Kardinal (4 page)

THE two men who entered Alfred’s office uninvited were JJ Laxman and Howard Vince.

Laxman was in his fifties. He was a bear of a man. His coal-black hair was peppered with sand. He had a thick, black beard. A scar ran across his bronzed forehead, the result of a domestic. His wife had thrown an iron at him.

He ran White Light Ops, a private security firm. He was an ex-Royal Marine who’d seen action during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s and in the Falklands and Northern Ireland.

The other man was General Howard Vince, the former Chief of the General Staff in the UK. Vince was fat. To Alfred, he looked a little bit like Tony Soprano but lacked the Mafioso’s menace. For someone who had been a soldier, Vince didn’t look like he could fight his way out of a nursery school, let alone a hostile country – but apparently that’s what he had done in the Lebanon in the 1980s. He was part of a special forces team who’d gone into Beirut to find and rescue British hostages. The mission failed. The troops had to flee. Although it was never made public, the story Alfred heard said Vince and two colleagues had fought off fifty armed men.

As Laxman gave his daily security report, one thing was certain about Vince – he had grown to hate the mercenary, despite hiring him in the first place. Tensions between them had grown in the few months they had worked together on Alfred’s project.

White Light Ops, Laxman’s organization, came highly recommended. Vince and the mercenary fought together in the 1991 Gulf War.

Alfred had told Vince, “I need a man who would kill his own grandmother and not feel bad about it afterwards.”

Vince had said, “I know just the fellow.”

Alfred had said, “Whoever you hire, Howard, will be killed when this is done. If we find Nimrod, he’ll demand a sacrifice – and Laxman and his mugs are the perfect meat and potatoes for a hungry god.”

Laxman, sounding bored, was giving his security update: “No new security threats in Hillah or the surrounding area. All quiet in the region since the car bomb that killed 45 here in May last year. That’s your lot.”

Alfred grunted. Laxman left.

Vince said, “How close are we?”

Alfred scanned an Excel spreadsheet on his desktop. It was a report from his site supervisor detailing the depth they had reached. After studying the document for a few seconds he said, “Let’s go over to the site, take a look.”

Outside, the temperature had dropped. It was the middle of the night. It seemed to be the time when they worked best. Nebs liked the night, it was said, because they enjoyed seeing the vampires going about their killing.

The Euphrates streamed past the camp, and her tumbling waters filled the air with a great whooshing sound. Her roar dominated the pre-dawn silence. She made Alfred think about Eden. The Euphrates ran from the first garden. She had been there at the beginning, her waters quenching the thirst of the earliest civilizations – and now a new civilization would drink from her waters. Alfred felt excited.

They made their way along a terrace of pre-fab units. Floodlights illuminated the whole site. A pair of Laxman’s mercenaries strolled by.

They looked mean. Gorilla big. Faces creased with contempt. But they made him feel safe. They were the best comfort blanket he’d ever known.

They came to a high wire fence gate. A warning written in English, French, and Arabic said trespassers would be shot. An armed guard stood at the gate. Alfred and Vince flashed their IDs. Even though the guards recognized them, Laxman had ordered everyone to carry and show ID at all times.

Alfred’s excitement grew as he walked through the gate. Up ahead in the earth was a large hole, which had the circumference of a circus ring. The great drill towered above it. The machine was silent now. But in a few hours it would churn into the ground again.

Alfred and Vince reached the tape that marked the edge of the hole. They stared down. Alfred was tempted to scale the metal ladders attached to the side of the pit, and descend. He would tear through the earth with his hands to find Nimrod.

It was as if Vince had read his thoughts.

“Do you think he exists, Alfred?”

“Did you think vampires existed?”

“Always. Since my father told me.”

“And you believed what your father told you?”

“Why wouldn’t I believe I’m descended from a king? What a dream to have, to be regal. We have royal blood in our veins.”

“That’s one thing, but to believe in the undead is another.”

“Which you do – and I think you believe in Nimrod, too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

Alfred gazed into the abyss where a god lurked. He did believe it. And he believed that the god would bend to his will.

“There are creatures in this world that we know nothing about,” his father had told him and George once. “And those creatures are ours to control. They are vampires, boys. Night creatures. Immortal beings that live on human blood.”

As a nine year old, the story had filled him with dread. But his dad had told him and his brother they had nothing to fear from vampires. They were the masters of the undead, he’d said, “and one day, lads, you will be kings.”

“I hope you can control this thing if he’s down there,” said Vince.

“Of course we can. We need each other.”

Alfred listened to his own words but suddenly wasn’t convinced by them.

Why would a god need him?

He stared into the chasm. His belly heaved. He had the feeling that something was watching him.

“WHAT can you see?” said Aaliyah Sinclair.

Apostol Goga trained the powerful binoculars on the camp in the distance. The former Romanian security officer said nothing. Aaliyah shivered and pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulder. It was getting really cold. The temperature dropped to about nine degrees centigrade at night, sometimes lower. She was tired and wanted to sleep. But Goga insisted on holding a round-the-clock watch on Alfred Fuad’s camp.

They were crouching on the flat roof of a house on the outskirts of the town called Hillah. They had rented the property. It was built of compressed mud bricks, which had been whitewashed. The landscape around them was mostly green. It was nourished by the Euphrates.

About three miles away, Fuad had started to dig. His makeshift camp stood out in the darkness. Huge floodlights pointed quite clearly to the site. Fuad wasn’t worried about people knowing where he was. He had the authorities on his side. He had duped them, probably, thought Aaliyah.

She nudged Goga. “Did you hear me?”

“I am watching,” he said, eyes still fixed to the binoculars perched on a tripod. Goga had attached a night-vision lens on the equipment, so he could spy on Fuad after dark.

“All right,” said Aaliyah. “Let me look.”

She elbowed the Romanian out of the way. He grunted. Aaliyah pressed her eyes to the lens. She recoiled. The magnification was powerful. She could see the camp clearly. The single-storey structures covered a considerable area. Above them, the floodlights towered, spilling down their powerful beams. Vehicles were parked to the west of the site. Aaliyah clocked gleaming 4x4s and an Army truck.

The whole site had been constructed in less than a day by a team of military personnel. The equipment had been shipped from Dubai, and Aaliyah and Goga had tracked it after they’d arrived in the region. Soon after their arrival in Iraq, countries started to close their borders to anyone travelling from Britain. Governments were worried about the vampire plague. But what Fuad planned to dig out of the earth near Hillah sounded much worse than vampires.

Perhaps Goga had been right

“Forget Britain,” he’d told them all. “Britain is doomed now. You have to save the rest of the world. Find and destroy the god of vampires. Kill Nimrod, and every vampires dies.”

Aaliyah fell for Goga’s pitch. She had a future planned with Jake. A future without death and blood. Dreams of Jake and her living an idyllic life. And Goga’s promise of a world without vampires made that future possible. So she’d abandoned Jake. She’d turned her back on him so they could be together. So she could live her dream.

But Jake had wanted to stay and fight for Britain, not fight for them – for her and him. Her heart ached. Maybe he didn’t love her like she loved him. Maybe he didn’t see the same future she did.

And now, to make matters worse, there were rumours that he was dead.

The idea made her sick. Life without Lawton would be meaningless.

But they were only rumours, she kept telling herself. She would remain hopeful until someone showed her his dead body. Because until you knew for sure that Jake Lawton was dead, you couldn’t believe it. She’d seen him go through hell. She’d seen him fight monsters. She’d seen him survive impossible odds. He was alive, she was sure of it. Alive and coming for her.

“What are we going to do?” she asked Goga. “Let’s tell the authorities.”

“They are aligned with Fuad. He has tricked them. We have to do this ourselves.”

“Just you and me?”

“Who else is there?”

“If we wait, Jake will come.”

“We cannot wait for him,” said Goga. “Fuad will not wait. Nimrod will not wait.”

“We can’t on our own – ”

“It is not only Jake Lawton who can kill monsters.”

He put on a pair of aviator-style sunglasses and strode towards the stairs running down the side of the house. He slung his black cane over his shoulder as he descended. His footsteps were heavy and angry.

Hyde Park, London – 6pm (GMT), 17 May, 2011

GEORGE Fuad put his feet up on the table in his trailer.

He gazed up at the flat-screen TV bracketed to the wall, and he smiled.

The smile became a chuckle. The chuckle became a laugh. The laugh nearly threw him off his couch.

The TV screen showed 10,000 people crammed into Hyde Park. They had come to the rally to hear him speak.

Members of George’s United Party mingled with the crowds. You could spot them. They carried large white banners, emblazoned with a red U. The flag bearers were mostly Nebuchadnezzars. But other citizens were joining the campaign. People are picking the winning side, thought George. They could see what was going to happen, and they didn’t want to be on the wrong side come the revolution.

George got up and poured himself a drink. He gazed out of the trailer window. It was a bright day over London. Hyde Park wasn’t what it used to be. The grass was overgrown. There was litter everywhere. The gates and fences were rusted and broken. The buildings were boarded up. But at least today it offered glimpses of its former glory – it was packed with people. People who had come to hear him lie to them.

He laughed.

The locals loved a good lie.

He rubbed his chest proudly. He felt strong and powerful. The world was within his grasp. Three months ago, he had been convinced his dream was over. Vampires and humans had battled in the streets of London.

And humans, it seemed, had won the day.

They had fought back as vampires over-ran the streets.

They had fought back as poisoned water turned more of them into the undead.

They had fought back as the Nebuchadnezzars had Britain in their clutches.

They had driven the vampires back into the shadows. They forced the Nebuchadnezzars into hiding. They reclaimed Britain.

But the country was ruined.

And the excitement of victory over the vampires quickly faded. The interim government’s honeymoon period hadn’t lasted long. Soon, the people were in revolt again. They were fed up of having no jobs, no food, no water.

And George stepped into the breach.

He saw how desperate people were. He saw their anger. They were looking for someone to blame for the vampire plague and for their miserable lives.

So George gave them someone.

“It is people like Jake Lawton,” he’d said in an early broadcast, “who have brought this misery upon us. Many say he’s the hero. But that’s a lie. He is the villain. He is the aggressor. He angered vampires who had innocently appeared in Britain. He attacked them. And what do you do when you are attacked? You fight back. What would you do?”

Thinking back to that speech, he smiled. He took a sip of his drink and swilled it in his mouth. A speaker had taken the podium. Her voice echoed through the sound system. Checking the programme on his desk, George saw that she was called Leeza Dervish. She used to be an anti-war campaigner. She was an anti-anything campaigner, as long as it meant opposing America or Britain, or Western principles such as capitalism and democracy.

Just my kind of girl, thought George.

“Jake Lawton’s a killer,” Dervish was saying. “He was part of the occupying forces in Iraq, who killed thousands of innocent Iraqis” – she was really shrieking into the microphone – “and now that he’s killed enough humans, he’s turning on another species – a rare, beautiful species. A species that is related to us, that is almost us. An ancient species that has the same rights to this earth as we do. This man Lawton is not a hero. Support the United Party. Bring vampires and humans together.”

The crowd roared its approval.

George laughed and thought what idiots they were.

This was going like a dream.

It was so easy to dupe people. When they were desperate, they would believe anything. When their hate burned strongly, all you had to do was stoke it gently.

Dervish continued to speak: “What if Lawton’s victims were gay or black or women? Then we would be up in arms. Then we would join forces against his fascism. I say vampires are the new oppressed. They are the new victims of Western imperialism. I say stand up for the vampire. Stand up against the Jake Lawtons of this world. Stand with the U.P. and George Fuad.”

The crowd was in a frenzy. Their cheers washed across Hyde Park.

Someone knocked on the door, and a pretty blonde head appeared. “Five minutes, Mr Fuad.”

“Thank you, Jade,” said George. “You want to come in here and speak to me for a few minutes?”

“
I’m actually quite busy, Mr – ”

“
I said, come in here and speak to me for a few minutes, Jade.”

She was a slim, pretty thing, aged about twenty. She had pale skin and bright blue eyes and was delicate. George liked them delicate. They snapped more easily.

He smiled at her. “Now then,” he said, starting to undo his chinos. “I want to go over a few things with you before I wow the crowds.”

Jade quailed. “No, please don’t make me – ”

“You know what’ll happen to you, Jade.” He grabbed her arm, and with his other hand plucked at the protective red mark on her collar. “I’ll throw you to the vampires, darling. And without this, you know what’ll happen to your pretty little veins, don’t you? There, now. Seeing sense. Down you go, darling.” George put his hand on her head and pushed her down.

After he was finished with Jade, her lips were bleeding, and blood and semen were smeared across her mouth. He gripped her chin and looked at her pretty, soiled face. He liked the mess he’d made of her. He slapped her gently across the cheek and said, “Go fuck someone else – make yourself useful.”

After he’d dismissed her, George pulled on his jacket and adjusted his tie. Outside, a voice boomed from the sound system: “And our next speaker needs no introduction… ”

Nerves suddenly gripped him. It always happened moments before he had to speak publicly. He wasn’t used to it. George had preferred to be in the background, planning and conspiring. But over the past few years, a real hunger for power had burned in him. Still, speaking to thousands of people made his balls shrivel.

His old mate Bernard Lithgow would have been good at this. Lithgow was smarmy and sly. He was a barrister, skilled at lying in front of an audience. But that bastard Lawton had killed him while Lithgow was trying to poison the London water system with vampire DNA produced by Dr Afdal Haddad. It was the old doctor who had gathered all the Nebuchadnezzars together in the first place. He’d produced Skarlet, the pill that created the first London vampires in 2008. But Haddad showed a lack of vision. He only wanted to rule Britain. George wanted to rule the world. And no one was going to stand in his way. His plan was to control a vampire army, and leading them would be Nimrod.

He mentally urged his brother to get a move on and excavate the Great Hunter.

Make our dreams come true, Alfred, he thought.

In Hyde Park, the crowd cheered when the announcer said George’s name. He left his trailer and strolled along the wooden walkway towards the stage area. The noise of the crowd grew. It made George shudder with excitement. By the time he walked on to the stage, the noise was like thunder, and it seemed to shake the whole earth.

George lifted his hands to greet the crowd.

They cheered even louder.

He loved politics.