“So better to be cautious,” Naomi said.
“A wisdom we’d best heed from here,” Laurent warned. “Which is why no one knows where I’m taking you.”
Sharyn furrowed her brow, finding little comfort in those last words. She stared out at the passing countryside, at the rolling orchards and windswept fields, tilled over and dark.
Where the hell is he taking us?
28
7:09 a.m. GMT
London, England
From the top of the Shard, Keir Marchand had an eagle-eye view of the Tower of London—and most of the city, for that matter, as it woke to a new day.
The seventy-two-story pyramidal skyscraper climbed more than three hundred meters, piercing the low clouds. It was the tallest building in the United Kingdom. Due to its prominence, along with its convenient location within the financial hub of the city, Keir’s company—NeuVentis Pharma—had leased the entire sixtieth floor.
Keir stared below at the bustle of vehicles that had locked down the Tower grounds. Lights flashed and blinked all around the fortress. Roads had been barricaded. Interrogations continued, while teams still painstakingly searched every corner of the Tower for any hidden assailants.
As of now, the belief was that the interlopers had sought to subdue the Constable of the Tower, all in an attempt to gain access to the Crown Jewels. Of course, theConfrérie’s contacts both within MI5 and the Metropolitan Police had bolstered this misconception. And with no survivors of the assault, it would be hard to claim otherwise.
Ultimately, all the commotion below was just noise.
Useless bluster.
TheConfrérie’s true targets had escaped the ambush.
Keir glanced across the conference room to where Cardinal Tissot clustered with four of the Brotherhood, those who were within his inner circle. Even after this failure, the man continued to remain cagey, refusing to reveal his source inside theGardiens. If anything, this fiasco only served to make Tissot more guarded. The man needed to keep this knowledge under wraps to prevent himself from being booted aside.
Which he deserved.
The cardinal had orchestrated the botched ambush within the Tower grounds. Still, Keir knew Tissot was not solely at fault. Some of the blame fell on the shoulders of Saanvi Burman, who had manipulated her resources within the policing forces to cordon off all exits from the fortress.
Both had failed.
As of now, two questions remained:
How did the bastards slip our noose?
And where did they go?
All of theConfrérieassets were engaged to figure out those answers.
As Keir waited—frustrated with the book having been so close at hand—he wondered for the thousandth time what miracles were hidden in the pages of Saint-Germain’s book. Still, one remained tantamount in his mind’s eye, a treasure beyond all others:
The key to immortality.
Such a discovery held the promise to catapult NeuVentis into the stratosphere, transform it into a trillion-dollar business.
And better yet . . .
With the key in hand, I will live to see it happen.
Before he could ponder this further, Burman called over, her voice ringing with triumph. “We’ve found them!”
Keir clenched a fist.
At last . . .
