The Lost Key

Havelock grunted a command in guttural German, and Elise reached up and released first the left wrist, then the right. She handed Havelock his shirt. He said, as calm as a judge, “Thank you, Elise. You may go now. I will see you soon.” He kissed her cheek. She gathered her things gracefully and left the room.

Havelock buttoned his shirt, tucked it into his pants. He didn’t look embarrassed or in pain. He looked as if Weston had walked in on a tea party. “Hello, Weston.”

Weston was without words.

“Ah, I see you’re upset. Please don’t concern yourself. I felt the need for release. Elise is always very accommodating, and excellent at her chosen métier.” He walked to the small wet bar in the corner of the room and poured himself a scotch. “Tell me, how did the meeting go?”

Weston swallowed bile, forced the look of awful disgust from his face. “You’ve been voted in. You’re a full-fledged member of the Order.”

“Were there any dissenters?”

“Yes. Oliver Leyland was the most upset, at least verbally. My mention of Gernot sent him stomping out of the room. I backed off since I saw other members were listening to him. Alex Shepherd was voted in as well.”

“And Adam Pearce?”

“Has not been located.”

“This is unacceptable, Weston.”

“There may be another way. The FBI agents, Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine, are on a plane to London as we speak. It’s possible they can flush out Adam Pearce once they’re on the ground.”

Weston watched Havelock sit down, lean back and stretch. How could he do that after the beating she’d given him? But Havelock didn’t seem to feel a thing. He seemed cool and collected, ready for anything.

“I do believe the FBI has outlived their usefulness,” Havelock said. “It is time to eliminate both them and Leyland. I will see to it.”

Weston shook his head, appalled. “Surely that isn’t necessary.”

“Oh, yes. It is.”

“Leyland knows something’s up. He won’t be an easy target.”

“März will take care of Leyland personally. And I will deal with the FBI. Now, Sophie Pearce resides in your home?”

“If she’s not at West Park now, she will be shortly.”

“I will go there. She and I need to have a small talk.”

Weston knew exactly what sort of talk Havelock had in mind. He wondered to himself if he’d done the right thing. All that lovely money, the promise of more power than he’d ever dreamed. The time for questioning was long over.

Havelock had a point. With Leyland gone, they would be able to force a vote for two more Order members, which would give them the majority vote. And they’d recover the weapon and have the power in the palms of their hands.

“How will you eliminate the FBI?”

Havelock smiled wickedly. “I’m sure you’ll hear it on the news very soon.”

56

Over the Atlantic

Nicholas read Wolfgang Havelock’s autopsy report, then read it again more slowly. Mike was right. He looked up at her, sitting forward, so excited she was nearly bouncing on the seat.

She said, “They found the implant, but evidently it must have been a prototype, not as obvious or as well defined as the one Dr. Janovich found. Maybe its capabilities weren’t as advanced as the one in Mr. Olympic’s head since British ME believed it to be some sort of advanced German technology for the aneurysm, an ‘aneurysm chip,’ is what they wrote. They also wrote they’d never seen anything like it.”

“So he implanted his father at the begi

She nodded. “Either his father agreed to it or he didn’t know about it, and that raises the question, How did Havelock do it without his being any the wiser?”

“A question we’ll have to ask Manfred when we get cuffs on him, but it makes the most sense he was implanted with the chip during his aneurysm surgery.” He added, “If the father wasn’t the good guy we all think he was, then he was in on all this maneuvering with his son.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. If the father was in on it with his son, then all he had to do was tell him everything. I don’t think Havelock senior had any idea he’d been given an implant.”

Mike nodded. “And then Havelock starts buying up polonium, and through his father’s implant he gets a direct feed into Adam Pearce, the sub, the key, and suddenly, he doesn’t need dear old Dad anymore. With Dad gone, Havelock has a sure line into the Order.”

Nicholas said, “I buy Havelock using Daddy to spy on the Order. Maybe he was pushing his father to convince the Order members to go a certain way, and his father refused. Dad’s implant is triggered, and he’s gone, clearing the way for Manfred to step into his place and take the weapon they’ve been searching for for nearly a hundred years into his own hands.

He stared down at his clasped hands on his knees. “Then this key to this weapon that’s in the sub, it has to be something Havelock needs to make the mini-nukes work properly or make them more powerful.”

She bounced in her seat again. “Yes, that’s it. Nicholas, I’ve got it, I know what the implants are for.”

“What?”

“You said it yourself. It’s a trigger.” She pointed at the autopsy sheet. “It all makes perfect sense now. The micro-nukes. They need a trigger. The implants are the trigger.”

“I have to say,” he said slowly, “this is so much worse than anything I imagined. I hope you’re wrong.”

“But you know I’m not. We have to get that key out of the sub and find that weapon, Nicholas.”

“Yes, we absolutely do. Soon we’ll have access to everything Havelock has in his databases. And then I’ll call Penderley.”

He tapped on his laptop for no longer than a minute, then closed it. “Done. We’ll have all Havelock’s files momentarily. But before I call Penderley, we need to look again at Pearce’s files. I want to see if he’d caught on to Havelock. The coded messages from the past few days might have answers.” He clicked a few buttons, and Pearce’s e-mail came on the screen. He clicked on the in-box, started to type, then stopped.

“Wait, what’s this?”

Nicholas watched the screen of his computer light up, then go completely black. Then a small face floated into the center of the screen, rotating and spi

“That cheeky bugger.”

“Nicholas? What are you talking about?”

He turned his laptop to face her. “Adam Pearce has hacked into my computer.”

“How did he manage that?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” And he clicked on the face.

A link popped onto the black screen. He recognized part of a word embedded in the string. Ariston.

Normally, Nicholas wouldn’t get anywhere near something like this, knowing full well it was a hack, and that whoever was on the other side could bring mayhem on his world. But if Adam Pearce was reaching out, he had to know.

He clicked on the link.

It took him to Jonathan Pearce’s secure e-mail.

He combed the messages. Clearly he was meant to see something here, but nothing jumped out at him. “Maybe I’m supposed to go back in time. Look at yesterday’s e-mail.”

Mike stepped behind him and pointed to a message. “No, wait. It’s right there.”

He looked at the message she was pointing to. “That’s spam, only an advertisement for a sale on British Airways.”

“Yep. One that so happens to invite Pearce to come to Scotland for a holiday. Click on it. Right there, on the northern coast of Scotland, where the small star is. That’s what we’re looking for.”

“What are you seeing that I’m not?”

“Adam Pearce is trying to give you the exact location of the sub.”

He clicked the message.

Instead of a normal e-mail coming up, a text message box filled the screen. Mike gave Nicholas a big smile. “Tell Adam I said hello.”