THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Duncan Simpson.

  Published by Whitefort Publishing.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ®Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

  Every effort has been made to obtain permission for the material quoted. If any required acknowledgements have been omitted, or any rights overlooked, it is unintentional. Please notify the publishers of any omission, and it will be rectified in future editions.

  First Whitefort Publishing edition published in 2015.

  ISBN: 978-0-9932063-2-0

  Printed in the United Kingdom.

  Edited by Katie Simpson, Gale Winskill & Amy Butcher.

  Cover design by Derek Murphy.

  This book is a work of fiction. The modern-day characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is fictionalised or coincidental.

  For Katie, Tamsin, Louis and Finley, with all my love.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1: The First Law of Motion

  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

  Part 2: The Second Law of Motion

  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

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Part 3: The Third Law of Motion

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Afterword

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  15 July 1936

  Sotheby’s & Co.

  The sound of the auctioneer’s gavel echoed through the large hall like a rifle shot. With the tension in the proceedings momentarily released, the assembled group of private collectors, dealers and museum representatives shuffled in their seats, ready for the next sales lot. The auctioneer peered over his wireframe spectacles at the packed audience before him. Squinting slightly in the afternoon sunlight, he looked around the room for a second and then back to the sales catalogue perched on the lectern.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, now we come to Lot 249: a miscellaneous collection of Isaac Newton’s papers concerning the history of the Early Church. This unusual lot also includes a volume from Newton’s own personal library.’

  As the auctioneer read aloud from the sales brochure, a man wearing brown overalls placed an open wooden box on the table beside the lectern. Its contents, several large bundles of paper tied together by loops of brown string, shifted inside the box as the man tilted it to afford the audience a better view. Resting against the largest bundle was a small book whose vivid crimson cover seemed to illuminate the bottom of the box.

  ‘Let us start the bidding at £500.’

  The exchange of bids was immediate, and within a minute the auctioneer’s starting price doubled. Soon, the bidders were reduced to two men sitting uncomfortably close to each other in the centre of the hall. The room looked on in silence, as the men batted offer and then counter-offer back and forwards.

  Suddenly, the auctioneer’s attention was drawn to the back of the hall. After a pause, he nodded and announced a bid of £3,000. A chorus of gasps was accompanied by the sound of shifting seats on the wooden floor, as the audience swung round to follow the auctioneer’s sightline. A man, his face slatted in light and shadow, stood alone against the back wall.

  ‘I have £3,000. Thank you, sir. Do I have any more bids?’

  The auctioneer’s request was met by the resigned shaking of heads from the previous two bidders.

  ‘Thank you, sir. £3,000. Going once … Going twice … Sold to the gentleman at the back of the room.’

  The strike of the gavel sounded once again through the auction hall.

  ‘Let us move on. Lot 250: parts 1 and 2 of Newton’s unpublished treatise on the transmutation of metals. Let’s start the bidding at say £300.’

  The buyer of the previous lot was approached from the side by a man with ink-black hair carrying a clipboard. ‘Congratulations, sir, on your purchase,’ he said in a hushed, respectful tone. ‘I am the auction clerk for today’s sale. Please may I take some details from you?’

  The man nodded and, from the inside pocket of his exquisitely tailored jacket, retrieved a silver business-card holder. He opened it and handed the auction clerk a printed card.

  Dr Roberto Martinelli

  Books & Manuscript Broker

  Representative of the Vatican

  Part 1

  The First Law of Motion

  Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.

  Chapter 1

  Monday 1 December

  Bullets don’t fly through the air in straight lines: they progress in an arc according to Newton’s laws of motion. Many factors can influence the arc of travel, but at the relative short flight distance of 330 metres, the Drakon could ignore the bullet’
s marginal gravitational drop. Tonight, the most significant influence on the flight of the projectile would be the southwesterly wind gusting down Marshall Street.

  All was quiet in the vacant fourth-floor Soho flat except for the discordant sound of a glass cutter working against the windowpane. With a careful twist of the suction handle, the Drakon freed a small circle of glass from the window base, and with it came a sudden rush of cold air from the street below. Moments later, the bipod legs of the Soviet-made SVD Dragunov sniper rifle were opened out, and a curved ten-round box magazine clicked into place. It was nearly eight o’clock. It was time. Things had got sloppy. There would be no more mistakes.

  The Drakon quickly drew the bolt in and out, moving a single round into the firing chamber. Nuzzling into the stock, the Drakon breathed in the distinctive odour of factory gun oil. The weapon smelt new. A magnified eye blinked down the length of the telescopic sight as a pair of crosshairs focused on the head of a stone lion. Forming part of the coat of arms carved into the limestone façade of the restaurant below, its outline was now crystal clear. Soon the head of a beast would be replaced with the head of a man.

  The Faversham was popular with London’s hip wealthy set. Its fortunes had been turned around by a Danish chef, who transformed the tired inner-city pub into a buzzing modern restaurant. The once-cramped drinking rooms and dark snugs had been replaced by a large expanse of whitewashed walls, stripped-down floors, and salvaged art deco lamps. Although it was the start of a new working week, the large, high-ceilinged dining space was packed with customers. A cacophony of accents vied for dominance over the electronic music orchestrated by a cool-looking black DJ, a pair of earphones appearing permanently balanced between his shoulder and right ear.

  A bearded man with a blunt, square face sat alone at a table. He looked up to the clock above the bar and checked the time with his watch. After repositioning himself in his chair, he tilted his head to the side and with his finger, opened up a small gap between his neck and the collar of his red lumberjack shirt. As he did so, the lines on his forehead intensified into a deep frown. Touching his earpiece with his other hand, he whispered into the microphone taped to his wrist.

  ‘Any sign?’

  His question was met swiftly by an annoyed voice in his ear.

  ‘Stop touching your ear with your fucking hand! You’re going to blow the whole operation.’ A pause. ‘Just sit tight. The message said eight o’clock at the Faversham. They’ll be here. Just stay cool.’

  The large Afro-Caribbean police officer threw down the headset onto the bank of controls in the back of the surveillance van and let out a long deep sigh. Detective Chief Inspector Lukas Milton didn’t like it one bit: too many people, too many guns. He slowly shook his head, returned the plastic smoking inhalator to his lips, and bit down hard onto the end of the white tube. His teeth ached. He tried to stretch out his legs in his chair, but his shins quickly hit the underside of the instrument desk. The van wasn’t big enough to comfortably accommodate a man of Milton’s size plus the racks of cameras and recording equipment installed in the back of the vehicle. Milton raised his binoculars to peer through the one-way privacy glass. From the van’s parallel position to the restaurant, he had an unobstructed view through the large window that ran down the length of The Faversham’s crowded dining room. Milton repositioned himself in his chair and focused the binoculars on the cloakroom next to a large green statue of a Buddha at the far end of the restaurant.

  Behind the open hatch to the cloakroom sat a female attendant on a bar stool, her arms folded over her mid-section and her shoulders hunched over the counter. In front of her lay an open paperback book. Even though she had opened the book over thirty minutes ago she hadn’t read a word.

  Outside The Faversham, a black Mercedes came to a halt. Tarek Vinka reached over to the small canvas bag on the passenger’s seat and hauled it onto his lap. After studying the street’s reflection in the side mirrors for several seconds, he opened the door and stepped out into the cold London night. Vinka placed the bag by his feet, straightened his back and pulled up his collar against the wind. He closed and locked the car door and as he did so noticed a single snowflake land on the roof. Almost instantly, its delicate structure began to dissolve. With a finger, he went to touch where the snowflake had been, but all trace had disappeared, as if it had never existed. Vinka pulled down his baseball cap, picked up the bag and began to cross the street.

  The surveillance van driver whispered over his shoulder. Milton quickly turned round in his chair.

  ‘Yeah, I see him. This could be our man,’ Milton followed his every step. ‘So, Mr whatever your name is, what’s in that bag?’

  Vinka pushed open The Faversham’s front door and stepped into the small reception area, letting the door close slowly behind him. He looked unkempt and unwashed, and his face was dark and weathered like a gypsy’s. However, his clothes were expensive and recently pressed. Despite appearing in his late forties, his physique was strong and showed no signs of middle-aged spread.

  On seeing the man’s arrival, a waiter smiled a welcome and shouted for his colleague’s attention. Vinka nodded. Several seconds later, a woman emerged from behind an espresso machine. She collected an oversized menu from the bar and headed over to him. After they exchanged several words, the waitress directed Vinka to the cloakroom.

  The sound of street traffic was all but drowned out by the wind whistling through the small hole in the window of the fourth-floor flat. The strength and direction of the crosswind was visible by the Union Jack flag billowing on the roof of the restaurant. The crosshairs of the telescopic sight centred onto the head of the man walking from the foyer of the restaurant. At this range, the 0.50-calibre bullet would not only tear up the contents of the skull but also rip the back of the head clean off. After making a small adjustment to the sight’s magnification ring, the Drakon followed Vinka as he progressed towards the cloakroom, bag in hand. The Drakon dropped a finger down onto the steel arc of the trigger. The rifle’s scope rapidly found the back of Vinka’s head. The Drakon took a breath and held it.

  As the cloakroom attendant rose to her feet, she could feel her heart racing. She tried not to meet the eyes of the man in front of her. He stood there impassively as she forced a smile and ripped off a numbered ticket from a small book. Not taking his eyes off the attendant, Vinka carefully placed the canvas bag on the countertop and picked up the ticket. The attendant shot a glance over Vinka’s shoulder that lasted only a fraction of a second. Just long enough to establish a line of sight with the man in the dining room wearing the red-checked shirt. Somewhere in his subconscious, Vinka perceived the minute flicker in her eyes.

  As she hauled the bag off the counter and turned to place it in the numbered storage rack, Vinka’s gaze rose to the angled mirror on the wall behind the counter. Instinctively, his eyes were drawn to the reflection of the man in the scarlet plaid shirt. He appeared to be mouthing words to an invisible companion, but what he said was lost in the din of the dining room. Vinka’s brow narrowed. The man touched his ear and then did it again. Time slowed. In a moment of dreadful recognition, the man in the red shirt looked up and stared directly at Vinka’s reflection. His cover had been blown.

  Before Vinka’s line of vision snapped back to eye level, the cloakroom attendant had dropped the bag and reached for her service pistol hidden in the racking. She turned on her heels and came face to face with Vinka’s raised Glock 17 pointing directly at her temple. A dark shadow had fallen across his face.

  ‘Mistake, bitch,’ he whispered, as his finger tightened around the curve of the trigger.

  In the back of the surveillance van, Detective Milton bit down on his inhalator. The plastic tube flexed between his teeth and snapped.

  The steel-cored sniper round erupted from the rifle barrel. By the time the crack of the high-powered weapon sounded from the opposite side of the street,
the projectile had already gained a velocity of 830 metres per second. It was designed to spin in flight. Set in motion by the four right-handed helical grooves tooled into the rifle’s barrel, the spin served to gyroscopically stabilise the projectile in the air. As a result, the bullet’s flight was only marginally degraded by its impact with the front window of the restaurant. The same was also true of its flight through Vinka’s head. The bullet entered through the back of his skull and punched a track through his brain, macerating all soft tissue in its wake. After exiting through his eye socket in a cloud of red mist and skull fragments, the bullet whistled past the shoulder of the cloakroom attendant before slamming into a marble pillar behind her.

  The back doors of the surveillance van swung open, and Milton’s huge frame suddenly appeared. Seconds later, he was running at full speed towards the restaurant. As he ran, he shouted into his handheld radio.

  ‘What the hell just happened? I need a situation update now.’

  Voices crackled back. Next came the call signs from the unmarked patrol cars parked at either end of Marshall Street.

  ‘Situation update!’ Milton’s voice reverberated down the earpiece of the female officer stationed at the cloakroom.

  Her back pinned against the wall, she tried to verbalise the scene at her feet. ‘Suspect … down. Suspect down. He pulled his weapon and …’ Her voice faltered, her throat clamped solid by the carnage at her feet.

  ‘Condition? The suspect’s condition?’ said Milton. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

  ‘It won’t be needed,’ she said slowly. ‘Half his head is missing.’

  As she spoke, the policewoman became aware of something on her cheek.

  ‘Who discharged their weapon? Who took the shot?’ Milton’s voice was getting breathless.

  ‘No one in here. The shooter must have been outside.’ As she spoke, she stared down at her hand and the red grit she had just brushed from her face. She took a moment to realise what it was and began to cry.