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colleague outside the door. We thought a demonstration of violence, coupled with an attack on me, might keep you focused. Unfortunately, we were wrong.”
“Are you part of the Daedalus Society?”
“It doesn’t exist.”
That did not surprise her. “Thomas Mathews created it. Right?”
Pazan nodded. “If you realized that, why run inside the palace?”
“It’s hard to be sure of anything around here. And, the last I checked, Mathews wanted me dead.”
Her captor smiled. “The intelligence business is not like yours. You hunt down facts and work for convictions. We have no courts. No prisons. This is life or death, and success is the only thing that matters.”
“Mathews created Daedalus for Antrim, didn’t he? He wanted to manipulate him, but could not reveal SIS was involved.”
“Smart girl. We’ve been watching Antrim and his operation since the beginning. We needed a way to get close, without any fingerprints. A fictional, ancient society seemed the best way and, lucky for us, Antrim bought it. But you didn’t.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Hardly. You’ve proven quite a chore. We thought you might be helpful with Antrim, but things have changed.”
And she knew why.
“Because of Cotton Malone.”
MALONE WAITED FOR AN ANSWER TO HIS QUESTION, BUT DECIDED to add, “I know about the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.”
“Then you also know that your government doesn’t want that to happen. They want us to stop Edinburgh.”
“Which you can.”
He’d been thinking about why that wasn’t possible. And only one explanation made sense.
Oil.
“What is it you want from the Libyans? What’s the deal they offered for al-Megrahi’s release?”
“Let’s just say that we could not ignore their humanitarian request.”
“So you sold out for oil price concessions?”
Mathews shrugged. “This nation has to survive. We are stretched, as is everyone, to the limit. We have something they want. They have something we want. It’s a simple trade.”
“He murdered British, Scottish, and American citizens.”
“That he did. And he will soon meet his maker and atone for those sins. He has terminal cancer. It isn’t like we are releasing him to live a long life. If letting him go gains us more over the long run, then why not do it?”
He now understood why the British government had stayed silent. If any hint of a trade leaked out, the repercussions would be enormous. The headlines devastating. GREAT BRITAIN DEALS WITH TERRORISTS. The American position was, and always had been, no negotiations with terrorists, period. That didn’t mean no talking with them, just use the talk to buy enough time to act.
“Cotton, look at this another way. After World War II, both the United States and Britain utilized former Nazis. Your space program was born from them. Your aviation and electronics industries excelled. Intelligence services expanded. All thanks to ex-enemies. Postwar Germany was governed with their open assistance. We both used them to keep the Soviets off base. Was that any different than here?”
“If it’s such a great idea, why not tell the world what you’re doing?”
“I wish things were so black and white.”
“That’s another reason I got out. I can actually do what’s right now.”
Mathews smiled. “I always liked you, Cotton. A man with courage and honor. Unlike Blake Antrim.”
He said nothing.
“Antrim has been running a CIA-sanctioned operation called King’s Deception, here, on British soil, for over a year now. He’s been systematically stealing our national treasures. Delving into our secrets. Over the past forty-eight hours he sanctioned the violation of Henry VIII’s tomb in St. George’s Chapel. He used percussion explosives to crack away the marble slab, then rummaged through the royal remains. He also accepted five million pounds to end Operation King’s Deception. Half has been paid, another half will soon be owed.”
That grabbed his attention. “How do you know that?”
“Because I engineered the payment. I created a mythical opponent. The Daedalus Society. And convinced Antrim of its sincerity.”
“By killing Farrow Curry?”
“You know that course is necessary, at times. Curry became far too knowledgeable. He learned our secret. I thought his death would solve the problem. Unfortunately, we had to kill another.”
That he knew nothing about.
“One of Antrim’s operatives who provided us information in return for compensation. But he became greedy and wanted more than he was worth. So we used his death as a way to ingratiate ourselves directly to Antrim. Which, I must say, worked. All was fine, and would have been, but for your appearance.”
“So you sent men to kill me in the tunnel?”
Mathews glared at him.
“That I did.”
KATHLEEN WAS BECOMING ANGRIER BY THE SECOND.
“Malone was an unknown,” Eva said. “His presence has accelerated everything. But this is going to end here, now, today.”
“What is going to end?”
“The Americans want us to do something. We don’t want to do it. So they decided to find some leverage. A way to force us to do what they want. Thankfully, we’ve prevented that. All that remains is to tidy up the mess.”
“Meaning me?”
“And Antrim.”
She thought fast and knew what to do.
“I don’t want to die.”
She stared straight at Pazan.
“I’ll do whatever you want. But I don’t want to die.”
She stood from the chair.
Her eyes watered as she kept her gaze locked on the other woman.
“Please. I’m begging you. I don’t want to die.”
Pazan stared at her.
“I’m tired of running. I get it. You people have the upper hand. I’m in your custody. Can’t you contact Mathews and tell him I did what he wanted?” She found the sheets in her pocket. “I stole these from Malone. It’s what was on the flash drive. I was bringing them to Sir Thomas when you cornered me. I didn’t know you were working with him. How could I?”
She crept closer, the pages leading the way in her trembling left hand.
Pazan reached out to take them.
She handed them over. “I just don’t want any more problems.”
Her right hand balled to a fist and swung up to meet Pazan’s left jaw in a perfect uppercut that propelled the woman backward off her feet. She grabbed one of the chairs and pounded Pazan’s midsection. The SIS agent crumpled forward. A rage consumed Kathleen. She swung the chair upward, then down on Pazan’s head, sending her captor to the floor, not moving.
The door burst open.
The other man who’d been with Pazan inside the palace rushed ahead, the one who’d planted his foot on her face, a gun leading the way.
She whirled the chair into the hand with the gun, jarring the weapon away.
Another swing into his chest stopped him cold.
Raising the chair and slamming it down, she surely cracked the man’s skull, dropping him beside Pazan. She tossed her weapon aside, then found the gun and the pages.
“That makes us even,” she whispered to the man on the floor.
Forty-seven
IAN STOOD BESIDE MISS MARY AS THEY BOTH READ THE FILE emailed to Miss Mary’s phone.
A translation of Robert Cecil’s journal.
I WAS TOLD OF THE DECEPTION BY MY FATHER. HE CALLED ME TO HIS DEATHBED and revealed something extraordinary. When but a child of thirteen, the young princess Elizabeth had died of fever. She was buried in the garden at Overcourt House, inside a stone coffin, with no ceremony, the Lady Kate Ashley and Thomas Parry the only two privy. Both feared for their lives, as King Henry VIII had charged them with his daughter’s safety. Henry was then unhealthy, enormous in girth, his temperament violent and irritable. Though Elizabeth’s death came from
no person’s fault, both Ashley and Parry would have paid for the girl’s death with their lives. But circumstances worked in their favor. First was that the father rarely saw the daughter, his mind consumed with other matters. Thankfully, there were two wars ongoing, one with Scotland, the other with France. Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, had been unfaithful and was executed for infidelity. Then the wooing of Katherine Parr and his marriage for a sixth time became overriding. The perpetual worry for his legitimate son and heir, Edward, along with his own mortality, further dominated the final years of his reign. So his second daughter was relatively unimportant.
It helped that Elizabeth lived an isolated life away from court, the Lady Ashley, her governess, her only constant companion. With the child dead something had to be done and it was Thomas Parry who proposed a solution. Parry was aware of the illegitimate grandchild of Henry VIII, the son born to Henry FitzRoy and Mary Howard. Until his death in 1536 FitzRoy had stood in great favor with the king. Henry had known of FitzRoy’s marriage to Mary Howard, and approved, but he had forbidden the consummation of the marriage until the young lovers were older. This decree was ignored and a son was born to them in 1533. Of this, Henry was never told.
Parry proposed a substitution. The unknown grandson for the deceased princess. Lady Ashley thought the idea absurd and said they would all lose their heads. But Parry lay forth five principles in making his case. First, the imposter must have the likeness of the princess, as to create no suspicion. This was satisfied since the grandson had inherited the Tudor fairness of skin, the red hair, and the features of his grandfather. Second, there must be a familiarity with the circumstances of the princess’s life. The grandson had been raised in isolation by the Howards, but had been taught of his noble heritage. Third, there must be both education and knowledge similar to what the princess received. This, too, had been provided, the boy schooled in geography, mathematics, history, mechanics, and architecture. Fourth, a skill in the classics and foreign tongues was important. The grandson could speak and write French, Italian, Spanish, and Flemish. Finally, there must be an ease of body and the courtliness of a highborn. This the grandson possessed in abundance, as the Howards were the wealthiest in the realm.
