The Gods of Atlantis (11 page)

The other man stared at him, then tapped a keyboard set into the table. The entire phantasm disappeared, the warriors and the ibexes and the night sky, and the two shafts of light returned. He swivelled his chair and looked at the computer monitor. ‘Jean-Pierre Saumerre. Born in Marseille of Algerian Muslim background, but one grandfather French. Educated at the Sorbonne and Cambridge University. After completing a doctorate in econometrics, worked for his family company Arancho, a conglomerate with numerous interests across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Eight years ago relinquished his role as CEO to enter European Union politics. Meteoric rise through the corridors of power in Brussels, becoming Director-General for Business Affairs eighteen months ago. Board member of the European Central Bank, and presently up for election to vice-presidency of the European Commission.’

He peered at Saumerre over the screen, and then sat back on his chair with a cold smile on his face. He picked up a vicious little knife and pressed the end of the blade gingerly with the tip of one index finger. ‘A man very close to holding the purse strings in Brussels, the biggest black hole for tax money in the world. Perhaps, Dr Saumerre, you did not relinquish your family business interests after all.’ The man licked the tip of his finger where he had drawn blood, raised the knife with his other hand and suddenly flicked it past Saumerre’s face to the wall opposite, where it buried itself to the hilt. He put his hands palm-down on the table and stared at Saumerre, the smile gone. ‘You talk of a business arrangement?’

Saumerre waved his hand in the air where the knife had passed as if whisking away a fly, then reached into the breast pocket of his overcoat and extracted a brown envelope, pulling a sheet half out. ‘Shang Yong. Born into one of the oldest clans in China, tracing their descent back to the warriors of the First Emperor. A computer-simulation expert, educated in Hong Kong and at boarding school in England, then at UCLA and MIT. After graduating, he disappeared back into China,
where he re-emerged as head of the Brotherhood of the Tiger, an ancient secret society that has developed lucrative business interests on the back of the Chinese economic boom. Front companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, but suspected of operating from a secret base somewhere in the Taklamakan Desert, aiming at virtually feudal control over the frontier region of western China. A megalomaniac who is ruthless to those who stand in his way and responsible for numerous murders in China and around the world. After the usual terrorist suspects, about the top name on Interpol’s most-wanted list.’

Shang Yong smiled, and held his arms wide. ‘Perhaps Dr Saumerre feels that as he is a god in Brussels, he has some kind of divine power in the Taklamakan too. Are you here to arrest me?’

‘I have come alone. At the moment, nobody else knows I am here.’

‘Yet I think you are trying to threaten me, Dr Saumerre.’

‘We are all being held to ransom. That is the balance of power in our world, is it not? That is why I am here. If you help me to remove one who is threatening me, then the file on you is shut. It will never be reopened, because from then on we will be business partners, to huge mutual advantage.’

‘You say
our world
. What do you mean? I think you and I live in different worlds.’

‘Not so different. Did you not wonder how I discovered this place? Satellite surveillance shows only a bustling little town, one of many being built by the Chinese in an attempt to colonize the desert and quash local Uighar resistance. Nothing out of the ordinary here, not even the ancient Silk Road fortress, one of many ruins half swallowed and forgotten in the desert. You have to go underground to see what’s really here, and to get there you have to pass through a security perimeter that the First Emperor himself would have admired.’ Saumerre leaned forward. ‘When I say underground, I don’t mean this hideaway. I mean deep underground, the oil-bearing shales beneath us. I have known about the Brotherhood of the Tiger for years, and admired your handiwork. The best assassins for hire anywhere, if one can afford them. But then two years ago you took an enormous hit when your key
underworld links in the US and Hong Kong were exposed, after you became involved in an operation that stepped over your usual careful boundaries. I know this because you have been putting out feelers. Your plan had been to develop the Taklamakan as your own private fiefdom, to channel all of your income into boring and pumping the oil reserves in secret, then to present the Chinese government with an offer of partnership they could not refuse. After all, the Peking politburo contains two members of the Brotherhood, does it not? Names you would not wish exposed, as that partnership is central to your plan. But you have no capital reserves any more. You have no money to make the oil flow. So your dwindling band of agents in Europe and America and the Far East have been desperately seeking investors.’

Shang Yong stared at him. ‘How do you know this?’

‘I will let you in on a little secret. In the 1930s, my grandfather was a small-time gangster in Marseille. He was arrested and did time in a French penal colony in the Caribbean, which hardened him. By 1940 he was back in Marseille, but he was arrested again, this time by the Vichy police and the Gestapo for attempting to steal a vault-load of gold and precious stones confiscated from wealthy French Jews. It was an audacious scheme that demonstrated his potential, and his gaolers at a succession of concentration camps in France and Germany showed him grudging respect. He escaped from his final camp near Belsen just before the Allies arrived, returning to his old Marseille haunts penniless but with plenty of secrets, including the location of works of art stolen by the Nazis. He decided he needed a legitimate front for his business. He called it Arancho, after a tattoo of a spider he had acquired at the penal colony in Antigua.’ Saumerre lifted his left forearm and un-buttoned the cuff, pulling it up to reveal a smudged dark spider on his arm. ‘I bear it too.’

Shang Yong pulled up the sleeve of his loose-fitting robe and revealed his own tattoo, the grimacing face of a tiger. He let the sleeve drop, and beamed at Saumerre. ‘So. We really do inhabit the same world. And your political career in Brussels is, shall I say, part of the family business?’

A flicker of a smile passed Saumerre’s lips. ‘I leave that to your imagination.’

‘You wish to invest in our prospecting scheme? That is why you are here?’

Saumerre shook his head. ‘I have no interest in your oil. I wish to employ your organization to follow a man, to get from him what I want and then to kill him. The fee I will pay you will be greater than any investment money you will find in the underworld.’

‘And who is this man?’

‘An archaeologist by trade, but he meddles in a world far bigger than he realizes. His name is Jack Howard.’

Shang Yong went pale. He bunched his fists, then tapped the keyboard and swung the monitor round so that Saumerre could see. It showed the home page of the International Maritime University website, with an anchor logo in the top left corner and a photograph of two men in diving suits holding an ancient amphora, one of them tall with a tousle of dark hair and the other smaller and swarthier, both of them smiling at the camera. Shang Yong pointed at the taller man, then bunched his fists again, his voice contorted with rage. ‘Two years ago, in Afghanistan, this man shot and killed one of my best operatives, my own nephew. We were on the trail of a treasure he too was seeking, a jewel from the tomb of the First Emperor that would have given me what I crave, the jewel that made the First Emperor a god. It was Howard who was responsible for shutting down my operations in Hong Kong. Because of Howard I am trapped in this place. Ever since then I have been plotting revenge.’ He held his breath, his fists still clenched, then exhaled slowly, relaxing his hands and flexing them. He was still for a moment, then looked at Saumerre shrewdly. ‘You knew this name would enrage me. You have tried to find my weakness. I do not need you to exact my vengeance on Howard.’

Saumerre stared stonily at him. ‘You have been plotting revenge, but with each passing day your empire shrivels, my friend. You have fewer than a dozen skilled operatives left, men and women who can operate internationally, who can kill and get away with it. Ever since Howard
exposed the Brotherhood, they have been hunted down, and when one is killed or arrested there is no longer anyone trained as a replacement. Your face is known to every security service in the world. Even here you are safe only as long as the Brotherhood retains influence in Peking, but that is only two men, two elderly uncles of yours, two names I could give to Interpol right now. Everything hangs in the balance. Turn away from me, and the Brotherhood will fall. Come with me, and the Brotherhood will rise again, and you will truly have the wealth and power of the First Emperor.’

Shang Yong tapped a finger on the table, and continued to look at Saumerre through narrowed eyes. ‘Give me more. Prove yourself.’

Saumerre paused. ‘For years I have been on the trail of something my grandfather knew about, a lost ancient treasure excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in Greece in the nineteenth century, hidden by him and then rediscovered and hidden away again by the Nazis. It is called the palladion, and my grandfather knew it would unlock untold Nazi secrets. Six months ago, Jack Howard and his team began excavations at the site of Troy, scene of another of Schliemann’s triumphs, and got wind of my quest. I found it expedient to have Howard’s daughter detained to try to force him to give me the palladion when I thought he had found it. I used a Russian organization my family has employed before, but they let me down. They did not have the quality of the Brotherhood of the Tiger.’

Shang Yong slammed his fist on the table. ‘We are the best.’

‘That is why I am here.’

‘The Russians failed, where my men would have succeeded.’

‘Howard’s security people uncovered what I have told you about my family past. If he had exposed me, I would not be here now. But he suspected that I knew more, that through my grandfather I could have knowledge of secret Nazi weapons that might fall into the wrong hands, that to expose me might persuade me to trigger a course of events that could lead to a terrorist attack or start a war. Howard and I have a stand-off. Any hint of my taking retribution against him or his people
would lead to instant exposure of my criminal activities. So you see, this is personal for me too.’

‘Why do you choose to act now?’

‘His security people, and I am sure their contacts in the British secret service, have been waiting for a chink to appear in my armour, for something to prove that Howard’s suspicions were correct. I have been waiting for what I knew was only a matter of time. They have begun to excavate a site that was uncovered last year, a Nazi bunker near the latest concentration camp where my grandfather was imprisoned. I no longer have need of the palladion to open what my grandfather knew was there. Howard and his team will do the job for me. I have people in my pay who will see that I get what I want.’

‘And you will have what they find?’

‘As you said. In Europe, I am a god. The bunker is in Europe. I will find a way.’

Shang Yong bunched his fist. ‘Howard can be killed now.’ Saumerre shook his head. ‘To do that would lead to instant exposure. I will wait until he has discovered what I want. He will then be irrelevant to my plans. Other forces will have been set in motion, and my charade in Brussels will no longer be of consequence. Eliminating Howard will simply be a matter of personal satisfaction for me and for you.’

Shang Yong tapped the table again. ‘Tell me something, Saumerre. Your mother was Algerian. You are a practising Muslim, yes?’

‘You have read my profile. As a politician I have huge support among the Muslim community in France, and I can always count on backing from the Middle East and Gulf states. I am the only European politician of my stature who is perceived to be a Muslim, and it has helped my rise immeasurably. The utopian fools in Brussels think that the solution to Islamic fundamentalism is to encourage more Muslims into positions of high political power, and I am seen as the trailblazer.’

‘You say they are fools. So you think the path of the fundamentalists is an irrevocable one?’

‘I think there are many paths to the glory of Allah.’

Shang Yong looked at him shrewdly. ‘The Brotherhood of the Tiger
does not heed that call. If you are set on that path, then you have come knocking on the wrong door. I can get my revenge against Jack Howard another way.’

Saumerre paused, tapped the envelope on his knee to drop the sheet back inside, then pushed it back into his overcoat, stopping halfway. ‘So be it. But you are missing an opportunity. I am offering you a flat fee of five hundred million euros, half wired to your account now, half when I have Howard’s head on a platter. And if I discover the prize I am after, then I will cut you in on half of a ransom I will demand of the world, a ransom they will have no choice but to pay and which will make your fee look like small change. But if you are unwilling to do business, then I will leave now.’

‘You will not get past the door.’

Saumerre looked at his watch. ‘If I am not back at my desk in Brussels by 0930 tomorrow morning, an automated sequence will cause a little red light to flash in the Pentagon in Washington. A top-secret protocol will be activated regarding verified and actionable information on known terrorist hideaways. The file that will open under my authority as a European commissioner will show that Shang Yong and his Brotherhood have financed fundamentalist terrorist attacks on Western targets as a way of furthering their own business interests. You see, you may speculate about my activities, but I know about yours. The file will contain GPS co-ordinates for this chamber we are standing in now. By 1000 hours an executive decision will have been taken in the White House, and by 1015 a massive cruise missile strike will have been lauched from the carrier battle group presently in the Sea of Japan, with the secret connivance of those members of the Chinese government who would also like to see your operations destroyed. By 1215 everything here will be obliterated, whether I am still present or not. The countdown to this scenario only stops if I deactivate the sequence. It can be reactivated at any time.’