Beneath these two bodies, is a hidden army of modern-day knights. A secret force, spread internationally. Recruited almost exclusively from national military and intelligence bodies. Its uniform is the anonymity of every day clothes and its camouflage that of suburbia and average life.
Today’s agenda, like the briefing paper, is written in Arthurian Code. The rotational cipher was created centuries ago on two wooden wheels marked with letters and numbers. The outer contained numbers and the inner letters. The base code would always be A and 1. But every day someone would spin the wheels and then record the random number that matched A. So if A aligned with 6, then the day’s code would be known as Plus Six. Modern Arthurians have special digital token codes that need alphanumeric logins to retrieve the pass codes of any documents sent to them.
Circle secretary Lance Beaucoup, reads the minutes of the last meeting. He is mid-thirties, tall, dark-haired with the broad shoulders of a swimmer and the waist of a gymnast. His voice has a Gallic lilt.
‘Does anyone wish to comment?’ asks Owain.
The room is silent.
‘Then take them as passed, Lance.’
There’s an awkward silence. One filled with expectancy and fear.
The Frenchman continues, ‘We come to the issue of our trusted colleague. Our absent friend.’
All eyes fall on the empty twelfth seat at the table.
‘It is now clear,’ says Owain, ‘that Angelo Marchetti has broken from our order. He has a secret life beyond his secret life. One of gambling, cocaine and crime. Angelo has been siphoning off money. His own accounts have been forged and he is personally bankrupt.’
Mutterings break out.
‘Please — I haven’t finished.’ He waits until silence has been restored. ‘He has stolen several artefacts from the Order and may have fled the country. From what we have been able to discover, he used local crooks to sell a number of burial crosses that he himself had looted. A religious dealer of dubious repute in America was approached and he acquired one cross. He was killed two days ago by Marchetti’s men. We aren’t sure why.
‘We now have a complication,’ continues Owain. ‘I’ve harboured suspicions about Angelo for a while so had him followed the last few weeks.’ He nods across the table to a young Englishman. ‘George tailed his men as they drove away from the dealer’s in Maryland. He’ll tell you the rest.’
George Dalton, a slightly built man with a trimmed dark beard and pale blue eyes, gives his account of what happened. ‘After the killing, two men left the scene. They stopped on the outskirts of Kensington and went into a copse. Only one of them came out. He drove south and pulled in at an all-night diner about a third of a mile east of Dupont Circle. I watched him eat at a booth by the window. When he returned to the car I tackled him. Unfortunately, he was more skilled an adversary than I expected and had a knife.’ George raises his arm to show his bandaged hand and wrist. ‘I’m afraid it was a very close-quarters encounter and he was killed. I recovered a Knight’s Cross from the glove compartment of his car.’
Owain interrupts. ‘There are still two crucifixes missing and possibly other artefacts that we don’t yet know about. We presume Angelo has now lost faith in his minions and is personally trying to sell the crosses. I think we can all guess to whom he will eventually turn and what the consequences of that could be.’
Fresh mutterings break out and Lance takes this as his cue. ‘As of this moment, Angelo Marchetti is expelled from our Order and we are issuing an alert for his capture and permanent exile. You should put whatever bounty you wish on his head and treat this as a matter of utmost urgency.’
Owain sees their sadness. The man with a death warrant on his head had been a friend and comrade to them for many years and his betrayal is hard to believe. ‘Be in no doubt — Angelo poses the biggest threat to our existence for centuries. Do not hesitate to act resolutely in this matter. We have no room for forgiveness, emotion or error. Strike swiftly; our chance may come but once.’
23
Police HQ is an imposing slab of sandstone and glass set among a collection of other similarly striking buildings that belong to the fire and justice departments, the district court and Department of Labor.
Up on the command corridor, the name etched on a door halfway down says CPT. ZACH FULO. Irish raps on it.
‘C’m’in!’ The words are spat out by a voice of grit and glue.
The cop opens the door and hesitantly steps inside.
A lean black man looks up from a desk layered in paperwork. ‘Take a seat, Lieutenant; you’re late.’
‘Traffic was bad out of Maryland. Sorry for the delay.’
‘Traffic’s bad everywhere. A guy your age should have learned that by now.’ His dark eyes tip to a document in his manicured hands. ‘HRU — that’s Historic Religious and Unsolved, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What the hell they doing asking about one of our cases?’ He holds up the paper.
Irish stares at the FBI badge and realizes one of the top brass there must have written to him. ‘I asked them, sir. Given this has since kicked up into a double homicide I thought it it might be wise.’
‘No, Lieutenant. Wise would be asking me first. Really wise would have been solving the case already.’ He screws up the paper and throws the ball at him. ‘You’re an idiot, Fitzgerald. Just in case you’re in any doubt, idiots are at the opposite end of the spectrum to the wise.’
‘Captain, this crime is linked to some old cross that’s probably a valuable artefact. The HRU has the infrastructure to help us work all that out and find the kind of unsub prepared to kill for that kind of thing.’
‘Me. I’m prepared to kill. And guess who my victim’s likely to be? Now get outta here. I want a full report on my desk by seven in the morning, so don’t get too wasted tonight.’
Irish hauls his injured pride out of the captain’s office and back to his desk.
He pulls open the bottom drawer and grabs a box of tissues. The cold Sophie Hudson passed on still has him honking snot and blood. He sticks a wad of tissues in his pocket and pulls out the second thing he’s after.
Scotch.
He unscrews the top of his emergency bottle and takes a long swallow of the cheap whisky. Doesn’t stop until he feels its hot fingers choking his throat. Then he screws the top back, drops the bottle in his drawer and kicks it shut.
The office is deserted. A gap between shifts. He powers up the computer and finds what he hoped for in his mailbox.
A message from Traffic.
He’d told his old friend Billy Puller about the murder he was working was in woods off the south end of Rock Creek Trail, close to where the east-west Capital Beltway crosses Connecticut Avenue. He said he was interested in any brown SUVs and silver saloons that hit that intersection from ten p.m. onwards on Friday night. Ten being the earliest time the ME thought Amir Goldman could have died.
By the time he’s read the first line of Bill’s mail, his heart’s already flipping.
Irish — we searched traffic cams and found a brown Cadillac Escalade hybrid heading south to Washington, followed a few cars back by a silver Lincoln. They were timed joining the southbound interstate at 11.04.32 and 11.04.47 respectively.
Vid tech has strung together some clips for you (see attachment). Both vehicles come off north of Dupont Circle and then we lose them.
Couldn’t make out the plate on the Lincoln. The Escalade has a cloned registration — rightful owner is in Annandale. Call me — I’ll give you full details.