The Lost Key

Leyland calmly pulled a Walther PPK from his pocket. “Adam, I want you to go upstairs to your room and lock yourself in. Don’t open that door for anyone. Wait for me to come for you. Don’t worry about me, go, now,” and his godfather was gone.

Adam ran up the back stairs to the third floor, stopped, and listened. He heard Leyland shout, he heard fighting, no mistaking the sickening sound of bones cracking, the grunts of pain. Then a popping sound—a silenced gun. He couldn’t lose his godfather, he simply couldn’t. He ran to the front stairs and started down, hugging the wall, one stair at a time until he reached the entrance hall landing.

He saw three men standing over his godfather. Oliver wasn’t moving. His prized Walther was on the floor near his hand.

Was Oliver dead? No, no, it couldn’t be. Rage roared through him. Adam couldn’t stop himself. He ran down those steps, yelling, “Leave him alone!”

Three men turned to stare at the ski

“Well, now, boys, what have we here?” Adam heard that thick German accent, recognized the scar that sliced through the man’s cheek. The man smiled at him, making the scar pucker and redden. It was Havelock’s vicious right hand, the man known only as März.

“I do believe we have Adam Pearce.”

Adam had read about this man in Havelock’s files, but he hadn’t realized—his godfather moaned. März turned and casually shot him with a suppressed Beretta, the sound no louder than a polite cough.

He turned back to Adam, his smile still in place, and gestured with his gun for him to come down the stairs.

Adam snapped. He charged the man, kicking, punching, screaming. He wasn’t a fighter, but his fury was profound, fueled by his grief. He caught the men off guard, but still, it only took a couple of seconds for them to grab him and hold him. One of the men raised his knife, but März shouted, “No! We need him.” The man cursed but drew back. Still, they’d gotten in a couple of licks. Adam’s face hurt, and he knew his lip was split and bleeding.

März said, “You’re a brave little cock, aren’t you? I wonder if you will be marked, like me.”

Adam licked the blood from his lip. “You’ve killed my godfather! You’ve killed him,” and Adam tried to break away, but this time it was no use.

“Enough!”

“Did you send the man to kill my father? Or was it your boss, Havelock? Oh, yes, I know who you are.”

Again, that awful smile that widened his mouth and made the scar push up and pleat. “What would you do if I had?”

“I’ll kill you, you bastard.”

März laughed. “Come along, little boy. We have things to do, a short trip to take, then we’ll have a nice long chat.” He nodded to Leyland’s body.

Adam watched the two men carry his godfather up to the second landing, turn and simply toss him over the railing. März laughed. “There, that should ensure the old man is dead.”

Adam couldn’t bear it, he yelled and charged März again.

Adam felt a sharp sting in his neck. His heart speeded up, his breathing came fast, too fast. Then he couldn’t breathe, he was drowning. As everything went black, he heard März say, “You shouldn’t have done that, little boy.”

He fell to his knees, dizzy, knowing he was going to die. The last thing he saw was the blood on the floor from his godfather’s body seeping toward him. Everything went dark.

58

Over the Atlantic

Penderley answered Nicholas’s call immediately. “Drummond. Finally. Are you on the ground?”

“No, sir, we’re still about an hour out. First, let me thank you for the official invite. Now let me fill you in on what we’ve learned. I may need some of the lads to help us out.” He told Penderley everything they’d discovered on the flight over.

Penderley listened without interruption. When Nicholas was finished, he said, “You can have all the people you need. I will station a team at Oliver Leyland’s house straightaway, see if we can’t snatch young Adam before Havelock’s men get to him. Also, the inquest on Stanford confirms he was murdered—injected with a large dose of ketamine, enough to stop his heart very quickly. We’re trying to keep it quiet until we have this well in hand. So tell your pilot to hurry.”

“I will. Thank you, and sir, we—”

The plane jerked hard to the left, throwing Mike out of her seat, sending Nicholas’s laptop crashing to the floor. Pages flew through the air, their coffee cups, half full of liquid, sprayed across the windows. The plane pulled back left, banked hard, and they heard yells from the cockpit.

Nicholas tried to get to his feet, tried to reach Mike, but the plane was jerking and twisting in the air like it had hit a patch of ice. It spun right, then started to nose down.

Mike yelled, “What’s happening?”

Nicholas stumbled up the short aisle to the cockpit, threw open the door. Dan Breaker was half out of his chair, unconscious. Copilot Tom Strauss had a hand over his eyes, moaning. Nicholas righted him and saw a slash of red across the man’s eyes. A burn.

He shook Strauss. “What in bloody hell happened?”

Strauss managed a strangled whisper, “Green. Flash,” and passed out.

Nicholas pulled him out of the seat, took the copilot chair. He had to get the plane under control.

He saw Mike was holding the edges of the cockpit doorway for dear life. “The pilots are injured, they’re both unconscious. I’m going to have to land the plane.”

Nicholas was trying to get the plane stable on the horizon, but the navigation display was off. There were four large flat-panel displays across the front of the cockpit, and the HUD—the heads-up display—was blank.

Something had destroyed the electronics in the plane.

Nicholas hit the elevator too hard and the plane whipped to the right, throwing Mike into the cockpit and against the instrument panel.

“Engage the autopilot,” she yelled.

“I have. It seems to be damaged. I’ll have to fly it myself.”

He saw her face was perfectly white, but she was there, with him, ready to act. She said, “Tell me you know how to fly a plane.”

“I know enough. Best get your parachute on, just in case.”

“Parachute?” She tried to sound calm, but her mind was screaming, Oh, please, no. I don’t want to jump out of this plane into the ocean.

She felt the captain’s pulse. Thready, but he was alive. The skin across his face was horribly burned, red and blistered. She unbuckled his seat belt and began pulling him from the seat.

“What happened? How did he get this burn?”

Nicholas was adjusting instruments, turning knobs, one hand on the yoke. The plane seemed to soften. The mad shimmying and spi

“Are you saying another plane hit us with a laser, or were we hit from the ground?”

“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “I think we’re okay now. I need to get in touch with the tower at London City Airport, let them know they have a guest flying the plane. And then—”

There was a second loud boom, and the plane began to shake and shimmy, harder this time, like it was breaking apart. The instrument panel turned red. “Son of a bitch.”

Mike watched the engine light begin to flash on the control panel.

Nicholas shut the engine down and grabbed the radio. “Mayday. Mayday. This is FBI Gulfstream Five. We’ve been attacked, repeat, we’ve been hit. Our pilots are down and we’ve sustained damage to engine one. We need to land immediately.”