He was referring to Baltasar’s ID in his own outdated way.
“Yes, Master. I have them right here.”
“Then proceed by car.” He knew he did not have to tell Baltasar this. The man was trained beyond the highest level. Everything he said to and told his acolyte was mere reassurance, simply a way of being there.
“I am sorry for the delay.”
Xavier smiled. “It cannot be helped.”
“And the team following me?”
“We are searching our records. The moment we have something useful I will contact you.”
“Thank you, Master.”
The line went dead. Xavier replaced the phone thoughtfully, reflecting on this new team and what might be their true objective. For certain, they were not Greeks. They appeared a mismatched group. But time would tell. His people were on it.
Of course, the appearance of unknown newcomers and the slow rate of transport now threw into light yet another of Xavier’s problems.
He walked over to the single picture window, studying far off vistas. A snow flurry was occurring on a distant mountain, such random fury unleashed with nothing to show for its efforts. The Illuminati he saw as the mountain, the herd as the wrathful snow.
Somebody at the Athens Archaeological Museum had forwarded the map to four different people before they and the computer system were rinsed clean. That meant four other people required visiting, and their computer systems sanitized with extreme prejudice.
The Hoods had already been dispatched. He switched his attention from the snow-scene to the enormous TV on the wall. He split the picture into four separate screens and watched each one in earnest.
The operation was nearing its end.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In London, a man with thick hair and the kind of gaze that never stops shifting, walked out of an overpriced coffee shop with a hot drink and a muffin balanced precariously on one hand. He loved his morning ritual — the fast, calorie-burning, fifteen-minute walk there and back, the cappuccino and the blueberry feast. All this before returning to what he saw as a humdrum existence chained to an office desk and party to only one-fifth of a large window that overlooked a busy road and a few straggly trees that were well past their sell-by date. People-watching passed time and offered a small diversion, but the desk, the lab and the computer screen were George Stroup’s lot in life.
A day rarely passed when he wasn’t bored out of his skull, and today was one of those days. George took in the fresh air and the sights as he made the painful journey toward his working day. The cappuccino tasted sweet, the muffin soft and moist.
This was as good as it got.
Wondering if he should start considering a lifestyle change, George saw the entrance to his building and slowed down. The museum could wait. The artifacts could wait. The endless computer entries could wait. It occurred to George then that some of the people he worked with might not even know he existed. Was that possible?
He sniggered softly to himself. Possible? More like a sure thing. Perhaps if he had a wife… a family… but that side of life had passed him by.
George paused beside a black trashcan, finished off the coffee and the muffin in one last sweet mixture of ecstasy, and deposited the empty cup and wrapper inside. Said goodbye to happiness and freedom for the next eight hours, and looked up. The path was busy, the roads crammed. Diesel fumes curled the air and a big London sightseeing bus cut up a cyclist without a moment’s thought just as a delivery driver weaved through crawling traffic with inches to spare on either side. Business as usual then. A thought struck George — he’d been meaning to take a look at the email that had come over from Athens a few days ago. Lethargy had prevented him, lethargy and a severe, untreatable case of ‘can’t-be-arsed.’ That was the worse, and might have contributed to this year’s substantial weight gain. Interestingly, the bigger he got the less people noticed him, especially bosses.
That could be your work ethic.
George shrugged, largely uninterested, and made his way to his desk. The first thing he did was to turn his computer on; the second to nod at various colleagues that barely noticed him. Inwardly, he cursed them. Outwardly, he was about to take a slow meander over to the water cooler when he noticed that the computer screen wasn’t doing what it normally did. A horrifying collection of images filled it, pictures he’d never imagined let alone browsed for. At that moment something wrenched deep inside his gut, something fundamental and, without too much surprise or regret or even an iota of fear he understood he was about to die.
That’s odd. Why? These things happen. Bloody cappuccino.
The new guy…?
The final thoughts of a man that would not be remembered nor defended.
In Paris, a middle-aged woman settled her overlarge spectacles onto the bridge of her nose and tried to read the ingredients in her microwave croissant. It felt wrong, it was wrong. Who the hell microwaved a croissant, especially in Paris? She’d lived here eight years and had never considered such lunacy. She knew of three lovely bakeries within easy walking distance.
Why then?
Well, from past experience of other microwave delicacies such as popcorn and corn-on-the-cob she knew it was simple, forgetful and stupidly easy. And today — that was exactly what she needed.
Joy, she said to herself. Get a fucking grip.
Never again. She shoved the croissant inside, slammed the door and set the timer. Walked over to the window and sipped her instant coffee. Bloody disgusting. In this direction, many miles distant, lay her homeland. The sweet sharp hills and narrow twisting lanes of the Lake District, in the UK. It had been a while. She missed the place, her parents and her old boyfriend — George. Seven years since they last saw each other, they kept together now only through mutual work, and then infrequently. But George was on her mind of late — he had been copied in the email from Athens, two days before the terrorist attack.
Weird? No. Coincidence. Terrible, unreasoning coincidence. Joy considered the email that she’d received, the picture attachment showing the old map and the chance that it might show the whereabouts of one of the world’s ancient wonders.
Shit, we have to be so careful. There’s a career killer right there.
It wouldn’t do to look stupid.
Joy wandered over to the computer and switched it on. Their mutual friend — a man that gladly referred to himself as ‘Niki for short’—emailed four people the map, in confidence. Joy was pleased she had been included.
The microwave dinged. The freak was ready. She opened the fridge to grab margarine.
The click barely registered. The whirr was louder and made her frown. The explosion occurred right in her face, obliterating her from existence before traveling at incredible speed throughout the apartment, destroying everything in its path and causing damage to the apartment next door. Windows blew out, walls collapsed. The computer was swept away by the fire, already cleansed, the Hood long gone through the darker watches of the night.
In Milan, an old man sat at an old desk, staring at the screen of one of the oldest working computers in the museum. Like him, it was slow. Like him, it developed odd issues with its inner workings. Like him, it should be retired.
He enjoyed his job. He loved the pace of the computer. He would rather tinker here than head home and be nagged by an unstoppable shrew. The first thing he noticed this morning was that the computer was sluggish even for its own standards. The second thing he noticed was that the museum was oddly quiet today. He hoped nothing else terrible had happened to the world; prayed not to see the staff clustered around a TV screen.