Payne & Jones 08 - The Einstein Pursuit, page 1
The Einstein Pursuit
Chris Kuzneski
Copyright © 2013 Chris Kuzneski, Inc.
The right of Chris Kuzneski to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by
Headline Publishing Group in 2013
All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical characters – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 0 7553 8654 3
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
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London NW1 3BH
www.headline.co.uk
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Also By
About the Book
Acknowledgements
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Epilogue
About the Author
Chris Kuzneski is the international bestselling author of numerous thrillers including SIGN OF THE CROSS and THE DEATH RELIC, featuring the series characters Payne and Jones. He is also the author of THE HUNTERS, the first in a new electrifying series. Chris’s thrillers have been translated into more than twenty languages and are sold in more than forty countries. Chris grew up in Pennsylvania but currently lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida. To learn more, please visit his website: www.chriskuzneski.com
BY CHRIS KUZNESKI
Payne & Jones Series
The Plantation
Sign of the Cross
Sword of God
The Lost Throne
The Prophecy
The Secret Crown
The Death Relic
The Einstein Pursuit
The Hunters Series
The Hunters
About the Book
A lab destroyed.
An explosion in Stockholm claims the lives of an elite collection of scientists. Evidence suggests the blast was designed to eliminate all traces of their research. It’s up to Interpol director Nick Dial to uncover the truth about the lab and the attack.
A scientist on the run.
When Dr Mattias Sahlberg learns of the incident, he knows his life is at risk. He turns to the only men he can trust: ex-Special Forces operatives Jonathon Payne and David Jones. Together, they must save Sahlberg from the unknown forces that want him dead.
A miraculous discovery.
As Dial’s case intertwines with Sahlberg’s past, Payne and Jones uncover hidden truths and secret agendas involving the world’s greatest minds. But there are some who are desperate to keep such radical advances in the dark and will stop at nothing to have their way.
The new adrenaline-charged Payne & Jones adventure from the international bestseller.
High-octane action. Brilliant characters. Classic Kuzneski.
Acknowledgements
It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a lot more than that to publish a book – especially when the person writing the book is the village idiot. (I figured I’d make the joke before Payne & Jones had a chance.)
Anyway, here are some of the people I’d like to thank:
Scott Miller, Claire Roberts, Robert Gottlieb, Stephanie Hoover, and the whole gang at Trident Media. They sold this project before it was even written.
Ian Harper, my longtime friend/editor/consigliere. He reads my words before anyone else – and then reads them again and again until they’re perfect.
Vicki Mellor, Emily Griffin, Jo Liddiard, Jane Morpeth, and everyone at Headline/Hachette UK. They took my story and turned it into a book. And then they printed, like, a million copies and shipped them all over the world.
All the fans, librarians, booksellers, and critics who have enjoyed my thrillers and have recommended them to others. If you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them.
And last but not least, my loving family – because they are the ones who have put up with me the longest.
1
Present Day
Monday, 22 July
Stockholm, Sweden
The lab was packed with many of the brightest minds in their field, all focused on a secret project that would change mankind for ever.
In a matter of seconds, they would all be dead.
Of course, none of them knew why they had been called to the facility in the middle of the night. Most had assumed a major breakthrough had occurred, and they had been brought in for an historic announcement that simply could not wait until morning.
Instead, they had been summoned to their slaughter.
The assault had started hours earlier, long before the researchers were misled. Guards had been killed. Locks had been breached. Specimens had been located and stolen. All had been done with a surgical precision the scientists might have appreciated under different circumstances – circumstances that wouldn’t lead to their deaths.
Dr Stephanie Albright was the last to arrive at the sprawling warehouse. Not because she was running late, but because she had the furthest to drive and was on the verge of exhaustion. Over the past few months she had averaged less than four hours’ sleep per day, a figure that included the naps she took when she was on the verge of passing out in the lab. But she never complained. Neither did the others. They knew how important their project was, and they were willing to forgo food and sleep if it meant reaching their goal a little sooner.
Tonight, they would give up more than that.
They would sacrifice their lives.
Albright rushed into the lobby and took the elevator to the third floor. She was so lost in her thoughts, she failed to notice the vacant guard station. And the blank security monitors. And all the other things that weren’t quite right. Most importantly, she overlooked the man in the boat who had watched her every move from the calm waters of Riddarfjärden Bay.
He had waited nearly twenty minutes for her arrival.
It was time to finish the job.
His detonator included a state-of-the-art transmitter. It was capable of igniting multiple devices from up to a thousand meters away. Explosives had been placed throughout the warehouse near load-bearing walls and columns. His goal was to collapse the floors, one after another, with no time for escape. A smoldering coffin of steel and concrete for those trapped inside.
The assassin smiled at the thought.
He had killed many times before, but never so many at once.
This would be his masterpiece.
With the touch of a button, the charges erupted with so much force, he felt it in the bay. Chunks of stone and shards of glass filled the air before crashing to the earth like hail. Columns cracked and walls crumbled as the warehouse screamed in pain. Amplified by the water, the deafening roar forced him to cover his ears, but he refused to cover his eyes.
The show was just getting started.
Acetone is commonly used in laboratories around the world to clean scientific instruments. Most of the time it is stored in polyethylene plastic containers, but this particular lab was equipped with a customized delivery system that would pump the acetone throughout the building to a multitude of cleaning stations. This set-up required large drums of acetone to be housed in the upper floors of the building.
The assassin knew this and used it to his advantage.
To cover his tracks and to prevent survivors, he had rigged the barrels of acetone to rupture from the initial force of the blast. The flammable liquid rained down on the destruction below. Within seconds, the fumes ignited and a flash fire occurred. Flames swept through the warehouse like a blistering flood, killing everyone in its wake. The heat from the blaze was so intense that bodies and evidence literally melted.
Like a crime-scene crematorium.
On most jobs, he preferred to work alone. But that wasn’t the case tonight. This project was far too complex for a single cleaner, even someone with his experience. To pull it off, he needed the help of a local team – men to do the lifting, and the drilling, and the grunt work.
Men to do the things he didn’t have time to do.
Men who were expendable.
He had thanked them for their service with gunfire.
Then he had left them to burn with everyone else.
2
Interpol Headquarters
Lyon, France
Nick Dial was miserable. Absolutely miserable.
He hated his office. And his desk. And the stacks of paperwork on his desk. He hated going to sleep after midnight and waking up before dawn. He hated the brown gruel the locals called coffee and the miniature mugs they served it in. Worst of all, he hated wasting his days in meetings instead of doing what he did best: finding clues and catching killers.
He was a cop at heart, not an executive.
Unfortunately, his business cards disagreed.
Dial was the director of the homicide division at Interpol, the largest international crime-fighting organization in the world. His job was to coordinate the flow of information between police departments any time a murder investigation crossed national boundaries. All told he was in charge of 190 member countries, filled with billions of people and hundreds of languages.
One of the biggest misconceptions about Interpol was their role in stopping crime. They seldom sent agents across borders to investigate a case. Instead they used local offices called National Central Bureaus in the member countries. The NCBs monitored their own territory and reported pertinent facts to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon. From there, information was entered into a central database that could be accessed by agencies around the globe.
Interpol’s motto: Connecting Police for a Safer World.
Dial was fully committed to a ‘safer world’, and he was more than willing to do his part. That was why he had left his position at the FBI to work for the Europe-based organization. At the time, the decision to accept the job was a no-brainer. Not only was he the first American to be named as a department head at Interpol, but he had been asked to run the new homicide division.
How could he possibly turn that down?
Initially, Dial was thrilled with his position. He wrote the rules. He set the budget. He hand-picked the personnel in his department. On a few occasions, he even went into the field to work on high-profile cases. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to. It was his way of staying sharp while he transitioned from a field agent to an administrator.
Plus, he loved doing it.
Being a cop was in his blood.
Over the years, Dial had never seen the harm in working on an occasional case – especially if he followed the local laws and customs. However, the new secretary general disagreed. He felt the personal involvement of a division head in an open investigation could lead to bad press or, even worse, an international incident. Dial had protested fiercely but was told in explicit terms that his participation in an active case would lead to his suspension and/or termination.
That was four months ago.
Since then, Dial had written and rewritten his resignation several times.
The wording still wasn’t right, but it would be soon.
After all, there are only so many ways to say shove it.
Dial had just entered Interpol headquarters, an impressive fortress overlooking the Rhône, when he spotted a familiar face sneaking outside. Unlike most of the analysts who roamed the hallways in pressed shirts and polished shoes, Henri Toulon stood out from the crowd.
And not in a good way.
Known for his gray ponytail and his horrible disposition, the hard-drinking Frenchman had been cited for so many work violations over the years he should have been fired long ago. Sleeping during important meetings. Coming and going as he pleased. Using the nearest restroom, regardless of its intended gender. All were worthy of discipline, but Dial had overlooked his bad habits and promoted him to assistant director because he realized something that few people did: Toulon was a brilliant son-of-a-bitch.
And that wasn’t just an expression.
Dial had met Toulon’s mother on three occasions, and there was little doubt she was the meanest person on the planet. Like Darth Vader in a dress. In fact, her looming presence explained nearly everything about Toulon – from his bad attitude to his drinking problem.
The only thing it didn’t explain was his greasy ponytail.
There was no excuse for that.
Dial glanced at his watch and realized it was awfully early to be taking a break, even for a misfit like Toulon. Dial immediately assumed something tragic had happened in the world, something so bad that the son of the Antichrist had to sneak outside for a breath of fresh air.
That is, if it was possible to get fresh air while smoking.
Dial followed him to find out.
By the time he caught up to Toulon, the Frenchman was sitting on a bench with a half-burned cigarette in his mouth. How he had smoked it so quickly was a mystery. His body was slouched, his head hung low. His eyes were closed, and he was humming a song to himself. As he did, ashes landed on his shirt like dirty snow.
Dial stared at him for several seconds, but Toulon didn’t notice. He didn’t think Toulon was reckless enough to drink at work, but he still had to ask. ‘Are you drunk?’
‘Not yet,’ Toulon answered without raising his head. The cigarette bobbed in his mouth as he spoke, threatening to fall from his lips at any moment. ‘I’m saving that for later.’
‘Troubles at home?’ Dial wondered.
Toulon straightened his back and cracked his neck. He took a long, final drag from his cigarette, then stamped out the ember with his tennis shoe. ‘No. At work.’
‘But you just got here.’
‘No,’ he said sharply, ‘I’ve been here all night.’
‘Really? Why’s that?’
Toulon squinted at him quizzically, wondering whether Dial was feigning his confusion. Eventually he realized that he wasn’t. ‘Because you scheduled me for the late shift.’
Dial laughed. He had completely forgotten about that week’s schedule. Toulon was being punished for a disgusting incident involving a co-worker’s lunch. ‘Well, you deserved it.’
Toulon cracked a mischievous smile. ‘Oui. You’re right, I did.’
‘If you agree with me, why are you pouting?’
‘I’m not pouting; I’m relaxing. I foresee a long day.’
‘Why? What happened?’
Toulon reached into his pocket and found his pack of cigarettes. He lit up a second time and inhaled the smoke deeply. ‘Large explosion in Stockholm. The fire is still burning. We don’t have many details – at least not yet – but it appears to be intentional.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘While you were sleeping.’
Dial knew if the homicide division had been notified, someone must have been killed. He only hoped casualties would be limited at that late hour. ‘How many dead?’
‘It’s too soon to say,’ Toulon said in between drags. ‘But if my hunch is correct, the morgue will be full of Swedes.’
Dial groaned at the thought. Not only for the loss of life, but also because of the paperwork. ‘Let me see that pack of cigarettes.’
Toulon did as he was told. ‘Careful, they’re a bit stronger than what you Americans prefer. And why do I not know that you smoke? What else have you been hiding from me?’
Dial took the cigarettes and tucked them inside his jacket. ‘I don’t smoke. And neither do you until we have some more answers.’ With that, he turned and walked back toward the entrance. ‘I’ll see you upstairs in five minutes.’
