The Lost Key

“You see my backpack? If you try to shoot me, Drummond, I’ll drop my precious little bundle, and it will go boom and we will go boom with it. How much of the world up there will it bring down? You want to test it out?”

Nicholas said, “Nothing will happen.” He looked around. “You can’t make your weapon in this lab, it’s a wreck. I’ve seen your files, I know what you need, and it wasn’t here. Put the knife down, now.”

“Snooping into my company? You and young Adam. You don’t seem to understand what I have in my hands, Drummond. No great need for modern equipment, Madame Curie left me the final ingredient I needed. Now both of you will immediately place your guns on the floor and kick them to me, or I will slit this sweet girl’s throat. Can you imagine how much blood will spray out of her?”

Nicholas and Mike slowly bent over and set the guns on the wooden floor.

“Kick them to me!”

They did. Now they were unarmed, and he had the control, the power. Havelock breathed in deep and smelled the strawberry scent of Sophie’s hair mixing with the sulfur breath of the room, the perfect combination of heaven and hell.

“Tell me why, Havelock,” Nicholas said. “Tell me why you murdered your own father, betrayed your friends and all you’ve ever known to get this weapon.”

“Betrayal, murder? Who truly decides these things, my dear Drummond? Even Madame Curie had to make a choice all those years ago. She could have given the polonium to the Order, as they’d pla

“With my technology, with my tiny little implants, you’ll be able to see things happen even as they’re being communicated. I have single-handedly changed the gathering of intelligence. I will be able to target the real villains, our true enemies, and I will destroy them before they do any more harm.”

Nicholas said, “You actually believe that another weapon of mass destruction will save the world?”

“Of course. With my power, and your knowledge and acceptance of my power, every country in the world will do exactly as I say. No longer will one country have dominance over another. No longer will one country be rich at the expense of another. All the power will reside in the palm of my hand, in a four-inch-square box. I will give the world peace and hope, and the will to lead a better life.”

“With you making all the decisions? How people will act, what their futures hold? Will you have everyone bow before you? Will you have huge statues of yourself erected everywhere so that people may bow down and worship you?”

Havelock appeared to consider this. He smiled. “Perhaps inside buildings there will be walls with my image on them, always watching. So no one will forget.”

Mike said, “Every law enforcement agency on the planet is after you. There is no way you will make people bow down in front of you. You’re certifiable.”

89

Havelock merely nodded at his backpack. “Ah, Agent Caine, how little imagination you have. Think, dear girl, I will be the one giving all those precious law enforcement agencies the orders.”

The longer he talked, Nicholas knew, the more likely it was that the commander’s people would come looking. Keep him talking, it was their best chance.

Sophie’s hands were tied in front of her, Havelock’s scalpel digging into her neck. She couldn’t move, except for her eyes. She was staring at Nicholas, and she began to blink rapidly, her eyes never leaving his face. Then she turned her head a bit to the right. He looked, but didn’t see anything. What was she trying to tell him?

And then he saw it, a small glass beaker with a yellowish substance inside, and it was within her reach, if only she could pull free of Havelock.

Havelock was still talking about how he wouldn’t dismantle the law enforcement agencies because, after all, there were still criminals in the world. Nicholas began coughing, bending over, grabbing his stomach.

Havelock yelled, “What is wrong with you?” In that instant of distraction, Sophie jerked away from him and grabbed the glass beaker. Before he could stab her, she whirled around and smashed the beaker into Havelock’s face. The glass shattered, and he started to scream.

Nicholas sprang forward, stopped in his tracks. Havelock’s face was melting, the skin pouring off the bone. Whatever the acid in the beaker was, it had sat brewing one hundred years.

Nicholas grabbed the backpack from Havelock’s arms as he fell to the ground, screaming, screaming, clutching at his face, and screaming.

Mike picked up her Glock, put the muzzle against Havelock’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Havelock’s body twitched, then went still. Eyeballs stared blankly from the bones of his face at the ceiling of Curie’s lab.

“You okay?” Nicholas said and she looked at him and smiled faintly. “I am.”

Sophie pulled the gag out of her mouth. She stood over him. “He was a monster and he was mad.” Sophie suddenly sucked in her breath and looked down at her hand. A tiny bit of the acid had gotten on her skin and had left an angry red burn. Who cared? She looked up. “Thank you both for saving my life.”

Mike untied her wrists, cupped Sophie’s hand. “We need to get you aboveground, quickly. We have no idea what that acid is.”

“It’s esprite de sel. Spirits of salt, also known as muriatic acid,” Sophie said. “It was on the label, and I knew what it would do.” She laughed through a sob. “I wonder why Madame Curie abandoned this lab but left the muriatic acid behind. Was she using it in her experiments?”

“We’ll never know,” Mike said. “There’s no one left to tell us.”

Nicholas took Sophie’s arms between his hands. “We didn’t save you, Sophie, you saved us. Well done.”

“We need to go get Adam,” Sophie said, but Nicholas held up a hand. They could hear Dendritte and her people shouting from higher in the tu

Nicholas picked up the backpack that held Havelock’s MNW. “No one can ever say a word about what is in this box. We can’t let anyone, any government, any technology company, get their hands on this weapon. Agreed?”

Mike and Sophie nodded. Mike watched him shoulder the backpack. The shouting grew closer. Commander Dendritte burst into the room with several cops on her heels.

She took in the scene, eyes wide when they landed on Havelock, and then she reholstered her weapon, and said, “C’est fini, non?”

Nicholas nodded. “Oui. C’est fini.”

90

Paris

6:00 a.m.

The Paris dawn was bright and fresh, a new day begi

Sophie was tended to, Adam had been rescued and brought to them, Elise arrested. They did a quick debrief with Commander Dendritte. When Mike’s stomach growled loudly, the commander gri

Over freshly baked croissants and hot café au lait, they talked. When Nicholas told Adam that not only Havelock was dead, but also März, Adam whooped and gave Nicholas a high five.

Then Sophie and Adam talked about Ansonia and Josef and their son Leo. Sophie said, “I even owe my affinity for languages to Ansonia.”

Mike raised her cup. “Here’s to the direct descendants of the Rothschilds.”