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Sophie smiled at the medic towering over her. “A moment, please.” Before he could answer, she grabbed Mike’s arm. “You have to go after Havelock. He took Adam with him.”
Mike said, “Please tell me you don’t mean Havelock took Adam down in the submersible.”
“No, no, he forced Adam to go with him on his helicopter.”
Mike’s blood pressure dropped back to normal. She’d been scared Nicholas would be too close to the submersible when she’d given the order to fire the torpedo. She hadn’t even thought of Adam.
“Okay, then, that means Havelock set the submersible on automatic and sent it back into the loch. And then the Dover blew it up—it was all a diversionary tactic.”
“Sophie, where did Havelock take Adam?” Nicholas asked her. “Where did they go?”
“To get Madame Curie’s weapon. Havelock has the key and the book, he can open the lock now. We have to stop him, please, you have to save Adam.”
“Sophie, what lock? A lock to a door? Where did they go?”
Sophie stopped cold. “You mean you don’t know where Curie’s weapon is?”
“No, do you?”
Sophie shook her head. “All I know is it’s probably somewhere in Paris.”
79
Quai d’Anjou
Paris
Midnight
Havelock arrived at his house on the Quai d’Anjou just before midnight. He hurried inside with his package, still unopened, his hands shaking in excitement. He couldn’t believe he finally had both the key and the book.
Elise forced Adam to a second-floor room, a Beretta against his spine, and locked him in. She joined Havelock in his study, and together they spread the mummified fingers. Havelock carefully, gently, pried the package from the palm.
He had no idea how a woman came to be on the sub, nor why she was sealed in the waterproof compartment, nor did he care. All he knew was she’d held in death the gift of a lifetime.
The package was wrapped in thick oilskin, protected as best they could manage. He eased the edges apart, but the old wrapping paper inside crumbled at his touch. And there was the key, long, heavy, brown with rust. It had an ornate bow with a series of interlocking four-cornered fleurs-de-lis, a thick, twisted shank, and a dual bit with a complicated series of bit wards etched into the metal. It wasn’t an everyday key for Curie’s time, it was a key meant to protect as well as deter.
Havelock caressed the key with long trembling fingers, felt its weight in his palm, then finally, he set it gently on the desk. He turned to the book, encased in a separate waterproof pouch. The cover was black, the book slender, the edges rounded. He slipped on soft white gloves. If there was anything he’d learned from Pearce, it was how to deal with very old pages.
He slid his finger beneath the cover and lifted gently. The pages inside were yellow and the words were in French. Curie’s handwriting was faded but legible.
His heart pounded. With the book and the microgram of intensely amplified polonium, polonium that she’d managed to make grow stronger over time, he was ready. It was waiting for him in her lab to formulate a new kind of atom to be added to his bombs. And then he would own the world, nothing and no one could stop him.
He wondered, what should he name his new compound? Curie had named polonium after her beloved Poland. He felt no such love of homeland.
Havelockium?
He giggled. No, better to wait until he witnessed the new element in action, then he’d give it a proper name.
He turned carefully to the last page of the book. He saw a series of numbers and letters.
19 . G . 13 . R
There it was, the directions to Curie’s lab. He read the letters and numbers again. What was this? It made no sense, there was no address like this in Paris. Then he realized what the letters and numbers meant, and smiled. What a clever woman.
She was about to make him the most famous man on the planet.
He turned to Elise with a manic smile, pulled her into his arms, and danced her around the room, spi
Elise cocked her head to the side. “Nineteen, G, thirteen, R? What do the numbers and letters mean?”
“It always made sense to me her secret lab had to be here since this was her home. But you see, Elise, her lab wasn’t in Paris, it was under Paris. Her lab is in the tu
Elise saw his eyes were glittering, his pupils dilated, his excitement was that huge. She leaned up and kissed him on the neck, bit him deep, then licked the blood. “Be careful,” she said.
He stared at her mouth, at his own blood slicked over her lips. No, no, it wouldn’t do to celebrate too early. But later, later.
He made a brief phone call. The man answered on the first ring.
“Allo?”
Havelock spoke in rapid French. “I have the key and the directions. Bring the lamps and tools. I’ll meet you at the Sorbo
“Oui, d’accord. Five minutes.”
Havelock hung up, stashed the cell in his pocket. He popped a handful of potassium iodide pills, gently eased the book and the key inside a small backpack, along with a Maglite and a bottle of water. Elise walked him to the door, kissed him again, and he set off into the dark Parisian night.
80
Over the Cha
Paris
11:00 p.m.
Captain Kinsley arranged to chopper the three of them down to RAF Tain, north of Inverness, where the PM’s Hawker was waiting to fly them not to London, but directly to Paris.
They left Shepherd behind, but took Sophie with them. She still had a lot to tell them. Nicholas wasn’t taking any chances with her safety, not now.
During the chopper ride to Inverness, Mike called Zachery and explained what was happening and where they were headed. She didn’t mention how close Nicholas had come to being killed.
Zachery gave them his consent, and thirty minutes later, they were off to Paris.
Once they were settled in with food and drink, Nicholas leaned forward, studied Sophie’s face. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine, really. I only want to find Adam.”
She was probably telling the truth—both of them were feeling little discomfort, he thought, thanks to the pain meds swimming in their bloodstreams. His arm was sore, but the pain was tamped down.
He said, “Tell us what happened when you landed on the Gravitania. With Shepherd.”
She accepted a cup of hot tea from Mike, took a sip, then another. She sighed. “I was wrong about Alex. He was trying to protect me the whole time. He was working for the Order, reporting to Alfie Stanford. Then Stanford was murdered and Weston took over. But he also trusted Weston not only because he was a member of the Order, but because he was high-ranking in MI Five. Alex didn’t know Weston had joined forces with Havelock until we were leaving Weston’s estate near Oxford. Alex told Weston Adam had found the sub. He set the wheels in motion without meaning to.
“When we were on board the Gravitania, he came to our cabin to help us escape.” She told them of the fight, how Weston had shot Alex and März had thrown him off the boat, and taken her and Adam to the hut on the mainland. She paused. “Thank you for saving Alex.”