The Secret of Excalibur

the study. ‘He’s gone out the back!’ he warned Kruglov.

‘Go after him!’

Yosarin took off, passing Maximov as he untangled himself from the wreckage of the desk. ‘You want me to go too, boss?’ the big man asked.

‘No,’ said Kruglov. ‘Let’s get what we came for.’

The phone was clutched tightly in his hand, but Father Cardella couldn’t spare even the moment he needed to look down and punch in a number as he ran along the narrow path between the back of the church and the steep, rocky slope below.

He heard a bang - the door being thrown open. They were coming after him.

Who were they? And what did they want? The reliquary, the leader had said: they wanted something from the church’s repository of relics. But why? The items there were significant only in regard to the church’s history, not for their monetary value - at most they would be worth a few thousand euros.

Nothing worth coming all the way from Russia to steal . . .

He emerged from behind the church, risking a glance back as the path widened. The shaven-headed man was running after him, fists and feet pumping almost robotically. At the top of the road he saw the black truck, the woman throwing open the rear door and pulling out a long cylindrical case.

That escape route was blocked, then, but there was another, an old path winding steeply down through the woods to the village—

Heart thudding, he headed for the gap between the scrubby bushes marking the start of the trail. It had been a few years since he’d last taken it, but he knew the route well, and unless the man chasing him had the agility of a goat he too would find it tricky to negotiate. Father Cardella just needed him to be slowed for a few seconds, enough of a respite to use the phone. One call would bring the entire village to his aid; the people of San Maggiori wouldn’t take kindly to strangers threatening their priest.

He reached the bushes. The hillside opened out below him.

Footsteps behind, getting closer—

Father Cardella leapt over the edge, black robes flapping behind him like a cape. His foot thumped down amongst the rocks and roots. The path was a blur, only memory guiding him. Arms flailing, he fought to bring his descent under control.

A shout from behind, a foreign curse followed by an explosive crackle of branches. Father Cardella didn’t need to look back to know what had happened - his pursuer had slipped and tumbled into a bush.

He had the few seconds he needed.

Raising the phone, he stabbed at the keypad to bring up the directory. Anyone in the village would do. He selected a name, pushed another button. A message on the screen told him the phone was dialling. A few seconds to make a connection, another few to get an answer . . .

He looked back up the slope as he held the phone to his ear. It was ringing. The bald Russian was still entangled in the bush.

Come on, pick up . . .

Another figure at the top of the hill, a silhouette against the sunset. The woman.

A click in his ear, the phone being picked up. ‘Hello?’

He opened his mouth to speak—

The fat cylindrical suppressor attached to the barrel of the rifle Dominika was holding reduced the sound of the gunshot to little more than a flat thump. It was so quiet that Father Cardella never even heard the shot that killed him.

The reliquary was a cramped chamber behind the altar, low enough to force Kruglov to duck his head. He ignored the inconvenience as he hunted for his objective. The other items in the reliquary, carefully arranged on blood-red velvet inside a glass-topped case, were little more than junk. A very old Bible, the Latin text illuminated by hand rather than printed; a silver plate with a crude illustration of Jesus etched into the metal; a golden cup . . . the rest of the pieces didn’t even merit more than a cursory glance. He knew what he was looking for.

There it was. The last item, tucked away in a corner of the case as if even the priest considered it insignificant. It certainly looked it, just a shard of metal barely ten centimetres long, the broken tip of a sword. A circular symbol was inscribed on it, a labyrinth, marked with small dots. Apart from that, it appeared utterly unremarkable.

But the sight of it made Kruglov smile his cold smile once more. He had to admit that he’d believed the German was either a fraud or deluded, spouting nonsense. But Vaskovich thought otherwise . . . and only a fool would dismiss his beliefs.

He pointed at the case. Maximov, practically crouching to fit in the room, clenched his fist and banged it down on the glass. It shattered over the relics. The huge man’s beard twitched with an involuntary smile, and Kruglov wasn’t surprised to see a sliver of glass poking from his hand. He ignored it, long used to his subordinate’s peculiarities.

Instead, he reached past him into the case, carefully prodding the glass fragments aside until he could lift out the sword piece. After everything Vaskovich had told him about it, he half expected something extraordinary to happen. But it was just metal, inert, cold.

Maximov plucked the glass from his hand, then looked more closely at the golden cup. ‘Do we take the other things too?’ he asked, already reaching for it.

‘Leave it,’ snapped Kruglov.

The scar on Maximov’s forehead twisted with his look of disappointment. ‘But it’s gold!’

‘You can buy better from any goldsmith in Moscow. This is all we came for.’ He took a slim foam-lined metal case from inside his jacket, carefully placing the broken piece of the sword inside before closing it with a click. ‘That’s it.’

Dominika peered into the reliquary. ‘I took care of the priest,’ she announced in a bored tone.

Maximov’s scarred forehead furrowed again. ‘You killed him?’

She snorted sarcastically. ‘Duh.’

‘But he was a priest!’ he protested. ‘You can’t kill a priest!’

‘Actually, it’s easy.’ After rolling her eyes, she looked at the case in Kruglov’s hand. ‘Did you get it?’

‘I got it. Let’s go.’ Kruglov looked past her. ‘Where’s Yosarin?’

Another eye-roll. ‘He fell in a bush.’

Kruglov shook his head, then slipped the case back into his pocket and ducked through the low door. ‘Start the fire over there,’ he decided, pointing at the first row of pews. ‘No need to make it look like an accident. The Sicilian Mafia will take the blame, it’s their kind of thing.’ He strode up the aisle as Dominika sprayed lighter fluid over the pew, then lit a match and tossed it into the puddle of liquid. Flames instantly leapt up with a whump.

The trio left the church, joining Yosarin and climbing back into their black SUV. As they drove down the winding road, the first curls of smoke drifted from the door of the little church, catching the last light of the dying sun as they rose.

1

Washington, DC: Three Weeks Later

‘Nervous?’ asked Eddie Chase, nudging his fiancee as they approached the door.

Nina Wilde fingered the pendant round her neck, her good-luck charm. ‘Er, yeah. Aren’t you?’

‘Why? We’ve met the guy before.’

‘Yes, but he wasn’t the frickin’ President then, was he?’ An aide opened the door, and they were ushered into the Oval Office.

They were greeted by applause as they entered. Waiting for them were former US Navy admiral Hector Amoros, their current boss at the United Nations’ International Heritage Agency; several White House officials and representatives of Congress; the First Lady . . . and Victor Dalton, the President of the United States of America.

‘Dr Wilde!’ he said, stepping forward to shake her hand. ‘And Mr Chase. Good to see you both again.’