The King's Deception

Sixteen

Kathleen always liked returning to Oxford. She’d spent four years studying there. So when the narrative on the laptop directed her to drive sixty miles northwest, she’d been pleased.

A town had existed since the 10th century, and the Normans were the first to erect a castle. A college was established in the 13th century. Now 39 distinctive institutions, each independent and fiercely competitive, filled the honey-colored Gothic buildings. They carried names like Corpus Christi, Hertford, Christ Church, Magdalen, and Trinity, together forming a federation, the oldest in England, known as Oxford University.

The Thames and Cherwell rivers merged here, and Kathleen had enjoyed many an afternoon punting down the placid waterways, becoming quite apt at maneuvering the flat-bottomed boats. King Harold died here. Richard the Lionheart was born here. Henry V was educated and Elizabeth I entertained and fêted among the spires, towers, cloisters, and quadrangles. This was a place of history, theology, and academics, where great politicians, clerics, poets, philosophers, and scientists were trained. She’d read once that Hitler supposedly spared the town his bombs, as he planned to make it his English capital.

Oxford was exactly what Matthew Arnold called it.

The city of dreaming spires.

She’d thought about Blake Antrim on the drive. The prospect of seeing him again seemed revolting. He was not a man to let go of anything. His ego was far too fragile to seek forgiveness. How many women had there been since her? Had he married? Fathered children?

Mathews had provided no relevant information on this second briefing, telling her only to head straight to the hall at Jesus College, which sat in the heart of the city, among the shops and pubs. Founded by a Welshman, but endowed by Elizabeth I, it remained the only one of Oxford’s colleges created during her reign. Small, maybe 600 students among undergraduates, graduates, and fellows. She’d always loved its unmistakable Elizabethan feel. She knew its great hall, which reminded her of the one at Middle Temple. Same rectangular shape, carved wooden screens, cartouches, and oil portraits, one of Elizabeth herself dominating the north wall above the high table. But no hammerbeam Tudor ceiling here, only plaster stretching overhead.

She’d wondered about campus access, considering it was a Friday night, but the gate at Turl and Ship streets was open, the hall lit, and a woman waited for her inside — short, petite, her graying blond hair drawn into a bun. She wore a conservative navy suit with low heels and introduced herself as Dr. Eva Pazan, providing a title, professor of history, Lincoln College, another of Oxford’s long-standing institutions.

“I actually studied at Exeter,” Pazan said, “and I understand you attended St. Anne’s.”

Both were part of Oxford’s thirty-nine. St. Anne’s had always been more open to students from a state-education background, like herself, as opposed to the private preparatory schools. Gaining admission had been one of the highlights of her life. Kathleen was curious, though, about Pazan’s age, as she knew Exeter had been all-male until 1979.

“You must have been one of the first women in?”

“I was. We were changing history.”

She wondered why she was here and Pazan seemed to sense her anxiety.

“Sir Thomas wanted me to pass on some details not provided to you in London. Information that is not written down for reasons that will become obvious. He thought I would be the best person to explain. My expertise is Tudor England. I teach that at Lincoln, but I occasionally provide historical context to our intelligence agencies.”

“And did Sir Thomas choose this locale?”

“He did, and I concurred.” Eva pointed across the hall. “The portrait there, of Elizabeth I. It was presented by the Canon of Canterbury, to the college, in 1686. It’s illustrative of what we are going to speak about.”

She glanced at the image of the queen in a floor-length dress. Geometric patterns from the puffed sleeves and kirtle complemented one another, the hem edged with pearls. Two cherubs held a wreath over Elizabeth’s head.

“It was painted in 1590, when the queen was fifty-seven years old.”

But the face was that of a much younger woman.

“That was about the time all unseemly portraits of Elizabeth were confiscated and burned. None was allowed to exist that, in any way, questioned her mortality. The man who painted this one, Nicholas Hilliard, ultimately devised a face pattern that all painters were required to follow when depicting the queen. A Mask of Youth, the Crown called it, which portrayed her as forever young.”

“I never realized she was so conscious of her age.”

“Elizabeth was quite an enigma. Her countenance was strongly marked, though always commanding and dignified. A hard swearer, coarse talker, clever, cunning, deceitful — she was truly her parents’ daughter.”

She smiled, recalling her history on Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

“What do you know of Elizabeth?” Eva asked.

“No more than what books and movies portray. She ruled for a long time. Never married. The last Tudor monarch.”

Eva nodded. “She was a fascinating person. She chartered this college as the first Protestant institution at Oxford. And she was serious about that. Thirty local priests, all fellows of colleges, were executed during her reign for either practicing Catholicism or refusing to recognize her as head of the church.”

She stared again at the portrait, which now seemed more a caricature than an honest representation of a woman dead over 400 years.

“Like her father,” Eva said, “Elizabeth surrounded herself with competent, ambitious men. Unlike her father, though, she remained loyal to them all of her life. You received a preview of one earlier.”

She did not understand.

“I was told you saw a page from the coded journal.”

“But I wasn’t told who created it.”

“That journal was masterminded by Robert Cecil.”

She knew the name Cecil, one of long standing in England.

“To understand Robert,” Eva said, “you have to know his father, William.”

She listened as Eva explained how William Cecil was born to a minor Welsh family that fought alongside Henry VII, the first Tudor king. He was raised at the court of Henry VIII and educated to government. Henry VIII’s death in 1547 set in motion ten years of political turmoil. First the boy, Edward VI, reigned, then died at age 15. His half sister, Mary, daughter of Henry’s first wife, then occupied the throne. But she gained the title bloody because of her propensity to burn Protestants. During Mary’s five-year reign Cecil kept the young princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, at his home, where she was raised away from court. In 1558, when she finally became queen, Elizabeth immediately appointed William Cecil her principal secretary, later titled secretary of state, a position that made him chief adviser, closer to her than anyone else. Her reliance and trust in Cecil never failed. No prince in Europe hath such a counselor as I have in mine. Over forty years Cecil was the great architect of Elizabethan reign. I have gained more by my temperance and forebearing than ever I did by my wit. One observer at the time noted that he had no close friends, no inward companion as great men commonly have, nor did any other know his secrets, some noting it for a fault, but most thinking it a praise and an instance of his wisdom. By trusting none with his secrets, none could reveal them.

Cecil’s first son, Thomas, was more suited to soldiering than government. William himself held the work of an army in low esteem. A reign gaineth more by one year’s peace than ten years’ war. William eventually became high treasurer, was knighted and made a baron, Lord Burghley. He served the queen until his death in 1598 when his second son, Robert, became Lord Burghley and assumed the post as Elizabeth’s chief adviser.

“William Cecil was quite an administrator,” Eva said. “One of the best in our history. Elizabeth owes much of her success to him. He founded the Cecil barony, which still exists today. Two prime ministers have come from that family.”

“But aren’t they all Cambridge graduates?” Kathleen asked, with a smile.

“We won’t hold that against them.

“Robert Cecil was like his father,” Eva said, “but more devious. He died young, age 48, in 1612. He served Elizabeth the last five years of her reign and James I for the first nine of his, both as secretary of state. He was also James’ spymaster. He discovered the Gunpowder Plot and saved James I’s life. The great Francis Walsingham was his teacher.”

She knew that name, the man regarded as the father of British intelligence.

“Walsingham was an odd man,” Eva said. “He constantly wore dark clothes and cast himself in secrecy. He was rude and could be quite crude, but the queen valued his advice and respected his competency, so she tolerated his eccentricities. It was Walsingham who uncovered the treasonous evidence that forced Elizabeth to execute her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Walsingham who laid the groundwork for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Eventually, Elizabeth knighted him. I tell you this because I want you to understand the personalities who trained Robert Cecil. Unfortunately, Robert, like his father, left few written records. So it is difficult to say exactly what Robert Cecil may or may not have known and what he truly accomplished. But there is one thing history confirms.”

She was listening.

“He ensured that James I succeeded Elizabeth.”

How all of this related to Blake Antrim escaped her, but obviously it did. Mathews had sent her here for a reason.

So she kept listening.

“Elizabeth never married and never birthed a child,” Eva said. “She was the last of five Tudor monarchs, reigning forty-five years. Toward the end everyone was nervous. Who would succeed her? There were many contenders, and the prospect of civil war loomed great. Robert Cecil made sure it would be James, the son of Elizabeth’s dead cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, now the Scottish king. There is a series of letters between Robert and James that have survived, which detail how that was accomplished. This happened between 1601 and Elizabeth’s death in 1603. The Union of Crowns, it’s called. Scotland joined with England. The beginnings of Great Britain. When James assumed both thrones, this country began to change. Forever.”

“Robert Cecil made that happen?”

“Indeed, but Elizabeth herself confirmed that.”

“Cecil was ready,” Eva said. “He assembled the council and informed them of her announced choice. The witnesses who were there confirmed the truth. Then, the next morning, from Whitehall Palace, heralded by trumpets, he personally read a proclamation declaring King James VI of Scotland, James I, King of England. That same proclamation was read all over the land throughout that day. Not a word of opposition was raised. In one clean move, Robert Cecil ensured a swift, bloodless succession from a monarch who left no direct heirs. Pretty skilled, wouldn’t you say?”

“But you’re going to have to explain what all this means in relation to what Sir Thomas wants me to do.”

“I know. And I plan to. The rain seems to have finally abated outside, let’s enjoy the quad.”

They stepped from the hall into one of the college’s grassy quadrangles. Gothic buildings, most of their windows dark, enclosed them on all four sides. Darkened archways and doors led in and out. The rain was indeed gone, the night sky clear.

They were alone.

“Though both Cecils were secretive,” Eva said, “and left nearly nothing in the way of personal papers, there is one artifact from them that survived. I am told that you saw an image of it earlier.”

She recalled the page with gibberish.

“Robert’s coded notebook was preserved at Hatfield House, where he lived until he died in 1612. Unfortunately, that original volume was stolen almost a year ago.”

One of those thefts her supervisor had described. “I was told a man named Farrow Curry may have solved the code.”

“He may have. Which is why it is imperative that you retrieve whatever data Curry may have accumulated.”

“The page I saw was incomprehensible.”

“Exactly how Cecil wanted it to be. That code has never been cracked. But we have clues as to how that might be accomplished. Would you like to see more images from the journal?”

She nodded.

“I have them inside. You wait here, and I’ll retrieve them.”

The professor turned and headed back toward the lit hall.

Kathleen heard a pop, like hands clapping.

Then another.

She turned.

A ragged hole exploded in the knit material at Eva’s right shoulder. The older woman let out a strangled grunt.

Another pop.

Blood spewed.

Eva fell forward to the stone.

Kathleen whirled and spotted the outline of a shooter on the far roof, maybe thirty meters away.

Who was readjusting his rifle’s aim.

At her.

Seventeen

Antrim approached the Tower of London. The ancient taupe-colored citadel nestled near the Thames, the picturesque Tower Bridge nearby. What was once an enormous moat encircling the fortress was now a sea of emerald grass, lit by a sodium vapor glow, that spanned a void between the imposing wall curtain and the street. A cool night breeze, which had blown away the storm, eased off the river.

He knew the area from his childhood, recalling the array of nearby textile sweatshops, clothing stores, and Bengali restaurants. The East End was once the city’s dumping ground, a place where immigrants first settled. Tomorrow, Saturday, market day, meant the alleys would be filled with vendors hawking fresh fruit and secondhand clothes. He remembered as a kid roaming these streets, getting to know the peddlers, learning about life.

His target was strolling ahead of him at a brisk pace, but lingered a few moments before a music hall advertising a cabaret show.

Then the man crossed the street.

A multistory car park rose to the right, but the dark-haired gentleman kept strolling, the Union Jack, lit by floodlights, fluttering high above the Tower. The site was closed for the day, the admission booths dark and empty. Beyond, on the banks of the Thames, people milled back and forth, the illuminated Tower Bridge in the distance heavy with stop-and-go traffic. The dark-haired man ventured to the riverbank, then sat on one of the benches.

Antrim approached and sat beside him.

Winter’s prelude clawed its way from the cold stone through the seat of his pants. Thank goodness he’d worn gloves and a lined coat.

“I hope this is important,” the other man said to him. “I had plans tonight.”

“One of my men was just killed.”

The man kept his gaze out to the river.

He explained what had happened inside St. Paul’s. The man, a senior deputy to America’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, faced him. “Do the Brits know what we’re doing?”

The meeting had been arranged by Langley, after he’d reported some but not all of what happened. He’d specifically omitted who’d killed his man in St. Paul’s and what happened in the Temple Church.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s under control.”

“Is it, Antrim? Really? Under control?”

They were in public, so decorum was required.

“Do you understand what’s at stake here?” the man asked.

Sure he did, but thought it best to cast a smoke screen of goodwill. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“The Scottish government is about to release al-Megrahi. That insanity is happening. Forty-three United Kingdom citizens died on that plane. Eleven Scots died on the ground. But everyone seems to have forgotten all that.”

“The CIA lost a station chief on Pan Am 103. So did the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Diplomatic Security Service. Four agents flying home. I understand what’s at stake.”

“And we were told that you had a way to stop it. That, of course, was a year ago. Yet here we are, no closer to stopping anything. That prisoner release will show just how weak we are in the world right now. Can you imagine how this is going to play? Kaddafi will laugh in our faces. He’ll parade al-Megrahi before every news camera he can find. The message will be crystal clear. We can’t even get one of our allies to hold on to a mass murderer — a man who killed some of their own people. I need to know. Can you stop this?”

He was awaiting word that everything had gone right in that mews with Cotton Malone and Ian Dunne, but was a bit disturbed that he hadn’t received any further reports.

“The way to stop this,” he said, “is to force the British to intervene. The Scots normally can’t take a crap without London’s consent. They have little to no home rule. So we both know the Scottish government is acting with the Brits’ tacit consent. One word from London and that deal with the Libyans would be off.”

“Like I don’t know that.”

“I’m working on leverage that could force the British to act.”

“Which we have not been briefed on.”

“And you won’t, until we have it. But we’re close. Real close.”

“Unfortunately, your time is about up. We’re told this transfer is going to happen within the next few days.”

News to him. Langley had omitted that tidbit, most likely since, per the flash alert earlier, King’s Deception was about to be scrapped. The death of an agent just made that decision more imperative. He wondered, were they setting him up to fail? He’d seen it done before. Nobody at the director level was going to take the blame for these mistakes when there was someone lower on the pole available.

You are a worthless little man.

Denise’s words from Brussels, which still stung.

“The sorry son of a bitch Libyan,” the diplomat said, “should have been hung or shot, but the stupid Scottish have no death penalty. Progressive, they call it. Stupid as hell, if you ask me.”

For some reason, on this issue, the British were willing to snub their closest ally in the world. If not for the CIA learning of the private talks no one would have known until the deal had been done. Luckily, negotiations had dragged on through back channels. But apparently, that time was coming to an end.

“You’re it,” the man said. “We have no way to force London to do anything. We’ve tried asking, offering, reciprocating, even pleading. Downing Street says it’s not getting involved. Your operation is all we have left. Can. You. Make. It. Happen?”

He’d worked for the Central Intelligence Agency long enough to know that when a frustrated politician, in a position of power, asked if you could make something happen, there was but one correct response.

But he knew that would be a lie.

He was no closer to solving the problem than he had been a month ago, or a year ago. Ian Dunne’s reemergence offered hope but, at this point, he had no way of knowing if that hope would be salvation.

So he said the only thing he could, “I don’t know.”

The diplomat turned his head back toward the river. The last of the day’s scenic cruises motored by, headed west, from Greenwich.

“At least you’re being honest,” the man said, his voice low. “That’s more than others can say.”

“I want to know something,” Antrim said. “Why are the British unwilling to intervene? It seems out of character. What do they have to gain by letting that murderer go?”

The diplomat stood.

“It’s complicated and not your concern. Just do your job. Or at least what’s left of it.”

And the man walked off.

Eighteen

Kathleen dove behind a damp stone bench, just as the shooter aimed her way. Her body was coiled, poised for action. Each exhale of her breath clouded in the brisk night air.

She spotted the gunman, who was using the crenellated roofline high above for cover, the dark slate roof behind him absorbing his shadow. The rifle appeared sound-suppressed — she’d spotted a bulge at the end of its long barrel. She was unarmed. SOCA agents rarely carried guns. If firepower was needed, policy mandated that the local police be involved. The quadrangle was devoid of cover, save for the few concrete benches scattered along the crisscrossing walkways. Six ornamental lights burned with an amber glow. She stole a look at Eva Pazan, who lay facedown, motionless on the steps leading up to the archway.

“Professor Pazan,” she called out.

Nothing.

“Professor.”

She saw the shooter disappear from his perch.

She used the moment and darted left into a covered porch, the mahogany door that led into the building decorated with a shiny brass knob and knocker.

She tried the latch. Locked.

She banged on the knocker and hoped somebody was inside.

No reply.

She was now flush against the building, below the shooter, out of his firing angle, protected by a stone awning above her. But with the door locked and no one responding to her pleas, she remained trapped. Another doorway opened ten meters away, this one more elaborate and pedimented with palms and cherubs in the tympanum. Lights from inside illuminated tracery windows in a dim glow. Greenery formed a narrow bed between a concrete walk and the exterior façade. A bower of wisteria hugged the stone wall and rose toward the roof. If she hurried and stayed close she could make it. The shooter above would have to lean straight down in order to acquire a shot. With a rifle that would take time.

Maybe just enough.

She kept her back to the locked door and stared out into the quadrangle. Training came to mind, where she’d been taught to flatten against a wall to offer the slimmest target.

Her mind raced.

Who was trying to kill her and the professor?

Who knew she’d be here?

She sucked in a breath and steeled herself. She’d certainly been in tight situations before, but always with backup nearby. Nothing like this.

But she could handle it.

A quick peek beyond the covered doorway and she saw nothing.

One.

Two.

With a burst of adrenaline, she rushed out and ran the ten meters toward the other entrance, quickly finding cover beneath its stone pediment.

No shots came her way.

Was the shooter gone?

Or was he coming down to ground level?

An arched oak door stood closed, but its latch opened. Inside was the college chapel, the nave long and narrow, lined on either side with carved benches beneath tracery windows.

Like St. George’s Chapel, only smaller.

Elaborate patterns of marble made up the floor and a muted stained-glass window loomed over the altar at the far end. Three fixtures threw off an orangey glow. Though she was inside, away from the shooter, a quick look around confirmed that the door she’d just entered was the only way in or out. Above her rose an organ nestled against the building’s rear wall, its pipes reaching toward a vaulted ceiling. A narrow set of stairs led up to where the instrument was played.

From behind the organ, three meters above her, a man appeared.

His face was hooded, and he wore a dark jacket.

He aimed a weapon and fired.

Ian rode in the cab with Cotton Malone, holding the plastic bag with its varied contents. Malone had returned it to him.

He unzipped the top and lifted out the books.

Ivanhoe and Le Morte d’Arthur.

Malone pointed to the title pages. “My books are owner-stamped like that, too.”

“Where’d you get that name? Cotton?”

“It’s shorter than my full name, Harold Earl Malone.”

“But why Cotton?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You don’t like answering questions, either, do you?”

“I prefer when you do that.” Malone pointed. “Good taste in books. Ivanhoe is one of my favorites, and King Arthur is hard to beat.”

“I like Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail. Miss Mary gave me a couple of other stories on Merlin and Guinevere.”

“I like books, too.”

“Never said I liked books.”

“You don’t have to. The way you hold them gives it away.”

He hadn’t realized there was a way to hold a book.

“You cradle it in your palm. Even though those books have seen a lot of use, they’re still precious to you.”

“They’re just books.” But his denial sounded hollow.

“I’ve always considered them ideas, forever recorded.” Malone motioned to one of the paperbacks. “Malory wrote King Arthur in the late part of the 15th century. So you’re reading his thoughts from five hundred years ago. We’ll never know Malory, but we know his imagination.”

“You don’t think Arthur existed?”

“What do you think? Was he real or just a character Malory created?”

“He was real.” The force of his declaration bothered him. He was showing too much of himself to this stranger.

Malone flashed a smile. “Spoken like a true Englishman. I would have expected no less from you.”

“I’m Scottish, not British.”

“Really now? As I recall, Scots and English have been British since the 17th century.”

“Maybe so. But those sassanacks’ noses are too far up their arses for me.”

Malone let out a chuckle. “I haven’t heard an Englishman called a sassanack in a while. Spoken like a true jock.”

“How did you know we Scots are jocks?”

“I read, too.”

He’d come to realize that Cotton Malone paid attention, unlike most people he encountered. And he did not seem like a man given to having his knickers in a twist. In that mews, when faced with those fake police and a gun, he’d handled himself as a man in charge, strong and confident, like one of the horses at the track bolting from the gate. His wavy hair, cut neat and trim, carried the burnished tint of old stone. He was tall and muscular, but not overly so. His face was handsome, the features suited to him. He didn’t smile a lot, but there really wasn’t all that much to be happy about. Gary had said his father was a barrister, like the ones Ian had sometimes watched in London courts, parading about in wigs and robes. Yet Malone did not seem cursed with any of that pompousness.

He actually appeared like someone Ian could trust.

And he’d trusted precious few people in his life.

Kathleen had no time to react. The man pulled the trigger and something propelled toward her. It took an instant for her to realize that the weapon was not a gun, but a Taser.

Electrodes pierced her shoulder.

Electricity stiffened her body, then buckled her legs, dropping her to the floor.

The voltage stopped.

Her head hummed with a high-pitched violence. Every muscle cramped for a few excruciating seconds. Then came the shakes. Uncontrollable.

She’d never felt anything like that.

She lay on the checkerboard marble and tried to regain control. Her eyes were closed and she suddenly felt pressure on her right cheek, her head clamped to the floor. Someone had the sole of their shoe on her face.

“I’m sure you now realize that you were led here.”

That she did.

“Next time, Miss Richards,” the voice said. “It will be bullets.”

Anger surged through her, but there was little she could do. Her muscles were still convulsing.

The foot came off her cheek.

“Lie still,” he said, “and listen.” The man was behind her and close. “Don’t turn your head, unless you want more electricity.”

She lay silent, wishing her muscles would respond to her brain.

“We told Antrim. Now we’re telling you. Leave this be.”

She tried to assess the cool, clipped voice. Young. Male. Not unlike Mathews’ tone, but less formal.

“We are the protectors of secrets,” the man said.

What in the world was he talking about?

“Pazan is dead,” the man said. “She knew too much. At the moment you know little. A word of advice. Keep it that way. Knowing too much will prove fatal.”

Her body was relaxing, the pain gone, her wits returning, but she kept her head to the floor, the man still behind her.

“Domine, salvam fac Regnam.”

She’d studied Latin in school and understood what he’d said.

O Lord, keep the queen safe.

“That is our duty,” he said. “Et exaudi nos in die qua invocaerimes te.”

And hear us in the day in which we call on thee.

“Our reward for that duty. We live by those words. Don’t you forget them. This is your first and final warning. Leave this be.”

She had to get a look at him. But she wondered — was he the one who fired the Taser? Or was there someone else here, too?

A gloved hand came across her body and the electrodes were removed.

She heard the chapel door open.

“Lie still, Miss Richards. Wait a few moments before rising.”

The door closed.

She immediately tried to stand. Her skin felt itchy all over. She was woozy, but she forced her legs to work and stood, staggering a moment, then regaining her balance. She stepped to the chapel door and turned the latch. Easing it open, she spied out into the lit quadrangle.

Empty.

She stepped out. The cool night air helped clear her head.

How had the man disappeared so fast?

She glanced right, to the doorway ten meters away, where she’d first sought cover. The closest exit.

She walked over and retried the latch.

Still locked.

Her eyes found the steps and the archway that led back into the dining hall.

Eva Pazan’s body was gone.

Nineteen

Antrim sat on the bench and stared at the dark Thames. The arrogant bastard from the State Department was gone. He was a twenty-year veteran and resented being ordered around like the hired help. But he had a dead operative on his hands and Langley had made clear that there’d be repercussions.

Now this time crunch.

A few days.

Which nobody mentioned.

Was he being set up? That seemed the way of this business. You were only as good as your last act. And his last few had not been memorable. He was hoping King’s Deception would be his salvation.

He’d stumbled across the idea in a 1970s CIA briefing memo. An obscure Irish political party had investigated a radical way to end the British presence in Northern Ireland. A legal, nonviolent method that utilized the rule of law. But no evidence to support their theory been found, though the memo detailed a host of clues that had been uncovered. Once he proposed the concept, moles within British intelligence, most likely the same eyes and ears who’d alerted Langley to the Libyan prisoner transfer, had provided information from long-buried MI6 files. Enough for Operation King’s Deception to be approved and counter-intelligence assigned. But after a year’s worth of work, nothing significant had been discovered.

Except the information that died with Farrow Curry.

And this Daedalus Society.

Both of which seemed to confirm that there was something to find.

His mind ached from months of worrying, scheming, and dreaming.

Five million pounds. That was what Daedalus had offered, just to walk away. Maybe he should take it? Things seemed destined for failure anyway. Why not leave with something for himself?

Especially after the text he’d just received.

Have one boy in custody, but Dunne escaped.

Idiots. How could they allow a fifteen-year-old kid to elude them? Their orders were simple. Take Malone, his son, and Dunne from Heathrow to a house near Little Venice. There, Malone should have been incapacitated and his son and Dunne transported to another locale. Apparently, everything had happened, except the most important part.

Corralling Ian Dunne.

Another text.

Mews video recording interesting. Watch.

The house in Little Venice was wired both for sound and pictures. So he accessed the feed and found the mews’ hidden camera. A recorded image sprang onto his smart phone and he saw Cotton Malone, gathering clothes back into a travel bag.

And Ian Dunne.

Watching.

He brought the phone close to his eyes.

What a break.

Malone and Dunne left the mews together.

Yesterday, he’d formulated a plan. One he’d thought smart and workable. But a new idea streaked through his brain. A way to perhaps reap all five million of the rewards.

First, though, he had to know something, so he texted his men.

Did you enable the phone?

He’d told them to make sure the locator feature was working on Malone’s cell and to learn the phone number.

The response came quick.

Done.

Malone, with Ian, exited the taxi. Luckily, the driver agreed to accept U.S. dollars and he tipped an extra twenty for the favor.

Ian’s special hiding place was located behind a set of Georgian buildings in a part of London known as Holborn. The block faced a park encircled by a narrow one-car lane, multistory brick buildings in varying colors on all sides. From the name plates he noted that most were occupied by lawyers — who, he knew, had long dominated this section of London. A rich confection of cloisters, courtyards, and passageways defined the place. What had Shakespeare allowed Richard III to say? My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn I saw good strawberries in your garden. The strawberry patches were gone and the old marketplace had become a diamond exchange. Only the lit park across the street seemed a remnant of the Middle Ages — meticulously landscaped and dotted with bare sycamore trees.

The time was approaching 9:00 PM, but the sidewalks remained busy. The sight of a boy being urged by his mother not to dawdle made him think of Pam. She’d always been a calculating woman, careful with her words, stingy with her emotions. He resented her for forcing this situation with Gary on him. Sure, she was tugged by a long-held guilt. But couldn’t she see that there were skeletons behind those doors — none of which should have ever been opened? Six months ago, when she informed him about Gary’s parentage, her explanation was that she wanted to be fair.

Since when?

She’d kept the secret this long. Why not forever? Neither he nor Gary would have ever known.

So what prompted her sudden need for truth?

Long ago, he’d been a foolish navy lieutenant and hurt her. They’d attended counseling, worked through it, and he’d thought his sincere request for forgiveness had been granted. Ten years later, when she walked out, he came to see that their marriage had never had a chance.

Trust broken is trust lost.

He’d read that somewhere and it was true.

But he wondered what it took to watch, day in and day out, while a father and son bonded, knowing that it was, at least partly, an illusion.

He felt for the cell phone in his pocket and wished it to ring. He hadn’t told Ian the substance of the earlier conversation. Of course, he had no intention of handing the boy over.

But he needed that flash drive.

His and Gary’s travel bags were slung over his shoulders and he followed Ian into a darkened alley that led to an enclosed courtyard, brick walls from the buildings encasing all sides. Lights from a handful of windows cast enough of a glow for him to notice a small stone structure on one side. He knew what it was. One of London’s old wells. Many of the city’s districts took their names from water sources that once supplied residents. Camberwell. Clerk’s. St. Clement’s. Sadler’s. Then there were the holy wells. Sacred healing springs that dated back to Celtic times, most of which were long gone, but not forgotten.

He stepped over and peered down past the waist-high stone wall.

“There’s nothing down there,” Ian said. “It’s sealed off a meter or so below with concrete.”

“Where’s your special place?”

“Over here.”

Ian approached what appeared to be a grate in one of the brick walls. “It’s a vent that leads into the basement. It’s always been loose.”

He watched as Ian hinged the panel upward and reached inside, feeling around at the top.

Another plastic shopping bag, from Selfridges, appeared in the boy’s hand.

“There’s a ledge above the grate. I found it one day.”

He had to admire the boy’s ingenuity.

“Let’s go back to the street, where there’s more light.”

They left the courtyard and found a bench beneath one of the streetlights. He emptied the contents of the bag and inventoried the assortment of items. A couple of pocketknives, some jewelry, three watches, twenty pounds sterling, and a flash drive, 32G. Plenty of room for data.

“Is that it?” he asked.

Ian nodded. “It felt like a lighter or a pocket recorder when I first got my hand on it.”

He scooped up the drive.

“What do we do now?” Ian asked.

Some insurance would be good.

“We find a computer and see what’s on this thing.”

Gary lay on the sofa, the man sucking licorice still nearby. He estimated another half hour had elapsed from their arrival. His arms were beginning to ache from being bound behind his back, his face sweating from the wool cap, his shirt damp with perspiration. He quelled the rapidly growing tension within him with thoughts that if these men wanted him hurt, then that would have already happened. Instead, it seemed he was needed in one piece.

But for how long?

He heard a pounding, then a crack.

Wood splintering.

“What the—” the man nearest him said.

“Drop it,” a new voice screamed. “Now.”

He heard something hard thud to a rug or carpet.

“On the floor. Hands where I can see them.”

“We have the other one,” a voice said from farther off.

Footsteps, then, “Down, beside your buddy.”

No British accents anywhere. These guys were American.

The wool cap was ripped from his face and the bindings on his hands cut. He rubbed his wrists and blinked away the burning lamps that lit the room. When he finally focused he saw worn gold carpet, brown walls, and a pair of matching chairs on either side of the sofa. The exit door had been splintered from its hinges. His two captors, Devene and Norse, lay facedown on the floor. Three men stood in the room, all armed. Two kept weapons trained on his captors.

The third sat beside him on the sofa.

Relief swept over him.

“You okay?” the man asked.

He nodded.

The man was older, near his dad’s age, but with less hair and a few more pounds at the waist. He wore a dark overcoat, buttondown collared shirt, and dark pants. Pale gray eyes stared at him with a look of concern.

“I’m okay,” Gary said. “Thanks for finding me.”

Something about him was familiar.

He’d seen this face before.

“We met in Atlanta.”

The man smiled. “That’s right. Your mom introduced us. Back in the summertime, when I was there on business.”

He recalled the day, at the mall, near the food court. They’d stopped to buy some clothes. The man had called out, walked over, and chatted with his mother while he shopped. Everything had seemed cordial and pleasant. After they left, she’d said he was an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time.

And here he was.

He tried to remember a name.

The man offered his hand to shake.

“Blake Antrim.”

Twenty

Kathleen’s mind swirled. She’d faced drug traffickers who’d fired fourteen hundred rounds from Uzis and AK-47s at her. A hotel room on Tenerife shot up by a child sex offender who’d not wanted to return to England. Being submerged in a car that had catapulted off a bridge. But she’d never experienced anything like the past few minutes. A woman assassinated by a sniper. Her own body Tasered. And some man who was protecting royal secrets, threatening her life, disappearing into nowhere.

She stood alone in the dark quad.

Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.

She found the unit and answered.

“Are you finished with Professor Pazan?”

Thomas Mathews.

“The professor is dead.”

“Explain yourself.”

She did.

“I am here, in Oxford. My plan was to speak to you after your talk. Come to Queen’s College now.”

She walked the few blocks, following the curve of elegant High Street. She knew it as The High. Many of Oxford’s colleges fronted the busy thoroughfare that ran from the center of town to the River Cherwell. Though after 9:00 PM, frenetic activity raged around her. Cars and packed buses, each trailing plumes of exhaust, ferried people to and from town, the busy weekend unfolding. Her nerves were rattled, but she told herself to stay calm. After all, she could be sitting in her flat waiting to be fired.

The foot to her face had rubbed her the wrong way. Had that been the idea? To put her in her place? If so, it was a bad move. If she and that man crossed paths again, he’d pay for the insult.

Queen’s College was one of the ancients, founded in the 14th century and named as a counterpart to the already established King’s College in the hope that future queens would extend their patronage. The huddle of its original medieval houses was long gone, the fate of time and lack of funding. What remained was a baroque masterpiece, a touch out of place among so much Gothic splendor, centered by a dome-covered statue of Queen Caroline, the wife of George II. Many thought the college was named after her. In reality, it acquired its name from a much earlier benefactor — Philippa, wife of Edward III.

She entered the front quad through the domed gatehouse, the lit walkway ahead framed on either side by winter grass. An illuminated cloister lined with archways stretched left and right, the rusticated stone crusty and brittle, casting the appearance of a mountain monastery.

She spotted Mathews at the far end to her right and marched toward him. He still carried the look of a well-groomed diplomat with his pressed suit and walking stick. In the incandescent light she noticed something not caught earlier. A pale, sullen cast to his skin, along with fleshy jowls.

“I enjoy returning here,” the older man said. “Queen’s College is impressive, but I always thought Pembroke turned out the best-looking, most talented men.”

A tight twist of his thin lips conveyed that he’d made a joke. About himself. Something told her that was a rare event.

“I should have known you were a Pembroke man.”

“Forty-two years ago I took my degree. Not much has changed here since then. That’s the lovely thing about this town. Always the same.”

She wanted to know about Eva Pazan.

“A disturbing thing you reported,” he said. “I failed to realize the scope and breadth of what is clearly afoot. The man who accosted you inside the chapel, we have dealt with his group before. They also confronted Blake Antrim earlier in the Temple Church.”

“Which you obviously knew, since you brought me there.”

“That is right. But we did not know they were aware of your involvement. The idea had been for you and me to observe Antrim, unnoticed. That means I have a security problem.”

“What is this group?”

“In years past they have not presented any major problems. The last time they became so brazen was before the Second World War, when Edward VIII abdicated.”

Every British citizen knew the tale of the king who fell in love with an American divorcée.

“What is this group?”

“It is called the Daedalus Society. Best we can tell it was formed at the beginning of the 17th century by Robert Cecil.”

“Pazan told me about him. He was close to both Elizabeth and James I.”

“He was responsible for James becoming king, with Elizabeth’s help of course. The Scot owed Robert Cecil his throne.”

“Should we not be searching for the professor?”

“No, Miss Richards, we should not. There are people who will deal with what happened, and have already been dispatched. Our task is to move forward. In this business, no one person can do it all.”

His rebuke came in a voice hard as steel, the tone daring her to challenge him.

“What do you want me to do?”

“The presence of this Daedalus Society complicates matters. I urge you to keep your wits about you.”

Your first and final warning.

Leave this be.

“I think I should be issued a firearm.”

Mathews fished beneath his coat, removed an automatic pistol, and handed it to her. “Take mine.”

She checked the magazine and ensured it was fully loaded.

“Don’t trust me?” he asked.

“At the moment, Sir Thomas, I don’t know what to think.”

“I would have thought the excitement you experienced mild, considering your past history.”

He was beginning to rub her the wrong way. “I do what I have to when I have to.”

“I have managed other agents with a similar attitude, most of whom are either now dead or no longer in my employ.”

“I didn’t ask for this assignment.”

“Quite right. I chose you, and I knew what I was getting, right?”

“Something like that.”

He nodded. “You have a healthy attitude, that I will grant you.”

She was waiting for him to tell her what was next.

“If you recall,” he said. “At the Inns of Court I told you about the two Henrys and Katherine Parr, and the great secret that passed among them. A sanctuary, perhaps the vault where the majority of the Tudor wealth was hidden.”

“This is about buried treasure?”

She caught his annoyance.

“Only partly, Miss Richards. And why do you sound so incredulous? That vault could hold a wealth of information. We know that secret passages connected then, and still do, many of the Whitehall government buildings. Something you surely are aware of.”

She was. Accessible today through coded doors. She’d once ventured down into one of the tunnels.

“Henry VIII used similar passages to access his tennis court and bowling alley at Whitehall Palace. We think there were other passages with different uses, ones his father either created or discovered. Ones that have remained hidden for five hundred years.”

Which made sense, as London was crisscrossed with tunnels, dug at differing points in history, new ones discovered all the time.

“Katherine Parr was duty-bound to pass that secret on to Henry’s minor son, Edward, but there is no evidence that she ever did. Twenty-one months after Henry died, Parr herself passed. We think she may have told the secret—not to Edward, but to someone else.”

“Who? The Cecils?”

“Not possible. Henry VIII died fifteen years before William Cecil rose to power with Elizabeth, and thirty years before Robert Cecil succeeded his father. No, Katherine Parr told someone other than the Cecils.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just accept that I do. Professor Pazan was asked to instruct you on Robert Cecil’s notebook and the various possibilities. The deciphering of that notebook holds the key to all of this. The Tudor wealth was never found, nor accounted for. In today’s market it would be worth billions.”

“And the Americans want our treasure?”

“Miss Richards, do you continually question everything? Can you not accept that there are matters here of the highest national security. To know what those matters may be is irrelevant to what is expected from you. I have some specific tasks I need you to perform. Can you not simply do as I ask?”

“I am curious of one thing,” she said. “SIS is charged with protecting against threats on foreign soil. Why isn’t the Security Service, MI5, handling this investigation? Domestic threats are their jurisdiction.”

“Because the prime minister has ordered otherwise.”

“I was unaware the prime minister could violate the law.”

“You truly are impertinent.”

“Sir Thomas, a woman died a little while ago. I’d like to know why. What’s curious is you don’t seem to care.”

She caught the annoyance on the older man’s face. He was clearly unaccustomed to challenges.

“If I did not require your assistance, I would join with your supervisors in terminating your employment.”

“Lucky for me I’m so valuable at the moment.”

“And lucky for you the situation has changed. Antrim has involved that ex-American-agent I mentioned to you before. Cotton Malone. He has gone out of his way to draw Malone into this fray. I need you to find out why. As I mentioned, the deciphering of Robert Cecil’s journal is vital to the resolution of this matter. Within the next few hours Antrim may well possess the means to do just that. Tell me, is he capable of capitalizing on his good fortune?”

“He’s not daft, if that’s what you’re asking. But he’s not overly clever, either. More devious and deceitful.”

“Exactly my assessment. His operation has not gone well. He is frustrated. His superiors are pressuring for results. Thankfully, time is short and what he seeks is difficult to find.”

Mathews checked his watch, then stared out into the quad. People hustled back and forth from the street toward the college.

“I want you to travel back to London,” he said. “Immediately.”

“Professor Pazan did not tell me what I need to know. She was on her way back inside to show me more of the coded pages.”

“Nothing was found in the dining hall.”

Why wasn’t she surprised? “Seems everything here is unexplained. I’m not accustomed to working like this.”

“And how many intelligence operations have you worked on?”

Another rebuke, but she had to say, “I’ve handled thousands of investigative cases. Granted, none involved national security, but lives, property, and public safety were at stake. I understand the gravity of situations.”

Mathews leaned on his walking stick, and she noticed again the unique handle.

“That cane is quite unusual.”

“A gift to myself several years ago.” He held up the stick. “A solid piece of ivory carved with the world on its face. I hold it in my hand every day as a reminder of what is at stake with what we do.”

She caught the message.

This is important. Work with me.

“All right, Sir Thomas. No more questions. I’ll head back to London.”

“And I shall arrange for another briefing for you. In the meantime, be alert.”

Twenty-one

Malone found an Internet café not far from Holborn and immediately surveyed the crowd. Mostly middle-aged. Unassuming. Probably lawyers, which made sense as they were not far from the Inns of Court. He purchased time on a desktop and logged in. Ian stayed close and seemed interested, not making any attempt to flee. His phone had yet to ring and he was becoming concerned. He was accustomed to pressure, but things were definitely different when one of your own was at risk. What provided him solace was the fact that the men who had Gary knew the boy was their only bargaining chip.

He inserted the drive.

Three files appeared.

He checked the kilobytes and noticed that they varied, one small, the other two quite large.

He clicked on the smallest first.

Which opened.

Malone stopped reading.

Ian stood beside him and had read along with him.

“What does it mean?” Ian asked.

“A good question. Farrow Curry seems to have been conducting some interesting historical research.”

“Is that the man who died in Oxford Circus?”

He nodded. “These are his notes, some kind of report he was working on.”

He scanned farther down the screen.

We now know from Robert Cecil’s journal that Katherine Parr left a letter to Elizabeth, which was delivered at Christmas 1548, four months after Parr died. It appears to have been penned before Parr gave birth to her daughter in September 1548, and is a revealing piece of correspondence that, once placed in proper context, answers many questions. I have translated and adjusted the wording to compensate for modern spelling and usage.

There was no choice but to send you away. Please forgive me child, and that is what I have always considered you, my child, though no common blood flows between us. We are linked instead by the bond of your father. My current husband is a man of no character, who cares nothing for anyone save himself. Surely you have seen this and recognize the evil and danger he represents. He knows nothing of what he seeks and would be unworthy to be privy to your truth. God has given you great qualities. Cultivate them always and labor to improve them, for I believe you are destined by heaven to be Queen of England.

This came directly from Cecil’s journal. There are other similar references, all equally compelling. Each confirming that the legend is in fact true.

The narrative continued with a series of shorthand references, as if Curry would return later and finish. Malone scanned them, noticing several mentions of Hatfield House, Robert Cecil’s country estate north of London, and the Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I that hung there. No further mention of the legend, whatever it might be, and its truth appeared. But a notation at the end explained, only way to know for sure is to go and see.

A second file, the largest in kilobytes, contained images from a handwritten journal, the green-and-gold pages filled with a cryptic script. The file was labeled CECIL JOURNAL ORIGINAL. Apparently what Curry had managed to translate. No explanations or other entries were in the file.

The final file he could not open.

Password-protected.

Which, obviously, was the most important.

“How do you get the password?” Ian asked.

“Experts can get around it.”

His phone rang. He closed the drive.

“Mr. Malone,” a new voice said. “We rescued Gary.”

Had he heard right?

“We’re pulling up at your location now.”

His gaze shot out the café’s front windows.

A car was wheeling to the curb.

“Stay here,” he told Ian, and he darted for the front door.

Outside, the car’s rear door opened and Gary bounded out.

Thank God.

“You okay?” he asked his son.

The boy nodded. “I’m fine.”

A man exited the car. Tall, broad-shouldered, thinning hair. Maybe fifty years old. He wore a navy, knee-length overcoat that hung open. He rounded the trunk and approached, offering his hand to shake.

“Blake Antrim.”

“This is the man who found me,” Gary said.

Two more men emerged from the car’s front seat, both dressed in overcoats. He knew the look.

“You CIA?” he asked Antrim.

“We can talk later. Do you have Ian Dunne?”

“He’s here.”

“Get him.”

Malone turned back to the café, but did not see Ian through the window. He hustled back inside to the computer.

The drive was gone.

And so was Ian.

His eyes raked the room and he spotted a door that let back into the kitchen. He rushed through and asked the two women busy preparing food about Ian.

“Gone out the back door.”

He followed and found himself in a dark, empty alley that right-angled fifty feet away.

No one in sight.

Twenty-two

Antrim, with Gary in tow, entered the café and spotted Malone pushing through a rear door.

“Ian ran,” Malone said. “He’s gone.”

“We really needed him.”

“I get that.”

“Was he okay?” Gary asked.

But Malone did not answer.

The patrons inside were all focused on what was happening, so Antrim motioned for them to leave. On the sidewalk, near the car, while his men kept watch, he stepped close to Malone and said, “This is an ongoing CIA operation.”

“A lot of attention for a covert op.”

“Caused by having to rescue your son.”

“Is the operation yours?”

He nodded. “For over a year now.”

Malone appraised him with a cool gaze. “I was to drop Ian Dunne off at Heathrow to Metropolitan Police. That’s all. The next thing I know, I’m facedown unconscious and my son is taken.”

“All I can say is that some problems have surfaced. But I still need to find Ian Dunne.”

“Why?”

“That’s classified.”

“Like I give a crap. How’d you find me?”

“Gary told us about your phone, so we tracked it, hoping you still had it with you.”

“And how did you find Gary?”

“Let’s just say a little birdie tipped us off and leave it at that.”

“More classified information?”

Antrim caught the sarcasm. “Something like that.”

Gary stood beside his father, listening.

“What’s so important?” Malone asked him. “What are you doing here in London?”

“When you were one of us, did you go around discussing your business with strangers?”

No, he didn’t. “We’re leaving. Thanks for finding my boy.” He faced Gary. “Our bags are inside. We’ll get them, then find a hotel for the night.”

Antrim took stock of the ex — Magellan Billet agent. Personnel records had noted Malone to be forty-seven years old, but he looked younger, a thick mane of blondish brown hair barely tinted with gray. They were about the same height and build, and even their features were similar. Malone seemed in good shape for a man out of the game for over a year. But the eyes were what really interested him. As noted in the Justice Department personnel jacket, they were a pale shade of green.

He’d played this right so far.

Now for the finish.

“Wait.”

Malone was pleased that he’d guessed right.

Blake Antrim was in trouble. He’d sensed it almost immediately, especially when Antrim realized Ian was gone. Whatever was happening was not going right.

He stopped and turned back.

Antrim came close and said, “We have a big problem. A national security problem. And Ian Dunne may have something we desperately need to solve it.”

“A flash drive?”

“That’s right. Did you see it?”

He nodded. “Ian has it. He took it when he ran.”

“Did you read it?”

“Some.”

“Care to share what was on it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Really? Your eidetic memory gone?”

“You been checking up on me?”

“After I learned you were here, with Ian Dunne, and your son was in trouble.”

He’d been born with a memory for details. Not photographic. Instead, he could recall the simplest of details, nearly at will. A curse at times, but more often a blessing. So he summarized for Antrim what Farrow Curry had written, noting that one file was password-protected.

“Any idea where Dunne might be?” Antrim asked.

“I just met the boy yesterday. He wasn’t the friendliest.”

“How about you, Gary?” Antrim asked. “He say anything to you?”

His son shook his head. “Not much. He lives on the streets. But he did say something on the plane about a bookstore he would sleep in sometimes at night. The lady who owns it, Miss Mary, was nice to him.”

“He say where that is?”

“Piccadilly Circus.”

“Seems like a good place to start,” Antrim said.

Malone could not resist. “Particularly considering it’s the only place you have.”

“That make you feel better?” Antrim asked. “I’ve told you I’m in trouble. Admitted the problem. What more do you want?”

“Call Langley.”

“Like you called Stephanie Nelle every time you got yourself into a tight one?”

He’d never made that call. Ever.

“That’s what I thought,” Antrim said. “You handled it yourself. How about another favor? Go to that store and see if Dunne shows up. You two seem to have made a connection, more than any of us.”

“Who were the guys at the airport? The ones who jumped me and took Gary?”

“They work for a shadow group called the Daedalus Society. They’ve been interfering with this operation for some time. I thought we had things under control with them, but I was wrong.”

“Ian was allowed into the country without a passport.”

“I did that. When he was located in the States, I asked British Customs to authorize his entry. I had men at the airport waiting for you. But the other two found you first. Just one more thing that went wrong.”

Malone could see that he’d struck a sore point. But he could sympathize. He, too, had experienced operations that simply would not go right.

“All I can tell you,” Antrim said, “is that things here are important and time is short. We need that flash drive.”

“So did the other two men who jumped me.”

“Like I said, the Daedalus Society is after the same thing.”

“Dad,” Gary said. “Go find him.”

The comment surprised Malone. “We don’t have a dog in this fight. We need to get home.”

“What’s a few more hours?” Gary said. “It’s late. We have the time. See if you can find him. I’ll go with you, if you want.”

“No way. Your mother would kill me with what’s already happened. And I wouldn’t blame her.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him for you,” Antrim said.

“I don’t know you.”

“Make your calls. Check me out. You’ll find everything I’ve told you is the truth. Gary can stay with us a few hours. I have agents, and I’ll personally look after him.”

Malone hesitated.

“A few hours to see if Dunne can be found. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Do it,” Gary said.

“I need to make that call,” he told Antrim.

The agent nodded. “I understand. I’d do the same thing. But remember, I’m the one who found your boy.”

Point made. But he recalled Ian’s fears. “If I go after Dunne, I do it alone. None of your guys around.”

“Agreed.”

“You really cool with this?” he asked Gary.

His son nodded. “You gotta do it.”

Ian had not liked the look of the men who’d emerged from the car. Too official. Too determined. He was glad to see Gary was okay, back with his dad. But the fake police from Heathrow had definitely spooked him, so he decided it was time to leave.

He’d taken the flash drive for two reasons.

One, he wanted to show it to Miss Mary. She was the smartest person he knew, and he was interested in what she had to say.

The second was maybe Cotton Malone might come looking for it.

If he did, he’d know where to go.

So he headed for Piccadilly Circus.

Twenty-three

Kathleen was irritated.

She’d resented Mathews ordering her about, treating her like some rookie. He’d ignored her questions, was evasive when he did answer, then summarily dismissed her, telling her to head back to London.

But a woman died at Jesus College and her body had been carted away.

By who? For what?

And she did not believe that others were investigating what happened.

Nothing about any of this rang right.

She wondered if Mathews had expected her to be too eager or too grateful to question anything. Or was it that he simply had become accustomed to people obeying? True, she was glad to still have a job. And despite the fact that she could at times be a problem, she’d not forged a career by being either stupid or complacent. So before leaving Oxford she headed back to Jesus College and the quad. There, she found the same quiet scene, the soporific drone of diesel engines drifting in from the nearby streets. She approached the stone bench where she’d sought cover and recalled the shots. On the stone steps leading back to the dining hall, where Pazan’s body had laid, she bent down and rubbed the coarse surface, noticing not a speck of blood anywhere. Her gaze drifted to the roof and the parapets, where the shooter had hidden. The down angle was unobstructed. Nothing to prevent a clear shot.

She crossed to the oak door with the brass handle and tried the latch.

Still locked.

Inside the chapel, which remained empty, she climbed the steep stairs to the organ and saw where her attacker had hidden, near the keyboard, behind the pipes, between the instrument and the wall. Which meant he was waiting long before she’d sought refuge inside.

With a Taser?

I’m sure you now realize that you were led here.

That’s what he’d said.

So they’d known she’d be in Oxford, at Jesus College, meeting Pazan. Enough in advance to be ready. Then they’d shot Pazan, but not her.

Why?

Because they needed to deliver a message?

An awful lot of trouble when so many simpler options were available.

And what happened to Pazan’s body?

She decided as long as she was being insubordinate, she’d be thorough. Though Oxford University was composed of thirty-nine separate collegiate parts, there was a centralized administration that included security patrolling the streets, quads, and buildings. She recalled them from her student days and found the main office near the city police station. Her SOCA credentials earned instant respect, and the personnel on duty were more than happy to answer her questions.

“Do you have a roster of university employees?”

The young woman smiled. “Everyone is badged and credentialed on hiring. They have identity cards that have to be carried.”

Which made sense.

“Is there an employee for Lincoln College named Eva Pazan?”

The woman worked a keyboard, then scanned her monitor. “I don’t see one.”

“Any Evas or Pazans, separately?”

A pause as the screen was searched, then, “Nothing.”

“Any employee anywhere, at any of the colleges, with those names?”

More taps on the keyboard.

None.

Why wasn’t she surprised?

She left the building.

Pazan could have simply been lying. But why? She’d specifically mentioned teaching history at Lincoln and attending Exeter College.

And that Mathews sent her.

Which the spymaster confirmed.

Then, she was shot.

Had she died? Or was she able to walk away? If so, why no blood anywhere?

Now, apparently, the woman didn’t even exist.

She didn’t like anything about this.

A few hours ago she’d been dispatched to the Inns of Court precisely at the same time Blake Antrim had been present. Everything had been coordinated, timed with precision.

Which wasn’t so shocking.

After all, she was dealing with the Secret Intelligence Service.

In Middle Hall she’d thought herself a knight or a rook on the chessboard. Now she carried the distinct feel of a pawn.

Which made her suspicious.

Of everyone.

Malone listened to Stephanie Nelle.

He’d found her by phone twenty minutes ago and told her what he needed to know. Now she’d called back.

“Antrim is CIA, special counterterrorism. Most of it is off the charts, lots of black ops buried deep under national security. He’s got twenty years. And he’s the one heading the operation there. It’s called King’s Deception, but Langley would not give me any particulars.”

“What happened to all that post-9/11 cooperation?”

“It ended on 9/12.”

Which he already knew. “Any problems with Antrim?”

“I couldn’t get that much that quick, but I think my source would have told me if he’s a loose cannon. Sounds like a typical career man.”

Which jibed. Counter-operations required patience, not heroics. If anything, Antrim would lean toward hesitancy instead of being a Lone Ranger.

“Is everything okay there?” she asked.

“It is now. But it was touch and go for a while.”

He filled her in on the details. Then said, “I should have flown coach.”

“You realize you can go home,” she said.

He did. “But before Gary and I go to sleep, I’m going to give Ian Dunne one shot.”

Besides, he wanted to know why the boy ran, and why he snatched the flash drive.

“I wouldn’t get too deep into this,” Stephanie told him.

“I don’t plan to. But the stuff on that flash drive got me curious. What the hell are they up to over here?”

“No telling. But I’d leave the kids to play in their sandbox and head on home.”

Good advice.

They’d left the café and driven to a house beyond Portman Square. He knew this part of London, near busy Oxford Street, since he always stayed at the Churchill, located at the west edge of the square. Gary, Antrim, and the other two agents were inside the house. He’d stepped out to take the call.

“It’s getting late here,” he said. “We can’t leave until morning anyway. And Antrim did find Gary. So I owe him one.”

“Sorry for all this. I thought it was a simple favor.”

“It’s not your fault. I seem to have a way of finding trouble.”

He ended the call.

The front door opened and Gary walked toward him on the sidewalk.

“What are you going to do?” his son asked.

“I’ll take a quick look for Ian. Antrim is the real deal. He’s CIA. You’ll be okay here with him.”

“He seems like a good guy. He told me I could see some of the things he’s working on.”

“I won’t be long. Just a few hours. Then we’ll find a hotel and get out of here in the morning.”

He’d meant what he’d said to Stephanie. Farrow Curry had definitely been into some odd stuff — especially for a government counter-intelligence operation being conducted within the borders of an American ally.

“You know why I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with you.”

He nodded.

“Mom told me about my real … I mean, my birth father.”

“It’s okay, son. I know this is tough.”

“She won’t tell me who he is. I want to know. She really never told you?”

He shook his head. “Not until a few months ago and she never mentioned a name. If she had, I’d tell you.”

And he wasn’t trying to undercut Pam, it was just that you can’t choose to tell half a story. Especially one this explosive.

“When we get out of here,” Gary said, “I’d like to know what happened before I was born. Everything.”

Not his favorite subject. Who enjoyed reliving their mistakes? But thanks to Pam, he had no choice. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“I wish Mom would do the same.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. She’s kicking herself bad on this one.”

They stood on the street, the curbs on both sides lined with parked cars. A busy avenue, a hundred feet away, hummed with traffic.

“You think Ian could be in trouble?” Gary asked.

He heard the concern and shared the anxiety.

“I’m afraid so.”

Twenty-four

Antrim was pleased. He’d connected with Malone and convinced him to go after Ian Dunne, feigning enough frustration to telegraph that his entire operation was in trouble. Which had not been all that hard since it was the truth. Ordinarily, though, he would have never shared those problems with a stranger.

But he wanted a little private time.

After all, Gary was the whole reason he’d maneuvered Malone to London.

“You lied to me,” he said.

Pam Malone stared back. She stood behind her desk on the twelfth floor in a downtown Atlanta office building. Two days ago he’d run into her at a mall. They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in sixteen years. Back then he’d been a CIA operative, assigned to a duty station in Wiesbaden, Germany. Pam was a navy wife, her lawyer husband a lieutenant commander, part of the United States’ NATO contingent. They’d met, had a brief affair, then she ended it.

“I never lied,” she said. “I just never told you anything.”

“That boy is mine.”

He’d known it the first moment he met Gary Malone. Everything reminded him of himself as a teenager. And—

“He has my gray eyes.”

“My ex-husband’s are gray.”

“There you go. Lying again. I remembered your ex-husband’s name. In fact, I’ve come to hear it many times since you and I were together. He was quite the agent. But I pulled his jacket yesterday. His eyes are green. Yours are blue.”

“You’re delusional.”

“If I am, why are you shaking?”

He’d located her with a quick check of the Georgia State Bar directory. Their talk in the mall had been brief and light. She’d mentioned that she was now a lawyer so it had not taken much to find her. He’d appeared unannounced, wanting to catch her off guard. She’d at first informed the receptionist that she was busy, but when he told the woman to pass on that he’d “just see her at home,” he was led to her office.

“You’re a sorry, useless bastard who likes roughing up women.”

Their breakup was not without consequences. She’d rebuked him with no warning or provocation. Which hurt. He’d actually cared for her. More than most. He’d always been partial to the unhappily married ones. They were so giving, so grateful. All you had to do was pretend you cared. She’d been no different. Convinced that her husband was cheating on her, she’d wanted reciprocity and eagerly gave herself.

“I made a huge mistake with you,” she said. “One I prefer to forget.”

“But you can’t. You have a reminder every day, don’t you?”

He saw that his assessment was correct.

“It’s the only part of my son I despise. God help me.”

“There’s no need to feel that way. And, by the way, he’s our son.”

Her eyes flashed hot. “Don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that. He’s not our son. He’s mine.”

“What about your ex-husband? I’m sure he has no idea.”

Silence.

“Maybe I’ll tell him.”

More silence.

He chuckled. “This is obviously a sore spot with you. I can understand that. Seeing me in that mall had to have been a shock.”

“I was hoping you were dead.”

“Come on, Pam. It wasn’t that bad.”

“You broke my ribs.”

“You broke my heart. Just up and told me to get out and never come back. And after all the sweet times we shared. You surely didn’t expect me to just walk away.”

“Get out of my office.”

“How long was it after that you found out you were pregnant?”

“What does it matter?”

“Did you know when you broke it off?”

She said nothing.

“I … should have … ended the pregnancy then and there.”

“You don’t mean that. Aborted your child? That’s not you.”

“You condescending prick, you have no idea who I am. Don’t you get it? To this day I look at that boy, whom I worship, and see you. Every day I have to deal with that. I came so close to ending that pregnancy. So damn close. Instead, I carried the child and lied to my husband, telling him the baby was his. You have any idea what it’s like to live with that?”

He shrugged. “You should have told me.”

“Get. Out.”

“I’m leaving. But if I were you, I’d tell your ex-husband and son the truth. ’Cause now that I know, you haven’t seen the last of me.”

And he’d meant it.

Immediately, he’d hired private surveillance to keep tabs on both Pam and Gary Malone. It cost a couple thousand dollars a month, but had been worth every penny to learn their comings and goings, their wants and desires. The person he’d hired cared nothing about the law and even managed to tap the landlines on Pam’s home phone. Every other day a recording would be forwarded by email of the calls in and out. That’s how he learned Cotton Malone knew that Gary was not his biological son. The conversation between the two of them had been heated, Pam telling Malone that Gary was upset, wanting to spend Thanksgiving break with him in Denmark. Even better, neither Gary nor Malone knew Antrim’s identity. Both had been kept in the dark by Pam.

Good girl.

He’d never followed through on his threat to contact either Malone or Gary. Neither path seemed the way to go. Instead, he’d remained patient, doing what intelligence officers did, gathering information from which smart decisions could be made. Originally, he’d intended on connecting with Gary in Copenhagen sometime next week.

But the unexpected surfacing of Ian Dunne changed that plan.

Making contact here, in London, worked much better.

So he’d ordered Dunne flown from Florida to Georgia and informed Langley that Malone was in Atlanta, headed back to Europe. How about a favor among agencies? The Magellan Billet, or at least a former Magellan Billet agent, helping out the CIA. Simple babysitting. This way we’ll know Dunne will be safely delivered.

Which worked.

Thanks to everyone’s anxiety about what the Scottish government intended doing.

During the rescue he’d studied Gary closely, noting the pinched nose, long chin, high brow, and, most important, the gray eyes. Now he had Gary to himself. Pam Malone was nowhere to be seen. Cotton Malone clearly had no idea of the connection, and, based on Malone’s comment earlier outside the café, he doubted that he’d be checking with his ex-wife. All he had to do was not allow Gary to call Georgia.

And that would be easy.

The next few hours were critical.

He told himself to handle things carefully.

But it should not be a problem.

After all, he was a pro.

Twenty-five

Malone always liked the throb of Piccadilly Circus. It was boisterous and brash, and comparisons to Times Square were inevitable. But this tangle of noise had existed centuries before its American interpretation. Five roads met at the circular junction and surrounded the plinth of Eros, the statue a London landmark. St. James Palace sat a few blocks away, one of the last remaining Tudor residences. Reading about Katherine Parr and Elizabeth I earlier had set his mind on the Tudors, who ruled from 1485 to 1603. He’d read many books about them and even maintained a Tudor section at his bookstore in Copenhagen, as he’d learned others shared his interest. Now he was privy to something he’d never read in any of those books.

Some secret.

Important enough to have attracted the attention of the CIA.

Cars slithered to a standstill at the busy intersection and he crossed among them, heading deeper into London’s entertainment district that stretched out beyond Piccadilly. Cinemas, theaters, restaurants, and pubs filled the olden buildings, all of them alive with a late-Friday-night business. Wood fronts and plate glass cast him back to another era. He zigzagged a path through the menagerie of people, heading for the address he’d located on his iPhone.

Any Old Books occupied a space not unlike his own shop, a turn-of-the-century structure squeezed between a pub on one side and a haberdashery on the other. Its front door was stained oak and half glass with a worn brass knob. Inside was also similar to his shop. Rows of wooden shelves from floor to ceiling packed with used books. Even the smell, that combination of dust, old paper, and aged wood, reminded him of Copenhagen. He immediately noted an order to the madness, placards jutting from the shelves announcing the various subjects. Organization seemed an affliction common to all successful bookstore owners.

The woman who stood behind the counter was small and thin with short, silver hair. Only a few noticeable lines had settled over her dainty features, like a faint net of age. She spoke in a gentle voice that he noticed was never raised, a smile accompanying every word.

And not a phony one.

She seemed to genuinely care, ringing up a purchase, dispensing change, thanking customers for their business.

“Are you Miss Mary?” he asked her when she finished with a purchase.

“That’s what they call me.”

“Is this your store?”

She nodded. “I’ve owned it a long time.”

He noticed the stacks of books dominating the counter, surely ones she’d just acquired. He did the same, every day, “buying for pennies, selling for euros.” He hoped his two employees were taking care of things back in Denmark. He was supposed to work there tomorrow.

“You’re open late.”

“Friday and Saturday nights are busy for me. The stage shows are just ending, everyone off for a late dinner or a drink. I learned long ago that they also enjoy buying books.”

“I own a bookshop. In Copenhagen.”

“Then you must be Cotton Malone.”

Gary watched Blake Antrim as he directed his two agents and made things happen. He’d never met anybody who actually worked for the CIA. Sure, you saw them on television and in movies, or read about them in books. But to deal with one in person? That had to be rare. His father had been an agent for the Justice Department, but never, until recently, had he understood what that meant.

“We appreciate your dad helping us out,” Antrim said to him. “We can use the assist.”

He was curious. “What’s happening here?”

“We’re after some extremely special things, and have been for the past year.”

They’d driven to a warehouse located near the Thames River, which Antrim described as their command station. They were inside a small, sparsely furnished office near the warehouse entrance, a tight rectangle with a window that opened into the cavernous space.

“What’s out there?” he asked.

Antrim stepped close. “Things we’ve collected. Pieces of a large puzzle.”

“Sounds cool.”

“Would you like to take a look?”

Malone smiled. “I see Ian has already arrived.”

“He told me you might be coming, and he described you perfectly.”

“I need to find him, and fast.”

“There are a lot of people looking for Ian, and have been ever since that man died in the Underground.”

“He told you about that?”

She nodded. “He and I have always been close, ever since he wandered in here one day.”

“And could read.”

She smiled. “Exactly. He was fascinated by all of the books, so I indulged his interest.”

But he wasn’t fooled. “As a way to get him to sleep here at night, instead of on the streets?”

“If Ian ever knew my real motives he never said a word. I told him he was my night guard, here to keep an eye on things.”

He immediately liked Miss Mary, an entirely practical woman with a seemingly good heart.

“I never was blessed with children,” she said, “and I am way past the time where I could have one. Ian seemed a gift. So he and I spend a lot of time together.”

“He’s in trouble.”

“That much I know. But he’s lucky.”

He was curious what she meant. “How so?”

“For the second time”—she tossed him a hard gaze—“he’s taken to someone he can trust.”

“I didn’t know that we were buddies. In fact, our relationship has been a bit rocky.”

“Surely you realize that he took that flash drive hoping you would come after it. His way of asking for your friendship. I can see that he made a good choice. You look like a man to be trusted.”

“I’m just a guy who can’t quit doing favors.”

“He told me you were once a secret agent.”

He grinned. “Just a humble servant of the U.S. government. Now I’m a bookseller, like you.”

Which he liked the sound of.

“He told me that, too. Like I say, you are a man to be trusted.”

“Have others really been looking for Ian?”

“A month ago men came around to the shops. Some of the owners know Ian and they pointed them my way. But I lied and told them I had not seen him. Unfortunately, Ian disappeared a week after that and did not return. Until today. I prayed he’d be okay.”

“Like I said, he’s in trouble. He has something those other men want.”

“The flash drive.”

He caught the meaning in her words. “You’ve read it?”

“I read the same two files you viewed.”

Then he saw something in her eyes. “What is it?”

Antrim led Gary from the office out into the warehouse, the space brightly lit by an array of overhead fluorescent fixtures. Two tables held stacks of old books, some tucked safely inside plastic bags. Another table supported three iMacs connected to an Internet router and a printer. This was where Farrow Curry had worked, trying to make sense of Robert Cecil’s journal, deciphering what seemed impossible to understand.

But the past twenty-four hours had changed his mind.

Not only was it possible, somebody was willing the pay him five million pounds just to walk away from whatever was there.

Gary noticed the stone slab lying on the floor. “What is that?”

“We found that in an interesting place. Not far from here, near a palace called Nonsuch.”

“Is it a big castle?”

“The palace no longer exists. Only the ground where it stood. Henry VIII built it as the grandest of all his residences. A magical site. He called it Nonsuch because there was nothing else its equal. None. Such. All we know of what it looked like now comes from three watercolors that survived.”

“So what happened to it?”

“Centuries later, Charles II gave it to his mistress and she sold it off, piece by piece, to pay her gambling debts. Eventually, there was nothing left but the dirt on the ground. We recovered this slab from a nearby farm where it had been used for centuries to support a bridge.”

Gary bent down and examined the stone. The CIA memo from the 1970s had made mention of the slab’s existence.

A series of symbols were carved on its face.

He stepped close and said, “They’re mainly abstract markings, but some are Greek and Roman alphabet letters. They turned out to be the key, though, to a four-hundred-year-old mystery.”

He could see that the boy was intrigued. Good. He wanted him to be impressed.

“Like a lost treasure?” Gary asked.

“Something like that. Though we’re hoping there’s even more to it.”

“What do these symbols mean?”

“They’re the way to solve a code that was created long ago by a man named Robert Cecil.”

Back in the 1970s, when those Irish lawyers first delved into the mystery, there were few sophisticated computers and the decryption programs were little more than elementary. So the slab’s secrets had remained concealed. Thankfully, modern technology changed all that.

He watched as the boy traced the symbols with his fingers.

“Would you like to see the most important thing we found?”

Gary nodded.

“It’s over here.”

Malone walked with Miss Mary between the shelves. Her store was a tad smaller than his, but she possessed his same penchant for hardcovers. Not too many repeats, either, which evidenced how careful she was with her buying. No danger of running out of inventory ever existed, since people loved to trade books. That was the great thing about the business. A steady supply of inexpensive inventory always came and went.

She turned into the history section and scanned the spines.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need your help,” she said, pointing to one of the top shelves.

He was six feet tall. She stood a good foot shorter.

“At your service.”

“It’s there. The fourth book from the left.”

He spotted the red-bound volume and reached for it, maybe ten inches tall, four inches wide, and not quite an inch thick. In good condition, too. Late 19th century, he estimated from its bindings and cover.

He read the title.

Famous Impostors.

Then noted its author.

Bram Stoker.

Twenty-six

Kathleen parked her car. During the drive back from Oxford she’d become convinced that she was being played. There was no Eva Pazan, or at least not one who worked at Lincoln College. Maybe Pazan was told to lie. But why? Weren’t they all on the same side? And Mathews had sent her specifically to meet with the professor. If Pazan was a sham, what had been the point? She’d re-checked Jesus College and found a deceit. Now she’d returned to the Temple Church. Things about what happened here earlier bothered her, too.

She parked again outside the walls and entered the Inns of Court through the unmanned vehicle gate. King’s Bench Walk was wet and, thanks to the late hour, empty of cars.

Sometimes she regretted never actually practicing law. Neither her father nor her grandfathers had been alive when she chose SOCA. She hardly knew her father — he died when she was young — but her mother kept his memory alive. So much that she decided that the law would be her career path, too. Being back among the Inns, recalling her days here and at Oxford, had definitely reawakened something inside her. At thirty-six she could easily re-hone her skills and perhaps earn entry into the practicing bar. A tough path, for sure. But soon that might be her only option. Her SOCA career seemed over, and her short foray into intelligence work would probably end before it ever started.

Quite a mess she’d made of her life.

But she had no time for regrets.

Never had, really.

She knew that tomorrow, Saturday, visitors would be everywhere among the Inns, enjoying the grounds and touring the famous Temple Church. But little about the ancient building was original. Centuries ago Protestant barristers, wanting to efface all emblems of Catholicism, whitewashed the interior and plastered the columns — a puritanical cleansing that destroyed all of the olden beauty. Most of what the visitors now saw was a 20th-century reconstruction, the aftermath of German bombs during World War II.

At this hour the church was dark and locked for the night. Midnight was fast approaching. Lights burned, though, in the nearby master’s residence, the custodian charged with the church’s upkeep, a servant of both the Middle and Inner Temples.

She approached the front door and knocked.

The man who answered was in his forties, dark-haired, and identified himself as the master. He seemed perplexed she was there, so she displayed her SOCA identification and asked, “What time does the church close each day?”

“You came here, at this hour, to ask me that?”

She tried a bluff. “Considering what happened earlier, you should not be surprised.”

And she saw that her words registered.

“It varies,” he said. “Most days it’s 4:00 PM. Sometimes it’s as early as 1:00 PM, depending on if we have services or a special event planned.”

“Like earlier?”

He nodded. “We closed the church, at four, as requested.”

“No one was there after that?”

He tossed her a curious look. “I locked the doors myself.”

“And were the doors reopened?”

“Are you referring to the special event?” he asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m referring to. Did everything perform brilliantly?”

He nodded. “The doors were reopened at six, locked back at ten. No personnel were on site, as requested.”

Improvise. Think. Don’t waste this opportunity.

“We are having some … internal issues. There were problems. Not on your end. On ours. We’re trying to backtrack and trace the source.”

“Oh, my. I was told that everything must be precise.”

“By your supervisor?”

“By the treasurer himself.”

The Inns were run by benchers, senior members of the bar, usually judges. The senior bencher was the treasurer.

“Of the Middle or Inner Temple?” she asked.

The church sat on the dividing line between the two Inns’ respective land, each contributing to its upkeep. Southern pews were for the Inner Temple, northern pews accommodated the Middle.

“Inner Temple. The treasurer was quite emphatic, as was the other man.”

“That’s what I came to find out. Who was the other man?”

“Quite distinguished. Older gentleman, with a cane. Sir Thomas Mathews.”

Malone laid the book on the counter. More customers wandered in through the front door and browsed the shelves.

“They do come after the final curtain in the theaters, don’t they?” he said.

“The only reason I stay open this late on weekends. I’ve found it to be quite worthwhile. Luckily, I am a bit of a night person.”

He wasn’t sure what he was. Night. Morning. All day. It seemed he simply forced his mind to work whenever it had to. Right now, his body was still operating on Georgia time, five hours earlier, so he was okay.

Miss Mary pointed to the book he held. “That was published in 1910. Bram Stoker worked for Sir Henry Irving, one of the great Victorian actors. Stoker managed the Lyceum Theatre, near the Strand, for Irving. He was also Irving’s personal assistant. Stoker penned most of his great works while in Irving’s employ, Dracula included. Stoker idolized Henry Irving. Many say the inspiration for the title character in Dracula came from Irving.”

“I hadn’t heard that one.”

She nodded. “It’s true. But in 1903, while searching for some land Irving might be interested in purchasing, Stoker came across an interesting legend. In the Cotswolds. Near Gloucestershire and the village of Bisley.”

She opened the red volume to the table of contents.

“Stoker became fascinated with hoaxes and pretenders. He said that ‘imposters, in one shape or another, are likely to flourish as long as human nature remains what it is and society shows itself ready to be gulled.’ So he wrote this account and detailed some of the more famous, and not so famous.”

He studied the table of contents, which listed thirty-plus subjects scattered over nearly 300 pages. The Wandering Jew. Witches. Women as Men. The False Dauphin. Doctor Dee.

“Stoker wrote four nonfiction books to go with his novels and short stories,” Miss Mary said. “He never quit his day job and worked for Irving right up to the great actor’s death in 1905. Stoker died in 1912. This book was published two years before that. When I read what was on that flash drive, I instantly thought of it.”

She pointed to the last section noted in the table of contents, starting on page 283.

The Bisley Boy.

He carefully turned to the page and started reading. After only a few lines he glanced up and said, “This can’t be real.”

“And why not, Mr. Malone?”

Kathleen bid the Master good night and left the Inns of Court. Both she and possibly Antrim had been led here. Then she’d been directed to Oxford.

I am of the Inner Temple. A member fifty years.

That was what Mathews had told her earlier.

Then, at Oxford, about the Daedalus Society.

The man who accosted you inside the chapel, we have dealt with his group before. They also confronted Blake Antrim earlier in the Temple Church.

Yet it had been Mathews, through the treasurer of the Inner Temple, who’d arranged for the church’s use.

Not some Daedalus Society.

What was happening here?

Her suspicions had turned to outright distrust.

Her phone vibrated.

She found the unit and noted the number.

Mathews.

“Are you back in London?” he asked.

“As you ordered.”

“Then proceed to a shop, on Regent Street and Piccadilly Square. Any Old Books. The American agent, Cotton Malone, is there, as may be the young man we are seeking, Ian Dunne. The flash drive could also be there.”

“What about Antrim?”

“Things have changed. Seems Mr. Antrim dispatched Malone to find Ian Dunne and the flash drive. Since Antrim clearly does not have the drive, I want you to make contact with Malone and acquire it. Do whatever you have to do in accomplishing that task. Make haste, though.”

She wondered why.

“Mr. Malone is about to find a spot of bother.”

Gary walked with Antrim to another table, where a book rested beneath a glass lid, similar to one his mother used for cakes and pies.

Antrim lifted off the cover. “We keep this one protected. It’s the whole ball of wax.”

“Mr. Antrim, why—”

“Call me Blake.”

“My parents always tell me to address adults properly.”

“Good advice, until the adult says otherwise.”

He smiled. “I guess that’s okay.”

“It’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t real comfortable with the switch to first names, but kept that to himself as he stared down at the old book.

“This is a journal created by Robert Cecil, the most important man in England from 1598 to 1612. He served Queen Elizabeth I and James I as their chief minister. Go ahead. You can open it.”

The gold-and-green pages, their edges dried and frayed, each one as brittle as a potato chip, contained line after line of handwritten symbols and letters.

“There are 75,000 characters on 105 pages,” Antrim told him. “All in code. Indecipherable since 1612. But we were able to break it.”

“What does it say?”

“Things that may change history.”

Antrim seemed proud of the accomplishment.

“Was it tough to break?”

“Modern computers helped, along with that stone on the floor over there you just saw. The symbols on it match the ones here and act as a translator. Thankfully, Cecil left it behind as a way to decipher the code.”

“Seems like a waste of time then even writing it in code.”

Antrim smiled. “That’s what we thought, too. Until we studied the personality of Robert Cecil. Your father mentioned some of that earlier. What he read on the flash drive. Knowing Cecil, though, it all makes sense.” Antrim pointed to the computers. “Lucky for us those are capable of breaking down ciphers far tougher than Cecil’s.”

He studied the pages. “This book is four hundred years old?”

“Every bit.”

He wanted to know something else and mustered the courage to ask, “I remember that day in the mall back in the summertime. How do you know my mom?”

“We were friends a long time ago. I knew her when she lived in Germany. When your dad was stationed there in the navy.”

He knew little about his father’s navy days. Just the big picture — a fighter pilot, stationed around the world, who became a JAG lawyer. There was a plastic bin in the basement at home with uniforms, caps, and photographs. He’d rummaged through it once. Maybe he should do that again?

“When we saw you at the mall, that was the first time you’d seen her since then?”

Antrim nodded. “In sixteen years. I moved on to other duty stations and they moved on, too. Never saw her again, until that day with you.”

He glanced down at the journal and its coded pages.

“Your mother ever talk about her time in Germany?” Antrim asked.

He’d already done the math. Sixteen years was before he was born. He wanted to ask more questions. Maybe Blake Antrim knew the man his mother had been involved with?

“All she said was that she and my dad had a rough time then. Both of them were seeing other people. You don’t know who my mom might have been seeing?”

Antrim studied him with an intense gaze.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

Twenty-seven

Malone looked up at Miss Mary. “I’ve never heard this story before.”

“It’s a tale that stayed close to the village of Bisley, until Bram Stoker discovered it. Maybe it is just a tale. But for centuries after Elizabeth I died, the annual May Day celebration in Bisley always included a young boy dressed in Elizabethan costume. Odd, wouldn’t you say, unless there was some truth there?”

He really did not know what to say.

“Don’t seem so shocked,” she said to him. “Imagine if it were true.”

He was doing just that, trying to see how that fact would be meaningful enough — four hundred years later — that the CIA had mounted an operation directed specifically toward it.

“When you think about it,” she said, “in the context of what is known about the first Elizabeth, it begins to make sense.”

He was already recalling everything he knew about the last Tudor monarch.

“She lived to be an old woman,” Miss Mary said, “yet never gave herself to a man. She knew her duty. To produce a male heir. She knew what her father went through to have a son. In her case, even a daughter would have sufficed. Yet she consciously chose not to have a child, and expressed that intent many times in public.”

One particularly noteworthy statement came to mind, where the queen said she would not marry, even were they to give her the King of Spain’s son or find any other great prince.

“We should talk about this more.”

She reached into one of her pockets and handed him a folded scrap of paper. “My sister is the expert on all things Elizabethan. She could be far more help to you. I spoke with her earlier and she was fascinated by what I told her. She said she would welcome your call in the morning.”

He accepted the offering.

“She lives in East Molesey.”

He’d pass the information on to Antrim. “Right now, I need Ian and that flash drive.”

“He’s upstairs. He told me you would most likely be along before the day was through.” She motioned. “Around the shelves, to the right.”

Some patrons left through the front door and a few more entered.

He grabbed Stoker’s book. “May I?” He noted the price on a slip of paper inserted within the pages. “Two hundred pounds. Pricey.”

“A bargain, actually. I’ve seen it for more.”

“You take American Express?”

She shook her head. “My gift from one bookseller to another. I’ll hold it for you behind the counter.”

He thanked her and headed upstairs.

His building in Copenhagen was also multistory. The ground floor housed the shop, the first and second were for storage of his overflow books, the top floor an apartment that, for the past year he’d called home. This place was similar except there were only three floors. He climbed to the top and found Ian inside a roomy flat.

“Why’d you run?” he asked.

The boy stood at a window, glancing out. “You have to see this.”

He stepped over and glanced down.

Two men stood across the street.

“They came a minute ago, dropped off by car.”

People hustled back and forth on the sidewalk, yet the duo never moved.

“They don’t look right,” Ian said.

He agreed.

The two men crossed the street, heading straight below.

Twenty-eight

Antrim had been waiting for an opening. Sure, this should be handled slowly and carefully, but he had to maximize the short amount of time he’d managed to snare. His only hope was that Gary Malone would demand more time. Thanks to the Georgia surveillance and wiretaps he had some idea what had happened between mother and son. But apparently, more significant face-to-face conversations had occurred for Gary to specifically ask about his mother’s sordid past.

“Who was my mother seeing?” Gary asked him. “She won’t tell me much.”

“Why is it so important?” He was hoping the boy would realize that he had to give in order to receive.

“It involves my dad.” Gary paused. “Actually it involves another dad. Or birth father. Whatever you call him. My mother had an affair and I was born.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know what to think. But she lied to me and my dad for a long time.”

He’d imagined this moment since that day in the mall when he first saw Gary. He’d been involved with a lot of women. But none had ever, to his knowledge, become pregnant. He’d actually thought the time for him to be a father had passed, but Pam Malone’s admission had changed his thinking. Now here he was with an opportunity — one Pam never would have provided him. Her bitter denials alone had been enough to spur him forward. Who the hell did she think she was? He almost smiled. No failure had occurred in this operation. Everything had played out perfectly.

“Come with me,” he said to Gary.

He led the boy back toward the office. The warehouse landlord thought this was a start-up operation for a manufacturing concern, Antrim part of the advance team. So far no one had questioned anything, nor interfered, the rent paid far in advance. A restroom jutted from one side of the office, its door opening into the warehouse. He stepped inside, switched on the light, and motioned for Gary to come close.

He pointed at the mirror. “Look at your eyes. What color are they?”

“Gray. They’ve always been that.”

“Your mother’s are blue and your dad’s are green. Look at mine.”

He watched as Gary focused on his irises.

“They’re gray,” the boy said.

He said nothing and allowed the moment to sink in.

And it did.

“You’re the man my mother was seeing?”

He nodded.

Shocked filled Gary’s face. “And you didn’t know, either?”

He shook his head. “Not until that day in the mall, when I saw you. I then went to your mother’s office and confronted her and she admitted it was true.”

“She never told me that.”

“I’m afraid she didn’t want either of us to know the truth.”

“How did you manage to find me and my dad?” Gary asked. “How did we get here?”

He couldn’t tell him the truth. That he’d been watching both Gary and his mother. That he’d arranged for Malone to escort Ian Dunne to London. So he simply said, “One of those lucky breaks in life.”

Of course, he also could not say that Norse and Devene worked for him and that Gary’s “capture” had been a ruse, a way not only for father and son to connect but for Gary and Cotton Malone to both feel grateful. Of course, his men were supposed to corral Ian Dunne, too. But when Dunne ultimately fled, he’d modified the plan as a way to occupy Malone.

“I’m your birth father,” he said to Gary.

Gary did not know what to say. He’d wrestled with the fact that there was another man responsible for his creation, wanting to know who that was, demanding from his mother that she tell him the truth.

Now here he was.

But was it real?

His doubts must have been evident because Antrim laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “There’s a simple way to be sure. We can do a DNA test.”

“Maybe we ought to.”

“I thought you might want to do that. I have some swabs in the office. Just a swish around your cheek and we can have it done. I know a lab here in town that can do the test fast.”

“It’s only going to say what we both know, right?”

Antrim nodded. “Your face. Your eyes. Your build. They’re all mine. And your mother admitted that it was true. But I don’t want there to be any doubt.”

He was ill prepared for this. He’d come to the conclusion that he would never know the identity of his birth father.

“What do we do now?” he asked Antrim.

“Get to know each other. Neither one of us had that opportunity before.”

“But what about my dad?”

“We tell him when he gets back.”

For some reason, the prospect of that conversation bothered him. He felt awkward. Uncomfortable. Two men. Both his father.

Only in different ways.

Again, Antrim sensed his anxiety. “Don’t worry. Cotton seems like a good guy. Maybe he’ll be relieved to know, too?”

Maybe so.

Antrim did his best to calm the boy’s fears, but he had no intention of telling Cotton Malone anything. Prior to this moment he hadn’t made any final decisions as to what would be done after he told Gary the truth.

He’d wanted to see the boy’s reaction.

Which had been good.

He doubted there’d be room for two dads in Gary’s life. That could become awkward. But why should there be? This boy was his. Not a drop of Malone blood flowed in his veins.

One dad was plenty enough.

His real dad.

So he made a decision.

Operation King’s Deception would end.

He’d be paid his five million pounds from the Daedalus Society.

But he’d also demand one other thing.

The death of Cotton Malone.

Twenty-nine

Malone bolted for the door, but stopped at the top of the stairs. Just like back in Copenhagen, the flights here right-angled downward, the only difference being that instead of three there were two landings. Ian was right behind him, but Malone turned and whispered, “Stay here.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But Miss Mary may be in trouble and I can’t worry about you, too.”

The boy seemed to understand. “Help her.”

He pointed. “Stay put.”

A wooden rail lined both sides of the stairway. He planted a hand on each and pivoted his weight upward, easing down to the landing. He repeated the process to the next and stared down the final flight of stairs at the ground floor, into the bookstore. Fifteen wooden steps were between him and there, any one of which would announce his presence. But before he could decide on what to do, a shadow appeared below.

Then a man.

Headed onto the stairs.

He retreated into the second-floor doorway and peered past the jamb, spotting one of the men from the street coming his way. He waited until the man was halfway up, then burst from his hiding place and, using the two handrails again as pivots, hoisted his body up and slammed the soles of his shoes into the man’s face. He released his grip and fell forward, feet pounding the oak steps, legs leaping to the ground as his target hit the floor and tumbled between a row of shelves. Groggy, the man tried to stand, but a fist to the jaw sent him back down. Malone quickly searched and found a 9mm automatic.

Gun ready, he crept to the end of the shelves.

Three more rows lay between him and the counter.

“Here,” a man’s voice said. “I’m waiting for you.”

His gaze darted to the front door, which was closed. Through its glass people could be seen milling back and forth on the dark sidewalk. Someone stopped and tried the locked knob, then walked off.

He leveled the weapon and allowed it to lead the way.

At the third row of shelves he stopped and peered past.

The second man held Miss Mary from behind, a gun to her right temple.

“Nice and easy,” the man said.

He kept his weapon aimed and ready. “The point of this?”

“The flash drive.”

Who was this guy? And how did he know to be here?

“I don’t have the flash drive,” he made clear.

He kept his gun aimed.

Just one opening, that’s all he’d need to take the bastard down.

“The kid has the drive,” the man said. “Where’s the kid?”

“How do you know that?”

“I want the drive.”

“Give it to him,” Miss Mary said.

No fear laced her words.

“Do you have it?” Malone asked her.

“In the metal box. Beneath the counter.”

News to him. But what he saw in the woman’s eyes gave him comfort. She wanted him to do it.

He crept toward the counter.

The man and his captive stood at the far end, on the outside. He stepped inside and reached below, finding a metal container. With his left hand, the right one still aiming the gun, he snapped open the lid to see pounds, pennies, and pence scattered inside, along with a flash drive, the same size and shape as the one he’d read earlier.

He retrieved it.

“Toss it.”

He did.

Ian had made his way down from the top floor, using the handrails just as Malone had done. He found the bottom of the stairs and, to his right, saw a man holding a gun to Miss Mary.

The sight of her in danger frightened him.

She was the only person in the world who’d ever showed him real kindness. Never asking or expecting anything, she simply cared. Her suggestion that he sleep in her store and keep an eye on things was just her way of making sure he was out of the cold. Neither one of them ever voiced the truth, but they were both aware. Earlier, he’d returned to the mews for the plastic bag because the two books were a link to her. Seeing them reminded him of this store, her soft voice, her gentle ways. If he was to ever have a mother, he hoped she would be like Miss Mary.

He heard Malone’s voice, then Miss Mary’s, both discussing the drive in a metal box.

He smiled.

She was good.

He watched as the man with the gun told Malone to toss it, then used the moment when the man caught the drive to slip a book from the nearest shelf.

If he could catch the man off guard, Malone could act.

He gripped the book, cocked his arm, and said, “Hey, you bugger.”

Malone heard Ian’s voice and saw a book fly through the air. The man with the gun raised an arm to deflect it. Malone seized the moment to re-level his weapon, but before he could fire, his target lunged left.

“Get down,” he yelled.

Miss Mary dropped to the floor.

Malone fired into the books, toward where the man had fled, careful with his aim.

Where was Ian?

He found the end of the first row of shelves and tried to spot any movement through the books toward the store’s far side. He spotted a shadow two rows over. He darted down the aisle, between the rows and the front windows, using the solid wooden ends for cover.

“Stay down,” he yelled again to Miss Mary and Ian.

At least he had the front door covered.

Then he remembered.

The stairs.

He heard footfalls pounding upward and dashed down an aisle toward the doorway that led to the upper floors. He approached with caution, keeping to one side. A quick glance past the jamb and he saw the man on the landing.

Two rounds pinged off the concrete floor a foot away.

Behind him, Miss Mary had retreated to the counter, seeking cover with Ian. Knowing they were okay, he made his move, firing a shot to clear the way, then rushing up the stairs.

He found the landing and hugged the wall beside the doorway leading into the second floor. The room beyond was empty, but a window at the far side was open. He spotted a fire escape, rushed over and glanced down, spotting the man fleeing down an dark alley behind the building.

He heard shots.

From below.

In the bookstore.

And glass shattering.

Then more gunfire.

Kathleen stared into any old books through one of its plate-glass windows, spotting an older woman and a young boy near the counter. To their right, amid the shelves, she saw a man coming to his feet. He bent down and lifted one pant leg to reveal a gun strapped to his leg. She reached beneath her coat for the weapon Mathews had given her and, at the same time, tried the knob to the front door.

Locked.

She kicked its wooden half, but the door held.

The man was now standing, gun in hand, advancing forward to the end of the shelves.

The woman and the boy were unaware.

She stepped back and braced her weapon.

The man saw her.

He hit the floor and she fired through the door’s glass half.

Shards crashed down.

People on the sidewalk scattered.

A woman screamed.

She searched for the man with the gun.

Gone.

Then he appeared, to her right, in another row of shelves, farther from the woman and the boy, but with a clear shot of her. She shifted left and fired again, through the opening her first round had made in the glass. The man was using the end of the shelving for cover, which seemed solid wood. His gun appeared and, as he fired, she dove to the sidewalk yelling, “Everyone get down.”

Most people had fled, some out into the street.

A few lay on the chilly pavement.

Three rounds came their way.

Others were approaching the store from behind her, seeing the commotion but unaware of what was happening.

A new surge of people crowded the sidewalk.

Somebody was going to get hurt.

Her attention returned to the store and she saw the man rushing out the door, into the crowd ahead of her.

She came to her feet and aimed.

But too many people were in the way.

Malone dashed back to the stairs and rushed down, stopping at the bottom. “Ian. Miss Mary.”

He heard people outside and realized that the glass in the door was gone.

“We’re here,” Miss Mary called out.

He darted toward the counter and saw that both were okay.

A new face stood ten feet away. A woman. She was maybe mid-thirties, short auburn hair, thin, attractive, wearing a beige overcoat. Her right hand held a gun, its barrel pointed to the floor.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“Kathleen Richards. SOCA agent. Here on official business.”

He’d worked with the Serious Organized Crime Agency while with Justice.

“Why are you here?”

“Actually, Mr. Malone, I was hoping you could answer that question.”