Page 57 of The Last Kingdom

The car kept going, barreling ahead, crossing the empty street and crashing through the front of a closed shop.

“That’s a mess,” he said.

Her shoulders rose and fell in concert with her rapid breathing. “One we don’t need to clean up.”

“I agree. Let’s get out of here.”

Luke stepped from the cab.

They’d found one a few blocks away from the chaos and used it to get far away from what was surely going to be an active crime scene. He didn’t care for killing. Never had. Nothing about it was good. But sometimes it was necessary. Part of the job. A means of survival. And the two in the car had been intent on finding trouble. In fact, they’d charged right into it. He’d simply obliged them. And Toni Sims?

She’d fired without a moment’s hesitation.

They were back in the Marienplatz, standing before the new town hall, a richly decorated building the length of a football field, illuminated by an array of strategically placed arc lights. The square that fronted the building was clear of people but full of closed booths from the Christmas market. Snow was falling, but not heavy, lightly accumulating on the frozen ground. He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and braced himself from the cold.

“Have you ever been inside the town hall?” she asked him.

He’d not pressed her on the journey over, deciding to let her set the tone. After all, she’d been tacitly in charge ever since he arrived on the scene. No sense changing things now.

“Never had the pleasure,” he said.

“I thought you might be a history buff. I saw the way you studied the crypt beneath St. Michael’s. There was interest in your eyes.”

During his mandatory downtime Stephanie Nelle required from all her agents, which occurred roughly every sixty days, he usually hibernated in his DC apartment and read histories.

He loved ’em.

She pointed upward. The walls and cornices were peopled with figures of baroque statuary, all resting on narrow ledges. “The statues along the front show almost the entire line of the House of Wittelsbach from eight hundred years of reign. There, in the middle of the main facade, is Prince Regent Luitpold. He ruled Bavaria in place of Ludwig II, and his brother, Otto, until 1912. He’s part of the reason we’re here.”

She apparently was far more informed than he was, and the background was appreciated. Still—

“What did you mean about those guys back there being hired by someone who was ex-CIA?”

“Do you know what a scythe is?”

“It’s a tool. A sharp curved blade fastened to the end of a long handle. You cut grass or wheat with it.”

She nodded. “It’s also used by the Grim Reaper to harvest souls.”

True.

“A year ago, before Warner Fox’s inauguration, during Danny Daniels’ final three months as president, there was a purge within the CIA. About two dozen longtimers were forced out. Some in high positions. Others field officers. They did not take it lightly.”

He imagined not. Nobody liked being fired. Especially spooks who thought themselves invincible.

“They formed a group,” she said, “called the Scythe. And they’re about to wreak havoc.”

“Does Koger know? He didn’t mention any of this.”

“He will know shortly. All of this is why the NSC is involved. For obvious reasons, the White House could not rely on the CIA. They’ve got an internal security problem. So I was brought in to work it from a different angle, just like you are doing for Koger.”

He stared up at the clock atop the town hall.

3:00A.M.

“The boat that shot at you on the lake,” she said. “It was the Scythe. They wanted that book.”

Every instinct told him to stay cautious. This plot had just thickened to molasses and he had zero in the way of proof for anything she was saying. Could be real. Could be not. His adrenaline surged, carrying with it suspicion, fear, vigilance, and mistrust. But it also fueled excitement. That chill of danger he found all so enticing. He had to resist that urge and use good judgment. That was one thing he’d learned from Cotton Malone.

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