Alchemist (93 page)

I have written a program interlinking each of these 200 servers. Should you attempt to deactivate any single one, the remainder will instantly mail out all the information to everyone I have itemized above, and, through a worm virus, continue, ultimately distributing copies to every single person in the world connected to the Internet.

Knowing your fondness for killing people who irritate you, such as Jake Seals, Zandra Wollerton, Walter Hoggin, Dr Corbin, Charley Rowley, Hubert
Wentworth, not to mention both my parents, Edward Donoghue and Tabitha Donoghue, I would suggest that killing me would be unwise. I am the only person who can issue commands to stop the information going out and have taken precautions.

To guard my long-term safety, this command will have to be reissued by me at 7 p.m. GMT every Saturday for the next twelve months. As an added precaution I have distributed photographs of myself and passport details to each of the operators of these file servers. They will only accept the stop command if I turn up in person to enter it. If any date is missed, automatic irreversible distribution of the information commences.

Rorke looked, questioningly, at Gunn. The Director of Security stared back at him gravely. ‘I'm afraid it's correct, sir. Our Systems Manager and team have been on to it since Dr Crowe received the message. He appears to have done what he says.'

Rorke was silent for some moments. ‘So what are our options?'

Gunn glanced at his watch. It was ten to four. ‘Where do you have to be at seven tonight, Mr Molloy?'

‘An hour and a half's drive from here.'

Gunn scratched the back of his head. His eyes flicked to the monitor, then to Conor. He turned back to the Chairman, and said grimly, ‘I don't think we have any options, Sir Neil. I'm afraid that Mr Molloy seems to hold all the aces.'

Rorke went out of the room with Gunn.

Conor and Monty stared at each other in silence, and she understood from the signal in Conor's eyes to say nothing. He
slipped his arms around her and she held him tightly, struggling to control her fear. She knew that now at this moment, perhaps more than ever before, she needed to be strong.

They sat down at a conference table. Monty remembered the first time she had been in this office with Rorke and Crowe just over a year ago, and how happy and full of hope she had been. She looked at the squat gold frog on the Chairman's desk and thought about the frog in Crowe's office, made of black papier-mâché, with jewelled red eyes. The frog –

Her thoughts were broken as Rorke and Gunn came back into the room. She avoided meeting Rorke's eyes.

Gunn closed the door and stayed by it. Rorke walked a short distance across the room, then turned to Conor. ‘So what is it you want? I assume you've thought about it carefully.' There was no rancour in his voice; it was as if this was a minor problem he wanted to get out of the way before turning his mind back to more important matters.

‘What's happened to my father? Where is he?' Monty asked before Conor could reply.

Gunn shot a glance at Rorke and answered for him: ‘Your father is here in this building. He's fine.'

‘Here?
Why's he here? I thought he'd had a stroke.'

Gunn's voice was polite and courteous. ‘Your father is in good health. ‘He –' He shot a glance at Rorke as if for help. ‘He's under sedation.'

‘I want to see him,' Monty said. ‘Now. Take me to him.'

Rorke looked anxiously at his watch.

‘This meeting goes no further until we've seen Dr Bannerman, Rorke,' Conor said. ‘I also need my briefcase, which I left down in your charming hospitality suite.'

Gunn and Rorke exchanged another glance. Something in their expressions made Monty deeply uncomfortable.

‘I'll take you down,' Gunn said.

The sight of her father's pallid complexion, and the drip lines and monitoring equipment had been a shock to Monty. But even in the few minutes they were with him, after the flow of
anaesthetic and sedatives had been halted, he had shown noticeable improvement. The young doctor in charge of him had assured them that Dr Bannerman would be on his feet within a couple of hours.

Back in the Chairman's office, Conor took a seat at the head of the conference table, put his briefcase in front of him and opened it. Monty sat to his right, and Rorke and Gunn sat facing her to his left. Monty watched the Chairman's face for a few seconds, disquieted by his air of confidence.

‘The first myth we need to dispel, Rorke, is the one of your role with the company.' Conor removed a sheet of paper and laid it on the table for them all to read. ‘Bendix Schere has always maintained total secrecy over its shareholdings. Not surprising, is it, Rorke, since you actually own one hundred per cent of the stock?'

Monty looked, astounded, at Conor then at Rorke.

‘Sure,' Conor went on. ‘You give pieces of the action to your Directors. You are fair and democratic. You split forty-nine per cent of the equity of the company and the votes between them, but they never get any documentation formalizing it. It's valid only for as long as they remain with the company – but it's a big incentive. Your average annual dividend runs from a few hundred thousand to a couple of million pounds per head. Nice work if you can get it, Rorke, but I don't think the qualifications for a seat on your Board are entirely straightforward, are they? You require something in addition to business and scientific skills from your acolytes, don't you?'

Conor pulled a folder from his briefcase and tossed it on to the desk. ‘You thought you were pretty thorough in covering your tracks. You had your minions work their way through every library and publishing house in the world. You even had two slightly less-than-helpful photographers killed.' Conor leaned back. ‘You went to a lot of trouble to hide your past. Plastic surgery would have done the job much more efficiently, but perhaps in 1969 that wasn't so good as it is now?'

Rorke appeared unmoved.

‘You see, Rorke, my mother used to be an authority on the occult. She collected every book that was ever published.'
Conor opened the folder, which was filled with large photographic prints, and spread them across the table.

Monty looked at one, a page of a book, with a black and white photograph of a man kneeling in a white robe in the centre of a magic circle. A series of artefacts including a skull, an athame, several chalices, censers and statuettes had been placed around the circumference. The man was in the process of having a mask in the shape of a frog placed over his head.

The caption beneath read: ‘Daniel Judd (Theutus), being ordained as the Forty-Second Assessor of the New International Satanic Brotherhood.'

As she looked closer, Monty could clearly see the face of the kneeling man. He was much younger in the photograph, maybe thirty years younger. The face had since fleshed out and the hair was much longer, but the features had not altered. There was no mistaking him. It was Rorke.

For some moments she could not take her eyes away from the picture. She looked up at the Chairman and her skin crawled. She selected another page, also removed from a book, with three photographs. The young Rorke was present in two of them. As she leafed through the collection of prints she realized with increasing certainty these were the same pages that had been missing from the books in the British Library.

‘Daniel Judd,' Conor said, his voice acid now. ‘
Theutus
.' He pointed at the pictures on the wall, of Rorke sharing a joke with Prince Charles, of him standing arm in arm with Clinton. ‘All your friends in high places. You murdered your father and your mother, didn't you,
Daniel Judd?
You tortured your mother first; you cut her hands off, then you tormented her, then you killed her. Your charm knows no bounds, Rorke.
Sir
Neil Rorke. How did it feel when the Queen knighted you?'

Rorke looked at him with hatred. ‘Why don't you stop this charade and tell me what you want, Molloy?'

Conor nodded. ‘Sure. I have it right here.' He pulled another folder from his briefcase. It contained a thin sheaf of documents, which he separated into four identical piles. He pushed one set to Rorke and another to Monty, ignoring
Gunn for the moment. ‘Want to tell me where your secretary keeps her coffee machine while you take a read?'

Rorke looked at the papers in front of him. ‘There isn't time to read all this now.'

‘You'll manage,' Conor said, and pushed the fourth bundle to Gunn. ‘Guess you should take a look also. It affects you too.' Then he stood up. ‘Anyone take milk? Sugar?'

Thirty minutes later Rorke replaced the last page of the final document in his bundle then stacked the pages tidily, looking at Conor with incredulity. ‘You want me to make over my entire shareholding to Dr Bannerman, Miss Bannerman and yourself?'

‘It's a good deal for you,' said Conor smoothly. ‘In exchange, you receive a guaranteed pension of one hundred thousand pounds a year for life, plus the same fifty-one per cent of the profits of Bendix Schere that you currently get, for life.' He paused a moment. ‘The remaining forty-nine per cent will be distributed annually to medical research foundations and charities. You've always called Bendix Schere the “World's Most Caring Company” – well, that's how it's going to be from now.'

‘And you also expect me to sign the document resigning as Chairman.'

‘Dr Bannerman, Miss Bannerman and I will appoint a new Board. I don't intend keeping too many of your existing playmates.'

Rorke caught Gunn's eye, frowning. ‘And is there anything else, Molloy?' Rorke said, turning back to Conor. ‘Any more surprises tucked up your sleeve?'

Monty looked anxiously at Conor. There was no way Rorke was going to swallow this. And she desperately needed to tell Conor what she had seen in the subterranean laboratories. It would get out, it had to, and when it did the company would be finished. Was that why Rorke was so calm? Was Conor unwittingly offering him a golden get-out?

‘Yes,' Conor said, ‘there is. I want you to take me to the Cave of Demons.'

‘
What?
'

‘Just the two of us. Alone.'

Rorke smiled, visibly relaxing. ‘You're not serious, Molloy?'

‘I've never been more serious.'

‘You wouldn't last five minutes in there. I'm sorry, you're talking about something way out of your depth.'

‘Am I?' Conor flared.

Rorke sat looking at him for some moments. ‘No one goes to the Cave of Demons unless they have been summoned, Molloy. It isn't possible.'

‘You have the power, Rorke. You are the only human being on earth who is permitted to go.'

Again Rorke stared at him in silence for what seemed an eternity. Then he shook his head. ‘No. No way, Molloy. What you want is not possible. It has never been done.'

‘It can be done,' Conor said. ‘It is written in the Great Law.'

‘No one has ever done it. Not in two thousand years.'

‘You are permitted to return there once,' Conor said. ‘It is one of the Sixty-Three Privileges you hold.'

‘It would take months of preparation. It's madness to even think about doing it unprepared. No, Molloy. If you go to the Cave of Demons you will die.'

Conor shook his head. ‘No, I won't die, Rorke, because you're going to protect me. I'm bad news for you dead.'

‘I could give no guarantee that I could protect you. I don't think you fully understand the forces that exist there.'

‘Then you'll have to work very, very hard, Rorke. You've never put a foot wrong in your life – so far. Why start now?'

Rorke watched him silently.

‘If I live, Rorke, you will still have your fortune intact. If I die, you either face catastrophe or you take your money and spend the rest of your life in hiding. I don't think that would suit you somehow.'

‘Molloy, you give me no choice. I'll take you to the Cave of Demons. If you survive, then we'll sign the documents.'

Conor gave him a wry smile, opened his briefcase again and removed another document. ‘I'll meet you halfway.' He put the document on the table. ‘I've already signed this. It's an irrevocable instruction to my lawyer, Bob Storer at Harbottle
and Lewis, who should be waiting down in the lobby right now. He will hold the only copies of the documents in existence in his office. If I make it back, he gives them to me. If I don't, he gives them to you.'

Conor looked at his watch and stood up. ‘It's non-negotiable, Rorke.' He handed Monty a piece of paper on which was written a telephone number and said to her: ‘I'll be waiting at that number at five to seven. I want to hear you and your father both telling me Rorke has signed. Then I'll issue the stop commands.'

He turned to Rorke. ‘Major Gunn will witness your signature. You have the company seal here?'

‘You won't come back, Molloy. You don't seem to understand that.'

‘That's your problem as much as mine, Rorke.' He closed his briefcase and picked it up. ‘I want you to make a call to have the company jet ready for take-off from Gatwick Airport at eight o'clock tonight, with a flight plan filed for Tel Aviv. You'd better hurry; you have some serious packing to do. Now I'm going to have a word in private with Miss Bannerman. I'd appreciate it if you would arrange for the lift to take us down to the lobby.'

Monty and Conor travelled down in silence. A man in a suit was waiting on one of the reception sofas with a large attaché case beside him and Conor introduced Monty to him, briefly, then went out into the car park with her and they climbed into his rented Ford.

‘I know what you're going to say,' he said.

‘Conor, you don't. You haven't
seen
what they're doing down there. I can't begin to –'