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He brought the phone close to his eyes.
What a break.
Malone and Dunne left the mews together.
Yesterday, he’d formulated a plan. One he’d thought smart and workable. But a new idea streaked through his brain. A way to perhaps reap all five million of the rewards.
First, though, he had to know something, so he texted his men.
Did you enable the phone?
He’d told them to make sure the locator feature was working on Malone’s cell and to learn the phone number.
The response came quick.
Done.
MALONE, WITH IAN, EXITED THE TAXI. LUCKILY, THE DRIVER agreed to accept U.S. dollars and he tipped an extra twenty for the favor.
Ian’s special hiding place was located behind a set of Georgian buildings in a part of London known as Holborn. The block faced a park encircled by a narrow one-car lane, multistory brick buildings in varying colors on all sides. From the name plates he noted that most were occupied by lawyers—who, he knew, had long dominated this section of London. A rich confection of cloisters, courtyards, and passageways defined the place. What had Shakespeare allowed Richard III to say? My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn I saw good strawberries in your garden. The strawberry patches were gone and the old marketplace had become a diamond exchange. Only the lit park across the street seemed a remnant of the Middle Ages—meticulously landscaped and dotted with bare sycamore trees.
The time was approaching 9:00 PM, but the sidewalks remained busy. The sight of a boy being urged by his mother not to dawdle made him think of Pam. She’d always been a calculating woman, careful with her words, stingy with her emotions. He resented her for forcing this situation with Gary on him. Sure, she was tugged by a long-held guilt. But couldn’t she see that there were skeletons behind those doors—none of which should have ever been opened? Six months ago, when she informed him about Gary’s parentage, her explanation was that she wanted to be fair.
Since when?
She’d kept the secret this long. Why not forever? Neither he nor Gary would have ever known.
So what prompted her sudden need for truth?
Long ago, he’d been a foolish navy lieutenant and hurt her. They’d attended counseling, worked through it, and he’d thought his sincere request for forgiveness had been granted. Ten years later, when she walked out, he came to see that their marriage had never had a chance.
Trust broken is trust lost.
He’d read that somewhere and it was true.
But he wondered what it took to watch, day in and day out, while a father and son bonded, knowing that it was, at least partly, an illusion.
He felt for the cell phone in his pocket and wished it to ring. He hadn’t told Ian the substance of the earlier conversation. Of course, he had no intention of handing the boy over.
But he needed that flash drive.
His and Gary’s travel bags were slung over his shoulders and he followed Ian into a darkened alley that led to an enclosed courtyard, brick walls from the buildings encasing all sides. Lights from a handful of windows cast enough of a glow for him to notice a small stone structure on one side. He knew what it was. One of London’s old wells. Many of the city’s districts took their names from water sources that once supplied residents. Camberwell. Clerk’s. St. Clement’s. Sadler’s. Then there were the holy wells. Sacred healing springs that dated back to Celtic times, most of which were long gone, but not forgotten.
He stepped over and peered down past the waist-high stone wall.
“There’s nothing down there,” Ian said. “It’s sealed off a meter or so below with concrete.”
“Where’s your special place?”
“Over here.”
Ian approached what appeared to be a grate in one of the brick walls. “It’s a vent that leads into the basement. It’s always been loose.”
He watched as Ian hinged the panel upward and reached inside, feeling around at the top.
Another plastic shopping bag, from Selfridges, appeared in the boy’s hand.
“There’s a ledge above the grate. I found it one day.”
He had to admire the boy’s ingenuity.
“Let’s go back to the street, where there’s more light.”
They left the courtyard and found a bench beneath one of the streetlights. He emptied the contents of the bag and inventoried the assortment of items. A couple of pocketknives, some jewelry, three watches, twenty pounds sterling, and a flash drive, 32G. Plenty of room for data.
“Is that it?” he asked.
Ian nodded. “It felt like a lighter or a pocket recorder when I first got my hand on it.”
He scooped up the drive.
“What do we do now?” Ian asked.
Some insurance would be good.
“We find a computer and see what’s on this thing.”
GARY LAY ON THE SOFA, THE MAN SUCKING LICORICE STILL nearby. He estimated another half hour had elapsed from their arrival. His arms were beginning to ache from being bound behind his back, his face sweating from the wool cap, his shirt damp with perspiration. He quelled the rapidly growing tension within him with thoughts that if these men wanted him hurt, then that would have already happened. Instead, it seemed he was needed in one piece.
But for how long?
He heard a pounding, then a crack.
Wood splintering.
“What the—” the man nearest him said.
“Drop it,” a new voice screamed. “Now.”
He heard something hard thud to a rug or carpet.
“On the floor. Hands where I can see them.”
“We have the other one,” a voice said from farther off.
Footsteps, then, “Down, beside your buddy.”
No British accents anywhere. These guys were American.
The wool cap was ripped from his face and the bindings on his hands cut. He rubbed his wrists and blinked away the burning lamps that lit the room. When he finally focused he saw worn gold carpet, brown walls, and a pair of matching chairs on either side of the sofa. The exit door had been splintered from its hinges. His two captors, Devene and Norse, lay facedown on the floor. Three men stood in the room, all armed. Two kept weapons trained on his captors.
The third sat beside him on the sofa.
Relief swept over him.
“You okay?” the man asked.
He nodded.
The man was older, near his dad’s age, but with less hair and a few more pounds at the waist. He wore a dark overcoat, buttondown collared shirt, and dark pants. Pale gray eyes stared at him with a look of concern.
“I’m okay,” Gary said. “Thanks for finding me.”
Something about him was familiar.
He’d seen this face before.
“We met in Atlanta.”
The man smiled. “That’s right. Your mom introduced us. Back in the summertime, when I was there on business.”
He recalled the day, at the mall, near the food court. They’d stopped to buy some clothes. The man had called out, walked over, and chatted with his mother while he shopped. Everything had seemed cordial and pleasant. After they left, she’d said he was an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time.
And here he was.
He tried to remember a name.
The man offered his hand to shake.
“Blake Antrim.”
Twenty
OXFORD
KATHLEEN’S MIND SWIRLED. SHE’D FACED DRUG TRAFFICKERS who’d fired fourteen hundred rounds from Uzis and AK-47s at her. A hotel room on Tenerife shot up by a child sex offender who’d not wanted to return to England. Being submerged in a car that had catapulted off a bridge. But she’d never experienced anything like the past few minutes. A woman assassinated by a sniper. Her own body Tasered. And some man who was protecting royal secrets, threatening her life, disappearing into nowhere.
She stood alone in the dark quad.
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.
She found the unit and answered.
“Are you finished with Professor Pazan?”
Thomas Mathews.
“The professor is dead.”
“Explain yourself.”
She did.
“I am here, in Oxford. My plan was to speak to you after your talk. Come to Queen’s College now.”
She walked the few blocks, following the curve of elegant High Street. She knew it as The High. Many of Oxford’s colleges fronted the busy thoroughfare that ran from the center of town to the River Cherwell. Though after 9:00 PM, frenetic activity raged around her. Cars and packed buses, each trailing plumes of exhaust, ferried people to and from town, the busy weekend unfolding. Her nerves were rattled, but she told herself to stay calm. After all, she could be sitting in her flat waiting to be fired.
The foot to her face had rubbed her the wrong way. Had that been the idea? To put her in her place? If so, it was a bad move. If she and that man crossed paths again, he’d pay for the insult.
Queen’s College was one of the ancients, founded in the 14th century and named as a counterpart to the already established King’s College in the hope that future queens would extend their patronage. The huddle of its original medieval houses was long gone, the fate of time and lack of funding. What remained was a baroque masterpiece, a touch out of place among so much Gothic splendor, centered by a dome-covered statue of Queen Caroline, the wife of George II. Many thought the college was named after her. In reality, it acquired its name from a much earlier benefactor—Philippa, wife of Edward III.
She entered the front quad through the domed gatehouse, the lit walkway ahead framed on either side by winter grass. An illuminated cloister lined with archways stretched left and right, the rusticated stone crusty and brittle, casting the appearance of a mountain monastery.
