The Lost Key

Oh, yes, she could run now, if she had to.

They went deeper, slapping away cobwebs. The smell of rot and slime was nearly overwhelming. Something skittered away from Nicholas’s foot. This narrow tu

The corridor narrowed. Nicholas’s shoulders touched the wet walls. He closed his eyes a moment, breathed through his nose. This was worse than diving to the sub.

Mike called out, “It widens out again down here, Nicholas. And I see it, a chamber.”

He swallowed and followed her. She was right. The tu

Mike was shining her flashlight along one long tu

“Look above the doors, at the carvings,” Nicholas said. “Gargoyles of sorts, mythical figures—griffins and dragons and chimeras.”

Mike whispered, “They’re meant as warnings, to scare away anyone who stumbled across this place. But why four doors? Are there chambers behind each one? Did she use them all?” She looked back over her shoulder and gave him a smile. “Four doors—you pick the one you think is Curie’s main lab.”

He whispered in her ear, “Step back. I’ll shut off my torch. Radium can be luminescent; perhaps Curie’s new polonium is as well. Let’s see if it can help us choose the right one.”

They shut off their lights, and the world turned black. And they saw that the third door glowed in the darkness, a bluish light that seemed to seep out of the wood itself. They realized the door wasn’t completely closed.

“I have a theory,” Nicholas whispered.

“And what would that be?”

He looked dead serious. “If you do bad things, bad people will come visit you.” He pulled his Glock and started to push the door open.

He sensed the slash of a knife through the darkness.

Another Rat, this one bigger than the other two. He seemed to come out of nowhere, with no warning. Nicholas caught his arm as the blade came down, and the knife disappeared between them.

The man was growling, panting, cursing him in French. They grappled in the dark. Slowly, inch by inch, Nicholas was turning the Ka-Bar knife until he had the Rat pressed back against the tu

88

Madame Curie’s Lost Laboratory

Paris Underground

3:00 a.m.

Havelock was sadly disappointed when he’d unlocked the third door. The lab was old, but then what could he expect? He couldn’t imagine having to work day in and day out in this dank hollowed-out room with its dead air, a hundred feet below the street. There weren’t any precautions then against radioactive materials. He thought of Curie’s long, slow death.

Beakers were lined up on the counters with liquid still in them; the chamber was practically airtight. There were two microscopes, state-of-the-art for the time, that is. Was one for the assistant who’d betrayed her?

Havelock found the small microgram of super-polonium in a cabinet, unsecured, in a glass bottle with a stopper. It glowed an eerie kind of bluish yellow in the tube. It was lovely, a color not on the spectrum. He supposed he’d have to name that as well. Elise. He’d name it for her.

It wasn’t safe to transport as is, but that was no matter. Using specially made gloves, he picked up the tube, and brought it over to Sophie Pearce.

Havelock’s heart speeded up as he looked at her. He wanted to see the marks of his whip on her back. He knew she was frightened, her face utterly white in the soft lights in Curie’s old lab. He wondered if the Rat who’d taken her from the tu

He said in a voice eerie and strangely hollow in the closed confines of the ancient lab, “You do realize, Ms. Pearce, that you are in the presence of genius and a hundred-year-old weapon of such magnitude, only I can make it what it was meant to be? I thought it only fitting that Rothschild’s blood was here in the chamber with me. When I finish the assembly, I will take you back to the house and kill both you and your wretched brother.” And he and Elise would celebrate.

He wanted to sing. He’d won, he’d won. Soon his Rats would be back from finally ridding him of those FBI agents.

“You’re scared, aren’t you? But you’re trying to act brave. It’s charming.”

Sophie stared through him, saying nothing.

If only he had a whip with him. He wanted to kiss that pale pinched mouth, but he’d have to remove the crude gag. And then she would scream, and he didn’t want that, it would break the exalted moment.

“Isn’t it pretty, my dear? Something worth dying for, don’t you think?” He mimed pouring the small bottle on her, and he thought she’d faint, but she made no sound.

He laughed, moved back to the table. The microscopes still worked, though they were in poor condition. It was a crude workplace, but serviceable. He prepared his station. A scalpel to break open the seal on the tube, then to work the stopper free. The polonium, warmed by the movement, glowed merrily, as if happy to see him.

Using a specially made pipette, he gently extracted a tiny amount from the tube, and carefully, carefully, placed it into the trigger mechanism from the small box sitting on the table.

The reaction was immediate. The bluish yellow turned a deep violet, the color of a dying sunset, or a freshly made bruise. The atoms bonded together, and the new element was formed. He’d done it!

He reverently closed the lid. He’d made the world’s first micro–nuclear weapon, ready to be deployed, with a payload that could kill thousands of people with a single small explosion. His own personalized MNW.

His other miniaturized bombs were paltry in comparison. This was his masterpiece. The explosion itself would take down a block at least, and the radioactive cloud would disperse into the air and people would breathe it in. Death on the wind. And he controlled it all.

He stashed the MNW into the metal briefcase he’d made for it, secured the polonium in its own separate metal casing, then put both back into his backpack. They were ready to go.

He reached for Sophie’s arm. “Shall we, my dear?”

A man’s voice said from behind him, “Yes, we shall.”

Havelock turned slowly. The two accursed FBI agents stood in the door to the lab. His Rats had failed.

Havelock jerked Sophie to his side, and pressed the tip of the scalpel into her neck. “No, the two of you will stay right there. Agent Drummond, you killed März. I must admit that astonished me. No one’s ever beaten him before. However, enough is enough. I have had it with you people. You need to learn how to die.”

Drummond said, “No, I don’t believe so. Put down the backpack, Havelock, and let Sophie go.”

Havelock laughed. “You haven’t a clue, do you? There is nothing you can do to stop me.”

Mike said, “We can shoot you.”

He laughed again. “And risk poor Sophie’s life?” He pressed the scalpel in, and a drop of blood appeared. Sophie stared out at them, white-faced, silent.

“And you. I know all about you, Michaela Caine. You are not like your partner here, Nicholas Drummond. He would have no qualms about shooting me dead where I stand. He’s done it before, he’ll do it again. But—” He pressed the scalpel deeper into Sophie’s neck, her blood now a steady drizzle. “I suggest you put down your weapons, or I will dig around until I slice her carotid artery.