The Lost Key

They both shook their heads.

“All right, then. Before you leave, you have some time to look deeper into Jonathan Pearce. He was clearly not a simple antiquarian bookseller. You said he’d been lured with fake text messages to Wall Street; the computer in Mr. Pearce’s home office had been compromised before you were able to access the files, and there was all the classified material you found with the SD card, and e-mailed to him. Tell me exactly what the classified material was.”

Nicholas said, “He had specs for a military satellite still in the developmental stages, which will be launched in a few months to bolster the Milstar II military communications satellites already in orbit.”

“Not what you’d expect from a bookseller’s files.”

“Especially when sent through an anonymous repeater, so there’s no way to tell who provided the information. That satellite is so top secret no one outside the program and the launch schedule know anything about it. It certainly isn’t something laymen have access to. The SD card Gray is processing was full of files and letters and photographs. I didn’t have time to sort through them all before his daughter, Sophie Pearce, showed up. I need some time to make sense of all of this, but the information was clearly of a secret nature.”

Zachery nodded. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. We always do.” He drew a deep breath. “Now I have some bad news, Drummond. We received word an hour ago that Alfie Stanford has passed away.”

21

Nicholas took the news like a fist to the gut. “You don’t mean Alfie Stanford, the chancellor of the Exchequer?”

Zachery nodded. “From the look on your face, I see he was a friend of your family? I imagined as much. I’m sorry, Drummond.”

Nicholas finally found his voice. “Yes, he is. I went to school with his three grandsons. I’ve known him my whole life.”

“I’m very sorry, Nicholas,” Mike said. She touched his forearm lightly. “Sir, what happened?”

“He collapsed in his office at Eleven Downing Street. It seems to be natural causes, though they don’t know for sure yet. He was eighty-two, so I suppose it makes sense. The media is going to be all over the story, of course, Stanford being who he was. Drummond, if I hear anything more, I’ll let you know. Both of you, keep me posted.”

The audience was over. He gestured toward the door, then reached for his phone. “And Drummond? Do try not to get anyone else dead today, will you?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Nicholas looked shell-shocked. He didn’t wait, pulled out his mobile and dialed. Mike said nothing, merely stood close, giving him silent support.

It was only half past six in the evening in England; at least he wasn’t going to wake anyone up.

The Drummond family butler since the begi

“Horne?”

“Master Nicholas? How wonderful to hear from you. All is well in New York?” Nicholas heard the unspoken question—and is Nigel well?—though Horne was too ingrained in the proper etiquette to permit him to ask after his son.

“We’re fine, Horne. Nigel has me so set up I can’t find my knickers by myself. I’ll tell him you asked after him.” He swallowed. “I need to speak to my father, Horne. Is he home?”

“He is. He’s in the midst of a very serious situation with Mr. Stanford dying so unexpectedly today. Oh, my apologies, Master Nicholas, you do know about Mr. Stanford?”

“I do, Horne. That’s why I’m calling.”

Horne let out a sigh. “Of course, nowadays everyone knows everything at nearly the same instant. I’ll go fetch Master Harry for you. And Master Nicholas, permit me to say—we do so miss you here.”

Nicholas was hit with a wave of homesickness. It mixed with his shocked grief at Alfie Stanford’s death and for a moment he couldn’t speak. He missed them all, his grandfather, his parents, all the denizens at Old Farrow Hall. He even missed Cooke Crumbe’s very bland porridge.

“Thank you, Horne.”

Then his father was on the line, and he knew exactly why Nicholas was calling.

“Horne told me you’d already heard about Alfie,” Harry said. “I can’t believe it, Nicholas. It’s so sudden, there was no warning, no life-threatening illness that I knew about. I know he was getting on in years, but still, he was a tough old bird. He had a touch of rheumatism, the occasional attack of gout, but no heart trouble that I ever heard. Your mother has gone to Wembley Hall to be with Sylvie, and their grandchildren are coming home from their various overseas posts. We had to pull Anson off a submarine in the Balkans.”

“If he wasn’t ill, then what do you think caused his death?”

There was a pause, then his father said, “Are you on a secure line?”

“Yes, I am. What’s happened?”

“We believe it was murder.”

“Inside Eleven Downing? That’s madness. Surely not.”

“The medic from the Diplomatic Services spotted a mark on his neck, near the carotid artery, said it was made by a needle. Alfie’s body has been sent to the Coroner’s Court. The autopsy has been fast-tracked. They’ll test his blood, so we should know more by night’s end.”

It was all unbelievable. Nicholas said, “But who could have done it? And why?”

His father sighed, clearly exhausted, and Nicholas heard the weight of the world in that sigh. “We don’t know. The video feeds are being run, but so far no one who doesn’t belong there has been spotted.”

“You know that means someone inside Eleven Downing Street.”

“Yes, and the very idea makes my blood boil. You can trust we’ll get to the bottom of it, soon enough.”

“What can I do to help?”

“I wish there was something, but there’s nothing you can do from New York. I will let you know what happens, but for now, please, do keep this quiet.”

“But sir, I’ve got to—”

His father interrupted him. “Nicholas, I’ve always admired how your first instinct is to right the wrong, and I’m proud of that. But for now, I’m going to insist you keep this to yourself. No one’s said a word about murder. It is at present a very fluid and delicate situation. Very delicate.”

Delicate? What was his father not telling him?

“Tell me, sir.”

Harry sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t. But if Alfie Stanford was murdered, trust me, Nicholas, this is bigger than anyone could imagine.”

22

Berlin

7:00 p.m.

It had been a glorious evening.

First a wondrous interlude with Elise—his back was still stinging from her superb whipmanship—then the good news from London. After the morning’s screwup, despite the knowledge the FBI might already have their hands on his implant, his day was rapidly improving. One very big thing had gone just right. Mr. Z had managed perfectly. Alfie Stanford was dead, and good riddance to the old buzzard. And what a glorious distraction it was, a wonderful, brilliant distraction.

He’d been glued to the BBC World News for the past half-hour, gleaning and parsing every word out of the a

He sobered for a moment. Drummond was on the case and Havelock knew to his gut the damned Brit would come for him soon, fast and hard, which meant he only had days, maybe even hours, to get the coordinates of the sub and collect the key, and who knew? Maybe there’d even be a sack of the kaiser’s gold lying about. Soon all the governments in the world would bow down before him, and to hell with the FBI and Nicholas Drummond.