Kardinal (10 page)

London – 8am (GMT), 18 May, 2011

“BRITAIN’S weak,” said George Fuad. While the make-up girl touched foundation on his cheeks, he spoke to the producer. “There’s no leadership, and at a time like this, you need leadership. You know what I’m saying, Kaz?”

Kaz, blonde hair cut like a boy, overweight, too much lipstick, said, “You don’t need to tell me that, Mr Fuad. You can tell Jeffrey – ”

“What questions is he going to ask me, love?”

“Questions?” said Kaz.

He glared at her. “Yeah, things that require answers.”

“Questions. He – we won’t be giving you the questions beforehand, Mr Fuad.”

He eased the make-up girl aside and whipped the towel from his collar. “You don’t seem to understand, Kaz, how things work now.”

“You, Mr Fuad, don’t seem to understand how things work.”

George flushed. He got into Kaz’s face.

“You know who I am?”

“I… I do, Mr Fuad.”

“You know what’s going to happen to the BB-fucking-C when I win tomorrow?”

“Are you threatening me, Mr Fuad?”

“Yes, Kaz, of course I’m fucking threatening you.”

“If you threaten me again, I will call security.”

George laughed in her face. He
snapped his fingers. His two heavies opened up their blazers to show the handguns strapped into holsters under their armpits.

Kaz gawped. “You
… they… they can’t bring weapons – ”

“This is not the world you used to live in, Kaz,” said George. “This is a different world. My world. You better start seeing that. The Beeb might be gloating that it’s now the only TV channel on air, that you’ve beaten off your competition. But you didn’t do that ’cause you’re better. You did that ’cause you’re richer. Soon you won’t be. No freedom. No balance. When I’m in charge, I’ll be telling
you
what to broadcast, you hear me?”

“This is outrageous – ”

“Where’s this Jeffrey cunt?” he said.

George stormed out of the make-up room. He strode down the corridor. Kaz followed. His two heavies followed. His advisors followed.

Kaz was speaking to someone, saying, “He said the C-word, he called Jeffrey a… C-word. Who does he think he is? This is the BBC.”

He barged on to the set during a live broadcast.

The presenter, Jeffrey Mathers, greeted him.

Mathers was slick. Oil in his hair. Oil on his skin. Oil in his veins.

“What a nice surprise,” he told the camera, the confident grin never leaving his face, “Mr Fuad has joined us early. We’ll get you miked up, sir, and we can have our chat, but first – ”

“No ‘first’, Jeff.” George sat down in the empty chair opposite Mathers. A sound guy scuttled forward with a radio mike. “Me first. I have a few things to – ”

“If you could wait for the microphone, Mr Fuad. Then the audience can hear you.”

“Sure, Jeff, sure,” said George as the sound guy fixed the microphone to his tie.

“Right, the country can now hear you, Mr Fuad,” said Mathers. “Welcome to Election Special, this morning.”

“The country has been hearing me for a long time, Jeff, it’s just the powers-that-be, and the establishment, who have been deaf.”

“I’m sure you would say that – ”

“I’m sure I
… ” – George nearly said “fucking” but managed to stop himself – “ … would, Jeff.”

“But if you’d allow me – ”

“I will allow you, Jeff.”

“ – to ask why, why you think vampires are not a threat to human life?”

“I don’t think, I
know
. I
know
they are not a threat. They have been sullied. They have been disparaged. They feel threatened, Jeff. And if someone feels threatened, they will, naturally, defend themselves.”

“It doesn’t seem they defended themselves, it seems they attacked first – ”

George raised a hand. “Jake Lawton, a disgraced soldier and criminal, triggered a war against this species. An ancient, lost species. If he did the same against the panda, there would be outrage.”

“But pandas don’t kill humans.”

“All right, tigers then. Tigers kill people.”

“I don’t think we need to be discussing pandas or tigers. I think we should stick to vampires.”

“Let’s do that,” said George.

“It is true that vampires require blood to survive. If they are not killing innocent people, like you claim, how will they feed?”

“Criminals.”

“Criminals?”

“They will be fed criminals.”

A gasp went around the TV studio, and Jeffrey Mathers’s
eyes widened. But he kept going: “So… so you don’t believe in rehabilitation then, Mr Fuad?”

“Not for murderers, rapists, and perverts I don’t. And no one else outside the liberal, lefty, criminal-loving corridors of the BBC does, either, Jeffrey.”

“Maybe not, but do you think those people believe in feeding criminals to vampires? That would seem like an outrageous solution.”

George leaned forward, put on a concerned frown. “Let me tell you what is outrageous, Jeffrey. What is outrageous is to attack the heart of democracy, as Jake Lawton did, and burn it to the ground. He did what Guy Fawkes attempted to do – destroy parliament. He also encouraged an army of
foreign
criminals to invade the streets of London and cause mayhem.”

“They were said to have saved a lot of lives
, Mr Fuad. They carried the Union flag and represented Britain.”

“Another lie. These immigrants attacked first. Britain is a great country, Jeffrey. She will fight back against the enemy within, be they foreign or local insurgents. We should accommodate all species here. One day, vampire and human will live side by side, and Britain will again be great. But there must be pain, Jeff. There must be suffering to achieve this greatness. Don’t let anyone tell you it will be easy. Greatness is never easy, Jeff. Greatness comes from sweat and blood and difficult decisions. The government – or interim government, should I say – does not have the stomach to make these decisions. Elizabeth Wilson leads an impotent executive. It is weak and fragile, and corrupted by haters and colluders.
When the United Party win tomorrow’s election, the rescue mission will start. We will make Britain great again. We will not put up with foreign troublemakers, or home-grown ones. We’ll make London a golden city. We’ll make England a great nation. We’ll make Britain a world-respected empire again.”

Applause burst out in the studio.

George had never felt so powerful.

Turkish-Iraqi border – 9pm (GMT + 3 hours), 18 May, 2011

THEY crossed the Tigris into Iraq a few miles northwest of where the country’s borders met the frontiers of Turkey and Syria.

It was dark, so she was awake and sitting in the cab next to Lawton. Her presence unnerved him. He kept glancing at her from the corner of his eye, making sure she wasn’t about to attack him. But she didn’t. She stared ahead, fascinated by the world she was seeing for the first time. Ereshkigal had never seen cars or trucks or planes or roads like these, or towns like these.

The landscape was barren. A mist hung over the mountains. A town lurked in the distance.

“I followed Alexander the Great’s army across this border and fed on his men,” she said. “He was going to conquer Babylon.”

And destroy the trinity, thought Lawton.

He drove, sweat pouring off him, fear chilling his blood. His knuckles were white, so tightly did he grip the steering wheel. His head ached, and his injured eye pulsed. He had to stop, or he felt like he would explode. He slowed the vehicle and switched off the engine. He leapt out of the truck.

The chill hit him.

He looked up. No stars, no moon. Just deep, dense blackness. Surrounding him, the mountains looked threatening. He felt sick. He felt lost. He had turned his back on her, and he was almost waiting for her to attack. But she didn’t. She stayed in the cab.

His shoulders sagged, and he turned, ready to get back into the truck.

Headlights blinded him. The vehicle came storming along the road. Its horn blared. The shape of a man holding a gun poked out of the passenger-side window.

Lawton reacted.

He raced back towards the truck.

Gunfire raked the road.

He threw himself to the ground.

He threw his hands up.

The Land Rover came to a halt, kicking up dirt.

Three men leapt out.

They shouted at him in a language that wasn’t Arabic.

Kurds, he thought.

They pointed guns at him.

He scowled and cursed his stupidity.

Glancing towards the truck, he was about to warn Ereshkigal.

But the cab was empty.

She was gone.

He focused on the men and quickly formulated a plan to disarm and kill them.

It would be difficult and dangerous.

A gun appeared in his face. Its owner shouted at him again. The bloke was a middle-aged lump with a beard and a scar on his cheek.

Lawton studied him.

Warlords, he thought.

The other two men were checking the truck.

They babbled.

The lump held the gun to Lawton’s head and kept jabbering. Had he yakked in Arabic, Lawton might have understood. He knew a little of the language. But not enough to save his skin. The only way he knew to save his skin was to fight back.

The other two came back from the truck. They had his rucksack. They emptied it, and the Spear of Abraham fell out, along with a handgun, bullets, water, stale bread, his wallet containing some cash, maps, notebook, and pens.

One of the men picked up the spear and studied it, his brow furrowed.

They chattered, obviously discussing the weapon.

“Careful with that,” he said.

The three men gawped, as if they’d never heard anyone speak before.

“English?” said the bearded lump.

Lawton nodded.

The other two started laughing. They took the money out of his wallet and shared it between them.

Lawton licked his lips. They were dry.

He was being robbed.

And he was going to get shot.

The bearded lump nodded at him and smiled, showing toothless gums.

He cocked his rifle.

Lawton thought, I’m going to die.

He felt powerless.

But then a figure reared up against the darkness on the roof of the truck. A slight, slim frame, her dress fluttering in the night air. Her scent carried on the breeze.

It was death.

Hillah, Iraq – 10pm (GMT + 3 hours), 18 May, 2011

ALFRED fanned the smoke and coughed. Laxman took the hint and stubbed out the cigarette on the ground.

The tunnel was gloomy. It sloped downwards.

Deeper, deeper
, thought Alfred.

As they walked, electricians were wiring neon strip lights to the walls. Every step Alfred took was a step into the light. It was as if he were illuminating the darkness. He allowed himself to think that. It filled him with a sense of power he’d rarely felt.

The mining team had dug through both the left-hand and right-hand tunnels in the fork. The bones of the un-named creature and the skeleton of the nailed man had been packaged and stored. They’d be returned to Britain. Perhaps they’d be artefacts at a museum opened in Alfred’s name. The cave painting thought to be by Abraham had been photographed and encased in glass to protect it from deterioration. Malik had requested that his team have some time off after their remarkable discovery. Alfred said no. He told them to get back to work – and to do 24-hour shifts, if need be. There could be no delay in the search for Nimrod. George was waiting for news.

“I wish my brother could see this,” said Alfred.

“What’s to see?” Laxman said.

Alfred stared ahead. The tunnel was about twenty feet high. A drill purred up ahead in the gloom. They were going deeper and deeper into the earth.

“An underground city on a greater scale than any city on earth,” said Alfred. “Irkalla, home of Nimrod.”

“You scared of what you might find down there?”

“I’m excited, Laxman. My brother will be delighted.”

“You’re a bit obsessed with your brother.”

Alfred glared at the soldier.

“You’re always going on about him,” Laxman added.

“You have siblings?” said Alfred.

“Sister.”

“You see her often?”

“I see her never.”

“She dead?”

“Might as well be.”

“Why’s that?”

“I beat her husband up on their wedding day.”

“Did he deserve it?”

“Anyone gets beaten up deserves it, Fuad. If you ask for it, you deserve it. If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s stupid, so you deserve it.”

“What did he do, your brother in law?”

“He got too smart. He was a banker. Said I was scum.”

“Maybe he was drunk.”

“He was. Makes no difference.”

“Maybe you were looking for a fight.”

“I’m always looking for a fight, Alfie.”

“You might have one here,” he said, gesturing down the tunnel.

“You think?”

“Nimrod might wake up angry.”

“I’ll have my SA80 trained on him.”

“Think that’ll make a difference, a gun?”

“Soon find out.”

“You’ll know he’ll want a sacrifice.”

Laxman furrowed his brow.

“He’ll want blood,” said Alfred.

Laxman shrugged.

“What if he wants yours, Laxman?”

“He’ll have to fight me for it – and he’ll regret waking up, I tell you. I’ll put him to sleep for good.”

“You can’t kill Nimrod.”

“Everything can be killed.”

“He can only be killed in one way.”

“How’s that?”

Alfred told him.

Laxman looked confused. “Make him one again? Make him whole? Don’t get it. Just have to rely on my gun.”

They kept walking.

“You queer, Alfred?”

“Does it matter?”

Laxman shrugged. “Your brother queer?”

Alfred glared at him.

“He ain’t married, neither,” said Laxman.

“He has been. Twice.”

“What happened?”

“They betrayed him, like women do.”

“You don’t like birds, do you?
”

“I don’t like anyone, Laxman – except my brother.”

“Think he’ll make a good Prime Minister, then?”

“The best ever. Him and me, we’ll rule together. Him, first among equals.”

“You’re a bit sick, I think.”

“I’m paying you not to think.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong – I don’t give a shit. You be as sick as you like. I’m just commenting.”

“Don’t comment, either. Just do your job.”

“Seems there’s not much of a job left to do.”

“You’ll have more than enough on your plate in the next few days, Laxman.”

The mercenary lit another cigarette.

Alfred fumed and was about to berate him when a voice boomed from the darkness.

“We are through, we are through… ”