Chapter 16
Damn it all . . .
Keir Marchand grimaced as he watched the Confrérie’s efforts continue to be thwarted. As the founder of NeuVentis Pharma—a French biotech company—he was unaccustomed to having his ambitions stifled.
He leaned over a laptop at the end of a long reference table.
He and the others had commandeered the library housed in the west wing of the Bishop’s Palace, which lay in the shadow of Exeter’s monumental Cathedral Church of Saint Peter.
The arrangements were facilitated by Cardinal Tissot, who stood posted at the door, a phone at his ear, updating others in the group.
For now, information was on a need-to-know basis, limited to only a few of the organization’s cells.
“We’ve confirmed the two young men are not our targets,” Burman reported aloud. “They claim to have been sent to fetch a breakfast order.”
“A purposeful misdirection,” Keir scoffed.
“No doubt.”
On another window on the laptop, a second feed showed a high-end flat being overturned by an investigative team, looking for some clue to a question that plagued them all.
Keir voiced it, allowing his frustration to show. “Then where have the American and her allies gone?”
Burman straightened. “Maybe to ground locally. We’re continuing to monitor CCTV cameras. But I suspect they’re trying to make it out of the city.”
“And go where?”
The woman glanced over to the cardinal. “Hopefully, Tissot can shed some light on this. His contact within the Gardiens du Livre may offer some insight.”
“We can’t lose this opportunity. Not after so long. It’s taken us decades to secure a mole in their organization. After this, we may never get another chance. This fumble of the book’s transfer may never happen again.”
“Understood, but no one suspected these students would prove so resourceful. In hindsight, we should’ve moved faster. We lost valuable time while framing the professor’s death so it could be pinned on his students. Still, by doing so, we’ve boxed our targets in and won’t underestimate them again.”
“That’s if we can find them.”
“Only twelve hours have passed, so it’s still early days.” Burman tapped at a row of folders on the laptop screen. “I had our specialists work up dossiers on all five. We’ll put pressure on any and all contacts. Surveilling the same. If our targets reach out, we’ll know.”
Keir paced away from the table, trying to dispel his anger. The failure here lay further back than this past night.
We’ve been too cautious.
Days ago, Keir’s group had learned the name of the Twelfth Keeper from a mole within the Gardiens, along with the possible identity of the Thirteenth, but they could not be certain of the latter.
Notoriously paranoid, the Gardiens could have set a false trail.
Fearing that—and hoping to secure the book before it got shipped off—he and members of his echelon had accosted Professor Haugen at his estate in Norway.
While the journal had already been dispatched, they had been able to corroborate the name of the Thirteenth Keeper.
After that, it became a waiting game. Once in Exeter, Keir’s group had to sit tight until the shipment arrived.
Unfortunately, once delivery was confirmed, they had to move faster than anticipated.
Last night, their mole had sent frantic word that the Gardiens had altered their plans.
Worried the Twelfth Keeper might have revealed where the book was sent, the Gardiens had arranged to move it again.
This warning forced Keir’s group to accelerate their plans. But unknown to them, upon learning this, Julian Wright had already taken matters into his own hands, perhaps fearing who might reach him first.
In doing so, the bastard ruined everything.
Still, a wariness iced through Keir.
Has this misadventure been a matter of poor timing—or had it been plotted that way?
He returned to Burman’s side and raised this concern. “I find it suspicious that we only received word about the Gardiens’ plan to move the book after Wright had already sent off the book. Could the warning to us have been purposefully delayed?”
Burman glanced over to him. “You’re wondering if another cell within our organization might have attempted to make a play for the book? To steal it away from us? To usurp our authority over the matter?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Keir looked across at Tissot. Unlike the two of them, the cardinal was not a part of the Confrérie’s inner circle.
Instead, Tissot belonged to an outlier cell, one of the oldest. It traced back directly to the Marquise de Maurepas, the minister of state to King Louis XVI and the founder of the Confrérie des Illuminés.
His cell continued to believe the book was demonic in nature, possibly the source code to Satanic magic—a fear once shared by the Marquise himself.
Yet, over the centuries, the organization evolved and refined its ambitions.
Even the name—Confrérie des Illuminés—was no longer in vogue.
It conflated too much with another secret society, the Illuminati.
Though, truth be told, their two organizations had overlapped in membership in the past. The same was true for many other groups across history: the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, the Italian Carbonari, and its French offshoot, the Charbonnerie.
Even today, the Confrérie remained deeply involved with the Bilderberg Group, where political leaders and captains of industry met privately and discussed world concerns without fear of exposure or reprisal.
Over time, the Confrérie systematically wove its web throughout the world’s secret organizations—both in the past and now.
All to seek the betterment of humankind.
That was their ultimate goal. In the past, their efforts had centered on seeking lost knowledge—like what could be found in Saint-Germain’s journal.
But now the Confrérie had merged forces with a new growing movement, called longtermism, which advocated that it was the moral duty of those living today to improve humankind’s future, to look past short-term problems for long-term solutions—no matter the cost, if it ultimately improved the chances of humanity’s survival.
It was how Keir had been recruited, along with many other wealthy members, mostly in the tech industry. The Confrérie sought to build a secret army of like-minded individuals, to make the hard choices that politics and shortsightedness would not allow.
Yet, that didn’t mean the Brotherhood was of one mind. Over the centuries, exposed to so many different ideologies, it had splintered into disparate factions, each with its own agenda, some in conflict with the others.
Like perhaps now.
Burman looked skeptically at Keir. “Remember, Cardinal Tissot brought the mole to us.”
“A mole whose identity he keeps to himself,” Keir reminded Burman.
“Would you do any different? By keeping his contact under wraps, Tissot makes him and his cell an essential part of this operation. And even if you’re right, with the book loose out there, both sides are equally handicapped, so it doesn’t much matter.”
“Maybe . . .”
Keir stared over at the cardinal. Tissot was in his early seventies, the same age as him, but the cardinal, with his white hair and frail form, looked decades older.
Whereas Keir maintained a well-muscled frame, which filled out a suit tailored to accentuate his physique.
Similarly, his dark hair, while speckled with salt, remained thick.
Such youthful vigor was not solely due to genetics.
One of the latest ventures of NeuVentis Pharma was in the field of biogerontology, the study of anti-aging, which had proved to be a veritable gold mine.
And Keir had taken full advantage of the field’s many treatments and innovations.
His regimen involved weekly testosterone injections, a fistful of daily supplements, regular hyperbaric oxygen sessions, along with IV therapy and blood transfusions.
“Before you cast aspersions,” Burman warned, “there are many who still admire Cardinal Tissot. His modalities and beliefs may be outdated, but it was his father who worked with Rommel during World War II to secure the cache of gold coins found in North Africa, a treasure whose location was encrypted in Saint-Germain’s journal.
Though we only obtained a quarter of the haul, it was still worth tens of millions in today’s dollars. ”
Keir scowled. “And the Nazis took the rest—shattering apart the greater mystery hidden within all that gold. There’s no telling what wonders were lost to the world when the Nazi gold train vanished in Poland.”
“Yet, the Confrérie still learned a valuable lesson.”
“Which was what?”
“That Saint-Germain buries his secrets in ever-unfolding layers. We will know better next time. To look beyond the glitter and wealth for the greater truth hidden behind it.”
Keir nodded, finding some measure of solace.
For the longest time, Saint-Germain’s journal—the foundation stone to the Confrérie’s existence—had been nearly forgotten.
Even after the scuffle during World War II, where the book had proved its value while hinting at greater mysteries, it had faded again, relegated to an outdated relic that had little bearing on the world’s mounting troubles.
But now . . .
He stared at the laptop, at the frantic search on the screen. “Do you remember reading Countess d’Adhémar’s Souvenirs, her account of Saint-Germain’s vanished journal?”
“What of it?”
“According to her diary, Saint-Germain claimed his book would return to the world during a ‘time of great tribulation.’ And look at the state we’re in now.
The threats we face. Nuclear war. Engineered pandemics.
Collapsing ecosystems. The emergence of AI.
More than any time in the past, humankind teeters on the brink of extinction.
Don’t you find it strangely opportune—possibly even providential—that the lost journal has come into play during this time in history, a time of great tribulation. ”
“Providential?” Burman raised a brow. “Now you’re sounding like Cardinal Tissot.”
“Am I? The last time the book rose into prominence was during World War II. Another pivotal moment in human history. And here it rises again out of the dark vault of the Gardiens and back into the light of day.”
Burman frowned. “There is nothing mystical about this. You’re placing divine power onto coincidence.
The simple reality is the journal contains secrets to astounding riches and potentially arcane sciences.
For those reasons alone, we must possess it, to use its wealth and knowledge to move humanity forward.
The Gardiens have kept this book buried for too long, spitefully keeping its wonders from humanity. ”
“Wonders like the key to immortality.” Keir touched his hairline, a robust growth accentuated by transplanted plugs. “One consistent story about the Count is that he never seemed to age.”
“Such tales are suspect.”
Keir wasn’t so sure. Over the centuries, whispers seeped out of the Gardiens concerning this very possibility.
Keir had taken special interest in such rumors.
Beyond the financial and political advantages of the Confrérie network, this prospect had been a driving force behind his involvement with the Confrérie.
If he could discover the truth—whatever that might be—it could potentially transform NeuVentis Pharma into one of the most powerful corporations in the world.
Not to mention, extend my own life.
Despite a vigorous fight against aging, the unflinching march of time still wore at his body, slowly eroding it—which both frustrated and terrified him.
NeuVentis had more than eight hundred laboratories across sixty countries.
His net worth at the end of the last fiscal year was more than twenty billion.
Yet, all his wealth and resources could not extend his life in any significant degree.
He stared at the two feeds on the laptop.
But what if that could change?
Burman pointed to the same videos. “The book remains too important to let it vanish again. We must find where our targets fled. We’ll dog their trail until they’re run to ground. It’s only a matter of time.”
“No need,” a voice scolded from behind.
Both of them turned as Tissot crossed closer. The cardinal had shed his formal red vestments and wore a crisp black suit with a white roman collar. The only marks of his station were the pectoral cross and ring.
“I know where our targets are going,” Tissot announced. “It took some finessing, but my contact within the Gardiens came through once again.”
“Where?” Burman pressed him.
“London.”
“How?” Keir snapped, still irritated that Tissot remained so guarded about his mole. “By car? By train?”
“That I cannot say. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“I have the address where they’re headed.” Before they could respond, Tissot raised a palm, as if blessing them. “And with the help of my contact, I’ve already baited a trap—one they will not escape.”