Steven Savile - Silver

Frost pressed back harder against the concrete pillar as if it might somehow make him smaller.

The pitch of the growl shifted.

And then the night exploded in a flurry of noise. The guard slipped the dog’s leash and the Doberman sprang forward, claws scuffing up the hard scrabble in a desperate attempt to gain purchase as it launched itself toward his hiding place. Frost didn’t move so much as a muscle. With the chain-link fence between them the dog couldn’t get at him There were several ways this could play out: eventually either the handler would re-attach the leash and move on with his rounds, in which case he would see Frost’s Monster and realize he wasn’t dealing with kids-which would mean Frost would be forced to take care of both man and beast before things got out of hand; Frost could make a dash for the Ducati and get the hell out of there, but then, if they were up to something in the old warehouse, any element of surprise he might have had would be gone for good; he could try to slip away and come at the place from the other side; or he could just slip out from behind the pillar and pull the trigger twice. Frost was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. There was nothing to suggest the night watchman was anything more than that, a retired policeman paid minimum wage to walk around the deserted warehouse and stop vandals from getting inside. In that case two bullets was not just overkill, it was murder.

He took a deep breath and began to move away from the pillar when Lethe’s voice crackled in his ear. “Well now, isn’t that just fascinating?” Frost couldn’t risk making a sound, he just had to hope Jude Lethe would elaborate. He settled back against the concrete, waiting for Lethe to speak again. “In the last three years Miles Devere’s various concerns have opened offices in Berlin, Rome, Prague, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Vienna… need me to go on and list all thirteen? Devere’s started operations in every city where our archeologists burned themselves alive. They’re all shell companies, and the paper chase is a mile long and whisper thin. Someone doesn’t want these links found.

“And the best part? My very favorite discovery so far today: in 2001 Miles Devere volunteered as a relief worker in Israel. He was part of a United Nations program to improve the camps. He was in Gaza for almost a year before moving across to Jenin. That means he was in Jenin when Orla was there, but we’ll come back to that later. Here’s the interesting stuff: he left Israel in July 2004, having worked on a reconstruction project that ran in tandem with an archeological dig in Megiddo overseen by-you know who I am going to say, but I’m going to say it anyway, I’m just pausing for dramatic effect-Akim Caspi. And there, my oh so quiet friend, is our smoking gun. Aren’t you going to say something?”

Frost didn’t say a word. He could hear the dog prowling along the line of the fence.

“Suit yourself. I’ll just have to do the talking for both of us. Now, Megiddo is an interesting spot all of its own. According to the Book of Revelation, Megiddo is where it all goes down at the end. We’re talking big ass battle, the amassing of forces, the children of light fighting the minions of the Antichrist. Armageddon. The word literally means the hill or mountain of Megiddo. You can’t tell me this isn’t just a little bit cool.”

Frost made a decision then. He was going to count to ten in his head, slowly, and then he was going to step out from behind the pillar and shoot the damned dog. He’d take his chances with the guard.

One. He breathed deeply, tasting the river in his throat.

Two.

Three. The dog clawed at the chain-link fence, pushing back against it and barking.

Four. He drew the slide back then eased it forward, chambering the bullet. He let out the breath he had been holding.

Frost didn’t make it as far as five.

The night watchman’s voice carried to him easily. “You’re getting old, stupid bloody dog. There’s nothing out here but the ghosts of dead shipwrights. Come here.” Frost risked the briefest of glances around the edge of the pillar. The man was on his knees and had the Doberman by the scruff of the neck. He appeared to be playing with the animal. It always surprised him the way men bonded with the animals they used, ascribing all of these human qualities like understanding and aging minds to dumb animals. He watched the pair for a few more seconds, then the man clipped the leash back in place and dragged the huge dog toward the front gates.

Frost released the Browning’s slide and holstered the gun at the small of his back.

He waited for them to disappear from sight then spoke in a hushed whisper, “Good job, Jude.”

“Thought it’d make your day, boss,” Lethe said in his ear.

“I’m always happier chasing the money than I am worrying about some holy bloody relic. Fanatics give me the creeps, but money I understand. Greed I understand. These things make sense to me. So we can link Devere to every city that’s been threatened, and back to Caspi. I think we’ve found our man in the middle, so someone needs to pay our Mister Devere a visit.”

“One step ahead of you, boss. Devere chartered a private jet to Winningen airport, Koblenz, yesterday. He cleared customs eighteen hours ago.”

“Germany,” Frost mused, thinking about it for a minute. “Konstantin’s still in Berlin, right? Get him to take a detour. See if he can’t lean Devere. Find out what he knows.”

“I’m on it. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out what the hell’s going on on the other side of this fence. If I don’t check in within the hour, send in reinforcements.”

“Erm, boss, you do know we don’t have any reinforcements, right?” Lethe said.

“I know that, kiddo. It’s an expression, that’s all. It basically means if you don’t hear from me, start to worry.”

“Well that I can do,” Jude Lethe said with a nervous little laugh.

Frost killed the connection. He needed to concentrate, and Lethe babbling in his ear wasn’t exactly conducive to focus. He walked over to the chain-link fence. A coil of barbed wire topped it. These guys were pretty serious about keeping people out, which made Frost all the more eager to find a way inside.

He took off his leather bike jacket and threw it up, still holding onto the cuff of one sleeve, so that it fell over the wire. He took off his silver-gray suit jacket and lay it on the ground. Frost was no fool; there was nothing to identify him in either set of pockets. If he needed to run, the most they’d learn about their intruder was that he had impeccable taste and wasn’t afraid to spend money to look good.

Stepping back, he rocked on his heels, then took a short run up of four steps and launched himself at the fence. He grasped the top, the leather jacket saving his hands from being shredded by the teeth of the barbed wire, and boosted himself up over the fence. It wobbled violently beneath him as his weight shifted. He dropped down on the other side and crouched, listening. Mercifully, the dog didn’t bark.

Frost pushed himself up from the ground and started to run, hard, and kept low. He kept his eyes straight ahead, focusing on the warehouse. His stride ate up the ground. His feet scuffed across the hardstand. There was nothing he could do about the noise. Inside fifty feet he was breathing hard. The windows all along the ground floor were either boarded up or barred. He couldn’t see any doors. He forced himself to run faster, barely slowing before he hit the wall. He turned so that his back was pressed up against it and began to edge around the building, looking for a way in.

The moon was a silver slice above the rooftops of the city on the far side of the river. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. Somewhere in the distance a tin horn sounded its lonesome mating call. Frost jogged around the side of the warehouse. The skeletal limbs of scrub bushes swayed gently in the breeze. The first entrance he found was large enough for two trucks to drive in side-by-side. It was covered by roll-down doors. Like the main gate, it was secured by a thick padlock. He rattled the doors but the padlock didn’t budge, so he carried on around the side, looking for a more conventional door.