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“Pepperwick?” one of the policemen said. “I know him. Who are you? What’s going on? Who’s shooting?”
“I’m Burton. Sir Richard Francis Burton. Keep these people back, Constable—?”
“Sergeant, sir. Piper.”
“Detective Inspector Trounce is on the wharf, Piper. He’s leading an assault against a group of men who’re intent on bombing the ceremony in Green Park.”
“The devil you say! A bomb?”
“Can you spare one of your fellows? We’re out to nab their leader.”
“I’ll come myself.” Piper turned to the other policemen and barked, “Tamworth, you’re with me. Lampwick, Carlyle, Patterson, you keep this crowd back, is that understood?”
He received a saluted response.
“Lead on,” he said to Burton.
Following the road, they skirted the front of the factory to the corner of Vauxhall Bridge. Here a set of concrete steps led down to the riverside and the outlet of the Effra. They found another gun battle raging there—Krishnamurthy and Bhatti, crouched behind a bulwark, were exchanging shots with men in the building.
Burton, Swinburne, and the policemen stayed low and ran to the two Indians.
Bhatti, bleeding profusely from a furrow on the side of his head, said, “Hello, fellows! They’re stubborn blighters! How many men do you have? Enough to rush the place?”
“They have double our number,” Burton answered. “But if we hold them in there, their plan is scuppered. Have you seen Crowley?”
“No sign of the hound. Is he with them?”
Burton frowned and turned to Swinburne. “You’re right, Algy. Something is badly amiss.”
He flinched as a bullet whined past his ear. Krishnamurthy returned fire before muttering, “I’m low on ammunition.”
Sergeant Piper addressed Constable Tamworth. “I’ll not tolerate a blessed shooting match on my beat. Run to the station, lad, and round up everyone you can. We’ll get into that building, forlorn hope or no.”
Tamworth took to his heels. Bullets drilled into the ground behind him.
“Modus operandi,” Swinburne murmured.
Burton looked at him. “Pardon?”
“Modus operandi. Crowley’s every move, right from the start—the murder of your friend Stroyan—has been undertaken in the context of your existence.”
“He said he was scared of me.”
“Yet he steadfastly refuses to kill you. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because by disposing of you, he’d rid himself of the cause of his fear but not of the emotion itself. It isn’t enough for him. Fear has such a power. He wants to conquer it. Take control of it. Turn it into a strength. That is why you must live. That is why he must have you at his feet. Only then can the Supreme Man feel truly supreme.”
Burton recalled Doctor Monroe’s theory concerning Oliphant’s obsession with rats.
“Crowley is blinkered,” Swinburne went on. “He can only think to counter his greatest fear with your greatest fear.”
“By God!” Burton whispered. “He’s still underground.”
“Yes.”
Krishnamurthy shook his head. “We walked the complete length of the tu
“There are other tu
What had been lurking at the back of Burton’s mind suddenly blossomed into comprehension. He punched his palm, shouted, “Bismillah!” then looked at Sergeant Piper, and—acting on impulse—pointed at the whistle hanging around the policeman’s neck and barked, “Give me that!”
“What?” the policeman asked, puzzled.
“Your whistle, man! Now!”
Piper pulled the chain over his head and handed it to the explorer.
Burton took Swinburne by the arm and drew him toward the road, shouting back to the others, “Stay put! Keep them immobilised!”
“What are you doing?” Bhatti shouted after him.
“Saving the bloody Empire!” Burton yelled. “If it’s not too late!”
“Frater Perdurabo.”
(I shall endure to the end.)
—ALEISTER CROWLEY
Burton was enclosed twice over—first by the heavy undersea suit, and second by the claustrophobic sewer tu
His jaw was clamped shut, his eyes moved anxiously, and his chest was rising and falling with short, sharp breaths. He waded ahead, dragging behind him the long, weighty chain attached to the suit’s harness. With every step, his fear increased. He wrapped his gloved right hand around his swordstick—secured against him by one of the harness’s straps—and pulled at the chain with his left.
The light from the small lamps on either side of his headgear projected forward, illuminating about twenty feet of the tu
One foot in front of the other. Keep your balance. Don’t think about how this has to end.
The Enochian gunmen had been a subterfuge, a diversion. Crowley never intended to take the Sagittarius. When Burton realised this—thanks to Swinburne’s insight—he’d raced back to Battersea Power Station, where Montague Pe
Rushing into Brunel’s office, the explorer consulted Bazalgette’s maps of subterranean London and discovered that, a few yards north of the Effra’s outlet, under Vauxhall Bridge, a small maintenance tu
It passed directly beneath Green Park.
There was no time for pla
Burton adopted the first scheme that came to mind—it had occurred to him in an instant while he was still with Krishnamurthy, Bhatti, and Piper—and after hastily grabbing the required equipment, he, Swinburne, and Pe
He’d walked half a mile—barely any distance at all—but it was the exact length of the chain and felt like ten times as far to Burton, who was increasingly exhausted by the weight of the links as they accumulated behind him.