9:06 a.m. CET
Airborne over Switzerland
Keir sat next to Saanvi Burman aboard the Citation XLS as the jet raced over the Swiss Alps. They both leaned beside a laptop that rested on a polished African wenge table, one of the many luxuries customized into his private plane. The cabin had cashmere carpets and had been appointed with saddle-soft leather, all stitched with the NeuVentis logo.
Behind him, the seven cabin seats were all occupied. Two by Cardinal Tissot and one of his associates. The remaining spaces were packed with the leader of a mercenary force and four of his crew. The group served both as Keir’s personal security team and, when needed, to stamp out problems at the corporation’s black sites. The men had also participated in the raid on the Twelfth Keeper’s estate in Norway.
Another jet trailed behind this one, carrying an additional dozen soldiers, bringing the total number of his armed force to seventeen. After the prior failures, Keir had decided to take matters into his own hands, trusting no one else at this critical juncture.
Especially now.
He studied the image on the laptop.
Could the others have truly uncovered the location of the Second Adage’s treasure?
The screen showed the outline of a dark mountain hovering over open pages. The data had come from a hack of theGardiens’ systems, orchestrated by Tissot’s mole.
Still, such a boon was not solely the triumph of the cardinal.
Keir glanced to Burman. Her words yesterday had proved providential:
Someone always makes a mistake.
In this case, after the students fled the Tower of London, the mole had reached out and warned them to spy on several locations—the estates and homes of theGardiens’ former Keepers. Unfortunately, this warning came late. Confounding matters further, there were eight different sites spread across six countries and two continents. Even when Burman concentrated operations on the five closest to London, their people had been spread thin, especially as most of the spots were remote. It had required Burman to co-opt local forces and lean on Europol. Even then, they had to be cautious, so as not to expose themselves.
In the end, a location in Meaux had raised a red flag—marking the first mistake by the others as they needlessly exposed themselves by going to a knownGardienslocation. The local gendarmes had spotted a large black van entering one of the compounds. Still, no one could be certain it was their targets. Afraid to prematurely show their hand if this proved to be wrong, they had kept a watch on the place, both on the ground and by satellite, looking for verification.
Then another call had come from the mole. They had been informed that someone had reached out shortly after the van had arrived and was operating a deeply encrypted program on theGardiens’mainframe. Their contact could not say if this was coincidental or significant, especially due to the scrambled VPN network hiding the source. Still, the mole had warned the cardinal to hold off on raiding the estate until a hack could be attempted, to hopefully secure the data. The belief was that their targets were attempting to decipher a section of Saint-Germain’s book.
Keir had grudgingly agreed, adhering to a philosophy that had served him well in the past—as it had with theConfrérieduring World War II:
Let others do the heavy lifting, then sweep in and steal the prize.
After making this decision, Keir had paced away those long ninety minutes, flipflopping back and forth on whether or not to drop the hammer anyway.
In the end, his patience was rewarded.
A text had been dispatched to Tissot. His contact had found a weakness, a hole to breach the encryption. The mole ordered the raid on the château to commence, to put pressure on their targets while he forced his way inside digitally.
The result ended up being a mixed bag, mostly due to the threadbare forces at their disposal, all of whom had been local and likely had a degree of loyalty to the family at the château. Once again, their targets had escaped. Only this time, they had left behind a large breadcrumb—a mountain-size one.
Before the hack could be stopped, Tissot’s mole had successively broken through the encryption and discovered an effort to decode the Second Adage. Unfortunately, the abrupt interruption had wiped away vast amounts of data and corrupted the rest. It had taken the mole half a day to recover and compile enough to present theConfrériewith this prize.
Still, the delay had allowed their targets to get a jump on Keir’s team.
But hopefully not enough of one.
Burman lowered her phone. “I’ve alerted Italian authorities. Forwarding photos and names. But that area of the Dolomites has dozens of villages and towns, not to mention small farms that serve as Airbnbs.”
“And you told them to concentrate around Monte Antelao?”
She scowled at him for questioning her skills. “Don’t worry about the Italians. We have our ownsearchto worry about.”
“True . . .”
He frowned at the mountain on the screen, a dark mystery that still challenged them—and he prayed the same was true for the others. While this peak had been identified, the fractured data failed to pinpointwhereon this mountain the Second Adage’s treasure might be located. Even worse, his mole had expressed fear that this information—the true site—had been successfully ascertained by the others.
If so, it meant theConfrériestill needed to find the missing students. His team had to either force the location out of them or eliminate them and begin a search on their own. The latter would be a daunting task. Monte Antelao—the King of the Dolomites—towered higher than ten thousand feet, with slopes encompassing hundreds of square miles, most of it challenging terrain.
