The Sacred Sword

Chapter Eight

The road was long and dark as Wesley Holland threaded his way slowly eastwards across New York State to the beat of his windscreen wipers and the steady flurry of snowflakes in his headlights. The snow had thickened so badly shortly after Oneida in Madison County that he’d thought his route might become impassable – but the snow patrols were fighting to keep the roads open in what was turning out to be one of the toughest winters in years.

He kept driving doggedly on, stopping for gas about an hour beyond Schenectady, at the snowy feet of the Appalachian Mountains. He was still suffering from shock, grief-stricken and freezing and exhausted. It was over five hundred miles to his destination; in this weather it seemed like five thousand. No way for a billionaire to be travelling.

Yet there was no way Wesley Holland was stepping on a plane, either. Even if the conditions had been more clement, the fact that all three of his private jets and all eight of his helicopters were registered to him made it far too easy for whoever was after the sword to track his movements. And after a near crash coming into Taipei in 1996, he’d vowed never to set foot on a commercial airliner again. No, by road was the only way. Nobody could track him or find him out here. Nobody in the world except for Simeon Arundel knew about Martha’s. The sword would be safe there.

In the meantime, there it was, locked in its case behind him on the back seat of the car. One of the most important artefacts in history. Perhaps the most important.

Wesley Holland wasn’t a religious animal. Try as he might, he found it impossible to share the fervent spiritual passion that drove men like Simeon Arundel. There were times when it irked him, but more often he found himself actually envying it, feeling excluded and annoyed at himself for being incapable of fully experiencing something that seemed to be able to offer such fulfilment to people who opened themselves to it. He still remembered the light in Simeon’s eyes, and those of Fabrice Lalique, that day in France when he’d first told them about his amazing historical find. But even an agnostic like Wesley couldn’t escape the skin-tingling excitement of such a monumental discovery.

The three had met during the repair of a badly deteriorating medieval church near Millau, which Wesley had been funding entirely out of his own pocket. The contractors he’d hired for the job were an up-and-coming Parisian firm reputed to be the best in the business; Wesley had been there to check out their work. So had a young English minister named Simeon Arundel, recently come into some funds of his own and intent on learning all he could about church restoration. Also keeping a watchful eye on the long-needed project had been the local priest in Millau, Fabrice Lalique.

An American, an Englishman and a Frenchman. It could have been the opening of a joke, but instead it became the start of a friendship. One night over dinner and a very expensive bottle of wine provided by Wesley, he’d decided he trusted the pair of clergymen enough to tell them the secret he’d been yearning to share with someone who could truly understand it, appreciate it, and most of all, keep quiet about it. Their initial reaction on hearing of his discovery had been one of stunned disbelief, just as his had been at first. But when he’d shown them the evidence, their scepticism had turned to fascination, then to wonderment and awe.

Simeon had been speechless at the way his life had just changed.

‘But we ought to tell people about this,’ Fabrice had argued.

‘Be patient,’ Wesley had urged him. ‘The time will come.’

Wesley still believed it would, even after nearly three years of maddening dealings with experts who wouldn’t pull their heads out of their asses and realise what they were being shown. For the first time, though, his excitement was now tempered with doubts. People were dying. Was it all worth it?

Yes, it was, he decided as he drove. If Fabrice had died protecting the secret, and if Coleman and the others had died because of it, then Wesley was damn well going to make sure these thugs, whoever they were, didn’t get their hands on it. Once he arrived at his destination, he was going to hire an army of the toughest bodyguards money could buy.

Let the sons of bitches come find him then. Let them try.

The red of dawn was burning through the snowclouds by the time Wesley realised he couldn’t go on any more without a rest. If he didn’t stop awhile, he was going to drift off at the wheel and crash the car. His tense shoulders sagged with relief when he saw the motel sign a few miles on that said ‘VACANCY’S’. ‘Thank God,’ he mumbled.

Wesley pulled into the car park between the shabby, snow-covered wooden buildings. The only other car in sight was an ancient Ford Explorer with jacked-up suspension. He climbed stiffly out of the Chrysler, grabbed the case from the back seat and dragged his heels through the snow over to the dirty glass doors that led into the gloomy reception area.

At the far end of the lobby was a corner desk, and behind that was an unshaven guy in a John Deere baseball cap who stared at Wesley’s American Express Platinum card as if it was the only one he’d ever see, then shrugged and shoved it in the card machine. ‘Room twelve,’ he said, sliding a key across the counter.

Wesley staggered to Room 12 with his only item of luggage. As he might have expected, the place was a shithole, but at that moment he’d gladly have lain down to rest inside a sewer pipe. He locked his door, laid the case down, made straight for the bed and collapsed on it without even taking off his coat or shoes. Within seconds of his face touching the stained pillow, his utter exhaustion carried him off to sleep.

When Wesley awoke he was shivering with cold and feeling clammy from sleeping in his clothes. His back ached from the worn-out mattress and the car key in his pocket felt like it had dug a hole in his leg. Panic gripped him. The case! He twisted round to see.

Still there. He could breathe again.

His fifty thousand-dollar gold watch told him he’d been asleep for a little over four hours. That was all the sleep he needed nowadays, at his age. He’d drink a cup or two of hot coffee to revive and warm him, then hit the road again. With any luck he’d make it all the way to Martha’s with just one more stop for gas.

The price of the motel room didn’t appear to include any coffee-making facilities. Wesley trudged outside into the cold, taking the case with him and locking his door behind him. More snow had fallen overnight, a two-inch blanket of it lying over the roof and bonnet of his car. The Ford Explorer was gone; in its place a little Honda. There were no other cars in the place. Popular joint, he thought to himself as he headed along the covered walkway towards the reception lobby to find out if they had such things as coffee in these parts.

The unshaven guy had clocked off his shift and been replaced by a crab-faced young woman who was sitting hunched over a magazine at the desk, gazing at fashion pictures of girls eighty pounds lighter than her and listening to scratchy rock music on a tiny electronic device manufactured by one of Wesley’s companies. At her fat elbow was a Honda ignition key attached to a pink plastic fob that said ‘Kat’. When Wesley enquired about getting a coffee, she gaped at him for a moment as if he’d asked for champagne and oysters, then motioned laconically through a doorway on the far side of the reception lobby and informed him that there was a coffee machine down the hall.

Wesley had trouble first finding the coffee machine, then more trouble getting it to work. After several attempts and a few thumps he persuaded it to accept the loose change he fed into it, and finally the machine sputtered something dark and steaming into the Styrofoam cup he offered to it. He managed to overfill his cup, and had to carry it carefully to avoid spilling any over his thousand-dollar handmade shoes.

On his way back through the reception lobby, coffee scalding one hand, the case weighing down the other, he threw a glance at Kat behind the desk a few yards away. She hadn’t moved a millimetre and looked as if she’d been ladled into her chair, a big round flaccid lump of flesh. ‘Hey, thanks,’ he called across to her, with a touch of sarcasm. She didn’t look up from her magazine.

‘Great service in this place,’ he said. Still no response. He shook his head and awkwardly tugged open the glass door with the hand holding the coffee, wincing as more of it sploshed out onto his fingers. Billionaires shouldn’t have such problems.

As he approached his room, Wesley suddenly stopped. The door was lying six inches open.

Hold on. Didn’t I just lock that?

Maybe someone had come in to clean the room, he thought. It sure needed it. Wesley peered in through the gap in the door and saw a movement inside. It was a man, and he didn’t look like a cleaner. He was a big man wearing a coat of heavy tan leather.

Wesley froze.

The man in the leather coat had his back to the door. Wesley heard him say something indistinct to another man in the room with him. Then he turned a few inches to his left, and Wesley could see the unemotional expression on his face, and the boxy black automatic pistol in his hand with a long cylindrical silencer.

Wesley drew back from the door, stifling a gasp. With what felt like a heart attack coming on he retreated back along the covered walkway towards the reception lobby. The men only had to glance through the open door of his room and they’d spot him.

By some miracle, they didn’t. Wesley vowed to start believing in God. He burst through the glass doors into the reception lobby.

Kat was still sitting at the desk, slumped over her magazine. ‘Call the police,’ he rasped at her. ‘There are—’ The words died in his mouth. He recoiled in horror.

Kat remained immobile. The only movement from her was the steady drip-drip from the bright pool of blood that had now spread across the desk, soaking the magazine in front of her and splashing to the floor.

The coffee cup slipped out of Wesley’s hand and exploded across his shoes. ‘Oh, my God.’ He had to get out of here. Grasping the handle of the case in a death grip, he dug his car key out of his pocket, scurried back to the doors and peered through the grimy glass into the yard. The snow-covered Chrysler sat halfway between the reception and the door of his room. He could see no other vehicle apart from Kat’s Honda. The killers must have left theirs somewhere around the back.

Would he make it to his car and get it started up before the men spotted him? They’d hear the sound of the engine, but maybe he’d manage to drive away before they could stop him.

They had guns. Their bullets could punch through steel and glass as he drove off.

But he had to get away. He pressed his free hand to the door. Here goes.

He was just about to push it open when the man in the tan leather coat suddenly emerged from Room 12 and started striding quickly and purposefully across the snowy car park towards the reception lobby. He had the gun at his side.

Wesley backed away from the doors. He didn’t think the man could see him through the dirty glass, but he’d be here any moment.

Wesley ran back towards the reception desk, just managing to avoid the pool of blood. The other side of the desk was a door marked PRIVATE. Kat’s arm was draped across the folding hatch. Wanting to throw up at the touch of her dead flesh, he nudged her arm aside and then pressed through the hatch and burst through the door, closing it behind him with jittery haste before the man in the brown coat stepped into the lobby.

He found himself in a poky office. Its cobwebbed sash window overlooked a backyard littered with snow-covered garbage bags and pieces of broken furniture. Beyond a ramshackle fence he could see the highway snaking away into the distance. He threw open the window, clambered up on a chair and shoved the case through the gap before scrambling through after it. He landed painfully on the snowy concrete the other side, snatched the case up and kept moving as fast as he could. His heart was in his mouth as he staggered through the backyard to the fence, fully expecting the muffled clap of a silenced pistol behind him and a bullet burning a hole in his flesh.

But no bullet came. Wesley managed to drag himself and the case over the fence and belted across the snow towards the highway. Twice he slipped and fell as he scrambled over the piles of dirty slush at the side of the road, glancing in terror over his shoulder. His breath was coming in wheezing gasps now as he stumbled on. For the first time since the invention of the mobile telephone, he wished he had one so that he could call for help.

He couldn’t run much further. Any second now, the killers would cotton on to his escape. They’d get in their vehicle and come after him. Bundle him in at gunpoint, and it would all be over.

The deep bellow of air horns blasted his terror away. He whirled around at the edge of the road and saw the massive grille of an eighteen-wheeler truck looming over him as it slowed down with a sharp hiss from its airbrakes. Wesley threw down the case, waved his arms frantically and stuck out his thumb. ‘Help me,’ he wheezed. ‘Help.’

The driver beamed a gap-toothed grin down at him from the cab.

‘You lookin’ for a ride, old timer? Then climb aboard.’

Chapter Nine

By the time Simeon was back from his church business, darkness had fallen and it was nearly time to set off for the evening meal at the Old Windmill. The three of them were in the vicarage’s hallway, on the verge of heading outside to the Lotus, when the phone rang.

‘It had better not be the bloody archdeacon again,’ Simeon said, picking up. ‘Oh, it’s you, Bertie … really? Gosh, that didn’t take you long … Yes, he’ll be delighted. We can come and pick it up right away.’

They definitely didn’t make them like Bertie any more. Ben couldn’t believe the difference in the Land Rover as he followed the Lotus’s taillights along the three miles of winding roads from the garage to the restaurant. The old mechanic had retuned Le Crock’s radio to a local station. Ben half-listened as he drove; then the entrance of the Old Windmill appeared through the trees and Ben parked beside the Lotus in the floodlit car park.

The place was aptly named. The ancient stone windmill itself stood silhouetted against the starry sky, while the restaurant was a modern building with large windows overlooking the surrounding woodland. Ben’s hosts led him inside, into the bar area where a smiling waitress greeted them with ‘Hello, Vicar; hello, Mrs Arundel,’ and led them through a doorless archway into the busy restaurant area. The place was decked out in colourful Christmas lights and glittery decorations, with an enormous tree in one corner. The dozen or so tables were cosily laid with rustic chequered tablecloths. Bing Crosby’s version of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing was playing over the speakers on the walls.

‘Good thing I booked in advance,’ Michaela said over the buzz of chatter. ‘Think we must have got the last table.’

‘Damn,’ Simeon muttered suddenly, patting his pockets. ‘I think I left my mobile in my other trousers.’

‘Well, I don’t think you’ll be needing it tonight, darling,’ Michaela said, with a discreet roll of the eyes to Ben, as if to say, ‘See what I mean?’

As the three of them crossed the restaurant, there was a chorus of ‘Hello, Vicar’ from a group of middle-aged women clustered around a heavily drinks-laden table in the corner near the archway. Simeon waved back at them. ‘The ladies’ badminton club,’ he whispered to Ben.

‘My husband is a big hit with them,’ Michaela said. ‘Especially with Petra Norrington.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘It’s true. She adores and venerates you. Thinks you’re gorgeous. Look at her eyeing you from behind her wineglass. Like a peroxide spider.’

‘Nonsense,’ Simeon said.

They took their seats at the table. Ben had his back to the archway and the bar area beyond it. To his right, a broad expanse of window overlooked the car park and the woods in the background.

The waitress took their orders for drinks. Michaela wanted white wine, Ben asked for a medium glass of house red. ‘No wine for me,’ Simeon said. ‘I’m afraid I might have a migraine coming on if I touch alcohol tonight.’

‘Again?’ Michaela frowned.

They ordered dinner – roast duck for Ben, on Simeon’s recommendation. Michaela went for poached salmon steak. Service was efficient, and the food was excellent. As they ate, occasional peals of laughter erupted from the ladies’ badminton club table behind Ben. Simeon sipped his mineral water and looked pensive while Michaela reaffirmed her complete conviction that they were in for a white Christmas.

Ben wondered what it was Simeon had wanted to tell him earlier. He was sure he’d get to hear it later, back at the vicarage that evening over a glass of whisky or two.

They’d finished their main courses and were into their desserts (plum duff for Simeon, sticky toffee pudding for Michaela, while Ben opted for some cheese and crackers to go with the last of his wine) when out of the corner of his eye Ben noticed a dark BMW come rolling in across the car park, its headlights sweeping the windows. The BMW parked across from the Lotus and Le Crock. The driver’s door opened. A tall figure of a man climbed out and made his way towards the building and into the bar area. By then, Ben had already forgotten about him, and went on listening to Simeon talking about the planned new satellite TV series that he’d been offered the job of hosting.

‘He’s being too modest again,’ Michaela said. ‘It’s quite a big thing. The television company are investing millions in it and it’s such an honour that they picked Simeon to present it.’ She reached across the table and clasped his hand.

‘As long as it helps to spread the word, that’s all I care about,’ Simeon said. ‘I’m not interested in the money. Every penny of it’ll go the same way as the money my father left me, helping to restore old churches. So many of them are being left to rot these days.’

‘Until they get turned into McDonalds drive-throughs,’ Michaela snorted. ‘Sign of the times. You know I had to scour the whole of Oxford just to find a set of Nativity Christmas stamps? All I could find anywhere were jolly snowmen and reindeer and cards saying “Happy Holidays”. It’s the rise of the militant atheists, I’m telling you. They want to secularise the whole world.’

‘Well, maybe we can help to turn the tide,’ Simeon said. ‘The television series will be a big step forward, that’s for sure.’

‘When do you start filming?’ Ben asked.

‘Middle of February. The producers are still wrangling over a name for it.’

‘I think Christianity Today sounds pat,’ Michaela said. ‘What do you think?’ she asked Ben.

Before Ben could offer any suggestion, he was distracted by a camera flash that lit up the room. One of the badminton club ladies, the skinny-looking woman with the leathery fake tan and pearls who’d been ogling Simeon earlier, had stood up to take snaps of the party group. ‘Smile!’ she called out over the din.

‘Oh, no,’ Michaela muttered as the woman swayed up to them, camera in hand. ‘Here she comes. Hi, Petra.’

Petra Norrington’s eyes sparkled as she approached the table and sidled up to Simeon. Ben saw Michaela’s face darken.

‘That’s a beautiful dress, Michaela,’ Petra said, her glance still lingering more on Simeon, before shooting discreetly across at Ben. Ben looked away and smiled to himself.

‘Thank you,’ Michaela said, just a little coolly. She introduced Ben as an old friend. Petra’s eyes sparkled some more.

‘And where’s that handsome young devil of a son of yours? Coming home for Christmas?’

‘He’s in Cornwall, with his friend Robbie,’ Michaela said.

‘Oh,’ Petra said, with a look of disdain. ‘That place.’

Simeon looked at Michaela and cocked an eyebrow. ‘I thought he was coming straight home from New Zealand.’

‘I told you he had other plans, darling,’ Michaela reminded him patiently.

‘Cornwall? Back to that derelict old farm? What’s he want to go there for?’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ Michaela said. ‘It’s just a bit run down, and he enjoys being there with his friends.’

Simeon gave a disapproving grunt.

‘Can I take a pic of you all?’ Petra broke in, brandishing her camera like a gun. ‘It’s for the club’s Christmas album.’

‘If you absolutely must,’ Michaela said coolly.

Ben wasn’t too fond of having his picture taken.

‘Say cheese!’ Petra’s camera flashed. She looked at her watch, pulled a face and excused herself, explaining that she had to get home for some reason to do with someone called Billy. There was a brief round of goodbyes and ‘nice to meet you’ and ‘have a wonderful Christmas if we don’t see each other before’, and then Petra blew kisses at the badminton ladies and breezed out of the restaurant towards her top-of-the-range Volvo estate.

‘I suppose we should be thinking about getting home ourselves,’ Simeon said, and called for the bill.

‘It’s on me,’ Ben said, taking out his wallet.

‘Absolutely not.’

‘It’s the least I can do to repay your hospitality.’

They were still arguing about it when they heard a loud crunching impact from outside.

‘Whoops,’ Michaela said, peering out of the window. ‘I think Petra has just pranged her car. Serves the silly bitch right.’

‘Michaela,’ Simeon hissed at her.

Ben looked. The rear of the Volvo estate was hard up against the front end of the dark blue BMW. Bits of broken glass littered on the ground shone under the floodlights.

As Ben watched, Petra clambered out of her Volvo, clapped a hand over her mouth at the sight of the damage, and disappeared back inside. He heard her voice coming from the bar area: ‘Excuse me, is that your BMW outside? I’m so sorry. I think I’ve just reversed into it.’

A man’s voice muttered, ‘It’s OK. It’s nothing.’

‘I’ve broken your left headlight,’ Petra’s voice said, high-pitched with stress. ‘My fault. So stupid of me. I was in a hurry and I just didn’t … but if we could exchange details, I’ll write to my insurers first thing tom—’

‘Forget it,’ the man interrupted. His voice sounded hard and flat.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You heard me. Forget it.’ He sounded angrier this time.

‘I still need to inform them—’ Petra protested.

‘Are you deaf, woman? I said forget it.’