“Known or suspected members of the Priory of Sion, and known NOJ agents in London, then England, then Britain, then France,” Michael said. “Not that we could get all of them. Many will be unknown, many I couldn’t get mug shots for.”
“Don’t see a face I recognize here. Oh, good holiday snaps.” Serrin chuckled as he dropped the stack and picked up another.
“Various locations of possible significance,” Michael muttered. “You see what I mean? It takes forever to discover what we’re looking-Serrin what’s wrong?”
Serrin had suddenly gone even paler than usual and clutched the chromalin in his hands like a drowning man hanging on to a length of wood to keep himself afloat. Michael stopped in his tracks and went over to have a look.
“That’s her,” Serrin said in a whisper. “In every detail.”
“Good Lord,” Michael said. “What the-”
“You downloaded it,” Serrjn said, staring at him. “You tell me.”
Michael checked the codes and was rattled when he found the source of the picture.
“It’s a statue,” he said.
“Obviously,” Serrin said impatiently
“In the chapel building at Rennes-le-Chateau.”
“Go on.”
“Rennes-le-Chateau is just up the road from Clermont-Ferrand. It’s sacred to the Priory of Sion-well, sort of. It’s a tiny little village. You want more details? The demon over the chapel door and the warning written in Latin?”
“A demon on a chapel?”
“You got it,” Michael said. “This is no ordinary house of the Lord, not according to this.” He handed over the relevant pages.
“I think you’re going to have some background to take to Herr Hessler, Serrin.”
11
“I had no idea this was here” Geraint said as he followed Streak through the narrow, hot tunnels.
“Course you ain’t,” Streak said reasonably. “It’s people like me who have maps of such places. I could take you out in Bayswater if you wanted. Well, more or less. Will South Ken do? It’s where the Westwind’s waiting, so it’s probably a good move.”
They didn’t argue. Serrin had done his best to protect them from magical surveillance with extended masking, and at last they found themselves ascending steps, waltzing past a security inspector Streak seemed to know personally, and into the underground garage. The sleek dark blue Westwind was to all appearances merely a slightly bulkier version of the standard model, but something about that bulkiness implied that it had certain extras they might not necessarily want to think about just at the present moment. It was certainly armored, which was reassuring.
“I still think you’d look great kitted out as mellows,” Streak snickered.
“Don’t push your luck,” Serrin called out from the back. “Just drive us to the M-way and out of here.”
“And watch out for any tailing taxis,” Michael called Out.
They were almost high this morning. Of the five, not one could be called a “shadowrunner,” Serrin had been, some time back, but those days were recalled ambivalently. Good friends had been made and lasting associations formed, but he’d been rootless and left with a minced leg as a permanent memory of life in the shadows. Married now, and settled, he had no desire to return to his old ways especially with a wife who, though a survivor, had no experience of such things and was far from her country of origin. Michael’s work was strictly decking, almost always carried out from the high security of a Manhattan apartment in the city he had come to call home, and Geraint was a politician and businessman. Streak was the only one looking out for himself among the dangers of the street most days, but even he was an ex-military man.
They had an excitement about them, now they were on the move, which a team of seasoned runners might have buried under a veneer of experience and routine. And after the invasion of the apartment and the ambush in the cab, they felt almost like animals escaping from a trap, On the road as they headed west to the orbital and the huge freeway beyond, a simple sense of freedom lifted their spirits.
“Nice system here,” Streak said approvingly. “Constant camera op scans following vehicles, checks ID, checks for following vehicles, analyzes their motion patterns, all kinds of stuff. If they’re gonna follow us, they’ll have to use a convoy of the buggers.”
“Where’d you get this?” Geraint asked.
Streak smirked. “Never you mind. You just paid the bill.”
“I paid actually,” Michael said. “It’ll be on the corp’s tab. We’ll have to get something concrete today, Serrin. They need another update and report before they’ll give me any more money.”
“We’ll get something,” Serrin assured him. “I’ve brought the treatise on elementals with me. At the very least, it’s an intro to get Hessler interested, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t give it to him if he is.”
“Mind if I smoke?” Geraint asked.
“The filtration system can handle that,” Streak told him. “It’s not the full EnviroSeal job, but it’s enough,”
“What else do we have here?” Michael asked as Geraint reached for the lighter next to the ignition.
“We got ECM. We got signature masking. We might or might not have a little weaponry carefully concealed about the place,” Streak said carefully.
“What?”
“Well, what’s a little SAM between mates?” The elf laughed, “Hell, you’ll be worried about the machine guns next.”
“If we’re stopped in this thing it’ll be five years apiece,” Michael said, exaggerating a genuine concern.
“No one’s going to stop us in this thing,” Streak said with real enthusiasm. “Drek, I hate these speed-trap camera systems. Putting the foot down in this monster is more fun than you can have with your clothes off, I tell ya.”
“I just hope no one’s decking into the camera downloads,” Michael said.
“The ECM should slot that up just fine,” Streak said. “But we can’t be a hundred per, which is why I ain’t burning up the rubber. Rakk it, can we take a detour through some wild land on the way back?”
“Just get us to Glastonbury, James,” Serrin said, “and hold the horses.”
“The hardest thing was finding somewhere safe to park Susan,” Streak said when they reached their destination, not long after noon. “I don’t want to park her out in the open.”
Kristen wasn’t listening. Glastonbury had impressed her from the first sight of the place; the dominating, imposing mound of the Tor, the small stone houses, old and weatherworn, which had mercifully resisted the temptation to become tourist attractions, the quietness of the place. The number of visitors to the area was strictly limited, and even Geraint had needed to pull strings to get them in. There were no police roadblocks, or anything so heavy-handed. It was just that no accommodation would be found for a visitor without the relevant documents, no shops would serve him, that sort of thing. Glastonbury valued its peacefulness. Power hung about the place like mist on a spring-morning river, and Serrin began to sense it even while they were still kilometers away.
They stood in front of the pub as Streak drove off to stash the car, their travel bags left dumped on the ground by the curb. The place was picture-perfect with its thatched roof, and yet it didn’t have the look, so common in some parts of England, of having been deliberately crafted in that image to deceive gullible visitors. It had always looked this way. Michael signed them in and paid in full, in advance, with a service fee just a little above what might have been expected but below what would have been ostentatious. Flaunting excessive wealth would not have been in keeping with the town.
Their rooms were low-ceilinged, small but comfortable, and welcoming with the scent of fresh linen sheets and towels and a faint trace of lavender, which, for once, didn’t seem like the scent of maiden aunts. By the time Streak returned they were already in the restaurant-bar, having ordered pub food and sinking the first of their pints of warm, malty beer.