The King's Deception (46 page)

“Think what would happen if the truth were known,” Miss Mary quietly said. “If Elizabeth I was indeed a fraud. That means everything done during that reign was fraudulent. Void. Illegal.”

“Including every acre of land seized and every land grant made in Northern Ireland,” Malone said. “Not one would have any legal effect. The six counties that form the country were all seized by Elizabeth.”

“Would it matter?” Tanya asked. “After five hundred years?”

“Definitely,” Malone said. “It’s like if I sold you my house and you live there for decades. Then one day someone shows up with proof that the deed I gave you is a fraud. I didn’t have the power to actually convey title to you in the first place. It’s elementary real property law that the deed would be void. Of no legal effect. Any court here, or in America, would have to respect the true title to that land, not the fraudulent act of my transfer.”

“A battle that would be fought in court,” Richards said.

“But one the Irish would win,” Malone added.

“Worse, though,” Richards said. “The truth alone would be more than enough for Unionists and Nationalists to restart the Troubles. Only this time they’d actually have a legal reason to fight. You can almost hear the Irish Nationalists. They’ve been trying to get the British to leave for 500 years. Now they’d scream,
Your fake queen invaded our country and stole our land. The least you can do is give it back and leave
. But that wouldn’t happen. London would resist. It would have to. They’ve never abandoned the Unionists in Northern Ireland, and they won’t start now. There are billions of pounds invested there. London would have to stand and fight. Whether that’s in court or in the streets. It would be an all-out war. Neither side would bend.”

“Of course,” Malone said to her, “if your government would simply stop Edinburgh from handing a murderer back to Libya, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I don’t like that any more than you do. But that doesn’t excuse
this foolhardy tactic. Do you know how many thousands of people could die from this?”

“Which is why I’m going to give the flash drive to Mathews,” Malone said.

“And what about Ian?” Richards asked.

“Good question. What about me?”

Malone faced him. “You know that Mathews wants you dead.”

He nodded.

“The question is,” Malone said, “how far is he willing to go to clean up this mess? Especially now that a lot more people know about it. He has more than one loose end. So I’ll take care of that, too.”

Malone looked at Richards.

“We have to go.”

“Sir Thomas never mentioned me coming.”

“I need your help.”

“I’m going, too,” Ian said.

“Like hell. Mathews never mentioned you on the phone. That means one of two things. He doesn’t know where you are, or he’s waiting for us to leave to make a move. I’d say the former. Too much happened too fast for him to know anything. If he did, he’d have acted already. Also, I need you out of the way so I can bargain for your safety. If he has you I have no bargaining power.”

Malone faced the twin sisters.

“Stay put here, with Ian, until you hear from me.”

“And what happens if we never hear from you?” Miss Mary asked.

“You will.”

A
NTRIM APPROACHED THE CONSTRUCTION SITE
, G
ARY WALKING
with him. The old Blackfriars tube station had been demolished, replaced by a shiny, glass-fronted building that seemed about half complete. A plywood wall separated the work site from the sidewalk, the Thames within sight less than a hundred yards away. A newly reconstructed Victorian rail bridge now spanned the river, upon which was being built a modern railway station. He’d read somewhere that this was London’s first transportation center ever built over water.

Through a break in the plywood barrier he spotted no workers. Though it was Saturday, some should be here. Mathews had told him to head for this particular corner of the site. To his right, traffic raced by on a busy avenue that headed south across the Thames. He still carried the knapsack with explosives inside, the only weapon he possessed, and he had no intention of entering this trap unarmed.

A maze of heavy equipment littered the scarred earth. Deep gouges in the ground, yards wide and extra deep, stretched toward the riverbank. Train tracks lay at the bottom, straight lines disappearing inside the new bridge station, heading toward the far south bank. He recalled this place from his youth. A busy station. Lots of people in and out every day. But not today. The site was deserted.

Which was exactly what Thomas Mathews would want.

So far he’d followed directions.

Time for some improvising.

M
ALONE RODE IN THE
U
NDERGROUND
,
TAKING A TRAIN FROM
Belgravia east to a station near the Inns of Court, close to Blackfriars. Kathleen Richards sat beside him. He could still hear what Stephanie Nelle had told him on the phone half an hour ago.

“It’s the CIA attempting to save the day,” she said. “Forty years ago a group of Irish lawyers actually tried to prove that Elizabeth I was a fraud. It’s called the Bisley Boy legend—”

“Just like Bram Stoker said in his book.”

“To their credit, they were trying to find a legal, nonviolent way to force the British to leave Northern Ireland. At that time the Troubles were in full swing. People were dying every day. No end seemed in sight. If they could prove in court that all British claims to their lands were false, legal precedent could be used to reunite Ireland.”

“Clever. And it might have been a good idea then, but not now.”

“I agree. The slightest provocation could restart the violence. But the CIA was desperate. They worked hard to find al-Megrahi, then bring him to trial. To see him just walk away galled them to no end. The White House wanted something. Anything to stop it. So Langley thought a little blackmail might work. Unfortunately, they forgot that this president isn’t the type to do that, especially to an ally.”

On that he agreed
.

“The CIA director and myself just had a spirited discussion,” she said. “Currently, the White House is unaware of what they’ve been doing, and they’d like to keep it that way. Especially since the whole operation failed. But with SIS now involved, this could become a source of extreme embarrassment for everyone.”

“And they want me to clean up the mess.”

“Something like that. Unfortunately, that prisoner transfer is going to happen. The goal now is not to allow an international PR disaster to amplify the situation. It seems the British know everything about King’s Deception. The only thing going for us is they don’t want the world to know.”

“I don’t give a damn.”

“I realize that Gary is your only concern. But, as you say, he’s with Antrim. And Langley has no idea where that might be.”

Which was why he’d called Mathews.

And was walking into a trap.

“What do you want me to do?” Richards asked him.

He faced her. “Why are you on suspension?”

He saw that she was surprised he knew that.

“I caused a lot of bother trying to arrest some people. But that’s nothing new for me.”

“Good. ’Cause I need some bother. Lots of it, in fact.”

I
AN HAD NOT LIKED
M
ALONE’S REFUSAL TO ALLOW HIM TO GO
along. He was not accustomed to people telling him what to do. He made his own decisions. Not even Miss Mary gave him orders.

“This is all so unbelievable,” Tanya said. “So incredible. Imagine the historical implications.”

But he didn’t care about that.

He wanted to be where things were happening.

And that was Blackfriars station.

He sat on one of the chairs inside the hotel room.

“Are you hungry?” Miss Mary asked him.

He nodded.

“I can order you something.”

She stepped across the room to the phone. Her sister sat at the desk with the laptop. He bolted for the door and fled into the hall. The stairs seemed the best route down, so he headed for the lighted sign.

He heard the room door open and turned back.

Miss Mary stared at him with a look of concern.

He stopped and faced her.

She didn’t have to say a word. The watery gloss in her eyes told him what she was thinking.

That he should not go.

But her eyes also made clear that she was powerless to stop him.

“Be careful,” she said. “Be ever so careful.”

G
ARY FOLLOWED
A
NTRIM ONTO THE CONSTRUCTION SITE
. They wove a path through heavy equipment across the damp soil, dodging puddles from yesterday’s rain. A massive concrete shell lay inside one of the open trenches, twenty feet down, its damp walls being dried by the afternoon sun. Eventually, the entire structure would be covered with dirt. For now, though, its sides, roof, pipes, and cables were exposed, the rectangle stretching fifty yards toward the river, where it disappeared into the ground, beneath a section of closed-off street.

They climbed down into the wet trench, using one of the wooden ladders, and made their way toward a yawn in the earth that opened into a darkened chasm. He blinked the sun from his eyes and adjusted to the dim light. Concrete wall rose to his left, bare earth to his right, the path well traveled, the dirt here dry and compact beneath his sneakers.

Antrim stopped and signaled for quiet.

He heard nothing save for the rumble of the nearby traffic.

An opening in the wall could be seen ahead.

Antrim approached, glanced inside, then motioned for him to follow. They entered and saw that the exposed structure housed a rail line, the tracks in disrepair, rebar everywhere awaiting wet cement. Incandescent floodlights burned bright, illuminating the windowless space. He wondered how Antrim knew where to go, but assumed the email earlier in the café had provided the necessary information.

Antrim hopped up to another level from the dirt around the tracks and they crept deeper inside. The cool air smelled of wet mud and dry cement. More tripods with flood lamps lit the way. He estimated they were at least twenty feet underground, beneath the
glass-fronted building overhead. They came to a wide-open space that funneled to shafts angling farther down into the ground.

“This foyer is where passengers will come down from above, then make their way to the tracks,” Antrim whispered.

Gary glanced into one of the down shafts. The next level was fifty feet beneath him. No steps or escalator were present. More lights burned below. Another wooden ladder, one of several propped in the shaft, allowed a way down.

“That’s where we have to go,” Antrim said.