The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

78





Corporal Williamson and his crew made impressively short work of the gates. They had found some chains and dragged them to their

truck outside the fence. The chains were fixed by one end to the tow bar and the other to the main support posts while everyone

else dug away at the foundations with shovels, picks and whatever else they could swing. When Williamson figured they’d dug far

enough he fired up the engine and eased it over to where the earth fell away and used gravity and the weight of the truck to rock

the posts clean out of the ground. Then they got to work on the rest.

Williamson took command, tasking some of his men to decommission the cannons up in the towers and the rest he split into teams to

coordinate the demolition effort. Using a series of interpreters relaying Williamson’s orders they got everybody working

together, some digging at the post foundations, others cutting the wire and rolling it into bundles. Liv had been stationed at one

of the posts and was snipping away at the ties with an industrial-sized set of wire cutters. She felt deep satisfaction at how

quickly the different groups had gelled into one unit, everyone working together, everyone suffused with a sense of urgency by the

column of dust growing steadily in the east, marking the approach of the newcomers.

‘Those soldiers, they’re very good at this,’ she remarked to Tariq who was hacking away with a pickaxe at the concrete foot of

the post she was working at.

He leaned on the axe handle and wiped the sweat from his face. ‘They should be,’ he said, ‘they’re USACE – United States Army

Corps of Engineers. These guys are used to taking things down and building them up again. It’s what they’re trained for.’

Liv frowned as a thought began to form in her head. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that exactly the right people seem to arrive here

just when they’re needed? When the water was poisoned some water experts turned up out of nowhere with all the right equipment to

test it. Then these guys show up just when the need to dismantle this place suggests itself.’

‘The goat herders too,’ Tariq nodded over at the nomads who were now quite happily being ordered about by the soldiers.

‘How do they fit in?’

‘We have plenty of dried food but hardly anything fresh. In the desert the goat is the best source of fresh milk and meat. Those

goats are as important for the sustainability of this place as the water.’ He frowned as something occurred to him. ‘What about

Azra’iel and his riders, how do they fit into your theory?’

Liv contemplated this for a moment then shook her head. ‘They were not drawn here by the call of this place like the rest, they

were led here by Malik. They shouldn’t have been here. And they died.’

Tariq turned back to the column of dust in the east, close enough now to make out three white trucks at the base of it, their

outlines shimmering and breaking up in the heat haze. ‘So who is coming now?’ he asked, more to himself than anyone else. ‘What

do we need here that we haven’t got already?’

Liv followed his gaze. ‘Whoever it is they will be met with a welcome and not a closed gate,’ she said.

She continued to watch the shimmering vehicles drawing closer, emerging from the liquid air until they crunched to a halt in a

cloud of fine dust. The driver’s door of the lead vehicle opened and a man got out. He was tall and olive-skinned, but not Arabic

looking. Gentle eyes surveyed the ring of welcoming faces then looked past them through the ruins of the gate to the compound

beyond and the fountain of water. ‘What is this place?’ he asked in accented English that placed him as Italian or maybe

Spanish.

Liv stepped forward, fixing a smile on her face ‘We’re not quite sure what this place is really, we’re kind of making it up as

we go along, but there’s plenty of room and plenty of water and you’re very welcome to stay.’

More doors opened and others stepped out into the desert, a mixture of Arabic, European, mature and young, six of them in all, two

to a vehicle. Then Liv spotted something on one of their sleeves, a logo that looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place.

‘What is it that you all do?’ she asked.

The driver of the lead vehicle turned his gentle eyes on her and smiled. ‘We work for Médecins Sans Frontières,’ he said. ‘We’

re doctors.’





79





Franklin saw something harden in his wife’s face the moment his phone rang for the second time.

They were sitting in the kitchen – Marie, Sinead and him – the remains of a home-cooked meal on the table, talking like they

hadn’t talked together in God knows how long. It was as if all the bad history and all the distance that had formed between them

had been swept away by the same force that had pulled them home.

‘I got to take this,’ he said. Marie nodded, a quick twitch of her chin, then slipped out of her chair, picked up some plates

and headed over to the sink. How many times had he seen her do that? Too many. He looked at Sinead, so like her mother, and caught

the same disappointment in her eyes – not as hard or as cold as her mother yet, but the seed was there.

He took the phone from his pocket and checked the number.

Shepherd again.

He knew he should turn the damn thing off and go over to Marie, tell her he loved her, that the old days of work first and

everything else a poor second were gone. But they weren’t. Not yet.

He pictured Shepherd, exhausted from the day he’d had, standing out there alone in the freezing night with a fresh corpse for

company and no one watching his back. ‘I got to take it,’ he repeated standing and walking from the room, hating himself with

every step. He moved into the hallway and snapped the phone to his ear. ‘Franklin.’

‘It’s Shepherd.’

‘I know.’ He walked towards the front door but changed his mind and sat on the stairs instead. It was too cold outside and he

couldn’t face leaving the house.

‘The cops are here. They didn’t see the car on their way in and didn’t intercept anyone. I think the killers must be heading

north into Tennessee.’

‘I’ll make some calls. Spread the net.’

‘I already got the local cops to call it through.’

‘Well I’ll fire a rocket down from Quantico too, make sure it sticks.’ The loud and angry chink of dishes being rinsed in the

sink sounded only a few feet away. He covered his ear with his free hand and felt his mind automatically snick back into the well

-worn grooves of a moving investigation. ‘OK, this is what’s going to happen. They won’t have the right resources locally to

process the scene properly so I’m going to send a team out to you from Charlotte. You need to stay put until they get there, make

sure those down home cops don’t get all excited and contaminate the scene with cigarette butts and good intentions. They’re

going to take a while to reach you so you’ll need to take charge until they do. I already put in an urgent search for any of Dr

Kinderman’s previous known addresses and got a hit on two that might be considered “home”. There are armed units heading to

both of them now. If Kinderman’s there we’ll get him.’

‘Always assuming whoever killed Professor Douglas hasn’t got there first.’

‘I doubt it. Both addresses are way up north and so far everything has taken place south of Washington. This feels like a very

contained operation, one mobile unit and someone controlling them centrally. What’s the cell phone coverage like where you are?’

‘I’m on top of a mountain, I got five bars, but I don’t know about the rest of the area – why?’

Franklin stared at his daughter’s snow boots, lined up by the door where she had stepped out of them; one had toppled over. He

had a flash of a smaller pair abandoned in exactly the same way maybe fifteen years earlier. He closed his eyes. The memories were

too distracting. ‘You remember our little talk with the good Reverend?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘You remember what I did just before we interviewed him?’

There was a pause on the line. Franklin could hear the wind through the trees where Shepherd was. It sounded cold. ‘You asked him

to put his phone down on the table.’

‘Then what?’

‘You asked if you could smoke.’

‘And when he said “no” I put my cigarettes down on the table next to his phone. There’s a little piece of kit not covered in

class called an Eavesdropper. It’s a new-generation bug that can read and duplicate a SIM card without the need to tamper with a

phone. All you have to do is place it close enough to a target unit and leave it there for about a minute so it can pick up the

Mobile Identification Number when it checks in with the nearest cell mast. It then mirrors the phone activity and makes voice

recordings of any calls. It’s got a four gigabyte chip built in so it can store around fifty hours of audio. The one drawback is

that it only works in close physical proximity to the target phone.’

‘Which is why you stashed your pack of cigarettes in that crack in the wall.’

‘Exactly. So I’m thinking if there’s good phone reception where you are the killers may already have called in a status update

to their controller. You hang tight, Shepherd. I’ll let you know how it shakes out.’

He hung up and hit the zero key to speed-dial Quantico. From the kitchen all he could hear now was silence. He pictured Marie and

Sinead sitting at the breakfast bar, listening to him talk in the hallway. It made him feel crummy. But he couldn’t leave

Shepherd hanging in the wind. He was the only reason he was here at all. He’d explain that to them, as soon as he finished this

call.

The phone connected and Franklin navigated his way through the various departments: authorizing and mobilizing a crime- scene

detail to hit the road and head to Cherokee; issuing an urgent look out for a yellow or white station wagon with police

departments in three states; and ultimately getting patched through to the surveillance control room where, after confirmation of

his agent ID number and the investigation code, he was told by the operator that the Eavesdropper unit assigned to him had logged

its last call six minutes earlier. Franklin listened to the crackle of the line and the solid silence in his house while the

operator sent a code that bounced off a communications satellite in space and beamed a signal back through the snow clouds and

down to the Eavesdropper wedged between the mailbox and the outside wall of the Church of Christ’s Salvation in Charleston.

The circuit responded to the code and switched from a receiver to a transmitter, using the cellphone network to send an encoded

stream of information back to the operator who then decoded it and fed it straight down the line to Franklin.

Franklin kept his eyes closed as he listened to the last recorded conversation the device had picked up. It was between Cooper and

two unidentified voices – a man and a woman. He registered the key phrases in the short exchange:

… The Professor is dead … just passed into Tennessee … Yeah, we got pictures …

Then Cooper ended the call with words that hammered the lid shut on his own coffin.

… I just found out where Dr Kinderman is …

Franklin cut the connection and stared down at his daughter’s empty boots. Whatever hope he had been clinging to that he might

still be able to deal with this by phone had just flown. Cooper needed to be taken down quickly and he couldn’t leave it to

Charleston’s finest.

He dug around in his pocket, found the card Jackson had given him in the police station and started punching his number into his

phone. He hit the dial button and became aware of Marie and Sinead framed in the kitchen door. They were both looking at him,

their arms folded across their fronts, each a mirror of the other’s disapproval.

‘I’ve got to do this one thing,’ he said, holding up his phone, ‘just this one thing in Charleston then I’ll be back, I

promise.’ He heard the phone connect and start ringing. By the look on Marie’s face she heard it too.

‘It’s always just one more thing,’ she said. Then she turned and walked into the kitchen.

Sinead stayed where she was. ‘Just one thing?’ she said.

‘Literally this one thing, I promise you hand on heart.’

She nodded but didn’t smile, then turned and followed her mother into the kitchen as Jackson answered. Franklin clamped the phone

to his ear, closing his eyes to shut out all the things he didn’t want to leave. ‘I need your help,’ he said keeping his voice

low. ‘But first I need to get into Charleston as fast as possible, preferably avoiding the parking lot that is the I-26.’





80





‘He asked about me?’ Gabriel was propped up in bed looking at Athanasius and Thomas, their faces serious after their strange

meeting with Malachi.

‘Yes, and his questions appeared to have been prompted by whatever he had just read on the Starmap. He asked if you had ridden to

the Citadel out of the wilderness.’

‘You think he knows what the symbols mean?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Thomas replied. ‘Malachi knows more about early writing than any man alive. If there is anything in the library

that will help decipher this text then it will already be in his head. He knows exactly what it says.’

‘So how do we get him to tell us?’

‘We don’t,’ Athanasius replied. ‘Malachi has never been a man who could be swayed. And he hates me. He thinks I have betrayed

the brotherhood. There is no way he is going to share what he learned with us. I should have known better than to trust him, but I

wasn’t counting on him being so – unhinged.’

‘Yes,’ Thomas agreed, ‘there was something desperate about him. He’s not going to help us. I fear he is already lost.’

‘So it seems we must take matters into our own hands,’ Athanasius said, rubbing his hands together as if, on some level, he was

enjoying all this. ‘If we are going to interpret the rest of the stone we need to gain access to the ancient records. You helped

me break into the library once before.’

Thomas smiled. ‘And that was when the lights were still working, the security protocols were in place, armed guards were on

constant patrol and unauthorized access was punishable by death. This should be relatively easy in comparison.’

‘Can you do it tonight?’

‘I’ll need to hook into the library systems to see what is still running and what has been disabled, I don’t want you walking

into a trap or tripping any alarms. The absence of the lights will be a big help, and I don’t suppose they’re availing

themselves of the night-vision goggles, what with “the corrupting influence of modernity”, which means we can use them. They are

kept in the control room by the main entrance.’

‘Could we gain access via the reading rooms? We could go via the restricted section to the one used by the Sancti?’

‘What’s that?’ Gabriel asked.

‘The Sanctus monks were kept strictly segregated from the rest of the population to preserve the secrets they kept. However they

still had access to the library at certain times when no one else was there, and they had their own reading room. It’s reached by

a staircase from the upper section of the mountain. There are other stairways too, one in the prelate’s quarters, one close to

the cathedral cave and one just through there.’ He pointed to the door leading to the Abbot’s bed chamber. ‘They enabled the

trusted senior members of the mountain to meet with the Sancti and partake in their ceremonies. Since there are no longer any of

them left, the stairways and Sancti’s reading room have been unused.’ He looked back at the door leading to the bedchamber. ‘I

have the Abbot’s key for that door. But not one for the door leading into the reading room. We’d have to force it.’

Father Thomas shook his head. ‘We would make far too much noise. It’s a heavy door with a solid lock and the reading rooms where

Malachi and the black cloaks are residing is right next door. I’d rather break in using my own systems than bludgeon my way

through a door. Once we are inside and have acquired the night-vision goggles it should be easy. We can find our way to the

ancient texts and read anything we like in total darkness. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll have worked out how to get us in.

That should also give everyone time to go to sleep. Shall we say midnight?’

Athanasius nodded. ‘Between Matins and Lauds.’

‘Can I come with you?’ Gabriel said, clearly meaning it.

‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Dr Kaplan appeared behind Thomas with something in his hand and a serious expression on his face.

‘You’re far too weak to do anything other than lie here and rest. However, if you really want to help …’

He opened his hand and Gabriel felt his stomach flip when he saw several empty test tubes lying in his palm. ‘This is the

situation. So far we’ve taken eight hundred mils of your blood which would take your body about five weeks to fully replace. The

plasma gets replaced in a day or two. The blood cells take much longer. In the study of disease it is these cells that give us the

most information. They’re the things that have battled the disease and, in your case, won. At the moment your body will only just

have started replacing the plasma and your white cell count per litre will still be relatively high. As far as virology and

toxicology is concerned this is the good stuff, packed full of all the information we need. It would really speed things up if we

could take some more of this rich blood now.’

‘How much?’

‘Another five hundred mils.’

‘And how much would that leave me with?’

‘Enough, you’d still have seventy-five to eighty-five per cent of your usual amount, which is in the safe zone for a healthy

patient. My concern is that the last time we took blood it triggered some kind of mild relapse, though you recovered quickly and

seem fine now.’ He looked at the ECG monitor connected to Gabriel’s finger by a clip. ‘Your vital signs are all strong and

there’s no obvious reason for concern. But ultimately it’s your decision.’

Gabriel looked at the stained-glass window, the peacock motif hardly visible now as evening darkened the sky behind it. ‘What the

hell,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere. But if I do pass out please don’t wake me until morning.’ An assistant appeared from

nowhere and started to tighten Gabriel’s bindings.

‘Just a precaution,’ Kaplan said. ‘In case you do have another fit.’

Gabriel turned to Athanasius. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘And I sincerely hope you have a better night than I’m about to.’





81





Malachi’s candle lit up the words carved into the inside of the upper curve of an archway as he passed through it: CRYPTA

REVELATIO – Vault of the Revelation.

Most of the library was organized according to date and origin, with the newest items nearest the entrance. But the contents of

the Crypta Revelatio were drawn from every culture, every century and every part of the world. It was a collection with one unique

subject in common: all of the texts and references gathered there contained prophetic accounts of the end of the world.

He made his way over to the far side of the vault and held his dying candle to a fresh one until the new wick caught and wavering

orange light rippled across a desk entirely buried beneath books and sheets of paper filled with Malachi’s dense handwriting.

Collapsing in the seat at his desk, he grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and took up his pen. His hand shook as he wrote, his lips

moving as he recalled the symbols he had seen. He had not been able to memorize them all in the short time, but he had seen

enough. He drew the symbols from memory, writing his interpretation of each next to it so he could capture as much of it as he

could remember: one sign for a rider – a warrior on horseback; one sign for the Citadel, which occurred more than once; and at

the very end of the prophecy the symbol of a skull – meaning death or an end – followed by the moon in the sun, representing a

day.

End of Days.

He pulled the candle over and his magnified eyes moved behind the lenses of his spectacles, his skittish hands extensions of his

tumbling thoughts as they searched through the accumulated mass of doom that spilled across the table top and down to the floor,

looking for one item in particular. He had read and re-read the documents so many times that the terrible imagery and predictions

they contained bled into his dreams as he slept here each night in his nest of prophesies.

He found what he was looking for buried beneath the handwritten, original manuscript of the Poetic Edda and a first edition of Les

Propheties by Michel de Nostredame. The text was written on papyrus in Ancient Greek and bound into a codex with thin strips of

leather. Such binding was usually reserved for pristine texts but these pages were filled with crossings out and additions crammed

in the borders and between every line.

Malachi turned the pages, his hands touching only the edge of each page in recognition of the great delicacy of the book. It had

arrived in the Citadel barely a hundred years after the death of Christ, shortly after it was written on the island of Patmos. Any

Christian scholar with a passing knowledge of Greek would have instantly recognized the apocalyptic imagery of dragons and lambs

that whispered up from the dry pages. It was the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Divine, the last book of the Holy Bible,

written in the saint’s own hand.

The first copies of the Bible had been compiled and written in this very library, using the original texts as reference. But not

everything had been copied into the official, public version everyone now knew. Under the supervision of the earliest scholars

whole books had been omitted in order to help clarify God’s meanings. And anything that alluded too closely to the Citadel or the

Sacrament was also omitted so the secrets would remain so. But the complete visions and prophecies of Saint John had been

preserved in this, the one remaining copy of the original work. Malachi found the page he was looking for and scanned the

confusion of crossings out and notes until he found the seventh verse:

And when he had opened the fourth seal,

I heard the voice of the fourth beast say,

Come and see.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse:

and his name that sat on him was Death,

and Hell followed with him.

The same version was written in every Bible on the face of the earth. But in this Codex there was an additional part that had been

marked for exclusion by one of the fathers of the Church because of the direct reference to the Citadel.

And he did ride forth from the wilderness

A demon disguised as an angel

And the keepers of the flame within the great tower, which had stood and held the secret

of God since Adam’s time,

Were fooled and they did let him inside

And there he did remove the light,

But the pure of heart were fooled not

And God did give them a white fire to burn away all corruption and carry the false one away unto death.

And God did smile upon those who had done His work,

And they did take their place by His side.

Blessed among the blessed.

And what had Athanasius – that fool – told him about the man who had cheated death and recovered from the blight? That he had

ridden to the Citadel on a horse, and that his name was Gabriel.

What had they done?

The Revelation of St John the Divine and the prophecy etched on the stone both predicted the end of days – and Athanasius had

made it all happen. He had lit the fuse to something that would blow everything apart.

Malachi closed his eyes and tried to think. There had been constellations etched onto the stone too and moon symbols denoting a

time frame. Maybe the end was not here yet, Maybe it could be avoided. He re-read the words of the Saint, looking for fresh

meaning in them, his eyes drawn to one phrase in particular:

But the pure of heart were fooled not

And God did give them a white fire to burn away all corruption and carry the false one away unto death.

What had Athanasius said about the demon, the one who called itself Gabriel? That it was recovering from the blight, and that they

had taken it to the Abbot’s private chambers to recover while they conducted their tests and pandered to it, slaves already

without even knowing it – the fools. But Athanasius had also said something else – that it was still weak, not fully recovered.

And he knew a way to the Abbot’s private chambers through the stairways and corridors leading up from the locked reading room of

the Sancti. And Malachi had the key. There was yet time to vanquish it, but he would have to strike quickly, before it grew too

strong.