The Fellowship (8 page)

SIS Building

London

Their contact was waiting for them in the lobby of the building Carver knew as Legoland. MI6 headquarters had been built along the Thames River, and from afar, resembled something that had been constructed with toy-like building blocks. Others knew it as Babylon, due to its ziggurat-like shape. 

Their man in London
introduced himself as Sam Prichard. He wore a wrinkled blue suit that looked far too big for him. He quickly handed them visitor badges gestured toward the elevators. “Come on, then. You were expected upstairs a half-hour ago.”

Carver waited to speak until the elevator doors closed.
“Has anyone claimed responsibility?”

“
Ten bloody hours, and still nothing.”

When they reached the building’s top floor,
Prichard was the first off the elevator. He breezed them past a reception area and through two enormous white doors. “These are the Americans,” he announced as he showed them into the next room. The office was a large cube constructed of white steel and glass, with an unusually high ceiling and an unobstructed view of the Thames. Despite the breathtaking grandeur of the architecture, Carver couldn’t help but feel let down. This was his first time in Legoland, and despite its modern exterior, he was hoping that the inside would be more in line with his lifelong fantasy of the place. Walnut paneling, Chesterfield sofas, decanters of good whiskey.

SIS
Chief Brice Carlisle stepped out from behind a semi-transparent standing desk. Unlike Prichard’s frumpy attire, Carlisle’s suit was downright crisp. He wore a somber black tie as if he himself were in mourning over the high-profile murders. He held his hands behind his back as his eyes darted back and forth between the Americans.

“
Mr. Carlisle,” Ellis said, holding out her hand. “It’s an honor.”

“I believe the proper salutation is Sir Brice,” Carver
corrected.

Carlisle shook Ellis’ hand before turning to Carver.
“Your reputation precedes you.”

“
Likewise,” Carver said, but in truth, he knew little about Carlisle other than what was in his official biography. He had attended Cambridge and served as a diplomat in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He had since changed jobs like clockwork every two to three years, mostly in government posts relating to foreign affairs, with his last role as an intelligence advisor to the prime minister. He was thought to be an extremely bright man, but one with no apparent field experience.

The double doors
through which they had come opened again. The bare legs attached to the exotic-looking brunette with the boy-cut were the first Carver had seen in London. “This is Seven Mansfield,” Carlisle said. “She’s working the case under Prichard here.”

Carver held out his hand and tried not to stare at the
legs underneath the houndstooth-patterned skirt-suit. “Ms. Mansfield.”

“
Call me Seven,” she said. Her accent reminded Carver of the voices on the BBC World Service. Her look was decidedly sub-continental. The brown-skinned intelligence agent with the short-cropped hair was the first thing to bring a smile to Carver’s lips all day.

Carlisle
gestured to a sitting area furnished with four white leather Eames lounge chairs. “We watched the presser on Senator Preston. It was very convincing, don’t you think?”

Carver shrugged. “
If you say so. We’ve traveled a long way to get information that could have been transmitted by other means. I suggest we get into it.” 

Seven remained standing as s
he began walking them through the case. “Nils Gish was found in a storage room underneath the House of Parliament approximately 28 hours ago. The room was near an underground passage that’s not open to the public.”

“
Who else had access?” Ellis said.

“
There are several tunnels linking Parliament to the Westminster Tube station. They’re used by government workers, mostly. The doors are locked from the Tube station side, but they come open with a swipe of a security badge or phone.”

“Did
Sir Gish often use these tunnels?”

“
Unfortunately, yes,” Carlisle cut in. “In my opinion, he was far too well-known to take public transport, and we understand his colleagues had discussed this with him. But he relished one-on-one conversations with his public. He boarded promptly at 5:30 most mornings, when it was possible to ride without being mobbed.”

Carlisle
cleared his throat. “That wasn’t the case yesterday, however. For reasons unknown, he arrived to the office in the evening, when most workers had already left for the day. Let’s see the footage from the station security camera.”

Seven
walked up to a massive monitor, nearly as tall as she was, built into the wall. It lit up instantly, displaying a number of folders containing media and findings from the crime scene. It flickered to life with a swipe of her fingertips, displaying a still image from a security camera. Sir Gish was shown entering the door in one frame. The next image was of two men wearing long raincoats. Their backs were to the camera, making it impossible to see their faces. They could be seen rushing to catch the door before it closed behind the MP.

“So he was followed,” Ellis said.

“Yes. I regret to tell you that many of the station’s other security cameras had not been recently maintained due to budget cuts. We did, however, manage to find a single image of one of their faces.” She swiped the screen again, revealing a grainy image of a man with a Mediterranean complexion, perhaps in his late 20s, wearing wire frame glasses. He had a wide nose, with flared nostrils, and his eyes were set wide across his face.

“Ring any bells?” Carver said.

She shook her head. “We are, of course, running a facial recognition match through every database imaginable. And incidentally, we’ve also been pouring over the communications logs from Sir Gish’s phone. Nothing unusual so far.“

Before Carver and Ellis could ask
additional questions, Seven displayed a high-resolution image of an octagon-shaped piece of black-and-red striped fabric that looked identical to the one he had found in Senator Preston’s pocket.

“This is all we have linking the murders,”
she said, pointing to the handwritten text in the center of the handmade cloth. “The Latin stitched in gold thread here reads
Paratus enim dolor et cruciatus, in Dei nomine
. ‘Prepared for pain and torment, in God’s name.’”

Carver nodded. “
Identical to the fabric stuffed in Senator Preston’s mouth.”

“Obviously the work of religious extremists,” Prichard said. “We’ve had our boys working around the clock to
find that language on sites operated by known groups. Come up with zero so far.”

“You’re headed in the wrong direction,” Ca
rver said. “Whoever is behind this, they aren’t paying homage to any modern terrorist organization.”

“And you know this how?”

“By reading your history.”

Prichard crossed his arms, then his legs. “What history is that?”

“British. Ever heard of the Holy Alliance?”

“Allied Jihad splinter group, isn’t it?”

“Wrong religion entirely,” Carlisle cut in, glaring at Prichard as the man shrank into his chair. He then turned his gaze to the Americans. “If I follow you, Agent Carver, you’re saying that these symbols are linked to Christianity, not Islam.”

“Correct. The Holy Alliance w
as the common name for the Vatican’s intelligence service, although the Vatican itself never acknowledged its existence. We refer to it simply as Vatican Intelligence.”

“Don’t see what that has to do with British history,” Prichard quipped.

“Vatican Intelligence was thought to have come into existence in the 1560s as a reaction to the Tudor dynasty’s rejection of the pope’s moral authority over England. When Queen Elizabeth formed the English Protestant Church, it was clear that they would carry on the defiant tradition of her father, Henry VIII.”

“
Yes, I think we’ve all seen The Tudors, thank you.”

“
Shut up,” Carlisle admonished Prichard. “Go on, Agent Carver. Obviously we could all use a refresher on the subject.”

“Pope Pius V didn’t take kindly to losing England to the Protestant movement. The most logical thing to do was
conspire to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and pass the throne to Mary Queen of Scots, who was a devout Catholic. So he formed the Holy Alliance. Jesuits, mostly, since they swore their personal oath of allegiance to the pope.”

Prichard smirked.
“As I recall, Elizabeth survived until 1603, and she did not meet her end at the hands of Jesuits.”

“
True. They failed that time, but they evolved. Over the next century, two special ops units were created. The first was known as the Octagon. It was discovered when an operative named
François Ravaillac stepped aboard the running boards of Henry IV’s carriage and stabbed the king through his Protestant heart. When they caught Ravaillac, they found rosary beads and an octagon in his pocket. It was made out of parchment, not fabric, but it also contained a handwritten phrase that was roughly identical the one on our octagons. ‘
Prepared for pain and torment, in God’s name
.’
”

“
I imagine pain and torment was exactly what he got,” Seven said.

Carver nodded. “
They brought four horses in, harnessed one to each of his limbs, and sent them running in different directions.”

Carlisle
winced. “Ouch. But you said there were two related organizations.”

“The second was known as
the Black Order. It was created in 1644 by Pope Innocent X’s sister-in-law, Olimpia Maidalchini.”

“A woman?”

“She was one of the world’s first real intelligence chiefs. And she was merciless. The Black Order specialized in lethal operations against the church’s enemies. Its victims were found with the striped fabric stuffed in their orifices.”

Prichard folded his arms across his chest.
“Are you implying the Vatican is still capable of this sort of thing?”

“
No. The Black Order was formally dissolved. But it continued on as a separate and rogue defender of the church. The last trace of the organization was in the 1800s, after Napoleon’s invasion of Rome. Some believe that they embarked on a failed mission to free the pope, and that was the end of them.”

Prichard stood.
“I say the killers plucked these tidbits out of a history book. They’re copycat killers.”

“
Maybe,” Carver conceded. “The only thing I know for sure is that there’s more to come.”

Carlisle
sat forward, giving Carver his full attention. “What are you getting at?”

“
We all know how this works. An organization commits a horrific act for shock value, and then claims responsibility. Sometimes they make demands. But our killers…”

“
Have yet to make any demands.” Carlisle slumped back in the chair, looking as deflated as an uncorked air mattress.

“
Right. And that’s what worries me.”

Eisenhower Building

Washington D.C.

Pangs of envy grew within Chad Fordham as he made his way to Speers’ office. The 1888 federal building, affectionately known as Old Executive, stood adjacent to the West Wing of the White House. One of the city’s most stately buildings, it was adorned by an impressive 900 classical exterior columns.

In stark
contrast, Fordham’s FBI headquarters – The J. Edgar Hoover Building, located several blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue – had been described by Reuters not only as
a “dreary 1970s behemoth,” but also as one of the world’s ugliest buildings.

Fordham
exited the third floor elevator and started down a well-lit corridor that was full of ambitious, clean-cut feds in conservative suits.  Down at the end of the hallway, at the building’s corner, he found Speers’ office. The previous resident – a GS-14 from OMB – was carting his last box out of the place.

The FBI
director closed the door behind him and glared at Speers, who was working behind a 19
th
century oak partner’s desk that looked like it weighed more than his car
.

“I’ll say this for you, Julian. You’ve got cajones.”

With Eva’s blessing, Speers had just reclaimed the same office he’d had during the Hatch Administration. It was an insanely good space. A corner office complete with a view of historic 17
th
Street NW, a fireplace and a dumb waiter. 

“It was the only sensible
solution,” Speers said. “I need to be in close proximity to you and the president during this crisis. McLean’s just too far.”

Fordham sat down in the chair before him. “When you hear what I’ve got to say, you’re going to wish you were
a lot farther away than McLean.”

“
Try me.”

“The preliminary report on the
Preston fire points to arson.”

Speers nodded.
“I assume the target was first responders. What did they use as a detonator?”

“
You’re thinking way too sophisticated. I’m talking pedestrian, no frills, old school arson. You might remember a stack of paint cans in the basement?”

Speers’ face lost some of its co
lor. “You’re telling me someone just lit a match and set fire to the house?”

Fordham folded his hands in his lap. “
And left the gas stove on, which caused the ensuing explosion.”

Speers leaned forward.
“When we left, the only two people in the house were Mary Borst and your guy, what’s his name?”

“
Hank Bowers. According to him, he stepped into the front yard to take a confidential phone call a few minutes after we left, leaving Mary in the home alone.”

“
I know Bowers is a trusted member of your team, but did you check out his story?”

Fordham nodded.
“Phone records match up. But the other thing is…” Fordham leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “They only pulled one body from the ashes.”

“
Which one?”

“
Preston’s. And that can only mean one thing. Mary Borst is alive.”