‘Drop your weapons and turn around slowly,’ said a calm, steady voice from the doorway, and Wesley’s heart soared.
Coleman Nash had the massive twin bores of the elephant gun trained steadily on the robbers.
The two men froze. The pressure of the pistol muzzle against Wesley’s cheekbone slackened. Coleman had them cold.
Except for one problem. Coleman had never pointed a gun at a living being before, still less pulled the trigger. These men did it for a living. Amateurs hesitated. Professionals never did.
It all happened too fast for Wesley to follow. The report of the first pistol was a muffled ‘ dooophh ’, followed almost instantly by another, simultaneously with the brain-numbing explosion of the elephant gun as it blasted a moon crater out of the far wall.
Coleman’s legs wobbled and then buckled and he went down on his knees. Blood on his lips.
Wesley yelled. Another pistol shot. Then another.
Wesley saw the bullets strike and knew there was nothing he could do to help poor Coleman. He jumped up from the armchair, grabbed the black fibreglass case and bolted like a rabbit for the side exit. The big man in the leather coat turned to stop him, but dived for cover behind the couch as the stricken Coleman let loose with the second barrel. The. 700 Nitro Express blew a great ragged hole through the backrest of a hundred-thousand-dollar antique couch.
In the next moment, Coleman was cut down by a volley of bullets. He died before the rifle had dropped from his hands.
By then, Wesley had made it out of the exit and was sprinting in a grief-stricken panic down the passage, carrying his precious case. He heard the door burst open behind him and the footsteps pounding as the gunmen gave chase. The terror pressed him on faster. He hammered up a flight of steps, down another passage, and reached the door.
The panic room had been built several years earlier, in case of just such a contingency. Wesley had let Coleman take care of the arrangements, then signed the cheque and promptly forgotten all about it. Which made it all the more miraculous that the password for the voice-recognition vault door should come back to him now.
‘Barbarossa!’
The six forged steel deadlocks opened with a clunk. Wesley rushed inside and the armoured door shut behind him, locking itself automatically.
Safe. More importantly, the sword was too. Wesley leaned against the wall and breathed hard, able to hear the muffled voices of his pursuers cursing on the other side. For the first time in his life, he thanked God for modern technology. If he’d had to fumble for a key, they’d have got him. Would they have killed him outright, or tortured him until they’d found the sword in its case?
Wesley staggered numbly over to the control console and peered at the bank of monitors showing digital hi- definition images of every part of the house. He could see the two bodies on the main living room floor: Coleman’s near the entrance, Hubert’s on the rug. Abigail’s in the kitchen. The blood looked garishly bright.
Wesley tasted bile in his mouth at the sight and turned away, following the gunmen’s progress from screen to screen as they dashed furiously from one room to the next. They must have known that the clock was ticking now, but clearly believed they still had a chance of locating their quarry somewhere within the Whitworth Mansion.
They wouldn’t hang around too long, if they had any sense. Wesley picked up the phone and dialled 911. He spoke urgently but clearly to the police operator, and was assured that officers were on their way. Then, swallowing back his grief, he moved on to the even more important call he had to make.
*
Halfway across the world, Simeon Arundel picked up on the second ring that dragged him up out of a deep sleep.
‘Simeon?’ said the familiar voice.
‘Wesley, it’s three o’clock in the morning here,’ Simeon muttered, rubbing his face. It had been a late night, and his head was a little fuzzy from all the whisky they’d drunk. Their visitor’s capacity for alcohol seemed to be undiminished with the years. Michaela was fast asleep, the curve under the blanket rising and falling gently in the bed next to him.
‘Listen to me,’ the American’s voice hissed in his ear. ‘Something’s happened.’
Struggling to clear his head and afraid of waking Michaela, Simeon sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. ‘Hold on, Wesley.’ In the darkness of the bedroom he padded over to the ensuite bathroom, closed himself quietly inside and turned on the light. ‘All right. What’s happened?’
‘They’re after the sword.’
‘What? Who?’
‘The armed men who broke into my house tonight. Or whoever paid them to come here to steal it.’
Simeon sat down heavily on the edge of the bath, his mind swimming with horror. ‘Oh, Lord. Are you all right?’
‘I’m safe. The cops are on their way as we speak.’ Wesley’s voice quavered with emotion. ‘They shot Coleman, Simeon.’ A sorrowful pause. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead!?’
‘So are Hubert and Abigail.’
Simeon’s heart began to beat even faster. He could feel it thudding violently at the base of his throat. He suddenly felt as if he might need to lurch the two steps across to the toilet and throw up.
Then the suspicions Fabrice had expressed to him just before his death had been true. Someone really was taking an unhealthy interest in the research they’d all tried so hard to keep secret. Someone really was after them.
Someone who was prepared to murder to get what they wanted.
Simeon swallowed back the urge to gag. ‘Is it safe?’
‘It’s right here next to me,’ Wesley said, patting the case.
‘Didn’t I tell you, Wesley? Didn’t I tell you something strange was happening — that I was sure I’d been followed — about the man I saw in the church a couple of weeks ago?’ Simeon visualised the scene clearly in his mind as he spoke. The stranger had materialised as if out of the blue while he’d been helping put up the Christmas decorations at one of his churches in a rural part of Oxfordshire. When Simeon had gone to welcome him, the man had slipped away as suddenly as he’d appeared. ‘And didn’t I tell you that Fabrice would never have killed himself like that? Or done those appalling things?’
They’d been through this over and over, ever since receiving the news of their colleague’s death and his shocking circular email. ‘I don’t know whether Fabrice did those things or not,’ Wesley said impatiently. ‘Or why he’d have confessed to them if he hadn’t. And I don’t know if he threw himself off that damn bridge or not. Neither do you. All we can be sure of is that you and I are both in danger and it has to do with this sword. That’s the reality we’re facing right now.’
‘Who are these people? How do they know about us?’
‘Did you talk to anybody? Anybody at all? They even seem to know what it looks like.’
‘Nobody,’ Simeon blurted. ‘I swear.’
‘You’re absolutely positive about that?’
‘Wesley, I would never…’
‘Good. Keep it that way. Listen, I can’t stay on this line. The cops will be here any minute. When I’ve dealt with them I’m going to call my lawyer and arrange some private security for you and your family over there, okay?’
‘There’s no need for that. I’ll be making my own arrangements.’
‘Can you get armed bodyguards in England?’
‘I don’t think so, not unless you’re the Prime Minister or something. But I have an old friend with a lot of experience of that kind of thing.’
‘He’d better know his business,’ Wesley said. ‘This is serious.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me? I’m going to Martha’s. Got to get the sword somewhere safe. It’s more important than any of us. You said that yourself, remember?’
Simeon nodded. He was still reeling. ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
