The King's Deception

by Steve Berry

  Other vehicles could be seen outside the moisture-laden windows slowing for a road signal apparently ahead. Rush hour in London, and nobody moved fast. He quickly reviewed his options and determined they were limited. Frizzy still held the knife and kept a close watch. The other man was equally attentive, and the confines of the car did not allow much room to maneuver.

  He withdrew his left hand and displayed the drive. “This what you want?”

  “There’s a good boy,” the older man said.

  Then Ian’s right hand telegraphed the next move, and he almost smiled.

  His fingers curled around the pepper spray. He’d thought it useless. Now it was priceless.

  The older man reached for the drive.

  Ian whipped out his right hand and sprayed.

  Both men howled, pawing their eyes in a vain attempt to relieve the pain.

  “Kill him, now,” the older man ordered.

  Frizzy, eyes closed, dropped the knife and reached beneath his coat.

  A gun came into view.

  Ian sprayed again.

  Frizzy yelled.

  Ian unlatched the door nearest to him and slid out onto wet pavement between two idling cars. Before slamming the door shut, he snatched the knife from the floorboard then sprang to his feet.

  A woman in an adjacent vehicle gave him a queer look.

  But he ignored her.

  He wove a path around the congealed traffic, found the sidewalk, and disappeared into the gloomy evening.

  MALONE LISTENED TO THE BOY’S STORY.

  “So you were there stealing.”

  “I lifted a few things. Then I took the drive off the bloke, just before the bugger pushed him into the train.”

  “You saw the guy pushed?”

  Ian nodded. “I wasn’t expecting that, so I ran, but ended up getting caught by the man who pushed him, then shoved into a Bentley.”

  He held up the plastic bag and asked again, “Where’s the flash drive?”

  “I kept it, after I left the car. I thought it could be worth something.”

  “And thieves like you don’t throw away things that are worth something.”

  “I’m not a thief.”

  His patience was running out. “Where’s the damn drive?”

  “In my special place. Where I keep my stuff.”

  His phone rang.

  Which startled him.

  Then he realized it could be Gary. He shoved Ian into the mews and dared the boy to make a run for it.

  He found the phone and clicked it on. “Gary?”

  “We have your son,” the voice said, which he recognized.

  Devene.

  “You know what we want.”

  And he was staring straight at it. “I have Dunne.”

  “Then we can trade.”

  He was fed up, so he said, “When and where?”

  Nine

  ANTRIM YANKED UP THE COLLAR OF HIS COAT AND BRACED himself for the chilly rain. The man he was following into the lousy night had just killed an American intelligence operative. He had to know who was behind this and why.

  Everything could depend on it.

  The pace of the hurrying masses on the sidewalk matched the bustle of traffic. Evening rush hour in a city of eight million people was unfolding. Below he knew trains roared in every direction, people headed down to them where the red circle crossed by a blue bar marked an Underground station. All of this was familiar, as he’d lived in London for the first fourteen years of his life. His father had worked for the State Department, a career employee with the diplomatic service who lasted thirty years until retirement. His parents had rented a flat near Chelsea and he’d roamed London.

  To hear his father talk, he’d laid the entire groundwork for the end of the Cold War. Reality was far different. His father was an unimportant man, in an unimportant job, a tiny cog in a massive diplomatic wheel. He died fifteen years ago in the States, living off one-half of his government pension. His mother received the other half, courtesy of an Illinois divorce she’d obtained after thirty-six years of marriage. Neither one of them had the courtesy to even tell him before they split, which summed up their life as a family.

  Three strangers.

  In every way.

  His mother spent her life trying to please her husband, scared of the world, unsure of anything. That’s why she took his father’s shouts, insults, and punches. Which left marks not only on her, but in their son’s memory.

  To this day he hated having his face touched.

  It started with his father, who’d smack him on the cheek for little or no reason. Which his mother allowed. And why wouldn’t she?

  She thought little of herself and even less of her son.

  He’d walked Fleet Street many times. The first was nearly forty years ago, as a twelve-year-old, his way of escaping both parents. Named after one of the city’s ghost rivers that flow belowground, this was once home to London’s press. The newspapers left in the 1980s, moving to the outskirts of town. But the courts and lawyers remained, their chambers occupying the warren of buildings and quadrangles surrounding him. He’d once thought about law school, but opted for government service. Only instead of the State Department, he’d managed to be hired by the CIA. His father lived long enough to know that, but never offered a single word of praise. His mother had long since lost touch with reality and languished in a fog. He’d visited her once in the nursing home, the entire experience too depressing to recall. He liked to think that his fears came from her, his audacity from his father, but there were times when he believed the reverse may well be true.

  His target was a hundred feet ahead, moving at a steady pace.

  He was panicked.

  Somebody was finally into the business of Operation King’s Deception.

  He scanned the surroundings.

  The Thames flowed a few hundred yards to his left, the Royal Courts of Justice only blocks ahead. This was the City, an autonomous district, separately chartered and governed since the 13th century. Some called it the Square Mile, occupied since the 1st century and the Romans. The great medieval craft guilds were founded right here, then the worldwide trading companies. The City remained crucial to Great Britain’s finance and trade, and he wondered if his target had a connection to either.

  His man turned left.

  He hustled forward, rain tickling his face, and saw that the assailant had entered the Inns of Court, passing through its famous stone gateway.

  This place he knew.

  It had once been the home of the Templars and the knights stayed until the early 14th century. Two hundred years later Henry VIII dissolved all religious orders and allowed the lawyers to assume the Temple grounds, forming their Inns of Court. James I eventually ensured their perpetual presence with a royal grant. He’d many times, as a kid, wandered through the maze of buildings with their courtyards. He recalled the plane trees, sundials, and green lawns sloping to the Embankment. Its gateways and alleys were legendary, the things of books and movies, many with elegant names like King’s Bench Walk and Middle Temple Lane.

  He stared through the entrance and spotted his man making haste down a narrow, brick-paved street. Four men brushed past and headed through the gate, so he joined them, hanging back, using them as cover. Light came from a few windows and wall lamps that illuminated the entrances to the buildings.

  His target turned left again.

  He rushed past the men ahead of him and found a cloister framed out by archways. A courtyard opened on the other side and he saw the man enter the Temple Church.

  He hesitated.

  He’d been inside before. Small, with few places to hide.

  Why go there?

  One way to find out.

  He stepped back out into the rain and trotted for the church’s side door. Inside, his gaze searched the scattered folds of weak light. Silence reigned, which unnerved him. Beneath the circular roof lay the marble effigies of slumbering crusaders resting in full armor.
He noted the marble columns, the interlaced arches, the solid drum of handsome stonework. The round church was embroidered by six windows and six marble pillars. In the rectangular choir to his right, beyond three more lofty arches, the altar was illuminated by a faint coppery glow. His target was nowhere in sight, nor anyone else.

  Nothing about this felt right.

  He turned to leave.

  “Not yet, Mr. Antrim.”

  The voice was older with a hollow tone.

  He whirled back around.

  In the Round, among the floor effigies, six figures appeared from the deep shadows that engulfed the walls. No faces could be seen, just their outline. Men. Dressed in suits. Standing. Arms at their sides, like vultures in the gloom.

  “We need to speak,” the same voice said.

  From his left, ten feet away, another man appeared, the face too in shadows, but enough was visible for him to see a weapon aimed straight at him.

  “Please step into the Round,” the first voice said.

  No choice.

  So he did as told, now among the floor effigies and encircled by the six men. “You killed my man just to get me here?”

  “We killed him because a point needed to be made.”

  The shadowy chin on the speaker looked as tough as armor plate.

  What had Wells said? Not supposed to happen.

  “How did you know I’d be in St. Paul’s?”

  “Our survival has always been predicated on operating with excellent intelligence. We have been watching your actions in our country for many months.”

  “Who are you?” He truly wanted to know.

  “Our founder called us the Daedalus Society. Do you know the story of Daedalus?”

  “Mythology never interested me.”

  “To you, the seeker of secrets? Mythology should be quite an important subject.”

  He resented the condescending tone, but said nothing.

  “The name Daedalus means ‘cunning worker,’ ” the older man said.

  “So what are you? Some kind of club?”

  The other five shadows had neither moved nor said a word.

  “We are the keepers of secrets. Protectors of kings and queens. God knows, they have needed protection, and mainly from themselves. We were created in 1605, because of the particular secret you seek.”

  Now he was interested. “You’re saying that it’s real?”

  “Why do you seek this?” another of the shadows asked, the voice again older and raspy.

  “Tell us,” another said. “Why meddle in our affairs?”

  “This an interrogation?” he asked.

  The first man chuckled. “Not at all. But we are curious. An American intelligence agent delving into obscure British history, looking into something that few in this world know exists. You asked your man in St. Paul’s, what happened to Farrow Curry? We killed him. The hope was that you would abandon the search. But that was not to be. So we killed another of your men tonight. Must we kill a third?”

  He knew who that would be, but still said, “I have a job to do.”

  “So do we,” one of the shadows said.

  “You won’t succeed,” another voice pointed out.

  Then a third said, “We will stop you.”

  The first man raised a hand, silencing the others.

  “Mr. Antrim, you have, so far, not been successful. My feeling is that once you do fail your superiors will forever abandon this effort. All we have to do is make sure that happens.”

  “Show yourself.”

  “Secrecy is our ally,” the first voice said. “We operate outside of the law. We are subject to no oversight. We decide what is best and appropriate.” A pause. “And we care nothing about politics.”

  He swallowed the nervous lump in his throat and said, “We’re not going to allow the release of that Libyan murderer. Not without repercussions.”

  “As I said, Mr. Antrim, politics matters not to us. But we are curious. Do you truly think that what you seek will stop that?”

  He hated the feeling of helplessness that surged through him. “You killed an American intelligence agent. That won’t go unpunished.”

  The older man chuckled. “And that is supposed to frighten us? I assure you, we have faced far greater threats from far greater sources. Cromwell and his Puritans beheaded Charles I. We tried to prevent that, but could not. Eventually, though, we engineered Cromwell’s downfall and the return of Charles II. We were there to make sure William and Mary secured the throne. We shepherded George III through his insanity and prevented a revolt. So many kings and queens have come and gone, each more self-destructive than the last. But we have been there, to watch and to guard. We fear not the United States of America. And you and I both know that if your investigations are discovered, no one on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean will acknowledge responsibility. You will be disavowed. Forgotten. Left to your own devices.”

  He said nothing because the SOB was right. That had been an express condition of King’s Deception. Take a shot. Go ahead. But if caught, you’re on your own. He’d worked under that disclaimer before, but he’d also never been caught.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “We could kill you, but that would only arouse further curiosity and bring more agents. So we are asking you to leave this be.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you are afraid. I see it on your face, in your eyes. Fear is paralyzing, is it not?”

  “I came after your man.”

  “That you did. But let us be honest with each other. Your past does not include much heroism. Your service record is one of caution and deliberation. We have learned much about you, Mr. Antrim, and, I must say, none of it is impressive.”

  “Your insults don’t bother me.”

  “We will pay you,” one of the shadows said. “Five million pounds, deposited wherever you choose. Simply tell your superiors there was nothing to find.”

  He did the math. Seven million dollars. His. For just walking away?

  “We knew that offer would interest you,” the first voice said. “You own little and have saved nothing. At some point your usefulness to your employer will wane, if not already, and then what will you do?”

  He stood in a pool of weak light, among the floor effigies, feeling defeated. Had that been the whole idea?

  Rain continued to fall outside.

  These men had chosen their play carefully and, he had to admit, the offer was tempting. He was fifty-two years old and had thought a lot lately about the rest of his life. Fifty-five was the usual age for operatives to leave, and living off a meager government pension had never seemed all that appealing.

  Seven million dollars.

  That was appealing.

  But it bothered him that these men knew his weakness.

  “Think on it, Mr. Antrim,” the first voice said. “Think on it hard.”

  “You can’t kill every agent of the U.S. government,” he felt compelled to say.

  “That’s true. But, by paying you off, we will ensure that Operation King’s Deception fails, which means no more agents will be dispatched. You will report that failure and assume all blame. We believe this simpler and more effective than force. Lucky for us that someone negotiable, like yourself, is in charge.”

  Another insult he allowed to pass.

  “We want this over. And with your help, it will be.”

  The shadow’s right hand rose, then flicked.

  The man with the weapon surged forward.

  A paralysis seized Antrim’s body and made him unable to react.

  He heard a pop.

  Something pierced his chest.

  Sharp. Stinging.

  His legs went limp.

  And he dropped to the floor among the dead knights.

  Ten

  KATHLEEN PARKED HER CAR ON TUDOR STREET, JUST OUTSIDE the gate. On the card her supervisor had provided was written MIDDLE TEMPLE HALL, which stood within the old Temple gr
ounds, part of the Inns of Court, where for 400 years London’s lawyers had thrived. Two of the great legal societies, the Middle Temple and Inner Temple were headquartered here, their presence dating back to the time of Henry VIII. Dickens himself had been a Middle Templar, and she’d always liked what he’d written about life inside the Inn walls.

  Who enters here leaves noise behind.

  The sight of Henry’s bones still bothered her. Never had she thought that she’d be privy to such a thing. Who would have burglarized that tomb? Bold, whoever they were, since security within Windsor Castle was extensive. And why? What did they think was there? All of these questions had weighed on her mind as she drove back into London, eager to know what awaited her at Middle Temple Hall.

  The rain came in spurts, her short brown hair dry from earlier but once again being doused by a steady mist. No one manned the vehicle gate, the car park beyond empty. Nearly 7:30 PM and the Friday workday was over at the Inns of Court.

  Hers, though, appeared to be only just beginning.

  She crossed the famous King’s Bench Walk and passed among a cluster of redbrick buildings, every window dark, entering the courtyard before the famous Temple Church. She hustled toward the cloister at the far end, crossing another brick lane and finding Middle Hall. A sign out front proclaimed CLOSED TO VISITORS, but she ignored its warning and opened the doors.

  The lit space within stretched thirty meters long and half that wide, topped by a double hammerbeam roof, its oak joists, she knew, 900 years old. The towering windows lining both sides were adorned with suits of armor and heraldic memorials to former Middle Templars. Along with Dickens, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Blackstone, Edmund Burke, and John Marston were all once members. Four long rows of oak tables, lined with chairs packed close together, ran parallel from one end to the other. At the far end beneath five massive oil paintings stretched the ancients table, where the eight most senior barristers had eaten since the 16th century. The portraits above had not changed in two hundred years. Charles I, James II, William III, Charles II, Queen Anne, and, to the left, hidden from view until farther inside, Elizabeth I.

  At the far end a man appeared.

  He was short, early sixties, with a weathered face as round as a full moon. His silver hair was so immaculately coiffed it almost demanded to be ruffled. As he came close she saw that thick, steel-rimmed glasses not only hid his eyes but erased the natural symmetry of his blank features. He wore a stylish, dark suit with a waistcoat, a silver watch chain snaking from one pocket. He walked dragging a stiff right leg, aided by a cane. Though she’d never met him, she knew who he was.