by Steve Berry
“So you think moving to Denmark will accomplish that miracle?”
He had no intention of explaining himself. She didn’t care. Nor did he want her to. “It’s Gary I need to talk to. I want to know if he’s okay with that.”
“Since when have you cared what he thought?”
“He’s why I got out. I wanted him to have a father around—”
“That’s bullshit, Cotton. You got out for yourself. Don’t use that boy as an excuse. Whatever it is you’re planning, it’s for you, not him.”
“I don’t need you telling me what I think.”
“Then who does tell you? We were married a long time. You think it was easy waiting for you to come back from who-knows-where? Wondering if it was going to be in a body bag? I paid the price, Cotton. Gary did, too. But that boy loves you. No, he worships you, unconditionally. You and I both know what he’ll say, since his head is screwed on better than either of ours. For all our failures together, he was a success.”
She was right.
“Look, Cotton. Why you’re moving across the ocean is your business. But if it makes you happy, then do it. Just don’t use Gary as an excuse. The last thing he needs is a discontented parent around trying to make up for his own sad childhood.”
“You enjoy insulting me?”
“The truth has to be said, and you know it.”
The truth? Hardly. She’d omitted the most important part.
Gary is not your biological son.
Typical Pam. One set of rules for her, another for everyone else. Now they both had a bad problem.
Ian walked beside him on the sidewalk. The boy had said nothing. Interesting how instinct bred survival, even in adolescence. He’d become angry at Ian in the mews, but he also saw that Ian seemed to tacitly agree that he’d messed up with Gary. He told himself to not allow that to happen again. This boy needed compassion, not hostility.
What did Gary need?
To know his biological father?
What good could possibly come from that, after fifteen years of ignorance. Unfortunately, Pam had not concerned herself with any of that. What had she been thinking?
The answer was obvious.
She hadn’t thought.
Only acted.
Women were not his strong point. He neither knew nor understood how to deal with them. So he avoided them. So much simpler that way.
But at times it could be lonely.
Gary was the one thing no one could take from him.
Or could they?
He suddenly realized why he’d been so apprehensive since learning the truth. No longer was he irrevocably a parent. Being part of birthing a child stamped you forever. Short of a court divesting you of all rights, no matter how many mistakes were made—and he’d made a ton—you never stopped being a father.
But now that could be stripped away.
At least in part.
Gary could meet his biological father. The man could be a great guy. Shocked to discover he had a son. They would bond. Gary’s love would be divided. Where now all of the boy’s emotions belonged to him, he’d have to share them.
Or maybe lose them entirely?
And that possibility crushed him.
Fifteen
KATHLEEN SCANNED THE INFORMATION ON THE LAPTOP. THE stories Sir Thomas had told her about what had happened at the deathbeds of Henry VII and Henry VIII were intriguing, but the information on the screen added more.
Henry VII, the first Tudor king, amassed a fortune in revenues which were eventually passed on to his son, Henry VIII. Over the final five years of Henry VIII’s thirty-eight-year reign, the bulk of Tudor wealth was held inside iron chests at Westminster and in various secret chambers located in his palaces. Henry learned about acquiring revenues from his father and massive sums were accumulated from royal fines, taxes, purchases of Crown offices, and payments from the French on a pension owed. Even more wealth came from the dissolution of the monasteries. Over 850 existed in 1509 when Henry was crowned. By 1540 all but 50 were gone, their riches confiscated. By any reasonable estimate the hoard totaled in the tens of millions of pounds (billions today). But no complete record of Henry VIII’s treasure trove exists. Inventories that have survived are spotty, at best. What is known is that little of that wealth made it to Henry’s son, Edward VI, who succeeded him in January 1547.
Edward was 10 when his father died and Henry’s will provided for a regency council that would govern by majority vote. By March 1547 Edward Seymour, brother of the late queen, Jane Seymour, and uncle to the king, secured the title of Protector until Edward reached majority. Seymour immediately assumed control of the five treasure rooms Henry left for Edward. Late in 1547 a commission, appointed by the regency council, searched and found what was left of Henry’s hoard. A mere £11,435 in angels, sovereigns, and Spanish reals.
What happened to the rest is unknown.
The fate of the Seymours, though, is clear.
Henry VIII’s feelings for Jane Seymour were stronger than for any of his other five wives. She bore him the legitimate son he so desperately sought, but she died unexpectedly a few days afterwards. The Seymour family, who enjoyed much favor when Henry VIII was alive, suffered nothing but defeat after the king’s death. Edward Seymour was removed from power in 1549, eventually executed for treason in 1552. His younger brother, Thomas, faired little better. He married Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last queen, in April 1547. He too was executed for treason, his death coming in 1549 shortly before his brother fell from power.
Edward VI died in 1553, never reaching majority.
We have long known that Henry VIII passed information to Katherine Parr about a secret place, where the bulk of his wealth awaited his son. That information, though, has been little more than an historical footnote. Unimportant. But recently American intelligence agents have become fixated on this obscurity. For the past year they have scoured the nation searching for its hidden location. Your supervisor should have advised you already about a series of thefts and you saw, firsthand, the violation of Henry VIII’s tomb. The key to finding this secret locale rests with an obscure journal, written entirely in code. Below is a page from that journal.
A man named Farrow Curry, employed by the Americans, may have cracked this code. Unfortunately, Curry died a few weeks ago in an Underground accident. The best information we have indicates that his research may have survived. It is this research that we require your assistance in securing. Blake Antrim is presently searching for it, too. In order for you to be fully prepared, a separate briefing has been arranged. Please proceed immediately to the hall at Jesus College, Oxford, where this information will be provided.
The narrative ended.
She sat in the dark and stared at the screen.
Thoughts of Blake Antrim filled her mind. They’d dated for a year, she a law student, he supposedly working for the State Department. Eventually, though, he’d told her the truth about himself.
“I work for the CIA,” Antrim said.
She was surprised. She would have never thought that to be the case. “What do you do?”
“Senior field analyst, but I’ll be a team leader soon. Counter-intelligence is my area.”
“Should you be telling me this?”
He shrugged. “I doubt you’re a spy.”
She resented his conclusion. “You don’t think me capable?”
“I don’t think that interests you.”
They’d met in a London pub, introduced by a mutual friend. The end came swiftly when he caught her with another man. By then she’d tired of his ways. Particularly his anger, which could erupt with little or no warning. He hated his job and his superiors, with little good to say about either. She came to view him as a sad, weak man, blessed with good looks but incapable of sincerity.
And that last day.
“You whore.”
Antrim’s eyes blazed with venom. She’d seen him mad, but not like this. He’d appeared at her flat early, unannoun
ced. She’d had a visitor last night who’d only left a few minutes before. When the knock came she’d thought her new lover had returned for another kiss, but instead Antrim stood outside.
“It’s over,” she said. “We’re done.”
He burst inside and slammed the door.
“And this is how you do it?” he asked. “Another man? Here? Where you and I spent all that time?”
“I live here.”
She just wanted him gone. The sight of him turned her stomach. She could not remember exactly when the attraction had turned to loathing. But when someone else showed her interest, one so opposite from the calculating soul she’d spent the last year with, the opportunity had been too inviting to resist.
She’d planned on phoning later today to tell him.
“It’s over,” she said again. “Now leave.”
He sprang at her with a suddenness she’d not expected. A hand clamped onto her throat, her spine slammed down onto a tabletop, the robe open, exposing her naked body. The force of his attack lifted her feet from the ground and she was now pinned to the table, legs dangling.
She’d never been physically attacked before.
He brought his face close. Breathing was difficult for her. She thought about resisting, but everything she knew about this man signaled that he was a coward.
He’d only go so far.
She hoped.
“Rot in hell,” he said.
Then he shoved her to the floor and left.
She’d not thought about that day in a long time. Her hip was sore for a week afterward. Antrim had tried to call, leaving messages of apology, but she’d ignored them. A month before that last encounter he’d written a glowing recommendation for her SOCA application. He’d volunteered to do it, revealing to her then his CIA employment and saying a good word from him couldn’t hurt. She’d been debating whether to forgo the law and become a law enforcement agent, but their violent parting convinced her.
Never again was that going to happen to her.
So she learned to defend herself, carry a badge, fire a weapon.
She also developed a reckless streak, and often wondered if that happened because of Antrim or in spite of him.
Men like Blake Antrim lived by convincing themselves that everyone else was inferior to them. Believing yourself on top was far more important than actually being there. And when that fantasy became fouled by a conflicting reality the response was violence. There was something unhinged about him. Never would he go back. He couldn’t. He not only burned bridges, he left them radioactive, forever impassable.
Forward was the only way for him.
Mathews may have been wrong about this.
Her approaching Antrim, after ten years, could be harder than anyone thought.
Sixteen
8:30 PM
KATHLEEN ALWAYS LIKED RETURNING TO OXFORD. SHE’D spent four years studying there. So when the narrative on the laptop directed her to drive sixty miles northwest, she’d been pleased.
A town had existed since the 10th century, and the Normans were the first to erect a castle. A college was established in the 13th century. Now 39 distinctive institutions, each independent and fiercely competitive, filled the honey-colored Gothic buildings. They carried names like Corpus Christi, Hertford, Christ Church, Magdalen, and Trinity, together forming a federation, the oldest in England, known as Oxford University.
The Thames and Cherwell rivers merged here, and Kathleen had enjoyed many an afternoon punting down the placid waterways, becoming quite apt at maneuvering the flat-bottomed boats. King Harold died here. Richard the Lionheart was born here. Henry V was educated and Elizabeth I entertained and fêted among the spires, towers, cloisters, and quadrangles. This was a place of history, theology, and academics, where great politicians, clerics, poets, philosophers, and scientists were trained. She’d read once that Hitler supposedly spared the town his bombs, as he planned to make it his English capital.
Oxford was exactly what Matthew Arnold called it.
The city of dreaming spires.
She’d thought about Blake Antrim on the drive. The prospect of seeing him again seemed revolting. He was not a man to let go of anything. His ego was far too fragile to seek forgiveness. How many women had there been since her? Had he married? Fathered children?
Mathews had provided no relevant information on this second briefing, telling her only to head straight to the hall at Jesus College, which sat in the heart of the city, among the shops and pubs. Founded by a Welshman, but endowed by Elizabeth I, it remained the only one of Oxford’s colleges created during her reign. Small, maybe 600 students among undergraduates, graduates, and fellows. She’d always loved its unmistakable Elizabethan feel. She knew its great hall, which reminded her of the one at Middle Temple. Same rectangular shape, carved wooden screens, cartouches, and oil portraits, one of Elizabeth herself dominating the north wall above the high table. But no hammerbeam Tudor ceiling here, only plaster stretching overhead.
She’d wondered about campus access, considering it was a Friday night, but the gate at Turl and Ship streets was open, the hall lit, and a woman waited for her inside—short, petite, her graying blond hair drawn into a bun. She wore a conservative navy suit with low heels and introduced herself as Dr. Eva Pazan, providing a title, professor of history, Lincoln College, another of Oxford’s long-standing institutions.
“I actually studied at Exeter,” Pazan said, “and I understand you attended St. Anne’s.”
Both were part of Oxford’s thirty-nine. St. Anne’s had always been more open to students from a state-education background, like herself, as opposed to the private preparatory schools. Gaining admission had been one of the highlights of her life. Kathleen was curious, though, about Pazan’s age, as she knew Exeter had been all-male until 1979.
“You must have been one of the first women in?”
“I was. We were changing history.”
She wondered why she was here and Pazan seemed to sense her anxiety.
“Sir Thomas wanted me to pass on some details not provided to you in London. Information that is not written down for reasons that will become obvious. He thought I would be the best person to explain. My expertise is Tudor England. I teach that at Lincoln, but I occasionally provide historical context to our intelligence agencies.”
“And did Sir Thomas choose this locale?”
“He did, and I concurred.” Eva pointed across the hall. “The portrait there, of Elizabeth I. It was presented by the Canon of Canterbury, to the college, in 1686. It’s illustrative of what we are going to speak about.”
She glanced at the image of the queen in a floor-length dress. Geometric patterns from the puffed sleeves and kirtle complemented one another, the hem edged with pearls. Two cherubs held a wreath over Elizabeth’s head.
“It was painted in 1590, when the queen was fifty-seven years old.”
But the face was that of a much younger woman.
“That was about the time all unseemly portraits of Elizabeth were confiscated and burned. None was allowed to exist that, in any way, questioned her mortality. The man who painted this one, Nicholas Hilliard, ultimately devised a face pattern that all painters were required to follow when depicting the queen. A Mask of Youth, the Crown called it, which portrayed her as forever young.”
“I never realized she was so conscious of her age.”
“Elizabeth was quite an enigma. Her countenance was strongly marked, though always commanding and dignified. A hard swearer, coarse talker, clever, cunning, deceitful—she was truly her parents’ daughter.”
She smiled, recalling her history on Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
“What do you know of Elizabeth?” Eva asked.
“No more than what books and movies portray. She ruled for a long time. Never married. The last Tudor monarch.”
Eva nodded. “She was a fascinating person. She chartered this college as the first Protestant institution at Oxford. And she was serious about
that. Thirty local priests, all fellows of colleges, were executed during her reign for either practicing Catholicism or refusing to recognize her as head of the church.”
She stared again at the portrait, which now seemed more a caricature than an honest representation of a woman dead over 400 years.
“Like her father,” Eva said, “Elizabeth surrounded herself with competent, ambitious men. Unlike her father, though, she remained loyal to them all of her life. You received a preview of one earlier.”
She did not understand.
“I was told you saw a page from the coded journal.”
“But I wasn’t told who created it.”
“That journal was masterminded by Robert Cecil.”
She knew the name Cecil, one of long standing in England.
“To understand Robert,” Eva said, “you have to know his father, William.”
She listened as Eva explained how William Cecil was born to a minor Welsh family that fought alongside Henry VII, the first Tudor king. He was raised at the court of Henry VIII and educated to government. Henry VIII’s death in 1547 set in motion ten years of political turmoil. First the boy, Edward VI, reigned, then died at age 15. His half sister, Mary, daughter of Henry’s first wife, then occupied the throne. But she gained the title bloody because of her propensity to burn Protestants. During Mary’s five-year reign Cecil kept the young princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, at his home, where she was raised away from court. In 1558, when she finally became queen, Elizabeth immediately appointed William Cecil her principal secretary, later titled secretary of state, a position that made him chief adviser, closer to her than anyone else. Her reliance and trust in Cecil never failed. No prince in Europe hath such a counselor as I have in mine. Over forty years Cecil was the great architect of Elizabethan reign. I have gained more by my temperance and forebearing than ever I did by my wit. One observer at the time noted that he had no close friends, no inward companion as great men commonly have, nor did any other know his secrets, some noting it for a fault, but most thinking it a praise and an instance of his wisdom. By trusting none with his secrets, none could reveal them.
