The King's Deception (Cotton Malone 8)

To enjoy that, though, he had to escape the warehouse in one piece.

Then it hit him.

“Come on,” he said to Gary.

They ran from the office and across the interior, toward the tables and artifacts. He assumed that before Denise and her entourage plunged ahead, they’d scope out the landscape.

Which should buy him a few moments.

He spotted the plastic container resting on the concrete and lifted it onto a table. He snapped off the lid to expose eight clumps of pale gray clay, the remainder of the percussion explosives, the same substance used to violate Henry VII’s grave inside Windsor.

Nasty stuff.

Tricky, too.

Eight detonators lay inside. He pressed one each into four of the clumps and activated them. He snatched up a small remote, his thumb resting atop its single button. He stuffed the remaining four packets and detonators into a knapsack from one of the tables. Before popping the lid back on, he tossed the cell phone inside. No need for it any longer.

He pointed behind them. “That door across there is bolted from the inside with a digital lock. Go open it. 35. 7. 46.”

Gary nodded and ran off.

He retrieved Cecil’s journal from beneath its glass dome and slipped it into the knapsack.

The main door to the warehouse burst open.

Denise led the way in with the two men, guns drawn. Antrim shouldered the knapsack and ran toward where Gary stood, at the other door, nearly a hundred feet away.

“Stop,” he heard Denise yell.

He kept moving.

A bang.

One round zinged off the concrete near his right foot.

He froze.

Denise and the two men stood across the warehouse, each with their pistols aimed. He was careful, palming the detonator in his right hand, hidden by his cuffed fingers, thumb still on the button.

Get the door open, he mouthed to Gary, before turning around.

“Hands up,” one of the men said. “Keep them where we can see them.”

He slowly raised his arms, but kept his right hand facing away, four fingers open, thumb holding the controller in place.

“Your computer analyst told us he sent you what Farrow Curry deciphered,” Denise called out.

“He did. But I didn’t get a chance to read it before you showed up.”

She approached the tables and admired the stolen books and papers.

“A five-hundred-year-old secret,” she said. “And these are the keys to its unraveling.”

He hated the smug look on her face. She thought herself so clever. So in charge. Her rebukes of him, both in Brussels and at the Tower, still stung. He hated everything about cocky women, especially that arrogance bred from good looks, wealth, confidence, and power. Denise possessed at least three of those, and knew it.

She approached the empty glass lid. “Where is Robert Cecil’s journal?”

“It’s gone.”

She’d yet to pay any attention to the plastic container.

“Not good, Blake.”

“Do you know what it says?” he asked her.

“Oh, yes. Your man talked freely. He was almost too easy to persuade. We have the copies of the hard drives and the entire translation.”

The two other men stood behind her, now closer to the tables, their guns still aimed. He kept his arms raised, hands still. Percussion explosives were state of the art. Lots of heat, a manageable concussion, and minimum noise. Their effect came from high temperatures directed at a targeted focal point, which could do far more damage to certain surfaces.

Like stone.

Where intense heat weakened its structure.

Here was a no-brainer.

Lots of paper, plastic, glass, and flesh.

“We need that journal,

Blake.”

He was a good fifty feet away.

Which should be enough.

“Rot in hell, Denise.”

His thumb pressed the button.

He dove back, toward Gary, pounding the concrete and covering his head.

GARY HAD EASILY SPOTTED ANTRIM HOLDING THE CONTROLLER with his right hand, concealed from the three people across the warehouse. He’d wondered what the clumps of clay could do.

Now he saw.

Antrim dove to the floor just as a bright flash erupted from the tables and a swoosh of intense heat surged his way. He’d managed to release the lock before the three had corralled Antrim, the door slightly ajar. Now he fell outside, the door banging against the warehouse’s exterior wall, his body slapping the pavement. Heat rushed past him and sought the sky. He stared back through the open doorway. The flash was gone. But the tables were charred and everything on them annihilated. The woman and two men lay on the warehouse floor, their smoking bodies black.

He’d never seen anything like it before.

ANTRIM ROSE.

He’d been just far enough away to escape the carnage, the heat intense but lasting only a few seconds.

Denise and her cohorts lay dead.

Good riddance.

Everything was reduced to ash. Only the stone tablet remained, lying on the floor, charred and of no use.

Screw the Daedalus Society.

Three dead operatives just about made them even.

He shouldered the bag and hustled out the door to find Gary lying on the concrete.

“You okay?” he asked.

The boy nodded.

“Sorry you had to see that. But it had to be done.”

Gary stood.

There could be more trouble nearby, so he said, “We have to get out of here.”

Fifty-four

MALONE LISTENED TO WHAT KATHLEEN RICHARDS HAD TO SAY about Blake Antrim and didn’t like any of it. She and Antrim had been involved a decade ago, their split violent. She painted a picture of a narcissistic individual who could not accept failure, especially when it came to personal relationships. He doted on women, but his ways eventually wore thin and he despised rejection. Malone recalled what Mathews had said in the tennis court. Pam hated Antrim. Refused him all contact with Gary. Richards told him about her final encounter and surmised that a similar incident most likely occurred with Pam. Which explained why she’d refused to tell Gary the man’s identity.