The Camelot Code (22 page)

Blossom blows across the courtyard as Owain makes his way from Myrddin’s quarters to the main part of the castle.

Ahead of him, lost in thought, is Lance Beaucoup. His head down as he walks, Owain is sure his mind is on Jennifer and what kind of future lies ahead for them.

‘
Bonjour
,’ he says when only a yard away.

Lance turns in shock. His eyes glisten with guilt. He quickly tries to recover his composure. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. Good morning, when did you get back from London?’

‘Just in,’ Owain lies. ‘I wanted to make an early start because we have the Blood Line meeting this afternoon.’

Lance glances at his watch. ‘Some of the older members arrived yesterday evening. I heard them talk of going to watch the new recruits training, then a walk down to the lake.’

Owain smiles. ‘It brings back memories for them. As it will for you one day.’

He laughs and relaxes a little. ‘I want to forget my training. All those weeks out in the wild with nothing to eat or drink.’ He pulls a face. ‘Give me a five-star hotel and fine dining any day.’

‘I agree. Though I now have to take care I don’t turn too soft in my older years.’

They walk together along the foot of the castle wall and Lance makes small talk. ‘How were things in London? As chaotic as I imagine?’

‘Almost. The Cabinet is next to useless and the Prince of Wales wanted to see me twice a day for updates on the Eurostar bombing.’

Lance opens a door from the courtyard to the southern wing. ‘An over-interested patron is not always the best thing.’

Owain walks inside. ‘
Interest
, no matter how intense, is always better than a lack of interest.’

‘
Je comprends
.’

‘HRH also wants to join our Inner Circle.’

‘Figuratively?’

‘No. He really wants to take part, to get involved.’

Lance stops walking. ‘What did you tell him?’

Owain halts as well. ‘That I would put it forward for consideration.’

‘And are you in favour?’

‘I’m still deciding.’ He starts them walking again. ‘As well as his considerable wealth, which as you know is an important weapon in any war, the prince has enormous domestic and international influence.’

‘Today’s influence turns into tomorrow’s interference.’

‘You may be right.’ Owain changes the subject. ‘Were you with Jennifer last night?’ He lets the question hang until he sees his colleague tense up. ‘Only I called her mobile and she didn’t answer, and I couldn’t get through on the landline.’

Lance has to hide his anxiety. ‘Yes. I saw her for dinner. We were with Myrddin. I didn’t hear any phone call.’

‘How strange.’ He changes his tone. ‘You know that when I am not here, I really count on you looking after her. You realize that, don’t you, Lance?’

His heart thumps hard. ‘I do.’

Owain gives him a hearty shoulder punch. ‘Good man. I knew I could trust you.’

The hotel receptionist finishes dealing with an elderly Chinese couple, and then manages a welcoming smile for the smart-suited executive next in line. ‘Hello, can I help you?’

The dark-haired visitor looks at her name badge as he produces his ID. ‘I hope you can, Kata. I’m DCI Mark Warman from the Metropolitan Police. Can I see your manager, please?’

The young Hungarian presses a button beneath the desk. ‘I get him for you.’

‘Thanks.’ He senses a personal nervousness beyond any that his request should have prompted. Fortunately for her, he’s not interested in checking her immigration papers.

A portly man appears, dressed in a brown wool suit that looks at least a size too small. He straightens his tie and introduces himself. ‘Jonathan Dunbar, hotel manager. You asked to see me?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He edges away from queuing guests and is joined by a young woman in her thirties who’s been hanging back. He shows his credentials again. ‘DCI Warman. DS Jackson and I are from SO15, the counter-terrorism unit. We have an interest in two of your guests.’

Dunbar’s face turns pale.

‘Americans,’ adds Jackson. She produces two photographs from inside her lightweight red blazer. ‘The woman is Mitzi Fallon, a brunette in her late thirties. Her colleague is Jon Bronty, a thin man, with chestnut hair.’

‘I’ve seen them,’ he says nervously. ‘They checked in yesterday. They had FBI credentials.’

She smiles understandingly. ‘Credentials aren’t always genuine. Are they here now?’

‘I really don’t know. I’ll have to find out.’

Warman’s eyes grow intense. ‘Don’t tell them we’re here. We don’t want things to get … how shall we say…
compli
cated
.’ He opens his jacket slightly, lets Dunbar see the Met-issue pistol in its holster.

The manager scurries back behind the front desk. He talks to the receptionist, checks a computer then returns. ‘They’ve just left. No more than ten minutes ago.’

Warman looks relieved. ‘Can you take us to their rooms?’

Dunbar seems surprised. ‘Certainly.’ Then his left eye twitches nervously. ‘You don’t think there are explosives in there, do you?’

‘Highly unlikely. If we did, we’d have the bomb squad with us.’

‘Right.’ He stands frozen to the spot.

‘Now can you take us, please?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He jumps into action. ‘I have a master key. Follow me.’

They ride the elevator to the top floor and Dunbar strides down the carpeted corridor ahead of them. ‘Rooms 602 and 604 are theirs.’ He slips a key card into both slots and pushes the doors open. ‘Do you need me to come in with you?’

‘No, that’s not necessary, sir,’ says Warman. ‘Not unless you wish to?’

‘Er, no. No thank you. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’ He smiles and walks away.

Warman pulls his pistol and checks it. ‘Ten minutes, then we have to be out of here.’

Jackson nods.

‘We don’t want to give that dope long enough to think about actually calling the Yard and checking our credentials.’

To Mitzi’s dismay, there’s still no DNA profile from the water bottle she stole from George Dalton at Gwyn’s office.

There’s more than a hint of fear in Annie Linklatter’s voice as she promises, ‘I’ll have it by the end of the day.’

Mitzi gives her a parting glower and returns to the small office she and Bronty have commandeered.

The ex-priest looks up from his spread of papers and maps. ‘Any luck?’

‘Don’t freakin’ well ask. The Brits move at a pace that predates modern civilization.’

He laughs at her. ‘She’s
American
.’

‘No matter. It’s being over here that’s made her slow. What are you doing?’

‘Come and see.’ He flattens out a large Ordnance Survey map and places a page of A4 paper next to it. ‘I’ve been thinking about this passage of text in
The Fallen
:
It is hereby decreed that in the homeland the place of rest will for ever be where the great Celts cross and where the bards stand alone to deliver their eulogies.’

She reads it and then confesses,
‘
Aside from the Celtic cross, it means nothing to me.’

‘I don’t think it means cross as in crucifix. I think it refers to a point where Celtic clans or borders crossed, the Irish and the Welsh cross.’

‘A physical place.’

He taps the map. ‘Here. It’s a place that the Knights Templar once owned.’

She stares at a fingernail of an island off the west coast of Britain. ‘Lundy? I’ve never heard of it.’

Bronty looks animated. ‘This might well be where holy knights were buried. It’s the spot where the Celtic Sea hits the Bristol Channel.’

Mitzi studies the map. ‘The place looks tiny. It can’t be more than five miles long and maybe a mile wide?’

‘Less than that. The text refers to “…
where the bards stand alone to deliver their eulogies
…”, well there’s a cemetery out there and I can’t imagine a more isolated place in Europe to say kind words over the body of a fallen brother.’ He moves to the computer. ‘Now look at what I found.’ He pulls up a web page featuring the island. ‘Lundy is owned by the National Trust and leased to the Landmark Trust, to protect it from being built on or exploited.’

‘So?’

‘Look at the bottom.’

Mitzi reads aloud, ‘“British diplomat Sir Owain Gwyn is a leading contributor to both Trusts and a patron of numerous Lundy support groups.”’

‘So, if there are secrets out there,’ says Bronty, ‘then Gwyn is well positioned to protect them.’

‘You need go snoop. How far away is it from here?’

‘I feared you’d say that. It’s a good two hundred miles and a ferry boat ride.’

Mitzi smiles. ‘You better get booking your trip, then.’

Members of the Blood Line have come from all over Britain, France and Belgium, the old countries that produced the original knights and centuries-long allegiances that constituted the Round Table.

Each of the honoured warriors shows no documentation at the armed checkpoints. Instead, their fingers are pricked by SSOA guards at the lodge gates and blood matched on special DNA passes that both they and the security teams hold. Once ID’d by haematology, Knights of the Blood Line are given complete freedom of the castle and its grounds.

A small group winds its way to the woods, where newly recruited knights are trained in hand-to-hand combat by former SAS commanders. Nearby, bursts of gunfire crackle inside a single-storey row of outbuildings. Every member of the Blood Line has done his or her time inside the dense labyrinth of darkened rooms where simulated hostage recovery operations are staged.

Back at the castle, Owain Gwyn enters Keep Hall and settles at the middle of one of four exceptionally long tables butted together to form not a circle but a perfect square. A hundred and fifty high-back thrones are arranged symmetrically. Each bears the individual family crest of a member.

The one behind Owain’s head shows a white shield and on it a red cross, identical in shape to crosses laid on the bodies of fallen knights. In the top left quadrant is an open-mouthed red dragon. In the bottom right, a large brown bear. The other two are filled with three golden crowns and a round wooden table.

Owain looks up from the centuries-old, wooden-bound book that is spread open before him. Old timers are filtering in for the meeting. They’re always the first. The new Bloods will predictably breeze in, ruddy-cheeked, just in the nick of time.

The head of the SSOA leaves his seat and shakes the hands of Terry Lyons, descendant of Tristram de Lyones and Gerry Erbin, descendant of Sir Geraint. Others form an orderly queue behind them and Owain spends the next fifteen minutes personally welcoming every member of the Blood Line.

Finally, Myrddin enters, and as is his custom and right, he locks the great doors of the hall by jamming a broadsword through the hoops of two iron handles and takes his seat by the door.

Owain Gwyn looks across the vast tables to the faces of the great and the good. A hundred and fifty men and women whose ancestors lived and died for their common belief in freedom and fairness.

‘Great members of the Blood Line, I thank you for travelling long and far to come here to our home at such short notice. My dear friends and colleagues, you know I wouldn’t ask for this assembly if it wasn’t to discuss matters of a most extraordinary nature.’ He watches seriousness creep across faces, notes the tension in tightly folded arms and fidgeting hands. ‘You know from the Watch Team bulletins the growing threats our countries face. And you know, too, of how our operational knights are fighting the old enemy Mardrid as he pays organizations like al-Qaeda to sow the seeds of discontent so he may reap the rewards of a bloody harvest. As this man increases his power base in the developed world, so too does he exploit the poorest nations, where he is using thuggery to rob generations of their future.’

Mutters break out among the venerable members, many of whom are old enough to remember the atrocities Mardrid’s father and grandfather carried out in Ethiopia, Uganda and Rhodesia.

Owain waits until they grow quiet, then continues. ‘The Inner Circle asks for you to ratify their decision to send crusaders to Africa to ensure no free man, woman or child falls victim to Mardrid, his men or machinations. Two hundred of our knights are on standby to enter Togo, the scene of Mardrid-initiated rape, murder, torture and arson. A thousand more are being mustered as we speak.’

Percy del Graal, descendant of Sir Percivale, raises his hand. ‘Has NATO been informed, Sir Owain?’

‘They have been appraised. None of the treaty members is stirred enough to send its own troops. Country defence budgets are cut to the bone. We have the tacit approval of the General Secretary.’ He looks around the tables. ‘Any more questions?’

Heads shake.

‘Then, great members of the Blood Line, I respectfully ask you to favour the Inner Circle’s decree in the form of the crusade I proposed. Do I have your support?’

All one hundred and fifty members clench their fists and put hands to their hearts.

‘I thank you one and all.’ Owain dips a quill into an inkpot and records the vote in the great ledger laid before him and adds the date, his name and his own seal. He carefully blots the entry, downs the ancient pen and returns his gaze to the assembled members.

‘Dear friends, there is one other reason why I asked you here today.’ Unexpectedly, he feels emotional. He catches his heart thump and his throat dry. He looks to Myrddin and sees the old man wiping an eye. Across the tables, others are already discreetly touching their faces. Owain forces a brave smile and soldiers on. ‘I see some of you have guessed what I am about to say. The gates of Avalon are opening for me and I am readying myself for that great journey.’ There are gasps but he daren’t look up to put faces to sounds. ‘Today may be the last time I stand here with you, the last chance I have to thank you for your friendship —’

Someone shouts, ‘No! It is too soon.’

He halts the emotion with a raised hand. ‘I wish that were the case. I am afraid, the hour is always later than we think. May God bless you and protect you and your families, and may your blood lines run rich and run long.’