He accepted a cup of coffee from the flight attendant, slipped on his headphones, and went to work. He’d see how Havelock liked having his world dismantled, file by file, before he killed the bastard.
—
WHAT ADAM LEARNED from Havelock’s private files chilled him to the bone. Havelock’s technological advances in nano-biotech were astounding, far beyond anything Adam had even heard of in a theoretical way.
One of the things Havelock had managed to develop was a brain implant that allowed for real-time observation and audio. It would change the face of stealth intelligence, and if it ever made it out into the private sector, there’d be no such thing as privacy left.
But by far the more serious and frightening files hinted at a miniaturized nuclear weapon, a mini-nuke, so small as to be undetectable, which could be put in place by a remote human-controlled camera, and go anywhere, anytime, into any country, any stadium, any park, any government building. They could assassinate heads of state in the blink of an eye.
Incredible. Havelock was developing personally targeted nuclear weapons.
There was even research into theoretical DNA-driven bomb plans—ones that would only explode when in the hands of the target, utilizing an instant DNA check to ensure the recipient’s identity.
He’d never seen anything so scary in his life. Especially when he took into account the key to Marie’s weapon the Order wanted to find and destroy. To keep the world safe.
From all he’d seen, Havelock wasn’t only going after the weapon the Order had been trying to locate for the past hundred years, he was planning to overthrow the entire Order, planting his own people to coerce the other members to do what he ordered, until he could get rid of them. He’d killed his own father, why not Alfie Stanford? Yes, of course he had. His assault had begun and now all he needed were Adam’s coordinates to the lost U-boat.
The Order. No, the Highest Order, the group’s original formal name. Adam’s father had steeped him in its long, tortuous history, beginning with its inception at the end of Queen Anne’s reign. Powerful men in England did not want to see the Catholic Jacobites bring back bloody revolution to England. They formed the Highest Order to help quash the Jacobites, and succeeded. And once their initial goal of keeping the Catholics off England’s throne was accomplished, they moved on; their goal, to keep England safe. His father talked about one of their biggest failures in the nineteenth century, the needless bloody war in the Crimea—and one of their successes—their discovery that Jack the Ripper was one of Queen Victoria’s family—and they’d ensured he was confined since he couldn’t be arrested, all the proof still in the old files, kept under lock and key.
After World War I, the Order became a multinational group of fifteen high-powered men whose primary goal was to maintain the safety and security of the world by helping countries avoid wars and other destabilizing events. Adam knew if Havelock managed to take over the Order, he would pervert all the Order’s goals. He would also be in a position to take down all world powers—whether they were on his side or against him.
His father was gone. It was up to Adam to make sure Havelock’s plan didn’t happen. He must protect the Order, protect its legacy—his legacy. And now he, a nineteen-year-old hacker, was charged with being their hero. Him, Superman. He thought about himself in tights and laughed.
Adam didn’t leave cyberspace until the six-hour flight was nearly over. He’d drunk five cups of coffee, his fingers were jittery and sore, his body hopped up on caffeine and adrenaline and fury. He’d done some of the most beautiful work of his life, and Havelock’s world would never be the same. He’d actually amazed himself. He’d captured all the data from Havelock’s computers and encoded it, sending it back into the system with line after line of bugged code. Adam now owned everything Manheim Technologies had on their databases. Havelock would have to back off or Adam would sell it off to the highest bidder.
He sat back in the luxurious seat and shut his eyes for a moment, resting them from the glare of the screen. He was good, he knew that, better than good, but still, he needed a fail-safe. Something to insulate the data he’d assembled and destroyed. This was bigger than his concerns of going to jail, of never seeing the light of day again.
He opened his e-mail, and wrote a single line of code. He then created a false e-mail account, and filled out his father’s e-mail address. He knew the FBI were in control of his father’s accounts, and that Drummond character had close ties to the Order, no matter he didn’t realize it. Drummond would see this e-mail, if he was looking hard enough.
It was all Adam could think to do under the circumstances. He could not, would not, allow the Order to be compromised, nor, he realized, could he let the Order’s existence come to light, every media outlet in the world would tear them apart, blame them for everything that had gone wrong, not even realizing the Order had always endeavored to keep things in check. Without the members of today’s Order, scattered across the globe, the world would be in far worse shape than anyone could imagine.
But Drummond—he was the safest bet. Had he seen the coordinates to the sub Adam had sent his dad? If he had, well, there was nothing he could do about it now. At least if he had the coordinates, Adam wasn’t alone. He didn’t hesitate; he memorized the coordinates to the sub, and erased them from his hard drive.
Adam realized he’d taken on his father’s role, the protector, the guardian of the Order’s secrets. Adam knew them all, and now it was his job to protect the Order.
He reread the e-mail, the line of code. If Drummond was as much of a hotshot programmer as people said, he’d figure it out. This was the only thing to do. As much as he hated to even think it, Adam couldn’t trust anyone in the Order, not now that Mr. Stanford was dead.
He hit send.
The e-mail scrambled through Adam’s system, then shot off with a whoosh, bounced off fifty servers around the world, and was gone.
He started to close the lid of the laptop, but something caught his eye. The screen began to flash. As he watched, horrified, the corners of the screen shattered, like a piece of glass, and began to fold in on themselves, getting smaller and smaller and smaller, until all he could see was a tiny brown three-dimensional box superimposed on the black background, spinning and flashing, his name underneath.
Adam couldn’t believe this, didn’t have a clue how it could have happened—he himself had been hacked. Who could have done this? The FBI? No, there was no way. They were good, but not good enough to get into his system, not that quickly. And they wouldn’t play games, either. They’d just shut the whole thing down and track him to his nearest location.
Reality hit him. He was too late. Dear God in heaven, he was too late. The Order was already compromised. Havelock was already in control. Had he really destroyed Havelock’s assets? He didn’t know.
With shaking hands, he clicked on the box.
The screen went black, then a message began scrolling across the empty screen and Adam felt all the blood leave his head.
We Have Your Sister. Come to London. Now.
42
Nicholas’s House
Midnight
The ambulance had been prompt, the EMTs thorough, and as Nicholas watched Nigel sitting up, an ice pack on his neck, arguing with the EMTs, he counted his blessings.
They wanted to cart Nigel off to Lenox Hill Hospital for overnight observation, but Nigel was having none of it. Nicholas wasn’t sure he agreed. Even though Nigel had regained consciousness quickly, he seemed a bit loopy.
But he refused to go and that was that.
The EMTs reluctantly agreed not to haul him in. The injection contained some sort of mild sedative, and it clearly wasn’t long-lasting. As a precaution, they gave him a shot of Narcan, an overdose medication that would knock whatever drug he’d been injected with out of his system, and he’d be good as new in the morning.
Nigel insisted Nicholas continue working on the case, that all he needed was a lovely night’s rest.
One of the EMTs said, “He’ll be okay. Make sure he gets plenty of fluids. If he decompensates unexpectedly—he’s not gonna, don’t you worry, but just in case—you call us right back.”
The ambulance pulled away, the neighbors shuffled inside, and the night became quiet again. The spring evening had grown chilly, and combined with the sudden silence, the air seemed oddly clear and easily breakable. Like glass.
Oh, yes, this was definitely how he wanted to introduce himself to the neighborhood, as the victim of a home invasion in his first month on the street. At least his FBI badge had calmed some of them down and no one had called the police.
Waving jauntily to one last staring woman in a thick spa bathrobe, Nicholas stepped back inside the house. They all needed some rest, some time to recharge.
Nicholas knew in his heart Grossman was long gone. He recognized a fellow operative when he saw one. Grossman had been formally trained in countersurveillance, like Nicholas. He’d slipped in, taken what he needed, and gotten out again in under five minutes. He’d only maimed, not killed; he clearly understood the level to which he could go without creating a serious problem for himself. Breaking into an FBI agent’s home was one thing. If he’d killed Nigel, or Mike, that would be a whole different story.
If Nicholas weren’t so pissed off, he’d admire the man.
Where did the Pearces fit into all of this? Adam Pearce, especially, the young hacker with clear abilities to gain access to very private information. The kid was another ghost. Where was he? How did a nineteen-year-old evade a city-wide dragnet?
By getting out of the city, obviously, right under their noses.
He walked into the house to see Mike sitting on a small loveseat inside the front door, lightly rubbing her jaw. She was still spitting mad; he was pretty sure her anger was the only thing keeping her upright.
“How are you feeling?”
“The EMTs said I had a purple bruise which would fade to a lovely lavender, my pride is pretty well trampled, but other than that, I’m fine. Do you know Nigel wanted to make me a cup of tea? I told him to make himself some tea and go to bed.”
“Perhaps you should have let him. I hate to tell you this, but you look like you need a bit of a lie-down.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and got to her feet, held her hands up in front of her. They didn’t waver. She opened her eyes. “See? Solid as a rock.”
He was dubious, but said, “Okay, then, if you’re up for it, Gray’s sent what he had of Pearce’s files to my server. Let’s go back to the library. I can access everything Grossman stole from us and maybe we’ll see exactly what’s going on here. I don’t suppose you recall what I told you when you entered the library at gunpoint?”
“No, the hit to my jaw knocked it right out.”
“Pearce and Adam were looking for a German U-boat, Victoria. It was lost at sea—on eternal patrol—in September of 1917. Adam’s been breaking into the satellite imagery from various defense contractors’ very secret LEO-synchronous satellites for the past six months, ever since the technology was developed to allow the satellites to look through land to the water beneath. It’s similar technology to Thales’s Sentinel-Two satellite—very high-resolution imaging. The files show he’d narrowed the search to the North Sea, on the northern coast of Scotland.”
“So why is this submarine so important? I mean, 1917, that’s World War One. A lot of U-boats went down, right? What did Victoria have on board that was so special, even after nearly one hundred years?”
“You may be onto something there. According to Pearce’s files, the sub was stolen from the Germans, and went down with some sort of key on board, and, of all things, some of the kaiser’s gold, though I wouldn’t count on that being accurate. No, what’s vital to everyone is this key. That’s as far as I’d gotten in the files when you showed up with our friend Mr. Grossman, and he liberated my laptop. And my Tardis, I’ll bet I never see it again. I loved that thumb drive. At least Grossman doesn’t actually have anything, either.”
“You really managed to wipe everything before he got his hands on any of Pearce’s data?”
He nodded. They reached the library, and Mike didn’t fight him when he pointed at the couch. She knew she was okay, but Nicholas seemed to like nursing her, and she couldn’t say having him hover over her was the worst thing that had ever happened in her life.
Nicholas took the beat-up leather chair opposite her. She noticed he fit into it like it had been built around him. He pulled out another laptop.
“How many computers do you have?”
“Oh, a few. You never know when an operative is going to break in and steal one.”
“An operative? You think Grossman is a spy?”
“I do. And a very good one, too. No doubt in my mind he’s had covert training. To best Nigel, who’s trained in hand-to-hand combat, and to best you, as well? To sneak in here like a thief in the night and confront us? And to put together the operation in only a few hours? He had no idea who we were until he came to Ariston’s this morning. Yes, to plan and execute this so quickly, get past my security and my butler? And you? He’s a pro.”
“Maybe you need a dog.”
He laughed. “Not a bad idea. Nigel would walk him and he’d hate that. Yes, that’s good.”
“Do you have any idea what Grossman’s real connection was to Jonathan Pearce, and to Sophie?”
“Not yet, but I’d wager there was something in that book Sophie passed him this morning. She was so adamant he receive the package. You could tell he wanted it badly.”
Mike said, “When Grossman had me around the neck, he said something I’ve heard you say—There’s a good girl. And he sounded British before he realized it and reverted back to perfect American.”
Nicholas perked up. “Interesting. No one ever checked him out, did they?”
“We had a lot of balls in the air today. I do remember he said he owned a pub. It won’t be hard to see if he was telling the truth. We’ll have to ask Ben, he can do a background on him. If Grossman’s even his real name, of course. So Sophie’s in on it since she did hand off the book to Grossman, plus she wasn’t at all anxious to help us. And Adam, of course.”
“Yes, the whole bloody family. A family enterprise.”
Mike said, “All right, so tell me this, who does Grossman work for?”
“Haven’t a clue. Not yet, anyway. This Havelock character, perhaps, or another bad guy who wants to benefit from Pearce’s sudden knowledge of the submarine’s location. Speaking of the sub, Adam’s finding its exact location seems to be the trigger.”
Mike sat forward, excited. “And once Adam told his father he’d located the sub, his father wrote to the list of fifteen men on his computer, the ones whose correspondence was sprinkled with code. You’re exactly right—finding the sub was the precipitating event. Bad guys converged on New York. And here we are.”
Both of them were thoughtful, silent. Mike said, “So we know the sub’s resting place was narrowed down to the northern coast of Scotland.”
“Correct. Actually, I know exactly where it is,” and he waved a piece of paper.
She jumped up from the couch, grabbed his arm. “Nicholas, that’s it. What Pearce said to Mr. Olympic when he was dying—The key is in the lock? That’s exactly right, only it’s not a lock on a door. It’s a loch, L-O-C-H, like a Scottish lake.”
He smiled. “You’re amazing, you know that? Even though your jaw is a deep purple.”
“Don’t you start.” But she grinned, so tickled she did a little dance, finished it off with a bump and grind and high-fived him. “Okay, James Bond, looks like I’ve done the heavy lifting—your turn now.”
43
Nice moves.” He settled more comfortably into the chair, clicked the
track pad of his laptop and read. After reading for a while, he looked up. “Okay, here goes. You’re perfectly right, Mike—the coordinates Adam texted to his father match a loch in northern Scotland, a Loch Eriboll. It’s isolated, desolate, but it’s also one of the few deepwater lochs in Scotland. The Royal Navy has used it for years. Submarines go in and out, frigates, everything. It was a perfect staging area, more so in World War Two than in World War One. Brit ships would sail into the loch, anchor for the night, for the week. Whatever was needed. There’s even a spot where the sailors would disembark and use the white granite stones to spell out their boat’s name on the hillside above the western edge of the loch.”
“If it’s so active, how in the world did they miss this?” Mike said. “There’s been a German U-boat in the loch since 1917, and no one knew it? How can that be? I mean, I’ve never seen one in person, but it’s a loch. They aren’t that big, are they?”
“This loch is very deep, but you’re right, it isn’t very big. Victoria has been concealed all this time under a shelf of granite, deep under the water, but near the shoreline, and no one’s ever seen it. Pearce and his son have been searching for it for years, but it wasn’t until the satellite technology caught up that they could see through the mass to the submarine beneath. It’s been cozied up in there for nearly a century.”
“Holding a key and the kaiser’s gold.” Nicholas tossed her a bottle of water and she drank deep. “Thanks. Now, what is the key to? Is there an explanation in their files?”
“Didn’t see it, but I’ll look deep now that Gray’s downloaded his file copies.”
The Lost Key Page 17