The manager scurries back behind the front desk. He talks to the receptionist, checks a computer then returns. ‘They’ve just left. No more than ten minutes ago.’
Warman looks relieved. ‘Can you take us to their rooms?’
Dunbar seems surprised. ‘Certainly.’ Then his left eye twitches nervously. ‘You don’t think there are explosives in there, do you?’
‘Highly unlikely. If we did, we’d have the bomb squad with us.’
‘Right.’ He stands frozen to the spot.
‘Now can you take us, please?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He jumps into action. ‘I have a master key. Follow me.’
They ride the elevator to the top floor and Dunbar strides down the carpeted corridor ahead of them. ‘Rooms 602 and 604 are theirs.’ He slips a key card into both slots and pushes the doors open. ‘Do you need me to come in with you?’
‘No, that’s not necessary, sir,’ says Warman. ‘Not unless you wish to?’
‘Er, no. No thank you. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’ He smiles and walks away.
Warman pulls his pistol and checks it. ‘Ten minutes, then we have to be out of here.’
Jackson nods.
‘We don’t want to give that dope long enough to think about actually calling the Yard and checking our credentials.’
87
To Mitzi’s dismay, there’s still no DNA profile from the water bottle she stole from George Dalton at Gwyn’s office.
There’s more than a hint of fear in Annie Linklatter’s voice as she promises, ‘I’ll have it by the end of the day.’
Mitzi gives her a parting glower and returns to the small office she and Bronty have commandeered.
The ex-priest looks up from his spread of papers and maps. ‘Any luck?’
‘Don’t freakin’ well ask. The Brits move at a pace that predates modern civilization.’
He laughs at her. ‘She’s American.’
‘No matter. It’s being over here that’s made her slow. What are you doing?’
‘Come and see.’ He flattens out a large Ordnance Survey map and places a page of A4 paper next to it. ‘I’ve been thinking about this passage of text in The Fallen: It is hereby decreed that in the homeland the place of rest will for ever be where the great Celts cross and where the bards stand alone to deliver their eulogies.’
She reads it and then confesses, ‘Aside from the Celtic cross, it means nothing to me.’
‘I don’t think it means cross as in crucifix. I think it refers to a point where Celtic clans or borders crossed, the Irish and the Welsh cross.’
‘A physical place.’
He taps the map. ‘Here. It’s a place that the Knights Templar once owned.’
She stares at a fingernail of an island off the west coast of Britain. ‘Lundy? I’ve never heard of it.’
Bronty looks animated. ‘This might well be where holy knights were buried. It’s the spot where the Celtic Sea hits the Bristol Channel.’
Mitzi studies the map. ‘The place looks tiny. It can’t be more than five miles long and maybe a mile wide?’
‘Less than that. The text refers to “…where the bards stand alone to deliver their eulogies…”, well there’s a cemetery out there and I can’t imagine a more isolated place in Europe to say kind words over the body of a fallen brother.’ He moves to the computer. ‘Now look at what I found.’ He pulls up a web page featuring the island. ‘Lundy is owned by the National Trust and leased to the Landmark Trust, to protect it from being built on or exploited.’
‘So?’
‘Look at the bottom.’
Mitzi reads aloud, ‘“British diplomat Sir Owain Gwyn is a leading contributor to both Trusts and a patron of numerous Lundy support groups.”’
‘So, if there are secrets out there,’ says Bronty, ‘then Gwyn is well positioned to protect them.’
‘You need go snoop. How far away is it from here?’
‘I feared you’d say that. It’s a good two hundred miles and a ferry boat ride.’
Mitzi smiles. ‘You better get booking your trip, then.’
88
Members of the Blood Line have come from all over Britain, France and Belgium, the old countries that produced the original knights and centuries-long allegiances that constituted the Round Table.
Each of the honoured warriors shows no documentation at the armed checkpoints. Instead, their fingers are pricked by SSOA guards at the lodge gates and blood matched on special DNA passes that both they and the security teams hold. Once ID’d by haematology, Knights of the Blood Line are given complete freedom of the castle and its grounds.
A small group winds its way to the woods, where newly recruited knights are trained in hand-to-hand combat by former SAS commanders. Nearby, bursts of gunfire crackle inside a single-storey row of outbuildings. Every member of the Blood Line has done his or her time inside the dense labyrinth of darkened rooms where simulated hostage recovery operations are staged.
Back at the castle, Owain Gwyn enters Keep Hall and settles at the middle of one of four exceptionally long tables butted together to form not a circle but a perfect square. A hundred and fifty high-back thrones are arranged symmetrically. Each bears the individual family crest of a member.
The one behind Owain’s head shows a white shield and on it a red cross, identical in shape to crosses laid on the bodies of fallen knights. In the top left quadrant is an open-mouthed red dragon. In the bottom right, a large brown bear. The other two are filled with three golden crowns and a round wooden table.
Owain looks up from the centuries-old, wooden-bound book that is spread open before him. Old timers are filtering in for the meeting. They’re always the first. The new Bloods will predictably breeze in, ruddy-cheeked, just in the nick of time.
The head of the SSOA leaves his seat and shakes the hands of Terry Lyons, descendant of Tristram de Lyones and Gerry Erbin, descendant of Sir Geraint. Others form an orderly queue behind them and Owain spends the next fifteen minutes personally welcoming every member of the Blood Line.
Finally, Myrddin enters, and as is his custom and right, he locks the great doors of the hall by jamming a broadsword through the hoops of two iron handles and takes his seat by the door.
Owain Gwyn looks across the vast tables to the faces of the great and the good. A hundred and fifty men and women whose ancestors lived and died for their common belief in freedom and fairness.
‘Great members of the Blood Line, I thank you for travelling long and far to come here to our home at such short notice. My dear friends and colleagues, you know I wouldn’t ask for this assembly if it wasn’t to discuss matters of a most extraordinary nature.’ He watches seriousness creep across faces, notes the tension in tightly folded arms and fidgeting hands. ‘You know from the Watch Team bulletins the growing threats our countries face. And you know, too, of how our operational knights are fighting the old enemy Mardrid as he pays organizations like al-Qaeda to sow the seeds of discontent so he may reap the rewards of a bloody harvest. As this man increases his power base in the developed world, so too does he exploit the poorest nations, where he is using thuggery to rob generations of their future.’
Mutters break out among the venerable members, many of whom are old enough to remember the atrocities Mardrid’s father and grandfather carried out in Ethiopia, Uganda and Rhodesia.
Owain waits until they grow quiet, then continues. ‘The Inner Circle asks for you to ratify their decision to send crusaders to Africa to ensure no free man, woman or child falls victim to Mardrid, his men or machinations. Two hundred of our knights are on standby to enter Togo, the scene of Mardrid-initiated rape, murder, torture and arson. A thousand more are being mustered as we speak.’