Kardinal (14 page)

“AND they voted for me,” said George, his face glowing red on the computer screen. His was either drunk or elated. “They made me fucking Prime Minister. Do you believe that, Alfie?”

Alfred did believe it. He believed his brother could do anything. Even be Prime Minister. It was George’s destiny to be in power. He had all the attributes of a ruler – he could lie, he could cheat, he could steal, he could kill. It was how you succeeded. It was how the Fuad brothers had always succeeded.

It was how they’d run their used-car business in the 1980s, and it was how they’d run F&H Wellbeing, the homeopathic business they’d launched with Afdal Haddad as a front for the experiments that finally yielded the drug Skarlet.

Poor Haddad, thought Alfred. George had killed the old man.

“He’s no good to us anymore,” George had told a shocked Alfred. “He lacked vision, he lacked ambition – he lacked balls.”

Haddad had warned the brothers against resurrecting Nimrod.

“You cannot control him,” he’d said.

But George was confident.

George could do anything.

Rule a country or master gods.

And Alfred knew that. So he stuck with his brother. He went along with all his decisions, even though something deep inside told him some of them were wrong. But that was doubt. That was fear. It was weakness. And it was good to ignore such feelings. They made you vulnerable. They made you lose out in life and in business. You’d be last in the race if you let things like that take control of you. You’d never fulfil your destiny.

And they were so close to fulfilling theirs.

Alfred could taste it. It was honey on his lips. He licked them. They were damp with moisture. He was sweating with excitement. He took another drink. The whisky burned its way down his throat.

“Don’t drink too much,” George told him over Skype.

“I’m only celebrating your victory.”

“Yeah, whatever, Alfie. Just don’t drink too much.”

Alfred wanted to know what his brother thought of the work so far in Iraq. He expected praise. He wanted to be told, “Well done, Alfie.”

He asked, “You liked the video I emailed? Filmed it in the tunnels. Did you see those pillars? The pillars of Irkalla? Stretched for miles. We’ve dug really deep, George. We’re so close now. So close to Nimrod.”

He drank again, emptying the glass. He wanted to get up and go to his cupboard to find another bottle. But his brother was scowling.

“Get closer,” said George. “I’m getting bored. You’ve had months.”

Alfred felt disheartened.

“I’m going to run the country,” said George. “Next time we speak, I hope you’ll have good news for me.”

The screen went blank with Alfred’s goodbye still lodged in his throat.

He felt rage build up in his chest.

George needed to treat him with more respect. They were virtually equals in this. He’d worked as hard as his brother to realize their success so far. But sometimes he felt George just didn’t respect him. He was about to connect again to Skype when someone knocked on the door, and before Alfred could say, “Come in,” Laxman swaggered into the office. The mercenary carried a sheet of paper. He slapped it down on Alfred’s desk.

“What’s this?”

“Look at it, Alfred.”

Alfred looked. The sheet was a fax and showed an image from a closed-circuit television camera. It depicted two people, seen only in silhouette, lurking among the equipment trucks.

“Where’s this?” he asked.

“Just outside the perimeter,” Laxman answered.

“Well, we knew they were in Hillah.”

“Been following us for a while.”

“And now they’ve come to us,” said Alfred. “Bring them to me alive – or dead.”

AALIYAH thought the cold thing pressed against the back of her neck was an insect and she went to slap it away.

But it wasn’t an insect.

And when her hand flapped against something hard, something steel, she wheeled around and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun.

The man holding it wore fatigues, and a shemagh hid the lower half of his face. Only his cruel brown eyes could be seen. A scar ran across his bronzed forehead.

The man said, “Tours don’t start till nine in the morning.”

Her mouth dropped open. She twitched, her instincts telling her to react. But she stayed still. And a second later, Goga shot out of the darkness.

The Romanian had left Aaliyah hiding between the trucks while he’d gone to the fence to see if they could get through. She thought they were safe in the shadows, but obviously Alfred Fuad’s people had rigged some kind of security system that had spied Aaliyah and Goga.

Now the armed man shoved her out of the way. She staggered. Goga swung with his walking stick, shouting with fury. The armed man lunged, blocking Goga’s strike, and at the same time struck the Romanian a blow under the chin with his open palm.

A Krav Maga move
, thought Aaliyah. Blocking and striking at the same time. Lawton had shown her. He’d shown her a lot of self-defence stuff. None of it you’d learn in a class at a leisure centre. It mostly involved biting, gouging, scratching, and kicking your attacker – if he was a man, as he invariably was – very hard in the balls.

The armed man loomed over Goga.

Two men wearing black stumbled out of the dark.

“How did you let him get the better of you, dickheads?” said the armed man.

“He… he had a stick,” said one of the men.

“Fucking idiots. Don’t know where the fuck Fuad found you, but you’d’ve never made it past selection for my team. You, get the girl, and you, cuff this fucker,” he said.

One of the men approached Aaliyah. She tensed, ready to fight back.

“You, bitch,” said the armed ma
n. “You come quietly, or I’ll blow this fella’s face off.” He cocked the pistol and pointed it at Goga’s face. Then he crouched, removed Goga’s aviator sunglasses and popped them over his eyes. “Nice pair,” he said, still looking in Aaliyah’s direction as the black-clad man handcuffed her.

They were led into the compound.

Goga was struggling. He was unsteady on his feet. He had blood coming from his nose.

No one said anything as they strode in between the buildings and finally came to a halt at another tall fence marked with warnings to trespassers. Beyond the wire lay a huge hole, and above the hole loomed an enormous drill. The type, Aaliyah guessed, that oil companies would use. At the edge of the abyss stood a gatehouse through which you entered an elevator.

Aaliyah glanced at the armed man. He was strong and powerful. He looked like a solider. She wondered how he’d got the scar across his forehead.

The armed man took off Goga’s sunglasses and narrowed his eyes. He pulled the shemagh away from his mouth.

“Keep moving,” he said.

They kept shoving Goga and Aaliyah towards the gatehouse. They finally stopped at the edge of the pit, and Aaliyah and Goga stared down into it.

She gasped. It was endless. Striplights showed how deep it was. It kept going and going, down and down.

“They’ve been digging here for three months, day and night,” said the scarred man.

“For Nimrod,” said Goga.

The man laughed.

“You work for Alfred Fuad?” said Aaliyah.

“He pays me, yes,” the man answered.

“And he’ll kill you when this is done,” said Goga.

Doubt flickered in the scarred man’s eyes, but then he put Goga’s aviator’s back on.

“Lots of tougher men than Alfred Fuad have tried to kill me and fucked it up,” he said.

“He will not,” said Goga. “He’ll give you to Nimrod – all of you.”

“Shut up,” said the scarred man.

“What’s he talking about, Colonel?” said one of the black-clad men.

“Nothing,” said the Colonel. “Shut up, right?”

But Goga continued. “If Nimrod is awakened, Fuad will not be able to control it. No one will.”

“I will,” said the Colonel.

“You will die,” said Goga, “that’s what you will do.”

The Colonel put his gun to Goga’s forehead. “Say another word, and I’ll nudge you backwards a few steps and stand here ten minutes while you scream your way down into hell.”

“Fuad is tricking you,” said Aaliyah.

The Colonel whipped round and put the gun in her face. “I don’t give a shit about the gender of my victims, darling. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. Now, I want the both of you to shut your fucking mouths and – ”

She was lightning quick.

Her knee shot up and smashed the Colonel full in the balls. His eyes crossed. His cheeks puffed out. He bent double. And as he fell, Aaliyah used her other knee to crack him in the jaw.

She whirled round in time to see the other two men raise their guns.

She ran at them and barged into them, and they reeled, off balance. But she was unsteady, too, with her hands cuffed behind her back. She sat on the floor and quickly scooted her hands underneath her backside so at least they were in front of her.

“Come on, Goga,” she said.

She leapt to her feet, turned to run, and walked directly into the Colonel’s fist.

She saw stars, her head spinning.

He came at her at full pelt. She tried to defend herself. But she had no chance.

He grabbed her by the collar and lifted her and carried her towards the edge of the pit, and she kicked out at nothing as he prepared to hurl her down into hell.

Former Religion nightclub, Soho, London – 10.52pm (GMT), 19 May, 2011

“I KEEP in touch with my brother in Iraq,” said George Fuad.

“Still alive then, is he?” said Murray.

“He’s had lots of good news in recent days.”

“Been diagnosed with cancer, has he?” said Murray.

“I’m just dying to share it with you, Christine.”

“You’ve got cancer.”

“You think you’re funny, I don’t, and when I have your tongue taken out no one will find you amusing.”

Murray kept her mouth shut.

Fuad smiled. “I like it when someone’s face goes that pale. That’s what fear does, Christine. It’s what power can do. Now, I have some news that’ll maybe put a smile back on your face.”

Murray doubted that.

“Your mate, Jake Lawton, has been caught by the Iraqis.”

Murray’s stomach lurched. She was elated for a moment. Jake was alive. But then her joy petered out, to be replaced by dread. He’d been caught. He would fail in his mission. Without him, they didn’t have a hope.

She looked around. The place was as drab as she’d remembered it. They were in the nightclub’s top floor. All the rooms had been knocked into one. There was a long chamber now, with a big table in the middle. There was one chair at the head of the table, and that’s where George Fuad sat. It was the only chair in the room. No one else could sit. Murray was standing near the window, two big Neb thugs either side of her. A few other Nebuchadnezzars were hanging around in the chamber as well, smirking at her, chatting among themselves, looking pleased. A huge photograph covered the far wall. It had been blown up from a newspaper shot of Fuad waving at supporters from the stage of his recent Hyde Park rally. More portraits of him hung throughout the room. Murray felt the desire to smash them, one by one.

A 50-inch flat-screen TV hung on the opposite wall. It showed Fuad’s victory as presented by the BBC. Already the channel was starting to feel like a state broadcaster. Fuad was obviously choking any balance out of its battered old body. It had only taken him an hour from the polls closing to do this. What could he do in a day or a week? she wondered. What could he do in a year?

“You won’t hold Jake Lawton for long,” said Murray.

“I’m not holding him at all, darling,” said Fuad. “It’s the Iraqis, like I say. But if he does get out, we’ll be waiting for him. He won’t get far. It’s all over.”

“Are you proud of what you’re doing?” Murray said.

“I will be. Once I clean up this country,” he said, indicating the TV. A report showed people queuing up outside a soup kitchen. “The Jeremy Kyle bunch. Scum. Lowlifes. Criminals. They’ll make good food, eh? That’s how you deal with social ills, see. But no politician until now has had the guts to sort it out.”

“You lied to those people, a lie that said vampires and humans can live together.”

“Oh, but why can’t we, Christine? Why can’t we live together in harmony?” he said, and started humming the song “Ebony And Ivory” by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Then he stopped. And the fake smile left his face. A scowl creased his brow. “Oh, yeah, I know why we can’t – ’cause they hunt us. They are our natural predator. Well, not us. With this mark.” He flicked at the red tag on his lapel. He got up and strode towards Murray. She knew what was coming. “You won’t be needing this anymore.” He ripped the red mark from her jacket. “You shouldn’t have ever worn it, anyway.” He tossed it on the floor.

Murray felt suddenly vulnerable. She became queasy, as if someone had taken away a pill that protected her from disease.

She was now in serious danger. She would be a target for vampires.

“Are you going to kill me?” she said, almost hoping he would, so she could avoid the horror of being a vampire’s victim.

Fuad grinned. “You know what? No. I’ve got something worse in mind for traitors like you.” He strolled back to his chair and, sitting down, leaned back. “I hear your kid’s out there. What’s his name? David? And the rumour is, he’s looking to kill me – a fucking assassin. Ain’t that a laugh? A boy assassin.”

Murray said nothing. The mention of David brought the pain flooding back. She had been a terrible mother. And now all she could do was be brave for her son. He was out there somewhere, a child not yet fourteen. A boy soldier fighting a desperate war. She would make up for all the years of rotten parenting by doing everything from now on to keep him safe and support him in his quest to kill Fuad. She knew she didn’t have long to live, but every second she had would be lived for David – as it should have been from the start. Now she would do anything to see him one more time, see him and ask him to forgive her. She nearly cried, but fought back the tears. She did not want Fuad to see her weep.

Fuad went on, “So I’ll let you live and see your kid again, if you make a public appearance, on TV, urging him to give himself up.”

“Give himself up?”

“That’s right. On TV. We’re going to Parliament now. Stand outside the ruins. Remind people what Jake Lawton did to their democracy. Burned its heart out. And right there, you’ll tell that kid of yours to hand himself over to me.”

“Never,” she said.

“Then I’ll publicly execute you and do fucking awful things to you, and your son will see – he’ll see everything wherever he is, and imagine his pain, then. Imagine how horrible that’s going to be, to see his mother fucking stripped naked, raped, burned, just imagine that, Christine.”

“You’ll pay for this one day. You will.”

“You believe in fate? Not sure I do. But if it does exist, you deal with it like you deal with everything else in life – you grab it by the balls and squeeze. I am the master of my destiny, Christine. But more than that, I am the master of yours, as well. Yours, your son’s, Elizabeth Wilson’s, even Jake Lawton’s. I am the fucking king of my life and the king of yours. Vampires will walk the streets. Britain is Babylon. I’ve done what emperors have failed to do, what Jacqueline Burrows nearly did. I have taken control. Soon the whole fucking world will cower when they hear my name. I’ll stop at fucking nothing, and I know that sounds over the top, but I mean it. I’ve tasted power, and it’s fucking lovely.”

“You’re mad,” said Murray.

“Who gives a shit.”