Empire of Gold

In theory.

‘Alexander!’ Mac shouted as Starkman made the call. ‘Get the civvies to the landing zone – take Will and Kev. The rest of us will cover you. Go!’

Stikes gave him a thumbs-up and took the lead. Chase saw that despite the danger the hostages were slowing, already worn down by maltreatment and hunger. And the landing zone was still over half a mile away.

Worse, the Taliban were gaining. They were moving cautiously down the slope, keeping in cover behind rocks, but they had the tactical advantages both of moving forward and having the higher ground, while the rescue team had to back up as they fired uphill.

‘Should we hold ’em off here?’ Chase shouted to Mac as they crouched behind adjacent boulders.

Mac expertly assessed the area. ‘Further back, nearer the entrance to the pass. If we can hold them from there, it’ll give the hostages time to reach the choppers.’ He pointed at a large rock. ‘Behind that. We can—’

‘RPG!’ screamed Starkman. Chase immediately scrunched down, covering his face and ears as a rocket-propelled grenade streaked down the slope and exploded less than thirty feet away. The rock protected him from the direct effects of the blast, but the detonation was still painfully loud at such close range. Stones and dirt rained over him. The warhead had been high explosive, not a shrapnel-filled anti-personnel charge, but this near it was no less dangerous.

Bluey, though further away, had been without cover and unable to do more than throw himself flat on Starkman’s warning. Chase saw the Australian clutch at his head. ‘Bluey! You okay?’

‘Those dirty little bastards!’ Bluey yelled back. ‘Copped a stone to my f*cking noggin!’ Still on his stomach, he slithered round and fired his machine gun up the hill, then scrambled behind a jagged rock.

Bluey wasn’t the only person affected by the explosion. The hostages were still a hundred yards short of the pass – and panic consumed one of them. He broke from the group and ran for the closed canyon. ‘Green!’ shouted Stikes. ‘Get that idiot back here!’

Green followed – but the Taliban had already spotted the running figure. AKs barked, gritty dust spitting up from the ground around him. The Welshman rushed to tackle him—

Too late. The man was hit, spinning before dropping like a discarded doll. Green, only a couple of feet behind, was caught too, a round ripping into the side of his chest. He fell with a choked scream, trying to crawl behind the hostage’s body for what little protection it provided.

‘Man down!’ Mac cried. Chase swore. Green was exposed, over twenty yards from any usable cover. The Taliban kept firing. If they had another rocket, it would soon follow their bullets.

He knew what Mac’s plan would be before he said it. ‘Alexander, get the civvies to the choppers!’ the Scot yelled. ‘Kev, Jason, get Green. Everyone else – give them cover!’

Chase sprang up from behind his rock and opened fire, his C8 now on full auto. Conserving ammo was no longer a consideration; all that mattered was for himself, Mac, Castille and Bluey to force the Taliban to keep their heads down until Starkman and Baine recovered their wounded comrade.

He picked one AK flash and sprayed it with bullets until it stopped, then moved on to another. His magazine ran dry; he ducked and thumbed the release to eject the empty mag, pulling a replacement from his webbing and slotting it into place with a precise, intensely practised move before tugging back the rifle’s charging handle to chamber the first new round. The entire process took barely three seconds, and he rose to fire again.

Mac and Castille were just as efficient, the rattle of their guns getting louder as sustained fire burned out the suppressors. A shriek came from the hillside. Another Taliban down. But he couldn’t tell how many remained. Too many.

The onslaught had achieved its purpose, though – the AK fire had all but stopped. Chase glanced towards Green, seeing Starkman haul him upright, Baine running to assist. It would take both men to carry the wounded trooper to the landing zone, and while they were doing that the amount of fire they could provide would be extremely limited. The team was effectively down to five fighting men.

And it would soon be just four. Bluey’s withering storm of lead was now reduced to intermittent bursts as the Minimi’s ammunition supply ran low. The Australian only had one ammo load: two hundred rounds was normally more than enough.

Baine and Starkman supported Green, moving at a jog towards the pass. ‘Keep firing!’ Mac ordered as the thud of Kalashnikovs resumed. Chase sprayed one of the muzzle flashes with fire. He scored a hit. The AK flailed madly, blazing skywards before falling silent. Another magazine change, and now conservation was an issue – he only had one spare mag remaining.

Stikes and the hostages were out of sight, Baine, Starkman and Green nearing the pass. In the distance, Chase heard the thud of rotor blades.

‘Hugo, Bluey, move out!’ Mac called. ‘Eddie, cover them!’ He was about to say something else when his radio squawked. He crouched, struggling to hear the message over the noise of Bluey’s machine gun as the Australian and Castille retreated for the ravine.

Chase switched his Diemaco back to single-shot, trying to pick off the shooters up the hill. Bullets cracked off his cover; he flinched, shielding his eyes from flying stone chips, then snapped his sights on to the source of the fire and pulled the trigger. A dark shape beside a boulder flopped to the ground.

Green and his companions entered the pass, Bluey and Castille not far behind. ‘Eddie!’ Mac yelled. ‘Come on! The gunship’s—’

A rising high-pitched whine from the sky drowned him out—

An explosion ripped a crater out of the hillside sixty feet in front of Chase. The blast knocked him off his feet. His senses reeled as if he had taken a fierce punch to the head, a ringing rumble almost blotting out all other sounds. Somehow, he made out another shrill noise and clapped both hands to his ears. A second detonation shook the ground.

The air support had arrived.

Orbiting the battle zone was an American AC-130U ‘Spooky II’ gunship, a humble Hercules transport turned angel of death. Instead of cargo, it carried three cannons, ranging from a 25mm Gatling gun to a 105mm howitzer, jutting from its port side so they could be fixed on a target as the aircraft circled. The weapon that had just fired was a 40mm Bofors gun, an artillery piece originally designed to shoot at aircraft rather than from them. With its battery of sensors, a Spooky could locate and destroy ground forces from several miles away.

And Chase was in its sights. ‘I’m on your side, you f*cking idiots!’ he shouted.

Another explosion, and a fourth, but higher up the hill. Chase hoped that meant the Bofors gunner had finally seen his strobe. He looked round. Mac was now at the pass, signalling frantically for the Englishman to follow.

He shook off the earth and grit the 40mm rounds had thrown on to him, realising he had lost his radio headset, and stood. His hearing returned, the distant pom-pom-pom of the Bofors accompanied by the shriek of incoming shells. More explosions on the hillside. He ran for the pass. Mac gave him one final wave, then sprinted after the rest of his men. The Spooky would keep the Taliban pinned down with its awesome firepower, giving the rescue team all the time they needed to reach the waiting choppers—

The Bofors stopped. One last explosion, and the battlefield behind him fell silent. Either the Taliban had been completely obliterated, or . . .

Chase looked to the sky, and realised the battle wasn’t over. The Spooky’s orbit had carried it behind part of the mountain, placing a barrier of rock between its weapons and their target. The gunship would already be gaining altitude to compensate, but the surviving Taliban now had a chance to continue the pursuit.

Feet pounding, he reached the pass. Mac was over a hundred yards ahead. No gunfire from behind—

A new noise instead. Engines. Not the AC-130 clearing the mountains, but motorbikes.

The Taliban were riding after him.

Two headlights swept down the hill, glare obscuring the bikes and their riders – but if the Taliban had any remaining rockets, one of the men would surely be carrying the RPG-7.

The entire mission was now in jeopardy. An RPG round could easily bring down a helicopter.

Ahead, the ravine opened out on to the plain. Mac was already clear, running towards a sputtering red flare marking the pick-up point. The choppers had not yet touched down, the Black Hawk moving in while the Little Bird circled. Stikes had radioed the pilots to tell them they were collecting only fifteen men rather than the expected twenty; it would be a tight squeeze, but they could all cram into the Black Hawk to save the MH-6 from having to land.

All the eggs in one basket. They didn’t know about the bikes.

Another glance back as he left the pass told Chase that he would never reach the landing zone before the Taliban caught up. Instead he charged for the giant spearhead of rock poking from the sands.

The Black Hawk was about fifty feet above the ground, dust swirling out in concentric rings beneath its rotor vortex. The men at the landing zone shielded their faces from the gritty onslaught. Mac still hadn’t reached them, looking for Chase – and seeing the headlights. He tried to shout a warning to the others, but his voice was lost under the helicopter’s thunderous noise.

The lead bike, two men aboard, burst out of the pass. It turned to follow Chase – until its driver spotted the more tempting targets on the plain. It swung back, the man riding pillion raising his weapon.

The RPG-7. Loaded and ready.

The second bike roared after its original prey, the passenger firing his AK-47 at Chase as he dived behind the rock. Bullets splintered the stone beside him, but he couldn’t shoot back – his attention was fixed on another target.

The Taliban with the rocket launcher took aim, the RPG-7’s sights fixed on the Black Hawk as it hovered the final few feet above the ground. The helicopter was two hundred metres away, large, barely moving – an unmissable target.

Mac’s shouted warnings finally reached the soldiers. They dropped, pulling the hostages down with them.

Chase fired his C8 on full auto, emptying his magazine into both the bike’s riders. The old Soviet motorcycle swerved . . .

But the trigger had already been pulled.

The rocket-propelled grenade burst from the launcher as the bike tumbled. It streaked past Mac and hissed over the men on the ground, heading for the Black Hawk—

Thrown off target, the conical warhead only caught the cockpit canopy a glancing blow. The rocket spiralled away, exploding harmlessly fifty yards beyond the helicopter.

But the danger was far from over. The pilot had jerked in fright at the impact. The Black Hawk rolled sideways. The tips of its rotor blades dropped towards the ground, carving through the air like a giant circular saw . . .

Straight at Castille.

The Belgian froze as he saw the helicopter bearing down on him. The blades buzzed at his face—

The pilot yanked the collective control lever and applied full throttle. The Black Hawk lurched upwards, engines screaming - and the rotor passed six inches over Castille’s head, the force of the displaced air knocking him flat. ‘Merde!’ he screeched, hurriedly patting his hands over the top of his skull to check it was still attached.

The gunman on the second bike kept shooting. Chase scrabbled backwards as more bullets cracked off the rock, but the Afghan would have a direct line of fire in moments.

And he was out of ammo.

Three seconds to reload, but he didn’t have even that long—

Instead, he flung the empty rifle with all his might. It arced through the air – and hit the bike’s driver hard in the face as he rounded the formation. The bike crashed down on its side, throwing the two Taliban into the sand.

The gunman groaned, then realised he still had his AK. He saw a figure in the moonlight and brought up the rifle—

Chase fired first, four shots from the Sig P228 he had snatched from his chest holster slamming into the man’s upper body. The Taliban slumped lifelessly to the ground. The driver struggled to rise – and another two shots to his head dropped him beside his comrade.

Breathing heavily, hands trembling from a burst of adrenalin, Chase lowered the Sig and looked across the plain. The Black Hawk had finally touched down, the rescue team bundling the hostages into the cabin.

But now he could hear another sound echoing through the pass. Not the roar of more motorcycle engines.

The pounding of hooves.

‘Oh, f*cking pack it in!’ he gasped. The bike’s engine was still sputtering, but the front wheel was buckled. Unrideable.

Two options. Either sprint for the Black Hawk, and be trampled or shot before he reached it . . . or make sure it took off safely and got the hostages and his comrades home.

The decision was made before the thought was completed. He recovered his rifle and loaded his final magazine. The last few men boarded the Black Hawk. Even from this distance he could pick out Mac’s grey hair, his commander – his mentor, his friend – waving for him to run to the chopper. Chase instead crouched and took aim.

The first horseman emerged from the pass, hunched low on his galloping steed with an AK raised in one hand—

Chase tracked him, firing twice and bowling the Taliban off his horse. But his rifle’s suppressor was now completely burned out, and the shots had given away his position. Another horseman appeared, and a third, charging at him.

A mechanical roar: the Black Hawk taking off. Three more riders thundered from the ravine, going after the helicopter as it lumbered into the air. AK-47s chattered, tracers streaking after the rising aircraft. Moonlight flashed off another RPG-7 as a Taliban slowed his mount to take aim. A burst from Chase’s C8 cut him down before he could fire. The chopper was safe, but now the nearest riders were almost upon him—

A sizzling chainsaw rasp from above – and men and horses alike were torn apart by a laser-like stream of orange fire.

The Little Bird swooped down, its twin six-barrelled Miniguns blazing as each unleashed over sixty rounds per second at the Taliban forces. It pulled up sharply, pivoting to follow the surviving horsemen, then fired again. Hundreds of spent shell casings hailed down around Chase, one plinking off the top of his head and singeing his scalp. ‘Great, now I’ll have a f*cking bald spot,’ he muttered as he fired at the last of the horsemen. The shot hit home, but it became academic a moment later when the man literally disintegrated under the force of the MH-6’s firepower.

The Miniguns stopped, but he could still hear more horses approaching. Holding back a curse, he looked up at the Little Bird as it started a rapid descent towards him.

No time for it to land. This would have to be a moving pickup, and he would only have one chance . . .

He glimpsed the pilot in the green light of his instruments, his night vision gear making him look like a cyborg. The Little Bird was coming right at him, slowing, but still travelling at twenty miles an hour.

Chase jumped—

The skid slammed against his chest. He wrapped his arms round the forward support strut and clung for dear life as the MH-6 went to full power. The helicopter surged skywards, Chase flapping beneath it like a banner.

He turned his face away from the downwash to see the plain wheeling below – and tracer fire rising up after him as more Taliban came out of the pass—

They disappeared in a tremendous explosion as the AC-130 reacquired its targets and, friendly forces now clear, fired its big gun. The blast from the 105mm shell collapsed part of the ravine, burying the Taliban under tons of rubble. More explosions ripped along the length of the pass as the Bofors gunner dealt with any stragglers.

The Little Bird levelled out, flying after the Black Hawk. Chase heard a voice; he squinted up to see the pilot shouting at him from the doorless cockpit. ‘Are you all right, man?’

Despite the fact that he was dangling from a speeding helicopter a thousand feet above hostile territory, Chase still managed a grin. ‘Never better, mate. What’s the inflight movie?’

The Black Hawk landed at the Coalition base, the Little Bird close behind it. The MH-6 had briefly touched down, once both aircraft reached nominally friendly territory, so that Chase could climb aboard; he leapt from the cabin and ran to the larger helicopter. Three men from the Royal Army Medical Corps were waiting, two bearing a stretcher and a third to attend to the wounded Green. He was carried out of the Black Hawk by Starkman and Baine, and quickly whisked away by the medics.

The hostages came next, and were escorted to a temporary building nearby. Finally, the remaining soldiers clambered from the helicopter, Mac ruefully looking after Green. The others were simply relieved to have made it back in one piece. ‘Christ,’ said Bluey, rubbing his shaved head, ‘that was a bit fierce.’

Starkman saw Chase. ‘Damn, almost thought we’d lost you,’ said the Texan. ‘You okay?’

Chase ignored him, eyes locked on another man: Stikes. The captain stepped out, donning his beret and adjusting it to a precise angle. ‘Seven hostages rescued, and it would have been eight if that idiot hadn’t panicked. Not bad.’ He saw Chase step towards him. ‘So Chase, you—’

Chase smashed a brutal punch into his face. Stikes’s regal nose broke with a wet snap, and he fell back against the fuselage. ‘You f*cker!’ Chase shouted.

Baine lunged at Chase, but Mac intervened, hauling the Yorkshireman back from the fallen officer. ‘Eddie, for Christ’s sake!’

A hand to his bleeding nose, Stikes pulled himself upright as the other team members looked on in bewilderment. ‘It’s a court-martial offence to strike a superior officer, Chase!’ he cried. ‘You’ll get five years for an unprovoked attack – which you all witnessed!’

‘Unprovoked, my arse!’ Chase said furiously. ‘You pointed a f*cking gun at my head!’

‘Eddie!’ Mac snapped. ‘Sergeant!’ Still tight-lipped with rage, Chase stood at attention. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘This bastard murdered five civilians – five women, sir,’ Chase said through clenched teeth. ‘They were unarmed and tied prisoners of the Taliban, but he shot them – then aimed his weapon at me.’

‘That’s a complete lie, Major,’ Stikes responded. ‘I did no such thing.’

Mac frowned. ‘But the Taliban did have female prisoners. Did you see them?’

Stikes’s cold eyes didn’t blink as he answered. ‘No sir, I did not.’

‘That’s a complete lie,’ Chase hissed.

‘The only non-hostages I saw had been designated as hostiles under the rules of engagement.’ Stikes moved his hand from his nose; red liquid trickled over his lips. ‘Damn it! Sir, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get this dealt with. And then’ – a venomous look at his attacker – ‘I’ll make a full written report so charges can be drawn against Sergeant Chase!’

Mac nodded, and Stikes strutted away. The Scot hustled Chase out of earshot of the others. ‘If you have a grievance against a superior, Eddie,’ he rumbled, ‘there are well-defined procedures. That was not one of them!’

Chase forced his anger back under control. ‘Sorry, sir. I mean, I’m sorry for causing you any trouble – not for decking Stikes! It’s the bloody least that he deserved. He murdered those women in cold blood.’

‘Nobody else saw anything. It’s your word against his.’

‘Mac, you know me. And you know Stikes.’ He gave Mac an almost pleading look. ‘Who do you believe?’

Mac remained silent for a long moment. ‘Eddie,’ he said at last, ‘however this turns out, there will be consequences for you – for your career. The plain and simple fact is that you punched an officer in the face in front of half a dozen witnesses.’

‘I’ll take whatever comes to me.’

‘I’d expect nothing less. But . . . as you say, I know you. And I know Stikes. So when the court-martial comes – which it will, he’s got connections that will see to that – I’ll do everything I can to support you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘And’ – a hint of a smile – ‘I’d be remiss as your commanding officer if I didn’t remind you to get straight on with a full written report of your own, describing everything you witnessed on the mission. Our well-defined procedures are there for everyone’s benefit, not just officers’. If, as a result of that, an investigation is warranted . . . again, you’ll have my full support.’

Chase gave the older man an appreciative look. ‘Thank you, sir!’

‘Well, you’d better get to it, sergeant. In the meantime, I’m going to see if I can find a shower in this bloody hole.’ Mac walked off, then stopped and looked back. ‘By the way, Eddie, you did excellent work tonight. Well done.’

Chase saluted, and Mac continued on his way. The Englishman stood for a moment, then took out and lit a long-awaited cigarette.

1


New York City:


Eleven Years Later



Eddie Chase strolled into the office with his hands behind his back and a knowing smile on his face. ‘Ay up, love.’

His wife looked up from her laptop with a faint frown. ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Nina Wilde, flicking a strand of red hair away from her face. ‘We’re going to be late.’

‘We’ve still got ten minutes. Anyway, I’m amazed you noticed I’d gone, since you haven’t lifted your nose out of that lot all morning.’ He glanced at the stacked paperwork on her desk.

‘Don’t be a smart-ass.’ She eyed him more closely, noticing his expectant smirk. ‘What have you got behind your back?’

He stepped forward. ‘Oh, nothing. Just . . . ’ With a flourish, he dropped a large brown paper bag beside her computer. ‘Lunch.’

Nina did a double-take as she recognised the logo on the bag. ‘Aldo’s Deli?’ Her frown was replaced by surprised delight. ‘Wait, you went all the way to Aldo’s just to get me a sandwich?’

Eddie shrugged, looking out at the view of Manhattan beyond the windows of the United Nations building. ‘It’s only in the East Village. It’s not that far.’

She opened the bag, and her look brightened still further. ‘You didn’t.’

‘I did. Your favourite. Extra-peppered pastrami on rye, with lettuce, tomatoes, pickled onions, not regular ones . . . and Aldo’s special chilli sauce. Just like you used to get when we lived down there.’

Nina almost reverently unwrapped the sandwich. ‘That was over four years ago. I can’t believe you did this.’ She was about to take a bite when she paused. ‘Why did you do this?’

‘What, a bloke can’t do something nice for his wife once in a while?’

‘Not when she knows him as well as I know you.’ A sly smile. ‘This wouldn’t be a peace offering, would it?’

‘Pfft, don’t be daft. What’ve I got to apologise for? I’m right.’

Her green eyes narrowed, the smile fading. ‘Don’t even start.’ A discussion the previous night about the week’s main news story had somehow degenerated into a full-blown argument, and the atmosphere had still been frosty even over breakfast. A New Yorker named Jerry Rosenthal was on trial for having killed the man accused of raping his daughter after the case against him collapsed. To Nina it had been an open-and-shut case of revenge-driven vigilantism, but Eddie had very different opinions.

Which he still held. ‘What, so you’re saying that if it had been your daughter, you’d be happy to let the guy walk the streets because of some forensics cock-up? We know he did it, he just got away with it on a technicality.’

‘We don’t know he did it,’ she said irritably. ‘You weren’t there – you didn’t see what happened.’

‘Neither did you.’

‘Which is why we have courts to decide whether a person’s guilty or not. And why we have courts to decide on the sentence – rather than some guy appointing himself judge, jury and executioner. That’s not justice.’

‘Sounds like it to me. You know somebody’s done something bad and thinks they’ve got away with it? Boom. Kill the f*cker.’

Nina huffed. ‘Eddie, I really don’t want to get into this again. You know what? I’m just going to eat my sandwich – for which thank you very much, by the way. And,’ she added, ‘you are not going to get the last word just because my mouth’s full!’

‘As if I would,’ said Eddie, who had been planning to do exactly that.

She was about to take a bite when there was a knock at the door. Before she could ask who it was, Macy Sharif entered. ‘Hey, Nina. Hi, Eddie.’ The archaeology student, who had helped them discover the Pyramid of Osiris beneath the Egyptian desert the previous year, had accepted Nina’s invitation to spend part of her summer vacation as an intern at the International Heritage Agency before completing her final year of study. ‘Dr Bellfriar sent me to get you.’

‘Bet I know what he’s going to say,’ said Eddie with a mocking grin. ‘Eight months of looking at the things, and he’ll tell us . . . they’re made of stone. Thank you, that’ll be fifty grand plus expenses.’

‘Oh, he’s got way more to say than that,’ said Macy, the Englishman’s sarcasm fluttering past her unnoticed. ‘I should know. I had to make all his PowerPoint slides.’

‘Not enjoying your current assignment?’ Nina asked in an impish tone.

‘No, no, it’s fine!’ said Macy hurriedly, not wanting to seem ungrateful. ‘Just that I was hoping to do something a bit more fieldworky. With you.’

Nina patted one of the stacks of documents. ‘Funny, I was hoping to do some fieldwork too! But then some idiot tried to kill a bunch of world leaders, and we made a find that changes the face of archaeology, and, well, high-up people want to know about it. In triplicate.’

‘Maybe Bellfriar’s found something that’ll give you an excuse,’ Eddie suggested.

Nina looked hopefully at Macy, who tried unsuccessfully to hide an apologetic expression. ‘Anyway,’ said the young woman, ‘you can see for yourself. He’s with Mr Penrose and the others in the conference room.’

Nina took a quick bite from her sandwich before getting up from her desk. ‘What?’ she asked Eddie as she chewed. ‘I haven’t had lunch yet; I’m hungry. Come on.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘If I do, so do you.’ She shooed him from the office.

Macy led the way to the conference room. As well as Dr Donald Bellfriar, also present were several United Nations officials headed by Sebastian Penrose, who acted as liaison between the UN proper and its semi-independent cultural protection agency. ‘Ah, hello, Nina,’ said the bespectacled, officious Englishman.

‘Sebastian,’ Nina replied. ‘I didn’t expect so many people.’

‘Everyone loves a mystery,’ Penrose said. ‘I think they’re hoping Dr Bellfriar has the solution.’

Nina shared a knowing look with Macy. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

Everyone took their seats, Macy working a laptop and projector as the Oregonian geologist carefully smoothed his sweeping silver hair before addressing his audience. ‘Good afternoon, everyone. Before I start, I’d like to say how great it’s been to work with the IHA on this. I suppose that when archaeology can’t provide the answers, it’s time to call on the rock stars!’ He chuckled immodestly at his pun, which was received with appropriately stony silence. ‘Rock stars? No? Anyway, thank you, Dr Wilde – and thank you, Miss Sharif, for all your assistance. And for being enjoyable company.’ Macy beamed.

‘He was probably enjoying the view more than the conversation,’ Eddie whispered to Nina.

‘Shush,’ she whispered back, although he had a point. While Macy had spent her internship modestly dressed by her standards, in the formal surroundings of the UN the beautiful Miamian’s predilection for tight designer clothing made her stand out like a bikini model in a Saudi mosque.

Bellfriar began his presentation proper, opening a case to reveal his subjects: a pair of small statues, crude human figures carved from an odd purple stone. The first had been found by Nina, Eddie and Macy inside the Pyramid of Osiris; the second, stored with stolen cultural treasures in a former Cold War bunker beneath the glacial ice of Greenland. He summarised the circumstances of each discovery before continuing: ‘Now, despite their best efforts, Interpol have so far been unable to find out where the second statue was stolen from, and since neither relic appears to be the product of any known ancient culture that would seem to be a dead end in the search for answers. Fortunately, other branches of science can provide a different perspective. Miss Sharif ?’

Macy tapped at the laptop, projecting the first slide on to the conference room’s screen. It showed the two statues placed side by side. ‘As you can see,’ said Bellfriar, ‘the statues are clearly part of a set, and meant to fit together. Note how the arms are positioned so they’ll interlock. But as you see here,’ he nodded, and Macy clicked on to the next slide, ‘it’s obvious that the set is incomplete.’

The new image showed the statues from directly above. They had been positioned in such a way that, facing outwards with one shoulder touching, they formed two sides of a triangle – and, as Bellfriar had said, it was evident that a third figurine would perfectly complete the group. ‘Using simulation software,’ said the geologist proudly, ‘I can show you what the missing one would look like.’ Another slide, and the two statues were shown flanking a computer-generated image of a third. All three were broadly similar, the only appreciable difference being the position of the arms. ‘And here’s how they fit together . . . ’

The photos of the figures were replaced by CG copies which began a showy animated display, spinning round each other before slotting into a shoulder-to-shoulder triptych. The UN observers seemed impressed, but Nina was less so, having seen the IHA’s own computer simulation of the missing figure over seven months earlier. ‘That was one of the first things we realised when we received the second statue,’ she said. ‘There was – and hopefully still is – a third. The question is, where?’

‘Well, before we can ask where,’ said Bellfriar amiably, ‘we first have to ask what. As in, what are the statues made of?’ He indicated the two figures in the case. ‘As you see, they have an unusual colour, this strong purple, with a rather vitreous lustre. Some form of bornite was my first thought, but the copper content in the scrape sample I took was far too low – almost non-existent, in fact. But the density of the rock was surprisingly high, so it had an appreciable metal content . . . ’

Nina glanced at Eddie as Bellfriar launched into a detailed account of his mineralogical tests. His eyes had glazed over. She tapped his foot with hers. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Geology’s even more boring than archaeology.’

She was about to jab his foot again, this time with her high heel rather than her toe, when Bellfriar’s words caught her full attention. ‘. . . which brought me to my conclusion: the rock from which the statues were carved was probably mesosideritic.’

It took a moment, but the term produced a match from Nina’s mental database. ‘A meteorite?’

Bellfriar was impressed. ‘You know about meteorites, Dr Wilde?’

‘From an archaeological standpoint. There was a dagger made from meteoric iron in Tutankhamun’s tomb, and some Eskimo and Native American tribes also made ceremonial weapons from it. And there was an East African tribe that worshipped a fallen meteorite. But apart from that, only really what I remember from Astronomy 101.’

‘Well, I can give you a brief refresher course,’ said Bellfriar, chuckling again. ‘A mesosiderite is a stony-iron meteorite, which as the name suggests is made up of a combination of rock and metal. They’re very rare – there are fewer than a hundred and fifty known examples, I believe.’

‘You said it’s probably a . . . a mesosiderite,’ said Penrose, almost stumbling over the word. ‘Can’t you be sure?’

‘Not without cutting one of the statues in two to make a microscope slide, and I doubt Dr Wilde – or the Egyptian government – would be happy about that! But the tests I could do seemed reasonably conclusive. Although,’ he added, ‘if there’s any way at all I could get a larger sample, I’d very much like to carry out further tests. The rock has some unusual properties.’

‘In what way?’ asked Nina.

‘The density, for one thing – either the iron content is much higher than I’d expect, or there are heavier metals in there as well. There are also traces of organic compounds.’

Eddie gave the statues a deeply suspicious look. ‘Wait, there was something alive inside the meteor? Like the Blob?’

Bellfriar laughed. ‘No, no. If a compound is “organic”, then chemically it just means it contains carbon. Meteorites might have carried the precursors of life to earth, though; there was a famous find in Australia, the Murchison meteorite, which contained amino acids. I don’t know if that was the case here – but I did notice something else.’ He turned to Macy. ‘Miss Sharif, can you skip forward to . . . I think slide seventeen?’

Macy tapped the keyboard. Slides flashed on the screen, stopping at an image of one of the statues’ surface taken through a microscope. At extreme magnification, the stone was a fractal microcosm of a rocky landscape, with what seemed almost like man-made features running through it: a fine grid-like pattern.

‘Looks like a developer’s laying the ground for a new subdivision,’ said Nina.

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ replied Bellfriar. ‘I wouldn’t want to live there, though – not a lot of space. The lines are only about fifty micrometres apart, less than the width of a human hair.’

‘What is it?’ Eddie asked.

‘Some kind of carbon matrix infused into the meteoric iron. Naturally formed, of course – it looks artificial, but on this scale so do a lot of processes. What’s interesting is that it’s greatly increased the hardness of the rock, as if the whole thing has been reinforced with carbon nanotubes. Normally, this kind of stone would be around a five or six on the Mohs scale – diamond tops the scale at ten, by the way,’ he added for the benefit of the non-scientists. ‘The statues are actually harder than the porcelain streak plate I initially tried to use to test them, so on the Mohs scale they’re at least a seven – stronger than quartz.’

His description had sparked another of Nina’s memories – this time from personal experience. ‘The rock,’ she began, her cautious, probing tone immediately catching Eddie’s attention, ‘does it have any other unusual properties? Like, say . . . high electrical conductivity?’

‘Actually, yes,’ said Bellfriar, surprised. ‘It’s down to the iron content, of course, but it was higher than I expected. How did you know?’

‘It just reminded me of something I’d seen before,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘But it’s not important. What else have you found out?’

Bellfriar returned to his presentation, but Nina was no longer listening, instead running through theories of her own. When he finished, twenty minutes later, she thanked him for his work, then waited for the United Nations officials to conclude their pleasantries, trying not to seem too eager for everyone to leave.

‘What is it?’ whispered Eddie.

‘I’ll tell you in private,’ she replied under her breath, before calling across the room. ‘Macy?’

Macy was shutting down the laptop. ‘Yeah?’

‘Can you take the statues to my office, please?’

‘Taking them back off me so quickly, Dr Wilde?’ said Bellfriar in jovial mock offence. ‘I hope you’re not disappointed that I didn’t pinpoint where they came from?’

‘No, not at all,’ Nina told him as the puzzled Macy closed the case containing the statues. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about. Oh, Sebastian,’ she added as Penrose was about to leave, ‘can I have a quick word with you? We need to finalise the details of, uh . . . the Atlantis excavations.’

Penrose covered his momentary confusion – the IHA’s undersea archaeological work at the ruins of Atlantis was already under way – and nodded as he left. Macy, carrying the case, went out after him. Nina and Eddie followed, and the four met again in Nina’s office.

‘Okay,’ said Eddie, ‘what the hell was all that about?’

‘A good question,’ said Penrose. ‘I take it you’ve realised something, Nina.’

‘I think so,’ she replied, shoving the papers – and the sandwich – on her desk aside to clear a space. ‘Macy, put the case down here.’

Macy obeyed. Nina opened the case and regarded the two crude statues. ‘When Bellfriar mentioned carbon nanotubes, it made me think of something I’ve seen before. Excalibur.’

‘Excalibur?’ exclaimed Macy. ‘What, the Excalibur? As in King Arthur?’

‘That’s the one,’ said Eddie.

‘Wow! I knew you found King Arthur’s tomb, but I didn’t know you found Excalibur as well.’

‘We did, but we . . . lost it,’ said Nina. That wasn’t quite true, as she knew exactly where it was: she and Eddie had decided to hide it again to keep it out of the wrong hands. ‘But it had some very special properties . . . and they sounded a lot like what Bellfriar just described. Eddie, can you close the blinds? I need the room as dark as possible.’

Eddie began to lower the blinds. ‘We’ve been married for a year and a half – we don’t have to do it with the lights off any more.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Nina, not amused. ‘Ignore him, he’s joking,’ she added to Macy, sensing that the younger, far less inhibited woman was about to ask a very personal question. ‘But one of Excalibur’s properties was that it was made from a superconductive metal – and it could conduct more than just electricity.’

The blinds were now closed, the office in a gloomy twilight. Nina reached for a statue. ‘Okay, let’s see if I’m right . . . ’

She picked it up – and the stone glowed faintly, the light quickly fading to nothing.

Penrose’s eyes widened, and Macy gasped. ‘What was that?’ she said.

‘That was earth energy,’ said Nina. ‘It’s a network of lines of natural power that flow around the planet, and converge in certain places. If you’re in one of those places and the earth energy is strong enough, you can tap into it and use it – if you have a superconducting material to make the connection.’

‘Should Miss Sharif be seeing this?’ asked Penrose, a stern tinge to his voice making it clear that he thought she definitely shouldn’t.

‘I’ll vouch for her,’ said Nina, giving Macy a quick reassuring smile. ‘Besides, she discovered this statue, and I gave her the job of finding out more about it – I think this counts. And it beats making PowerPoint slides.’

‘Nice slides, by the way,’ Eddie told Macy with a grin. ‘Almost no spelling mistakes!’

Macy pouted as Nina returned the first statue to the case and picked up the other. Again, a shimmering glow ran briefly over the figure’s surface before disappearing. Nina was about to put the statue back down, then changed her mind and picked up the first once more. This time, nothing happened – until she put the two figurines together, linking them shoulder to shoulder in the same way as Bellfriar’s slide. Both statues glowed, the light slightly stronger than before. The effect lasted for a few seconds before dwindling.

Macy hesitantly touched the figures, but nothing happened. ‘Why did they do that? And how come it never happened before? Dr Bellfriar had them for months, and he never saw anything like this.’

‘It never happened before because only certain people can cause the effect,’ said Nina. ‘People like . . . me. I don’t know how or why – the best theory is that it’s genetic – but there’s something about my body’s bioelectric field that lets me channel earth energy through a superconductor.’ She opted, for now, not to explain to her friend that her genetic heritage went all the way back to the lost civilisation of Atlantis, destroyed eleven thousand years before – and that the actions of other Atlantean descendants had almost brought about a global genocide. ‘We discovered it when we found Excalibur.’

‘But you’ve held the statues before,’ said Eddie. ‘Loads of times. They never lit up like that.’

‘Maybe they did, and we just didn’t notice. Open the blinds.’ Nina put down the figures as Eddie did so, daylight flooding back into the room. She picked up the statues again. If the strange glow had returned, it was impossible to tell, the feeble effect overwhelmed even by indirect sunlight from outside.

‘So how are we going to proceed?’ asked Penrose. ‘The statues are somehow connected to earth energy, it seems – and earth energy is an IHA security issue. We know how dangerous it can be if the wrong person controls it.’

Nina looked into the roughly carved face of one of the statues, little more than a child’s drawing in three dimensions with a bump for a nose and vague indentations for eyes and mouth. ‘We’ve got two of the statues. There might be a third . . . somewhere. If there is, we have to find it. But first, we need to find out more about what we’re dealing with – and what these things can do.’

Macy looked surprised. ‘They’re just statues. What can they do?’

‘Excalibur was more than just a sword. When it was charged with earth energy, it could cut through literally anything. We know the Egyptian statue had some great significance – it was considered important enough to be sealed in the tomb of a god along with his greatest treasures. Maybe Osiris could channel its power – maybe that’s why he was regarded as a god. So we—’ She broke off as her desk phone rang, putting down the statue to answer it. ‘Hello?’

It was Lola Gianetti, Nina’s now four-months’ pregnant personal assistant. ‘Hi, Nina. Is Eddie with you? There’s a call for him.’

‘Can it wait? We’re in the middle of something.’

‘They said it was very important.’

‘Okay, he’s here. Hold on.’

She passed the phone to her husband. ‘Yeah, hello?’ he said, eyebrows rising as he recognised his sister’s voice. ‘Lizzie, hi. Haven’t heard from you for a while. What’s up?’

He moved away to continue the call with a modicum of privacy, leaving Nina, Penrose and Macy to regard the statues. ‘What do you have in mind?’ Penrose asked.

‘We need to find out what the earth energy effect actually does,’ said Nina. ‘Which means we need to take the statues to a convergence point.’ She chewed her lower lip, thinking. ‘There are four places where I know for sure that I can find earth energy. Problem is, one is in a Russian military base, another’s in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, and one’s buried under thousands of tons of rock out in the desert in a country where I’m not exactly welcome.’

‘Jeez,’ said Macy. ‘So where’s the fourth one? Inside a volcano?’

‘Fortunately, no,’ said Nina, smiling. ‘It’s somewhere a bit easier to reach – and a lot less hot. England. In King Arthur’s tomb at Glastonbury, actually.’ She looked across at Eddie to see if the mention of his home country had caught his attention, but he had his back to her, holding his conversation in a low voice.

‘And you want to take the statues there?’ Penrose asked.

‘Yes. I think the glow we saw just now is only a residual effect – if there are any lines of earth energy around New York, they’re either too weak or too far away to produce much power. If I take the statues to Glastonbury, with luck I’ll see what happens when they get a full charge.’

Penrose shook his head slightly. ‘I’m not sure the Egyptians will want their statue to leave IHA security. Or Interpol theirs, for that matter.’

‘We’ll work something out. But we should do it fast. As you said, it’s a security issue now.’

He thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ll speak to Dr Assad in Egypt and the Interpol CPCU, see if I can persuade them to speed things along. I think you’re right, though; we need to look into this – and if there’s a third statue out there, we have to find it. When were you thinking about starting?’

‘About ten minutes ago,’ said Nina.

Penrose shot a rueful glance at the paperwork on her desk. ‘And the backlog relating to the Vault of Shiva? Or the meeting of the non-executive directors? Mr Glas particulalry wanted to meet you.’

‘That’s what I like about being in charge,’ she said with a broad grin. ‘I get to delegate!’

‘I’m sure Bill and Simone will be delighted to hear that,’ said Penrose, returning the smile. ‘Okay, I’ll make the calls. Keep me posted.’ He tipped his head to the two women, then left the office.

‘So you’re going to England?’ said Macy excitedly. ‘Can I come?’

Nina was caught off guard. ‘What?’

‘Well, you did give me the job of finding out more about these little guys . . . ’ She indicated the statues. When Nina didn’t respond immediately, she adopted a pleading tone. ‘Aw, please, Nina. It won’t cost the IHA anything – I can pay my own way.’

‘You mean your parents can.’

‘Well, what are parents for? And I’ll learn a hundred times more from you in the field than I would in an office.’

Nina reluctantly conceded the point; since Macy was an unpaid intern and not an IHA employee, there was technically nothing she could do to stop her from simply buying a plane ticket and tagging along. ‘Okay, I guess.’

‘Awesome!’ Macy clapped her hands together. ‘I’ve never been to England before. I’ll need new clothes. What should I wear?’

Before Nina could make a facetious suggestion, Eddie put down the phone. ‘Was that Elizabeth in England?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, voice oddly flat.

‘Kind of a nice coincidence. I think the best place to find out more about the statues is Glastonbury, so we can visit your folks while we’re over there.’

‘I’d be going to see them even if we were supposed to be flying to Timbuktu tomorrow,’ he said, grim-faced. ‘Nan’s in hospital.’