Baptism Read online

  Baptism

  Baptism

  Max Kinnings

  New York • London

  © 2012 by Max Kinnings

  First published in the United States by Quercus in 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

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  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to Permissions c/o Quercus Publishing Inc., 31 West 57th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10019, or to [email protected].

  e-ISBN: 9-781-62365-103-9

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by

  Random House Publisher Services

  c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway

  New York, NY 10019

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  For Ange and Mabel

  Contents

  10:02 AM: Tunnel between Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road stations

  12:04 AM (TEN HOURS EARLIER): Inside Madoc Farm, Snowdonia

  12:07 AM: Outside Madoc Farm, Snowdonia

  12:09 AM: Inside Madoc Farm, Snowdonia

  6:45 AM: Inside 14 Highfield Road, South Wimbledon

  6:58 AM: Highfield Road, South Wimbledon

  7:06 AM: Inside 14 Highfield Road, South Wimbledon

  7:45 AM: Inside 14 Highfield Road, South Wimbledon

  7:46 AM: Highfield Road, South Wimbledon

  8:17 AM: Northbound Northern Line platform, Leicester Square Tube Station

  8:19 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  8:46 AM: Northbound Northern Line platform, Leicester Square Tube Station

  8:54 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  8:56 AM: Northern Line Train 037, rear cab

  8:58 AM: Flat 21, Hyde Park Mansions, Pimlico

  8:59 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  9:16 AM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  9:18 AM: Flat 21, Hyde Park Mansions, Pimlico

  9:52 AM: Leicester Square

  10:04 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  10:05 AM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  10:06 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  10:10 AM: Northern Line Train 037, rear cab

  10:17 AM: MI5 Headquarters, Thames House

  10:19 AM: Northern Line Train 037, rear cab

  10:23 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  10:28 AM: Northern Line Train 037

  10:41 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  11:02 AM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  11:07 AM: Northern Line Train 037, rear cab

  11:11 AM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  11:13 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  11:15 AM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  11:16 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  11:17 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  11:30 AM: Northern Line Train 037

  11:31 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  11:36 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  11:39 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  11:43 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  11:44 AM: Morden Tube Station parking lot

  11:48 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  11:48 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  11:54 AM: Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  11:59 AM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  12:06 PM: Northern Line Train 037, second carriage

  12:13 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  12:16 PM: Northern Line Train 037, second carriage

  12:16 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  12:19 PM: Northern Line Train 037, second carriage

  12:19 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  12:20 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  12:34 PM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  12:35 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  12:36 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  12:38 PM: Northern Line Train 037, fifth carriage

  12:42 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  12:53 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  1:01 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  1:02 PM: Northern Line Train 037, fifth carriage

  1:03 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  1:05 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  1:06 PM: MI5 Headquarters, Thames House

  1:11 PM: Network Control center, St. James’s

  1:27 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  1:31 PM: Camden Town

  1:33 PM: Morden Tube Station parking lot

  1:49 PM: Coopers Lane, Somers Town

  1:50 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  1:55 PM: Northern Line Train 037, fifth carriage

  1:58 PM: MI5 Headquarters, Thames House

  2:03 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  2:05 PM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  2:11 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  2:19 PM: Unmarked Police Car, Leicester Square

  2:33 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  2:42 PM: Leicester Square

  2:47 PM: Northern Line Train 037

  2:55 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, service tunnel

  3:07 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  3:11 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, service tunnel

  3:12 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  3:19 PM: Northern Line Train 037

  3:20 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, service tunnel

  3:21 PM: Northern Line Train 037

  3:23 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, Northern Line Tunnel

  3:25 PM: Northern Line Train 037, sixth carriage

  3:25 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  3:28 PM: Frith Street, Soho

  3:29 PM: Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  3:31 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, service tunnel

  3:49 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, ticket hall

  3:54 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, station manager’s office

  3:58 PM: MI5 Headquarters, Thames House

  3:58 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, ticket hall

  4:04 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, admin office

  4:07 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, ticket hall

  4:11 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, service tunnel entrance

  4:12 PM: Leicester Square Tube Station, service tunnel

  10:02 AM

  Tunnel between Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road stations

  From the train, Glen could just make out the faint sound of voices, passengers talking most probably. Sweat dribbled down his face and his heart thumped against his sternum. Remember the training. It was a m
antra that had been drilled into him. If he remembered the training, everything would be all right. As a member of CO19, he was at the sharp end of one of the world’s most elite police special operations groups. They had earned a bad reputation in the past due to a couple of high-profile mistakes. The media had made a lot of those while playing down the successes. But Glen felt proud to be a member of CO19, proud that he had passed the psychological tests and been invited to attend the eight-week training course at the Metropolitan Police Specialist Training center to learn about firearms, methods of entry, fast rope skills, scenario intervention, rescue techniques, and potential terrorist attacks. His colleague, Rob, was one of the top specialist firearms officers in the country, and by being chosen to be on operation alongside him, Glen knew that he too must be held in high regard by the powers that be.

  The voice was relayed into his headset: “Can you see anything?”

  “Nothing,” said Rob.

  “Okay then, move in closer and keep talking to me.”

  Rob stood up first and moved past Glen, who followed him, aiming his 9mm Glock 17 pistol at the train. This was not the most dangerous part of the mission but it was close to it; they were in the open, approaching a static target, with no cover. But they had darkness and the enclosed space of the tunnel on their side. It was unlikely that a night scope would pick them up at this distance. A few feet further on, Rob crouched down on one side of the tunnel and Glen did the same a few feet behind him, careful not to touch the live rail.

  “Okay, we’re about twenty feet away from it now,” said Rob into his mouthpiece. “There’s nothing moving and all is quiet.” But just as he said these words, something did move. There was a flash from the cab and a soft popping sound. Glen felt a spray of warm liquid and grit on his face. He glanced at Rob but there was something wrong with him. The upper right-hand quadrant of his head was completely missing, leaving a jagged fringe of shattered bone fragments and ruptured brain in its place from which blood sluiced freely as his legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground.

  “Rob?” Glen didn’t know why he said it. It wasn’t as though Rob could hear anything.

  “What is it?” came the voice over the headset.

  “Shit.” It wasn’t an exclamation. Glen spoke the word softly. He looked at the train and suddenly felt very lonely. The rules of engagement seemed so far away now. He knew what he had to do but he also knew what would happen when he did it. He raised his pistol and took aim at the rear cab of the train, from where there was another flash followed by a pop. Before he could fire off a shot, the entire top of his head, from the bridge of his nose upward was sheered off and he fell backward onto the sleepers between the rails.

  “Someone talk to me.” The calm, flat voice came from the bloody remains of two radio headsets. But no one was listening.

  12:04 AM (TEN HOURS EARLIER)

  Inside Madoc Farm, Snowdonia

  It sounded like laughter. It came from along the corridor. Varick looked up from his book and squinted into the darkness beyond the bubble of light thrown by the candle on his desk. Why would someone be laughing so loudly after midnight? The Church of Cruor Christi didn’t forbid such things, didn’t trouble its flock with rules and regulations. They weren’t needed. The brothers and sisters at Madoc Farm were there because they wanted to be there, they wanted to live the life. They had chosen it, just as they themselves had been chosen by God. But laughter, so loud and unrestrained at this time of night, was odd.

  When Varick realized that what he was hearing wasn’t laughter, he picked up the candle from his desk and made for the door, shielding the flame from the onrush of air as he made his way down the corridor toward the source of the sound.

  All the doors to the bedrooms were shut, apart from the one next to the bathroom, Father Owen’s room. The sound wasn’t coming from there but the bathroom itself. Brother Alistair was on his knees by the side of the bath. He had succumbed to some sort of hysteria, tears streaming and his mouth stretched wide, emitting the sound that Varick had mistaken for laughter.

  Varick was about to drag Alistair to his feet and slap him to his senses when he saw what was in the bath. Trembling, naked, his gnarled hands gripped around the sides of the bath as though trying to prolong his life through sheer force of will alone was Father Owen. Sticking out of his throat was the handle of a carving knife. The bath water was the color of rosé wine.

  The candle dropped from Varick’s hand and went out. The only light came from the candles burning in Owen’s room next door. Varick reached down to the old man, this kind old man who had taken him in and saved him when he was lost, and he half-lifted, half-dragged him from the bath and laid him down on the stone floor in the hallway.

  “Who did this to you?” asked Varick. There was more light in the hallway and Varick could see the old man’s face as he tried to speak. The only sound that Owen could make, however, was a faint whistling from the wound in his neck as his tongue churned blood in his mouth. Owen made another attempt to speak before his body went limp and his head cracked back against the floor as the blood bubbles around the blade in his neck popped their last.

  “Who could have done such a thing?”

  Alistair managed to find a gap long enough between his sobs to provide Varick with a response. “It was Tommy.”

  As Varick took in the implications of Alistair’s statement, the growing sense of unease that had plagued him all day came into needle-sharp focus. Of course it was Tommy. It could only be Tommy. The day before Father Owen had come to find Varick in the vegetable garden, where he was digging, to tell him that he had found something “most distressing,” as he had described it. Worried about Tommy’s recent behavior, Owen had done something that Varick disapproved of and searched the young ex-soldier’s room. There he had found a notebook in which Tommy had written about his mounting frustration relating to his faith and the state of the world in general. Nothing unusual in that, particularly among the younger members of the church of Cruor Christi, but Owen had read something in the notebook that had alarmed him, something that he felt compelled to impart to Varick. Hot from the sun and tired of digging, Varick had been angry with the old man and told him it was wrong to go into Tommy’s room and read his diary.

  “Do you know where Tommy is now?”

  “I heard him run,” said Alistair, sniffing. “There were others too.”

  This was the final confirmation that Varick needed. With Father Owen dead, responsibility for the church’s future had devolved to him. He knew where Tommy was going. The details of what he wanted to do were all laid out in his notebook. If Tommy was serious about carrying out his mission—and Owen’s murder could only suggest that he was—this was more than just an attack on the church of Cruor Christi, it was an attack on everyone who failed to share the insanity of Tommy’s grand designs. Varick knew what was happening. God was testing him.

  12:07 AM

  Outside Madoc Farm, Snowdonia

  They were on their way. The moment she had been waiting for for so long had arrived. Her flesh tingled. She felt strangely intoxicated but also completely in control. It was a spiritual feeling. Never once had she doubted her brother, never once had she found cause to concern herself regarding the legitimacy or morality of what they were embarking on. Tommy was a prophet. She was a prophet too. Tommy had told her she was.

  She hadn’t liked watching what Tommy had done to the old man. It reminded her of her mother and father. It wasn’t nice. But if she was honest—and she always was because God knew when she lied—she was pleased with herself that she had been strong enough to witness it. It made her realize that she would be able to do what had to be done later in the day. This was something that she had given great thought to in the past few weeks. She didn’t want to let Tommy down.

  While Tommy put his bag in the trunk of the car he had stolen earlier, Simeon said, “What’s happening? Why now?”

  “Just practicing,” she said. She didn’t like lying to Sime
on but he would find out the truth for himself soon enough. Of course they weren’t “just practicing.” Why kill the old man if they were practicing? Not that Simeon knew that Father Owen was dead. Tommy had made sure that Simeon was in his room when they dealt with Father Owen. But there was no more time for Simeon to ask further questions; Tommy climbed into the car, started the engine and they set off.

  It reminded Belle of when she was little, when their parents were still alive and they went out in the car for the day. She didn’t care where they were going; it was the journey she loved, sitting there in the backseat looking out of the window at the scenery going past. She felt the same excitement now, sitting next to Tommy as he steered them along the mountain roads. Their destination was still a few hours away and she could enjoy the journey, safe and secure in the car with the two men she loved most in all the world: Tommy and Simeon.

  Tommy had kept telling her to expel all doubt from her mind and sometimes she found it hard. Many people—most people probably—would find it almost impossible to understand what they were going to do, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t right. Jesus had been misunderstood, had been persecuted for his beliefs. Suffering was all part of the process but, now that they were on their way to London and the waiting was over, she felt sure that her suffering was nearly at an end.

  12:09 AM

  Inside Madoc Farm, Snowdonia

  Varick hurried back to his room, the familiarity of his surroundings allowing him to navigate in almost total darkness. He went to the desk in the office next to his bedroom, opened the drawer, and took out a large metal flashlight and a Smith & Wesson revolver. Never had the gun’s checkered stock felt so reassuring in his hand. It always supplied him with strength of purpose. Clicking on the flashlight, he headed toward Tommy’s room at the other end of the corridor. The door was open and he could see before he even stepped inside that the room was empty.

  Varick went to the shelves above the bed and dragged down the shoeboxes in which Tommy kept his personal possessions. The boxes’ contents spilled open on the bed. There were letters, postcards, sports trophies, diaries, notebooks, computer disks, and a pack of playing cards. Varick didn’t know what he was looking for but, as he looked through Tommy Denning’s possessions, he realized how little he had really known him.