The Secret of Excalibur

checked for a pulse.

But he already knew he would find none. The entry wound was a scorched black circle just behind Mitzi’s temple, no wider than a pencil. He didn’t need to look to know that the exit wound on the opposite side of her skull would be far bigger, the size of his clenched fist. The nauseating splatter across the Cayenne’s windscreen confirmed his worst fears.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘No, shit, no, no . . . I promised, I fucking promised . . .’

In the distance he heard the echoing wail of a siren. The police.

The Russians reached the junction with the main road . . . and sped away up the valley, leaving behind the red Cayenne and the three figures next to it.

A smaller figure lay at their feet, unmoving.

The journey back to Zurich in the State Department jet was a sombre one, Chase barely saying a word the entire time. Mitchell took the sword hilt to the security of the US embassy, while Chase and Nina went on to the penthouse apartment of Erwin and Brigitte Fontana.

Nina watched from the door of the rooftop terrace as Chase spoke to Mitzi’s parents. She had wanted to stand with him, to share the blame, but despite her pleas he had refused, insisting he talk to them alone.

Mitzi’s father, a tall, stern man, had returned from Shanghai. He stood upright and silent with his hands on the back of Brigitte’s chair, knuckles slowly tightening. Brigitte too remained still, at first. Then her hands began to shake as she spoke. Nina was too far away to hear what she was saying, but her expression of disbelief, then anguish, spoke as clearly as any words. She stood, quivering hands to her mouth as Chase said something else. Erwin flinched, scraping the back legs of the chair against the balcony floor.

Brigitte let out a keening wail - then lashed out at Chase, slapping his face with a crack that echoed across the terrace. He stood there unmoving as she hit him again and again, screaming in German before staggering back and slumping on to the chair, weeping. Erwin placed his hands on her shoulders and said something to Chase through tight lips.

Wordlessly, Chase turned and walked stiffly from the terrace. He passed Nina without speaking, unable even to look at her as a tear rolled down his cheek.

15

London

‘So, we’ve got two pieces of Caliburn,’ said Mitchell, gazing at the hilt and broken blade laid out on a table in the US embassy. He indicated the missing tip. ‘And Vaskovich has the third. Question is, is that enough to let him find Excalibur - and is what we have enough for us to find it?’

‘I know where we’ll need to look,’ Nina told him. She and Mitchell were alone in the room; Chase had stayed at their hotel. She had wanted to comfort Chase on the flight back to London, to assure him she was there to help in any way she could . . . but he had said nothing. Nothing at all.

She had never seen Chase act that way before, but knew him well enough to realise that Mitzi’s death - and the blame her parents had placed on him, and that he had accepted - had wounded him deeply. But she also knew trying to force him to respond to her would only make things worse. All she could do was wait.

Wait, and return to her research of Arthurian legend. And it had borne fruit. Nina knew she’d seen the symbol of the labyrinth inscribed on the sword before, and it hadn’t taken long to discover where.

‘Glastonbury,’ she continued, opening one of the books and placing it by the sword. The page showed the same labyrinth - distorted, stretched diagonally, but the winding line following exactly the same turns. ‘It’s a representation of the path to the summit of Glastonbury Tor in Somerset.’ Another book provided a colour photo of a small hill rising almost unnaturally from the surrounding flat English landscape, a stone tower at its peak. The hill had an unusual stepped appearance, a rounded grassy ziggurat. ‘These terraces run all round it, but if you follow the path up from the foot of the hill, it leads to the top along exactly the same route as the one on the sword.’

Mitchell examined the photo. ‘That doesn’t even look real. Is it man-made?’

‘The Tor’s natural, but the terraces have been shaped by man over millennia. The site’s been populated since the neolithic era, over six thousand years.’

‘What about the tower? Is that part of the Arthurian legend?’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s a lot more recent - it’s what’s left of a medieval chapel called St Michael’s. But the Tor itself has definite links to Arthurian mythology.’

Mitchell tapped one of the symbols on the sword. ‘So you think these are some kind of clue to finding Arthur’s tomb, and Excalibur? A map?’

‘Of some sort, yes. I don’t know exactly how it works or what the dots on the labyrinth represent, but I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out on site.’

‘You want to go to Glastonbury?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Nina. ‘Today, if we can.’

‘Better let the Brits know what’s going on, I suppose - if we’re going to dig up one of their country’s greatest legends, they’ll probably have something to say about it.’

‘What happens if we do find Excalibur? The Tor’s part of the National Trust, like a national monument. Anything we find there technically belongs to the British people.’

‘I think we can persuade the government to bend the rules,’ Mitchell said with a smile. ‘I’ll get them to find a local expert for us as well; it’ll be useful to have somebody who knows the place. You really want to go today?’

‘The sooner we go, the more chance we have of finding Excalibur before Vaskovich’s people.’

Mitchell nodded. ‘I’ll make the arrangements. Where’s Eddie?’

‘At the hotel.’

‘How’s he doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ Nina admitted truthfully.

‘I’ll phone you once I’ve arranged everything,’ Mitchell told her. He carefully placed the pieces of the sword inside a padded metal case. ‘You go see Eddie, check he’s okay.’

‘I will,’ said Nina as he picked up the case and left the room.

But she couldn’t help thinking that Chase wasn’t okay - and that nothing she said would improve matters.

‘Eddie? Are you in here?’

‘Yeah,’ came the flat reply.

At least he was talking, Nina thought as she closed the hotel room’s door. She found him lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. ‘What’ve you been doing?’

‘Nothing. Just . . . thinking.’

She knew what was on his mind, but didn’t want to bring it up yet, worried about his reaction. Instead she sat next to him and held his hand, stroking it softly. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No, I’m fine. Where’ve you been? The embassy?’

She nodded. ‘I think we figured out where Excalibur is.’

‘We? You and Jack?’

She picked up a new edge in his voice at the mention of Mitchell, but chose to ignore it. ‘It’s at Glastonbury. Probably somewhere under the Tor. We’re going to go and check it out.’

‘You and Jack.’

‘No, all of us,’ she insisted. ‘You and me.’

He looked directly at her for the first time since she entered the room. ‘No. I’m not going.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not going. And you’re not either.’

Nina stared at him. ‘Excuse me, what?’

‘I said, you’re not going. All of this, it’s over.’

‘What do you mean, “this”?’