The Illuminati Endgame (The Relic Hunters 7) Read online

  The Illuminati Endgame

  (Relic Hunters #7)

  By

  David Leadbeater

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  The Matt Drake Series

  A constantly evolving, action-packed romp based in the escapist action-adventure genre:

  The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

  The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)

  The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)

  The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)

  Brothers in Arms (Matt Drake #5)

  The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake #6)

  Blood Vengeance (Matt Drake #7)

  Last Man Standing (Matt Drake #8)

  The Plagues of Pandora (Matt Drake #9)

  The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake #10)

  The Ghost Ships of Arizona (Matt Drake #11)

  The Last Bazaar (Matt Drake #12)

  The Edge of Armageddon (Matt Drake #13)

  The Treasures of Saint Germain (Matt Drake #14)

  Inca Kings (Matt Drake #15)

  The Four Corners of the Earth (Matt Drake #16)

  The Seven Seals of Egypt (Matt Drake #17)

  Weapons of the Gods (Matt Drake #18)

  The Blood King Legacy (Matt Drake #19)

  Devil’s Island (Matt Drake #20)

  The Fabergé Heist (Matt Drake #21)

  Four Sacred Treasures (Matt Drake #22)

  The Sea Rats (Matt Drake #23)

  Blood King Takedown (Matt Drake #24)

  Devil’s Junction (Matt Drake #25)

  Voodoo soldiers (Matt Drake #26)

  The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake #27)

  Theatre of War (Matt Drake #28)

  The Alicia Myles Series

  Aztec Gold (Alicia Myles #1)

  Crusader’s Gold (Alicia Myles #2)

  Caribbean Gold (Alicia Myles #3)

  Chasing Gold (Alicia Myles #4)

  Galleon’s Gold (Alicia Myles #5)

  The Torsten Dahl Thriller Series

  Stand Your Ground (Dahl Thriller #1)

  The Relic Hunters Series

  The Relic Hunters (Relic Hunters #1)

  The Atlantis Cipher (Relic Hunters #2)

  The Amber Secret (Relic Hunters #3)

  The Hostage Diamond (Relic Hunters #4)

  The Rocks of Albion (Relic Hunters #5)

  The Illuminati Sanctum (Relic Hunters #6)

  The Rogue Series

  Rogue (Book One)

  The Disavowed Series:

  The Razor’s Edge (Disavowed #1)

  In Harm’s Way (Disavowed #2)

  Threat Level: Red (Disavowed #3)

  The Chosen Few Series

  Chosen (The Chosen Trilogy #1)

  Guardians (The Chosen Trilogy #2)

  Heroes (The Chosen Trilogy #3)

  Short Stories

  Walking with Ghosts (A short story)

  A Whispering of Ghosts (A short story)

  All genuine comments are very welcome at:

  [email protected]

  Twitter: @dleadbeater2011

  Visit David’s website for the latest news and information:

  davidleadbeater.com

  Contents

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  The Second of a Two-Part Adventure

  CHAPTER ONE

  The airplane chased the remainder of the day and then charged into the encroaching night all the way from the Himalayas to the shores of Scotland.

  Guy Bodie, still aching from their last encounter with the Illuminati on the slopes of Mount Everest, sat back in his seat, closed his eyes, and did his best to get some rest. At first, it was impossible. The burden they were carrying, the pressure of their quest, the gravity of the situation all bore down on him and turned his mind into a maelstrom of worry.

  Were the Illuminati succeeding in their mission to change the world?

  It was hard to tell at this point. Bodie and his team had visited five sanctums, obtaining ore from each one. The words of the prophecy burned in his mind: Ten to seek along ancient causeways. Five vile and five worthy, their purest life-blood to the crucible, to reap the reward of the Ishtari, and reign through His glorious power.

  The prophecy foretold of a way the Illuminati Grand Masters might mix the pure ores from ten powerful vortices in an ancient crucible to bring about some world-shattering reward, a reward that would be granted in Hades by the Great Dragon. The prophecy, written thousands of years ago by a race called the Ishtari—the forerunners of the Illuminati—was the sole focus of Bacchus, the current Illuminati Grand Master, and the only way he could return his devil-worshipping secret society to prominence. Bodie and his team of relic hunters were the best chance the world had of stopping him.

  Bodie’s mind flicked over Lucie’s explanation of a “vortex” or sanctum. There were still countless mysteries on our planet not fully understood by experts. Our beautiful world even now is still shrouded in incalculable veils of mystery. Lucie had found the ten points on earth where the laws of physics didn’t apply. Ten points where seemingly random, unexplained energies governed. These were the sanctums, of which five were classed as vile, and five as worthy.

  Equidistant to each other, these ten earth points together formed a precise skew decagon; in other words, a polygon with ten angular points not existing on the same plane. Some of the sanctums were more famous than others, but all were distinguished by unexplained anomalies and the not inconsequential fact that they were positioned along ley lines.

  He still wasn’t sure he understood it all, but Lucie insisted these astrological markers were products of the earth’s magnetic field, and were also, in ancient times, known as dragon lines. Bodie remembered the Illuminati’s obsession with the so-called Great Dragon—the Illuminati’s title for their satanic master. Many ancient megaliths and homesteads were built along these magnetically charged paths, not just the ten sanctums, and Bodie fully trusted Lucie’s analysis and conclusions as to how they were meant to find them.

  He sighed with fatigue and confusion as the plane rumbled through darkness, now just a few hours from Scotland. Although they had escaped the Himalayas without major injury, Bodie worried what they might find in Loch Ness. There was no telling which site the Illuminati would visit next, and at least five were still waiting for the relic hunters.


  Lucie had gone on to explain—in depth—the importance of Feng Shui, and how that art was born of ley marker positioning. Bodie had heard of Feng Shui but only on a shallow level. According to Lucy, every object in and out of the home was positioned along ley—or dragon—lines to help people live in harmony with the natural world. The first line of the prophecy, “ten to seek along ancient causeways,” in part referred to ancient causeways that still existed along the same principles utilized in Feng Shui.

  Although most were now buried, people in centuries and millennia past built paths along these lines, possibly to make some kind of pilgrimage when the stars aligned or the sun set at certain astronomical times. It might be a way of identifying the ancient causeway itself: the path of the ley line.

  The line “their purest life-blood to the crucible?” referred to the ore that could be harvested from each sanctum, the purest lifeblood of the earth, of the ley lines, of these ancient megaliths. The team had already visited Egypt, Algeria, Atlantis, Karachi and the Himalayas, and as yet had no idea where the crucible might be, or indeed where the physical Hades was.

  Bodie woke with a start, having drifted off in mid-analysis. The plane was juddering, shaking as it fell through the clouds. They were descending.

  “Did you get your beauty sleep?” an American-accented voice came from behind.

  “Yeah,” Bodie said before realizing he was lying. “Well, no. Not really.”

  “I can tell.”

  “How about you, Cassidy?”

  “Are you kidding? We’ve been battered all over for the last two hours.”

  Bodie turned to the striking redhead with a smile. “Glad I fell asleep then.”

  Cassidy gave him a mock snarl. “Eyes forward. We’re about to land.”

  Much sooner than he’d anticipated, the wheels touched down. Bodie’s heart leapt, the airbrakes kicked in, and the plane slowed. “We’re here?”

  “Yes, beautiful Scotland,” Lucie said. “It’s been years since I was last here.”

  Bodie had a vague memory of being dragged through Edinburgh on a school trip. He remembered getting travel sick but that was about as far as his personal knowledge of Scotland went.

  “Are we expecting trouble?” Cassidy pressed her face to the window.

  Bodie noticed and did the same, but it didn’t help. The terminal building was fuzzy through rain, and, apart from runway lights and a few other spots of illumination, the ground was as dark as a mountain lake at midnight.

  “With you guys, always,” Yasmine said, standing up. “When I nip to the loo, I expect trouble.”

  Bodie gave his team a quick, appraising glance. Cassidy, wearing the same clothes she’d left the Himalayas in, grimy and probably ripe, stood ready to move out. Jemma had tied her hair into its usual bun and waited in silence, always conservative, having spent most of the journey with Lucie, planning their next move.

  The historian appeared to be standing to attention in the aisle, straight and prim. Her blue eyes were sharp and focused, her wooly jumper bright and colorful. At the rear was Yasmine, the Moroccan’s body taut, her face drawn and tired, but she was always ready to move forward.

  They had lost people along the way. Eli Cross fell above Atlantis. Sam Gunn was killed in sight of the Danube River. Jack Pantera was living somewhere near Miami, pretending he loved the family life more than he did a bandit’s. Maybe that was true.

  Bodie felt their losses deeply, each great memory a hammer blow to his heart. Cross and Gunn were never coming back, leaving Bodie to negotiate the world without them and all the poorer for it.

  And then there was Heidi Moneymaker.

  And Pang.

  What of them? Throughout their mission to thwart the Illuminati’s great plan of world domination, the two CIA bloodhounds had been hunting them. Before and during their search for King Arthur’s tomb, the relic hunters had been CIA assets, forced to work for the Agency to pay off Bodie’s debt. He and Heidi had become close; he’d even begun to wonder if there might be more than a working relationship in the future for them. But that could never happen in servitude; and working for the CIA was subjugation at its worst.

  Bodie had been forced to find a way out and knew that, if he took Heidi with him, sooner or later they’d claw her back using her daughter as leverage. Heidi, of course, would never see it that way.

  So here they were.

  Pang was a stone-cold killer, a CIA wetworker without a conscience. Bodie was pretty sure he’d happily kill all the relic hunters and then fly back to the States with a satisfied smile on his face, eager to receive a pat on the back and his next mission. The trouble was, Pang was good at his job.

  They exited the plane into a bitterly cold night.

  Bodie flinched as a gust of Scottish wind threatened to tear off his face with sharp, ice-cold fingers. Not quite a private plane, this was a small charter flight they’d managed to jump aboard at short notice. Now, they filed into the terminal with forty others, completed the immigration procedures, then sought a taxi .

  “Loch Ness,” Cassidy told the taxi driver.

  “Aye, but you won’t see anything at this time of night.”

  Lucie climbed into the minivan at her side and reeled off the name of a hotel she’d booked in-flight.

  The driver took them on a lengthy, meandering journey before dropping them off outside a two-story building with a small gravel-based car park. By the time Bodie checked in, climbed the stairs to his room—the elevator was out of order—and threw his backpack in a corner, he was dead tired. Without checking in with the others, he fell face first onto the bed and went straight to sleep.

  *

  Streaming sunlight woke him the next morning, darkness and light playing across his face. The branches of the big oak tree outside his undraped window swayed left and right as if trying to catch the sun with its leaves. Bodie woke, lifted his head, and groaned.

  His whole body ached. Sores and bruises felt like they’d been knitted in a tapestry across his back and thighs. Moving carefully, he enjoyed a long, hot shower and then a brisk, cold one. After that, he sat for a while drinking some of the room’s horrendous instant coffee before pulling himself together and ambling downstairs for a warm buffet breakfast.

  “A full Scottish.” Jemma was standing in line with a full plate when he pushed through the door.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Haggis,” she said.

  Bodie’s stomach turned. “Not for me, thanks.” He put together a full English and then joined her at a table. Before he’d finished his first rasher of bacon, the rest of the team arrived.

  “They look as bad as I feel.” He nodded at them.

  “It has been a long journey,” Jemma said. “I mean since we started in Egypt. Even before that, in Mexico, I guess. We haven’t stopped since they assaulted us at the ranch.”

  Bodie nodded glumly. “I liked that ranch.”

  “You did? I thought you looked bored there.”

  Bodie acknowledged her with a smile. “You know me too well.”

  “I feel like I’m married to this team,” Jemma said. “I’ve been planning our moves for so long I could do it in my sleep. In fact,” she smiled, “last night, I did.”

  They others arrived, their plates loaded, mugs and glasses full. Bodie finished off his food, watching them, gauging their moods.

  “Are you ready to start this again?” he said.

  Cassidy pushed her plate away. “No choice,” she said. “Every minute we’re inactive puts them further ahead.”

  “Five to go,” Yasmine said. “But what happens after that?”

  “That’s the hundred-million-dollar question,” Lucie acknowledged. “Somehow we need to track down the crucible.”

  “And then find Hades,” Cassidy added.

  “We’ll follow the trail of Satanists,” Jemma said. “But first, we have to find Nessie.”

  Bodie listened to them talk, content to hear their banter and know they wer
e still mostly upbeat. Of course, despite a few near misses, they’d secured five ore deposits already and were no doubt causing the Illuminati hierarchy quite a headache.

  Not to mention the CIA.

  “Low profile,” he said, looking around. The hotel, like many in Scotland, was small and impersonal, little more than a waypoint for passing travelers. “Are we ready to move out?”

  “I have the directions,” Lucie said. “And my notes regarding the ley lines. I just need to see the lake.”

  “Loch,” Cassidy amended.

  Bodie stood up. “Then let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “It’s bloody big,” Bodie said, looking at the computer screen.

  “Twenty-three miles long,” Lucie said, shifting the laptop around on her knees. “And covering twenty-two square miles, but it’s deep. Over 750 feet at its deepest.”

  “That should make extracting a sample of ore real easy,” Cassidy said.

  “To put it into perspective,” Lucie nodded at the vista that currently lay beyond their windshield, “Loch Ness contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined.”

  Bodie nodded, impressed. It was easy to state facts, it was quite another to gaze over the vast body of water. They climbed out of the car, boots crunching on gravel, and scanned the parking area. It was mid-morning, the day bright but bone-achingly cold.

  An eye-opening wind scoured the loch, biting at Bodie’s exposed skin as if it had teeth. Just standing there for a moment Bodie tried to underplay the sense of sheer grandeur hanging over the entire area. He’d been in similar places during his life, but never failed to be affected deep down by the sense of ageless wonder that filled them, demanding respect.

  Urquhart Castle, a ruin located on headland overlooking the loch, was filled with tourists. Many stood, dividing their attention between the spectacular views and the surface of the loch. Some gazed at the crumbling castle walls and the old tower, perhaps imagining days when roaming clans had warred across the highlands.