The Doomsday Code

Geoffrey and the youngest, William, hefted their blades aloft, two-handed as Geoffrey had taught, poised ready to swing down. The hooded man’s final stride brought him within range of strike and William swept his blade down first, aiming it at the vulnerable ‘L’ between neck and shoulder. His sword clanged on something hard beneath the cape — armour for sure. His sword hummed with vibration as it bounced off the man and continued down into the snow. The hooded man’s response was a blur of movement and the glint of the broadsword through air. Young William was a dead man before his legs had begun to buckle. His head toppled down beside him into the crisp white snow, eyes still blinking surprise.

Geoffrey swung his sword in a reckless roundhouse sweep, hoping if not to cleave the man in two then at least to knock him off his balance. His sweep ended with jarring suddenness and a metallic clang. He grunted a curse. The hooded man had to be wearing a complete suit of battle armour beneath that cape, and yet he moved with the agility of a man almost naked.

The response was a whip-snap blur and before Geoffrey had fully understood the result of the blow he was looking down at the blade being yanked firmly from his sternum. In a fog of incomprehension he found himself lying in the snow, looking up at the grey sky, the flakes settling lightly on his cheeks and nose. His mind was still dealing with the ridiculous notion that, for him, the fight was already over. He — a man who’d fought Saracens all his life, killed hundreds of men — was now reduced by a single thrust to being a pathetic panting body staining virgin snow with his blood.

Far off he was aware of voices screaming. The sound of fear and anger and the metallic clang and rasp of metal on metal: an exchange of swordplay that seemed to come to an end horrifyingly quickly. The voices receded — the squires, perhaps even the sergeants, running for their lives.

Then finally silence. He was aware of the crows still circling above, and the soft crunch of snow underfoot as someone slowly approached him.

Daylight was blocked out by the hooded man leaning over him. Geoffrey thought he caught the glint of armour amid the shadows of his cowl.

How can an armoured man move so quickly?

Then his fading mind was aware of another person leaning over him.

‘Where is it?’ said the new man.

Geoffrey spat congealing blood out on to his cheek. ‘We … we have … no … money.’

‘I’m not after your money,’ said the man. ‘I’ve come for the relic. No matter, we’ll find it ourselves.’

Geoffrey’s grey eyes tried focusing on him. ‘Y-you … know … of it?’

The man’s voice softened, almost kindly now. ‘Yes. I’m one of your brotherhood.’ Geoffrey felt a hand under his cropped hair, lifting his head out of the snow. ‘Here’s something to ease the pain.’

The second man, a lean face framed by long hair and a beard, lifted a glass bottle to his lips. He tasted a strong mead.

‘I’m truly sorry,’ said the man. ‘But we must have it.’ He sighed.

‘The … the relic … is to … be taken to Scotland. It must … it must be kept safe for — ’

‘For future generations,’ the man completed his words. ‘Yes, I know this. That’s why we’re here.’ He smiled. ‘We are that future generation and we’ve come for it.’

Geoffrey could feel death coming fast; warm and welcoming. And yet his mind felt compelled to know more. His mission had failed. It was to be taken from him and now he needed assurance.

‘Ye … ye are … a …?’

‘A Templar? Yes.’

Geoffrey’s eyes were far off now … looking for hosts of angels to guide him to the Kingdom of Heaven.

‘We’ve come from near the time that it all happens … and we have to know the truth. We’ve come to find out. It will be safe, brother … I promise you that. We will keep it safe.’

The words meant nothing to the knight now. His breathing, short and rapid puffs of tainted air, finally ceased with a soft gurgle.

The man gently eased the knight’s head back down on to the snow and traced the sign of the cross along the red cruciform on the man’s white tunic. Then he looked up at the hooded figure, kneeling in the snow beside him. He nodded towards the abandoned baggage cart. ‘It’ll be there somewhere. Find it.’

The hooded man silently stood up and strode towards the cart.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Templar whispered again to the dead knight, gently closing the lids of his eyes. ‘But we simply have to know.’

CHAPTER 5

2001, New York

Liam winced at the noise. It was so loud he could feel something inside his ears vibrate, and that surely couldn’t be healthy. Maddy had dragged him to the front of the small nightclub’s dance floor; dragged him by the hand until they’d found a gap just in front of the stage. He’d been prepared to stand there and listen while the band had been playing a slower, quieter, almost pleasant song. But then, without any warning at all, they’d taken a passable piece of music and turned it into a screaming, banging cacophony of sound that made his ears hurt. And, of course, all the other weird-looking youngsters standing around him had started jumping up and down for some reason and rudely pushing and shoving him and each other.

He soon had enough of that and left Maddy and Sal bouncing up and down like idiots. He squeezed his way through the crowd, quickly giving up on his excuse mes and pardon mes until he found Becks standing at the back of the nightclub, calmly studying the behaviour of everyone inside like a scientist studying a cage full of lab rats.

‘They call this music, so they do,’ he shouted. ‘Music — would you believe that?’

‘Affirmative,’ she shouted back at him. ‘Spectrum analysis of the frequency envelope and beats per minute indicate this music matches other tracks identified collectively as Death Metal.’

‘Death Metal, is it now? More like Deaf-and-Mental.’

She looked at him. ‘Negative. I said Death …’ She hesitated. ‘That was a joke, wasn’t it, Liam?’

He shrugged. ‘Aye.’

She practised a laugh she’d been working on; against the din of the band’s final chorus it sounded coarse and braying and not particularly lady-like. He shook his head and looked back at the dance floor, a seething, bouncing carpet of hair and sweaty heads, nose rings and tattooed shoulders, while five willowy young men on the stage jerked and twitched over their instruments. He decided they looked like something out of a travelling freak show.

Jay-zus, so this is ‘the modern world’, is it?

‘Ah, come on,’ laughed Maddy. ‘Lighten up, Liam. You sound like my granddad.’

‘Yes, it wasn’t exactly the bangra-thrash I’m used to,’ added Sal, ‘but — shadd-yah — they were proper good!’

‘Good?’ Liam huffed as they stepped out of the warm and humid fug of the nightclub into the cool September night. ‘I’ve heard angle-grinders along the Liverpool docks make a more tolerable noise than that.’ He tutted grumpily. ‘Now, are you sure those fellas back there actually knew how to play their instruments?’

‘It’s not about how well you play, Liam,’ said Maddy, ‘it’s the — I don’t know … it’s the energy, the attitude. You know?’

‘Attitude, is it?’ They stepped out of West 51st Street on to Broadway, leaving the milling crowd of emos and grunge rockers dispersing behind them.

‘Yes, attitude. It’s about getting an emotion across to the audience. Laying out how you feel.’

Becks cocked her head in thought. ‘That would indicate the musicians were feeling moderate to extreme levels of irritation about something.’

Liam laughed.