It was a straightforward operation, and nearly well executed, which made the death at the end of it come as a complete shock. It started out simple; it became complicated, as all things seem to do.
* * *
Alan and Karick rendezvoused with the waiting surveillance teams shortly before noon. The car bringing Jack and Anne-Marie was about an hour behind, but that didn't matter too much, as this was certainly not a daylight mission.
The Abbot and Michiko were practicing their moves in a small clearing in the nearby woods, and Peter and the rest of the paramilitaries were stripping, oiling, and checking their weapons. No more dawdling; they were moving this night.
After Jack arrived they all formed in a circle and had a mission briefing. The Abbot spoke to them about the Stone, and what precautions they should take if the encountered it, then Karick ran through the lay of the land and the blueline plans of the house, then moved on to describe once again the security, both technological and human.
They spent the rest of the afternoon in the public woods adjacent to the estate, drilling. They were to be split up into three groups. Michiko would lead Team A, Jack was in charge of Team B. Alan was on Team C with Karick, led by the Abbot. He wasn't at all insulted by the fact that he wasn't one of the leaders; as the youngest and least experienced he knew that he was a follower in this company. When they broke for dinner Michiko slipped off and made a quick reconnaissance into the grounds of the estate.
"Keep that away from us," Jack called out as she returned. Nestled in her arms was a silver sphere, about the size of a basketball.
"I think it's a decoy," she said, her pace not slowing.
"What makes you think that?" Alan asked, edging away from her.
She tossed it to him, and on reflex, with consequences forgotten, he caught it. The orb was surprisingly light. He ran his palm over the metallic surface, and his fingers quivered, though not as much as they should have if this was a true copy of a true Orb. Neil took it from him and walked it back to the van. With his expertise in metallurgy and archaeology he gave it a once over, and then tested it with the gear in the van.
"Silver plate, if you believe the equipment, jacketed over an aluminium core." he stated with a chuckle.
Jack was not as amused. "Mr. Swindon-Smythe!"
Neil gulped. He recognized the professorial tone. "Yes, Professor?"
"What conclusions can the class draw from these data?" Jack asked, gesturing to the open laptop screen.
"Well, sir, it was my understanding when I was in Thornbow's employment, that the supply of Orb silver was limited. One possibility is that the spheres on the pedestals scattered over the grounds are decoys; perhaps some are silver plated and some are pure."
"We will proceed with caution," Massimo pronounced gravely.
Since it was summer, night did not begin to fall until after eight. By nine the sky was dark enough for them to begin their assault on Bankington Hall. The three groups moved into their starting positions, from three different approaches into the estate. Alan's group was coming in from the woods that fringed the south of Thornbow's land. The woods were a public thoroughfare, making them difficult for Thornbow to have fully secured; Jack's group was coming in through the east gate, or to be more precise, over the high stone wall just north of it. Michiko's group, the first to go in, would also be using the wooded approach that Alan's group was forming in, just from a different part of it.
Alan checked the pockets of his black jumpsuit for the nth time since he had donned it an hour ago. All his gear was in place. In the rear pocket at the small of his back he felt the small handgun through the material.
Having never fired--or for that matter, touched--a firearm until a few weeks ago, he hoped he would not have to use it, or even remove it from its pocket. The bud in his ear crackled; Anne-Marie informed them that Team A had moved in. Two minutes later the Abbot's Team C, and Jack's Team B would start.
Two minutes passed, and the go signal from Michiko's team did not come. Alan wiped his sweaty palms against the fabric of his jumpsuit, and then fiddled with the black balaclava, combing his hair with his fingers, tucking all his hair under it. His foot was tapping an impatient staccato rhythm on the forest ground.
"You nervous?" Karick asked.
"A little," Alan replied.
"You should be worried a lot, so consider yourself ahead of the game," he answered grimly. Just as he was about to say more Anne-Marie came on the air.
"Teams B and C, move out," she broadcasted. Michiko and her bunch had taken the security center. It was time to go.
* * *
"You don't know who I am, do you?"
Thornbow squirmed in his seat, almost as upset by the thought of what the duct tape was doing to the upholstery of his Louis Quatorze armchair as he was by the fact that he was bound to it at the wrists and ankles. "No," he sneered at the stranger, a man he was quite sure he had never once before laid eyes upon.
"My name," said Jack, "Is Jacob Theodore Lazarus."
Alistair Thornbow belied no reaction to this bit of intelligence; Jack expected none.
"My name before it was Jacob Theodore Lazarus was Jean-Pierre Massimo."
This time Thornbow was thunderstruck. "How is that--It can't be--you're lying!"
"Brother," Jack continued acidly, "You know of what I am capable, do you not?"
Thornbow nodded, defeat evident in his face.
"Two years, brother. Two years you stalked me, haunted my steps. Because you wanted what you can never have. Decades you have desired it, for almost all that time believing it to be myth, a legend unworthy of a child's fantasy. Five years ago, in this very room--I remember it was like yesterday--you showed me the talisman. A small Mesopotamian idol of tarnished silver. Just being in the same room with your collection's latest acquisition knocked the wind from my sails. That fateful day when you began to form the slightest of notions about my nature. Suspicions. Yes, you were suspicious of me for years, but the happenstance of my dizzy spell in the presence of your new trinket ignited the evil scheme within you. And so, you came at me, and to your bitter disappointment, you had me killed. Or so you thought, at any rate. And then, and then you turned your attentions you this young man," he spat, gesturing at Alan. "You almost killed him. Twice."
"What do you want, Jack?" Thornbow snarled.
"You know exactly what I want."
"So, you mean to do murder?"
"Killing you," Massimo said, "Is the last thing I can afford."
Thornbow slumped in his chair, relieved he would be spared. "Then why? Then what?"
"Anne-Marie," Jack said into his radio microphone built into his sleeve, "Please signal the Abbot to join us in the office."
The new intruder was another stranger as far as Thornbow was concerned, though seeing that the middle-aged Englishman standing before him was his octogenarian Swiss step-brother, for all he knew this Japanese monk was in fact Churchill.
"Allow me to introduce you to the Abbot. No first name, no surname, I'm afraid. He must become nameless to head his order, a tradition, you know. As a rule, people fear what they cannot name, Alistair, and though I have found this chap to be most delightful company, it is, nevertheless, a rule you should heed.
"You have something of his," Jack concluded.
"And if I give it, you'll leave?" Thornbow asked.
"Where is it?" the Abbot asked.
"You must promise--"
