The Lost Key (4 page)

Berlin, Germany

4:00 p.m.

The mission was shot to hell. März watched, tense, unable to do anything. He knew every single individual in this huge room was even more frightened of failure than he was and that was because, simply, they were scared to death of him. They were right to be; he was lethal and soulless and took pleasure in his work. No one dared to look at him standing quietly in the back of the large windowless room, watching, always watching. The nerve center, the workers called it, all of them focused on the single massive monitoring screen on the wall, covered in twenty blue and green quadrants. Fifteen analysts worked multiple computer angles. They were responsible for monitoring each agent's heart rate, his breathing, his visuals, his audio. They saw everything the agent saw, heard what he said, heard what those around him said. It never ceased to amaze März, this invasion of another's mind, but all the analysts were used to being inside a live human being and participating from afar.

Senior Analyst Bernstein was in charge of Mr. X, with him every step he took, inside him, watching and listening from the moment Mr. X had deplaned and the mission had gone live.

And gone to hell. März thought of his boss and tasted fear.

First Mr. X had killed the Order's Messenger. Then, because he stayed at the scene so they could see what was unfolding, he'd been spotted by that ridiculous woman and her little yapping dog. All of them had followed the chase, watched the big dark-haired FBI agent finally take down Mr. X, saw him hauled to his feet and cuffed. The room was dead silent, watching, listening. Then alarms began going off and the room exploded into action.

Bernstein yelled, “What happened, what happened? Mr. X has collapsed, his visuals are down, his eyes are gone.”

“I've lost heart function!”

“Ears are down. Ears are down.”

“He activated his gel pack! He must have thought he was going to be taken.”

Panic rippled through the room, moving silently from man to man as they now focused on Mr. X. After a moment, the heart monitor beeped long and low, then went flatline. Mr. X's quadrant suddenly went black with a snap, as if a switch had been flipped off.

Horrified silence. März spoke quietly, no need to raise his voice. “Mr. Bernstein, since we've lost Mr. X, please give me the satellite.”

Bernstein's voice shook and he hated it, but his belly crawled with the taste of failure, and fear. “Yes, sir. Coming, sir. Online in three, two, one.”

All twenty-four quadrants flashed to a new scene, a bird's-eye view of New York rapidly winnowing down as the satellite's cameras telescoped toward the chaotic New York street. A quick screen refresh and the scene was in perfect focus.

“There are people hovering over the body, I can't get a clear shot of Mr. X.”

März said, “Alter the angle.”

“I'm trying, sir. We'll have to wait thirty seconds while the bird is repositioned.”

“Do it faster.”

The analysts were perfectly still, breath held, while Bernstein madly tapped on his keyboard, moving the low earth-orbiting satellite a hundred miles above the scene a fraction to capture the proper image.

He managed the realignment in record time. Fifteen seconds flat. He wiped his sweating hands on his lab coat, then ran the camera sight down as fast as he could, and there it was, the shot slightly moved, the main screen taken up by the faces of the two FBI agents standing over Mr. X's body. The male FBI agent stood and moved away, forcing the growing crowd backward. The camera detail was so fine they could see the bruises starting on his jaw, hear a deep sigh from the blond agent as she stood and watched the medics work on Mr. X, who was clearly very dead.

“Why did he activate his gel pack?” März asked.

Bernstein said, “Sir, I don't know that he did. It seems that the agent who took him down may have hit him in the jaw at precisely the perfect spot to activate the gel.”

“Show me.”

The film was rewound and played again at half speed. With a red laser pointer, Bernstein showed the agent's elbow connecting with the back of Mr. X's jaw.

“One-in-a-million shot, sir. We couldn't have known an exterior punch would be enough to release the poison. Or maybe Mr. X was fiddling with it, debating whether it was necessary. He didn't want to be taken. He sacrificed himself to protect us.”

Not likely,
März thought. “Show me the FBI agent who hit him. Who is he?”

“The agents at the scene were calling him Nicholas Drummond, sir.”

März said in his same calm, terrifying voice, “Well, you idiots, what are you waiting for? Give me data, right now, screen one. Who are we dealing with? I want everything you can find on Special Agent Drummond. Who he is, where he comes from, what he ate for breakfast. All of you, go.”

Five minutes passed in tense silence. The only background noise was the clatter of the keyboards. Finally, Bernstein stood, ran a hand through his thinning hair, and forced himself to walk to März. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“About the target, sir. His last words.”

“‘The key is the lock.' Yes.”

“Not exactly, sir. We've replayed it several times, and we believe what he actually said is the key is
in
the lock.”

“
In
the lock. Not the lock itself?”

“That's right, sir. I've prepared an audio file and sent it to your screen. I'm sure you'll want to listen for yourself.”

“Yes, I will. Get back to your station, Bernstein. Tick-tock, people. What do we have on Drummond?”

The analyst who'd replayed the video said, “Sir, Nicholas Drummond, grandson of the eighth Baron de Vesci, currently an FBI special agent, moved to New York last month after terminating his employment with the Metropolitan Police of London. He is former Foreign Office, and his father, Harold Mycroft Drummond, is currently listed as a consultant to the British Home Office.”

“Pull his file.”

“Yes, sir, I'm accessing the Home Office files now.”

Another analyst said, “Sir, Drummond had one marriage, ended in divorce. He's highly trained and lethal with a variety of weapons, and he's a serious hacker.” The man swallowed. “He was a field agent for a while, mainly in Afghanistan, but like I said, he's a serious hacker, sir, excellent, in fact, and that's why the Foreign Office wanted him. He was responsible for the underlying code of Mackay, similar to Stuxnet, the virus used to shut down the Iranian nuclear arsenal in 2010.”

März didn't miss the note of awe in the analyst's tone. He said, “I thought that job was done by Mossad.”

“Apparently they used Drummond as a decoy, sir. He was the one who wrote the original program, fed it to the Israelis. They took his Mackay variables and created Stuxnet. But he left soon after, there's no reason listed. Moved to New Scotland Yard as a homicide investigator. Drummond's personnel file from the Metropolitan Police lists a multitude of successes; he had an excellent close rate, and several write-ups for insubordination.”

Another analyst called out, “Sir, he's the one who recovered the Koh-i-Noor diamond a few months ago. He went rogue with the female special agent, Michaela Caine. You'll remember they recovered the stone.”

März smiled and the young man shuddered. “Went rogue, did he? Keep digging. In the meantime, I will inform Mr. Havelock of the situation we find ourselves in. He will not be well pleased by the news that both Pearce and Mr. X are dead. Bernstein, find a way to destroy any evidence of his internal surveillance capabilities before the Americans find them.”

Both März and Bernstein knew this was impossible that Mr. X's implant would most likely be discovered in autopsy. Their only hope now was that the autopsy wouldn't be done today, that it wouldn't be thorough, but the chances were slim on both counts. And then the FBI would have the nanotechnology implant. And Havelock would have all their heads.

März stepped from the room, seeing the images of Mr. X running like a madman, then caught and brought down. Losing Mr. X so close to the end meant there would be repercussions, bad ones. At least they still had Mr. Z in play.

Since this was März's operation, he must take responsibility. No choice. Slowly, he raised his hand and knocked on the door to Mr. Havelock's office, and entered without waiting for a reply.

D
r. Manfred Havelock stared out the huge plate-glass window, looking at the Berlin spring afternoon. People crowded the sidewalks, bicycles parked in rows outside the red-umbrellaed sidewalk cafés of the Kreuzberg, so much traffic, so many people, yet there were scores of horse chestnut trees and ivy climbed up the buildings, beautiful and green, right in the heart of the city.

He lived here in the X-Berg, enjoying his anonymous life among the socially conscious Germans and the unwanted immigrants, the hip-hop culture and the gays, because no one would expect it. He was forty-seven and easily one of the richest men in Germany, if not in all of Europe. He was a success in all ways imaginable. He smiled, thinking of his global multinational nano-biotechnology firm, and the respect given him by his peers. Truth be told, though, he most enjoyed the fear of his enemies. He watched a boy and girl leaning across a café table below to kiss, like in Paris, he thought, a place he could easily live. Would he move with the rich and powerful? Honestly, he found them a boring lot, toadies, sycophants, but still, to have his boots licked was pleasant on occasion.

But only on occasion. He loved the X-Berg, it was where he belonged. Its darkened corners allowed him to indulge in whatever
behavior he wanted, no matter how reckless, how profligate. On the streets he was known only as the man who preferred the most esoteric acts available, and paid well for them. Ah, but there was more, so much more. No one knew who he really was, no one knew who lived among them, and what he was capable of. What he could do to them, if he wished. If they knew, they would not go so easily through their days and nights.

Havelock turned to see Elise step forward from the shadows. Her black hair, loose, as he liked it, cascaded to her waist. He himself had selected the skintight black catsuit she wore, a fit so tight it drove him mad with lust, even more than if he had seen her naked. Ah, and those five-inch stiletto heels on her long, narrow feet, perfect, as was the diamond-and-jet choker he'd fastened around her beautiful throat three years before when he'd selected her for himself and brought her into his world.

He waved toward the window. “Is it not ironic, my dear? The way they move without knowing how precarious their lives are? How in a blink”—he snapped his fingers—“I can take it all away from them? Make them cry and scream if I wished? Make them dead and nothing at all?”

Her voice was low, deep, as he'd taught her to speak. Her soft rose scent filled his nostrils. “It is, Manfred, very ironic.”

She came to stand by him, smiled directly into his eyes as she took his hand, caressed his palm, and began to press hard and harder still until his eyes went wild and he cried out.

She released him, still smiling. Once the pain fell away, he said, “Thank you, Elise. Well done, just as I taught you. But now we must think of other things. My plan is under way. Let us have a drink, to celebrate.”

She walked to the opulent walnut bar in the corner of the room and fixed him two fingers of Lagavulin, dropped onto two perfectly square ice cubes. He studied her as she walked back to him, her stilettos the only sound, and felt intense pleasure at seeing her shake her head in a practiced move that made her hair spill around her shoulders, soft, beautiful thick hair. He felt greed and hunger, hunger so intense it was naked in its force.

He took the glass from her, feeling the brush of her fingers. It took all his willpower not to throw the drink on the floor and run his hands over her body, feel the tightness, know there was softness and strength beneath the catsuit.

Elise saw the mad lust in his eyes and shifted her hips, offering, should he choose to have her again so soon, but he shook his head and looked out onto the pulsing streets of Berlin, sipping the scotch. Still, he tightened all over thinking about the bruises she'd given him only an hour ago.

But there was a time for indulgence, and a time for focus, and so he shook his head, pointed toward the discreet door, and Elise melted away into the darkness with no hesitation, saying nothing at all, a faint smile on her mouth.

He truly wanted her, but not yet. Knowing she waited for her summons to come to him again helped. He took another sip of the scotch to steady himself.

His time had come at last. All the years of waiting, sitting by while his father was in charge, were finished. It was his time now.

He frowned. There were so many operations, too many opportunities for failure, and he had to admit it, he'd been careless lately, indulging too much, losing himself for hours at a time in Elise's capable hands. He must keep focused, there was too much at stake
.
With focus and quiet comes clarity.
Odd that his father had taught him that valuable lesson; indeed, he could hear his father's voice—suddenly, he froze. He knew, knew something was wrong, terribly wrong.

He turned in the next moment when März entered quietly, shutting the door behind him. His face, as always, was blank, no clue to his thoughts, and, as always, Havelock felt revulsion at that long scar bisecting the shiny, stretched flesh, more a death mask than a man's face. März was deadly, uncompromising, and brutal, and he was Havelock's. He owned him. He'd come to believe März was his perfect complement.

But Havelock had learned over the years that when März's icy blue eyes were narrowed, something was terribly wrong, and fury was bubbling, ready to kill, to destroy. März said only, “Mr. X is down, sir.”

“Tell me,” Havelock said, his voice perfectly controlled.

“His gel pack was activated. As far as we can tell, it was an accident.”

“An accident,” Havelock repeated, and März, hating himself for it, knew deep grinding fear. “Before the gel pack was accidentally activated, did Mr. X manage to retrieve the package from Pearce?”

“No, sir. He was being taken into custody when the incident occurred.”

Havelock shut his eyes and turned to face the windows again. “And the prototype?”

März kept his voice clear and calm. “It is possible the American FBI are in possession of the prototype, sir. We are endeavoring to intercept and remove it from their hands before they are able to study it, but there is little chance.” Actually, there was no chance at all and both of them knew it.

“I see. Were you able to tap into the Messenger's systems before Mr. X's untimely demise?”

März hated his fear, wondered briefly if Havelock would quickly slide his favored Spanish stiletto into his neck. “Yes, but we were not able to upload Mr. Pearce's data before Mr. X was killed.”

Havelock felt such rage he wanted to kill all of them. Without Mr. X finishing his part of the mission, hooking into Jonathan Pearce's computer for Havelock's remote access, they couldn't retrieve the coordinates for the lost sub, and time was running out.

Havelock's voice went deadly quiet. “First Mr. X kills Pearce, against my orders, then he gets himself dead? Better for him, perhaps, but not for you. You're lucky Mr. Z is still functioning as he should.

“You will fix this, März. We can't afford to have the plan derailed. Nor can the Order realize we are behind it or there will be problems, huge problems, that could destroy everything. Find a way to retrieve the information from Pearce's computer before the FBI find it.”

“Yes, sir. There is another route to the files, sir, though it involves a human asset.”

Havelock waved a hand. “I don't care what you have to do.”

“Understood. Also, it turns out we were incorrect earlier about what Pearce said as he died. What he actually said was
‘The key is
in
the lock,'
not simply
‘The
key is the lock.'
Does
that make any sense to you?”

Havelock took a sip of scotch. “I will think about it. Pearce was fond of riddles. I'm sure this is yet another of his trying games.”

“We may have another problem, sir.”

Havelock met his lieutenant's eyes, and März flinched, knowing the deadly sarcasm was coming. “
More
problems, März? Am I not
paying you enough? Providing you with the proper tools? Are you incapable of running the most simple of missions without cocking it up?”

“No, sir. Not at all. This is about the FBI agent who responded to Pearce's murder, and was responsible for Mr. X falling in battle. His name is Nicholas Drummond.”

Havelock slowly set his scotch glass on his desk. “I don't suppose you know who that is?”

“Yes, sir. He is former Foreign Office, then he went to—”

“You idiot, I don't care about his résumé. Drummond's the one who tracked the Fox across Europe and retrieved the Koh-i-Noor in three days. He brought down Saleem Lanighan. Lanighan was a tough son of a bitch, too, and now he's in a nuthouse in Paris, they say he'll never have his brain back. And Drummond's father has the ears of all the British government. Do you understand, März, Drummond is very high in the government?” He banged his fist on the desk, making the scotch splash up over the edge of the crystal glass. “These are not men to be trifled with, März. They will eat us whole if given the chance. The Drummonds must not be allowed to interfere in our plans.”

“If you want me to have Drummond eliminated, I will arrange it. It would not be difficult.”

Havelock calmed, narrowed his eyes at März. “You're wrong. It would take more than Mr. X or Mr. Z to take down Nicholas Drummond. He is dangerous, and unpredictable. I would take great pleasure doing it myself, and I'm the only one who could, truly, but I can't be under any sort of suspicion, not if the Order are going to accept me into their fold. No, leave Drummond alone for the time being. But watch him, März. Watch every move he makes,
keep him off the scent. If he gets close, then you deploy. Do you understand me?”

“Deploy, sir? You mean deploy the micro–nuclear weapon? But the MNW has not left the testing grounds. We do not know if it is traceable. Nor do we know what the fallout will be. It could be worse than we anticipate. We do not know—”

All Havelock had to do was shake his head, only a small movement, but März was instantly quiet. “I do not recall asking your opinion, März. Besides, we are past that point. Now that Pearce's son has found the submarine, we must move quickly before others find out. The moment you access the coordinates from Pearce's computer, we will leave and retrieve the key.

“Understand me, März. If we have to use an MNW on Drummond, we will. Once we have the key and the weapon and adapt it to my MNWs, it won't matter, we will then be invincible. The Order won't be able to do a thing to stop us. Do you know, my father told me about the kaiser's private treasury of gold that was also supposed to be aboard the submarine along with the key? If true, which I doubt, the gold would be a nice bonus. Now, gather all the micro–nuclear weapons for possible deployment.”

März nodded slowly. If he felt doubts, they didn't show on his face. “It will be done, sir. Will there be anything else?”

“Why, yes, there is. Send Elise back in.”

“Sir, I believe she has retired to her quarters.”

“Your point, März?”

März said, “I'll send her right away,” then turned and left the room. Havelock waited for the door to close, then carefully wiped up the spilled scotch, fixed himself another, and sat back in the chair.

Drummond.
And
his father.

But no, he couldn't use an MNW on Drummond, even though the image of him being vaporized on the spot by a small nuclear bomb radiated pleasure and anticipation in the deepest part of him. No, he couldn't authorize it, not yet. It could allow them to trace the technology back to him. They were too powerful and their questions would resonate and multiply and lead to inquiries at the highest levels, and the delicate spiderweb he'd woven would unravel before he was able to find the key. And the kaiser's gold?