rendered her lover unconscious with a hefty stone picked up from the ground. Between them they dragged him back through the opening they had made in the rough perimeter fence. Once they were a safe distance away they tore strips from the Israeli's clothing to tie and gag him. Then they enjoyed themselves with his body.

But they did far more to him than they had ever done to each other.

Their sadism was spoilt only by his abrupt finish, a lesson well learned by them, for in later years they practised curbing their extremes so that the exquisite pleasure would last for hours, if not days. The corpse was barely recognisable as human when they had done, and their coup de grace was to cut off their victim's private parts and bring them back in a goatskin pouch to their masters in the fedayeen (who, although irritated that their orders to destroy the water tower had not been carried out, realised the dismemberment and castration of a Jew held true significance).

Asil and Youssef had proved they were worthy soldiers of the jihad, as well as revealing their skill in passing through well-guarded enemy lines without detection. It wasn't long before they were sent to a terrorist training camp in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. There they lived in a cement shack and were taught how to use Russian firearms, rocket-launchers and mortars, how to make bombs and use them with altimetric, movement and time detonators, assassination techniques, how to enter locked buildings quietly, stalk their prey through the streets, and methods of escaping pursuit. They ran six miles every morning then did four hours of physical training. All this was followed by daily indoctrination classes.

They were taught that their destiny (not merely their duty) was not only to kill Zionists and their close allies, but members of any nation showing friendliness towards the non-State of Israel. Within a year or two, Asil and Youssef were travelling to other countries as an efficient and respected assassination team.

However, they had a weakness they strove to keep from their associates (although not as cleverly as they thought; fortunately their masters allowed certain indulgences as long as operations were never jeopardised). That ecstatic thrill of their first sadistic murder of the Israeli youth at the kibbutz near Ofra had never been forgotten They sought to relive and refine that excitement time and time again in the foreign capitals they visited. There are many hundreds of missing persons reported in cities all over the world every year, and most of them never appear again. At least not ,alive. It was relatively easy for Asil and Youssef to pick up men or hogs, or sometimes even girls (for the two terrorists, the latter was a perversion of a perversion), and lure them to some quiet place where they could abuse, torture, and finally kill their prey. And sexual crimes, where there is no other motive involved and no previous connection between victim and murderer, are perhaps the most difficult to solve.

The bomb had gone off prematurely.

Asil and Youssef had left the package with its quietly ticking contents beneath a bench at the Gare du Nord, leisurely strolling away from it through noisy and earnest-looking travellers towards the arches that led out to the streets of Paris. The explosion from behind stunned everyone into an eerie three-second silence (or perhaps the roar had deafened ears to the screams). Pandemonium broke loose, commuters and tourists curling up against walls, running out into the streets—incredibly, some going towards the source of the explosion—or clutching at each other and waiting for the worst to happen.

The two terrorists knew that the European clothes they wore and the fact that they were among a cosmopolitan crowd would not help if they panicked and rushed from the scene, even though others around them were doing precisely that. At that particular time, Parisians were regarding any Arab or Algerian 'type' with suspicion, for the French authorities had arrested a known PLO activist a few weeks before under a charge of conspiracy; an ultimatum had been delivered by Al-Fatah that unless the

'hostage' was released and allowed to leave the country, then France could consider itself at peril. The French authorities had a reputation in those days for 'going soft' under such pressure, and the bomb planted at the Gare du Nord was meant to show how serious the terrorists were.

Asil and Youssef forced themselves to walk calmly away from the train station. Unfortunately it was their apparent coolness that gained the attention of an astute gendarme who was making his way into the station. The police, including the CRS and CSP, hod been put on special alert since the arrest of the terrorist, and this particular gendarme had taken note of his pre-duty briefing on exactly what to look out for before and after an outrage such as this. He hurried after the two smartly dressed Arabs, stopping them with a sharp, 'Alors, messieurs!' when he was close.

The mistimed blast had considerably shaken Asil and Youssef, for if the bomb had exploded just a few moments earlier, it would have been their own bodies spread across the station concourse. Now they were being apprehended by the police! Without even waiting to be questioned, Asil drew a knife from a hidden sheath in his jacket and stepped towards the uniformed man. He was expert with the blade, as Youssef had become expert with the garotte, and knew that the policeman's belt and buttoned tunic might prevent a clean thrust into the stomach. The heart was equally as difficult, because their pursuer had raised his left arm across his chest, intentionally or unintentionally blocking a lunge. Asil went for the next best target, aware that it would take his victim a minute or so longer to die, but at least he would drop instantly and lose consciousness within fourteen seconds. The knife slashed across the gendarme's upper left arm, the thrust outwards and deep, severing the brachial artery. The wounded man stared in disbelief, then fell to the pavement.

A woman screamed, but in the hubbub of similar cries and the blaring of sirens, no one took much notice. The Arabs fled, no longer concerned whether or not they were more noticeable. They ducked into the metro, hastily purchasing tickets and anxiously waiting on the quaff for a train—any train—to come in, expecting shouts from the barrier at any moment. When one arrived, Youssef shuffled along beside it, pulling at the latch which opened the compartment door before the train had fully stopped. They collapsed into seats, praying to Allah that the doors would shut and the train move off before any blue-uniformed men tumbled in after them. They changed at the next station, Gare de l'Est, going on to Chaussee d'Antin, and from there to Montmartre. They had journeyed no great distance, but enough to throw off any pursuers and not long enough for the police to set up checks at metro exits (even if that were possible with so many stations). They emerged into the soft glow of evening and the distant sounds of sirens.

They strolled down the wide, tree-lined boulevard towards the river, mingling with tourists, their hearts still beating wildly, although outwardly they managed to appear nonchalant. They passed streetside restaurants, sniffed at roasting meat and spicy sauces, politely declined when approached by smiling prostitutes, not stopping until they reached the Seine where they watched the passing bateaux-mouches crammed with sightseers.

Only then did they look slyly at each other and giggle.

They had a 'safe house' to go to, an apartment in one of the small courtyards in the Rue Mouffetard area close to the outdoor market just across the river. Hut there was no need to make their way back yet; indeed, training had taught them it was often better to stay lost in the crowd for as long as possible.

They wandered along the river bank for a short while, then headed back into the streets towards St Denis, taking their time rind watching the street entertainers-buskers, dancers, jugglers, even fire-eaters.

They felt frightened but exhilarated. They felt alive. The operation had been successful, and there was the bonus of one dead gendarme. Their clothes were too nondescript for easy identification, even if witnesses to the stabbing had come forward; and at the height of the tourist season, with students of all races gathered in this city of culture and romance, two young Arabs of murderous natures would be almost impossible to wheedle out.

The only disappointment came when they were seated at a streetside cafe drinking white wine (so wonderful to be away from the strictures of a Moslem society) and learned from the conversations around them that nobody appeared to have been killed in that day's bomb blast at the Gare du Nord, although five people, a child among them, were seriously injured.

Asil and Youssef drifted on, soon finding a creperie where they took delight in decadent European cooking. As they consumed the food and wine, it was with each other they flirted. The bustle and the festive atmosphere (despite the bombing) around them heightened their excitement; the killing and maiming served as a stimulus for their passion.

Eventually they crossed the river at the lie de la Cite, going towards the market quarter and their apartment, but stopping once again to take more wine at one of the cafes on the Place de la Contrescarpe. After two more glasses they decided that the night still held further adventures for them.

The crowds had dwindled, most of the tourists having tottered back to their hotels and pensions leaving the streets mostly to students and winos, the clochards. Asil and Youssef finally went in search of yet another victim, one who, would fulfil a certain need in them.

They rejected the first two male prostitutes because they looked too old—in their twe=nties at least—and too tough. The third was an effeminate boy who locked no more than seventeen. He led them into a dark cul-de-sac where he assured them they would not be disturbed. Youssef did not have leis beloved garotte with him, but the tie he wore would do; prolonged torture would not he possible here, but Asil would have fun with his blade while the boy's skin turned purple and his tongue swelled from his mouth.

Unluckily for them, the 'boy' was neither as young as he appeared, nor what he claimed to be (and certainly not effeminate).

Light from a distant lamp glinted on the pistol he produced from beneath his jacket. 'Police,' he informed them, holding up an ID in his left hand.

The bullet scraped along the bone of Asil's lower arm as he lunged with the knife, this time his victim's stomach exposed and an easy target. The fake prostitute dropped like a stone, the gun firing into the pavement before falling from his grasp.

Asil screamed with the pain in his arm, the knife slipping away, lodged in the policeman. Somewhere not too far away a whistle blew for the gendarmerie were out in force that night because of the bomb outrage, and the gunshots had been heard. Youssef dragged his friend away, hurrying him through the narrow streets in the direction of their apartment. A car screeched around a corner ahead of them, its lights blazing.

The two terrorists ducked into an alleyway, breaking into an awkward run, convinced they had been spotted. They had. The police car came to a halt at the alleyway entrance; doors flew open, uniformed men jumped out. They shouted, 'Arretez!' before aiming their weapons and firing.

Bullets smacked into the walls around the fleeing Arabs and one ricocheted off cobblestones to tear through the outer edge of Youssef s calf. Both men were handicapped, although they were able to keep on the move. Youssef was weeping as he limped along, the whole of his leg numbed with the shock, pain not yet registering.

They emerged into a wider street and saw other uniformed men coming towards them. There were still a few pedestrians around, one or two cars crawling close to the kerbs. All came to a standstill as the shouting gendarmes weaved through them. Asil and Youssef started in the opposite direction, running as fast as their wounds would allow, cursing themselves for their foolishness, knowing how angry their masters would be at the risk they had exposed themselves and the organisation to. They silently implored Allah to lend them wings.

Rounding another corner, they stumbled over the bodies of three clochards huddled on a metro vent (these raggedy men relished the underground warmth whatever the season). Asil struck his head against the pavement, stunning himself. The complaining winos kicked out and Youssef rolled into the gutter. He quickly sat up and was horrified when he saw the inert body of his friend. Running footsteps drawing near, headlights and blaring sirens approaching fast. He scrambled to his feet and pulled up his dazed companion, urging him to run.

Into an alleyway apposite they went, the smell of an underoround river that had been turned into a sewer strong in the confines of the narrow space. A saxophone played bluesily overhead, the musician uninterested in the commotion below. Garbage piled up in heaps against walls near the backdoors of restaurants. Run, Asil, Run, Youssef! But to where? Paris was not familiar, they were disorientated. They would never find their way to the apartment that night.

The numbness had left Youssef's leg. It felt as though it was an fire. Ash's head had not yet cleared, and all he was really conscious of was the searing pain in his arm. He had to rely on his lover to lead him onwards.

Out into another street, this one wider than the last, but with little cruising traffic. Across the road, into a courtyard, shouts and footsteps behind. Both men were near to exhaustion, their wounds draining strength. They knew they could not go much further.

Akhoo Sharmoota! No way out! The courtyard was a closed trap! Beloved Allah, show mercy to loyal soldiers of the jihad!

Shouted commands outside. Whistles blowing. Tyres screeching to a halt. Doors slamming.

But Asil was pointing and Youssef could not understand how his dazed companion had seen the tiny opening between the buildings, a dark cleft as if the houses had been eased apart.

Yatamajad ism al rab! The way had been shown!

They staggered across the courtyard, where lights from windows were coming on to throw reflections like searchlights down on them. and entered the pinch-black opening, just enough room inside far them to lope along helping each ocher. A dim glow Seemed to rise from the ground ahead, and they soon found themselves at the tap of a seep flight of stone steps. A single streetlarnp lit the exit a short distance away.

Voices in the courtyard behind. No time to linger. Down they went. But blinding pain gnashed throe gh the muscles of Youssefs calf and he slipped, gabbed far Asil as he fell, taking him along, aver and aver, the edges of the worn steles scraping skin, jarring, bones, as they plunged then slid, slowing to a tumbling roll as they neared the bottom.

They lay there, tangled together. sobbing and moaning, with no strength to carry on, and no will either.

The exit was not far away. Yet it was too far.

Echoing footsteps from above The policemen would punish them severely for killing one of their own.

And when they realised they had killed yet another earlier in the day, that they were responsible for the bombing at the station, what then? Asil and Youssef shuddered, the thought shared. They reached for each other's hand and waited, shivering with hurt and fear.

But something was moving across the opening in front of them. A shiny blackness. Sleekly slow. They thought it would pass by, but the vehicle stopped when the rear door was level with the passageway.

The door opened. A voice whispered to them down the close walls of the alley.

'Ta al maee wa sa ta eesh lee taktol mara sani ya—come with me and you'll live to kill again,' it said.

The promise gave them enough strength to crawl into the black limousine.

(And it was a promise that Kline certainly kept.)

31 RETURN TO NEATH

Kline stirred, shifting in the seat so that his face was away from Halloran.

The Shield operative watched him, his attention momentarily away from the passing countryside. The psychic had hardly moved since the Mercedes had left the Magma building an hour or so before, yet he had seemed too still to be sleeping. No rhythmic breathing, no total limpness; it was almost as if he had gone into same kind of self-induced trance. Maybe he had, Halloran considered. Wasn't that what psychics did Nat for the first time during the journey, Halloran looked over his shoulder through the rear window. A couple of cars behind but, as far as he could tell, nothing to warty about: they weren't being followed. The Granada containing his own men came iota view, keeping swell back, ready to accelerate into action should a problem arise. He checked ahead before settling back into the seat, remaining alert, but reasonably sure there were no immediate worries. .Although Monk and the. Jordanians had been left back at Magma, evidently to collect some items for Kline from his penthouse, he considered it no, great loss of manpower. If the Mercedes were to come under attack, then he could rely on himself and the two Shield men without the. blunderings of untrained bodyguards to hinder his own counter-tactics. The fact that his, own men were armed mow added to his confidence.

Halloran ran a hand over his eyes and across his rough chin. He was tired, the dream last night obviously having disturbed what little rest he'd had in the armchair. A shower, a shave, and something to eat wouldn't come amiss. .fin inspection of the house and grounds and then, with luck, a couple of hours'

sleep. There was an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger, but which told him he would need all the rest he could get if he were to cope with the next day or two. An instinct he had come to depend on through the years made him aware that something was imminent. It was a feeling he couldn't explain even to himself, but there was a familiar tension building inside him, honing his senses, sharpening his reactions, preparing him for what was to come. Fear had always mingled with that sensing, and that was natural; but this time a deep foreboding was involved, a disquieting dread, and that was new to him.

A muffled sound from Kline. The psychic's shoulders rose and slumped. His breathing became regular.

Now he was sleeping.

Cora, next to Palusinski in the front of the car, turned to look at her employer. Her eyes caught Halloran's and her smile was tentative. A moment went by before he returned the smile.

She faced the front again and Halloran, on the opposite corner of the Mercedes, was able to study her profile. He wondered if she really had it in her to give away company secrets. Unlikely. She was too closely linked to Kline and, Halloran was sure, too much afraid of her employer to betray him. Yet Kline had had no doubts. He'd denounced her before Magma's chairman and vice-chairman. Surely there had to be good reason for that?

Halloran checked the windows again. All clear, with only the Granada behind them. He realised they would soon be at Neath.

So what plans did Kline have for Cora? Would she be accused once they arrived at Neatly or would he set a trap for her, catch her in the act of betrayal? Kline's paranoia suggested the former, his sly vindictiveness the latter. Halloran made up his mind that he would get to her first, warn her of what was to happen. To hell with Kline and the Magma Corporation. To hell with the assignment. He'd continue to guard the target, but he would also keep the girl from any harm. Halloran had already suspected that Kline's four bodyguards were more than just that; he was sure they were well used to meting out punishment—particularly Monk, in this respect—whenever their employer pointed a finger. It was an unnecessary complication to the situation but, guilty or not, Cora wasn't going to suffer in their hands. He intended to keep a good watch on her.

As the car rounded a bend, Kline's hand flopped down by his side, its fingers curled into a claw.

Halloran noticed that small sections of skin were whitish, as if about to peel off.

'Is good to be away from city,' came Palusinski's voice from the front. 'Air is cleaner here. My father was farmer, Mr Halloran, rolnik, so countryside is my love. Cities are bad place for me.'

'Where in Poland d'you come from?' Halloran asked with no real interest.

'Ah, it is of no importance.' Palusinski tapped the steering wheel. 'I am here now, is all that matters. He

. . .' the Pole inclined his head towards the sleeping man and Halloran was surprised to catch the hint of a sneer in his tone '. . . bring me here many years ago, take me from my beloved country.'

'You could always go back,' Halloran suggested, watching the road which was becoming familiar as they neared the estate.

'Back?' Palusinski uttered a bitter chuckle. 'To what go back? To Russians who bleed Poland dry? I stay here, I drink. Yes, I stay here where everyone is friendly, and food is good!' He laughed aloud and thumped the steering wheel.

The gates to the estate were not far away and Halloran checked the front and rear windows yet again.

Only the Shield vehicle was bringing up their rear. The Mercedes swung in towards the iron gates and stopped no more than a foot away from them. Kline stirred but did not awaken.

Halloran opened his door and stepped out, walking to the edge of the road, and waited for the Granada to pull up beside him. He leaned forward, one hand on the roof, as the passenger lowered the window.

'Contact the patrol and make sure everything's okay. I'll meet you back here . . .' he lifted his wristwatch

'. . . in three hours.'

'Anything extra we should do?' the driver called across his passenger.

Halloran shook his head. 'Just patrol, the full tour. Don't come into the grounds.'

'What if we spot someone?' the man nearest said, plainly irritated.

'Use the RT to let me know. Don't come in.'

'Why the hell not?'

'You wouldn't like it.' Halloran straightened, examined the roadway in 'oath directions, then walked to the gates. He heard the Granada speed away as he reached out and grasped one oh the thick iron struts.

There came a dull, heavy click .and he pushed against the metal. The gate swung open, a grating of rusted hinges accompanying the sluggish movement. Halloran took it Fit the way back, then did the same with the other half. feeling oh-served from the lodge-house as he did so.

Another resolution for Halloran: he was going to confront whoever it was inside that place, the person who guarded the gate, who was master of the dogs. He would visit the lodge later, and this time he would find a way inside. Before leaving Magma, he had discussed the vulnerability of the Neath estate with Charles Mather, and the Planner had promised to raise the matter with Gerald Snaith, after which an ultimatum would be delivered to Sir Victor Penlock: either adequate defences were installed around the house and grounds, or Shield would be forced to relinquish the contract. The enormous sums of insurance money involved would ensure the alliance of the Lloyd's underwriters. Mather had been horrified to learn there were jackals roaming the estate, and perplexed when Halloran had told him that he had not yet met the lodge-keeper to discuss any emergency measures. Arum business altogether, Mather had voiced in his dry manner. Time to lay down stricter ground rules.

Halloran waved the Mercedes through, then closed the gates. There was a solid permanence about the thudded dunk as they locked together.

He climbed back to the car and as it pulled away, Palusinski said cheerfully: 'No dogs to bite you today.'

Halloran frowned. 'Where are they kept?'

'Kept?'came the reply. 'You mean caged? Hah!These beasts wander freely, they go where they please.'

'They're not much in evidence.'

'We are not hostile.'

'Yesterday . . . ?” 'You were alone. And perhaps they sensed . . .' Halloran wondered why the Pole did not complete the sentence.

'They tend to keep under cover in the daytime,' said Cora, twisting in her seat. 'They dislike people, they keep away from them. But at night they prowl.'

'And search out intruders,' Palusinski finished.

'Have there been any?' asked Halloran. 'Intruders?' Palusinski giggled. Cora said, 'There have been one or two trespassers, but they've always been frightened off.'

'They were lucky they weren't savaged,' Halloran commented.

'No, the jackals didn't touch them. They were frightened off by . . . other things.'

'I don't understand. What things?' Palusinski giggled again. 'Wood devils, Pan Halloran. You have not heard of the wood devils?' The house, its walls a deeper and duller red under the overcast day, came into view. Cora turned away from Halloran, as if unwilling to continue the conversation, but he leaned forward and grasped her shoulder.

'What does he mean, wood devils'? What's he talking about'?'

'ft's nothing, Liam. Really it's nothing.'

'But explain to him,' said Palusinski, his tone bantering. He ,notched a quick look at Halloran, eyes small and squinted behind his wire-framed spectacles.

'They're only images, no more than that,' Cora said quickly. -Felix can project mental images, make a person see what isn't really there.' Oh yes, Halloran knew that. He had seen such visions far himself in the lake.

'Felix senses when the dogs are alerted. I don't know how it's as if there's some kind of telepathic link between himself and the animals. He doesn't even have to hear the jackals to know there are trespassers in the grounds.' Halloran started to understand why Kline felt so secure within his own territory. The man had his own inbuilt alarm system, according to Cora, and his own defence weapon. With such power, no wonder his subordinates feared him.

The car drew up outside the house and Cora leaned aver the back of her seat to rouse Kline. 'Felix.' she said„ quietly at first, then again, louder, when there was no response.

'Felix, we're here.' Cora reached dawn and tapped his knee. The dark-haired man, curled up into the corner of the Mercedes, twitched but did not awaken. She shook his leg this time .and repeated his name more sharply.

Kline stirred, his legs stretched. He mumbled something and began to push himself up in the seat.

'We're home?' he asked, voice slurred with tiredness.

'Yes, Felix, we're at Neatly' Cora told him.

'Good,' he said, 'good.' He turned, sitting upright, one hand touching the door lever.

Cam's gasp stopped him. Her eyes were wide as she stared.

Halloran had become still.

Puzzled, Kline looked from one to the other and, as he did so, flakes of skin shed from his face. A face that was bubbled and broken, thin tissue hanging loose in layered scales.

As he frowned, more pieces fell away, falling lightly onto his chest and lap. He began to tremble.

32 A SHEDDING OF SKIN

The gun was in Halloran's hand before the bedroom door was fully open.

Cora stood in the doorway, frightened by the weapon. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I should have knocked.' He waved her in, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up. He put the Browning back on the bedside cabinet.

'How's Kline?' he asked.

Cora closed the door and leaned against it, her hands behind her. 'He hasn't left his room since we got back.'

'Have you sent for a doctor?' She shook her head. 'Felix won't allow that. He told me he suffers from psoriasis, a rare type of skin complaint that recurs every few years, but it's nothing to become. alarmed about.'

'Some complaint. And he wasn't too relaxed about it when Palusinski helped him into the house. Have you seen him like this before?'

'No.'

'We really ought to get a doctor to take a look at him.'

'He insists that we shouldn't. His orders are that we let him rest and send Khayed and Daoud to him as soon as they return from London. They have special lotions that can help.' She seemed uncertain. 'I didn't want to disturb you. You must be very tired.'

'A clean-up and a change of clothes helped. I even managed to grab a sandwich.' fie extended a hand.

'Cora, I need to talk to you. Please come over.' For a moment he thought she might leave. But then she walked to the bed. 'Sit by me,' he said.

She obeyed, and immediately leaned into him, her head against his chest. He held onto her, surprised, but glad her reserve had broken.

'Liam,' she whispered, 'I have such strange feelings, such a sense of dread . . .'

'I can understand why. I get the same feeling about this dace.' She looked up at him. 'You too?'

'Maybe it's a neurosis we're catching from Kline. You know he's mad, don't you?' -In a way I wish that were true—insanity would be easier to deal with. Felix is unstable and, as you say, neurotic; but not mad, Liam, not totally mad.'

'He thinks you've been giving away company secrets.' Halloran had been deliberately blunt, the unexpectedness of the remark meant to throw her off balance so that lie could judge her reaction.

'You're not serious,' she said incredulously.

lie took her hand, now having no doubts about her loyalty to Kline. 'I'm afraid so. That's why all the fuss at Magma this morning. New locations of untapped resources have been leaked to one of your rival companies.'

'It's happened again?' He nodded. 'Kline put the finger on you.'

'But why? I wouldn't -' Halloran shrugged. 'You're closest to him.' She seemed to shrink within herself.

'How could he even think that? Liam, I -' He pulled her to him again. 'I know it isn't true, and maybe Kline will see reason. Who can tell with someone so unpredictable?

'I still don't understand why he should accuse me.'

'I don't understand what makes you so loyal to such a bastard.' She didn't answer riight away. Then she said., almost sorrowfully: 'I depend on him.. He . . . Vs like a drug to me. I need him, Liam.'

'Then you're as crazy as he is.'

'No, don't say that, you don't know . . .'

'What is there to know, Cora?' he said angryily 'Just what the hell goes on between you and Kline?' She began to weep. 'Help me, Liam,' she said quietly. 'Please help me.

'How can I when you won't tell me what's wrong:” Cora began to fumble with the buttons of per blouse.

'Make love to me. Hold me and make love to me, but gently, like last night, after you . . . Let me feel how good it can be again.' Baffled, Halloran stood up and crossed to the door. He locked it.

The room's thick curtains were drawn against outside light, so that scattered artefacts of another age stood as dark shapes in the gloom. The smell of burning incense came from one corner, filling the air with a heavy and faintly acrid musk. Zodiac signs and symbols, drawings of horned beasts, of winged creatures, of single eyes, were roughly etched into walls and woodwork, obscure and patternless in the poor light. Books lay scattered around the floor. A canopied bed dominated the room, its four stout carved posts supporting layers of sheer drapes, the material hanging in loose folds.

A dry, rasping breathing came from within.

Kline lay on the bed, the skin of his naked body broken and ravaged, creating new fissures, causing paper-thin tissue to dislodge and fall away.

He feebly lifted an arm, but the darkness was even greater inside the shroud and all he could see was a myriad of interjoining cracks. His arm fell back to his side and a sob escaped him.

It couldn't be, it wasn't time. The ritual had been enacted, the psyche strengthened. The sacrifice made.

This shedding of the outer layer had come too soon, and with it there was pain. But why, what did it mean?

His unsightly body spasmed as another sob burst from him, and he felt the breaking of delicate tissue with the violence of the movement.

Must lie still. Must not move until Asil and Youssef arrive with their salves. It was too soon, too soon!

He was root prepared! And the pain had never been like this before. Hurry, my friends, bring me your soothing oils! Spare me from this wretchedness!

Kline tried to steady his breathing for even the rising and lowering of his chest was loosening the dead skin. He moaned, a self-pitying sound, and salt from his tears stung the sensitive grooves around his eyes.

And as he lay there, his mind absorbed in his own suffering, something inside the sepulchre that was hidden away in the blackest depths of Neath, throbbed once.

33 INSIDE THE LODGE

From his position by the main entrance, Monk watched the Shield operative descend the broad staircase and wondered what was inside the black case he was carrying. The bodyguard's thick lips set in a sneer, his heavy-set body tensing as Halloran approached.

'I'm taking a look around the grounds,' Halloran told him.

'You'll get your ass bit off.' The hope in Monk's high-pitched voice did not go unnoticed by the other man. 'I intend to stay in the car,' Halloran replied. 'Did the Arabs let you know how Kline is?' Khayed and Daoud had returned some hours earlier, rushing up to their master's roam immediately they learned of his condition.

'They ain't been down,' said Monk, shaking his large head.

*All right, let's assume it's nothing drastic. Dock the door behind me when I go out and don't open it far an}body until I return. I'm taking a spare key, but I'll let you know it's me before I come in just so you don't get over-excited. If I knock a regular three times it means there's trouble and I'm not alone. I'll repeat that knock after a pause so you'll know it's for real. You got that'?' Monk smirked rather than reply.

'Check around the house every fifteen minutes” test windows and doors each time. And I mean test them -try them, make sure they're properly locked.'

'What the fuck for?' Outrage accompanied the bodyguard's hostility now.

'Just do it. I'll be back in about an hour. Any calls, far me: and you write down the message. Don't try and remember.” 'You think I'm stupid, talisman'?'

'We both know it.' Monk's shoulders visibly straightened and he almost took a step forward. Only Halloran's hard-eyed smile stopped him.

The Shield operative went by the American and unlocked one side of the double-doors. A breeze of cold air from the lake made him shiver as he stepped outside. It was like the first chill of winter out there instead of the coming of summer. Vic called back to Monk: 'Lock it and take out the key.' Then he walked through the porch to the outside.; Although cold, the night had temporarily cleared, the moon, an edge sliced off, still low in the sky. There were thunderous clouds on the horizon. The slopes around the house and lake were of deep-toned greys, trees and shrubbery the darkest patches. The lake itself appeared smooth and unbroken. even though a wind ruffled the grass before it.

Halloran climbed into the Mercedes, placing the black bag on the passenger seat beside him. He switched on the engine and lights and pulled away, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, bringing the car round in an arc. As he did so, he glimpsed the neglected topiary garden at the side of the house, the tortured shapes resembling surrealistic figures, misshapen limbs twisted towards Neath like a frozen tableau of anguished souls.

He left the house behind, heading uphill towards the main gates, the woods soon closing around him, the car's beams seeming to swathe a path through the trees. Halloran kept a vigilant eye on either side of the road, searching for low shapes slinking through undergrowth, but saw nothing that moved. A sharp crack on his left startled him. A thin branch had snapped against the side window. Halloran eased over the road's centre, realising he had drifted too close to the edge.

The Mercedes rounded a curve and from there the roadway became a straight line running up to the gates. Halloran eased up on the accelerator, approaching the beginning of the drive at a cautious speed.

The headlights picked out the iron gates, and he dipped the beams to reduce the glare. His foot touched the brake pedal, slowing the car even more so that he came to the lodge-house at a smooth glide.

Halloran pulled over onto the rough verge in front of the old building, switched off the lights and cut the engine.

The lodge was in darkness, not even a glimmer showing from the grimed windows. Halloran sat there for several minutes, watching for any sign of life. There was none. But that didn't mean the house was empty.

Without using the interior light, Halloran unzipped the black bag by his side. He lifted out the stubby weapon an inch or so, loosening it, making sure it wasn't snagged on the inner lining. lie carefully lowered the sub-machine gun again, then reached fur the doorhandle.

A breeze ruffled his hair as he stood outside the vehicle studying the upper windows of the lodge. The moon was rising behind the building so that its frontage was an unlit void, the windows merely black shapes, barely distinct against the brickwork.

Again the unshakeable feeling of being observed. Carrying the gun bag in his left hand. Halloran walked into the shadow of the house.

The ringing of the telephone came almost as a relief. Mother laid the newspaper on the pile of Sundays, foreign as well as English, by his feet, exhausted with reading of yet more terrorist outrages and despairing of various governments' weakness in dealing wrath them, despite the vowed joint intention to do so over the past decade. Unfortunately it was the price paid for a world without major conflicts, the major evil giving ground to the lesser evil, a fact recognised by those same governments. Nevertheless, the atrocities committed in the name of so-called freedom or religious beliefs were hard to stomach and the time was coming when 'official' war would have to be declared on those countries and states who overtly supported and encouraged the multifarious terrorist groups. And even then the problem would never be eradicated.

He stood up from the dining table on which more journals were spread and limped out into the hall.

'I'm here,' he called out to Agnes, who was in the sitting room no doubt indulging herself in the current television trivia with her evening sherry.

'Mother,' he announced into the phone, first removing the pipe from his mouth.

'I'm sorry to disturb you. It's Sir Victor Perilock here.'

'Sir Victor?' Mother's brain stepped up a gear, alerted by the gravity in the Magma chairman's voice.

'I'd like you to meet me at my office once again. My apologies for calling on you twice in one day, particularly as it's a Sunday, but I'm afraid I had no other choice.'

'That's perfectly all right. Do I take it Mr Kline and my operative will also be there?' A pause first. 'No.

No, this will be strictly between you and me. It's rather serious, so do you think you could come immediately?'

'Shouldn't take much more than twenty minutes this time of evening.'

'It's very much appreciated. I'll let Security know you're on your way. One other thing: no one else must know about this. Can I have your word on that?'

'Naturally, although I don't understand why.'

'I'll explain when you get here.' When Mother replaced the receiver he went into his study and, as a precaution, wrote a note of his destination and whom he was to see, then sealed it an envelope on which he scribbled his wife's name. He left the envelope propped up on his desk.

The stench at the back of the lodge-house caused Halloran to catch his breath. No doubt this was where the jackals were kept when they were not prowling the grounds. He shone the thin beam of the penlight around the yard, expecting to find kennels or a stockade of some kind. There was none, and no animals either. But the light reflected on something shiny.

With a twist of the torch's head, the beam was broadened to take in more. Halloran recognised the three metal containers Khayed and Daoud had carried from the house the day before. All were lying on their sides, the lids close by, as though the contents had been spilled out. He moved closer, using the light to guide himself through the mounds of excrement scattered around the yard. Drawing near to one of the bins he bent low to shine the light inside. His foot crunched something beneath him. He shifted to see shattered bone where he had been standing, and realised that there were many more pieces around him, clean and meatless. At the bottom of the container there were clogs of maggot-infested meat, the jackals obviously having been unable to reach them. Much of the yard's putrid stink came from these containers.

Halloran straightened, relieved at least that the beasts themselves were nowhere in evidence. He flashed the beam up at the windows, heedless of giving anyone inside warning of his presence; he had, in fact, already pounded on the front door, knowing that his approach in the Mercedes would not have gone unnoticed by anyone supposedly guarding the estate's entrance. The lodgekeeper might have been roaming the grounds with his pack, of course, but Halloran could not rid himself of the notion that there was someone inside. Even now he sensed he was being watched.

He lowered the torch, finding the backdoor, then man oeuvred his way through the faeces and bones towards it. As expected, this door, like the front, was firmly locked. He moved along the wall to a window and, although also locked, this was less of a problem. Placing the bag on the windowsill, Halloran ,lid a knife blade up alongside the catch, then forced it aside, its movement stiff but yielding. He closed the blade into its handle, dropped it into his jacket pocket, then heaved at the lower frame. The window resisted at first before, with a groan followed by a squeal, it opened upwards.

Halloran lifted the bag, switched off the torch. swung a leg over the sill. Once inside he quickly stepped away from the window, where moonlight had silhouetted his shape. He leaned back against the wall and waited, holding his breath, listening for sounds.

The room smelled musty, damp, unlined in. Light from outside revealed sparse furniture: an armchair, its cushions lumpy, arms threadbare, a nondescript cabinet, neither antique nor modern, against one wall, a curled rug, and nothing else. Apart from the small rug, the floorboards were bare. Halloran flicked on the penlight once more, the beam still broad, and waved it around the room. Wallpaper hung away in strips and black fungus grew in the corners and near the ceiling. There were ashes in the ancient iron fireplace, but they looked solid, as though they had set many years ago. There was an open door to the right.

Halloran listened for a while longer before allowing himself to breathe normally. He swept the light across the floor to make sure there were no obstacles in his path, them crossed the room to the door, unconcerned with the creaking of floorboards. Narrowing the torch beam, he peered out into the hallway, shining the light along its length. Moonlight glowed through the grime of the tiny windows above the backdoor. The hallway had a turn in it and he surmised that it straightened again and led towards the lodge's main door. The stairway would be in that direction too.

lie eased himself from the room, holding the torch away from his bode. Keeping close to the wall opposite the door he had just left. Halloran slowly walked towards the front of the building. fie passed another door on his right. but did not try the handle, guessing it would Dead to a cellar.

He reached the point where the hallway turned, and hesitated, listening intently far a few seconds. Only silence. But the smell of oldness was even stranger here.

Halloran noticed a lightswitch close to where he stood and he reaches Diut, pushing it down with one extended finger, the thin torch gripped with the others. Nothing happened, and he was not surprised.

Whoever lived in the lodge-house enjoyed the darkness.

He went on, rounding the bend. and pointed the torch at the front door. There were large baits, top and bottom, rusted fixtures that looked as if they hadn't been shifted for decades. Another door nn his left, the staircase rising above him on his right. Halloran made his way towards the door.

Slipping the straps of the bag over his left shoulder and changing the penlight to that hand, he used an elbow to push open the door. Its creaking was explosive in the silence of the house.

Before entering, he shone the torch through the crack by the hinges, satisfying himself that nobody lurked behind the door, and only then did he step into the room. It was empty, devoid of any furniture, its curtains colourless with age and filth. The mustiness prevailed and here the mould festered in thick clusters. Ceiling struts could be clearly seen where plaster had fallen away. Halloran left the room, leaving the door open wide.

The staircase loomed up before him.

And it was from there that the worst of the smell wafted down.

Halloran began to climb.

Mather parked directly outside Magma's main entrance, disregarding the double-yellows. As he limped around the bonnet of his car, he could not help but gaze up at the towering building, its glass and bronze facade brooding under a sky that was quickly filling with leaden clouds from the east. He felt a charge in the atmosphere, the coming of an electrical storm.

The two security men inside had noticed his arrival and one was crossing the concourse towards the closed entrance while his companion at the circular reception desk lifted a phone. Mather started forward again, an urgency in his stride.

The security guard had come to a smaller door beside the main entrance and had already opened it a fraction by the time the Shield Planner was outside.

'Mr Mather?' the guard enquired, and Mather opened his wallet to display his Shield identity. 'Sir Victor's waiting for you. I'll take you right up.' The guard said nothing as the lift swiftly ascended to the eighteenth floor, but he appeared tense, as much on edge as Mather himself. They trudged the thick-carpeted corridor to the chairman's outer office, passing through, waiting when the guard rapped on the inner door. The guard opened the door after a voice on the other side responded, then stood aside to allow the older man entry, still not uttering a single word. Mather heard the door close behind him.

Sir Victor did not rise from his seat. In front of him was a tumbler half-filled with Scotch.

'Good of you to get here so quickly.” the Magma chairman said, taking Mather forward.

Although on first glance Sir Victor appeared his usual immaculate self—grey, double-breasted suit, thin-striped shirt and now tie—there was an indefinable dishevelment about him. Perhaps it was the weariness in his eyes, the slight sagging of his jowls, a few lapse strands of silver hair hanging over his forehead that gave the impression, the Shield Planner mused. As well as the unexpected laxity in manners, far Mather had not been offered a sent, nor had Sir Victor risen when he had entered the office.

Hardly a return to Stone-age etiquette, but surely an indication of the stress this usually most civilised of men was under.

Now the chairman did rise, but not in deference to the other man. 'I want to show you something,' he said, 'after which we must discuss our course of action.' Curious. Mather followed the tall man back into the corridor, and then into another office which, like Sir Victor's, bore no title tan is door. They walked through an outer room where the chairman unlocked a further door into the main office itself.

Mather drew in a sharp breath when he saw the figure slumped forward across the glass and chrome desk. He hurriedly crossed the room to examine the body.

'Quinn-Reece?' he asked, already sure that it was.

'Security discovered the body earlier this evening,' the chairman replied grimly.

Mather moved around the desk and Leaned close to the prone man's face. He was prepared to feel for a pulse in Quinn-Reece's neck, but realised it was pointless. The blueness of the vicechairman“s lips, the yellowish tinge to his skin, his very stillness, told him all he needed to know.

'Heart failure?” be ventured.

°I believe so. But look at his face.' even mare puzzled, Mather slid an arm beneath QuinnReece;'s chest and pulled him backwards. He was stunned at what he saw.

' My God he looks as of he . . .'

'Died of fright?” Sir Victor finished for him. 'He was sitting upright like that when he was found. I ordered security to lay him on the desk. I couldn't bear the thought of him staring that way, his mouth locked open . . .' Mather frowned. 'I think you'd better tell me what's going on. I assume your people haven't yet called for a doctor or an ambulance?' The chairman's guilt was barely apparent. 'Our security guards are under strict instructions never to bring outsiders onto the premises unless someone in authority sanctions it. We regard anything that happens within the walls of Magma as company business, and only I or my executive officers may deem otherwise.'

'Good Lord, man, this has nothing to do with your business. It's possible that medical attention might have saved him.' Sir Victor was adamant. 'No, I can assure you he was quite dead. Nothing could have helped him, nothing at all.'

'Well I suggest you call for an ambulance now.'

'Yes, of course. But first we must talk. Please allow me a few minutes.'

'Is there good reason?' The chairman looked away from the corpse. 'I believe so,' he said quietly.

The stairboards groaned under his weight. He thought one or two might break altogether and quickly shifted his footing. It seemed a long climb to the bend in the stairs, as if time itself were being stretched, and at any second he expected someone to appear above him, so strong was the feeling of another's presence inside the lodge-house.

He stopped for a few moments when his head came level with the landing, and listened again, depending on hearing rather than seeing in such poor light. There were three doors along the upstairs hallway, one to the left of the staircase, one directly in front, the last further down. The latter would have a view overlooking the entrance gates, but it was not for that reason alone Halloran chose to inspect it first: he knew, as surely as if someone were calling him, that he would find what he was searching for inside there.

As with the rest of the house, bare boards was the only flooring along the landing and he saw no reason to avoid making noise as he walked its length-it was too late for that. Nevertheless, his movement was stealthy and his right hand was kept free, ready to snatch the gun from its holster at the slightest provocation, even though he was there in his role as Kline's protector, not as an enemy.

The smell of rotting was nauseating as he drew close to the door and he swallowed the wetness rising in his throat.

Halloran went on by the door, going to the window at the tar end of the hallway. He pushed aside half-drawn curtains, the coarse material stiffened with dust, and rubbed a palm against the dirt on the glass, clearing a section to see out. Moonlight glimmered from the roof and bonnet of the Mercedes below; the iron bars of the entrance gates looked blackly solid; the undergrowth opposite seemed impenetrable. Light withered as a cloud rolled over the moon.

Halloran returned to the door, his torch haloing the handle. fie pressed his ear close to the wood, but heard no sounds from the other side. Hitching the bag so that it was secure on his shoulder, he reached for the doorhandle.

He was sure the door would be locked. It wasn't.

He expected to use force to push the door open. It opened smoothly.

He thought he would confront the lodge-keeper, the guardian of the gates.

Instead he met his past.

34 INTO THE PIT

Kline moaned as Khayed ministered the lotion to his ruptured skin. The burning would soon pass, the Arab assured him, and Kline knew the truth of what he said; his loyal servants had soothed him with their oils many times before. But that was when the sloughing of his skin had been expected, had become a ritual, a ceremony to be indulged in, to be celebrated, for it was the outward sign of spiritual rejuvenation.

And a continuance of his own servitude.

He uttered a cry, more in fear than in pain. Daoud misunderstood and hurried forward with the syringe.

'Mouallem?' Kline saw the needle and raised a hand to deny the morphine, for the drug would dim his thoughts, euphoria would blunt the danger that was so close. Yet his senses were already hindered, for dread gnawed at them like some avaricious parasite. The killing that day of the enemy within had not calmed his unease, as he thought it would; instead the mental effort had further drained his psyche, and weakened him physically. The death of Quinn-Reece had not resolved his own anguish, but had merely contributed to his present condition.

He beckoned Daoud forward again, speaking to the Arab in his native tongue. 'A moderate amount, Youssef. Enough only to soften my . . .' he almost said fear'. . . my pain.' The needle was like a blade heated by fire, but Kline's scream swiftly relaxed to a sigh as his senses began to float. Soon he dreamed, but in truth, it was a memory . . . . . he lowered himself into the pit, terribly afraid. It was so deep, so black. But for that reason, it would yield even greater treasures. Why else should it be so skilfully concealed from the other sepulchres? The reward for his courage would indeed be great! The Jewish merchant in Jerusalem had promised him that. Journey to Ur, find employment with the English archaeologist. He needs men of education, people who can direct the lazy and treacherous labourers, and who will appreciate and understand the cultural value of his great discovery. The Arabs will obey because the Englishman will put his trust in you and they will have little choice. You are clever, you are cunning. Bring back to me what ,small treasures you can easily steal and I will make you a rich man, for I have collectors who will pay kings' ransoms for the most meagre of items from the fabulous and glorious era! These Arabs are plunderers, destroyers, scum of the earth, and care nothing for their heritage. They will allow their own history to be taken from them by foreigners. But we will profit by their stupidity, my young friend. And we will bring great joy to those who honour such relics.

The journey to the Royal Cemetery of Ur had been long and wearisome and he had worried that the dig would be over by the time he arrived there; but no, there was still much work to be done, many more tombs that lay at the bottom of deep shafts beneath thousands of surface graves to be revealed. And the merchant had been correct: the team of foreigners needed several of his ilk to organise the transient labour force, arrange permits and payroll, maintain supplies and medicines, as well as sectoring the site against thieving infiltrators. He had worked diligently, never becoming too greedy with his own finds, taking only those objects small enough to be smuggled safely from the camp to the single roam he had rented inside the city, a place where he could hide his private cache and where every so often, the merchant from Jerusalem would arrive to relieve him of the treasures. The system worked well and when all was complete, the merchant assured him, the profits would be admirable.

He had not come upon the secret tunnel leading to the pit by accident, for he had always had the gift, the seeing in the mind, the ability to predict a death before it was claimed, a birth before conception, to judge beforehand good fortune for some, tragedy for others. Even when he was a child, should his mother lose a needle, it was he whom she urged to find it; .should his father misplace an article, it was the boy who sought out its hiding place. Later, when his gift became known to others, it was he who was taken into arid territories to locate a source of water beneath the soil so that new settlements could be built around it. Rewards for that rare inner knowledge had paid for his welfare and education after his entire family had been taken by disease (strangely a tragedy he had not been able to predict). So it was that the merchant realised the young man's potential when the great find outside the distant city of Ur in the land where the ancient Sumerians had once reigned became world news. Who better then to seek out those exquisite but concealed antiquities that would end up as mere exhibits in some stuffy London museum unless re-directed elsewhere?

On his very first day inside that vast labyrinth of shafts and corridors, hidden rooms and sepulchres, lie had become confused and almost overwhelmed by mourning voices of the dead, whose spirits were locked beneath the earth, for their human vessels had taken their own lives to be with their deceased kings and queens, and their high priests. Over the weeks that followed he had learned to shut out those incorporeal murmurings from his mind; yet one sensing persisted throughout, something that was not a spiritual utterance, but a kind of pulse, a split-second shifting of atmosphere, as if time itself had hiccuped.

He would feel it but once or twice a day, never more than that. At first he had believed it was a physical phenomenon, a faraway subsidence, but no one else ever noticed the brief disturbance. The deeper he worked his way into the complex layers of tombs, the louder- or more sensed the unheard 'sound'

became. Then one evening, when the day's labour was done, the workmen returned to their tents or hovels outside the city walls, and the foreigners retired to their lodgings, he had wandered alone through the lowest chambers, drawn by he knew not what, but compelled towards a destiny he had never dreamed of.

The secret tunnel was behind an empty room at the furthermost extremity of the Royal Cemetery, a square space that had puzzled the learned archaeologists, for it seemed to have no purpose: its walls were bare and there were no casks or ornaments within. It was merely an isolated chamber, one that was reached by crouching low along a lengthy corridor which had many turns and dips.

The pulse had come as he had stood in that soulless room, and this time it was as though he had really heard the sound. The walls themselves had seemed to tremble. Startled, he had swung his lamp around and the light had caused a shadow on one wall. He moved closer to inspect the shadow and found a mud brick jutting out a fraction from its neighbours. He had used the trowel he carried, standard equipment along with brushes for the diggers, to cut round the brick and ease it from the wall. The stench of released gases sent him reeling backwards.

He approached again more cautiously, and the smell was still strong but less of a shock. Other mud bricks easily came loose and soon a passageway was exposed. A dreadful fear had overcome him then and he had almost run from that place. But a curious fascination stayed him.

He crawled into the narrow passage, holding the lamp before his face.

The passage led downwards, so steeply at certain points that he had to use his strength to prevent himself tumbling forward.

Before long it opened out into a wide circular chamber, at the centre of which was a gaping hole, an open pit. Around the opening lay human bones, their rotting robes those of high priests and priestesses.

Resting against the walls were clay tablets of cuneiform writing, wedge-shaped signs that represented words or syllables. He trod carefully to the edge of the pit and stared dawn at the blackness. That was when his fear became too much to bear, for something was urging him to descend, an inner compulsion inviting him to leap.

And the mind-sound was a sound, disgorging from the pit.

THUD-UP He had fled.

Despite his terror, he had resealed the opening to the secret passageway, using dirt from the floor to cover the cracks (not that the room was of any interest to Sir Leonard and his team of archaeologists, who had treasures in abundance to drool aver without bothering with empty chambers). This discovery would be his alone.

Four days went by before he gained enough courage to venture down to that pit again, four days of nagging agitation and four nights of feverish nightmares. He knew he would go back; the difficulty was finding the will to do so.

He waited until evening once more when all digging had stopped, only a few guards that he, himself, had helped organise left on duty above ground. This time he returned to the pit with rope and stanchion . . .

. . . Kline wailed as he slept and Khayed and Daoud leaned over him anxiously . . .

. . . and fearfully, his limbs trembling so badly that lee almoyt lost his grip, lowered himself over the edge of the pit. He descended slowly, drawn by an allure he could not comprehend, his lamp dangling below him, attached to his waist by thick string. He was aware that something evil awaited him, something ancient and cruel, for his dreams over the past few nights had revealed that at least to him, although no images, no visions of what it was, were presented. For in his sleep he had tasted the joys of carnality, had been seduced by the delights of depravity, had been pleasured by the thrill of vileness. The dreams had promised that those glories would be his if . . . if . . . if . . . he would but claim them. And to claim them, he would have to descend the pit.

THUD-UP!

The pulse was thunderous, reverberating around the shaft, causing a tremor, dislodging dust. His grip on the rope slipped and he plunged.

But not far.

For the pit was not deep at all. Its very blackness had created that illusion.

His legs buckled and he crashed onto his back, the lamp toppling over, fortunately still burning. Without pause to regather his breath, he reached out and righted the lamp lest he be cast into complete darkness.

Only then did he suck in the foul air and feel the pain of his jarred body.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, his back against the crumbling wall, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and frightened.

Opposite was a niche. A square hole that was no more than two foot high, cleverly concealed in shadow so that no one above would ever realise it was there.

It was some time before he was able to crawl towards the niche.

The lamp revealed a closed receptacle of some kind inside, its surface dulled by centuries of dust. He brushed shivery fingers across the front and felt metal; bumps and ridges that might have been symbols were embossed on what must have been a door, for set in one side was a small projection that served as a handle.

He stared. He did not want to open it. He knew he was going to.

His hand shook so violently he could barely grasp the handle. Squeezing his fingers tight around it, he tugged.

The door opened easily.

And his scream threatened to bring the walls of the pit down on him. . .

. . . Kline's scream caused Khayed and Daoud to leap away from the bed in surprise. They quickly ran forward again and babbled soothing words to their master, assuring him it was only a nightmare, that he was safe under their watchful protection, nothing would harm him while they lived and breathed.

He looked from one to the other, his face a cracked mask of seams and ruptures. Suddenly he understand. 'He's dying,' Kline rasped.

35 THE WAITING GAME

He watched the Granada cruise by, its headlights brightening both sides of the narrow road. Keeping low and pulling aside minimum foliage so that he could observe but not be seen, he checked that there were still only two occupants in the patrol car. When it was gone, he stood and held up his wristwatch, waiting a moment or two for the moon to re-appear from behind rolling clouds. Just under twenty minutes this time. The driver varied his speed during the circuit around the estate so that there was never a regular time interval between certain points. The driver of the second patrol car did the same.

The man sank into the undergrowth, making his way back through the thick woods, only bringing out a flashlight when he was well clear of the road. Soon he arrived at a lane, one that eventually joined the route he had been watching; he continued his journey away from the estate.

Two vehicles were waiting in a picnickers' clearing a few hundred yards on, their occupants sitting in darkness. He flashed his torch twice, then switched off before climbing into the back seat of the first car.

'Well?' the passenger in the front said.

'Two patrols. Professionals, as you'd expect. We could easy take them out, though.'

'Shouldn't be any need.'

'No. It'll be no problem to get into the place. We only have to wait for them to pass, then make our move when they're out of sight. The fence'll be easy.'

'We'll wait awhiles, give them time to settle in for the night.'

'It's been a time coming, Danny.' His expression couldn't be seen, but the man in the front was smiling. 'It has that,' he said, the softness of his accent hardened by the intent of his words. 'But all the sweeter for it.'

36 A ROOM OF MEMORIES

Halloran 's senses reeled.

It wasn't a room he was standing in but a kaleidoscope of memories. They spun before him, some merging so that yesterday mixed with yesteryear, experiences of childhood confused with those of later times, scenes superimposed upon others. It was as if screens or veils fluttered in front of him—he thought of the veils he and Kline had passed through together in the dream of last night—thin, transparent layers, older images on those new.

He turned, ready to run from there, but the doorway was no longer behind him. Instead there were more visions, closing around him, the colours vivid and fresh, the details perfectly defined, as though they were being lived at that moment.

Slowly some began to dominate the others, dispersing weaker memories—less significant memories—to the peripheries of his mind.

He saw himself slicing the tendons behind the black tracker's knee, the man a volunteer of South Africa's Special Service Brigade who would have followed Halloran and his small raiding band of ANCs back across the border to their camp, later to lead his own forces there, had he not been put out of action.

Fading in over this was the church, moonlight through the high stained-glass windows revealing the three boys creeping along the centre aisle, Liam hugging the dead cat wrapped in old rags to his chest, its body mangled, opened by the wheels of a speeding car, the other two boys giggling nervously as he approached the altar and reached up to the tabernacle, opening its gilt door, pushing the bloodied corpse inside, running for their lives, laughing and piss-scared of the consequences. He whirled. Now he was with the girl, Cora, taking her forcibly, ignoring her struggles, her protests, thrusting into her until she submitted, wanted him, her lust as intense as his, the rape no longer so, becoming a mutual desire which had to be satiated. And here he was with his father, and Dadda was being torn apart by bullets, his eyes bulging with disbelief while his son, Liam, urinated unknowingly into the stream, the father falling then looking up at the boy, pleading or was it warning?—telling him to run, to get away from there before the gunmen turned their weapons on him, too, only unable to speak, his own blood choking his words. His father crawling to the bank, collapsing there, the masked Irishmen stepping on him, drowning him, shooting Dadda again. Halloran blinked, long and hard, but the visions would not disappear. Scenes from his military service, the killings, the terrible battle at Mirbat, the disillusionment with it all, the women who had drifted in and out of his life, the mother he had come to revile because of the craziness inside her head, the beatings he had dealt to others of his age who dared mock her affliction, and who dared spit the word 'Britisher' as a curse at mention of his father, even though Dadda's birthplace was County Cork—and the beatings Liam received when his anger and frustration were no use against the gangs who taunted him. Halloran staggered with the intensity of it all. A blurred figure appeared, walking towards him through the hallucinations, the recognitions, arms out to him, calling his name beseechingly, and he could feel his Mam weeping, although she was but a spectre, not yet clear in his vision. She drifted through the eidetic imagery, coming closer, her voice faint, begging for his embrace. And as she drew near, dissolving in and out of projections of his past, her head was distorting, becoming bent and twisted, as were her hands, pulping and spurting blood, as they had when she'd deliberately walked into the threshing machine on a neighbour's farm her arms and upper body churned by the machinery, her head smashed and almost lopped off . . . as it was now, tilting, collapsing, hanging by bloody threads on her chest. Halloran screamed. But the memories were relentless. There was the big priest, Father O'Connell, warning Liam that the wildness had to stop, that the Good Lord Jesus would punish the boy for his wickedness, that his cankered soul would be damned eternally into Hell. The priest came at him unbuckling the thick strap he wore around his waist, winding the buckle end around his fist, raising his arm to flail the boy, the man pity as well as fury raging in his eyes. Then gone, before the black-robed priest could bring down the leather scourge. Replaced by one of the gunmen who had murdered Liam's father, the cousin of Liam's mother. A man she had accused all those years ago, her accusations laughed off, sneered at. And here he was, sneering at Halloran again, a ghost not exorcised, even though the man had blown himself up a few years after the killing, along with a companion, the homemade bomb they had been carrying in the back of their car towards the border too delicate—or too faulty—for the rough, pitted lanes they had chosen to travel, the jigging and jogging causing wires to touch or to dislodge so that the boyos were blown sky-high, and the only person to celebrate the occasion was Liam, who could not understand how the assassin of his father could be venerated as a hero by the local townspeople, blessed by the Holy Roman Catholic Church when his bits and pieces had been returned for burial on consecrated ground, Father O'Connell himself pleading God's bountiful mercy for this poor unfortunate's soul, speaking of him as a martyr to the Cause, this killer who had robbed Liam of Dadda, who had laughed and sneered Mam to her death, who sneered at him now in this very room. Halloran yelled his outrage at the apparition, shaking with the emotion, every muscle and cord in his body stiffened rigid.

Then it all began to darken and fade, the memories slipping away, fresh ones barely glimpsed until one bright spot remained; it seemed a great distance away, too far to be within the walls of the house itself. It grew in size, coming forward, the movement steady, a gliding, the object soon recognisable, its surrounds slowly filtering through, misty at first, but gaining substance. The tabernacle was on an altar, the altar itself raised above three broad steps, before the steps a Communion rail, the kneeling cushions and then the pews on either side of the centre aisle. Liam, a youth, creeping towards the front of the church, in one hand a metal can from his grandfather's workshed, in the other a lit devotional candle. He swung over the low rail, leaving the candle on top, and mounted the steps. Doubt, guilt fear—urged him to open the tabernacle, to save the chalice containing the Communion wafers he knew Father O'Connell always prepared the night before early Sunday mass; but he didn't, too afraid to do so, for it would be like opening the door to God, Himself, inviting Him to witness the sacrilege Liam was about to commit, and perhaps God—if any such creature really existed might take away the hatred, the one emotion Liam did not want to lose, because it gave him his life objective, it overcame grief and insecurity, if only for a short while. He tipped the can and poured petrol over altar and steps, retrieving the candle and holding it aloft, well away from the inflammable liquid he splashed along the aisle. Eyes almost blinded with tears, Liam dropped the candle into the puddle near his feet. The fire sped away from him and now he was outside, face bathed in a warm glow, gazing in stupefied awe with the other townspeople as their beloved church perished in flames that might have been sent from Hell itself. And Father O'Connell could not be held back. He broke away from his flock and ran into the church, was gone for long minutes, an eternity, while the men outside moaned, the women wailed, and then he was bursting through the doors, the Holy Chalice clasped in his seared hands, but he was alight, his clothes, his hair, his skin on fire. He staggered on the church steps, and the people his people—were afraid to go near, as if they would be contaminated, the flames would engulf them too. The priest screamed and he shrieked and he raised his arms up to the night, the chalice falling to the concrete, spilling its contents. The crowd moaned as one when Father O'Connell slumped to his knees. They cried aloud when he pitched forward onto his face.

His body flared, a fireball without shape, and Liam's screamed Noooooooo became Halloran's as he stood in the centre of the room, hands striking the air as if to erase the memories, to banish the dreams.

He stumbled back against the wall, the open doorway beside him. The worst of the stench came to him then, a smell so malodorous it was almost choking. He cupped a hand to his. mouth and nose, blinking away wetness in his eyes. His whole body was damp, his clothes clinging, and it was only with considerable effort that he kept his legs straight. The urge to sink to the floor had to be fought against, for he was overcome with weariness and confusion; he resisted, acutely aware that there was danger all around him in this room, in this house.

The torch was lying several feet away, its thin beam pointed at the wall opposite, revealing only a strip of torn wallpaper. He could just make out the shape of the black bag he'd also dropped lying close by.

In a crouch, his senses still not recovered from the onslaught they had received, Halloran moved forward and grabbed both items, then scrambled backwards so that he leaned against the wall once more. He broadened the light beam to take in a bigger area.

The floor was littered with rubbish and filth, a threadbare carpet, corners curled covering a minimal section of bare boards. The walls were stained, the faded paper hanging in tatters; to one side were cupboards, the wood cracked and dull. A small table and chair were to his left, a few paces away, on the table-top a plate on which remains of a meal had furred green. I-C° noticed that the ceiling light socket had no bulb, the ceiling itself bulging in places, and pockmarked with dark fungi. Mustiness from that fungi contributed to the room's pungency; the rest was a mixture of urine, stale faeces, and sweetness.

The wide beam lingered around the room's single window, whose curtains were rendered grey by dust.

A high-backed armchair faced the window. Wiry stuffing, like internal organs, spilled from holes in its upholstery. He knew that it was from here that the lodge-keeper watched the estate's gates. But Halloran could not see if the chair was occupied. Several seconds went by before he determined to find out.

He edged past the doorway, keeping to the wall, moving to a position from where he could shine the beam directly into the chair. Shadows shifted also, stirred by the changing light. The angle improved as he drew closer, yet somehow he was reluctant to discover who sat there, his mind scarcely coping with the hallucinations it had already been bombarded with; he knew, though, that he could not leave the room without confronting the lodge-keeper.

He reached the corner, his shoulder brushing mould and dust from the mildewed wall, and raised the torch so that it shone directly into the seat. Both relief and disappointment swept through him when he found it empty.

But a faint disturbance was coming from elsewhere in the room. A sighing of air. A breathing.

Halloran slowly swung the beam into the furthest corner, from where the sound came, the light passing an iron fireplace, this one too filled with hardened ashes, before coming to rest on a misshapen bundle of rags lying on the floor.

As he watched, the bundle began to move.

37 JOURNEY AROUND THE LAKE

There were five of them in all, lying low in the undergrowth, faces pressed into the earth as the car lights drew near. Only one of the men looked up when the brightest moment had passed, and he waited until the rear lights had become pinpoints in the distance before speaking.

'That was it, all right. The Granada, Ten minutes at least 'tit the other one comes along.' Next to him, the man named Danny grunted. 'Across the road, quick as you like, and as little noise as possible. There might just be a foot patrol inside the grounds.' They rose as one, brushing through the foliage and around trees, sprinting across tarmac to reach the wire fence on the other side of the road. They were trained mere, and one immediately turned his back and rested against the mesh, cupping his hands between his thighs as a stirrup. He hoisted his companions over, then threw the two rifles left lying in the grass to them. The weapons were deftly caught and he scrambled over after them The group melted into the shadows of the trees, then regrouped when they were well out of sight from the road.

The leader whispered loud enough for there all to hear. 'Round the lake, boys, an' no talking am the way. we'll )Seep to its edge in case there's an alarm set-up an the woods. Eyes sharp, lads, an' single file.

Make your mothers proud.' He went forward, the others following down a slope that red to the water's edge. They crept along the shoreline until the moo n, emerged from clouds like an all-encompassing searchlight, the: group dropped to the ground. They crawled back into the under growth and waited to find out if they had been observed. Their leader eventually gave the order and they rose as one to move silently through the trees.

'Look out,' one exclaimed.

The others stopped, crouching low, hands reaching for weapons. Hammers clicked on revolvers.

'What was it?' the leader demanded when there was no movement nor sounds for several seconds.

'I saw something ahead,' the subordinate replied. 'A shape.'

'What the hell are you talking about? Was it man or dog?'

'Neither,' came the nervous response. 'Just a shape. I swear it disappeared in front of me.'

'You're going soft in the head, McGuire. Let's get the job done.' They moved off again, but soon it was the leader himself who brought them to a halt. His scalp prickled as he watched the wavery mist that drifted in and out of the trees a few yards away. A cry close by distracted him.

One of his men had raised his Armalite and was about to fire.

'No,' he hissed urgently, grabbing for the barrel. 'What the hell are you playing at?'

'Jesus, God, I saw them there.' He pointed into the grass a short distance away. 'A goddamn nest of

'em. Snakes. They just faded away.' The leader shook his head in disgust. His men were behaving like old folk, frightened of their own shadows. He returned his attention to the spot where the mist had curled through the trees almost like arms reaching towards them. No mist now. God Almighty, he was as bad as the others.

'Danny, will you look over there.'

'Keep it down,' he growled, but turned to where the man was pointing. Through the woods he could see the lake. The water was choppy, stirred by a breeze that grew stronger by the moment, the moonlight tossed by undulations. But it was the far bank to which his man was directing him. There was movement there, a flowing stream that had nothing to do with water.

'What is it?' someone whispered.

'Can't you tell?' said the leader. 'It's dogs, man.'

'Coming for us?' He could feel his men's panic.

'Not at all. They'd be across the water at a sniff of us. No, they're on their way somewhere else, an'

thank God for that.' He watched the tiny, ghostly forms skirt around the lake, their low bodies catching the light so that in parts they looked silver. Clouds consumed the moon once more and he could follow their journey no longer.

He frowned, wondering where they were heading for with such haste.

38 THE KEEPER

The breathing became louder, a hissing that each time ended in a thick, muciferous sigh.

It faded again, became almost a whisper, and Halloran strained to listen. The heaped bundle of rags was still, having moved only once.

His own breathing was unsteady and Halloran realised that never before had he felt such debilitating trepidation, for a peculiar virulence seemed to poison the very air in the room. His inclination was to flee, to bolt through that doorway and get out into the night where the breeze was pure. But the curiosity that had led him to this place had become something more: an obsession, perhaps even a quest. Revelations from his own life had spun before him here, things that were bad, his worst sins recreated, and there had to be a reason why. He felt shame, a guilt he had always suppressed rising inside; yet it was his fascination that was stronger. It was that which prevented him from taking flight, for it prevailed over the fear, subjugated the exposed guilt.

Halloran tentatively made his way towards the tangled rags.

He saw the edges of a thin mattress, dried stains overlapping its sides, spreading where fluid had once seeped into the wood of the floor. The mound on top could have been anythingblankets, piled clothing, assorted pieces of material. That there was someone beneath, there was no doubt, for the whispered breathing came from here and the jumbled covering quivered slightly with the exhalation. Halloran leaned forward and gripped the rags. He pulled them away.

A face, partially concealed by a cowl, turned towards him.

Halloran released the covering and stepped back, horrified at the countenance that stared up at him.

The skin was withered and deeply rutted, like wrinkled leather left in the sun; and its colouring, too, was of old leather, except where there were festering scabs that glinted under the torch light. Most alarming of all were the eyes. They were huge, lidless, bulging from the skull as if barely contained within their sockets; the pupils were cloudy, a fine membrane coating them, and the area around them that should have been white was yellow and patchworked with tiny veins.

From this thing came the sickly sweet smell of death's corruption which dominated all the other scents of the room.

Something seemed to shrink within those globular eyeballs when they came to rest on the shadowy form of Halloran, and the figure tried to rise, its scrawny neck arching backwards as if the weight of its head was too much to bear. The hood fell away from a hairless skull whose surface was mottled with deep brown blemishes; incredibly, the skin there, which should have been smooth, was also wrinkled and ridged, as though the bone beneath had no firmness, no substance.

Repulsed, Halloran took another step away. The impression of gazing down at an enormous lizard-like creature was enhanced when the figure's mouth opened and a tongue, so darkly red it seemed black, protruded and rolled across cracked, lipless flesh. Only the lidless eyes refuted the reptilian image.

The figure attempted to speak, but no more than a gasped sigh escaped. The head sank back into the rough bedding with a finality that suggested the body, itself, had expired. Only then, and with reluctance, did Halloran advance again. Those bulbous eyes were fixed on him and he shone the light directly into them. They did not blink, nor did the pupils, behind their mist, retract.

'It's you,' came the sibilant whisper.

Halloran froze.

The figure gasped in air, as though the effort of speaking had caused pain. Even deeper rents furrowed its skin and the mouth puckered inward.

Halloran struggled to find his own voice. 'Who are you?' The slightest inclination of the withered head, a gesture that the question was of no importance. And then the whisper: 'Death comes.' Its grimace might have been a smile.

Halloran leaned close, ignoring the fetid air that rose from the rumpled head. 'I can get help,' he said and the thought of touching this person almost made him retch.

Again that toothless, puckered expression that could have been a grin. 'Too late for me,' came the whisper. 'Come closer.' Halloran shuddered inwardly and made no effort to comply.

'I must speak . . .' it said, '. . . with you.' He knelt, but still could not find it in himself to bend near the hideous face. 'Tell me who you are,' he repeated.

This time there was an answer, perhaps an inducement to draw him in. 'The . . . Keeper.' The voice was stronger, and that, he thought, of a man.

'The gate-keeper?' Halloran said. Surely it wasn't possible. The person before him was too ancient and too infirm to bear the responsibility.

The man's laugh was a choking sound, and his head shook with the exertion. 'The Keeper,' he said again, the last syllable an exhaled breath. A silence between them, then: 'And you . . . you are Kline's guardian.' The dark tongue flicked out, the movement quicker this time as it swept across his mouth. The skin was hardly moistened. 'I understand now,' he murmured so softly that Halloran wasn't sure if he had heard correctly.

Those staring eyes with their veiled pupils were disconcerting, and he wondered how much the old man could really see. 'I'm going to bring a doctor to you,' he said, questions racing through his mind.

'Too late, too late.' The words were drawn out as a sigh. 'At long last . . . it's too late.' His head lolled to one side.

Not anxious, but curious, Halloran reached out to feel the pulse between the still man's neck and chin.

He jerked his fingers away when the face turned back to him.

'Do you understand why you're here?' he was asked.

'Felix Kline is a client,' Halloran answered.

'Do you know why you came to this house?'

'Here, the lodge-house'?' There was no reply.

'I came to check it out, to find out who was inside, who handled the . . . the dogs.'

'Now you've seen me.' He nodded.

'But it seems you understand nothing.' The wrinkled face creased even more. 'I wonder what you sense.'

There was an accent in the soft-spoken words.

'What did you see when you entered . . . this room?' the old man whispered.

How could he know? Unless he had caused them, just as Kline had caused hallucinations out on the lake.

“things past, but never quite forgotten'?' A catching in the throat, perhaps a snigger. 'Your account has been brought up to date. I wonder why?'

'Is Kline still playing stupid games with me, putting thoughts into my mind?' Halloran felt anger overwhelming his abhorrence.

The shaking of the old man's head was feeble. 'No . . . no . . . the thoughts came from you. They are yours alone. Memories. You brought yourself . . . to this point.' Those disturbing, milky eyes watched him, the ragged gash of a mouth curled in what could have been a grin.

'Tell me about Kline,' Halloran said at last.

A sighed whisper, a slow releasing of breath. 'Ahhhh ',The ravaged head shifted slightly so that his eyes looked into the blackness of the ceiling.

Halloran waited, uneasy in the stillness, wary of this person whose decomposition seemed to precede his death. Halloran was wary, too, of the lodge-house itself: there was movement in its shadows, as if spectral shapes weaved and danced there. Things perceived not with the naked eye but through the mind. Halloran checked himself, tried to throw off such crazy notions. Yet still they asserted themselves.

The old man was murmuring and, despite his repugnance, Halloran edged closer, wanting to catch every hushed word.

'A cunning boy. With powers . . . powers valuable to us . . . us Jews. But he was . . . foolish, too. He imagined . . he had claimed his deity, not realising that he was the one . . . to be claimed.' He groaned and clutched at himself.

Halloran held out a hand to steady him, but could not find it in himself to touch the thing lying there, not even though it was covered by rags.

When the worst of the pain had subsided, the aged and crumpled man spoke again. 'Almost three thousand years of waiting before the . . . the Christ . . . two thousand years after . . .' He was rambling, and when he coughed, there was a pin kiness to the spittle dampening the corners of his mouth. He gasped, as though anxious to tell. 'We searched the world for disciple's . . . our kind. And we found them. It wasn't difficult. And Kline caused havoc wherever we went. All for the glory of Bel-Marduk . . .'

He drifted away once more.

Kline had spoken that name before. Halloran shivered, for the air was very cold. He looked around at the shadows: the torch beam was frail.

A stirring of the makeshift bedclothes. then a shrivelled hand, more like a claw, fingernails long and curled, stained brown with age, appeared. It reached for Halloran's arm and the operative shuddered when it came to rest on him.

'He . . . Felix . . . used me . . .' He was drifting away. The trembling hand flopped from Halloran's arm.

'No longer afraid . . .' came the hushed words. 'No worse Hell than . . . here . . . ahhhh . . .' Life seemed to flow out from him.

Overcoming his revulsion, Halloran shook the covering over the old man's chest. 'Tell me who you are.'

he demanded, both angry and frustrated. 'How can you guard this estate, control the dogs'' How do you keep the gates locked? You're old, you're sick . . .' A dry, reedy chuckle. The remnants of life flickered.

'I have . . . power, too. Kline . . . working through me. My mind holds the . . . gates. My . . . mind controls . . . the beasts, the demons . . . But no more . . . too weak. He needs another . . . Someone corrupted to his ways . . .'

'Who are you?'

'I am nothing.'

'Tell me!'

'Nothing. Although once . . . I was a merchant.' He drew in a grating breath. 'He . . . he is vulnerable.'

Again he clasped Halloran's arm. 'Is it you? Are you the one?'

'To take your place? Is that what you mean?' A different kind of fear in Halloran now.

The slighest inclination of the wizened head. 'No something more . . . than that . . .

There were noises from downstairs. A soft rushing. Halloran remembered he had left the window open.

He felt a tightening of the clawed hand on his arm. Then the fingers uncurled and the hand fell away.

A scuffling in the hallway below.

There was a liquid rattling in the old man's throat as a long exhalation of air escaped him.

Pattering on the staircase.

Halloran scooped up the black bag as he rose and leapt for the door in a desperate bid to close it before the jackals came through.

But he was too late.

39 A TERROR UNLEASHED

The first of the beasts burst into the room, a glistening an its jaws caught by the beam of light.

To Halloran's surprise, the jackal bounded past him. He quickly stepped behind the door, using it as a shield as others, snarling and yelping, their fur bristling, streamed through. They made straight for the bundle of rags in the corner of the room.

Halloran drew in a sharp breath as the first jackal reached the lifeless figure and tore into the bedding, its jaws snapping and rending material. He heard a feeble cry above the frenzied yapping and realised that the disfigured old man was not yet dead. The puckered skull suddenly emerged from the rags, its mouth a toothless, jagged hole, the eyes now totally white. The second jackal buried its teeth into the scrawny throat.

And still more poured through the doorway.

Halloran reached into the bag and pulled out the MPSK, not bothering to yank out its retractable stock as he aimed at the welter of shoving and tumbling bodies. Blood suddenly mush.-d upwards to drench the agitated backs of the jackals, its smell, its taste, driving the animals into even greater frenzy. They ripped into their broken victim, shaking him in feverish rage.

Halloran loosed fifteen rounds of 9mm bullets into the pack, aware that the old man would also be hit and knowing id really didn't matter any more.

The jackals screeched, some leaping into the air, others thrown against the wall by the impact. In little more than a second, the room was a carnage of convulsing bodies, a redness coating the floor and running down into the cracks. But not all the beasts had been killed outright. Several had just been wounded. Others had only been frightened.

These turned towards their attacker.

Halloran quickly switched the weapon to single-shot, unwilling to waste the rest of the magazine on one short burst.

The howling subsided to an agonised whimpering, the sound piteous but invoking no pity from Halloran.

He pointed the gun at the nearest advancing jackal. The animal leapt, carnassials bared and already stained. The bullet entered its neck and exploded from the other side, taking fragments of flesh and spine with it into the ceiling.

Halloran was pushed back against the wall, the torch he had kept locked against the weapon falling from his grasp as the contorting body struck him. The dead animal dropped away, head loose from its shoulders, and Halloran, crouched now, heard rather than saw the rush of another jackal. He raised the weapon and fired blindly.

The first bullet did not stop the animal, merely creasing its flank, and teeth sank into the operative's wrist.

He scarcely felt the pain.

The next bullet, the weapon itself directed downwards by the jackal's weight, scythed along the creature's underbelly. The piercing yelp set off a renewed howling from its injured companions and Halloran cringed under the cacophony. He tugged his arm free, the brute's teeth scraping across the skin of his wrist as it slid to the floor. He reached for the torch, swiftly turning the beam into the mass of juddering scavengers. Those that were still able were crawling towards him, some limping badly, others squirming on their stomachs. The mattress and bedrags behind them were sodden with dark, seeping liquid.

Sub-machine gun held in one hand against his hip, Halloran stooped to retrieve the bag, which contained extra magazines, never once letting the light beam waver away from the creeping bodies. The howling had died, to be replaced by a low, menacing growling. He edged around the door.

A limping jackal suddenly made a dash at him. Its legs gave way and it slumped at Halloran's feet, jaws weakly snapping the air, a low snarl coming from deep within its throat. He backed out the door as the others gathered their strength and staggered forward. Halloran pulled the door shut with a jarring thud and heard the jackals scratching at the wood on the other side.

He leaned against the frame, forehead resting on a raised arm, breathing slowly, giving himself time to recover from the horror.

But a scuffling on the stairs would not allow that.

He stiffened, then moved to the rail overlooking the stairway. More jackals were bounding up the steps, their backs to him. Halloran leaned over and took them one by one, shooting at the base of their skulls, shattering the bone there. The first jackal stopped dead, as if stunned, then toppled downstairs, the one close behind becoming entangled with the falling body. The third, startled by the gunfire and trying to avoid its companions, dodged to the side and received a bullet in its shoulder. The jackal howled and tumbled out of sight.

Halloran swiftly walked along the landing and paused at the top of the stairs, shining the light down. Only two corpses lay at the bottom.

He descended cautiously, anxious to get away from the charnel-house, but wary of what might still be waiting below. Hopefully these were the last of the stragglers. From above came the continued scratching against the door and a kind of mewling whimpering.

Halloran stepped over the dead bodies at the foot of the stairs and backed away to the frontdoor, keeping his eyes on the corridor leading to the rear of the lodge-house. Slipping the bag over his shoulder and gripping the pen-torch firmly between his teeth, he tried the doorhandle. It resisted his pressure at first, the mechanism obviously rusted, then grudgingly turned. But the bolts, top and bottom, were rusted solid and would not budge.

He guessed the entrance hadn't been used for many wears, but was reluctant to leave through the backway. Instead he went into the room on his right.

Halloran was halfway across the floor heading for one of the windows, when something dripped onto his extended arm. He stopped, curious. Liquid spattered against his cheek. He pointed the beam upwards and saw the blood dripping through the ceiling. That was when he heard the throaty snarling from behind the door.

The jackal was on him before he had time to aim his weapon. He went down, dust rising in great clouds as he hit the boards. The torch flew from his grasp, striking the wall and blinking off when it fell to the floor.

The slathering animal was only a dim form above as Halloran clenched its fur and tried to keep the snapping jaws away from his face. He was forced to release the sub-machine gun so that he could fend off the attack with both hands. Its long legs were sturdy, much more powerful than they appeared, and they raked his clothes, scratching the skin beneath. Halloran felt blood trickling down his wrist, but realised it was from his attacker“s Own wound. Using one hand again to hold the jackal off, with his other he reached for the blood-soaked shoulder and squeezed hard. With a sharp, high-pitched yelp, the jackal sprang away, but Halloran went with it, keeping the pressure on the wound. Because of their skeletal structure, he knew dogs or wolves were virtually armour-plated, their vulnerable points few; but a sharp blow to the jackal's neck, just before the shoulders, numbed it into immobility. Halloran followed through before it had a chance to recover by slipping both arms beneath its shoulder, joining hands behind the creature's neck, and bringing up his elbows while pressing down his hands in one fast, vigorous action. The jackal's breastbone split with a sharp crack, the shock killing it immediately.

He let the limp body fall away and without taking time to recover his breath, Halloran searched around the floor for the weapon. When he had it in his hands, as well as the black bag carrying the extra ammunition, he returned to the door and closed it, a barrier against any other jackals not dealt with. He went to the window, felt for the catch and, with some difficulty, forced it open. When he attempted to lift the window, however, he discovered it was stuck solid.

Wasting no further time, he covered his eyes with one hand and used the stubby butt of the sub-machine gun to smash the glass. Halloran squeezed through the opening and dropped to the ground outside. The Mercedes waited in the gloom a short distance away.

He had taken only a few paces towards it when a window above shattered and screeching shapes rained down on him.

He stumbled when one landed on his shoulder, tripped when another jackal fell at his feet. There was no way of telling how many there were around him and he knew there was little chance of recovering the weapon in the darkness. He pushed an animal away, its resistance weak because of its wounds, kicked out at another when he had risen, sending the beast tottering backwards on legs that were already unstable. Something tugged at his ankle and he lifted the jackal off the ground, hurling it away from himself. He ran for the car drawing the Browning from its holster, just as a section of moon appeared.

Throwing open the door, he leapt inside. He changed gun hands to close the car door, pulling at the handle as another jackal launched itself at him. The animal became wedged and Halloran leaned away to avoid its gnashing teeth. With his left hand he touched the automatic to the jackal's head and squeezed the trigger. The beast jerked once, then slumped lifeless. Halloran pushed the body away from the car and pulled the door shut.

He sat there, chest heaving, his arms and forehead against the steering wheel. When he raised his head again to stare back at the lodge, the moonlight revealed a macabre scene: the wolf-like creatures were staggering around in circles, shocked by their wounds as well as in pain, baying at the moon, their stumblings almost a ritual dance.

Halloran reached for the RT, intending to alert the patrol cars of the estate's loss of inner security. It had been unfortunate that neither car had been passing the gates a minute or two earlier when gunfire from the house would have brought them in to assist, but that was always a problem if manpower was stretched; not for the first time he cursed Kline for his faith in his own security. Static blared out at him when he pressed the transmit button. He switched off, then on again, hoping that interference would clear. It didn't. He spoke into the mouthpiece anyway, but the static became even worse as he waited for a reply.

Glancing up at the sky, he saw that the clouds were big and thunderous, the atmosphere itself muggyclose, charge-filled. With a muttered curse, he returned the RT, holstered the gun, and switched on the Mercedes' ignition.

Something was calling him back to Neatly a certainty that there was trouble there, that not only was Kline in danger, but so, too, was Cora. And it was her safety he cared about most. After what had happened inside the lodge-house, reason or logic was of minor importance. Sensing—intuition—was all.

He flicked on full-beam and swung the car towards the gates, turning in a tight circle that threw up earth and gravel, cutting through undergrowth on the far side of the road. Instead of setting a straight course for the main house, Halloran veered to the left, bumping across the rough piece of ground, in front of the lodge. He ploughed into the dazed and dying jackals, crushing them beneath the Mercedes' wheels, smashing into those that tried to run so that they hurtled into the air. Only then did he make his way towards Neath.

The car tore down the road, headlights throwing back the darkness, dust curling in its wake. He saw the first flash, of light silver the clouds, a strobe effect that reminded him of the fulguration on the lake the previous night. Into the tunnel of trees he sped, the low-hanging branches never more threatening than now. Around the curve, tyres screeching as they gripped.. The road somehow seemed narrower, as if the trees on either side conspired to join together, only the searing lights forcing them to retreat. Yet the feeling that the path behind him had closed up was uncanny.

The road began to dip and the car burst clear of the woods.

He could not help but wonder if the trees behind had finally linked.

In the distance was the brooding shape of Neath, only a few of its windows lit. Halloran eased up on the accelerator, training taking over from impulse. So wary was he that he switched off the lights completely, trusting his judgement until his eyes had adapted to the night, following the blurred strip of road down to the house.

Lightning brightened the sky again and a jagged but almost perpendicular streak shot from the clouds to strike the lake.

Halloran jammed on the brakes, the Mercedes slewing to one side before coming to a halt. He stared at the water in disbelief as flashes stammered in the clouds for a second or two longer. The after-image was clear in his mind as he sat in the darkness, the car's engine still running. The lake was a turbulent storm of waves and erupting geysers, its foam as white as any ocean's.

The car reverberated with the sound of thunder directly overhead.

40 A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY

The deluge struck as he entered the porch, a torrent of rain so fierce it seemed unnatural. He turned briefly and saw bits of gravel tossed into the air with the pounding. The mass of rainwater looked almost solid, cutting off the view of the lake. Halloran ran along the flagstones towards the entrance of the house itself, reaching for the key in his pocket as he went.

At the double-door he knocked twice and called out his name. He inserted the long key into the lock, the dull porch light lending little assistance, and swung one side of the door open.

The hall was empty.

He moved to the centre of the stone floor, looking up at the minstrels' gallery, the landing, searching the shadows, turning round full circle to study every door on ground level. Lightning outside frosted the windows. Thunder followed almost immediately and it was as though Neath itself trembled.

Halloran drew the gun from its holster once again.

He took the downstairs first, swiftly going through every room, opening each door suddenly but quietly, the automatic held out before him. He switched on lights wherever he went, hating Neath for its darkness; the library, drawing room, sitting room all were empty save for sparse furniture and ornaments. The dining room, kitchen, corridors, other rooms—all lifeless and feeling as if they had been that way for many years. He trod cautiously, even though rain drumming against the windows covered the sound of his footsteps; but he felt a rising desperation.

Halloran paused to listen, leaning back against a corridor wall opposite a leaded window overlooking the courtyard. Lightning flooded the air.

He drew in a sharp breath when he saw the defunct fountain at the yard's centre now bubbling dirty, viscid water clotted with black slime.

The piercing light stuttered away and thunder rattled the window-panes. Halloran moved on, finding his way back to the main hall.

He took the stairs two at a time, his step agile despite the draining ordeal he had already been through.

He hurried from room to room, pushing open doors and peering in, gun always at chest level, safety off.

He even looked into his own bedroom.

He thought he heard a cry from somewhere in the house, but thunder cracked deafeningly a moment after so that he couldn't be sure. Halloran headed for Kline's quarters, his stride fast and light. This time he was certain he heard a cry. A woman's. Cora's. He broke into a run.

The door leading to Kline's rooms was open. Halloran went through, slowing to a walk; a glow spread from a doorway near the end of the corridor. He heard a whimper, its source from inside that doorway.

A smell of incense tainted the air.

He crept forward, knowing it was Cora who had uttered the small moan of pain. Halloran forced himself to remain emotionless. He neared the door, stopped, waited a moment.

A sharp, slapping sound. Against flesh. Cora's gasp, then her whimper.

Halloran gently pushed back the half-open door.

It was a large room, the walls covered in symbols and rough drawings. He did not take time to study them. Scattered around the floor were untidy piles of books, maps and folios of some kind. He did not pay them much attention. In front of him was a four-poster bed, the posts knotted with carvings, curtains of sheer lace draped between them. He hardly noticed the fine work. Halloran could only stare in disbelief at what was on the bed.

The drapes were gathered and tied to the posts, revealing a crouched, naked figure, head hanging low between the shoulders so that the back was arched. The flesh was red and wealed. Cora's face was half-turned towards Halloran, but she did not see him, for her eyes were closed, her hair falling over her forehead. Her mouth was open in a slight smile.

Monk had his broad, sloping back to the door, his gaze too intent on the girl to notice anyone in the doorway. The bodyguard was naked too, a mountain of obese, loose flab, covered in wiry hair that was thick around his lower arms and legs, and splaying over his shoulders so that the skin was merely a dullness beneath.

The short multi-thonged whip he held dropped to the floor as he pushed the girl over on the bed. He grabbed her ankles and yanked them towards him so that Cora was flat on her stomach. Halloran caught a glimpse of her manacled wrists.

Her groan was of pleasure, not of fear.

All calmness, all self-imposed remoteness, left Halloran in a gushing of rage. The anguish he felt was as deep and as painful as on the day he had witnessed the gunning down of his father so many years before.

Or when he had learned of his mother's terrible death. It seared him and blinded all other senses.

He roared as he rushed forward and reached for the bodyguard's hair, which had been loosened from the band Monk usually wore. He wrenched hard, hauling the gross man away from the girl, bringing the butt of the Browning down hard against the side of Monk's head, his anger, unleashed like rarely before, spoiling the accuracy of the blow.

Monk cried out and toppled over the tailboard onto the floor.

Cora turned, drawing her legs up. Her glazed eyes looked into Halloran's uncomprehendingly. He raised the gun towards her, his hand shaking, wanting to kill her, wanting to punish her for breaking through to him, for making him care again, then for mocking those feelings. He cursed himself for allowing it to happen.

Cora smiled at him, an idiot's welcome. Then fear finally melted through her drug-induced haze.

Halloran lowered the pistol and closed his eyes against the sight of her.

A meaty arm closed around his neck from behind, a hand reaching round and grabbing his wrist. He was lifted off his feet as Monk heaved.

His windpipe was being crushed by the pressure and Halloran knew it would only be a matter of seconds before he blacked out. The automatic was of no use to him in a situation like this, so he opened his fingers and let it fall, Monk's grip on his wrist still not slackening. The bodyguard was gurgling close to his ear, an animal sound. With his free hand, Halloran reached down behind him and found the fleshy part of Monk's inner thigh. He pinched with thumb and bent knuckle, squeezing with all his strength so that his assailant screamed, a high-pitched woman's cry. The hold on Halloran loosened and he wrenched the arm away.

He whirled and grabbed for the other man's throat, both of them going down slowly as he exerted pressure. Monk tried to pull the hands away, but Halloran's rage could not be opposed. Monk's small eyes began to bulge. The two men's face were inches away as they sank to their knees, Monk making snorting noises as his face reddened. His thick lips curled back, the tip of his tongue quivered over his teeth. He spat mucus into Halloran's eyes.

Surprised and blinded, the operative's grip weakened fractionally. A blow to his stomach doubled him over, his fingers raking down Monk's chest. A swipe to his head sent Halloran scudding across the floor.

The other man rose and lumbered towards him, hurling himself forward the last few feet, intending to crush Halloran's chest with his bent knees. Halloran sensed the move as he wiped the stickiness from his eyes, and rolled backwards, scattering books. His naked opponent landed heavily on empty space. They rose together, but Halloran was faster. His toecap smashed into Monk's groin. The bodyguard collapsed to his knees again and Halloran moved behind him. Again Halloran pulled Monk back by his long hair, holding him upright. Lightning flared outside, freezing their bodies momentarily. The operative's other fist clenched, middle knuckle raised slightly. His aim was straight and powerful as the fist cracked into a certain vertebra at the back of the kneeling man's neck.

Thunder drowned the cracking of bone.

Halloran reached out to a bedpost for support as the stiffened figure below him swayed, then slumped to the floor. He drew in deep lungfuls of incense-filled air, anger still raging inside, revulsion at Kline and the corruption around him heaving at his stomach.

In that distraction -his rage, his disgust—he failed to notice the figure that had watched everything from behind the door. He heard, or perhaps he sensed, a footstep though, but it was too late.

As he began to turn, Janusz Palusinski brought a short, metal bar down against his temple. The oblivion was almost a relief.

41 THINGS FROM THE LAKE

They could hardly believe the power of the rain.

It pounded, weighing heavily on their shoulders and backs, making progress slippery and slow. At least the downpour rendered them less visible, their commander thought as he urged them along.

'What the hell is this, Danny?' McGuire yelled close to his ear. 'I've never known the likes!' A truer word never spoken. The man called Danny looked out at the lake and shivered, not from the cold. The water was as fierce as St George's Channel in the worst winter months a crossing he had made with loathing many times in the past. God in Heaven, it was eerie what was happening out there.

From the bank they had watched lightning strike the water more than once, sheening its tossed surface a silvery green, the froth on the shoreline luminous in the dark. The thunderclaps that followed had made their ears ring, caused them to throw themselves against the soaked earth as if mortar shells had dropped among them. His men were frightened, wanted to turn back. But that was not to be and greater fear of their commander held them steady, kept them mindful of their duty.

They had been caught by the downpour on a steep embankment, the drenched soil slithery beneath their feet, the only handholds a few tree roots here and there. Two of the men walked along in the water itself, arms stretched out to the bank for support when the going got particularly tricky. Danny cursed the freak storm, wondering at it at the same time.

They had come this far and there was no turning back. Their man, their bastard target, was in the grand manor house they had glimpsed from afar, now but a few minutes away, and he was going to pay dearly for what he'd done. He was going to suffer for the suffering he had caused others. No doubting that, no turning tail now.

An alarmed shout from nearby. One of his men was sliding deeper into the churning water, his Armalite raised high. His companion, who had been wading behind, reaching out to pull him up.

A jagged lightning streak pierced the lake, a startling irradiation instantly spreading outwards. The crack of thunder overhead cowed the group, and in the white glare the leader saw the terrified expression of the two in the water, as if they had both received a shock.

They began to go under.

He slid down the embankment, shouting to the others to help their companions. But when he reached the edge of the water, his boots enveloped, anorak smeared by mud, he stared in horror across the lake.

There were shapes out there.

Canescent, hazy, almost lost in the sheeting rain, but nevertheless, discernible rearing shapes that were part of the storm itself.

It was impossible. He wiped wetness from his eyes, disbelieving what he saw. But they were there, growing like grey amorphous monsters out of the waves.

Something bumped into him and he turned with a start. McGuire—he thought it was McGuire in the dismal light—was also watching the lake, his mouth working loosely as though he had lost the power of speech.

A scream and they saw their two companions were in the water up to their shoulders.

'Help them!' Danny yelled, scrabbling forward. He noticed that the Armalite was gone and swore at the frightened subordinate who had dropped it. Another of his men was closer and was leaning over, stretching an arm out to the two in the water.

But everyone stopped when whiteness flooded the sky and another discharge channelled itself to the lake, the shifted air booming. It was what they suddenly saw beneath the surface that had frozen them.

Vague, nebulous forms filled the water below, massing together, squirming spasmodically, tendril-like appendages waving in the currents, occupying the lake as though the content was not water but moving, liquid beings.

A waterspout erupted then swooped down, like a tentacle, curling round the two men who clawed at the bank. It drew them into the lake and their screams became a bubbling froth. It seemed, although it was too dark to be certain, that other smaller tendrils of fluid pulled at them too.

The leader shuddered incredulously, then gasped when something tightened around his own ankle. With a frightened cry, he jerked his leg clear, and perhaps it was merely overwrought imagination that caused him to think a watery claw had risen with his leg to plop shapeless back into the choppy lake.

The two men were gone, he knew that. There was no helping them at all. He scrambled up the embankment, digging toes and hands into the slimy soil, afraid he would slide back into the water to lie among those things stirring there. His two remaining men were following suit, scrambling away from the foamy lake where waterspouts resembling misshapen creatures burst upwards into the stormy night.

Waves hurled themselves at the climbing men as if to drag them back, but they plunged their fingers into the mud, using tree roots whenever their fumbling hands chanced upon them, grateful for every inch they could gain.

They collapsed on the grass at the top of the embankment, rolling over and over into the bushes, putting as much distance between themselves and the water's edge as possible. At last they settled among the trees, trembling and panting, the rain's force tempered by the leafy canopy above them.

'For God's sake, let's away from here!' Danny recognised McGuire's voice, distorted by terror though it was.

'No,' he said, loud enough to be heard over the storm. 'Whatever it was back there can't harm us now.'

He was shocked, stunned by what had happened and the loss of two good men. But Danny Shay was a determined man. An executioner who had already tortured and killed one person to locate his intended victim.

He rose and grabbed the shoulders of his exhausted companions, hauling them to their feet.

'Get yourselves moving,' he told them. 'The house isn't far and there's a bastard there deservin' to die.'

42 SEPULCHRE

As in the dream, there were large, staring eyes watching him. Unnatural eyes. Stone eyes.

Halloran held his breath as pain ached through his head. He raised a leaden hand to his forehead and held his temples, exerting soft pressure with fingers and thumb. The ache eased only slightly. He blinked, taking in the statues, a gathering of them, thirty at least, standing a few yards away. Observing. A few were in groups, man, woman and child. Some were at least five foot high. Their fixed gaze was inescapable.

Among them in a high-backed ornate chair was a figure, this of flesh and blood, for it shifted slightly when Halloran pushed himself up onto an elbow. The figure settled back, a formless shadow amidst the sculptures.

The floor was wet where Halloran lay, grimy water seeping through the cracks in the flagstones. The dampness brought with it a putrid smell, a different odour underlying that. Melting wax. The chamber was lit by hosts of black candles, their glow soft and unsteady.

'Help him to his knees,' a voice said. It might have been Kline's except its rasping quality reminded Halloran of the lodgekeeper.

Hands pulled at him roughly and his mind was too dulled for him to resist. As he knelt, something passed around his throat, and a sudden sharpness there jerked him erect. He tried to twist away and the pressure increased. His hands went to the cause, but there was nothing they could grip.

'Struggle and the wire will bite deeper,' the same voice warned.

Halloran couldn't see the person behind him, but he could feel whoever it was leaning into his back. A spiciness wafted down among the other smells.

'Youssef is master of the garotte,' came the voice again, and this time he was sure it was Kline sitting there in the shadows, even though the tones were roughened. 'Try to resist and you'll find out for yourself.' There was a weariness to his words that made Kline seem very old.

When Halloran took his hands away they were smeared with his own blood.

'Let him see, Youssef. Let him see where he is.' The pressure slackened and Halloran was able to look around, although his view was restricted. The room was long and high-ceilinged, and the walls glinted in the candlelight as if water was trickling through the brickwork. A solid stairway led upwards and Halloran saw there was a passage but no door in the darkness at the top. There were archways around the sides of the chamber as though the place might once have been used as a wine-cellar; there was no way of knowing what was inside those cavities now, for they were cast into the deepest shadows. As well as the candles, there were oil lamps here and there helping to light the place, these close to pedestals on which stood delicately worked statues and effigies in shiny metals. On one near to where Halloran knelt there was what appeared to be a goat rearing up on hind legs against a tree of gold, the animal's fleece of deep blue stone and white shell. The small statue was exquisite, but Halloran's eyes did not linger on it for long.

At one end of the room was a large rectangular slab of stone which rose up from the floor, its surface a matt-black. A parody of an altar. Spread across it, and lying perfectly still, was .an obese, naked figure, thick curling hair covering its body. Halloran wondered if Monk were dead.

The rasping voice broke through his thoughts. 'Impressive, Halloran. You paralysed him, he can't move, can't raise a finger. Useless to me as a bodyguard, but valuable in another way , . .' From outside came a belly-rumble of thunder, the sound muted, a long way away.

The shadow stirred again, shifting in the seat. 'A bad night up there,' Kline said, something of his old, excitable self in the remark despite the distortion in his voice. 'Hope your knees aren't getting too wet, Halloran. So many underground streams running through the estate, you see, with all these hills around.

Where the lake swells, so do they -'

'What is this place, Kline?' The question was quietly put, but Halloran's tone stopped the other man.

Kline studied the operative for a while before giving an answer. When he drew in a breath the sound was wheezy, as though his throat was constricted. 'A hiding place,' he said finally. 'A sepulchre, Halloran, my very own sepulchre. A room no one would ever find unless they knew of it, and even then they'd have problems. Oh, it's always been here at Neath, I didn't have to create it. I had to disguise its existence, though. This place is a sub-cellar, you see. A passageway extends to the real one, but I had it bricked off so no one'd ever know.' His giggle was dry, a scratchy sound. 'Ingenious, huh? Just like the old Sumerian tombs. Impossible to get in, and impossible to get out unless you know how. You could rot in here, Halloran, and no one would ever find you.' Halloran tried to rise, but the wire around his neck tightened instantly.

'Two, maybe three, seconds, is all it'd take for Youssef to kill you, so don't be bloody stupid.'

'For God's sake, why, Kline? I'm here to protect you.' Still Halloran did not raise his voice. A coldness was in him, one he knew so well. A deadness of emotion.

'God? God has nothing to do with this. Not your God. Only mine.' The wheezing breath, a movement in the shadows. Then he said: 'You killed the Keeper.'

'The gate-keeper? He was dying, he'd lost control of the dogs - the jackals. They tore him to pieces. But how did you know he ;¢ was dead . . . ?'.

'You still doubt my abilities?' Kline was shaking his head. 'More than just our minds were linked, Halloran. He was surrogate for my ills, my weaknesses. He took my years. Through him I was allowed to live without blemish, without ageing, free to use my faculties without hindrance.' -'The old man said you'd used him.'

'I was allowed that gift.'

'Allowed?'

'The power to discharge those physical things we all dread, the disadvantages that come with the years and with debility, was bestowed upon me. Now that power is waning. Something has happened and nothing is right any more. You killed my Keeper, you broke the link.'

'I told you he was dying before the jackals got to him. The strange thing is he seemed glad to be dying.'

'He was a fool.'

'Listen, Kline, I want you to tell this idiot to take the wire away from my neck.'

'After what you did to Monk?'

'I'm going to hurt him if he doesn't.'

'I don't think so, Halloran. I don't think you're that good. Besides, you want your curiosity satisfied, don't you'? You want to learn some more history. Last night I only meant to whet your appetite.'

'Kline . . .' Halloran warned.

'Be quiet!' Kline's hands clenched over the chair arms. He shuddered, as if it had hurt to raise his voice.

'You're going to pay for what you've done. You're going to help stop what . . . what's . . . happening to me.' He slumped back, and Halloran could see the rise and fall of his narrow shoulders, could hear the squeezing of his breath.

When he spoke, Kline's voice was low again, the sudden verve gone. He sounded ancient, like the old man in the lodgehouse. 'Be patient and listen, Halloran, because I want you to understand. You deserve that at least. Let me tell you about the god who walked this earth three thousand years before the Christ God. I'm sure you're no devotee of the Scriptures, but no doubt you had them drummed into you by your Catholic priests when you were a boy in Ireland. Let me make some sense. of their fairy-tales, allow me that.'

'Do I have a choice?'

'Yes. Youssef could kill you now.' Halloran said nothing.

A dry snigger from Kline. 'How precious time becomes when there's little of it left, even for those who have lived so tong . . ' The candle flames swayed as though a draught had swept in.

'The man-god was called Marduk by his chosen people, the Sumerians,' Kline began, while Halloran wondered how long the Arab could keep the garotte tensed. 'He civilised the Sumerians, advanced them, taught them the written word, revealed to them the secret of the stars, instilled order into their society. It was from him that they learned to cure by cutting into the human body, how to forge metals dug from rock, to make tools and instruments, to use vehicles for carrying. Was that evil? How could it be? It was knowledge. But for those mortals who ruled, such learning was regarded as a threat, because it usurped their power. That was the fear of the Sumerian kings and certain high priests. And hasn't that always been the fear of your Christian God?' The question was put slyly, Kline's tenor changing constantly, a shifting of character that Halloran had become used to, but the change never before as abrupt as this. It was as if Kline had little control over himself.

'But perhaps it was the other knowledge that these rulers feared most, because that gave power. I mean the knowledge of magic, the ways of alchemy, the understanding of the Cabala, the art of witchcraft.

'For more than a thousand years he influenced them, and how the Sumerian people enjoyed his control.

All he asked in return was their worship, their veneration of his ways. Burnt offerings pleased him, the roasting of men, women and children. Defilement of the other gods he demanded. The torture of innocents was an appeasement to him, for they also feared Marduk as much as their rulers did. The kings and princes, the other high priests, were powerless to act against him. Until King Hammurabi, that is, who united all the state leaders against Marduk, whom he declared was an evil god who should be known forever more as Bel-Marduk.' Halloran glanced up at the stairway. He thought he had heard movement in the passage.

'The king denounced Bel-Marduk as a fallen god,' Kline went on in a voice that lurched with anger.

'Much later the Jews referred to him as the Fallen Angel.' Halloran frowned.

'Ah, I see a glimmer of understanding,' Kline remarked. 'Yes, I do mean the Fallen Angel of the Bible, later to become known as the Devil.' The lilt of Irish was in Halloran's mild comment. 'You're crazy, Kline.' A silence.

Then a low chuckle.

'One of us might be,' said Kline. 'But listen on, there's more to tell.' The staring eyes of the stone effigies around the shaded figure seemed threatening. Halloran tried to close them from his mind.

'Bel-Marduk was destroyed for preaching the “perverted message”. His limbs were torn from him, his tongue cut out, so that his immortal soul would be trapped inside a body which could only lie in the dirt.

The priests rendered him as a snake, and they called him Serpent.' The dark figure leaned forward. 'Does it sound familiar to you, Halloran? Didn't your Catholic priests teach you of Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, who was cursed to crawl in the dust as a snake for his corruption of the innocents, for revealing the secrets of the Tree of Life to the unworthy? Don't you see where those stories of the Bible come from? I told you last night that the traditional site of the Garden of Eden was the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in Sumeria from where, according to tablets found in Mesopotamia, the Jewish race originated. It was from Ur of the Chaldees that Abraham led his tribe north into Syria, then through Canaan into Egypt. They took with them stories that later became the myths of their Bible. The Great Flood, the baby Moses found among bulrushes—borrowed history! The Hebrew account of the Creation and the first chapters of Genesis—they were based on old Sumerian legends. Legends because the old kings had ordered all records of their early history to be destroyed, their way of ensuring Bel-Marduk's corruption would not be passed on to other generations. But they didn't understand how, evil can be inherited, not learned from the written word.' There were figures at the top of the stairs, but Kline appeared not to notice.

'We Jews even adopted the Cabala as our own, claiming it was passed on from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, who initiated seventy elders into the mysteries during their years of wandering in the wilderness. Bel-Marduk's teachings were never discontinued, nor was his revenge on mankind! Even the other man-god, Jesus Christ, who chose the Jews as his people, couldn't stem the flow! He came to undo the Serpent's work, the only way of redeeming earth's people. And look what happened, Halloran.

He was executed, just like his predecessor, Bel-Marduk! Makes you wonder why he bothered, doesn't it? Look around you today, Halloran, and you'll see the conflict still goes an. You're part of it, I'm part of it.' Kline leaned forward once more. 'The question is,' he said craftily, 'on which side of the struggle are you?' Halloran could give no answer.

Kline pushed himself back into the chair. 'Bring her dawn!' he called out.

There was movement from above and Halloran raised his eyes to see Cora, flanked by Palusinski and the other Arab, descending the stairway. She wore her bathrobe, its belt tied loosely at the front, and her step was unsteady. When she reached the bottom and looked around the soft bewilderment in her eyes was obvious. He wondered if the drug had been forced upon her.

'Liam . . .' she began to say on seeing him.

'Concerned for your lover, Cora dear?' came Kline's voice from the shadows. Now there was fear as she looked to-wards the source.

'What are you going to do with her, Kline?' Halloran demanded.

'Nothing at all. Cora won't be harmed. I haven't groomed her for that. But I need a new ally, you see, someone who'll watch for me. I always knew a replacement would be necessary one day; I just didn't realise how imminent that day was.'

'You can't make her take his place.'

'Oh, I can. She's filth, Halloran, degenerate. You must understand that by now. She's become—no, she's almost become—what I've always wanted her to be. The final depravity is about to happen.'

'You made her like this?'

'Of course. Cora was a sweet little thing when she first came to my attention, much too good for the likes of you and me. An English Rose, you might say. It was an interesting exercise turning her into something else.'

'With drugs?'

'At the beginning. She never even realised. A few drops of something mixed with her food or her drink, enough only to soften her inhibitions. A gradual process, an extremely slow journey into degradation.

Eventually the drugs were hardly necessary—I'd helped Cora develop certain “tastes”. There was more to be achieved before she became mine completely, but now time is too precious, the process has to be hastened if she's to fulfil her role.' The wire was cruel against his throat as Halloran tensed. 'You can't make her into something like that.'

'Like my Keeper? Why not? Who would know, who would care? She'll merely leave the employ of the Magma Corporation to become my private assistant. These kind of relationships develop all the time in business, surely you know that?'

'This is insane.'

'That's a stupid assertion you keep making, Halloran. You don't believe anything I've told you.' Despite his anger, Halloran smiled.

'You confuse me,' Kline said, weariness heavy in his voice. 'For a while I thought you could be of use to me, like the others. I searched the world for men such as Palusinski and Monk, Khayed and Daoud, seeking out wickedness wherever it might lurk. They're indebted to me, these men, because I gave them a channel for their evil—and such a fine evil it is. There are more, many more, as these four, and I use them on my journeys. You could have joined us because you're not unlike them. Yet I can't know you, and that makes me wary. You saved me from assassination—my dreams and my senses have told me the threat is near—but still I can't bring myself to trust you. You're an enigma, and while that may have its fascination for me, I see no reason to have an unknown quantity so close, particularly at a time when things are not as they should be. No, you'll have to be disposed of.' The wire bit deeper as the Arab behind Halloran giggled.

'Aren't you forgetting something?' the operative managed to say despite his throat's constriction. The wire loosened once more and he swallowed hard.

'Tell me.' It came as a sneer.

'My organisation knows where I am, who I'm working for. I can't just disappear.'

'Tut, tut,' Kline said flatly. 'What a fool I am for overlooking that.' The mocking ceased just as abruptly.

'Don't you see? You put up a valiant fight against intruders, but they murdered you before my own bodyguards drove them off. How's that? Convincing? Who can prove otherwise? And incidentally, Monk was one of them, a traitor in our midst. He went with them after we fought them off. In fact, he was the swine who murdered you.' Halloran ignored the laughter. 'Cora -'

'She won't be saying anything against me after tonight!' Kline snapped. His hands thumped the side of the chair. 'Time to press on. All this talk is wearying. Help me, Asil.' The Arab brushed past Cora and Palusinski and hurried to where his master sat among the effigies.

'Let Halloran stand, Youssef, but watch him, keep him harnessed.' The wire brought Halloran to his feet and he had to concentrate to keep himself steady, for his head was still groggy. Cora took a step towards him and Palusinski grabbed her to bald her back. She looked dumbly at the Pole's hand as though wondering what it was doing on her arm.

Kline, assisted by Khayed, was rising from the shadows. He came forward, movement slow, an old man's shuffle, his servant close by his side. Part of the darkness came with him, for he was wearing a black robe whose hem swept along the flour. He left the statues.

He came into the light.

'Jesus, Mary . . .' Halloran breathed.

43 THE OPEN GATES

Rain lashed the windscreen, the wipers barely able to keep the glass clear. Charles Mother peered over the steering wheel, his whole body tensed, the aching in his leg bad.

He was close, he was sure of that. The entrance to Neath had to be nearby. Unfortunately, the rain made it impossible to see too far ahead. Damned incredible night, he mused irritably. The storm was as fierce now as when it had first begun nearly an hour ago, with no sign of abating. The clouds were black and ragged with inner strife, the thunder they threw out rattling his very bones.

Lightning lit the way, white-washing the landscape. The earth threatened to split under the explosive crack that accompanied the light.

It would have been safer—and more sensible—to have pulled over by the roadside and wait out the storm, but Mother would not consider doing that. He was too concerned for Liam Halloran. Something had been wrong with this assignment all along and the revelation by Magma's chairman earlier that evening had furthered Mother's disquiet. Snaith himself had given the goahead to bring out their operative, although he had not personally felt Halloran was at risk. No, the Controller was more unhappy with the Magma Corporation's unreliable conduct, for deceit could easily jeopardise an operation of this sort. 'Negative factor' was the term used by Achilles' Shield when carefully laid plans could be put at risk by deliberate misinformation. Under such circumstances, a commission could be resigned at once, and every Shield contract contained a get-out clause covering this particular area. As Magma had been quite prepared to withhold certain vital information, they could not be regarded as a trustworthy client.

Mother had agreed with his Controller on that score, but it was Sir Victor Penlock's insinuation which bothered him more.

Felix Kline was not an employee of the Magma Corporation. Far from it. He was Magma. Many years before, Mother had learned, he had taken over an existing mineral and energy research and development company, acquiring fifty-two per cent of the stock through various other worldwide companies which had no connection with Magma. The secret of ownership had been kept because of 'credibility' in the all-important City market—no financial adviser would recommend investment in a company whose major shareholder was a socalled 'mystic'. The world of high finance was not known for its sense of humour.

If Shield had been made aware of Kline's true role within the organisation, then a much more comprehensive plan of action would have been undertaken and a larger protection force, with even more stringent restrictions, employed. As it was, Magma had used a blindfold on the agency.

But what concerned Mother most, though, was Sir Victor's suggestion that Kline might have been responsible for QuinnReece's death in some way. The deputy-chairman had succumbed to heart failure, surely. But there had been others in conflict with the psychic in the past who had also died of sudden and, in two cases at least, inexplicable cardiac arrests. Three others, to be precise. One inside the Corporation, a board member who had constantly opposed plans for development put forward (albeit surreptitiously) by Kline; another had been from a rival company, whose persistent investigations were slowly unravelling Kline's real worth to Magma; the third had been a communications magnate who had instigated a take-over bid for the Corporation. This man had a known heart condition, but when he had been found dead from a massive coronary in his bed one morning, a look of sheer horror had been frozen into his features. It was concluded that a nightmare had aggravated his diseased heart to the point of killing him. But both Sir Victor and Mother had seen the horrorstruck look also on Quinn-Reece's face.

There had been other incidents through the years. and the chairman had confessed to Mother that he, himself, had begun to live in fear of Kline's strange powers. Although nothing could be proved, Sir Victor realised there had been too many mysterious 'happenings' to be ignored.

Why Quinn-Reece? Mother had demanded. What on earth could Kline have against his own deputy-chairman?

Sir Victor had explained that for some time Kline had suspected Quinn-Reece of leaking news of possible mineral sites for development to another company. Indeed, he and the chairman had discussed those suspicions on more than one occasion. However, this time, Kline had accused his personal assistant, Cora Redmile. But the chairman was accustomed to the psychic's deviousness and Quinn-Reece's subsequent death was too much of a coincidence to be taken lightly. Yet there was no proof, none at all. Only misgivings.

That was enough for Mather. He already had doubts about the assignment, a gut-feeling that things weren't quite right. The torture of Dieter Stuhr had added to his concern, for torture, unless perversion was involved, usually meant information was being sought of the victim. That information might well have been to do with Shield's security arrangements for Felix Kline. Somewhat drastic perhaps, but where huge sums of ransom money were involved kidnappers had few scruples. And then there was always the possibility that more than just abduction was in mind. Kline might well be a target for assassination—God only knew what enemies the man had.

Mather had left the Magma building and had gone straight to the home of Gerald Snaith with the recommendation that the contract be declared null and void. That had been over two hours ago, but he felt he had been driving for much longer.

Mather used the booster fan to clear vapour from the windscreen, his own breath, because he was so close to the glass, contributing to the mist. For a few moments he was driving blind and he slowed the car almost to a halt. He pushed another button and the driver's window slid down. Raindrops pounded at his face when he looked at the road ahead. There was a wall to his left, set back, undergrowth thick before it; on the opposite side of the road was forest. He ducked his head back inside and wiped a handkerchief across his face.

A light behind, dazzling in the rearview mirror, coming up slowly. A car's headlights.

They blinked once, twice. He grunted with satisfaction when they blinked a third time.

Mather touched his brakes twice in acknowledgement, then pulled over to the side of the road, bringing the car to a halt. He waited for one of the two men in the vehicle behind to come to him.

'Didn't expect you, sir,' the operative said loudly enough to be heard over the storm. He crouched at the open window, collar up against the rain. 'Gave us a surprise, seeing your number.'

'I've been trying to reach you on the radio,' Mather complained.

'The storm's fouled up communications. Never known one like this before. We've kept in touch with the other patrol by stopping each time we meet en route. What's up, Mr Mather, what brings you here?'

'We're pulling out.'

'Shit, you're joking.'

'I'm afraid not. Anything occurred tonight that you're not happy about?'

'Only this bloody weather. Visibility's down to twenty yards.'

'Where's the entrance to the estate?'

'Gates are up ahead, on the left. You're nearly there.'

'Follow me down, I'll brief you off the road.' The operative shrugged, then ran back to the Granada.

Mather set his car in motion, going slowly, looking for the gates. An open area swept back from the roadway and he turned into it, driving right up to the tall gates. There should be . . . yes, there it was. A dark, bulky shape that had to be the lodge-house. No lights on. Well you'll have to get out of bed, chum, if that's where you are.

Mather flashed his headlights, beeping the horn at the same time.

Lightning blazed the sky, thunder rent the air, and the lodge-house appeared as a bright, flickering image.

Mather's eyes narrowed. Had there been something moving in front of it?

The patrol car came to a halt beside his and Mather reached for his cane before stepping out. Both men joined him at the gates.

'Is there anyone inside?' he asked, pointing at the building with his cane.

'There's supposed to be someone there all the time to operate the gates,' one of the men replied. 'Never seen the bugger, though.' Mather reached and pushed at an iron strut. That half of the gates swung open a few inches.

The three men exchanged glances.

'Something's wrong,' Mather said.

'Could be an oversight.' The Planner shook his head. 'I'm going in. I want you to find the other patrol and follow.'

'We're not allowed in -'

'Forget about that. You just come after me as fast as you can. Phil, you'll come with me.'

'Right, sir.'

'Why not wait for the other patrol?' the second man asked” suddenly anxious.

Mather had no adequate answer, only a sense of urgency pressing him. 'Just get on with it!' he barked.

'Open them up, Phil.' He limped back to his car as the operative swung the gates wide. The other man climbed into the Granada and reversed into the road.

Mather settled uncomfortably into the driver's seat, his clothes soaked. He dreaded to think of the agony his leg would give him tomorrow. He took the car through the entrance, pausing just long enough for his operative to jump in beside him.

'Christ, what's that over by the house?' Mather looked towards where the other man was pointing.

Blurred shapes were moving slowly in the rain.

'Dogs,' the operative said. 'Must be the guard dogs. Funny, it's the first time I've laid eyes on them.'

'Can you see how many?'

'Difficult in this rain. I can only make out a couple. Oh shit, there's others lying on the ground.' Mather wasted no more time. He pushed down hard on the accelerator and the car sped down the drive. Soon it entered a tunnel of trees.

44 A SACRIFICE

Halloran was stunned by the change in Felix Kline.

This was an old and bent man emerging from the shadows, one whose skin was cracked and scaly, ruffles of tissue hanging loose, pieces flaking away as he shuffled forward. Oil glistened over fissures in his flesh, dulling the rawness beneath. His hair trailed flatly over skull and forehead, whitish seams cross-hatching under the blackness, and his hands were mostly. vivid pink, their outer layer all but entirely shed. Kline's, breathing was husky with the effort of moving.

He came to an unsteady halt before Halloran and even his grin seemed corroded.

'Scary, huh?' Kline said, none of his mocking arrogance lost. 'It isn't irreversible, though. It isn't too late, Halloran. Maybe it's worse than ever before, but at least now I understand why.' The hideous face was close, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. With Daoud behind him, Halloran could not pull away. Kline had the same smell of decay as the old man in the hedgehouse.

'You took my surrogate,' Kline hissed. 'You killed him and upset the balance. I should only slough my skin once a year, that's part of the deal, my price for immortality. Life a serpent, you see, Halloran.

Bel-Marduk made me like a serpent.' He gasped, a pain reaching him somewhere inside. Blood squeezed from a crack in his disfigured face to mix with the oily gel.

'There's a way to stop this deterioration. You'll see, Halloran, you'll see. You'll be part of it.' He turned away and with Khayed's, help hobbled through the puddles on the floor, passing by Palusinski and Cora, the Pole stepping back as if the shambling figure were a leper. The girl seemed mesmerised. Candle-light reflected from the glistening on Kline's head.

It took a long time for him to get to the slab of stone near the end of the room and he reached out for it, staggering the last few feet despite Khayed's help. Kline eased himself around the stone so that he faced the others. An impatient hand beckoned them to him.

Palusinski led the girl and it took only slight pressure from the wire to make Halloran follow. His eyes darted left and right as he and the Arab passed the archways, searching for possibilities, a weapon perhaps should he manage to break free of the stranglehold. All he could make out in the shadows were stone tables, scored with symbols similar to those he had seen around the house itself.

Then he found himself looking down at the bloated body lying on the slab. And Monk's small, inset eyes stared back at him, his fat fingers twitching as if he were trying to move his body. Those eyes showed no pain, only hatred.

Halloran was surprised that the man was still conscious. He glanced over at Cora, who was frowning, at last some sensibility returning to her gaze.

'Do you see him, Monk?' Kline's voice was all the more insidious for its guttural roughness. 'He did this to you, made you nothing. How you'd like to kill him. But no, my friend, that's impossible for you now.

But I have a use for you.' Fear replaced the hate in the bodyguard's eyes as they darted towards Kline.

'Another injection, Asil,' Kline told the Arab. 'I don't want the pain to kill him. The cutting will do that.'

The Arab ghosted away.

'The correct dosage is important,' said Kline, touching his skinless hands to Monk's body. 'Enough so that he doesn't feel the shock of the blade, but not enough to allow dreams to take him from us.

Fortunately Asil has become something of a specialist over the years.' Anger surged in Halloran, but he held it in check, biding his time. 'You turned Cora into an addict,' he said.

'Oh no, not an addict, not in the true sense. Not yet. She'd be useless to me if she were. I told you, Asil is expert in such matters. Cora is dependent on me, not on any drug.' The Arab had returned to Kline's side, in his hand a syringe filled with liquid. He smoothed away hair on Monk's arm and pierced a vein with the needle. He emptied half of the liquid into the bodyguard.

Within moments, the bodyguard's eyes took on a dull glaze and the corners of his mouth flickered.

'What are you going to do with him?' Halloran asked sharply.

Kline drew in a long, gravelly breath and gripped the stone to support himself. Still he managed to grin at Halloran, his peeled lips blood red against the yellow decay of his teeth. 'I'm going to feed off him,' he replied simply.

In a night of gross horrors, when nightmares were living, Halloran was further repulsed.

Although delighted with the obvious discomfort his words had caused the operative, Kline shook his head. 'Not his flesh, Palusinski can fill himself with that afterwards. I need something more, Halloran, something that has no substance, no materiality. The part of him that will be set free at his moment of death.' A luminescence glittered in the darkness of Kline's eyes. 'The ethereal energy that's the source of our existence. The psyche, Halloran, the soul. Can you understand that?' Again Halloran felt a loosening of the pressure around his neck. Daoud's concentration was wavering. 'If I understood, I'd be crazy like you,' the operative replied.

Kline straightened, his look fixed on the operative. The bodyguard lying on the stone between them moaned, either with pleasure or trepidation, the emotion was not clear.

'You're still a mystery to me,' Kline said to the operative. 'My psychic faculties are dimmed where you're concerned. Why is that, Halloran? What is it about you . . . ?” 'I'm just a hired bodyguard, nothing more than that.' Kline's stare did not shift. 'But you're a danger to me.'

'No, I'm here to prevent any harm coming to you.' Halloran tensed the muscles of his arms, preparing himself to strike, concentrating his strength. 'Tell me, Kline, tell me what this is all about.'

'I've already explained.'

'I'd like to know more. How can you . . . ?' He couldn't find the words; it felt too ridiculous to try.

'Tap into someone's soul?' the psychic finished for him. 'Absorb its vitality?' He laughed, a choking in his throat. 'The secret was left for me.' His eyes closed, the lids hideously raw, but his smile was rapturous. 'I learned from the ancient cuneiform writings of the Master himself. They were hidden away with his remains, spread around him to give sustenance during his long wait. He drew me to them, so many years ago. a time of Ignorance for me, when I was a shell waiting to be filled. I found his works in a chamber, a sepulchre beneath the Royal Cemetery of Ur, and piece by piece I smuggled them out, and piece by piece I had them deciphered so that no one else would understand their full message. Only then did I assemble them once more, when I knew the power contained within their symbols. They told of how potent were the powers of the mind, how they could be developed, channelled . . . how they could create!' He swayed, his eyes remaining closed. Khayed reached out as if to steady him, but seemed afraid to touch.

Kline's voice became deeper in tone. 'They taught the delights of perversity, the superiority that comes from corruption. I learned, you see, learned well, became an avid student. They instructed me in the ways of terror, they showed me how to seek out the evil in others and use it for my own ends. They revealed how I could escape the degenerating process, the wearing away of flesh and muscle, the shrivelling of body and mind, how the decay could be transposed to others. They spoke of the secret link between the mind and the earth's own energy, how they could be coupled, and used together. And I feasted upon the knowledge!' Kline's eyes sprung open, and the blackness in them almost filled the sockets.

'The price of it all was easy to pay,' he whispered. 'Dissension, wherever it could be spread. Atrocity, wherever it could be encouraged. Malevolence, wherever it could be nurtured. I learned to disperse my disruption, took it to many countries and let it fester. Because that was his way, and I am his disciple!'

Kline's hands were raised to his chests palms upwards, fingers curled into claws. He shuddered, a movement that threatened his collapse. But he righted himself, his mouth open in an agitated grin.

'There was another part to this bargain.' Now he was stooping, twisting into himself. 'An alliance between us. I was to keep Bel-Marduk forever with me, to sustain his bodily self, to keep it living.' A shiver ran through Halloran. There was nothing here of the Kline that he knew. The thing before him was unrecognisable in voice and body. Halloran felt weakened.

'You'll see,' said the form opposite. 'You'll understand how we breathe together.' Kline moved away, tottering as if about to fall. Yet still the Arab by his side was reluctant to take hold of him. Kline walked awkwardly to an alcove behind the altar, and the others watched, all of them motionless.

He entered the shadows.

Halloran heard something being opened.

Shuffling footsteps.

Kline returning, carrying something clutched to his chest, into the candle-light . . .

45 NETHERWORLD RISING

Away from the bubbling lake they ran, throats roughened by harsh breaths, disarray in their stride. Two of their companions had been lost to the lightning-seared cauldron, and these remaining three had no intention of joining them; clumsy their flight may have been, pounding rain rendering earth and grass slippery beneath their feet, but their progress was determined, panic lending its own pace.

Despite himself, a terrible fascination tempted Danny Shay to look back over his shoulder and he uttered a single alarmed cry at what he saw; he stumbled, went down, the man at his heels sprawling over him so that they both rolled in the soaked grass, kicking out at each other.

Shay sat up, rain streaming into his open mouth, while the other man, Flynn, beat at the earth in pain.

McGuire realised he was alone and stopped, searching behind for the others.

'Glory God . . .' he moaned when he saw the lake.

Shay scrambled to his knees and Flynn reached out to grasp his shoulder. 'I've done me ankle, Danny'

he shouted over the downpour. 'Give us a hand up!' But Shay stayed motionless, staring into the rain.

Flynn followed his gaze and collapsed back into the grass.

A shining came from beneath the water's boiling surface, a milky greenness that spread to the shoreline.

A curling mist rose from it, turning in on itself like vapour reaching cooler air. Geysers popped and spouted, foamy liquid showering down to create ripples, more turmoil. But something else was disturbing the broad lake's centre. A great mass, hindered by its own weight, was slowly emerging like some huge sunken wreck pushed to the surface by an eruption on the sea bed.

This was nothing manmade, though. It might have been regurgitation of a long-lost island, the waters finally relinquishing their claim. Except it was a living, pulsating thing. A mass that swelled and writhed, a gathering in oozing mud of all those nebulous creatures the men had glimpsed earlier beneath the lake's unsettled ceiling, the forms clinging together as if congealed. Pieces—living things—dropped away as this ill-shaped mountain grew; lake-water drained off to fall with the rain. Monsters of immense size were among that curling, viscous mass, while leaner shapes wriggled and clung like parasites, the ascending heap never still, constantly bulging and quivering as it rose.

As the three frightened men watched, a bolt of lightning struck the top, sizzling and charring its uppermost layer as if it were flesh. Steam rose as the whole mass shrunk in spasm. It stretched once more, continuing to ascend. They thought they could hear a shrill wailing beneath the roar of thunder.

'What is it!' Flynn shrieked close to Shay's ear, the grip on his leader's shoulder tight.

Shay could only shake his head in a stupefied gesture.

'Let's leave this heathen place, Danny! There's no good for us here!' The leader climbed to his feet, bringing Flynn up with him, his eyes never leaving the monstrosity growing from the lake, this seen through a screen of driving rain. McGuire joined them, afraid to be left standing alone. He clutched at Shay's other arm.

'There's no turning back!' the leader yelled. 'Whatever devil's work this is, it doesn't matter! It'll not stop us doing our job!'

'No, it's a bad business, Danny!' McGuire protested.

Shay hit him, a back-swipe of his hand. 'You'll do as you're told! The house is close, an' he's in there!

We'll not leave until it's settled!' He shoved both men from him, forcing them to turn their backs on the lake with its phenomenon that could only be some kind of illusion—there really couldn't be any reality to such a vision. Although . . . although didn't he see for himself two of his own men dragged down into its terrible depths?

Shay began running, cutting out further thought, intent on one purpose alone, urging McGuire and Flynn to follow. They did for, scared though they were, disobedience was unthinkable.

They did their best to ignore the squishy gurgling of the sinuous island as it heaved itself from the water, resisting the temptation (it was as though there were whispered entreaties in their minds to do so) to turn round and watch. They kept their eyes on the manor house which was now but a short distance away.

Most of the lights were on, a welcoming relief despite the duty they were bound to perform, a glorious beacon in the darkness they had travelled through.

They found themselves on firmer ground, gravel crunching under their feet as they dashed forward, no caution in their untidy gait. There was a porch at the front, an entrance like a darkened cave. Flynn strove to keep up with the others, the pain in his ankle a handicap, his hand tucked into his anorak pocket touching the revolver there for comfort. He suddenly slid to a halt.

There were headlights coming towards them!

A car on the road, moving fast, freezing them in its searching beams. It skidded to a stop twenty yards away. Doors were opening. Someone was shouting.

46 TOWARDS DESTRUCTION

Candle flames flickered and dimmed momentarily, smoke curling from them, as Kline came closer, his hands livid against the blackness of the robe he wore. In them he held a black chalice, a cloth draped over the top.

All eyes were on the shuffling figure emerging from the alcove and instinct told Halloran that this was the time to make his move. Yet he could not. Like the others, he was mesmerised.

Kline faltered, as though the weight of his burden was too much. But after drawing in a deep, grating breath, he continued to approach.

Thunder grumbled in the distance and it seemed to came from below, from the earth itself, rather than the atmosphere above.

At last Kline, or the disfigured thing that Kline now was. reached the stone slab. He attempted to grin, perhaps in triumph. but his lips merely wavered, his stained teeth bared only, partially. His hands were trembling when he placed the chalice on the altar. He removed the cloth, allowed it to fall to the floor.

Then Kline dipped both hands into the vessel, the abject he removed still unseen by the others. He held out his prize across the furred belly of the paralysed bodyguard.

A husky whisper. 'His disciples, his loyal priests, preserved his poor mutilated body. They hid Bel-Marduk away, a deep place where no one could find him. Hidden in darkness, his secrets around him, waiting out the centuries far one such as I . . .' He placed the object on the stone beside the bodyguard” and there it rested for the others to see.

A blackened, crisped shell. A thing almost rotted away, shrivelled stumps that had once been tubes, but which now had no function, protruding.

And as they watched, the ancient withered heart pulsed.

Just once . . .

Mather had jammed on the handbrake and was opening the driver's door even before the car had rocked to a halt.

'Stop there!' he shouted, but the three figures either did not hear him over the storm or had no intention of heeding his command.

'Draw your weapon, Phil,' he ordered. 'Whoever they are, I don't want them to get inside the house.'

Both men used the car doors as shields, the operative clenching a Browning with both hands, using the triangle between passenger door and frame as an armrest.

'Hold it!' he warned, but one of the figures, someone who appeared to be limping, whirled round, bringing something from his anorak pocket as he did so. Flame spat out into the rainy night.

'Pacify him!' Mather yelled at his man as a bullet scythed sparks off the car roof. The-operative would have preferred to have 'retired' the gunman, a more permanent condition, but he knew better than to disobey an order. He took quick aim at the enemy's shoulder; unfortunately the target had changed position, had tried to follow his companions. The Shield operative knew by the way the man violently jerked, then dropped like a stone, that the bullet had taken him in the head or neck.

He muttered a curse, but didn't take time to shrug an apology at Mather, for the other two intruders were disappearing into the porch.

He gave chase, skirting around the vehicles parked in front of the house, flattening himself against the outside wall of the porch, keeping out of sight until he could position himself. Realising Mather had not followed, he looked back at their car. The Planner was facing the opposite direction, towards the lake.

They had noticed a strange shining from that area when they had broken free of the woods moments earlier to descend into the valley, but the rain had been too heavy to see clearly. Even this close it was difficult, for there was a mist rising from the peculiar incandescence that was the lake itself, creating a swirling fog which the rainfall failed to disperse. Mather tore himself away and began limping towards his companion, body crouched, cane digging into the gravel.

'What is it out there?' the operative asked when the older man reached him.

'I've no idea,' came the breathless reply. 'Some kind of disturbance in the lake, that's all I can tell. Let's worry about our immediate problem.'

'Here comes the other patrol.' The operative nodded towards the lightbeams descending the hill at a fast pace.

'We can't wait for them. Check inside.' The other man ducked low, quickly peering into the tunnel of the porch and drawing his head back almost immediately.

'Shit,' he said. 'The door's open. They're inside the house.' It was a dream. It could only be a bad dream.

Yet Cora knew it wasn't. The nightmare around her was real. She tried to focus her mind, desperate to understand what was happening, why Monk, that bloated, repellent creature, was lying naked on the stone, and . . . and . . . Shock broke through the haze.

The black-robed figure standing on the other side of the prone bodyguard was obscene in its deformity.

Only the eyes allowed some recognition.

'Felix . . . ?' She imagined she had said the name aloud, but in fact it had been no more than a murmur.

She held up her hands to her face, not because of the unsightliness in front of her, but to clear her thoughts . . .

. . . While Halloran's mind was sharp by now, all grogginess gone. He stared disbelievingly at the blackened object lying on the stone altar.

'It can't be,' he whispered.

'But it is. The only part of Bel-Marduk that survived his mutilated body's entombment. His heart.'

'Impossible.'

'Naturally.'

'Kline, let's stop this nonsense. Let me walk away with Cora -' Kline screamed across at him, a furious cry that might have been anguish. The wire noose around Halloran's neck jerked tight and he was dragged backwards by Daoud, away from the altar, his legs giving way so that he fell to the wet floor, the Arab crouching behind him, maintaining the pressure. Cora took a step towards them, then collapsed back against the stone.

'There's still more to he done, Halloran!' Kline screeched. 'Especially now, in this era of awesome power, when we hold the very weapons of our own genocide. Don't you understand that he directed mankind towards this point, he set us on this road! A few more decades, that's all it will take. A micro-second in earth's lifespan. A few more years of disruption and dissent, of famine and disease, of wars and violence. A culmination of evils, when the balance between good and bad has been tilted irrevocably towards his, Bel-Marduk's, way! I showed you the lake, Halloran, allowed you to see its contents. A residue, like many others around the world, of our own corruption, a manifestation of our evils in living form. You saw them, you recognised your own culpability, your own vileness! We're not unalike, you and I, Halloran. You just have a little further to travel.' Kline was leaning over Monk's body, sucking in air, exhausted, drained by his own beliefs. 'I could have made you one of mine, Halloran. A little encouragement, that's all it would have taken. But I can't trust you. I don't have time to.' He calmed himself, or perhaps weariness did it for him. 'She'll join us in our communion, Bel-Marduk's and mine.

Cora will help us and be one of us.' He levered himself up from the body. 'Asil . . .' The Arab stepped forward and from beneath his robes he drew out a long blade, one edge thickened for weight so that it resembled a machete. The metal glowed in the candle-light.

He raised it over Monk's chest and the bodyguard's hands twitched frantically. His lips parted. A sobbing came from them.

Khayed brought down the blade with a short, sharp movement, minimum effort in the blow, for he needed only to pierce the breastbone so that the paralysed man's ribs could be pulled apart, his heart exposed.

Monk shuddered. His hands and now his feet quivered as the finely-honed blade was drawn down his stomach. The cutting stopped when muffled gunfire was heard from above.

47 ACROSS THE COURTYARD

'Hold 'em there, McGuire. Don't let anyone through the door.' McGuire looked at his leader apprehensively. 'An' where the hell will you be?'

'Finding our man. He'll not escape.'

'Are you fuckin' insane, man? There's nothing we can do now except mebbe get away ourselves.'

'You'll do as I tell you, or it'll not only be me you'll answer 'An' what if he's not here?'

'Oh, the bastard's here all right, I can feel it in me piss.'

'I'll give it five minutes, Danny, no more than that.' Shay decided it was pointless to argue. McGuire had always been the yellow one, enjoying the killing only if he was mob-heavy or guaranteed a safe getaway.

Besides, five minutes should be enough; then he'd leave McGuire to his own fate. He turned away from the main doors, one side of which remained open, and quickly scanned the hall, taking no note of its grandness. It was a damned cold house, to be sure. And there was nothing good inside these old walls.

Shay ran across the stone floor, expecting someone to appear at any moment through one of the many doors that opened out onto the hall. He kept an eye on the stairs and landing too as he went, sure that anyone in the house would have heard the din outside.

Into a corridor he ran, revolver held before him like a pointer. Ile stopped and listened. Gunshots from the hall. McGuire was keeping whoever had driven up to the house at bay. Had they nabbed Flynn? he wondered. Things were going bad. He almost smiled. Things were fucking terrible.