The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (49 page)

Translation: It was all in their minds.

Viktor had a plan of attack to counter Darius’s belief, which he had already implemented. Every word uttered by Viktor during their last conversation had been carefully chosen, and he believed he had accomplished his initial objective: He had planted the seeds of doubt.

Tenuous at best, the larger problem with Viktor’s plan to undermine Darius’s faith was that, even if successful, Viktor would still be surrounded by cult members in an unknown location, with no help on the way.

The needles of hot water slammed into his back, millions of droplets running off his body and swirling into the drain. He watched their inevitable journey, wondering how much fate played a part in the human lifespan, whether all was predetermined or random chance or whether, as with most things, the truth lay somewhere in between.

Before Viktor rose, he cupped a handful of water and tossed it on the bathroom floor. A perverse and ridiculous gesture, he knew. Maybe he had no say in the matter, and he knew his odds had never been worse, but if force of will counted for anything, then let it be known to the universe that Viktor Radek would not sail gently past those barrier islands.

He knew Darius had toyed with him from the beginning, had left clues along the way for Viktor to follow. And Viktor had to admit that he had
bested him thus far, had used Viktor’s insatiable curiosity and pride against him. The girl had been an ingenious addition.

He knew Darius had used artifice on some level to set up the fire-based murders, and he guessed that he had used an accomplice, probably the man with the knives, to administer the poison to the other victims. Or, Viktor mused, perhaps he had used the girl. Mind control within a cult was a powerful and well-documented precedent to murder, from the Manson family to the Jonestown massacre to the Aum doomsday cult.

Viktor was sure a tiny ignition device was used to start the fires, and surmised that the victims’ robes had been soaked in an accelerant beforehand. He had already saturated his robe with water to counteract any accelerant. After hanging it on the towel rack, he wrung it out every few minutes, hoping it dried in time.

He knew about the Vikane, and thus the only remaining mystery was the strange appearances by the robed figure before the murders. Viktor had examined every inch of Gareth’s chamber for a hidden device or recorder, and had found nothing. How was Darius doing it?

The water poured over him, not so much a final cleansing but a pounding reminder of the mistakes he had made in life, of the inevitable regrets from a life spent chasing the unknown, rather than home and hearth.

He reached for the fresh bar of soap in the ornate dish, every last detail of this bedchamber as carefully planned as Darius’s rise to power. One thing bothered him: Soaking the robe seemed too easy, too obvious a solution. Darius had to have something else in mind.

Every last detail
.

With sudden comprehension, his hand stopped in midair.

T
he clang of the wake-up call jolted Grey awake. He jumped out of bed and reached for his gun before remembering where he was.

Eyes gummy and wounds throbbing, he took another handful of ibuprofen, then scooped up the folders and hurried out of the cheap hotel room. It didn’t take him long to find his next destination, an Internet café two blocks away. Before entering the café he called Jacques.

“Do you have word from Viktor?” Jacques said.

“He’s compromised,” Grey said. “I’m sure of it.”

“We have all our resources dedicated to protecting the pope and the major archbishops. I’m not sure what I can do.”

“I need two things: a piece of information, and your hand on your cell the rest of the day.”

“
Oui
, of course. What is it that you need?”

“Have someone find out everything you can about O.N.E Enterprises,” Grey said. “It’s the holding company for the Order of New Enlightenment.”

“Done.”

He told Jacques about the glass headquarters in East London, though the London police would be no help to Viktor, because Grey didn’t know what to tell them to do. His bitterness and frustration burned through him, and he fought against the rage that clawed at the edges of his vision.

He entered the café, ordered a triple-shot espresso, and slid into a chair with a view of the front entrance. The café was empty except for a bespectacled girl typing in a corner.

First he spent an hour scouring the Internet for mention of O.N.E. Enterprises. He found nothing, not even a listing on the Companies House website, the United Kingdom’s registry of corporations.

He leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingertips on the mouse pad. He had a little more than fourteen hours to find Viktor. This company could be incorporated anywhere in the world, and it could take Grey days to find it.

Then again, he knew from his peripheral dealings with legal when he was a DSO that corporations in most countries had to keep a local registered agent, or the equivalent thereof, when doing business in a particular country. A few searches confirmed this was the case in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, registered agents for foreign corporations were not public information in the U.K. He texted Jacques to try and acquire that information.

An idea came to him. Most companies used giant, specialized corporations as registered agents, but smaller companies, or companies who liked to keep their business under wraps, often used their own attorneys. It was a long shot, but Grey did know one attorney in England associated with Darius, and he was right here in London.

The more Grey thought about it, the more he liked the idea of seeing what else Solicitor Alec Lister knew about Darius, the Order of New Enlightenment, and O.N.E Enterprises. Grey hadn’t trusted him then, he didn’t trust him now, and he was betting Alec had a hand in the death of Ian Stoke and knew far more than he was letting on.

That, and Grey was out of options.

It was just after noon when he arrived at the fancy law office off Portobello Road. Grey was all too aware of the time, which at the moment seemed to be flowing like a barrel over Niagara Falls.

Solicitor Alec Lister was the sole occupant of the fourth floor of the building. The office door was shut and locked. Grey didn’t know many attorneys who closed up shop by noon on a weekday, unless they had someplace very important to be.

After knocking loudly and receiving no response, his fingers whisked the thin metal file in and out of the keyhole, releasing the dead bolt. No alarm sounded, and he saw no evidence of wires or cameras. He eased the door shut behind him, locked it, and swept his eyes around reception and the three closed doors. Then he went to work.

He moved as quickly as he could, aware this might be a red herring, trying not to think about the consequences if it were. He entered Lister’s office and tried to access his computer, but it was secured, and Grey was no hacker. It took him far too long to search the desk, but he found nothing except innocuous papers.

After combing the rest of the office, still finding nothing, he tried the second door, which led to a conference room with boxes stacked along the wall. Before going through the boxes, he tried the third door, which revealed a file room filled with cabinets, shelves, and more boxes, all full of paper files.

He stood in the middle of the conference room, running both hands through his hair and holding them there. It was already well into the afternoon, and the files and boxes in the office could take the rest of the day to pore through. Should he return to the glass building and take his chances with the cadre of guards and cult members? The thing was, even if he gained access again, he didn’t think he would find anyone of consequence in that building. And whatever was going down, Darius wouldn’t risk exposing his headquarters, especially after Grey knew where it was. It just didn’t feel right.

His burner cell rang, and Grey answered on the first ring. Jacques again.

“O.N.E. Enterprises is incorporated in Luxembourg,” Jacques said. “The registered agent in the U.K. is Alec Lister, an attorney in Notting Hill.”

“Yeah, I’m standing in his office. Anything else?”

“We investigated a few of the real estate purchases. As you said, it appears to be a holding company. Unfortunately, all of the transactions appear
legitimate. Perhaps a full investigation would uncover irregularities, but I’m afraid there’s nothing that will help us today.”

Grey swallowed his disappointment. “Thanks.”

He shoved the cell in his pocket and paced the file room. The information did help: It confirmed that instead of a giant international firm, Darius had chosen a solo attorney as registered agent. Alec Lister was important to O.N.E. Enterprises, which meant he was important to Darius. Alec Lister knew Ian Stoke and Sir David Naughton, he was a prominent member of the Clerics of Whitehall, perhaps even part of the inner circle of the Order of New Enlightenment.

Viktor and Darius were in London, Grey was sure of it. Dante was there; Anka was there; the power center was there. He wasn’t sure if Darius had deliberately misled Interpol by sending that letter to the pope or if he had something else in mind, but whatever he had planned, Grey’s gut told him it would take place in this city.

But where?

Grey tore into the boxes and files, determined to find something. But as afternoon faded to evening and Grey came up short, the doubts poured in and he questioned everything: his instincts, his judgment, his ability to save his friend.

He glanced at the clock on the wall, looking away as soon as he did.

Nine p.m.

The office now resembled a war zone, and Grey plowed ahead, slinging files on to the floor as soon as he scanned them. An hour later he found something, of course in the next to last file cabinet. Grey had started with the newest files because of the recent appearance of the Order of New Enlightenment, but what he had just found concerned one of Lister’s oldest clients.

It was the slimmest of leads, perhaps nothing, a nugget of information that meshed with something in his recent memory. The client was Niles Widecombe, member of the House of Lords, another rich and powerful customer of Alec Lister. Perhaps the richest and most powerful of all, judging by
his financial statements. The man seemed to own half of Devon, as well as a huge estate on Swain’s Lane in North London.

What got Grey’s attention was the North London address, combined with the fact that Niles Widecombe was a principal donor to Highgate Cemetery. Lister had set up an enormous trust in his name, the interest paid out to the cemetery in perpetuity.

It struck a nerve because of something Anka had told him about the night she had discovered Darius’s identity. She said she had followed Darius to a mansion in North London that backed up to a cemetery. Grey couldn’t get on to the computer, and his smartphone had been stripped, so he raced out of the office to an Internet café he had noticed down the street.

He did a quick Google maps search on the Widecombe address, and his grip on the mouse increased when he saw the large cemetery sprawling behind Swain’s Lane.

He didn’t trust Anka in the slightest, but at least some of what she had told him had been verified. And something about her story about that house had the ring of truth, though Grey suspected Anka had been a willing participant in the ceremony rather than an observer. Or maybe Darius had caught her and forced her to participate, and she had been compromised since that night.

What he did know was that Alec Lister’s connection to this house, this fancy property of this powerful member of the House of Lords, a house that backed onto one of London’s largest cemeteries, caused his internal radar to scream in alarm.

He gave the cemetery on the screen a final glance, then limped out of the café and onto Portobello Road, frantically signaling for a cab.