The Lost Key (30 page)

T
en minutes later they were buckled into the seats of a Merlin chopper on their way to the frigate HMS
Dover
. The pilots were curious; it wasn't often they were diverted to a closed air base to pick up two civilians for a ride up to the North Sea.

The pilot said, “Be prepared, it's choppy as hell out there right now, so buckle up. We'll have you over the loch in thirty minutes and land you on the
Dover.
She's waiting for us. The minute we're on board, the boat will head into the loch. This ship you're searching for, the
Gravitania,
they've already moved into position, they're in the loch as we speak.”

Nicholas said, “If that's the case, can you put us down on the
Gravitania
?”

“Unadvisable, sir. It's an enemy ship, we don't know who or what's down there. Our captain would have us for breakfast if we pulled a stunt like that.”

“Gentlemen, I am not lying to you. This is a matter of national security. All of our lives are going to depend on you getting us on that ship.”

“No can do, sir.”

Nicholas looked at Mike, raised his eyebrows, then said, “Alert me when we are nearing the ship.”

“Roger. I have a call to patch through, from a Superintendent Penderley. You want it?”

“I want it.”

There was static for a second, then Penderley's voice came clearly through their headsets.

“Drummond, there's blood all over Weston's Oxford house, but no sign of Sophie Pearce. There was one dead man in the house, shot through the head, no idea who he was. There had also been an MI Five agent on the grounds, Alex Shepherd. He left us a note saying they'd gone to Scotland, to the
Gravitania
.

“Looks like Havelock and Weston are together, with Sophie Pearce. The note has a time on it. They left less than an hour before we got here.”

Nicholas said, “Then they're all on the
Gravitania
now. Sir, I need another favor. You have to get us on board that boat. I can't waste time landing on the
Dover
, then sailing into the loch. It's all going down on the
Gravitania.
If I get there first, I may be able to stop this whole mess before it goes up in smoke.”

When Penderley remained quiet, Nicholas said, “I promise I can stop them, sir. Can you get me on that boat?”

Penderley heaved a huge sigh. “Do try not to get yourself killed, Drummond.”

The call abruptly ended. Mike shouted into her headset's microphone, “Say they pull it off and get us on Havelock's boat. Do you have a plan?”

“Oh, yes. You and I are going to put down on the
Gravitania,
shoot the bad guys, and hand the ship over to Her Majesty's Navy.
Then we're going to stop Havelock before he gets to the sub and steals the key.”

“Well, okay, sounds like a good plan to me. Let's do it, sounds like fun.”

He grinned at her, and she thought to herself,
I'm becoming as mad as you are. In any case, it didn't matter, they had to pull it off, there was
too much at stake to believe otherwise.

Should she call Zachery, tell him what was happening? She looked at her cell, then shoved it back in her pocket. She caught his eye, and read his unspoken words clearly—
Good call
.

The chopper was skimming the land below, its flight path on a northerly heading. The moors of northern Scotland spread before them in a glorious multicolored pattern, greens and browns and oranges muted into rusty grasses and yellow fields, colors Mike had never seen before.

It was bleak, desolate beauty. Sheep dotted the fields like tufts of white cotton, and the fields ran up the hills into thick, green forests. Fog was threatening; her map showed the Firth of Moray to the east, but the late-evening sun was keeping the fog at bay.

The hills swelled into sudden mountains, gray and forbidding and sharp-edged. The chopper flew over misty peaks, swooped down the lee edge of the mountain, letting the wind take them, and the moor spread again before them. The loch appeared suddenly, a long, blue finger of water, and she could swear she could smell the peat fires burning below.

She said to Nicholas, “That has to be the most beautiful fifteen minutes I've ever spent.”

“Lovely, isn't it? Cold as the dickens, though.”

The pilot broke in. “You must know some pretty impressive
people, sir. We've been instructed to put you down on the
Gravitania.
The ship's too small for us to land, you'll have to fast-rope onto their deck.”

Nicholas punched his fist in the air. “Great news. Now, do you have a few weapons we could borrow? I don't feel like going up against a whole ship of bad guys without some serious firepower.”

The pilot laughed. “Check the cabinet to your left. There's some C-Eights in there. Plus ammunition. You're going to need backup. I'm going to send Lieutenant Halpern here to watch your back when you drop on.”

“Perfect.” Nicholas reached over and unstrapped the cabinet, pulled out two C8s, paused for a moment, then took an emergency first-aid kit.

He handed one weapon to Mike, and a pair of thin, sticky gloves. “This is like the M-Four assault rifle, but the barrel is up instead of down. It takes a thirty-round clip.” He pulled out two and handed her one. “So here's a spare. It's a little heavier than the M-Four, so it's gonna kick. Set it to burst.”

He'd gone operational on her, his perfect, crisp, posh British accent was changing into adrenaline-driven military-speak.

“You've fast-roped before?”

“Yes, in training. It's been a while.”

“It's our only decent ingress. It's going to be windy, so plan to go fast. Slap that strap over your shoulder, the rifle will lay nice and snug against your back. The minute we hit the deck, you spin it around and cover me.”

“Roger that.”

He looked at her then, really saw her. Her face was pale, composed and set, but her eyes, he could tell she was excited, blood
pumping, locked and loaded. She was holding the C8 in a death grip.

He said, “When we've wrapped this all up, I'll buy you a proper meal.”

“No haggis,” she said.

“You're in luck, it's not haggis season. A nice cottage pie, that will warm you from the inside.”

He broke open the first-aid kit. He was in luck, God bless Her Majesty's Navy.

He shook out the pills. “Here, Mike, take two—potassium iodide. It will protect us from radiation.”

She swallowed the pills. “I'll bring the first-aid kit along. We don't know what we're going to encounter down there.”

The chopper was swinging low over the loch now. A herd of red deer sprang away from the cliff's edge, running away from the noise.

Mike tucked the kit inside her jacket. The adrenaline was starting to pump hard through her body. She took a few deep breaths to tamp it down, pulled on the gloves, grateful she wasn't going to have to try this bare-handed.

She ran through the weapon, checking it, as she'd been trained to do. When she was comfortable with it, she set it square in her lap and tried to empty her mind of everything but each action she was going to undertake. She was glad she'd put on a heavy sweater under her leather jacket. She had a sinking suspicion it was going to be freezing cold once they slid out the doors of the chopper.

The pilot came over the air again.

“Two minutes to jump.”

“Roger,” Nicholas said, then opened the chopper door. The cold breeze whistled in.

“One minute to jump.”

She took a deep breath, moved into position. There was a thick black coil attached to the floor of the chopper, the ropes they were going to slide down. The copilot joined them, his own weapon at the ready. He shouted, “I'm Lieutenant Ryan Halpern. I'm going to cover your insertion. Careful to keep your feet free of the rope, ma'am, since I'll be right behind you.”

Mike gave him a thumbs-up. She saw the
Gravitania
's lights below, bobbing in the waves.

The pilot said, “We've circled twice, I don't see any activity of any kind from the ship. We're going to insert you low, so if there are bad guys down there hiding, they'll come out like lice so you'll have to be ready to rock 'n' roll. You'll have a thirty-foot slide, okay?”

Nicholas smiled at her. “Mike, you ready?”

Her heart jumped into her throat, blood thundered in her head. She gave him a mad grin, took the thick braided rope in her hand, fed it around her arms and left her legs free.

The pilot said in her ear, “Fast-rope on my mark—three, two, one, jump, jump, jump.”

And they went out the door, snaking down the lines onto the deck of Havelock's ship.

Gravitania

Loch Eriboll

7:00 p.m.

The moment they hit the
Gravitania
's
deck, the helicopter peeled off, the whump of the rotors fading slowly until they were surrounded by nothing but a pervasive silence. Mike got the C8 into her hands immediately, Nicholas did as well. Where was everybody? They had to be hiding somewhere. They kept quiet and used hand signals: Nicholas to lead, Mike behind him, Lieutenant Halpern bringing up the rear to cover.

The ship rocked a bit in the still waters, listing gently from side to side. The mountains on either side of the loch rose like silent sentinels.

Nicholas saw a small T-shaped spit of land about one hundred yards away, a bleached wooden hut on the spit, and what looked like caves fronting a small beach. Like the
Gravitania,
the land and hut seemed deserted.

They moved out, stepping lightly, and worked their way through the ship. There was no one aboard. The
Gravitania
was empty.

“Where is everybody?”

“Havelock must have off-loaded them,” Nicholas said. “Why? I don't know.”

Lieutenant Halpern moved closer. “If so, he probably has another ship nearby. I'll call it in.”

Nicholas again looked from side to side. “Lieutenant, after you make that call, take another circuit. Mike, let's go to the bridge, see if we can figure out what happened here.”

With a quick nod, Halpern melted away. They heard him speaking quietly. Mike followed Nicholas up the steps at the rear of the boat. The spit of land was on their port side. A small Bell helicopter blocked most of their view of the stern. Mike looked over at the small hut. Still no sign of anyone.

The ship was anchored, the engines were off, but the electrical system was still running. On the bridge they saw a sophisticated multiscan sonar system, perfect for skimming the waters beneath them, and a side-scan sonar buoy in the water off the port side. There was a small blip flashing steadily on the screen in front of them, two hundred degrees astern.

Havelock had been trolling for the exact location of the sub, and he'd found it.

Nicholas stepped closer to the sonar display. He tapped the screen, then pointed left.

“There,” he said.

Mike said,
“Underground?”

He nodded. “That's why no one has ever picked up on it. To regular sonar, the blip would appear to be the land itself, but it's not. It's under a rock ledge.”

Mike looked at him. “How deep is that water?”

“The channel is sixty-eight meters. Along the edges, it's probably twenty, twenty-five. Deep enough for a German U-boat to
nestle itself in. If it's first generation, it will be about forty meters long, less than four meters high. Not small, but small enough.”

“And they've been hiding for a century, tucked up under this spit of land. Amazing.”

“A secluded spot, even with the seagoing vessels coming in and out. This is the only sea loch on the northern coast of Scotland. It's far from civilization, the perfect spot for a sub to hide.”

“Who's idea was it, do you think? To hide the sub here?”

Nicholas shrugged. “The captain of the sub, if they'd been damaged and he didn't want anyone to find them.”

Mike looked again toward the wooden hut. “We don't have time to wait for the
Dover
and a submersible. Nicholas. As you know, I can't dive.”

Halpern came onto the bridge. “I dive, sir. What's more, I saw all the dive equipment we'll need. But before we go down, there's something you need to see. I found one of the crew.”

—

HALPERN LED THEM
down the stairs, to the stern of the boat. There was a man, half off the back of the boat, caught in netting that had most likely held a small rescue raft. He was pale, waxy, nearly the same color as the graying sky. And wet. He was wearing a T-shirt and a bulletproof vest. His hand stretched onto the deck of the boat, and there was blood smeared along his arm.

Suddenly, he moved. “He's not dead!” Mike shouted and ran to him.

“Mike, no, get back!”

She was on her knees beside him. “Nicholas, it's Alex Shepherd. He's been shot.”

He was alive, barely.

“I'd as soon leave him for the crows,” Nicholas said.

Alex grabbed her hand, and looked up into her face. “Help. Me.” There was a pause, he dropped her hand. She barely heard him whisper, “Please.” He was out cold.

Nicholas said, “We do need to know what happened on this boat, and I suppose that means helping the bastard.”

“He did leave us a note at Weston's house to tell us where to come. We need to call the
Dover
right now, get them to send the chopper back and airlift him out of here.”

“You do it, Mike. Use channel sixteen.”

Nicholas and Halpern pulled Shepherd free of the netting, two hundred pounds of deadweight. They hauled him to a small cabin off the stern.

Mike ripped open his T-shirt, unstrapped the body armor Velcro. Once they pulled it off him they saw the huge bruise on his chest. “Somebody shot him dead center. From the color of the bruise, it wasn't all that recent.”

The second shot had happened very recently. It had missed the vest—a small hole high on Shepherd's shoulder, blood still oozing, a through and through. He groaned, tried to jerk up, but Mike pressed him back down. “It's okay, lie still. I'll try to fix you up. Help is on the way.”

Halpern went back to guard the door. Nicholas stood over Shepherd. “Time to tell us everything, Shepherd. First, is Havelock already in the submersible?”

Shepherd's eyes were closed, his teeth gritted against the pain. “Yes, but I don't know how long he's been down.”

“Where are Sophie and Adam?”

“Probably with März, Havelock's familiar. He's dangerous. They aren't safe.”

“Is Havelock alone?”

“I don't know. I was in the water, hanging on to the anchor, when I saw März and Weston help him get the submersible in the water, then I think Weston took Elise to the other boat.”

“Who is Elise?”

“Havelock's mistress. He likes pain. She's a dominatrix.”

“Why did they shoot you?”

Shepherd opened his eyes, blue as a summer day and filled with pain. “Havelock whipped Sophie because he wanted to break Adam. I was trying to get her and Adam off the boat when März stopped us. Weston shot me. März kicked me overboard. I played dead, then I climbed up the nets and managed to hang on until you found me.”

Nicholas said, “What is your role in all this?”

“My loyalty is to the Order. I worked for Stanford. He assigned me to guard Jonathan Pearce three years ago after his former guard retired.”

Nicholas said, “We know MI Five didn't have a problem with this assignment since Weston is deputy director general.”

Alex moaned. Mike put a cup of water to his mouth, let him drink.

He fell back, panting. Mike said, “I'm sorry, I know it hurts. A little longer and I'll have you all bandaged up.”

He closed his eyes against the pain, whispered, “You've got to listen to me. Weston betrayed the Order. He works for Havelock. I failed Sophie and Adam. I failed Jonathan. One of Havelock's assassins killed him.”

His voice was thready; Mike didn't know how much longer he could hang on. He wasn't shaking with cold too much, and that was good, but the pain and the exhaustion were pulling him under
and there was simply nothing else she could do for him. Where were the medics from the
Dover
?

Alex couldn't let go yet, he had to tell them, had to. “Weston told me Jonathan Pearce's death was a mistake. Havelock only wanted Adam Pearce. Massive screwup. Havelock's man was only supposed to take Adam when he showed up on Wall Street. Havelock didn't want Jonathan dead. Jonathan was the secret keeper as well as the Messenger, the only one in the Order who knew the entire story.”

“What story, exactly?”

He was fading fast. Mike and Nicholas leaned close.

“What story, exactly?” Nicholas asked again.

He whispered, “Josef and Ansonia.”

Mike lightly squeezed his hand. Ansonia, he recognized her name from Jonathan's files. “Who are they, Alex?”

“The key. They stole the key.”

Nicholas hunkered close. So they were from long ago. Shepherd was nearly out. Nicholas said quickly, “You said Weston went with Elise to the other boat. Where is the other boat?”

Barely a whisper. “North,” he said, and he was gone.

Mike said, “He's lost a lot of blood, Nicholas. I've done the best I can. I hear a helicopter.”

Halpern said from the cabin doorway, “The medics are here for Shepherd.”

Nicholas said, “Good. Time's up. Ryan, you and I have to dive down to the sub, now.”