The Apocalypse Codex

to be disturbed—but his satisfaction is palpable. “McTavish will not yet be fully committed. Don’t let him see the others after you take them in.”

“I certainly won’t, sir,” Alex assures him. “If you don’t mind…?”

Leaving the presence of his master, Alex walks around the periphery of the sanctuary. The huge church is filling up slowly, and there’s chatter among the families as they queue for the best unreserved seats; ushers from GPM, uniformed in blue smocks, are directing them towards aisles where their arrival will cause minimal disruption. Some of them clutch burgers and burritos with their bibles, hot from the booths outside. The food is free, for as Ray puts it, a full stomach is a great way to get the undecided to sit down and listen to the good news.

Alex’s two-way radio buzzes. It’s Deputy Stewart in the control room. “We need you up here now, boss,” he says. “We’ve got a situation developing.”

“Check. On my way.” Alex ups his pace. It wouldn’t do to let any unwanted interlopers kick up a fuss on the Lord’s new birthday.

Not long now, he thinks. His captive host agrees: Soon we will be reunited with the Lord. Alex basks in its warm glow of joyful anticipation. Strange to think that such a—his mind flinches from the next word—alien-looking thing could be such a source of love and consolation. But it is, and thanks to his wards his own mind is intact enough to appreciate the irony. And when you’ve worked for the Nazgul for as long as Alex has, you learn to look beyond surface appearances.

AT THE EXACT MOMENT THAT LOCKEY IS BEING PAGED BY SECURITY in the New Life Church’s control room, it’s coming up on 6 p.m. in London. In a dingy office block above a row of shuttered shops, somewhere south of the river, most of the windows are dark, for it is far into overtime territory in a time of spending cuts. But in one particular meeting room—windowless, in the interior of the warren of narrow puce-green corridors and beige- carpet-tiled offices that make up the New Annex—the lights are burning late.

Approach the meeting room by way of the corridor and you will see that the door has no windows, and is identified only by a name plate reading M25. There’s a strip of lights above it, like a miniature horizontal traffic signal. Right now the red light is flashing.

There’s a battered boardroom table in the middle of the room. Eight chairs—equally battered, castoffs from Human Resources—are scattered around it. Someone has furnished it with a large black velvet tablecloth, chain- stitched with intricate designs in conductive silver thread using a sewing machine that is stored in a secure vault room when not in use. A couple of ruggedized boxes full of electronics sit at one end of the table, attached to the cloth by alligator clips and to a wheeled, voltage-regulated battery pack by fat cables. The door is not merely shut, or locked, but barred: physically and by means of less obvious but more lethal wards. These are not the only precautions against unwanted eavesdropping—only the most obvious ones.

“Tell me,” the Senior Auditor leans forward, “precisely how long ago Howard was supposed to report in.”

Gerald Lockhart clears his throat as he checks his wristwatch: “I was expecting him to be here by now,” he says mildly. “I delivered the scram instruction at eight fifteen p.m. yesterday and authorized him to use any means necessary. He should have had sufficient time to make a connection by now.”

The Auditor—sixty-ish, male, distinguished-looking, with gold-rimmed half-moon bifocals—exchanges a significant look with his colleague—female, late forties, with the twin-set-and-pearls look of a House of Lords apparatchik. She delivers the next question pointedly: “What is the communication situation at present?”

Lockhart grimaces as if he’s just been asked to swallow a live toad. “In a word, poor. Phone calls are not connected. Email is not downloaded. SMS messages are not delivered. To determine whether this was specific to our people, I tried contacting various businesses in Colorado. Denver and Colorado Springs and all points between might as well have dropped off the map. The last information I could independently verify was that there is an anomalous snowstorm sweeping down the Rockies, that all flights in and out of those cities and their environs are grounded, and there’s some kind of problem with satellite phones.”

The female auditor makes a note on her pad. “Have you enquired through formal channels yet?”

“No.” Lockhart stares down his nose, refusing to be intimidated. “As I already noted at the last oversight meeting, local law enforcement is believed to be compromised.”

“Have you contacted the Black Chamber, directly or indirectly?”

Lockhart takes a deep breath. “That’s what we’re here to discuss. The answer is ‘no,’ by the way. Not without your authorization.”

The male Auditor speaks again: “So we have established a baseline for this situation.” He looks at Lockhart sharply. “Denver. Tell me about its geography.”

“Geography? It’s on a plateau.” Lockhart shrugs. “West of it, everything goes crinkle-cut. East, it slopes gently down to the Mississippi.”

The fourth occupant of the meeting room finally speaks. “A plateau.” His tone is wintry.

“Thank you, Doctor,” the female Auditor is snippy, “unless you have anything to contribute…?”

“Yes, it’s a plateau,” Lockhart snaps waspishly. “With a couple of cities in the middle, and a big temple. The parallels to the layout of a certain other plateau in a location formerly subject to regular photorecon overflight did not pass me by, James.”

Angleton nods. He rests his elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled; beneath the harsh fluorescent light from the ceiling tubes, his face looks sunken, cadaverous. “I see.” He turns to stare at the auditors. “You are aware of APOCALYPSE CODEX?”

The male Auditor nods. “That is the document that…” He glances at Lockhart.

“Yes,” says Lockhart, surly at having his work exposed to hostile eyes and critical minds. “The one that was copied during the black bag job at Schiller’s hotel. And that Howard so casually emailed to an uncleared social contact—” His icy disapproval is profound.

“The, ah, doctor of divinity,” Angleton notes with relish, “whose thesis was a study of variant Essene apocalypse cults.” He returns Lockhart’s glare with a blandly satisfied expression. “Do we have one of those on payroll? I seem to recall Donald Hiller retired nearly twenty years ago without any decision as to a successor being made. How long would it have taken us to locate and vet a suitable consultant if Howard hadn’t cut the Gordian knot?”

“But he shouldn’t be—”

“Mister Lockhart.” Angleton leans forward like an angry rattlesnake: “You picked Howard because he can think outside the box and improvise solutions in the field. And you sent him out into the field to support BASHFUL INCENDIARY and JOHNNY PRINCE, without showing him the PRINCE dossier or explaining the relationship between Hazard and McTavish and our organization. You are the one who decided that the best way to evaluate his performance under stress would be to handicap him in that respect. You chose your cake. And now you are complaining about the flavor?”

“Dr. Angleton!” The female Auditor sits up. “If you please.” She glances at her colleague. “Should we action HR about this external contact?”

“Hmm, I don’t think so. Not yet. A vicar.” The other Auditor picks up a pen and twirls it between his fingertips. “Too public a figure. Background checks only, for now. We can reel him in if he begins to ask uncomfortable questions.”

“So.” The female Auditor raises a hand and starts ticking off finger joints: “Mahogany Row suggested BASHFUL INCENDIARY and JOHNNY PRINCE investigate a location that has unfortunate resonances with GOD GAME BLUE, not to mention PRINCE’s background. Howard was sent to monitor them and provide top cover while they were underground. He acknowledged a scram instruction but is now overdue, and there appears to be a communications blackout over most of populated Colorado. However, he transmitted documentary evidence that confirms GOD GAME VIOLET. The anomalous meteorological conditions suggest that GOD GAME YELLOW is in effect, either now or imminently. INCENDIARY and PRINCE are also unaccounted for. Is that a reasonable summary?”

Lockhart runs a hand through his thinning hair distractedly. “Yes.”

Angleton peers out across a bony cage of interlaced fingers. “The black bag job,” he says smoothly. “It was deniable, yes?”