Marlen: Book 1

Chapter 82

The girl turned her terrified face toward the waiting congregation. The long steel needle that was the scorpion's sting started to come down. The chanting grew louder:

"Si-si-si-si-si..."

"Si... Six o'clock, Commander Mackenzie, ma'am." Hampden, one of the senior messengers, an ex-Royal Marine commando, was shaking her shoulder.

Tyreen Mackenzie realized she was awake and sweating --- the nightmare still fresh and real in her mind.

He held something in his other hand. "Nice cup of coffee, ma'am. Just how you like it."

She thanked Hampden, who had known her and her idiosyncrasies for years. The hot bitter brew tasted good, and seemed to set her life forces flowing again. Slowly she got out of the bed and began her usual morning routine --- the hot and cold shower, exercises, and some new breathing controls learned from one of the SAS PTIs. It was just after six-thirty when she presented herself in C's anteroom.

"Go right in," Miss Pennington said. "He's waiting for you." The light above C's door came on as soon as she gave Tyreen's name over the intercom.

C had obviously remained in the office all night, for there was a camp bed, recently made up, against one wall. He was in shirtsleeves and needed a shave --- most uncharacteristic for the old sea dog. He waved Tyreen forward, indicating that she should wait, standing in front of his desk. It took C a couple of minutes to finish going through his papers. "Right, Mackenzie," he said finally. "I've arranged that Registry should have the file in Room 42. As it's flagged Cosmic, since Wollenstein added to it yesterday, there will be a guard on the door. You'll leave all writing materials --- your pen, notebook, diary, and whatever else with the guard. I trust you, but we should abide by the rules, eh?"

She nodded and asked how her chief had gotten on with the Special Air Service sergeant, Goldman.

"Seems to be the right stuff." C glanced at his watch. "He's on his way down to Berkshire now --- together with half of Fleet Street, I shouldn't wonder."

"And Trilby Shepperton?"

"What about her?"

"Just wondered if you'd had any news about her condition, that's all, sir."

"Mmm. Well, she's in a bad away. Sir James tells me she'll pull out of the drugs thing. Someone fed her a pretty lethal dose. He's more concerned about her mental state."

"Mind tampered with while under the influence of this infernal concoction?" She was anxious to check out her own theory.

"Something like that. Now, off you go to Room 42. When you've finished the file, get back up here fast. There's a great deal to be done."

She nodded, said "Aye-aye, sir," which brought a nostalgic glance from C, who added, "I've had both the Avante Carte things sent down to Q Branch." He looked directly at her. "The Armourer is calling in a special outside expert to give them the once-over."

As she took the lift down to the second floor, where Room 42 was located, she wondered what had prompted C to let Chirren, Tyreen's mother, pass her experienced eye over the Avante Carte plastic. Granted, her Arion knowledge and training had proven invaluable in the past, but this was just a credit card.

A Service tough stood in front of the door, looking as though he would rather kill than let anyone enter. Although the man knew Tyreen Mackenzie by sight, he still insisted on seeing ID, and he removed all possible writing and copying materials with above-average enthusiasm. Inside the room there was one chair and a table on which lay the thick file. She sat, looked at the cryptonym Scotch-taped to the front cover --- BONK --- an apt cover name for a man like Vladimir Scorpio, she thought, turning the cover and starting to read.

The bulk of the dossier was old material that she had read many times before --- the scant details of one shadowy man's life. Vladimir Scorpio, thought to have been born in Cyprus about 1928 of a wealthy Greek businessman and a renegade white Russian --- possibly Edvokia, daughter of the mysterious Prince and Princess Talanov who with their daughter, had escaped the Bolshevik Revolution in strange and almost unbelievable circumstances.

Vladimir Scorpio had first come to the attention of the British Secret Intelligence Service in the late 1950s, during the guerrilla warfare waged --- for independence --- against British military forces in Cyprus by the Greek government, the Communist Party, and the guerilla army EOKA. Scorpio was suspected of supplying arms to the EOKA --- the so-called terrorists. Since that time his name had cropped up again and again --- always as the supplier of armaments and military matériel, usually to terrorist groups around the world.

While Scorpio's name ran like a crimson thread through shipments of weapons and explosives in every trouble spot on the globe, no firm traces led back to the man. There was page upon page of lists --- rifles, handguns, ammunition, grenades, plastique, fuses, detonators, missile launchers, and even more sophisticated machinery of war --- yet none of them could be completely and convincingly traced back to Scorpio. It was obvious to anyone, even with scant knowledge of the twilight world of illegal arms supplies, that Scorpio was behind hundreds of illicit consignments. But the man --- and the evidence --- became a tangled will-o'-the-wisp thread that ran out once investigations appeared to be almost complete.

She concentrated on the realities --- what was known facts about the man. First, he was certainly ruthless. In the past twenty years or so, no fewer than sixteen people who were known to be in a position to betray him had died in odd circumstances --- four in freak road accidents, four in shootings, three by poison, two beaten to death by supposed muggers, two in possible suicides, and one drowned bizarrely in a motel shower. The file also showed that another twenty people who were suspected of being in Scorpio's employ had also died in either straightforward murder or suspicious suicides. It was not healthy to get on friendly working terms with the man.

Secondly, he was something of a hypocrite. For a large part of the sixties and seventies he had lived with his extravagant and beautiful wife, Pearl, aboard his magnificent 270-foot oceangoing yacht, Vladem I, powered by two three-thousand hp diesels --- she winced at the sheer bourgeois taste of the name --- yet managed to keep the press, particularly the paparazzi, off his back. He gave several interviews, by telephone, to both newspapers and magazines --- they were all there in the bulky file --- in which he claimed to eschew the world, preferring to live on his boat with the love of his life. Constantly he stressed marital fidelity, yet there in black and white were transcripts of long-range surveillance watches with details of his multitude of mistresses, and nauseating facts about his unslakable sexual appetite, appeased only by weird and imaginative tastes.

So he had lived like a luxurious hermit, traveling the world in Vladem I. People visited him --- there were hundreds of photographs of men and women being shown up the yacht's gangplank --- dubious politicians and ambassadors, known terrorists, identifiable underworld figures, and, paradoxically, famous names from the worlds of theater, opera, and predictably, the leechlike glitterati.

Scorpio entertained on the yacht, and, on the occasions he ventured ashore into the real world, it was always with a retinue of guards and thugs who made certain nobody lurked in the shadows to watch or photograph the living enigma.

Where the press had failed to get near Scorpio, various security agencies had gained limited access, though, while they had evidence of his hedonistic tastes on tape and in transcript, they were never able to snatch a fragment of evidence concerning his arms dealing and the terrorist underworld they were certain he inhabited.

The file contained dozens of sneaked photographs, all bad, giving no detail or clarity --- except one, caught by a CIA surveillance unit which had suddenly got lucky in 1969 with an infrared camera outside a house in Portofino. The picture, blown up, occupied a whole page, and she sat staring at it for several minutes.

It showed Scorpio as a sleek, slightly overweight man, going heavy at the jowls which spoiled his once obvious good, somewhat Italianate looks --- slightly thick lips, a mane of graying hair, patrician nose, head tilted slightly upward in an arrogant manner. He was dressed for the evening in a white tuxedo, and with what looked like a heavy and expensive watch on his left wrist and a gold chain on the right. The man's eyes were revealed, in the fast exposure of the film, as those of a man who reeked of ruthless power --- though she knew from experience that the camera could and often did lie.

Below the photograph was a list of tiny details: the exact time and place; the estimated cost of the jewelry; details of the gold chain ID bracelet with the inscription Vladimir Scorpius, followed by some numbers that were lost to the camera. The watch was a pure gold, handmade digital timepiece, with a normal set of hands that ticked off the hours and minutes by passing twelve small flawless diamonds. Taste, she considered, was not Vladimir Scorpio's forte. Yet that wristwatch had cost a king's ransom. Not only had the varied digital functions been installed long before their time on the international market, but also the object had an extra value, for it had been made by a Japanese craftsman whose name was later to become a legend. It was a unique piece of intricate workmanship known as the Scorpio Chronometer.

She read on. In 1972 Pearl Scorpio had died, tragically, in an accident at sea. Almost immediately Vladimir Scorpio went missing from his usual way of life. There were traces of him --- mainly in connection with larger and larger arms supplies to terrorist groups in all parts of the world --- but the great yacht lay, deserted, in a dry-dock near Cannes. There were occasional sightings of Scorpio, but most were insubstantial. One minute he seemed to be there --- in Berlin, Teheran, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Belfast, Paris, or London --- then he had gone: a shadow; a wraith. In 1982, he disappeared completely. The secret watchers and listeners of every Western intelligence and security agency heard no sound, picked up no trace, sensed no whisper of this once and only uncaught king of the arms dealers.

She turned the page to find the new material, provided the night before by Donald Wollenstein, of the Central Intelligence Agency's London desk. There were several pages of typed detail, but the photographs that littered the new section spoke rather more than the words.

Father Valentine, leader of The Society of the Meek Ones, had never been averse to having his photograph taken --- in fact there was an obvious vanity about the man. This, she immediately saw, could well be his downfall. The Americans, with their reliance on high technology, had stumbled over a gold ingot in the shape of their filched picture of Scorpio and the many photographs of Father Valentine. During the testing, on pieces of new and sophisticated equipment, they had put the two together, and so spent their days examining, measuring, and taking detailed digitized computer analysis. From these experiments they discovered several facts concerning the measurements of Father Valentine's facial bone structure.

Even in close-up, Valentine bore absolutely no resemblance to Scorpio, for he was slim-faced, with an almost retroussé nose and thinning hair, dark and well-kept, swept back from his forehead. Yet the analysts had placed photograph upon photograph, showing clearly how both men could quite easily be the same, for the basic bone structure matched perfectly. They had even managed, by enhanced computer images, to show exactly how Vladimir Scorpio's face could have been cleverly altered by a skilled plastic surgeon.

There were, however, two clinchers: a pair of pointers that clearly confirmed the experts' suspicions. The first piece of evidence --- though inconclusive --- filled two pages, consisting of blown-up photographs of the left wrist, from the one old Scorpio print; and the same left wrist from one of the many pictures of Father Valentine. In the entire world, the experts said, there was no duplicate of the fabulous Scorpio Chronometer. Yet here it was, on Scorpio himself, at seven-thirty in the evening as he stepped swiftly into a car in Portofino in 1969; and again, on the wrist of Father Valentine, in London, during August of 1986.

The convincing evidence, though, lay in the ears. In his vanity, Scorpio had obviously --- and probably arrogantly --- refused to have his ears touched by the surgeons. Indeed, why not? He was 99 percent certain that nobody owned a photograph of the old Scorpio. Valentine's and Scorpio's ears were identical, and the proof ran across eight pages of medical notes, diagrams, photographs, and measurements. This was proof positive.

"Vanity, vanity," she quoted under her breath. "All is vanity." In that moment she knew she was looking at one and the same man --- the man responsible for Emily Dupré's death and the devilish voice which had come from Trilby Shepperton.

God alone knew what other terrors Scorpio/Valentine had in store.

Slowly, she closed the file and stood up. C had more work for her. Deep down, she hoped the work would lead her face to face with this man of double identity. Scorpio-Valentine. Valentine-Scorpio.

"You believe the American evidence?" Tyreen studied C's face as though she was trying to read the man's future from the lines in his leathery skin.

"Absolutely. One hundred percent. To my mind there's no doubt that Father Valentine and Vladimir Scorpio are one and the same person. A fact that makes our task more urgent than ever."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Nobody's ever proved a thing against Scorpio --- nothing that would stick, anyway." C made it sound as though this was her personal fault. "Yet we know that man is responsible for thousands of deaths. When terror strikes --- a bomb in Ulster; a nightclub wrecked in Germany; an air terminal or train station shattered; a burst of machine-gun fire in a Paris street; a lad on a motorcycle loosing off a dozen shots into some politician's or police chief's car --- they're all down to Scorpio as the provider of the matériel." He began to thump the desk in a heartbeat rhythm. "The leopard never changes his spots. Scorpio knows everything there is to know abut dealing in terror and not getting caught. He probably salves his conscience by telling himself that he is not responsible for what the end user does with the weapons or explosives. But he is responsible. And now he's Father Valentine, running a sect which, on the surface, appears to dwell on purity, the sanctity of marriage, and the exclusion of all substances foreign to the human body --- nicotine, alcohol, and the other, more sinister, forms of drug. There has to be an angle, Mackenzie, and the angle has to be connected somehow to terrorist forces and their supplies. It's all the man knows. Weapons and women."

"No clues regarding specific aims and objectives?" she asked. "I agree that, knowing what we do about Scorpio, The Society of Meek Ones must have a main objective --- and an unpleasant one at that."

"I hope you'll be the one to discover its direct aims." C looked at her, no trace of humor around mouth or eyes.

"The credit card offices?"

C nodded, pushing a five-by-three filing card across the desk. In C's neat hand, written in green ink, was the address of one of the many new office buildings that had risen in the streets that emptied into Oxford Street, once you got north of Oxford Circus. The telephone number had a matching 437 prefix. "It's all legal," C said. "Cleared by the Bank of England. Avante Carte --- though it does not appear to advertise, and has no services list as yet --- is a fully blown, one-hundred-percent-legal credit company with assets of ten million pounds sterling."

"I suppose your connections in the City supplied all that?"

"No." C allowed himself the ghost of a smile. "No, my connections with Q Branch, right here. The outside expert is still working on the two pieces of plastic we gave her. They're apparently 'smart cards' --- kind of thing we use here to get in and out of restricted areas and to keep track of files. Little electronic brains embedded in the plastic. They're trying to unscramble them now, but it's going to take some time. They came up with the telephone number, which apparently was simple. I followed that lead. You can see where it took me."

"I suppose I'm just expected to walk in there and apply for membership or something?"

"That's it." C was deadly serious. "No good ringing them up, Mackenzie. Nothing like walking in and facing the beast head-on. Might learn something..."

"Might catch a nasty dose of what they used to call lead poisoning as well."

"Occupational hazard." C nodded toward his door. "Get out there and do your best."

"No backup, sir?"

C shook his head. "I think not. Just play it as it comes. Walk in and say you want to sign on. I can't imagine a better approach."

Half an hour later Tyreen Mackenzie --- dressed in a modest knee-length blue business suit over a white rollneck ---paused at a point directly across the road from the front of the high, anonymous office block, which stuck out like a tall sore finger among the terraced houses and shops between Oxford and Great Marlborough streets.

She had taken a cab to Broadcasting House and walked back to Oxford Circus, then, by a circuitous route, to this place. All the time she had gone through those obvious, though necessary, routines to make certain nobody had --- as they said in the trade --- got a make on her.

She had been clear for the whole trip, yet now she had reached the building, she felt that sixth intuitive sense --- born of long experience --- telling her she was no longer alone. She did not loiter, just a pause and glance at the building, with its semicircular glass frontage through which a reception desk and several scattered chairs were visible. She walked on, trying to find a good reflecting point, or a street crossing, which would allow her to look back and make a quick scan of the entire façade. She knew someone had their eyes on her.

About thirty yards up the street she could cross and make a turn that she imagined would bring her back to Oxford Street. In her mind she decided this approach would be the best way. Go back and make a second approach.

She paused, as though checking for traffic, her eyes lingering slightly longer than usual on the street nearest the building. There was a small van parked illegally almost opposite. Nobody in the driver's seat, but that meant nothing as far as small vans went. The only thing that consoled her was that this one had no aerial or antennae visible. Aerials are dangerous, for they can conceal a multitude of devices, including fiber-optic lenses transmitting a clear 360-degree picture onto an internal monitor.

In the swift glance she also spotted one man further down the street. He was pacing to and fro, occasionally looking at his watch, as though waiting for a date who was never going to show. There were other cars and pedestrians, of course, it was only that her highly tuned senses reacted to those two. The van and the waiting man were obvious suspects.

Stubbing out her cigarette, she crossed and headed into the street, only to find herself in a cul-de-sac. There was no other way than to play the game of looking for the right address. She drew an empty black notebook from her purse, feeling the comforting hard butt of the Walther PPK Special.

Slowly she walked back into the main thoroughfare again, stopping, consulting the pages of her notebook as she went. A woman uncertain of her whereabouts, looking for an address. She even stopped a harassed-looking young woman wheeling a pram to ask directions to the building now staring her in the face. The woman laughed, told Tyreen she was almost outside the place, and pointed.

Consulting the book again, she walked confidently toward the large glass doors. From the corner of her eye she could see the man was still waiting for his date to stand him up, and the van remained in position, still apparently unoccupied and illegally parked.

The semicircular lobby was light and airy; now inside, she was aware of the large numbers of potted plants as well as the furnishings she had seen from outside. The place had style and elegance. It also had a reception desk with an elderly doorman sporting two rows of World War II medals on the left breast of his navy-blue uniform.

"I be of help, ma'am?" the doorman asked with a brief welcoming smile.

"Avante Carte." Tyreen exchanged smiles.

"They're fourth floor, ma'am." He indicated a double bank of elevators in a small passageway to the right of his desk.

She nodded her thanks, pressed the call button between the elevators, then began to study the board, which listed a number of companies and businesses. There were seven floors altogether. There, opposite the fourth floor marker, was what she wanted --- AVANTE CARTE PLC. --- and below it, in smaller letters, the words Avante Carte is part of the Society of Meek Ones Charitable Trust.

The elevator doors opened with a soft sigh and she stepped inside, pressing the button for the fourth floor. At least the Muzak was different --- not the usual sickly strings playing romantic popular standards. She could even date it --- Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, accompanied by a very rough unnamed jazz group, the 1927 re-recording of her 1924 New Bo-Weevil Blues. She remembered hearing the original on an old 78rpm record. This one had obviously been enhanced. Ma Rainey still came out on top --- wry humor combined with pathos.

Ma Rainey sang, and the words hit Tyreen like a warning shot. She remembered the cars and surveillance during the return from Hereford. For a few seconds the old good noise of traditional jazz had lulled her. Now she was as alert as ever. The indicator showed 4 and, as the doors slid open, the Muzak system cut off. She stepped out to find herself in another large, airy, semicircular reception area. This time nobody stood at the desk, but the whole of the wall behind it appeared to be made of toughened glass, through which she could see a long, sterile room stretching back into what seemed infinity. But that, she knew, would be a trick of the glass and mirrors. Painted on the glass were the gold words AVANTE CARTE.

The room beyond was filled by a long row of computer workstations, while to left and right, behind these, were more sparkling glass screens, dividing the rooms in which the huge data banks of a mainframe were visible. Nobody manned the workstations. Where, she wondered, were the men and women who should be answering credit queries, accessing the obviously large database, sifting information, entering in accounts, authorizing credit and doing all that work associated with a company such as this?

Cautiously, she approached the reception desk, her shoes seeming to sink into the deep-piled claret carpet. At the desk, she coughed loudly. Then she saw a small bell push, set into the smooth acrylic surface. She pressed in two short, sharp jabs.

Seconds later there was movement at the far end of the long room behind. A young man was making his way past the ranks of empty desks.

It took the best part of a minute for him to reach the door between the working area and reception, giving her time to make a fair appraisal of his appearance --- fairly tall and slender, wearing dark slacks and white shirt, no tie. His face was not handsome in the accepted sense, but one that bespoke humor from mouth to eyes. His hair was cropped so short it was hard to determine the color.

As he came through the door he gave her an appraising look from head to toe. Apparently he liked what he saw. "Good morning, ma'am. Can I help you?" He was American, by his accent. The mouth crinkled, and she saw she had been right about the humor --- little laughter lines at the eyes and around the mouth. The eyes were light blue. There was something that reminded her of her younger half-brother, though superficially there was no resemblance.

"I wonder if you can. I rather wanted to apply for an Avante Carte."

"Ah!" He smiled. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you."

"Oh?" She let her eyes stray behind him, through the glass into the deserted working area.

He glanced back in the direction of her look. "Yes." Another smile. "Yes, I know. No staff. I'm the only one, and I just keep the machines running. Did you get an invitation to have a card?"

"No. Not exactly"

"Well, even if I had the authority, I couldn't let you apply. Application is by invitation only. Where did you hear about our card in the first place?"

She shrugged. "An old friend of mine has one." She paused, wondering what impact it would make now that the details had been released to the press. "A Miss Emily Dupré. She's got one." She shrugged again. "Maybe you could give me an application."

"I don't even know if we have any." He took a pace back toward the door, as though expecting her to follow.

They moved into the workroom. "You're the only one here?"

He nodded. "Scary, isn't it? There must be a million pounds' worth of hardware in here."

"You've got reason to be scared, both of you!" The voice, unpleasant, menacing, came from the doorway.

They both whirled toward the voice. It came from a muscular young man, dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit that looked possibly Aquascutum. Behind him stood two more men. They were bigger, broader, taller, and looked as though they dressed courtesy of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Both had those mean, brutal faces one associates with SS torturers in more extravagant war movies.

"Mr. Sanders?"

"You know him? Tyreen whispered.

"Mr. Sanders is my boss. He gave me the job."

The smart young man smiled, and it was obvious that smiles did not come easily to him. "Mr. Sanders gave you the job, Mr. Harper. Mr. Sanders giveth and Mr. Sanders taketh away. We know all about you. We have a fair knowledge of your friend Ms. Mackenzie as well."

Sanders motioned to the thugs, as a dog handler will gesture to a pair of wolfhounds. They began to move forward. They made three paces before Tyreen moved, leaping to her right, the PPK up and in both hands.

She did not see Pinstripes move. The man was very fast, and she cursed herself for concentrating on the hoodlums more than their master. One minute he was standing in the the doorway, looking elegant in his £500 suit, the next he was crouching, something appearing from nowhere --- an unexpected and very loud explosion followed, and ten IBM computer workstations became useless piles of plastic, glass, and silicon chips.

"Drop the peashooter, Mackenzie or the next one's on you." The smoke cleared and she could see that Sanders was holding a short, wicked-looking combat shotgun. She did not dwell on the type, though the name SPAS Model 12 crossed her mind --- a weapon of awesome power, for it is semiautomatic and care fire off its seven 12-gauge cartridges in under sixteen seconds. Depending on the load and scatter selector, the shot will do a great deal of damage. She only had to glance at the devastated IBM hardware for proof. It might only tickle Marlen, but it would do much more to Tyreen. Reluctantly she dropped the pistol, placing her hands on her head.

By this time one of the hoods had the young man --- Harper --- in a neck hold, pushing him forward, toward Tyreen.

"That's better." Sanders was not smiling any more. He gestured to the spare thug to take Tyreen in a similar manner. The man turned her around, like an unarmed combat instructor doing a demonstration with a dummy. In a second there was a forearm around her neck and a large hand on the back of her head. She knew that a quick, sharp pressure would cause any Terran a broken neck at the least, instant death more probably. The effect might not be quite as severe for a Beta but Tyreen wasn't willing to take the chance. The man smelled of something she had not sniffed for years --- bay rum, that oldest standby of long-gone hairdressers.

"So what do we do now?" She found speaking difficult, for her captor had a tendency to increase the pressure on her windpipe.

"We go and visit friends, and we go very carefully and quietly." Sanders had moved closer to them, facing them. "We go down to the foyer, where we all walk out looking like friends. If anyone tries to be clever, well..." He hefted the lethal combat shotgun in his hand --- it had a pistol grip at one end and measured no more than thirty inches, if that. Pinstripes could easily conceal it under his well-cut jacket. "You'll behave, right?" He looked from one to the other.

Tyreen tried to nod, finally she grunted, "Yes," and heard a similar sound from the man called Harper.

Pinstripes nodded to his thugs. The pressure relaxed, but the thug stayed in position behind their victims.

"I would suggest that you go first, Ms. Mackenzie and Mr. Harper. My associates will be behind me, but I shall be directly behind you, and I can tell you this thing will make a very nasty mess of you both. Now..."

He did not finish the sentence. The man behind Harper gave a squeal of pain. Tyreen was aware of Harper doubling up, and of the hoodlum suddenly catapulting over his head, straight toward Sanders.

In a reflex action, Sanders loosed off another cartridge, but his own man was almost on top of him as he fired --- a spray of blood and clothing seemed to fill the air, and by that time Harper had stepped behind the other thug.

Tyreen reacted instantly. Grasping the man's wrist and pulling his arm away, she then swung the big hoodlum around as though she was swinging a small child around in a circle. She let go and, with a shriek the man went head-on into the other bank of IBMs. There was an awful crashing and splintering sound, followed by the popping of fuses and flashes as small electric fires began in the terminals. But by then Tyreen was diving for her own automatic.

Sanders was sprawled on the floor, trying to disengage himself from the body of his henchman and grab at the shotgun.

"Don't even consider it." Tyreen had her pistol up and pointing at the man who called himself Sanders. He took no notice and finally threw the body from him, one hand already on the shotgun.

He was bringing it up when Harper seemed to materialize behind him. Harper's hands moved like sharp-bladed lawn edgers, down very hard on the sides of Sanders' neck.

Sanders gave a grunt and collapsed, his head lolling like that of a rag doll.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Tyreen could not conceal her admiration.

"Probably in a similar place to you. I was better positioned, though."

"Harper, I think I should make one telephone call, then we should get out of here. I've no doubt that Mr. Sanders has friends."

Harper nodded and glanced around at the thousands of pounds' worth of destruction. A dangerous little electric fire was starting to get hold of the carpet. "Damn," he said. "This is going to take a lot of explaining. Your name really is Mackenzie?"

"Mackenzie," she acknowledged. "Tyreen Mackenzie, or Teri. And yours?"

"Henry. Henry Harper. If you're what I think you are, then your superiors are going to get very cross with me."

"Not half as cross as Mr. Sanders' superiors."

He agreed, and she picked up the nearest telephone. One quick call to Regent's Park and the so-called Disposal Unit could be here in no time, clearing up the mess --- or at least the corpses. But the telephone was dead, and she realized they had probably blown most of the electricity in the building.

"I think we'd better go very quickly."

He nodded. "I think you're right."

At the doorway, they paused and Harper looked back. "Pity," he said, "there's an awful lot of incompatible hardware in here now."

They moved to the elevator, which was, miraculously, still working.

"Never did take to that man Sanders," Harper said as they reached the main foyer, both of them looking as though they were on their way out to lunch.

"Wasn't happy about his associates either." Tyreen smiled. "Remind me to thank you sometime, Mr. Harper."

"Count on it," he grinned back.

The smoke detectors on the fourth floor triggered the fire alarms just as she left the building. The white van was still there, but the man waiting for his date had gone. Taking Harper --- who seemed quite shaken now that the adrenaline had worn off --- by the arm, Tyreen hustled him to the left, and then down toward Oxford Street, her head swiveling in search of a taxi.

"Teri, what do you do?" he asked as a taxi with its light on came into view.

"Sort of civil servant." Tyreen gave the cabbie an address in Kilburn.

"An armed civil servant?"

"That's right."

"Security Service?"

"Close. And you?"

"Well," he began. Then he took a deep breath. "Truth is, I'm an undercover investigator for the United States Internal Revenue Service."

"I wouldn't like to underpay my taxes with someone like you around."

"No? Teri, I have a small problem."

"Yes?"

"I'm working in Britain under cover, and nobody's asked your authorities for permission. You've sort of caught me on the hop."

More was forthcoming once Tyreen had shown him her ID, and he had produced his own bona fides.

Harper spoke of the operation he was running. "The Charity Trust, so-called, run by the Meek Ones is a front. Their leader, Father Valentine, has millions salted away, and The Society itself originated in the United States. We have a team of six people trying to unravel dummy companies all over the world. Valentine owes Uncle Sam millions of dollars, and there are other agencies out to get him." He shook his head. "It's taken me two months to get this close, and now the whole thing's blown."

"Not altogether. We're working on it, and I'll see to the matter of your deniable status. Leave it to me."

He looked uncertain, then leaned forward as though there was something else he wanted to say. Gone was the decisiveness of the man who had almost single-handedly taken care of the two thugs and their boss at the Avante Carte offices. The adrenaline rush was gone, and his batteries were running low. From the way he was shaking, it was obvious that he'd never been in a real fight before.

"I'm taking you to a safe place until I can put my people in the picture." She laid a hand lightly on his. "If there's anything else --- any further information --- best tell me now. We have quite a file on the Meek Ones and their guru."

"Well..." He was undecided, though doing an admirable job of putting himself back together. Then, "There is one other thing. Have you ever heard of someone called Vladimir Scorpio?"

"Who hasn't, in my line of work?"

"There's a link --- and it's a very tenuous link --- between Valentine and his Meek Ones and Vladimir Scorpio."

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow. "What kind of link?"

"Letters. Some cables. A couple of telephone conversations one of the other agencies monitored. Scorpio is a criminal, and nobody's ever been able to bring proof against him. I don't know all the details."

"That's okay." Tyreen was not going to give anything away. "We also want Scorpio."

"They put our section of the IRS on it because that's often the only way to get these people. They did it way back in the 1920s with Al Capone. Now we're at it again with Valentine and Scorpio. You know they call him the King of Terror?"

"I didn't, but it's as good a name as any."

Unless Harper was, like Tyreen, holding back information, he had obviously not been briefed about the possibility of Scorpio and Father Valentine being one and the same person, but her current target was certainly the Meek Ones. "My chief will deal with any problems about your operation."

On arrival she discovered the place was empty but for a pair of very heavy minders, armed to the teeth. The first priority was to telephone the "Disposal Unit," putting them on to the mayhem in the Avante Carte offices, alerting them to the possibility that fire services and police might well be already there. Once this was done, she gave instructions to the minders and then to Harper himself. "Just stay here, out of sight. I'll fix our authorities. You'll be okay. Just don't worry."

"It's all very well for you to say that, but I'm as illegal as a Russian agent in place."

He was certainly right on that count, but Tyreen thought she could probably talk her way around it by using charm --- or at least logic --- with C.

"I'll flay Wollenstein alive for this!" C brought his fist down onto the desk, an action that seemed to make the pictures of his predecessors shake on the walls of his office.

Jumping back in her chair, Tyreen Mackenzie thought she had seldom seen her chief this angry. "I really don't think Donald Wollenstein knew anything about this." Leaning forward in her chair, she spread her hands in a gesture of placation.

C refused to be so easily placated, slamming his fist down onto the desk again, making Tyreen jump back again. "Don't be silly, Mackenzie. Wollenstein knows everything the Americans are up to, and I for one won't have their people trampling around our turf without even so much as a by your leave." He snatched at the intercom phone and began issuing instructions to the indefatigable Miss Pennington. "First, my compliments to Mr. Wollenstein at the US Embassy. I would like to see him here at five o'clock this afternoon. Next..." he continued forcefully.

Tyreen sank back into her chair, tossing her head to get most of the hair out of her face and brushing the remainder back with her hand. Upon her return she'd barely had time to freshen up, let alone do anything about her hair. With her chief occupied with other things, she let her mind slip back to the events of the morning. She believed that in situations such as the current one it was often better to take action first, then ask permission later. She had taken Henry Harper to the safe house that the Service kept in Kilburn --- usually for debriefing, or for field agents just back from an operation and in transit to the so-called convalescent home in Hampshire.

C's present outburst was the result of Tyreen's laying the news on him about Henry Harper --- an illegal US IRS undercover agent operating in England with no clearance from Home or Foreign Offices, and no note to C's Service. The old man treated it as an outrage --- and a personal insult.

"But he's working on the Meek Ones' case, and the Valentine/Scorpio business --- even though he might not have all the facts. On top of that he's very good, sir. Saved my life," she had pleaded. That was when C almost exploded. He didn't need a foreign agent --- an unsanctioned foreign agent --- saving his best field operative; though he would vehemently deny --- especially to her --- that Tyreen Mackenzie was his best operative.

Now Tyreen sat and waited for her chief to complete lengthy instructions to Miss Pennington. He had dictated long memos to the Home and Foreign Secretaries, carefully covering his own back, just like any cunning Civil Servant. He was in the middle of a further, Most Urgent: Secret, note to the head of the Security Service, MI5, when John Bannon --- the Service Chief of Staff --- came through the private door that was the only other entrance to the office.

Tyreen raised a hand in greeting, and her eyebrows in a questioning manner, for Bannon clutched a copy of a signal report and looked a worried man. He held the paper so that she could read it.

"Who's Rustler?" Tyreen mouthed, glancing at C, who was still giving lengthy instructions to Miss Pennington.

One corner of Bannon's mouth turned up. "Your SAS sergeant. Goldman." His other eye winked.

She was in mood to rise to the bait. They hadn't been lovers for quite a while, but they had managed to stay friends as well as coworkers. "He's not my sergeant," she replied coolly. "He drove me down from Hereford, that's all. We had a spot of bother and he proved his worth."

"Try telling the chief that," Bannon muttered, knowing when to back off. "Goldman's temporarily on the strength with your name as his backer. If the effluent strikes the windmill, it's you who'll be at the receiving end."

She used a well-known four-letter word not far removed from his last statement.

At that moment, C put down the telephone, turned, and glared at both Tyreen and Bannon. "So, what's all the whispering about?"

"Signal just come in from Rustler, sir." Bannon handed over the report.

C read it and grunted. "Well! Birds flown, eh?"

"Looks like it." Tyreen was anxious to get Harper into the office. Once there they could probably convince C of his suitability for the job in hand. She asked if she could go and pick him up.

For her pains, she received an immovable, "Certainly not!"

"Sir, he's had contact with some of these people already. The man Sanders, for instance. He'd be well worth talking to."

"In good time. All in good time, Mackenzie. For now I want you to go down to the clinic and see how Sir James is faring with the Shepperton girl." He gave a wicked smile. "At least that has kept her father out of Accounts today. Gives us a small breathing space during the wretched Audit."

Gives you a chance to manipulate Lord Shepperton as well, thought Tyreen. She would not put it past her wily old chief to call in a favor or two if it helped with the Secret Vote. Aloud, she said she would obey orders and go to Guildford, adding, "What about Rustler, sir?"

"What about him?"

"Well, he's down at the Meek Ones' old homestead. You going to send him off on a treasure hunt?"

"I rather think that's none of your business, Mackenzie." He glared icily at her.

"I'm told that I've been named as his sponsor, sir, which means to some extent it is my business." In C's current mood, she knew she was pushing her luck.

But C gave a short nod. "I'll probably send him in to have a look-see and report."

"Burglary, sir. Tut-tut. I thought we've been in enough trouble over that activity."

This time C allowed himself a short smile. "That was our sister Service, Mackenzie, your former Service. They can burgle and bug to their heart's content, and I'll be very happy if someone finds out it's not been sanctioned. What Rustler does will be sanctioned --- from the highest level, I promise you."

The clinic, a low white sprawling building, lay near the village of Puttenham, hard by the Hog's Back, that long ridge of downland, now scarred by three-lane A-roads, which runs west of the pleasant country town of Guildford.

In the Bentley, it took Tyreen less than ninety minutes to reach the clinic, which was bounded by high walls and a secure entrance staffed by retired Royal Marine Commando NCOs, who --- together with former SAS personnel --- acted as doormen, messengers, and security guards at many of the Secret Intelligence Service's main HQ and its outstations.

They were expecting her, and once inside the clinic, which felt and smelled like any other well-ordered private hospital, a hard-bitten, uniformed member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry --- that strange auxiliary women's service that, over the years, has done more than nursing or mere administrative duties --- had her signed in, then led her to the second floor. "Sir James is with the patient now," she said, in a manner which seemed to show her disapproval of any outsider being allowed into the clinic. "I understand permission has been granted for you to see him and the patient."

Tyreen nodded. Charm or subtlety would never work with this dragon, who looked as though she was made of surgical steel, with hinges in the right places.

"You'd better wait here." She indicated a small area furnished with the usual kind of chairs and low tables --- covered with old copies of the National Geographic and The Tatler --- that one found in Harley Street consultant's waiting rooms. "I'll inform Sir James that you're here." And she was off, her back ramrod straight, and manner suggesting that Tyreen was a lucky woman for her to even carry a message to Sir James Muirfield.

Five minutes or so later, Sir James appeared, calm yet with his bright eyes dancing with humor. "Mac." He offered a warm hard handshake. "How nice to see you after all this time. You keeping well?" Those same bright eyes seemed to appraise her as though he could, by mere looking, detect any nervous or psychological problem.

For a moment Tyreen felt uncomfortable. Sir James Muirfield probably knew more than any other Terran about her secret life --- not her life of secrets within the Service, but the hidden areas of fear, the complexities of imagination that dwelt within her, motivated her, kept her happy and on an even keel, or came hurtling out of her subconscious to plague her like demons in the night.

"How is she?" she asked, quickly sloughing off the discomfort of being with the great neurologist.

"She'll live." Muirfield made it sound as though that was just about all Trilby Shepperton would ever do.

"Only live?"

"No. I think she'll come back into the normal world again, but it'll take time. She needs medical treatment, rest, and a lot of love."

"She's not said anything else, then?"

"We've pulled her into a more stable state. Somebody --- not herself --- really took a chance. They filled her up with a cocktail of near death. As I think you suggested, it was a mix of hallucinogenics and hypnotics. Somebody took great pains to implant a lot of hellishly complex ideas in her mind while she was going under." Trilby's condition, as described as Muirfield, was one of increasing stability. "But she's not out of the wood yet."

Sir James placed a hand on Tyreen's shoulder. There was nothing intimate in the physical contact --- there was no need, he knew things about her that a mere physical relationship could never reveal.

He was still talking as he guided her along a passage toward the room where the patient lay. "She comes out of it completely sometimes. This morning, for instance, she was conscious for almost twenty minutes. Weak, but knew who she was and recognized her father --- he's taking a rest at the moment; you arrived at a good time." He went on to say that she could still be manipulated. "I can bring her into a twilight world. The world as she knew it when they put ideas into her head. I've done it once, and it would be dangerous to go on experimenting. When she speaks in that condition it's like listening to what the Bible calls possession by an evil spirit. It's a condition not unknown to me. I've heard it in others who haven't had their minds tampered with. Even the voice is strange. Bit frightening the first time."

"Yes." Tyreen nodded. "I heard it before she was brought down here. Made me grow cold. I know what you mean by evil spirits."

The room was like any other hospital room --- the faint clear odor of antiseptic, an oxygen cylinder with its appurtenances in one corner, a washbasin, louvered blind covering the window, and there, in the small bed, the Honourable Trilby Shepperton, her face pale even against the pillow. They still had a drip in her arm.

A nurse rose from where she had been sitting, near the bed. Muirfield nodded and asked her to get him 10cc of something Tyreen had never heard of. "I'll bring her up a little, just for your benefit. She might answer questions. I don't know, though." The nurse returned and began to prepare a steel kidney basin with everything necessary for the injection. When she handed it to him, he told her to wait outside. "If Lord Shepperton returns, don't let him near. The old fool will break down and start blubbing or something." He looked at Tyreen with eyes that seemed to be made of glass. "This is the last time I'm going to do this for anyone," he said. "As it is, this is a special favor to C. So if there's anything you want to drag out of her, do it now. She'll probably have lost all memory of the subconscious stuff by the time I bring her back into the real world." He bent over the girl, going through the business of finding a vein in her forearm. "There she goes." He stood up, the injection over.

In her purse, Tyreen was carrying a Sony Professional Walkman. She took it out, laid it on the bedside table, and undid the little felt bag containing the powerful microphone and booster, which she plugged into the correct jack. She checked the tape and finally started the machine.

"Trilby!" Muirfield almost barked. "Come on. Trilby, there's someone who wishes to talk to you. Trilby."

The patient stirred, groaned, and began to move her head restlessly on the pillow, then quickly to and fro, like a child uncertain of itself, wrapped within a dream.

"Trilby?" Tyreen was softer in her approach.

"You have to get tough." Muirfield looked across the bed at Tyreen.

"Trilby!"

This time the groan grew louder and her eyelids flickered. Then the loathsome voice came, buried from whatever evil had been soaked into her brain. "The meek shall inherit the earth." There was no happiness in that promise. It sounded more like a threat.

"How, Trilby? How will the meek inherit the earth?"

"The --- Meek shall --- inherit --- they shall --- inherit!" The world "shall" was emphasized, the voice assuming a low growl, neither male nor female.

"How shall the meek inherit, Trilby?"

"The blood."

"Blood?"

Then, very slowly, as though the words had to be dragged --- each a great weight --- from a deep pit, "The blood... The blood... of... the... fathers will fall... upon the... sons."

"Go on, Trilby."

This time it was faster, as though all the slack had been taken up, and the words started to tumble out. "The blood of the fathers will fall upon the sons. The blood of the mothers will pass also. Thus an endless wheel of revenge will turn."

"More!" Tyreen shouted. "Tell us more. The meek shall inherit the earth. The blood of the fathers will fall upon the sons..."

Trilby took up the refrain. "The blood of the mothers will pass also. Thus an endless wheel of revenge will turn."

"Go on."

Trilby groaned again, head moving rapidly from side to side.

"Go on, Trilby!" from Sir James Muirfield.

"The meek shall inherit. The meek shall go to King Arthur!" At these last words the revolting voice cracked into a great cackle of laughter. "Yes..." Hysterical, otherworldly, screeching laughter. "Yes. The meek shall go to King Arthur. King... Arthur..." The voice began to trail away, the breathing becoming labored, gasping.

"That's it." Muirfield was beside the bed with another injection. In minutes the breathing had become regular again, and the agitation ceased. "Mean anything to you?" he asked.

"Not a thing." Tyreen picked up the Sony and rewound the tape. She did a quick check that the voice had recorded, but switched off quickly. She had no desire to hear it again, for the sound would have made even the most hardened person --- Terran or Arion --- draw back with fear. "Not a thing," she repeated. "I'll take it back to C and leave it to the experts --- that is, unless it means anything to you, Sir James."

The specialist shook his head. "Crazy talk," he muttered. "Crazy, but sinister."

Tyreen used a telephone in one of the private offices to call C's personal number. She did not repeat what had been said. The line was certainly not secure enough for that, and the puzzle over the tail that had been on her between Hereford and London still nagged. On the way to the clinic, she had been alert, yet spotted nothing.

"Come on back, then," C told her. Then, almost as an afterthought, "Rustler's on his way here. Better leave your radio tuned to the usual frequency in case we have something for you. Might want you to detour to Berkshire, who knows."

It was a little after five in the afternoon --- the light just starting to go --- when Tyreen bade farewell to Sir James, who still appeared to watch her with an eagle eye, and then, once back in the car, she adjusted the shortwave receiver to the Service frequency.

An hour later, she was cruising gently into London on the M3 when the normal odd chatter on the radio frequency altered.

"Peregrine. Come in Peregrine. Orphan to Peregrine. Come in."

Tyreen, recognizing her call signal, calmly felt under the dashboard for the mike held magnetically in place. Pulling it out, she spoke --- calm without the knowledge that was yet to come. "Peregrine. Peregrine to Orphan. Receiving strength six. Over."

The anxiety was about to start. "Peregrine. Go to Sierra Five. Urgent Code One. Magnum. Three slabs and a pickup. Blues on the way."

Tyreen gave a sharp "Roger" and began to speed up, working out the fastest route to the Kilburn safe house where she had left Henry Harper. Sierra Five was the Kilburn safe house. Urgent Code One equaled "serious incident." Magnum signified that firearms had been used. Three slabs and a pickup meant at least two deaths and one injury. Blues on the way was the most obvious --- police, probably The Branch, were on the scene.

As she started to weave in and out of traffic, Tyreen wondered if Henry Harper was one of the bodies. One thing was certain, death had struck in Kilburn, on Service ground. The blood of the fathers, she thought. Then, the blood of the mothers will pass also. Somewhere there had been betrayal --- first the watchers on her coming in from Hereford; now a house that had always been safe.

Once upon a time, Kilburn, which is now part of North West London, was a thriving area. Now, Kilburn High Road looks a shade worse for wear. Kilburn Priory was originally built in the fifteenth century, but all that remains of it, in Priory Road, is a small piece of brass portraying a nun. The present church was built in the mid-nineteenth century and occupies some of the site of the old priory.

Turn right off Priory Road and you will eventually come to Greville Mews, which sounds much grander than it really is. The Mews contain no houses, instead there is a series of rented lockup garages. The scene in this little cul-de-sac on a normal afternoon is reminiscent of times long gone. Some of the walls bear old enameled signs advertising Castrol and Michelin, and a number of the cars being worked on by proud owners also have a mark of age on them.

What is not realized, even by those who rent these little garages, is that four of them are owned by one man, though those who come down to take cars in or out --- even to work on them --- are not often seen by local people. The four lockups are adjacent, one to another, and stand before the rear of a dilapidated Victorian villa. There are interconnecting doors inside the four lockups, and two small doors at the back of the two center garages.

Those who have the right knowledge and access can operate small digital pads that control a central lock on the far side of these two doors --- for the doors themselves lead into a small brick room. Once the correct sequence is keyed in, a metal door opens, leading into the rear of the Victorian villa. This is the main entrance to the Service's safe house. The front door of the place is strengthened with steel on the inside, and the people who can be seen coming and going are the regular house minders. The interesting folk arrive through the rear and are seldom if ever seen.

The inside of the Kilburn Priory house in no way matches the flaking stonework and rotting window frames visible from the front. No windows look out of the rear, for they were boarded up long ago. Locals say that the landlord lets off a couple of rooms by the month. The rest of the house, so the story goes, is falling apart.

Not so. The interior is reinforced, with at least four of the ten rooms soundproofed, and with electronic baffles running constantly. There are two ultramodern bathrooms; a good kitchen with well-stocked fridge and freezer, and the remaining sitting and bedrooms are comfortable --- not luxurious, but as good as any third-class hotel.

It was through the lockup garages that Tyreen had taken Henry Harper earlier in the day. The minders were a pair known to her from the debriefing of a defector, carried out in the Kilburn Priory house during the previous year. The men were both fully trained members of 23 SAS of the Territorial Army --- given a statutory month's leave each year to keep their hands in as part-time soldiers. They had also completed the special bodyguard course, and, while very intelligent, they had that full measure of suspicion that made them ideal for the job.

Their routine seldom varied. One would be stationed in what had once been a large storage room, now converted into a house surveillance and operations room. Six screens monitored the street and whole of Greville Mews, while other interior cameras could announce anything untoward in the house itself.

At around quarter to six, well after Harper had gotten over the initial shock of the morning's events, one of them came up and asked if he would care to come down for tea in the downstairs back room, adjacent to the kitchen, which they had elevated to the status of dining room. There, Harper discovered that tea meant large cups of a very strong brew, kippers with plenty of pepper and vinegar, and bread and butter, though there appeared to be more butter than bread.

Up in the operations room, the other minder saw the large red Post Office van draw up in front of the house and was immediately on alert.

As he raised the first forkful of kipper to his mouth, the portable radio on the table cracked into life. "Dan, there's a PO van out front. Looks okay, but it isn't the usual time for either mail or anyone bringing over papers from HQ."

Dan clicked the button of his radio. "I'll take a look, Sweeney," he said dryly. "Could be something to do with our visitor." The bell rang in the hall outside, and Dan, automatic pistol drawn and held low, behind his right thigh, went through and asked who it was. His actual words were, "Who is it? That you, Bernie?"

He would have expected to receive the answer, "Special Delivery for Mr. Dominic," to which he would have replied, "Right, it's his son here." This was today's pattern of code words.

Instead, the voice outside said, "I got a registered package. It's this address, but I can't read the name."

"Check it out and come back in the morning, then." By now Dan had the pistol safety off, and raised toward the door. At the same time he stepped back three paces and, as he did so, Sweeney's cry came over the radio: "Watch it, Dan, there's four of them! I'm coming down!"

Dan motioned Harper to stay out of the hallway just as the first burst of fire hit the door, doing nothing but spread itself back among the four men who were gathered in the porchway, for the door was disguised with five-inch armor-plated steel.

There was a cry of pain as one of the strangers received a ricochet in the face. Then a steady rain of ax blows began pounding on the door, making little impression.

"Place is like a strong room!" someone yelled from outside. "Pick him up, we're not going to get in here."

Sweeney, who was now at the top of the stairs, dashed back into the operations room to check the full situation on the camera monitoring the porchway, but it had been knocked out by the first, ineffectual burst of fire. He banged down on the alert button that would trigger an alarm in the Special Branch Ops room of Scotland Yard, then returned to the stairs and shouted, "Watch it, Dan. I don't know what the situation is out there!"

Too late. Dan, on hearing the scuffling of withdrawal, clicked back the automatic bolts, threw the door open, and stepped forward, raising his automatic in the two-handed stance.

The shotgun blast caught him full on the chest, throwing him back along the hallway. Two intruders had been left at the door. Now they leaped inside, the lethal shotguns at the ready.

But Sweeney, at the top of the stairs, had flicked out the landing light. He put the first man to sleep forever with a pair of shots taking off the top of his skull. The second attacker lifted his shotgun, but caught two bullets in the chest. The shotgun exploded as he was thrown into a kind of macabre back flip. A lot of plaster dislodged itself from the hall ceiling.

Showing the same impetuousness as at the Avante Carte offices that morning, Harper leaned into the hall, despite Sweeney's call for him to get back, and helped himself to dead Dan's automatic. The other two men were in the street, one --- wounded from the ricochet --- being helped into the post van by the other. Sweeney put a pair of shots in his direction, not aiming for a hit --- the man appeared to be unarmed --- and saw the big dents the slugs made as they went through the side of the red van.

The man dropped his partner, who lay groaning on the pavement, and leaped into the van, taking off dangerously and at top speed. In the distance came the wheep-wheep-wheep of patrol cars.

By the time Tyreen Mackenzie arrived at the scene, carefully, through the rear lockup entrance, the bodies had been removed and the wounded man was being treated in a secure area of the London Clinic --- often used in an emergency. There were two police cars still outside, while, in the main sitting room, John Bannon, together with Detective Chief Superintendent Boyer --- who had been the start of the whole business the previous day --- were going through the stories of Tom Sweeney and Henry Harper, who appeared to be in shock again. There was a plainclothes SB man in the hallway and a doctor standing by.

"I got here as quickly as I could," Tyreen said, with a brief nod in her former lover's direction. Harper immediately got to his feet and came toward her. "You okay?" she asked, placing a hand on his trembling shoulder, and he gave a quick uncertain nod, followed by a brave smile that suddenly changed Tyreen's day. Again she was struck by that indescribable something that reminded her of her half-brother. If she was not careful she might get very attached to this man. That kind of thing was not good, particularly as he was undoubtedly still an unknown quantity as far as this investigation was concerned.

"He's given us a very accurate description of what happened." Bannon sounded more than gruff, having noticed his old lover's initial entry and now catching a sight of her face. Then he was back to business. "But this house is blown."

The Branch man coughed. "To blazes," he added.

"And by whom, I wonder?" Tyreen asked of the air.

Bannon still sounded put out. "By your good self, in C's estimation," he said, looking coldly at Tyreen. These two had a friendship which went back to their days --- and nights --- in the field with MI5, and it was unlike him to be censorious. "You, or the young man here," he nodded toward Harper.

"Don't be stupid," Tyreen snapped.

"It's C's opinion, not mine. Though it does make me wonder."

"I had nobody on my tail when I brought Harper here this morning. Nobody. We came by taxi, and I walked him around the block to make certain." She turned toward Sweeney. "He use the telephone?"

Harper gave a small cry of alarm. "Teri, you don't think..."

She ignored the outburst. "Did he?"

"No." From Sweeney, emphatic, and again. "No. No way could he."

"Good." Tyreen turned to Bannon. "So I'm to blame, eh?"

"At the moment."

"What're the orders?"

"When we've finished here, you're supposed to come back with Mr. Boyer and myself. Debriefing. Mr. Harper and you. Both."

Tyreen frowned. "The message said three slabs. Who were they?"

"Tom got two of the intruders, complete with black jumpsuits and hoods. They got Dan Findlay."

"Oh, hell no."

"I'm afraid so. There's a team coming in tonight. We're clearing everything out, and the office is concocting a press story."

"Three slabs and a pickup, they said. Who was the pickup?"

"He's down for interrogation. Blast in the face. They fired a damned great shotgun at the door. The shot, and flakes of steel, just bounced back and shared themselves out with the attackers. One caught a lot in the face."

Tyreen thought for moment, remembering Trilby Shepperton at the clinic. "John." She motioned Bannon toward a corner. "Listen --- where's the pickup?"

"London Clinic. We've got him locked up close and tight."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Depends."

"How's my standing with C? Really, John --- how is it?"

"He's convinced that you bringing Mr. Harper here blew the cover on this place. You did it first and asked afterwards, Tyreen. You know how much he likes that kind of thing. What is it you want?"

"I want to have a crack at that pickup. Is he receiving visitors?"

"They've removed a lot of shot and splinters from his face. Shock, of course. The doctors say he should be okay for interrogation tomorrow."

"I want him now."

"I don't think..."

"John, believe me. C sent me to Sir James Muirfield to listen to Trilby Shepperton. I have the tapes with me. I have an edge. I only need five minutes with him. Five minutes, then I'll come back and face the music. You can convince C, John."

"I don't know..." Then he gave a quick shrug. "Oh, well, nothing ventured. Okay, Tyreen, I'll call him. But I can't promise anything."

Everyone was preparing to leave, and Tyreen had a hurried word with Harper as Bannon went off to make the telephone call. "Small piece of advice. You're going to be interrogated by a very cunning old intelligence expert. Tell the truth and we'll all come up covered with rosebuds."

He gave her a wan little smile, again trying his best to put himself back together. "Do my best. It's been quite a day. I'm not used to getting myself shot at twice in twenty-four hours."

"Few of us are. Now the real advice. Do you know an Agency man called Donald Wollenstein who works out of the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square? Truth now, Harper."

There was no hesitancy. "Yes. Yes, I know him."

"Right. Does he know of your operation?"

"He knows I might make contact. He was there as backup if I ran into real trouble."

"Don't kid yourself, Harper, you did run into real trouble. Now, when my chief interrogates you, do not, and I mean not own to knowing Wollenstein. Any friend of his is an enemy of my superior officer. Apart from that, just tell the truth, as I said."

"Thank you, Teri. I'll try and remember."

He sounded very formal, and Tyreen caught his gaze drifting over her shoulder. She turned to find Bannon there. "Your wish has been granted." He gave her a friendly, almost conspiratorial grin before continuing, "But he says five minutes only, and you are to come straight on to HQ."

"Thanks, John." Tyreen nodded. "See you later." Harper's hand reached out and brushed hers, fingers squeezing for a second. Then she was taking long strides out of the room, heading back toward the rear of the house and the lockup garages. Half an hour later, with the Bentley parked nearby, she walked into the London Clinic.

They had the wounded man on the third floor, in a private section enclosed by a ring of bodyguards and police. A senior minder called Oscar was in charge, and he recognized Tyreen immediately. "The doctors don't like it, ma'am," he began, "but C has decreed that you have five minutes with him. That really is all I can give you."

"Fine. Five minutes with the pickup is all I asked for."

There was an armed hood by the bedside who stood up as they entered. "Stay," Tyreen said casually. "I want to check one thing out with the man." She took out the Sony Professional Walkman --- the tape had already been wound on --- fitted the mike and placed it by the bed. The man who lay there was short and thin, his face covered with dressings and bandages, except for his mouth and one eye, which moved constantly. She could see the fear in that one eye. At least she had that going for her.

She turned the Sony to "record" and leaned forward, speaking with her lips close to the man's ear. "Listen well, my friend, and nothing bad will happen to you. I come because I know the meek shall inherit the earth."

The one eye twitched anxiously. "I don't know what you mean," he whispered. The accent came from somewhere in the Middle East.

"Oh, but you do. You know the meek shall inherit the earth. Just as the blood of the fathers shall fall upon the sons; and the blood of the mothers will pass also. Thus an endless wheel of revenge will turn."

"Oh, my God!" It came out in a breathless rush. "You do know."

"Of course I know. Now, I have one question."

"What is it?"

"Why are the meek going to King Arthur?"

There was a long silence, and the twitching eye appeared to have become much more steady. "What is the time, friend?" the wounded man asked. Even his voice was steady now.

Tyreen glanced at the stainless steel watch on her wrist. "Nine-thirty."

The wounded man's lips formed a tiny smile. "Then it's too late, whoever you are. The meek went to King Arthur at nine o'clock."

"I see."

"You will." The man's head moved a fraction so that he could bring his one eye to bear on her. "You will see. And you will not see. The meek shall inherit, and not just by going to King Arthur." He turned away again and closed the one eye, like a prince signaling the end of an audience.

Tyreen switched off the recorder, nodded to Oscar and the hood, then walked to the door. Halfway down the corridor she heard footsteps behind her, moving fast. It was Oscar, making little gestures for her to stop. Another man was hard at his heels.

"What is it, Oscar?"

"Better listen to this, ma'am." He gestured to the other man.

"Yes?"

"It's old Lord Mills, ma'am."

"What about Lord Mills?" Everyone in the country knew, and loved, Lord Mills, no matter what their politics. Lord Mills of Bromfield, formerly Mr. Stephen Mills, had twice been Prime Minister, was outspoken in criticism, even against his own Party when necessary. Still his wisdom and charisma could sway huge audiences, even though he had reached the age of eighty-seven years. "What about him?" she repeated.

"Just came through. He's been assassinated."

"What?"

"Abut fifteen people dead altogether. Some kind of bomb."

"How? Where?"

He was on his way to a campaign meeting in the West Country. He stopped to go walkabout and talk to an election crowd in Glastonbury, ma'am."

"It happened in Glastonbury?"

"Terrible. Yes. Terrible carnage."

Tyreen started to run toward the elevators. Glastonbury, she thought. The meek had indeed gone to King Arthur. The small market town of Glastonbury, with its great knoll of a Tor surmounted by a tower, and the ruined Abbey nearby, with the thornbush supposed to have been grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea --- the man in whose garden Christians believed that Christ was buried and rose again. Glastonbury, the place many Arthurian scholars singled out as the legendary Avalon --- with Arthur himself buried in the Abbey. That was where the much-loved Lord Mills had been assassinated, together with innocents. As she rode down in the elevator, Tyreen felt shocked and numb. The blood of the fathers? The endless wheel of revenge? The meek had gone to King Arthur and killed, violently and with vengeance.

Tyreen Mackenzie snapped the car radio over to shortwave and hit the button for her listening-out frequency. She drove as fast as possible through the evening traffic, a hundred questions invading her mind.

Inevitably, everything went back to the beginning --- to young Emily Dupré's death, and what followed. There were massive question marks over so much, not the least the other vehicles that had him under surveillance when Goldy brought her down from Hereford. Someone must have known exactly where she was.

Goldy? she wondered. Might it have been him? He could certainly have tipped someone regarding the journey to London, but what was the point? It had been a dangerous ride and Goldy was just as much at risk as Tyreen herself. As for Harper and the safe house, she would have to check on whether Goldy fit the profile there --- whether he know of the safe house, Harper's existence, and the fact that he was there.

This last was certainly unlikely. Only a handful of people knew, and if they did have a penetration agent --- damned if she would call him a mole --- then that person had to fit a distinct profile. Had to know of the trip from Hereford, and had to know where Harper had been lodged. As far as she knew, the only people who fitted the profile were C, John Bannon, Miss Pennington, and herself. Donald Wollenstein? she wondered. The CIA London resident rarely missed anything. It could just be possible. Though certainly she doubted it.

She managed to keep the other demons at the back of her mind --- the horror at Glastonbury and the undeniable fact that at least two people had known it was going to happen --- even if the knowledge was only in Trilby Shepperton's subconscious. As to who had carried out the atrocity, Tyreen was in no doubt that it was Father Valentine/Vladimir Scorpio, through the agency of The Society of the Meek Ones. Why, was another matter.

At headquarters it looked and sounded as though they were on a war footing. C sat behind his desk, his face lined, eyes sad and tired, a man almost in shock. They were waiting for the most recent reports to come in from Glastonbury, in the calm folds of England that form Somerset.

"You are absolutely, completely, certain that nobody had you marked when you took the American, Harper, to Kilburn?" C asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

"Positive, sir, as I've already told you. I plead guilty to taking Mr. Harper to Kilburn without authorization. I acted first and asked permission afterwards. But I was very concerned for his safety." In truth she was certain, but knew that in her trade nothing is totally certain. Was there not an old Italian proverb, "He who knows the most believes the least"?

"Mmm," C growled. "I've asked Wollenstein to step over from Grosvenor Square again," he spoke almost to himself. "So far it looks as though your Mr. Harper is genuine, and one hundred percent safe. But there are aspects that still worry me."

"There are at least two that worry me, sir." Tyreen had yet to tell her chief about Trilby and the surviving member of the raid on the Kilburn house. She was about to play the tapes when John Bannon came in through his private office door. "There's a full and detailed newsflash going out on all channels in two minutes, sir." He crossed the room to the small portable television set that had been brought into the office. Things had to be serious for the TV to be there at all, for C regarded television with grave suspicion. He was the same with computers, but they were forced upon him, while television was not.

The pictures that came up with the detailed report of the bomb outrage were ghastly. The area around the market cross at Glastonbury looked as though a giant demolition machine had gouged a crater in the middle of the road. There were grotesque and tangled pieces of metal that had once been vehicles, while some of the old houses had frontages blown away. Others had escaped with shattered windows. Explosive blast knows no natural law in the open. A man standing near the center was likely to be completely destroyed, though it was technically possible to survive, deaf and naked, but alive. Blast will remove windows from one building, leaving it intact while the structure next to it collapses.

The cameras roamed the streets, bathed in light from the huge arc lamps that had been set up by the emergency services, picking up a bloodstain here, a woman's handbag there, a shoe in what had once been the gutter. The market cross had disappeared altogether.

The commentary was relentless. Lord Mills --- Sam to his many friends --- had been in a chauffeur-driven Rover and was scheduled to make three stops: one at Shepton Mallet, then a detour to Glastonbury before going on to address a meeting for the Conservative candidate in Wells. It crossed Tyreen's mind that the old man had still managed to travel and speak in public like someone in the prime of life. Shepton Mallet was well-known for its military prison; Glastonbury for its Abbey ruins and the supposed connection with King Arthur; and Wells for its beautiful cathedral. The visits and speeches had been planned only four days before. Whoever had decided on Mills as the target had chosen one of the most peaceful towns in England to carry out the horrible deed. The whole thing had barbarous overtones --- target and place, not to mention the fact of innocent bystanders.

A large crowd had turned out to see the famous old man. A local police car had picked up the Rover two miles out of Glastonbury, taking over from the Shepton Mallet car. They had come into the town slowly, the few local police on duty holding back the crowd that threatened to press in on the car. It was all good-humored, and the police would certainly never have even considered Stephen Mills as a terrorist's target.

The cars had finally stopped near the market cross --- the whole area cordoned off by the police --- and the crowd appeared to be forming an orderly circle around the vehicles. An aide assisted the old man out of the Rover, and, just as the door was closed behind him and he had pulled his body into its familiar tall, unstooping stance --- one hand on walking stick, the other raised in salutation, face wreathed in a smile --- part of the crowd appeared to break out, almost swamping the car, and from the center of the crowd came the fireball, ripping forward, then billowing outward. All had been caught by the cameras, and the public were spared nothing in the viewing.

"My God!" C breathed. "The evil devils. Sometimes I think these people do it merely for the love of death."

Both Tyreen and Bannon, who had seen a great deal of carnage over the years, were sickened by the sight.

When it was all over, all three were shaken. Even C jumped when the intercom phone rang. He spoke, then listened and spoke again. "Send him straight up," he said into the instrument, then, replacing it, looked up at Tyreen and Bannon. "Boyer, from The Branch, is here. Says he has some urgent information for us."

The Chief Superintendent also had the haggard look, which seemed to be infectious. C ushered him into a chair. "Nobody's claiming responsibility," he said wearily. "As yet we just don't know how it happened, but none of the known terrorist groups have come on the line with a code --- not even the idiot calls. Usually someone claims one of these within the hour. It's very worrying. To be honest with you, I don't think it's a one-shot operation."

"I can tell you who did it," Tyreen said quietly. "But I'd like to know how. Was it thrown, launched, pre-set, or what?"

"Who?" It was a chorus from C, Bannon, and Boyer.

"I was just going to play a couple of tapes for C when the newsflash came on."

C was tetchy. "Why didn't you say so, Mackenzie? This sounds essential for any follow-up."

"The Society of the Meek Ones did it." She even sounded matter-of-fact as she reached into her purse.

They listened as she played through the awful, evil tape of Trilby Shepperton with her strange, witchlike coded prophecy. Then the more obvious conversation with the injured raider of the Kilburn house. "He knew --- knows --- some of the details and should be sweated," she said after the recordings had been played. "Trilby is different. That's almost certainly her subconscious." She went on tell them what Muirfield had said about the possibility of Trilby not being able to recall anything once he had weaned her off the overdose of drugs still in her system."

"If it is the Meek Ones, we should start an immediate operation." C's crustiness had gone. "It would be best if everyone combined forces --- The Branch, local police forces, ourselves, and 'Five.' "

"And the Americans, sir," from Bannon. "This Valentine man is wanted by our beloved cousins. It's reasonable to bring them in, I think."

"If we have to, I suppose. Yes. You know how I feel about..." They all knew what he was going to say, but the telephone cut him off. He picked up the instrument, listened to Miss Pennington, then said, "Oh! Yes, I see. Put her through, please..." His tone was now deferential. Tyreen and Bannon exchanged glances, and Boyer raised his eyebrows.

The conversation went on for six or seven minutes. Nobody was in any doubt as to the identity of the caller. "Yes, Prime Minister, yes, I rather think we do know. But it's highly complex... Certainly... Yes, of course... I'll take the action and report... At midnight. Very well, I shall be there, Prime Minister." He put down the receiver, glared around him in an almost Churchillian look of belligerence, an announced, "That was the Prime Minister!" Bannon actually stifled a snort at this statement of the obvious, but C was speaking again, steamrollering anybody who wanted to get a word in. "We shall be performing a combined operation. Even though we're in the middle of a General Election, the PM is assembling COBRA. I'm to be there by midnight."

COBRA is a special committee --- taking its name from the Cabinet Office Briefing Room --- usually consisting of the Home Secretary as chairman, the Secretary of the Cabinet Office, and several others, mainly representing the Home and Foreign Offices, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, Metropolitan Police, and Ministry of Defence. It has the power to co-opt members from other departments or services --- particularly when the committee is assembled to deal with a terrorist threat.

"As there is an American interest here," C continued, "I propose to move that we co-opt Cousin Wollenstein. Keep him out of mischief. Also, as we appear to have all the leads, I am going to ask you, Mackenzie, to go out and track this dangerous and wicked man, Valentine --- or Scorpio, as we know he is --- and his nest of killer spiders, the Meek Ones. You may ask for any assistance. I can't stress too strongly that this is a desperate assignment."

"Where do I start looking, sir? We don't even know how they did this thing." She glanced at Boyer.

Boyer merely shrugged and said the forensic people were there, with C13 --- the antiterrorist squad. As soon as there was any news it would be passed on. "You've seen the television tapes," he added. "They tell you as much as we know. They are, of course, undergoing analysis at the moment."

"You look under every stone." C spoke steadily. "You take who you like. For the honor of this service --- as well as your country --- you get them. Understand?"

Yes, for a few more million in the Secret Vote as well, Tyreen thought. Then she felt ashamed at even having thought it. C was a wise, experienced officer who would go through fire and ice for his country --- and expected his operatives to do the same. This one terrible act of killing an old, well-loved, highly respectable politician, plus a crowd of innocents, was being interpreted as possibly only the start of some even worse atrocities --- or a whole campaign, aimed at disrupting the General Election. Whatever C's other motives might be, his first concern would most certainly be to root out and destroy the evil that had come among them, in the guise of a moral, peace-loving religious organization. "Has Goldman come back yet, sir?" she asked.

C nodded. "He has, but I've yet to hear his report."

"I'll take him, if I may?" She knew there were dangers, for she could not rule out the possibility of Goldman not being straight. But those you cannot entirely trust are best kept close, she thought.

"When we've heard what he has to say, yes."

"And Mr. Harper, to represent the United States. He appears to have been on this case for some time." He was another unknown quality. Again best kept close. Watch, observe, and be on your guard. She had to remind herself, for Henry Harper was, in a strange way, playing havoc with her emotions.

"He has, indeed." C sounded distracted. "Yes, very well, Mackenzie, but take care. I've seen the interrogation reports, and his personal file --- at least Wollenstein allowed me that. He's very good, but we'll have to get clearance from his Service. Providing that's agreed, yes you can take him."

As C reached for the telephone again, Boyer asked if he could go. "I'll be on to you the moment I have some solid news, sir."

C nodded, an almost arrogant dismissal, then, as though changing his mind, held up a hand. "I don't know if Goldman's got anything for us, but, in the light of Commander Mackenzie's tapes --- evidence --- regarding these precious Meek Ones, I suspect someone should get forensic and scene of crime units down to Manderson Hall. Can you fix that, or d'you want me to get on to the Commissioner?"

"I can do it, sir. Leave it with me."

C turned back to Tyreen, as the door closed behind the Branch man. "Let me get on to Wollenstein, then we'll have Goldman in."

Wollenstein had already left the embassy, on his way to Regent's Park, so C instructed Miss Pennington to let them know as soon as he arrived. "In the meantime, I'll see Sergeant Goldman, he's been waiting long enough."

"Goldy" Goldman looked decidedly the worse for wear. He had not shaved for forty-eight hours, and the clothes on his back looked as they were more fitting for a tramp than an SAS NCO.

"Good grief, man, do you usually report to your CO in Hereford like this?" C showed a touch of the old sea dog he had once been --- "A terror when you were up before him," a former Naval rating had once confided to Tyreen.

C's tone rolled off Goldman like water off the proverbial duck's back. "Well, chief, sometimes one has to, if you see what I mean."

"I'm afraid I don't see what you mean."

"Look, chief. I've been press-ganged into this. Certainly I told the boss lady here that I'd help. But I didn't expect to be standing out half the day waiting for everyone to clear off. Yes, I went down like this to mingle --- sit in hedgerows, blend into the landscape. I was called back here and I've been sitting in your padded cell for a long time."

"All right, all right." C frowned. "Let's forget it. As soon as we've finished here I suggest that you go and get spruced up a little. Now, have you anything to report?"

Goldman held his hand in front of him, tipping it to and fro. "A little. Not a lot."

"Well?"

"I went through the place as best I could. Had to jemmy open a window round the back, so that was me, if anyone's asking. I left no prints on the place, that's for sure, and I didn't spoil any evidence that might already be there. I can tell you one thing though, they knew they were leaving. It was planned well in advance. Looked as though they had known for several days. Prick neat the place was, as my old mother used to say. Prick neat. Everything stowed away shipshape and Bristol fashion. Beds made, nothing in the wastepaper baskets, nor the dustbins. Not a sheet of paper there. Not a pair of jeans; not a shirt; not even an old pair of drawers. They'd swabbed down and got out as though they'd never been there in the first place."

During Goldman's little speech, Tyreen turned away to smile. She had no doubt that while Goldy was giving a very clear picture of the state in which he found Manderson Hall, he was adding a few seagoing phrases for C's benefit.

"Commander Mackenzie?"

She turned her face forward. "Sir?"

"Any questions you want to put to Sergeant Goldman?"

"Tire marks? Signs of the way they left?"

Goldman nodded. "Yes. Tire marks round the back, but the cars --- about four of them I reckoned --- and a couple of small vans, went empty. Anyway, there wasn't enough room in that transport for the whole lot."

"Left empty?"

"Marks not deep enough for fully loaded vehicles."

"And how many people do you think were at the place?"

"One hundred and fifty, going on two hundred."

"How d'you work that out?"

"First, the beds. There were doubles and singles. I told you they were made up, neat. All tidy. Shipshape."

"Yes-yes." Tyreen gave him a look to signify that the SAS man had been kidding her for long enough.

"Even though beds're neat and tidy, you can usually tell if they've been slept in within the last week or so. That is, unless they had all the sheets changed --- something people in a hurry do not stop for, even if they've left everything else tidy and cleared out every scrap of paper, and every last stitch of clothing, every book, every plate, every last thing. They did all that, but they did not change the sheets. I went through every bed in the place and I'd swear every pair of sheets had seen at least three to four days' recent usage. Right?"

"Right." Tyreen nodded. "How do you think they left, then?"

"Over a couple of days, I would say. Probably took the heavy stuff out a while ago. Then they'd go in twos and threes. No big rush, just drifting off. Some in cars and vans picking others up. I had a word in the local pub --- well, more like I listened out really. I'm sure that's what they did. They just drifted off, all set for either a rendezvous somewhere else, or on a series of operations to be carried out."

The enormity of what Goldman had said hit Tyreen. C gave a groan. "Lord have mercy," he added.

"Amen to that, chief," from Goldman.

The telephone buzzed again and C gave muttered instructions. Then to Tyreen, "You want to give the sergeant his orders?"

"I can't do that sir. I can ask him."

"Well... Well, be quick about it, Boyer's back and our friend from up the road is waiting."

"Goldy," Tyreen smiled at the SAS man. "Will you go on helping?"

"If I'm needed, yes, of course."

"Nine o'clock sharp tomorrow morning." She gave a place, near her own flat just off King's Road. "We'll go over the Pangbourne place again."

He had already spent part of the day at the Meek Ones' place in Pangbourne, near Berkshire. "I'll be there, boss lady. That all?"

Tyreen nodded, and C raised a hand, gesturing toward the door.

"Boyer first," C said when Goldman had left. "Says they have evidence of how it was done. He's got a video. It seems his people sent it over here, he hasn't been out of the building."

Boyer looked even more shocked than before. He lugged a video recorder into the room and set it up by C's television. "We slowed the tape right down, and our specialists managed to enhance the picture --- zoomed in on the vital part."

"And?" C had watched the setting up of the electronics with a certain wariness.

"And, I think you should see for yourself, sir. First, this is the original tape." He pressed the "play" button and the scene that had sickened them before was replayed on the screen. The cars drawing up, the friendly crowd, the old man being helped out of the car, waving and smiling. Then the sudden break and the explosion.

"Now," said Boyer, "I want you to watch this." He pressed "play" again. This time it was as though they had a camera zoomed in on a small section of the crowd that was pressing forward. In slow motion, they moved and the Rover's bonnet came into the frame. "Watch the young man in the yellow anorak," Boyer almost whispered.

They picked him out easily, a dark-haired young man. Tyreen thought he would be nearly thirty, certainly no older. Suddenly, in this shocking slow motion, they saw the young man leap forward, almost onto the bonnet of the car. As he did so, his hand moved inside the anorak and he was gone in a huge fireball, bone and blood disintegrating.

"My God!" C was almost out of his seat. "My God! The fellow detonated himself. That's too horrible. Terrible."

"But it's true, sir." Boyer really was whispering now. "What happened in Glastonbury was that a human bomb exploded himself close to Stephen Mills."

He played it again. This time Tyreen almost retched.

"Get them, Mac!" C spoke through clenched teeth. "Just get them. Kill them, wipe them off the face of the earth if you have to, though I'll deny ever saying that if it happens. Go out and find the devils."

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