The demon code, p.1
The Demon Code, page 1
THE DEMON CODE
David Leadbeater
Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Copyright © David Leadbeater 2022
Cover design by Stephen Mulcahey © HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Cover illustrations: Shutterstock.com
David Leadbeater asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008471149
Ebook Edition © September 2022 ISBN: 9780008471156
Version: 2022-06-17
Dedication
Again, for Erica, Keira and Megan.
With me every step of the way.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by David Leadbeater
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Cassadaga vanished from the face of the Earth ten years ago. His name was now only spoken to scare unruly children; his story told around flickering campfires in the dead of night.
Behave, child, or Cassadaga will come for you.
Cassadaga is hiding out there in the woods. Stay close to the fire, or he will steal more than your soul.
The world’s most vicious thief vanished ten years ago, but tonight, he was back.
Cassadaga had never believed he’d re-enter the fray, but how could he pass up an opportunity like this?
‘Hey, Daga,’ one of his companions said. ‘How many people you killed, man?’
Daga ignored the fool. Even if he’d wanted to answer, their location was too noisy for prolonged conversation. The de Havilland Twin Otter they were seated in was old and battered, its engines straining as they flew over the Italian Alps, riding the thermals, battered by crosswinds. Daga gripped the bulkhead. Snow and frost clung to the windows, icy fingers creeping around the exit door as if trying to prise it open. The old plane veered to the left, rose sharply and then dived as it struggled to maintain course.
‘Hold on to it, Pilot,’ the man Daga knew as Ash said.
‘Yeah, I’m trying,’ the pilot returned. When a pilot spoke like that, teeth gritted, voice as highly strung as a string quartet, you had to acknowledge that you might be in trouble.
Daga focused his attention on his assistants for this mission. Ash and Base were stone-cold killers and had recently been spared jail by an Amori-owned judge. Ready to shoot and maim on a whim, they were predictable, dull and simple, but necessary.
The fourth member of his crew was at the other end of the scale. Ivana, tall, broad-shouldered and blessed with an Eastern European exquisiteness, was an expert safecracker. Any powerhouse who could finesse a high-tech tumbler into submission ranked high on his person-of-interest list for sheer diversity if nothing else.
Daga held on as the plane made a sudden shift. Across from him, Ash and Base leaned into each other and rechecked their parachutes for the thousandth time. Ivana sat calmly at his side.
‘Four minutes to drop,’ the pilot said in a tone of obvious relief.
Daga shifted his gaze to the window. A sheer white mountainside met his eyes, the summit high above, lost in clouds. The Twin Otter wound its way through the peaks, its disjointed but plucky engine resounding between the cliff faces.
‘This is why we’re here,’ Daga said. ‘This is where we earn our money.’ He rose, stooping in the cabin. ‘No prisoners. How long before the heavy transport arrives?’
He was always testing them. He knew the schedule very well and so did they.
‘Nineteen minutes to winch drop,’ Ivana said.
‘Then let’s do this.’
He threw open the door, letting the elements rush in. He didn’t have to open it then – they were still two minutes from the drop zone – but he wanted to feel the environment he was about to jump into, to adjust and prepare. He heard Ash mutter to Base: ‘For a dead man, he’s a major asshole,’ under his breath and mentally marked the man for later attention. Cassadaga hadn’t earned his reputation by ignoring the senseless jibes of idiots.
Standing amid the blast and flurry of snow, ice and turbulent winds, Daga counted down the seconds. The noise was tremendous, the intense roar an assault to the senses. His mouth was dry, and he could hardly breathe. Below, through the turmoil, he made out the sheer mountain face that was their target and gripped both sides of the door.
He spotted their objective nestling at the foot of the mountain.
‘You see the church?’ Ash was staring out of a window, speaking to Base. ‘What kind of an idiot would build a church at the top of the Alps? I mean, who’s gonna go there?’
Daga shook his head and questioned why he’d allowed himself to be part of this crew. Usually, he worked alone but today’s payday was not to be ignored. And the Amori had always been a professional, specialised outfit. The only difference was – his orders and job details hadn’t come from Marduk, the Amori’s merciless leader. Someone new was in charge.
Daga wasn’t about to question his source. The advance had been paid. The job was … well, crazy to put it mildly. And somehow – even though he’d been retired for a decade – the Amori had known where to find him.
A scary alliance, he thought. A million-dollar alliance. And because of that, positively his last.
‘Go,’ the pilot announced through the plane’s communication system.
All four jumpers had heavy backpacks which they heaved out first. The backpacks were equipped with their own smaller parachutes which would open at a predetermined height. Daga didn’t hesitate and leapt out of the protesting plane into tumultuous mid-air. A safe landing was by no means guaranteed, but high risks came with every well-paid job. Daga flinched as high winds tore at him, buffeting his face and clothing as he plummeted through the skies, keeping a close eye on the trajectory of the backpacks. Frozen hail punished his exposed skin like a cat-o’-nine-tails.
Below, the mountain face fell away at an acute angle down to the church, which was his target area. Daga gripped the straps clamping the parachute to his back, his mind already focused on what happened next. The chutes were of the highest quality. As Daga had said often before – what kind of person buys a cheap parachute?
Together, he and his companions swept down the mountain through the savage elements, pulling their ripcords and opening their jellyfish-like canopies, unwelcome intruders trespassing on a spectacular vista.
Daga prepared to land as the ground rushed up. A sea of white snow sped by. He struck the ground and rolled, the chute splaying out behind him. Daga rose to his knees, cut away the fabric and shrugged out of the deployment bag. Leaving it behind was easier and would offer no obvious clues as to his identity.
And there was no surveillance at the church.
Rather than modern CCTV supervision, which might be hacked or leave evidence on hard drives or digital clouds, its very remoteness and inaccessibility was this church’s protection. Built in the lee of an Italian alp, amid and above other high peaks, the Church of St Michael of Aleteia perched like an ancient fortress, a stone-walled bastion with a snow-shro uded secret.
Daga found and hefted his heavy backpack, glanced at and waited for his companions. Seconds later, they were ready. Both Ash and Base pulled compact Heckler & Koch machine guns from their packs. Ivana held a large military knife, her weapon of choice. Daga preferred a simple, reliable handgun like the single-stack 9mm Glock 43 nestling in his hand. Reliable, flat-carrying, and semi-automatic, its only drawback was its six-round magazine capacity, but Daga had plenty of spares. And besides, Ash and Base were supposed to be the killers today.
‘Remember,’ he growled into their earbud-based comms system, ‘no survivors. We destroy it all. The prize is all that matters.’
‘And our payday.’ Ash grinned.
‘Just focus,’ Ivana told them. ‘No mistakes.’
Daga nodded his agreement. Above them, the church waited.
A paved open-air passage led them between two long, curving walls through a high arch to a frost-choked front door. There were no obvious signs of life, the old windows dark and opaque, refusing even to reflect the spangled light of the sun that flared randomly through a tangled patchwork of speeding clouds.
Daga led the way along the passage, keeping low. When he arrived at the door, he pressed his back to the cold stone at its side, seeing no reason to announce their presence before they needed to. Reaching out, he turned the freezing cold iron door handle. It was locked.
No surprise.
Ivana moved to retrieve her lockpicks, but Daga waved her away. He was the consummate thief here and, if he were honest, quite fancied the first kill. Seconds later, the lock clicked open, and he was ready.
The door inched open. Daga pushed it wider.
The interior of the church was gloomy and as cold as the outside. Daga slipped into the shadows and followed a route he’d committed to memory during the last few days of intense preparation.
A priest appeared, dressed all in grey and carrying a stack of books. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged on seeing them.
Daga saw no reason to maintain any hint of stealth. They were on a tight clock and, while a broadcast for help couldn’t be prevented, it wouldn’t be answered in time to save these unfortunate priests.
Nor the great treasure in their deepest sanctuary.
Daga shot the priest in the head and ran past his still-falling body, pressing ahead into the church. Through a door to the right another old priest appeared, equally shocked, and then collapsed bloodily as Ash opened fire.
Daga wondered if these solitary protectors had received visitors of any kind over the past few years. He pushed further on as both Ash and Base cleared the rooms behind him.
Gunfire rang out as more priests were discovered and killed.
Daga kept going, counting doors, following a blueprint of passageways in his mind’s eye. Their goal was twenty feet further ahead. Ivana was at his back.
He turned to her. ‘Now it’s up to you.’
‘It is easy,’ she drawled back in her soft Eastern European accent and stepped around him.
A priest stepped out of a doorway to the right, his sandal-clad feet leaving prints in the thick dust that coated the floor. His arms flew into the air and his face beseeched them. ‘Please, please, turn back. We are humble ministers. There is nothing for you here.’ He spoke in passable, thickly accented English, assuming they were foreigners.
‘We heard differently,’ Ivana growled, and although she could have thrown her knife or left the kill to Daga, she stepped towards the priest, grabbed the back of his neck and thrust her blade slowly into his chest, holding him until the light died from his eyes and his body slithered to the floor.
Daga said nothing but felt a stir of arousal as she moved further along the passage. Soon enough, she reached a door unlike anything they had yet seen. Contrasting to the metal-strapped wooden doors that had greeted them thus far, this was state-of-the-art pure steel. A new and shiny keypad sat at the centre. A thick frame was fixed to the surrounding stonework; the entire ensemble incongruous with the sleepy old church nestling in the mountains.
‘Not a bad idea,’ Ivana said. ‘They sought to hide their treasure amid this tedium and ennui.’
‘It worked very well for hundreds of years,’ Daga pointed out. ‘But secrets have a way of outing themselves and, of course, very few knew that this colossal secret existed until recently.’
Ivana worked as they talked. She connected a device like a credit-card reader to the keypad and pressed a button on the advanced-looking piece of kit. ‘Home-made,’ she said when she noticed Daga staring at it. ‘The reader scans codes by listening to radio frequencies within the keypad, eventually mating microcontrollers. It snares and examines codes within seconds using powerful inbuilt microchips.’
‘How long does it take?’ Daga growled.
As if in answer, the device’s screen flashed. Eight numbers were revealed in a bright green glow. Ivana input the numbers into the keypad and nodded with satisfaction on hearing a dull click.
When she turned back to Daga, her eyes were shining. ‘You know this is the greatest theft of the last two millennia, don’t you? Perhaps the greatest in history. They’ll never stop hunting us.’
‘I can deal with that.’ Daga lifted the Glock.
‘Me too.’ Ivana stepped away from the door, giving first entry to Daga. It was a shrewd move and they both knew it. It wasn’t just deference. Nobody knew exactly what lay beyond this door, nor how much security was inside.
But Cassadaga hadn’t earned a reputation celebrated in dark urban legends for nothing. From an early age, he’d known he was a killer. There was something cold and alien inside him, something that disregarded compassion and morality, normal human emotions. He’d first noticed when he saw his father die – a terrible accident whilst visiting a travelling carnival in Romania. One of the Ferris wheel cars had snapped. The car fell from the structure, killing his father and injuring his brother.
Daga had watched on whilst his mother wailed, and the paramedics described the effects of shock and trauma. In truth, he had felt nothing.
Daga had been left with a grief-stricken mother and a brother who’d never fully healed, a boy who couldn’t take care of himself. Daga later helped that boy out of his misery and had thought he’d seen a smile of relief shine from his mother’s eyes just seconds before he helped her too.
Daga had been helping people ever since.
The profession he chose, a murderous thief in the night, helped hone his skills. Nobody would ever know how many Cassadaga had helped unburden themselves of this dark world.
Without hesitation or fear, he threw open the door and stepped into the greatest treasure vault in human history.
Chapter 2
Joe Mason unlocked the door to his apartment, threw his fragrant flight bag inside and didn’t stop to see where it landed. He wasn’t staying. He’d left a change of clothes at the boxing gym, where there were also showers and, if not peace and quiet, then at least a couple of hours of tranquillity.
Did all that just happen? The Vatican’s secret? The Amori?
Not exactly. It happened half a week ago. It had taken this long to navigate through a mostly grateful Vatican response and endless sessions of police questioning. In the end, Mason had no clue what, if any, strings had been pulled to set them free, or even if anyone was trying to charge them with a crime. All he knew was that, along with Roxy, Sally, Quaid and Hassell, he had successfully thwarted an Amori plot to use the Vatican Book of Secrets to ruin the reputation of the Church.
But where did that leave him? Well, in a strange place if he were being honest. He had faced down some of the demons of his past. He’d accepted that the skills he’d learned in the Army could still be put to good use. He’d even enjoyed working as part of a team again. He’d forgotten how good that could be – the almost psychic link, the camaraderie, the solidarity.
But what had really changed?
He was still the same man possessed by the same devils. And where did they stand with Patricia, the owner of the private security firm they worked for? We ignored her orders but we saved a lot of people.
Mason took the lift eight floors down to the parking area before remembering he hadn’t picked up his car keys. But that didn’t matter. The fifteen-minute walk to the gym would help clear his head.
Outside, the dark early-evening skies were filled with drizzle; icy particles dripped down his face. Mason ignored the pack of youths gathered under the single glare of a streetlight as he walked by.
