Flattened against the wall, North glimpsed the wild wool of the moustache and the latex wrinkles of Albert Einstein. The shooter turned his head to the right to sweep the space visually. The mask was high-quality and it was an effective disguise, but North was calculating that it limited the peripheral vision of the attacker. He was about to bet his life on it. He had less than a second before Einstein’s head started turning towards him.
Stepping out from the wall, he seized the MP5 with his left hand, twisting and wrenching it from its sling as his right hand landed a crushing blow to the armed man’s temple. Einstein staggered then dropped to his knees and North brought back his shoe to kick him in the stomach. Desperate for breath, Einstein fell forward on his hands, the radio skittering across the floor. North propped the weapon against the wall.
‘Plato, gallery 95 clear…’ ‘Nietzsche, gallery 33 clear…’ ‘Marx, library cl— Hold…’ The noise of gunfire again, and a snigger. ‘Marx, library clear…’ ‘Aquinas, gallery 21 clear.’
North placed a foot on Einstein’s spread hands, feeling the knuckles pop and shatter under his weight. He had no intention of letting the guy stand up again. Einstein was down and he was staying down. ‘What’s all this about, soldier?’ he asked. There was the sound of a stifled groan as North pressed down harder, and then a yelp of what might have been laughter. ‘Need to know, mate.’
Still standing on Einstein’s hands, North balled his fist and took him under the chin. The guy could have been a boxer – he had a huge neck roped with powerful muscles, a neck designed not to go back when he took a hit. But it didn’t stop the mask flipping away as his eyeballs disappeared up into their sockets and he lost consciousness.
North stepped off and inspected what was left of the shooter. The tactical vest and overalls zippered up over a dinner jacket. The attackers must have come in as guests.
North picked up the latex mask and slipped it over his head, where it sat like a welder’s visor as he reached for the MP5, rifling the pouches of the vest for a couple of spare mags.
Five different attackers had spoken on the radio, and when he floored Einstein, he’d taken out one of them. Four against one was doable. The bigger issue was what – or who – had they come for? He considered the question as he headed back out of the gallery, his shoes crunching over glass – breaking it all over again. He put his shoulders back. He was Einstein. He was the one with a gun, only too happy to kill whoever needed killing. Out in the Great Court it was quieter now, the space filled with the smell of recent panic and spilled alcohol. Another figure was coming down the sweeping shallow steps, kicking aside the body of the girl and stepping around her spreading blood. Not because he was squeamish, thought North, but because he preferred not to contaminate the soles of his shoes.
North stared at the domed forehead, the dark moustache and huge white beard of Karl Marx, the father of socialism. The attackers were keeping the masks on because of the security camera footage and witnesses, he was guessing. North settled his own stolen mask and lifted his hand in greeting. The rubber interior felt slick with its previous owner’s sweat.
‘Where’s your overalls and gloves?’ Marx said, his voice muffled. ‘He doesn’t like sloppy, you know that.’
North had considered stripping Einstein, but the full wardrobe change was going to take too long. He shrugged as if to say ‘who cares?’, and Marx lifted his mask to clear his line of vision, the partially revealed expression curious. Without hesitation, North reversed his MP5, swinging it out and in again so that the butt hit the other man squarely in the nose. As the nose split in two, each side peeling back to reveal the crushed cartilage, blood spurted everywhere. Marx opened his mouth in agonized protest, pulling up his own gun in the same motion, and North slammed him face first against the stone balustrade. Marx was done, at least for now. To his count, there were three more attackers – Plato and Nietzsche and Aquinas. The hairs on his neck stood to attention – if any of them were watching, he was a dead man. He pushed the thought aside. Taking hold of the man’s ankles, North dragged Marx’s body behind a stone facade, arms over his head and trailing blood as he went. How many innocent people had this man killed tonight? North kicked him again, this time in the throat. ‘Think of it as the opium of the people,’ he said.
Why were the attackers here? In the US, shooters went in and created mayhem in schools and colleges and churches, but they tended to be lone wolves with their own agendas. These guys were working as a team. And who was the ‘he’ who ‘doesn’t like sloppy’? North didn’t believe the men he’d dubbed the Thinkers were ISIS terrorists. The two men he’d taken out had ex-forces written all over them. But it was too much of a coincidence to think they were criminals out to steal antique treasures. You wouldn’t choose a gala event. You’d go in overnight, secure the guards and give yourselves time to get through the security glass. This way, there had to be half the Metropolitan Police camped out in the forecourt deciding how and when to rush the building. And what kind of mind put the attackers in masks of the world’s great thinkers? Was it political? Some statement about human intelligence versus machine intelligence? The Thinkers had to be here because of Esme and Tobias and the AI system. Which meant they probably wanted to kill Esme or Tobias, or both. Alternatively, they were here to get to the research and steal Syd and everything else was a distraction. Or worst of all, they wanted Esme and Tobias dead and to steal Syd. North didn’t care about superintelligent computers or singularity or any of it. But he did care about Esme Sullivan Hawke. And he had no intention of her dying on his watch.
He had to know what was happening outside. If the police or special forces stormed the museum, he could end up misidentified and shot as one of the attackers. Suddenly the Einstein mask didn’t seem so appealing and he let it fall to the ground. He tapped his earpiece – no Fang, only the buzz of a disconnected line. He was on his own.
As if on cue, the radio crackled into life. ‘Any sign of Hawke or the wife?’
There was a chorus of negatives.
He was guessing they’d come in and opened fire as a group to clear the museum, then they’d left a couple of men to secure the doors and kill the stragglers while the others went looking for Hawke. What he didn’t know was the whereabouts of the man running things. Was he in the building? Or was he running things off-site? Because that was a man North would like to meet and take apart.
Across the courtyard, he caught sight of a flash of red as Esme disappeared down a staircase. She was alive. At least for the moment. With a yell, a slim man with the mask of a halo-wearing monk sprinted after her and North felt the blood freeze in his veins. He didn’t know much about Thomas Aquinas, but he was guessing he didn’t usually carry a submachine gun slung on his back and a machete in his hand. North ploughed down the darkened staircase after the woman he was supposed to be keeping safe and the counterfeit saint chasing her intent on bloody murder.