As he came closer to it, Jack frowned, realising the true nature of the dome-shaped building.
It was an observatory.
Jack stepped inside a huge hemispherical space.
It was old and grimy and built mainly of concrete, another classic product of the Soviet era. And it smelled like an old hospital, stark yet sterile at the same time. A gigantic silver telescope dominated the space, pointing up and out through a gap in the top of the dome. Unlike everything else here, it was modern and new, state-of-the-art.
‘Ah-ha, here he is! West the Younger,’ a voice intoned, echoing in the space. It spoke in English, hut the accent was Russian.
A lone man, older, around sixty, stepped out from behind the telescope, stopping in front of Jack as if he were the host of a dinner party greeting a guest.
Jack recognised him instantly. It was hard not to.
The exposed silver mass of steel that formed the man’s left lower jaw was both horrifying and unique. His eyes were grey orbs that moved constantly: they took in Jack entirely, as if they were evaluating every part of him, every muscle, every muscle’s potential.
Then the man with the steel jaw looked deep into Jack’s eyes, and it was as if he were assessing the potential inside Jack—his brains, his resolve, his courage.
Only then did the man with the steel jaw blink.
‘Welcome to my humble facility, West the Younger,’ he said. ‘My name is General Vladimir Karnov of the Federalnaya Sluzhha Bezopasnosti, the FSB, but you probably know me by a different name: Carnivore.’
‘Where are Lily and Zoe?’ Jack demanded.
‘Patience, West the Younger. You will be reunited with them in good time. Please, come this way.’ Carnivore began guiding Jack around the great telescope.
‘I’ve been watching you for some time, you know. You’re a brave one; smart, too, like your father. But unlike him, you have a curious propensity for loyalty, which leads you to perform reckless and unnecessary acts. Like your assault a month ago on my friend Mordechai Muniz’s little lair in Israel.’
Jack glanced sharply at Carnivore. ‘How could you know about—?’
‘Oh, how you angered old Mordechai,’ Carnivore chuckled. ‘Didn’t your father ever tell you: never anger a man who collects men for pleasure.’
Jack caught his breath. After they’d rescued Stretch from Mordechai Muniz, Pooh Bear had told him that Muniz had mentioned he’d learned his technique of ‘live-imprisonment’ from an ex-Soviet general, a man with whom Muniz had ‘a friendly competition going’ in the collection of human beings.
Jack breathed. ‘You’re—’
‘Yes, I am,’ Carnivore smiled like a crocodile as they walked around the telescope. ‘I am the one who taught the Old Master his technique of collecting people; I like to call such tanks “living tombs”. But that is not my only interest. I have also been a keen observer of your exploits over the years—from re-erecting the Capstone of the Great Pyramid to your efforts in recent months to rebuild the mythic Machine. As I said, I’ve been watching you for a long time.’
With those words, Carnivore led Jack fully around the massive telescope—
—and Jack stopped dead in his tracks.
Arrayed around the long curving wall of the old observatory were no less than fifteen reinforced water tanks filled with murky green liquid and the shadowy outlines of human beings shackled inside them.
‘Mother of . . . ’ Jack breathed.
Only that wasn’t the end of it.
Further along the curved wall, Jack saw a collection of more prisoners, all standing wearily against the ceramic wall, manacled to it by sturdy ringbolts:
Zoe.
Astro.
Wolf, Rapier and the Neetha warlock.
Lily stood off to one side, unchained, but not going anywhere.
All nabbed at Hokkaido, just like Jack himself.
But it didn’t stop there.
Carnivore had been busy indeed. The veterans of the Vertex at Hokkaido weren’t the only prisoners he had gathered here. There were more, also chained to the wall:
Mao Gongli from China—last seen in Mongolia.
Agent Paul Robertson of the CIA, who had been at the meeting in Dubai when Astro had been planted in Jack’s team; Robertson had last been seen at Mortimer Island.
Sky Monster and Tank Tanaka—Carnivore must have found them in the Halicarnassus near Vladivostok.
Vulture, the Saudi spy.
And Scimitar, Pooh Bear’s treacherous older brother who was in league with Vulture.
Jack recalled when he’d last seen them. They’d video-called him, claiming to have abducted—
Carnivore seemed to enjoy the look of shock on Jack’s face. He went over to a workbench set up near the prisoners.
On it was the Philosopher’s Stone, taken from Wolf at Hokkaido. The Firestone, however, which had also been in Wolf’s possession, was not with it.
Carnivore turned to one of his guards, who sat at a communications console. ‘Do we have contact with Young West’s cohorts in the United Kingdom?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The guard flicked on a larger screen, allowing Jack to see Pooh Bear, Stretch and the twins on it, all facing the camera and all covered by armed Royal Marines. Iolanthe sat with them.
‘Miss Iolanthe,’ Carnivore bowed. ‘How do you do?’
‘I am very well, thank you, cousin,’ Iolanthe replied.
Cousin? Jack thought.
‘Has the Firestone arrived there yet?’ Carnivore asked Iolanthe.
‘I’m told that it just landed at Stansted. I’ll be collecting it shortly,’ Iolanthe said.
‘Very good,’ Carnivore turned back to Jack. ‘Long have I known about the mission to rebuild the Machine. Long have I lived in secret, working for a vile regime while disguising my royal roots, waiting for precisely this moment. My family is old and noble, older than those communist brutes who stole Russia from my grandfather, the last tsar. My name is not Karnov, but Romanov, and like Miss Iolanthe, my heritage derives from the most noble source, the Deus Rex.’
With a look at Jack, Carnivore pulled something from inside his coat.
It was a Pillar.
Jack saw five horizontal lines inscribed on it: the Fifth one. It was also clear, not hazy. Carnivore must have already cleansed it with the Philosopher’s Stone and the Firestone, before dispatching the Firestone to Iolanthe. Carnivore placed it on the workbench beside the Philosopher’s Stone.
Jack’s mind raced to keep up. He recalled the briefing he and Lily had received at Pine Gap about Carnivore.
Vladimir Karnov—no, Romanov—had been a high-ranking member of the KGB. He had come to prominence in the West when he’d blown the whistle on the KGB’s plot to overthrow Gorbachev in the dying days of the USSR, a move that had cemented his future in the FSB when it replaced the KGB after the demise of the Soviet Union.
For all that time, Jack guessed, no-one in Russia had known of Carnivore’s Romanov blood. Duping the KGB—the same force that under another name, the Cheka, had hunted down his royal ancestors—must have given him great pleasure.
Carnivore said, ‘But now, people, this great quest has reached a critical juncture, a point at which I must intervene.’
Carnivore gazed at them all: at Jack and his people, at Wolf, Rapier and Robertson, at Mao, Vulture and Scimitar.
‘You all work for me now,’ he said. ‘And mark my words, you will give me what I want.’
Jack was manacled to the wall alongside the others. Carnivore strolled lazily in front of them.
‘So here you are, the great nations of the world, the players in this grand game.’
He paused before Mao Gongli. ‘Power-hungry China.’
Then Vulture: ‘The wealthy but worthless Saudis.’
To Scimitar: ‘The robber-barons of Dubai.’
To Wolf, Rapier and Robertson: ‘The Freemasons of America and their leaders, the illustrious Caldwell Group.’
To Tank: ‘The pride
-wounded Japanese, the ones who performed the counter-ceremony with the second Capstone and thus undid Tartarus. So filled with hate. But since you want to see the world destroyed, I fear I have no use for you—’
The gunshot made everyone jump. Carnivore had raised a pistol quickly and a grisly star of blood splattered the wall behind Tank’s head. The old Japanese professor slumped, hanging from his manacles, dead.
Carnivore holstered the gun and kept strolling, hardly even blinking.
He resumed his casual tone as he addressed Jack and Zoe:
‘And let us not forget the dogged coalition of small nations that fights to protect the world from succumbing to a single tyrannical overlord.’
‘Finally, there is my bloodline, the royal families of Europe, the Deus Rex, our ruling status bequeathed to us by the Lord God himself, our connection to these Pillars perhaps the longest standing of all.’
Carnivore walked over to his collection of water tanks.
Jack found himself glancing at some of the figures inside the tanks: men and women of various ages, their heads bowed, their hair floating in aqueous slow motion, all still alive.
Most of them Jack didn’t recognise. But some he did.
A female Russian journalist who had been critical of the Putin regime and who had gone missing in 2001. Her flame-red hair was unmistakable.
The Chechen separatist leader Nikolai Golgov: his famous black dragon tattoo was visible on his chest.
Jack grimaced in revulsion at the horrific series of display cases.
Carnivore stopped at the end of the line of tanks, beside a pair of large sliding doors. He turned. ‘You know, West the Younger, I really ought to thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘Our royal records regarding the Machine only go so far. But our tentacles spread wide and deep. Under the guise of university endowments and scholarships, over the years my family has employed numerous academics and historians to unearth information and evidence concerning the Machine. Our best researcher actually disappeared a few years ago in Africa, and we thought her dead. But then late last year, your people rescued her from the fabled Neetha tribe.’
Jack breathed, ‘No way. . . ’
Carnivore grinned as he opened one of the doors and Diane Cassidy walked into the observatory.
Diane nodded at Jack. ‘Hello, Jack.’
‘Son of a bitch . . . ’
‘There is nothing you have done this last month that I have not been aware of,’ Carnivore said. ‘Dr Cassidy here has kept me informed of everything you have seen, heard and discovered since the Second Vertex.’
‘Once she informed us that she was with you, I told her to help you, knowing that it was not yet time for me to enter this quest. I mean, why should I waste my energies when you can waste yours for me?’
Jack glared at Diane Cassidy. It had never occurred to him that his people might have rescued one of their rivals from the Neetha.
‘We all work for someone,’ Diane said to him.
‘Lily may be right. We should be more careful about who we rescue,’ he replied.
Diane jerked her chin at the Neetha warlock, now addressing Carnivore. ‘This one is like the Japanese: he desires the end of the Earth. He should be eliminated.’
Carnivore nodded. ‘I know. I also know what his people did to you. But he would make such an exotic addition to my collection. I think I’ll entomb him.’
Diane glared at the warlock. ‘Good enough.’
Carnivore stopped beside the other large sliding door. ‘Now you’re all probably wondering how I will coerce you into acting on my behalf. Wonder no more.’
With a thin smile, he slid the big door open to reveal several more imprisonment-tanks, half-filled with formaldehyde and filling quickly.
Already spreadeagled inside those tanks were more prisoners.
Jack caught his breath. ‘Jesus H. Christ . . . ’
In the first tank, waist-deep in the foul green liquid, naked and handcuffed, with a half-face mouthpiece covering his mouth and nose, his eyes wide with fear, was the rotund figure of Sheik Anzar al Abbas, Pooh Bear and Scimitar’s father.
In the next pair of tanks was a small Chinese child and his mother. At the sight of them, Mao Gongli gasped.
And in the final pair of half-filled tanks were—
Alby Calvin and his mother, Lois.
‘No. . . ’ Jack said. ‘No, no, no. . .’
Jack just stared at Alby and Lois.
Above the breathing regulators covering the lower halves of their faces, their eyes met his, pleading with him to save them.
Jack flashed a look at Carnivore. ‘You son of a—’
‘Don’t blame me, Young West.’ Carnivore nodded at Vulture and Scimitar: ‘It was they who kidnapped the boy and his mother, presumably to blackmail you. I merely acquired them later when I grabbed the Arabs.’
Jack’s deadly glare turned to Vulture and Scimitar.
‘When this is over,’ he said to them, ‘we’re going to have words.’
‘Take a number, Jack,’ Pooh Bear said from the screen. ‘Hello, brother,’ he said to Scimitar. ‘It’s been a while since you betrayed our father and our mission and left me to die in that mine.’
Scimitar glanced over at their father, imprisoned in his tank. At first he seemed shocked, but then shock morphed into boldness. ‘I know better than both of you.’
Carnivore chuckled. ‘Ah, infighting, I love it! Love it!’ Then he got back to business, addressing the group of prisoners manacled to the wall: Jack, Zoe, Wolf, Robertson, Rapier, Mao, Scimitar and Vulture.
‘My proposed bargain is this. You will give to me all the Pillars that you already possess: the Pillar of Knowledge from the First Vertex, and that of Heat from the Second—’
The CIA man, Robertson, snorted. ‘Not a chance.’
Carnivore sighed . . .
. . . and just drew his pistol again and shot Robertson in the forehead at close range. Robertson’s head exploded as it slammed back against the wall, showering Rapier beside him in blood and brain matter.
Carnivore holstered the gun and continued speaking as if a cold blooded murder had not just taken place.
‘As I was saying, you will give me the first two Pillars. . . ’
Wolf nodded. So did Vulture.
‘Good. I have already taken the Pillar of Sight from West the Elder, after he emerged from the Third Vertex in Japan with it. Its reward is most interesting to those who know its full potential.
‘Plus, you will lay for me the next two Pillars: the Fourth and the Fifth. . . ’
‘But you already possess those two,’ Jack said. ‘Iolanthe has the Fourth and you have the Fifth.’
‘Yes,’ Carnivore said, ‘but I do not possess the locations of their corresponding Vertices.’
Carnivore turned to Wolf: ‘The United States controls the Fifth Vertex, do they not? You have held it since 1973 on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.’
Wolf clenched his jaw. ‘We do.’
‘And all you need is the Pillar.’
‘That’s right.’
Carnivore turned to the video screen, addressing the twins, Pooh Bear and Stretch. ‘And you, loyal footsoldiers of West the Younger. You found the Basin in the British Museum and uncovered the Spring of the Black Poplar, did you not? Have you also found the location of the Fourth Vertex, long lost to history, even to our extensive royal records?’
Lachlan said evenly, ‘We know where it is, yes.’
‘Then this is what you will do,’ Carnivore said. ‘You will cleanse Iolanthe’s Fourth Pillar in the sacred springwater in the Basin and take it to the Fourth Vertex, where you shall overcome that Vertex’s deadly protections and plant the Pillar. Then you will return the charged Pillar to my royal relatives in Britain. When this is done, and only when this is done, Sheik Abbas will be released from his imprisonment. If it is not, he spends the rest of his days floating in my presence.’
On the scr
een, Pooh Bea r swallowed.
Carnivore said, ‘After the Fourth Pillar is cleansed in the Basin, the Basin itself and some springwater will be dispatched to meet the Fifth Pillar at Diego Garcia, where West the Elder will use his influence in the US military to warrant its safe passage into and out of the American base there.’