Kardinal (8 page)

Hillah, Iraq – 12.30am (GMT + 3 hours), 18 May, 2011

ALFRED Fuad knew he was being watched. He was aware of it even before the scouts from Hillah came that morning to say a man and a woman had rented a house on the outskirts of the city. They were foreign, said the scout. The man was tall with dark hair and a thick moustache. He carried a cane decorated with a gold ferrule. The woman was tall and beautiful, her skin dark, her eyes fiery. The scout said she looked like an African princess.

Aaliyah Sinclair, thought Alfred.

Did that mean the man could be Jake Lawton?

The name made Alfred shudder.

He got up from his desk, where he’d been reading the scout’s report and viewing some photographs.

He got a bottle of whisky from the cupboard and poured himself a tumbler.

Lawton? Was that possible?

The description did not fit the ex-soldier, but who knew with Lawton? He might have changed his appearance. He might have miraculously made it to Iraq.

“No,” Alfred told himself. “It’s impossible. You are being paranoid.”

He drank again. The liquid was fiery. It gave him confidence to believe the man wasn’t Lawton. It just couldn’t be. Nebuchadnezzar agents had been tracking the bastard across Europe. They’d lost him a few times. Found him again. Lost him again. He was devious and slippery. He was clever and dangerous. Very dangerous.

They knew he’d left Britain after the battle in February. He and his companions had been picked up in Rotterdam. Christine Murray, her son, David, and the Chinese troublemaker, Kwan Mei, had been sent back to the UK. The Chinese woman was due to be deported back to her own country, because she was an illegal immigrant, but once in London, she’d slipped away with David Murray.

But Christine Murray, that interfering hack, was apprehended by George’s men in Folkestone.

He downed another whisky. His head was swimming. He needed a nap. But he didn’t have time. George would not be happy if he slept on the job.

Alfred loved his brother. He always wanted to please him. Perhaps if Lawton had a brother like George, he wouldn’t be so much trouble. He would have had guidance. He would have had a sibling to smack him around when he did something wrong. Burn his back with their dad’s cigarettes. Force his hand into a jarful of wasps. Rub his face in dog shit.

Bloody Lawton. The man was impossible. Five bullets lodged in his body from various conflicts. Two from Afghanistan, they said. One from Iraq. The other two, who knew. But he was still alive. None of his enemies had managed to kill him.

But I will, thought Alfred. If he is the man in the house, if he ever comes here, I will kill him. I will kill Jake Lawton, and George will love me even more.

He drank again, brimming with confidence now.

He surveyed the maps and the plans pinned to the wall of his office at the dig. He buzzed with excitement. He felt so powerful. He was making history. He was creating a new future. He would excavate a god and give it to his brother.

He thought about travelling home with Nimrod in tow. We will go by road, he thought. Every nation would kneel before Nimrod as Alfred’s convoy passed through its territories. Prime ministers and presidents, kings and emperors, would bow and offer homage to the new world order of vampires and humans.

George would be master of the earth. Alfred would be his dutiful deputy.

He wondered if George would take a queen. He’d been married twice. But Alfred had sent them packing. Driven them mad. Made up stories about them and whispered nasty rumours in George’s ear.

Alfred didn’t want his brother to have anyone else. Why did he need anyone else? George could take his pleasure from whores as Alfred took his from young men.

They needed no one else. They had each other.

Mum had always said, “Family’s the most important thing in the world, darlings. You stick together. You’re blood. You’re brothers.” Mum was an East End girl. London born and bred. In his drunken state, he pictured the capital as a golden city.

He pictured a throne.

On the throne sat George – King George.

George VII.

And next to the throne would be Alfred, the faithful advisor, the loving brother.

And behind the throne, the real power. The religion. The faith. The fear. It was always superstition that gave kings their might. The new church the Nebuchadnezzars planned to build in England would be the most powerful in history. It would make the Catholic Church, and all its authority, look like a scout hut meeting. Its atrocities would pale beside those the Nebuchadnezzars would commit. As in the Christian faith, the threat of suffering would hang over worshippers, and for non-believers it would be the same as the message conveyed by Yahweh – follow me or die. But unlike Christianity, the Nebuchadnezzars would carry out their threats. That was the only way to maintain control – terror.

Alfred drank another whisky and felt blurry. He wanted to grip the world in his fist and crush it. He was sure he would be doing that in the next few months. He was quaking with excitement, and he grew hard. He would have that young student brought to the office. He picked up the phone, but he was seeing double by now, and he fumbled with the receiver. It crashed to the floor. Alfred dropped his drink. It spilled everywhere. He fell to his knees. He was on all fours, scrabbling about, feeling dizzy, wanting to puke.

Not looking much like ruler of the world, he thought.

Something crackled. Static exploding in his head. He thought he might have broken his skull, because he had a terrible headache.

But then he realized the noise came from the walkie-talkie on his desk.

He got to his knees and reached for the transmitter.

A voice came through the interference, “Mr Fuad, Mr Fuad… ”

He answered, slurring, “What is it, Malik?”

“You need to come down. Something very big. Very big.”

The excitement in the dig supervisor’s voice sent pulses of adrenaline coursing through Alfred’s veins.

London – 12.45am, 18 May, 2011

GEORGE Fuad felt bloated with power. And he was hungry for more.

He grinned at Elizabeth Wilson and thought,
You’re fucked
.

Fucked leader of a fucked country. In thirty hours or so, the polls would open, the election would be under way, and Wilson and her country would be on the road to hell.

Near the door stood Christine Murray. She bristled with hatred, her eyes burning. She looked a bit of a mess.

He’d had the women woken up and hauled out of bed, s
o no wonder they looked bedraggled.

It wasn’t the first time he had called a meeting with Wilson in the run-up to the election. And to keep her on her toes, he had been dropping by at all hours. He could do that. He was in the ascendancy. She knew it, and he knew it. He wanted her to throw in the towel. He wanted to humiliate her. Force her to quit even before voting began. But she was holding on.  “Liz, sweetheart,” he said. “This is your last chance to drop out. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself, do you?”

She baulked, obviously hating the way he was speaking to her.

“Liz,” he continued. “You’re fucked, see. This time very early on Friday morning, I’m going to be pissing in your mouth – ”

“You’re a murderer and a liar,” said Murray.

“I am going to win the election – ”

“By murdering and lying,” said Murray.

“People will believe what they want to believe,” he said. “You got your truth, I got mine. We offer our respective truths to the voters, and they choose the version they like best.”

“Your truth is blood and death,” said Murray.

“Don’t be fucking melo
dramatic, darling.”

“Don’t darling me, you murderous – ”

“That’s enough, Christine,” said Liz Wilson.

“Yes, that’s enough, Christine,” said George.

“Mr Fuad,” said Wilson, “I won’t stand down, but can’t we come to some sort of accommodation after the election?”

He leaned back in the leather chair and scanned Liz Wilson’s office in the Millbank building. It was a paltry little hovel. Once he was master of the world, he’d live in golden palaces. He’d
surround himself with beautiful things. He would empty the mansions, the castles, and the churches, and fill his coffers with their treasures.

He’d be rich and powerful.

“Yeah,” he said, “if you’re not willing to step aside, we can certainly come to an accommodation, like, erm, Wandsworth Prison maybe. And you can rot there in a cell while I sort out this fucking country.”

Wilson paled.

At one stage he had considered the type of accommodation Wilson had in mind – a coalition.

She would have been a good partner because she was easily manipulated and reasonably presentable. It would have been one of those old-fashioned coalitions forged by marriage. He would have taken her as his queen. Then he would have locked her away in a castle somewhere while he romped his way through the British female population.

He’d not bedded enough birds recently. There had been a dry spell in the past few years. After his second marriage broke down, and he had started to focus fully on acquiring power, his desire for flesh dwindled while his hunger for power grew.

But now the cravings were back.

Kings should always spread their seed
, he thought. It was their responsibility. They had to keep the gene pool as potent as possible. They had to make sure there was an heir in place.

And Wilson was too old to produce a successor.

He’d lock her up in a castle as a traitor. Marry a young thing. Make a baby or two. Breed a boy. He’d make it a law that only males could inherit the empire. Then he’d produce some bastards. Distribute the Fuad DNA fairly.

“You’d be a fool,” said Wilson. “You can’t lock me up for no reason.”

“There would be a reason, Liz,” he said. “I don’t like you.”

“Have the bastard arrested, now, Prime Minister,” crowed Murray.

George laughed. “I’d like to see you try, Christine. Oh yes, that would be fun.” His face darkened. He was going for his serious look. He said, “The people are worried and distressed and scared.”

“You’ve caused that with your monsters,” said Murray.

George tutted. “You see, that’s
your
truth, not mine. Mine is that this catastrophe was brought about by people like you, Christine. You and your hired thug, Jake Lawton – ”

“Jake Lawton is the only one who cares and – ”

“Shut it,” he told Murray. She flinched. “Shut it and listen up, both you bitches.”

The women gawped.

He leapt to his feet.

He started to prowl the office.

He spoke.

“The water supply in London was poisoned by a disaffected member of my party, Bernard Lithgow, and now the people don’t know whether to drink it or not. Bernard has been punished.”

The women’s faces were a picture. Their jaws dropped. Their eyes widened. They were taking in George’s fable, his truth. And they were finding it difficult to stomach.

He didn’t care. He went on spinning his yarn.

“A deadly drug was distributed by another bad man, Afdal Haddad, who has also been dealt with – ”

“Dealt with out of a fifth floor window,” said Murray.

George ignored her.

“See, girls,” he said, “my message is clear – vampireophobia won’t be tolerated. It stokes the fires of hatred. It brings about more violence. We should respect the undead and how they live. And if they need to kill and feed now and again to survive, let them. We’ll use criminals and enemies of the state as a food supply. We’ll have public slayings. Traitors, murderers, rapists, thieves, perverts, they’ll be executed by vampires
. Keep the jails empty, won’t it? For people like you. Until it’s your turn.”

Murray leaned against the wall. She looked as white as
a sheet. Her mouth was opening and closing, trying to get words out. But none came.

Wilson managed to say something: “No one will allow that.”

“Who’ll stop me?” said George. “No one in Britain will stand in my way. And what’ll Europe do? They’ve already shut the borders. No Brits allowed into any EU country, now. And they’ve never been up for a fight, Europe, apart from Germany, when good old Adolf was in charge. Now they’re all fucking surrender monkeys.”

“America,” said Wilson, desperately.

“America, bollocks. Just like in World War Two, the Yanks’ll stay out of it –

until they’re attacked, of course. And
when
they’re attacked, it’ll be too late. They can fight back against the Japs, they can fight back against Al Qaeda. But they can’t fight back against my vampire armies.”

“You’re a fool,” said Murray. “Nothing more than a pantomime villain.”

“Boo, hiss,” said George. “Look at this country. It’s a mess. And the world’s not much better off. Everyone’s panicking. First, the economies teeter. Now, there’s a plague that can wipe out humanity. And you can’t produce an antibiotic to fight it. You can’t give people a jab. There’s no cure for it. There’s only submission. There’s only slavery. The world will fall, girls, and someone’s got to be on the ball, ready to pick up the pieces. And that’s me, my darlings.”

He grinned at them. Their hopes were dashed. Any tiny fleck of optimism they had was now gone.

But then Murray said, “There is a cure, you know.”

George creased his brow.

“Jake Lawton,” she said.

He bristled. A little bit of his strength ebbed away. Not enough to weaken him, but enough to irritate him.

“Lawton is the subject of countless contracts – humans and vampires are on his tail. I doubt he made it to Amsterdam.”

“I doubt you’re right, George,” said Murray, a smile forming on her lips.

For the first time in a while, George felt a little uneasy.