by Steve Berry
“You don’t like answering questions, either, do you?”
“I prefer when you do that.” Malone pointed. “Good taste in books. Ivanhoe is one of my favorites, and King Arthur is hard to beat.”
“I like Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail. Miss Mary gave me a couple of other stories on Merlin and Guinevere.”
“I like books, too.”
“Never said I liked books.”
“You don’t have to. The way you hold them gives it away.”
He hadn’t realized there was a way to hold a book.
“You cradle it in your palm. Even though those books have seen a lot of use, they’re still precious to you.”
“They’re just books.” But his denial sounded hollow.
“I’ve always considered them ideas, forever recorded.” Malone motioned to one of the paperbacks. “Malory wrote King Arthur in the late part of the 15th century. So you’re reading his thoughts from five hundred years ago. We’ll never know Malory, but we know his imagination.”
“You don’t think Arthur existed?”
“What do you think? Was he real or just a character Malory created?”
“He was real.” The force of his declaration bothered him. He was showing too much of himself to this stranger.
Malone flashed a smile. “Spoken like a true Englishman. I would have expected no less from you.”
“I’m Scottish, not British.”
“Really now? As I recall, Scots and English have been British since the 17th century.”
“Maybe so. But those sassanacks’ noses are too far up their arses for me.”
Malone let out a chuckle. “I haven’t heard an Englishman called a sassanack in a while. Spoken like a true jock.”
“How did you know we Scots are jocks?”
“I read, too.”
He’d come to realize that Cotton Malone paid attention, unlike most people he encountered. And he did not seem like a man given to having his knickers in a twist. In that mews, when faced with those fake police and a gun, he’d handled himself as a man in charge, strong and confident, like one of the horses at the track bolting from the gate. His wavy hair, cut neat and trim, carried the burnished tint of old stone. He was tall and muscular, but not overly so. His face was handsome, the features suited to him. He didn’t smile a lot, but there really wasn’t all that much to be happy about. Gary had said his father was a barrister, like the ones Ian had sometimes watched in London courts, parading about in wigs and robes. Yet Malone did not seem cursed with any of that pompousness.
He actually appeared like someone Ian could trust.
And he’d trusted precious few people in his life.
KATHLEEN HAD NO TIME TO REACT. THE MAN PULLED THE trigger and something propelled toward her. It took an instant for her to realize that the weapon was not a gun, but a Taser.
Electrodes pierced her shoulder.
Electricity stiffened her body, then buckled her legs, dropping her to the floor.
The voltage stopped.
Her head hummed with a high-pitched violence. Every muscle cramped for a few excruciating seconds. Then came the shakes. Uncontrollable.
She’d never felt anything like that.
She lay on the checkerboard marble and tried to regain control. Her eyes were closed and she suddenly felt pressure on her right cheek, her head clamped to the floor. Someone had the sole of their shoe on her face.
“I’m sure you now realize that you were led here.”
That she did.
“Next time, Miss Richards,” the voice said. “It will be bullets.”
Anger surged through her, but there was little she could do. Her muscles were still convulsing.
The foot came off her cheek.
“Lie still,” he said, “and listen.” The man was behind her and close. “Don’t turn your head, unless you want more electricity.”
She lay silent, wishing her muscles would respond to her brain.
“We told Antrim. Now we’re telling you. Leave this be.”
She tried to assess the cool, clipped voice. Young. Male. Not unlike Mathews’ tone, but less formal.
“We are the protectors of secrets,” the man said.
What in the world was he talking about?
“Pazan is dead,” the man said. “She knew too much. At the moment you know little. A word of advice. Keep it that way. Knowing too much will prove fatal.”
Her body was relaxing, the pain gone, her wits returning, but she kept her head to the floor, the man still behind her.
“Domine, salvam fac Regnam.”
She’d studied Latin in school and understood what he’d said.
O Lord, keep the queen safe.
“That is our duty,” he said. “Et exaudi nos in die qua invocaerimes te.”
And hear us in the day in which we call on thee.
“Our reward for that duty. We live by those words. Don’t you forget them. This is your first and final warning. Leave this be.”
She had to get a look at him. But she wondered—was he the one who fired the Taser? Or was there someone else here, too?
A gloved hand came across her body and the electrodes were removed.
She heard the chapel door open.
“Lie still, Miss Richards. Wait a few moments before rising.”
The door closed.
She immediately tried to stand. Her skin felt itchy all over. She was woozy, but she forced her legs to work and stood, staggering a moment, then regaining her balance. She stepped to the chapel door and turned the latch. Easing it open, she spied out into the lit quadrangle.
Empty.
She stepped out. The cool night air helped clear her head.
How had the man disappeared so fast?
She glanced right, to the doorway ten meters away, where she’d first sought cover. The closest exit.
She walked over and retried the latch.
Still locked.
Her eyes found the steps and the archway that led back into the dining hall.
Eva Pazan’s body was gone.
Nineteen
ANTRIM SAT ON THE BENCH AND STARED AT THE DARK THAMES. The arrogant bastard from the State Department was gone. He was a twenty-year veteran and resented being ordered around like the hired help. But he had a dead operative on his hands and Langley had made clear that there’d be repercussions.
Now this time crunch.
A few days.
Which nobody mentioned.
Was he being set up? That seemed the way of this business. You were only as good as your last act. And his last few had not been memorable. He was hoping King’s Deception would be his salvation.
He’d stumbled across the idea in a 1970s CIA briefing memo. An obscure Irish political party had investigated a radical way to end the British presence in Northern Ireland. A legal, nonviolent method that utilized the rule of law. But no evidence to support their theory been found, though the memo detailed a host of clues that had been uncovered. Once he proposed the concept, moles within British intelligence, most likely the same eyes and ears who’d alerted Langley to the Libyan prisoner transfer, had provided information from long-buried MI6 files. Enough for Operation King’s Deception to be approved and counter-intelligence assigned. But after a year’s worth of work, nothing significant had been discovered.
Except the information that died with Farrow Curry.
And this Daedalus Society.
Both of which seemed to confirm that there was something to find.
His mind ached from months of worrying, scheming, and dreaming.
Five million pounds. That was what Daedalus had offered, just to walk away. Maybe he should take it? Things seemed destined for failure anyway. Why not leave with something for himself?
Especially after the text he’d just received.
Have one boy in custody, but Dunne escaped.
Idiots. How could they allow a fifteen-year-old kid to elude them? Their orders were s
imple. Take Malone, his son, and Dunne from Heathrow to a house near Little Venice. There, Malone should have been incapacitated and his son and Dunne transported to another locale. Apparently, everything had happened, except the most important part.
Corralling Ian Dunne.
Another text.
Mews video recording interesting. Watch.
The house in Little Venice was wired both for sound and pictures. So he accessed the feed and found the mews’ hidden camera. A recorded image sprang onto his smart phone and he saw Cotton Malone, gathering clothes back into a travel bag.
And Ian Dunne.
Watching.
He brought the phone close to his eyes.
What a break.
Malone and Dunne left the mews together.
Yesterday, he’d formulated a plan. One he’d thought smart and workable. But a new idea streaked through his brain. A way to perhaps reap all five million of the rewards.
First, though, he had to know something, so he texted his men.
Did you enable the phone?
He’d told them to make sure the locator feature was working on Malone’s cell and to learn the phone number.
The response came quick.
Done.
MALONE, WITH IAN, EXITED THE TAXI. LUCKILY, THE DRIVER agreed to accept U.S. dollars and he tipped an extra twenty for the favor.
Ian’s special hiding place was located behind a set of Georgian buildings in a part of London known as Holborn. The block faced a park encircled by a narrow one-car lane, multistory brick buildings in varying colors on all sides. From the name plates he noted that most were occupied by lawyers—who, he knew, had long dominated this section of London. A rich confection of cloisters, courtyards, and passageways defined the place. What had Shakespeare allowed Richard III to say? My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn I saw good strawberries in your garden. The strawberry patches were gone and the old marketplace had become a diamond exchange. Only the lit park across the street seemed a remnant of the Middle Ages—meticulously landscaped and dotted with bare sycamore trees.
The time was approaching 9:00 PM, but the sidewalks remained busy. The sight of a boy being urged by his mother not to dawdle made him think of Pam. She’d always been a calculating woman, careful with her words, stingy with her emotions. He resented her for forcing this situation with Gary on him. Sure, she was tugged by a long-held guilt. But couldn’t she see that there were skeletons behind those doors—none of which should have ever been opened? Six months ago, when she informed him about Gary’s parentage, her explanation was that she wanted to be fair.
Since when?
She’d kept the secret this long. Why not forever? Neither he nor Gary would have ever known.
So what prompted her sudden need for truth?
Long ago, he’d been a foolish navy lieutenant and hurt her. They’d attended counseling, worked through it, and he’d thought his sincere request for forgiveness had been granted. Ten years later, when she walked out, he came to see that their marriage had never had a chance.
Trust broken is trust lost.
He’d read that somewhere and it was true.
But he wondered what it took to watch, day in and day out, while a father and son bonded, knowing that it was, at least partly, an illusion.
He felt for the cell phone in his pocket and wished it to ring. He hadn’t told Ian the substance of the earlier conversation. Of course, he had no intention of handing the boy over.
But he needed that flash drive.
His and Gary’s travel bags were slung over his shoulders and he followed Ian into a darkened alley that led to an enclosed courtyard, brick walls from the buildings encasing all sides. Lights from a handful of windows cast enough of a glow for him to notice a small stone structure on one side. He knew what it was. One of London’s old wells. Many of the city’s districts took their names from water sources that once supplied residents. Camberwell. Clerk’s. St. Clement’s. Sadler’s. Then there were the holy wells. Sacred healing springs that dated back to Celtic times, most of which were long gone, but not forgotten.
He stepped over and peered down past the waist-high stone wall.
“There’s nothing down there,” Ian said. “It’s sealed off a meter or so below with concrete.”
“Where’s your special place?”
“Over here.”
Ian approached what appeared to be a grate in one of the brick walls. “It’s a vent that leads into the basement. It’s always been loose.”
He watched as Ian hinged the panel upward and reached inside, feeling around at the top.
Another plastic shopping bag, from Selfridges, appeared in the boy’s hand.
“There’s a ledge above the grate. I found it one day.”
He had to admire the boy’s ingenuity.
“Let’s go back to the street, where there’s more light.”
They left the courtyard and found a bench beneath one of the streetlights. He emptied the contents of the bag and inventoried the assortment of items. A couple of pocketknives, some jewelry, three watches, twenty pounds sterling, and a flash drive, 32G. Plenty of room for data.
“Is that it?” he asked.
Ian nodded. “It felt like a lighter or a pocket recorder when I first got my hand on it.”
He scooped up the drive.
“What do we do now?” Ian asked.
Some insurance would be good.
“We find a computer and see what’s on this thing.”
GARY LAY ON THE SOFA, THE MAN SUCKING LICORICE STILL nearby. He estimated another half hour had elapsed from their arrival. His arms were beginning to ache from being bound behind his back, his face sweating from the wool cap, his shirt damp with perspiration. He quelled the rapidly growing tension within him with thoughts that if these men wanted him hurt, then that would have already happened. Instead, it seemed he was needed in one piece.
But for how long?
He heard a pounding, then a crack.
Wood splintering.
“What the—” the man nearest him said.
“Drop it,” a new voice screamed. “Now.”
He heard something hard thud to a rug or carpet.
“On the floor. Hands where I can see them.”
“We have the other one,” a voice said from farther off.
Footsteps, then, “Down, beside your buddy.”
No British accents anywhere. These guys were American.
The wool cap was ripped from his face and the bindings on his hands cut. He rubbed his wrists and blinked away the burning lamps that lit the room. When he finally focused he saw worn gold carpet, brown walls, and a pair of matching chairs on either side of the sofa. The exit door had been splintered from its hinges. His two captors, Devene and Norse, lay facedown on the floor. Three men stood in the room, all armed. Two kept weapons trained on his captors.
The third sat beside him on the sofa.
Relief swept over him.
“You okay?” the man asked.
He nodded.
The man was older, near his dad’s age, but with less hair and a few more pounds at the waist. He wore a dark overcoat, buttondown collared shirt, and dark pants. Pale gray eyes stared at him with a look of concern.
“I’m okay,” Gary said. “Thanks for finding me.”
Something about him was familiar.
He’d seen this face before.
“We met in Atlanta.”
The man smiled. “That’s right. Your mom introduced us. Back in the summertime, when I was there on business.”
He recalled the day, at the mall, near the food court. They’d stopped to buy some clothes. The man had called out, walked over, and chatted with his mother while he shopped. Everything had seemed cordial and pleasant. After they left, she’d said he was an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time.
And here he was.
He tried to remember a name.
The man offered his hand to shake.
“Bl
ake Antrim.”
Twenty
OXFORD
KATHLEEN’S MIND SWIRLED. SHE’D FACED DRUG TRAFFICKERS who’d fired fourteen hundred rounds from Uzis and AK-47s at her. A hotel room on Tenerife shot up by a child sex offender who’d not wanted to return to England. Being submerged in a car that had catapulted off a bridge. But she’d never experienced anything like the past few minutes. A woman assassinated by a sniper. Her own body Tasered. And some man who was protecting royal secrets, threatening her life, disappearing into nowhere.
She stood alone in the dark quad.
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.
She found the unit and answered.
“Are you finished with Professor Pazan?”
Thomas Mathews.
“The professor is dead.”
“Explain yourself.”
She did.
“I am here, in Oxford. My plan was to speak to you after your talk. Come to Queen’s College now.”
She walked the few blocks, following the curve of elegant High Street. She knew it as The High. Many of Oxford’s colleges fronted the busy thoroughfare that ran from the center of town to the River Cherwell. Though after 9:00 PM, frenetic activity raged around her. Cars and packed buses, each trailing plumes of exhaust, ferried people to and from town, the busy weekend unfolding. Her nerves were rattled, but she told herself to stay calm. After all, she could be sitting in her flat waiting to be fired.
The foot to her face had rubbed her the wrong way. Had that been the idea? To put her in her place? If so, it was a bad move. If she and that man crossed paths again, he’d pay for the insult.
Queen’s College was one of the ancients, founded in the 14th century and named as a counterpart to the already established King’s College in the hope that future queens would extend their patronage. The huddle of its original medieval houses was long gone, the fate of time and lack of funding. What remained was a baroque masterpiece, a touch out of place among so much Gothic splendor, centered by a dome-covered statue of Queen Caroline, the wife of George II. Many thought the college was named after her. In reality, it acquired its name from a much earlier benefactor—Philippa, wife of Edward III.
She entered the front quad through the domed gatehouse, the lit walkway ahead framed on either side by winter grass. An illuminated cloister lined with archways stretched left and right, the rusticated stone crusty and brittle, casting the appearance of a mountain monastery.
