Now they entered the office and flashed their ID cards at Nigel. The lead man was tall, with dark blonde hair and a strong jaw. His eyes glinted darkly in the low light of the office as he turned to the armed police officers. “We’ll take it from here. Go back to the entrance and make sure no one comes in.”
After scanning the faces of the small group, the senior agent walked up to Ella and took hold of her shoulders, kissing her hard on the mouth. Mason and the others watched in shock as Ella ran her hands up the man’s back until they were wrapped around his neck. When he finally released her, Ella Makepeace sighed and said, “I always knew you were a hotshot, Ben, but I had no idea you were this good.”
Mason and the others stared at Ella in disbelief for a few seconds as she stood on tiptoes and kissed her boyfriend for a second time. She turned back to them and smiled. “Everyone, meet Ben Speers, MI5 agent and world’s greatest kisser, Ben, meet the Raiders.”
“Wait just a goddam minute,” Zara said. “This is Ben, as in your Ben?”
She nodded “Uh-huh.”
“Good to meet you,” Ben said, giving a shallow nod of acknowledgement. “Is that Raiders as in tomb raiders or something?”
“No,” Mason said bluntly, and told him what RAIDERS stood for. “We’re in asset recovery.”
“Neat,” said Ben. “I hope it’s all above board and legal.”
“Of course,” Ella said. “You think I’d hang out with a bunch of crims?”
“Look,” Mason said impatiently. “We’re in a hurry. The last thing we need right now is the interference of the sodding SIS.” He glared at Nigel and Ambrose.
Ella and Ben stopped to kiss again, and Zara pretended to vomit. “Can’t you wait till you get a room, at least?”
“Sorry,” Ella said, picking a piece of fluff of Ben’s shoulder. “It’s just been a while since we saw each other.” She turned to her boyfriend and locked eyes on him. “I thought you were out of the country?”
“I was, but an hour after landing I got a call from Henderson in the Met. I’m surprised you never called me yourself, El.”
“I can fight my own battles, Ben,” she said defensively. “I don’t have to call my boyfriend up every time I get in a scrape.”
Ben looked momentarily offended, but then things changed fast. One of the security guards burst into Nigel’s office without knocking, his chest heaving up and down with the speed of his breathing. “It’s the armed police down at the entrance! They’ve been shot and the gunmen are heading this way!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Amadeus slowed his breath and worked hard to maintain his nerve. He had been initiated into the Occulta Manu rank of Persian too many years ago, and he was starting to think his career in the organization had reached its end. He idly speculated that someone, somewhere, didn’t like him very much and was holding him back from the promotion to Sun-runner that he so richly deserved. Now, the Lion — Kranz — was on the line prattling about how his Bride was failing to complete her mission.
If the Bride failed Kranz, then Kranz would fail him, and that meant he would have to report the failure to Benedict, the Sun-runner who held his life in the precarious balance so familiar to those in the Order.
And Benedict’s rank meant he had the ear of the Father.
None of this helped his nerves, and he quietly performed the ritual of unscrewing his little plastic bottle of Xanax and popping a couple of the tiny blue ovals. In a few short moments, the diazepam would work its magic and calm his frayed nerves.
Allow him to see more clearly.
When the benzodiazepine washed into his bloodstream, he took a deep breath and spoke into the phone. “His name?”
“Jedediah Mason,” Kranz said.
“An old name. Details.”
“Born in London. Troubled up-bringing and then the British Army made a man of him. The last few years he’s been running an asset recovery service, apparently the best in the world and in great demand. His team are supposed to be at the top of their game, but they look like a bunch of rogues, renegades and dropouts to me.”
“These dropouts are causing me a lot of trouble right now, Lion.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do. If they cause me a lot of trouble, then I will cause you a lot of trouble.”
“I’m doing everything I can, Persian.”
“Are you?”
“Kiya is the best, and Dariush gave his life for the cause.”
“I’m not interested in the fate of a Raven who hands vital information like the Napoleon letter to the enemy. He is no hero. If he had not killed himself he would have been executed by the Order for his derisory failure.”
He heard Kranz take a deep breath. “I won’t fail you.”
“That is what they all say, dear Kranz. That is what they all say, but it never pacifies Benedict. A man like that respects only results, not excuses.”
Amadeus closed his eyes and felt the drug coursing through his body. It felt almost like someone was giving him a shoulder massage. The relaxation dispersed like evaporating water when the image of the Sun-runner appeared in his mind like a phantom.
Or more accurately the image of what he thought the man looked like. He had never seen Benedict in all his years in the Order. That wasn’t the way things worked at this level. Benedict the Sun-runner was just a voice on the end of a phone, or a string of commands in a text or email. Like an apparition forming in front of him at any moment and then vanishing again, he had no idea when he would touch his life.
Just as poor little Kranz had no idea when Amadeus would pull his strings, either.
“If I want to progress from Perses to Heliodromus, then I must not fail in this mission, Kranz. Is that clear?”
Heliodromus…Sun-runner…how he craved that rank.
After a short pause, Kranz said, “Very clear, and there will be no failure. Kiya is hunting them now as we speak, in Oxford. She and Tekin are closing in on their prey and I think very soon I will have good news for you.”
“For your sake, Kranz, I hope you do.”
Amadeus cut the call and popped another Xanax. All their fates were hanging on a thread dangling from Kiya’s hands, and if she failed, they all failed. He shuddered and closed his eyes. No one understood what failing the Sun-runner meant better than he did: he had heard the rumors of those close to Benedict and what he did to punish anyone who failed him. He decided to start making a few enquiries of his own about these Raiders, and see if he couldn’t bring their adventure to an abrupt end.
These damn pills just weren’t strong enough, he thought, and crossed the room to his drinks cabinet. Maybe if he washed them down with some Scotch he could calm himself once again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Nigel Sim looked like he was about to have a heart attack. “What did you just say?”
“Shot, sir! We was standing on the front door with those armed coppers, just like you told us to when these maniacs turned up out of nowhere and just started shootin’! When I saw them go down I legged it down here to tell…”
The guard’s sentence was cut short when a bullet tore into his neck and exploded out the other side, smashing into the giant Turner reproduction on the wall behind Nigel’s head. Before anyone could react or even scream, a second bullet hit him in the head and blew the front of his skull off.
The dead man slumped to the floor, and it was only then that Mason noticed that Nigel was also dead. The second bullet had continued on its trajectory after drilling through the guard’s head and torn into the director’s chest. Blasted out of his chair and back against the wall, his body had slid down to a heap beside his filing cabinet and left a long trail of blood painted on the wall behind him.