“I do believe the FBI has outlived their usefulness,” Havelock said. “It is time to eliminate both them and Leyland. I will see to it.”
Weston shook his head, appalled. “Surely that isn’t necessary.”
“Oh, yes. It is.”
“Leyland knows something’s up. He won’t be an easy target.”
“März will take care of Leyland personally. And I will deal with the FBI. Now, Sophie Pearce resides in your home?”
“If she’s not at West Park now, she will be shortly.”
“I will go there. She and I need to have a small talk.”
Weston knew exactly what sort of talk Havelock had in mind. He wondered to himself if he’d done the right thing. All that lovely money, the promise of more power than he’d ever dreamed. The time for questioning was long over.
Havelock had a point. With Leyland gone, they would be able to force a vote for two more Order members, which would give them the majority vote. And they’d recover the weapon and have the power in the palms of their hands.
“How will you eliminate the FBI?”
Havelock smiled wickedly. “I’m sure you’ll hear it on the news very soon.”
56
Over the Atlantic
Nicholas read Wolfgang Havelock’s autopsy report, then read it again more slowly. Mike was right. He looked up at her, sitting forward, so excited she was nearly bouncing on the seat.
She said, “They found the implant, but evidently it must have been a prototype, not as obvious or as well defined as the one Dr. Janovich found. Maybe its capabilities weren’t as advanced as the one in Mr. Olympic’s head since British ME believed it to be some sort of advanced German technology for the aneurysm, an ‘aneurysm chip,’ is what they wrote. They also wrote they’d never seen anything like it.”
“So he implanted his father at the beginning. To see what the Order was up to, that makes the most sense.”
She nodded. “Either his father agreed to it or he didn’t know about it, and that raises the question, How did Havelock do it without his being any the wiser?”
“A question we’ll have to ask Manfred when we get cuffs on him, but it makes the most sense he was implanted with the chip during his aneurysm surgery.” He added, “If the father wasn’t the good guy we all think he was, then he was in on all this maneuvering with his son.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. If the father was in on it with his son, then all he had to do was tell him everything. I don’t think Havelock senior had any idea he’d been given an implant.”
Mike nodded. “And then Havelock starts buying up polonium, and through his father’s implant he gets a direct feed into Adam Pearce, the sub, the key, and suddenly, he doesn’t need dear old Dad anymore. With Dad gone, Havelock has a sure line into the Order.”
Nicholas said, “I buy Havelock using Daddy to spy on the Order. Maybe he was pushing his father to convince the Order members to go a certain way, and his father refused. Dad’s implant is triggered, and he’s gone, clearing the way for Manfred to step into his place and take the weapon they’ve been searching for for nearly a hundred years into his own hands.
He stared down at his clasped hands on his knees. “Then this key to this weapon that’s in the sub, it has to be something Havelock needs to make the mini-nukes work properly or make them more powerful.”
She bounced in her seat again. “Yes, that’s it. Nicholas, I’ve got it, I know what the implants are for.”
“What?”
“You said it yourself. It’s a trigger.” She pointed at the autopsy sheet. “It all makes perfect sense now. The micro-nukes. They need a trigger. The implants are the trigger.”
“I have to say,” he said slowly, “this is so much worse than anything I imagined. I hope you’re wrong.”
“But you know I’m not. We have to get that key out of the sub and find that weapon, Nicholas.”
“Yes, we absolutely do. Soon we’ll have access to everything Havelock has in his databases. And then I’ll call Penderley.”
He tapped on his laptop for no longer than a minute, then closed it. “Done. We’ll have all Havelock’s files momentarily. But before I call Penderley, we need to look again at Pearce’s files. I want to see if he’d caught on to Havelock. The coded messages from the past few days might have answers.” He clicked a few buttons, and Pearce’s e-mail came on the screen. He clicked on the in-box, started to type, then stopped.
“Wait, what’s this?”
Nicholas watched the screen of his computer light up, then go completely black. Then a small face floated into the center of the screen, rotating and spinning. Nicholas looked closely at the image, squinted at the small face. He recognized it instantly.