William Tyree - The Fellowship

SIS Chief Brice Carlisle stepped out from behind a semi-transparent standing desk. Unlike Prichard’s frumpy attire, Carlisle’s suit was downright crisp. He wore a somber black tie as if he himself were in mourning over the high-profile murders. He held his hands behind his back as his eyes darted back and forth between the Americans.

“Mr. Carlisle,” Ellis said, holding out her hand. “It’s an honor.”

“I believe the proper salutation is Sir Brice,” Carver corrected.

Carlisle shook Ellis’ hand before turning to Carver. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“Likewise,” Carver said, but in truth, he knew little about Carlisle other than what was in his official biography. He had attended Cambridge and served as a diplomat in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He had since changed jobs like clockwork every two to three years, mostly in government posts relating to foreign affairs, with his last role as an intelligence advisor to the prime minister. He was thought to be an extremely bright man, but one with no apparent field experience.

The double doors through which they had come opened again. The bare legs attached to the exotic-looking brunette with the boy-cut were the first Carver had seen in London. “This is Seven Mansfield,” Carlisle said. “She’s working the case under Prichard here.”

Carver held out his hand and tried not to stare at the legs underneath the houndstooth-patterned skirt-suit. “Ms. Mansfield.”

“Call me Seven,” she said. Her accent reminded Carver of the voices on the BBC World Service. Her look was decidedly sub-continental. The brown-skinned intelligence agent with the short-cropped hair was the first thing to bring a smile to Carver’s lips all day.

Carlisle gestured to a sitting area furnished with four white leather Eames lounge chairs. “We watched the presser on Senator Preston. It was very convincing, don’t you think?”

Carver shrugged. “If you say so. We’ve traveled a long way to get information that could have been transmitted by other means. I suggest we get into it.”

Seven remained standing as she began walking them through the case. “Nils Gish was found in a storage room underneath the House of Parliament approximately 28 hours ago. The room was near an underground passage that’s not open to the public.”

“Who else had access?” Ellis said.

“There are several tunnels linking Parliament to the Westminster Tube station. They’re used by government workers, mostly. The doors are locked from the Tube station side, but they come open with a swipe of a security badge or phone.”

“Did Sir Gish often use these tunnels?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Carlisle cut in. “In my opinion, he was far too well-known to take public transport, and we understand his colleagues had discussed this with him. But he relished one-on-one conversations with his public. He boarded promptly at 5:30 most mornings, when it was possible to ride without being mobbed.”

Carlisle cleared his throat. “That wasn’t the case yesterday, however. For reasons unknown, he arrived to the office in the evening, when most workers had already left for the day. Let’s see the footage from the station security camera.”

Seven walked up to a massive monitor, nearly as tall as she was, built into the wall. It lit up instantly, displaying a number of folders containing media and findings from the crime scene. It flickered to life with a swipe of her fingertips, displaying a still image from a security camera. Sir Gish was shown entering the door in one frame. The next image was of two men wearing long raincoats. Their backs were to the camera, making it impossible to see their faces. They could be seen rushing to catch the door before it closed behind the MP.

“So he was followed,” Ellis said.

“Yes. I regret to tell you that many of the station’s other security cameras had not been recently maintained due to budget cuts. We did, however, manage to find a single image of one of their faces.” She swiped the screen again, revealing a grainy image of a man with a Mediterranean complexion, perhaps in his late 20s, wearing wire frame glasses. He had a wide nose, with flared nostrils, and his eyes were set wide across his face.

“Ring any bells?” Carver said.

She shook her head. “We are, of course, running a facial recognition match through every database imaginable. And incidentally, we’ve also been pouring over the communications logs from Sir Gish’s phone. Nothing unusual so far.“

Before Carver and Ellis could ask additional questions, Seven displayed a high-resolution image of an octagon-shaped piece of black-and-red striped fabric that looked identical to the one he had found in Senator Preston’s pocket.

“This is all we have linking the murders,” she said, pointing to the handwritten text in the center of the handmade cloth. “The Latin stitched in gold thread here reads Paratus enim dolor et cruciatus, in Dei nomine . ‘Prepared for pain and torment, in God’s name.’”

Carver nodded. “Identical to the fabric stuffed in Senator Preston’s mouth.”

“Obviously the work of religious extremists,” Prichard said. “We’ve had our boys working around the clock to find that language on sites operated by known groups. Come up with zero so far.”

“You’re headed in the wrong direction,” Carver said. “Whoever is behind this, they aren’t paying homage to any modern terrorist organization.”

“And you know this how?”

“By reading your history.”

Prichard crossed his arms, then his legs. “What history is that?”

“British. Ever heard of the Holy Alliance?”

“Allied Jihad splinter group, isn’t it?”

“Wrong religion entirely,” Carlisle cut in, glaring at Prichard as the man shrank into his chair. He then turned his gaze to the Americans. “If I follow you, Agent Carver, you’re saying that these symbols are linked to Christianity, not Islam.”

“Correct. The Holy Alliance was the common name for the Vatican’s intelligence service, although the Vatican itself never acknowledged its existence. We refer to it simply as Vatican Intelligence.”

“Don’t see what that has to do with British history,” Prichard quipped.

“Vatican Intelligence was thought to have come into existence in the 1560s as a reaction to the Tudor dynasty’s rejection of the pope’s moral authority over England. When Queen Elizabeth formed the English Protestant Church, it was clear that they would carry on the defiant tradition of her father, Henry VIII.”

“Yes, I think we’ve all seen The Tudors, thank you.”

“Shut up,” Carlisle admonished Prichard. “Go on, Agent Carver. Obviously we could all use a refresher on the subject.”

“Pope Pius V didn’t take kindly to losing England to the Protestant movement. The most logical thing to do was conspire to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and pass the throne to Mary Queen of Scots, who was a devout Catholic. So he formed the Holy Alliance. Jesuits, mostly, since they swore their personal oath of allegiance to the pope.”

Prichard smirked. “As I recall, Elizabeth survived until 1603, and she did not meet her end at the hands of Jesuits.”

“True. They failed that time, but they evolved. Over the next century, two special ops units were created. The first was known as the Octagon. It was discovered when an operative named Francois Ravaillac stepped aboard the running boards of Henry IV’s carriage and stabbed the king through his Protestant heart. When they caught Ravaillac, they found rosary beads and an octagon in his pocket. It was made out of parchment, not fabric, but it also contained a handwritten phrase that was roughly identical the one on our octagons. ‘ Prepared for pain and torment, in God’s name .’”