I reached out for Madeleine’s hand. Her fingers were very cold when I touched them.
“Now they’re all back together, of course, there’s a definite risk that they’ll summon up their master,” said Thanet. “Patton’s men prevented such a thing from happening during the war because they promised Adramelech some human sacrifices, and plenty of blood. One could do such a thing in wartime. But now, well… the only blood that’s immediately available is ours.”
I took out another cigarette, and lit it. Outside the door, the snow had stopped falling, but the sky was still a grim metallic green. The Citröen stood silently by the curb, and through the reflecting glass of the rear window, we could just make out the side of the copper-and-lead trunk.
“I was afraid of that, too,” I said hoarsely, and Madeleine looked away with an expression of such sadness that even Lieutenant Colonel Thanet noticed it, and half-raised his hand to comfort her.
FIVE
They gave us tea in Lieutenant Colonel Thanet’s upstairs office, and we sat on uncomfortable folding chairs while he took out his files on the special division of tanks—codename Stripes. He leafed through them with the quick, concentrated frown of a speed-reader, pausing now and then to study a chart or a graph, and to glance up at Madeleine and me and give a swift apologetic moue for the time he was taking.
The office was cold, and the pale-blue walls with their defence maps of Britain and Western Europe made it seem even colder. A radiator the size of a small pig rattled and steamed in one corner, but it was all noise and no heat. There were three khaki tin filing cabinets on the opposite wall, and these, apart from Lieutenant Colonel Thanet’s desk and three collapsible chairs, were the only furniture.
I stood up and took my cup of scalding tea across to the window. In the dull, glistening street below, three British Army sergeants were lifting Elmek’s box from the back of the Citröen. The devil hadn’t spoken a word since our arrival, but we knew the risks of ignoring it. It expected to be reunited with its twelve brethren, and if it wasn’t, then God help any of us who were close to a window, or a knife, or anything that could cut into human flesh!
Lieutenant Colonel Thanet cleared his throat, and neatly collated his files in front of him.
“Did you find anything.” I asked him.
He pulled a face. “Not very much, I’m afraid. Not much more than I was aware of already. The whole history of this particular operation was kept under wraps, and there really isn’t a great deal of documentary evidence to go on. It appears from the early approaches made by the Pentagon to the British War Office that General Patton was largely responsible for thinking it up and carrying it through, although Eisenhower certainly knew about it six or seven months before D-Day. There are several references here to Operation Stripes, and this paper here is the requisition order for preparing the tanks. Each tank cost eighteen thousand dollars to refit, mainly because of the steering mechanisms, which were partly remote-controlled.”
Madeleine said, “Does it mention Adramelech? Does it say how they kept him under control?”
Thanet slowly shook his head. “There’s only one reference here that might be relevant. It refers to the transportation of German prisoners-of-war to England, including one French woman, a Nazi collaborator. They were taken to the army camp at Aldershot under the direct authority of Colonel Sparks—that’s your American friend—and Colonel T. K. Allingham, who was his British counterpart, and that means their movement order must have had something to do with Operation Stripes. It’s possible that these prisoners may have been used to appease Adramelech. Sacrifices, for want of a better word.”
“A man for each of the thirteen devils, and a woman for Adramelech himself,” Madeleine suggested quietly.
“Quite possible,” said Lieutenant Colonel Thanet, smiling an uneasy smile. “Your theory is as valid as anybody’s. That movement order is the only written evidence of those prisoners that survives.”
I came away from the window and laid my thick-rimmed government teacup back in its saucer. “Colonel Thanet,” I told him, “we may have only a few hours, even a few minutes, before those thirteen devils get together and call up their master. Then what are we going to do?”
“We’re not going to panic, and that’s for certain,” said the colonel. “First of all, we’re going to make quite sure that the devils’ religious seals are quite intact, because there isn’t much they can do while they’re nothing more than exorcised bags of bones.”
“Supposing Elmek can free them—bring them back to life?”
“It would have to be a pretty powerful kind of devil to do that. Each one of those seals has been blessed by seven Roman Catholic priests and kissed by a Roman Catholic cardinal. You may be cynical about religion, but I can tell you from my own experience, that’s strong medicine.”
Madeleine lowered her eyes. “We have seen Elmek cutting up clerics like so much cheese,” she said softly.
“Well, the best thing we can do is go downstairs and have a look for ourselves,” said Lieutenant Colonel Thanet. “They should have brought your box in by now, so our ANPs are all together again for the first time since the war.”
He stood up, and tugged his tunic straight. “You haven’t finished your tea,” he remarked, in obvious surprise.
I shrugged, embarrassed. “I guess army refreshments are pretty much the same all over the world,” I told him
He peered into my cup. “Funny. I thought our chaps made pretty good tea.”
At that moment, the door opened, and one of the sergeants came in and saluted.
“The box is down in the quarantine area now, sir,” he reported. His beret was glistening with snow. “Very weighty it was, too.”
“Very good, sergeant,” said Lieutenant Colonel Thanet. “We’re on our way now. Mademoiselle Passerelle? Mr. McCook? Would you care to follow me?”
We clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, past the hall where we had first walked in, and along a corridor to the back of the house, where there was a wide cellar door, built of solid oak and hinged with steel hinges. To my right, out of the glass panes of the back door, I could see a sodden, tangled garden, and the dingy houses in the next street. Somewhere deep beneath our feet, a Tube train rattled on its way to Earl’s Court.
The sergeant unlocked the cellar door, and swung it open. When I saw the back of it, I gave Madeleine a nudge, and pointed. Nailed on to the wood was a cross identical to that silver crucifix welded over the hatch of the tank at Pont D’Ouilly. Lieutenant Colonel Thanet said, “That’s what you’d call our longstop, if you played cricket. We have it re-blessed every year by Father Mullaney, just to make sure.”
With his head bowed to avoid the low whitewashed ceiling, Lieutenant Colonel Thanet stepped through the cellar door and down the wooden staircase. I followed, and Madeleine came behind.
At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves in a wide white basement, lit by naked bulbs in wire cage holders. Along the walls of the basement were twelve plain trestle tables, six each side, and on each table was a black, dusty sack. The twelve acolytes of Adramelech, nothing but bones right now, but each capable of hideous and warlike life. In the centre of the floor, silent and still, lay the copper-and-lead trunk that we had brought over from France. Elmek, or Asmorod, the devil of sharp knives.