CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A hand shook his shoulder and a voice said, "Sir? Wake up, sir."

Johannson tried to ignore it, tucking his head down and rolling away from the noise.

"Sir? Sir!"

Groggily, Johannson said, "What?"

The hand wouldn't stop shaking him. "You need to get up, sir. Commander Williams is here in Rosslyn, sir."

That was probably the last thing Johannson expected to hear and the resulting shot of adrenaline pushed him a good way toward full wakefulness.

"What? Here? Williams is here?" he asked, as he threw off the blankets and sat up. He put his feet on the floor and let the cold stone banish the last of the fog from his thoughts as he focused his attention on the younger man who'd shaken him awake.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee reached his nostrils and he turned to find a cup waiting for him on the nightstand. He picked it up gratefully and took a sip.

"Talk to me," he ordered.

"One of the custodians spotted Commander Williams doing research in the Archives about twenty minutes ago. Williams never looked up or acknowledged his presence in any way, so the custodian doesn't believe he was seen."

Johannson gulped down the coffee, letting the hot beverage do its trick. When he had finished the cup he put it aside and stood up, reaching for his nearby clothes.

"Is Williams still in the Archives?" he asked while dressing.

His aide nodded. "I believe so. No one has come in or out since the custodian, though I don't know how Williams got inside in the first place."

This was his chance, Johannson thought. With the newly executed order from the Grand Master, he could seize Williams with total impunity. No one would dare to raise an outcry, not even that idiot Riley. Once he had Williams in his control, he could bring in the Inquisition to get the answers they needed out of him.

It was time to play hardball.

He turned to his aide. "Get a squad of knights up here immediately, but don't tell them what they're wanted for; I'll do that myself. Be sure they're armed with non-lethal containment weapons as well as their usual firearms. Once you've done that, I want you to go down to the lower level and prep one of the solitary confinement cells for us to hold him in. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now go!"

As his aide hurried off, Johannson stepped out of his room into the hall. A member of his protection detail was waiting there for him, as usual. This morning it was a wiry fellow by the name of Dent, who was always itching for a good fight. Johannson found that to be a particularly good omen, for there was no doubt in his mind that Williams was going to put up a struggle when they came for him. They would take him in the end the Preceptor knew that but he was pleased to know that he had with him someone who would be more than willing to wade into the fray if it came to that.

"Morning, Dent. Ready for some action?"

The protection officer smiled. "Always, sir."

"That's what I like to hear."

With a smug smile, Johansson headed down the hall, his man in tow.

GPS coordinates.

Cade didn't know whether to laugh or punch himself. It seemed so obvious now that he knew what the line of numbers represented.

So let's think this through, shall we?

The Forsaken One had been observing the battle between good and evil for centuries. He'd apparently been taking notes along the way. It didn't take too much imagination to realize that the intelligence he'd acc.u.mulated about both sides of the conflict must be truly substantial.

Given the nature of the Adversary, Cade had to believe that the two had encountered each other at some point over the last couple of centuries. And if they had, it meant that the Forsaken One had information on the Adversary, information that could potentially help Cade rescue his wife.

He felt his heartbeat quickening.

The Order had lost track of the Forsaken One, but apparently the Seneschal had not. The GPS coordinates had to be for the Forsaken One's location; Cade couldn't see any other reason for the Seneschal to add them to the journal.

It was a long shot, he knew that. The Forsaken One might not be there any longer. He might not have any information that would be of use to Cade. Or he could simply decide not to speak to him and if that happened, there was little that Cade could do given the other's more powerful nature. But long shot or not, something deep inside insisted that he follow up on it. The Seneschal was pointing him in this direction for a reason and he wouldn't do that if he didn't think there was something there that could help Cade on his quest.

Which brought him to the big question.

Where did those GPS coordinates lead?

The thick stone walls of the Rosslyn commandery were notorious for blocking cell phones and other electronic signals, so Cade knew he couldn't just look it up on his phone. He was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Both numbers were positive, so that meant he was looking at a location north of the equator and east of the prime meridian. He'd handled enough European missions to know that the numbers put the location in Italy somewhere in the vicinity of Venice. Five minutes with a map that he found on one of the shelves in the archives gave him the precise location.

It was an island in the Venice lagoon.

Poveglia, it was called.

Cade felt the hair on his arms stand up on end; the island's reputation preceded it and he was all too familiar with the place.

Known equally by both its official name Poveglia as well as the unofficial ones Plague Island, the Island of Madness, the Island of Death Poveglia had been many things over the years. It had first entered history as a dumping ground for dead and dying plague victims in the Roman era and it had served that purpose again in the mid-1300s when the Black Death rolled across Europe. More than 100,000 people were supposedly thrown into huge plague pits and set ablaze during that time, giving rise to the still-persistent rumor that the soil there was more than fifty percent human ash. Fishermen avoided the waters around the island for fear of scooping up the water-polished bones of their ancestors when pulling in their nets, or so the sayings went.

In the opening years of the 15th century the world's first lazaretto, or quarantine facility, opened on Poveglia, requiring maritime pa.s.sengers to Venice who showed signs of illness to remain on the island for forty days quaranta giorni - to be certain they weren't carrying anything that could infect the citizens of the city. Several centuries later, the cause of helping the sick would return to the island, with the founding of a hospital for the mentally sick in 1922. For a few years things went well and the island's reputation might have recovered if the head physician's penchant for performing secret experiments on the patients as part of his personal quest to find a cure for madness hadn't come to light. The hospital lighthouse, in actuality the remains of a bell tower from a 12th century church that once stood on the spot the hospital now occupied, became particularly notorious as the stage where many of these horrid experiments took place.

It therefore seemed fitting, Cade thought, that the doctor himself perished after a fall from that very tower. Some legends said that he threw himself from the heights of the tower when he began to go mad, believing that he was seeing not just the spirits of the plague victims from centuries past but also the ghosts of the patients who died from his own brutal experimentation. Other legends said that he didn't commit suicide at all, but was pushed from the heights by those very same ghosts. Many claimed that he could still be seen wandering the grounds of the abandoned hospital, searching for atonement from those he had wronged.

With a legacy of death and destruction like that attached to its name, it wasn't a surprise that many now considered the island one of the most haunted places in all of Europe and avoided it at all costs. The locals had learned to shun the place and had done so now for several decades.

Cade remembered hearing something about a private owner buying the island a few years ago with an intent to renovate the old hospital but nothing had ever seemed to come to fruition.

Now perhaps he knew why.

It was actually rather fitting, he thought. What better place for the Forsaken One than on the world's most forsaken island?

It was clever, no doubt about it. Hiding in plain sight was an ages-old trick; h.e.l.l, the Templars had been doing it for centuries. But using the natural history of the place as an extra layer of protection, letting the rumors and superst.i.tions work in concert with each other to keep even most intrepid of explorers away? That was pure genius! Having the occasional ghost hunter or urban explorer vanish without a trace would only further the reputation of the place.

Cade's respect for the creature, whatever it actually might be, went up a notch.

Perhaps he might find what he needed there after all.

Thankfully, getting to Poveglia from Rosslyn wouldn't be much trouble. He could catch a flight out of Edinburgh directly to Venice. Once there he could either find a fisherman willing to take him across the lagoon or steal a boat and get there himself. Once on the island he would need to find the Forsaken One, but he didn't expect that to be too difficult, given the resources at his disposal.

Feeling enthused for the first time in weeks, Cade replaced the materials he'd been using not wanting to give anyone who came after him clues as to where he had gone and then grabbed his gear and headed across the room toward the door. Getting in had been easy, but getting out?

That was going to be a tad more difficult.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Cade opened the door of the archives and strode down the hall without hesitation, doing all he could to project a sense of being right where he was supposed to be and hadn't, in fact, just broken into one of the most secure repositories of arcane and mystical information on the face of the entire planet.

Well, maybe not that secure, he thought with a smile, then hurriedly wiped it away lest someone wonder what he was smiling at.

Cade was a strong believer in the theory that if you appeared to know where you were going and looked like you belonged, most people a.s.sumed you were in the right place and didn't bother you. With that in mind he strode over to the door to the archives, opened it, and stepped out into the hallway as if he had every reason to be there.

Normally there were two guards manning the post in front of the archives but for whatever reason they weren't currently there.

Maybe the Seneschal sent them away, Cade thought, as he headed down the corridor at a brisk walk.

Given that this section of the castle was off-limits to all but a select few, Cade didn't expect to run into anyone until he reached the higher levels. Once he did, once he was back on the ground floor, he intended to hide in plain sight, milling among all the other knights going about their business in the Order's headquarters until he could get to the garage and commandeer a vehicle which he could use to take him to the airport.

It was a simple plan, but then again, those were the best kind, Cade thought.

It might have worked, too, if they hadn't been waiting for him around the next corner.

Four men, all of them of good size and height, no easy pushovers. They'd been lounging against the walls on either side of the corridor but pushed off and moved to the center in a staggered diamond formation when they saw him come around the bend. All of them were armed with handguns in either shoulder or belt holsters. If the gleam in their eyes was any indication they weren't strangers to physical violence.

Behind them, smiling in satisfaction at Cade's apparently antic.i.p.ated appearance, stood Preceptor Johannson.

"I see the prodigal son has returned home at last," the Preceptor began in his typical pretentious fashion, but Cade didn't wait around to hear any more.

Turning around and running wasn't an option; there wasn't anything behind him but the Archives and that was a dead-end. The only way out was forward, which meant he was going to have to go through the group a.s.sembled in front of him.

Cade knew that if they wanted to kill him outright they would have already drawn their weapons and fired. They were so close that there was no way they could have missed. Likewise, if they were worried that he would fire on them first, they would have set their ambush further up the hall where there was a long stretch of defensible position just before the elevators. The fact that they'd braced him where they had indicated that they wanted the chance to subdue him, to take him captive, most likely in order to question him later for information about the Adversary.

Information that he didn't have, of course.

Not that any of that mattered to Johannson. For whatever reason he was fixated on Cade and intended to make an example of him. Cade couldn't allow that to happen, not now that he had the first good lead he'd had in more than seven years; the kind of lead that might shed some much needed illumination on everything that was going on.

He could not, would not, be delayed.

Gabrielle was counting on him.

All of this flashed through Cade's mind as he came around the corner and saw the welcoming party waiting for him. Options presented themselves and were just as quickly discarded as he summed up the situation and then, with reflexes honed by years fighting some of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the planet, he made his decision.

Before the Preceptor could say another word Cade let out a ear-splitting yell and charged forward!

It was the last thing the foursome was expecting apparently, for Cade caught them all flat-footed and unprepared. He swung his go-bag up in front of him as he reached the lead man, slamming it into the other man's chest and tangling up his arms for a few precious seconds. That was all Cade needed to raise one leg and viciously slam the edge of his foot into the outside of the man's knee, hyper-extending it and sending him crashing to the ground with a leg that probably wouldn't bear his weight again without extensive physical therapy.

Lucky for Cade, Busted Kneecap fell right into the path of the next man rushing forward from behind, taking him down in a tangle of limbs and cries of pain.

Keep moving! Cade thought and surged forward toward the next man in his path, knowing speed and surprise were his only advantage. If one of them pulled their gun and took a shot...

Thankfully gunning him down where he stood didn't seem to be an option for whatever reason. Perhaps the Preceptor wanted him taken alive to be questioned or maybe just made a public spectacle of. Either way, the third man in Johannson's crew, a wide-bodied bald-headed guy that reminded Cade of a short Kojack, had all the time in the world to draw a weapon and point it in Cade's direction, but chose instead to meet Cade's forward rush with a flurry of punches targeted at his face and body. The guy was fast, Cade had to give him that, but it was immediately obvious that he wasn't in the same league as Cade. The former Echo Team commander used his hands and arms to block the blows directed at his head, not wanting to risk being dazed by a lucky shot, but let the ones aimed at his body intentionally slip past his defenses, giving the impression that other man was succeeding with some of his blows. He knew from experience that he could take a lot more than the guy was dishing out and letting him get a few shots in would help lull him into a sense of superiority.

Cade knew the moment it happened; the guy began swinging from the hip in an attempt to land a crushing blow that would knock Cade out of the fight. That slight change caused his defenses to open up by an equal amount and that was just the opening Cade needed. His hands shot out, and he grabbed the other man by his ears and yanked the guy forward and down even as Cade drove his knee upward.

There was a loud crack as knee met face and then Cade shoved the injured man away from him and pushed forward.

He could see the Preceptor over the shoulder of the final man standing in his way and Cade got an odd sense of satisfaction at seeing the fear rising on the man's face as Cade plowed through three of his hand-picked men. Just one more to go...

Number four was going to be a tougher opponent, Cade could tell just by the way he was standing; loose and ready, his hands held up in front of him like a boxer but with fists open, ready to be used in a variety of ways. Getting through him was going to take both effort and time. He was ready for the former but didn't have any of the latter to spare. If the Preceptor had sent out an alarm, reinforcements were probably already on their way. Cade needed to take this guy out quickly...

As the other man moved in, Cade stopped short, held up his hands, and said, "Okay, you win. I surrender."

Number four hesitated, obviously confused by Cade's actions. Cade didn't blame him; he'd just barreled through three other men and now, with just one left standing, he suddenly wanted to surrender?

It was that very confusion that Cade was hoping for.

The other man turned slightly, as if looking back toward the Preceptor to see what he should do, and in that second of distraction Cade made his move.

He lashed out with a front snap kick, driving the ball of his foot directly into the groin of the man standing in front of him, and suddenly there was no one standing between him and his target, Preceptor Johannson.

Cade couldn't help but smile.

He walked forward, intending to grab the Preceptor and use him as a decoy, a shield if necessary to get out of the complex.

Johannson looked from side to side, uncertain what to do, reminding Cade of a panicked bird.

Cade was less than five feet from the man when he felt two sharp little jabs in the center of his back, as if someone had just poked him with a pencil. Even as his mind was processing that, he was. .h.i.t with 25,000 volts of electricity through the wires attached to the Taser darts now stuck in his back. Almost immediately his body began to twist and shake as the electrical current now coursing through him began to overpower his ability to use his arms and legs.

It was a testimony to his toughness that he managed to turn enough to look behind him and see the second of his four a.s.sailants, the one that he been knocked to the ground in the initial confrontation, staring down the barrel of his Taser, his finger jammed hard on the trigger.

Cade's legs refused to obey him another second longer and he collapsed to the floor, jerking and twisting as the current surging through him, still looking back at the man with the gun.

Should have kicked him in the head as I went by, Cade thought in annoyance.

As Cade looked on, the other man lowered the Taser, walked over, and, as if he'd heard Cade's own thoughts, drew back his foot and kicked Cade in the temple.