Kardinal (18 page)

IT was chaos. Just what Lawton wanted. Panic in the ministry as they wheeled him out. Oxygen mask clamped to his face. Lots of shouting. Khoury next to him, taking a big risk. Lawton’s eyes were wide open. Taking everything in. Thinking. Strategizing. Plotting. Four medics, one a woman. He smelled cordite. He felt pain.

Khoury had shot him.

Six bullets in his body, now.

He’d taken a risk.

Ereshkigal had said, “The weapons of men will soon barely graze you.”

She had told him he might have vampire DNA in him. He had rejected such a notion. But now it could save him. It took a huge leap of faith. He had to trust the words of a monster. But the situation he was in demanded quick action. It demanded a decision.

And he decided that he’d rather be shot than be sent back to Britain.

If Ereshkigal had told him the truth, a bullet would not mean death – but going back home certainly would.

As they wheeled him, they attended to his wound. It was in his side. Just under his ribs.

“Shoot me,” he’d told Khoury.

Khoury had said, “No.”

“Shoot me and get me out of here.”

“I can’t shoot you.”

“Tell them I attacked you.”

“Lawton you have not attacked – ”

Jake had leapt across the desk. Pinned Khoury to the floor just as the lieutenant was going for his weapon. Grabbed Khoury’s gun hand. Jammed the barrel into his side. Pressed Khoury’s trigger finger. Ereshkigal’s words in his mind as the pain blinded him.

It was agony. He’d experienced it before. First, it was like being punched in the side, hard. Second, the ache turned to fire. His insides boiling. Blood pulsing out. His body weak and cold.

Khoury was in a panic. He had called an ambulance.

Now they were outside, bouncing down the steps. Heat and chaos. Everyone shouting. The world spinning. Lawton dizzy and sick. Thinking, Ereshkigal lied to me. I am dying.

He cursed himself for being a fool. He got ready to embrace death. It was almost a comfort. He felt OK with it. He blinked. Everything became blurry. He blinked again. His left eye throbbed. Images swirled in his brain. His mind was reeling. He groaned and blinked again. The light in the sky was weak. Dawn coming. When vampires slept. When Ereshkigal slept, he thought. The noise was suddenly deafening. Screaming and shouting, a chorus of voices in his head.

They lifted him into an ambulance. The smell of disinfectant hit him. People speaking Arabic. People speaking English. Shouting at each other. Shouting at him. Khoury was there, looking down at Lawton. Then he was gone. The doors slammed shut. The vehicle was moving. Sirens screamed. The medics removed his mask.

“Are you OK, mister?” said a medic.

Lawton blinked.

The man pointed at his eye and said something to his colleague in Arabic.

Lawton blinked again.

The pain in his body faded.

A surge of power raced through him.

He’d wait until they came to a halt. Despite having the sirens on, the ambulance was sure to be trapped in traffic. This was Baghdad. Early morning rush hour. Driving here was crazy. Lawton would get a chance. He’d have to be quick. But he felt quick. He felt alive.

ASHTON ran back to the Toyota and got in the passenger seat.

“He’s been taken to hospital,” he said.

“What?” said Laxman.

“He was shot by a police officer.”

“Shot?”

“Shot.”

“Dead?”

“They said he was alive, but they didn’t know how bad.”

“Which hospital?” said Laxman.

“The Baghdad Medical City complex in Bab Al-Moatham.”

“You know that, Xavier?” said Laxman.

The Swiss driver said, “I know where the complex is, but which hospital? It is a fucking massive place.”

“I say the Surgical Specialities hospital,” said Ashton. “It makes sense if you’ve got a bullet wound.”

“Try that,” said Laxman. “Get going.”

Xavier fired up the Toyota. He swung it round and headed into traffic, causing drivers to stray out of the lane and press down on their horns. It was 6.00am, and the roads were quickly filling up. And drivers were getting hot under the collar even at that time of morning.

It took all of Laxman’s discipline not to leap out of the vehicle and start shooting at people. He glared out of the Toyota’s window, clenching his jaw, praying to any god that would listen, “Keep Lawton alive so I can kill him, keep Lawton alive . . . ”

Have faith, JJ, he told himself, have faith.

They had reached the Ministry of Interior ten minutes earlier. They had parked up across the street. Ashton had run in to see if “a colleague of theirs had been arrested.”

They headed west now towards Medical City, a compound of training hospitals once called Saddam Medical City. The surgical hospital had been built in the 1980s. Saddam certainly spent on health for his mates, and to train doctors. But he didn’t really care that most of the population was starving and disease-ridden. In the 1990s, some blamed sanctions for that. But food was being supplied. Equipment was coming in. Saddam and his cronies had decided to stock it all and use it themselves. He let his people starve and hoodwinked those foolish enough in the West to think he was a decent bloke.

No one, Laxman knew, was a decent bloke. He didn’t believe in rubbish like that. He’d seen enough to have his faith in humanity wrecked. Now he only believed in one thing – himself.

The traffic was maddening. The noise deafening. The fumes overpowering. But it was like any other city. Busy and frantic.

He thanked the stars for air-con, because outside it was getting hot, even at this early hour.

Sirens blared.

Laxman became alert, looking out for the source of the noise.

There was a convoy up ahead – police cars and an ambulance.

They were headed in the direction of the medical complex. The vast, grey compound could be seen in the distance. Road signs directed drivers towards the hospitals.

“Up ahead, Xavier,” said Laxman. “He’s got to be in that ambulance, with all those police cars around it.”

“Seen it, boss,” said the Swiss mercenary.

“Maybe he’s dead already, huh?” said Ashton. “We can pray, yeah?”

“I don’t want him dead already,” said Laxman.

“Save us the trouble, though, chief,” Ashton said.

“I want the trouble.”

The Toyota came to a halt. It was gridlock up ahead. Horns blared. The ambulance was skewed in traffic, as if it had been struck by something. It sat halfway across two lanes.

The ambulance’s back doors burst open.

A man with shoulder-length black hair, his long, white shirt a bloody mess, leapt out and started striding across the roofs of the cars.

GOGA said, “No alliance has ever been struck between humans and Nimrod.”

The Romanian was still badly hurt hours after the beating he’d got. Aaliyah was worried about him. But he said he’d be all right. His suffering was not important, he’d said. He was only bruised, just a few cuts. Nothing to what would happen if they didn’t stop Alfred Fuad.

Aaliyah and Goga were “guests”, Fuad had told them.

Guests who just couldn’t leave.

They had been locked in a cell for a few hours. It was tiny, a crevice carved into the rock face, a hefty, oak door making sure there was no escape.

Aaliyah couldn’t keep track of time. They had taken her watch and her phone. She couldn’t measure it by sunlight or dark.

Goga had slept, but she couldn’t. She’d been wired since they’d got caught. All kinds of worries raced through her head. Mostly they were to do with Jake. What was going to happen to him? Fuad said that even if the Iraqis didn’t kill him, Laxman would. She felt very frustrated. Trapped here, unable to do anything. Unable to help. Unable to save Jake.

An hour ago, men with guns had come to take Aaliyah and Goga to Fuad’s tent. She had asked what time it was, and they had told her, “Early.”

Early or late, Fuad was drinking when they got to his tent. The smell of booze hung in the air. Howard Vince was there too. He had been scowling at Fuad when Aaliyah and Goga had been shoved inside. Aaliyah guessed they’d been arguing, maybe about Fuad’s drinking, maybe about something else. But it gave her hope. She would try to take advantage of any rift between her enemies.

Goga went on now: “He does not need allies. He was a king. A god. A builder of cities, and their destroyer, too. He made Babylon, Fuad. He is the one who made the darkness dark.”

“You don’t half rattle on, Vladimir,” said Fuad. “My brother would be bored to death of you.”

“My name is not Vladimir,” said Goga.

“You’re Russian, ain’t you?” said Fuad.

“Romanian, you fool.”

Howard Vince was gritting his teeth.

“I don’t care what you are,” said Fuad. “It doesn’t matter. From now on it only matters if you’re Nebuchadnezzar or not Nebuchadnezzar.”

“And for those who are not?” Goga said.

Fuad shrugged. “We’ve got plenty of non-Nebs who support us. My brother got elected on the back of votes from those who are not as lucky as me and General Vince here.”

“Lucky?” said Goga.

“Lucky to be descended from a king.”

“You are nothing but apes like the rest of us,” said Goga. “And Nimrod will show you that. He will devour you and the world, if you free him. There will be nothing for you in this expedition.”

Aaliyah noticed some concern on Vince’s face. The general was obviously worried. He might not have been convinced by the Fuads’ mission. Resurrecting Nimrod had never been the Nebuchadnezzars’ original plan. Their objective was simply to create a vampire nation in the UK. Recreate the Babylon of their ancestor, who had ruled the golden city with a vampire army behind him. Maybe some of the Nebs thought the Fuads were going too far.

“Nimrod will be weak when we dig him up,” said Fuad. “He’ll need allies. He’ll need builders for his city. He’ll need leaders for his nation. We are those builders and those leaders. Me and George. Me, George, General Vince here, people like us. London’s going to be his new golden city. And from London, we’ll spread across the world. We’ll be rich and fat.”

“Five thousand years ago,” said Goga, “a mad prophet stopped Nimrod. Centuries later, the Great Hunter’s children were defeated first by Alexander the Great, and later still by Jake Lawton. What will make it different this time, Fuad?”

Fuad smiled. He drank his whisky.

“It’ll be different this time,” he said, “because there’s no mad prophet. There’s no Alexander. And there’s no Lawton.”

Silence fell in the tent. In the distance, the great drill echoed through the caverns as it ploughed deeper into the earth. Aaliyah could feel the ground tremble.

“Greed will be your undoing,” said Goga.

“It’s not greed, mate,” said Fuad. “It’s belief. Belief that some of us have a right to rule. Belief that things would be better if we were allowed to be in charge. Belief that humankind is changing, that most of it is just scum and worthless in the great scheme of things. Such a belief drove every conqueror, Goga. Whatever god they worshipped, they believed firstly in themselves. And that’s us. Me, George, the rest of the Nebuchadnezzars. We believe in ourselves. Nothing can shake that belief. That’s why we’ll win in the end, because we’ll keep coming back. No matter how many times you knock us down, we’ll be back, and back, and back. And this time, we’re going to achieve our final victory.”

Aaliyah’s belly lurched.

She was in the presence of a madman.

Her hopes were dwindling.

Perhaps it was time to give up.

George Fuad controlled Britain. Alfred was excavating a monster in Iraq. Jake was a prisoner. She and Goga were captives too.

But I have to have faith, she told herself. If Fuad and the Nebs do, then so can I.

She had always believed in fate. She was convinced it had played a hand in her meeting Jake.

But he’d rejected such notions.

“Hundreds of people have died so we could meet?” he’d said. “No, babe. There’s no such thing as fate or destiny or God. There’s only anguish. And love. That’s all there is.”

Love. That was the meaning of everything for Aaliyah. That was her faith, her religion. The love she shared with Jake. The trust she had in him.

I have to believe, she said to herself. I have to believe.

Believe that he would never leave her. Believe that he would somehow get free and come to find her.

She fought off the gloom with that belief. Held it up like a shield to keep the misery at bay. Hacked at the darkness that was enveloping her.

He will come, she thought. He will come, and we’ll be an alliance again – me and Jake against the world, and when he comes, we will fight our way out of this.