In its heyday the banquet room might have hosted lavish dinners, as well as maybe a few drug-fuelled Satanic orgies, for Aleister Crowley and his well-connected band of followers. Whatever purpose it was put to these days by Van Brakel’s occultist gang, Ben could think of a better one. The double doors were heavy and solid. The bars on the windows had been put there to keep people out. But they were just as good for keeping people in.

He ran back to the lounge, where the others were waiting. ‘This way.’

It wasn’t long before they’d finished herding the captives inside the secure banquet room. Tuesday found a light switch and turned on bright overhead spotlamps that shone down on the huddled prisoners and made them blink and cringe like vampires caught by a shaft of sunlight.

‘Right ugly bunch of monkeys, aren’t they?’ Jeff said.

Wolf pulled a face as though he could smell bile. ‘And they don’t look half so proud now the shoe’s on the other foot.’

‘I’ve seen him on TV.’ Tuesday pointed out a reedy grey-haired man in the corner who looked vaguely familiar to Ben, too. At this moment the guy wouldn’t have been too presentable for the cameras, because he’d wet himself with fear.

‘I reckon I’ve voted for that one there,’ Reaper said, waving his pistol at another. ‘Back when I used to bother voting for any of the bastards.’

Ben said nothing. He was still feeling the full force of his dismay at having let both Saunders and Van Brakel slip through his fingers.

‘What’s going to happen to us?’ quavered the one Tuesday had seen on TV.

‘You’ll never get away with this!’ shouted another. ‘Do you know who we are?’

‘Sure, we do,’ Jeff told him. ‘And soon everyone else is going to know, too. Going to make quite a story.’

‘No!’ the man screamed, and made a break for the window. Wolf fired a burst from his MPX that stitched a ragged line of holes in the ornate wood panels and sprayed the guy with splinters. ‘Whoa, there, Brother. One more step and I’ll shoot your bollocks off.’

‘Hold them for a bit,’ Ben said.

Jeff replied, ‘Where are you going?’

‘To the island.’

Chapter 60

Fitz and the old man had watched in horror as the scene unfolded down by the lakeside and their Brothers were rounded up like cattle by the armed intruders.

‘This is intolerable! Do something!’ Van Brakel gasped, leaning hard on his stick and clutching his heart as though he was about to keel over and die. Part of Fitz wished he would; if it hadn’t been for the old man’s stubbornness they’d have reached the meadow by now, ready to meet the chopper. Which should be landing any moment now. Fitz scanned the sky again but all he could see was empty blackness.

Where was Salter?