The Lost Key

Mike said, “He didn’t give up. He’ll be okay,” and she hoped she was right.

Sophie drank more tea. “There are limestone caves right below that ski

“Adam and I watched Weston help Havelock climb out of the sub, and he looked like some sort of mad scientist. He had something in his hands and I knew he’d found the key and Curie’s book. He told Weston and Elise that März had gotten himself killed. All he did was shrug and say, ‘It’s a pity. März served me well.’ And then he sent the submersible back into the loch. I think it had some sort of remote control. We heard an explosion. And Havelock laughed and called them fools. We didn’t hear him say anything about the gold.”

“Do you know,” Nicholas said, “I don’t think Havelock even saw the gold, he was so focused on getting the key and the book.”

“Was it an amazing sight, all that gold?”

“Yes, scores of bars. I don’t know how many.”

“So what happened after that?” Mike asked her.

“Havelock was in a hurry. He knew you’d be right behind him. Havelock took Weston, Elise, and Adam. They left me tied up. I remember thinking I was going to die in that hut, but then I saw a glass bottle lying in the corner and managed to break it. I used a shard to get my ropes cut off and signaled to you. And that’s the whole story.”

She fell silent. Nicholas watched her.

“Has Havelock gone to Paris because that’s where the weapon is?” Mike said.

Sophie nodded. “He took Adam with him because he’s not finished with hacking into all my father’s files. Alex told me killing Adam wasn’t part of the plan, at least until he had everything he can get from him.” She paused, then looked at Nicholas. “If Adam refuses to cooperate, Havelock will kill him, won’t he?”

“Not on my watch,” Nicholas said.

“Is there more, Sophie?” Mike asked.

“Oh, yes. I suppose I need to tell you everything now, don’t I?”

“Yes, start with the Highest Order in World War One,” Nicholas said.

Sophie drank more tea, then drew a deep breath. “It all started at the Battle of Verdun, with two men—William Pearce, Seventh Viscount Chambers and a German soldier named Josef Charles Rothschild, and his wife, Ansonia.”

81

Sophie said, “Please remember this account comes down from Josef’s son Leo to his son Robert to my father and then to Adam and me. Some is historical fact, but a lot is what Leo imagined must have happened.

“Ansonia was my great-grandmother. She was born in Königsberg in 1890. When her family realized she was a language prodigy, they sent her to her wealthy grandmother in Berlin in 1900, and she saw to Ansonia’s formal schooling.

“Ansonia spoke seven languages and was brought to the attention of the kaiser in 1909. He hired her as his translator, and she became part of his household.

“She met my great-grandfather, a handsome young Kapitän named Josef Rothschild, and married him in April of that year. Their son Leo was born in 1910, and war broke out four years later.

“Ansonia began to see the kaiser for what he was, a misogynist, not very bright, a man who wanted no one to disagree with him or there’d be hell to pay, and so she began to work against him when the war started. Leo remembered hearing his father and mother talking about her efforts on the inside—rewritten letters, forged instructions, certain correspondence not translated quite correctly—and how they were helping screw up the Germans’ plans.

“What happened next came down to us from William Pearce. For most of the time Josef was on the front lines. He saw the horror of nerve gas, the starvation and sickness, the brutality. In the weeks leading up to the Battle of Verdun, he knew his wife was right—it had to stop.

“At Verdun, Josef saved William Pearce’s life and Pearce realized what a friend England had in my great-grandfather. Pearce was the leader of the Highest Order, working with a brilliant young scientist who was developing a very powerful weapon unlike anything seen before. But the scientist was betrayed, and the formulas and key to her secret lab went missing. This was Marie Curie, of course.

“Evidently, Ansonia overheard the conversation between Curie’s lab assistant and saw German marks and a small packet change hands. She didn’t realize the impact of this until the leading German scientists of the day came to the house. She heard them speak of a weapon with unimagined power.

“Josef knew exactly what was in the packet because Pearce had told him about the theft. He and Ansonia devised a plan to smuggle the packet out of the palace. Josef would take it himself to England, get it safe into William Pearce’s hands. Pearce had promised to protect the key and notebook with his life.

“A week before their mission, Ansonia learned the kaiser was sending handpicked men to Paris to bring the weapon back to his scientists in Berlin. She realized there was no way Josef could make it to Berlin in time to steal the packet.

“Ansonia had to steal it herself. She notified Josef to meet her and Leo in Bremerhaven. Then Josef would travel to England, and give the packet to Pearce. She arranged for Leo to travel with his old nurse to Esbjerg, Denmark, then take a boat to Edinburgh, where Josef would meet them.

“Leo believed his mother learned that the kaiser was moving his private treasury of gold bars to a new location because the Allies’ spies had gotten too close. The gold had been put on board a U-boat named Victoria, after the kaiser’s grandmother, Queen Victoria. Leo heard Josef tell Ansonia they’d found the U-boat near Bremerhaven tucked away on a private, well-guarded wharf. Josef and his men managed to steal the U-boat. Can you begin to imagine his jubilation? England would have the key and instruction book to Curie’s secret lab and the kaiser’s gold. It would be a killing blow.

“But things fell apart. Leo overheard his mother telling her old nurse that the kaiser’s men were nearly there. They were in danger, and the nurse had to take Leo to Esbjerg right away without her. She’d kissed him and told him they would soon be together again and he was going to have a grand adventure. That was the last time he saw her.

“A week later, Josef found Leo in Edinburgh in a poor i

Sophie fell silent, tears in her eyes. “You know the rest. No one knows if Victoria was torpedoed by the English or the Germans in the North Sea off Scotland. All we really know is they didn’t make it.”

82

Nearing Paris

1:00 a.m.

Sophie stretched, careful not to hurt her back. She smiled sadly. “Until the day he died, Leo remembered the massacre at the cottage, how they’d tortured his father, and William Pearce had found Leo holding him in his arms. Leo watched William bury the men, including his father. He remembered Pearce’s tears, he remembered seeing his terrible rage as he dug six separate graves for men he’d admired and loved.

“My father told me that Leo didn’t speak for nearly a year after William Pearce found him, and once he did speak again, he was quiet, reserved.

“As for the key, the book, and all those gold bars, they were lost until Adam was able to use the satellite imagery to locate the sub.”

“Sophie, did Josef know the sub ended up in Loch Eriboll?”