Scorpia (26 page)

And then they were on the south bank of the river, making their way through Waterloo, heading east. The buildings they passed became older and dustier. It was as if they had travelled not just a few miles but a few hundred years. Alex sat in the back, next to Nile. Mrs Rothman was in the front with a blank-faced driver. Nobody spoke. It was warm inside the car – the sun was shining – but Alex could feel a tension that made the air cold. He was certain they were heading for some high point where Invisible Sword must be concealed, but he had no idea what to expect. An office block? Perhaps a building under construction? He stared out of the window, his head pressed against the glass, trying to stay calm.

They stopped.

The car had pulled up on a strange, empty
stretch of road that ran for about fifteen metres before coming to a dead end. Mrs Rothman and Nile climbed out of the car and Alex followed, examining his surroundings with a sinking heart. It looked as if they hadn’t taken him to the dishes after all. There were no tall buildings in sight, not for at least a mile around. The street – almost as wide as it was long – ran between two rows of dilapidated shops, the lower floors boarded up, the windows broken and discoloured. The street itself was covered with rubbish: scraps of newspaper, dented cans and old crisp packets.

But it was the building at the end that commanded his attention. The street led to a church that would have been more suited to Rome or Venice than London. It had obviously been abandoned long ago and had deteriorated badly, yet still it struggled to be magnificent. Two huge, cracked pillars supported a triangular roof over the main entrance. Marble steps led up to huge doors made of solid bronze, but green now rather than gold. The great bulk of the church rose up behind, surmounted by a dome which glinted in the afternoon sun. Statues lined the steps and stood dotted across the roof. But they had been brutalized by time and the elements. Some were missing arms; many had no faces. Once they had been saints and angels. Two hundred years standing in London had turned them into cripples.

“Why are we here?” Alex asked.

Mrs Rothman was standing next to him, looking up at the church. “I thought you’d like to witness the conclusion of Invisible Sword.”

“I don’t know anything about Invisible Sword.” Without giving himself away, Alex was searching for any sign of the satellite dishes. But there didn’t seem to be anything on the dome and, anyway, as impressive as it was, it wasn’t tall enough. The dishes had to be higher up. “What is this place?”

Mrs Rothman looked at him curiously. “You know, Alex, I’d swear there was something different about you.”

Alex quietly closed his mouth, hiding the brace. He looked at her quizzically.

“Nile? Did you search him from top to bottom?”

“Yes. Just like you told me to.”

“I would’ve thought you’d have trusted me by now,” Alex protested, but this time he looked away so she wouldn’t see his teeth. “I did exactly what you told me to. And I nearly got killed.”

“I don’t trust anyone, Alex. Not even Nile.” She paused. “Since you ask, this building is the Church of Forgotten Saints. It’s not actually a church; it’s an oratory. It was built in the nineteenth century by a community of Catholic priests living in the area. They were rather odd. They worshipped a collection of saints who have all fallen into obscurity. You’d be amazed how many saints there are who we’ve completely forgotten about. St Fiacre, for example, is the patron saint of gardeners and taxi
drivers. That must keep him busy! St Ambrose looks after bee-keepers, and where would tailors be without St Homobonus? Did you know that undertakers and perfume makers both have their own saints? They were worshipped here too. I suppose it’s not surprising the church fell into disuse. It was bombed in the war and it’s been empty ever since. Scorpia took it over a few years ago. As you’ll see, we’ve made one or two interesting adjustments. Do you want to come inside?”

Alex shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

He had no choice. For some reason, Julia Rothman had chosen to bring him here, and presumably he would still be here when the terahertz beams were fired across London. He glanced at the dome again, wondering if the surface would be enough to protect him. He doubted it.

The three of them walked forward. The car had left. Alex looked at the shops on either side. Not a single one was occupied. He wondered if he was being watched. It occurred to him that anyone wanting to enter the church would have to come this way, and it would be easy enough to keep them under surveillance with hidden cameras. They reached the main entrance, which sensed their arrival and opened electronically. That was interesting. Mrs Rothman had spoken of adjustments and it was already clear that the oratory wasn’t quite as derelict as it first appeared.

They entered a grand hall, rectangular in shape,
that served as an antechamber to the main body of the church. Everything was grey: the huge flagstones, the ceiling, the stone pillars that supported it. Alex looked around him as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light. There were circular windows on both sides but the glass was so thick it seemed to block out most of the daylight rather than allow it in. Everything was faded and dusty. Two statues – more forgotten saints? – stood either side of a cracked and broken font. There was a faint smell of damp in the air. It was easy to believe that nobody had been here for fifty-odd years. Alex coughed and listened to the sound travel up. The chamber was utterly silent, and there seemed to be no obvious way forward. The street was behind them; a solid wall blocked the way ahead. But then Julia Rothman walked across the floor. Her stiletto heels rapped against the stone, creating echoes that flitted into the shadows.

Her movement had been some sort of signal. There was a loud buzz and, overhead, a series of arc lamps – concealed in the walls and ceiling – flashed on. Beams of brilliant white light crashed down from every direction. At the same time, five panels slid silently open, one after the other. They were part of the wall, built into it, disguised to look like brick. Now Alex saw that they were in fact solid steel. More light spilled out and with it came the sound of men moving, of machinery, of frantic activity.

“Welcome to Invisible Sword,” Mrs Rothman announced, and in that moment Alex knew why she had brought him here. She was proud of what she had done. She couldn’t hide the pleasure in her voice. She wanted him to see.

Alex stepped through the opening and into a scene he would never forget.

It was a classical church, just like the monastery on Malagosto. Scorpia seemed to enjoy cloaking itself in religion. The floor was made up of black and white tiles. There were stained-glass windows, a richly carved wooden pulpit, even a few old pews. The remains of an organ clung to one wall but, looking at the pipes, some broken, others missing, Alex knew that it would never play again. The dome curved above his head, the underside painted with more saints, men and women holding the various objects with which they were associated: furniture, shoes, library books and loaves of bread. All of them had been forgotten. All of them were frozen together in a single great tableau overhead.

The church had been filled with electronic equipment: computers, TV monitors, industrial lights and a series of switches and levers that couldn’t have been more out of place. Two steel gantries had been built, one on either side, with armed guards positioned at intervals. There must have been twenty or thirty people involved in the operation, at least half of them carrying machine
guns. As Alex took all this in, a voice rang out, amplified through speakers bolted into the walls.

“Six minutes until launch. Six minutes and counting…”

Alex knew that he had arrived at the centre of the web, and even as he stared, his tongue travelled to the roof of his mouth and pressed the switch which Smithers had built into his brace. Mark Kellner, the prime minister’s director of communications, had got it wrong again. Scorpia hadn’t attached the terahertz dishes to any tall building.

They had attached them to a hot-air balloon.

Six men dressed in dark overalls were inflating it. There was plenty of floor space, and the dome was as high as a six-storey building. The balloon was painted blue and white. Once released, it would blend in with the sky. How were they going to release it? Alex wondered. The church was completely enclosed by the dome. Even so, that had to be their plan. There was a frame under the balloon with a single burner pointing upwards, and, beneath that, a platform about twenty metres square. The balloon was strangely old-fashioned, like something out of a Victorian adventure story. The platform couldn’t have been more high-tech, though, built out of some sort of lightweight plastic with a low railing to protect the equipment it carried.

Alex recognized the equipment instantly. There were four dishes, one in each corner, facing the
four points of the compass. They were dull silver in colour, about three metres in diameter, with thin metal rods forming a triangle that protruded from the centre. Wires connected the dishes to a series of complicated-looking boxes which took up most of the space in the centre of the platform. Black pipes ran up to the burner, carrying propane gas from the tanks which were stacked next to the boxes. The balloon was almost inflated. It had been lying spread out on the ground but even as Alex watched, the air in the envelope was heated by three men using a second burner device and it began to lift itself limply up.

More men ran forward to hold the platform steady. There were two ropes, one at each end. Alex saw that the whole thing had been tethered to a pair of iron rings set in the floor. Now he understood what Scorpia intended to do. Julia Rothman must have anticipated that government scientists would work out how the footballers at Heathrow Airport had died. She had known that they would be searching London for the satellite dishes. So she had kept them hidden until the last moment. The hot-air balloon would lift them up into the air. They would only need to stay there for a few minutes. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it would be too late. The golden nanoshells would have dissolved and thousands of children would be dead.

He noticed that Nile had taken off his jacket and
was strapping something to his back. It was a leather harness with two lethal-looking weapons: not quite swords, not quite daggers, but something in between. Alex remembered how Dr Liebermann had died and knew that Nile was an expert at
iaido
, the ninja art of sword fighting. He could slice with the swords or he could throw them. Either way, he was lightning fast – Alex knew he could deliver death in an instant.

There was nothing he could do but stand and watch. He had no gadgets, no hidden weapons. Mrs Rothman might have bought the story of his capture and escape, but her eyes were still on him. In truth they had never wavered. She was still suspicious. If he so much as sneezed without her permission, she would give the order and he would be cut down.

How long had it been since he had activated the homing device? Sixty seconds? Maybe more. Alex felt the wire running across his teeth and tried to imagine the signal being transmitted to MI6. How long would it take them to arrive?

Mrs Rothman stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers caressed the side of his neck. She ran her tongue, small and moist, over her lips.

“Let me explain to you what we’re doing here, Alex,” she began. “As a member of Scorpia, I’m sure you’d like to know.”

“Are you going for a balloon ride?” Alex asked.

“No. I’m not going anywhere.” She smiled. “Two days ago we made certain demands. These demands were directed against the American government but we made it clear that if they did not obey, it would be the British who would suffer the consequences. The deadline runs out” – she looked at her watch – “in less than fifteen minutes. The Americans have not done as we asked. And now it is time for the punishment to begin.”

“What are you going to do?” Alex asked. He couldn’t keep the horror out of his voice because, of course, he already knew.

“In a few minutes the balloon will be completely inflated and we will raise it above this church. The ropes will keep it tethered at exactly one hundred metres, and when it reaches that point, the machinery which you can see on the platform will activate immediately. High frequency terahertz beams will then be transmitted over London for exactly two minutes and, at that moment, I’m afraid a very large number of people will die.”

“Why?” Alex could barely speak. “What did you ask the Americans? What did you want them to do?”

“As a matter of fact, we didn’t want them to do anything. The demands we made were completely ridiculous. We asked them to disarm; we told them to pay a billion dollars. We knew they’d never agree.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because what our client really wants is revenge.

Revenge for the constant interference and bullying of the British and the Americans in matters that don’t concern them. What he wants is to ensure that the special friendship between the two countries is destroyed for ever. And this is how it’s going to happen.

“I’m afraid that a great many people are about to die in London. The deaths will be sudden and totally unexpected. It’ll be as if they’ve been struck down by an invisible sword. The whole country will be in shock. And then the news will come out: they died because the Americans wouldn’t agree to our demands. They died because the Americans refused to help the ally who always stands by them. Can you imagine what the newspapers will say? Can you imagine what people will think? By tomorrow morning the British will hate the Americans.

“And then, Alex, in a few months, Invisible Sword will strike again – but next time it will be in New York. And next time our demands will be more reasonable. We’ll ask for less and the Americans will give us what we want, because they will have seen what happened in London and they won’t want it to happen again. They’ll have no choice. And that will be the end of the British-American alliance. Don’t you see? The Americans couldn’t care less about the British. They’ve only ever been concerned about themselves. That’s what everyone will say, and you have no idea how much hatred will be created. One country humiliated; the other
crushed. And Scorpia will have earned a hundred million pounds along the way.”