Roman saw his twin’s fear, his face pale, his restless hands wringing in his lap, and set himself to soothe. “They will have no idea we’re involved, Radu. I’ve taken care of it all. When—if—they manage to get the systems back, everything will be wiped. There will be nothing to lead them to us. And the install I did will confuse them.”
Radu was shaking his head, his oily hair slapping his face. “Nothing seems to be going right, Roman. How can you simply sit here doing nothing and hope the FBI and Scotland Yard and MI5 look elsewhere?”
“I’m not doing nothing. On the contrary, they’ll be looking elsewhere very soon now. And while they do, I’m going to secure the lost pages for us. Then, Brother, we will have the means to cure you. It’s the only thing that matters to me. I am happy to let Radulov burn to the ground if it means your blood will be clean.”
Radu saw it—Roman slipped a microdose into his mouth.
“How much of that are you taking?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m in control. I’m always in control. I need a new batch made, by the way, with your special formula.”
“Roman. That’s two weeks’ worth of LSD you’ve consumed in two days. Even with the alterations I made in the formulation, you can’t keep this up. If you’re dead or in jail, having a cure won’t matter.”
Roman reached to touch his brother’s arm, stopped when Radu pulled away.
Roman turned and punched a number into his mobile. “Cyrus, it’s time. Yes. Yes, that’s right.”
He punched off, saw Radu was shaking his head.
“What do you have Cyrus doing? I don’t like him. He thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not. Roman, we don’t need him.”
“We do need him. Trust me. No one in MI5 and MI6 will be thinking about vulnerabilities in MATRIX—or us—after this. And Drummond will be elsewhere. It’s perfect.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Govan Shipyards
Glasgow, Scotland
Mike and Ben followed Chief Inspector Mackenzie to the far end of the shipyard to a huge building with no windows, no activity at all, and a brawny cop standing in front of the door, his hands behind his back.
He came to attention. “Sir. No one’s been around. The lock hasn’t been disturbed.”
Mackenzie said, “This is Inspector Lloyd Westcott. He and I will be handling this investigation. Caine and Houston, FBI.”
Westcott’s accent was thicker than Mackenzie’s, and he spoke quickly, so Mike had a hard time keeping up.
“Good to meet you. Chief, we’ve swept for booby traps, have put a camera under the door—all surreptitiously, though no one’s been around here. If they’re watching, it’s not obvious. Let’s go in, shall we?”
At Mackenzie’s nod, Westcott picked up a massive pair of bolt cutters. With a single powerful snap, he cut through the lock, catching it before it fell to the ground.
“In we go.”
And he lifted the latch.
It was pitch-black inside the warehouse. It smelled musty, with a thick overlay of oil. Nothing unusual for a shipyard warehouse.
Mackenzie raised a Maglite to shoulder level and thumbed it on.
Mike blinked. “All I can see are crates. There must be hundreds.”
“This warehouse is about sixteen thousand square feet. Not so big for the area, but big enough.” Mackenzie gestured to the first crate, and Westcott used a pry bar to wrench it open. It was packed with what looked like shredded cardboard.
“Oh-ho. What do we have here? Five guesses,” he said, pulling it aside, letting Mike and Ben look.
The crate was full of weapons. Automatics. Westcott moved things around carefully. “M4 carbines, twenty, twenty-five to a crate. I assume that’s not our only weaponry, considering we have variable-size crates in here.” He looked at his boss with a crooked smile. “Bugger me, mate. It would appear Paulina Vittorini was running guns right under the navy’s nose.”
* * *
They sat down with a pot of tea inside the Govan Shipyards offices. Mackenzie said, “The full assessment of the warehouse will take days, and we can start taking apart Vittorini’s books in the morning. I have a forensic accountant who is practically magic. If anything’s hiding in the company books, we’ll find it.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to believe this, I mean, Vittorini is a patriot, a local legend. I’ve always believed her above reproach. I can’t believe she’d be running guns to terrorists or countries that run counter to our beliefs.”
Mike asked, “Could she have been holding the guns for someone else? What we have to find out is where the guns were headed when they left the warehouse and who they were being sent to. When you find out, please notify us.”
“Yes, all right. When will you head back to London? Or are you going to stick around and lend a hand?”
Mike saluted him with her teacup. “As soon as we get confirmation of the poisoned needle and finish the tea, sir, we must be on our way back to London. We have to discover how Donovan, Hemmler, and Alexander fit with Vittorini.”
Ben said, “And we know they fit together. They all crossed the wrong person or people.” He started to pull his cell phone from his jacket, then shook his head. “It’s very annoying not to be able to pick up a cell or the phone and call, update my team on what’s happening.”
Mackenzie laughed. “It’ll turn you youngsters into old-fashioned gumshoes, like I used to be.”
The phone rang, and Mackenzie, startled, answered it. He listened for a moment, then hung up.
“You can leave now, agents. The poison has been confirmed. As you said, the cause of death is the same as the other three. Tree frog venom, of all things.”
Mike finished her tea and rose, Ben following suit. “Thank you for your help, Mackenzie. We will be in touch.”
“Good. Let’s get you back to Prestwick and your plane.”
* * *
Clancy and Trident were waiting for them, but the jet’s engines weren’t running. Clancy said, “There’s a major power outage in London. We’re grounded temporarily. We can’t fly in. Air traffic control is in emergency-operations mode, trying to get the planes in the air onto the ground without proper communications. Even with generators, the entire airspace is messed up.”
“Do we have any way to communicate with Nicholas?”
“We can encrypt a call through the plane’s system and give it a try. Though if there’s no power, there’s no cell service, and the landlines will be out, too.”
“How did the power go out?”
“No idea. Radio traffic said it all went black, and—”
There was a squawk from inside the plane. “There’s good news. Someone’s trying to reach us.” They ran up the gangway, and Mike watched Clancy sit in the pilot’s seat and put on the headset.
“It’s Nicholas. He’s asking for you, Mike.”
He gave her the headset. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much really, only a minor glitch. Adam and I may have melted down London’s grid, but we’re back up and running now.”
Mike burst out laughing. “You’re the reason London has no power? Why does this not surprise me? Those hoots and laughs you hear in the background is the team laughing at you.”
Nicholas called out, “All right, you baboons, why don’t one of you guys try to single-handedly—well, okay, double-handedly, since I have to include Adam—restore the Internet to a pristine state? Mike, I’ll explain it all when you get here. Our comms are now officially secure. We purged MATRIX off MI5’s servers entirely. Plug in your mobile and get back here right away.”
“If this is a secure line—”
“It is.”
“We found a massive cache of weapons. It appears Vittorini was running arms.”
“Was she now? My father will be interested in this news. Come on home. I’ll meet you at the house. We have all sorts of things to discuss.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
MI5 Headquarters, Home Office
Thames House
12 Millbank
Westminster, London
Harry Drummond was packing his briefcase to head to Clapton House, the flat he kept in Bayswater, when a knock sounded on his door, and an old friend’s face appeared.
“Harry, how are you? Do you have a moment?”
“Corry, I’m fine. How are you? How is June?”
“She’s bursting with health, as always. In Cornwall, at the manse. Mitzie?”