The Loch Ness Legacy

TWENTY-FOUR

When the RER C train pulled into the Chateau de Versailles station, it was already five in the afternoon. Rather than struggle through the clogged Paris traffic, Tyler decided that they’d reach the palace faster using rapid transit. Brielle had purchased a book on Versailles at the airport and buried her nose in it for the entire train ride.

Normally, Miles would have been happy for them to use a company jet for their air travel, but one was in Afghanistan and the other was undergoing maintenance. Instead, they took a late-night nonstop flight to Charles de Gaulle airport, while Alexa and Grant flew to London Heathrow. Upon landing, Tyler had gotten the message that the two of them were on their own train to Cambridge. He and Brielle stopped only to leave their bags at a hotel, where the concierge gave them complimentary tickets to Versailles.

The plan was simple. Tyler and Brielle would find the statue of Apollo and get the exact dimensions of his foot by taking a photograph of it next to a ruler. Tyler would then email the photo to Grant, who would print out the photo at the appropriate size and overlay it on the copy of Laroche’s note to get the next clue. Alexa would figure out what they were looking for in the library, and hopefully that would describe how to find the Loch Ness monster. He also had Miles divert two Gordian GhostMantas intended for a North Sea oil rig to Loch Ness.

Simple, but as Tyler went through the plan in his mind, it sounded ridiculous. When he’d presented Special Agent Harris with the idea, she felt the same way. She acknowledged that the Nazi notebook was valuable and might provide some insights for the toxicology teams working on an antidote in Washington, London, and Frankfurt, but there was no way she was going to ask French or British authorities to help in the search for a mythological creature. She said she had neither the time nor the resources to go on a wild goose chase.

Harris even thought Laroche might have gone to these lengths to divert attention away from his own involvement. If he was in on the plot with Dunham, she might have double-crossed him, leading him to concoct his wild story. However, they wouldn’t be able to get answers from him any time soon. Doctors said he had neglected to take his blood pressure medication with him into the vault, and because of the ensuing stroke and brain swelling, they had no idea when or if he’d ever wake up.

Under most any other circumstances, Tyler would have agreed with Harris and not even considered pursuing this path. He’d seen some unbelievable things in his life, but his innate nature as a skeptic made the whole thing hard to swallow.

This was one time, however, that his logical side was kicked to the curb. Other than Alexa’s three-second video, there was nothing concrete to suggest that something unknown to science was alive in Loch Ness, no matter how hard Zim and Dunham were trying to stop them. If that’s all he had, Tyler wouldn’t be in France now.

Instead, Tyler was here because he was clinging to hope. His best friend was dying. If having a shot at saving Grant meant believing in an outrageous story, he’d need to have a little faith. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

Tyler took a deep breath and focused himself on their work.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Tyler asked Brielle.

She looked up from her book. “Yes. The statue of the Baths of Apollo was originally in the Cave of Thetis, an indoor bathhouse. Now it’s in one of the twelve bosquets, or groves. They’re rectangular stands of trees with paths cut through them to clearings, statuary, and fountains. The statues will be roped off, so we’ll have to cross illicitly to get close enough for the photo.”

“We’ll have to wait a while until the grove is clear of tourists.”

“It may not be much of a problem. At this time of day, more people will be exiting than entering.”

The train lurched to a stop, and they had to jostle their way through the passengers waiting to get on. Brielle was right about people leaving; the station was jammed with tourists spent from their day at the palace.

They made their way through the station and turned right when they got outside. According to Brielle, it was a short walk to the chateau. No clouds were present to blot out the warm afternoon sun. A T-shirt and jeans were all Tyler needed, while Brielle wore cargo shorts and a loose-fitting top. They fit right in with the tourists.

Seeing so many couples and families returning from a day of sightseeing, holding hands and laughing, Tyler felt the urge to put his arm around Brielle’s shoulder. But considering the task at hand, it didn’t seem right.

“I haven’t been to Versailles in twenty years,” Brielle said. “Came here with my parents when I was in high school. It’s a magical place. Elegant. Inspiring. I always thought I’d return someday on a romantic holiday.”

Tyler smiled. “This doesn’t qualify?”

“I don’t know if that statement makes you a hopeless romantic or just hopeless. Have you been here before?”

“No. Karen always wanted to come here, but she died before it happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I guess we both thought we’d be here under different circumstances.”

Silence descended. Ever since Tyler plucked Brielle out of Lake Shannon, they’d been all business. Even the flight to Paris had consisted of little more than planning and sleep. After the Eiffel Tower incident, Tyler never thought he’d see Brielle again, let alone three days later. They’d said their final goodbyes and gone their separate ways at the hotel expecting that would be the end of it. It was like sleeping with someone during a spring break fling and then returning to college to find out your one-night stand lived in the same dorm.

“I went out with a gentile once,” Brielle said. “Dated, I mean. So I’ve been down that road before. It doesn’t end well.”

“For whom?”

“For either of us. No sense in trying again, although it does seem like someone is determined to put us together.” She turned to him. “Do you believe in fate?”

Tyler shook his head. “I like having a little more control over my life than that.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Living in the moment. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, you never know when your time is up.”

“You mean, dying is just bad luck?”

“If you want to call it that. But I like to think of luck as the place where preparation meets opportunity.”

Brielle chuckled at that. “And what an opportunity we have before us now. I’m back at Versailles because of a quest to find Nessie so that some boffin in a lab can extract an antitoxin to a Nazi superweapon.”

“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds absurd. Are you buying into Laroche’s letter?”

“Dunham thinks the Loch Ness monster is important, so there must be something to it. Whether that means we find Nessie or something else, I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out together.”

They rounded the corner and there ahead of them loomed one of the largest residences ever built, the chateau of Versailles. At over 700,000 square feet, it is fourteen times the size of Bill Gates’ enormous mansion in Seattle. The gardens are even larger, encompassing two thousand acres.

As they approached, passing a statue of Louis XIV astride a horse, Tyler couldn’t take his eyes from the ornate stone and brick palace that encircled a gigantic cobbled courtyard. The façade was lavishly appointed with sculptures and adorned with gold filigree along the eaves of the slate roofs. Even the gate and fencing were gilt. Clearly Laroche had borrowed many of Versailles’s themes when designing his own estate.

Even at this late hour, a pack of visitors waited in line to get into the palace.

“We don’t have to get in line because we’re not going inside,” Brielle said, and then nodded to the left. “The entrance to the gardens is over here.”

They went through an alcove and presented their tickets. On weekdays the gardens were accessible for free, but on weekends there was a fee because tourists were treated to the Grandes Eaux, the only days the fountains were in operation.

They emerged into the rear courtyard, which was perhaps even more spectacular than the front. Opulent gardens and forests stretched as far as Tyler could see. The terrace’s gravel and sand hardpan, split by two huge pools, gave way to steps that led down to a jetting fountain. Past the fountain was a promenade that extended along a manicured lawn to another fountain and then the Grand Canal. Nearly a mile long and bisected by an equally long basin, the wide pool was dotted with rowboats for hire.

Tyler wasn’t prepared for the number of vehicles that were flitting about the gardens. In addition to the smattering of utility carts used by the gardeners, trams were shuttling people between the main palace, the Grand Trianon where the king kept his private residence, and the Petit Trianon, where Marie Antoinette once lived. Rental golf carts whizzed by, and in the distance he could see people on bicycles.

A Mozart concerto lilted from hidden speakers to accompany the waterworks. If it weren’t for the modern clothes and vehicles, Tyler might have thought they’d been transported back to the eighteenth century.

Brielle consulted a map in her book. She looked up and pointed at a grove to the right. “The entrance should be on the other side.”

As they went around the pools, Tyler looked up to see people on the second floor of the palace staring down at the view.

“That’s the Hall of Mirrors.”

“I’ve heard about it,” Tyler said. “I’d like to see it someday.”

“Maybe someday I’ll bring you back.” Brielle immediately looked away, as if she regretted saying it, and Tyler pretended not to hear her.

They got to a path between the groves, and as soon as they entered, the clamor from the hordes of tourists faded. The closest person was a quarter-mile down the pathway. To be isolated so quickly was surprising, but Tyler supposed that few people explored off the main paths. Only the sound of the music remained.

He and Brielle walked between the groves, which were blocked by green fencing to discourage adventurous visitors from diving into the thick foliage. It didn’t stop a calico cat from squeezing out through a small break in the fencing. The cat must have been startled by Tyler’s footsteps because it darted back into the grove through the same hole.

“The king’s pets?” Tyler asked.

“There are neighborhoods all around the park. It’s probably looking for a tasty mouse.” After a minute more of walking, Brielle said, “It should be the next left.”

At the turn, they stopped abruptly. A closed iron gate blocked their path, marked with a sign: “Le Bosquet des Bains d’Apollon est fermé.” The English translation was below: “The Grove of Apollo’s Baths is closed.”

“Did your book say anything about this?” Tyler asked.

“No. They must be doing maintenance.”

Tyler examined the gate, seven feet high and topped with short spikes. “Ready for a little breaking and entering?”

Brielle looked both ways. “We’ll be in and out in five minutes. No one will ever know.”

“Assuming no one’s working in there.”

“On a Saturday? Come on.”

She put her foot on the cross bar and started climbing.

Lyle Ponder watched his targets climb over the gate to the Baths of Apollo and took out his phone. Norm Lonegan waited behind him.

The call was answered on the first ring.

“Yeah?” Zim said.

“They just went into a closed area.”

“You sure it’s them?”

“Positive.”

“Think you can get them without being seen?”

“No problem,” Ponder said, as he felt for the small gun in his jacket pocket. He had been watching for Locke and Cohen in case they showed up and spotted them from his observation point outside the main gate. He was relieved to see them head straight for the gardens; if they had gone into the palace unexpectedly, he and Lonegan wouldn’t have been able to pass through the metal detectors.

“Then do it,” Zim said. “By the time the police figure out where the gunshots came from, they’ll have bigger things to worry about.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Marlo Dunham sat in a black Range Rover outside the University of Cambridge main library. If Locke or any of his group came, it would be to this building. Most likely it would be Grant Westfield and Alexa Locke, as Zim had just called to tell her that Tyler and Brielle Cohen had been sighted at Versailles. Zim was prepared to destroy the Apollo statue, knowing exactly where to place the explosive because of the three-dimensional computer rendering Laroche had acquired so that he could build a duplicate fountain on his estate.

Dunham sat in the passenger seat next to a long-haired man whose name wasn’t important enough to remember. Two more men were behind her.

Their ability to lay in wait for their prey was thanks to Laroche himself. When he escaped from his room, he must have realized he couldn’t leave the house without setting off the alarm and alerting her, but he had enough time to write his note on a computer and build his little code. After he locked himself away in the vault, Dunham found the files that Laroche thought he’d trashed, making it easy to reconstruct them.

The guns she and the men were carrying had been supplied by local white supremacist contacts who had smuggled them in from Italy. The underground network of neo-Nazis made it surprisingly easy to get weapons. It took money, but she had plenty.

If all she’d wanted to do was retire to a life on the beach, she could have done it months ago with the cash she’d siphoned from Laroche’s businesses. The fool had put so much trust in her that she transferred the money right under his nose, doctoring the ledgers on the computers to which she had unfettered access.

But retirement alone wasn’t going to satisfy her. Not until she did something to earn it. If Ken had only known how ungrateful the people in Gaza could be, if he’d known how ruthless the Israelis were, he wouldn’t have taken her and their unborn child to such a hellhole. He’d want her to settle the dispute once and for all, and that’s exactly what she planned to do. The Muslim nations would finally have their rationale for the Israeli annihilation they craved.

The key to making that happen was in allowing the Altwaffe poison to run its course. Once the Muslim leaders were dead, there would be no turning back, no negotiations, no peace. It would be a war that would live in infamy. She knew the Israeli government would take out their enemies’ leaders if they only had the balls, so Dunham was letting them borrow hers.

Now she had to stop the Lockes from destroying her dream. She knew they would be looking for a book inside the library, but because she was missing the puzzle piece about Alexa’s favorite animal, she couldn’t decipher what book they were looking for. That meant letting them find the book, and then killing them here in Cambridge. If Zim didn’t take care of business at Versailles, she’d take back the balls she’d let him borrow and finish the job for him.

Geoffrey Ashburn, an affable man in his fifties with white hair and a shaggy beard, puttered behind a bus while continuing his ongoing narration, infuriating Grant with his sluggish pace. When Ashburn heard that Alexa was a biologist visiting the library to get information about Charles Darwin, the drive from the Cambridge train station became a tour of landmarks dedicated to showing them the university with an entire college named after the legendary scientist. Grant fumed silently in the back seat, his back stiffening up and his head pounding from the blood pressure that had skyrocketed during the trip over.

Grant wanted to go directly to the library, but Ashburn insisted on showing them his city first. The place was undeniably charming with tea rooms and shops lining narrow alleys, stately stone buildings, and green lawns bordering a narrow river carrying visitors on flat boats called punts that were pushed along with poles by men standing on the back. They reminded Grant of Venetian gondoliers, except these men were dressed in casual tees instead of black hats and striped shirts.

Gordian provided Ashburn, a mechanical engineering professor, with a good portion of the funding for his research into high-energy storage batteries to power low-emission vehicles, an offshoot of the university’s famed solar racing team. Grant knew that he and Alexa wouldn’t be given access to the library’s oldest documents without a sponsor, so he’d let Ashburn go on as long as it took to get the information from Tyler at Versailles.

“As I’m sure you are aware,” Ashburn said, “Cambridge is the fourth oldest university in the world, after the universities of Bologna, Paris, and to our continued chagrin, Oxford. I find it refreshing to know we have some stability in this world. When I think of that awful attack at the Eiffel Tower or those vandals who spray-painted walls inside Windsor Castle to protest austerity measures last week, it’s comforting to know that our institutions can stand the test of time. Just a few years ago, Cambridge celebrated the eight hundredth anniversary of its founding.”

“That is incredible, Professor,” said Alexa, who was sitting in the passenger seat. She patted Ashburn’s arm to punctuate her amazement. She sure knew how to butter up someone, but Grant felt a twinge of jealousy. Not because he thought she might be flirting with the professor, but because now he wasn’t sure if she had been flirting with him.

Grant yawned. Insomnia wasn’t typically a problem for him. He could sleep almost anywhere. During the flight, Alexa had nestled against his shoulder as she slept, but Grant couldn’t get more than a few winks. It left him plenty of time to ponder the progression of the chemical weapon coursing through his system, noting the progressive deterioration of his body. His inability to do anything about it was maddening.

“You say you’re a Darwin expert, Dr. Locke?” Ashburn asked.

“Please, it’s Alexa. Well, all biologists are well-versed in his theories, but my expertise is in endangered species.”

“Oh, really. What research brings you to our hallowed halls?”

Alexa flicked her eyes at Grant, who shrugged in response.

“I’m, uh, investigating his time in Scotland.”

“At the University of Edinburgh or his trip to Glen Roy?”

Alexa squirmed in her seat. She obviously hadn’t been expecting probing questions. “You know Darwin that well?”

“I’m fascinated by all of the geniuses who have graced our campus. Darwin. Sir Isaac Newton. Watson and Crick. Charles Babbage. I hope to stand among them someday. Perhaps I’ll even have a building named after me like we did for Stephen Hawking. Speaking of our facilities, when you are finished at the library, I insist on showing you our laboratory, Mr. Westfield. The students would love to show off their progress.”

“Please call me Grant,” he said through gritted teeth. “And yes, I’d love to.” What else could he say? The man knew their train schedule.

“And do call me Geoffrey. In fact, we’re going to be putting the experimental vehicles through their paces in a race tonight if you’d like to stay and watch, though I don’t want to press you. There’s a track right outside of town.”

“We’ll see.”

“Brilliant. Now is it Darwin’s exploration of Glen Roy that you’re interested in, Dr. Locke?”

“What happened at Glen Roy?” Grant asked. When he saw the questioning look from Ashburn, Grant added, “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m only along for the ride.”

Ashburn looked from Alexa to Grant and said, “Oh, I see. I see.”

“Yes, Grant’s my boy toy. He keeps me company on these research trips.”

Grant gaped at Alexa, and she winked back.

Ashburn cleared his throat. “I see.”

“We’re just friends,” Grant snapped. When he saw Ashburn’s surprised reaction and Alexa’s hurt look, he took a breath and calmed himself. “I mean, her brother is Gordian’s chief of special operations, Tyler Locke.”

“Of course! Alexa Locke. I should have made the connection. Please give him my regards.”

“I will,” Grant said. “Now tell us about Glen Roy.” If Darwin’s visit to Scotland could support the idea that he had interacted with the Loch Ness monster, Grant wanted to hear it.

“After Darwin went around the world on the Beagle,” Alexa said, “he spent two years analyzing his data. Remember that this was still more than twenty years before he wrote On the Origin of Species. You’d think his next destination would be to the jungles of the Congo or the Sahara Desert. Instead, he went to the Scottish Highlands to develop a geological theory about why three parallel shelves ran the length of Glen Roy. Darwin spent a few weeks there gathering data and returned with the theory that the valley had actually been an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, and the parallel shelves were formed as the sea level subsided when the land was thrust upward.”

“Of course,” Ashburn said, “it turned out to be the biggest mistake of his scientific career.”

“Why?” Grant asked.

Alexa turned to face him. “Because Darwin didn’t know that glaciers had blocked the ends of the valley, causing water levels to rise and fall over the millennia. Darwin’s theory had been completely wrong and a source of some embarrassment for him.”

Ashburn pulled into a parking spot in front of a huge brick building with an imposing central tower. They exited the car and walked toward the front entrance.

“I’ll take you inside and get you set up with the librarians,” Ashburn said.

“Where exactly is Glen Roy?” Grant asked.

“It’s to the southeast of Loch Ness.”

“Do you think the same thing could have happened to Loch Ness? That the glaciers dammed it up?”

“It’s a possibility,” Alexa said. “That would cause it to be isolated from the open ocean. If his exploration found any unusual creatures up there, Darwin might have thought it would confirm or contradict his evolutionary theory.”

“Yes, perhaps Darwin was searching for Nessie’s ancestors,” Ashburn said with a guffaw.

Alexa and Grant looked at each other, then Grant halfheartedly laughed along with him, and Alexa joined in.

“That would be funny,” Grant said. “Darwin looking for the Loch Ness monster? Crazy.”

Ashburn held the door for them. “I don’t mean to make light of your research, Dr. Locke. I’m sure it’s focusing on something far more serious than mythical beasts.”

As they went inside, Ashburn didn’t seem to notice that he was the only one laughing.

TWENTY-SIX

The fragrance of the garden’s floral bounty was overpowered by the stink of stagnant water. As she and Tyler entered the clearing in the center of the grove, Brielle could see that this fountain hadn’t been in operation for months, and the pond at the front of the statuary display was green with algae.

Otherwise, the exhibit was largely as she remembered during her last visit. The same three statues from Laroche’s backyard were featured within the backdrop of a stone grotto designed like cave openings. When it was in service, water cascaded down the wide pedestal distressed to look as if it were a craggy rock face.

The statues to the right and left depicted grooms attending to Apollo’s steeds, while the center marble composition portrayed the daily ritual of nymphs bathing the god. One was in the act of washing his right foot, the same that was missing back in Seattle. Scaffolding had been erected around the central statue. Brielle could see evidence of the moss-covered façade being scrubbed clean, and a bucket dangled from a rope attached to the top of the scaffold.

She and Tyler were alone in the grove. He extracted his phone and a tape measure from his pocket.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

They edged around the pond and scrambled up to the statue.

When they were next to it, Brielle could see how intricate the carving was. Even the portion of the statue not visible from the front was crafted to the last detail.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?”

“This whole place is amazing. I can see why Laroche is proud of his heritage. Here. Hold this next to the foot.”

Tyler gave her the measuring tape. She unfurled it, knelt, and laid it lengthwise along the outer part of the sole.

“Perfect.” Tyler got behind her and raised the phone, snapping several photos. “Got ’em.”

Brielle stood and turned to leave, but Tyler continued looking at the foot.

“What’s wrong?”

“The dimensions seem off. Hand me the copy of Laroche’s drawing.”

She dug the sheet from her pocket and unfolded it before giving it to Tyler. He placed it beneath the extended foot.

“What were the chromosome numbers again for the polar bear and harp seal?” he asked.

She checked the notes on her phone. “Seventy-four and thirty-two. Why?”

“Because they don’t line up. Look.”

She bent over and saw that the dot next to seventy-four was aligned with the big toe, but the dot by thirty-two was nowhere near the little toe. She frowned at Tyler, who looked as puzzled as she was.

“We’ve been had,” Tyler said. “Laroche did lead us on a wild goose chase.”

“Do you really think he’d go to all that trouble?”

“If he wanted us to spin our wheels on this instead of tracking down the Loch Ness monster some other way he would. The note very specifically said ‘the footstep of the Sun King’s Apollo.’ Then he chopped off the foot of his version of this statue. Unless there’s another Apollo around here, he’s pulled one over on us.”

Tyler’s words jarred Brielle’s memory. “Bugger,” she said, and snatched the book on Versailles from her pocket.

“What?”

“There is another statue of Apollo. I was so fixated on this one that I didn’t even consider it.” She flipped through the pages until she found it.

The image showed a bronze figure seated on a chariot being drawn by four horses through a pool of water. Fish and horn-blowing tritons surrounded the bucking stallions. The caption read, “The Fountain of Apollo.”

“Laroche claimed he was being held prisoner and feared that Dunham would figure out a way to open the vault,” Brielle said. “Perhaps this was another way to throw her off, to make sure she didn’t decipher his code.”

“We’ll only know if we can see the dimensions of his foot. Where is it?”

“Straight in front of the Grand Canal.”

“It looks like the only way to see the foot directly from above is to climb into the fountain.”

Brielle shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen? They throw us out?”

“Or arrest us for trespassing.”

“I’ll think of a distraction.”

Tyler smiled. “Maybe you could fall in.”

“Ah, another romantic dream of mine fulfilled. Getting dunked in a fountain at Versailles.”

Brielle turned to climb back down to the clearing when Tyler said, “Huh. The cat got spooked again.” Before she could see what he meant, he grabbed her arm and yanked her off her feet, dragging her behind the statue. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework.

“Bloody hell!” she yelled.

“Zim’s men,” Tyler said, as he crouched back to back with Apollo. “They must have seen us enter.”

“How did they know we were coming here?”

“I’m not sure, but our feline friend gave that guy away. He must have been setting up to ambush us on the way out.”

“How many men?”

“Can’t tell.”

“They’ve got us pinned,” Brielle said.

“And it’s only a matter of time before they can get into position for a kill shot.”

“Any ideas?”

He looked around the cave, his gaze settling on the bucket, then following the rope up to the top of the scaffold.

“You’re not thinking of climbing that?” Brielle said. “Those pistols may not have much accuracy at that range, but they’ll pick us off eventually.”

“I was thinking more of a Tarzan escape.” He untied the rope from the bucket. “If we get some momentum, the trajectory should take us to the other side of the scaffold, and we can duck into the woods. Once we’re out of the grove and into the open, they can’t run around with guns drawn.”

“Are you serious?”

“Unless you have a Smith and Wesson tucked in your shorts, I think this gun battle is a bit one-sided.”

Brielle almost suggested they call the police, but the next round of bullet impacts made the notion absurd. They’d be dead before anyone arrived.

“I’m in favor of not dying,” she said. “Are you sure the scaffold will hold our weight?”

“No.”

“All right then.”

He took the rope in hand and wrapped it around his wrist.

Brielle saw that there was no way for her to grab it as well. “Wait a minute—”

“Climb on.” He knelt so that his back was to her.

“You are deranged.”

“I can handle it. You’re pretty light.”

“Pretty light?”

She peeked through the arms of Apollo. One of the men was running to a flanking position. The other one fired. More rounds pinged off the stones.

“Very light!” Tyler shouted. “Get on!”

Brielle climbed on his back. “Ready!”

Tyler burst out of his crouch and dashed forward until the rope went taut. Brielle felt the heat of the bullets as they zinged past her. Tyler launched himself off the pedestal and the rope swung them around, the scaffold teetering on two of its legs. If it gave out or tipped over, they’d be thrown into the pond, where they’d be at the mercy of Zim’s men.

The scaffolding held. They swung in a wide arc over the water and toward the side statue.

“When we land, keep going!” Tyler shouted.

The rope completed its arc, and his feet came down on the pedestal only a few yards from the trees. Brielle dropped and had her legs moving as soon as she touched the ground. They dived into the woods, bullets clipping branches and leaves behind them.

They didn’t stop until they reached the outer fence. Tyler went first and heaved her over with him. They landed on the path in front of an elderly couple who gaped at them in astonishment.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est…” said the woman.

“Bonjour,” Tyler said, dusting the dirt from his jeans. He continued with his fractured French. “Ou est les toilettes, s’il vous plait?”

The man mutely pointed behind him at the chateau.

Tyler grabbed Brielle’s hand and ran in the opposite direction with her in tow. The couple called out that they were going the wrong way.

Brielle sprinted beside him. “Your first thought was to ask where the bathroom is?”

“It’s the only French I know. And I do have to go at some point. But we need to get to the fountain first.”

Two gendarmes darted around the corner. Brielle put on her best shrieking act and told them in French that two men were shooting guns in the Bains d’Apollon. One of the policeman got on his radio to call it in while the other drew his sidearm and approached the section of woods from which they’d emerged.

Tyler and Brielle kept running. She looked over her shoulder and saw one of the gunmen come over the fence right into the arms of the waiting policemen. The second man, his blond hair rumpled and dirty and his jacket torn, fell back over the fence but dropped his weapon on the path. One of the policemen climbed the fence to pursue him.

“Well,” Brielle said, “you’ve got your distraction.”

They jogged on, turning at the next corner. Just as they reached the end of the path that spilled into the main promenade, the blond gunman leaped over the fence in front of them and took off toward the Grand Canal, not noticing Tyler and Brielle in his haste. She expected the gendarme to appear as well, but there was no sign of him. She guessed that he’d lost sight of his prey.

When they entered the promenade, Brielle saw the Apollo Fountain a few hundred yards ahead spewing water from a dozen spots and showering the entire statue in a fine mist. The tourists seemed more curious than afraid about what was happening, possibly because the gunshots had been muffled and no one had seen anyone shooting. The gunman raced away, but she had no idea where he thought he was going.

A thrum droned from the same direction. Sunlight glinted off a silver plane flying low. Too low, as if the pilot were going to crash. Brielle blinked twice before she realized that it wasn’t an accident about to happen.

A float plane was coming in for a landing on the Grand Canal.

Passengers in their boats frantically paddled to get out of the way of the aircraft, which settled onto the smooth pool. It pivoted at the end of the canal, and the passenger door opened.

She and Tyler skidded to a halt. Standing there on the pontoon like a king surveying his realm was a grinning Victor Zim.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Tyler was astounded to see Zim hop off the pontoon and run over to the fountain.

“What’s he doing?” Brielle asked.

“Maybe the same thing we are,” Tyler replied. “I think it confirms your theory that the fountain is our target.”

An electric utility cart driven by a gardener pulled up next to them from a cross path. The gardener got out and spoke on his radio as he stared at the plane idling in the canal. Tyler nodded toward the cart, and Brielle hopped in. Tyler got in the driver’s seat and floored the accelerator as the gardener cursed at them and gave a half-hearted chase before giving up.

Tyler kept his eyes on Zim, who waded out into the pool. Tourists were pointing and taking photos of him walking into the mist, but he didn’t seem to care. He got to the center where Apollo sat on his chariot and bent over. It looked like he had something in his hand, possibly taking a photo like Tyler was planning to do.

“I’ll take Zim,” Tyler said. “You get the photo and send it to Grant. Who knows how long we’ll have before the entire place is swarming with cops.”

As if in response, the music abruptly stopped, and a voice replaced it, speaking first in French and then English.

An incident at Versailles requires evacuation. Please go to the nearest exit.

Many of the tourists simply ignored the plea and kept watching the events unfolding.

Zim finished his task and waded back toward the canal. By this time the blond gunman was at the float plane and climbed aboard.

The cart reached the front of the fountain, and Brielle jumped out and into the water. Tyler drove around, reaching the rear of the fountain as Zim pulled himself out. Tyler aimed the cart at Zim, hoping to run him down, but Zim saw him at the last moment and sidestepped the speeding vehicle.

As he passed, Tyler reached with one arm and grabbed a handful of Zim’s shirt, pulling Tyler out of the cart and both of them to the ground.

Zim reached into his jacket and drew a pistol. Tyler dived for his hand and deflected it before Zim could get a bead on Tyler’s head. The gun went off, and now tourists started running and screaming.

Tyler dug his fingers into Zim’s wrist tendons as he wrenched it sideways. The pistol went flying and slid under the cart.

“You’re a dead man, Locke,” Zim hissed. He backhanded Tyler in the temple, setting off a cacophony of bells in his head. Tyler shook it off and elbowed Zim in the face, connecting with his eye socket.

He had the upper hand until Zim punched Tyler in his healing bicep. Tyler cried out in pain and rolled off him. Zim jumped to his feet and attempted to deliver the final blow by stomping on Tyler’s head, but he rolled again, the foot missing his head by no more than an inch. It was so close that water from Zim’s boot sprayed Tyler in the face.

“Come on!” came a shout from the plane. Zim looked around, and Tyler saw policemen racing down from the palace.

“I’ll finish you next time,” Zim said as he ran off.

Brielle ran up and knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”

Tyler nodded. She thrust something at him. “I found this next to the foot of Apollo. Can you disarm it?”

He could make out a red timer counting down inside a sandwich-sized plastic baggie. It was mounted on a small block of C4 plastic explosive.

They had two minutes.

At a party once, an annoying acquaintance found out that Tyler had disposed of bombs and complained about movies, asking him why they always showed bombs with a convenient red LED timer counting down.

“If I put a bomb in your car and activated it,” Tyler had replied, “I’d want to know when it was going off.” That shut the guy up.

Disarming a bomb, however, wasn’t a simple matter. Unless you had time to examine the device so you knew exactly what you were dealing with, cutting a wire was inviting a premature boom.

The goal now was finding somewhere to place the bomb so that it wouldn’t harm anyone when it went off. Tyler saw Zim climbing onto the plane’s pontoon and had a brainstorm.

There was a nylon rope in the back of the utility cart, the kind used to cordon off areas that the gardener was working on. Tyler took one end of it.

“Tie the other end to the cart,” he instructed Brielle as he put the top of the baggie between his teeth and ran for the plane. If he couldn’t put the bomb on the plane, he could at least keep it from taking off.

Zim had already closed the door, and the plane’s engine revved up. If it got any speed, Tyler wouldn’t be able to catch it by swimming.

The plane turned and Tyler hurtled off the edge of the canal. He landed on the pontoon and promptly slipped off. With his single free hand, he grasped the rear strut connecting the pontoon to the fuselage. He pulled himself up so that he was straddling the pontoon like a saddle.

Using two half-hitches, he knotted the rope to the strut. He looked back and saw that Brielle had tied the other end to the frame of the cart.

With all of the boats and passengers now evacuated from the canal, it was wide open. The plane roared as it attempted to take off, and the rope became taut. The extra weight was enough to curb the aircraft’s acceleration, and Tyler looked for a spot to tuck the bomb in the fuselage. He saw a small access panel toward the rear and stood to open it but was pitched backward and nearly fell off when the plane began to move forward again. The pilot had compensated for the drag, and the utility cart was now rolling toward the canal.

Brielle got in and hit the brakes, but the cart was already on the grass. The tires bit but then slid along the slick surface. The back tires went off the edge, and the cart tumbled into the water with Brielle still inside.

The cart was slowing the plane so that it couldn’t take off, but Brielle was trapped as the cart was dragged through the water. If he didn’t cut the rope, she might drown before he could free her.

Tyler didn’t need to slow the plane any more. The bomb would take care of Zim. He flicked open his Leatherman tool’s knife and sliced through the rope. He used the blade to pry the access panel open and took the bomb from his teeth.

Thirty seconds left. Perfect.

He put the tool away to jam the bomb in the cubby hole, but he almost dropped the baggie when he was kicked in the leg. Tyler collapsed to the pontoon and saw the blond gunman prepare for another blow.

Tyler leaned forward and grabbed the man’s jacket before he could follow through on the kick. He realized he wouldn’t be able to hide the explosive in the access panel now. But he had a better idea. While he had a hold of the coat, Tyler pushed upward against the guy’s chin and surreptitiously slipped the bomb into the side pocket. The man shoved him back, causing Tyler’s foot to slip off the pontoon. He fell into the water and came up to see the unwitting bomb carrier smiling before he climbed back into the plane.

Tyler stood in the shallow pool with his shoulders above the surface and waved goodbye. He counted the seconds down. There couldn’t be more than five left.

The plane rose from the water five hundred yards down the canal. Just as it did so, the passenger door flew open, and the gunman tumbled out of the plane, pushed by Zim’s boot. The door closed, and the man somersaulted into the water with a splash as the plane banked hard.

A geyser of water erupted from the canal with an ear-splitting crack. The plane zoomed away low over the trees.

Tyler waded back to Brielle, who was already out of the water. She extended a hand and helped him out.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“Yes, but my plan didn’t work. Either Zim or his man must have noticed the wet bomb soaking the guy’s pocket, and Zim threw him out. How about you?”

“Fine. I got the photo off to Grant before I saw the bomb.”

“We need to warn him that they’re on to us.”

“I don’t think my phone’s any use now.”

“Mine’s soaked, too.”

Two gendarmes ran up to them with guns drawn. Tyler didn’t have to guess what they were yelling. He put his hands up, and Brielle did the same.

Tyler leaned over to her. “It’s good Minister Fournier owes us a favor. Who knew we’d be calling it in so soon?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Once they had their library cards, Professor Ashburn left Alexa and Grant alone and went back to his lab, telling them to call when they were ready to leave. Although they now had access to the library, they wouldn’t be able to check anything out without him present.

Alexa was happy that she and Grant were alone again. She enjoyed spending time with him and making him uncomfortable. She’d always found him attractive, and her new self-confidence in her body made the teasing even more fun. But she’d reined it in when she saw that he was crabby and a little haggard looking.

Shortly after Ashburn took off, Alexa was surprised to see the texted photo from Brielle because the foot next to a ruler was bronze, not the marble she was expecting. While Grant adjusted the size of the photo on a borrowed computer, Alexa leaned in next to him.

“Tyler’s not answering,” she said.

Grant fidgeted in his seat, as if he couldn’t find a comfortable position, but he kept his focus on the screen. “From the look of the photo, Brielle was in the middle of a fountain when it was taken. Maybe his phone got wet and shorted out.”

“Still, it bothers me.”

“Don’t worry about Tyler. He can handle himself.”

“You’ve been through a lot together, haven’t you? He’s told me a bit about his adventures with you, but I get the feeling he’s leaving out the good parts in some brotherly urge not to scare me.”

“I don’t know if they could be called the good parts. He does what he needs to get the job done, and he always puts others first. When things get hairy, he’s the guy you want on your side.”

“Of that I’m sure,” Alexa said. “I may not have gone through what you have with him, but I’ve known him a lot longer. He’s always stood up for people. I remember one time when he took me to a car race — you know how into racing he is. Since I made him ride horses, much to his regret, Tyler got to introduce me to his passion. I was fourteen and he was sixteen. We were walking through the concourse at the race track, and two older teens started harassing me. Tyler told them to back off, and he received a punch in the nose for his efforts. He got right back up off the ground and went at them until track security arrived and took the boys away for beating him up.”

“Sounds like the Tyler I know,” Grant said.

“Except now he looks the part. He wasn’t always the man’s man that he seems to have become during his time in the military. He was as skinny as a flagpole in high school.”

Grant finally took his attention from the screen. “You’re kidding.”

“You didn’t know?”

“We’ve never whipped out his old photo albums from childhood.”

“Oh, yeah. He couldn’t even do a push-up. He didn’t build any muscle until he reached his full height in college. His metabolism was through the roof. I was so jealous.”

“Why?”

“Because he got all the good genes. Smart, tall, good-looking in a geeky way, the ability to gorge himself on Big Macs without gaining an ounce. I’ve always been pudgy.”

“You’re more like him than you think, Doctor Locke. And you definitely aren’t pudgy any more. You look…very fit.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” She rubbed his arm, and he turned away. “Thanks, but it required two-hour workouts and a steady diet of cottage cheese and rice cakes to get rid of the fluff.”

“Well, it worked.” He pursed his lips as if considering his next line, then said, “Listen, I’m sorry I barked at you earlier. That wasn’t called for.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You didn’t. I’m just…not myself right now.”

Alexa stared at Grant as he went back to resizing the photograph. “We should go out when we get back.”

The mouse stopped moving, and Grant sighed, with more dejection than exasperation. “Alexa, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why? Because Tyler’s my brother?”

“No, because he’s my best friend.”

“Then we won’t tell him.”

“That’s an even worse idea.” The mouse started moving again.

“Oh, come on. The guys I meet in university biology departments or at conferences are so dull or gay or married or dorky or insecure. I know you like me. You may have been a good pro wrestler, but you’re a terrible actor.”

“There’s no point, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“We…we don’t have time.”

“I don’t mean this minute. I’m talking about when this whole business with Loch Ness is over.”

Grant shook his head. “Believe me, Alexa, you’ve set your sights on the wrong guy.” He hit PRINT, and a page spooled into the printer.

“I don’t know,” Alexa said. “I have pretty good aim.” She grabbed Grant by the cheeks and pulled him to her, kissing him softly on the lips. At first, he kissed back but then drew away.

“Alexa.” He hesitated. “Ask me again next week.”

She smiled and winked at him. “I knew I could be convincing. Now let’s find us a manuscript.”

She took the printout from the tray and laid a white sheet of paper over it, tracing the outline of the bronze foot. When she was done, she laid Laroche’s numbered sheet over that. The big and little toes were perfectly aligned with the chromosome numbers for harp seal and polar bear.

Alexa circled all the numbers and letters that touched the outline. She wrote them out in order starting with the big toe and going clockwise starting at the three as Laroche instructed.

3 74 c 91 32 5 6

“Type this into the catalogue,” Alexa said.

When the computer returned no results, Grant said, “Are you sure that’s the number?”

“Positive. No other letters or numbers come close to the outline of Apollo’s foot.”

“Well, nothing in the library matches it.”

She peered at the screen. “If this is a catalogue number, it looks like the last set of digits is too long. Let’s try truncating it.”

“How?”

“Try 374.c.9.13.”

Grant typed it in. Still no result. He tried a few more combinations. 374.c.91.325. 374.c.9.1. It wasn’t until he input 374.c.91.3 that they got a title.

Practical Taxidermy: The preparation, stuffing, and mounting of animals for museums and travelers by Henry Bosworth, pub. 1935.

“Taxidermy?” Grant huffed. “Laroche sent us to find a book on stuffing animals? Does he think Nessie is mounted on someone’s wall?”

Alexa jotted the number on a note card. “Let’s find out.”

They made their way up to the fifth floor and found the book in the stacks. The cover had a picture of a rhino on display in an exhibit with a child pointing it out to his father.

“What are we looking for?” Grant asked in a low voice.

“There were three digits left over from what we used in the catalogue identifier. Two, five, and six. I think that’s a page number.”

She flipped the book to page 256. The header atop the page read, Taxidermy Through History. The section was labeled John Edmonstone.

“This has to be it,” Alexa whispered.

“It is? How do you know?”

“John Edmonstone was a taxidermist in Edinburgh in the early eighteen hundreds. He was a freed slave from Guyana.”

“A brother in Scotland?”

“Darwin was friends with him during his medical school training. He even took some lessons in taxidermy from Edmonstone, which not only fueled his interest in biology, but also taught him valuable information about animal preservation that would come in handy during his voyage on the Beagle.”

“So we’ve got our Darwin link. What does it say?”

Alexa skimmed down the page until she saw a paragraph with the words she was searching for. “Listen to this. ‘One story that was passed to me is especially interesting given the recent photo of a creature in Loch Ness taken by surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson and featured in many newspaper articles in 1934. During an interview with noted Scottish taxidermist Ewan Stewart, I was regaled with a tale that he alleged had originated with John Edmonstone. Edmonstone claimed that he and a college student had been attacked by a fantastical beast on an outing to Loch Ness and speculated about why it had been drawn to them.”

“So Edmonstone had a Nessie hunting call?” Grant asked.

“I doubt he would name it that if he was attacked by Nessie.”

“True. It would be like having a grizzly bear whistle. Not something you’d want to use again.”

“The rest of this is even better,” Alexa said, and continued reading. “‘An unnamed companion was said to have cut off a part of the beast, which can only be supposed to be an ancestor of the creature photographed by Mr. Wilson. Although we can’t attest to the veracity of Edmonstone’s story, Mr. Stewart also claimed that the entire account was recorded in a journal that Edmonstone kept secreted inside a mounted stag head that adorned his flat, accessed by a latch cleverly hidden under the fur at the base of the stag’s neck. No one knows what happened to Edmonstone’s possessions upon his death, so we may never learn more about his tall tale.’”

“No problem,” Grant said sarcastically. “Assuming the story is true, all we have to do is find a two-hundred-year-old stag head that may not even exist any more and hope that no one has already removed the journal. What could be easier?”

“There has to be a way to find it or Laroche wouldn’t have laid out all of these clues. He must have read this book and begun a search for the stag-head trophy. He might even know where it is. Stop being so pessimistic.”

“Well, we’re not going to be able to ask Laroche. Last I heard, he was still in a coma.” Grant knocked his knee against the bookshelf, and his face contorted in pain. He held his leg for few a moments until he relaxed again.

“You don’t look so good, either. Are you all right?”

“Just a little joint soreness. Probably got it from all the plane travel in the past week.” He wasn’t very convincing, but before Alexa could probe, he went on. “Tyler and Brielle are coming back to London tonight. We’ll put our heads together at the hotel and see if we can make sense of this.”

“Are they a thing? I got a weird vibe when I saw them together.”

“It’s complicated. She’s Jewish.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem for Tyler. We were raised Presbyterian by our grandmother, but neither of us has been much of a church-goer since we were kids.”

“I think it’s more a problem for her.”

Alexa frowned. “That’s too bad. Even though she’s kind of gruff, I like her. She seems like a good match for him.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t work out like you want it to,” Grant said, looking intently at Alexa. He took out his phone. “I’ll call Ashburn to pick us up.”

Alexa stuck the note card in the page as a bookmark. When they got to the lobby, Ashburn was waiting for them and checked out the book. Alexa wanted to read it more closely to see if there were any other clues. She tucked the book in her purse, and they got in his car for the two-minute ride to the engineering lab. Ashburn assured them that they wouldn’t miss their return train to King’s Cross.

They pulled into a gated car park and Ashburn swiped his card to lift the barrier. Once they were parked, Ashburn escorted them to a garage-type roll-up door. Alexa could make out all kinds of equipment inside the lab where two students were working, but Ashburn waved his arm at four go-karts lined up in front of the open door. Each one was painted in a different color: black, red, green, and yellow, with wraparound black rubber bumpers.

As Grant and Alexa approached, the students dropped what they were doing and gathered at the door.

“Lawrence and Penelope,” Ashburn said, “I would like to introduce you to senior Gordian engineer Grant Westfield and Dr. Alexa Locke, the sister of Gordian’s founder, Tyler Locke. Lawrence and Penelope are two of the students responsible for developing the HydroSpeed project for which Gordian has so generously provided funding. Unfortunately, the rest are in class at the moment.”

The students smiled and nodded.

“You may not be aware, Alexa,” Ashburn continued, “but the intent of HydroSpeed is to perfect a simplified hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that would be affordable enough for emerging markets. It was your brother’s suggestion that we put our ideas to the test using go-karts before we move on to a full-scale car.”

“Are they operational?” she asked.

“Absolutely. A full twenty horsepower. We expect a top speed of fifty miles per hour. They’ll be put through their paces during an endurance race at a local track tonight. We’ll be loading them onto the transport lorry within the hour. I do wish you could stay to watch.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have time,” Grant said.

“Of course, of course.” Ashburn clapped his hands. “I know! Perhaps you’d like to take one for a short jaunt around the car park.”

“I don’t know…”

“We test them out here all the time. It’s really very simple. The accelerator pedal is on the right and the brake on the left. To reverse, you hold back the lever in the center.”

“Aren’t I a little big to fit in one?”

“Nonsense,” Ashburn said, patting his considerable belly. “You can’t weigh more than I do, and I’ve driven them myself.”

“Come on,” Alexa said to Grant. “Take it for a spin. I want to see what these things can do!” While she had never developed the passion for competition Tyler had, racing go-karts with him as a teenager had given her a taste for speed. As an adult, she drove a Mini Cooper, the closest she could get to a street-legal go-kart.

“All right,” Grant said. “Just once around the lot.”

“Excellent,” Ashburn said. “We’ll put you in the red one. Lawrence, please fetch a helmet for Mr. Westfield. Penelope, please keep an eye on the gates to make sure we don’t have anyone drive in during the run.”

The students scattered, and Grant eased himself into the seat of the go-kart, the stiff suspension groaning under him. Grant buckled himself in as Ashburn switched the engine on. Unlike the noisy gas-powered karts Alexa had raced before, the fuel cell on this one merely hummed like a fan.

Her phone chimed. She looked at the display and saw an unfamiliar number.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Alexa, it’s Tyler.”

“Where have you been? We’ve got some incredible information to—”

“Tell us tonight. You need to know something. Zim was here.”

“Zim? At Versailles?”

Grant looked up at her when she mentioned the name.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “I don’t know how he knew we’d be here, but we have to assume he knows you’re in Cambridge as well.”

Alexa spun around, scanning the area around the car park. Her eyes settled on a Range Rover idling on the street. There was no mistaking the woman sitting in the passenger seat.

Marlo Dunham.

She stared back at Alexa with utter contempt, then spoke something over her shoulder. Two men burst from the SUV, guns drawn, and ran toward them.

“Shit,” Alexa hissed.

If they chased Grant and Alexa into the building, Ashburn and his students would be caught in the crossfire and might be killed before the police could arrive. She and Grant had to get away from the others and put some distance between them.

Alexa pocketed the phone without bothering to hang up, scrambled into the black go-kart, and switched the power on. She hoped Ashburn’s students had been as good with the execution as they had been with the design.

“Call the police!” she yelled at Ashburn, who was stunned at her sudden action. When he didn’t move, she pointed at the running assailants and shouted even louder. “Now!”

He turned heel and ducked into the lab, herding Lawrence, who had arrived with the helmet.

Alexa snapped the harness together. Grant, still belted into his low go-kart, craned to see what had alarmed her.

“Dunham’s men,” she said to him. “Follow me.”

She mashed the accelerator, and the go-kart rocketed forward. She twisted the wheel to head for the gate opposite from where Dunham’s SUV was. The kart pirouetted like it was on toe shoes, and Alexa zipped under the barrier while bullets carved divots in the asphalt.

She peeked back. Grant got the message and wasn’t far behind her.

Unfortunately, two of Dunham’s men got the same idea and jumped into the green and yellow karts. Before she even turned the corner, they were in hot pursuit.

TWENTY-NINE

No matter how hard he stood on the gas, Grant couldn’t keep up with Alexa, who had to continually slow down for him to catch up. It was really a simple matter of physics. Their go-karts had the same horsepower, but he outweighed her by over a hundred pounds. He could feel the inertia slowing him every time they made a turn, and it was letting the lighter men behind them close the gap.

Grant was impressed by Alexa’s skill and fearlessness. Tyler must have taught her a few driving tricks because she didn’t show any hesitation darting around cars, drawing honks from the normally polite British drivers. The only problem she had was remembering to drive on the left. Twice she swerved into oncoming traffic, which might not have ended well for the tiny go-kart.

Grant struggled to set himself in a better driving position, but it was no use. Although the kart could handle his weight, his wide shoulders spilled out from the molded seat, making him lean forward. The suspension had no give, which meant that every seam, bump, and crack in the road was transferred directly to his pelvis, causing him to grimace in pain. Without the helmet, his eyes watered as he squinted to see through the wind, and there was nothing he could do to avoid bugs and the stench of auto exhaust fumes that were at nose level.

An engine roared behind Grant. A look over his shoulder revealed the black Range Rover coming up on him. It wasn’t nearly as nimble as the kart, but its top speed was far higher. If they spent much longer on the main road, it would flatten him.

Alexa turned and saw the same thing. Grant pointed to a side alley ahead of them that wasn’t wide enough for the SUV. The Range Rover was so close now that the sound of the V8 was deafening.

Alexa juked left, and the go-kart threaded through concrete pylons placed to prevent vehicles from using the pedestrian walkway. Grant followed and nicked the bumper, causing the wheels to skid sideways. The Range Rover kept going down the street, but the green and yellow go-karts followed them.

The cobblestone surface made the go-kart buck like a bronco. Without horns, they couldn’t beep at the pedestrians sauntering through the shopping arcade. Alexa’s shouts of warning were the only thing keeping bystanders from getting run down.

They shot out of the arcade and into the street, cars screeching and spinning to a halt as they blasted through the traffic. Out of the corner of his eye, Grant caught a glimpse of the Range Rover pacing them on a parallel street. He’d seen an earpiece on one of the pursuers, so Grant assumed he was in cell-phone contact with Dunham, giving her their position.

They needed to thin the number of their opponents.

They flashed into another narrow shopping arcade. Dumbfounded faces in shop windows whizzed by. Grant shouted Alexa’s name. When she turned, he motioned for her to let him catch up. She slowed and he pulled even with her.

“I have an idea!” he yelled over the wind. “Remember those concrete pylons?”

“Yeah.”

“Let the guy behind us catch up.”

“What?”

“We’ll herd him.”

Alexa gave him a confused glance at first, but then lit up and nodded.

“One! Two! Three!”

At the same time, they hit their brakes and went to either side of the arcade, Grant barely missing chairs at an outdoor café. The green go-kart nearly raced past them, but he slowed to keep from overshooting. Grant gunned the engine and yanked the wheel over, aiming for the green go-kart like he was in a high-speed bumper car. He rapped the side of the kart, sending it careening sideways into Alexa, who bumped him back.

The steering wheel was so jittery that it required both hands to use, which was why neither of the men in the pursuing karts had taken a shot at them. Driving with only one hand would be suicide. But now that he was boxed in, the grinning man between them went for his pistol, thinking he had the perfect opportunity. He lowered his arm to take a bead on Grant, never noticing that they were reaching the end of the arcade.

Three short concrete pylons blocked the entrance, and the gunman was headed straight for the center one. Grant wrenched his wheel to the side, and Alexa did the same. Both of them missed the pylons by inches.

The gunman wasn’t so lucky.

He hit the pylon head-on at forty miles an hour. Worse, he hadn’t taken time to latch his harness. The go-kart jolted to a stop, but the gunman flew into the air, his arms pinwheeling as he tumbled. He landed head first on the asphalt, and his body rolled through the street like a ragdoll before coming to rest.

They were out of arcades, so Alexa turned left onto the road. Grant had become disoriented in the winding alleys, but he recognized the boulevard as Trumpington Street, the same road where the department of engineering was located. If they followed it back south, they would return to the lab where surely the police would be by now.

“Keep going straight!” he shouted. Alexa raised a thumb in response.

The Range Rover blew out of a side street and nearly ran Grant over. He turned sharply and slammed on the brakes to keep from going through the front door of a tea shop. The yellow go-kart whooshed by him, intent on getting to Alexa. Dunham must have been aware that she was the key to finding the Loch Ness monster. Without her, their plans would be destroyed, not to mention the grief her death would cause Tyler.

Watching the Range Rover and go-kart converge on her, Grant was consumed by an overwhelming sense of protectiveness at the danger Alexa faced. He’d lost a woman close to him before. He wasn’t going through that again.

Grant focused his entire being on catching up with them. He stood on the gas and willed the go-kart to go faster. Alexa was weaving all over the road in attempt to shake her pursuers, which gave Grant the slim hope that he could make up the distance.

The man in the go-kart pulled next to Alexa and grabbed for her in a bid to take her hand off the wheel. He was only able to latch onto her purse strap instead. He pulled hard, and Alexa leaned awkwardly to the right. A parked car two hundred yards down the road had to be his target. If he steered her into it, she’d be killed, seatbelt or not.

Alexa shrugged out of the strap as her purse was ripped away from her. She regained control but had no room to maneuver with his kart in the way. The Range Rover was now next to the yellow kart, and Dunham had the window unrolled. She waved for the man to throw her the purse.

All of this distracted them from Grant’s pursuit. He was right behind the yellow go-kart and rammed it with his right front bumper just as the man tossed the purse up. Dunham caught it, but the action had required the man to take his hand off the wheel.

Grant’s nudge was enough to push the man’s kart sideways under the rear wheel of the Range Rover, crushing the go-kart. Its driver screamed for an instant and went silent.

At the last moment, Alexa was able to dodge and missed the parked car by inches.

The Range Rover pulled up to finish the job, Dunham brandishing her own pistol through the open window, but without warning Alexa threw the go-kart into a hard right turn and Grant followed. They raced through a gate labeled The Fitzwilliam Museum. The entryway was far too narrow for the SUV to follow. The driver kept going instead of stopping, no doubt scared off by the sound of sirens now ringing throughout the town.

Alexa circled around in the opposite direction and came to a stop next to the museum entrance. She threw off her belts and sprang wildly from her seat as if she were planning to take off at a sprint. Grant exited the go-kart and stopped her, pulling her to him.

“They’re gone! They’re gone. We’re safe. Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she said, gulping in breaths as if she’d run a marathon. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Grant smiled at her. “That was some amazing driving back there. You could be a pro.”

“Tyler taught me well.”

“Who knew he was good at something?”

“They took my purse.”

“I know. I couldn’t get to it in time. We’ll get you a new passport and phone in London.”

“It’s not that.”

Grant looked at her in confusion and then realized what she meant before she uttered it.

“They’ve got the book,” Alexa said. “Marlo Dunham now knows what we know.”

THIRTY

It was eight p.m. by the time Victor Zim and Hank Pryor filed off the P&O ferry at Dover with the other foot passengers. Using the fake passports provided by Dunham, they didn’t have any trouble getting through British customs.

Zim’s original plan had been to drop into the Versailles estate using a helicopter, but since his only chopper pilot died over Lake Shannon in Washington, he took a page from Locke and hijacked a float plane instead. Pryor, an experienced aircraft pilot, was able to fly it without much trouble before they abandoned it at a local lake to make their final getaway.

Leaving Norm Lonegan behind to be questioned by the French police didn’t bother Zim. He was a hired gun and didn’t know anything useful about their upcoming plans. And Lyle Ponder, bringing a bomb back into the plane without knowing it, deserved to be thrown out and blown up.

Pryor was the big concern. The former airplane engineer from Kansas was Zim’s greatest asset. If he were killed or taken by the cops, they’d lose their electrical genius and pilot. He wasn’t going to be able to assist in any fight and was barely passable with a weapon, but his prowess with machines had made Zim’s prison escape possible. The remote-controlled helicopter and quadcopters were works of art.

However, once this was all over, he wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to the twerp. He was an arrogant pain in the ass.

“I still think we should have stayed to kill them,” Pryor said as they walked to the pick-up area.

“For such a smart guy, you’re pretty stupid sometimes,” Zim said. “Locke and Cohen had already sent the message to his sister and Westfield. That’s how they found the book. If we had stayed, we would have gotten ourselves caught or killed for nothing.”

“But they’re telling the police everything. I’m surprised we didn’t get nabbed on the ferry.”

“I’m surprised, too. In Calais you were sweating like a pig.”

“This entire mission is now in jeopardy. They’re edging closer to getting what they need for the antidote. If they find it, then months of work will go down the drain.”

“Pryor, if you don’t stop your whining, I’ll kick your face in. We’ll see how well you can blubber through a set of broken teeth.”

“You can’t,” Pryor said, defiant. “You need me.”

Zim stared at him as they continued walking. “I don’t need anyone that much. You’ve known me long enough. Do I sound like I’m bluffing?”

Pryor opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Good,” Zim said.

The black Range Rover was in the pickup lane. Dunham nodded at them as they got in, and the driver pulled away.

“Nice job in France,” Dunham said from the front seat, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Two men lost, huh?”

“Yeah, you did so much better in Cambridge.”

“At least I got the book.”

“Do you know if they read it?”

“It looks like they did and bookmarked a page about a taxidermist named John Edmonstone. I know where we have to go.”

“How?”

“Laroche. He had me bid on two stag heads that were found in Glasgow last year. They were being sold during an estate sale. Laroche had me do some research and found that each of them was inscribed with the initials ‘J.E.’, and they were presented as gifts to the prince to be hung at Balmoral. When the Scots realized they’d once been owned by Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, they were declared important historical objects, the stags presumably shot by the prince himself. They were taken off the market by the government so they could be put on display. One of them could be the stag head referred to in this account. Once we get access to them, it’s a simple matter of destroying what we find inside. Then this is over.”

“And we can all go our separate ways,” Pryor said.

“Thank God for that,” Zim said.

“Look,” Dunham said. “I’m not happy about this alliance either, but we’re stuck with each other. You’ll both get your money as promised, and then I never want to see you again.”

“No problem. But you better not stiff us. It’s going to take a ton of cash to live on the run.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll have every cent owed to you.”

“Good. How long will it take to get to these stag heads?”

“We’d better stay off trains and planes. It’s an eight-hour drive, but the buildings where they’re displayed won’t open until nine thirty tomorrow morning anyway. We’ll plan how to get access to them during the drive. The rest of our men will meet us there.”

“Sounds like we have time then,” Zim said. “Let’s find a McDonald’s drive-through. I’m starving.”

Two guitarists pounded out a rock ballad that Tyler didn’t recognize, the sound masking the conversation he was having with Brielle, Alexa, and Grant from potential eavesdroppers. The pub called Prince Alfred was close to their hotel in the Bayswater area of London, and they scarfed down a deli board spread, famished from a long day that was nearing ten p.m. All of them were itching to move on to the next step, but without a destination, they were stuck, so they decided to grab a quick dinner while they discussed their options.

Thanks to the chit they called in from Minister Fournier, he and Brielle were able to get out of France with a minimum of questioning by the police. Grant and Alexa had to spend more time with the Cambridge police explaining their part in the melee. According to Grant, Ashburn’s cheerful demeanor had dissipated upon learning that two of his carefully crafted go-karts had been destroyed, but a call from Miles promising two more years of research funding soothed any frayed nerves.

Grant was trying to hide a limp now, and Tyler was worried that his condition was worsening quickly. His outward appearance was no longer something he could effectively hide: Grant’s five o’clock shadow was a grizzled gray, he moved with the stiffness of a man thirty years older, and he had to ask for things to be repeated to him in the noise. Of course, Grant had waved off any notion of returning home when Tyler took him aside privately, but he didn’t know how long his friend would be able to continue fighting off the effects of the poison. Brielle and Alexa attacked the selection of meats and cheeses with gusto, but Grant merely picked at it. On most other days, they’d have had to order a whole second board just for him.

As they ate, Alexa recalled the information she could from the taxidermy book. Tyler agreed that there was a reason Laroche had sent them on this expedition. Finding a stag head stuffed by John Edmonstone, however, was a tall order. They couldn’t ask Laroche where it was, so Tyler did the next best thing and set Aiden MacKenna loose to use his computer skills to track it down. Now they were waiting to hear the results.

“These people are crazy,” Alexa said, munching on a cheese and biscuit. “Attacking us in broad daylight in the middle of Versailles and Cambridge? That’s nuts.”

“They don’t care if they get caught or killed,” Tyler said. “I’ve seen it before with fanatics. They’ll do anything to further their cause. And Zim is the most dangerous one. I don’t see him ever giving himself up and going back to prison. He’ll go down fighting.”

“Not before he kills me.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’m not letting you out of my sight from now on.”

“Do you really think the Loch Ness monster exists?” Grant asked Alexa.

“There’s something in that loch, and now we have a tangible link between it and John Edmonstone, who happened to be friends with Charles Darwin. The Nazis thought it was real, too, so we might be searching for a descendant of the creature Darwin discovered.”

“If that’s the case,” Grant said, “there could be a whole family of Nessies breeding down there.”

“I suppose that’s possible. It would explain why I spotted one two hundred years later. The Nazis were always meticulous in their research, and they seemed sure Darwin was the source of the tissue sample they had.”

Brielle nodded. “It’s not so hard to believe. The Nazis looked up to Darwin.”

“That’s a common misconception,” Alexa said. “Creationists like to trot out the falsehood that Hitler and his buddies were evolutionists to help bolster the spurious thought that evolution leads to eugenics and the justified slaughter of whole races.”

“I’m not a scientist, but isn’t Darwin’s theory about survival of the fittest?”

“Of course. But the Nazis abhorred the idea that people they considered inferior could possibly have originated from the bloodline that spawned the Aryan race.”

“So the Nazis didn’t believe in evolution?” Brielle asked.

“I hate that phrase,” Alexa said, slamming her hand on the table. “Evolution isn’t a faith, it’s a scientific theory, one of the most elegant ever created. It’s the backbone of biological study, accurately describing everything from the family trees of dinosaurs to the prediction of genetic traits in fruit flies bred in a lab. The empirical evidence is so overwhelming that only the willfully ignorant think evolution isn’t true.” She took a breath. “And it’s correct to say that the Nazis rejected Darwin’s theories.”

She was getting so heated that biscuit crumbs were spewing from her mouth. Nothing worked Alexa up more than people who tried to argue the merits of evolutionary theory using non-scientific religious dogma. Even though Brielle’s question hadn’t come from that angle, it had been enough to set Alexa off. Tyler had seen her nearly get in a fistfight with an evangelical minister who’d come to debate the subject when she was in college.

“Then what’s the connection between Darwin and Germany?” he asked to defuse the growing tension.

Alexa sipped her cider and went on. “There are two I know of. Hitler’s thinking was influenced heavily by an ex-pat Brit named Houston Stewart Chamberlain. He espoused Teutonic superiority and wrote a book called The Foundations that said all of western civilization descended from the German people. In a weird coincidence, he was raised in Versailles by his grandmother and later in life moved to Dresden.”

“Dresden,” Grant repeated. “Maybe he gave the Nazis Darwin’s specimen.”

“Possibly, but he was vehemently anti-Darwin. Still, a British-German connection might have been important. My money is on Ernst Haeckel.”

“Who’s that?”

“A German biologist who actually met with Darwin. If Darwin had collected something strange and unexplainable, he might have shared it with Haeckel, who took it back to Germany with him. He died long before the Nazis came along, but they might have found his notes and the specimen and done something with it.”

“Altwaffe,” Tyler said.

“Is it possible that the Nazis could have developed something so sophisticated?” Alexa asked.

“Yes,” Brielle replied, her voice weighted with the enormity of the word. “They had one of the most advanced chemical warfare industries in the world. Although Hitler was afraid to use chemical weapons because of his experiences with mustard gas in World War I, that didn’t stop his scientists from developing sarin nerve gas and using Zyklon B in the death camps.”

At that the conversation abruptly stopped, as did the music. The guitarists packed up their instruments, and patrons started to file out. A TV above the bar showed explosions tearing through neighborhoods in both Gaza and Tel Aviv. The next shot featured lines of tanks barreling down a road.

“A lot of Jews are going to be killed again unless we find an antidote for the poison,” Brielle said.

“What do you think the chances are that Edmonstone could have left us something useful to find the Loch Ness monster?” Grant finally asked. “Even if he did see it, that was two hundred years ago.”

“If we can find his journal,” Tyler said, “let’s hope his record about the encounter has something to go on. If these clues are all a hoax, we have the GhostMantas ready to search the loch starting tomorrow morning. Assuming there is something below the surface, we’ll find it.” Eventually, he didn’t add, but maybe not in time.

His phone rang, and Aiden’s name came up on the display. The pub was empty enough now that they wouldn’t be overheard. He touched the screen and laid the phone on the table.

“Aiden, I’ve got you on speaker. We’re all here.”

“Hello, everyone. I’ve got some good news. I think I’ve found Edmonstone’s stag heads.”

Tyler felt his first blush of optimism. “Heads?”

“Yes, there are two of them. They aren’t definitively from John Edmonstone, but they’re marked by his initials. They were up for auction a few months ago, but it was put to a stop when the authorities figured out they had historical value.”

“Where are they?” Grant said eagerly.

“They were taken to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh for restoration before being displayed. Good luck talking them into letting you examine them.”

“There might be a way,” Brielle said. “Remember, I went to the University of Edinburgh. I still have contacts up there.”

“The museum doesn’t open to visitors until ten in the morning,” Aiden said, “but I’m sure they get to work earlier than that.”

“Then we know where we’re going next,” Tyler said.

“But I can’t fly,” Alexa said. “Marlo Dunham has my passport. I don’t have any ID.”

“I heard about your troubles,” Aiden said, “so I took the liberty of booking you all on tonight’s sleeper train to Edinburgh, arriving at seven thirty tomorrow morning. It leaves from Euston station in an hour.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Aiden,” Tyler said with literal emphasis. “I’ll call you back when we get to the station.” He hung up.

Tyler dropped a fifty-pound note on the table, and they all stood. After a quick stop at the hotel to collect their belongings, they would have eight hours to figure out how to convince a museum curator to let them examine a pair of two-hundred-year-old historical relics.