Scott Mariani - The Sacred Sword

‘A lot of people tell me that,’ he said to the waitress, forcing a grin. ‘Guess I just have that kind of face.’ And how many times had that face of his appeared on air over the last few hours? he thought. This was no good at all. Someone was bound to recognise him.

When his coffee came, he gulped down as much of it as he could, then left the diner in a hurry. The guy in the corner near the door was still slumped on his table, snoring, his baseball cap at his elbow. It was frayed and grimy, with a label that said ‘Hoyt Archery’. Wesley glanced back towards the counter, then furtively grabbed the cap and scurried away into the cold night.

The temperature outside seemed to have dropped several more degrees. Wesley jammed the cap on his head, pulled the peak down low over his face and glanced around him. Wherever the bus station might be, it was nowhere in sight. A smattering of traffic was passing by in both directions. He thought about trying to hitch another ride.

Another possible option was the used car lot the other side of a mesh fence. He had just about enough cash on him to get something from there, if he hung around here freezing his ass off till morning. But he worried about the paperwork he’d have to fill in to buy a car. Could his seemingly omniscient pursuers trace him from that, too? Moreover, spending most of his cash would leave him short of ready money, now that his credit card was apparently unusable. If the AmEx could give him away so easily, then an ATM cash withdrawal surely would too. Until he reached the safety of Martha’s, every step of the way there was a risk that they’d find him.

They. They. It sounded crazy.

But it wasn’t crazy. He remembered the old saying: It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.

‘Simeon, my friend, we’re in deep shit,’ he muttered to himself.

A bus roared by, dimly lit up inside and carrying a smattering of passengers. Wesley watched it go, then pulled the cap down even further to hide his face and set off up the road, case in hand, looking for the nearby station.

The day after that first meeting with the mysterious Rex O’Neill, Penrose had made sure he was available to make the rendezvous in the bar of the King’s Lodge Hotel in Durham, to be taken to meet the man’s even more mysterious employers.

The October rain had cleared to make way for a sunny autumnal day. Penrose had arrived at the hotel ten minutes early, clutching the unsigned hundred-thousand-pound cheque in his pocket. O’Neill was already waiting for him. He greeted Penrose with a nod and led him to a car. This time, the gleaming black Mercedes — not the same one, Penrose observed — had a driver. The car sped out of the city to an ultra-exclusive country club that Penrose had heard of but never been to. The clubhouse was a magnificent stately home overlooking the golf course.

O’Neill stayed in the car. Severely baffled and intimidated, Penrose was led inside the opulent clubhouse by two very large fellows in dark suits, who silently escorted him to a conference room. There, seated around a long table, five very serious men were waiting for Penrose.

That had been his first encounter with the senior members of the obscure organisation calling itself the Trimble Group. They were all much older than Penrose, mostly well into their sixties. They had been extremely welcoming and full of praise for his excellent, important book. He’d been offered drinks, which he politely refused as he never touched alcohol. Then, over a long and lavish lunch that Penrose was too nervous to do more than peck at, they’d outlined their proposal to him.

As Penrose now discovered, he had been unanimously picked from a very short list of potential candidates. The group’s brief was simple, and it required someone with particular qualities. Motivation was key; as was intelligence, as was secrecy.

As the meeting went on, Penrose had to pinch himself under the table to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He was bursting with questions, but so excited he could barely voice them. What he was hearing seemed utterly incredible. It seemed even more incredible when they revealed to him the size of the budget allocated to the operation they wanted him — him! — to personally lead and oversee. Penrose had to grip the edge of the table to stop himself from keeling over.

There would be an initial injection of twelve million pounds. The account had in fact already been opened and the funds put on standby, just waiting for his signature on the contract, whereupon the wire transfer would take place instantly, enabling him to access the money however he liked, in cash if desired. The twelve million was, he was assured, just a fraction of what was to come if the operation proved successful.

The deal terms were breathtakingly straightforward. Penrose would have a free hand to run the operation as he saw fit, with Rex O’Neill assigned to him as his assistant, liaising with the Trimble Group and acting as a general aide and campaign manager.

Penrose’s busy academic schedule might be a concern, they warned. Penrose hastily assured them that it wasn’t. He was already mentally drafting his letter of resignation to Durham University. He’d happily relocate to wherever they wanted, he told them. They laughed. ‘You can run your show from wherever you like,’ one of them said, and the others didn’t contradict him. Travel would be no problem. Penrose would have a fleet of cars at his disposal, as well as aircraft, including a Learjet allocated exclusively to him and on permanent standby to fly wherever he pleased.

One other thing, they reminded him gravely. He must never tell a living soul about this meeting or the nature of what had been discussed. To reveal anything of the Trimble Group, he was informed, would cause irreversible complications. This could not be stressed enough. All eyes were on him as the point was pressed home.

Penrose understood and accepted everything. He couldn’t sign on the line fast enough.

When he left the meeting, Penrose’s head was spinning so badly he could barely walk back to the Mercedes.

Yet it was all true: over the next few days everything happened exactly as the Trimble Group had said it would. Inside of a week, Penrose had quit his job, sold his flat, and was moving to his new headquarters. He chose the beautiful island of Capri, off Italy’s Sorrentine Peninsula, once the abode of Roman emperors. With the newfound millions at his disposal he purchased himself the five-acre estate, complete with magnificent clifftop villa and assorted staff quarters, that was to double as his home and operational headquarters.

Nobody tried to stop him. This was really happening. It seemed that he could do whatever he wanted.

Penrose set about his new purpose in life with a ferocious energy that amazed even him. The Trimble Group could not have picked a better man for the job. Penrose Lucas had arrived, and he was damned if he wouldn’t show them what he was made of. Ten years, he thought. Give me ten years and I’ll become the most important man in history.

He’d known exactly where to begin his quest, with a score he’d been itching to settle for quite some time. He issued orders to O’Neill, which were duly passed down the line and carried out with extreme efficiency by his wonderful new friends. Within less than twenty-four hours, the first phone tap was in place and Penrose was ready to start digging up whatever dirt he could find on the Reverend Simeon Arundel.

But when they first began to listen in on the vicar’s secretive conversations with his overseas associates, Penrose realised what he’d accidentally stumbled upon. It was momentous. Earth-shattering. It had to be stopped.

His time had truly come.