Arrogant and his men could find him.
The same thought was on Harrison’s mind when he was awakened by the telephone before the sun rose the next morning. But with that call, concern about the prince was replaced with a more pressing problem.
Chapter Two
T he kidnapping of Prince Owen was not the Royal Elite Team’s first priority. Under most other circumstances, it certainly would have been. But the RET was presently perpetrating a royal hoax they were duty-bound to continue. That was why the complexities of locating the missing heir simply blended into the mix of duties and dilemmas Harrison took to bed with him a little before midnight.
Ordinarily he slept like the dead. Some would have claimed that was because he had no conscience. But his conscience was just as keen as the rest of his mind, and if he slept well, it was because an exhausted body had no choice. Sleep tonight was fitful, though. He still felt a niggling dread every time his subconscious stirred with thoughts of who was actually wearing the king’s robes.
What the public didn’t know was that their beloved King Morgan was at that very moment locked away in the bowels of the palace, deep in a coma. He was being cared for in secret by an elite medical team with access to the most brilliant minds in modern medicine, but that didn’t change the fact that the monarchy was not precisely what the RET was honor bound to make it appear on the surface.
The situation, as Harrison had come to think of it, began over six weeks ago when King Morgan had unexpectedly fallen ill and slipped into unconsciousness. Viral encephalitis had been the diagnosis. A rare form from Africa that the king’s body might be able to fight off—if it didn’t kill him first.
No one had any idea how he had contracted it. But once the diagnosis had been made, there had been no real question about what needed to be done. Because Penwyck had been—and still was—involved in its history’s most critical treaties and alliances, the RET had been forced to implement a plan the king himself had devised years ago in the event of his incapacitation.
His Majesty wanted his estranged identical twin, Prince Broderick, to impersonate him. Plan B, he had called it. B for Broderick.
The RET had collectively cringed at the idea. All any of them really knew of the prince was that his relationship with his brother had been as volatile as it was strained while they’d grown up, and that Broderick had been estranged from his family ever since the boating accident that killed both their parents when the elder royal twins were in their early twenties.
It had been known for some time prior to that, that the reigning king and queen had favored Morgan over his ineffective, unproductive sibling. When it was discovered upon their parents’ deaths that Morgan had been named heir-apparent and was crowned king, Broderick had bought himself a surprisingly modest estate on Majorco and quietly gone into seclusion.
No one knew if he’d been grieving for his parents or merely licking his wounds. It was as if the man had dropped off the planet. For years Broderick ignored all of King Morgan’s attempts to draw him back into the fold. When Broderick finally did respond to the overtures, he’d returned long enough to cause grief by impersonating his brother to embezzle funds, and King Morgan had sent him packing. After that, the king had heard from him only once—the evening Broderick called to warn him of an assassination attempt that was about to be made on his life and that of Queen Marissa and their children.
That call had saved their lives, but Broderick had promptly withdrawn once more to the reclusive life he’d chosen to lead. By then he’d already been little more than an afterthought to the public. Because so few knew of the assassination attempt that had taken place those ten long years ago, he had now all but disappeared from the public’s memory. His heroic act, however, had made the men of the RET look at him with less skepticism, but not one of them was totally comfortable with the man presently playing king.
Broderick could run as hot as lava or as cold as the earth’s poles. He could be cooperative or demanding. But so far he had proven worthy of the confidence his brother had placed in him and been a model king in public.
King Morgan himself had told Harrison that Broderick would be convincing in the position. He had said that, if worst came to worse, his brother could take over quite ably in the role because, even though Broderick hated him, Broderick had always loved power and would work to foster the image of a great monarch.
Harrison would never disobey the king’s command. Yet, as much as Harrison respected His Majesty’s opinions, he couldn’t shake the thought that nothing about Broderick was what it appeared to be.
That was the thought preying through his fitful sleep when the telephone beside his bed jerked him awake at four o’clock the next morning.
Within seconds of groping for the receiver and grumbling, “Monteque,” he learned that Plan B had been blown wide open.
Even as his feet hit the floor, the muffle-voiced reporter on the other end of the line was saying that he couldn’t reveal his source, but that the headline would explain everything. Before Harrison could try to demand that source, anyway, his caller told him that he’d just left a copy of the morning paper outside the admiralty’s office. The rest of the copies would be hitting the streets in a little over an hour.
The RET didn’t have a headquarters with a plaque or signage to identify it as such. Since it consisted only of four men whose daily duties kept them in the palace or elsewhere in the capital city of Marlestone, and who met solely when an emergency situation threatened the royal family or its government, the RET met wherever it was expeditious and secure.
Security was a definite priority with Harrison.
Half an hour after the call, showered, shaved and still bleeding from the nick on his chin where he’d been a little too aggressive with his razor, he opened a steel door deep beneath the palace’s grounds and stepped into a brightly lit and austere gray hallway. There were few places on earth more secure than the rooms he was about enter.
Few people knew of the tunnel beneath the palace that the royal family used to avoid walking through the palace’s public areas. Even fewer knew of the tunnel intersecting it through a boiler room that connected to the Royal Intelligence Institute a mile away.
It was the second tunnel Harrison had just entered.
The doors here were unmarked and the same pale gray as the walls. The floor was industrial tile. Overhead lights were long, fluorescent tubes. Cameras followed the movements of whoever stepped inside. Many of the unseen rooms were soundproofed and lined with lead so no communication inside could be overheard or intercepted by equipment from the outside world.
A Star Wars array of the most sophisticated surveillance equipment known to man occupied a cavernous space behind the unobtrusive door a couple hundred yards down. A door beyond that led to a suite, complete with kitchens and a year’s worth of supplies for the royal family and necessary staff in the event of an attack. Another on the other side led to a medical clinic with a surgical suite and hospital beds.
One of those beds was occupied now—by King Morgan.
A soldier in the khaki uniform and black cap of the Royal Army appeared from behind the only glass door.
Shoving the newspaper he carried under his left arm, Harrison returned his salute.
“Sir,” the young man began, still at attention, “the men you asked your secretary to summon are waiting in the conference room. Except for Colonel Prescott. He’s on his way,”
