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He released the package from its hiding place and turned, slamming the safe shut with his right hand.
He didn’t feel the pinch of the needle right away. It took a moment for the sensation to catch up to him, and then it was agony. His chest felt like it was on fire, and he dropped to his knees. He couldn’t catch his breath. The package fell to the carpet, and he saw a hand reach down to snatch it up. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. He heard footsteps, ru
He went into a seizure on the thick Aubusson carpet as the poison spread through his veins, and it was like his blood itself was on fire.
With sudden clarity, he realized what had happened. He was the leader, Pearce was the Messenger. The Order was under attack. But who could get inside 11 Downing Street without being seen?
The protocols. Dear God in heaven, the protocols.
Stanford tried to roll, to heave himself up off the floor, to reach the phone, to warn them of what had happened. But his hands splayed feebly against the soft, thick carpet, unable to lift his weight.
He began to fade, his heartbeat slower and louder in his head, like the bong of a massive internal clock, counting down.
Five.
A man’s voice, shouting, then he was touched, pulled hard, and he flopped onto his back. The pain was so intense, like a lightning bolt repeatedly striking him. He’d heard it said that death did not hurt; they lied. His chest was seared, he was choking, he couldn’t breathe. The room began to spin.
Four.
His assistant, Wetherby, a good sort, was on his knees, hands pressed hard against Stanford’s chest, his face white with shock.
“Sir. Oh my God, sir. You’re having a heart attack. I’ll get help.”
Stanford knew in that moment who’d ordered him killed, the same man who’d ordered the rape of the Messenger’s computer. The man who wanted to be Stanford, who wanted all he had, wanted to know the secrets of the Order, wanted the Order itself. He tried to give his assistant the name of his enemy, the two syllables hard against his tongue—Have, lock—but the words came out more like “Ngam.”
Three.
Wetherby was back, shouting out, “Where’s the medic? The chancellor is having a heart attack!”
Two.
They need me. The Order needs me. I ca
One.
But the words wouldn’t come. He had failed them, failed them all.
Oddly, he saw his mother’s face. Was she telling him he’d done his best? Yes.
Peace flooded through him. And then all was dark.
11
Berlin
5:00 p.m.
Havelock watched Alfie Stanford die. He wanted to stay dispassionate, but the writhing and flopping about was so clearly painful, and the old fool was so helpless, he couldn’t help but become aroused. He was tempted by the thought of trying the smallest bit out on himself, not enough to kill, but no. That wasn’t a good idea. The dosage needed to bring on cardiac arrest was so nominal, he could miscalculate and end up killing himself all in the name of pleasure. He replayed the footage to watch again.
He wondered, had it been this way for his own father, dropping to the floor in the middle of his gym, everyone gathering around to watch him die? The old man had been in the ground for less than a month now, and Havelock had done his part, looking all grave and somber, in black, finding an errant tear, and he’d thought, finally, I’ve cleared the path for my journey to begin. Had he really wanted his father to die? He didn’t want to think about that, only that his death had been a necessary evil.
His mother, on the other hand—the wondrous terror in her eyes before he flung her into the sea was something treasured and precious, brought out to be examined at his leisure like his favorite painting, Goya’s The Colossus. He wallowed in the dark brute power of it. He was the colossus with his raised fist, the giant that men feared and worshipped.
He fingered one of the scars on his arm through the heavy fabric of his bespoke blue oxford. His mother’s voice rang in his ears, the waking nightmare he returned to every time failure was possible. Her stark, never-changing litany bit deeper than the belt, even after her cherished death.
You are not good enough. You are not smart enough. You will never lead men. You are a sniveling child. And now you will be punished.
He tossed back the scotch and poured another, raised the glass toward the sky. “A child, Mother? I was strong enough to take your life from you. I do hope you are rotting in hell.”
You are worthless.
Did he hear her words again? Was her ghost mocking him still? Havelock hurled the glass across the room, watched it shatter against the marble floor. He felt better now, more in control.
He smoothed down his black hair, gone gray at the temples in a most distinguished ma
But Mr. X had failed, and how could that have happened? Havelock had designed the perfect plan, and it had been, until the fool had died with Havelock’s implant in his head. All of them knew the chip would be found in autopsy, knew the Americans would figure out what it was, and then they would come. It forced his hand. He would have to move faster than he’d pla
He needed the Messenger’s son, he needed Adam Pearce, and he needed him now.
Havelock sat back in his chair and uploaded all the video from Mr. X’s brief New York sojourn. He tapped a few keys on the flat dynamic keyboard embedded in the wood, then placed a small metal neuro-cap on his head, snapping the edges down tight so it would have perfect contact with his skin. He waited for the neural pathways to link.
Ten seconds later, he was viewing video footage from Mr. X’s last twenty-four hours. He saw the world through Mr. X’s eyes, heard the voices Mr. X heard, all of it uploaded to Havelock’s servers.
Havelock was working on a way to merge two sets of brain waves, so he could actually link into his assets’ thoughts and tell them what to do from afar, almost like calling on a mobile phone, but with his mind. He hadn’t perfected the technology yet, nor did he know how to solve the one huge obstacle: those test subjects who heard a second voice inside their heads—his voice—had gone irrevocably insane.
So he looked and he listened, wanting more, but content to know that soon he would be able to enhance his micro–nuclear weapons, his MNWs, and set them in place, ready to deploy at whatever target he selected. Or whatever enemy. They’d never know what hit them. All he needed were the coordinates of the lost sub and the key, and for that he needed Adam Pearce.
He fast-forwarded through the footage: arriving at JFK, the ride to the ferry terminal, to the moment Mr. X slipped unseen into the Messenger’s apartment. Mr. X had done a thorough search, carefully opened all the cabinets, the closets, the wall safe behind the Modigliani painting in the office so no one would know he’d even been there. Many locks. But no SD card.
He watched Mr. X insert a thumb drive into the iMac on Pearce’s desk, quickly break through the encryption, do a hard download of all the files. A pity he wouldn’t be able to get the thumb drive, since it was now in the hands of the FBI. But it didn’t matter. He doubted there was anything more than correspondence and records of sales of rare books to clients. No great loss. He continued to let Mr. X’s images wash over him, all the way until the end, when that bastard Drummond had taken him down. He saw Drummond’s elbow hit Mr. X’s jaw, bursting the gel pack, killing him. A fluke, but it was good to know that could happen. He’d have to find a better solution, a better placement. He couldn’t have his assets dying at the hands of the enemy by accident. Inside a tooth would be better, the molars would protect the gel, less chance of splitting the gel pack open. But the tongue—