Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy: Sanctus, The Key, The Tower

37

Liv sat in the big steel-and-glass box of Newark Liberty Airport – Terminal C – sipping what was practically a bucket of black coffee. She stared up at the departure board. Her flight still wasn’t boarding.

As soon as her phone had died she’d raced home as fast as the so-called ‘rush-hour’ traffic had allowed and booked herself on the next flight to Europe. The first leg of her journey was due to takeoff at ten-twenty, which gave her just enough time to stuff a few things into a holdall, grab her work cell phone and charger and jump into a cab.

She’d switched the SIM card from her private one on the way and discovered that Arkadian had left her a long message trying once again to dissuade her from coming. He’d given his direct line and cell number and asked her to call him back. She saved the message and stared out of the window all the way to the airport. She would call him back. She’d call him when she was staring out of the window of a Turkish taxi and heading to his office.

It was only when she’d finally checked in that the adrenalin ran out and exhaustion took over. She knew she’d be able to sleep as soon as she got on the flight, or at least grab as many z’s as premium economy would allow, but first she had to stay awake long enough to get on the plane, hence the industrial-sized coffee.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it from her jacket and checked the caller ID. The number was withheld. She should have turned it off. Now she was going to have the Inspector asking more questions or trying to persuade her to stay away. She exhaled wearily, suddenly craving a cigarette, and pressed the green answer button to stop the infernal buzzing.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello,’ a deep voice replied.

It was not the Inspector.

‘Who is this please?’

There was the slightest pause, one that even in her sleep-starved, coffee-frazzled state put her immediately on her guard. In her experience the only people who hesitated when you asked their name were people who didn’t want to tell you.

‘I’m a colleague of Inspector Arkadian,’ the voice rumbled. The English was accented like Arkadian’s, but he sounded older, more authoritative.

‘Are you his boss?’ she asked.

‘I’m a colleague. Has he contacted you?’

Liv frowned. Why was one cop checking up on another via a witness? That wasn’t the way things worked. They talked to each other, not to outsiders.

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ she said.

‘He hasn’t been in the office for a few hours,’ the voice replied. ‘So I thought I’d give you a try. I assume you have spoken with him.’

‘We spoke.’

‘Of what did you speak?’

Her antennae continued to bristle. This new guy just didn’t sound like a cop, at least not any she knew. Maybe they bred them differently over there.

A loud announcement echoed through the terminal, calling her flight. She squinted up at the departures board. Her flight was now boarding at gate 78, about as far away as it was possible to get without leaving the state.

‘Listen,’ she said, heaving herself wearily to her feet and grabbing her holdall, ‘I’ve had virtually no sleep, I’ve drunk about a gallon of coffee, and I’ve just had some really bad news, so I’m really not in the most sociable of moods. If you want to be briefed on my earlier conversation, ask Arkadian. I’m sure his memory is every bit as good as mine, probably a damn sight better right at this moment.’

She hung up and hit the ‘off’ button before it had a chance to ring again.

38

As soon as Liv hung up, the Abbot ordered Athanasius to fetch Brother Samuel’s personal file from the library. He’d also asked him to bring the files of each current member of the Carmina as a plan formed in his mind.

Bad news, she had told him. Some really bad news … And Arkadian had taken the trouble to call her …

It wasn’t possible. No one could enter the Citadel if they had any living relatives. The absence of family ties meant there would be no emotional pull away from their work inside the holy mountain and no desire to communicate with the outside world. The security of the Citadel and the preservation of its secrets were absolutely reliant on this rule never being broken, and the background checks for any new applicant were exacting, rigorously carried out and always erred on the side of caution. If someone’s family records had been destroyed in a fire, they were rejected. If they had one distant cousin, whom they’d never met and believed to be dead but couldn’t trace, they were rejected.

The files arrived within five minutes. Athanasius placed them wordlessly on the Abbot’s desk then vanished from the room.

Like all inhabitants of the Citadel, Brother Samuel’s file was thorough and detailed and comprised copies, and even some originals, of every significant document tracing the story of his life: school reports, work history from his social security number, even police arrest sheets – everything.

The Abbot scanned the documents for all references to family. He found death certificates; his mother had died when he was just a few days old, and his father perished in a car accident when Samuel was eighteen. Both sets of grandparents had long since passed on. His father had been an only child, and his mother’s only brother had died of leukaemia aged eleven. There were no uncles, no aunts, no cousins, no brothers, no sisters. All was as it should be.

A gentle tap dragged his attention from the file. He looked up as the door opened far enough to allow Athanasius to slip back into the room.

‘Forgive the intrusion, Brother Abbot,’ he said, ‘but the Prelate has just sent word that he is feeling well enough to see you. You are to go to his quarters half an hour before Vespers.’

The Abbot glanced at the clock. Vespers was two hours hence. The delay was probably to give the vampires who kept the Prelate alive enough time to pump some fresh blood into him. He had hoped to have more comforting news to impart by the time he had his audience. He glanced across at the large stack of red files containing the personal details of the Carmina. Maybe he would.

‘Very well,’ he said, closing Brother Samuel’s file and placing it to one side. ‘But I need you to do something for me beforehand. I want you to contact the source that provided us with the police file. I believe the inspector on the case has since spoken with a woman. I want to know who she is, I want to know what was said, and most of all – I want to know where she is.’

‘Of course,’ Athanasius said. ‘I will find out all I can and brief you before your meeting.’

The Abbot nodded and watched him bow and back out of the room before returning his attention to the tower of files before him.

There were sixty-two in total, each containing the detailed history of a Carmina, the red cloaks, the guild of guards who protected the passageways to the forbidden sections of the mountain; men who had proved themselves fit for these martial tasks both in their previous lives and in their subsequent devotion to the Citadel. As members of the Carmina they were also possible future Sancti, though as yet they knew nothing of the true nature of the Sacrament, so could, if necessary, be sent back into the world without compromising its security.

He slid the first folder from the top of the pile and opened it, shuffling aside the usual collection of medical records and school admission reports in search of other documents – military service histories, arrest reports, prison records – that would tell him if this man was the one he was looking for.

39

Kathryn Mann sat in the privacy of her apartment, studying the contents of the stolen file on her laptop. Because she’d received it more than an hour after the Citadel got their copy, hers was slightly more up to date and contained a rough transcript of Arkadian’s conversation with Liv. It also had a link to her profile page at the American newspaper she worked at. She speed-read the case notes then grabbed her phone and pressed the redial button.

‘I’ve got it,’ she said as soon as her father answered.

‘And?’

‘Definitely a Sanctus,’ she said, reviewing the stark images from the post-mortem showing the familiar latticework of ceremonial scars on the monk’s body.

‘Interesting,’ Oscar said. ‘And there still appears to be no official word from the Citadel claiming him. They’re frightened of something.’

‘Maybe, but there’s something else in the file, something … unbelievable.’ She looked at the photograph of the pretty young journalist staring out at her from the browser window. ‘He has a sister.’

She heard her father catch his breath.

‘That can’t be,’ he said. ‘If he had a sister, he can’t have been a Sanctus. He can’t even have come from inside the Citadel.’

‘But he has the scars,’ she said. ‘He was definitely fully ordained. He’s been branded with the Tau. So he must have come from inside the Citadel and he must have seen the Sacrament.’

‘Then find the sister,’ Oscar said. ‘Find her and protect her with everything we have. And I mean everything.’

The line went quiet. Both of them knew what he meant.

‘I understand,’ Kathryn said finally.

‘I know it’s dangerous,’ Oscar said, ‘but this girl will have no idea what’s coming at her. We have to protect her. It’s our duty.’

‘I know.’

‘And one other thing …’

‘Yes?’

‘Make up the spare room and get some good scotch in,’ he said, the warmth returning to his voice. ‘I think it’s time I came home.’

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