The Lost Key (32 page)

HMS
Dover

9:30 p.m.

After a reluctant nod from his captain, the medic unhooked Nicholas from his IV and discharged him from sick bay. He and Mike went up onto the deck of the
Dover
to watch the rescue.

The lights of the chopper swung crazily along the coast of Loch Eriboll, the granite cliffs shining white in the beams of light. A small rescue craft scooted over the water, sending out ripples across the surface. The chopper hovered, spinning up debris and rocks, then set down next to the hut.

Five minutes later, the boat was headed back, no shots fired, no trouble at all. When the boat drew close enough, Mike let out a shout. “It's Sophie Pearce!”

She was a mess, bedraggled, bruised, exhausted, still wearing Alex Shepherd's shirt, the gauze bandage still wrapped tightly across her back, but she managed to climb the ladder to the deck of the
Dover
. Both Nicholas and Mike wanted to speak to her, but a medic said, “Nope, first we take care of her.”

Sophie smiled at the medic towering over her. “A moment, please.” Before he could answer, she grabbed Mike's arm. “You have to go after Havelock. He took Adam with him.”

Mike said, “Please tell me you don't mean Havelock took Adam down in the submersible.”

“No, no, he forced Adam to go with him on his helicopter.”

Mike's blood pressure dropped back to normal. She'd been scared Nicholas would be too close to the submersible when she'd given the order to fire the torpedo. She hadn't even thought of Adam.

“Okay, then, that means Havelock set the submersible on automatic and sent it back into the loch. And then the
Dover
blew it up—it was all a diversionary tactic.”

“Sophie, where did Havelock take Adam?” Nicholas asked her. “Where did they go?”

“To get Madame Curie's weapon. Havelock has the key and the book, he can open the lock now. We have to stop him, please, you have to save Adam.”

“Sophie, what lock? A lock to a door? Where did they go?”

Sophie stopped cold. “You mean you don't know where Curie's weapon is?”

“No, do you?”

Sophie shook her head. “All I know is it's probably somewhere in Paris.”

Quai d'Anjou

Paris

Midnight

Havelock arrived at his house on the Quai d'Anjou just before midnight. He hurried inside with his package, still unopened, his hands shaking in excitement. He couldn't believe he finally had both the key and the book.

Elise forced Adam to a second-floor room, a Beretta against his spine, and locked him in. She joined Havelock in his study, and together they spread the mummified fingers. Havelock carefully, gently, pried the package from the palm.

He had no idea how a woman came to be on the sub, nor why she was sealed in the waterproof compartment, nor did he care. All he knew was she'd held in death the gift of a lifetime.

The package was wrapped in thick oilskin, protected as best they could manage. He eased the edges apart, but the old wrapping paper inside crumbled at his touch. And there was the key, long, heavy, brown with rust. It had an ornate bow with a series of interlocking four-cornered fleurs-de-lis, a thick, twisted shank, and a dual bit with a complicated series of bit wards etched into
the metal. It wasn't an everyday key for Curie's time, it was a key meant to protect as well as deter.

Havelock caressed the key with long trembling fingers, felt its weight in his palm, then finally, he set it gently on the desk. He turned to the book, encased in a separate waterproof pouch. The cover was black, the book slender, the edges rounded. He slipped on soft white gloves. If there was anything he'd learned from Pearce, it was how to deal with very old pages.

He slid his finger beneath the cover and lifted gently. The pages inside were yellow and the words were in French. Curie's handwriting was faded but legible.

His heart pounded. With the book and the microgram of intensely amplified polonium, polonium that she'd managed to make grow stronger over time, he was ready. It was waiting for him in her lab to formulate a new kind of atom to be added to his bombs. And then he would own the world, nothing and no one could stop him.

He wondered, what should he name his new compound? Curie had named polonium after her beloved Poland. He felt no such love of homeland.

Havelockium?

He giggled. No, better to wait until he witnessed the new element in action, then he'd give it a proper name.

He turned carefully to the last page of the book. He saw a series of numbers and letters.

19 . G . 13 . R

There it was, the directions to Curie's lab. He read the letters and numbers again. What was this? It made no sense, there was no
address like this in Paris. Then he realized what the letters and numbers meant, and smiled. What a clever woman.

She was about to make him the most famous man on the planet.

He turned to Elise with a manic smile, pulled her into his arms, and danced her around the room, spinning her as they swirled and dipped. When he ferried her back across the room to the desk, he released her reluctantly. “Who would have imagined her hidden address would be so ingenious? And yet it makes sense—nineteen, G, thirteen, R. How very brilliant she was.”

Elise cocked her head to the side. “Nineteen, G, thirteen, R? What do the numbers and letters mean?”

“It always made sense to me her secret lab had to be here since this was her home. But you see, Elise, her lab wasn't
in
Paris, it was
under
Paris. Her lab is in the tunnels. And now, my dear, I must go. You stay here and guard the boy. If he does anything you don't like, feel free to kill him. I will be back before dawn.”

Elise saw his eyes were glittering, his pupils dilated, his excitement was that huge. She leaned up and kissed him on the neck, bit him deep, then licked the blood. “Be careful,” she said.

He stared at her mouth, at his own blood slicked over her lips. No, no, it wouldn't do to celebrate too early. But later, later.

He made a brief phone call. The man answered on the first ring.

“Allo?”

Havelock spoke in rapid French.
“I have the key and the directions. Bring the lamps and tools. I'll meet you at the Sorbonne, then we're going to the sixth arrondissement.”

“Oui, d'accord. Five minutes.”

Havelock hung up, stashed the cell in his pocket. He popped a handful of potassium iodide pills, gently eased the book and the key inside a small backpack, along with a Maglite and a bottle of water. Elise walked him to the door, kissed him again, and he set off into the dark Parisian night.

Over the Channel

Paris

11:00 p.m.

Captain Kinsley arranged to chopper the three of them down to RAF Tain, north of Inverness, where the PM's Hawker was waiting to fly them not to London, but directly to Paris.

They left Shepherd behind, but took Sophie with them. She still had a lot to tell them. Nicholas wasn't taking any chances with her safety, not now.

During the chopper ride to Inverness, Mike called Zachery and explained what was happening and where they were headed. She didn't mention how close Nicholas had come to being killed.

Zachery gave them his consent, and thirty minutes later, they were off to Paris.

Once they were settled in with food and drink, Nicholas leaned forward, studied Sophie's face. “How do you feel?”

“I'm fine, really. I only want to find Adam.”

She was probably telling the truth—both of them were feeling little discomfort, he thought, thanks to the pain meds swimming in their bloodstreams. His arm was sore, but the pain was tamped down.

He said, “Tell us what happened when you landed on the
Gravitania.
With Shepherd.”

She accepted a cup of hot tea from Mike, took a sip, then another. She sighed. “I was wrong about Alex. He was trying to protect me the whole time. He was working for the Order, reporting to Alfie Stanford. Then Stanford was murdered and Weston took over. But he also trusted Weston not only because he was a member of the Order, but because he was high-ranking in MI Five. Alex didn't know Weston had joined forces with Havelock until we were leaving Weston's estate near Oxford. Alex told Weston Adam had found the sub. He set the wheels in motion without meaning to.

“When we were on board the
Gravitania,
he came to our cabin to help us escape.” She told them of the fight, how Weston had shot Alex and März had thrown him off the boat, and taken her and Adam to the hut on the mainland. She paused. “Thank you for saving Alex.”

Mike said, “He didn't give up. He'll be okay,” and she hoped she was right.

Sophie drank more tea. “There are limestone caves right below that skinny slice of land, close to the hut. Havelock brought the submersible right into the edge of the caves—there's a deep bay there, and a small dock. You can't see it unless you're right on top of it.

“Adam and I watched Weston help Havelock climb out of the sub, and he looked like some sort of mad scientist. He had something in his hands and I knew he'd found the key and Curie's book. He told Weston and Elise that März had gotten himself killed. All he did was shrug and say, ‘It's a pity. März served me well.' And then he sent the submersible back into the loch. I think it had some sort of remote control. We heard an explosion. And
Havelock laughed and called them fools. We didn't hear him say anything about the gold.”

“Do you know,” Nicholas said, “I don't think Havelock even saw the gold, he was so focused on getting the key and the book.”

“Was it an amazing sight, all that gold?”

“Yes, scores of bars. I don't know how many.”

“So what happened after that?” Mike asked her.

“Havelock was in a hurry. He knew you'd be right behind him. Havelock took Weston, Elise, and Adam. They left me tied up. I remember thinking I was going to die in that hut, but then I saw a glass bottle lying in the corner and managed to break it. I used a shard to get my ropes cut off and signaled to you. And that's the whole story.”

She fell silent. Nicholas watched her.

“Has Havelock gone to Paris because that's where the weapon is?” Mike said.

Sophie nodded. “He took Adam with him because he's not finished with hacking into all my father's files. Alex told me killing Adam wasn't part of the plan, at least until he had everything he can get from him.” She paused, then looked at Nicholas. “If Adam refuses to cooperate, Havelock will kill him, won't he?”

“Not on my watch,” Nicholas said.

“Is there more, Sophie?” Mike asked.

“Oh, yes. I suppose I need to tell you everything now, don't I?”

“Yes, start with the Highest Order in World War One,” Nicholas said.

Sophie drank more tea, then drew a deep breath. “It all started at the Battle of Verdun, with two men—William Pearce, Seventh Viscount Chambers and a German soldier named Josef Charles Rothschild, and his wife, Ansonia.”

S
ophie said, “Please remember this account comes down from Josef's son Leo to his son Robert to my father and then to Adam and me. Some is historical fact, but a lot is what Leo imagined must have happened.

“Ansonia was my great-grandmother. She was born in Königsberg in 1890. When her family realized she was a language prodigy, they sent her to her wealthy grandmother in Berlin in 1900, and she saw to Ansonia's formal schooling.

“Ansonia spoke seven languages and was brought to the attention of the kaiser in 1909. He hired her as his translator, and she became part of his household.

“She met my great-grandfather, a handsome young
Kapitän
named Josef Rothschild, and married him in April of that year. Their son Leo was born in 1910, and war broke out four years later.

“Ansonia began to see the kaiser for what he was, a misogynist, not very bright, a man who wanted no one to disagree with him or there'd be hell to pay, and so she began to work against him when the war started. Leo remembered hearing his father and mother talking about her efforts on the inside—rewritten letters,
forged instructions, certain correspondence not translated quite correctly—and how they were helping screw up the Germans' plans.

“What happened next came down to us from William Pearce. For most of the time Josef was on the front lines. He saw the horror of nerve gas, the starvation and sickness, the brutality. In the weeks leading up to the Battle of Verdun, he knew his wife was right—it had to stop.

“At Verdun, Josef saved William Pearce's life and Pearce realized what a friend England had in my great-grandfather. Pearce was the leader of the Highest Order, working with a brilliant young scientist who was developing a very powerful weapon unlike anything seen before. But the scientist was betrayed, and the formulas and key to her secret lab went missing. This was Marie Curie, of course.

“Evidently, Ansonia overheard the conversation between Curie's lab assistant and saw German marks and a small packet change hands. She didn't realize the impact of this until the leading German scientists of the day came to the house. She heard them speak of a weapon with unimagined power.

“Josef knew exactly what was in the packet because Pearce had told him about the theft. He and Ansonia devised a plan to smuggle the packet out of the palace. Josef would take it himself to England, get it safe into William Pearce's hands. Pearce had promised to protect the key and notebook with his life.

“A week before their mission, Ansonia learned the kaiser was sending handpicked men to Paris to bring the weapon back to his scientists in Berlin. She realized there was no way Josef could make it to Berlin in time to steal the packet.

“Ansonia had to steal it herself. She notified Josef to meet her
and Leo in Bremerhaven. Then Josef would travel to England, and give the packet to Pearce. She arranged for Leo to travel with his old nurse to Esbjerg, Denmark, then take a boat to Edinburgh, where Josef would meet them.

“Leo believed his mother learned that the kaiser was moving his private treasury of gold bars to a new location because the Allies' spies had gotten too close. The gold had been put on board a U-boat named
Victoria,
after the kaiser's grandmother, Queen Victoria. Leo heard Josef tell Ansonia they'd found the U-boat near Bremerhaven tucked away on a private, well-guarded wharf. Josef and his men managed to steal the U-boat. Can you begin to imagine his jubilation? England would have the key and instruction book to Curie's secret lab and the kaiser's gold. It would be a killing blow.

“But things fell apart. Leo overheard his mother telling her old nurse that the kaiser's men were nearly there. They were in danger, and the nurse had to take Leo to Esbjerg right away without her. She'd kissed him and told him they would soon be together again and he was going to have a grand adventure. That was the last time he saw her.

“A week later, Josef found Leo in Edinburgh in a poor inn, sleeping on the floor next to the old nurse, who lay dead, probably from the influenza. On their wild journey back to the Cotswolds, Josef had to tell his son that his mother was dead.”

Sophie fell silent, tears in her eyes. “You know the rest. No one knows if
Victoria
was torpedoed by the English or the Germans in the North Sea off Scotland. All we really know is they didn't make it.”