Sanctus (34 page)

From round the edge of the office door Oscar had a clear view down the tunnel created by the rows of stacked crates. The grenade was halfway down when he spotted it, bouncing across the warehouse floor towards him. His reaction was instinctive. He stepped through the door, his hands rising up in warning, his head turning towards Gabriel and Kathryn. When he saw them locked together, unstoppably launched in his direction, he experienced a moment of divine clarity and everything slowed almost to a stop.

His eyes dropped back down to the grenade, turning slowly in the air, barely an inch above the ground. It bounced once, with a sound like a hammer striking stone, and continued moving towards him. He tensed his legs and shifted his centre of gravity towards it.

Ninety years
. . . he thought, as his body started to move.
I have dodged the enemy’s arrows and spears for ninety years . . .

The grenade spun closer, struck the outer wall of the office then bounced back, coming to rest right in front of him.

Not bad for a dead man.

He fell forward, flattening himself on the ground, smothering the grenade with his body.

Gabriel saw Oscar crumple and realized what he was doing. He reached out as their momentum brought them closer. Felt his fingertips brush the back of Oscar’s flight suit. Started to close his hand around the heavy-duty cotton.

Then the first grenade exploded behind him.

The pressure wave tore the flight suit from his grip, lifting him up and forward, over Oscar’s prone body and into the warehouse wall beyond. He hit it head first, with the full force of the explosion behind it, then slid heavily to the floor behind a crate. As he landed he felt consciousness being hammered out of him. He tried to shake his head clear. Tried screaming to shock himself awake. Then Kathryn crashed down on top of him, cracking his head against the concrete floor, finishing the job the wall had started.

The last thing Gabriel was aware of before he passed out was the ground shuddering beneath him and a muffled crump as the second grenade exploded.

Arkadian had just raised himself up slightly, holding the phone above him, searching for a signal when the shock wave from the first explosion tore through the office. It slammed him against the horizontal locking bar of the fire door, swinging it open and spilling him out into the night. Pain exploded in his shoulder as he hit a patch of gravel, knocking the phone and gun from his hand. He bit down hard to stifle a howl of agony and rolled on to his side, away from the pain, taking deep breaths to smother it as he frantically scanned the area for signs of danger.

He saw Liv sprawled across the threshold of the open door, half in and half out of the warehouse. His phone lay on the gravel between them, shining a cold blue display light up into the night. He reached for it just as the second explosion shook the ground beneath him. He grabbed the phone and continued to look for his gun. Saw movement. Looked up at the fire door swinging slowly shut. Then he saw the man standing behind it.

Liv felt the second explosion more than heard it. It rumbled through the earth like muffled thunder, shaking her gently out of her daze. She looked up and saw Arkadian sprawled on the ground outside. He reached for his phone and picked it up. Then his eyes twitched up and past her, growing wide in shock at what they saw.

He jerked twice as two holes appeared in the front of his shirt then he flopped backwards on to the gravel revealing a gun on the ground, right where he’d been sitting.

Liv’s hands tore at the ground as she scrambled towards it. The square of light from the open door narrowing as it continued to swing shut behind her. She didn’t look round. Just focused on the gun. It’s grip towards her. The safety-catch off.

Her hand closed round it, a fingernail tearing against the ground as she hooked it through the trigger guard. She twisted round just as something heavy cracked across the back of her head, flooding it with light and blinding pain, then darkness. Then nothing at all.

Sweat stung Kutlar’s eyes as he limped across the blacktop towards the guardhouse. He could feel the cool night air on his damp skin but it did nothing to quench the heat boiling up inside him. His wound was infected, he was pretty sure of that. He was also in shock from losing so much blood. He needed to get help fast or he might die after all. He couldn’t let that happen. Not now. It seemed like hours since he’d leaned on the horn and finally escaped from the van, but it was probably only a few minutes.

He’d heard the muffled exchange of gunfire through the pounding of his heart, then the silence that had followed the two explosions. Maybe everyone was dead. Even the guy who’d killed Serko. With no witnesses he could still talk his way out of this one. Just needed to get to the guardhouse and call for help.

The headlights lit him up from behind when he was just thirty feet away. The blood was pumping so loud in his head he hadn’t even heard the engine. Panic rose in his throat. He tried to run. Stumbling forward. Felt what was left of his stitches pulling and popping inside his leg.

The lights got brighter and lit up the side of the guardhouse just twenty feet in front of him. He could see the faint spray of red on the back wall. The guard hadn’t reached for a gun, but he must have one somewhere. If he could get to it, he might stand a chance.

He could hear the engine now, rising up through the thump of his heartbeat. The guardhouse pulled closer. Just fifteen feet now.

Cornelius drove straight through Kutlar as if he wasn’t there. He felt the crump as the police car smashed through both his legs and saw the windscreen cobweb where his head struck it on his way over the top.

He glanced in his rear-view mirror. Saw the body land head first on to the concrete, arms flopping lifelessly, legs twisting at unnatural angles. He slammed on the brakes. Threw the car into reverse. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance where Kutlar was concerned and he also didn’t want to leave a body in plain view.

The engine screamed as he hit the accelerator and the crumpled pile of flesh and clothes grew bigger in the rear-view mirror. He braked a metre short, popped the boot and slipped from behind the wheel, leading with his gun. He rounded the rear of the car, half hoping to find Kutlar still alive. He liked the idea of him spending the rest of his life as a cripple, drinking through straws and shitting in bags. He was met instead by a fixed, blank stare and was almost disappointed.

He ducked down and quickly scooped the body from the ground. Felt broken bones crunch inside the swollen flesh of Kutlar’s legs as he wedged him inside the tight boot space next to the body of the driver. He had to lean his whole weight on the boot lid to get it to click shut then looked around the open ground of the airport as he made his way back to the driver’s seat. He saw no movement. Heard no distant sounds of sirens heading his way. He wanted to go back and sweep the warehouse, tie up any loose ends, but he had his orders and his primary objective had been achieved.

He climbed behind the wheel and glanced in the back where the girl lay unconscious. A set of handcuffs fed through a thick D-ring in the floor held her arms out in front.

He watched her chest move as she breathed and figured the crack on the head would keep her out long enough to get where they were going. He locked the doors anyway, just to be safe, then put the car in gear and eased on to the service road leading away from the airport and back to the city of Ruin.

‘Leave us!’ the Abbot said.

The Apothecaria looked up, surprised by a command coming from someone other than their master. They rose uncertainly, their attention switching from the Prelate, to the life-support machines they monitored, to the Abbot standing massively by the door.

‘You will find,’ the Prelate’s dry voice rustled from somewhere in the nest of white linen, ‘that I am in charge here. You would do well to remember that.’

‘Forgive me, Father,’ the Abbot said, ‘but I have urgent news . . . regarding the Sacrament.’

The Apothecaria continued to hover, waiting for further instruction. ‘Then you may leave,’ the Prelate said. The Abbot watched them check their machines then glide from the room, shutting the door behind them.

‘Come closer,’ the Prelate called out to the dark. ‘I want to see your face.’

The Abbot moved towards the bed, stopping by the machines the phantoms had just deserted. ‘I’m sorry to call unannounced,’ he said, turning down the volume on the life-support monitor. ‘But there is something happening with the Sacrament. Something extraordinary.’ He arrived at the Prelate’s bedside and was immediately skewered by his sharp black eyes.

‘And does this, have anything to do, with three Carmina, who cannot be found in the mountain?’

The Abbot smiled. ‘Ah, that,’ he said.

‘Yes, that.’ There was surprising energy behind his anger.

‘That is what I wish to discuss.’ The Abbot looked down at the old man. He had aged even more in the few hours since he had last seen him, his life energy was almost gone, his regenerative powers almost spent. ‘I have just received word that they have found Brother Samuel’s sister,’ he said, watching the Prelate, waiting for his reaction. ‘I have instructed them to bring her here, to the Citadel – to me.’

The merest hint of heat coloured the gelid skin of the old man’s face. ‘It is customary to wait, until one is Prelate, before one starts acting as such.’

‘Forgive me,’ the Abbot said, reaching over as if to tenderly brush some lank hair away from the Prelate’s eyes. ‘But sometimes one must act like a leader, in order to become one.’

He grabbed a pillow and pressed it down hard on the Prelate’s face, smothering it with one large hand while the other seized his wrists, holding them tightly so the taloned fingers couldn’t scratch. Behind him he heard the faint sound of an alarm from one of the machines registering a dangerous change in the old man’s vital signs. The Abbot glanced at the door, listening for the arrival of hurrying steps. There were none. He held the Prelate until the fight faded from the struggling sticks of his arms, then removed the pillow. The Prelate’s eyes stared up towards the darkness above his head and his mouth hung open, forming a circle. The Abbot moved across to the life-support machine and turned up the volume on the alarm, giving voice to his final, silent howl.

‘Help! Come quick,’ he yelled, leaping forward to the bed. Footsteps scurried across the stone landing outside and the door flew open, bringing the Apothecaria into the room. One swept over to the machines, the other came to the Prelate. ‘He started choking,’ the Abbot said stepping back. ‘Is he all right?’

The alarm continued to howl through the room and the Apothecaria by the bed started pounding the old man’s chest while the other dragged over a defibrillator.

‘Do what you can,’ the Abbot said, ‘I’ll fetch help.’

He slipped through the door and into the empty hallway, heading not for help but to the lower chambers of the mountain. There would be no inquest, for the Abbot was now acting Prelate and he would not request one. Besides, his sad death would be greatly overshadowed by what was still to come.

The Abbot had removed his final obstacle. Now he could fulfil his destiny.

Gabriel came round gradually.

At first his eyes refused to open and he lay where he’d fallen, breathing in air that smelt of explosive and scorched wood – and something else. It was a smell he’d last encountered in the Sudan after guerrilla forces ambushed one of their aide trucks. When Gabriel went to inspect the site with government troops the same smell had hung in the air like a greasy cloud. It was only when he saw the blackened body of the driver fused to the steering wheel that he’d realized what it was. His eyes flew open as he made the connection and remembered what had happened.

He looked around. Saw he was lying on the floor against the wall of the warehouse, his mother slumped on top of him. He slapped her face a couple of times. Pressed nervous fingers against the side of her neck and felt her pulse. It was strong and regular.

He grabbed her shoulders and gently rolled her off him and on to her side, his head pounding as he shifted position and put her in the recovery position. He listened through the painful pulse for sounds of movement elsewhere in the building. Heard nothing.

His gun lay on the concrete floor where it had been knocked from his hand. He scooped it up and pulled the slide back, checking the gun was undamaged and the action still smooth, then he slipped from behind the crates. He did not look towards the office. He didn’t want to see what he knew was there, not until the area was clear or he was sure the bastard who’d done it was good and dead.

He ducked into the tunnel between the rows of crates, and made his way quickly towards the front of the warehouse, keeping low all the way. He had no idea how long he’d been out, which was a problem. When the firing started, the Inspector had been calling for backup. Airport security also patrolled the perimeter every twenty minutes. If he got trapped in a security clamp-down of any sort he’d be put out of circulation and that just played into the hands of the Citadel. He reached up to the back of his head and felt a lump swelling where his head had struck the wall. The hair around it was wet with blood from a deep, swollen tear on his scalp. He glanced at the blood on his fingers. It was bright red, not dark, not too sticky. It hadn’t started to coagulate. He can’t have been unconscious for too long, which was good, but he still had to move fast.

He reached the end of the tunnel and squatted low to the floor. Holding his gun out in front, low and close to his body, he glanced round the edge of the crate in a rapid darting movement,
out and in
, his gun following the direction of his eyes, ready to fire if he had to. A man lay sprawled between the open hangar door and the first stack of crates. His eyes were fixed open. The back of his head was missing. Gabriel moved towards then past him, his eyes scanning for movement as he headed for the open door of the warehouse.

Outside, all was quiet – no police cars, no airport security. A white van was parked by one of the neighbouring warehouses. He was pretty sure it was the same one he’d followed earlier. There had been three men inside it then. So far he’d found only one. He grabbed the edge of the door and rolled it shut, dropping a thick metal latch across to keep it shut. With his back now covered he returned to the dead man.

The bullet that killed him had entered at the intersection of a Tau drawn on his forehead in blood. There was no blood around the wound. Death must have been instant. Pity. He blew out a long stream of air to disperse the emotion tightening his throat and pricking the backs of his eyes. He needed to stay focused. Two men were still unaccounted for and cops couldn’t be far away.

Gabriel dropped down and searched the dead man, his hand hissing over the dry surface of his red windcheater, avoiding the wet pulpy sections round his neck where the blood had soaked through. At least he’d suffered before he died.

He found a set of van keys and a blank plastic rectangle the size of a credit card. He remembered the van waiting at the end of the alley by the old town wall. The driver had swiped a card then. He slipped it into his pocket with the van keys and picked up the dead man’s gun. A silencer lay nearby, next to a canvas bag. Gabriel crabbed over, picked up the tube of black metal and used it to lift the cover flap of the bag.

Inside were four full 9mm clips, two grenades and a plastic box containing preloaded hypodermic syrettes, the same type soldiers carried into combat. There were also a couple of spare ampoules of clear liquid. He glanced at the label. It was Ketamine – a heavy-duty tranquilizer usually used by vets to knock out horses. He dropped the Glock into the bag along with the silencer, swung it over his shoulder and slipped between the stacked crates heading towards the office at the back of the warehouse.

As he approached the end of the passageway he smelt the burnt-air bitterness of explosives and saw the shredded outer wall of the office. On the floor in front of it a sooty circle showed the point of the blast. There was another on the underside of the steel roof above it. The reinforced concrete of the floor had obviously reflected most of the explosion upwards, undoubtedly saving his life. He reached the end of the passageway and took a deep breath to dampen his swelling anger, then moved forward.

What was left of Oscar lay by the office door.

Gabriel had seen battlefield casualties before, flesh torn and shredded by the teeth and claws of modern weaponry – but never someone he was related to. He moved towards his grandfather, choking down his grief, trying not to look at the red mess of his body, focusing instead on the face that had somehow remained remarkably untouched. Oscar was face down, his head tilted to one side, his eyes closed as if resting. He looked almost serene. A bright splash of blood stood out against the dark mahogany of his cheek. Gabriel reached down and gently wiped it away with his thumb. The skin was still warm. He leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, then stood and looked around for something to cover him with before his emotions dragged him further down. He still hadn’t secured the area, or found Liv. He dragged a tarpaulin from one of the crates, carefully draped it over Oscar’s body, then ducked through the door and into the office.