Nightrise

from his research center in the town of lea in Peru. And this was how he really looked.
    "Good evening," he began. The local time was just after seven o'clock. "It is a great pleasure to be able to speak with you. I would like to thank your chairman for inviting me. And I have some excellent news to share with you.
    "I have now had a chance to decipher the diary of the mad monk of Cordoba, which was unearthed very recently in Spain and passed into my hands. I don't need to remind you that this is the only written history of the Old Ones and their fight against the five children who came to be known as the Gatekeepers. The Old Ones ruled the earth about ten thousand years ago. They were all-powerful but they were defeated — according to the diary — by a trick. Sadly, we have no more details. There was a great battle which the Old Ones lost and they were banished. Two gates were built to keep them out of our world. Many of us have been working for their return ever since.
    "Further examination of the diary has provided me with the answers that I have been looking for and I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt, very soon, we will have achieved our aims and a new millennium will have begun. Yes, my friends, the Old Ones are about to return to take control of a world that should, in truth, have been theirs all along."
    He stopped to catch his breath, his nostrils flaring. It hurt him to speak. It hurt him to do almost anything, a result of his head having been deliberately mutilated at birth.
    "We are now in mid-June," he went on. "And the twenty-fourth of this month is a sacred day in my country. We call it Inti Raymi. On that day, the second great gate, built in the desert in Nazca, will open.
    By carefully examining the diary, I have discovered the means to unlock it, and nothing can now prevent me."
    He lifted a hand. Next to his head it looked ridiculous, out of proportion.
    "But we have enemies," he said. "Incredible though it may sound, the five children who defeated us all those years ago have somehow returned. You may have found two of them in America. One of them is on his way to Peru. My agents encountered him in a church in London.

    "This much I can tell you: There has to be five of them. It's only when they come together that they have the strength to be a danger to us. On their own, they are powerless. Nothing can stop us. On June twenty-fourth, the Old Ones will take what is theirs and all of us will share in the rewards."
    Around the boardroom table, the executives began to applaud. They were thousands of miles apart — in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Beijing…all over the world. It was as if someone had turned up the volume. The noise echoed around the room.
    The fourteenth screen went black. Salamanda had broken contact.
    "Now you know the stakes," the chairman said. "Just a few days stand between us and the end of the old world. But let's not fool ourselves that our work is over. It's just beginning. A war is coming and our job is to prepare the way. We need a president of the United States who is sympathetic to our aims. Mr.
    Simms, I am relying on you. Mrs. Mortlake, see to the child. Make him one of ours. Then find his brother and deal with him too."
    The chairman signaled to one of his two assistants. One of them reached out and flicked a switch. The remaining thirteen television screens went black.

    ***
    In her office in Los Angeles, Susan Mortlake watched the red light on her own webcam blink out and knew that she was no longer transmitting. She also knew that she was very fortunate to be alive. The chairman had briefly considered asking her for her resignation. She had seen it in his eyes.
    Even so, he had told her to make redundancies. She leaned forward and reached out with a long finger, the nail sharpened to a point. There was an intercom in front of her and she pressed a button. 'You can send them in now," she said.
    A few seconds later, the door opened and Colton Banes and Kyle Hovey walked in. There were two high-backed chairs opposite her desk and they sat down without being asked. The room was ice cold, the air-conditioning turned up to its highest level, but Susan Mortlake noticed that beads of sweat had broken out on Hovey's forehead. Banes was looking more relaxed. He didn't even flinch when she turned and looked at him. Both men knew why they were here. It was inevitable that they would be called to account.
    "Well?" Mrs. Mortlake snapped out the single word. She