8

THERE WAS A CERTAIN SENSE of liberation that came from having their options stripped away. Left with a single choice, things became simple. That was what Esperanza’s flagged passport had accomplished. Unable to use the false travel documents, Jack and Espy had reverted to their real ones, along with his credit card to pay for the flights. And in making that choice, Jack had announced their destination to anyone who wanted to know. It was a matter of pragmatism and it would either prove innocuous or get them killed.

Jack and Espy exited Heathrow and jostled with other arrivals for a cab. Once they’d secured one, Jack pulled out his current phone and made a reservation at a hotel near the airport, then settled back and analyzed their situation.

Part of that meant giving at least a passing thought to the resources McKeller might call upon in London. He had to have an array of friends. And that, coupled with the incredible breadth of video surveillance in London, suggested their arrival had not gone unnoticed.

Regardless, he couldn’t help but feel exhilarated that he was in London. The city had always been one of his favorites, and his present circumstances couldn’t change that. He suspected the place reminded him of his old mentor. James Winfield had never stopped being a Londoner, even after years spent living abroad.

Jack had the driver take them a few miles into the city proper, where their first stop was at a bank. While Espy waited in the cab, Jack slid his American Express into an ATM and withdrew five hundred pounds, trying not to think about how he was going to pay for all this if they happened to survive into the next billing cycle. When he returned to the cab, he had the driver take them to the nearest copy shop, which deposited them on Camden High Street. As Jack paid the driver, he slid the phone he’d used to book the hotel room beneath the back seat of the cab. A few minutes later, he had Duckey on a clean phone. Not long after that, the fax machine in a little place called Prontaprint came to life.

It took what seemed an interminable length of time for the forty-page fax to run through, but then the stream of paper finally came to an end. After paying the bill, along with a tip sufficient to coax the clerk into letting them leave via the back door, Jack and Espy walked three blocks until they found a coffee shop. Once they’d ordered drinks, they found an open table farthest from the counter, where Jack handed Espy half the stack of paper.

“What am I looking for?” Espy asked.

“I don’t have any idea,” he said.

“How come I knew you were going to say that?”

They sat in silence for almost an hour, going page by page through the information Duckey thought important enough to send them. In some places, Duckey had included handwritten notes—comments on itineraries, monetary figures, even Quinn Chambers’s personal life. But Jack wasn’t seeing anything that jumped out at him, nothing that might tell him how the man was related to an ancient organization whose name Jack didn’t even know.

They got through their respective stacks within a few minutes of each other, after which they switched and began again, hoping to catch something the other had missed. But after finishing, they were no closer to finding anything that might tie Quinn Chambers to the guardians. And with the man dead, Jack was starting to fear that any secrets he might have had died with him. He rubbed his eyes, took a sip of cold coffee.

“If nothing else, they’re certainly an old family,” Espy said.

“I picked up on that too,” he said. “In fact, I’d be surprised if they weren’t around when the first stone was set for the Tower of London.”

“According to this, they’ve kept the ancestral property for almost eight hundred years.”

Duckey’s research said that King John made a gift of the property to the Chambers family in 1213 AD. From what Jack could see, the land, in an area now called Highgate, had remained in the family’s possession since then, surviving famines, plagues, disease, and wars. The current home, a sixty-eight-room mansion known as Parkhurst, was completed in 1918 and had served as the family’s seat of power ever since. It was at a time like this when Jack missed his computer, with which he could have pulled up a picture of the estate.

“Parkhurst is a monster,” Espy said, scanning the paper. “Sixty-eight rooms, more than forty thousand square feet.” She shook her head. “This is bigger than Reese’s place.”

Jack recalled his impressions of the Reese estate, when the man had first brought him there to discuss the job that had changed Jack’s life. He had a difficult time picturing a structure more ostentatious.

“If you were a part of a family that had spent centuries connected with a secret society, and if that family had lived in the same place for more than eight hundred years, where do you think the likeliest spot to house a record of that relationship is?” Espy asked.

Jack leaned back in his seat, watching the people passing by in front of the coffee shop window. When he looked back at Espy, he released a sigh. “You know we’d be grasping at straws thinking we could walk into an estate that size and find anything at all, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you’re aware that incredibly wealthy people don’t usually let nosy poor people walk in off the street and go through their things?”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Espy said.

“Come again?”

“Parkhurst has been designated as an English Heritage site. The Chambers estate allows tours two days a week.”

That was good news, but it still didn’t change the fact that a chaperoned walk through a massive place like Parkhurst was unlikely to yield the kind of information they needed. Jack wouldn’t expect to find private letters between Chambers and other members of this secret society lying out in the open. Still, if experience had taught him nothing else, he’d learned that getting his hands dirty almost always yielded better results than trying to formulate a theory in a sterile environment.

“When’s the next tour?” he asked.

London was the sort of city that seemed designed for someone whose intent was to remain unnoticed. The crush of people, the whole swaths of the city where buildings formed tight scrums, the continual turnover of the tourist population—all of it bred an environment suitable for finding a hole and staying there. So, with two days before the next tour of Parkhurst, Jack and Espy found a spot in which to burrow.

The hotel room Jack had booked from the cab remained unoccupied, Jack choosing another room on the other side of the city and paying with cash. His hope was that the misdirection would occupy the people hunting for them, at least for a while. By using the disposable to book the room in his real name, he also ensured that some of the enemy’s resources would be spent tracking a cab around London.

Yet, despite those steps, there was simply no way for them to know if anyone was watching—either McKeller’s men or emissaries of the organization that frightened Jack more than did the CIA. So Jack did the only thing that seemed logical: he simply ignored the possibility that there was someone outside their door. Getting Espy to do the same took some work, but the prospect of research aided him in that endeavor.

Over the last forty-eight hours, Jack and Espy had spent most of their time in the hotel’s business center, sitting in front of the computer. The time, though, had been productive. Using Duckey’s initial research as a jumping-off point, they had learned a great deal about the Chambers family—their rise as one of Britain’s oldest and richest families, their politics, economic fortunes, even their scandals. They had also garnered much detail about their seat of power: Parkhurst. Of primary interest was the floor plan, indeed the original architectural drawings. Reviewing those had allowed Jack to get a feel for the whole of the mansion. He could see the layout in his mind, picture the different rooms, the winding staircases, the grand ballroom, the gallery hallway. He wanted to have the details right so that as they walked through it, they would stand a better chance of noticing something amiss: a wall that shouldn’t have been there, a door where there was no door in the plans. He knew it was a long shot, but they had scant few other leads.

The tour started in a little more than an hour, and Jack and Espy were in the business center one last time, just to make sure they’d absorbed everything possible. But there came a point when the human mind resisted retaining anything more, and when that moment arrived, Jack closed the browser window.

“I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” he said.

Espy yawned in agreement, and before long they exited the hotel.

The cab ride to Highgate took about fifteen minutes. Even with a stop for coffee and pastries, they reached Parkhurst twenty minutes early for the tour and stood in the designated waiting area for several minutes before other tourists began to arrive. By the time Jack’s watch read 9:59 a.m., there was a group of almost thirty people milling at the side gate, but no one had yet arrived to take control. Then, a few seconds before the watch clicked over to 10:00, a man in a tuxedo came into view, making his way toward the side gate via a cobblestone walkway that led from a freestanding smaller building to the gate.

When the man opened the gate, his imperious demeanor had the effect of corralling the tourists into something resembling a straight line. The man collected tickets and then herded the crowd past the gate, which he shut and locked behind them. Ten minutes later, after listening to the man discuss the grounds and the outbuildings, the group was standing in the entryway of the three-story Georgian-style mansion.

Jack couldn’t help but feel an appreciation for the place, its history and all its details, the expert workmanship evident in every aspect of the mansion’s construction. The styling, the embellishments evinced a knowledgeable aristocratic taste. He was fairly certain the painting he saw behind a red rope—a scene of a woman in black, in repose—was a Manet. He saw the same appreciation on Espy’s face, but soon the moment was gone. The two of them had to get down to the serious business of finding their needle in a very large haystack.

Their guide led them through the lower level. The tour route seemed to stay within the center of the mansion, except for a walk through the drawing room in the back—a room with double doors that opened onto the perfectly manicured grounds. As they moved through the place, Jack tried to match what he was seeing with the architectural drawings he’d willed into his head. Of course, there was a good chance that the finished product differed from the original plans at the outset, prior to any secret doors and hidden rooms. Jack knew it wasn’t uncommon for the person in charge of seeing an architect’s vision brought to life to change things as the realities of constructing a building of this size arose.

Twenty minutes after stepping into the mansion, the group was ascending one of the winding staircases to the second level. It was as they reached the top of the flight of stairs that Jack saw a woman emerge from a long hallway to his left, a direction in which the guide did not appear inclined to lead them. Jack knew that the woman was a member of the family that called this place home. He knew it from the way she carried herself, with a certainty that everything she touched, everything she saw, belonged to her. She gave off the impression of royalty as only someone from an old and powerful family could. The last clue to her identity came from the reaction of the tour guide. Instead of turning at the second stairway to descend to the first floor, the woman started coming toward the group.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a rare privilege indeed,” the guide said with a marked change in his manner, an enthusiasm that appeared from nowhere. “This is Mrs. Chambers, Lady of Parkhurst.”

The lady was striking, a pale beauty with skin that looked like parchment pulled tight over a frame.

A few of the tourists started to applaud, but it was a sad sound that faded almost immediately. Mrs. Chambers—Olivia, Jack recalled—stopped next to the tour guide and graced the crowd with a wide, insincere smile.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I trust you’re enjoying yourselves.”

The group responded with nods of their heads and other acknowledgments and then, responding to the beckoning of the guide, began to move off. As they did, Jack and Espy lingered, allowing everyone else to go ahead. The guide, perhaps flustered by the arrival of Mrs. Chambers, didn’t seem to notice he was leaving them behind. One person did, though. Olivia Chambers observed them with eyes filled with either disinterest or contempt; Jack couldn’t tell which.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Chambers,” Espy said.

Mrs. Chambers didn’t reply right away, not before giving Esperanza a once-over. Jack was included in that review, but only at a cursory level. “Thank you,” Olivia said. “I enjoy allowing others the chance to experience it, if even for a short while.”

“It’s very kind of you,” Espy said. “I believe I’d find it unnerving to allow strangers to walk through my home, gawking at the Manet or the Cellini sculpture. Perseus, if I’m not mistaken. And of course the Bayeux Tapestry in the drawing room. A reproduction, obviously.”

She said the last with a smile as charming and as icy as the one worn by Mrs. Chambers, and Jack watched the words do their work, a flicker of something crossing the Englishwoman’s face.

“You know your artwork,” Chambers granted her. Her eyes moved to include Jack, as if she were noticing him for the first time. He could see her calculating; she could sense that something was happening here, but she couldn’t yet define what it was. “It appears the rest of your tour group has moved on without you. I’d be happy to show you around myself.”

“Thank you. We’d like that very much,” Espy said.

Olivia offered a polite smile and then gestured for them to follow her. She started off in the direction opposite the one the tour group had taken, leading them toward the hallway from which she’d made her grand entrance minutes ago. When they entered the hall, their hostess stopped.

“This wing was the first completed during the original construction,” she said. “Consequently it has remained the primary living quarters for most immediate members of the family, despite that the master bedroom on the first floor is twice as large as any of the rooms on this level.”

Jack feigned looking interested as Olivia Chambers led them on, passing a number of rooms, most with their doors closed, until she reached a room toward the end of the hall. The door to this one was open, and Chambers preceded them in. The room was much larger than it appeared from the outside, and Jack could see they’d accomplished that by removing a wall. At first glance it looked like a conference room, although one with a casual feel, plush couches and oak tables. At the far end was an enormous flat-panel television screen. Olivia led Jack and Espy to a cluster of chairs, waiting for them to sit before doing the same.

“Please forgive me for being direct,” she said, “but you don’t seem like the tourist type. Or am I mistaken?”

“I’d say we’re more appreciators of the finer things than we are tourists,” Espy replied.

Chambers looked slightly irritated. When in the company of someone like Olivia Chambers, Espy’s education and above-average social graces made her seem as if she came from money. She was equally comfortable in run-down taverns at the far corners of the globe, sharing time with colorful locals.

“I’ll imagine, then, that you’ve enjoyed seeing some of these, as you say, finer things throughout my estate,” Chambers said.

“I have,” Espy said. “You have some exceptional pieces.”

“Are you an art dealer?”

Espy laughed. “Not at all. I’m an historian. I’m working on a book about European estates that have remained within the same family for hundreds of years. Parkhurst is one of three around London that I’m visiting.”

Although Espy delivered the lie like a pro, Jack doubted Chambers was buying it. Still, she smiled.

“A historian and author. Is that right? I read a great deal of history. What’s your name? Perhaps I’ve heard of you.”

“I’d be surprised if you haven’t,” Espy answered. “My name is Emily Manheim. This is my husband, William.”

For just a moment, Jack was frozen in his seat, until the brilliance of what Espy had just done hit him. When he and Espy had traveled to Australia in pursuit of the bones, they’d ultimately found them in the care of a man named George Manheim. Manheim’s family had been involved with the mysterious guardians of the bones for generations. By throwing out the name—one unusual enough to be instantly recognizable—Espy was hoping to provoke a reaction from the woman.

That reaction came in the form of eyes that widened a fraction. “I’m not sure I’ve read anything you’ve written,” Chambers said. “But you’re right. Parkhurst was built on land that’s been in the family since the thirteenth century. Only three pieces of land have remained with the same family longer than this one has.”

“I’m particularly interested in how these families were able to retain their land rights through times of political and social turmoil,” Espy said. “In fact, I’m exploring the relationship between long-term land ownership and perceived power.”

“La maison est le siege du pouvoir,” the Lady of Parkhurst said with a smile.

“Et la cause de plus de guerres que tous les gouvernements,” Espy answered in kind.

Surprise touched Olivia’s eyes for just a moment. When it faded, she seemed to have adopted a new wariness toward this strange woman. “Land has always meant power,” Chambers said, suddenly appearing flustered. “Which is why it’s so often difficult to hold.”

“Unless you have the power to hold the land,” Espy remarked.

“Well, apparently our ancestors were in possession of sufficient power to keep this land beyond the reach of even kings,” Olivia said, ice in her voice. Then she stood, the action abrupt. “I have something to attend to. I think it’s about time I return you to your tour group.”

“By all means,” Espy said, rising to her feet. “We wouldn’t want to keep you.”

Olivia Chambers didn’t speak again as she led them back up the hallway, then across the walkway leading to a second set of stairs. She glanced at her watch. “Your group should be in the library on the third floor at this point.” She appeared to have regained her lost decorum. “It’s been a pleasure talking with you.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Olivia,” Espy said. It was a parting shot at a woman who would spend the next few minutes trying to remember if she ever told Espy her first name.

Once they were alone, halfway up the stairs to the third floor, Jack put an arm around Espy and leaned in. “You have no idea how much I love you right now.”

“Probably not as much as you should,” she said with a wink.

As the Lady of Parkhurst said, the tour group was in the upstairs library, and no one seemed to notice when the stragglers slipped back in among them. For the next half hour they moved with the group through various points of interest, keeping their eyes and ears open, even as Jack became convinced they’d garnered more information from the impromptu interview with Olivia Chambers than if they’d been given free rein to explore every nook and cranny of the estate.

As the end of the tour approached, the guide herded the group through a set of ornate walnut doors and into the largest room they’d seen so far. The grand ballroom was almost entirely empty, with only two serving tables and a single large fireplace breaking up the flow of walnut that covered the floor. The walls were paneled with the same wood, recessed columns evenly spaced along the perimeter. It brought to mind a long-ago era, one marked by formal dances, gentlemen and their ladies arriving in carriages, and strings playing a waltz.

“Beautiful,” Espy said.

At intervals along the walls were large, identically framed paintings. The tour group spread out in response to the openness of the room. Jack crossed to the nearest painting. He guessed it to be a portrait of one of the family’s patriarchs—a severe-looking, humorless man—but it looked to have the skill of a master in each brushstroke. From the subject’s attire, he dated the painting to the mid-seventeenth century. Walking along the wall, he saw a similar theme, the men of the Chambers family captured by exceptional artists. But while the features of each of the subjects seemed to maintain a certain consistency, prominent noses and thick jowls, the styles varied. Some were posed as staid portraits with little background evident, while others were more generous in their use of props and placement. One even featured the subject astride a horse and dressed for the hunt. It was something unique to the well-bred, this capture on canvas of ancestors for veneration by their progeny.

Jack was halfway around the room when the guide, who’d been talking the entire time, raised his voice to gather his straggling flock. With the tour complete, the visitors were being ushered out. Jack sighed, disappointed they hadn’t found anything of note. On the other hand, Espy’s conversation with the Lady of Parkhurst had come near to confirming his instincts about the Chambers family. What he would do with that information, he wasn’t yet certain.

He started in the direction of the rest of the group, walking past the last in the portrait series, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. An impression. It stopped him. He turned and looked at a painting. It was of a man in a frock coat and top hat. He was posed in what looked like an office—in front of his desk, a hand resting on its wooden top. Jack guessed the picture had been painted sometime in the 1880s.

He stood there for several moments, trying to figure out what it was about the picture that tickled his subconscious as the tour group exited the room. The guide stood at the entrance, calling for Jack, his voice impatient. But Jack was locked into the painting, his mind working overtime. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t emerge.

Espy appeared at his side. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “There’s something here. I just can’t see it.”

While Espy shifted her attention to the painting, Jack turned and saw the tour guide approaching at a fast clip.

“Excuse me,” the man said. “The tour is over. You need to follow the rest of your party to the exit gate.”

“Shh,” Espy said.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

“I said shh,” she repeated. “As in, be quiet.”

“Do not tell me to ‘be quiet’—I’m the one who tells people to be quiet. Now, I really must insist that you and the gentleman follow me.”

Jack stepped forward, made eye contact with the man. “Please, sir, just one minute longer?”

After a pause, the man, looking exasperated, said, “You have one minute.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, quickly turning back to the painting.

Up to now, he’d been focusing on the nameless Chambers patriarch, the lord of the manor, and coming up empty. Instead he forced his eyes to the desk on which his hand rested. Beyond a ledger with no discernible features, the desktop was empty. Next, Jack’s eyes went to the wall behind the subject, which included a mantel with items on it. One was a small painting, its subject difficult to make out. Beside it was a clock, an elaborate affair with three faces. But it was the third item, partially hidden, that caught Jack’s attention. It looked like a sculpture of some kind. There was something about it, something almost frightening. It occurred to him then that he’d seen it before, if only he could place where.

He felt a firm tap on his shoulder, and at that very moment, the thing dancing just beyond the edges of his understanding stepped into the light. At first he had a hard time believing, but once he’d convinced himself of the truth of it, he spent several seconds imprinting the image on his brain, lamenting the fact that he didn’t have a camera with him. When he finished, he flashed a grin at Espy, grabbed her arm, and turned on his heel, leaving the tour guide tapping on empty air.