The mansion drawing room was shoulder to shoulder with the who’s who of British and American society, gathered for Lilian’s funeral wake. Jason sighed. An hour had flown by, and he had tried every trick in the proverbial book to get a sample of Adrian’s DNA.
Any moment now, Adrian would be making his farewells. Jason edged his way across the room to where Adrian was engrossed in conversation with the British foreign minister.
“Cigar, pal? In the library?”
Adrian studied him for a moment. “No thanks, Jas.” He looked at Jason steadily. “Not in the mood.”
Damn. The cigar butt was now out of the question. In the past two hours, Adrian had refused his usual mineral water, tea, coffee, and now the cigar.
It was almost as though he were aware of Jason’s intention. Jason had only one more trick up his sleeve. Ah! There was a footman, sounding the gong. Four other footmen, led by Maxim, entered carrying champagne and mimosas.
The gathering hushed as one. Jason raised his hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen, on the occasion of Mother’s passing . . . ” He picked up a glass of champagne from Maxim’s tray. “A toast to a great lady.” He nodded in the direction of Adrian, who was now chatting with Lily, and smiled.
Maxim made a beeline for Adrian.
Adrian looked across at Jason, then back to the glasses of champagne on the silver tray.
“A toast, pal,” Jason urged. “A toast to our mother, Lilian De Vere.”
“To Granny,” Lily whispered as Julia took two glasses from Maxim’s tray and handed one to her.
“Master Adrian.” Maxim held out a glass. “Your favorite: mimosa with Mumm’s.”
Adrian looked down at Maxim’s outstretched white-gloved hand and reluctantly took the glass from him. “A toast to Mother,” he said.
Everyone raised their glass. Jason downed the entire glass of champagne, his eyes never leaving Adrian’s glass.
Slowly Adrian took a sip of his mimosa.
Jason nodded to the footman, and the gong sounded for a second time. Jason picked up a second glass of champagne and held it high.
“And a toast to my departed brother, Nicholas De Vere,” he declared. “May God rest his soul. A toast to Nicholas, Adrian. What do you say?”
“He’s drunk,” Kurt Guber whispered to Adrian. “Probably had a bottle of whisky before the funeral.”
Adrian continued to gaze steadily at Jason. He held up his glass, and once again everyone followed suit. Polly walked over and stood next to Lily.
Adrian loosened his collar with his free hand. “A toast to my youngest brother, Nicholas De Vere.”
Adrian took one more sip, and Jason downed the second glass of champagne as quickly as the first.
Guber strode over from the door and whispered into Adrian’s ear. Adrian nodded and turned to Julia.
“My regrets, my beautiful Julia, but something urgent has arisen. I have to leave immediately.
Chastenay will arrange Lily’s travel plans.” He kissed Lily on her forehead. “Looking forward to seeing you, my darling.”
He held out his champagne glass to Julia.
“Here, don’t let a good mimosa go to waste, Jules. I know you love it!”
Julia had just reached out her hand to take Adrian’s glass when Maxim snatched it away with his gloved hand, placed it on the silver tray, and disappeared out of the drawing room.
Adrian frowned, then strode toward the doors and stopped directly beside Jason. “Be careful, Jason,” he murmured. “You’re out of your league.”
“My, my, little brother,” Jason replied as Adrian walked out of the drawing room. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
* * *
Maxim hurried through the kitchen to the enormous pantry, where Alex was waiting, both hands in plastic gloves.
He looked down questioningly at the silver tray. Maxim handed him a glass from the far right-hand side. Alex gingerly placed it in a sterile plastic bag, which he then tucked inside a container in his rucksack.
“Thanks, Maxim.” He grinned. “Off to forensics.”
Maxim smiled in satisfaction as he removed his white gloves.
Alex hesitated, then pulled a plain white envelope from his satchel. The name “Jason” was written on it in Nick’s hasty scrawl. Alex passed it to Maxim.
“For Jason. From Nick. Eyes only.”
Maxim nodded and watched Alex take off like a shot out the back gate.
“Well done, Maxim, old boy.”
Jason stood, sober as a judge, in the kitchen doorway.
“Master Jason!” Maxim declared. “I think we’ve got it!”
* * *
Jason tossed and turned restlessly. He pulled the sheets over his head, then, with a sigh, reached over for his X-pad.
Three a.m. Sitting up, he groggily rubbed his eyes and stared at the white envelope that now lay open on the bedside table.
He flung off the sheets in frustration and pulled out the yellowed paper for the fifth time that night.
It was inconceivable, yet there it was in black and white.
He studied the document again. Dated 1981. The signature in green ink was unmistakable: the bold, hard lines of his grandfather’s scrawl. Julius De Vere. Witnessed by Piers Aspinall, former chairman of MI-6.
It was a death warrant. He flipped through each page. There at the bottom was the same scrawl in green ink at the bottom of each page, only this time Julius De Vere had merely initialed his name.
Acquiescing to his own grandchildren’s extermination.
By the powers that be, whoever they were.
Jason studied the two paragraphs. One grandchild to be executed at the exchange of the clone. He presumed that was to be the real Adrian De Vere. Executed one day after his birth.
Any surviving grandsons to be exterminated after the clone turns forty. That meant Nicholas . . . and himself.
Jason frowned. Adrian had turned forty the day before Nick’s car accident and ‘death.’
He assumed that he had been allotted more time because of his usefulness at VOX.
His clean cell phone was flashing blue.
“Weaver?” he said, and listened.
“You’re a hundred percent certain?”
Jason sighed, then clicked off the cell phone.
There was no getting away from it. Adrian’s DNA matched Hamish Mackenzie’s sample of the clone’s DNA precisely. Not one discrepancy. It appeared that Adrian De Vere was a clone.
And a nonhuman one at that.
Jason tossed again. Damn. When he thought back on how he had helped engineer Adrian’s rise to fame . . . VOX had showcased the charismatic young politician to the British public, paving the way for his two-year stint as Conservative prime minister before his meteoric rise in Europe.
Jason had been Adrian’s kingmaker.
He fumbled in the dark for the holographic television control and flicked through BBC 24 NEWS, CNN, and Russian TV, then stopped on VOX’s Biography channel. There was Adrian with Melissa, his deceased wife.
Jason sat bolt upright in bed and turned up the volume.
“A sad private moment for the European president as he pays respects to his beloved wife of four years, who died in childbirth, and his only son, Gabriel De Vere, who was stillborn.”
Jason watched as the scene changed to Adrian visiting the Vane Templar estate in the Scottish Highlands, where Melissa, her father, Lord Vane Templar, and Gabriel De Vere were buried on an island in the center of an ornamental lake. Adrian was wiping a tear from his cheek.
Jason’s jaw tightened. He glanced at his watch. It was only ten p.m. in New York.
He dialed his long-suffering personal assistant of over twenty years, Jontil Purvis. The phone purred three times, and a crisp voice answered.
“Good Evening, Mr. De Vere.”
“Purvis, I need you to track down the death certificates for my brother’s wife, Melissa, and the baby.”
Pause.
“Yes, the baby Gabriel, who died stillborn. It’s urgent.”
“Jason” The soft Southern voice echoed in his ear. “It’s after ten p.m. here in New York.”
Jason grinned. “That’s never stopped you before, Purvis.
“No, sir, but it may very well stop the General Register Office in Southport, Merseyside. With all due respect, sir, everyone in England—apart from yourself, of course—is fast asleep.”
Jason grunted. “First thing, then, Purvis.”
“May I inquire, sir, is that U.S. opening time or UK?”
“UK, Purvis,” he growled. “I need it now.”
He clicked off the phone and returned to the Biography channel. Thank God for Jontil Purvis. How long ago was it that Melissa and the baby died? It was around the time he and Julia divorced—about four years ago. Adrian had taken it badly, very badly.
Jason frowned. Or had he? And who, or what, was the baby Gabriel? Had Melissa discovered Adrian’s secret? He remembered her being very sick all through the pregnancy. Not just sick—Julia had been convinced that she was on a high dose of sedatives. Melissa had become a shadow of her formerly vibrant self.
He shook his head. He needed to let everything settle. VOX was in a tenuous position.
Jason had to get back to the USA. He would fly back to New York in the afternoon. He needed space. He needed to clear his head, let everything settle. Stabilizing VOX and his media investments in the current U.S. financial upheaval was his big priority—that and the yearly board meeting next week in Babylon. Everything else could wait.
He flicked off the remote and lay back on his pillow. Moments later, he fell into restless dreams of Nick and Adrian when they were boys, and of Dolly the sheep, death certificates, and clones.
And Julia. Always Julia.