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Sunlight streamed down into the bunker. The fat man lowered himself on to a ladder that dropped steeply away into the darkness. The Ghost watched him all the way down from over the barrel of his pistol until he looked up, his one good eye squinting against the brightness. ‘I’m going to get a torch,’ he said, reaching out into the dark.
The Ghost said nothing, just tightened his finger on the trigger in case something else appeared in his hand. A cone of light clicked on in the darkness and shone into the swollen face of the garage owner.
The driver went next while the Ghost did a final sweep of the horizon. The dust cloud was further away now, still heading north towards Baghdad. There were no other signs of life. Satisfied that they were alone, he slid down into the dark earth.
The cave had been cut from rock by ancient hands and stretched away several metres in each direction. Military-style shelving units had been set up along each wall with thick sheets of polythene draped over them to protect their contents from the dust. The Ghost reached over and pulled one aside. The shelf was filled with guns, neatly stacked AK-47 assault rifles mostly, all bearing the scars of combat usage. Underneath them were rows of spam cans with stencilled lettering in Chinese, Russian, and Arabic, each containing 7.62mm rounds.
The Ghost worked his way down the shelves, pulling aside each polythene sheet in turn to discover more weapons, heavy artillery shells, brick-like stacks of dollar bills, bags of dried leaves and white powder, and finally – near the back of the cave on a shelf of its own – he found what he was looking for.
He eased the loose bundle of sacking towards him, feeling the drag of the heavy object inside, then unwrapped it reverently, with the same care he would use to peel dressings from burned flesh. Inside was a flat slate tablet. He tilted it towards the light, revealing faint markings on its surface. He traced their outline with his finger – a letter ‘T’ turned upside down.
The driver glanced over, his gun still on the hostage, his eyes drawn to the sacred object. ‘What does it say?’
The Ghost flipped the sacking back over the stone. ‘It is written in the lost language of the gods,’ he said, picking up the bundle and cradling it as if it were a newborn. ‘Not for us to read, only for us to keep safe.’ He walked up to the fat man and glared into his battered face, his pale eyes unnaturally bright in the dim light. ‘This belongs to the land. It should not be tossed on a shelf with these things. Where did you get it?’
‘I swapped it with a goatherd, for a couple of guns and some ammunition.’
‘Tell me his name and where I might find him.’
‘He was a Bedouin. I don’t know his name. I was doing some business up in Ramadi and he brought it to sell, along with some other bits of junk. He said he found it in the desert. Maybe he did, maybe he stole it. I gave him a good price anyway.’ He looked up with his one good eye. ‘And now you will steal it from me.’
The Ghost weighed this new information. Ramadi was a half-day’s drive north. One of the main centres of resistance during the invasion and occupation, it had been bombed and shelled to rubble, and now had a cursed air hanging over it. It was also home to one of Saddam’s palaces, now stripped clean by looters. The relic could easily have come from there. The late president had been a keen stealer and hoarder of his own country’s treasures. ‘How long ago did you buy it?’
‘About ten days, during the monthly market.’
The Bedouin could be anywhere by now, roaming with his sheep across hundreds of square kilometres of desert. The Ghost held the bundle up for the fat man to see. ‘If you come across anything else like this, you hold on to it and let me know. That way you become my friend – understand? You know I can be a useful friend, and you do not want me as your enemy.’
The man nodded.
The Ghost held his gaze for a moment then replaced the sand goggles.
‘What about the rest of this stuff?’ the driver said.
‘Leave it. There’s no need to take away this man’s livelihood.’ He turned to the ladder and started to climb towards the daylight.
‘Wait!’
The fat man looked at him with confusion, puzzled by his surprising act of charity.
‘The Bedouin herder, he wears a red football cap. I offered to buy it, as a joke, and he became offended. He said it was his most precious possession.’
‘What team?’
‘Manchester United – the red devils.’
2
Vatican City, Rome
Cardinal Secretary Clementi drew deeply on his cigarette, sucking the soothing smoke into his anxious body as he looked down on the tourists swarming across St Peter’s Square like a plump god despairing of his creation. Several groups stood directly beneath him, their viewpoint alternating between their guidebooks and the window where he stood. He was pretty sure they couldn’t see him, his well-stuffed black cardinal’s surplice helping him to blend into the shadows. They were not looking for him anyway. He took another long draw on his cigarette and watched them realize their mistake then shift their collective gaze to the closed windows of the papal apartments to his left. Smoking inside the building was forbidden, but as Cardinal Secretary of the city-state, Clementi didn’t consider the odd indulgence in his private office an outrageous abuse of position. He generally restricted himself to two a day, but today was different; today he was already on his fifth, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
He took one last long breath of nicotine-laced air, crushed the cigarette out in the marble ashtray resting on the sill, then turned to face the bad news that was spread across his desk like a slick. As was his preference, the morning papers had been arranged in the same configuration as the countries on a world map – the American broadsheets on the left, the Russian and Australian on the right, and the European ones in the middle. Usually the headlines were all different, each reflecting a national obsession with a local celebrity or political scandal.
Today they were all the same, as they had been for over a week now, each carrying more or less the same picture: the dark, dagger-like mountain fortress known as the Citadel that sat at the very heart of the ancient Turkish city of Ruin.
Ruin was a curiosity in the modern church, a former ancient powerhouse that had become, along with Lourdes and Santiago de Compostela, one of the Catholic Church’s most popular and enduring shrines. Carved out of a vertical mountain by human hands, the Citadel of Ruin was the oldest continually inhabited structure on earth and original centre of the Catholic Church. The first Bible had been written within its mysterious walls, and it was widely believed that the greatest secrets of the early Church were still kept there. Much of the mystery surrounding the place stemmed from its strict tradition of silence. No one but the monks and priests who lived in the Citadel were ever allowed to set foot inside the sacred mountain and, once they had entered, they were never again permitted to set foot outside. Maintenance of the half-carved mountain, with its high battlements and narrow windows, fell exclusively to the inhabitants; and over time the Citadel had developed the half-finished, ramshackle appearance that had given the city its name. But despite its appearance, it was no Ruin. It remained the only fortress in all of history that had never been breached, the only one that had held on to its ancient treasures and secrets.
Then, a little over a week ago, a monk had climbed to the top of the mountain. With TV cameras capturing his every move, he had arranged his limbs to form the sign of the Tau – symbol of the Sacrament, the Citadel’s greatest secret – and thrown himself from the summit.
The reaction to the monk’s violent death had sparked a global wave of anti-Church feeling that had culminated in a direct attack on the Citadel. A series of explosions had ripped through the Turkish night to reveal a tunnel leading into the base of the fortress. And for the first time in history, people had come out of the mountain – ten monks and three civilians, all suffering from varying degrees of injury – and the newspapers had been full of little else since.
Clementi picked up the morning edition of La Republicca, one of the more popular Italian newspapers, and read the banner headline:
CITADEL SURVIVORS LATEST
DID THEY DISCOVER THE SECRET OF THE SACRAMENT?
It was the same question all the papers had been asking, using the explosion as a pretext to dredge up every old legend about the Citadel and its most infamous secret. The whole reason the power base had moved to Rome in the fourth century was to distance the Church from its secretive past. Ever since, Ruin had looked after its own affairs and kept its house in order – until now.
Clementi picked up another paper, a British tabloid showing a shining chalice floating above the Citadel with the headline:
CHURCH ON ROAD TO RUIN
‘HOLY GRAIL’ OF SECRETS ABOUT TO BE REVEALED?
Other papers concerned themselves with the more lurid and morbid side of the story. Of the thirteen people who had emerged from the mountain, only five survived, the rest having died from their injuries. There were plenty of pictures: harshly lit shots snatched from over the heads of the paramedics as they stretchered the monks to the waiting ambulances, the flash photography highlighting the green of their cassocks and the red of the blood that ran from the ritualized wounds that criss-crossed their bodies.
The whole thing was a huge PR disaster, making the Church look like a demented, secretive, mediaeval cult: bad enough at the best of times, calamitous right now when Clementi had so many other things on his mind and needed the mountain to hold its secrets tighter than ever.
He sat down heavily at his desk, feeling the weight of the responsibilities he alone carried. As Cardinal Secretary of State, he was de facto prime minister of the Vatican city-state and had far-reaching executive powers over the Church’s interests, both domestic and international. Ordinarily, the executive council in the Citadel would have dealt with the situation in Ruin. Like the Vatican, it was an autonomous state within a state with its own powers and influence, but since the explosion he had heard nothing from the mountain – nothing at all – and it was this silence, rather than the clamour of the world’s press, that he found most disturbing. It meant the current crisis in Ruin was very much his concern.
Reaching over the sea of newsprint, Clementi tapped his keyboard. Already his inbox was bursting with the day’s business, but he ignored it all, clicking instead on a private folder labelled RUIN. A prompt box asked for his password and he carefully typed it in, knowing if he got it wrong the whole computer would lock and it would take at least a day for a technician to unlock it again. An hourglass icon appeared as his server processed the complex encryption software, then another mailbox opened. It was empty – still no word. Leaving the subject line blank, he typed into the body of a new message:
Anything?
He hit send and watched it disappear from his screen, then shuffled the newspapers into a neat pile and sorted through some letters that required his signature while he waited for a reply.
The moment the explosion had torn through the Citadel, Clementi had mobilized agents of the Church to closely monitor the situation. He had used Citadel assets to maintain distance from Rome, hoping that the executive council inside the mountain would recover quickly and take over responsibility for the clean-up. In his orderly politician’s mind he saw it as deploying weapons to deal with an oncoming threat. He had never imagined he might be called upon to personally fire them.
Outside he could hear the chatter of the tourists drifting up from the square as they marvelled at the majesty and wonder of the Church, little knowing what turmoil boiled inside it. A sound like a knife striking a wineglass announced the arrival of a message.
Still nothing. There is a rumour that a ninth monk is about to die. What do you want me to do with the others?
His hand hovered over the keyboard ready to type a reply. Perhaps the situation was resolving itself. If another monk died there would be just four survivors remaining – but three of these were civilians, not bound by silence and obedience to the mother church. They posed the greatest threat of all.
His eyes crept across to the stack of newspapers on the corner of his desk and saw their photographs staring back at him – two women and one man. Ordinarily the Citadel would have dealt with them swiftly and decisively because of the threat they posed to the long-held secret of the mountain. Clementi, however, was a Roman cleric, more politician than priest, a creature far removed from the trials of direct action. Unlike the Prelate of Ruin, he was not used to signing death warrants.
He rose from his desk and drifted back towards the window, distancing himself from his decision.
There had been signs of life inside the mountain over the past week – candles passing behind some of the high windows, smoke leaking from the chimney vents. They would have to break their silence sooner or later, re-engage with the world and tidy up their own mess. Until then he would be patient and keep his hands clean and his mind focused on the future of the Church and the real dangers that faced it, dangers that had nothing to do with Ruin or the secrets of the past.
He reached for the pack of cigarettes on the window sill, preparing to seal his decision with the sixth of the day, when the sound of shoe-leather on marble rose in the corridor outside. Someone was heading his way, in far too much of a hurry for it to be routine. There was a sharp tap on his door and the pinched features of Bishop Schneider appeared.
‘What?’ Clementi’s question betrayed more irritation than he intended. Schneider was his personal secretary and one of the lean, career bishops who, like a lizard on the rim of a volcano, managed to live dangerously close to the white heat of power without ever seeming to get singed. His efficiency was beyond reproach, yet Clementi found it very hard to warm to him. But today Schneider’s smooth veneer was absent.
‘They’re here,’ he said.
‘Who?’
But there was no need for an answer. Schneider’s expression told him all he needed to know.
Clementi grabbed the cigarettes and thrust them into his pocket. He knew he would probably smoke them all in the next few hours.
3
Ruin, Southern Turkey
The rain drifted down like ragged phantoms from the flat, grey sky, swirling as it caught the fading heat of the dying day. It fell from clouds that had formed high over the Taurus mountains, pulling moisture from the air as they drifted east, past the glacier and towards the foothills where the ancient city of Ruin lay fringed by jagged crags. The sharp peak of the Citadel, rising from the centre of the city, tore at the belly of the clouds, spilling rain that glossed the side of the mountain and cascaded to ground level, where the dry moat stood.
In the old town, tourists struggled up the narrow lanes towards the Citadel, slipping on the cobbles, rustling along in souvenir rain ponchos made from red plastic to resemble monks’ cassocks. Some were merely sightseers, ticking the Citadel off a long list of world monuments, but others were making the trip for more traditional reasons, pilgrims come to offer prayer and tribute in exchange for peace of mind and calmed souls. There had been many more than usual in the last week, prompted by recent events and the strange sequence of natural disasters that had followed: earth tremors in countries that were traditionally stable, tidal waves striking those with no flood defences, weather that was both unpredictable and unseasonal – just like the thick, cold rain that was now falling in this late Turkish spring.
They continued their slippery way upwards, rising into the cloud to be greeted, not by the awe-inspiring sight of the Citadel, but by the ghostly outlines of other disappointed tourists staring into the mist towards the spot where the mountain should be. They drifted through the haze, past the shrine of wilting flowers where the monk had fallen, to a low wall marking the edge of the broad embankment and the end of their journey.
Beyond the wall, long grass moved gently where water once flowed, and there – just visible like a wall of night rising up from the edge of the mist – was the lower part of the mountain. It had the monumental and unnerving presence of a huge ship in a fog bank bearing down on a tiny rowing boat. Most of the tourists quickly headed away, stumbling through the luminous fog in search of shelter in the souvenir shops and cafés that lined the far side of the embankment. But a patient few remained, standing at the low wall, offering up the prayers they had carried with them: prayers for the Church; for the dark mountain and for the silent men who had always dwelt there.
Inside the Citadel, all was quiet.
No one moved through the tunnels. No work was being done. The kitchens were empty and so was the garden that flourished in the crater at the heart of the mountain. Neat piles of rubble and wooden props showed where tunnel repairs had been made, but those who had carried out the work had now moved on. The airlock leading into the great library remained shut, as it had done since the blast knocked out the power and disrupted the climate control and security systems inside. Rumour had it that it would open again soon, though no one knew when.
Elsewhere, there were signs that the mountain was returning to normal. The power was back on in most areas and prayer and study rotas had been posted in all the dormitories. Most significantly, a requiem Mass had been organized to finally lay to rest the bodies of the Prelate and the Abbot, whose deaths had plunged the mountain into a leaderless and unprecedented chaos. Every man in the mountain was heading there now, treading in solemn silence to pay their last respects.
Or almost every man.
High in the mountain, in the restricted upper section where only the Sancti – the green-cloaked guardians of the Sacrament – were permitted to tread, a group of four monks neared the top of the forbidden stairs.
They too walked in silence, trudging up the darkened stairway, each weighed down with the heavy trespass they were undertaking. The ancient law that bound them was clear: anyone venturing here without permission would be executed as an example to those who sought to discover the great secret of the mountain uninvited. But these were not ordinary times, and they were no ordinary monks.
Leading the way was Brother Axel, bristling like a brush, his auburn hair and beard a close match for the red cassock that showed he was a guard. Hard on his heels came the black-cloaked figure of Father Malachi, chief librarian, his stooped figure and thick glasses a legacy of decades spent hunched over books in the great library caves. Next came Father Thomas, implementer of so many of the technological advancements in the library, dressed in the black surplice of a priest. And finally there was Athanasius, wearing the simple brown cassock of the Administrata, his bald head and face unique among the uniformly bearded brethren of the Citadel. Each man was head of their particular guild – except Athanasius who was only acting head in the absence of an abbot. Collectively they had been running the mountain since the explosion had removed the ruling elite from their midst, and collectively they had taken the decision to discover for themselves the great secret they were now custodians of.
They reached the top of the stairs and gathered in the dark of a small vaulted cave, their torches picking out roughly carved walls and several narrow tunnels that led away in different directions.
‘Which way?’ Brother Axel’s voice seemed too big in the narrow confines of the chamber. He had led most of the way, surging up the stairs as though it was something he was born to, but now he seemed as hesitant as the rest of them.
Discovering what lay inside the chapel of the Sacrament was usually the pinnacle of a monk’s life, something that would only happen if they were selected to join the elite ranks of the Sancti. But they were here on nobody’s invitation and this group’s deep-seated fear of learning the forbidden knowledge was both intoxicating and terrifying.
Axel stepped forward, holding out his torch. There were niches cut into the rock walls with solid wax oozing down where candles had once burned. He swept his torch over each tunnel in turn, then pointed to the central one. ‘There’s more wax here. It has been used more than the others; the chapel must be this way.’
He moved forward without waiting for confirmation or agreement, ducking to enter the low tunnel. The group followed, with Athanasius reluctantly bringing up the rear. He knew Axel was right. He had trod this forbidden floor alone just a few days previously and seen the horrors the chapel held. He steeled himself now to witness them again.
The group continued down the tunnel, the light from their torches now picking out rough symbols on the walls of crudely rendered women undergoing various tortures. The further they went, the fainter the images grew, until they faded entirely and the tunnel opened into a larger antechamber.
They huddled together, instinctively keeping close while their torches explored the darkness. There was a small, enclosed fireplace on one wall, like a blacksmith’s forge, dark with soot and dripping ash to the floor, though no fire burned in it now. In front of it stood three circular whetstones, mounted on sturdy wooden frames with treadles to turn the wheels. Beyond them on the back wall a large circular stone with the sign of the Tau carved at its centre had been rolled to one side to reveal an arched doorway.
‘The chapel of the Sacrament,’ Axel said, staring into the darkness beyond the door. For a moment they all stood, tensed and nervous as if expecting a beast to come rushing out of the dark towards them. It was Axel who stepped forward to break the spell, holding his torch in front of him like a talisman against whatever might be waiting there. The light pushed away the dark, first revealing more dead candles inside the door, drowned in puddles of cold wax, then a wall, curving away to the left where the chapel opened out. Then they saw what the sharpening stones were for.
The walls were covered with blades.
Axes, cleavers, swords, daggers – all lined up from floor to ceiling. They reflected the torches, glittering like stars and carrying the light deeper into the chapel to where a shape rose up in the dark, about the same height as a man and as familiar to each of them as their own face. It was the Tau, symbol of the Sacrament, now transformed in front of them into the Sacrament itself.
At first it appeared like darkness solidified, but as Axel took a step forward, light reflected dully on its surface, revealing that it was made of some kind of metal bonded together with rivets. The base was bolted with brackets to the stone floor, where deep channels had been cut, radiating out to the edge of the room where they joined deeper gulleys that disappeared into the dark corners. A withered plant curled around the lower part of the cross, clinging to the sides in dry tendrils.
The group drew closer, drawn by the gravity of the strange object, and saw that the entire front section of the cross was open, hinged at the far end of the cross beam and supported by a chain fixed to the roof of the cave.
Inside the Tau was hollow and filled with hundreds of long needles.
‘Can this be the Sacrament?’ Father Malachi voiced what everyone in the group was thinking.
They had all been brought up on the legends of what the Sacrament might be: the tree of life from the Garden of Eden, the chalice Christ had drunk from as he was dying on the cross, perhaps even the cross itself. But as they stood now, confronted by the reality of this macabre object in a room lined with sharpened blades, Athanasius could sense gaps starting to open up between their unquestioning faith and the thing that stood before them. It was what he had hoped would happen. It was what he needed to happen in order to steer the Citadel away from its dark past and towards a brighter, purer future.
‘This can’t be it,’ Axel said. ‘There must be something else; something in one of the other tunnels.’
‘But this is the main chamber,’ Athanasius replied, ‘and here is the Tau.’ He turned to it, averting his gaze from the interior, where dark memories of the last time he had stood here were snagged on the sharp spikes within.
‘It looks like it may have contained something,’ Malachi said, stepping closer and peering at it through his thick glasses, ‘but without the Sancti here to explain, we may never know what it was or the significance it held.’
‘Yes. It’s a great pity they are no longer here in the mountain,’ Axel turned pointedly to Athanasius. ‘I’m sure we all pray for their rapid return.’
Athanasius ignored the jibe. The Sancti had been evacuated on his orders, a decision he had made in good faith and did not regret. ‘We have coped together,’ he replied, ‘and we shall cope together still. Whatever was here has gone – we have all borne witness to this – now we must move on.’
They stood for a while, staring at the empty cross, each lost in their own private thoughts. It was Malachi who broke the silence. ‘It is written in the earliest chronicles that if the Sacrament is removed from the Citadel, then the Church will fall.’ He turned to face the group, his glasses magnifying the concern in his eyes. ‘I fear what we have discovered here can augur nothing but evil.’
Father Thomas shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. Our old idea of the Citadel may have fallen, in a metaphorical sense, yet it does not follow that there will also be a physical end to everything.’
‘Exactly,’ Athanasius continued. ‘The Citadel was originally created to protect and keep the Sacrament, but it has become so many other things since. And just because the Sacrament is no longer here does not mean the Citadel will cease to prosper or have purpose. One may remove the acorn from the root of a great oak and yet the tree will still flourish. Never forget, we serve God first, not the mountain.’
Axel took a step back and pointed his finger at Thomas and then at Athanasius. ‘This is heresy you speak.’
‘Our very presence here is heresy.’ Athanasius swept his hand toward the empty Tau. ‘But the Sacrament has gone, and so have the Sancti. The old ways no longer bind us. We have a chance to choose new rules to live by.’
‘But first we must choose a new leader.’
Athanasius nodded. ‘On this at least we agree.’
At that moment a noise rose up from the deeper depths of the mountain and echoed within the chapel, the sound of the requiem Mass beginning.
‘We should go and join our brethren,’ Thomas said. ‘And until we have new leadership, I suggest we say nothing of what we have seen here – it will only lead to panic.’ He turned to Malachi. ‘You are not the only one who knows the chronicles.’
Malachi nodded, but his eyes were still magnified with fear. He turned and took a last long look at the empty Tau as the others filed out behind him. ‘If the Sacrament is removed from the Citadel, then the Church will fall, not the mountain,’ he muttered, too quiet for anyone else to hear. Then he quickly left the chapel, afraid to be left there alone.
