“Not me.” Alicia looked like a caged lion. “I’m here for the mayhem. I’m just dying for some lout to bump into me so I can tear his head off.”
“Frustrated?” Russo enquired with a little smirk.
“I may be the worst woman here,” Alicia said with a tight, haughty smile. “But I’m still the best man.”
Crouch started walking away from the arch, pulling the team with him. “Do we know of any arches built after 1815?”
Alicia turned to Caitlyn. “Geek?”
The ex-MI5 agent looked flustered. “Sorry, I was… lost for a moment there. I’m sure the answer is staring us right in the face.”
“No,” Alicia said drily. “That’s me. And I’m not hiding any Hercules.”
“It’s not that.” Caitlyn said, oblivious to the sarcasm. “I’m thinking Napoleon was defeated. The Hercules and to some extent the quadriga always seem to have been spoils of war. So who defeated Napoleon?”
Crouch stopped very quickly. “Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley at the battle of Waterloo,” he said. “Better known as the Duke of Wellington.”
“And you’re saying the British built an arch in acknowledgement of that?” Alicia asked.
“No.” Caitlyn flicked rapidly at her Kindle Fire. “We built two. The first design was based on the Arch of Constantine,” she breathed rapidly. “and wow… the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. The second, complete with quadriga, was also built to commemorate Britain’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars.”
The team stared at each other, mesmerized by Caityln’s words, astonished at the breakthrough.
“Which arches?” Crouch asked. “Don’t tell me—”
Caitlyn nodded. “You got it. The most obvious ones in plain sight. The first is Marble Arch, the second is Wellington Arch.”
TWENTY SEVEN
Alicia watched as the expression on Crouch’s face changed from incredulity to hope and determination.
“By the Pillars of Hercules. A part of the soil,” he said. “But what of the last line — to the victor the spoils. Wait…” He palmed his head, the blow audible to all. “Of course. It’s not referring to those hunting the Hercules, it’s referring solely to Wellington. To the victor the spoils. He claimed it.”
“Time to gen up on our British history,” Alicia said. “Where did Wellington—”
At that moment her text-message tone went off. A message from Beau—get ready.
That can’t be good.
A few seconds later Crouch’s cell rang. He held up a hand as he answered. “Yes?”
Again, many guises warped his features from one emotion to the next. “Now?” he asked. “Here? Where?”
Alicia didn’t like the sound of it, and liked waiting to hear the forthcoming revelation even less. The connection between Beau’s text and Crouch’s call didn’t escape her. Crouch let out a long sigh and held the phone’s speaker against his chest.
“I have intel that Riley is here in Paris,” he said. “I also have a locality. We could hit him whilst he’s unprepared.”
Alicia saw the man’s turmoil. They all sensed how close they were to the prize, yet here was an opportunity to rid themselves of a new and extremely deadly disease.
“Do it,” she said. “It’s worth the time and effort.”
Russo grumbled in agreement. Crouch was already nodding. Quickly, he thanked the person on the other end of the phone, took a few notes and then ended the call.
“Out of interest.” Alicia raised her chin. “Who was that?”
Crouch eyed her keenly. “I think you already know.”
Alicia couldn’t hide her surprise. “Now that’s a shocker.”
“I can’t explain now but I will explain later. When all this is over.”
“Can’t?” Russo repeated in bewilderment. “Explain? Over? What the hell are you two talking about?”
Couch brandished a small piece of paper. “Doesn’t matter now,” he said. “We have a job to do,”
Alicia watched Crouch work his magic, contacting Armand Argento at Interpol and finding a local contact that would be willing to help with weapons. It helped that Interpol was located not too far away and that Argento knew Crouch inside out. The two had worked together more times than either cared to remember down the years.
Within an hour, by way of a hastily commandeered governmental van, they were approaching the address Crouch’s mystery caller had provided.
A petite abandoned train station stood atop a small bridge above a fully-functioning railway line, just ten meters from the entrance to a long tunnel. The station was painted white and black, a classic destination for graffiti artists, and still had all its windows intact and sparkling clean, its roof whole and free of moss and its drainpipes freshly painted. The small staircase that ran up to its door, however, was railed off both to the sides and above. Small trees had begun to grow along its length. Alicia saw now that Riley’s men had broken the locks on the gate and made their way up the stairs and into the station. It was a perfect hiding place, central, clean and so long as they were careful, anonymous.
How had Beau…?
She didn’t want to know. Beauregard had his sinuous ways and his sneaky secrets. Alicia preferred not to dig too deep. One thing was certain — she could never hope to worm her way into the heart of a deadly, global secret sect like the Pythians. All glory to Beauregard for doing so.
The team crept along the embankment, sticking to the top where the hedges were overgrown and offered maximum concealment. Crouch pointed out there was no second-guessing Daniel Riley, the man made everything up as he went along and rarely acted the same way twice. His skills are his unpredictabilities, Crouch told them. His security his craziness. His strength his depravities. Do not expect mercy nor surety from this man.
Alicia trod lightly, guns in both her hands. One held a standard Glock, the other a HK machine pistol, both fully loaded. Other weapons were concealed about her person. The team could not know how many men Riley had recruited, though their “informant” had mentioned “more than a dozen”. Alicia was happy to be working proactively against him at last. No more running.
Ahead, the station stood atop the graffiti-covered bridge, gleaming in the sunlight. Alicia could see heads bobbing through the windows. She signaled Crouch.
“Enemy’s at home.”
“Good.”
Together, they advanced. No sentries appeared to have been placed, but Alicia knew there would be no access to the station except through the railed off staircase. Even if they could gain the roof unseen the noise would alert those inside. Crouch bent down, crawling as close as he dared, and raised high-powered binoculars to his eyes.
“Target confirmed,” he said. “I see Riley and… eight more men.”
At that moment a train approached, clattering hard down the rusted tracks before passing under the bridge and disappearing into the long tunnel. Alicia watched the carriages flash past, their seats full of unsuspecting passengers. The noise made Riley’s mercs glance out the window. Crouch could have waited; he could have crept closer; he could even have pinned the mercs down. But instead, probably still unsettled by the appearance of an old nemesis, he unloaded his machine pistol into the train station. Even Alicia yelled in alarm, but by then the blood was already flowing.
Mercs tumbled left and right and sheets of glass rained from the windows down onto the track. Alicia had a wild, displaced thought: Good job it wasn’t leaves! and crabbed forward. Men approached the frame, bodies revealed, and she made them pay the price. Quickly, she half ran down the embankment to the train tracks, knowing the carriages thundered along at seven minute intervals.