Loyalty’s Betrayal Read online

  Cecilia and Josephine made an appreciative noise.

  Nyx was as calm and mysterious as a sphinx. “It is a fairy tale to believe that something as complex as this took place, and then, conveniently, all the people responsible died. The Domino killed three people in Rome. From what we know, it appears that was done to put the focus on Rome, and perhaps, given the coins, as a form of greeting or warning.

  “The Domino had someone in place to deliver the fatal additive to the fleet admiral. Perhaps that death was also no more than the move of a pawn, in order to gather all the admirals. If the plot hadn’t been discovered when it was, would all of the admirals have died?” Nyx looked at each of them in turn. “All that, and we are to believe that the three people who were identified—the drone operator, the sniper, and the fleet admiral’s wife—were the only ones responsible?”

  Heavy silence descended, and even Josephine was still.

  “No,” James said quietly. “My husband doesn’t believe it. The new fleet admiral doesn’t either. They have knights and security agents from all the territories out looking for accomplices. Tracking movements, paper trails. They’re handling that side. We’re here to come at it from a different way.”

  “We assume the Domino and their apprentice are still out there.” Cecilia’s brisk tone helped to dispel the lingering tension. “We assume the others were all pawns, and just didn’t know it.”

  “You know, the word domino comes from the Latin dominus.” Josephine leaned forward, hair bobbing, and tapped her fingers on the table. “Which means lord or master. In the late seventeenth century, the French adapted it to domino to refer to a hood worn by priests. It’s a very interesting word because, with the invention of the game of dominos, it’s taken on a vast array of meanings.”

  “So many, in fact, it’s allowed the Domino a way to cover his—or her—tracks for centuries.” Cecilia’s disdain for the villain was obvious. Thanks to her love of history, she’d immersed herself in the study of the Domino and was more familiar than the rest of them about the true atrocities wrought at the hands of these men—or anarchists, as she’d referred to them from time to time.

  “Do we know the source of the Domino’s hate of the Masters’ Admiralty? What provoked this generations-long assault?” Hugo asked.

  Cecilia grinned. “That’s why you’re here, Nyx. The earliest stories of the Domino indicate he was a priest.”

  While Cecilia knew the history of the Masters’ Admiralty front to back, James suspected Nyx could recite, chapter and verse, every word of every religious scripture ever written for the top five or six world religions.

  Nyx sighed. “Religion is both a source of unification and the greatest divisor in human history.”

  Cecilia gave Nyx a nod, agreeing with her assessment. “Originally, the Masters’ Admiralty was formed in Venice in 1347 during the height of the Black Plague. The third member of each trinity was always a priest.”

  “Why?” Josephine asked.

  “To counter the influence of the church,” Cecilia replied.

  Josephine considered that for a moment. “So where does the Domino come into play?”

  “You mentioned the hood, Josephine.” Nyx took over the explanation. “It is that clue that led a prior scholar—and I would venture to say we’re not the first such collection of scholars to gather and discuss this threat—to connect the original Domino to a priest in seventeenth-century France. He was invited to join, but balked not at a secret marriage, but at the thought of being intimate with another man, should his third be male and not female.”

  “Poor guy probably missed out on some good times,” Josephine joked. James liked her. With so many intellectuals in the room, it was nice to have someone with a sense of humor, someone to keep things real.

  “What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. Ecclesiastes 1:9.” Nyx’s words rang with quiet authority. She would have made an incredible priest or pastor, though looking at her, James got the feeling she might have been a high priestess for some merciless goddess in a past life.

  “A man who knew about us, because he’d been offered membership, decided we were, how do you say…perverts?” Karl looked around, and several people, including Nyx, nodded.

  Nyx continued, “The presence of a master and an apprentice, and only those two individuals, is what has allowed this ideology to persist. Religion mellows the larger it gets. That is why cults and fundamentalist sects are usually small. There have been other religiously motivated foes in our past, but they have faded, their fanaticism exposed by time. I surmise that the Domino survives because there are only ever two. That’s also why the attacks and assaults are sporadic and opportunistic.”

  “Not this time,” James said quietly.

  There was a brief silence, each member nodding solemnly as they recalled those horrific attacks.

  “According to the file,” Hugo began, “the first evidence we have that the Domino was active again started seven years ago, with the bombing in the Ottoman territory. And then nothing until the brutal killings in the cave in Rome? Is that correct?”

  “Starting at the beginning is a wise decision.” Karl had the file open and was perusing the information. The files had been sent out heavily encrypted, and cyber security within each territory had decrypted the files and then hand-delivered them to the people around the table. They hadn’t taken any chances with the security of this information.

  “Where was the Domino for seven years?” Josephine asked.

  “Planning,” Karl and Cecilia said at almost the same time. Karl nodded to Cecilia, offering her the chance to explain, but she waved at him to continue.

  Karl adjusted his glasses. “The fleet admiral was being fed one half of a two-part poison. That meant that the Domino was planning this for a long time. And more importantly, it wasn’t enough that the fleet admiral died; he wanted to control exactly when he died. It would have been much simpler to slowly poison him. Something like arsenic could be given in tiny doses and it would build up in the bloodstream over time.”

  “Simpler but not precise.” Cecilia looked troubled.

  Karl nodded. “We must then assume that they were waiting until their plan was in motion—the murders in Rome, then the piecing together of the clues. I think the murders were a warning, as Nyx said, or a greeting. The Domino wanted us to know what was coming. Once James arrived at Triskelion, the mystery of the coins decoded, they killed the fleet admiral. That, in turn, meant the territory admirals would gather to choose a new leader.”

  “More people would have died if Arthur hadn’t figured out what was going on.” There was no small amount of pride in James’ voice. His husband had thrown himself in front of literal bullets to protect the admirals, and kept the body count from being higher. He’d lost his arm in the process.

  “Executing a plan like this takes fortitude, patience.” James thought he heard the slightest amount of respect in Nyx’s tone.

  That was terrifying.

  Everyone looked at Nyx for a disconcerting moment, but she simply stared them down.

  “She’s not wrong,” Josephine muttered.

  “How does the master find the apprentice?” Hugo asked. “And if we assume that Manon wasn’t the Domino,” Hugo inclined his head to Nyx, “what if either she or the American sniper was the apprentice?”

  “Arthur doesn’t believe Manon was the Domino. Or the apprentice.”

  “And the American sniper?” Hugo asked. “Was he one or the other?”

  James shrugged. “Possibly the apprentice?”

  “Impossible,” Nyx said. “The apprentice will be someone disillusioned and disassociated from society. Someone who feels like an outcast. The master will give them a sense of belonging. The same people who are at risk of joining any sort of religious fanaticism are those at risk of being the apprentice.”

  “So every possible suicide bomber, al Qaeda member, school shooter, abortion clinic massacre…” James trailed off
.

  Karl held up a hand. “That we cannot know or control. But the Domino has left us clues. Clues only we can read.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “Each Domino has a signature, as you said earlier. But this time the clues were far subtler. More layered. We focus on that.”

  “The coins,” James agreed, happy to be on a subject he knew and loved. “I put in my notes about those.”

  “Consider the complexity.” Karl leaned forward, eyes bright behind his glasses. “This is the first time the Domino has been so obtuse. It suggests that he thinks himself smarter than us. That he is challenging us to understand him.”

  Josephine bounced out of her chair, pacing the length of the table on the balls of her feet. She did indeed appear to be skipping. “How can there be so much information in that folder and yet it feels like nothing? We need more.”

  Cecilia sighed. “We need to work with what we have. Waiting for the next clue could prove to be deadly.”

  Nyx was the only person who didn’t appear frustrated by their lack of substantial leads. “We study the situation as if the master is still alive, since to assume they are not is hubris. We form a hypothesis about the Domino.”

  “A profile of the perp,” Josephine said with relish.

  “Assignments,” Karl said. “We each work on some aspect of this, as fits our knowledge. When we come back together, we pool our new information.”

  “Homework,” James said. “Good.”

  Another hour of discussion and they had their respective assignments. James was going to try to trace the rarest of the coins. It was something he’d been planning to do anyway, but with everything else that had happened, he hadn’t had time.

  Cecilia was going to draw up a concise timeline of the current Domino’s actions, drawing parallels to past Dominos to look for connections and similarities.

  Nyx was going to look into any online discussions about the Masters’ Admiralty. Rather surprisingly for a religious scholar, she was an expert at finding hidden chat rooms and infiltrating otherwise closed online communities. Maybe she’d find a likely recruiting platform.

  Hugo planned to speak to Aslan Polat, the Ottoman territory’s security minister. He and Aslan had attended university together. They all wanted more information about the bombing.

  And Karl was going to search for other possible crimes or action that might be related to the Domino. He was a professor, and so he had a bevy of indentured servants—otherwise known as grad students—whom he could task with searching records both modern and ancient.

  “Want me to talk to Eric?” Josephine resumed her seat, though James wouldn’t say she was sitting. Bouncing like a two-year-old in church was a better description. “To see if there’s any information he has that isn’t in those files?”

  “Eric?” Cecilia glanced at Josephine curiously. “The new fleet admiral?”

  “Of course. James said all this information came from Arthur. Knowing Eric, he’s probably got more he didn’t want in the file. I’ll try to weasel it out of him.”

  They all stared at her.

  “You, uh, know the fleet admiral?” James certainly wasn’t going to call their new leader “Eric” to his face.

  “Sure.” Josephine’s casual response made it seem like she thought everyone was comfortable enough to walk into Triskelion Castle and have a beer with the man. “And maybe I can talk to the Archivist.”

  The way she said “Archivist” made it clear there was a capital letter.

  “The who?” Cecilia asked.

  Josephine looked perplexed. “The Archivist.”

  James walked over to Josephine, spun her chair around, and gently took her head in his hands, hoping if he held her still she might make sense. “Josephine. Who is the Archivist?”

  “He’s in charge of the archive.”

  James stepped back. “I’m out. One of you try.”

  “Josephine,” Cecilia started. “What archives are you talking about?”

  “You know. Our archives. The Masters’ Admiralty archives.”

  Nyx shook her head. “There is no such thing.”

  “Sure there is. But it’s neutral.”

  There was a beat of silence then Nyx rose smoothly from her chair, walked calmly over to Josephine and leaned down, caging the other woman in by bracing her hands on the sides of the chair. “You will tell me about this archive.” Nyx bared her teeth. “Now.”

  Yikes.

  Josephine blinked rapidly. “There…there’s an archive. All our membership records, information, some artifacts… But it’s neutral. The archive, and the Archivist, don’t belong to any one territory. It’s like Vatican City.”

  “Where?” Nyx purred.

  “About five minutes that way.” Josephine pointed to the window. “Merrion Square.”

  “It’s here?” Cecilia asked. “In Dublin?”

  Karl and Hugo started to get up, clearly ready to go.

  “But we can’t go there,” Josephine said. “The Archivist doesn’t let anyone in.”

  “I’ll have Arthur make him let us in,” James said.

  “You’re not listening.” Josephine leaned to the side to look around Nyx. “The center of Dublin is neutral territory. The admirals can’t tell the Archivist what to do.”

  “That makes no sense.” James couldn’t understand the purpose of a Masters’ Admiralty archive that members of the society couldn’t access. The historian in him was completely baffled by such a concept.

  “It’s always been that way. Well, no, okay, I mean in the past, the archive was more like a library combined with a bank. Pre-World War I, it was in Brussels. After that, they split it up, and the information, the archive, went to London, and the treasury went to Switzerland.”

  “There’s a treasury?” James wondered if he could shake the information out of Josephine. Nyx looked like she was ready to beat it out of her.

  “But then during World War II, they moved the archive to Dublin. It turned out that Ireland was, surprisingly, not really obeying the admiral of England anyway, and they had all this real estate and resources, so they were able to take on the archive.”

  “How does she know all of this and you don’t?” James asked Cecilia.

  “Why don’t you just pick up a knife and drive it into my heart, James? I honestly had no idea any of this existed. How do you know about it, Josephine?”

  “Eric and I talked about it once. It’s not really a secret. It’s just one of those things no one really discusses. The Archivist and the fleet admiral are the only people with access to the information there.”

  “Of course,” Cecilia murmured. “You and Eric talked about it.” James could tell from her tone she was uncomfortable using the fleet admiral’s first name, even in jest.

  “I will have the name of the Archivist,” Nyx said.

  “Um…”

  “Tell. Me.”

  “I guess I could invite him to our next meeting. If you think it’s that important.”

  Karl stared at Josephine. “Should we ask someone with access to secret historical records to join us as we try to find and identify the Domino? Yes, perhaps we should.”

  “Don’t all of you look at me like that.” Josephine shoved Nyx out of the way. “The Archivist might not come. He’s neutral.”

  “Even when we need help?”

  “Neutral,” she insisted. “Like, really, philosophically neutral. Like Switzerland. Where the treasury is,” she added, clearly trying to lighten the mood in the room.

  “Josephine?” Nyx said.

  “Yes?”

  “Get him here.” Nyx was trying to smile, but it looked like she wanted to bite the other woman. “I don’t care what depraved sexual favors you have to offer; you make him come.”

  “Okay, so I’m a bit worried that’s where your brain went.” Cecilia was leaning away from Nyx. Karl’s and Hugo’s expressions were somewhere between horrified and aroused.

  Josephine crinkled her n
ose. “There is such a thing as too depraved. Incest is out.”

  “Incest?”

  “The Archivist is my brother.”

  Nyx was clearly annoyed. “We’ve been here for hours, while she has access to information that could prove vital.”

  Josephine still looked confused by Nyx’s comments. “I’m not sure we’ll find anything there, but I will ask my brother, see if he’ll come to the next meeting. He’s kind of a pain in the ass, so don’t expect much.”

  “I think this would be a good place to adjourn.” James realized things were only going to continue to escalate at this point.

  Thirty minutes later, James walked out with Cecilia. They were the last to leave, and made sure the unobtrusive side door locked behind them.

  “That was an interesting ending,” Cecilia mused.

  “I think we certainly got a good feeling for who we’re working with. Nyx is a little scary, and Josephine is…I have no idea what she is. Still not quite sure I can wrap my head around it all.”

  “Me either,” Cecilia agreed.

  They continued to walk in silence. When they reached the front steps of the chapel, Cecilia’s phone pinged. She glanced at the screen. “I just got an email from your husband.”

  “Oh?” James feigned surprise. He wished Arthur had waited a bit longer before sending his missive.

  “He’s requested a meeting with me in his office tomorrow morning.” She leveled a hard stare. “What’s going on?”

  James shrugged and lied. “No clue.”

  There was no way he was dropping the old marriage bomb on her. He already had one bad leg. God only knew how Cecilia would react to the news she was being bound to two men who were not members of the Rome territory. Her life was about to get very interesting. And complicated.

  “Mmmhmm.” Her response proved she didn’t believe him, but mercifully she didn’t press for more. “I’ll have to go to the airport and see if I can change my ticket to a London flight. I’ve already checked in for my trip back to Singapore.” She looked annoyed, but then shook her head. “It was a good first meeting, James.”

  He grinned. “Yeah. It was.”