Grus never expected to come across Gideon and the sacrifice. He was simply trying to get to his car parked just off the Imber range.
Gideon turns towards the blaze of light. Help at last. He shields his eyes from the glare and is about to shout to the driver when he makes out that the man approaching him on foot is carrying a gun. Even if he had the strength to run, there is nowhere he could hide. No escape.
Grus lets out a shallow laugh. ‘One last gift from the Sacreds. The treacherous son and the woman that ruined everything. Looks like she’s going to die after all.’
He slips the safety catch off the pistol and walks closer. Night sun lamps from the Apache suddenly unleash a torrent of blinding white light. A megaphone message echoes out of the surrounding field. ‘This is the police. Drop your weapon. You are surrounded.’
Grus’s face says that’s not going to happen. He recognises the voice. It’s Jimmy. His own son. He glances to the side and in the half-light beyond the search beam catches a glimpse of men in black uniforms, no more than fifty metres away. Tactical support. They’re running low, dropping into the grass, sighting their weapons. He knows the drill.
The light from the Apache burns brighter and the copter hovers lower.
‘Armed police, drop your weapon!’
His son’s voice hangs in the air. He’s out of time and he knows it. Grus raises the pistol, jams it in his mouth and fires.
The idling Jeep instantly kicks up grass and darts away. Gunfire blazes from across the field. The headlights of the Jeep go out. More shots. This time returned from the speeding vehicle. Sniper fire barks back from the grass, short growls like feral dogs.
The vehicle swerves viciously. It flips on its side. Cartwheels like a clumsy gymnast. Crashes upside down, spilling ragdoll corpses. An eerie silence ensues. No one moves.
Only when birdsong fills the air does one of the firearms team signal that it’s safe to move in. Gideon and Caitlyn struggle to their feet and hold each other. The new moon fades in the morning sky.
Dawn finally breaks over the flat Wiltshire plain.
191
News of Caitlyn’s safe recovery is relayed to the suite of Kylie Lock at five a.m. By six, the Hollywood star has sobered up enough to speak to her daughter and to tearfully relay the good news to her father.
Jude Tompkins has a full crime-scene team working on site at Imber by six-thirty. By seven the bodies of James Pendragon’s driver, Nicholas Smith, the Deputy Chief Constable, Gregory Dockery and Inspector Adam Stone have all been examined in situ by a Home Office pathologist and moved to the county mortuary.
By eight a.m. Lee Johns is being formally interviewed in Devizes by Jimmy and by nine he is the first to be charged with kidnapping and manslaughter.
By ten past eight, the media has the story. Newsflashes are filling every radio, television and web bulletin across most of the world.
At ten a.m., Chief Constable Alan Hunt fronts a hastily called press conference in Devizes, congratulating his officers and thanking the Home Office, the FBI and the public for their support.
By eleven, Josh Goran has given the first of what he intends to be many TV interviews, telling how he was responsible for leading the police to Imber and how he is now going to sue the army for the ten million dollars reward that he thinks should rightfully be his. He also shows reporters the fox holes that he and his men dug to escape from army patrols.
By midday someone at the barracks in Warminster remembers they still have several of Goran’s team in their cell block and grudgingly releases them.
A little after one p.m., Megan is at her parents’ house hugging her daughter Sammy and wondering how to tell her that she’ll never see her father again.
Just before three, Gideon wakes in the recovery ward of Salisbury District Hospital, the same one he was in after being attacked in the house of the man he’ll always think of as his father. His real father. Professor Nathaniel Chase.
At five p.m. Gideon receives a call of thanks from the Vice President of the United States and a fax from the office of the President.
At six p.m. security teams strip the black plastic sheeting from the fences around Stonehenge and prepare it for a public reopening the following day. By the time the workers have cleared the site, it’s twilight again.
Police reports show that no VIP party had taken place after all. There were no crowds and no sacrifice. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Except for one thing. In the pale light of that busy morning in Wiltshire, there was a solitary visitor to the henge. A tired-looking, grey-faced man entered the circle. He spent a solemn time on his knees, embracing each and every stone.
No one seems to know his name.
And no one has seen him since.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost my consiglieri and spiritual bodyguard Luigi Bonomi — agents don’t come any better. The folks at Little, Brown/Sphere have been amazing — this is as much Dan Mallory’s book as it is mine, maybe even more so, and it’s been an honour to write this with him. Big thanks to Iain Hunt for all the heavy lifting he did on draft one at short notice. Kudos to Andy Hine, Kate Hibbert and Helena Doree in international rights, you are all goddesses. Thanks to Hannah Hargrave and Kate Webster in publicity for spreading the word. Scary Jack, big thanks to you too. Mrs M, I couldn’t have done this without you x
The Stonehenge Legacy is purely a work of fiction. Scholars will note that while much of it is based on astronomical, archaeological and historical fact, some of those facts have been used in ways to purely enhance the story and don’t purport to form a collective truth. That said, despite centuries of research, there is still no indisputable answer to the big question: why was Stonehenge built?