He felt something, a gentle but rising hum that seemed to be coming from all around him.
It wasn’t some reverberation from the bells, or the traffic’s endless rumble. He had heard it before. The Shamir, building up power. Brice was here. And he was getting ready to strike.
But where?
Eddie was about to charge into the crowd — then caught himself. He couldn’t just run around at random and hope to spot the rogue agent. He had to figure out Brice’s plan, think like him. Where was the best place to put the Shamir, and how would he avoid notice?
A flicker of bright colour drew his attention. A litter collector in a hi-vis vest, pushing his trolley along the pavement. It wasn’t Brice — but the man still gave him the answer. The best place to hide was in plain sight, as if he belonged there. He would look like some official, carrying out a job…
Hi-vis yellow, orange and green were now his target. Eddie hurriedly scanned the park for the giveaway colours. The closest was a policeman on the square’s west side, and he saw other cops dotted around its periphery. Was Brice disguised as one?
No. Too much risk of being approached by a real officer who couldn’t identify the newcomer, and he would hardly be able to carry the Shamir under his arm while pretending to patrol…
More orange, but not clothing. This was a flashing light on a white van across the park. Nobody in the cab — but he glimpsed someone in a yellow vest near the vehicle’s rear.
Was it Brice? There was only one way to know for sure. Eddie ran across Parliament Square towards him.
‘Okay, that’s it,’ said Nina with relief as the video started on Huygens’ laptop. She had been worried that the flash drive’s submersion would have damaged it. ‘This was filmed by a drone in DR Congo. I’m with my husband, Eddie Chase, talking to an MI6 agent — supposedly an ex-agent, but you can hear his own explanation of that — called John Brice.’
The marines leaned closer to watch as the trio came into view, but Huygens was more interested in another figure — an unmoving one. ‘That’s Philippe Mukobo! He is alive!’
‘Well, was alive,’ she corrected. ‘Long story. But if you turn up the volume you’ll be able to hear what Brice is saying.’ He did so. ‘Skip forward. Keep going… okay, here.’
On the screen, Brice shook his head at Mukobo’s corpse. ‘And after everything I did to rescue him from the Yanks,’ he said, voice echoing and tinny, but still clearly audible.
‘How did you rescue him?’ demanded Eddie. ‘He was on a bloody plane!’
‘A pilot with some large debts, and a mid-air interception and transfer. GB63 — the Removal Men — pulled Mukobo out through the 747’s cockpit escape hatch and winched him up.’
‘But… then the plane crashed,’ Nina heard her past self say. ‘What went wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ was Brice’s unemotional reply. ‘The plan went exactly as intended.’
Huygens paused playback, startled. ‘The NTSB report on the wreckage we recovered from Flight 180 suggested that the cockpit escape hatch had been opened — and found bullet damage to some of the seats in the upper cabin,’ he told her. ‘But that part was never made public.’
‘Brice got him out,’ said Nina. ‘And if you keep watching, he explains why, and on whose behalf. But there isn’t time for that now. The room there, it’s underneath a lost city in the jungle.’ She sensed disbelief from some of her audience. ‘What? You know why I’m famous, right? But that box,’ she pointed at the lead casket upon the altar, ‘contains something called the Shamir — also known as the Horn of Joshua, which brought down the walls of Jericho in the Bible. It’s an ancient weapon, an extremely powerful one. And Brice has it. We think he’s about to use it to destroy the Houses of Parliament.’
The official boggled. ‘Why? You just said he’s a British agent! Why would he attack his own government?’
‘Regime change. Or rather, prevention of change,’ she explained. ‘The current government’s likely to lose the election to a party Brice doesn’t agree with. He thinks he’s protecting MI6, protecting his entire country, by taking out all its politicians — and stopping the election.’
‘But if he takes out the politicians, then who’s going to run the country? A military takeover?’
‘Prime Minister’s Questions is just starting. But funnily enough, the PM won’t actually be there for it.’
He stared at her — then took out his phone and dialled a number. ‘It’s Tony Huygens. I need to speak to the ambassador — it’s an emergency.’ As he waited to be put through, he spoke to Nina again. ‘And I need you to tell me everything you know about this.’
Eddie hurried across Parliament Square. The subsonic hum of the Shamir grew louder as he approached the parked van, people on the green starting to look around in confusion.
The man in the hi-vis vest had moved out of sight. Eddie came around the Transit’s front and advanced cautiously down its side. His target came back into view. He was facing away from the Yorkshireman, towards Parliament. His dark hair was shorter and neater than Brice’s had been in the Congo… but it was almost identical to how Eddie remembered it from their first meeting in Tenerife.
It was Brice, he was certain. A glance into the pickup bed confirmed it as he saw the Shamir protruding from its lead box. The attack was taking place, right now.
Closing the box on the strange stone would stop it. But Brice would be armed; he had to deal with him first.
He crept closer, feeling the van trembling as he brushed against it. The ancient weapon was absorbing energy, building up its power — and would release it at any moment. Brice still had his back to him. Eddie emerged from behind the Transit, just ten feet behind the other man. He clenched his fists, ready to strike…
Something in the pickup bed rattled as the vibrations intensified. Brice turned to check that the Shamir had not been dislodged—
He saw Eddie — then with lightning speed snatched out a handgun from beneath his hi-vis vest.
Eddie dived behind the statue of Churchill as Brice fired. The bullet smacked against its stone plinth. Screams rose as tourists fled from the gunshot.
The Yorkshireman scrambled around the plinth, but there was no other cover. And Brice was coming for him—
A traffic cone sat beside the plinth’s base. Eddie hurled it at the MI6 man as he rounded the statue. It struck his outstretched gun hand, a second shot going wide.
Eddie threw himself at Brice before he could recover. Both men fell. The gun went off again, the bullet searing skywards as they grappled—
The Shamir’s deep hum reached a crescendo — and a thunderous boom of splintering masonry echoed across Parliament Square as stonework halfway up the clock tower blew apart.
Inside the Commons chamber, the assembled MPs had already heard the low-frequency thrum, the murmurings passing between members on both sides going from curious to concerned as it rose. ‘Whatever that noise is,’ said Lombard, grateful for the chance to dodge a scathing question on the government’s recent record, ‘it’s preferable to the droning normally heard from the Opposition benches.’ The quip, however poor, brought roars of sycophantic laughter from his own side.
‘Order, order,’ called the Speaker from the elaborate wooden dais at the head of the chamber. The mocking tumult faded, but the underlying noise was still there, stronger than before. The muttered discussions along the benches were now tinged with worry.